Have you ever felt like everything is falling apart?

At work.
At home.
In your mind.
Sometimes all at once—everywhere, all the time.

I’ve felt that way more than once in my life. But in recent months, the sensation was deeper, sharper—more intense. The falling felt faster, more painful.

So I withdrew.
As a natural reaction, I avoided places and situations that made me feel even more exposed. I turned inward, seeking refuge, relief, and silence. And for a while, it worked. I found just enough strength and courage to keep going, to meet the challenges and navigate through them.

But this time, something felt different.

One day, walking through the forest—my place of escape—I remembered a book I had read years ago: When Things Fall Apart by Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön. That very day, I began re-reading it. Slowly. Page by page. Word by word.

Then I came across this passage…

And something clicked.

We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

I realized how deeply I’d clung—to the status quo, to the familiar, to who I believed I was or was supposed to be. I had been holding tightly to my ego, to a sense of control, to a life I hoped would stay the same.

Looking back, I remember those moments of falling apart mostly through the lens of fear, anger, and disappointment. I treated each one like a problem to solve—a milestone to manage. Something to fix.

What I hadn’t done was allow myself to simply feel. To sit with the emotions. To process them. To fall apart without judgment or urgency to repair.

This time, I’m trying something new. I’m letting the falling happen. I’m allowing myself to experience the full ebb and flow of life. To fall apart—and then fall back into place—knowing it’s all part of the same rhythm.

It hurts sometimes. Of course it does. But I’m beginning to see that falling apart creates space for something new to emerge. Something different. And that too, eventually, will fall away. It’s the cycle of life.

The idea still feels hard to accept.
I want control. I want certainty. I don’t want to lose, or suffer, or hurt.

And yet, each day I’m reminded: that desire is only an illusion.

So today, I’m sharing this in the hope that if you ever find yourself in the midst of things falling apart, you might also find a thread of hope, a spark of clarity, or even just a moment of consolation.

Because you will find your way—just as I am slowly, quietly, discovering mine.

With love,
R