Ep 439: 3 Times Life Almost Broke Me
School of Self-Image
Tonya Leigh
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Three Moments That Almost Broke Me—and Made Me Stronger
Life is a journey filled with ups and downs, and it is often during our most challenging moments that we discover our true strength. In the latest episode of the School of Self-Image, Tonya Leigh shares her personal experiences of facing adversity and how these moments ultimately shaped her into a stronger, more resilient version of herself.
Tonya opens up about her own transformative life moments that felt overwhelmingly challenging. She shares her vulnerability in recording this episode, revealing the resistance she faced and the importance of showing the raw, real version of ourselves. Tonya discusses the concept of wabi-sabi, an ancient Japanese philosophy that appreciates beauty in imperfection and incompleteness, contrasting it with our perfection-obsessed culture.
Join her as she explores how the toughest experiences can ultimately shape and strengthen our character. Tune in for an inspiring conversation on embracing our flaws and the growth that comes from life's challenges.
Talking Points:
00:33 - The Challenge of Vulnerability
01:38 - Embracing Imperfection: The Wabi-Sabi Philosophy
02:31 - Life's Breaking Points
04:06 - Moment 1: Divorce and Single Motherhood
07:04 - Moment 2: Battling an Eating Disorder
13:17 - Moment 3: Daughter's Illness and Personal Sacrifice
22:42 - Reflections and Lessons Learned
25:19 - Encouragement for Those Struggling
26:03 - Embracing the Journey
Quotes:
"It wasn't breaking me. It was making me unbreakable."
"It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to be supported. It's okay to not know how to do this on your own."
"No matter how down you think you are, don't give up on yourself because remember, those moments, they're what's making you stronger."
"I think the biggest gift that came out of this was... she appreciates and takes care of herself in such a way that I don't think she would have had this not happened."
"You don't give up on the dream, but you may have to adjust your goals."
"You are not falling apart. You're actually falling into yourself."
"It doesn't mean that you're weak. It means that you're human."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Have you ever had a moment in life where you thought this, this right here might actually break me? |
| 0:06.0 | I've had three that come to mind and each one left a mark that changed me forever. |
| 0:12.6 | But what I didn't realize at the time was that those moments were building the strongest parts of me. |
| 0:18.0 | And that's what we're talking about in today's episode. So let's dive in. |
| 0:23.9 | Welcome to the School of Self Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, |
| 0:30.1 | Master Life Coach, Tanya Lee. Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode. And I'm just going to go ahead and tell you right from the |
| 0:40.0 | beginning that this is going to be a very real and personal and vulnerable episode that I've |
| 0:47.9 | had a lot of resistance around recording. This, I think, is my fourth attempt. And, you know, I think it's important for you all to sort of know what goes on behind the scenes. |
| 0:57.9 | There are some episodes that just flow and are so easy. |
| 1:01.1 | And then there are occasional ones where you're like, gosh, I'm having such a hard time recording this and I'm trying to figure out why. |
| 1:08.9 | And I think for me, it's probably why it's so hard for a lot of us. |
| 1:15.1 | It's letting people see the most raw, real version of you, the part that maybe you want to |
| 1:24.3 | hide, the part that maybe you're not so proud of, the part that maybe you don't even |
| 1:29.3 | want to revisit. You're like, I have moved beyond that and I don't want to ever think about it |
| 1:33.9 | again. And yet, and yet, those are the moments when I think about it have shaped the best parts |
| 1:43.1 | of me. I think about the concept of wabi-sabi, which is an ancient |
| 1:48.3 | Japanese philosophy that finds beauty and the imperfect and the incomplete. It's the opposite of |
| 1:56.0 | the airbrushed, perfection-obsessed culture that we find ourselves living in. Wabi-sabi is about |
| 2:03.4 | loving the cracks in a teacup because they tell a story. It's seeing aging as graceful, not something |
| 2:11.2 | to fix. It's finding meaning in the messiness. It's embracing that life and we are most beautiful, not in spite of |
| 2:21.1 | our flaws, but because of them. And so, yeah, I want to share three times life almost broke me. |
| 2:31.0 | Because now looking back, I realize it wasn't breaking me. It was making me unbreakable. And what was |
... |
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