Redefining Success After Loss
- Oct 14
- 3 min read
Success has a way of changing shape as life unfolds. In my early years, success meant achievement: titles, accomplishments, recognition, the admiration of others. I climbed ladders, checked boxes, and lived for the approval that came when I pushed my body and spirit to the edge.
I built myself into a Warrior. My body was my calling card — muscles as armor, resilience as proof that I was strong and unstoppable. As a trainer and coach, people looked to me as someone who had it all together. I wore that image proudly, and for a time it worked. The world admired me, and I believed admiration was success.
But life has a way of shifting the ground beneath us. For me, it came as illness. Overnight, the body I had relied on betrayed me. The strength I had built dissolved. I could no longer perform, no longer show up as the woman others expected me to be. In the quiet of that collapse, I faced a brutal question: if I am not the strong one, the capable one, then who am I?
At first, it felt like failure. My identity was so entangled with my ability to achieve that without it, I wondered if I had any value left. I grieved not just the loss of my career, but the loss of who I thought I was. Yet slowly, in that silence, I began to hear a different voice — not the voice of the world, but the voice of my soul.
This is when I turned to my
creativity. At first, I picked up a brush only to pass the time, my hands still shaky from illness. But as color touched canvas, something stirred in me. Each brushstroke revealed a truth I had buried, each shape carried emotions I hadn’t let myself feel. Creativity was not just expression — it was revelation. It gave me a deeper experience of myself than I had ever known.
Through creativity, I redefined success. No longer about how much I could produce, how strong I could appear, or how many people admired me. Success became about presence. It became about alignment with who I truly am, even when I feel broken. Success became choosing truth over performance, depth over surface, and soul over image.
I believe many women reach this threshold in midlife. Children leave home. Relationships change. Careers stall. Illness or loss strips away the roles that once defined us. It can feel like everything has ended. But what if this is not failure? What if it is the initiation into a truer kind of success — one measured not by what we accumulate, but by how fully we inhabit who we are?
The women who are willing to redefine success in this way are the ones shaping the future. They lead not from ego, but from authenticity. They carry the wisdom of collapse and the courage to begin again. And in doing so, they give others permission to live more truthfully too.
If you find yourself at that crossroads, unsure of who you are without your old roles, take heart. Success may not be behind you. It may be waiting ahead, in a form you have yet to imagine. Begin with one small act — pick up a brush, write a single line, take a breath of presence. Let creativity lead you back to yourself.
True success is not about being the same woman you once were. It is about becoming the woman you were always meant to be. If you're on that path, I would love to walk beside you. My work, Soul Woven, is the living art of remembering who you are, through body, creativity and story.
DK Hillard
Your story is so deeply moving and powerful — thank you for bravely sharing the journey of how you’ve redefined success after Space Waves Game loss. It’s inspiring to see how you’ve transformed pain into purpose and reminded us all that success isn’t just what we achieve, but who we become in the process.