EP37: From the Heart | On the Day Before: Trusting the Invisible Process

What if today is just the 'Day Before' everything changes?

Have you ever felt like you’re doing all the work, making the changes, and showing up—but nothing is actually moving? No phone call, no new door opening, just… silence?

In this solo episode, I’m revisiting a piece I wrote back in 2022 called "On the Day Before." It’s an honest look at those seasons where life feels stagnant, even when everything is shifting beneath the surface.

Inside this episode, we’re talking about:

• The Illusion of Stasis: Why "nothing happening" is usually a lie and how things are moving behind the scenes to align for you.
• The Threshold of Choice: The moment you stop making "deals" with yourself and finally make the different choice you actually mean.
• The Faith Walk: How to show up for yourself with trust when you can’t see the outcome yet, knowing you are being prepared for what’s next.

Sometimes you haven't lined up with the "thing" yet because the space is still being cleared. Sometimes, you’re still becoming the person who is energetically ready to walk through that door.

If you’re feeling stuck in the waiting, this one is for you. Lean in, stay open, and remember: something is always happening for you.

Transcript

On The Day Before

Netanya 0:00

There are moments in life that split us open by unraveling the frame or truth we didn't know until we had those. This podcast is about those moments. It's about the turning points that change us. The things I wish someone had told me that I only understand and do that. Come on in, you belong here, and we're gonna talk about all of it. I'm your host Natanya, and this is what I didn't know. Before we begin, a quick note. This podcast explores themes such as mental health, addiction, trauma, and recovery. While the stories here are honest and heartfelt, they're not a substitute for professional advice, therapy, or medical treatment. Please listen with care and pause anytime you need to. Take whatever resonates for you and leave the rest. Every so often I sit down to record something just for you. A short reflection, no script, no guest. It's where I share what I've been thinking about lately, straight from the heart. All right, so I am on attempt number seven of trying to record this episode. It's been a minute since I have done a social or uh solo episode, and I had something on my mind today. I was reminded of something I wrote back in 2022. So this was November of 2022. I was writing a lot at the time. I pretty much started writing a lot after I got divorced, which was in I have to think about this, 2018. 2018. Um, I started writing a lot more and posting things on social media. And this is one of the things that I had written. Obviously, this is several several years after I gotten divorced, but it was just that's that was the time period I was writing a lot more and putting it out there publicly. So I'm gonna read the thing to you that I wrote and then I'm gonna expand on it afterwards. So the title of it is called On the Day Before. I also want to own and acknowledge that I wanted to change it. I wanted to go back and edit some things and rewrite some lines to make it sound better than what I think it sounds like. And I'm not gonna do that because we're in the business of being authentic and telling the truth. And this is just what I wrote. So here we go. It's called on the day before. On the day before something happens, it usually presents itself like any other day. You're doing some of the things you're normally doing following a kind of general schedule. Maybe there are some plans in the books. On the day before something happens, it may feel like nothing is happening, nothing is moving. Now that's not true because things are always happening, always moving. We just can't always see them. But it might seem that way. On the day before something happens, maybe something's been talking to you, but you haven't been listening. And when the day comes when something happens, it will be a single instant, I promise. And you decide to put down the pencil and listen, stop doing all the things you do to get in your own way, well now you've stepped inside the field of potential for something to unfold. Sometimes you keep going back to something, hoping that it will change, until the day comes when you're the thing that changes and you decide to no longer go back to the something. Sometimes you walk through a door and meet someone new who will play an immense role in your life and who you decide to become. But you didn't know that on the day before it happened. Sometimes you don't even know it when it does. Sometimes you run into a brick wall, literally or metaphorically, and you can't unsee what you now see. You can't unknow what you now know. No matter how much you might want to, you can't go back to being who you were on the day before. And when that day comes, when you suddenly see the thing you couldn't see, when you choose left instead of right, and try the road not taken, when you stop choosing the devil you know in favor of the potential magic of the unknown, well, then you can begin. On the day when something happens, say yes. It may or may not work out, but always will you learn something. And when you learn things, then you can teach. And in the meantime, until that day comes when something happens and you decide to say yes and open up your entire world, what would you do if you were trusting that everything is always working out for you in bigger and better ways than you could possibly imagine? Go do that. There's nothing else for you to do until there is. It doesn't mean that nothing is happening. It just still might be the day before. So why I wrote that and and what it's referencing and for me specifically is being in that space when you can't see the outcome, you don't know how you're gonna get there, but like how long do I actually have to wait for this thing? And sometimes you're in that space where all all there is to do is nothing because you just have to let the thing unfold. It's it's that space of you haven't lined up with the next job yet because the person that currently occupies the job hasn't quit. Or you haven't met the guy yet because yesterday his wife just left him and he's really in it. So there's things that have to happen that are happening throughout time and space as we're moving, as we're unfolding, and and being able to allow the space and the patience to let that happen before you line up with the thing. Sometimes you haven't changed enough to line up with the thing. You know, sometimes there's work that you haven't gone through or choices you haven't made to become the person that's energetically aligned with the thing that you want yet. I have experienced that on numerous occasions. Consider this an invitation to trust divine timing. You know, things that I thought should have happened on X timeline, if we go back across my life, my life would look very different than it does today. You know, if I were to look backwards at the things I thought that I wanted to happen by a certain timeline or a date, which I think to an extent, society and culture trains us that there's some arbitrary timeline that we're all supposed to be on, which is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard because we're all different and have different journeys and stories and lessons and directions and that can look immensely different from person to person. And