Ульяна Солнечная – Whole: from losing yourself to loving yourself (страница 4)

At first it smells like fear. Then like silence.

And then, quietly, it begins to smell like… freedom.

Why Does Everything Collapse in a Single Moment?

First, it happens because transformation precedes a new stage of life. Old methods, habits, and people may no longer fit your new reality, and that is why the destruction begins – the transition. Everything unnecessary must leave in order to create space for something better.

Second, life tests your readiness. If the road were easy, the value of reaching your destination would be insignificant. Challenges reveal how much your dream truly matters to you. If you keep moving despite obstacles, you show the world – and yourself – that you are worthy of your success.

Third, a new version of you is being created. Sometimes it is precisely in moments of crisis that we uncover strengths we never knew we had. What once felt impossible becomes the only way forward – and you will handle it.

But what should you do when everything falls apart?

Accept the change. Don’t resist. If something leaves your life, it means it no longer serves you. Open yourself to new possibilities, even if they are not yet visible.

Stay focused on your goal and remind yourself why you began this journey. Write it down, speak it out loud, visualize your victory – let your dream lead you forward.

And of course, trust the process of stepping into a new level of life. Act anyway. Keep taking steps, one after another – they move you forward every day, even when it feels like nothing is changing and you are walking through a storm.

If the path were easy, everyone would take it. But it is meant for the strong – which means you already belong among them.

Remember: the darkest night comes just before dawn, the greatest chaos before a new order. If it feels unbearably hard right now, it means you are standing at the threshold of something great. Do not give up – your day is coming soon, the day your new creative life begins. Dreams come true for those who keep going.

Therapy can help as well. And by therapy, I don’t only mean a psychotherapist’s office with a soft chair and a glass of water on the table. Therapy can take any form of love. It can be a priest in a quiet church if your soul responds to that. It can be your mother, if she is capable of truly hearing you. It can be a friend who does not judge. It can be someone who simply sits beside you when you are silent.

The most important thing is to allow yourself to be vulnerable with those who will not betray you. Because alone we can survive – but true healing always comes through connection.

Faith. Meditation

Each of us believes in something – the Universe, God, the Absolute, our Higher Self… Whatever you choose to call it, all these forces speak to us in different languages but with one intention: to awaken us, to return us to ourselves, to lift the veil of illusions we willingly walk into – out of fear, out of love, out of childish naivety or blind trust.

Nothing in life happens without reason. If the spark of awakening is planted within you, if your soul came into this lifetime not just to live, but to remember who you are, then you will almost certainly have to pass through pain, loss, loneliness, and complete reset. Because only at the very bottom – where nothing familiar remains, where there are no outside voices, no expectations, no masks – you finally hear your own voice.

It was then that I tried something that once seemed strange, even slightly ridiculous to me – meditation.

I had always treated such practices with skepticism. I was a person of logic, a rational thinker with a mathematical education, someone who taught children mathematics for eight years, who led others – and suddenly, there I was, sitting on the floor in a strange pose, listening to the “music of the spheres,” with my eyes closed, trying to hear at least something inside myself.

I began with the simplest: a few minutes of silence, breath, the phrase “I am.”

And suddenly – imagine – it worked.

There was one day I remember vividly. I lay down in a pose I had once seen – a Japanese inverted posture: legs raised against a couch or wall, head lower, body fully relaxed. I went so deep that when my mother entered the room (I was staying with my parents on vacation at the time) and said something to me, I heard her voice but couldn’t answer. My consciousness was somewhere between worlds, and I became truly frightened – because I felt a separation, as if my soul had left my body and was slowly returning.

When I finally reconnected with myself – with my body, with the space around me – I felt like someone different.

Was it… a rebirth?

Yes, I thought. Soft, but unmistakable.

In that moment, I told myself: “You are ready for the new.”

A total reset. A new strength and energy entered me. I had waited for it, released what needed to leave, filled myself up – and I was ready for the next chapter.

My thoughts were clear:

“I no longer want to suffer. I no longer want to be a victim. I refuse to destroy myself from the inside. I don’t want to be a woman living in constant expectation of love while forgetting to love herself. I don’t want to be a parasite in my own life, consuming myself with anger, resentment, and guilt.”

For the first time, I said aloud:

“Never again. Never again will I allow others to treat me that way. Never again will I betray myself just to stay close to someone who betrays me.”

That was my first true turning point.

It felt as if I had tuned into a completely different wavelength and drifted away from my past.

Of course, many more shifts followed – many moments where I lost myself again, searched again – but that first crack in my old self, that first step out of the comfort zone, is unforgettable.

I lived through an experience no university could ever give you.

It wasn’t an academic lesson – it was the school of pain, the school of maturity, the school of self-love.

And I am grateful. Not for the suffering – no.

But for the fact that through it, I learned to truly see myself – not through the eyes of those who betrayed me, but through the eyes of the woman who chose to stay and rise: my own eyes.

Now, when I look back at the path I’ve walked – the internal hurricanes, the collapses, the rebirths – I can say with complete honesty, without even a shadow of pretense: I am happy.

Not in the vague, poetic sense – but truly happy: quietly, deeply, calmly.

Happy in each lived moment, even if it’s imperfect, even if it carries ordinary human sadness or daily routines.

Happy not because life is a fireworks show – but because I can feel life, here and now, without fear.

I no longer chase happiness as a destination or a reward.

I live it – as a way of being, as presence, as grateful witnessing of each breath, each glance, each step – even when it makes me vulnerable, even when it leads me into the unknown.

I no longer suffer as I once did, because now I know how to stay in contact with myself – not to run away, not to suppress, not to freeze in the role of a victim, but to stay with whatever rises inside me and live through it fully, without resistance and without drowning in it.

Yes, I can feel sadness. Sometimes.

My body is alive, my hormones are feminine, my emotions are many.

But I learned to see: behind every emotion stands a thought, behind every thought – a story, behind every story – a choice.

And when you see this inner architecture clearly, you stop confusing sadness with tragedy, and melancholy with the end of the world.

Today, looking at my life, I understand that I no longer cling – not to people, not to roles, not to places, not to things, not to sensations, not even to my own identity.

I have learned to flow – to observe, to experience, to let everything pass through me knowing that everything is temporary, everything is a gift, and nothing belongs to me in the literal sense.

If something painful or unexpected happens now, I no longer put up walls. I don’t pretend. I don’t run into overactivity or excuses. I allow myself to stop and feel it – with full honesty, full depth, and full softness toward myself.

I can cry.

I can sit on the floor.

I can remain silent.

But within all of this, there is one constant that never leaves me – me, the one who learned to let go.

My unwavering foundation.

I will tell you more about this. Keep reading…

I realized that everything we think is important can disappear.

And everything we once thought impossible can unfold.

All we can do is remain in this dance – without freezing, without holding onto what wants to leave, without pushing away what wants to arrive.

Every moment we find ourselves in is already a new moment – unique, unrepeatable.

There is no point in clinging to what was.

And no point in clinging to what we imagine the future should be.

Life happens here. And only here.