When Everything Crumbles

What to Do When You Can't Anymore

Apr 30, 2025

I keep trying to get things right. To be the best version of me that I am. I keep showing up for the things I commit myself to. And yet sometimes I feel like I’m going nowhere, and that nothing is coming together. I’m filled not with impatience, but with doubt.

Impatient is when you know what the outcome will be, but you have to wait. Doubt is when you are not sure what the outcome will be and if you will even be able to reach your goals.

Recently I have learned so much about my human design, being a 6/2 Projector with an emotional authority and having the Gene Key 8 as my "purpose", which tells me to “simply be myself” and “do things in my own way”. I have woven so many things together through Astrology, Human Design, the Gene Keys and the Tarot, and I understand more and more clearly how my approaches to things have gotten skewed over time by expectations and other people's advice — that just doesn’t work for me. And then there is an ocean of advice and waves crashing to the shore filled with sentences like this:

“Just be yourself.”

“Just live authentically.”

“Just radiate love and honesty.”

“Just trust.”

And then success will come.
We've all said it before, heard it before, and we believe it.

But what does it actually mean?

When you are "being yourself"… yet that means you need to hermit most of the time while it seems that community is the only path for success and stability, making you feel confused about how to thrive?

When you are living “authentically”… while it seems like the world rewards fabricated copy-paste content and others celebrate their successes while you struggle to receive engagement and clients?

When you radiate love and honesty… and still struggle with jealousy and trust in relationships?

When you just "trust"… but it seems like everything is falling apart, you are failing and tired, and the exhaustion is burning out your physical health?

grayscale photo of tree trunk — Photo by Jack B on Unsplash

This New Moon in Taurus felt like a deep moment of crisis for me, and perhaps for many of you as well. This is the time to really feel it all, and let our body bring forth the pain, the stress and the trauma that it is carrying.

In times of transition, these deeply rooted tensions want to be pushed out of the cells, and it seems they are bubbling to the surface so that we can finally make space for new energy to fill our system.

But what do we do when we don't feel safe enough to feel ourselves right now?

When we don't have time to rest and relax, because we have to take care of another being?

When we feel what our body needs to be nourished, but we don't have enough money for the food we need and that is the very thing that stresses us in the first place?

When our nervous system is triggered into crisis and suddenly we "lost" 3 days that we spent regulating ourselves back to basically function again?

When we feel shame for stepping away from the world in solitude because we are wondering: how then ever will the wars stop, will the system change, will injustices be overturned?

It can be difficult to exist in a space of transformation that feels like crisis.

It can be difficult to know where to even begin.

It can be difficult to keep trusting, when we are longing to rest.

…when we are longing for a sign…

As the Grand Cross of Pluto-Sun-Mars-Lilith perfected itself last week, I felt the weight of this crisis. And as a human being, I lost control of myself for a moment and felt all of that weight taking over. Again and again. Multiple areas of my life. And I wondered how to ever get out of this situation and when it will ever get better.

But it is exactly in these moments that something remarkable happens.
Our senses are louder than ever.
My senses spoke to me.

The senses I have cultivated and trained to remember ancient wisdom.

The senses I have promised to trust and give space to lead.

The senses that have led me out of many crises before.

The wild tingling of someone who is doing the work.

The deep calling of a soul that is strong in its wisdom.

The sudden dedication of an inner knowing.

The soft pull of a spiritual awareness offering its support.

I do not know exactly how it happens, but again and again it does. After the eruption, I am suddenly clear, and I follow my body and my knowing. And usually it leads me into a deep connection with spirit, through ways that I cherish. I knew I craved to be held by a strong force of nature, that would be able to help me release. And I went out to an old oak tree that is in my neighborhood. I sat there, bowed myself down, and then I cried… and cried… and cried.

I spoke to this being all of my troubles and my fears and my failures, and eventually I softened and the tears calmed. In reciprocity of this support, I wanted to offer something as well. I lit a stick of Frankincense and made a small altar from dried orange peels and elderflower petals, that I had brought with me. The altar took the shape of a sun, and I felt that this happened synchronistically because I am addressing exactly the topic of my inner sun. Solar plexus. Self-worth. Strength.

