Your Success Is Yours to define—The breakthrough was My grief & the wisdom that saw Me through it all
A night ago, I found myself rock-heavy on my bed—ChatGPT in one palm and the other resting on my hip. My cats were by my feet, and I had a safe roof over my head. I trusted the people around me enough to live with them, and I was surrounded by calm nature. Still, my heart was heavy, and my mind was trying to help me sort out the feelings.
My life is not where I want it to be. I kept thinking of all the ways I had failed myself to be in the position that I’m in: healthy, building my business, clearly connected to my Sacred Source, happily in family with my cats, and citizen of a country that ensures my value. And that’s the breakthrough for today—the realization that I wasn’t valuing of the position I am in today. I was focusing my thought on all the things I had cleared, released, changed, and transformed in order to be the woman I am today and the aspects of my life (financial disability) that is recovering from that process. I was giving my energy to experiences I had already let go of and not yet achieved — imaginary things that have no place in my present. I was tending to the pain I felt from witnessing aspects of my life that were unwell for me, and I thought that was all failure for not yet meeting the goals I set out for myself.
The breakthrough after all of that is this: I came through. Out of support and care that I allowed myself to see — I can call it what it was—for real this time; not some self-inflicted torture that belittles my growth and strength all these years (self-gaslight), nor some egoic stance of hyper-importance (narcissism). It was grief. I was feeling grief and I was grieving. I thought that grief was a measure of my personal value and the quality of my wellbeing.
Months ago, a founder of an online wellness company responded to one of my private messages and invited me to be a contributor. The company was founded to support widows and help them navigate the grief journey, and my work as The True Love Specialist would have been a great addition. I knew the value of my work, and this message came the day after I was fired from a yoga studio where I experienced discrimination and workplace abuse. This offer felt like a gift from destiny—a genuine support system for the growth I hoped to gain for my work and for my own wellbeing after years of suffering and self-reclamation.
After some time and exposure to the people leading the company, I sensed that it wasn’t the right space and structure for me. It was a hard decision to make. Exercising my boundaries and standards of living included the quality of my workplace and means of income. Leaving this opportunity felt incredibly sad because I was financially vulnerable and healing from abuse. I thought to myself, When people show me how they respond to my gifts, they are telling me how they intend to treat my love. So, I stayed in integrity and bravely left the company. It was my financial circumstances or the health of my soul. My work was never to be seen in their space again. A few months later, I was facing heavier challenges and chose to reach out to as many people as I knew who might be willing to help, including this founder. Despite having left their offer, I came forward personally, a human in need. My message was left on “seen.” I thought to myself, When people show me how they respond to my challenges, they are telling me how they intend to treat my life. This showed on both the professional and personal human level, I would never receive support from this founder in the ways that honour my soul, so I turned right into my self-worth, despite the pain and challenges. I trusted that I would meet the support I need financially elsewhere — that with time, I would stand on my own again and never be in this position — especially when I validate the values of my soul.
Sometimes, we talk about grief in the context of losing someone or something. It’s a physical reality we can clearly understand: it was once there, and now it’s gone. Anyone touched by grief knows that the physical loss is only one aspect of grief. Whether we are equipped with the language and dialogue to fully comprehend it or not, we know—on deep and unknown levels—that grief is multidimensional. The feelings transcend all understanding we know, even with the science and history we’ve collected has a human race. It often feels like we’re touching on the themes of grief but to truly speak of it, to know it, one must have had a relationship with grief itself. Most times, grief is of another plane all together; meeting us on the emotional, spiritual, and mental planes — personal spaces that only we have access to. We can name these feelings as grief when we sail through life rather than distorting our senses into self-harming noise and actions.
When I recall my rejections and job losses, I feel such grief. When I recall the shame and discriminations I felt from people and places that have power over an aspect of my life, I feel such grief. When I think about all the resources I’ve lost, I feel such grief. Grief has been very close to my sense of disempowerment in life. I felt closed in by grief because I associated grief with loss of power and self-value.
