Untethering from Loyalty
Freeing myself from myself & finding joy
Listen to the essay below:
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to stay loyal to the old versions of ourselves—how we cling to what once made sense, even when it no longer fits. There’s comfort in certainty, even if that certainty has grown tight around the edges. But what if the discomfort we feel isn’t a sign of failure? What if it’s an invitation to soften, surrender, and listen for what’s asking to be reevaluated.
This year has been one of reckoning, of witnessing, and surrender. I’m seeing things in ways I never have before…or maybe I’m finally acknowledging what I once refused to face. Nothing feels quiet right now. The parts of me I thought were healed, the truths I tried to silence, have risen to the surface—loud, insistent, and demanding to be seen.
The older women in my life told me that my mid-to-late thirties would stir everything I’d buried deep in my core. I had no idea what that meant, but I do now. They were right. This season has been unmistakable—an unflinching mirror. The life I’ve built, the relationships I’ve tended, the woman I thought I wanted to become…all of it has been laid out before me, like old photographs spilled from a long-forgotten box. Each image asking me to pause, to sort, to shift—to look closer and finally learn what I need to see.
At the top of the year, I said out loud:
I am ready to be lead into the direction of my divine alignment. I am ready to let go. I am ready to learn. I am ready to gain clarity. I am ready to evolve beyond my comfort zone. I am ready to surrender to whatever is ready for me.
A couple of weeks later, I spoke with one of the older women in my life. She told me that when she was moving through a major pivot—leaving a job that didn’t value her, a marriage that didn’t support her, and a relationship with a parent that never healed the way she’d hoped—she asked herself four simple but powerful questions:
Does this still feel right? Do you still want this? Is this still true for you? Are you grounded here?
She then told me: I want you to sit with these questions and think about truthful answers. Apply them to all facets of your life, and see what comes up. Get curious about yourself for once. Instead of trying to find the answers for everyone else, find your answers.
At first, what she said unsettled me. I didn’t want to answer those questions for myself. I didn’t want to get curious, because I was afraid of what might surface. I feared that if I started asking, I’d realize everything I thought I wanted no longer fit neatly in the boxes of my life anymore. Guilt swirled at the thought of what honesty might reveal.
On my walks, I’d think: You’ve worked hard for this life. You prayed for these opportunities, these relationships, and this rhythm that fills your days. Gratitude made it confusing—and so did joy. I was proud and thankful for how far I’d come, yet something still felt off. Something wasn’t in alignment. I struggled with how to hold both truths: how to honor what I once longed for while admitting it no longer nourishes me in the same way.
And as I’ve been sorting through the last ten months of the year, I’ve come to see that maybe that’s the invitation of this season: to understand that gratitude and change can coexist. You can be deeply thankful for something and still be ready to untether from what’s no longer working or fitting. You can honor the past without carrying it into your future. That complexity isn’t always easy for me to look at or welcome into my life.
Because one consistent truth of life is this:
Growth often asks us to loosen our grip on what once felt like everything. Sometimes, the real reckoning is learning to pay attention to what’s true today—not what was true ten years ago. There are deep blessings, ready to be born, when you lean into acknowledging that what once sustained you may now be too small for who you’re becoming.
We all deserve to be and feel emotionally well-nourished in this lifetime—in love, in friendship, in work, in creativity, and everything else in between.
Realizing that I’ve been starving (emotionally) for so long that it became my normal baseline was problematic for me. None of us can reach our divine alignment if we are settling for not being emotionally and spiritually satiated. Self-abandonment cannot be our default forever—it just cannot be.
If this year is teaching me anything, it’s that a shift is happening. There are big changes happening in not just my life, but in the women I know lives. My friend told me the other day: It feels like I am waking up for the first time in a long time. I don’t know where I am, or how I got here, but here I am—and there’s no going back.
Maybe this season is asking us all to rethink what we thought we wanted—not because we were wrong then, but because we’ve evolved now.
Maybe what once felt like alignment now feels like empty and thankless obligation. Maybe what once felt like belonging now feels like performing a role that was never ours to play. Maybe the goals we' chased so fiercely were never truly ours to begin with—they were borrowed dreams, shaped by expectation and bad habits.
And maybe this is what clarity sounds like—not a thunderous knowing, but an internal realization that mimics a whisper.
