In the first part of my story, I wrote about how my life pretty much fell apart and how that forced me to look at myself in a way I never had before. If you haven't read Part 1 yet, you can start here. 

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

In the first part of my story, I wrote about how my life pretty much fell apart and how that forced me to look at myself in a way I never had before.

I also wrote about how, underneath everything, I started recognizing a person I think had been there all along.

This is the part where I want to tell you what actually happened after that.

Because it would be easy to jump straight to where I am now and tell you how much my life has changed, the places I've travelled, the things I've dared to do and how different everything feels today. But that would leave out a pretty important part of the story.

At first, all of this was really hard.

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 of this stuff was coming to the surface anyway, I wanted to actually deal with it.

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. Why some things scared me so much. Why I had built parts of my life in ways that maybe weren't completely mine.

My thinking was basically: if my identity is already falling apart, then let's take the whole thing apart. 😅 Let's see what's underneath the fear, the learned patterns, the expectations and all the things I had collected along the way without really questioning them.

Looking back, that probably sounds brave.

It didn't always feel brave while I was living it.

I spent a lot of time alone. I had to sit with thoughts and feelings that I had probably been able to avoid before by filling my life with other people or other things. My relationships started changing too. Some people came closer, some became more distant, and completely new people entered my life along the 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.

I Don't Think I Created 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 noticing what actually feels like me and what was fear. What was a learned pattern. What came from wanting to be accepted. What came from ideas about what I should do, how my life should look or what kind of person I was supposed to be.

Maybe that's why some of the changes in me have surprised me so much.

For example, I've always had a pretty strong fear of being seen. Putting myself out there, sharing what I think or believing that anyone would even care about what I had to say felt incredibly uncomfortable to me.

And now I'm writing about my life on the internet.

Which is honestly a little funny. 

I still don't think confidence means reaching a point where you never question yourself or feel nervous about anything. At least that hasn't been my experience.

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.

My Life Started Changing With Me

Eventually, all of that internal change started showing up pretty dramatically 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 moving around and being elsewhere.

I started giving more of my time to work that actually feels like mine. This. Writing, creating, learning, exploring and sharing some of the things that have helped me understand myself better.

I've travelled a lot. I've spent so much more time in nature. I've 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.

Moments like that 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 be in place first.

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

Confidence Didn't Come From Making My Life More Certain

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 certain as possible. A 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 confidence was never going to come from making everything around me more secure. Maybe it had to come from experiencing, again and again, 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 gone places alone that 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 the thing anyway.

There is a different kind of safety in that.

Not the safety of knowing that life will stay the same, but knowing that it doesn't have to.

I Started Questioning What Life Is Supposed to Look Like

I don't think I could have imagined my current life a couple of years ago.

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 the biggest realizations for me.

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

And I'm definitely not saying everyone should quit their job, move to a cottage and go to Lofoten alone. That would just be another ready-made idea of what a good life is supposed to look like.

For me, this has been much more about finally asking myself a very simple question:

What do I actually want?

Not what I'm supposed to want at this age. Not what makes the most sense to someone else. Not what looks like the safest option.

What actually feels like me?

And I've started believing much more deeply that we're allowed to explore that question. We're allowed to try things, change direction and discover what makes us feel more alive. We don't have to spend our entire lives following a script we never consciously chose.

If You're Asking Yourself Similar Questions

A lot of Grounded Studio 555 has actually grown out of this part of my own journey. I know what it's like to realize that something doesn't feel quite right anymore, but still have no idea what the answer is.

That's one of the reasons I created the 7-Day Clarity Reset. It's a gentle seven-day space to slow down, look at what's actually going on underneath the noise and reconnect with what you need and want.

You don't need to have your whole life figured out. Sometimes you just need enough space to hear yourself again. 🤍

Freedom Looks Different to Me Now

Freedom doesn't mean having no responsibilities or doing whatever I want without consequences.

And my life definitely isn't one endless holiday.

I still have insecurities. I still have days when I wonder what on earth I'm doing. There are things I don't know yet. Relationships I still have to look at honestly. Old patterns that occasionally pop back up 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.

I can change it. I can try something and discover it isn't for me. I can leave. I can stay. I can do things that an earlier version of me would have considered too scary, too uncertain or maybe just a little weird.

And perhaps the most freeing part is that I don't need to know yet where all of this is going.

I Haven't Found a Final Version of Myself

If anything, 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. The things I want can change too. Sometimes it still happens so quickly that I only realize afterwards how different I am from the person I was six months ago.

But underneath all of that change, I feel more like myself than I did when my life looked much more settled from the outside.

Maybe finding yourself isn't about finally discovering the perfect answer to Who am I?

Maybe it's partly about becoming better at noticing what isn't yours. The fear. The learned patterns. Other people's expectations. The things you got used to so long ago that you never thought to ask whether you actually wanted them.

And as those things slowly start falling away, there's more room for something real to come through.

I have no idea what my life will look like a few years from now.

For the first time, that doesn't only scare me.

It also feels pretty freeing. 🤍