108 Spiraling Again? Reframing Relapse with Midlife Wisdom

In this week’s episode of Rooted in Presence, Carly explores a question that quietly shapes so many of our midlife experiences

“When an old pattern resurfaces; is it a relapse, or a revisit?”

From burnout and busyness to the emotional loops that show up during perimenopause, Carly shares how these revisits aren’t signs of failure, they’re proof of integration.

She talks about her own turning point; the moment a simple breath became the bridge back to her body and how revisiting old habits can actually deepen your resilience, compassion, and capacity for joy.

This episode is an invitation to soften your self-talk, reframe your growth, and see how every return holds wisdom.

🎧 Tune in if you’ve ever felt like you were “back where you started”  you might just realise you’re further along than you think.

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

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👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at carlykillenpt@gmail.com

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Transcript

Carly: 0:46

Welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly Killen, your host, and today we're exploring something I think most of us know too well. At that moment when an old pattern feeling or behavior shows up again and you think, wait, I thought I was past this Maybe it's a familiar loop of, of working people pleasing or self-doubt, and it can feel like you're spiraling backwards. But what if that spiral isn't a downfall? Perhaps it's a deepening. What if growth doesn't move in straight lines, but in circles gently bringing us back to familiar places with new awareness, new tools, and new compassion. In this episode, I'm sharing my own personal revisits throughout burnout, perimenopause, and the breath that helped me return home again. And how these so-called relapses often hold the deepest wisdom. So if you've been feeling like you are spinning through old territory, take a breath. You might just find that you're not back at the beginning. You're arriving at a deeper layer of your own presence. So let's get started. I've been sitting with this question a lot lately. When a old pattern resurfaces, when we find ourselves doing that thing, we thought we'd move past. Is that really a relapse or is this a revisit? And it's easy to jump to the conclusion that we've gone backwards, that we've failed. That all the work, the therapy, the breath work, the, the journaling, all our tools, whatever tools we've been using somehow didn't work. But I've come to see these moments differently. They're not failures, they're revisits. And it's taken me a few revisits to realize this too. But they hold so much wisdom if we're willing to pause and listen. I've lost count of how many times I've thought here I am back here again. Back in the pattern. I swore I'd outgrown back in the messy middle of a feeling. I thought I'd already moved past, I'd already healed. Maybe you've been there too. For many of my clients, it's emotional eating. Reaching for comfort food during stressful days. They've done that beautiful work on slowing down, eating with presence, finding peace and listening to their body, and perhaps even feeling more connected than ever. But then life gets loud again. A big work project, some family stress, a few too many sleepless nights, and suddenly that old pull was back. And often their first reaction is disappointment. I thought I'd move past this. I thought I'd cracked it. But as we sit with compassion, and this is the beauty of coaching, something begins to shift and instead a spiraling into guilt, they can finally take a breath and notice what's really happening. And as one of my clients said. I see this pattern now, but I'm not lost in it this time. And that moment, that pause was everything because that pause is proof of growth. It shows awareness. It shows the space she's built inside herself, the space between the trigger and the choice. And that's what a revisit looks like. That situation might look familiar. But you are not the same person meeting it. And in all truth, if we were never going to revisit anything familiar again, what would be the point of learning? Why would we need any tools at all? This is how life's supposed to be, or at least from my perspective anyway, I believe revisits are where integration truly lives. Because for so many of us, especially those of us who love learning, reflecting and evolving, it's tempting to treat personal growth like a checklist. You've done the work, move past that pattern, healed that wound, but growth isn't linear. It is cyclical. It spirals just like the seasons and very much like our breath. And when we revisit these things, it's life's way of saying, let's test this lesson in real time. It's an invitation to apply what you've learned, not to prove that you are fixed. Real transformation. It doesn't happen in one big dramatic moment. It happens in the quiet everyday revisits in that breath you take before reacting in the decision to rest or pause instead of push. And in that moment you choose compassion over criticism. And I've had my fair share of revisits. In fact, burnout itself was one of them. I remember one particularly chaotic year. And I'm aware that over the last few episodes I revisited this many times. But if you're new here, welcome and if you are a regular listener, therewith. But in this year, I've been running my business, navigating the start of her menopause, supporting my family, or at least trying my best to, but also still trying to clinging onto my self image as the strong I was contending with medication titration for A DHD, all happening at the same time, and my nervous system was in constant overdrive and it started with the small things, forgetting to eat properly, skipping those rest days, skipping breaks altogether. To be fair, convincing myself that once I got through this busy patch, I'd slow down. Of course those patches, they never end. There's always another one. And before long I was so ungrounded, I felt like I was floating outside myself. I felt like my body was walking through treacle heavy, but still untethered. And I remember thinking, I just can't quite land, really don't feel like I have my feet on the ground here. Then it reached that point where even the smallest task just felt monumental. I could barely put one foot in front of the other, spinning, disconnected, exhausted, terrified that my mental health was heading in the direction of the severe postnatal depression, but put my life at risk over 20 years ago. It all felt so similar, so familiar. It definitely brought up a lot of fear. But then there was that shift, that opportunity to meet myself from a different perspective. And that shift was not because I found the perfect productivity plan, or that I was able to push harder, quite the opposite. Actually. It's because I stopped. I had to stop. I