Twenty-five years ago, my body knew something about my life that I wasn’t yet ready to admit.
I was pregnant with my second child. In my first trimester, I got so sick that my holistic doctor, who had just helped get my daughter back to health using homeopathy and food as medicine, gave me antibiotics.
I wasn’t diagnosed with a horrible disease. But my dis-ease was horrible.
I lived in a soft loft with huge windows with north, east, and south views in Chicago’s River North, kiddie corner from the East Bank Club, and walking distance from work across the street from the Merchandise Mart. My then-husband ran his own business. I drove a Mercedes. My daughter was 3¾ years old.
From the outside looking in, we had a good life. My job was a nice balance of challenging and rewarding, and motherhood was more than I ever expected it to be. I learned that I didn’t know true love and intention until I had her.
But there was a growing tension I couldn’t name back then. It lived in what was left unsaid between my husband and me… until expensive problems started to emerge, one by one. They came from decisions that were made out of desperation, that he wanted to spare me from.
Shit hit the fan
Around that time, we were selling our loft and looking for a new home. We were expecting our second child and needed more room. During the sale, our attorney discovered something that would unravel the life I thought we had.
This wasn’t a tap on the shoulder, no. It was a four-alarm fire.
I jumped in. I said, water under the bridge, let’s fix this together.
We got a consultant to help.
But despite our efforts, my husband continued making decisions without us. I kept asking him to work with me.
Then the fax came through to my personal desk. He had felt this was his mess to solve and no one else would understand how to solve it. I had told him that if he wanted to work this alone, I’d leave him alone. What that fax revealed was the last straw.
Divorce was not something I wanted, but it was imminent. I was depressed, and I didn’t know it because I was busy trying to patch holes in a family boat that kept growing more holes.
I realized I had to get off this boat with my children. I no longer felt safe.
I wasn’t leaving because everything fell apart financially. I left because the marriage was no longer something I could participate in with integrity.
What I let go of
Have you ever wondered how you’d react in certain situations when you see them happen to someone else?
I got super calm. The only “plan” I followed was what my intuition said was the very next step. That’s it. There was no five-year plan. Not even a one-year plan.
I let go of ideas that were never mine, one by one.
The divorce. Korean cultural stigma around it was still huge back then. I didn’t think I cared what my parents thought, but it turns out I did. This kept me sick longer than necessary. I talked to my parents about it and got their blessing. And, I learned that these rules we carry are much more debilitating inside our heads than they are in real life.
The East Bank Club membership. Wow, the identity attached to belonging in certain spaces. When our advisor suggested I drop that, my initial response was “no.” He looked at me for a moment and laughed. I started to see my contribution to our problems. I grew up a lot over those months, and I let it go.
The insurance policies. Umbrella, life, disability, and finally health. Kept the auto (but traded in my Mercedes for a $2,000 Toyota Camry stick). These were surprisingly the most frightening things to relinquish. Fresh out of school, I thought I wanted to be a financial advisor, so I got my licenses and was learning the business of insurance and investing. They stopped making disability insurance the way they used to. I knew enough to make dropping them almost terrifying, especially with small kids. I began to see how much of my sense of security and responsibility I’d place in these just-in-cases. I let them go and decided instead to hold a greater power accountable.
The people. When I moved, I distanced myself from our mutual friends. And, for the time being, I kept my parents at arm’s length. Anyone who needed me to explain or defend my decisions; who wanted me to make the conventional, “sensible” choices. Choices that would make them feel good, and me look responsible. I realized it took too much energy, energy I couldn’t afford to spend, to clear the enmeshment that was continually attempted by those who care.
I couldn’t keep asking myself what was right for me while listening to everyone else’s ideas about what I should do.
The how. I let go of the need to know how I was going to provide for myself and my children. It was day by day, making the best decision possible. Not the most comfortable. Not what my parents thought I should do. And not what everyone else did in situations like these. I came up with a two-question litmus test: does this come from love? Does it come from integrity? I decided not to choose from fear, anger, or vengeance, but from a place of deeper values.
What I didn’t let go of
When I let go of all the external bullshit, I found the sacred, the capacity, and possibility, all at once. The overwhelm, headaches, and anxiety that had accompanied me began to disappear. I found myself in the eye of the storm.
