EP46: When it’s all falling apart…
What does it means when life, work, or even the wider world feels like it’s unraveling. Instead of rushing to fix, patch, or hold things together, what if we paused to ask: is this falling apart actually necessary?
On the macro level, we’re witnessing systems—colonialism, white supremacy, extractive capitalism—that need to come undone. On the micro level, the same can be true for our careers, businesses, or identities. Sometimes the unraveling is painful, disorienting, even ego-shattering. And sometimes, it’s the very thing that creates space for something new to grow.
I share stories from my clients who feel like their careers or businesses are crumbling, and how we’ve worked together to see that collapse not just as loss, but as the beginning of clarity. I also reflect on what it means to let go of the professional identities and systems we no longer want, even when doing so feels deeply uncomfortable.
Whether you’re navigating a difficult career transition, questioning your sense of security, or simply looking for meaning in this chaotic moment we’re all living through, this episode is an invitation to sit with the discomfort of falling apart—and to imagine how the ashes might be the ground for regeneration.
Listen here
Full Transcript
Alisa: I think it’s important to remember that when it feels like the world is falling apart, there are a lot of things that need to fall apart—things that need to be broken open, exposed, fragmented, scattered, and gone.
Hi friends, welcome to the podcast. This is Regenerative Worklife. I am Alisa Murphy.
I’ve just recorded a long—and I thought quite beautiful and touching—podcast. I did the whole thing with my eyes closed because that’s how I think and express best. And I opened my eyes after about 30 minutes of speaking to see that my audio program had frozen and only recorded the first two minutes.
[exhales / vocalizes]
You know, it actually feels really good to make those sounds. Do you need to make one of those sounds right now, my friend? Let’s do it. Let’s do it again—ready? … [vocalizes]
Okay. I’m going to re-record that particular episode another time, when I’m not feeling quite so frustrated. For now, I’m coming to another topic. I did a couple of polls on social; this was the most requested topic, and I really didn’t want to talk about it—but it seems I’m being called to do so. So here we go.
The topic a lot of people wanted to hear about was: What about when it all feels like it’s falling apart?
Okay, we’re going to do this today. It’s not going to be comfortable. I don’t feel comfortable, nor should it be. I don’t really know what I want to say about this—but actually, I do feel it’s important to talk about. This is not “how to cope when it’s all falling apart.” This is not “what to do when it’s all falling apart.” I’m just here to name the fact that sometimes—and in particular right now—it feels as though everything is falling apart.
For you, on a micro level, that might mean your career is falling apart, your business is falling apart, your life as you understood it is falling apart. On a macro level, I don’t know how anyone could not feel like it’s all falling apart. We are witnessing genocide every day. We are witnessing unbelievable complacency in the face of that genocide. We are in the middle of climate collapse. We’re seeing huge surges in racism and transphobia and intolerance. I could go on and on—I’m not going to. You don’t need me to spell out all the components of what might be falling apart.
I’ve seen lots of posts on social that say some variation of: if you feel like you’re losing your mind at this time, there’s nothing wrong with you—that is the perfectly natural response to what’s happening in the world. And I really do believe that. I can’t imagine looking at what is happening and feeling “normal.”
It’s not to say we can’t hold paradox. That’s another theme I see in posts at the moment that I agree with: it’s really important that we learn to hold paradox—that we learn to feel immeasurable grief and rage, potentially, and that we can also experience joy and wonder and beauty and whimsy. I think that is so important as well. It doesn’t mean you aren’t open to reality if you still experience joy and wonder in your life. In fact, it’s really important that we do; if we don’t seek out those things, we’ll run out of the internal resource to open ourselves to wider suffering.
What I want to explore—both on a macro and micro level—is: if you are in that place where it all feels like it’s falling apart, what if that is exactly what needs to be happening?
I’ll try to follow this idea through. On a macro level—and I always feel a bit uncomfortable talking in really big topics; I’m not speaking from a depth of expertise here, just as someone witnessing and experiencing what’s happening—the falling apart needs to happen. Because what would it mean if things weren’t falling apart? If things were held together, what exactly would we be holding together?
