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“The irony is that when you make peace with the fact that the purpose of life is not happiness but experience and growth, happiness comes as a natural byproduct. When you are not looking for it as a purpose, it will find its way to you.” ~unknown
I had ten days to get my life together.
I was moving from Toronto to Florida, and I decided very confidently that I would only take what would fit in my SUV. Everything else will be donated, sold or given away. Ten days. A car. A clean slate.
It seemed intentional. Grounded. Like what kind of choice would someone who has “done the work” make?
What I didn’t notice was that everything else was unraveling at the same time.
During those ten days, I discovered that I was owed thousands of dollars in unexpected car repairs to buy out my lease so I could import the vehicle.
Then a close friend called to tell me that she was hurt by how I handled an important thing in her life. It completely shocked me and shook me more than I expected.
Around the same time, I made the painful decision to give my rescued dog back to his foster parents after fostering him for three years.
I was also leaving the place where I had found deep solitude and stability – the place where I had become the woman I had worked so hard to become. And I was moving to a new house, to a new country, with a new partner.
It was a lot of change based on a strict, self-imposed deadline. And despite everything I knew and practiced, I felt like I was falling apart.
I didn’t understand why.
Every morning, I did all the things that I believed would help. I journaled. I meditated for longer periods of time. I added more breathing. I went to the gym. I told myself to stay grounded, stay present, stay grateful.
But none of it was working.
I was worried. I kept wanting to cry but held back. I felt overwhelmed and embarrassed by how emotional I was. I kept thinking, She should be able to handle it better than me.
That thought became a kind of pressure in itself.
I had spent years building tools to support myself – mindfulness, reflection, awareness. And yet here I was, hovering in the midst of what was supposed to be a conscious, aligned life transition.
The more I tried to control myself, the worse I felt.
One afternoon, my partner and I were standing in our storage unit, trying to pack up the rest of our stuff. We were stuffing boxes into tight spaces, including things that belonged to my father, who had passed away years ago – things I still wasn’t ready to part with.
Suddenly, I couldn’t do it anymore.
I didn’t talk myself through it. I didn’t dare to step out of it. I didn’t reach perspective or grounding. I just cried.
I cried right there in the storage unit, surrounded by boxes, grief and exhaustion. I cried in front of my partner without apology or explanation. For the first time in days, maybe weeks, I stopped trying to stay calm.
And something changed.
Not because the situation changed, but because I allowed myself to realize it.
In that moment, I saw what I couldn’t see before: I wasn’t struggling because I was emotional. I was struggling because I believed I shouldn’t be doing this.
Somewhere along the way, I started judging my emotions as a sign that something was wrong. Grief meant I hadn’t healed enough. Being overwhelmed meant I wasn’t grounded enough. Getting triggered felt like failure.
So I kept trying to pull myself out of those feelings.
I thought peace meant being in control – being calm and composed, no matter what was happening around me. But that belief was quietly working against me.
What I finally came to understand, standing in that storage unit, was that peace is not something we maintain by keeping ourselves together. It is something that we return to once we realize ourselves.
My feelings weren’t the problem. I was against him.
I was using all the right tools, but with the wrong intentions. Instead of letting my emotions spill out inside me, I was trying to control them—to make sure I didn’t feel too sad, too overwhelmed, too shaken.
The tools themselves were not wrong. Breathwork, meditation, journaling, and mindful movement are powerful ways to help emotions move through the body. What I didn’t realize until now was that I was using them to control my experience instead of allowing myself to feel it.
I didn’t realize how much energy this kind of self-management takes until I stopped doing it.
After that moment, we went back to my condo. I asked my partner if he could go for a walk so that I could be alone. I didn’t need advice or reassurance. I just needed enough space to get out whatever I was keeping.
I laid down on my bed and let everything out.
I kept crying for about ten minutes. I was shaken. I didn’t talk out loud to anyone about the things I was trying to keep under control – the grief, the guilt, the fear, the pressure I was putting on myself to handle it all with grace.
I didn’t try to solve it. I didn’t stop myself when my voice broke or when the same thought came up twice.
I just let it go.
And when it was finished, I was surprised by something. I felt light. Not because circumstances had changed. Not because I understood anything. But because the feeling had passed instead of getting stuck inside me.
This was the moment when everything changed.
I realized I don’t actually need to carry it with me all the time.
I was living by an unspoken rule that being grounded meant being calm – that if I had truly evolved, I would no longer be different. But what I experienced that day showed me otherwise.
Staying regulated did not provide relief. This comes from releasing the pressure that was controlled all the time.
What I found was not decadence – it was freedom.
Freedom from constantly monitoring yourself. Freedom from labeling emotions as good or bad. Freedom from turning every emotion into something that needs to be managed or fixed.
And the more I practiced letting the emotions pass through me – without judgment or urgency – the easier it became.
I began to notice something subtle but profound: the feelings didn’t last that long anymore.
When I did not oppose them, they moved forward faster. When I didn’t label him a failure, he quickly relented. The whole experience felt cleaner – more honest, less exhausting.
This is something that many spiritual and philosophical teachings point to: non-judgment, detachment, acceptance of what is.
I had understood those ideas intellectually for years. But living them—really allowing myself to feel the experience without labeling it wrong—changed something not only in my mind, but in my body.
It taught me that peace is not fragile.
It does not disappear the moment we cry or feel unstable. Peace is not something we lose when emotions arise – it is something we regain once we stop fighting them.
I began to see peace less as a permanent state that I needed to protect, and more as a stable place to which I could return.
A reset.
That doesn’t mean I stopped feeling deeply. If anything, I felt more. But emotions didn’t scare me anymore. Now he didn’t mean that I was settling or going backwards. They became part of the drive to survive – signs, waves that rose and passed.
I could feel sadness without being. I could feel overwhelmed without being immersed in it. I could feel sadness without believing that something was wrong with me.
That’s when I understood that emotional freedom doesn’t come from controlling what we feel. It comes from trusting yourself to move forward.
Looking back now, I don’t look at that season as a breakdown. I see it as a recalibration.
A reminder that evolution doesn’t mean we stop being human. This means that when it becomes uncomfortable to be human we stop giving up on ourselves.
And once you experience the freedom of letting emotions pass instead of suppressing them, you don’t forget it.
You remember that you don’t have to put yourself together to be okay.
You just have to allow yourself to be real – and trust that stillness knows how to find you again.
About Sara Mitich
Sarah Mitich helps people reconnect with themselves and move through life’s challenges with greater clarity, peace and self-confidence. As the founder of Gratitude & Growth, she shares insights on mindfulness, mindfulness, and emotional resiliency. She offers a free guide to managing emotions with greater clarity and compassion www.therset.com/guide.
