Living Where I Am and Making Space for New Dreams

Angela E. Batista, Ed.D
January 11, 2026

The Transformation by Design Coach

For nearly the past two years, almost nothing in my life has looked the way I imagined it would.

There are seasons when one feels steady and grounded, when plans make sense and effort leads to predictable outcomes. And then there are seasons like this one, when everything familiar starts to shift at once. Family, work, home, identity, routines. It can feel like you are standing on quicksand, doing your best to stay upright while the ground beneath you keeps moving. In those moments, leading yourself is no longer about strategy or confidence. It becomes about presence, choice, and learning how to live where you are, even when nothing feels stable.

Almost two years ago, I began to step back from my work in ways I never had before to care for my father as his cancer progressed. As I moved in with my parents to care for my father and support my mother, I learned how quickly roles can reverse. How leadership at home looks nothing like leadership on a stage or in a boardroom. I learned how to sit with uncertainty without a clear plan in a completely new way. ‘

Alongside everything unfolding in my family life, my business was navigating its own instability. In the months leading up to and following the U.S. presidential elections, we entered a period of deep freezing across industries, but particularly in higher education. Decisions were paused. Budgets were locked down. Fear, legal uncertainty, and political pressure reshaped what institutions felt able to prioritize. That uncertainty translated almost immediately into an abrupt slowdown and, for a time, an almost complete reduction in income. Holding that financial strain while continuing to show up for clients, care for family, and a growing sense of loss added a quiet but persistent heaviness to this season, one that forced me to confront what it really means to lead, sustain, and choose purpose when the ground keeps shifting.

Grief has lived in my body in quiet and impactful ways I didn’t fully understand until I was in it. Physically, it has shown up as exhaustion, tightness, and a heaviness that no amount of sleep seems to fully touch. Mentally, it has slowed my processing, shortened my patience, and made even simple decisions feel overwhelming at times. Spiritually, it has unsettled me, asking questions about meaning, faith, and purpose that I didn’t have the energy to answer right away. I’ve noticed how all of this affects my behavior, how I withdraw more easily, how my tolerance for noise and urgency has shrunk, how I need more quiet, more space, more gentleness than I once did. Naming this has helped me understand that these shifts are not failures or flaws; they are signals. Grief has reshaped how I move through the world, and recognizing its impact allows me to respond to myself with more compassion rather than judgment.

But grief does not move in a straight line, and it does not stay politely in one part of life. For me, it shows up in meetings, in decision-making, in moments of silence, and in the spaces between tasks. Working through grief has taught me that leadership does not require emotional distance; it requires presence, self-compassion, and the willingness to acknowledge what we are carrying instead of pretending it is not there.

I have also learned that grief has a way of slowing everything down, whether I want it to or not. Living with grief is truly exhausting, and trying to rush through it only creates more exhaustion. Allowing space for grief, even in small ways, has helped me stay more grounded, more honest, and more human in my leadership. It has reminded me that tending to loss is not a distraction from the work; it is part of the work.

This grief season is teaching me how little control I truly have and how much care I actually need. Learning to work through it has meant committing and actively working to listen more closely to my body, my limits, and what matters most. In many ways, grief has softened my leadership, not by weakening it, but by anchoring it more deeply in compassion and clarity.

Having the Courage to Make the Hard Decisions

During my father’s illness and subsequent passing, I have focused on practicing grieving while still showing up. Grieving the loss of my father, my work, peace of mind, and the life I had just started to build in a new home. My first and dream home, which I had finally been able to purchase because I was fortunate enough to have my three-digit student loan account forgiven after the COVID-19 pandemic.

My dream home is in central Florida, over 3 hours away from my parents. The year before my father’s cancer returned with a vengeance, I was able to enjoy living there, surrounded by nature and yet close to all I needed. I felt like I was walking into an Airbnb every time I returned home. I spent many hours on the back porch, watching the birds feeding under majestic oak trees, mesmerized by the ducks forming in the pond out back, watching magnificent sunsets with Toby (his favorite thing), listening to the frogs sing without restraint at night, and marveling at the rainbows reflected throughout the house at dusk. These moments were truly magical.

