The MESy Middle of Becoming

Jojo is back after an unplanned month away and she is not coming back the same. In this episode she gets honest about what it actually feels like to be in the middle of a major life transition, not at the start, not on the other side, but right in the thick of it.

If you have ever done the big thing, made the bold move, chosen yourself, and then wondered why it still feels hard, this episode is for you.

Come get MESy!

Thank you for listening! Don't forget to follow along on social media @_insideout.podcast, rate and review. And Join the MESy Mailing List for exclusive content, insights on what is coming up and more! 

Transcript

Jojo (00:07.682)
Welcome to the Inside Out podcast. I'm your host JoJo and this is where we will navigate the mess together that is mental, emotional and spiritual. Let's get messy.

Jojo (00:26.287)
Hey everyone, welcome back to Inside Out. Wow, it has been a month and I just wanted to address that right away because that's what we do here. This pause wasn't planned. So you might know I was in the middle of a move. I've mentioned it in previous episodes and life completely took over and somewhere between, you know,

packing boxes, unpacking boxes, moving across the country, changing basically every aspect of my life, the podcast needed to wait. So I'm going to go into this episode, break it down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. mentally, looking back, I don't think that was an accident. I think I needed to really live what I'm about to talk about today.

before I could really, you know, say it out loud and process through it with you guys and really let you into the messy journey that was the last month. So consider this your update, a check-in for yourself and an episode all in one. A lot has happened this past month and I just wanna get into it. So I moved, I am now in a completely...

new location, apartment, life, surround everything. And it's a huge change. It's a positive change. And it's something that I've been wanting and calling in for about four years. And I didn't really anticipate how much of a transition this would be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

And I don't mean that to be punny or anything, but it's a huge shift. And navigating that and landing from this, there's a lot to unpack here.

Jojo (02:46.83)
Here's what I mean. Our brains are wired for familiarity. It likes the known. It likes routine. You know, your familiar route to work or your same coffee spot, maybe your same gym or workout class or Pilates studio. And when you uproot all of that, even if it is your choice, even if it's for something better,

that you're creating, you, you general, you me, sometimes go into almost like a resistance mode. At least that's what I've noticed for myself. Like your body has moved and your mind is still trying to run those old routes and those old patterns and those old familiar like, like this is where my light switch is in my bathroom or this is how I walk out of my bedroom and there's a wall there now because you're used to

you know, going straight and I have to turn left. And I noticed this because I'm physically somewhere new.

And I'm starting fresh, but I've almost been defaulting back to, like when I'm just thinking, I'll be, you know, I'm going home and I'm picturing my old apartment still, my old bedroom, my old surroundings, kind of everything. And then I'm walking into this new space, which is beautiful and everything that I could ever want and truly what I've curated and manicured and tried to really, you know, put

my authenticity into and have it be such a sacred space to land. And yet I'm still running those old patterns. And it's almost this conscious redirection that I've had to keep going through over the past couple weeks of being in this new space, living in this new world, having a new routine or lack of a routine at this point. But finding what my

Jojo (04:52.596)
my niche is here and what my mornings look like here and how I'm not just like running out of the door and into the crazy hubbub of New York City. This is a new chapter and I have to keep reminding myself that this is my new home. You might live somewhere new. There might be a huge change in your life, but you actually

start to think differently as well in that. And you're not just living somewhere different. You can change your zip code, for instance, but your mind might still be trying to commute to that old life. Emotionally. So two weeks after I moved, I found myself back in New York, back in my old stomping grounds, back in the town I had just left.

And I wanted to talk about this because it was such a powerful moment for me. And I didn't go back intentionally. I didn't go back because I missed it. I was there for work. But I didn't expect this feeling that came up walking back into those familiar places, those familiar coffee shops, the familiar Pilate studios, the familiar walk by the river. Because while it was a familiar energy,

something that I know so well, like the back of my hand, I felt like there was a different version of myself walking these streets.

