What Collapse Is Trying to Tell You

What if the moment everything fell apart  was actually the moment everything began?  

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What if the wall you hit, the breakdown,  the week you couldn't get off the couch,  

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the day your body finally said no, wasn't  failure? What if it was your body doing  

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the most intelligent thing it has ever done?  What if collapse, excuse me, was never the end  

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of the story? What if it was the beginning  of the one you were always meant to live?

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Here's what most women think when they  collapse. Something's wrong with me. I'm  

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falling apart. I shouldn't be able to handle  this. I don't have time for this. I need to  

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push through. And so they do. They push.  They white knuckle their way through the  

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exhaustion. They add more coffee and more  willpower and more forcing until the body  

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which has been whispering for months  stops whispering and starts screaming.

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Collapse is not weakness. Collapse is a  communication. Your body has been sending  

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has been sending signals for a long time.  Tension, fatigue, numbness, disconnection,  

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anxiety that won't settle, sleep that doesn't  restore, accomplishments that feel like nothing.  

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And when we don't listen to the whispers, life  has a way of making us listen to something louder.

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a health crisis, a relationship breaking, a  career falling apart, or sometimes something  

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as simple as a broken water heater that  tips a nervous system already at its limit  

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into complete overwhelm. I want to talk about  something today that most people don't know.  

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There are seven types of rest.  Most of us think rest means sleep,  

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but sleep is just one kind. We have physical  rest for your body. There's mental rest from  

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thinking and planning. We need emotional  rest from managing other people's feelings.

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Social rest comes from performing and people  pleasing. Sensory we need to rest from screens,  

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noise and stimulation. How about creative rest  from generating and producing and then of course  

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there's spiritual. We need to rest from striving  and doing and proving. Most high achieving women  

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are depleted in all seven simultaneously and  they think more sleep will fix it. It won't  

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because the exhaustion isn't in your body. It's  in your nervous system. It's in your soul. It's  

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in the little girl inside who has been running  the show for decades and is finally desperately  

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ready to rest. Which of these seven types  of rest are you most depleted in? Right now,

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I want to share

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a little bit about where how I discovered all of  this. And it is from the water heater breaking in  

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May. And I thought I was doing okay. I was just  coming off the detox. Sal's going to be going  

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to Texas for a month. And that tipped me so far  into overwhelm. I couldn't even believe it. Even  

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S was in overwhelm. Primarily because we deal with  water losses in our basement all the time. I mean,  

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this is like the third one now since I've been  in here. So, I'm almost averaging one a year. And  

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we just it was just too much. I mean, we were  both coming off this 90-day detox. Our bodies  

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are doing things that we're not used to it doing.  We're He's leaving. We're facing the water loss.  

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He's worried. I'm worried. And it just felt like  everything was impossible. And God knows that's  

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how life always works. When we think we can't  take on anymore, we do. So, I know I was a little  

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cranky person with him. I was really weighing  a lot because I just was so overwhelmed and I  

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didn't want to be left alone. And then I realized  he planned this for whatever reason. He planned to  

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go for a month and I just knew it was the wrong  decision and I finally surrendered because I  

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think there was a reason why this had to be. I  don't have an issue being alone. I truly don't.  

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But for some reason where I was at it just didn't  resonate very well. So what ended up happening is  

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I was hitting a wall every single day in May after  he left. I was sleeping well. I was feeling good  

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in the morning. And then I watched my capacity  drain throughout the month. And all I could do was  

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sit and be. I still did the shows. I still move  forward in little baby steps, but I was still at  

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a capacity of zero. I was learning something new  and I couldn't take it on. It was the strangest  

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thing. And I I didn't beat up myself for it. I  did not get mad at myself. I just allowed it to  

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happen. And then the strangest childlike thoughts  started to surface. And it's this little girl's  

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voice showing up when something triggered me. It  was so immature and it wasn't making sense to this  

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adult version of myself. And I just sat there and  observed it thinking, "Oh, that's interesting."  

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And then I just let it go. I thought if people  knew what was going on inside my head, they would  

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put me in a mental institution because it was such  crazy thought patterns going on. And I talked to  

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people who who normally do detoxes and they said,  "This is all part of the detox, Cath. This is all  

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the stuff that's coming out. You may be finished  taking the pills and all the things that you're   doing, but that doesn't mean your body's done.  You got two years of this change that I made  

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in 90 days. That's going to take two years because  that's a cellular restructuring." I'm like, "Okay,  

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fine. I'll deal with it." But what got me the most  was realizing that this little girl, regardless of  

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how much I had healed, was still running the show.  And that surprised me the most because I did not  

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know that until I watched the thought forms coming  up. And what she needed most was to be heard

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because I never listened to her either. I got  to a point where I didn't listen to anybody   because I figured everybody was lying to me,  including her. I just stuffed her and buried  

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her because I couldn't deal with her. And so  that was the moment when I allowed her voice,

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her opinion, and I mean really voice it without  judgment. And that was the moment that peace  

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started coming in. She didn't need to be fixed.  And she did. All she needed was to be heard. And  

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that 90day detox ending at the same time, that was  layers of releasing happening simultaneously. And  

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it really surprised me because there was so much  going on at that point. And what was interesting  

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is in that in that time frame, and this is getting  closer to when Sal's getting ready to come home.  

