"What's Next?": Leaning Into Creative Transitions

Change is loss. Whether it’s the end of a friendship, a job, or an identity we’ve held onto, grief follows. In this deeply personal episode, we explore the power of radical acceptance—the practice of acknowledging what is already gone without resisting reality.

Drawing from The Pivot Year, the wisdom of Tara Brach, and personal experiences, we examine how grief can break us open and invite honesty into our lives. You'll learn:
✔ Why loss feels like death—and how to mourn what’s already gone.
✔ The role of faith, hope, and love in overcoming betrayal and disappointment.
✔ How our bodies store unprocessed emotions—and why we must attend and allow.
✔ The powerful transformation of the bald eagle rebirth metaphor—and how it applies to your own pivot.

If you’re in the midst of transition, facing heartbreak, or struggling with a painful change, this episode offers insight and encouragement.

Resources

📚 The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest – Get the book here

🎙️ Other episodes you might like:

Radical Acceptance: Attend, Allow, and Acknowledge the Possibilities

Explore the profound practice of radical acceptance, delving into acknowledging what has already gone, releasing control, and allowing ourselves to embrace new possibilities.

Listen here

Radical Acceptance: List It, Imagine It + BONUS Meditation: Labeling and Feeling Your Emotions

Unravel the transformative practice of radical acceptance, guiding you through techniques that harness the power of imagination and visualization to process emotions.

Listen here

Radical Acceptance Series: The Reason & Practicing Self-Love

Explore how embracing radical acceptance can transform your life, focusing on the importance of self-love and understanding the reasons behind our actions.

Listen here

Radical Acceptance Series: Observe Your Reality

Discuss the steps to radical acceptance by observing your reality, understanding your current situation, and learning to accept it without judgment.

Listen here

Calls to Action

✨ Join the Red Cardigan Kids™ Waitlist! Get exclusive resources, coaching, and a community for parents learning to support emotional intelligence. Learn more here

📩 Get your Free Attachment Quiz! Discover your attachment style and how it impacts your relationships. Take the quiz here

📢 Follow me on Instagram for daily insights on attachment, SEL, and healing: @wystie  | @simpleanddeeptips

• Radical acceptance is acknowledging what is already gone—without judgment.
• We often define ourselves by roles (teacher, friend, mother), making loss feel like death.
• The body holds grief, and attending to emotions helps us process and heal.
• Faith, hope, and love are essential for navigating loss and betrayal.
• Like the bald eagle’s renewal process, we must break off what no longer serves us to grow into the next version of ourselves.

Questions for Reflection

1. What change or loss in your life have you struggled to fully accept?
2. Are you holding onto suffering by revisi

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Simple and Deep Podcast where we delve into attachment stories and intentional living. I'm your host, Wysteria Edwards, and I'm thrilled to have you here with me today. We'll be exploring the depths of all of these topics together, sharing insights and unlocking the power hidden within your story. Let's get started In the pivot year by Brianna Weist. On day 161, it says when you're presented with a new idea that defines your own limitations for yourself, I hope you will not fight to preserve those limitations. I hope you will not spend more of your energy outlining why you cannot, when you could spend it envisioning how you might. I hope that you will learn to think beyond the parameters of what you've previously assumed is possible. I hope that you'll be able to tell life what the end goal could be, and I hope that you will be able to listen as life shows you how to get there. This reminded me also of the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, because in that book she talks about don't create because we need it that puts tremendous pressure on the world but create because you need to, because you have to create to live and to survive. And so I just got done writing in my journal with big Mr Sketch markers about all the things that I'm going to tell life that I am going to have and this is not material things. This is things like I will enjoy my big, bold, beautiful life period. I will break intergenerational cycles by encouraging, educating and equipping other people. I will fight against developmental trauma for children, because people are destroyed by ignorance, by their lack of knowledge. I'm going to put God in charge of all of the work that I do and then the plans that I have will become like his plans, because I'm co-authoring my life with him. But then I also need to see where am I fighting to preserve my limitations, to preserve those ways of telling myself don't do that, because it's going to make it very unsafe for you.

Speaker 1: 2:29

I thought about limiting beliefs, looking for confirmation, thinking about all the ways that I have stepped out in faith, trying to be secure with my ideas and my dreams, and it didn't work out, and it seems nine times out of 10, I've thrown a ton of money at it as well. I get embarrassed when something doesn't work out and I have to tell my husband yeah, that wasn't so good. I don't even have to tell him he knows, because he's not seeing the fruits of us trusting. I've had to fire so many different companies and agencies and things because they didn't do what they were supposed to do. But what I'm learning as I unpack trauma stories with others is where can I bless something good in a story that's been really crappy or that's been hard? Can I bless the person?

Speaker 1: 3:22

I am inside that deeply trusts people, sometimes to a fault, but then I'm also suspicious because I've fallen through cracks or pits, like they've pushed me into a pit. How do we do that? I think that oftentimes we have to stop and catch. When we go through the cycle of recognizing. We can make a choice. I can make a choice whether to trust this and I might fall flat on my face and I might not, but I'm going to try it.

Speaker 1: 3:54

In kindergarten we say if you're going to make a mistake, make a big one, fall flat on your face. We are so afraid that this will be the last time we have an opportunity to thrive that this will be the last time we have an opportunity to thrice this kind of scarcity mindset that we have of if I choose to do this I could die, and that's how sometimes we feel, but most of the time that's not really true, but it's the way that our brain is conditioned to survive. How am I going to learn to listen to my life? And one of the ways that I try to do that is to stay 1% longer in a moment. But it's not always the easiest thing to do, because there's a part of us that wants to run away or there's a part of us that's there it is. It'm going to jump to a massive conclusion and most of the time I'm going to put my foot in my mouth or have to say I'm sorry afterwards because it just comes out really big and really over the top and that never seems to work out well for me. But what I love and I can bless in that is the ability to love big love hard jump in. The ability to love big love hard jump in.

Speaker 1: 5:09

But then there's other places where that same part of me needs to show up, needs to believe, because if we don't believe, we're stuck. We can be stuck in a place without security, without being contained and without having any repair, and so we get just stuck in that cycle. And I think my challenge for you and for myself is how are we fighting today to preserve our limitations? Is there a result? Recently I had a friend say I want to keep my anger. Recently I had a friend say I want to keep my anger and I thought it was a very bold, very honest statement.

Speaker 1: 5:53

Yeah, sometimes we get really comfy with being pissed off. Sometimes we get really comfy with not having things go well because then we're at a place where we don't have to make a lot of decisions if we're at the mercy of what life is throwing at us. So I think it's just one of those places where we have to pause and ask ourself that question whether or not it's, what does this moment mean in where I'm heading? Where am I from? Where am I from? Where am I at and where am I going If I want to live my big, bold, beautiful life? It's like getting a pebble in your shoe and you have to just take it out because otherwise it's just going to keep tripping you up, it's going to be uncomfortable. You can survive without it or with it, but it's one of those things where you have to choose to remove it and have the inconvenience of that. But I think it's also choosing to recognize that is not where I'm going and it's not going to be the thing that I trip over forever on an honest assessment of where we're at, but also continuing to have some forward motion.

Speaker 1: 7:12

How are you doing with your limiting beliefs, getting in your own way, and what steps are you going to take to get to the end goal? What is your end goal? What do you want from your big, bold, beautiful life? The most amazing thing about it is that you get to decide. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Simple and Deep Podcast. I hope that you enjoyed our conversation and found it enlightening and empowering. Remember, by understanding attachment, engaging your story and living intentionally, we can transform our lives. Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have and remember until next time, take care of yourself, because you are important. Thank you.