And not in a bad way, just in a like, my gosh, wow, this used to be my whole world. And now it just is like somewhere I used to live. And you know, it's been two weeks, nothing about this place has changed. Everything looks the same. The streets are the same, the people are the same, energy is the same. But internally, I have shifted.

Jojo (06:56.076)
And it wasn't this, it was a little bit of nostalgia, but it was, it was wow, like I really left. I really did the thing and changed my life, stepped into the full unknown, don't really have a plan, but just knew that.

I had outgrown the version of JoJo that lived in this place and navigated this space for so many years that if I didn't shift, I would crumble.

And walking back down those streets, I was actually doing a little selfie video and being like, I'm back in New York, blah, blah, blah, or back in Hoboken.

Someone commented on it and was like, this is the happiest version of you being back in Hoboken. And I kind of sat with that for a second, because I was like, wow, they're so right. I wasn't very happy here for the longest time. mean, there was a time in a chapter that I was very happy there in Hoboken and in New York. But recently, in the last few years, it's been a little bit of a

like, okay, we really need something to change here. And it really made me realize that when you actually grow, when you actually do the work, you make the move, you step into something new, you don't just move physically. Something inside you basically relocates to, and it was weird because I didn't truly feel that way. Like it hadn't really landed and sunk in that, I've moved until I'd gone back.

Jojo (08:49.484)
there, saw the contrast and then realized, I'm not walking home to my apartment in Hoboken. I'm getting in an Uber and I'm going to the airport to fly to my new home. And it was such a strange realization and feeling because it wasn't homesick. It wasn't like, I've made the wrong decision. I was actually more like,

proud of myself and just

grounded in like, yes, this is, this is a hundred percent the right decision. However, it would be remiss to not say what has transpired in the starting points of my new life. And that is something that really caught me off guard. So the move is happening.

Everything is go, go, go. I'm in full execution mode, getting everything sorted, unpacking, sorting out logistics in full swing of the transition of it all.

And when you're in that mode, your nervous system is just kind of locked in. You're running on adrenaline basically. like, it's always just like, there's something next to do. It's another box to unpack. It's another thing to figure out. It's another picture to hang. It's another, like the list just goes on and on and on. And I was so lucky. I had the help of my mom. She flew into town to help me get everything sorted. And once she had left,

Jojo (10:37.984)
once the boxes were unpacked and it was my first real night with my furniture and my new space and being alone and things had mostly settled, because I wouldn't say I'm like 100 % complete yet, that would be a lie. Instead of feeling this like relief,

I woke up the next day with so much anxiety and this feeling of like, wait a second, what now? Like, where do I go from here and what is my life gonna look like? And what have I just done? Like literally what have I just done? And honestly, I've struggled a lot with anxiety for a long time and I've been navigating it. And honestly, for the past five months,

I've had a pretty good grasp on it and I found some tools that have worked for me and awareness around what triggers me and these anxious spikes have really calmed down in a way. And I've been really, really happy about that. And I was just saying it to someone recently of like, wow, my anxiety has been like kind of nullified. And then I make this change. I move into a very positive direction of my life. Everything's shifting.

And this anxiety has shown up on the other side of it. And I'm like, wait, what? Like, because to me, anxiety has always been like, something's off, something's wrong. This is incorrect. However, I've seemingly just made such a positive move in my life, such a positive decision, moving in a different direction, completely shifting my entire destiny. And what I realized is that your nervous system

doesn't know the difference between good stress and bad stress. It just knows, hang on, this is unfamiliar. This is new, this is unknown. And so those anxious alarm bells are gonna start ringing either way.

Jojo (12:49.614)
So even if you're stepping into something good, a line, something that you've created, your body might still not really understand the difference and like go into almost that panic mode because that's what it's been wired to do for so long. It knows survival mode and it almost doesn't know what to do with stillness. And what really made me pause was that

I've literally just stepped into a chapter that I couldn't be more happy with, couldn't feel more aligned with.

and this anxiety's cropping up and there's almost this guilt and shame around, hang on, like, why should I feel this way? I've literally just created such a beautiful transition in my life and blessings are coming from all directions, yet.

