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This is the third part of my BetterHelp series — a continuation of a story that has been unfolding across the last few months, and honestly, across the last few years. If you are new here, the first piece was about what finally broke open for me — the relationship I left, the life I packed into storage, the one-way ticket I bought with shaking hands and something that felt, underneath the fear, like relief. The second piece was about CPTSD — what it actually is, what it looks like when it lives in a body that spent decades in survival mode, and what post-traumatic growth looks like on the other side of doing the hardest thing. This piece is about what comes after the leap. The part no one talks about because it does not make for a clean story: the building.
When Choosing Yourself Is Only the Beginning
For most of my life, I operated from a place I did not have language for until much later: a subconscious architecture built on shame, on shrinking, on putting other people’s perceptions before my own experience of myself. The opinions of others were a measuring stick I carried everywhere — into rooms, into relationships, into choices I made that looked right from the outside and cost me something quietly on the inside.
Waking up from that is not a single moment. It is a series of small, terrifying recognitions. And at some point, the recognition becomes impossible to unknow.
I got to a place where I simply could not live that way anymore.
Choosing yourself sounds beautiful from the outside. In practice, it is one of the most destabilizing things a person can do — particularly when you have spent decades building an identity around not doing exactly that. I was afraid. I kept telling myself that if I jumped, a net would appear. And time and time again, it did. The universe kept showing me the next step. Not the whole staircase — just the next step.
I left the comfort of the healing industry. I started a business with my childhood best friend. And I did both of those things in the middle of the biggest transition period of my life.
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Building Something New While Still Becoming Someone New
There is a particular kind of pressure that comes with building a business remotely — especially when you are also building a new version of yourself at the same time. And there is something I have had to learn that nobody tells you when you are dreaming about this kind of life: freedom requires its own structure. It just looks different. You have to build it on the go, half a world away, in between scheduling calls across time zones, finding the balance between work and play, and making sure you do not overload yourself to the point where you forget to actually enjoy the life you built an online business to have in the first place.
This is a life I am deeply grateful for. The expansion of it, the beauty of being in Europe with the space to grow personally, creatively, and in business simultaneously — it is everything I moved toward. But gratitude does not make it effortless. Navigating constant change, mitigating stress before it becomes burnout, understanding how to communicate more effectively in work, creating boundaries that protect your energy when your home and your office are the same laptop — these are the things that require active tending. The rhythms that once regulated you are gone. The structure disappears. The kind of independence that feels expansive on good days can feel completely untethering on hard ones.
This is where the support of BetterHelp has mattered most. Navigating the change, finding clarity on my priorities, learning how to communicate in work more effectively, and creating boundaries for myself — all of it, while using this season in Europe as the expansion it was always meant to be.
What I Did When I Came Home
When I returned from three months in Europe — the stretch before I would head back again — I made a conscious choice that went against most of what productivity culture would tell you to do in a season of building.
I chose routine. I went to bed early. I woke up early. I drew my energy inward. I simplified everything I could.
I did not fill the quiet. I let it be quiet.
From the outside, this probably looked like slowing down. From the inside, it was the most intentional thing I have ever done. There is a kind of isolation that comes when you are genuinely letting go of an old version of yourself — when the old patterns, old relationships, old ways of moving through the world no longer fit, and the new ones are not fully formed yet. That in-between space can feel lonely. It can feel like something is wrong.
BetterHelp helped me see it differently. My therapist helped me understand that what I was experiencing was not stagnation. It was a conscious withdrawal into myself to make room for who I was actually becoming. Protecting that space, rather than filling it out of discomfort, became one of the most important things I did this year.
The Feelings That Come With Doing the Hard Thing for Long-Term Gain
There is no version of this kind of growth that does not come with hard feelings. The discomfort of choosing differently than you have always chosen. The grief of outgrowing people and places you once loved. The fear that keeps appearing even after you thought you had faced it.
What therapy through BetterHelp gave me was a place to address those feelings without letting them steer. Not to bypass them — to actually meet them, name them, and then make a decision from a grounded place rather than a reactive one. That distinction, between feeling something and being driven by it, has changed the way I make decisions at every level. In the business. In relationships. In how I spend my time and where I put my energy.
The combination of being a business owner, a remote worker, a nomad, and a person actively doing deep personal work is a lot to hold. BetterHelp has been the container that keeps all of it from becoming too much at once.
On the Eve of Leaving Again
As I prepare to leave for Europe this summer — for Sardinia, for London, for the months of good light and intentional work and, yes, continued building — I look back on this season with something that feels like genuine gratitude. Not the performative kind. The quiet, settled kind that comes from having actually done something hard and come out the other side more yourself than when you started.
And what brings me comfort is knowing BetterHelp comes with me. My therapist does not stay behind when I board the plane. The continuity of care, across time zones and countries and all the beautiful disruption of a life in motion, means I can keep doing this work wherever I am.
If You Are In the In-Between
If you are in a season like the one I have been describing — feeling the shifts, moving away from hustle culture toward something that actually fits you, wanting to show up more authentically but not quite sure how to get there without losing everything in the process — I want you to hear this.
The in-between is not empty. It is where the real work happens.
If you want to take steps toward facing what you have been quietly avoiding, toward making choices from your values instead of your fears, toward the kind of inner freedom that only comes from actually doing the thing — I cannot recommend BetterHelp enough. Not as a fix. As a framework. A steady place to think, to process, to be witnessed, and to keep moving forward with more clarity than you would have alone.
Trust the leap. I promise you — the other side of the thing you are most afraid to do is where the most beautiful version of your life is quietly waiting and SO WORTH facing your fears.
I am cheering for you from here.
xx,
Codi