Here’s the breakthrough; today, grief evolves and transforms into a something beyond what I perceived it to be. What if grief wasn’t a symbol of my disempowerment? What if grief is a friend—a gift that Source had given me in this human journey to help process inevitable loss and changes that come by simply being human? What if grief is the strength that directs the path ahead, towards the growth I foresee. What if my evolution is tied to the evolution of how I relate to my grief? How would grief say to me then?
My greatest breakthrough now, as an artist, entrepreneur, and personal development specialist is that Grief is now my best friend. Grief tells me the truth; that I am loved, that I have grown, that life is complicated and painful sometimes, that I will get through the challenges, and that I have all the power I need to invest in my own personal values and growth. Grief replaces all that I’ve lost, yes. And I know it now as the wisdom that has been set upon my head. Grief reminds me who, what, where, when, how, and why I need to nourish and invest in my life. Grief is a divine and sacred beingness present in every moment of my life, here with me now. Grief reminds me I have seen the truth in the people, places, and things around me and that it was okay to walk away, to follow my heart, to call out boundaries, and to try new things for the sake of wellbeing and soulful living. Grief says, Be intentional and that most often means be slow and soft about your recovery. Grief says, Your path to genuine recovery does not cost the inner wealth you’ve cultivated in your healing journey — true recovery will never ask you to compromise your gifts — recovery is the further empowerment of what is, so that all else that will overflow into it. Grief says, I see you, I am with you, I. know you.
Transformation is a delicate, intimate, nuanced, radical, and involuntary process. Whether we engage in it or not, we are always transforming and changing. Grief was my state loss—an idea in my life that I felt was meant to be eternal, never-ending. Leaving behind grief in the limited state I understood it to be was the block in my life and wellbeing. With this new breath I breathe about Grief, to have Grief as a close ally and truth-teller in my life, I can hear it’s most meaningful messages to me. Grief tells me how strong I am to choose my Self and capable I am to meet what’s ahead with the strength very few choose to hold with such grace and honour.
All the dread I’ve felt all these months are slowly lifting. Grief lets me rest in the recognition that I follow the rhythms of time and space, not only human needs. After I had a deep and insightful conversation with other entrepreneurs in this Airbnb I’m in now, I felt more grounded. We all assured one another that our world has changed, in ways we have yet to fully integrate into our lives and sharing our challenges and successes with one another created an air of assurance that we can make our own way through. I felt the world inside me shift as well, to see my circumstances in a new light that maybe I hadn’t seen before.
“Have you journaled and asked yourself what a breakthrough means for you? It is the millions and hundreds of thousands, but what if maybe it’s also about breaking it down so small that you can create the breakthroughs yourself, rather than leaving it all to chance?” said a guest to me when I shared my anxiety about unmet milestones.
And it brought me here, writing in my journal. And even though I had every intention to list all the goals and milestones that I thought would make a breakthrough into my financial success, instead, I wrote about my inner discovery—a golden grain of sand to build my castle with— that my true breakthrough was my choice to see the light of transformation in Grief.
This breakthrough has;
given me the opportunity to express my raw feelings, rather than hiding it within
exercised my ability to speak to people about my feelings
exercised my communication abilities
exercised my courage to make new friends
encouraged me to eat well
slowed me down to rest softly and surrender my stress to another day where I may be stronger to handle them
reassured the source of my wealth and wellbeing.
We have a choice, in all ways, to make our breakthroughs into what’s most empowering for us, especially in times when we feel loss of control. That inner strength to transform anything that isn’t making us efficient and well in our lives is a sacred one—a gift only Self can give.
Expressing your truth through journaling, sound-boarding with yourself, or even using technology platforms is a healthy way to witness the processing your system is going through when dealing with real, nuanced, and deeply valid themes in life — especially as a unique individual who knows and feels they are learning the value of their needs through life and environment. You realize that living life as the unique version of you isn’t as linear or logic-based as the pre-prescribed strategies that social systems convey and perpetuate. Let’s unfold this gently, and together.