We’d be holding together broken systems. We’d be holding together fundamental inequality and lack of justice. We’d be holding together white supremacy. We’d be holding together the dominance and power of the global North. We’d be holding together racist institutions. We’d be holding together colonialism.
So I think it’s important to remember that when it feels like the world is falling apart, there are a lot of things that need to fall apart—that need to be broken apart, exposed, opened, fragmented, scattered, and gone.
Unfortunately, of course, it’s not a victimless unraveling by any stretch of the imagination. There’s huge loss of life involved in that—human and non-human—the destruction of the natural world, the collapse of our climate. So this is not to oversimplify the falling apart. This isn’t a wellness reframe of, “Hey, it’s actually a good thing.” All I’m saying is: it is necessary. I don’t know—no one can know—how that’s going to transpire, unfold, or flow, but it is necessary.
This brings me to the micro—where I can speak with a little more authority and experience, and perhaps speak more directly to you, my listener. I speak to a lot of people who feel like it’s falling apart. And I invite you to ask: whatever it is that feels like it’s falling apart—your work, your career, your standard of living, your business—could there be a necessity in it falling apart?
As an objective observer, that’s what it often looks like to me. When people come to me and it feels like things are falling apart, there are usually two things going on at once. Someone is still in a corporate job; they want to leave and do something else. Then they struggle when they’re passed over for promotions, or not given the staffing resources they need, or not selected for a particular project.
We all do this, right? We forget that we don’t want those things anymore. We forget that we’ve said—at least to ourselves—that we want to leave and do something different. And then we really struggle when it actually starts falling apart in front of us. But this is the momentum. This is what needs to happen.
Again, I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying it’s not painful to be passed over for a promotion, even if you’re in a job you want to leave. There’s pride involved. There may be unfair reasons—gender, race, whatever—why you’re not being chosen. All of those things can be true. But also, come back and remind yourself: if you’ve said you don’t want it anymore, can you let it go?
Maybe that’s the real question here. If we know we don’t want it anymore—capitalism, perhaps—if we know we don’t want it, can we let it go? Even when it’s painful, destructive, and chaotic, and leaves us feeling completely untethered and unsafe.
And if you’re in that space in-between—where you’ve left your old work life and you’re beginning on the path of something new—and it feels like it’s just not coming together, not working the way you want… Perhaps you’ve put out a particular offer or you’re exploring a certain avenue. Sometimes when that isn’t happening, it’s because we haven’t deeply enough unraveled and untethered. There hasn’t been enough falling apart, actually.
I understand this is a difficult topic to internalize. There’s nothing particularly practical here to grasp and hold on to. It may not be a satisfying topic for me to speak about or for you to hear. And I might be wrong—I very well may be wrong. But I believe that the more we can let go of the things that no longer serve us—whether “us” is the individual or the collective, a community, an ecosystem—when we let those things break and fall apart, then we have the ashes that new life can grow from.
Of course, you’ve got to look after yourself in that process. You’ve got to look after your family. You’ve got to resource yourself. But very often that’s not actually the piece causing the most disruption. It’s not usually the practical “I need to put food on the table” part. Normally it’s more of a falling apart at the ego level: “My CV is a total mess now,” or “I’m becoming estranged from my professional networks,” or “People don’t understand me or what I’m doing anymore—it all feels like it’s falling apart.” That’s often what’s happening at the ego level, while we’re actually completely safe and provided for within that unraveling.
So, some questions to sit with today—to explore, to be uncomfortable about. It is not comfortable to feel like things are falling apart. But perhaps it’s even harder when we’re trying to resist it—when we’re trying to contain things, to put them back together—at the same time that part of us knows this is a deeply necessary unraveling.
Let me know what you think—what comes up for you. Does any of this resonate? Do you have deeper insights? I would love to continue this conversation with you directly. I’m always open to being contacted by email. You can reach me at alisa@regenerativeworklife.com. It is a great pleasure when people reach out after listening to the podcast and we can go deeper together.
Thanks for coming with me in this unusual, uncomfortable, difficult exploration today. I’m glad we spoke about this topic. I have a feeling it’s something we’ll come back to again and again, because things are falling apart. That is the reality. And the question that remains is what we do in response to that.
Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you back here next week.
