Before You Know Your Life Is Changing

I recently came across something that stopped me mid-scroll. The writer said that before every major shift in her life, the same seven things happened.

Not after. Before.

As I read her list, I found myself nodding. I have experienced many of these things before significant changes in my own life.

Perhaps you have too.

But is it woo-woo? An old wives’ tale? Or is there something else going on?

Here’s the list.

1. The things that used to light you up no longer do.

The restaurant. The television show. The plans you would have been thrilled about a year ago. Nothing has changed, yet somehow the spark is gone.

It isn’t necessarily depression or ingratitude. It may simply be that something new is asking to enter.

2. You feel an almost feverish need to purge.

Not a light tidy. You want to clear the closets, empty the drawers, clean out the garage and delete half the photos on your phone.

Everything you own suddenly feels as though it belongs to a woman you used to be.

3. You go quiet.

You stop giving the people closest to you the usual running commentary on your life.

It isn’t secrecy. Something is forming, but you don’t yet know what it is. You need to hear yourself before you can explain it to anyone else.

4. You can’t tell whether you’re feeling dread or excitement.

You’re weepy on a Wednesday and wide awake at three in the morning.

Something is stirring, but you couldn’t name it if you tried.

5. A strange new interest appears. Or an old one returns.

Suddenly you’re reading about architecture, picking up a book you loved in your twenties or looking at houses in another country at eleven o’clock at night.

It makes no logical sense, but it refuses to leave you alone.

6. You stop trying so hard to keep the peace.

The small social lies become more difficult.

“I’m fine.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Whatever everyone else wants is fine with me.”

Your mouth stops cooperating. You say the true thing at the dinner table and watch everyone blink.

7. You begin seeing signs everywhere.

The same word appears three times in one week. A book practically falls off the shelf. A stranger says the exact thing you needed to hear.

You aren’t sure whether the signs have suddenly appeared or whether you have finally started noticing them.

Does it matter?

I became curious about whether there was any truth beneath this list. As it turns out, these seven things aren’t part of an established psychological theory. There is no research proving that they reliably appear before every major life transition. The idea beneath them, however, is very real.

More than a century ago, anthropologist Arnold van Gennep studied the rituals cultures created to mark important human transitions. He found that these passages often had three distinct stages.

First, there was a separation from what had been.

Then came an in-between period when the old identity no longer quite fit, but the new identity had not yet fully formed.

Finally, there was an arrival into a new role, season or sense of self.

That middle stage became known as liminality, from the Latin word for threshold.

It is the space between who you have been and who you are becoming. And oh, what an uncomfortable space it can be.

There may be nothing visibly wrong with your life, yet something no longer feels entirely right. You look around at the routines, possessions, relationships or ambitions that once suited you and wonder why they don’t feel the same. You may become restless without knowing what you want instead. You may feel an urge to clear your closet, change your hair, rearrange the furniture or finally deal with the drawer you have avoided for seven years. On the surface, you are getting rid of things. Beneath the surface, you may be making room.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the universe is about to deliver a dramatic surprise. It may mean that a deeper part of you has already begun registering something your conscious mind cannot yet put into words.

The change isn’t coming.

The change has quietly begun.

This may also explain why we sometimes withdraw before a major shift. We stop giving everyone the full download because we don’t yet know how to explain what is happening.

Something is forming, but it is still too tender, uncertain or incomplete to be discussed. We need to hear ourselves before we can tell anyone else what we think.

Then there is that strange mixture of dread and excitement. The two can feel remarkably similar in the body. A racing heart. Restlessness. Butterflies. Wakefulness at three in the morning.

The difference often lies in the meaning we give the sensation. Are we facing a threat or standing at the edge of possibility?

Sometimes we don’t know.

Perhaps we are doing both.

New interests may also begin to appear. You find yourself reading about something you have never cared about before. You return to music you loved in your twenties. You begin researching a place you have never visited or imagining a life you have never allowed yourself to consider.

It can feel random.

But perhaps curiosity is one of the ways the woman we are becoming reaches back for us. Even our sudden impatience with small social lies may be part of the shift. There comes a point when the mouth stops cooperating with the old arrangement. The truth slips out at the dinner table and everyone blinks. It may look as though we have suddenly become difficult. In reality, we may simply have become less willing to abandon ourselves to keep everyone else comfortable.

And what about the signs?

Carl Jung used the word synchronicity to describe coincidences that feel personally meaningful even when there is no obvious connection between them.

Psychology also gives us a less mystical explanation. Once something becomes important to us, our attention changes. We begin noticing words, ideas and possibilities our brain previously filtered out.

The signs may not have suddenly appeared. We may simply have become ready to see them. I rather like leaving room for both possibilities.

I don’t need to believe that every song on the radio contains a message meant specifically for me. But I also don’t want to dismiss the moments that cause something inside me to sit up and pay attention. Whether the sign came looking for me or I finally became capable of noticing it, the result may be the same.

I am listening.

There is one more reason these patterns can seem so uncannily accurate. Human beings are storytellers. Once a major change has occurred, we naturally look back and gather the earlier moments into a meaningful narrative.

We remember the restless night before the revelation more clearly than all the restless nights that led to nothing in particular.

That doesn’t make the story false. It simply means memory helps us understand our lives by connecting the dots.

So no, I don’t believe these seven things are a guaranteed announcement that something momentous is on its way. But I do believe we often become aware of change in our bodies, behaviour and desires before we understand it with our minds.

We lose our taste for what no longer nourishes us. We make space before we know what will fill it. We grow quiet enough to hear a new voice emerging. We become curious about a path we cannot yet see. And little by little, we become less willing to continue living as the woman we have already outgrown.

Perhaps that is why this idea resonated so deeply with me.

I have lived long enough to know that transformation rarely arrives with a formal announcement.

More often, it begins as restlessness.

A nudge.

A drawer that suddenly must be emptied.

A truth that will no longer remain politely unspoken.

Only later do we look back and realize:

That was when it started.

Not when the decision was made.

Not when the door opened.

Not when the world could finally see that everything had changed.

It began in the quiet space before we had words for it.

Maybe the most truthful way to say it is this:

These things do not necessarily happen before change comes. They may be how change first reveals itself, before we consciously realize we have already begun.