Righting What Seems So Wrong – Elevating Your Life to Love

Something shifted in me the day I stopped trying to be healed and started learning to be whole.

And sometimes, it is more than complex. It is devastating.

There are moments in life when our world seems to splinter into a million unrecognizable pieces. A cherished relationship ends, a professional endeavor crumbles, or a health diagnosis lands with a thud in the center of our lives. It can feel like a cosmic pile-up, where everything that once defined us and held our lives in a familiar shape is suddenly gone. The ground beneath our feet vanishes. A common first reaction is a profound sense of wrongness. This shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t the plan. It can feel like a betrayal by life itself. We can become lost in a fog of grief and disbelief, our bodies tight knots of anxiety. In such times, every morning brings a blissful second of forgetting, followed by the heavy cloak of reality descending again. The word 'wrong' echoes in every cell.

Perhaps you know this feeling. The shock of a loss that leaves you breathless. The sting of a betrayal that rewrites your past. The terror of an illness that threatens your future. The slow, grinding erosion of a dream. These are the moments that bring us to our knees. And in that space of utter surrender, a question begins to whisper: What if this isn’t wrong?

What if this, too, is somehow… for me?

The Brain’s Story of Wrongness

It’s a radical thought. And our brains, bless them, are not immediately on board. Our nervous system is exquisitely designed for survival. When things go “wrong”—when our established patterns are disrupted—the brain’s ancient alarm system, the amygdala, fires up. It floods our system with stress hormones, preparing us to fight, flee, or freeze. This is a brilliant, life-saving mechanism.

But it’s not the whole story. We are not just reactive creatures; we are meaning-making creatures. Our prefrontal cortex, the more recently evolved part of our brain, has a deep need to create coherent narratives, to make sense of our experiences. When crisis hits, these two parts of the brain are often in conflict. The amygdala is screaming “DANGER! WRONG!” while the prefrontal cortex is scrambling to fit this new, unwelcome data into our life’s story. It can’t compute.

This is where we get stuck. We loop in the story of wrongness. We replay the event, the diagnosis, the conversation, reinforcing the neural pathways of trauma, anger, and victimhood. It’s not a moral failing; it’s a biological process. The brain is simply trying to protect us by making the “wrong” thing the most important, most memorable thing. But living there, in that state of high alert and narrative collapse, is exhausting. It keeps us small, brittle, and disconnected from the flow of life.

The work of transformation is not to pretend the pain isn’t real. The work is to gently, compassionately, create a new story. To introduce a new possibility to the meaning-making part of our brain. This is the essence of neuroplasticity—the brain’s incredible capacity to change, to unwire old patterns and create new ones. We can consciously build a new neural pathway, one that leads from devastation to… something else. We can create a path that leads to understanding, to compassion, and even to a strange and unexpected kind of grace. This is not about positive thinking, but about deep, embodied presence. It is about creating a state of being where the nervous system can down-regulate, where the thinking mind can quiet, and where a deeper wisdom can emerge.

The Wisdom of the Way

Ancient wisdom traditions have always understood this dance of opposites. The Tao te Ching, a text that has been a lifelong companion for me, speaks of this with such beautiful simplicity. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it offers a wider perspective. A famous Taoist story illustrates this perfectly:

An old farmer’s horse runs away. His neighbors come to console him. “Such bad luck,” they say. The farmer replies, “Maybe.”

The next day, the horse returns, bringing with it seven wild horses. “Such good luck!” the neighbors exclaim. “Maybe,” says the farmer.

The following day, his son tries to tame one of the wild horses, is thrown, and breaks his leg. The neighbors arrive again. “Oh, what terrible luck.” The farmer just says, “Maybe.”

A week later, military officials come to the village to draft all able-bodied young men into the army. They see the son’s broken leg and pass him by. The neighbors, their own sons now gone, congratulate the farmer on his good fortune. “Maybe,” he replies.

This isn’t a story of detachment or passivity. It’s a story about the wisdom of not knowing. It’s an invitation to release our tight grip on what we label “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong.” Life is a vast, interconnected flow. An event that seems like a catastrophe from one angle can, from a wider perspective, be the very thing that saves us. The broken leg is a tragedy… until it becomes a blessing. The end of a relationship can be a heartbreak… until it creates the space for a deeper, more honest relationship with oneself.

What if the thing that feels so wrong is simply a doorway? A painful, terrifying, unwelcome doorway, to be sure. But a doorway nonetheless. A doorway into a new way of being, a new understanding, a new depth of love for yourself and for this wild, unpredictable life. It is an invitation to step out of the small story of what you think should be happening, and into the vast, mysterious, and ultimately loving story of what is. It is an invitation to trust that even in the darkest of nights, the dawn is coming.

Listening to the Body’s Invitation

When everything feels so wrong, our bodies are often screaming at us. The knot of anxiety in the stomach, the tightness in the chest, the exhaustion in the bones—it is all a form of communication. For so long, many of us have treated our bodies like an inconvenience, a vehicle to carry our brains around. But in our brokenness, we have no choice but to finally listen.

Your body holds the story long after your mind has tried to move on. It remembers. That feeling of wrongness isn’t just a thought; it’s a visceral, cellular experience. And so, the healing must also be visceral. It happens in the body.

Consider, simply, placing a hand on your heart and breathing. Not trying to fix anything. Not trying to calm down. Just… being with the sensations. Being with the knot. Being with the ache. This sends a new message through the nervous system, a message of presence, of companionship. I am here with you. You are not alone in this.

This is the beginning of body wisdom. It’s the understanding that your symptoms are not your enemy. The anxiety, the pain, the fatigue—they are messengers. They are inviting you to pay attention. They are inviting you to come home to yourself, to the sacred vessel of your body, and to offer it the one thing it needs most: a loving presence.

What is your body trying to tell you right now? What would happen if, just for a moment, you stopped labeling the sensations as “wrong” and simply listened with gentle curiosity? What if the ache in your heart is an invitation to feel the depths of your capacity to love? What if the weariness in your bones is an invitation to finally, truly rest? The journey inward is a journey of listening, of honoring the body as a sacred messenger. It is a journey of coming home to yourself, and finding that you are already whole.

A time of profound “wrongness” does not have to break us. It can break us open. It can be the catalyst for the deepest transformation of our lives. It can teach us that our security does not lie in external circumstances, but in our capacity to meet every moment, no matter how painful, with love. It can teach us that we are more resilient, more spacious, and more connected to the mystery of life than we ever could have imagined.

It was not wrong. It was a fierce and holy invitation.

May you find the courage to be with what is. May you trust the wisdom of your own body. And may you discover, in the heart of what seems so wrong, a love that can hold it all.

With infinite love and support on your journey, Susan