The Purge: Dying Into the New

For a long time, I thought my “dark times” were just that—dark. A three-year stretch where I felt stripped bare, wandering through what I now call my forty days in the desert. I thought I was being punished, abandoned, or left behind. But in truth… it was a purge.

The old self burns, smoke rising with every defense, every outdated truth, every piece of identity once clung to. This is the purge — the sacred death before renewal.

I didn’t know it then. I couldn’t have. I was too deep in the unraveling to name it. But looking back, I see it clearly: the people who fell away, the situations that collapsed, the responses that no longer worked, the ideals that dissolved in my hands. I wasn’t just releasing them—I was purging me.

A part of me had to die so that another could live.

The Death of Self

Here’s the terrifying part: it wasn’t just “bad habits” or “toxic people” I was releasing. It was the self I had worked so hard to become. The versions of me that had gotten me this far. The old sparkle, the edges, the defenses, the truths that once kept me alive.

And the questions kept circling:

• If I let go of that part of me, will I lose my character?

• If I surrender that layer, will I still shine?

• What happens if the very thing that made me strong is the thing that must die?

It felt like standing on the cliff of identity, looking down at an ocean I couldn’t see the bottom of.

The Paradox of Letting Go

This was the hardest paradox to face: the very qualities that once defined me, protected me, even made me radiant, were now the very things weighing me down. It felt like betrayal to let them go — like I was abandoning the younger me who had fought so hard to survive with those tools.

But what I’ve come to see is this: nothing true is ever lost. The grit, the fire, the sparkle — they don’t disappear when we surrender the old shell. They return refined. They return in their purest form. What dies is not the essence, but the distortion.

The Hardest Letting Go

Because it isn’t easy to release:

• The people we’ve loved, even if they no longer walk our road.

• The excuses that once made sense, even if they no longer fit.

• The character we built brick by brick, even if it no longer houses our soul.

It’s hard to trust the becoming when you can’t picture what that might look like. It’s scary business, dying into the new.

But that’s what the purge is: a sacred death. Not punishment. Not abandonment. A clearing, so that what is real and aligned can finally live.

One Day, One Breath

The only way I made it through was one day, one breath, one moment at a time. Trusting myself to trust. Period.

And now, standing here, I see what I couldn’t then: the purge gave me back to myself. It burned away the scaffolding so I could stand in my own resonance. I was dying into the new.

From the ashes of release, the smoke softens into golden light. What was once heavy dissolves, revealing the clarity and trust that can only come after letting go.

A Ritual for Release

If you find yourself in the middle of your own purge, here is a simple ritual:

1. Sit quietly. Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly.

2. Name what is dying. Whisper it aloud. A version of you. A belief. A tie. A mask.

3. Exhale it out. With every breath, let it fall away. See it dissolve into the air, the earth, the unseen.

4. Inhale the becoming. You don’t need to know what it looks like. Just trust that each inhale is filling you with what is next.

Repeat until you feel a softening. A loosening. A little more space inside.

The Promise

I know how hard it is. I know the ache of losing the self you’ve been and the fear of not knowing who you’re becoming. That’s why I am creating a program dedicated to this very passage—The Purge. A companion for anyone walking through the sacred death that comes with awakening.

Until then, may you take it one breath, one day, one moment at a time.And may you trust yourself to trust.

Chara