When a hero falls, we grieve more than we expect, because the loss is older than the headline. But that grief is a doorway. And on the other side of it is the leader the world is actually waiting for.

WHEN HEROES FALL

When someone you believed in turns out to be something different, the grief is real.

There's a particular kind of pain that's hitting a lot of us right now.

It's not quite anger, though there's definitely anger in it.

It's not quite shock, though maybe we tell ourselves we're shocked.

It lives somewhere deeper, quieter, and more personal than the headlines that triggered it.

It's grief.

And if you're feeling it, I want you to know that grief makes complete sense.

It is not naivety or weakness.

It's one of the most human things there is.

(And something I tend to rush past, so I'm writing this for me as well)

THE FALL

We're living through an extraordinary season of unmasking.

Leaders, public figures, and people who've held positions of power and trust––the falls are coming fast.

What's being revealed is disturbing. Enraging.

And for many, somewhere underneath the outrage, there's something that feels almost embarrassingly personal.

Like we lost something.

Something we were counting on—something we maybe didn't even fully realize we were counting on—just got pulled out from under us.

And that feeling deserves to be named.

Because if we skip past it straight to the outrage, we miss something important that this moment is trying to give us.

THE LONGING BENEATH THE PEDESTAL

The thing about about pedestals that we put people on is that we don't really build them randomly or consciously.

We build them for people who represent something we're starving for.

Safety and integrity. Someone who's trustworthy all the way through. Someone who's who they say they are, in public and in private, in the light and in the dark.

Some part of us needs that to exist and we deeply wish for it to be real.

If you trace that hunger back far enough, we'll find that it didn't start with a public figure.

It started much earlier.

In a childhood home, reaching for a parent who couldn't quite be there for us consistently. Watching someone you loved and needed be one person in public and someone else behind closed doors. Learning, slowly and painfully, that the people who were supposed to be safe (and keep us safe) weren't always safe (and didn't protect us).

We carried that unmet longing for reliability, connection, safety, and trustworthiness into adulthood.

And we transferred it—quietly and unconsciously—onto leaders, teachers, clergy, gurus, and public figures who seemed to have it together in the ways that gave us hope.

Who seemed trustworthy.

The pedestal was never really about them.

It was about what we're still waiting to receive.

LET YOURSELF GRIEVE THIS

So when they fall—when the illusion shatters and the person turns out to be something other than what we believed—we aren't just losing faith in them.

We're losing the hope they were carrying for us.

And that's a real loss that deserves real grief.

The acknowledgement of, "I wanted this to be different. I wanted someone to really be trustworthy and good. To be able to rest in their leadership."

That longing is not a flaw in you or something to be ashamed of.

It's not something to quickly move past.

It is one of the most tender and human parts of you—the part that wants to believe that people are who they appear to be, that it's safe to trust, that you can let your guard down and be okay.

To be clear, that belief isn't the problem.

WHAT THE GRIEF IS POINTING TO

Here is what I've learned after fifteen years of doing this work—with myself and with the women I walk alongside...

The grief is guiding us.

Not outward, toward the person who failed us.

But inward, toward the unmet need that their failure has just illuminated.

Toward the wounded inner child who's still waiting for someone to finally, fully show up.

Toward the part of us that's been outsourcing our sense of safety to people and institutions that aren't equipped to hold it.

This is not a criticism.

It's an invitation.

Because the truth that I find both heartbreaking and extraordinarily freeing is that no one is coming to be what you needed them to be.

There is no savior or hero out there.

But you can become that. For yourself.

The safety you've been looking for—the trustworthiness, the steadiness, the strength—that can be cultivated inside you.

By you.

Not perfectly or all at once, but sustainably and incrementally in ways that no one can take from you.

That's available to all of us.

We start here, with the grief, in the honest acknowledgment of what you lost, what you needed, and what you're still hoping for.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUSH PAST THIS

This isn't just about this moment in time. 

There will be hot takes, think pieces, and the news cycle will churn as it does. 

Most people will skip straight from shock to outrage to the next thing.

But it will be such a huge missed opportunity for self-reclamation, empowerment, and self-leadership.

Now is the time to slow down.

To feel the grief underneath the anger.

And to ask yourself honestly, "What was I hoping for that this person represented for me? What does their fall illuminate about what I'm still longing for?"

They are such brave questions.

And they can be the beginning of something that the outrage alone will never give you: the chance to find what you were always looking for in them—solid ground, real safety, and a sense of Self you can reliably trust—in you.

That's not just a different kind of freedom.

It is how we change the world.

THIS GIVES US THE POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD

When you stop outsourcing your sense of safety—when you step in as the leader of your own life—something shifts.

Not just in you, but in everything and everyone you touch.

You become the thing you were always waiting for someone else to be.

Trustworthy. Self-aware. Willing to own your mistakes, receive hard feedback, and tell the truth even when it costs you something. Humble enough to keep growing. Solid enough to be counted on.

That is the leader the world is starving for right now.

Not a different face on the same old pedestal.

But someone who's done the real work—who leads from the inside-out, from authenticity rather than performance, from genuine self-knowledge rather than image management.

It looks like saying,  "I got that wrong" to your kids.

Like asking, "Where am I missing the mark?" and being willing to hear the answer.

Like changing your mind when you learn something new, owning your impact even when your intentions were good, and letting the people in the room matter more than the power the room gives you.

This is only possible when you've stopped pretending you don't have a shadow.

When you know your impulses—the ones that want to lie, deflect, protect your image, take the easy way out—and you watch them instead of being ruled by them.

Not because you've conquered your darkness. Because you've made it conscious.

This is not weakness. This is the most courageous form of leadership that exists.

Because it requires you to be the same person in the dark as you are in the light—not because you've eliminated your darkness, but because you've stopped being ruled by it.

This is how it actually changes.

Not from the top down, but from the inside-out.

One brave, clear-eyed, rising human being at a time. 

If you want to go deeper—to actually build the solid ground we're talking about, through inner child reparenting and shadow integration work that's real and accessible—I created The Whole Soul Way™ Course for exactly this moment. It's completely free:

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In Part Two, we'll go deeper into what this cultural moment is really asking of all of us, and the shadow work that can actually change things. But for now, just be here. Let yourself feel this.