When Freedom Feels Like Collapse: The Unseen Terrain of Transition

By Leila Briggs

The Threshold of Change

We often imagine freedom as a moment of euphoria - the big exhale after the job resignation, the breakup, the funeral, the final box packed.

But sometimes, freedom doesn’t feel like freedom at all.

It feels like collapse. Like confusion. Like a slow-motion tumble into a version of ourselves we don’t recognize. In the space where structure once lived, we may find grief instead of peace, and silence instead of clarity. Our minds, ever eager to narrate, can interpret this as failure or defeat - especially if our inner programming equates stillness with stagnation or rest with laziness.

But this collapse isn’t failure. It’s sacred. Whether your chapter ended by choice or was ripped from your hands, what you’re feeling isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of a becoming.

Why Collapse Happens After a Transition

We’re rarely taught that endings can unravel us - even the ones we desperately wanted.

When we leave a job, a marriage, a role, or lose someone we love, we also lose the identity, routine, and reality that wrapped around that part of life. Our nervous system, which may have been humming along in survival mode, finally has space to feel. And when it does? Well… the floodgates aren’t exactly known for their subtlety.

This collapse is not regression. It’s release. Sometimes what surfaces is grief, not only for what was lost but for the version of ourselves that endured it. Even relief can feel destabilizing when it’s paired with unprocessed pain. Freedom invites healing - but healing doesn’t always arrive in a pretty package.

The Energetics of “What Was and What Is to Be”

There’s a strange space that exists between the life we’ve left behind and the life that hasn’t arrived yet. I’ll call it the stretch between what was and what is to be. It’s not purgatory, but it might feel like it if you’re waiting for clarity to knock on the door with coffee and a PowerPoint with clear steps forward.

This space is deeply spiritual, even if it looks like binge-watching a show you’ve already seen three times.

The stretch between the old and the new is where integration happens. It's where the nervous system recalibrates, and where your soul quietly starts rearranging the furniture for your next evolution. It’s also where you may feel spiritually and emotionally exhausted - like the kind of tired that isn’t fixed with a nap. That’s not just fatigue. That’s your spirit surfacing a lifetime of effort, asking you to finally lay it down.

This space of what was and what is to be - think of it like a cocoon. It is where alchemy happens.

Navigating Collapse with Compassion (and a Bit of Humor)

If you’re here, in the thick of it, be gentle with yourself. Collapse may look like sleeping too much, crying at insurance commercials, or wanting to disappear into a game, book, or well-organized Pinterest board. This doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means your system is clearing out what no longer fits.

Here are a few ways to support yourself through the transition:

• Create space that feels safe and comforting. A corner of the room, a mug that's just yours, a tent in the yard, or a forest trail you walk like it’s church.

• Journal without judgment. Let the feelings move through ink into understanding. Or grab crayons and scribble it out. If you have kids, call it “collaborative emotional expression.” If you don’t, call it what it is: “coloring until I feel less like screaming.”

• Let your body lead. Rest when it asks, move when it calls, breathe when the spiral tightens. Even if you only get three minutes of stillness, claim them like they’re sacred. Because they are.

• Reach out. Healer, friend, therapist, the annoying neighbor who leaves notes on your door - connection matters. Collapse wants to isolate you, but relationship helps reweave the fabric of “what’s next.” Even someone else's messy opinion can nudge you closer to clarity.

Freedom Is a Process, Not a Moment

We love to imagine freedom as a doorway: you walk through, feel instantly lighter, and start doing yoga on a beach at sunset. But true freedom - soul-deep, integrated, earned freedom - is a process.

It unfolds in layers. Sometimes in loops. You might feel like you’re circling the same emotional drain over and over, but with each pass, a new insight emerges. Another dot connects. Another piece of you softens.

To collapse after a transition is a sacred undoing...or maybe a more accurate description would be, a sacred unfolding. It means your body and spirit are brave enough to let go and wise enough to rebuild. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. But clarity often begins in the quiet, not the chaos.

You are not broken.

You are standing between what was and what is to be.

You are becoming.

In Closing

If you’re walking through a transition that feels like it’s breaking you open rather than setting you free, know this: collapse isn’t failure. It’s a beginning in disguise. It’s the nervous system exhaling. The soul exhaling. The story rewiring itself from the inside out.

Trust that your soul knows how to rebuild. And when you're ready, you will rise - not as who you were, but as who you were always meant to become.

Even if, for now, that rise starts with a nap.