For some time, I attempted to travel back and forth between my home and my parents’ house, holding logistics, paperwork, emotions, and decisions that did not wait for my nervous system to catch up. This was exhausting and ate so much of my time, and I was not able to sustain myself. From the start, it was clear that I was facing one of the most challenging decisions and needed to figure out a way to support and care for my elderly mother while holding on to myself as much as possible, especially after losing my father.

And somewhere in the middle of all of this, I moved in with my mother. After more than fifty years with my father, she is now alone, elderly, and navigating her own health challenges. That decision, too, reshaped my understanding of leadership. It asked me to slow down even more. To redefine productivity and practice more self-compassion when I haven’t been able to do it all. To let go of the illusion that I could manage everything if I just worked harder. To forgive myself in moments when I have nothing left, often not finding enough energy for even a brief conversation with friends or family because my capacity is simply gone.

All of this unfolded while my work continued to shift. While the leaders and teams I support have also been navigating policy changes, budget constraints, and increasing pressure with fewer resources and less room to breathe. And so, I found myself holding space for others who were stretched thin, even as I was quietly learning how to carry my own grief and disorientation.

Some Lessons Learned

There is one thing I know with certainty: in moments like these, our values rise to the surface. Recently, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life, moving in with my mom and putting my dream home on the market. It was a decision rooted in love, responsibility, and care, and it came with a fresh wave of grief I did not fully anticipate. It also reminded me that the work I invite others to do, aligning values with action, making intentional choices, and living our purpose even when it hurts, is not theoretical. Many of you are making your own difficult decisions right now, weighing family, work, stability, and survival. This season has reinforced for me that leadership is often defined not by what we build or achieve, but by the courage to choose what matters most when the choices are heavy, and the path forward is unclear.

Letting go of my dream home is not just about real estate. It is about releasing the idea that my life is “supposed” to have gone a certain way. It is about choosing people over plans. Care over comfort. Responsibility over certainty. It is about acknowledging that leadership sometimes means stepping away from what you built so you can tend to what matters most. It is about making space for new dreams.

This season has forced me to live where I am; to redefine what leadership actually looks like. Not the version we see in books or frameworks. But leadership in real life. Leadership when you are tired. Leadership when the future is unclear. Leadership when loss is present in every room.

We Are All Standing in Quicksand

If you feel like the ground keeps shifting beneath you, you’re not imagining it. Many of us are moving through our days with the sensation that no matter how carefully we step, the terrain is unstable. What once felt solid, roles, plans, budgets, policies, identities, even our sense of direction, now sinks the moment we put weight on it. Living and leading in this season can feel like standing in quicksand, expending enormous energy just to stay upright, let alone move forward.

And I know many of you are carrying this same weight. You are holding teams who are anxious and exhausted. You are making decisions with incomplete information. You are balancing institutional pressures with personal realities. You are leading others through uncertainty while quietly managing your own fear, fatigue, and grief. As I have worked alongside you, I’ve felt the heaviness of what you’re navigating and the responsibility of holding space for it. At the very same time, I’ve been finding my own footing. This shared experience of instability has deepened my understanding of what leadership requires right now: not quick fixes, but steadiness, honesty, and the courage to keep showing up for one another when the ground won’t stop moving.

A Chance to Redefine Leadership

When I look back on the last eighteen months, a few lessons rise to the surface again and again. Some were learned the hard way. Others emerged quietly over time. All of them continue to shape how I lead, how I coach, and how I show up in the world.

First, leadership requires honest trade-offs. You cannot hold everything at once without cost. Choosing care over convenience, people over plans, or presence over productivity will ask something of you. That does not mean you chose wrong. It means you chose consciously.

Second, slowing down is not the opposite of leadership. In seasons of upheaval, slowing down is often the most responsible thing a leader can do. It creates space for clearer thinking, better decisions, and deeper alignment. Speed can look impressive. Discernment is far more impactful.

Third, clarity comes from values, not certainty. When the future feels unstable, values provide direction even when answers are unavailable. Naming what matters most allows you to make decisions that hold integrity, even when they are painful or misunderstood.

Fourth, leadership is embodied. Grief, stress, exhaustion, and care responsibilities do not stay neatly outside our professional lives. Ignoring them does not make us stronger leaders. Attending them makes us more grounded, more compassionate, and more trustworthy.

