Between Survival and Alignment

There’s a common idea that once you leave what hurt you, clarity arrives like light through an open door.

That wasn’t my experience.

The shift came in stages.
Messy.
Nonlinear.
Quiet at times—then loud again.

After leaving, nothing healed overnight. But something essential did open: room.

I didn’t fill that room with reinvention. I tried to stabilize.

And sometimes I did.

Sometimes I didn’t.

There were seasons where solitude helped.
And seasons where loneliness pulled me into the wrong rooms, the wrong conversations, the wrong relationships—not abusive anymore, but misaligned.

I was creating.
I was searching.
But I wasn’t fully anchored.

Healing wasn’t a straight line forward.

It was learning what didn’t fit, again and again, until my body stopped cooperating with the compromise.

My first major shift arrived through COVID.

Before that, my life looked beautiful from the outside.

I had found the most peaceful studio—ocean-facing, framed by beach and hills.
I had a great job.
I had stability.

And still, I was in a cage.

Not one built by circumstance alone.
One built by reaction.

That life had been created one decision at a time
in response to what felt necessary, safe, expected.

It worked.

But it wasn’t chosen from freedom.

When COVID hit, that structure collapsed.

The routines disappeared.
Certainty dissolved.
The future stopped feeling predictable.

At first, it threw me deeper into survival mode.

I adapted.
I pushed.
I figured it out.

I made my first career shift—real estate.

It started as necessity.
But it tested me in a way I didn’t anticipate.

I realized I could be successful in a different world.

I could do hard things.
I was good at what I did.

From the outside, it looked like momentum.
Inside, it began to feel familiar in the wrong way.

Hustle.
Grind.
Worth tied to output.
Safety tied to productivity.

I worked day and night and told myself I was building a future.

But slowly, I could feel it.

I was operating from survival again.
Not abundance.

My health and fitness slipped into the background.
My nervous system stayed activated.
My life began to narrow around performance.

And then Jordan died.

Suddenly.
From cancer.

My soul dog.

And my whole world fell apart again.

Not dramatically.

Completely.

That loss stopped me in a way ambition never could.

In the quiet that followed, I saw my life with a kind of clarity that didn’t feel inspiring. It felt honest.

I saw how many days I had spent working.
How often I told myself there would be time later.
How much love I had been surrounded by—yet how often I was elsewhere.

I regretted it.

Not with shame.

With recognition.

I had been living as if life were something to get through,
not something to inhabit.

That grief woke me up.

I saw that even my discipline—
even my ambition—
was still rooted in fear.

And I knew something had to change again.

Not a mindset shift.

A life shift.

So I left the state I grew up in.

Suddenly.
Instinctually.
Without overthinking it.

It wasn’t strategic.

It was bodily.

And it turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made.

Everything softened where I landed.

My nervous system slowed.
My energy stabilized.
My sense of self returned.

Alignment followed—not because I chased it,
but because I finally stopped running.

I began paying attention to energy again.
Not as a concept, but as something lived.

I dug deeper into manifestation—
not the fantasy version,
but the practical reality of it.

What you tolerate.
What you repeat.
What you move from—fear or trust.

Slowly, I began living from abundance again.

And from that place, my life started to change in a way that felt steady.

Not perfect.

But real.

This is the part of the journey that rarely gets told.

The part where healing happens in layers.

Where you think you’ve arrived,
and then life asks you to listen again.

Where it’s not one awakening,
but many.

Each one stripping away what isn’t true.

Each one bringing you closer to yourself.

This is what Wild Lotus Muse holds.

Not a linear story.

A lived one.

A record of what it looks like to keep choosing alignment—
even when it comes through disruption, grief, and reinvention.

This is where the rhythm continues.

---

More Reflections