09/06/2025
Well that was a DAY. 😵💫
By 10am I was crying in a parking lot on the phone with my mom. I got hit with triggers I didn’t see coming. And I was reminded what it really means to “trust your crazy ideas.”
Recovery can look like that, raw, messy, sometimes scary. That’s why we practice it every single day. Because it’s not just milestones that test us. Sometimes it’s just a Saturday, and boom: emotions everywhere.
This post has three parts:
1. A Letter from the Founder — the written story.
2. A video talk — me sharing what recovery looks like in real time.
3. My Bridge Note — the pure vision, tying Past Life Love into Thrivewell.
I realize in today’s world even one click can feel like too much. Attention is pulled in a hundred directions at once, and sometimes we only have seconds before we scroll on. That’s why I’m putting it all here in one place, not separated, not behind links, not waiting for you to go searching.
It is a lot in one shot. But that’s also the point. Because recovery and vision don’t happen in neat, separate boxes. They live side by side. The tears in the parking lot and the dreams of storefronts. The moments of fear and the moments of pure creation. They’re not two different stories, they’re two sides of the same truth. And if I’m going to share this journey honestly, I can’t show you one without the other.
Promise: I am okay not being okay right now.
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Letter From the Founder - Trust Your Crazy Ideas
My mom has a sign that hangs in her house, a gift from her sister. It says: Trust your crazy ideas.
This morning, I was sitting in my car, parked between two storefronts, talking to her on the phone. She shared her worries, and for twenty minutes, I didn’t interrupt. I just listened. Not because I agreed with everything she said, not because it was easy to hear, but because I wanted her to feel heard.
And here’s where I need to pause and acknowledge something: I’ve grown enough to see that my parents’ concerns, my mom’s this morning, and my dad’s in the past, are understandable. I mean, to my mom’s point, I was crying in a parking lot at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. From her perspective, that looks like her daughter unraveling. From a parent’s heart, of course it sets off alarms. That’s what love does, it worries.
But here’s the awareness I’ve come to: their concern comes from love, and my tears come from growth. For years, I felt nothing. I numbed everything. To cry in the car on a Saturday morning isn’t proof that I’m breaking down; it’s proof that I’m awake. That I’m feeling it all, even the hard parts, and choosing to keep going.
And when I finally did speak, I reminded my mom of that sign in her house. Because you can’t hang words like Trust your crazy ideas on your wall and then expect the path that follows to look neat, safe, or conventional. Crazy paths look crazy. They feel crazy. And yet, they are the only ones that ever lead to something truly new.
I know I use the word crazy a lot. Some people have told me I shouldn’t, that it carries too much negativity. But I challenge that. Like all things in life, words can be made good or bad depending on how we use them. The word has the power we give it. And for me, crazy isn’t an insult, it’s a mirror of my courage, my creativity, my edge. Crazy is my superpower.
And it’s worth saying this, too: the only difference between what the world calls insanity and what it calls visionary or genius is time. From the outside, they can look almost identical. Think of the artists we revere today, Picasso, Monet, Da Vinci. In their own lifetimes, many of them were doubted, dismissed, even ridiculed. Only later, sometimes long after they were gone, did the world recognize their brilliance. What once looked “crazy” became untouchable genius.
I want to normalize that. If you’re a disruptive entrepreneur, an artist, a visionary, a healer, or simply someone daring to live outside the box, you will feel “crazy” sometimes. You will seem “crazy” to others. And that’s okay. Because crazy is often what vision looks like before it becomes real.
I also want to be clear about something I don’t think I’ve said enough: yes, the path keeps opening in ways that feel miraculous. Synchronicities, unlocked doors, even now a second storefront becoming available right as the dream expands, that kind of alignment is real, and I’m grateful for it every day.
But don’t confuse the path opening with the work being easy. Because the work is anything but. The grind, the risk, the emotional toll, the weight of carrying a vision no one else can fully see yet, that part is steep, messy, exhausting. The paradox is this: the path itself unfolds with grace, but the walk requires everything I have.
And maybe that’s why my mom worries. She sees me stretched thin, carrying so much, facing what feels impossible. But when I explained what’s really happening, something shifted. I told her: take the whole business plan away, strip the storefronts and the strategy, and what’s left is this, her daughter finally doing shadow work, finally feeling all the emotions she once buried, finally standing in the fire awake.
And most importantly, I told her this: since the moment this vision arrived, I have had zero cravings for alcohol. Not a single one. People outside recovery may not grasp the magnitude of that. Even strong in sobriety, the cravings still came, sharp and sudden, reminders of a life I’d fought to leave behind. But from the moment Thrivewell took root, they disappeared. I’ll never pretend I’m invincible, but to go from battling those urges to feeling none at all? That is nothing short of a miracle.
After our call, I drove off to Worcester State with my boyfriend, where their soccer team was playing a match against his former college. I didn’t realize until I was already on my way that I hadn’t set foot on that campus since my early twenties, since the days I visited a friend who went there, a friendship that has long since unraveled. I hadn’t thought of that part of my past in years, and suddenly, being pulled back into that physical space, I was triggered. Hard.
I turned to him and said the very phrase I wrote into the prologue of Past Life Love: Trigger becomes teacher. I told him to keep driving.
And then came the hardest part. He went the wrong way on the campus, and suddenly I was face-to-face with the very dorms I used to crawl out of, hammered and hollow. The ghosts of my past were right there in front of me. The lost friendship, the mistakes, the years I thought I’d buried. My stomach dropped. I thought: this is too much, I can’t handle this today.
But the universe had a different plan. It let me sit in that moment just long enough to feel it, to name it, to let the trigger be my teacher. And then, as quickly as it appeared, it was in the rearview mirror. My boyfriend found his way, the dorms fell behind us, and suddenly the rest of the campus had no power over me.
Sitting there on the bleachers, it hit me, that quick reunion with the dorms I thought I’d never see again made the entire campus lose its grip. I had survived the worst of it, literally and figuratively. And because I’d faced the hardest part, the rest could no longer touch me. By the time we sat in the stands for the soccer game, I felt no anxiety. Just presence. Just peace
That is what trusting your crazy ideas looks like in practice. Not just building businesses, not just chasing visions, but standing in the middle of your old shadows and realizing they no longer own you.
So yes, this path looks crazy. It feels crazy. And my parents will keep worrying, because that’s what parents do. But I’ve grown enough to see their worry for what it is: love in disguise. And I’ve grown enough to trust my own awareness: that the tears, the triggers, the doubts, they aren’t signs I’m falling apart, but signs I’m becoming whole.
Because the sign in my mom’s house doesn’t say trust your sensible ideas.
It says trust your crazy ones. And I do. Every single day.
Warmly,
Kelley
