Today I Choose to be Transformed – How to be Transformed

They say transformation comes gradually, like the tide. Mine came like a wrecking ball—and I was standing directly under it wearing sensible heels and a conference badge.

It started as a whisper—a quiet discontent I was too busy to notice. I was managing 18 companies, caregiving, overachieving, overfunctioning, outmaneuvering chaos like it was my full-time job. (Also: smiling. So much smiling.)

Then life stopped whispering and started shouting.

First came the unraveling at work—the kind where you stare at numbers and know they’re going to betray you, and there’s no magic spreadsheet formula to fix it. Then Curtis almost died. We crossed that invisible line between “this is hard” and *this changes everything.*

And then came the quiet.

The kind of silence that sneaks in when everything goes still. No ER visits. No investor drama. Just… silence.

That silence was the final catalyst.

Because when everything else goes still, you finally hear yourself. And what I heard was: I don’t want to go back to who I was before.

It felt like molting—like parts of me were being scraped away while I stood perfectly still, letting it happen. I cried in meetings. I forgot things. I stopped pretending I was okay when I wasn’t. I also took walks without tracking them. I stared at clouds. I slept in without guilt.

That silence, as brutal as it was, became sacred. It stripped away what wasn’t mine—the roles, the masks, the performance. What was left was… me. Tender. Tired. But finally, real.

When Life Forces a Reckoning

True transformation rarely happens through gentle self-improvement programs or gradual lifestyle adjustments. More often, it arrives through crisis—those moments when life becomes unsustainable in its current form and change becomes not a choice but a necessity for survival.

My transformation began with the accumulation of unsustainable demands: too many companies to manage, too many people depending on me, too many crises requiring my immediate attention. But the tipping point came when Curtis’s health crisis made it impossible to maintain the illusion that I could control everything through sheer effort and competence.

These catalytic moments—whether health crises, relationship endings, career disruptions, or other life-altering events—serve as the external pressure that makes internal change possible. Like the way intense heat and pressure create diamonds, sometimes transformation requires circumstances that force us beyond our normal coping mechanisms.

The Whisper Before the Wrecking Ball

Looking back, I can see that transformation was trying to get my attention long before the crisis hit. The quiet discontent, the sense that something fundamental was off despite external success, the growing exhaustion that rest couldn’t cure—these were all early signals that my current way of being had reached its limits.

But I was too invested in my identity as someone who could handle anything to listen to these subtle warnings. It took the wrecking ball of multiple simultaneous crises to create the disruption necessary for real change to occur.

This pattern seems common in significant life transformations. The early signals are often quiet and easy to dismiss as temporary stress, minor dissatisfaction, or problems that can be solved through better time management or more effort. But authentic transformation often requires circumstances that make old patterns literally impossible to maintain.

The Sacred Function of Silence

Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of my transformation was discovering the sacred function of stillness. After months of constant crisis management, the sudden absence of emergencies created a silence that felt both terrifying and revelatory.

In that quiet space, without the familiar distractions of other people’s problems to solve, I had to confront the reality of who I was beneath all the roles and responsibilities. The silence stripped away the external validation that had been propping up my sense of identity and forced me to examine what remained when the performance stopped.

This kind of transformative silence often arrives uninvited and feels deeply uncomfortable initially. We’re so accustomed to defining ourselves through our activities and responsibilities that periods of enforced stillness can feel like loss of identity rather than opportunity for renewal.

The Molting Metaphor

The image of molting—shedding an outgrown skin while standing vulnerable and exposed—captures something essential about the transformation process. Unlike the butterfly metaphor that suggests graceful metamorphosis, molting is awkward, uncomfortable, and leaves you temporarily defenseless.

During my transformation, I felt like I was losing competencies and qualities that had previously defined me. My ability to manage multiple crises simultaneously, my composure under pressure, my capacity to keep everyone else’s needs prioritized above my own—all of these familiar capabilities seemed to be dissolving.

But this dissolution wasn’t loss—it was liberation from ways of being that had become constraining rather than serving. Like the way a snake must shed its skin to continue growing, authentic transformation often requires releasing identities that no longer fit who you’re becoming.

Embracing the Awkward Transition

The most challenging aspect of transformation is often the in-between phase where you’ve released old patterns but haven’t yet fully developed new ones. During this period, you might feel like you’re failing at things that used to come naturally, struggling with decisions that would previously have been automatic, or experiencing emotions you thought you’d outgrown.

My period of crying in meetings and forgetting important things felt like regression rather than growth. But this apparent incompetence was actually evidence that I was no longer forcing myself to function in ways that required suppressing authentic responses to overwhelming circumstances.

Learning to tolerate this awkward transition phase—without rushing back to old patterns for comfort or pushing too aggressively toward new ones—becomes crucial for allowing authentic transformation to complete itself.

Distinguishing Performance from Authenticity

One of the most profound insights from my transformation was recognizing how much of my previous identity had been performance rather than authentic expression. The competent professional, the reliable caregiver, the person who always had everything under control—these were roles I played rather than genuine expressions of who I was.

The crisis and subsequent silence revealed the difference between performing strength and actually being strong, between managing everyone else’s needs and taking care of my own, between looking successful and feeling fulfilled.

This distinction between performance and authenticity becomes central to sustainable transformation. Change that only adjusts the performance without addressing the underlying need to perform often leads back to the same problems in different forms.

Practical Navigation of Transformation

While transformation often arrives uninvited, there are ways to support the process rather than fighting against it or trying to control its timeline and direction.

Honor the dissolution phase. Like my period of crying and forgetting, apparent regression often represents necessary release of patterns that no longer serve you.

Embrace the silence. Periods of stillness, even when uncomfortable, provide essential space for new understanding and direction to emerge.

Expect non-linear progress. Transformation rarely follows a neat progression from old to new. It typically involves cycles of breakthrough and integration, clarity and confusion.

Focus on what’s emerging rather than what’s dissolving. While it’s natural to grieve what you’re losing, paying attention to new qualities and capabilities that are developing helps sustain you through difficult transitions.

Seek appropriate support. Find people who can witness your transformation without trying to fix it, rush it, or convince you to return to familiar patterns.

The Ongoing Nature of Change

Perhaps the most important insight from my wrecking ball transformation is recognizing that change isn’t a one-time event but an ongoing process of staying responsive to life’s demands for growth and adaptation.

The person who emerged from that period of silence and molting wasn’t a finished product but someone more capable of authentic responsiveness to whatever circumstances might arise. The transformation created capacity for continued transformation rather than a new fixed identity.

Like the way that crisis taught me to distinguish between performance and authenticity, each significant change builds skills for navigating future changes with greater wisdom and less resistance.

The Gift of Necessary Destruction

While no one chooses the wrecking ball approach to personal growth, there’s often profound gratitude for the forced dissolution of patterns that were constraining but too comfortable to release voluntarily.

The crisis that felt so destructive at the time became the catalyst for a more authentic and sustainable way of living. Without those external pressures, I might have continued indefinitely in patterns that looked successful but felt increasingly hollow.

Today, I choose to remain open to transformation—not because I enjoy disruption, but because I’ve learned that resistance to necessary change creates more suffering than allowing it to occur.

Because sometimes the most loving thing life can do is refuse to let you stay in a version of yourself that’s too small for who you’re capable of becoming.