My life didn’t become structureless. In fact, quite the opposite.
I woke up at 4am for yoga and meditation.
I prepared three meals in the morning before my children woke up and pitter-pattered into the kitchen to find me. They knew where I was.
My afternoon check-in happened at school pickup.
My evening anchor coincided with bedtime for all of us. No more getting up after they fell asleep for “me time”.
I invested in Kundalini Yoga teacher training even though I didn’t have the money. Instead of asking for a scholarship, I asked for payment flexibility. I decided that holding myself capable would better support my psyche.
While I was following my intuition, I showed up for my life every. single. day.
Blissful Home
A new friend from my Kundalini Yoga class came over one day and saw the essential-oil based cleaning products I made instead of using store-bought. She talked me into selling them, and she jumped into this new venture with me.
One announcement about this in my class, and another student offered to build my website for free (this was before DIY platforms like Wix were available). My teachers who gave me my yoga certification reached out and offered to share their booth at the annual Yoga Journal conference in Lake Geneva two weeks out. We said holy shit, yes. An associate stepped in to design our labels for nearly nothing (we had to come up with a name fast). And then our friends came over to help us label the bottles. We got orders from wellness centers and green online stores all over the country. One afternoon, a doctor friend got a new patient who was a manager at a Whole Foods Market, and he asked me if I wanted an introduction. In less than two months, that Whole Foods made their first order; and in another two months we were in 14 Whole Foods locations in the Midwest.
The fear returns
I received a call from a woman who consulted for P&G’s research & development. She said my product was what they were looking for, that I was almost there. She said that once I grew to a certain size and was ready to exit, let her know. She made clear they’d only want the product, not me.
An owner of a grocery store chain in Chicago’s North Shore said to call him when I want investors. This came after what felt to me like a tough meeting where I had to “fight” for what Blissful Home stood for while the room of men had other ideas that didn’t feel right. For me, this was less about control and more about integrity. I’ve seen it happen to other products I once loved, and giving that up felt like giving up a child.
A fellow entrepreneur expressed interest in investing in Blissful Home, but without my partner. I had no idea what to do with that.
Something I couldn’t bring myself to tell any of these people was that I had no money. I’d built this business on a shoestring after coming out of bankruptcy from the divorce. I was ashamed of my financial circumstances, even as people around me saw something enormously valuable in what I’d created. I had not felt anything but abundance until I was in this situation with Blissful Home.
People saw enormous potential. But the advice about how to grow required me to become someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to be: Marketing differently. Being visible differently. Outsourcing childcare. Following a model of success largely presented by men who had wives handling their homes and children. I had fun getting to know these entrepreneurs (we ran the circuit together during the green craze), a priceless experience witnessing what it took to turn new products into a household name.
But I didn’t have a wife at home.
I wanted to pick my children up at 3pm, and I wasn’t willing to give that up.
So I let those opportunities go.
To the world, Whole Foods was proof that I created something valuable, and I was proud of it. But growing it on the terms being offered meant compromising the integrity of the product and missing the afternoons with my children.
The opportunity was enormous. To me, so was the cost. People said, “only 5 years working to the bone.” But those were 5 critical, developmental years for my children that would be shaped by who?
I’d spent years letting go of other people’s ideas about how I should live. Now they were returning as advice about how I should succeed.
All of this woke something in me I thought I’d left behind: fear mixed with shame.
When I had lost nearly everything, I felt abundant. When I created something valuable and successful, I began to feel scarce.
Was this an opportunity I failed to take? Or an opportunity whose terms weren’t right for me? How do I distinguish between those possibilities?
At the time, I knew what I wasn’t willing to give up. What I didn’t know was how to ask for a different kind of help, or whether there was another way to grow what I’d created.
What I understand about the doorway now
What I discovered wasn’t simply that letting go brings rewards.
I learned that it’s possible to release someone else’s definition of safety, success, and responsibility, and discover what I actually value.
And I’ve learned that the process may need repeating, because fear can return in unfamiliar forms.
Twenty-five years later, I’m beginning to understand that the doorway wasn’t something I walked through once. It’s a choice I may have to make every time I find myself holding on to a life that no longer feels like mine.
Eat warm, breathe slow, keep a rhythm.
– Savitree
P.S. When you imagine putting down something you’ve been carrying for years, what happens in your body?