I can’t tell you the exact moment I started to lose my Self, but I can tell you when I realized it.

It was 2020.

Like so many of us, I was thrown into survival mode. In the blink of an eye, I lost my job. I was told it wasn’t safe to leave the house. I was grappling with the injustices that were staring us all in the face—all while raising two 3-year-olds who had no idea what was happening but could feel the tension in the air.

And here’s the thing: when everything around you feels uncertain, it’s easy to shut down. And that’s exactly what I did. My dreams got smaller. My hopes dimmed. My mindset shrank.

I stayed in that space for an entire year.

When I finally started to come up for air, I realized that life as I’d known it was gone. The world had changed, and I’d changed with it. The question was, Who am I now?

But reconnecting with my Self didn’t come easily. I’d spent so much time just trying to get through each day that I’d forgotten who I was. I had to work to remember.

So, I started asking myself some big questions:
When in my life have I been the happiest? What was I doing? Who was I with? How did I feel?

And the answers came slowly, but they came. I remembered what mattered most to me:

Being of service. Living with confidence. Feeling connection. Building community. Living authentically. Embracing freedom. Nurturing creativity.

Those values became my compass, and they started leading me forward.

In 2021, I took a leap of faith and enrolled in a life coach training program. I thought I was learning how to help others—and I was—but what I didn’t expect was the way it would transform me. Through coaching, I began to uncover layers of myself I hadn’t seen in years. I learned how to trust my intuition, how to take bold action, and how to center my life around who I truly am, not who the world tells me I should be.

And that’s when everything shifted.

I stopped chasing other people’s definitions of success. I let go of the expectations I thought I had to meet. I started showing up as MY version of myself—bold, unapologetic, and fully me.

Now, I won’t stand here and tell you it’s all been easy. The truth is, reclaiming your SELF means letting go of a lot. It means grieving old versions of yourself. It means facing fears, feeling discomfort, and doing the hard work of change.

But I will tell you this: it’s worth it.

Because when you begin to trust yourself, when you act in alignment with your values, when you choose to love who you are and who you’re becoming, life opens up. You stop surviving, and you start creating a life that feels deeply, authentically YOU.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, it’s this:

You already have everything you need within you to create a life that feels true, aligned, and deeply fulfilling.

So, let me ask you—what’s the best that can happen?