I Asked Myself One Question Every Day When Life Hit Me the Hardest
Maybe you are asking yourself the same thing.
“When you understand what shaped you, you can choose what shapes you next."
Cora H.
“Go find yourself.”
Has anyone told you that in a way that didn’t make you run?
You probably don’t understand what this kind of retreat is asking of you.
Especially one that promises to help you understand a moment of your life that changed everything for you.
It sounds like a dream come true.
But your mind makes you believe something different when you think about saying yes.
The stress you are under comes up with excuses.
You say journaling and meditating are enough.
Traveling too far from your kids is too much.
One thing it takes most people time to realize is this:
You have to step away from the environment you are in long enough to see and feel the difference when you reenter it.
So people change the scenery to change the pattern.
They fly somewhere peaceful.
Turn off their phones.
Feel liberated.
When they return home and make decisions from a new understanding of their emotions and old beliefs, one choice after another, their life becomes the life they desire.
No longer dictated by THAT day that changed their life forever.
Temporary relief quiets the noise.
But it will never tell you why the noise was there.
How Did You Lose Yourself?
What will you eat today?
Crazy question, but can you confidently answer it without telling someone else to make the decision for you?
Because every time you choose what others want when you do not want it, that feeling compounds.
Then it extends into other parts of your life.
Yes, it’s a small moment you overlook.
And that’s the point.
Then life gives you that one BIG moment.
The day that changes your life.
You react to it the same way you did when asking others to pick what you should eat, instead of deciding what you want.
Staying in a dead-end career.
Living motherhood the way your mother did.
Not pursuing a relationship you really want.
Neglecting your health for whatever reason.
Maintaining a plan for how your life was supposed to unfold.
Then IT happened.
An ending that you had no control over.
A moment that divided life into before and after.
The details are different for each person.
But the question underneath them is often the same:
Who am I now?
You know something within you changed.
You may feel disconnected, reactive, uncertain, or unable to make decisions that feel like your own.
But you do not fully understand why.
That is what being lost often feels like.
It isn’t the complete absence of identity.
It is the absence of awareness about what has been shaping your life.
You are moving from a place in life where you feel lost and into a state of mind where you feel grounded.
Grounded enough to make a choice that you feel confident about and that doesn’t make you feel hesitant or anxious.
Understanding the Message of Your Emotions
The language of emotions makes them seem like something to fear.
So what if you are angry?
Create.
If you are grieving?
Create.
Even resentful?
Create.
Tell me any emotion you are feeling.
My first response is:
Sit with it and create something.
Anything.
You feel:
Disappointment.
Shame.
Guilt.
Create.
You can try all you want to fix it, suppress it, explain it away, or judge yourself for feeling it.
But an emotion you refuse to witness does not go away.
It has already influenced how you interpret what is happening around you and how you are reading this.
Don’t make the emotion go away.
Be honest enough to name it.
What am I actually feeling?
What is this emotion responding to?
What has it been trying to show me?
A lost person is often living from an emotion they have not yet learned to recognize.
A grounded person feels the emotion without automatically allowing it to direct the next decision.
The Story Your Emotions Created For Your Life
Your emotions came into your life with a team.
They carried meaning only you understand.
You feel disappointed, and maybe the meaning becomes:
I failed.
You feel afraid, and maybe the meaning becomes:
I cannot trust myself.
You feel overlooked, and maybe the meaning becomes:
What I need does not matter.
You’ve never spoken the belief out loud.
It simply feels true because you assume you are not emotionally mature, lack emotional intelligence, or cannot regulate or manage your emotions.
That language has caused you to focus on controlling the emotion instead of feeling the belief it created.
At some point after your life changed, your emotions took over.
You began living as if you were still in that moment, always pulled back to it.
You have to understand how to separate what happened from what you decided it meant about you.
The moment happened.
The diagnosis happened.
The relationship ended.
THAT day… happened.
But the belief you formed afterward is NOT the final truth about who you are.
Grounding happens when you can see the belief clearly enough to question whether it still belongs in the life you are creating.
Automatic Reaction to a Grounded Choice
Your belief asked something of your behavior.
If you believe you failed, you overcompensate.
If you believe you cannot trust yourself, you wait for permission.
If you believe your needs do not matter, you continue choosing everyone else.
The choice looks like you care deeply for others while sacrificing yourself.
But underneath it is an emotion and a belief that have already decided what feels possible.
This is why changing your mindset, journaling, and constantly telling yourself you can do it alone are not enough.
You can feel peaceful at your community park and still return home believing the same thing about yourself.
The shift is choosing what happens next with awareness.
Not:
What would the old me do?
But:
What choice reflects WHO I want to be?
A grounded person does not have every answer.
You know what you are feeling.
You understand the belief beneath it.
And you make a sound choice without allowing an unexamined story to make it for you.
Who Am I Now?
I created Beyond THAT Day in a hospital room while my daughter was going through chemotherapy.
At the time, I kept asking myself:
How will our lives look after this journey?
There were spaces created to support her.
But there were not many spaces to help me understand what the experience was changing within me.
My story began in a hospital room.
Yours may have begun somewhere entirely different.
But Beyond THAT Day was created for the version of you standing on the other side of a life-changing experience, asking:
Who am I now?
Over three days, we will work through the movement from lost to grounded:
Naming the emotion you have been living from.
Identifying the felt belief shaping how you see yourself.
Making one conscious choice about what comes next.
This is not an escape disguised as transformation.
It is not a promise that three peaceful days will erase what happened.
It is a space to become aware of how the experience shaped you, what you carried forward from it, and what you are ready to choose now.
You will leave with a renewed understanding of yourself, one clear next step, and six months of accountability as you begin putting that choice into practice.
Do not reserve a room because:
You need a break
The photographs look peaceful.
You want to disappear from your responsibilities for a weekend.
Reserve your room only if you are ready to understand why you have been feeling, believing, reacting, and choosing the way you have.
There are currently nine private rooms remaining.
You do not need another place to hide from the questions you have about THAT day.
You need a place safe enough for shame, guilt, and fear to enter without dimming your voice.
They will be powerless to answer the question for you.
Because this question asks you to stand tall, look over the horizon, and answer with full confidence:
Who am I now?
Click the link below if you felt it.
P.S. I look forward to sharing some of my local favorites with those who join me.
With you,
,