Finally, leadership is not a solo act. This season reinforced for me how important it is to ask for support, to stay connected, and to allow others to walk alongside you. Strength does not come from carrying everything alone. It comes from knowing when to share the weight.

These lessons are not abstract. They live. And they are the same lessons I see many of you grappling with every day.

Commit to Practice, Imperfectly, Every Day

There are also many personal lessons that sit alongside these leadership insights—quieter truths about limits, care, grief, and what it takes to keep showing up as a whole human being when the roles and expectations fall away.

Move beyond control. It is about discernment.

I could not control my father’s illness. I could not control the timing of his death. I could not control the policies reshaping higher education. I could not control the emotional weight of selling my home. What I could do was choose where to place my energy, when to pause, and which decisions to make with intention rather than fear.

Don’t just push through. It is about listening deeply.

I had to listen (or at least try really hard) to my body when it told me I needed rest. I had to listen to my grief when it surfaced unexpectedly. I had to listen to my clients differently, with more patience and less urgency to “fix.” And I had to listen to what this season was asking of me, even when I did not like the answer.

Stop chasing certainty. It is about clarity of values.

When everything feels unstable, values become anchors. Family. Care. Integrity. Presence. Purpose. Those values guided decisions that did not make sense on paper but felt right in my body. They continue to guide how I show up in my work, how I support leaders, and how I make choices for the future.

You don’t need all the answers. You need to be willing to stay.

There were moments this year when retreating would have been easier. When numbing would have been tempting. When distancing myself emotionally might have felt safer. Instead, I stayed. With my grief. With my mother. With my clients. With the uncertainty. Staying does not mean forcing forward. Sometimes staying means sitting quietly and letting things unfold.

This is the work I talk about all year long. And this year, I have been living it. Not perfectly. Not gracefully every day. But honestly. What I want you to know, especially if you are leading through your own upheaval, is this:

If your life feels unrecognizable right now, you are not failing. You are being shaped.
If you are making decisions that look “illogical” to others but feel necessary to you, you are not weak. You are listening.
If you are slower than you used to be, less certain than before, more reflective, more tired, and more human, you are not behind. You are in a season that requires a different kind of leadership.

Call to Action: A Moment to Reflect and Recenter

Before you move on to the next task, meeting, or responsibility, I invite you to pause here for a moment and ask yourself:

What is this season asking of you right now? Not what it demanded last year. Not what others expect. Not what you wish it would ask. Just what is being asked now.
What hard decisions are sitting with you, waiting to be made?
What are you balancing personally and professionally that feels heavier than you expected?
What have you lost, released, or had to let go of this year?
What parts of yourself feel stretched thin, and which parts are asking for more care?

Then choose one small action that aligns with your answer. One boundary. One conversation. One decision. One moment of rest.

You do not need to solve everything.
You do not need to rush clarity.
You do not need to perform resilience.

You are allowed to slow down.
You are allowed to grieve what you are losing.
You are allowed to trust that leadership can look quieter,

steadier, and more human than you were taught.

If you are here, reading this, you are not alone. I see you. I understand the weight you are carrying. And I believe deeply that leadership rooted in care, clarity, and presence is not only possible in these times. It is necessary.

That is the work I am committed to.
That is the work TBD exists to hold.
And that is the work we will continue to do together.

Quietly. Intentionally. With heart.

Post-Reading Suggestion

You do not need to have answers to all of this. Reflection is not about resolution. It is about noticing.

Take ten quiet minutes after reading this. No multitasking. No fixing. Just space.

Try one or more of these prompts or practices:

Write down one decision you are avoiding and name what makes it hard. What value is being tested?
List three things this season has already taught you, even if the lessons came through difficulty.
Identify one place where you could slow down by five percent. What would that make possible?
Ask yourself: What does leadership need to look like for me right now, not in theory, but in reality?
Choose one small action this week that honors both your humanity and your responsibilities.

You are not behind. You are not failing. You are navigating complexity in real time.

And if you find yourself craving steadiness, clarity, or a place to think out loud with someone who understands the weight of leadership in moments like this, know that this is the kind of work I hold with care throughout the year.

For now, let yourself pause. Let yourself breathe.
Let yourself trust that leading with intention, even when everything feels uncertain, is more than enough.

#TransformTranscendThrive🦋 | #Leadwith❤️