When the Old Path Disappears
It happened during a simple visualization exercise in a continuing education class I was attending. "Envision a bridge," the instructor said, "connecting what you know to what you don't yet know."
I closed my eyes, skeptical. Visualization has never been my strength. But then it came—not just an image, but a visceral knowing. The bridge behind me was crumbling, board by board. Not metaphorically. Not someday. Now.
That moment crystallized something I felt but couldn't articulate: the impossibility of going back. Not to old certainties. Not to familiar shores. The only way was forward, even if that way wasn't yet clear.
Dunedin, Fl. ©2017. Carla Royal
The Body Knows Before the Mind Does
I've been thinking about what it means to stand at the edge of transformation, watching what was once solid give way beneath you. About how the body sometimes knows what the mind refuses to accept.
There's a difference between choosing to leave something behind and realizing that what's behind you is already gone. The first carries a certain freedom. The second brings a reckoning.
Our bodies track these shifts before our minds can make sense of them. The tightness in your chest isn't just anxiety—it's recognition. The restlessness in your sleep isn't just stress—it's preparation. Your system knows: we are in motion now, whether we're ready or not.
Fighting What’s Already Gone
I see people around me trying to deny this reality. They dig in. They raise their voices. They insist that if we just try harder, we can make the old structures hold. But their exhaustion tells a different story. You can't continually push against what's already in motion without depleting yourself entirely.
In her exploration of how we navigate uncertainty, Rebecca Solnit observes that "the future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be." Not dark as in bleak, but dark as in unknown—full of possibilities we can't yet see. When we stop demanding certainty before we move, something shifts. We become explorers rather than refugees.
Meeting Transformation on Its Own Terms
Transformation doesn't ask permission. It doesn't wait for our readiness. It moves through us and through our world with or without our consent. The question isn't whether change will come. The question is how we'll meet it.
Will we exhaust ourselves trying to rebuild what was never meant to last? Or will we turn our faces forward and ask: What now? What next? What's possible that wasn't before?
We Find the Path By Walking
I don't have a map for what lies ahead. No one does. But I know this: we find our way by placing one foot in front of the other. By reaching for each other when the next step isn't clear.
That day in class, after the bridge began to crumble in my mind's eye, I didn't see what waited on the other side. But I felt something shift in me—a willingness to move without guarantees. A recognition that staying put is not an option.
The Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron speaks of "The Wisdom of No Escape"—that transformative moment when we stop running from what's uncomfortable and instead turn toward it with curiosity. "The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen," she writes. "Room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy."
The Gift in the Crumbling
That's the paradox of this moment. The path forward is unclear, but it may be our only path. And while that reality can feel terrifying, it also holds a strange liberation. When going back isn't an option, you stop wasting energy looking over your shoulder.
I don't know what form your own crumbling bridge has taken. Maybe it's a relationship that no longer serves who you're becoming. Maybe it's a belief system that can't contain your questions anymore. Maybe it's a way of working or living that's slowly breaking you down instead of lifting you up. Perhaps it's watching institutions you once trusted fracture, or witnessing the erosion of shared values you thought were foundational to our collective life.
The ground beneath us seems less solid lately; the foundations we assumed would always hold now reveal their cracks.
Whatever it is, I invite you to consider: What if this unraveling isn't the end of your story, but the beginning? What if what feels like loss is actually clearing ground for something essential to emerge?
There's wisdom in this discomfort, in the not-knowing. When certainty is stripped away, we finally have to trust something deeper—that inner compass that has always known the way but is often drowned out by the noise of shoulds and supposed-tos. This is where authentic movement begins.
I can't tell you what waits on the other side of your particular crossing. But I know this: You already possess everything you need to take the next step. And the one after that. This is how we've always moved forward—not because we can see the entire path but because something in us knows it's time to move.
And perhaps this is the gift in the crumbling: when the old ways become impossible, we are finally free to discover what's been waiting on the other side all along.
If this speaks to you, I’d love to hear what’s stirring in you. What are you noticing? What’s shifting?
Feel free to share this with someone who might need it. And if you feel inclined, leave a comment or a like—does my heart good, and helps others find this essay.