Finding Purpose in Pain: Navigating Motherhood, Chronic Illness, and Identity Shifts

I was in a weird headspace. I had literally just come from therapy, I’d been crying for half the day, and life just felt heavy. I walked into this recording thinking I was just going to do my job. I thought I understood what burnout looked like. I thought I understood what it meant to pivot in your career.

But we didn’t just talk about jobs. We talked about the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that forces you to become a completely different person. We need to talk about what happens when the life you built doesn't fit the person you’ve become.

Katie is a former nurse of 20 years, a mom, and a podcaster, but those are just titles. Underneath that, she is a woman who has walked through the fire of postpartum depression, debilitating chronic pain, and the terror of parenting a child with severe mental health struggles—and she came out the other side with a kind of peace that I frankly needed to witness.

If you’ve ever felt like you were living someone else’s life, or if you’re currently on the kitchen floor wondering how you’re going to get up, this one is for you.

The "Fixer" Who Couldn't Fix Herself

Katie grew up as the "fixer." With a brother facing complex challenges like autism and Tourette’s, and a grandmother with severe mental illness, Katie learned early on that her role was to absorb the chaos. She was the sounding board. The peacekeeper.

She followed the script perfectly: College, a 20-year career in nursing, a marriage to her high school sweetheart. She let life happen to her.

Then, motherhood hit. And it didn't look like the magazines.

Her first pregnancy was physical torture—vomiting until 32 weeks, hips separating, agonizing pain. But the real break happened after birth. It wasn't just the baby blues. Katie described an intense, terrifying obsession with safety. She wasn't feeling joy; she was feeling a frantic need to keep her child alive, coupled with a total emotional disconnect.

She told me about a moment that broke my heart. She was leaning over her six-month-old’s crib, the baby was crying, and Katie just started weeping. The baby actually stopped crying because she was so shocked to see her mother break down.

"I went to a party... and I remember sitting in a room filled with people and feeling like I was 100% alone. Like I was a ghost."

She white-knuckled through it because, as she put it, "Gen X just pulls up the bootstraps." But the universe wasn't done shaking her awake. After her second child, she was hit with chronic daily migraines. We aren't just talking about a headache; we're talking about a systemic neurological disorder that left her with vertigo, nausea, and crushing pain every single day.

Everything was stripped away. She couldn't parent. She couldn't work. She couldn't function. And it was in that space of total loss—when the "fixer" finally couldn't fix a damn thing—that she found yoga, and eventually, her way back to herself.

3 Things I Learned About Finding Meaning Through Suffering

1. Detachment is actually an act of love

This was a massive lightbulb moment for me. When Katie’s daughter began struggling with severe mental health issues—suicidal ideation, OCD, eating disorders—Katie’s instinct was to overprotect. But she realized that to actually help her child, she had to regulate her own nervous system first.

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She compared it to a surgeon. A doctor cannot operate on their own family member because they are too emotionally attached to see clearly. To advocate for her daughter and find the right treatment (which ended up being a partial hospitalization program), Katie had to emotionally detach from the situation—not the child—so she could make decisions based on intuition, not fear.

2. Your "Dharma" is not your job

We get so hung up on our careers defining us. Katie left a stable, 20-year nursing career because she realized she was abandoning herself every time she walked into the hospital. But she made a crucial distinction: Dharma (your soul’s purpose) is not just how you make money.

You can live your Dharma in your parenting, your friendships, and your marriage. For Katie, her purpose is to help women step into their authenticity. Sometimes that pays the bills, sometimes it doesn’t. But if you ignore it, you are slowly dying inside.

3. "Spiraling Up" is a skill you can learn

I admitted to Katie that I was in a low vibe place during the interview. She validated that without toxic positivity. She didn't say "just be happy." She talked about the concept of spiraling up.

It starts with awareness. You notice the low energy. You have self-compassion for it ("Okay, I'm on the kitchen floor right now, and that's valid"). But then, you use your tools—whether that's medication, yoga, therapy, or breathwork—to spiral up. You don't stay there. You don't let the victimhood become your permanent address.

The Hayter’s Take

I think a lot of us are waiting for permission to change. We stay in jobs we hate, relationships that have gone stale, or mental states that hurt us because we’ve invested so much time in them. Katie spent two decades as a nurse. Walking away from that is terrifying.

But what I took away from this conversation is that your intuition is always talking to you. First, it whispers. Then it speaks. And if you don't listen, eventually, it screams—usually in the form of burnout, illness, or crisis.

Katie didn’t change her life because she wanted a fun new hobby. She changed because she realized the cost of staying the same was too high. She turned her pain into a platform, the Midlife Purpose Project, to help other women realize they don't have to wait for a crisis to come home to themselves.

You are not a victim of your story. You are the author. And if you don't like the chapter you're in, you have the power to turn the page.

If you are struggling right now, please know you are not alone. There is magic on the other side of the mess.

🎧 Listen to For The Hayters on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

📺 Watch the full video episode on YouTube

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