Unpacking Your Big Girl Feelings: Embracing Joy, Freedom, and Self Love

Blog Created 11/25/2025; Updated 3/16/2026. Image developed using AI by Renetta Smith

Life didn’t go the way we expected. Somewhere along the journey, the plans we once held so tightly slipped in a different direction. Many women reach a moment in midlife where they quietly look around and think: This isn’t exactly the life I imagined.

Not necessarily worse.
Just… different.

Different from the dream we believed we were building when we were younger.

Healing, freedom, and self-discovery don’t happen without a few honest conversations with yourself. But honest conversations are only the beginning. When you sit quietly with your truth, emotions often surface… grief, disappointment, anger, regret. Sometimes those emotions hurt and they hurt deeply. And when they hurt, many of us do what women have been conditioned to do our entire lives: We compartmentalize our feelings, close the door on the conversation and move on. Not because we don’t want to grow. But because we don’t want to feel the kind of pain that comes with raw emotions from unhealed hurt, and in most cases, we don’t have the downtime to fully analyze and resolve hurt – that is until the hurt shows up in the form of disease, joint pain, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, and mental defect-- then we’re forced to reconcile with unhealed hurt.

Trust me when I tell you — I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit. The truth is that the real emotional work doesn’t begin with the conversation with yourself. The real work begins when you decide to stay in the conversation long enough to do something about what you discover in those conversations.

Emotional awareness without action keeps people stuck. Insight alone doesn't change your life. Action does.

Avoiding your feelings doesn’t make the pain disappear, it only prolongs healing. Feeling your feelings is an important step toward healing, but feelings alone won’t redesign your life. Sometimes the hardest action of all is simply allowing yourself to feel the truth of your own story long enough to understand what needs to change.

Sometimes What We’re Grieving Isn’t a Person

Sometimes what we’re grieving isn’t a person or a relationship. Sometimes we’re grieving an ideal….a life we deserved and believed we were building. Many of us were raised on a very specific vision of adulthood:

For some women The Promise became reality. And, for others, The Reality unfolded very differently.

Divorce. Loss. Or simply the slow unraveling of a relationship changed the trajectory of the story we thought we were writing.

When that realization hits, the emotions can be intense.

Regret. Frustration. Disappointment. And sometimes a quiet fear that it might already be too late.

Those feelings are real. And they deserve to be acknowledged. But the emotional work doesn’t stop with recognizing them. The real work begins when we decide what we’re going to do with what those conversations reveal.

My Own Turning Point

I know this because I faced my own version of that moment years ago. When I was thirty-one years old, a doctor sat me down for one of those serious conversations women sometimes receive when time is not on their side. If having a child was important to me, he explained, we needed to act quickly because my fertility window was closing. I tried the traditional fertility treatments, in-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination. None of them worked. Eventually I made a decision that wasn’t easy, especially given the religious Southern family I was raised in. I chose to become a single-mother-by-choice.

Was it the life plan I had imagined growing up?

HECK No! (rolling my eyes with my hands on my hips)

Did it raise eyebrows in my friend circles, church friends, and family?

Absolutely.

But looking back now, I can say with complete certainty that becoming a single-mother-by-choice was one of the best decisions I ever made.

A mother’s love is something I had never experienced before. The excitement. The wonder. The quiet moment when you hold your baby and realize your life has expanded in ways you never expected…into this tiny little human. Even something as simple as the smell of your baby’s skin becomes a memory you carry forever.

Life didn’t unfold the way I originally planned. I had it all planned out. I was going to get my Associate degree…then my Bachelors….then work a few years and while busy in my career God would send me my husband and we’d marry and have a huge house with a two car garage and 2.5 children. (yes. 2.5 children….hey it was “my dream”).

My life didn’t’ turn out that way, but that doesn’t mean it turned out the wrong way. My life unfolded perfectly.

Where the Real Work Begins

Over time I began to realize something important. Insight alone doesn’t change a life. Planning alone doesn’t change a life. What changes a life is deciding that the story isn’t over. I reclaimed my life and took intentional steps to redesign the next chapters. That realization eventually led me to begin developing something I now call the NMH Self-Work Breakdown Structure™ — a simple framework for helping women move from emotional awareness to intentional life redesign.(hyperlink to the blog)

Why Many Women Stop Too Soon Before Healing

What I’ve also learned is that many women stop right at the point where the real work is about to begin. They have the honest conversation with themselves. They acknowledge what hurts. They recognize the regret, the disappointment, the anger about what didn’t happen. And then they stop.

Not because they lack courage. Not because they lack strength. But because the emotions that surface during those moments can be paralyzingly painful. Sitting with those emotions requires emotional stamina. Exploring those emotions requires vulnerability. Facing those emotions sometimes means admitting that parts of our lives didn’t unfold the way we hoped. So many women close the door on the conversation right there. They stay busy with distractions. They move on. They try to accept things as they are. But the truth is this: That moment, the one where the emotions rise to the surface, is not the end of the conversation. It’s the doorway to the real work.

Big Girl Feelings Are Honest Feelings

Somewhere along the way, many women learned to tuck certain emotions away. We learned how to be strong. How to keep going. How to smile when we’re hurting. How to take care of everyone else. But eventually there comes a season when we realize that strength also means telling ourselves the truth. Maybe that truth sounds like:

“I’m proud of the life I’ve built, but I want more joy.”

“I miss having a partner, but I also enjoy my independence.”

“I’m still figuring out who I am in this season of life.”

“I’m not where I want to be, but I’m a long way from where I used to be and I’m making strides everyday to be the woman I desire to be.”

Those are what I call big girl feelings. They’re honest. They’re layered. And they deserve space.

Choosing Yourself Is an Act of Courageous Self-Love

Living fully and freely as a single woman requires something many of us were never taught to practice. Choosing ourselves. Choosing your peace. Choosing your growth. Choosing the life that feels authentic to you — even if it doesn’t match someone else’s expectations. That choice isn’t selfish. It’s courageous. And it’s often the moment when women stop living according to old scripts and begin writing new ones.

Your Story Is Still Unfolding

Living single at any age isn’t about what you’ve lost. It’s about what you’re finding. Rediscovering your voice. Reclaiming your joy. Deciding how you want to show up in the world moving forward. Because your story doesn’t stop when the house grows quiet or when a phase of life ends -- sometimes that’s exactly when your story reboots.

Living Fully, Living Free Series

This article is part of the Living Fully, Living Free series — a collection of reflections for women navigating midlife transitions, rediscovering joy, and redefining what freedom looks like in the next chapter of life.

Part 1: Living Fully, Living Free: Single at Any Age

Part 2: Single Living / Living Single – The Difference Is a Decision

Part 3: Unpacking Your Big Girl Feelings: Embracing Joy, Freedom, and Self-Love

A Final Thought

Sometimes just hearing another woman’s story is the nudge we need to step a little more boldly into our own. I hope my story encourages you into action. The journey to self-discovery isn’t always easy. It can be emotionally draining. It can be uncomfortable. Stressful even. But it’s also where freedom lives. And that’s what no more hiding™ is all about.

Live Whole. Live Seen. Live Free.

Renetta