The Human Correction: Losing Momentum, Gaining Clarity

“Maybe I didn’t just lose momentum. Maybe I was being repositioned - not as a punishment, but as a recalibration. A forced pause to remind me of what I had been too quick to leave behind.”

My chest felt extremely tight, and I just knew something wasn’t right. Only, nothing was actually wrong. My kids were home, safe, with me. Things were peaceful. Yet I couldn’t shake this overwhelming sensation of being unsettled and disturbed.

Weeks later, my suspicion was confirmed: the rental home that had seemed charming and cozy at first glance was riddled with dangerously high mold levels. I wasn’t crazy after all. I was living in a toxic environment.

(Rewind about six weeks.)

I felt firmly established in the dawn of my new era of independence. The kids weren’t babies anymore. I no longer had to worry about them rolling into accidental self-harm, and they didn’t require loads of oversight or, overall, just stuff. I was healing remarkably well from my surgery that finally reclaimed the skin my second pregnancy had indefinitely expanded and reconstructed the abdominal wall that my strong son’s growth in utero had overpowered.

In preparation for the surgery, I had been in tip-top shape. I didn’t want any part of the process to be a band-aid fix that I’d later regret or wish I had taken more seriously. I hadn’t consumed alcohol in over a year, and I was strong. Physically, I was at the top of my game.

I had gained clarity around my professional purpose and started building momentum. I had mourned my corporate life and stepped into something new, on my own.

My marriage was stronger than ever. He and I had surprised even ourselves - the story of our beginning, the challenges that had tested us, and the deepening closeness we had built over time.

And yet, on this couch, six weeks later, I felt despair, panic, and a swirling sense of loss.

When I found out why I felt so awful, it all made sense. I shifted immediately into action—getting my family into a new environment, running extensive tests to see how my little kids had been affected by the Basidiospores and Aspergillus we’d all been breathing in, and pursuing a legal case against a landlord who, we learned, had knowingly rented the infested property to another family before us.

The coming months were consumed with legal and logistical battles, but my kids’ clean bills of health were what mattered most. We also landed in a home far better suited for our family and prevailed legally, so in practical terms, the matter was closed.

Yet my entire personal game had been thrown. I felt insane, as if I had fallen into a deep, dark hole. Those familiar with mold toxicity might say I was experiencing depression due to the toxic hit my nervous system had taken. And, as someone with fickle serotonin levels, it makes sense that I felt as low as I did.

I lost momentum in nearly every area of my life. I kept up with the non-negotiables, but everything else got pushed to the back burner. My days revolved around caring for my kids and keeping my body active and well. I entirely paused my podcast, my coaching business, and my writing. These were the things that had once lit me up, brought me joy, given me life - and suddenly, I had zero desire to touch them.

It was painful because I felt like I had been at this pinnacle moment, ready to propel into my next era, only to be yanked backward into confusion, frustration, and loss. I was FINALLY there.

And then I wasn’t.

So I did what the student in me does: I sought help. I joined two masterminds, hoping to grasp onto the light I had felt at the end of the previous year. But I just couldn’t show up the way I wanted to. When you feel like a mess, faking it till you make it can be utterly exhausting. And who wants to listen to complaints? Who wants to hear more bad news?

Instead, I pulled everything I could out of myself to lead a peer parenting group within a Venture Capital organization of which I am a part. Professional women with demanding jobs and little kids? THIS, I could show up for. And I did. I don’t know if the participants will ever realize it, but working with them was some of the best medicine I received during that time.

Speaking of medicine, I followed a detox protocol to heal my body. (Growing up in San Francisco, I developed allergies to nearly everything, so I was the most physically affected in my family.) Having a partner in the medical field was instrumental in navigating healing tools and protocols.

Slowly, by fall, I started to feel okay. (Without diving into it here, because it’s a topic for another time, my family was hit with another major setback just before Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until that matter was resolved that I truly started to feel like myself again.)

For months, I told myself the mold had stolen something from me - my energy, my drive, my momentum. And in some ways, it had. But when I really sat with what I had lost, I realized that maybe life wasn’t just knocking me down. Maybe it was forcing me to see something I had been too eager to leave behind.

I thought I was done with my corporate life, but I wasn’t.

When I left, I had framed it as a chapter closed, something to be mourned and then moved past. But without realizing it, I had been so eager to distance myself that I never actually acknowledged what I missed: the structure, the sense of impact, the intellectual challenge. It wasn’t the rigid corporate grind that I longed for, but rather the part of me that had once thrived in high-stakes problem-solving, in making things happen. I hadn’t outgrown that part of myself; I had just let it get buried under the weight of reinvention.

I was so ready for "MY next chapter" that I almost missed the one I’m living in right now.

I had convinced myself that the most important thing was moving forward, building something new, proving to myself that I could create my own path. And then life sat me down and showed me what actually mattered. My kids. The way they still need me, in ways that are different but no less profound than when they were babies. The way this fleeting window of childhood is just that - fleeting. I had been racing toward what's next without realizing that the most meaningful part of my life isn’t something I have to build. It’s something I’m already living.

So, maybe I didn’t just lose momentum. Maybe I was being repositioned - not as a punishment, but as a recalibration. A forced pause to remind me of what I had been too quick to leave behind.

We all think we’re moving toward a destination. That if we push hard enough, work fast enough, evolve quickly enough, we’ll arrive. But sometimes, life interrupts - not because we’ve failed, but because we’re moving in the wrong direction. And when that happens, it isn’t a loss. It’s a realignment. A human correction.

And maybe that’s what this whole experience was for me. Not a setback, but a shift. Not a punishment, but a necessary pause. Because before I could move forward, I had to remember what was actually worth holding onto.