Starting Over: Embracing Resilience and Connection in Adversity

Sometimes, starting over feels like a punishment.

Like life knocked you over, took everything you'd built, and left you standing in the wreckage with nothing but questions.

Other times, starting over feels like a quiet surrender. Not because you gave up—but because you finally let go of the version of life that no longer fit, and chose something else. Even if that "something else" was completely unknown.

I've started over more than once.

Not by choice.

Not with a roadmap.

Not with certainty or safety.

When my mother died, my entire foundation crumbled.

When we moved countries unexpectedly—my father's sudden remarriage turning a vacation into exile—I lost everything I knew.

 And when I ended up institutionalised, misdiagnosed, and medicated…

I thought I'd never find myself again.

But somewhere beneath the fear and the noise, there was this quiet voice in me—my mother's voice, really—telling me to hold on.

Telling me I was more than what had happened to me.

That voice didn't always shout.

Sometimes, it was barely whispered.

But it stayed.

And it got me through.

Starting over isn't a clean slate.

It's messy. It's layered. It comes with grief for the life you thought you'd have—and sometimes shame, too, for the person you were forced to become to survive.

But here's the thing: starting over is not a weakness.

It's one of the bravest things a human being can do.

To rebuild yourself—after loss, after trauma, after disappointment—is sacred work.

 You're not just surviving anymore. You're choosing to live again.

And you don't have to do it alone.

When I began to rebuild, I found fragments of myself in connection with kind strangers, in creativity, in nature, and my daughter's laughter. I didn't become "whole" overnight. But I stopped feeling like I was broken beyond repair.

If you're starting over right now—whether it's after a move, a heartbreak, a diagnosis, a profound personal shift—know this:

✨ You are not behind.

 ✨ You are not failing.

 ✨ You are doing something deeply courageous.

You are becoming again.

 And that is beautiful.

Let's begin again—together.