Episode #64
The Difference Between Quitting and Honest Discernment
On June 26th, 2014, I stopped writing. I know the date because I looked it up. What I didn't need to look up was the feeling I had when I closed that laptop. For years I had been writing to women who were a season or two behind me on this road. Writing about arrival like it was a destination. Writing about the finish line with genuine hope, because I had it. I wasn't performing it. I believed it. I was writing to women who needed someone to tell them it was going to be worth it, and I passed that promise on with my whole chest. And then we arrived. I sat down to write, and I had nothing. The feeling I had been promised, and been passing on to everyone else, wasn't there. What I felt instead was hollow. And I couldn't keep writing something I no longer believed was the whole truth. So I closed the laptop. It felt like stopping. For a long time, it felt like failing something I had built. What I couldn't have known then is that closing it was the most important thing I ever did for the work I'm doing right now. That first blog, the raw, unpolished writing from the most disoriented stretch of my life, is now the foundation of the book I'm finishing. I had no idea any of it was going anywhere when I shut it down. None. This is what I mean when I say meaning is retrospective. There's a line often attributed to Kierkegaard that I come back to often: that life can only be understood backward, even as we're required to live it forward. You don't get to understand what you're doing while you're doing it. You only get the view from far enough down the road to look back and see the shape of it. And what that means practically is that the seasons that looked like nothing were not nothing. They just hadn't found their meaning yet. Today I'm pulling back on my own pivots and stops, two separate stretches of going quiet in my writing, a marathon I trained for and then walked away from without a single regret, and the scrapbooking supplies I moved through four houses because letting them go felt like admitting the investment had been wrong. I also take you back through Aditi Pemmaraju's story from last week, and what it looks like to understand a life only from the far side of it. And then the harder question, the one I want to sit with you on: what are you still carrying through every move? What old chapter are you treating like a quiet accusation instead of a complete one? What season are you still making mean something about your character when it might just be a vote you haven't stood far enough back to see yet? Because most of what looked like quitting from the inside wasn't quitting at all. It was a pivot toward something true. And sometimes a stop is honest discernment. That deserves to be treated that way. This one is for you if you're sitting in a season that doesn't add up yet. Come listen. What You'll Learn [00:00 - 02:00] Why the decision that felt like failure was actually the most important one in my story [07:00 - 08:30] What "meaning is retrospective" actually means and how it shifts the way you hold your past [09:00 - 11:30] The real difference between a pivot and quitting, and why it isn't measured by outcome [12:00 - 15:00] The scrapbooking supplies I moved through four houses, and what finally letting them go revealed [17:00 - 18:30] The questions to sit with if you're still making an old season mean something about your character Resources Mentioned The Hidden Cost of Being the Strong One (free assessment) Your Next Steps Take the free assessment at itgetsbetternow.com Connect on Instagram: @kendra_itgetsbetternow | @supportingphysicianspouses Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify
