My Story, Part 2: What Happened When I Started Choosing My Own Lif

In the first part of my story (My Story part 1) , I shared how my life completely changed at the beginning of 2024 and how everything I went through forced me to face myself in a way I never had before. I went through an ego death and realized something that completely changed the way I saw myself: I hadn't lost myself in the breakup. I had never truly found myself in the first place.

But realizing that was only the beginning. Because understanding your own patterns is one thing. Actually changing the way you live is something else entirely.

And that's what I want to share in this second part of my story.

It would be easy to jump straight to where I am now and tell you about everything that has changed. The places I've traveled, the decisions I've dared to make, and how different my life feels today. But that would leave out a pretty important part of the story.

At first, all of this was incredibly difficult. And sometimes, it still is.

I Decided to Go All the Way In

When my life started changing in early 2024, at some point I made a pretty conscious decision. If all these things were coming to the surface anyway, I wanted to actually deal with them.

I didn't want to just get through the worst part and then rebuild the same life as quickly as possible. I wanted to understand why I was the way I was. Why certain things affected me so deeply, why I looked for safety in other people, and why I had built parts of my life in ways that maybe weren't completely mine.

My thinking was basically: if my entire identity was already falling apart, then let's take the whole thing apart. 😅 Let's see what's underneath the fears, learned patterns, other people's expectations, and all the beliefs I had collected over the years without really questioning them.

Looking back, that probably sounds brave. It definitely didn't always feel brave while I was living it.

I spent an enormous amount of time alone. I had to face thoughts and feelings I had previously been able to avoid by filling my life with other people and other things. I also started looking at my relationships in a completely different way.

At the same time, I was changing so quickly that sometimes even I couldn't keep up with myself. There were moments when I thought I had finally understood something about myself, only to realize a little later that there was another layer underneath it.

Sometimes it was exhausting. But I was also incredibly curious about everything I was beginning to discover about myself.

I Learned to Enjoy My Own Company

One of the biggest changes has been my relationship with being alone.

I had spent almost my entire adult life in a relationship, and I was used to having someone else around. When I suddenly found myself alone, it was incredibly difficult at first. I was used to sharing my everyday life with someone. Making plans together, talking about my day, and simply having another person there for all those ordinary little moments.

And suddenly, all of that was gone.

Because I had been so used to finding safety in other people, being alone brought up a lot of feelings I hadn't really had to face before. At first, being alone felt like something I just had to get through.

But gradually, something started changing.

I began noticing how much time alone was actually giving me. Without constantly having other people around, I started hearing my own thoughts in a completely different way. I had time to reflect, write, read, and explore things that genuinely interested me. And maybe for the first time in my life, I had enough space to really ask myself what I wanted.

I also started noticing how much I had previously adapted my own plans and choices around other people. Now I could decide for myself how I wanted to spend my days, where I wanted to go, and what I felt like doing. And little by little, I actually started enjoying it.

Today, I value my alone time so much. I love spending time in nature, getting completely absorbed in something I'm interested in, or simply being alone with my thoughts. Having that time to myself has given me the opportunity to get to know myself in a way I hadn't even realized I needed.

And perhaps one of the biggest changes is that being alone no longer feels the way it used to.

Being alone used to make me feel like something was missing from my life. Now it's one of the things that makes my life feel good.

I still love spending time with other people, but I've learned to appreciate everything that having time to myself gives me. And maybe most importantly, I've realized that I genuinely enjoy my own company.

I never thought I'd say that.

As I Changed, My Relationships Changed Too

One thing I didn't really expect from this journey was just how much my relationships would change along the way.

Over the past couple of years, new people have entered my life, but I've also lost people I thought would be part of it for a long time. And that has continued happening even after I started getting to know myself better.

I've noticed that when you start changing a lot, your relationships can go through changes too. When you begin recognizing your own needs, learning to set boundaries, and behaving differently than you used to, some relationships don't necessarily work the same way anymore.

