Building A Business Without Abandoning Myself
If Catherine O’Hara died doing what she loved, I can damn well live through this launch.
Somewhere around 4:30 a.m., with my sinuses throbbing and my nervous system fried, I realized I was spiraling.
Not a cute spiral.
Not a “breakthrough-is-coming” spiral.
But the kind that makes you question everything: your choices, your capacity, your bank account, your worth.
All because of a fucking email funnel.
I had been fighting with Kartra — my automation platform — for days. Maybe weeks? Honestly, time lost all meaning somewhere between testing the fifth version of a tag and screaming into the void of unpublished sequences.
I was trying to launch something good — a soulful, strategic offering for bold, neurodiverse women navigating grief, reinvention, and everything in between. I call it the Immersion Experience: Nature, Zen & Women Who Dare — because sometimes the way home to yourself is through the wild.
It should’ve been straightforward.
It wasn’t.
The Breaking Point (and the Bullshit)
I watched the same Louise Henry tutorial three times. I renamed tags, rewired automations, rebuilt sequences. I used incognito windows and test emails and still… nothing.
Sometimes the form worked.
Sometimes it didn’t.
Sometimes I got the thank you page.
Sometimes I got “Oops! Page Doesn’t Exist!” like a slap in the face.
And then, miraculously, it worked.
I triggered the full sequence. The watch page loaded. The tag applied. The email landed. It captured my contact. I did it.
But the real kicker?
It only worked inside Kartra.
The version out in the world — the one real humans actually see — was still broken.
At that point, I wanted to throw my laptop in the compost and start a mushroom farm.
The Middle-of-the-Night Reckoning
That’s when the real spiral hit.
No income coming in from the business I’ve poured my soul into.
A $600 retreat where, surprise! I had to also cover my own lodging and food.
A shaky stomach and an even shakier faith in people who lead others.
I kept asking: Is this really worth it?
And then something truer broke through:
I will not abandon myself to build something that’s supposed to be about healing.
Even if the funnel crashes.
Even if I spend three hours rebuilding a thing that deletes itself.
Even if I doubt every decision I’ve made since I bought the damn domain.
What Really Matters
That morning, I sat quietly and remembered what’s actually mine in this life:
To keep all forms of intimacy at the top of my game until the very end.
To cultivate a wicked sense of humor.
To develop a unique delivery system for therapy.
That’s it. That’s my whole mission. That’s my life's work.
The rest — the forms, the funnels, the platforms that promise to “simplify” but make me want to walk into the sea — they’re just tools. They don't get to rewrite my story.
One More Thing
Catherine O’Hara just died at 71.
Was she living her best life doing what she loved?
Fuck yes.
And am I?
Also fuck yes.
Whether this thing ever “flies” or earns a single dime, I can say this:
I tried to leave behind a bank of useful things.
I tried to help women come home to themselves.
And I tried to do it without selling out my soul.
Even when the tech didn’t work.
Even when the retreat turned out to be a bait-and-switch.
Even when I didn’t feel well.
Even when I felt like I was alone.
I'm still here.
I still believe in WTF as a spiritual practice.
I still believe in women who dare.
And I’m still building something that feels like home.
