When Things Fall Apart: Breakdowns Can Create Breakthroughs

"I'm sorry," said the email, "but our phone call left me uncomfortable, and we decided to work with someone else."

I felt like I was being punched in the gut. Even though I saw it coming. Even though I had brought it to myself.

It was February 2010, and I had no money to pay my mortgage. My savings were gone, and it was incorrectly burned to the point of trying to get my life back on track when it came to my “sick business.”

As a tubah singer - the maker of Jewish wedding contracts and other martial arts - sales are always seasonal, but since the economy was in full swing in 2008, even the “wedding season” of spring and summer was slower than I was used to.

After two years of small sales, apart from the savings that are usually removed in the fat months, I felt hopeless.

It was this despair that led me to try to quickly sell my enthusiastic bride and groom by offering a special upgrade - but “only if they buy now.”

Great mistake.

It was the worst, and most embarrassing mistake of my entire business life, actually.

The couple had been in the mail with me for weeks, and were in danger of buying not only a ketubah, but also a Quaker wedding certificate and similar invitations. The sale was guaranteed, and it would bring in more than enough to pay off my mortgage.

But because of my fear that they would be delayed in making the final decision until the day my mortgage was paid, I panicked. I tried to create a sense of urgency to buy them today, and I lost sales.

Then I lost my strength.

Breakdown Release

When the content of the bride's email came in, I fainted physically, my body collapsed with tears. I remember a moment in my mind looking, as if from somewhere on the roof, I thought, "Wow, this looks like hysteria!"

I was the definition of separation.

It was the worst time of my life.

Somehow, and it was one of the best times of my life, even if it didn't feel right at the time!

Looking back, I can see now that this terrible problem is exactly what I needed to get out of my predicament and move on to something better.

The fact is that I had been burning my business for years. I needed a change, but like the horse with the blindfolds, I didn't see the possibility of any other alternative. So I kept going, while my business was booming and my passion for life was going with it.

My deteriorating condition eventually caused me to lose my eyesight. It was as if I came out of a dark hole into the light and saw the great opportunities of the world suddenly in front of me. Maybe I could do something else, or (sigh!) I got a job.

Throwing out other ways to make money feels amazingly liberating. I didn’t realize how I felt about the chains in my personality as a kitubah artist. It may sound funny, but it was a revelation that I shouldn’t have done the same thing forever!

Note the Messages from the Universe

While I was kind enough to have my first child move on in a new way, which will be explained, just one week after my major fall, my boyfriend and life partner announced he was leaving, taking his contribution to the cost of living with him. No 30-day notice, nothing.

Would you say “twice”?

(Thank you for the good support of my parents, who helped me pay my bills that month.)

Now both my working life and my private life are ruined. It was as if the whole world sent me a telegram, a special delivery, with the message “Time to change your life - (STOP) -”

No, hit that: It was as if the sky was hooked up to my head in twos and threes!

In fact, the whole world has been sending me little notes and whispering in my ear for years. Fatigue does not happen overnight, but I simply ignore it.

And when you ignore the notes from the universe, it starts to talk a lot. After that it starts to touch you. In the end, if you don't, the two of you will come out.

This time I listened. Everything was broken, and apparently there was no turning back. The only way out of the collapse was.

Change is painful and scary, but it is also exciting

Let me tell you - it was a couple of them from all over the world. It is frustrating when everything you have worked so hard to build collapses like a castle made of children's blocks, and it is scary to start over.

And fear, however, was a wonderful idea of ​​the possibility. It was fun! I was not sure where I was going, but the fact that I was no longer trapped in the bag restored my desire for life.

Sometimes things have to fall apart to fall together.

Change is hard, so unless the pain of not changing is worse than the pain of change, it is much easier to stick to the situation. My breakup was exactly what I needed so that I could finally get into the life I really wanted.

Aside from the tragedy of my humble client, who knows how long I can continue to hold on to my ketubah business as my only choice? Instead, when my blockchain was in trouble, I was suddenly relieved to build a completely new palace.

No more solving! Within two months I had started my blog and was on my way to building the great, courageous, and artistic life that I longed for.

The key is in release

Finding my way in this new path did not happen overnight (and then the path is constantly changing), but from the decline to the emergence - from hopelessness and sadness to hope and enjoying life again - it happened very quickly when I let go of what it was.

That's the decent thing to do, and it should end there.