People have become familiar with a certain version of you. And when you no longer behave in the ways they're used to, it can change things more than you might expect. And sometimes, people simply grow in different directions.

That has been one of the hardest parts of this journey.

Especially when you've already experienced losing people and things that meant so much to you, having to face more losses can bring up a lot of old feelings.

I've had to learn that not every relationship is necessarily meant to stay in my life forever. And just because two people once had so much in common doesn't automatically mean life will always take them in the same direction.

At the same time, I've also met wonderful new people I never could have imagined meeting. And maybe that's one of the things I've started understanding about change.

When your life changes, the people around you can change too. And letting go doesn't always become easier just because you know you're moving in a direction that feels right for you.

I Don't Think I Became a New Version of Myself

I've been thinking about how easily we talk about becoming a "new version" of ourselves after a big life change. I'm not sure that's what happened to me. It feels much more like I've been removing things.

I've started recognizing what actually feels like me and what was fear. What was a learned pattern, what came from wanting to be accepted, and what came from ideas about who I was supposed to be.

I had lived with certain patterns for so long that I had started thinking of them as part of my personality. And when I began questioning them, I realized just how much I had been limiting myself.

One good example is that I've always had a pretty strong fear of being seen. Putting myself out there, sharing my thoughts, and believing that anyone would even care about what I had to say used to feel incredibly uncomfortable.

And now I'm writing about my personal life on the internet. Which is honestly a little funny.

I still don't think courage means reaching a point where nothing makes you nervous or you never question yourself. For me, it has been more about doing things while that little questioning voice is still somewhere in the background.

And when you do that enough times, something interesting starts to happen. Your idea of what you're capable of begins to change.

I Realized My Life Was in My Own Hands

One of the biggest changes didn't actually happen around me. It happened in the way I started thinking.

For a long time, I had been looking for explanations for my unhappiness in things that had happened to me, other people's behavior, and situations I couldn't control.

And although those things had affected me deeply, I gradually began realizing that if I kept waiting for them to change, I might be waiting forever.

I couldn't change the past. I couldn't change other people or make them behave the way I wished they would. I couldn't get all the answers I was looking for. But I could change what I did next.

And that realization changed so much for me.

I realized that my life was my responsibility.

I could decide what choices I made, what I wanted to change, and what kind of life I wanted to start building for myself.

I also started recognizing how much I had previously allowed my own happiness to depend on things I had absolutely no control over. I had been waiting for answers, for other people to change, or for something outside of me to finally make me feel better.

But at some point, I realized I didn't have to keep waiting. I could start doing things for myself.

I couldn't choose everything that happened to me, but I could choose how I wanted to move forward. And the more I started living with that mindset, the more I realized how many possibilities I actually had.

I could make new decisions, change direction, learn new things, and rebuild my life.

I had so much more power over my own life than I had ever realized.

And in a way, changing that mindset saved me. It changed me from someone who was waiting for life to change into someone who started changing her own life.

My Life Started Changing With Me

Eventually, all that internal change started showing up in my actual life.

I left my permanent job. I gave up my apartment. I moved to my mother's cottage, which has become a kind of home base for me for now, although I spend quite a lot of time elsewhere.

I started giving more of my time to things that genuinely interested me. Writing, creating, learning, exploring, and eventually building my own business. I wanted to create something where I could bring together everything I had experienced and learned along the way.

And at the same time, I started doing things I had previously only thought about doing.

I've traveled a lot, spent much more time in nature, and started going places I might once have waited for someone else to come with me to.

One of those places was Lofoten. It had been sitting on my bucket list for years. One of those maybe someday places. And then suddenly, I was there.

Traveling alone to Spain was another big thing for me. I had been so used to doing things with someone else that the idea of going somewhere completely on my own had always felt a little unfamiliar.

But I decided to go.

And when I realized I could travel alone, explore new places, and figure things out by myself, something shifted in the way I saw my own abilities.