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I was probably about it might have been about a  week before he came home. I started to feel this  

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incredible sense of peace in my body. I mean calm  peace because we know how our bodies operate. We  

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know how we feel on the inside and this was not  there. That agitation, that angst, that pent up  

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energy or whatever I called it, it was gone. And  I'm like, who am I? And I'm just kind of like,  

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God, who is this girl? And I'm thinking, I  really like this. This feels really good.

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And I just observe this and just thought, wow,  whatever I'm doing, I am causing that peace  

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because I'm letting the little girl voice her  opinion. I'm not judging her. I'm not judging  

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myself. I'm just allowing to be in this space that  I was in. And it's not easy. This was not easy,  

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people. this was so not easy to do and I just  did it anyways. I just did what I needed to do.  

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And yes, there was still some head trash going  on about I should be doing this and this and   this. But I didn't beat myself up for it. I just  allowed it to do because I knew that I couldn't do  

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any more. All I could do was what I did. And that  was virtually a whole lot of nothing. And when  

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I learned about the seven types of rest at that  point, that's when I realized I was all seven of  

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them simultaneously. I couldn't do anything more  creatively. It was like I felt so dried up on so  

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many levels. I mean, I'm I'm not one to sit on my  phone all day, but I am on my computer creating  

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content and trying to find ways to make money and  and building things and trying to get my business  

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moving in a different direction. So, I give you  all of that. I do that. But it's also a lot of   mental fatigue when you're doing that, trying to  come up and you're learning and I'm learning from  

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people and I'm growing and I'm doing all the stuff  that I need to do. And then there's this spiritual   thing going on and I'm like, I feel like they're  not even talking to me. And it's like, but I don't  

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even know if I could handle them talking to me.  I mean, this is how I was like talking to myself.  

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Excuse me. I don't know what's going on with my  throat. Probably because I'm talking about stuff   that I don't talk about and I'm choking on my  words. And that's what happens too. So anyways,  

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the whole point was is I was starting to wake  up completely different and it wasn't dramatic  

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and it was just this little quiet knowing that  something had shifted. I could hear deeper. My  

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nervous system felt like it was leveling out and  I knew without anyone telling me that I was moving  

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forward again. And that's what made all of this so  important to me was giving myself that permission.  

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And Sal and I talked every day and he was losing  his mind when he was in Texas. And I said,   "I told you that a month was too long." And it  was and he was going crazy. There was nothing  

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for him to do. But I think we both needed to be  away and just deal with what we had to deal with.  

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He, you know, he has aging parents and he's  dealing with aging parents and knowing that  

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he doesn't know how much time he has left with  him. I mean, his dad two years ago looked like I   thought he wasn't going to live out through the  out the year and now he's he's rallied back and  

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he's put on weight and he's getting around  and now it's his mom's turn and you know,  

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can't wait for those moments. What the whole point  was is that he got to learn a lot more about his  

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past. Does he had uncles telling him about his  dad that his dad never shared because you know   that's the generation that never shared anything.  It was the biggest secret and everything goes to  

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the grave with him. So he got to learn a lot more  about his father. He got to understand a little   bit more about why he does what he does, what he  learned from his father, that kind of thing. And  

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I got to allow myself to just start healing at  a level. And I realized also during the month of  

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May that I there was grief coming up, you know,  because my father had died a year before. And  

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it wasn't that I was grieving his death, but it  was still grief because there was that part of  

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me of that little girl who wanted to be loved and  wasn't and and I wanted to be heard and I wasn't.

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and I wanted to be recognized for just being  who I was and I wasn't. And so there was a  

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lot of that grief going on like I could  finally let go of all of that because

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we have to it's not about anybody  else. This is all about my healing.  

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And I came down on this planet to heal  as much as I could possibly heal and to   deal with the wounds that I had taken on.  And there are plenty, there are so many.

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And I know who I am because of it. And the one  thing that I feel like that's happening as the  

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nervous system is healing, as I'm understanding  the language of the body, and believe me,   it's a very complicated language. It talks to us  all the time. It's just it's a foreign language  

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is what I've discovered when in May is when I  realized I'm trying to understand the language   of the body. But when I said there was a body,  mind, spirit connection, that's what it feels  

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like because the body comes with us. It's our  physical manifestation and the body comes with it.  

