I don’t know about you, but I have a good bit of cognitive dissonance going on.
I live in a place of extraordinary beauty—these ancient mountains, this lush forest that holds me in its quiet, steady presence. Every morning, I step outside into air alive with birdsong, feet meeting earth that has been here far longer than I have. I have an adorable puppy who delights me, work that fulfills me, friends who love me, and a strong, healthy body. My life is rich, peaceful, and whole.
(Evening view from my front porch. ©2025. Carla Royal)
And then—I read the news. All is not well. The world is unraveling.
I scroll, I listen, I watch—and I feel the edges of my reality tear at the seams. I see the fractures widening, the ground shifting beneath us, and I wonder: How do I hold both of these things at once? The beauty and the horror, the peace and the collapse?
A Grief That Splits the World in Two
I remember when my mother died 30 years ago. It wasn’t just her life that ended. It was the end of a world I had known. There was before my mother’s death, and after—and they feel like different lifetimes.
In the months and years that followed, I was swallowed whole by grief and confusion. I remember sitting on my couch, staring out the window, watching people move through their days as if nothing had happened. I wanted to scream: My mother is dead! How can you just go on like nothing has happened?
I meet with clients now, and they ask, How are you? I say, I’m doing well. How are you? And it’s true—I am doing well. But I’m also not doing well. I want to say, I’m doing well, considering the world as we know it is falling apart. How is it for you? But I don’t.
Not everyone sees what I see. Not everyone feels the weight of this unraveling in the same way. Maybe I see more clearly than others. Maybe I don’t. But I know this: I have been here before.
The Descent
When my mother died, I didn’t claw my way out of grief. I didn’t try to rise above it. I didn’t attempt to put myself back together too soon. People wanted to pull me out, to help me move on. But I somehow knew I had to go all the way down. And I did.
There’s a line from an Over the Rhine song I love: "I’m so far down, I’m beginning to breathe."
That’s what it felt like. I thought the depths might destroy me. They didn’t. I thought if I surrendered, I would disappear into the abyss. But what I found, in the deepest dark, was something entirely unexpected: Space. Air. The slow, steady rhythm of breath. Life. The depths were not what I had feared. They did not consume me. They remade me.
And maybe that’s why, years later, I have a client who calls me a hell-walker. I’m not afraid of the depths. I am not afraid of the darkness. My clients know this about me. They know I’ll walk through hell with them. This is my zone of genius. I have been to the bottom and learned to breathe there. And I know that for those willing to stay the course, to surrender to the transformation, something new—something stronger, freer, and truer—emerges on the other side.
What If This is a Necessary Unraveling?
These mountains I live among are hundreds of millions of years old. They have seen forests rise and fall, flooding rivers carve through rock, and fire reshape the land. They have watched entire worlds change, over and over again.
They remind me that everything changes, always. Nothing stays intact forever. Not civilizations. Not systems. Not even us. But something deeper remains.
Joanna Macy calls this time The Great Unraveling. She teaches that we are not simply witnessing destruction—we are living through the breaking apart of an old way, a necessary dissolution.
What if this isn’t just collapse? What if this is compost?
Learning to Breathe in the Freefall
Victor Frankl once wrote, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
We cannot always change our circumstances. But we can choose how we meet them.
Frankl also said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
I’m not saying we can’t change this world. I’m saying that if we want to, we must first change ourselves. And if the world refuses to change, we can still change ourselves—or maybe it’s more like returning to our true selves.
The Real Meaning of Preparation
I keep coming back to this idea of preparation. What does it really mean to be prepared? For some, preparation means stockpiling, survivalism, a tight grip on control, or ignoring it completely, hoping for the best. But I don’t think that’s what we need.
I think preparation looks more like building the capacity to stay in the mess without running from it. I didn’t prepare myself to survive my mother’s death. I surrendered to it. And in doing so, I found a resilience I didn’t know I had.
Years later, I discovered Pema Chödrön, and her teachings put words to what I had already experienced: When the ground beneath us falls away, we have two choices: We can panic or learn to breathe in the freefall. Sometimes, we panic first, then surrender and breathe in the freefall.
I won’t lie—I still love my comforts. I don’t want to be uncomfortable. But I also know that comfort is not where transformation happens. And I believe with my whole heart that we are being called into transformation. Only in our transformation will we be able to usher in a new world.
I know what happens when the old world collapses. I know what happens when you let yourself go all the way down. And I know that when you finally stop resisting, you could find your breath and life force again.
Falling apart isn’t the end of the story. It’s how the next one begins.
What about you? Have you ever been undone, only to discover you were becoming something more? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment below and share your experience. If this resonated with you, consider subscribing so we can keep walking through the depths together. And if you know someone who might need this today, please pass it on.
