The Secret to Knowing the Right Time to Change Your Life

Everyone says there’s no such thing as perfect timing. Yes, and no. There’s a secret to knowing when it’s the right time to make that leap and change your life.

The secret is: the right time is always...the wrong time.

The bigger the leap, the more we drag our feet because X, Y and Z aren’t perfectly lined in a row yet. I’ve been there. Almost all of the biggest moments of my life happened at the “wrong time.”

Take getting pregnant with my daughter, Lea Luna. When I posted the photo below, I wrote this:

“Everything I've ever been through has brought me here because this is where I need to be. Every bump in the road, every chance relationship, every confusing moment. It's been so purposeful. So perfect. All of it.

I have no regrets. No complaints. Thank you, life. For absolutely everything.”

June 22, 2017.

It was the day we found out I was pregnant; Lea Luna was just a tiny poppy seed forming inside of me. We'd had a very special afternoon on the beach a couple weeks earlier, and driving home that same evening, Dennis turned to me and said, "I think we just got pregnant." I thought he was insane. It just wasn't possible! Two weeks later I woke up in the middle of the night, my boobs aching. Was it...possible?

The next day we bought a pregnancy test. Dennis was excited. I was terrified. The test came out with the faintest blue line you've ever seen. Three more tests showed one positive, one negative and one inconclusive. We decided to go to the clinic for a blood test so we could know for sure. It came back positive — positive! We were pregnant!

The timing was all wrong; we’d just started construction of our brick and mortar studio and were in the middle of getting Island Yoga off the ground, we didn't have any money, and it wasn't what we’d planned. This was not how it was supposed to happen.

But somehow, we just couldn't stop smiling. Pregnant. A little poppy seed. A baby.

We went for a walk and came across that tree in the photo above. I leaned against it and put my hands on my belly for the first time since we got the news. I was equally scared and excited.

What if I'm not ready? What if I haven’t healed myself enough and my pain gets passed along to the baby? What if we can’t give the baby everything they need? What if I mess it all up?

I turned my face to the sun. Even though we'd only just found out and I was just barely pregnant, I swear I felt something beneath my fingertips — a presence; a warmth; the whisper of flutters to come.

Gazing at the ocean, my hands on my belly, I breathed deeper and let the moment just be. Suddenly, I knew — it's a girl. It's a girl, the timing is right, and nothing has ever been more meant to be than this. It's a girl. It's a girl... And she is going to change the course of the whole universe.

As the flutters from my belly reached my hands, my what if’s started to fade. I’d just returned from a week of the most life-changing healing I’ve ever experienced, my husband and I loved each other deeply, we had a home, and we had each other. And, most importantly...

The timing was right because it’s what was happening.

Even though our plan was different, we’d been laying the foundation all along. I knew we were ready because the universe knew — this little poppy seed knew.

There may not be such thing as perfect timing, but I believe there is such thing as divine timing.

This photo was taken at exactly the same spot, exactly 10 months later.

Ten months after we first got the news, we went for a walk and found ourselves back at that same tree. But this time, we were pushing a stroller. I whispered to her, “Look, Little Moon. You've been here before.” In her sleep she turned toward me, stretched out her arm and smiled.

I think she's been here all along. She was just waiting for the perfect moment to join me as this beautiful little girl.

Every day with my little moonbeam is magical. I didn’t know it before she came, but I see it now — I spent my whole life waiting for her. Until she arrived, I was exploring and fucking up, healing and learning, and always, always finding my way back to love.

I thought I was putting in the work for myself, and I was, but that was preparing me for the most important adventure of all. It was all teaching me what I needed to know so I could show up for my daughter exactly as she needs me to.

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” - Buddhist proverb

My teacher appeared, right on time.

Watching her discover this world is the most magical thing I’ve ever seen, and I get a front-row seat. Everywhere we go, she points out things she finds beautiful.

“Look — the sun!”

“Look — a tree!”

“Look — a rock!”

Some sand! A bird! A car!

To her, everything is enveloped in a layer of magic. Or, maybe she is the magic and it just extends out to everything she lays her eyes on. With her, life IS magical. Everything is more colorful, more vibrant. I’m more emotional around her, too; I’m tapped into that place in my heart where everything makes sense most of the time.⁣ ⁣ Sometimes, I feel like the entire point of life is getting back to that place of childlike wonder — where it’s safe to feel our feelings, we know that we belong, we don’t worry about much, and everything is beautiful. ⁣

This is kind of like the place I was in when I returned home, renewed and the lightest I been my entire adult life, if not my entire life. I felt like I was one big beam of love, and just like that, she arrived.

I wish I could see the world through her eyes more often. But then again... Maybe I am. Maybe that’s what we do as mothers.⁣

We birth, and we are born again.

This isn’t just for mothers — any leap of creativity, passion, or faith changes us. It remakes us.

The perfect timing to make that leap? It’s when you’re using every breath to live life in love. Be so enthralled in your own magic that the universe just has to give you even more.

And when it does, don’t let the fear stop you. Remember, you were building the foundation all along. Trust. You. Are. Ready.

Tell me a story about your own divine timing! Looking back now, can you see how it was the perfect timing and the perfect teacher, all along?

X,

Rachel