I had asked the oak what I can do to support myself at this moment of life and I kept hearing in my mind “Sing, my dear. Song is your path”. I remembered myself singing many times, the guitar and my improvisation feeling like I am living my purpose, feeling like I am in flow, like I am magic. I imagined myself singing and felt something other than questions and exhaustion for the first time in days: Inspiration. Tingling. Relief.

It is true, that singing and music is the path of my heart, yet it is something I often put behind other tasks and projects because it seems like the one thing that I will never be able to “make money from”, and under financial stress it is hard to prioritize the things that don’t seem like they “have worked yet”. (The theme of defining success and giving things importance is a whole other topic for another time…)

In this moment, I sang, and the rhythm of my fist on the earth guided me into a melody, into a trance and then into an improvisation. What came forth was the voice of the body of a mother that is birthing, singing that she would like a hand to hold, and a community to show that they care for her and to bring love and abundance. That a woman giving birth is not giving birth alone, it is a co-creation with the being that is birthed, and that she is connected to the roots of all creation. That she would like the light to guide her when she is in silence and in darkness.

This song, this moment, it changed my whole frequency.
And since then, a few days ago, I feel different.

I do not know exactly how I do it. But I know why:
Because it is real. Life is a web of consciousness. The prayers we speak and the tears we cry are not unheard, they are received and answered to, and it is up to us to share them with our environment. The beings around us - birds, trees, flowers, big and small beings, elements and frequencies - they are conscious. And in this consciousness we are able to nourish and be nourished.

I remembered one of my favorite passages from "Women Who Run With Wolves”:

”There are times in a woman's life when she cries and cries and cries, and even though she has the succor and support of her loved ones, still and yet she cries. Something in this crying keeps the predator away, keeps away unhealthy desire or gain that will ruin her. Tears are part of the mending of rips in the psyche where energy has leaked and leaked away. The matter is serious, but the worst does not occur—our light is not stolen—for tears make us conscious. There is no chance to go back to sleep when one is weeping. Whatever sleep comes then is only rest for the physical body.
Sometimes a woman says, "I am sick of crying, I am tired of it, I want it to stop." But it is her soul that is making tears, and they are her protection. So she must keep on till the time of need is over. Some women marvel at all the water their bodies can produce when they weep. This will not last forever, only till the soul is done with its wise expression."
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés

It is in moments like these when we realize how deep our work has really transformed us. Because it is choices like this that help us to keep going.

Any doubt had left me.

Because I remembered not with my mind, but with my whole being.
Because once the tears had swept out frequencies, the song entered with new frequencies, and the alchemy of the whole afternoon has replenished a profound sense of love for myself and life.

Actually holding myself in that space of doubt, and continuing to love who I am, is the biggest strength I have. It is a strength I have cultivated over time, through action and intention… and experience.

Spiritual practices are not something to do when you have “time”, or something that will lead you to “success”. Our practices are our tools and we can use them both in and out of crisis. We practice them so that they are available to us in the midst of crisis. We practice them not because of crisis, but because we are building a muscle of trust, harmonizing energy, and fostering biochemical changes in our body. We do it not to be “good” or “correct”. We do it because we experience the profoundness of it. And we get to live the effects.

So what shall we do when everything is falling apart?
Well, we sit and cry and allow our spirit to be alchemized. And then we remember what is the path of our heart. And we offer our gratitude to the nature we are, and which we live in. And we continue to love ourselves. And we share about our process with our loved ones. And then allow ourselves to witness motion. And we allow motion to inspire us. Sometimes trying again, and sometimes trying new and different. We relax and we use our beautiful mind to help us analyze, while listening to our whole body’s response.

And then we watch… as life moves.

And things change.

And solutions show.

And miracles happen.

What’s the biggest challenge you are facing right now? And what is helping you move through it?

The Loom & The Lyre

Discussion about this post