How a Simple Mindset Shift Helps You Start Over After Loss

How a Simple Mindset Shift Helps You Start Over After Loss

After the fires, I kept hearing the same sentence echoing in my mind.
“I have to start over.”

This is a story about mindset, reframing, and the psychology of starting over.

It was an honest thought. I had lost my home (and office) and a sense of stability. My plans evaporated. The life I thought I was building no longer matched the one in front of me. Loss brings its own gravity, and for a while I lived inside that pull.

There came a moment, though, when another sentence rose to meet it.
“I get to start over.”

The shift felt small at first. Almost too small to matter. Yet that single change in language opened a different door inside me. It didn’t erase the grief or pretend everything was fine. It offered me a new way to meet my reality without collapsing under it.

Why Reframing Matters During Stress, Burnout, and Life Transitions

I still felt displaced, but I also felt free to find new ground. I had lost so much, and I also saw what I truly valued. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and yet it invited me to become someone I hadn’t met yet.

That is the power of a mindset. That is the power of a reframe.

Same situation. Different lens. Completely different experience.

Reframing doesn’t bypass stress, burnout, grief, or the weight of transition. It doesn’t ask you to be grateful for what hurt you. It asks you to stay curious. It asks you to hold your emotions with honesty, openness, and care. It asks you to offer yourself a narrative that supports movement and adaptability instead of stagnation and rumination.

And right now, with so many people navigating uncertainty, layoffs, shifting identities, burnout, and the quiet pressure to hold it all together, your inner language becomes a kind of compass – a compass for stress, uncertainty, and change. It can anchor you in the past or help you move toward the future with more clarity and agency.

So the next time you hear yourself say “I have to…,” pause.

Ask yourself: “What would this look like if I said ‘I get to…’ instead?”

It won’t change the circumstance, but it might just change the way you move through it. And that shift can be the beginning of your next breakthrough.

If you’re navigating stress, burnout, or a major transition, this is the kind of nervous system and mindset work I teach inside my Alchemi© framework through coaching and digital resources. Never miss an update with my newsletter. Sign up here.