I didn’t plan to slow down. In fact, slowing down wasn’t even on my radar. If you know me, you know I’m usually moving, building, creating, leading, or caring. Between running Truth Center for Health & Healing, managing a team I’m incredibly proud of, being a wife, mom, and a woman with big dreams, I was used to living life at full speed. Until one day, I couldn’t.
It started like something small, like a sinus infection, I thought. Or maybe just another round of the flu. I told myself I’d rest for a day or two, maybe cancel a couple of meetings, and get right back to it. But my body had other plans. What I thought would be a few days of recovery quickly turned into something far more serious, something that required hospitalization.
The truth is, I was scared. Deeply scared. There’s a specific kind of fear that settles in when your body stops cooperating with the plans your mind is still trying to run. One moment I was leading trauma therapy sessions near Philadelphia and recording content; the next, I was lying in a hospital bed, unsure of what was happening or how long it would take to feel like myself again.
I remember the quiet moments most. The dull lights that stayed on through the night. The steady drip of medicine flowing through the IV that I had to receive frequently. The way time slowed down and left me with nothing but stillness and my thoughts. I kept asking myself, What if I don’t bounce back the same? What if I can’t do everything I used to do?
But in that stillness, a stillness between fear, surrender, and forced rest, I also started to notice something else: support.
The Power of People Who Show Up
When I say I couldn’t have done it without my people, I mean that from the deepest part of me. My family and my team showed up in ways that words can’t fully capture.
My husband was there every day, sitting beside me even when I couldn’t say much. My parents came often, bringing the kind of quiet comfort only parents can. They didn’t ask for updates or explanations. They just were there. Sometimes, presence is the loudest form of love.
And then there was my Truth Center team. My crew. The people who keep the heart of this work beating. They sent flowers, messages, prayers, and check-ins that reminded me that leadership isn’t about doing everything, but actually about cultivating a community that carries each other when it counts. They didn’t just hold things down at the office; they held me in their thoughts, with compassion and understanding that made it okay to pause.
And just as meaningful were the people who gave me space. Those who didn’t demand explanations or updates, but simply trusted that I’d return when I was ready. Healing sometimes needs silence. I didn’t realize how many parts of me had been craving quiet until I finally allowed myself to embrace it.
Slowing Down Changed Everything
Being forced to slow down stripped me of the illusion of control, but it also gave me something far greater: clarity.
I began to realize how much I’d been operating from a place of go, go, go, thinking that constant movement equaled progress. But healing reminded me that true progress often happens in stillness. When your body demands rest, your spirit starts whispering truths you’ve been too busy to hear.
In those quiet moments, I reconnected with myself: the woman behind the titles, behind the roles, behind the endless to-do lists. I didn’t start journaling again, but I did something just as important: I put myself back into therapy near Delaware County. I needed to recenter, to find grace for myself, to process what my body and mind had just gone through.
Therapy reminded me that I don’t always have to have the answers. That vulnerability doesn’t make me less of a leader; it makes me a more grounded one. It was a space where I could truly be Lavonda. Not Lavonda the director, the therapist, or the caretaker. Just me, figuring out how to breathe again.
And as I reconnected with that truth, one question kept coming up: What do you still feel called to do that you’ve been too afraid to start?
The answer came quickly: my podcast.
Finding My Voice Again
For months, I’d had this idea tucked away in the back of my mind: to start a podcast. A space for truth, healing, and reflection. A space where I could bring my voice, and the voices of others, into deeper conversation about what it really means to heal.
But every time I thought about starting, I found reasons to wait. You don’t have time. You’re too busy running the practice. What if you don’t have the right setup or enough listeners?
The truth was, it wasn’t about time or logistics. It was about courage. I was nervous to put my voice into the world in a new way. To be seen and heard beyond the therapy room.
But after my hospitalization, something in me shifted. Facing something so uncertain gave me a new kind of clarity and confidence. I’d already faced the unthinkable and made it through. After all, what could be scarier than that?
So, with shaky hands and an open heart, I hit record. That first episode of The Healing Room wasn’t perfect, but it was honest. It was me and in that moment, I realized that this was more than a podcast. It was a reclaiming. A way of using my voice again, not just as a therapist or a business owner, but as a human being who’d been reminded of her own capacity to heal.
The Rebirth
Coming out of that experience felt like a rebirth. I’m not the same person I was before I got sick, and I don’t want to be. That version of me was strong, yes, but also stretched thin, juggling too much, afraid to pause because pausing felt like failure.
Now, I know better. Rest is not a reward; it’s a requirement.
Slowing down is not a setback; it’s a setup for something greater.
The journey from hospital bed to podcast mic taught me that every ending is an invitation to begin again. Sometimes life forces us to stop, not to punish us, but to prepare us. To remind us who we are beneath all the roles and responsibilities. To give us space to breathe before the next chapter unfolds.
I’ve come to see that season as sacred. The support I received from my loved ones, my team, and my community became the soil for my rebirth. The Healing Room became the bloom. It became a space born out of stillness, nurtured by courage, and rooted in truth.
What I Hope You Take Away
If you’re reading this and you’re in your own “slow down” season, please hear me when I say this: you are not falling behind. You are not broken. You are being positioned.
It’s like not going to be a hospital bed for you. Maybe it’ll be burnout, grief, uncertainty, or something else that makes you stop. But wherever you are, know that the pause has purpose. Healing doesn’t always look like progress. Sometimes it looks like surrender.
When you finally rise again, and you will, you’ll find parts of yourself that you never knew you lost. You’ll find courage you didn’t know you had. You’ll speak with a voice that carries wisdom born from the quiet, like I did.
Setbacks are not the end of your story. They’re the setup for your next success.
These days, I still move with purpose, but differently. More aware. More intentional. More grateful. Truth Center continues to grow and evolve, but now I lead from a place of balance instead of burnout, and faith instead of fear.
And when I step behind the mic for The Healing Room, I carry every part of that journey with me, the fear and the faith, the support and the stillness. Because healing isn’t linear, but it is always possible.
So here’s to the pause that saved me.
Here’s to the people who carried me.
And here’s to the rebirth that made me braver.
Listen to The Healing Room wherever you get your podcasts, and join me in the conversations that remind us we’re all still learning to heal, to lead, and to begin again.