didn't wanna keep repeating this pattern. So I asked for help and this was me making a different choice. Recognizing the situation I was in and feeling determined that this time there would be a different outcome. And I was fortunate to have contact with a gentle, compassionate coach who reminded me of something I had forgotten, and that was to connect with my breath. And we started simple feet on the ground, hand on heart. A deep inhale, and a slow exhale. Just whispering quietly to myself, I am safe, and I rolled my eyes at this. At first, it felt too simple, too soft. But something inside me, soften with it. That one small act of grounding became the thread. I followed back to myself, and that breath didn't just calm me down. It became the doorway into a whole new relationship with my body, my nervous system, and my energy. And it was the beginning of what would become my work weaving breath and embodiment into everything I do now. From strength training to menopause coaching to my breathwork sessions at still Space Hall, and even now, years later, I revisit this lesson often whenever I catch myself spinning back into old patterns or at least sense the flavor of busyness or proving. I come back to the breath, and the difference is now I notice so much sooner. I don't fall as far before finding my footing again. And sometimes it just feels like a little flutter, and that's not a relapse, that is integration. So let's normalize this. You can revisit something you've already worked on. Without it, meaning you've gone backwards. And if you are walking through your menopause transition right now, those hormone shifts that come with this time of life actively encourage this level of experience and reflection. And when I heard this during a menopause conference a couple of years ago, it absolutely blew my mind to hear this. But it's been an incredible piece of knowledge that's helped me study with self-compassion ever since. So these revisits that do have a purpose, they are where you see your growth. And think about it like this, when you lift weights, you don't stop challenging your muscles. Once you've built some strength, you revisit that same movements, but with more awareness, more control, and often eventually more ease. And I guess that's when we put the weights up. But it's the same with emotional strength. Each revisit builds your resilience, it builds your capacity, not just to hold more challenge, but to experience more joy and connection too. And sometimes we fall into that all or nothing mindset. If we can't stick perfectly to the plan, we think it's over. But what if flexibility itself is the goal? I often remind my clients, progress isn't about how perfectly you maintain a routine. It's how kindly you return when life inevitably interrupts. So how do you start to notice the difference between a relapse and a revisit? Well, here are a few practices that help me and I often share with my clients. So firstly using journaling as a mirror. Now, journaling does not have to be a polished essay. It can be a few words in your notes app on your phone, or a voice memo. When old feelings or patterns arise, jot down what you're noticing. Over time, you'll start to see patterns and you'll start to see progress. If you're gonna hold yourself without judgment and that might be progress that you might not have noticed in the moment. I sometimes look back on my old entries and think, oh, I used to stay stuck in that feeling for days, and now it passes within an hour, and that is growth too. And secondly, there is power in just one conscious breath. It sounds simple, but one slow intentional breath can change everything. You could try it now can inhale through your nose, exhale slowly through your mouth, and just notice how does that feel right here, right now. Just a moment to bring yourself into presence if that feels right and safe for you. And that's the space quite often that we can create between reacting and responding. That's where that's revisit gets to be an opportunity for reconnection. And lastly, we have our gentle accountability ability. Trying to grow, trying to move forward, trying to move through a healing journey in isolation that can keep us stuck in loops. And quite often we need a trusted person, a coach, a friend, a power of a group, a community who can gently hold a mirror up and say, you are doing better than you think. And the trees don't do that alone either. As I mentioned in my last episode, they are intertwined underground. They share nutrients and support, and we need that too. So what is the difference between coping and integration? One of the most powerful shifts I've seen in myself and my clients is I. In itself that moving from coping into integration, coping is what keeps us afloat. It's survival, mood, it's getting through. Whereas integration is what allows us really to truly live. It's where we take what we've learned and weave it into everyday life. And we don't create transformation by lying on a map for two hours, as lovely as that can be. Those moments are incredibly special, and I love the energy and community of the, the breath workshops I lead, but the real transformation, it happens afterwards. It's in how you meet your breath each day with gentle awareness. It's when you face a difficult conversation, stay centered through your breath instead of escaping or people pleasing. It's how you take a moment yourself When things feel too much. You can return with clarity instead of collapsing or spiraling into patterns, and that is the quiet hum. My clients often describe that sense of knowing who they are, no matter how lifey life gets. So, the next time you find yourself thinking. Stand back here again. Pause, take a breath, and ask yourself what's different about me this time? Maybe you catch it sooner. Maybe you speak your truth more clearly. Maybe you recover quicker. That's not a step backwards, that's a deeper layer of learning. And you're not starting from scratch. You're starting from wisdom. So as we close, I'd like you to remember that when those old patterns resurface, it's not life testing you. It's life showing you how much you've grown. So if you do find yourself revisiting familiar feelings or habits this week, perhaps the invitation here is to meet them with curiosity. What are they here to show you? And remember, the integration happens in the small everyday choices. The breath, the pause, the gentle return. And if you would like some support in navigating your own, revisit your own gentle spiral of reconnecting to who you are, whether that's with your health, your habits, or your nervous system, I'd love to walk alongside you. You can connect with me by booking a free clarity call@carlykillen.com and together we can help you stay rooted in presence. Even through life's inevitable cycles. So until next time, may you meet yourself with compassion, walk with presence, and remember, you already carry everything you need.