When Life Falls Apart
Nobody handed you a blueprint when your life fell apart. There was no manual for the morning after you signed the divorce papers. No instruction sheet for the woman who walked out of the doctor's office and had to drive home with a diagnosis that changed everything. No roadmap for the mother whose kids left home, and suddenly the house was quiet in a way that felt less like peace and more like loss. If this sounds familiar, today's episode is for you.
Welcome and Free Resource
Welcome to the Flourishing After Adversity podcast. I'm your host, Laura Mangum Broome. If you've been knocked down by life--grief, illness, loss, or unexpected change--you're in the right place. Here, we turn setbacks into stepping stones, because healing, growth, and joy are not out of reach. They're available to you even in this season.
Before we begin, if you ever feel overwhelmed by negative thoughts after a setback, caught in loops of worry, self-doubt, or mental exhaustion, I created a free resource just for you called Reframe the Spiral: 5 Quick Coping Strategies to Shift Negative Thoughts and Reclaim Your Day. You'll find the link in the show notes.
Rebuild Like an Architect
I wanna start with an image. Think about what happens when a building's destroyed, whether by fire, flood, or time. The land doesn't disappear. The foundation may still be there. The location hasn't changed. What's gone is the structure that used to stand on it. And when reconstruction begins, a good architect doesn't ask, "How do I rebuild what was?"
They ask something far more powerful: "What should stand here now?" That's the question nobody tells you to ask when hardship levels your life. And here's the problem: most people wait. They wait for the grief to lift. They wait to feel ready. They wait for someone to hand them the plan, and I understand that because I've lived it.
After losing my teenage son, surviving bilateral breast cancer, a heart transplant, the loss of my father, and a divorce I didn't see coming, all within a five-year timeframe, I know what it feels like to be standing in the rubble wondering, "What now?" But here's what I've learned. Time alone doesn't rebuild identity. Intentional reinvention does. You're not moving on from what happened. You're moving through it, and you get to design what you're moving toward.
Today, I'm walking you through a three-step process I use with the women I coach. It won't fix everything by the time the episode ends, but it will give you a clear starting point for designing a next chapter that actually feels like yours.
Drifting vs Designing
Before we get into the steps, I want to name the difference between two ways people move forward after hardship.
The first is drifting. Drifting looks like this: You do what makes sense on paper, what keeps you busy, what other people expect. You go through the motions. The days pass. You call it moving forward because at least you're not standing still. I've drifted. It doesn't feel like living. It feels like performing.
The second is designing. Designing looks like this. You pause, maybe for the first time since everything changed, and you ask yourself what you actually want your life to feel like, not what it should look like, not what it used to look like. What it should feel like. That pause is not self-indulgent. It's not a luxury. It's the most practical thing you can do right now. Because if you don't design it, life will design it for you, and it will look a lot like default mode busy but not hollow. Functional but unfulfilling. And you deserve more than functional.
Let's get into the framework. Three steps. Let me walk you through each one.
Step 1 Pick Your Three Areas
Step 1: Choose the three areas of your life that matter most to you right now. Not what mattered most five years ago, not what you think should matter. What matters to you today, in this season, in the life you're actually living? Some common areas people choose include: Relationships, including friendships, family, romantic connection, community. Health, including physical energy, mental clarity, emotional regulation. Purpose and work, how you spend your time, what you contribute, what you build. Home and environment, where you live, how your space feels, the rhythm of your days. Finances, stability, freedom, the ability to make choices. Spirituality and faith, connection to something larger than yourself. Joy and creativity, hobbies, experiences, things that make you feel alive. Personal growth, learning, healing, becoming. Narrow it down to three areas, just three.
Now, here's the part most people skip. Once you have your three areas, ask yourself, "Why do these matter to me right now?" Not in general, right now, in this chapter. Here are some examples of what that might sound like. Relationships matter most to me right now because I've been isolating, and I know I can't rebuild alone. Health matters most right now because I lost two years to illness, and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. I don't want to lose that momentum. Purpose matters most because my identity was so tied to being a wife and mother, and now I need to know who I am outside of those roles. The why is not a throwaway question. It tells you what's actually driving you. It tells you what's underneath the surface, and that's where real change starts. Write it down. Don't just think it. Write it.
Step 2 Visualize Next Chapter
Step 2: Imagine yourself living a fulfilling next chapter. This step asks you to think forward, not in a vague, I hope things get better way, in a specific, sensory-grounded way.
I know a lot of you will resist this one. I hear women say, I don't know what I want anymore, or I feel guilty imagining something good when things have been so hard. I hear you, and I want to say this directly. Imagining something better is not betrayal.
It's not denial. It's not naive. It is one of the bravest things you can do when life has knocked you down. You're allowed to want more. So work through these four questions, and if you're somewhere you can write, grab something to write with. If you're driving, just let these land. You can come back to them.
Four Grounding Questions
Question number one. What does an ordinary morning feel like? Not a perfect morning, an ordinary one on a random Tuesday in your next chapter. When you wake up, what's the first thing you notice? What's the pace of the morning? Slow and quiet or energized and purposeful? What do you do in the first hour? What does your body feel like? Here's an example. In my next chapter, I wake up before seven without an alarm. I take my time making coffee. I sit outside for fifteen minutes before I check my phone. My morning isn't rushed. I feel like I have a say in my day. That image, however small, matters. It tells you something about what you're actually hungry for.
