I’m Falling Apart So I Can Grow
“I’M FALLING APART SO I CAN GROW” Digital Illustration, 2025.
The raw and uncomfortable truth about growth: it often begins with everything unraveling.
Growth doesn’t always feel like progress. Sometimes it starts with a quiet but jarring realization—this life I’m living doesn’t feel like mine. That awareness is disorienting. It forces us to confront what we’ve outgrown, what no longer aligns, and what we’ve built out of fear, habit, or survival. There’s grief in that. And also power.
This illustrates reflects the in-between—the messy, transitional space where things fall apart before they come back together. It’s about stepping outside the comfort zone, not because we’re ready, but because something deep within us refuses to stay small. In many ways, falling apart is not a breakdown—it’s a breakthrough. A shedding. A rewilding. A return to the self.
THE SYMBOLISM
The segmented body represents disconnection—how growth can make us feel fragmented or uncertain of who we are.
The mind separated from the body symbolizes the struggle to stay grounded when we’re mentally overwhelmed or spiritually awakening.
Elements like birds, plants, clouds point to freedom, expansion, and the promise of what lies beyond the breakdown.
Letting go, collapsing, drifting—it’s all part of becoming. The falling apart is not a failure. It’s a beginning.
the moment that inspired this illustration:
This came from a deep inner conflict. I was trying to make sense of change that felt both inevitable and terrifying. There was a part of me that didn’t want to lose everything—and another part that desperately did. I wanted to start over, to create a life that felt true. But the in-between was disorienting.
It’s a strange, uncomfortable place to be: holding on while also wanting to let go. The intuition whispers for change wouldn’t stop. “Do it,” I felt. “If not now, when?”
This piece is a visual expression of that crossroads. It invites you to be brave. To break free from the expectations—yours, society’s, your past self’s. To let yourself fall apart, not as an ending, but as a necessary beginning. The discomfort, the unraveling, the uncertainty—that’s where growth lives.
Break apart. Begin again.
The new you is waiting.
