As cliche as it sounds, the saying “The only thing constant in life is change” is a truth that everyone has learned to live with. When people talk about change, it’s either the good or the bad, but never the in-between, the transition, or getting from point A to point B. It’s something so awkward, uneasy, unsure, and very uncomfortable—but that’s what Zara Carbonell’s book Lost You, Found Me details.
In the book, she writes about the highs and lows of her life, and how it all seems to make sense in the long run. She reflects on her life–her relationships, pageant and pageant training, and experiences in start-up companies, to name a few–to find her life’s purpose and to reach full self-awareness.
“Self-awareness is but the beginning of a lifelong journey,” she writes. “A journey of learning and unlearning who we are and who we thought we wanted to be. A journey of growing up into someone we hope to be proud of, outgrowing the parts of us that only hold us back from our truth. A life-long journey of unearthing truths we had forced to shun for way too long within our soul, a life-long journey of revelations.”
When looking back at the changes that have happened in your life, transformation after change is beautiful. Change itself is beautiful, but who wants to subject their life to unearthing truths, and learning and unlearning when it means having to do it again and again?
There are moments in life when you realize that you have to change, but then further notice that you don’t know exactly what needs to be changed. Or when you are aware of what needs to be changed, sometimes you’re not entirely sure of where to start. To this, Zara Carbonell talks of frustration of uncertainty. “Have you ever had those moments where nothing is wrong but nothing feels right either? It felt like the universe was sending some message that something had to change, but I had no idea what it was. Something just felt off.”
It requires constant reflection, the need to ask, “What is it that I really want?” just to get to the answer. And when the answer finally reveals itself to you, you may be uncomfortable with having to move forward with your new plan—seeing as you'll never be certain of what’s to come. Will pushing through with it bring me closer or farther to the change I desire? You’re not sure until you actually do it.
“I was ready to move forward. It was scary and uncertain, but it was necessary.”
The more changes happen in your life, the closer you’ll reach self-sovereignty. In the book, it is described as this “state of knowing yourself to the depths of your soul, enough to recognize its sound and the echoes of the voices all around you.” It’s choosing to listen to yourself because you have reached the highest level of self-awareness—but all this comes with a price.
“It came with a lot of loneliness, especially as I was peeling off layers and layers of myself to take control. It came with starting from scratch. It came with losing people over and over again—myself included. It came with asking the tough questions I used to unconsciously run away from—questions on the quality of my relationships and my contributions to them, questions on unresolved trauma, questions about where my life was going, and what I was going to do to steer it.”
You have to be okay with the idea of starting from scratch, building yourself up, and then redoing the process and starting from scratch once again no matter how many times it will happen. It’s having to face all of the hard and tricky questions and situations even if the silver lining seems to be too far out of sight.
But the thing is, no one will ever be comfortable with the idea of change—and that’s okay. Lost You, Found Me tells us that we just have to be ready for whatever life throws at us. Life itself is uncomfortable. You have to deal with all of these high and low moments because it will lead you where you need to be even if you’re not so sure about where that actually is or how to even get there.
“I don’t know what and who I’ll be tomorrow, but this much I know for certain,” Carbonell writes at the latter part of her book. “Whatever life turns me into, I’ll be brave enough to let it happen. To all I was and all I had to lose, thank you for paving the way for me to be who I ought to be.”
By: Alliya Garcia