You Were Never Meant To Live a Small Life

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Reconnect With Yourself: A Letter to My Future Self

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How to Reconnect With Yourself When You Feel Lost

This is for myself, when I’m feeling unconnected from myself. A reminder of how to reconnect with yourself when life feels disorienting, heavy, and unfamiliar.

Right now, you’re probably feeling disconnected from yourself. Maybe even a little envious of the way you used to be, back when things felt easier, when you could just move through your days without this heavy sense of dissociation weighing on your chest.

Before, you loved the daily things that mattered. You got on with life. But something happened — something big, something foundational — that created a tectonic shift in who you are and shattered the identity of the person you thought you were.

And no matter how much you try to claw your way back to who you were, the truth is this: something else is emerging.

I know that sounds woo-woo and irrelevant right now. I know that feeling secure is the only thing that matters when you’re in freefall. But think of it like a caterpillar finally shedding its outer layer, emerging as a butterfly with iridescent wings that catch the light in ways the caterpillar could never have imagined. That butterfly doesn’t lumber along the ground anymore—it takes flight, delicate and powerful all at once.

You are in the chrysalis right now. It’s dark in there. It’s uncomfortable. But transformation is happening whether you can see it or not.

The Truth About Coming Back to Yourself

Your confidence and security will come back. Some of it will come from being patient with yourself. Some from self-reflection. Some from actively rebuilding what’s been broken. And the rest? The rest will simply come from time.

Riding the wave is all you can do right now. Going through it, despite the discomfort, is all you need. That’s not giving up — that’s survival. That’s wisdom.

But here’s what I want you to know: it doesn’t need to feel as uncomfortable as it does right now.

Much of what you’re experiencing isn’t just the situation itself — it’s the story you’re telling yourself about the situation. It’s the way your emotions are reacting, spiralling, creating additional layers of suffering on top of what’s already hard.

This is where we turn to something practical, something ancient, something that has helped people survive unimaginable loss for thousands of years.

Step One: Learn From Marcus Aurelius

When I was going through this, I discovered Stoicism — not as a philosophy to intellectualise, but as a tool for emotional survival.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor who lost eight of his children, with only one surviving him. He faced plague, war, betrayal, and unimaginable grief. And yet, he didn’t philosophise his way out of pain. He didn’t pretend it didn’t hurt.

Here’s what he understood: Marcus didn’t try to eliminate grief or sadness. That’s the misunderstanding most people have about Stoicism. What he refused to do was add suffering on top of suffering.

When something terrible happens, the pain is real. The loss is real. But saying “This is unbearable,” “I can’t survive this,” “My life is over” — those are opinions, not facts. He let himself feel the pain, but he would not indulge the catastrophic narrative that follows pain. That part was optional.

What I take from this is the ability to see the situation for what it is without enriching the experience with doom and drama. What’s left is a sense of control. You’re in your body, riding the wave, but without the additional turmoil that your mind wants to pile on top.

This is just for the harder days, mind you. On the easier days, your mind already knows how to function — which is why they feel easier. The practice is learning to apply this Stoic lens when everything feels like it’s falling apart.

How to practice this:

When you feel yourself spiralling, pause. Ask yourself: What is actually happening right now? Strip away the story. Strip away the “what ifs” and the “I’ll never’s.” What remains is usually something you can handle, at least for the next five minutes. And that’s all you need to do — handle the next five minutes.

The Stoics also taught that a content life rests on a few foundations: a peaceful home life, meaningful work, financial stability, and your health. When one of these crumbles, it’s no wonder you feel lost. Which brings us to the next step.

Step Two: Rebuild What You've Lost

This is about addressing the seismic shift that put a dent in your foundation. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe a relationship ended. Maybe your health took a turn. Maybe everything you thought was stable suddenly wasn’t.

Rebuilding isn’t about going back — remember, you can’t go back. It’s about creating something new in the space where the old thing used to be.

If you lost your job, it’s about finding new work — not necessarily the same work, but something that gives you purpose and structure. If a relationship ended, it’s about learning to hold space for yourself in ways you never had to before. If your health changed, it’s about accepting the new normal and finding ways to feel strong within it.

This part is practical. It’s logistical. It’s about taking small, tangible steps forward even when you don’t feel ready. Because here’s the thing: you won’t feel ready. You just have to start anyway.

Ask yourself:

What is the one foundation that’s been shaken?
What is one small action I can take this week to start rebuilding it?
What does “rebuilt” even look like for me now — not before, but now?

Step Three: Get Out of Your Head

If you’ve had time to sit with your thoughts longer than usual, you know how dangerous that can be. Your thoughts, left unchecked, are enough to make you spiral into places you don’t need to go.

And please, for the love of everything, stay off social media right now. I know it’s tempting. I know you want to numb out, to scroll, to distract yourself. But social media is designed to focus on the negative, to make you ruminate on the worst, to feed you comparison and outrage and fear. Your mind is temperamental right now. Do it a favour and restrict your time there.

Instead, you need to replace those spiralling thoughts with something that actually serves you.

Get a new job, even if it’s just temporary. Sign up for a class. Start a creative project — paint, write, knit, build something with your hands. These become positive thoughts that get rooted in your mind and start to bloom over time. These thoughts will begin to make you feel better, more excited for life. You will start to feel better about yourself, not because everything is fixed, but because you’re actively creating instead of passively consuming.

Step Four: Add to Your Life Experience

From here, this is where you begin to nourish yourself in ways that matter.

Journal. Not every day if that feels like pressure, but regularly. Write about what you’re feeling. Write about what you notice. Write about the tiny moments when you felt like yourself again, even if it was just for a second.

Read books that interest you. Not self-help books (unless you genuinely want to), but novels that transport you, memoirs that make you feel less alone, poetry that puts words to what you can’t express.

Listen to music that moves you. Create playlists for different moods. Let yourself cry to the sad songs. Let yourself dance to the hopeful ones. Music has a way of reaching the parts of you that words can’t touch.

Move your body. Walk, stretch, dance in your kitchen, swim, lift weights — whatever feels good. Your body holds memory and identity too. Sometimes reconnection happens not through thinking, but through feeling yourself inhabit your body again.

Spend time with people who see you. Not the ones who knew “old you” and expect you to stay frozen in time, but the ones who can hold space for who you’re becoming. The ones who don’t need you to be anything other than exactly where you are.

What You'll Know When You're Through This

You won’t be “back to yourself.” That version of you is gone, and that’s okay. She served her purpose. She got you here.

But you’ll be integrated. You’ll have taken this experience — this terrible, foundational, earth-shattering experience — and woven it into who you are. It won’t define you, but it will have shaped you.

You’ll recognise yourself again, but differently. Like seeing your reflection in water that’s finally gone still after being churned by a storm. You’ll think, “Oh, there I am. I’m different than I remembered, but I’m here.”

And one day, sooner than you think, you’ll wake up and realise you didn’t think about any of this yesterday. You were just living. And that’s when you’ll know.

Take your time. Be gentle with yourself. You’re going to be okay. Not because everything will go back to how it was, but because you’re stronger than you know, and you’re already doing the work. Keep going.

Nayla

Founder of Nayla’s Lab – A Space for Women Rising