A whisper that says:
It’s time to choose again. Choose different. It’s time to choose you.
Perhaps being honest about what you already know (and have been avoiding) is its own form of divine alignment.
Maybe you are on a new path toward deeper self-trust and understanding.
Maybe you’re beginning to release the belief that the fairytale lives outside of you—the perfect partner, the dream job, the flawless life, the ideal family.
Maybe, just maybe, you’ve been the fairytale all along. Maybe you, your healing, your growth, and your becoming have been the answered prayer you’ve been waiting for all this time.
2025 has been about learning that clarity isn’t always gentle. It doesn’t arrive wrapped in ease or perfection. More often, it’s raw and unsettling, like waking from a dream you can’t quite interpret. Still, this year has shown me that clarity comes right on time, when we’ve learned enough to be open to the lessons it carries in tow. Like joy, clarity waits close by. Steady and patient until the fog begins to clear, revealing what’s been true all along.
Until then, it speaks through small moments of realization and acceptance. The beauty, for me, has been learning to recognize and trust when “good enough” no longer feels aligned.
I can be grateful for what is, and still desire and deserve more. I am not ungrateful for having renewed expectations within my work, relationships, and for myself. Growth requires change—change of mind and heart.
To admit that what sustained me in my teens and twenties no longer serves who I am in my thirties is hard but important. To understand that if I keep avoiding the hard questions, if I let the fear of change be my God, I’ll continue drifting away from the center of my life—away from my joy, my purpose, and my growth.
We are allowed to change our minds.
We are allowed to outgrow our own plans.
We are allowed to admit: This doesn’t fit me anymore.
And that’s not a loss. That’s honesty. That’s evolution.
True joy isn’t something we stumble upon once and keep—it’s something we must continually rediscover as we grow and evolve. The things that bring us joy at one stage of life might not sustain us in the next. This year, I’ve seen first hand how sacred it is to be surrounded by people who understand this—who can support and hold space for your evolution without needing you to stay the same. My friends have reinforced this over and over again this year. Reminding me, that all will be well. That I can shift. That I can evolve. That I can outgrow who I was without shame.
There’s holiness here—in the messy middle of finding our new way. In learning to love the versions of ourselves that others may no longer recognize. In honoring who we’re becoming, even when our growth moves us beyond someone else’s comfort zone.
There is depth and reverence in the renewal—the reshaping, the gentle unlearning of what we thought joy was supposed to look like.
Maybe this season is asking you to pause long enough to see what actually brings you peace. Maybe it’s reminding you that alignment struggles to exist without clarity . Maybe it’s showing you that the version of you who fought to survive can rest now.
Maybe it’s asking you to make amends with the endings that don’t come with closure.
When we begin to trust change, gratitude becomes a grounding force rather than a chain. Gratitude says: I can love what was and still move toward what’s next. It reminds us that joy isn’t only found in arrival—it’s also found in release.
This is the tender, uncomfortable beauty of transition: the in-between space where we’re no longer who we were, but not yet who we’re becoming. It can feel disorienting, and even lonely. But in that in-between, I hope you’re shown that there’s also freedom, and a soft invitation to reimagine.
I hope that as you’re on your own pathway of pivots, you remember:
You are allowed to dream new dreams. You are allowed to want different. You are allowed to rebuild, slower this time, with more intention and more information.
Because maybe this season isn’t about chasing more.
Maybe it’s about choosing better.
Maybe it’s about abandoning who you thought you were all along.
Maybe it’s about trusting that the life meant for you will never require you to abandon yourself to keep it.
I hope you hold steady in your pursuit of joy. All is well, even when it feels like you’re floating out at sea. Trust that you are your own north star, and that you’ll always make it back home.
This newsletter is free for the community. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and sharing. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my books, merch, or joining me at a retreat or workshop are options. I even made two perfumes, a body butter, and a candle for us with Snif! Oh, and if you want to start your own joy spotting practice, I made a journal for that with Karst Goods (here). As you can see, I have plenty of offerings for you to choose from. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity.
Honoring my past without carrying it into my future really resonates with this stage of my life. I can embrace change without collapsing in fear of the unknown...
This whole piece was exactly what I needed to read.
I've been doing this for myself this year. It's hard, but so very worthwhile. Thank you for this.