I was halfway through a mediocre cup of airplane coffee when the first jolt hit.
The plane began to shake. Then came the sudden drop. The woman next to me started to pray.
My brain didn’t hesitate: Great. This is how it ends. Somewhere over Ohio.
But of course, things were fine. The turbulence eventually passed and the plane steadied.
And I started thinking: Even though turbulence is normal, it never feels normal. It feels like something’s breaking and needs to be fixed.
The same feeling shows up on the ground too.
You start a new project. That early buzz hits—you’ve got energy, clarity, momentum. Then a few weeks in, things get turbulent. The idea loses shape. The structure frays. And you wonder: Maybe this was a bad idea.
Or you’re in a season with no clear anchor. You’re between roles, routines, identities. What once made sense doesn’t anymore, and nothing new has taken its place. The structure is gone and the map is missing.
And your first instinct?
Panic. Pull back. Fix it. Find an exit.
If you’ve spent your life optimizing systems, minimizing risk, getting things “right,” then even healthy discomfort can feel like a red flag.
So you treat turbulence like a problem to be solved—as if clinging tighter will stabilize the ride. You search for answers, restructure everything, try to force your way back to calm.
But that grip usually makes things worse.
What could’ve been a quick bump turns into a full-blown detour—simply because you couldn’t stop fiddling with the controls.
And the more you brace for a crash, the harder it is to notice—you’re already safe.
It’s a subtle form of self-abandonment. Your body is here and completely fine, but your mind is racing ahead, stuck in a future that hasn’t happened. It’s reacting to fear instead of responding to truth. It’s solving problems that will never arrive.
Turbulence isn’t a sign that you’re falling apart.
It’s a sign that you’re in transition.
And like any flight, transitions come with bumps—especially when you’re crossing into new air.
We forget this. We expect growth to feel like progress. We expect change to feel like clarity. But often, it feels like turbulence first.
And that turbulence? It’s the shaking before stability. The confusion before alignment. The silence before the spark.
That’s what it feels like to cross into new airspace before you find your footing.
And it’s not breaking.
It’s becoming.
So don’t tighten your grip. Don’t reroute the flight just because the air got weird.
Let it wobble. Let the turbulence move through you. And then let the sky settle.
Because sometimes the only way forward—is riding the turbulence long enough to rise above it.
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Bold
