Surrender
When Surrender is the Only Way Forward
There are moments in life when everything you thought you knew—every plan you made, every dream you held—gets ripped away in an instant.
For me, it happened in the space of a few months.
The Life I Thought I Had
We were living in our dream home overlooking the Pacific coast in Oaxaca, Mexico. Ocean views. The life I'd imagined for us.
And then my daughter developed severe OCD.
Not the kind you see in movies where someone checks locks repeatedly or needs things perfectly organized. This was contamination OCD, but not about germs or dirt. She felt contaminated by an invisible "ickiness" that took over everything. Our home. Our belongings. Our town. Her friends. Me.
Especially me.
When Your Child Can't Touch You
As a mother, there is no pain quite like watching your child suffer and being powerless to fix it. But imagine this layer: your child believes you are contaminated. Everything you touch becomes unsafe to her.
She couldn't use the same kitchen. Couldn't share a bathroom. Couldn't even touch the door handle I'd touched to come and go. She couldn't take money from my hands or ride in our car.
We couldn't hug. Couldn't sit together. Couldn't exist in the same space without invisible walls between us.
The house we loved—our dream home—became a prison of contamination in her mind. We had to leave it behind.
Alone in a Foreign Country
I was navigating this nightmare alone. In a foreign country. In a new town where I barely knew anyone. No family nearby. No support system. Just me, trying to hold it together for my daughter who was trapped inside her own mind.
Every single day required a level of strength I didn't know I possessed. I had to stay positive when I wanted to scream. Stay grounded when everything felt like it was crumbling. Stay patient when my heart was shattering into a thousand pieces.
I couldn't break down. Not yet. She needed me to be strong. She needed me to believe she would get better, even when I wasn't sure I believed it myself.
The Art of Radical Surrender
Here's what I learned in those dark months: sometimes survival means letting go of absolutely everything.
I had to surrender:
The dream house
My plans for our life
My expectations of what motherhood would look like
My need to fix things
My illusion of control
The future I'd imagined
I had to trust—without evidence, without guarantees—that somehow, some way, things would change. That my daughter would heal. That we would make it through.
Surrender isn't giving up. It's the opposite. It's finding the strength to release your grip on how you think things should be so you can deal with how things are.
It's standing in the rubble of your life and saying, "Okay. This is where we are. What now?"
You Are Not Alone
I'm sharing this because I know, deep in my bones, that I'm not the only woman who's had the rug pulled out from under her.
Maybe for you it wasn't mental illness. Maybe it was:
A devastating diagnosis
A relationship that fell apart
A financial crisis
A loss that changed everything
A dream that died
A child struggling in ways you can't fix
A life that looks nothing like what you planned
Whatever your curveball was, I want you to know: You are not alone.
Life can be brutally, unfairly hard. It can ask things of us we never thought we'd have to give. It can strip away everything we thought was solid and leave us standing in uncertainty, terrified and exhausted.
And somehow—somehow—we find a way to survive.
Not because we're superhuman. Not because we have all the answers. But because we dig deep and find reserves of strength we didn't know existed. Because we take it one day, one hour, one breath at a time. Because we learn to surrender to what is, even when what is feels unbearable.
What I Want You to Know
If you're in the middle of your own impossible situation right now, please hear this:
It's okay to not be okay. You don't have to stay positive every moment. You don't have to have it all together.
Your strength doesn't mean you can't break down. I held it together during the day and sobbed on the beach when I was alone. Both are valid.
Surrender isn't weakness—it's wisdom. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is stop fighting reality and start working with it.
You will survive this. Not because I can see your future, but because you're already doing it. Every day you get up and face what's in front of you, you're surviving. That counts.
There is life on the other side. I can't promise it will look like what you planned, but there is beauty and joy and meaning waiting for you. Even after the worst has happened.
The Journey Continues
I'm writing a book about this experience—the full story of what we went through and how we found our way back. But I'm not waiting until it's published to tell you the most important part:
We made it through. My daughter is healing. We're rebuilding.
And I'm here now, creating Living True You, because I understand something I didn't before: We need each other.
We need spaces where we can be real about our struggles. Where we can create something beautiful with our hands while our hearts are still healing. Where we can sit with other women who get it—who know what it's like when life doesn't go according to plan.
This is why I'm so passionate about bringing women together. Not just to make art (though art is deeply healing), but to remind each other that we're not alone. That we're stronger than we know. That even in our darkest moments, there is still beauty to be found, joy to be reclaimed, and life to be lived.
You Are Stronger Than You Know
Whatever you're facing right now—whatever curveball life has thrown—you have more strength inside you than you realize.
You might not feel strong. You might feel like you're barely holding on. But the fact that you're still here, still trying, still getting up each day? That's strength.
And you don't have to do it alone.
If you're walking through something difficult right now, I see you. You're not alone. And if you need a space to create, to connect, to just breathe with other women who understand—that's exactly why Living True You exists.