Experiences like these have made me realize how much of my life I used to spend waiting. Waiting for the right moment. The right person to come with me. Enough certainty. For everything to somehow fall into place first.

And meanwhile, so many things I genuinely wanted to experience were left waiting.

I don't really want to live like that anymore.

My Idea of Safety Started Changing

This might be one of the biggest things the last couple of years have taught me.

I used to think safety came from making life as stable and predictable as possible. A permanent job. A home. A relationship. A plan. Some idea of what next year would look like.

In many ways, my life has less of that kind of certainty now. And somehow, I trust myself more.

I've thought about that contradiction quite a lot. Maybe my sense of safety was never going to come from making everything around me stay the same. Maybe I needed to experience that I could get through changes, make difficult decisions, and rebuild my life.

That even when I don't know exactly what happens next, I can trust myself to meet it.

I've made it through things I once thought I wouldn't. I've traveled alone to places I never imagined going alone. I've met new people and let go of others.

I've made decisions that probably don't make sense to everyone. I've changed my mind, started over, questioned myself, and done things anyway. And every one of those experiences has taught me something.

Safety used to mean knowing that life would stay the way I knew it.

Now, there's a different kind of safety in knowing that life is allowed to change, and I can change with it.

Healing and Finding Yourself Isn't a Straight Line

One thing I also want to talk about is just how up and down this whole journey has been.

Sometimes I can go through long periods of feeling genuinely good about where I am. I understand my patterns, I can approach situations more calmly, and I can see how much I've changed.

And then suddenly, something happens that brings old feelings, fears, or experiences right back to the surface. Sometimes it's something really small. A situation, a conversation, someone else's behavior, or a feeling that reminds me of something I've experienced before.

And suddenly, I notice myself reacting in a way I thought I had already left behind.

It can be incredibly frustrating. Especially when you've spent so much time trying to understand yourself and thought you had already worked through something.

But I've also started seeing these moments differently.

When something triggers a strong reaction in me, I try to stop and ask myself what's actually happening underneath it. Why does this particular situation affect me so much? Why does this feeling seem so familiar? Is there an old experience, fear, or pattern behind my reaction that I haven't fully understood yet?

Often, these are the moments that show me something I still need to pay attention to.

But it's definitely not always as simple as recognizing a trigger, processing the feeling, and moving on with complete peace of mind.

Sometimes I'm still right in the middle of that feeling. Sometimes an old fear feels just as real as it used to. Sometimes I understand perfectly well where a reaction is coming from, but I still struggle to respond differently.

And sometimes I'm simply tired of having yet another thing to work through.

What I've noticed, though, is that even when the same things come up again, the way I relate to them has slowly started changing.

I might still react in an old familiar way, but I often recognize it sooner now. Sometimes I can pause before reacting, and other times I only understand what happened afterwards.

And that's still a change.

I've started realizing that finding yourself doesn't mean all your old wounds suddenly disappear and life becomes easy.

For me, it has also meant learning to recognize my own wounds and patterns more clearly, even when facing them is still difficult.

This journey has been anything but a straight line. But when I look back, I can see just how far I've come.

I Started Questioning What Life Is Supposed to Look Like

If someone had told me a couple of years ago what my life would look like today, I probably wouldn't have believed them.

Quitting a permanent job and giving up your apartment in your thirties probably isn't the first picture we're shown when someone says, life is going really well. 😂

But that's actually been one of my biggest realizations.

A life that makes sense from the outside isn't automatically a life that feels right on the inside.

I used to think a lot about how things were supposed to go. What kind of life would make sense to build, what I should have achieved by this age, and what decisions would be the safest ones to make.

But at some point, I started asking myself a completely different question.

What do I actually want?

Not what I'm supposed to want at this age. Not what looks good to other people or what sounds like the most sensible option. What actually feels right to me?

And I've started realizing how easily we can spend years living our lives without ever really stopping to ask ourselves that question.

