2025 Almost Broke Me. And I'm Still Here.

If you have ever stayed functional while everything underneath you was quietly coming apart, this conversation is for you. It is for the person who kept showing up through loss, conflict, and pressure, and only later realized how much it took to hold it all together. Not because you were strong in some abstract way, but because stopping did not feel like an option.

This episode is an honest reflection on a year that nearly broke me. Not symbolically. Literally. It explores what happens when personal devastation and professional responsibility collide, and there is no space to slow down. Custody loss. Betrayal by someone trusted. Financial fallout. Public leadership. Private grief. And the expectation, both internal and external, to continue performing as if nothing fundamental had shifted.

What 2025 forced was clarity.

This is not a story about collapse. It is a reflection on what remains when illusion falls away. On what becomes visible when survival stops being theoretical and starts being lived. And on how resilience, when misunderstood, can quietly turn into self-abandonment.

Throughout this conversation, I share what it meant to lose access to my child while still being required to function. To hand my son to his father on the first day of kindergarten and then return to a life that did not pause to absorb that reality. To navigate the legal system while being accused of things that did not reflect the truth of my life or my intentions. To feel powerless inside systems that reward certainty and punish nuance.

At the same time, I was building. Launching a company. Leading a team. Carrying the responsibility of other people’s livelihoods while my own ground was unstable. I was asked to stay composed. Strategic. Visionary. Capable. And I did. But not without cost.

This episode does not dramatize that cost. It names it.

We examine how resilience is often confused with endurance. How pushing through without truth slowly erodes trust with yourself. And how survival, when prolonged, becomes its own form of self-abandonment. The body keeps score. The nervous system remembers. And the psyche adapts in ways that may look like strength from the outside while quietly breaking down on the inside.

One of the central themes of this episode is discernment. How it is learned through experience, not intention. How seeing the best in people can be both a gift and a vulnerability. And how boundaries do not become clear because we read the right book or set the right affirmation, but because the cost of not having them becomes impossible to ignore.

I speak candidly about betrayal in this episode. Not in a sensational way. In a grounded one. About what happens when someone you trust exploits your openness. When agreements are violated. When honesty is met with manipulation. And when the timing of that betrayal leaves you with no choice but to keep moving forward anyway.

This experience sharpened something in me. Not hardness. Precision.

Discernment is not cynicism. It is clarity earned through consequence. It is the ability to stay open without being naive. To trust without outsourcing responsibility for your own protection. And to understand that good intentions do not cancel the need for structure.

This episode is also about grief. The kind that does not resolve quickly. The kind that changes your orientation to time, ambition, and identity. Losing daily access to my child reshaped how I understand purpose. It forced me to confront roles I thought were permanent. And it required a level of acceptance I did not want, but eventually needed, in order to move forward without becoming bitter or rigid.

Acceptance is not approval. It is acknowledgment of what is true right now.

There is a point in prolonged hardship where fighting reality becomes more exhausting than facing it. This episode traces that shift. The moment where resistance stopped being productive and surrender became the only viable option. Not surrender as passivity, but surrender as honesty. As a willingness to see clearly what is within your control and what is not.

This clarity carried into how I think about ambition going forward.

A significant portion of this conversation is about the transition from 2025 into 2026. Not as a fresh start fantasy, but as a recalibration. A reassessment of how I want to build, lead, and live moving forward. It marks a shift away from goal-chasing that ignores the body and toward intention-setting that includes it.

Goals are not the problem. Disconnection is.

We explore the difference between ambition that drains and ambition that sustains. Between momentum that is fueled by pressure and momentum that is fueled by alignment. Between success that looks impressive and success that is actually livable.

I speak openly about building businesses in the past in ways that were punishing. Long hours. Constant urgency. The belief that rest had to be earned. The belief that worth was proven through output. Those strategies worked, until they didn’t. And what they cost was not visible until later.

This episode asks a different set of questions.

What does it mean to succeed without abandoning yourself?

What does it look like to build something meaningful without sacrificing your health, your peace, or your relationships in the process?

And how do you know when it is time to change how you are moving, not just where you are going?

We talk about the body as an intelligence, not an obstacle. About fatigue as information, not failure. About how diminishing returns show up not only in business, but in life. When effort increases but impact decreases. When the system is asking for a different approach.

This is not a conversation about quitting ambition or lowering standards. It is about refining them.

Another thread woven throughout this episode is identity. Who we become in response to hardship. How quickly we can start performing resilience instead of actually processing what we are living through. And how easy it is to confuse coping mechanisms with character traits.

High functioning does not always mean healthy.

Sometimes it means adapted.

This episode challenges the idea that strength looks like constant composure. It questions the belief that leadership requires emotional suppression. And it invites a more honest relationship with what it means to carry responsibility without disappearing inside it.

There is also joy in this episode. Not forced optimism. Real joy. The kind that emerges when something long-suppressed is allowed back into your life. I share the moment of returning to dance. Of taking a ballet class for no reason other than desire. Of doing something that had nothing to do with productivity, visibility, or approval.

That moment mattered more than it seemed.

It marked a shift from performance to presence. From doing things to be seen to doing things because they feel true. It was a reminder that not everything meaningful has to be monetized, justified, or optimized. Some things exist simply because they restore us.

This episode is ultimately about commitment. Not to an outcome. To yourself.

It asks who you are doing all of this for. Who benefits from your overextension. And what happens when you stop abandoning your own needs to maintain other people’s comfort.

Boundaries are discussed here not as walls, but as filters. As living systems that evolve as you evolve. As tools for clarity rather than punishment. And as expressions of self-respect rather than rejection.

We talk about what happens when people resist your boundaries. When they misunderstand them. When they label you instead of listening to you. And how learning to let people leave when they cannot meet you with respect becomes a form of self-preservation.

This episode does not offer a checklist. It does not offer a formula. And it does not promise ease.

It offers honesty.

It is for anyone who has made it through a year they are still trying to metabolize. For anyone who has been strong for too long. For anyone who is closing a chapter that changed them and does not want to pretend otherwise.

You do not need to rush what comes next.

You do need to be clear about what you are no longer willing to sacrifice.

This conversation is an invitation to move forward without dragging the weight of survival behind you. To build from truth instead of pressure. And to let the next chapter be shaped by what you have learned, not what you have endured.

If you are still here after a hard year, that matters.

If you are choosing to move differently, that matters more.

And if this episode meets you where you are, you are not alone.

Let’s stay connected! If this conversation resonated with you, make sure to follow along on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts for more episodes that blend Sol, strategy, and healing. Your support helps us spread these messages even further, and I’d love to keep this journey going with you.