Question number two: What are you looking forward to? For many women in the middle of hardship, the ability to look forward to something is one of the first things that disappears. In your next chapter, what's on the calendar that makes you feel something good? It doesn't have to be big. A standing lunch with a friend, a class you're taking, a trip you've been putting off, a Saturday morning with no obligations. What puts a small pull of anticipation in your chest when you think about it? And if nothing comes to mind right now, that's information. It tells you that one of your first jobs is to put something worth anticipating back into your life.
Question number three: During your day, what are you doing that feels meaningful, enjoyable, or worthwhile? Notice those three separate words: meaningful, enjoyable, worthwhile. You don't need all three in every activity. Even one is enough. Meaningful might look like work that helps someone or being fully present with a person you love. Enjoyable might look like cooking a meal you love or moving your body in a way that feels good. Worthwhile might look like building something, a business, a skill, a relationship. That matters to your future self. Ask yourself, "What am I doing in this version of my day that I'd actually wanna be doing?"
And question number four: At the end of your day, what makes you think, "This feels like my life again"? This is a question that gets to the core of everything. For so many women after hardship, the deepest ache isn't just grief over what was lost. It's the loss of a life that felt like theirs, one that had color, direction, meaning, one they recognized. At the end of an ordinary day in your next chapter, what would make you think that? Maybe it's a sense of contribution. Maybe it's the kind of exhaustion that comes from building something instead of surviving something. Maybe it's a laugh that surprised you or a moment of quiet that felt like peace instead of emptiness. That feeling, whatever it is for you, is your compass. Write it down.
Step 3 More Less Fulfilling
Step three: What do you want more of, less of, and what would fulfilling look like? Now bring it back to your three areas from step one. For each area, I want you to work through these three questions.
First, what do you want more of? Be honest. Be specific. Not more happiness. That's too vague to act on. More like more time with people who actually know me well, or more mornings where I move my body before I look at my phone, or more work that uses my gifts instead of just filling my schedule. What would more actually look like, taste like, feel like in that area of your life?
Second, what do you want less of? This one is often easier to answer because you already feel what's draining you. Less time explaining myself to people who don't get it. Less saying yes when I mean no. Less living by a schedule that was designed for a life I no longer have. Less isn't just about eliminating things. It's about making room. Every less creates a space for a more that matters.
Third, what would a fulfilling version of this area look like? Pull together everything you've written and describe a fulfilling version of each area. Not perfect, not ideal, just fulfilling. Here's an example. A woman chooses relationships, health, and purpose as her three areas. For relationships, she writes, "A fulfilling version looks like two or three close friendships I invest in regularly. It looks like being honest about where I am instead of performing fine. It looks like letting people show up for me." For health, "A fulfilling version looks like consistent movement I actually enjoy, not punishing myself. It looks like eating in a way that gives me energy. It looks like sleeping without dread." For purpose, " a fulfilling version looks like using what I've been through to help someone else. It looks like work that challenges me and matters. It looks like not shrinking. These aren't goals, they're a direction, and a direction is exactly what you need right now.
Before I give you your action step, I want you to hear this. You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't need the full blueprint. You just need the next step. The women I work with didn't rebuild their lives in a single afternoon. They rebuilt them one honest answer at a time. One small decision, one morning that felt slightly more like theirs, one boundary that protected something that mattered. That's how it works, not in a single breakthrough, in a series of small, intentional moves.
Action Step and Recap
Try this exercise today. Grab a notebook or open your notes app and complete these three prompts before the day ends. Number one, my three areas that matter most to me right now are, fill in the blank. Number two, in each area, one thing I want more of is, and fill in the blank. And number three, a fulfilling version of one of these areas looks like, and then fill in the blank. Don't overthink it. Don't edit it. Just write what's true for you right now.
Let's recap what we covered today. There's a difference between drifting into your next chapter and designing it, and the difference shows up in how your life feels. Step 1: Choose the three areas that matter most to you right now and ask yourself why they matter in this specific season. Step 2: Imagine yourself living a fulfilling next chapter using four grounding questions: your ordinary morning, what you're looking forward to, what feels meaningful during your day, and what makes you think this feels like my life again? Step 3: For each of your three areas, work through what you want more of, less of, and what a fulfilling version would actually look like. You don't need the full blueprint, you just need the next step.
Closing Encouragement and Invite
If you're in a season where you're not sure who you are on the other side of what happened, I want you to hear this: You are not behind. You are not broken. You're in the middle of something hard, and you're still here. That means something. Your next chapter doesn't get built by waiting. It gets built by asking better questions and then trusting yourself enough to answer honestly. Start there, one area, one question, one honest answer. That's how a next chapter gets designed. You're right where you need to be. Growth happens one step at a time.
Thank you for listening to the Flourishing After Adversity podcast. If this episode helped you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. Leave a review wherever you listen and connect with me at iCope2Hope.com. The link is in the show notes.
And if you're ready to move from thinking about your next chapter to actually building it, I want to invite you to join me for the Begin Again™ Workshop. In less than two hours, we do the deep work of letting go of who you were and stepping into who you're becoming. Practical, specific, and designed for women who are done drifting and ready to design. The link to register is in the show notes. And don't forget to grab your free guide, Reframe the Spiral: 5 Quick Coping Strategies to Shift Negative Thoughts and Reclaim Your Day, also linked in the show notes.
Until next time, adversity can make you bitter or better. Choose better! You've got this!
