My life’s journey has been a long and winding road. Like most of us in the United States, I was raised and groomed to believe the formula for achieving a good life was simple: (1) get a formal education, (2) get a good job with a good employer, and (3) work hard.

After working this formula for 30 years, in 2021 I collapsed from debilitating burnout and profound, complicated grief. I could no longer work and was barely functional. With the speed and devastation of a tornado, the realization that this “tried and true” formula for an easy and happy life had only been sound and good advice for the Boomer generation flattened me. In one minute, my entire worldview and identity was destroyed. For Generation X and younger, this formula is a myth. We no longer live in this straightforward and simple world. In fact, this new century we inhabit has been given an acronym, VUCAH: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous, and Hyperconnected. We live in a VUCAH world. What worked for older generations is not going to work for us.

My burnout and grief recovery journey has taken years. And to my dismay, none of the “prescribed” methods for mental health worked for me. In fact, talk therapy only made me more angry and depressed, and left me feeling helpless and hopeless. It took me years to figure out that the problem was not me. The problem was the illness-based medicine model. Therapy was designed for people who have mental illness and I was not mentally ill. I was merely emotionally devastated and physically and mentally exhausted. I needed support to rebuild myself, not waste time storytelling and intellectualizing the 35-year grind and firestorm that had been my life. I needed a guide to help me recover my wholeness, not a strange shoulder to cry on. I needed a method to reconnect with my inner power. I was very fortunate that I found it. And now I help others do the same.

The formula for a happy and successful life in the 21st century is to cultivate the only thing you can control: your own unique brand of psychological resilience. This requires a holistic, mind-body-spirit approach. It requires a new way of thinking and being in the world. This new, powerful way is based in the oldest wisdom and validated by the newest science. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. However, it can be learned by anyone and works for everyone.