The best thing about the worst things we go through is that they are always pathways to something better. A breakdown = a breakthrough we haven’t seen the other side of yet. Often when we think our lives are most in chaos, it’s because they’re re-setting to where we want them to be. Here, a few (sometimes difficult) signs that your life is actually changing for the better, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.
1. You’re recognizing what you don’t want. All of a sudden, you’re becoming acutely aware of how much you dislike your work habits and how much your “friends” drain you and how little you feel like yourself lately. It may seem like you’re dissecting the anatomy of a disaster, but really, you’re getting clear on what you don’t want so you can get clearer about what you do.
2. You’re opening up to people again; isolation is no longer the most appealing option. Even if you’re just thinking about the fact that you need to open your heart more to the people around you, you’re already on the right track.
3. You’re unpredictably emotional. It’s just another way of saying that you’re not suppressing everything anymore. You’re beginning to feel again, which brings you one step closer to being able to deal with those feelings in a real way.
4. A lot of annoying clichés are starting to make sense. You’re seeing why hard work is important, and being present matters and positivity is a choice. You’re seeing how love is something you create and your life is what you make it and everything else that seemed like vapid, useless fodder is now the answer to everything, if only you could master it.
5. You’re becoming hyper self-conscious. It’s just a side effect of becoming more self-aware. Alternatively, you’re finally reaching a healthy equilibrium of being able to recognize both the positive and negative aspects about who you are, without denying or inflating either/or.
6. The changes you desire in your life surround wanting to feel more like yourself, not less. In the past, you may have dreamt of a life where you were über successful or incredibly beautiful or completely loved, all in an effort to combat feeling proportionately shitty about yourself. When you’re more in your center, you want your life to reflect who you are, not who you wish you were.
7. You feel “lost,” which is just another way of saying you’re detaching from your old ideas about what your life should be, or what the future should hold, and so on. Living in the present feels an awful lot like being “lost” before we get used to it.
8. You’re seeing your hardships as portals to a better understanding of yourself. Rather than battle off your emotional trauma or low self-esteem – or worse, try to control something else in its place – you’re beginning to realize that on the other side of the things that most deeply plague you is a deeper truth about who you are.
9. You’re beginning to realize that if you have a problem in your life, the problem is you. Aside from the fact that people love to project their issues onto other people and deflect from their own faults, whether or not a situation was your fault, if it is affecting you, it is your responsibility to change. The blame game is an irrelevant one. It’s as simple as that.
10. You know you’re not getting enough out of life, but now you’re starting to that maybe you’re not giving enough, either. You complain that you don’t have love but you don’t actually go out and try to date. You hate your job, but you don’t look for a new one. You’re always stressed, but you don’t work on being better about regulating your emotions or being able to focus harder and work more efficiently. You both recognize that you want more from your life and understand that it’s time you start making that happen. 