I feel like this. I had to rewire it because my body is just functioning in a way that it always has. And it's my job to rewire that and really address that anxiety so that it doesn't crop up in ways that are disorienting and start making me question basically my entire existence. So the work here

isn't to just avoid the anxiety completely, it's to recognize it, name it, and then on top of that, remind yourself that you're not in danger, that it's just new territory, new transition. And this doesn't have to just go for a move. This can literally go for anything. I'm talking about anxiety as an umbrella. Now wanna pause for a second because someone might be listening to this thinking, okay, so you took a month off the podcast.

Jojo (14:49.836)
You're in a new situation. You're, you're anxious. You're figuring it out. Your whole life's upside down. So what spiritually the pause of the podcast was the point because for me, part of this process and creating this podcast and having these conversations is really part of my practice. It's how I process. It's how I connect. It's how I show up and going.

for a month, completely unintentionally actually caught me off guard, really upset me because I put a lot of pressure on myself to show up a certain way to be consistent, to always be go, go, go, when in fact I needed to surrender.

And sometimes surrender, pause is the word.

Sometimes you can't really talk about something.

until you've lived it. And I think that's what happened here. This episode, everything I just shared with you, I definitely could not have said this a month ago. And I had to go through this move, back to my old stomping grounds, feel that anxiety spike, sit in the stillness to even understand what any of it meant. And there's something

Jojo (16:26.402)
beautiful about trusting your own timing, even if it looks like you fell off, when it looks like you went quiet, because sometimes that silence is the becoming. Seeds grow in soil. The darkness creates the ability for that shoot to grow when it comes out of the ground, then there's something.

But if it doesn't have that maturation period, if it doesn't actually grow in darkness,

That's not a plant. It was in the process of becoming a flower. So while I might've been absent, I'm trying to rewire that for myself too, because I wasn't absent. I was absolutely becoming. And now I'm back and everything is different. I'm different. And I think that's the whole point. To grow from the inside out, to really develop

internally so that our external world can shift and change and grow because staying the same is boring. Change is constant and is the only thing that will keep happening. So yeah, that's where I've been. That's been my process. That's been everything that I've been navigating and

If any of this resonated for you, anything about transition or anxiety or going back and feeling different, and that could be going back to an old relationship. Maybe you get back with an ex. Typically it doesn't work and you break up again because you've changed. There's a core dynamic change when you change an entire reality. Maybe you feel guilty for struggling during a good season of your life.

Jojo (18:33.024)
Just know that you're not alone in any of it. And that is the point. And that is the inside out experience. That's what we talk about here.

But I wanna leave you with one question. And usually I address the mass at the end, but I wanted to break this episode down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually of what my process has been over the last month. So my question for you kind of encompasses all of this. And it is, where in your life are you mentally living somewhere that you've physically, emotionally,

or spiritually already left and think about it. You can journal on it, you can write me an email, you can comment on the sub stack, you can comment on this episode, but I really want to know what transition you are on the threshold of. And then come back next week because everything's shifting, everything's changing. There's a lot happening this year with Inside Out, with me personally, with everything.

and we've got some really exciting new episodes, new guests, new conversation. The mess is just beginning and we will continue to unpack it all every step of the way. So thank you guys so much for tuning in this week, for coming back, for supporting the show, for supporting me and you guys know where to find me at underscore inside out dot podcast. I promise I will be more active on the socials.

I am working on it. I'm getting out of my own head, getting out of my own way and trying to really connect with you guys there. Keep you up to date, keep you in the loop because sometimes I know if there's not an episode, I might not talk about it out online, but I know that I need to keep you all in the loop. So that is something I will be working on. And again, more exciting things. Stay connected, stay messy, and I'll see you all next week.

Jojo (20:44.12)
Thank you so much. Bye.