When the Old Shape No Longer Fits

Hi Friends,

Today, I am thinking about the difference between change and transition.

Change is what people can see. A baby is born. A job changes. A family moves. A career pauses. A new business begins. 

But transition is what happens underneath. 

The private unraveling. The identity fog. The grief for an old shape that “worked,” until it didn’t. The strange in-between where you know what you’re leaving, but you don’t yet know what you’re becoming.

The corporate framework calls this change management; we talk a lot about moving from a current state to a future state. But the hardest part is often the middle: The transition zone, or as I like to call it "The Messy Middle."

That place where the old ways no longer fit, but the new way hasn’t fully arrived yet. And the more I listen to moms, the more I realize motherhood is one of the clearest places we see this. 

Because the external change is obvious. Everyone sees the baby, the leave, the return to work, the childcare puzzle, the new schedule. 

But the internal transition is harder to name. 

Who am I now? What still fits? What no longer does? What kind of ambition is still alive in me? What parts of me are trying to come forward? 

For me, this season has been about motherhood the second time around, postpartum depression, renegotiating almost every relationship in my life, leaving Amazon, and stepping into founder mode with Momma Chill.

There was a season where agency felt like another task. 

Another decision. 

Another thing to carry. 

I barely recognized myself. 

Motherhood can bring decision fatigue to an almost absurd degree. Tiny socks, big feelings, childcare logistics, career questions, dinner, milk cups, identity, the meaning of life, and whether someone has hidden a cheese stick in the couch.

Now, slowly, I’m learning what it feels like to return to the driver’s seat. 

Not in a polished, perfectly empowered, “I have a five-step plan” way. 

More like one hand on the wheel, snacks on the floor, existential fog in the rearview mirror, still somehow moving. And the more I sit with this, the more I realize this isn’t only about motherhood. 

It’s divorce. Grief. Moving. Layoffs. Burnout. Becoming a caregiver. Building something new. Falling in love again. Realizing the life, you designed no longer holds the person you are becoming.

I started with motherhood. But I’m realizing the deeper mechanism is transition.

Your body, your time, your work, your capacity - they all change. 

Your ambition may still be there, but it may no longer tolerate the same conditions. And that is where so many of the old playbooks start to break down. 

“Just go part-time.” 

“Just ask for help.” 

“Just make time for yourself.”

But what I'm hearing from moms again and again is that the old answers don’t reliably work anymore. 

Part-time can become part-time pay with full-time expectations. And “making time for yourself” can feel insulting when your entire nervous system is asking for more than a scented candle and a productivity hack.

So, what do we do when the old shape no longer fits? 

I think we begin by telling the truth. 

We name the season. 

We stop treating the fog as personal failure. 

We let ourselves need support.

We find other people walking the middle way and we build community from there. 

Not perfectly. Sometimes awkwardly. Sometimes with cold coffee and one eyebrow filled in. But together.

That is the work I'm building through Momma Chill. A softer space for moms in the in-between. Not another optimization tool for an impossible season. A place to tell the truth about it.

Because when the old shape no longer fits, the work is not to force yourself back into it. The work is to listen for the next shape.

Coming back to yourself is leadership work. 

Not because it is neat. Not because it is easy. But because it asks for discernment, courage, honesty, self-trust, and the willingness to walk your own way before it is fully paved.

This week’s breadcrumbs that wove its way into this piece include liminal space, change management, Taoism and “the way,” Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’, and every mom who has ever quietly wondered, “I don’t think the old version of me is coming back.” Maybe she isn’t. Maybe something else is trying to come forward. And maybe we don’t have to do that part alone.