We grow up with certain ideas about what a good life is supposed to look like. We study, get jobs, build homes, make plans for the future, and often follow a pretty familiar path.

And at some point, we might realize we've never really stopped to ask ourselves whether that's actually what we want.

For me, this journey has also been about learning that I'm allowed to change my mind. I'm allowed to try something and discover it isn't for me. I'm allowed to change direction. I'm allowed to do things in a different order than I once planned.

And I'm allowed to build a life that looks different from the one I once imagined for myself.

Freedom Means Something Different to Me Now

I used to think about freedom more in terms of external things. Being able to travel, do what I wanted, and decide how I spent my time.

And of course, those things are still important to me. But today, freedom means something much deeper.

It means no longer feeling so tied to my old ideas about myself or what my life is supposed to look like.

I don't have to keep doing something just because it's what I've always done. I can recognize when something no longer feels right and actually do something about it. I can try new things, change my plans, and make decisions that an earlier version of me would have considered too scary or uncertain.

And maybe the most freeing part is that I no longer need an exact plan for where all of this is going.

My life definitely isn't one endless holiday. I still have insecurities, days when I wonder what on earth I'm doing, and plenty of things I haven't figured out yet.

Old patterns still pop up occasionally, almost as if they're checking whether I'm still paying attention.

But I have something now that I don't think I had in the same way before.

I feel like my life belongs to me.

And that's a pretty amazing feeling.

My Journey Is Still Far From Over

The last couple of years have made me question the whole idea that we're supposed to find ourselves one day and then stay that person forever.

I'm still changing. My life changes, the people around me change, and the things I want can change too. Sometimes it happens so quickly that I only realize afterwards how different I am from the person I was six months ago.

But underneath all that change, I feel more like myself than I ever have before.

I don't need to find some final version of myself. I want to keep understanding myself, learning new things, and discovering parts of myself I haven't even met yet.

I also want to keep recognizing and letting go of old patterns. The things that have sometimes guided my life more than my own needs and desires.

And somewhere along this journey, I've started understanding what really matters to me.

I want to live the most authentic life I possibly can. On my own terms, guided by my own values, in a way that genuinely feels like me.

I want to have the courage to make choices that feel right to me, even when they might not look like the most sensible ones to everyone else. I want to keep experiencing new things, learning, and growing. I want to surround myself with people and things that genuinely feel right.

And perhaps more than anything, I want to find inner peace.

The kind of peace that doesn't depend on everything around me going perfectly. The kind where I don't constantly feel the need to control everything, worry about the future, or search for safety outside myself.

I want to become so comfortable with myself and my own life that I no longer feel the constant need to search for something that would finally make it good enough.

I'm not there yet. But when I look at where I started and how much has changed, I feel like I'm moving in the right direction.

I don't know what my life will look like a few years from now. I don't know where I'll live, what I'll be doing, or what kind of people and experiences life will bring my way.

But I have a much better idea of what kind of life I want to live and, more importantly, how I want that life to feel.

And that's already so much more than I knew a couple of years ago.

My journey is still unfolding. And for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm truly walking my own path. 🤍

❤️  S / Grounded Studio 555

If You're Asking Yourself Similar Questions

So much of Grounded Studio 555 has grown out of this part of my own journey.

I know what it feels like to realize that something in your life doesn't feel quite right anymore, while having absolutely no idea what you actually want instead.

I've spent an enormous amount of time exploring my own thoughts, needs, and patterns. And those experiences are also what inspired me to create The Grounded Reset.

I wanted to create a guided experience for those moments when life feels overwhelming, your mind is full of thoughts, or you know something needs to change but have no idea where to begin.

It brings together many of the things I've personally found helpful along the way. A space to take an honest look at where you are, understand yourself a little better, and start figuring out what you genuinely need and want.

Because sometimes the biggest changes begin when you finally allow yourself to ask one simple question:

What do I actually want?