What an atrocious piece of advice. 

 

What are we supposed to do when times get really tough? Act like human paper clips, perpetually contorting, twisting, and bending ourselves in response to every stress test life throws at us, no matter how devastating, earth-shattering, or norm-decimating? 

 

Of course not. It's psychologically impossible. 

 

In fact, I was talking with my friend and client, Natalie Franke (chief evangelist of HoneyBook), about this last week during one of our working sessions. It came up during a conversation about her upcoming book, Gutsy, and it was refreshing to know I wasn't the only one who isn't a fan of this insidiously toxic nugget of (usually) well-intentioned guidance.

 

There's a reason why people like to say, “The breakdown comes before the breakthrough.” Or, as Natalie put it so beautifully during our conversation:

 

 

Of course, resiliency can be a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, too many of us have bought into a distorted view of what resilience should look like. 

 

Resilience is often painted as a directive to grin through any and all adversity, to keep your chin tilted up to the sunshine no matter how dark the storms in our lives become … never faltering, never wavering in our forward momentum.

 

In many cases, genuine demonstrations of resilience involve breaking — allowing ourselves to shatter into a million pieces, but being willing to bring those pieces back together to create something brand new. 

 

It reminds me of the Japanese “healing” art of Kintsugi:

 

 

The word “kintsugi” means golden ("kin") repair ("tsugi"), and its a centuries-old Japanese tradition that brings a new life to broken ceramic pieces that would have otherwise been thrown away. But the practice isn't merely designed to repair and restore.

 

The shimmering gold veins transform fractures of utter destruction into striking acts of beauty. It's not about pretending as if the shattering never occurred. Instead, kintsugi is a celebration of something new and worthy being born from the breakdown.

 

As someone who is now going through a divorce for a second time in four years — let's just say I'm a girl who loves a challenge, because why do something soul-crushing once when you can do it twice, am I right? — just looking at that bowl above is restorative in its own way.

 

Something beautiful can be born out of tragedy and chaos.

 

As I sit here writing this, my home office is in shambles. I have half-packed boxes everywhere. I've pulled all of my posters and artwork off the walls. I have piles of papers and memories stacked on the floor, as I still struggle move through this necessary purge. 

 

I'm very much living in between two very distinct chapters of my life, with one still closing as another begins. It's a strange kind of purgatory. It's temporary, but still … it's an odd feeling to have a foot in two worlds.

 

At the start of this year, I thought I had it all. On paper, in many ways, my life likely looked perfect to some. But now, I'm starting all over again from scratch. I still have my business, but I'm rethinking its focus. I'm also getting ready to move. Again. For the fifth time since 2019. (And it won't be the last time this year as I finalize where I want to land.) 

 

I don't say any of that to complain. 

 

I'm here because I made the decision to finally choose me, with the acceptance of all that would follow as a result of that choice. In many ways, I'm a gal who loves an adventure, throwing myself into the unknown. But it's also sobering in this sometimes lonely in-between stage.

 

Still, while I've sobbed, raged, panicked, and shattered more in the past few months than I can remember, I feel more free and ready than ever to run at the world to see what life can look like on the other side. I'm finally ready to chase my purpose with unrelenting focus, I'm ready to love fiercely and unapologetically. 

 

 

In previous attempts to live a life that was more authentic, passionate, and fiery (as I preach to others with nauseating regularity), I would get close many times to achieving it. But when it would get too uncomfortable, I'd hedge and bend.

 

I'd return to my old hermit ways. I'd grin the most resilient grin I could muster, meanwhile repressing the cancerous knowledge that I stopped short of walking through the door of what was truly possible in my life.

 

 

 

On top of that, sometimes you have to go a step further and break shit around you, not just within you — upend your norms, strip down your life to the barest of essentials, slash the cords on the safety nets you've spent years cultivating out of fear — because you simply cannot go on living the way you are.

 

So, that's what I've been doing for the past few months. Yes, I've fallen on my face pretty spectacularly a few times. And I've definitely spent a lot of time undoing/paying for many of the decisions and mistakes Old Safe “Resilient” Liz™ made, once more with feeling, out of fear. 

 

Also I'm most certainly not certainly writing this from the perspective of having this all figured out. I am very much a work in progress, as we all are, right? Life is a work in progress, we're constantly learning and failing and trying. 

 

 

 

 

To be clear, I'm not suggesting you need to take the Liz route of “starting small to go big” by way of double-divorces, multiple relocations, and so on. I mean, if you want to try your hand at a bit of life anarchy, far be it from me to deny you the pleasure of setting your life on fire and rising from the ashes. 

 

It's certainly a spicy and and exciting way to take your life in both hands and see what's truly possible for you.

 

But can “start small to go big” just by asking yourself questions like: 

But as someone who has spent decades avoiding them — or, in some cases, not realizing these were questions I was allowed to consider, even in private — trust me when I say the cost of not challenging yourself to explore these ideas is much greater.

 

 

We live in a world where individuality is both celebrated and crushed the moment it gets a little too cheeky, too “out there.” But I'm here to tell you that you deserve to chase whatever passions, purposes, loves, fires, and missions are living inside your heart.

 

The cost of not living the life you want and deserve is deep regret. 

 

 

 

 

There will always be people who have an opinion about what you do and how you live your life. But remember, even if you're doing everything “by the book,” leading that “perfect life” based on someone else's standards, someone will still have shit to say about it. 

 

You will still be doing something “wrong.”

 

You will still be “failing” someone. 

 

You will still somehow “fall short.”

 

You will never make everyone happy. 

 

Fuck that. Live your life.

 

Even if it confuses and confounds everyone, who cares? If you're happy (and not like … making it your mission to kick puppies or whatever), that's what really matters. If you're waking up to a meaningful mission and a purpose and loves that light your soul on fire, go for it.

 

Life will always be a spectator sport. 

 

People will always have something to say.

 

Break when you need to. Blow shit up when it's time to rock someone's world. Go on adventures and weave beautiful love stories within your own life that others only dare to dream of.

 

Then let the drunk fans in the stands complain about your “performance,” while you're the one on the field actually doing something worth talking about. You're the one willing to say “yes” to living a full life.