The Messy Middle: The Part We Try to Hide

You’ve carried worlds on your back, and even though Atlas shrugged, you didn’t. And now, you’re ready to put it all down.

Everything changes when you make that decision.

And that is what the Messy Middle of life means to me. And it is deeply uncomfortable. But it is necessary, and the only way is through. I gotta sit in it and with it, and let it happen. Lowkey hate and love that for me. I hate it for how unsettling it is, and I love it because I already know that on the other side are rewards I can’t even imagine. 1,000 people won’t be able to tell me nothing!

But in the meantime, this is that raggedy part that we try to hide. I’ve decided to talk about it, because I’m a glutton for punishment I feel called to do that. Because I think folks will feel less alone. Someone reading this will go “Ok so it’s not just me.” IT SURE ISN’T! I’m with you in the mess! We often try to hide this part, but what happens when we actually allow people to see the walk through?

The last few years have been bootcamp, shaking me to my very core, personally and professionally. For the person who has always been feet on the ground, sure and clear, it has been so unmooring to feel shaken in such a way.

I was born a world unto myself. I was the 3 year old who even knew her favorite color (red) and stuck with it. I have been an old soul, born 2 weeks late because I wanted to take my time and clearly knew Earth was raggedy. I wanted to take as much time as I wanted to show up.

I came into this world as who I am. All my mom had to do was guide me, cuz I feel like I came fully formed. And I think my job now is to fully remember who that is. All the parts of herself she’s forgotten because of the trials, tribulations, traumas and honestly, the raggediness of people.

So this Capricorn, who feels like she has lived 10 lives in this current one, is now 41, and tired. My focus, my grind, my drive, has worn me out. So I’ve been in burnout recovery for the last 2 years. And now, I’m not just looking at how I’ve worked, but how I’ve LIVED. And how the way I have had to work so hard is so tied to everything I am.

And it all started in 2023, when my company almost went bankrupt. It was a year where my worst fear around business came to be: what happens if this company, built around my ability to think, write and show up, falls apart because I’m not able to perform optimally? What happens when WHO I AM no longer becomes enough to sustain my work? I dedicated the last season of my Professional Troublemaker podcast to talking about that year in detail. You should listen to it when you have time. I tell all my business.

For YEARS, I’ve been hiring coaches, talking to mentors, about how to work smarter, not harder. Because although I’m successful, everything I’ve gotten has been hard won.

• My 4 New York Times bestselling books? Each time, my marketing campaigns that got me to it ground me to a dust. I’d usually need a month to recover from how hard I went.

• My multimillion dollar company? Built on my back, my brute force, my strategic mind, and my capacity to hold both big and small things. It has cost me so much (even outside of money) to stand it up. It’s fried me and left me even more hypervigilant and distrustful of people.

• My big platform? Build brick by brick, from over 20 years of showing up consistently, writing millions of words. It has chronicled my growth as a thinker, writer and human. And in the mistakes I’ve made, I’ve been SCALPED for it over and over again. It has caused me to have certain symptoms my therapist compares to PTSD.

My life and work and success has cost me a lot. I have worked my whole ass off. And now, I’ve hit a wall where I don’t even have the capacity to do it anymore.

If everything is data so what is that telling me? What does that say about how I’ve operated? Well, that it is not sustainable. That’s the most obvious DUH lesson here. It is time to shift. Radically.

A lifetime of achieving, leading, DOING has rewarded me far above dreams I could have had for myself. It has also exhausted me. It has burned me out.

Sooooo what now? The Messy Middle.

I’m in that liminal space between who I used to be, and how I used to DO andddd who I am being called to BE. I’m redefining my relationship with myself, with my work and with God. It’s audit season, for real!

The one thing I know: my words are needed. Mostly by me, to help me sort this out. So I’ll be writing.

Because one of the things I left behind too often, were my words, these last few years. And writing is one of my divine gifts. It is what energizes me most. And one of the things that took a backseat as I’ve been running a company was that. WOMP.

So welcome to this MESSY MIDDLE series, where I’ll be digging into it.

Whew. Here we go.

P.S. Let me know if you feel me at all in this, and if you’re in your own messy middle. You in the club with me or nah?