The other day someone asked me how I define strength. My reply was almost automatic, “the ability to reinvent yourself.”  Maybe it’s because I feel like as I approach turning fifty this year, I feel like I’m smack dab in the middle of this.  It’s both scary and liberating at the same time.  It’s scary because the “how” things unfold is a work in progress.  And liberating because I’ve finally given myself permission to lean into what gives me joy. 

When we truly give ourselves permission to hit the reset button on any aspect of our life, whether it’s our career, our relationships, where we live, our health, it’s the most empowering thing imaginable.  The world becomes our oyster because we have silenced our Inner Critic.  The voice of self-doubt and overwhelm that holds us back from really stepping into our power is banished.

The first time I intentionally set about to create a Second Chance in my life first occurred ten years ago when I was going through a divorce.  Anytime we go through a major life transition where grieving is involved, it marks an ending.  We need to honor those endings by becoming more deeply connected to our truth and learning the truth from the past.  As I look back, the truth is I have been giving myself permission to create Second Chances for most of my adult life, a process I’ve been slowly learning to lean into more and more as I get older.

I honored the ending of my marriage by spending almost 14 months in a fairly hermetic existence devoted to self -care, self- compassion and above all to rediscovering my “lost-self” the parts of me that I had given away to another. 

When I didn’t have my kids, I gave myself absolute permission to do what felt good, to let go of the years of “shoulds” I had heaped on my plate and which only kept me stuck in inaction.  By creating this spaciousness, I allowed myself to stay curious about who I was becoming, to honor and be mindful to the fact that transitions are really a deeply transformative process.

When we navigate any life transition, we need to allow ourselves to feel into the new role, instead of trying to mentally “will” our way there. This is why dating soon on the heals of a relationship breakup can be challenging, because we haven’t yet aligned our feelings of what we want with our shifting identity of who we are becoming.  There is inevitably a gap there that only time can close. 

When we move from one transition to another too soon,  we find ourselves responding to new circumstances but  operating from an old place of the old promises we made to ourselves that need to be readjusted and re-examined in light of our changed circumstances.  This is recipe for confusion.

I recently coached a client, I’ll call her Jennifer,  who had gone through a whole lot of transition in a short amount of time.  She got divorced, then remarried, moved and lost her job all in the span of less than three years.  

Jennifer  came to see me because she was confused and in a state of overwhelm. Not only had she suddenly lost a core part of her identity, as a well -paid corporate executive, now she was taking on a new identity, as an unemployed wife.   She had been the primary bread winner in her thirty -year marriage, being dependent on someone else was not comfortable for her.  It required a level of trust and vulnerability she was not ready for.

The source of her self-doubt was compounded because she had not taken the time to forgive herself for her failed marriage and losing her job.  She was reacting rather than responding to her life and feeling less and less empowered. 

It’s not always easy to be patient and give ourselves the time and space needed to claim our Second Chance.  This is the in between space, the liminal space where anything is possible. If we can give ourselves permission to stay in the “unknown” zone where anything is possible, that’s where the magic can happen in life.  Our human tendency is to want to lock in on a solution and have certainty. But when we do that, we miss out on the richness of reinventing ourselves.

2020 is a year for the Ages to reinvent ourselves.  There is so much possibility for all of us awaiting us this year as we are being asked to define ourselves for the next 35 years of our life.  To be clear this is not a task for our small selves.  We must find a balance between being daring and bold while being firmly grounded in a place of clarity and responsibility.  Striking that balance  is the key to claiming our Second Chance.

Where does your Second Chance await you in your life?