Stop Forcing It!

“What is meant for you will always find you, and what isn’t meant to stay will eventually fall away.”

It’s a phrase we’ve all heard before — but have you ever truly paused to reflect on how it plays out in your own life? I thought I understood it, thought I knew when to let go of something that wasn’t serving me. But if I’m honest, I have recently come to understand that’s been one of my greatest blind spots.

As I have mentioned before, a lot, (at least I am self aware) I’ve always been an optimist. I like to find the silver lining, to focus on the positives, and to make the best of every situation. But lately, I’ve realized that sometimes my optimism can work against me. In trying so hard to see only the light, I ignored the shadows — the problems that were trying to show me the truth.

The truth is, not everything in life is meant to be fixed. Some things fall apart to reveal they were never meant to stick together. And when we keep forcing what isn’t meant for us, life has a way of pushing back harder and harder until we finally listen.

Looking back, I see so many moments where I clung to potential instead of reality, and the longer you believe in potential alone, the easier it is for an illusion to turn into a delusion.

I remember a past relationship that was all extremes: blinding highs, crushing lows, never much middle ground. As time went on, it became increasingly difficult to block out those shattering lows, with the highs. And when the lows grew too heavy, I dug into my storage of optimism and love, convincing myself that things would get better if I just held on tighter, if I just put in more effort but the longer this went on, and while I ignored it as best I could, I was running out of my storage. 

But what I was really holding onto wasn’t the relationship itself — it was my idea of what it could be. My white-knuckle grip on it only wore me down until, eventually, I realized there was nothing left to hold.

I wasn’t in love with the reality. I was in love with the illusion. And illusions, no matter how shiny, cannot sustain you.

When your energy is drained, when your light starts to dim, when your soul feels heavier instead of freer — that’s not love, that’s not alignment. That’s forcing. And forcing is the universe’s way of begging you to let go.

This goes for everything; jobs, friends, cities, homes, relationships: there are no empty spaces in life. When you finally release what’s not right for you, you create space for what is.

As Brianna Wiest writes in The Mountain Is You, when something is wrong for us, we grip it tightly, afraid to lose sight of it. But when something is right, we feel no need to cling. What’s meant for us makes us calm. What isn’t meant for us will never give us peace.

The lesson is simple: what belongs in your life won’t require constant struggle, confusion, or obsession. It will feel like clarity, serenity, and confirmation.

So stop forcing it. Let go of what’s breaking you down — and trust that what’s right for you will never pass you by.