You’ll Know When You Know

When I think back on my breakup, a decision to take care of myself that I’d been contemplating for some time, I remember a dinner at a beach club with my dog Celestino from a few nights before.

The owner recognised me and reminded me that a year earlier I’d told her:

“When you know, you know.”

She said those words had helped her stop worrying about what to do next in her life.

She had no idea they were coming back to me right on time!

I knew.

But I kept jumping to the consequences of my knowing.

"What if I end it and this happens? What if I never meet someone else? What if it’s just my state of mind creating the problem?"

What I see now is that all that thinking kept me stuck.

No amount of thinking ahead of time changes anything, it just depletes us.

What's amazing is that despite my fears, my knowing never left me.

That’s what I appreciate most today, that our knowing bypasses our bullshit.

Our knowing won't abandon us.

It's clear, it's impersonal, it's stable.

We all have this built-in guidance system that lets us know when enough is enough.

We know when we’re done with the food on our plate.

We know when we’ve had enough to drink.

We know when something is done.

We feel it.

If I could speak to my former self, I’d tell her to stop overthinking what to do and trust that the knowing will come when you're truly done.

You’ll know when you know, because you’ll feel it, and in that moment all the resources of the universe will rise up within you, strengthening you to stop something, end something or begin something new.

Simple and free of worry.

You'll know when you know.