What if the very thing that brings your life to a halt is the thing that ultimately moves you forward?
With each life-altering challenge, I was pushed onto a new path. The universe kept nudging me forward, and I chose to listen and follow. And every single time, it led me somewhere better.
I was forced to turn inward. I've always believed that things happen for us, not to us—and that belief became my lifeline. I had to look closely, sometimes painfully, to understand what these moments were trying to teach me.
My cancer journey completely reshaped my priorities and gave me a level of clarity and perspective I don't think I could have gained any other way. It gave me the courage to pursue a new career. It taught me to be a more present mother, a more patient wife, and a more intentional friend. It shifted the way I move through the world and brought new, grounding practices into my life—like journaling, meditation, and a deep commitment to creating meaningful memories and family traditions.
It taught me to focus on what truly matters.
Everything I learned during my cancer journey came back into play as I went through Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). I knew there would be hard days ahead, but I also believed that life-changing, awe-inspiring lessons were waiting for me on the other side.
GBS stopped me in a way nothing else in my life ever could—both literally and figuratively. It stopped me from moving. It stopped me from walking. It stopped me from working. It stopped me from living the life I had known. It made even the simplest mental tasks, like reading and writing—two of my favorite things—feel almost impossible.
It turned me into a spectator of my own life.
But in that stillness, it also gave me something else: time to think, to reflect, to reassess, and to reimagine what my life could look like.
During that first year of recovering from GBS, I survived on Hallmark movies, I would ask myself every single day: I know this is happening for a reason. What am I meant to learn from this?
Losing my ability to move in a matter of days felt like an abrupt and undeniable message from the universe. I believed it was happening for a reason. It felt like I was being asked to stop, listen, and pay attention.
The answers came slowly, one at a time.
The first lesson was simple, but not easy for me: Slow down. Just be.
After surviving cancer, I felt like I was living on borrowed time. I was doing everything at once—building a business, volunteering nonstop, serving on boards, being everywhere for everyone. Life had become a sprint. And in one powerful moment, the universe seemed to tell me: Stop. Breathe. Be still.
The second lesson was about resilience—real resilience.
A month earlier, I had just launched Journey With Rita, an organization built around teaching women how to build and cultivate resilience. And suddenly, life was challenging me to prove I actually believed my own message.
It was as if the universe was saying: Walk the walk before you talk the talk.
It was confronting, but also clarifying.
I had to be stripped down—of judgment, of shame, of the expectations I had placed on myself—and quite literally confined to a wheelchair before I could begin to reimagine who I was and how I saw myself.
And that clarity ultimately led me to launch the Journey With Rita Podcast. I don't know that I would have sat still long enough or found the courage to share my voice in this way had I not gone through what I did.
Before, I would have found a million reasons to play it safe, to talk myself out of taking the leap. I would have been more focused on seeking external validation and worrying about outside judgment than stepping fully into the purpose I know is mine and listening to my own inner voice.
But when we are willing to listen, to put in the hard work, and to trust with certainty, I believe the universe begins to co-create with us.
Resilience doesn't let you stay small. It stretches you, shapes you, and reminds you that you are capable of far more than you think.
I often wonder what my life would look like had I never faced these challenges. Would I have found the courage to make the changes I did? Would I have learned to slow down? Would I have discovered the strength that was within me all along?
I may never know. But I do know that some of the greatest transformations in my life came from the moments I never would have chosen for myself.
And perhaps that is one of the greatest lessons resilience has taught me. We cannot always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond. We can allow our circumstances to define us, or we can search for purpose, hold on to hope, and find the courage to rise above what is in front of us.
What if the challenge we’re facing isn't simply something we need to get through, but something that is inviting us to life lessons we would never learn in any other way?
January, 2026