The Voice Of Your Process
Being present and expressing your processing as you experience your path to success — how it looks and feels — and calling out what feels icky and worn to you, then choosing to honour what feels good and well, is not about being careless; it’s about being caring. Sometimes, you choose rest over work, you choose food over work, you choose self-care routines or yummy meals over work, or you choose play over work. And when you do, like so many people around the world, there’s a sense of dread and shame about this empowered choice to tend to unmet needs — not as a chase for pleasure or an escape from responsibility, but as an unconscious-made-conscious act of intuitive self-balance.
Even when the world’s narrative says: “Wait. Shrink. You don’t deserve to feel whole until you’ve earned it,” rest assured — there is way more to life than “work.” As I’ve outlined, balancing the different dimensions of our beingness — work, play, nourishment, care, and rest — are all essential aspects of your life. And when you’re experiencing imbalance in any area (or many, or all), you can be gentle with yourself and release the pressures that would have you believe otherwise, because you know your system is divinely wholistic — and should be honoured as such.
The reason behind these limiting narratives comes from unmet hurts, rooted in systems that don’t understand the healing process, the growth process, or how your unique, never-before-seen design as a soul comes alive.
As An Authentic Being
As you — the authentic, most true you — your strategy in life is for you to uncover, discover, remember, and renew as your life progresses. You might live in a state of paradox, and that can feel unbearable when you’re simply trying to live as an embodied, true self where your nervous system functions with love and efficiency.
The truth is: you can’t thrive or be magnetic when you’re depleted in any aspect of your life. Your brilliance and guidance flow when you are well-resourced, well-fed, and emotionally settled.
So, the experience you’re processing is not wrong — it’s revolutionary.
You’re reclaiming and redefining what “investment” in your life really means. Maybe for you, at this point in your life, nourishment is the investment. Maybe it’s play. It can be any of the aspects I’ve mentioned, affirming that investing in your well-being is never a loss. Everything you pour into yourself will always reveal its value in immeasurable degrees of success, especially when aligned with genuine integrity and intention.
When you are honest with yourself, your choices aren’t just about worldly success — they become acts of Love. Improbable at times, yes, but miracles nonetheless. Your self-investment is not indulgence — it’s foundational.
About Conflicting Narratives
Society says: “Prove you deserve it. Start small. Build up. Survive, then thrive.” As if your value is dependent on the world’s acknowledgment. Living by this narrative will always make you feel like your worth is conditional — that your right to the life already given to you is up for negotiation, criticism, or question.
Your body says: “I can’t create or contribute until I feel safe, fed, and emotionally held.” And that is a statement worthy of honour. That’s your body connecting to the parts of you that need to be heard and cared for, regardless of what anyone outside your internal system demands.
Your own unique design as a living, breathing being says: “Wait for the conditions that feel good to you — and also, be brave enough to learn through living, not just from books or plans.”
You, like many others, live in the tension between systemic rules and soulful truth. Scarcity conditioning will always conflict with intuitive self-care — because one makes no sense, and the other is an abundance of senses. And that is a difficult place to be in, especially when you don’t yet feel tangibly supported.
That is why building generous compassion — for yourself, and even for the systems misaligned with your wellbeing — will expand your experience of the world. It will redefine your meaning of success and strengthen your resolve in the deep, elevated wisdom of self-knowing — and thus, truth-knowing. You learn to see yourself and your world, amidst the world of others, more clearly.
Designing Your Reframe
“The way I invest my energy — money, time, actions, attention, creations — is an act of recovery. I am making micro-investments in my clarity, coherence, and capacity to be loving and alive in this reality, with well-being as my anchor. And though the systems may not validate this now, my work will flourish because I chose to love myself this way. I honour the inner system that has carried me all these years, and from there, I know I am living well.”
You may not always see the ROI today — but your conscious rebuilding and reshaping of your life, day by day, is developing something less visible and truly meaningful: trust in yourself, in your inner being, in your Sacred Source.
That trust is what you radiate. That is your wealth signal — your success beacon.
I’m truly honoured to walk alongside you in this. You are doing something powerful right now — not just learning more about yourself and validating your processes and experiences, but reclaiming your right to be nourished, silly, and restful; to live and love well.
You can continue to design your life in ways that honour your energetic truth. It is a radical act, yes — and a sacred one too. As are you.
