“Ironically, 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’re not looking for it as a purpose, it will find its way to you.” ~unknown
I had ten days to sort out my life.
I was driving from Toronto to Florida, and I decided—very confidently—that I would take whatever fit in my SUV. Everything else will be donated, sold or given away. ten days a car A clean slate.
It felt deliberate. grounded Prefers someone who wants to “get the job done”.
What I didn’t account for was uncovering everything else at the same time.
Within those ten days, I found out that I owed thousands of dollars in unexpected car repairs for my lease purchase so I could import the car.
Then a close friend called me to tell me that she was hurt by how I handled something important in her life. It totally caught me off guard and moved me more than I expected.
Around the same time, I made the painful decision to return my rescued dog to his foster parents after keeping him for three years.
I was also leaving the place where I found deep solitude and stability—the place where I became the woman I had worked so hard to become. And I was moving to a new home, a new country, with a new partner.
It was a lot of changes layered over a tight, 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 I believed were supposed to help. I journal. i am to meditate Longer I added more breathlessness. I went to the gym. I told myself to stay grounded, be present, be grateful.
But none of it was working.
I was concerned. I wanted to cry constantly but held back. I was overwhelmed—and embarrassed—by how emotional I was. I kept thinking, I should be able to handle it better than I do.
That thought became its own kind of stress.
I spent years building tools to support myself-MindfulnessReflection, awareness. And yet here I was, spiraling into the middle of what was supposed to be a conscious, aligned life change.
The more I tried to pull myself together, the worse it felt.
One afternoon, my partner and I were standing in my storage unit trying to pack the last of my things. We were stuffing boxes into the tight space, including my father’s possessions, which had passed away years ago — things I wasn’t ready to let go of just yet.
Suddenly, I couldn’t.
I didn’t talk myself through it. I didn’t breathe my way out of it. I didn’t reach for perspective or grounding. I just cried.
I cried right there in the storage unit, surrounded by boxes, grief, and tiredness. I cried in front of my partner, without apology or explanation. For the first time in days, maybe weeks, I stopped trying to stay composed.
And some shifted.
Not because the situation changed, but because I let myself feel it.
In that moment, I saw what I hadn’t seen before: I wasn’t struggling because I was emotional. I was struggling because I believed I shouldn’t be like this.
Somewhere along the way, I began to judge my emotions as a sign that something was wrong. Sadness means I haven’t healed enough. Overwhelmed means I wasn’t grounded enough. Triggering felt like failure.
So I kept trying to control myself from those feelings.
I thought peace meant being in control—being calm and still no matter what was happening around me. But that belief was silently working against me.
What I finally realized, standing in that storage unit, is that peace is not something we hold ourselves together. It’s something we go back to after experiencing ourselves.
My emotions were not the problem. I had resistance to them.
I have been using all the right tools, but with the wrong intentions. Instead of letting my feelings move through me, I was trying to control them—to make sure I wasn’t too sad, too overwhelmed, too shaken.
The tools themselves were not wrong. Breathing, meditation, journaling and Mindful movement Powerful way to help move emotions through the body. What I still didn’t realize was that I was using them to control my experience instead of allowing myself to experience it.
I didn’t realize how much energy this kind of self-management took 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 I could be alone. I didn’t need advice or reassurance. I just needed space to spread out whatever I was holding on to.
I laid down on my bed and let it all out.
I cried for about ten minutes. I shuddered. I didn’t talk out loud to anyone in particular, I just said the things I was trying to contain – the sadness, the guilt, the fear, I forced myself to handle it all with grace.
I didn’t try to solve it. I didn’t stop myself when my voice cracked or the same thought came out twice.
I just moved it.
And when it did, something surprised me. I felt light. Not because the situation has changed. No because I figured something out. But the emotion crossed me instead of being trapped inside.
Everything changed at that moment.
I realized that I don’t actually always have to have it together.
I was living with an unspoken rule that being grounded meant being composed—that if I was truly grown up, I wouldn’t be so detached. But what I experienced that day showed the opposite.
Relief did not come from being controlled. It comes from releasing pressure to be controlled at all times.
What I found was not collapse – it was freedom.
Freedom from constant self-monitoring. Freedom from labeling emotions as good or bad. Freedom to turn every feeling into something that needs to be managed or fixed.
And the more I practiced letting the emotions flow through me—without judgment or urgency—the easier it became.
I began to notice something subtle but profound: passions no longer lasted.
When I didn’t resist them, they quickly moved away. While I didn’t label them as failures, they softened quickly. The whole experience felt cleaner – more honest, less tedious.
This is something that many spiritual and philosophical teachings point to: non-judgment, non-attachment, accepting what is.
I understood those concepts intellectually over the years. But living them—actually experiencing myself without labeling the experience as wrong—changed not just my mind, but my body.
It taught me that peace is not fragile.
It doesn’t disappear when we cry or feel restless. Peace isn’t something we lose when emotions arise—it’s something we regain when we stop fighting them.
I began to see peace less as a permanent state that I needed for protection and as a stable place I could return to.
A reset.
That doesn’t mean I stopped feeling deeply. If anything, I felt more. But feelings don’t scare me anymore. They no longer mean that I am unfolding or retreating. They become part of the movement of being alive – signals, waves that rise and pass.
I could feel the sadness without it. I can feel overwhelmed without drowning in it. I could feel sadness without believing there was anything wrong with me.
That’s when I realized that emotional freedom doesn’t come from controlling what we feel. It comes from believing in ourselves to get through it.
Looking back now, I don’t see that season as a breakdown. I see it as a rebuild.
A reminder that growing up doesn’t mean we stop being human. It means we stop sacrificing ourselves when people are uncomfortable.
And once you feel the freedom to let emotions go instead of pinning them down, you won’t forget it.
You remember that you don’t need to put yourself together to be okay.
You just have to let yourself be real—and trust that stillness knows how to find you again.
about Sarah Mittich
Sara Mitich helps people reconnect with themselves and move through life’s challenges with more clarity, peace and confidence. As the founder of Gratitude and Growth, she shares insights into mindfulness, mindfulness and emotional resilience. She offers a free guide to navigating emotions with greater clarity and compassion www.therset.com/guide.
