Change Isn't Linear - It's a Swirly Spiral
An honest (and hopeful) framework for navigating life after failure, burnout, or loss.
This post brings together the essays from the Navigating Change series. If you’re just joining, catch up on all four stages: Stage 1 (grief and unraveling), Stage 2 (dreaming and scheming), Stage 3 (action and experimentation), and Stage 4 (flying).
Change isn’t linear.
If you’ve read the first four posts in this series, you’ve seen how we move through the four stages of change:
Grief and unraveling
Dreaming and scheming
Action and experimentation
The exhale that comes from living the results of your hard work
But now that we’ve reached the “end,” here’s the truth:
There isn’t an end. Not really.
Change doesn’t happen just once. It happens over and over again. And the beautiful part? Each time we move through it, we don’t start from scratch. We spiral through the stages, gathering clarity and strength along the way. We learn. We adjust. We get a little closer to what truly matters.
I (and many others, like life coach Martha Beck) call this our North Star – the truest, most aligned life we want for ourselves. Not the polished, perfect version. The one that actually fits. Where we feel at home in our bodies. Where we’re no longer performing for anyone else’s approval.
When I was working through Stages 1 and 2 with my therapist Doug during my big life changes back in 2014, I remember feeling afraid to move forward. I didn’t trust myself yet. I’d been hibernating – reading, meditating, reflecting – but I hadn’t tested any of it in the real world. I wondered: What if I don’t respond differently next time? What if I forget everything that felt so important in the safety of my living room?
The fear was real. Especially after the major loss of my career. I was still in the messiness of Stage 1, grieving the identity I’d clung to for so long. I might’ve been starting to dream about what could come next, but I hadn’t yet pushed myself out of the cocoon. I didn’t believe I could actually fly without relying on the old patterns that got me where I was.
In the first four posts, I shared these parts of my story, but not the events (the catalyst) that kicked off this change cycle for me.
I plan to share more deeply about it later this week, but to provide some context, here’s the short version:
After a lifetime of striving to do the right thing – growing up in evangelical Christianity, attending and working at a Christian university, chasing perfectionism – I had an affair with a coworker. It was completely out of alignment with the image I’d built, and the fallout was public. And humiliating.
It cracked everything open for me.
As painful as it was, that experience forced me to examine my beliefs, my relationships, and the rigid identity I’d been performing. The affair and public reckoning catapulted me into change. (Isn’t that how it often works?)
After I resigned from my job and my affair ended, I spent the next few months grieving, falling into a daily routine of reading, journaling, and meditating. Lots of tears. I dug in deep and learned so much about myself, what had happened, how I had gotten to this place. But, I was so afraid to go back into the real world, to take my learning out into the wild. Afraid to show my face with friends and other community members whose lives I’d directly or indirectly impacted.
Despite the hibernation and deep, intensive reflection and learning, I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to make better decisions, to not cower or buckle at the first invitation back into my old patterns.
But, what I learned along the way is that we don’t get to find out what we’re capable of unless we try. I wouldn’t know if I would respond differently to challenges or break my old patterns unless I took the risk and stepped out of my living room.
We don’t get to experience the ease of Stage 4 if we aren’t willing to endure the mess of melting down and the risk of trying something new.
You can’t fly unless you’re willing to look a little (or a lot) ridiculous while figuring out how your wings work.
The really hard truth is we learn the most when we fail. When we embarrass ourselves. When we try and realize…nope, not quite it. It’s uncomfortable, but that discomfort is full of information. It shows us where we’re growing — and what we really want, instead of what we were told we should want.
Failure doesn’t mean you’re off course.
It means you’re on the path.
In my case, I made some messy and painful choices without any real forethought of what it would cost. The aftermath led to resignation from my job, the unraveling of my marriage, and a move from Orange County back to San Diego.
You might be facing a similar or different catalyst — layoff, breakup, loss, burnout.
Some catalysts are the result of our choices chosen, while others crash in uninvited.
But after the dust settles, we get to decide what happens next.
I made a thousand small and some big decisions as I began to get more distance from my affair, and I leaned into change:
I chose to listen to what my body was telling me.
I chose to imagine something new.
I chose to act on the glimmers of hope and start building something from them.
Eventually, I reached Stage 4. I wasn’t flailing anymore. I was living — more freely, more fully, more aligned with the person I wanted to become.
So wherever you are in the spiral…
Just know that you get to choose.
To listen when your body whispers, “This isn’t working”
To give yourself permission to imagine something different
To take action, even if it’s small or shaky
To rest and savor when life feels more full of ease
You’re not starting over. You’re starting again with more clarity, more courage, and more compassion than before.
And that, my friends, is how we make real change.