There’s a particular kind of year where you’re this close to shaking your fist at the sky and yelling,

“Are you… serioooous right now?!”

That was my 2021.

January: my mom is diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Chemo begins while we’re still ending every sentence with because of COVID. 😷

February: my dad’s health takes a turn. Suddenly I know more about biopsies than I ever wanted to.

March: my mom stops treatment and begins in-home hospice. And because apparently we were stacking plotlines, my dad is diagnosed with esophageal cancer and starts radiation and chemo.

April: a family member accuses me of mishandling my mom’s affairs. An investigation opens. 🕵️ Why not add a legal thriller subplot? I move my dying mother into my home and become her full-time caretaker.​

May: my mom passes away. 💔

June: a memorial talk on Zoom. Eighty-one years condensed into a twelve minute slideshow. A last goodbye.

At this point, I’m upright. That’s about the best I can say.

July: my brother becomes homeless and is one bottle away from hospitalization. I scramble to get him into rehab before the story tilts darker.

Also July: my cat — my shadow, my emotional support fur-boy 🐾— is diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Yes, I’m now administering chemo to a cat.

August: my dad enters hospice. He dies. 💔

September: déjà vu memorial, but with different photos.

October: 4:00 a.m. I wake up to water pouring through the ceiling. An attic leak floods all three floors of our condo. Water damage remediation begins and industrial fans hum so loudly it feels like we’re living inside a jet engine.

November: my cat’s cancer progresses. I put him down. 🕊️

December: we’re glamping and Airbnb hunting while preparing to re-pipe and repair everything.

And, threaded through every month of that delightfully cursed year?

Executing my mother’s trust.

Selling the house she raised five kids in and lived in for 47 years—opening drawers like emotional time capsules, deciding which pieces of our family history we would keep and which ones we had to release. 🏡

Re-homing my unemployed sister. Managing my brother’s unraveling life. Endless appointments with attorneys. Documents, signatures, decisions with no undo button.

And somewhere in there, I made a risky decision.

I stopped working.

Seven months. No sessions. No Yes! Let’s schedule! Just space to survive what was happening.

Because there were weeks I genuinely thought:

If one more thing happens, I may simply disintegrate into vapor.💨

And yet the word floating around — in podcasts, articles, well-meaning encouragement — was this:

RESILIENCE.

So of course I did what any slightly over-functioning woman would do. I looked it up.

It’s a beautiful definition.

It also felt wildly impossible when I was navigating property sales, financial transfers, family conflict, and end-of-life decisions — grieving two parents while sleeping lightly in case someone needed me and waking up to water dripping through drywall.

So I had to redefine it in a way that resonated with my reality — not the inspirational version, the 4 a.m. version.

In my language, resilience is your ability to own, change, and love your energy under pressure.

Not after the storm passes. While it’s still thundering.⛈️

1️⃣ OWN — Recover

When that year hit, my body clocked it before my brain could spin a noble narrative. I was wide awake at 2 a.m., staring at the ceiling like it owed me answers. My thoughts were doing wind sprints. I moved through my days fueled by adrenaline, obligation, and the vague belief that if I just kept going, maybe the universe would notice and give me a sticker.

Owning my energy meant admitting that “functioning” is not the same thing as “fine.” It meant noticing when my system was running on fumes instead of telling myself I was resilient because I could still answer emails.

That’s why I stepped away from work. Not because I lacked grit. Because my bandwidth was fried and my nervous system was waving a tiny white flag.

Recovery looks less like a spa day and more like telling the truth. It might mean canceling something you’d normally power through. Crying in the car before you walk into the house. Taking a weekend off without drafting a thesis on why you deserve it.

When you own what’s happening inside you, you stop leaking energy out of every emotional crack. Your nerves get a chance to unclench. And that unclenching? That’s what keeps you from either imploding or rage-texting someone you love.

That’s resilience at the nervous-system level. 🫶

2️⃣ CHANGE — Reset

Once my body stopped vibrating like a live wire, I had to look at the story on repeat in my head.

The soundtrack sounded something like: This is just how life is now. Crisis stacked on crisis. Buckle up. And every time I let that narrative run, my shoulders crept toward my ears.

Resetting meant interrupting that loop. It meant asking, “Is this permanent… or is this a brutal season?” It meant noticing when grief was trying to set up a permanent address in my identity.

For you, resetting might look like catching the thought that says, I can’t handle this, and gently side-eyeing it. It might mean choosing a perspective that leaves a crack in the door for possibility instead of slamming it shut with doom.

When you shift what you’re resonating with, your physiology shifts too. Your breath softens. Your decisions stop coming from panic and start coming from clarity.

That’s resilience at the story-and-shoulders level. 🧠

3️⃣ LOVE — Reengage

Eventually, I stepped back into life.

Not like a triumphant movie montage. More like… cautiously reentering a room that just held a lot of noise.

Reengaging meant returning to work with clearer boundaries. Saying no faster. Protecting time I once would have handed over with a polite smile. Moving slower on purpose instead of proving I could sprint.

For you, loving your energy might look like taking one aligned step instead of ten frantic ones. It might mean rebuilding in a way that doesn’t require you to bulldoze your own limits just to feel productive.

When you reengage from self-love, you stop abandoning yourself to maintain momentum. You move in a way that expands your capacity instead of draining it.

And that steady, grounded forward motion is resilience resonating from the inside out. 💫

If this is one of those years — the kind that makes you look up and ask, “Reeeally?” — I see you.

The fact that you’re still here, still caring, still showing up in the middle of dramatically changing circumstances… that's resilience already at work.

And it grows.

It grows every time you own what’s happening inside you, reset the story you’re resonating with, and move forward from self-love. 💖

Not by pretending it doesn’t hurt. By increasing your capacity to stand inside it… even on the days you feel like shaking your fist at the sky.

In fact — in my experience — especially on those days.

Simply resonating with resilience,

Stacy🌺