The Good Shift: Rediscovering Meaning, Strength, and Good After Life Changes Everything

Life has a way of shifting when you least expect it.

Sometimes it’s a gentle nudge, a new opportunity, a new season, a new role.
And sometimes… it’s an earthquake.

For me, that shift came when my son, Adam, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer.

In an instant, everything in my life changed. My world stopped, but everything else kept spinning, and there was no way to step off. Suddenly, my place was clear. I was right beside my son, in the fight for his life.

Seven years ago, Adam was diagnosed with NUT carcinoma, one of the rarest cancers in the world. He was just 15 years old, and at the time, one of only about one hundred known cases worldwide. There was no established treatment protocol. By the time it was found, the cancer had consumed his entire left lung and spread to his spine, hips, and lymph nodes.

The doctors told us he had three to six months to live.
God gave us just shy of eighteen.

From that moment on, nothing about life looked the way I expected it to. And while the diagnosis changed everything, it wasn’t until Adam passed away that the full weight of that shift truly settled in.

That space, between who I had been and who I was becoming, unraveled everything I thought I knew about strength, control, and purpose.

As a mother, your instinct is simple: you protect your child, you fix things, you make it better. And suddenly, I couldn’t.

I’ve always been a fixer. A little (okay, very) Type A. Years in the hospitality industry taught me how to pivot quickly, solve problems on the fly, and keep things moving no matter what was happening behind the scenes. But this was far beyond my ability to pivot. It was completely outside my control.

And I learned something only time could teach me:
the loss itself was sacred, devastating, and unchangeable, but how I learned to live after it would shape everything that came next.

The Good Shift

Every one of us eventually reaches a crossroads, the moment when life doesn’t go the way we planned. Some people become frozen in that space. Others somehow find a way to keep living with meaning, even while carrying deep loss.

The difference isn’t luck, privilege, or superhuman strength.
It’s a series of small choices, made in the middle of the mess.

Looking back, I can see those choices clearly now. And those choices are what I’ve come to call The Good Shift.

Not forcing positivity.
Not “moving on.”
But choosing how you respond when life shifts beneath your feet.

Here are the seven shifts that helped me find my way forward, shared not as a checklist, but in the hope that one or two might meet you exactly where you are.

1. Believe You Can Grow, Even Here

Growth doesn’t mean you feel strong. It means you stay open. Open to learning, changing, and becoming, even when you didn’t ask for the lesson.

2. Don’t Cement the Story

Grief has no timeline. Resilience doesn’t come from denying reality, it comes from leaving room for the story to keep unfolding.

3. Strength Doesn’t Mean Silence

Real strength shows up when we stop carrying everything alone and allow ourselves to be seen, messy, honest, and human.

4. Match Your Response to the Reality

Some days require action. Others require acceptance. The question that changed everything for me was: What does today require from me?

5. Focus on What You Can Control

You may not control what happens to you, but you can control how you care for yourself and how you show up for the people you love.

6. Protect Your Foundation

During crisis, caring for yourself isn’t selfish, it’s survival. Sleep, food, movement, and community are not luxuries; they’re what allow you to endure.

7. Transform Pain Into Purpose

Purpose doesn’t have to be big or public. Sometimes it’s simply allowing pain to soften you instead of hardening you, and using what you’ve learned to help someone else feel less alone.

For me, that purpose became Strong Like AK, built with our family just months after Adam passed, not because I had it all figured out, but because love didn’t disappear when he did.

If You’re Standing in a Shift Right Now

You don’t have to do all of this at once.
You don’t have to be brave every day.
And you don’t have to be healed to keep moving forward.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is make one small choice, to stay open, to rest, to ask for help, to keep going.

Because adversity doesn’t disqualify you.
Often, it clarifies you.

There is still good ahead, even after the shift. It may look different. It may come quieter. It may arrive later than you hoped.

But it is still real.

If life has shifted under your feet, you’re not lost.
You’re becoming.

And sometimes, the season that breaks you open is the very one that shows you who you were always meant to be.