You can do everything right and still watch it not work out. That is the hard half of the truth, and it does not mean you are doing it wrong.

Last time, the whole message was this: you are doing everything right. This is the harder half of it. Because sometimes, and in my experience often, you can be doing everything right, following your path, putting one foot in front of the other, doing every single thing you know how to do, and it still does not work out. That is one of the genuinely hard things about being alive. It is disappointing, and it is frustrating, and pretending otherwise helps no one.

So here is what I want you to hold onto through it. You do not control the weather. You do not control other people, and you do not control the great human collective. When something does not work out, it is very often not a verdict on you at all. It is the weather.

One

You do not control the weather, the real kind or the human kind. And if you are a sensitive person, if you feel the collective the way I do, if the violence and the destruction and the old, cruel ways we still treat one another land in your body as your own grief, then all of this is even harder for you, because you are carrying more than your own weather. We are all each other. We are all in this together, connected in a web so complete that it is not even possible to go untouched by the suffering of others. If you are built that way, then some of what does not work out for you was never inside your control to begin with. Let that be true. It takes the blame off your back.

Two

Here is the other thing about weather. You cannot stop it, but you can dress for it. You find the right coat, you find a way to get where you are going, and sometimes that is far harder than other times, and those hard stretches are simply the seasons of a life. You already know this, because you have lived through hard seasons before. You have faced things you did not know how to face, and you figured them out. In the middle of the storm it is almost impossible to remember that, so let me remember it for you. You have got this. You can trust yourself. You can trust that quiet intuitive sense, the one that knows the next step even when your mind does not, and you can follow it.

Three

With the weather changing this fast, and the world moving this fast, it matters more than ever that you learn to quiet the noise. Turn down the chatter of the technology. Get quieter, and quieter, and quieter still, until underneath all of it you can hear that soft voice, the loving one, the one that says, gently, this is what is next for you, and you can trust it. That voice does not shout. It tells you that your priorities are yours to have, that you are right to be exactly who you are, that you are doing everything right, and that you can keep going. Even when you cannot see the path. Even when you are not sure where it leads. Even when it looks a little wild to everyone around you, and no one else can quite see how it is going to work. Keep going anyway.

Four

With one honest caveat, and I know this one from the inside. Take care of the practical things. I have gone all in on a creative dream more than once in my life, all the chips on the table, and three separate times I ended up bankrupt and without a home. It was brutal to live through. And here is what my guides keep reminding me. It did not mean I was doing it wrong. But it also did not have to hurt that much. I could have let the inspiration grow more slowly. I could have kept tending the food and the shelter and the water while I chased the dream, instead of betting everything all at once. My nature is intense, and I like to leap, and you will get the good of that intensity in this work. But if you are a leaper too, hear me. Chase the dream, and keep your feet on the ground. You are allowed to do both.

Five

So take charge of yourself, and start with your attention. You get to decide what you look at, what you learn, what you give your one precious day of focus to, and the range of what is available to you now is genuinely staggering, more than any human before us has ever been able to reach toward. Whatever you make of the cost of it, the tools we have now can help you follow a thread, discover the thing that lights you up, learn almost anything that pulls you forward into the morning. And yes, I know I just told you to turn the technology off and listen to the deep voice inside, and I meant that too. Both are true. Get quiet enough to hear what is real for you, and then use every tool you have to move toward it. If the next thing you are about to do does not serve what you love, or the people you love, or the life you are trying to build, take this as your invitation to turn away from the distraction and point yourself back at what matters. And if you cannot quite hear that voice yet, that is the work I do with people, so come find me, and we will listen for it together.

If you are in a season where nothing seems to be working, I am glad this reached you. Tell me in the comments what you are trusting yourself on right now, even when you cannot see the whole path. And if someone you love is doing everything right and it still is not working out, send this along to them.

— Juli Martin, The Love Lady