Fear can start a fire. So can anger. But what keeps us creating when the outrage fades?
I keep coming back to love.
Not the passive kind, but the fierce, creative kind that asks us to imagine something better and have the courage to build it.
As I watch so many of the systems and structures we’ve relied on continue to unravel, I’ve been reflecting on something one of my teachers shared several years ago: Fear and rage can fuel a powerful fire, but they aren’t sustainable sources of energy.
And I think we’re witnessing that truth play out in real time.
There’s a difference between the energy of destruction and the energy of creation.
Destruction can happen quickly. Creation requires patience, imagination, commitment, and care.
And perhaps that’s what this moment is asking of us. Not simply to resist what isn’t working, but to begin imagining and building something better.
I’ve been reflecting on how this same process has been unfolding in my own life.
Before the pandemic, I thought I knew exactly what I was here to do.
I’d spent years doing deep transformational work, building my business, and preparing for what I believed was my next big chapter. I felt ready to take on the world.
And then, like so many of us, I found myself questioning almost everything.
What followed was a long, sometimes deeply uncomfortable process of deconstruction. Of letting go of old identities, expectations, and ideas about what success was supposed to look like.
There have been moments when the ground beneath me felt like quicksand. When I wondered whether I’d ever find my footing again.
But something has been shifting.
I’ve recently returned to California after several years away. And while my decision to leave was partly about exploration, independence, and growth, I can now recognize how much of it was also driven by fear.
Fear that I couldn’t afford to stay. Fear that the life I wanted wasn’t possible here.
That fear hasn’t disappeared entirely.
But I’m no longer letting it make my decisions for me.
Instead, I’m asking different questions.
What nourishes me?
Where do I feel most alive?
Who do I want beside me as I build this next chapter?
I’m remembering how much I need community. Family. Friendship. Collaboration. The ocean. Creativity. A sense of belonging.
I’m planting roots again.
Not because everything is certain, but because I’m getting clearer about what I want to grow.