"What's next?"

I spent four years training to become a psychotherapist, finally reached the finish line, got married… and then inevitably found myself wondering, what next?

Then I became a mum, and somewhere between nappies, lost sleep, and the odd cup of lukewarm coffee, the same question popped up again: what next?

Have you ever faced yourself with those questions, “What next?” “Is that it?”, as if life handed you everything you thought you wanted and then quietly slipped out the back door, leaving you alone with a strange, hollow silence?

There are days when I feel an enormous emptiness inside, as if I’ve made it all the way up a mountain only to find a foggy plateau with absolutely no hint of where to go next. No horizon. No signposts. Just a wide, unsettling nothingness. You’d think the achievement would feel triumphant, or at least satisfying, but it often feels fleeting; like I’ve barely caught my breath before the sense of “now what?” slips in again. And I’m left wondering: How long are we meant to stand on these mountaintops before searching for the next climb?

It reminds me of people who have lived their whole lives with negative thoughts, criticism, judgment, self-doubt, as familiar companions. They finally receive a compliment, something they’ve yearned for their entire lives, and yet it slips through their fingers almost instantly. They shake hands with it politely, maybe even smile, and then quietly return to the old room filled with their usual negativity. It’s not because they don’t want the compliment, it’s because the negativity feels like home. It’s seductive, familiar, a long-term relationship they can’t just walk out of.

Parting with those patterns feels like grieving something precious. And isn’t that strange? To grieve what hurts us. But maybe that’s the truth of it: anything that has stayed with us long enough becomes a kind of companion, even if it’s one that quietly erodes us from the inside.

Letting go of familiar suffering is still a kind of loss. And losses, no matter how subtle, ask to be grieved.

So perhaps these “what next?” moments aren’t signs of failure or evidence that something is missing. Perhaps they’re simply small farewells, gentle endings to parts of ourselves we’ve outgrown. Moments where the ground goes quiet so we can listen for something new.

Maybe the mountain isn’t asking us to climb again.

Maybe it’s asking us to pause, just for once, and stay.