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So if we want to ignore the body, treat the body  like crap, guess what? It's going to retaliate.  

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And it does retaliate. So why don't we start  working in harmony? Start doing better. I'm not  

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saying give up all the bad stuff. I'm not saying  that because we all do it and I do it too and  

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I don't have a problem with it. It's just about  my attitude is always about moderation. So let's  

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start recognizing the body and being grateful for  the body that we have because you know what? You  

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created it. It's your creation. I used to get mad  at my body when I was sick and I finally decided  

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one dime is like, you know what? I'll give you  24 hours. That's all I'm giving you. And you   know what? It it allowed that because that's what  I gave it. Now I give it a little more time. But  

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see, thank God I'm not one of those sickly people.  Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. I'd go crazy. But  

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when it doesn't, but when there's things going on,  I'm on high alert. I'm paying attention to see if  

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it's just a moving thing or if there's something  seriously going on and I pay attention to my body  

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because you know what? I may be aging but I'm not  dying and I'm not slowing down. I'm still moving  

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forward and until the day I take my last breath,  I'm going to keep moving forward. I didn't die 30  

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years ago and I'm waiting to be buried. I am still  living my life. And for me to live the life that I  

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want, that means I have to take care of my body  and I want to take care of my body because I've   been taking care of it my whole life. It's been  good to me and I want to be good to it. So, it's  

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about changing your perspective of what you have  about your body. It's not about beating yourself   up when you collapse because if you're collapsing,  there's a reason. And instead of being angry at  

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yourself or thinking you're a failure or you're  not a team player or you're a slacker or whatever,   whatever comes up, and believe me, I have been  told all those things and I've even said them to  

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myself. I'm not that. I need to take care of me.  Self care is critical, especially in today's day  

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and age. So, I just want to leave that with you  is just be nice to yourself. Just love yourself.  

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You chose your body for whatever reason. Whatever  your ailments are, whatever it is, you chose it.  

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And be grateful for it and take care of it because  this is what houses the essence of you is this  

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body. It's an earth suit. That's all it is. So  why not take care of it? So right now, I'd like  

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you to take out a piece of paper and I want you  to write down all seven types of rest. physical,

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mental, emotional,

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social, sensory,

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creative and spiritual.

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Now rate yourself on each one. Zero  means completely depleted and 10  

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means fully restored. Be honest. Not how  you wish you were, how you actually are.

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Look at your lowest scores. Those numbers are  not failure. They are messages. They are your  

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body telling you exactly where it needs your  intention. Pick the lowest one, just one,  

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and ask yourself, what would one small act of this  kind of rest look like today? Not a week at a spa.  

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Not a complete life overhaul. Just one small  thing. Today, small, consistent, and trusted.

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That is how the nervous system heals. Not  all at once, one safe moment at a time.

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Find a comfortable position,  your feet flat on the floor.

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Close your eyes and take a  slow breath in. And exhale.

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I want you to think about everything  you've carried this month,

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the achieving, the hiding, and the running.

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And I want you to acknowledge  yourself for all of it.

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Not with judgment, with compassion.

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You did what you had to do.

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You survived what you had to survive.

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You held what you had to hold.

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And now, right here, right now  you are allowed to put it down.  

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Place your hand on your heart and  say, "My collapse was not failure.

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It was my body asking for what it needed.

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I am learning to listen.

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I am learning to rest.

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I am learning to trust.

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The little girl inside me is heard.

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She is safe. She is loved.

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And so am I.

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Take one more long breath in and exhale all the way out.

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Stay here as long as you need and  open your eyes when you're ready.

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This month we walk through the hidden  breaking point of the strong woman.  

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We looked at why your body can't shut off.  Why strength costs more than anyone tells  

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you. Why asking for help feels like betrayal. Why  success can become a prison. And why collapse when  

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it finally comes is not the end. It is the  most honest moment of your life. the moment  

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your body finally tells the truth that your mind  has been managing for years. And if you listen,  

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really listen, what you will find underneath the  collapse is not emptiness. It is peace. A peace  

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you have never felt before. A quiet knowing. A  nervous system finally leveling out. A little  

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girl finally heard. That peace is available to  you. I promise you it is available because I  

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found it in May on an ordinary day with a broken  water heater and a partner about to leave and a  

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body that finally said enough. I listened and it  changed everything. Next week we begin a brand  

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new series. Why everything feels empty? Because  once the collapse settles, a new question emerges.  

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If I'm not defined by my strength, then who am I?  That is where August takes us. And I cannot wait.  

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Share this series with every strong woman you  know. And if you are ready, come inside the I am  

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the light sanctuary. I am offering a 7-day free  trial. Look around, listen to the meditations,  

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check out the light activation guide, and if you  find value, join. No pressure, just an invitation.  

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The link will be in the show notes. I'm Kathleen  Flanigan, and you don't have to carry this alone.