What It Takes to Rise up, Come Back, and Reorient to Your Life

Today’s episode is all about the comeback and how to reorient your own life, work, and relationships in the aftermath of challenging chapters and big life transitions. This is the work that comes up in stage four of the Journey Mapping process we discussed in episode one, and I felt it was worth taking a deeper dive into this part of the process as well as sharing what this looked like for me. Spoiler alert - it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but there was something pretty magical about coming out the other side.

What to Listen For:

What we have to face as we make the choice to rise up and come back
Beginning to form a new sense of self
The three components of this work - Reorienting, Renegotiating, and Releasing

“This process can be downright maddening at times, but once you understand which of these approaches to take for each area of your life, you can begin navigating your healing and growth with far more ease. Whatever it is that you're walking through. You're now struggling to relate to all the people and things that used to be foundational pillars for you. Depending on what you've been through, in which stage you're at in the journey mapping process, you may not be a hundred percent ready for this part of the work, and that's okay.”

My own personal story of trauma and how it rocked me to my core
PTSD so severe that it ate away at my brain leaving me unable to function
The failure of my business, the steady and dramatic decline in my income, ending up in a toxic and abusive relationship, and a wide range of health ailments

“A lot happened in the aftermath of my loss and it absolutely flattened me. It changed so much about who I was as a person, how I showed up in my work and relationships, and how I engaged with the world around me. Then I started feeling like I was bumping up against walls where there used to be doors.”

“I kept trying to be the person I was before loss and trauma stole me from myself, but I couldn't, I wasn't capable of being that person or behaving in those ways anymore.”

How I reclaimed what loss and trauma stole from my brain
Stretching my capacity
Discerning where to dig in and do the work
Understanding that it’s not about going back but about choosing not to give up

“all of this required discernment around when it was time to turn and walk in a new direction to ask for help, learn a new way of being renegotiate or let something go. And this is the challenging work that we do during the return. Now this work becomes a million times easier to navigate when you're clear on what you're returning to, what it is that you want to create and who you're becoming in the aftermath, what comes next for you?”

If these processes feel hard or impossible, you might just be lacking clarity - but it will come in its right time
Learning a new way of being
Tuning in to the most subtle of feelings in your body and trusting them as a starting point

“Reorienting, renegotiating, and releasing all require you to tune into your felt senses because you need to tune into your intuition and inner knowing.”

Trauma of all kinds can often cause us to dissociate from our bodies
Eyes up, eyes open - a mantra that I’ve learned to repeat in difficult situations
Learning to begin reconnecting with your body - and why it’s important
Reorienting - shifting how we relate to aspects of ourselves, our lives, our work, and our relationships

“Reorienting is about finding our bearings and how we relate to the things around us. It starts with noticing where you're bumping up against those walls, where there used to be doors. You might be trying to show up in a long-term relationship based on what you knew your role to be and the way you knew yourself to relate to that particular person before, but now it's uncomfortable and hard. You can't seem to have the same conversations. Everything feels clunky and mistimed.