That Familiar Feeling: The Pause Before the Leap

There’s a particular kind of discomfort that doesn’t whisper, it arrives fast, loud, and unrelenting. It lands in your body before your mind can name it. A quickening. A pressure. An ache. At first, you try to dismiss it, maybe it’s just stress, or growing pains, or the weight of a busy season. But deep down, you know.

Something is shifting. And this time, it’s not asking for permission. That’s where I am right now.

This past week, a very sudden layer of uncomfortableness arrived in my life. The kind that’s impossible to ignore. The kind that makes it clear, well beyond my ability to rationalize or silence it, that something in my current reality is no longer aligned.

I’ve felt this feeling before. And it scares me just as much now as it did the first time. It always does. Because this isn’t about changing a routine or updating a goal. This is the deep kind of knowing, the one that precedes a leap. It’s not gentle. It’s not convenient. And it sure as hell isn’t easy. But it is honest.

There’s this space I always find myself in before everything changes. I’ve come to know it intimately. I call it the pause before the leap.

It’s the quiet storm before the breakthrough. The stretch of time when you know what needs to change… but you haven’t quite made the move. You’re still standing at the edge, breathing through the fear, trying to summon the courage to let go of what’s safe, even when that safety is already starting to suffocate you.

The pause is uncomfortable.
The pause is sacred.
The pause is necessary.

And yet, no matter how many times I’ve faced it, I still feel the same questions rise up:
What if I’m making a mistake? What if it’s too soon? What if I’m not ready?

But also, just beneath those fears, there’s another voice that always makes itself known:
What if staying is the greater risk? What if the discomfort is the clarity? What if this is the exact invitation you’ve been waiting for?

I know now that fear doesn’t mean stop.
It means pay attention.
It means you’re getting closer to the truth.

And every time I’ve chosen to walk through it, shaky, scared, unsure, something magical has met me on the other side. Not comfort. Not certainty. But freedom and alignment. A deeper version of myself I never would’ve reached if I’d stayed put.

I’m not leaping just yet. I’m still in the pause. Still letting the weight of this moment settle. Still breathing through the ache of letting go. But I know it’s coming. I can feel it.

The path is rising to meet me, even if I can’t see the whole thing yet.

So if you’re there too, suspended in the space between what was and what will be, I want to say this:

You’re not alone.
The pause is powerful.
The fear is real.
And you are strong enough to move through both.

With trembling hands, a knowing heart, and more trust than fear,
Kelley