Stepping into change: exciting and scary!

Change has a funny way of arriving wrapped in both celebration and uncertainty.

After renting for the last 15+ years, we’ve purchased a new home. A place that is ours. A place to settle into. A place to imagine the next chapter unfolding.

And yet, alongside the joy and the empowerment it brings, it also creates fear and uncertainty.

We’re moving 90 minutes away from what I’ve known for the past 32 years. Leaving the familiar streets. The regular cafes and restaurants. The people I’ve passed in the supermarket aisles for decades. I’ve lived in a seaside suburb my entire life. Having the ocean just minutes from my doorstep has been the backdrop to my life.

This isn’t just a change of address.

It’s a change of identity.

And that’s where so many women quietly struggle. We tell ourselves we should just be grateful. We should just focus on the positive. We should just be excited.

But stepping into change isn’t about bypassing the fear.

It’s about allowing all the feels.

Change Is Both Expansion and Loss

Even when we choose change, there is loss.

There is loss of familiarity.
Loss of routine.
Loss of ‘knowing.’

When you’ve lived near the ocean most of your life, you don’t realise how much it anchors you. The smell of salt in the air. The sound of waves just minutes away.  The way your nervous system settles simply because it’s always been there.

When you move away, something inside whispers, Who am I without this?

That whisper deserves compassion.

We don’t need to override it with positivity. We don’t need to silence it with ‘It will be fine.’ We can sit beside it and say, Of course this feels big. Of course this feels tender.

Change stretches us. And stretching can feel uncomfortable before it feels expansive.

Letting It Be Both

What I’ve learned and what I gently remind the women I work with, is that life is not lineal.  

It’s not either excitement or fear.
It’s not either gratitude or grief.
It’s not either bravery or vulnerability.

It’s both.

I can be thrilled about owning our home.
And I can feel sadness about leaving what’s known.

I can feel empowered about a new beginning.
And I can feel shaky about not knowing anyone.

Allowing both is maturity. Allowing both is sovereignty.

Suppressing one side doesn’t make us stronger,  it makes us disconnected.

Owning My Agency in the Midst of It

This move is not happening to me.

It is happening because I chose it.

That distinction matters.

When we remember our agency, fear softens. It doesn’t disappear, but it shifts. Instead of feeling like a victim of circumstance, we remember that we are active participants in our lives.

I chose this next chapter.
I chose growth over comfort.
I chose possibility over predictability.

And that doesn’t mean I won’t wobble.

It means I trust myself enough to wobble.

Agency isn’t about having no fear. It’s about knowing we can handle what arises.

It’s about saying, I don’t know exactly how this will unfold, but I know who I am.

Adapting Without Abandoning Yourself

When we step into a new place, physically or emotionally, there can be a temptation to rush and adapt, just to fit in.

Make new friends quickly.
Find new routines immediately.
Prove to ourselves that we’re coping.

But adaptation doesn’t have to be forceful.

It can be gentle.

It can look like:

• Taking quiet walks to learn the neighbourhood slowly.

• Allowing homesickness without judgement.

• Creating small rituals that anchor you.

• Staying connected to what matters, even if the location changes.

Just because I’m moving away from the ocean doesn’t mean I move away from the calm it brought me. I can create new spaces that feel grounding. I can drive to visit the water when I need to. I can carry that part of myself with me.

We are not uprooted entirely when we move.

We transplant.

And transplanted roots take time to settle.

Permission to Feel It All

If you are standing at the edge of change, whether it’s a move, a career shift, a relationship transition, or simply a new season of life, please hear this:

You are allowed to feel every single layer of it.

You are allowed to grieve what was.
You are allowed to celebrate what is.
You are allowed to fear what might be.

There is no gold star for pretending it’s easy.

There is quiet strength in honesty.

For me, this move is an act of self-trust. It is me saying yes to growth. Yes to possibility. Yes to something that stretches me.

And stretching, while uncomfortable, is also how we expand.

The ocean has been my backdrop for nearly six decades. It shaped me. It soothed me. It witnessed me.

Now I step into new terrain, not as someone lost, but as someone evolving.

Change doesn’t erase who we’ve been.

It invites us to become more of who we already are.

And that, even with a little fear, feels deeply empowering.

Until next time, Sarah xo