Discomfort is what happens when we are on the precipice of change. It usually takes a bit of discomfort to break through to a new understanding, to release a limiting belief, to motivate ourselves to create real change. Discomfort is a signal, one that is often very helpful. Here are a few (less than desirable) feelings that may indicate you’re on the right path after all:

1. Something really good happens and you realize you aren’t happier.

Everything that you’ve been working toward, everything that you’ve been holding out for to give you that elusive happiness, everything you have been certain your life is missing… now it’s here. And you’re still anxious. You’re still depressed. But you’ve realized something: feeling better was never a matter of having anything new on the outside. Now, your work begins to figure out what you need to do on the inside.

2. Pluto or Saturn are in your chart.

If you trace your astrological chart back through the last few years of your life, you can usually see how the planets passing through your sign have influenced the major themes and lessons that you were experiencing. If you currently have Pluto or, more likely, Saturn, in transit, there’s a good chance that you’re being taken to task by the Universe for a period of deep growth.

3. You become emotionally overreactive, for (what seems like) no reason at all.

It’s as though your feelings are surging, and you begin projecting them and creating problems out of thin air. But you aren’t actually becoming more emotional, you’re just finally recognizing the feelings that you have been suppressing for all this time. If you’re honest with yourself, you can see how you’ve always felt this way, but you’ve been blaming it on something else.

4. You start having physical symptoms of “energy purging.”

For some people, this is a desire to eat better, sleep more, or sweat more. For others, it can manifest as shaking, crying, a gagging feeling or reflex (with or without actual nausea).

5. Your relationships become more challenging than they are comforting.

Our relationships to others are our best opportunity to see ourselves clearly. (What we dislike in others is what we can’t see in ourselves; what we love in others is what we love in ourselves.) If your relationships are becoming strained, it’s because you’re being shown that you’re either with the wrong people, or you’re in the middle of a profound – but difficult – growing opportunity.

6. Your desires shift from success and money to freedom or health.

You start to seriously question what your motives in life have been, and what you really want for the future. You begin to understand the conventional wisdom of “money not mattering,” and the most important things in life being health, or family.

7. You feel stifled by irrational fears.

You are, at once, recognizing the power of your mind, and what happens when you don’t tame it. You’re stuck because some part of you is afraid that these irrational ideas are real. They aren’t, but this is often what happens when you begin to wake up to your inner power before knowing how to use it completely.

8. You’ve just met your soulmate, or feel like you’re about to.

People always underestimate the mental and emotional shift that happens when you meet your “other half.” Even if you have an amazing relationship (and you’re not caught in the twin flame shit show) you will usually be challenged, and find yourself changing in many important and positive ways… even if, at first, it feels uncomfortable.

9. You feel “lost.”

Feeling “lost” just means you are no longer living by the old ideas you had for what would be “right” for your life. You’re more in the moment, and your mind has to get used to no longer trying to chart out every next move. If you know what’s next on your path, it means you’re looking at somebody else’s.

10. You have to start treating yourself like a child again.

You’re realizing that you need to parent yourself, to ensure you get enough rest and healthy food and what not. When you revert to taking care of yourself like your ideal parent would, you’re finally learning what self-care and love really means.

11. Vivid memories you had forgotten about are surfacing from your subconscious.

All of a sudden, you can remember random moments from elementary school, or your childhood bedroom. It also seems like random embarrassing moments keep popping up in your memory. This is what happens when you begin to clear your energy – you’re releasing years of stored experiences that are weighing on you and affecting you even to this day. Your body never forgets.

12. You have an inexplicable interest in philosophy, spirituality or poetry.

All of a sudden, people who are always talking about their emotional ascensions or finding the god within or doing yoga or drinking juice seem fractionally less insane, and more, well, logical. You begin to question institutions that try to tell you what to believe, and start to see the importance in thinking for yourself.

13. You’re going through a “dark night of the soul.”

A “dark night of the soul” is an ancient concept that refers to the collapse of meaning and hope that usually occurs before a big transformation in someone’s life.

14. You begin to recognize your limitations.

A side effect of becoming more self-aware is seeing what you’re not naturally good at, identifying your daily needs, and seeing where you’ve been spreading yourself too thin.

15. You start to question everything.

You start to wonder whether or not you’re in the right relationship, the right career, the right city. You start to ask yourself why you behave the way you do, or why you’ve chosen what you have in your life so far. This doesn’t mean that every part of your life needs to be unraveled. All it means is that you’re taking a personal inventory of what works and what doesn’t.

16. Rather than feeling like you want to completely start your life over, you realize that you want to transform your perspective of the life you already have.

You’ve tried uprooting everything and isolating yourself and leaving your job abruptly one day, and you’ve always arrived right back where you are now. You’ve begun to realize that it isn’t always about changing your life, but changing how you think.

17. You’re reading this article.

Somewhere inside you, you know that this is precisely what you’re going through, and you’re looking to affirm that fact.