When your life falls apart, buy yourself the flowers
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For the woman who is ready to stop neglecting herself and start taking 100% responsibility for every area of her life.
Something significant happens in the gap between setting an intention and actually living it. It's rarely a straight line. More often than not, things get messy first. And if you've found yourself in that messy middle right now, wondering if you made a mistake or if something has gone terribly wrong, I want to offer you a reframe that changed everything for me.
The Falling Apart Is Part of the Plan
When you decide to want something different: the wanting itself starts a process. And that process almost always includes a season where things fall apart. Relationships that no longer fit. Circumstances that crumble. Situations you outgrow overnight.
When I first started experiencing this, it felt devastating. But I learned that every single time I broke through to the next level, it was always preceded by a falling apart season. The old life has to make room for the new one.
If something is falling apart in your life right now, the question isn't what went wrong. The question is: what is finally going right?
Your Identity Is Upgrading — And That Feels Like Loss
So much of what holds our lives in place is a version of ourselves we've outgrown. A version that was abandoning herself, people pleasing, propping up everyone else's comfort at the expense of her own. Self abandonment masquerading as being a “good girl.”
When you start saying yes to your desires, that old identity starts to shake loose. And with it, everything that was built on top of it. People might even be angry with you — because you're no longer playing the role in their life that required your self-betrayal.
That is not a sign you did something wrong. If aspects of your life fall apart as a result of you coming home to yourself, then it needed to fall apart. It wasn’t based on truth.
One Thing a Day, No Matter What
I want to speak directly to the part of you that believes your business can't grow when times are hard. That you need circumstances to look a certain way before you can show up. I've heard it. I've even felt it. And I want to gently challenge it.
My business grew from a place of overcoming crazy chaos again and again. This is because I committed to do one thing every day for myself and my business, no matter what I was going through. That practice is how I get my power back. It is how I stay in my own corner when life feels like it’s falling apart.
Viktor Frankl survived a Nazi concentration camp by holding onto the one thing that could not be taken from him — his mind. No one can touch the power of your mind. And that means no one can take away your ability to do one thing today.
Put on the Nice Dress Anyway
Here is my most practical piece of advice for surviving a falling apart season: treat yourself as if you are already safe. Get up. Put on the nice dress — the nice one. Do your hair. Eat a beautiful breakfast. Buy yourself the flowers.
This isn't about performance. It's about something deeper. There is a little girl inside of you right now who is scanning her environment, wondering if she's safe. And when you care for yourself well — regardless of how your circumstances look — you show her that her safety was never dependent on things going smoothly.
You are teaching your nervous system that you can move through hard things and feel tough emotions - and still be safe.
The Obstacle Is the Way
There's a book called The Obstacle Is the Way — and the title says it all. The thing we think is blocking us is often the very thing that's directing us. The forced move. The collapsed plan. The unexpected upheaval.
Adulthood, I once heard, is learning to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other. Have your pity party. Rant, complain, feel all of it. Then ask yourself: how could this actually be the best thing that ever happened? How does this pave the way for what I actually want?
You don't need your circumstances to change before you're allowed to feel the way you want to feel. That's the real intention — and no crisis, no upheaval can take that from you.
Does this post resonate with you?
If this felt like it was written for you, it probably was. Say Yes to Desire is my group coaching program for women who are done waiting for their circumstances to change before they start living the life and growing the businesses they actually want.
