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Have you ever felt stuck in a season of ‘almost’? It’s a feeling of straddling where you are now and where you truly want to be, thinking if you could just achieve the goal, reach your own expectations, and finally make that dream come true everything else would fall into place.
My friend Jordan Dooley knows exactly what that feeling is like, and that feeling could’ve kept her stuck. Instead, she learned through hard-fought battles and personal challenges the importance of finding contentment as well as motivation during seasons of waiting. That’s what we’re digging into during our conversation on the podcast.
Listener Note: We talk about our pregnancy losses inside of this episode and I wanted to place this note so that if that topic is upsetting or triggering you, that you skip this episode and scoot to another. This is a topic that both Jordan and I discuss because it’s something we have walked through together. Please discern if the best thing to do is to protect your heart in whatever season you find yourself in. It is absolutely okay to choose to skip this conversation if the topic is challenging for you.
Meaning of Embrace Your Almost
“What happens when you get up and try again and things still go wrong? When you do all the right things and you still don’t get the outcome you thought you would, how do we navigate that?” Jordan began.
When Jordan experienced pregnancy loss while writing her newest book Embrace Your Almost, it changed everything, not online in her personal life, but the meaning and lessons at the core of what she was writing. What was first a book about getting knocked down but picking yourself up and trying again became a book about what happens when even that plan doesn’t work.
“I really found that through almosts and through the subsequent uncertainty that follows unexpectations, broken dreams, plans going sideways, those experiences often feel like obstacles,” Jordan continued, “But I really found as much as some of them were very painful for me, they also served as opportunities to get really clear on where am I going and why am I going there and what really matters and what path do I need to be on?”
I related to what Jordan said here so much: “Sometimes those setbacks, those unmet expectations, those broken dreams, they really do hold a unique opportunity to really get clear on what’s right for you. And what’s not in a world that’s constantly telling you what you should do or should want.”
Pulling the Weeds
During that summer of her second pregnancy loss, Jordan felt like so many things were falling apart around her. She told me, “I was really starting to struggle with the lies that my dreams are never going to work out for me.”
Jordan was seeing a therapist at the time who said something that really stuck with her, “She said be careful how often, or how many times you think something, because it only takes 200 thoughts to become a belief. And once it becomes a belief, it’s really hard to get out because it takes root in your life and your mind and your heart.”
One day, Jordan was out pulling tall-as-tree weeds from her overgrown garden when she decided to assign each weed a lie she was believing or struggling with. The first weed was her belief that motherhood would never work out for her. The weed was stubborn and seemed like it wouldn’t ever budge from the earth, but after minutes of struggling and focused effort, Jordan finally uprooted the weed. She followed it with a happy dance and moved on to another.
“There was something empowering about that and it was a turning point for me. I wouldn’t say that immediately overnight I no longer ever struggled with those thoughts again, but what it did do is it gave me this sense of strength again,” Jordan continued, “I no longer just felt like this fragile victim who just had everything go wrong in her life. It was like for the first time in probably six months or more, I had this realization that I do have some say over what I allow to take root in my life and what I’m willing to believe and what I absolutely absolutely won’t.”
More from this Episode
Jordan and I talk about how to maintain relationships when you’re struggling with your ‘almosts’ and how to offer support to someone walking through a challenging season of life (even if you don’t know what to say), and what I said to Jordan about “bootcamp” that landed in the pages of her newest book, Embrace Your Almost.
Press play for the full conversation with Jordan Lee Dooley or find it wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Embrace Your Almost and follow along with Jordan on Instagram @jordanleedooley.
