There are moments in life when you can’t control the outcome. These moments can reorganize us.
Not because you chose them or because you were ready.
But because something happens that you can’t fix.
In this week’s conversation, a man named Tom joined the call just minutes after receiving news that his cancer had become more aggressive.
And what struck me wasn’t just the news itself, but what Tom was holding.
The effort.
The belief that healing is possible.
The desire to keep living, contributing, becoming.
And right alongside that, the fear.
The anger.
The helplessness.
The grief.
Not just of dying, but of not getting to become who he thought he still had time to be.
The Part We Don’t Talk About
We live in a culture that quietly tells us that if we do enough inner work, process our trauma, think positively, take care of our body, we can shape our outcomes.
And sometimes that’s true.
But not always.
And when it’s not, we don’t always know what to do with that.
So we turn it inward.
We wonder:
- What did I miss?
- What did I do wrong?
- Why isn’t this working?
We turn hurt into self-blame.
And that’s where things can become very painful.
You Are Not That Powerful, Nor That Broken
This is something I care deeply about naming clearly:
You can do everything “right”, and still not get the outcome you want.
Not because you failed, or weren’t conscious enough.
Not because you didn’t heal deeply enough.
But because you’re human.
Being human includes things we cannot control, like illness, loss, aging, and death.
And so much in between.
When you can’t control the outcome, often larger forces are at play.
The Real Work
When we can not simply control all the aspects of our lives, something else is asked of us.
Not fixing.
Not solving.
Not transcending.
But relating.
Can I be with my anger without shutting it down?
Can I let my grief exist without trying to rush it away?
Can I stay with myself when I don’t know how this is going to go?
That’s the work.
And it’s not neat.
It doesn’t look like enlightenment.
It looks like sitting in the mess of it all while not leaving yourself there alone.
The Grief Beneath the Grief
What Tom was touching into, and what I see so often, is that we’re not just grieving what’s happening.
We’re also grieving what won’t happen.
The life we thought we’d have, the version of ourselves we thought we’d become, the time we thought we still had.
That grief matters.
And it deserves space.
If You’re in a Moment Like This
When you can’t control the outcome and you’re facing something that won’t bend to your effort, I want to offer you this:
You don’t have to make it okay.
You don’t have to understand it.
You don’t have to grow from it.
But you can stay with yourself in whatever is present.
That, more than anything, is what begins to soften the experience.
When You Can’t Control the Outcome
There are things in this life you can change, and there are things you can’t.
Your peace won’t come from mastering that line, but from how you meet yourself on both sides of it.
