From Recklessness to Regulation

If I had to name one thing first, it would be meditation.

Not the aesthetic version.
Not the trendy version.
The disciplined, sit-with-yourself-in-the-dark version.

Meditation saved my life.

Not in a dramatic headline way.
In a regulation way.
In a “learn how not to destroy yourself” way.

It taught me how to sit with discomfort instead of outrunning it.
It taught me that thoughts are not commands.
It taught me that impulses pass.
It taught me how to slow the tongue before it moves.

And that last one took decades to understand.

I’ve written before about one of the most vivid meditative experiences that shifted my understanding of structure and grounding in The Message in the Square: A Vision of Grounding and Change.

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The Tongue

When I was young, my Little Grandma Rose used to say:

“The hardest muscle to control is the tongue.”

At the time, I remember being confused.

My tongue?
It just sits there.

Years later, I understood.

The tongue is not just speech.
It is reaction.
It is defense.
It is ego.
It is fear dressed up as certainty.

I grew up watching someone lie — constantly. Daily. About everything and nothing. Not always to me directly, but around me. Deception was the atmosphere.

And children learn from atmosphere.

I learned who I did not want to be.

I learned that I would rather sit in a messy truth than live inside a polished lie.

Do I lie? Occasionally. I’m human.

But here is the difference I’ve come to understand:

For some people, lying is strategy.
For me, if it happens, it is discomfort avoidance — and it feels heavy.

I cannot carry deception lightly. It burns.

Honesty became my rebellion.
Not because I am morally superior.
But because I know what lies cost.

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The Prophecy That Almost Killed Me

At thirteen, a psychic told me I would die young.

That sentence altered my trajectory more than I realized at the time.

If you believe you have an expiration date, long-term consequences feel irrelevant.

So I lived recklessly.
Dangerously.
As if tomorrow was theoretical.

Addiction. Risk. Chaos.
Because what was the point of careful living?

Then I had my first son.

I did the math.

“Thank God,” I thought. “I’ll at least make it to his 18th birthday.”

That became my only horizon.

Years later, I had my second son at 34 — nearly sixteen years after my first. At that time, religion still framed much of my thinking. I remember begging God:

“Just let me make it eighteen more years.”

Imagine structuring your life around survival countdowns.

And here I am.

Fifty.

Twelve years past the “deadline.”

Now I understand something chilling:

The prophecy didn’t predict my death.
It nearly caused it.

Believing I wouldn’t live long made me live like I wouldn’t.

I explored that season of my life more deeply in Beyond the Prediction: A Life Reclaimed, because looking back, I can see how belief can become behavior if we aren’t careful.

That is one of the heaviest realizations of my life.

And now?

Now I believe I might live into my 70s. 80s. 90s. Maybe even 100.

I used to say I didn’t want that.

But maybe I only said that because I didn’t think it was possible.

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Losing 100 Pounds Without Losing Myself

Another experience that reshaped me:

Losing over 100 pounds.

No medications.
No shortcuts.
No external rescue.

Just discipline. Regulation. Consistency.

Hydration.
Movement.
Intentional eating.
Self-observation.

Meditation made that possible. It gave me distance from impulse.

It taught me that the body follows the mind — and the mind can be trained.

For most of my life, I don’t remember being thin. Maybe at seven.

Weight was always there. Measurement was always there. Judgment was always there.

But I am no longer at war with myself.

That season of small, steady deposits — the kind I’ve written about in Small Wins, Strong Heart — taught me that real change doesn’t arrive in dramatic breakthroughs.

It compounds quietly.

And that is growth.

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The Grudge That Clarified My Direction

In November of 2020, the most honest thing I did was say:

“This world is not for me. I am done.”

It didn’t come out dramatically.
It came out quietly — almost reluctantly.

I remember being out with a group of women from a Buffini class. If you know, you know. We were talking about business, about drive, about loving the work. One woman spoke passionately about how much she loved what she did. Then she asked how much the rest of us loved it.

In that moment, I tried to respond professionally.

But your face and your voice don’t lie.

Even when your mouth tries to.

I wasn’t trying to deceive anyone. I was trying to navigate the moment gracefully. But somewhere between my expression and my tone, the truth leaked out.

She laughed gently and said something like,
“Well… if you don’t love this work, maybe it’s not for you.”

I don’t remember the conversation verbatim.
But I remember the realization.

My body knew before I allowed myself to say it.

For a while, the grudge from that 2020 deal felt like acid.

It burned.
It replayed.
It made me tight.

But honesty with myself changed its chemistry.

The real truth wasn’t just that someone else had operated without integrity.

The deeper truth was this:

I was in a world that did not align with me.

When I admitted that, the grudge stopped being acid — something corrosive that harms the container — and became armor.

I once wrote about this transformation in Holding a Grudge: A Reflection on Growth and Realizations, though at the time I didn’t yet understand how deeply it was about alignment.

Not rage.
Not revenge.
Boundary.

Being an honest person doesn’t mean trusting everyone forever.

It means being honest about who you no longer trust.

It means acknowledging when a season has ended.

It means saying, “This is not for me,” without dramatics, without performance — just clarity.

And that clarity led me away from real estate and toward CherryCoBiz.

Not immediately.
But inevitably.

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The Paradox of the Fixed Frame

And now?

Now I live inside what I call a “fixed frame.”

I unpacked this idea more fully in The Paradox of the Fixed Frame, where I realized that stability isn’t stagnation — it’s scaffolding.

A steady job.
Routine.
Structure.

It is not my forever dream.

But it is the outer square that allows my inner squares to shift.

The office I once resented has become a container for discipline.

In quiet hours, I hydrate.
I write.
I regulate.
I stack small wins.

Meditation showed me the square before I recognized it in real life.

The outer structure holds.
The inside evolves.

Growth does not always come from chaos.

Sometimes it comes from staying.

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So What Helped Me Grow the Most?

Meditation.
Truth-telling.
Almost dying because I believed I would.
Motherhood.
Sobriety.
A grudge that redirected my path.
Losing 100 pounds.
Choosing structure instead of escape.

But beneath all of that is one core lesson:

The happiest life for me comes from being honest — not just with others, but with myself.

That means:

Thinking before speaking.
Regulating before reacting.
Choosing intention over impulse.
Accepting accountability instead of outsourcing it.

Perfection is not required.

Accountability is.

And you are the only one who can give it.