I almost burned it down again

TL;DR:
One neutral comment spun me into a full-body panic spiral.
Not because it was true, but because I’ve been here before.
Old patterns. Trust wounds. New people entering something I care about.
And for a split second, I wanted to burn it all down.

But I didn’t.

I had one of those dumb moments this week. (yep, still human)

Someone left a throwaway comment in the group. Not even mean. Just dry, dismissive, and totally neutral.

And my nervous system decided we were under attack.

The whole spiral kicked in:
“This isn’t working.”
“Why are you even trying?”
“Just shut it down before it gets worse.”

And listen…. I know better. (sigh)

I know what’s mine and what isn’t.
I know when something hits an old wound.
I know how easy it is to confuse “this is hard” with “this must be wrong.”

But even knowing all of that… I still had to sit with the ache.
The part of me that still flinches when things start working.
The part that wants to disappear the second someone doesn’t get it.
The part that feels unqualified when it’s time to be seen.

It’s wild how quickly our brains can jump back to old stories.
Especially when we’re doing something that actually matters to us.
Because when it’s real, when we’re building something from our gut instead of our ego…
the risk feels bigger.
The exposure feels deeper.
And our past loves to slide in and whisper:
“Who do you think you are?”

And if I’m not careful, I start answering.

Because I’ve been here before.
I’ve built things before.
I’ve had ideas I believed in, offers I poured myself into, whole systems set up just to watch it all flatline.

And it’s not the failure that stuck.
It was the feeling.
The slow leak of “maybe I’m just not meant for this.”
The way I started to shrink before the feedback even came in.
The panic of wondering if I’m wasting my time. If I’m being delusional. If it’s all just a setup for disappointment.

But here’s what’s different now:

I see the pattern.

I know what it looks like when I start abandoning myself mid-process.
When I start doubting what I know in my bones just because someone doesn’t reflect it back.
When I want to burn down something good—not because it’s wrong, but because it’s unfamiliar.

And this time? I didn’t burn it down.

I didn’t spiral into reinvention.
I didn’t delete the thing or quiet my work or over-explain myself.

I paused. I let it sting.
And then I kept going.

Because what I’m building right now is real.
It’s not a dopamine hit.
It’s not a rush of likes.
It’s not a strategy I’m forcing or a mask I’m performing through.

It’s quiet. It’s steady. It’s alive.

But that doesn’t mean it always feels good.

It means I’m constantly bumping up against the edges of who I’ve been.
It means I’m catching old habits in real-time
like chasing impulse over integrity,
or confusing momentum with worth,
or trying to make meaning out of metrics that were never meant to define me.

And honestly, writing this out kind of made me laugh.
Like, girl… grow a damn ball sack.
You say you want this? Then thicken your skin.
Not everyone’s gonna get it. Not everyone should.
This is the part of the game no one talks about, the part where you either keep going or convince yourself you were never built for it.

This is the part no one claps for. The part where you don’t reinvent, don’t spiral, don’t explain.

You just… stay. With the discomfort. With the second-guessing. With the reality that you’re doing something new in an old body that still doesn’t fully trust the process.

And that’s the shift.

Lately, I’ve been sitting in the stretch between knowing I’ve changed…
and actually living like it.

Not just an idea.
In the way I build.
In the way I parent.
In the way, I pause when everything in me wants to speed up.

I’ve stopped chasing the rush.
I’ve stopped forcing clarity.
I’ve stopped trying to bend every idea into a guarantee.

Instead, I’ve been learning how to hold things through discomfort.
To let them breathe. To give them space to become what they’re supposed to be, without rushing to make them something else just so I feel safe.

And yeah, that comes with awkwardness.
It comes with old patterns flaring up.
It comes with comments that still make me flinch.

But I don’t live there anymore.

This isn’t about healing the wound.
This is about growing through the scar.

It’s about choosing something different, again and again, when no one’s watching.
When no one claps. When no one validates the invisible work of staying with something long enough for it to become.

So if you’re in that space too…
if you’ve been pausing instead of performing,
if you’ve been holding your truth even when it doesn’t land cleanly,
if you’ve been building something that scares you a little, because it actually matters to you…

Good.

It’s supposed to feel like this.

This isn’t the part they teach.
It’s the part you live through.

It’s not shiny.
It’s not “optimized.”
But it’s yours.

And that’s the kind of success I want now, the kind that comes from staying in it, even when it feels like you don’t know what you’re doing.

Because maybe you don’t.
Maybe you’ve never done this version before.
Maybe that’s the whole point.

👽 💚
Danielle


If you’re in that middle place, where you’ve outgrown the version of yourself that used to survive but haven’t fully landed in the version that can hold what you want, the Authentic Evolution Program was built for you. It’s not about fixing yourself. It’s about finally learning how to stay.

Take a look here. If your gut says yes, come in. You’ll know.
https://authenticevolution.net/authentic-evolution-program/