where did I learn that this was the right timeline, that this was the thing I'm supposed to be reaching for by any given date? I should have done this, or this is where my life should be at, and how much pain has that caused me to continually measure myself against other people. First of all, that's exhausting and not realistic. And there's a million reasons and factors that go into what my life is versus your life, and they're not better or worse, they're just different. And so I think anytime I've gotten attached to outcomes or timelines, it causes suffering instead of what is much more peaceful flow down the river, which is to let go of things, to trust that divine timing is always working out for me, whether or not I understand it, that things are always unfolding as they should, and to let go of what I think that should mean based on some arbitrary timeline that who knows who put in my head that this is where I should be at. And not only, not only the when, but the what. You know, if I were to go back a decade ago and look at what I thought that I wanted then, there's a whole list of things that I would have told you that did not happen or did not go the way that I thought they should. And I actually I did an episode on this. It was episode 25, and it's literally called when things don't go the way you think they should. Because it's something I have to repeatedly practice letting go of. Letting go, trust, surrender. I've got this, it'll work out, it'll figure itself out. And that dance between where do I need to move and take action and initiate movement in myself, and where do I need to surrender and lean back and let things unfold. And that's a constant dance. You know, and when that moment comes, when that moment presents itself, there's a choice, there's a difference, there's a something that comes up, an inkling, an idea, a thought, a knowing, a feeling. And in that moment, I have made a different choice. And and for whatever reason, inside this choice that was different, I meant it. And I say that on purpose because I cannot tell you how many times I have made choices that I have repeated or I made deals with myself, or I said I was gonna do a thing, and I did it for a little while, and then I went back to the way it was before. Um, and somewhere in the moment of when you really make a different choice and you know I'm I'm about to cross a threshold and I'm I'm not gonna go back this time. There's a there's a lot of power in that, and it impacts the trajectory of which you're moving. I'm not gonna chase the guy or the girl. You know, the first time I said no, the first time I really said yes to something new and different, when I have closed doors, when I have taken risks, when I have gone down a whole new road. Something interesting happens when you begin to become a person who looks at your life intentionally, on purpose, your past, your choices, your behaviors, when you look in the mirror. And the chances are if you have found this podcast and or know me, you're you're somewhere in that realm because people that don't want to look at themselves usually don't like me. Um and that's okay. But if you're still here and you're still listening, somewhere in here, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a pretty solid bet that you are the kind of person that wants to look at something in and around yourself, your life, your choices, in order to transform parts of yourself, to change, to become better, to heal, to grow, and to move in a better or different or healthier, more uplifting trajectory than you have been. And for whatever reasons, if you found yourself in that seat, you're likely one of those kind of people in one aspect of your life or another. And when you begin to become a person who looks at your life, your past, your choices, your behaviors in the mirror, and you start to take responsibility and ownership for these things, you suddenly can't unsee them. And as a result, when they happen again, either through you, you repeat a pattern, you do the thing again, but now you've looked in the mirror and you can see the thing that you did, and you you call yourself out on it because you can feel it, or you see someone else do the thing and you can't, you can't unsee it. It's like a blinding light, like, oh, I see what you did there, and I spent years not seeing it, or I never noticed it before. It just was, it was fine, and suddenly it's not fine. And you start to acknowledge that thing, that's when that space of new choices begin to present themselves. And every time, I love this, I reference it a lot: the concept of tree branches, that as branches grow and they split off, that's what choices are like. You you make a choice and you can go left or right. And if you go left, then a new branch grows and you have new choices, and you can go left or right here, and they keep moving and you spend your whole life being a tree branch and moving in different directions. And every time you do that, when you make different choices, you gain new perspectives. And you started over here, but you ended up over here because one by one you made all these little choices that kept diverging and changing until you became you're standing in a different seat than you used to be. I love that. It's the beauty of contrast of anytime life presents itself to you, good things, you get information. Great, this is good. I like this, I'm good at this, this feels good, I want to keep going in this direction, or not good things. I don't like this, this doesn't feel good, I don't want to be this person, I don't want to go in this direction. And and the contrast allows you to make choices that continue moving you more and more in alignment and integrity with who you really are and who you want to continue to become. And like suddenly it will be that day in all that time that you have spent, and it seems like nothing is happening and nothing is moving, suddenly it will be the day that something happens. You get the job, you get the phone call, you meet the person, you make a different choice and you mean it, and your whole world will begin to change, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once. And when that day comes, I would invite you to lean in, listen, stay open, and say yes. And until that day, what would you do? Who would you be? How would you show up for yourself if you knew that everything was always working out for you? Whatever you would do, if you fully trusted that you were held, that you were met, that this was all gonna work out bigger and better than you possibly imagined, go do that. Even when you can't see the outcome yet, that's where you invoke faith. That's where you invoke a faith walk. I'm gonna trust that this is all gonna work out for me, even if I don't know when and how. And that doesn't mean don't do anything. It just means keep moving, keep going, keep making choices for yourself, but know that there are bigger things that play here than you and have faith in that. Whatever you want to call that. Because something is always happening for you. It just still might be the day before. Thank you so much for being here. It means more than you know. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a quick rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people find the show. If you want more of me, head on over to NataniAlison.com and enter your name and email for behind-the-scenes updates in between shows. New episodes air every Tuesday. We'll see you next week.