Real & Rooted

Rediscovering Yourself in Life's Seasons

• Lori

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Rediscovering Yourself in Life’s Seasons | Sunday Shoreline with Lori Kendall

In this episode of Sunday Shoreline, Lori Kendall guides you through understanding and navigating the different seasons of life—whether you're rooted, blooming, thriving, or reshaping after loss. She offers practical tools to reconnect with your true self amid life's inevitable transitions.

Key Topics:

  •  Recognizing the season you're in—rooting, sprouting, thriving, or reshaping
  •  The importance of understanding your roots before growth
  •  Differentiating who you are from the roles you play during survival mode
  •  How to identify what environments nourish versus deplete your energy
  •  The power of naming your season and asking “what is this season asking of me?”

 Practical exercises: splitting identity into "who I’ve had to be" vs. "who I am underneath" 

  • Using energy awareness to guide life shifts effectively 
  • Drawing significance from life’s upheavals by separating rubble from roots 
  • Reflecting on gratitude, boundaries, and what no longer serves you 
  • Embracing small, aligned steps toward change and wholeness 
  • The importance of honesty and self-compassion in personal growth 

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and introduction to life's seasons and self-centering
 01:03 - Understanding the significance of being present without rushing
 02:07 - Differentiating between life before and after tragedy
 02:36 - Recognizing disconnection and feelings of being lost
 04:20 - How to identify your current season: rooting, sprouting, thriving
 05:01 - The importance of inner work during rooting
 05:57 - Moving through uncertainty and expansion
 07:22 - Navigating fear and excitement about new beginnings
 08:18 - Naming your season and disconnecting from survival identities
 09:29 - Reflecting on who you are versus who you've had to be
 10:06 - Examining your values beyond roles during success and survival
 11:11 - The impact of work-life balance and valuing relationships
 12:27 - Deep self-inquiry: truth-telling exercises
 13:48 - Recognizing feelings of misalignment and loss of purpose
 15:10 - Identifying nourishing versus depleting environments
 16:36 - How to assess where you are performing authentically
 17:28 - Using energy awareness to inform life direction
 18:40 - Drawing from upheaval: rubble versus roots
 19:22 - The process of starting anew from your truth
 20:06 - Reflection questions: releasing, carrying forward, and discovering your essence
 21:06 - Small steps: gratitude, boundaries, and alignment checks
 22:13 - The power of honest self-reflection ("It makes sense that I feel this way because...")
 22:47 - Encouragement to meet yourself with compassion and patience
 23:09 - Announcing the upcoming book, Missing Pieces, about resilience and wholeness
23:38 - Final thoughts and closing encouragement

Resources: 

Connect with Lori Kendall: 

Remember: Understanding your season is the key step towards true growth. You don’t need a complete plan—just one mindful step at a time. Meet yourself honestly, and what is deeply rooted will rise.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Real Fruited Podcast, where real stories mean grounded healing. I'm Lauren Kendall, founder of Reflective Fruits, where I work as a fruit navigator, a companion for the tough times in life, author of missing pieces, the final story, and your host. Each week we'll explore the experiences, the losses, the breakthroughs, and the wrong honest conversations that transform you are becoming. This is a space to reconnect with yourself. Reclaim the pieces that you've lost. Where we tell the truth, where we stop trying to rush ahead for even just a few moments, and instead learn how to stand honestly where we are. Now you may have heard on our Wednesday dive in me pose a lot of questions to you on how to decide where you go from post-tragedy. We and I talk a lot about a before and an after stage of life and relationships, death. Becomes different after. So today's conversation is both a little gentle and hopefully a lot real. I knew how to carry things. I knew how to show up. But if you would have asked me, who are you right now? I wouldn't have had an answer for you that felt real. And maybe that's where you are today. Not broken, not failing, just disconnected. So today I'm going to walk you through this in two ways. First, I want to help you understand the season that you're in. And second, I want to give you real tools to rediscover who you are within it. Because you cannot grow clearly if you don't understand your roots. Before you try to figure out your life, you need to understand your season. Because not every season is meant for blooming. Some are meant for rooting. So I want you to ask yourself honestly, what season am I in right now? You may be in a season of rooting where the quiet internal work, the healing, the stabilizing, the rebuilding happens. It can feel like nothing is happening, but everything is happening beneath the surface. If I'm honest, this is where I am a little bit right now. Trying to find that stable ground, take account on the things in my life that serve me. Relationships, a profession, what I want out of the future. It is this very thing that will become your foundation moving forward. Maybe you find yourself and you feel as though you're sprouting, or you're trying once again, taking small steps, and testing new ground. But there's hope and uncertainty. I'll tell you, I'm a little bit here right now, too. And that's fine. You can move in and out of seasons, and maybe you have two seasons going on at the same time. I was invited to a mom's weekend, and there's a part of me that wants to go because I really want to start living again. And there's a part of me that's really scared. Because it would be the first time that I have been outside of what I'm gonna call a bubble since the tragedy. And though I know the women will be gracious and loving, there's a sense of fear, a sense of the unknown, a level of uncertainty. Maybe you're thriving, aligned, expanding. Things are flowing and are visible again. Maybe you're pruning, letting go of those things that do not serve you, losing friendships or relationships that no longer fit, being reshaped in ways you didn't choose. Here's the truth. Pruning is not punishment, it's preparation. But when we finally named our season, when I finally named my season, I got to stop asking myself what's wrong with me. And started asking what is this season asking of me? Once you name your season, you have to separate who you are from who you've had to be. Because survival creates identities. Take a piece of paper, draw two columns, on one side write who I've had to be. The strong one. The one that holds everything together. The one who doesn't fall apart. Who overextends themselves and who works to say I'm sorry because it's easier just to keep the peace. Now they're my answers, but what are yours? Maybe they're the same. Maybe they're different. But then on the other side of your piece of paper, I want you to ask yourself when you're not in survival mode, what feels natural to you? So your question or your header on that column will be who I am underneath that, whatever that is. But what do you value when you're not trying to prove anything? What parts of you have stayed even through the tough times? This was the turning point for me because I realized I wasn't the roles I carried. In life, I oftentimes place professional growth and success above that of my family. Maybe it was my way of surviving, maybe it was my way of giving my children more than I had growing up. But was it serving me? Is it continuing to serve me? I would answer probably not. But in life I paid a very, very large price to understand that a work-life balance is not only necessary, it's required. Your people that will be there after things change, those individuals are the ones that matter. You know, oftentimes individuals say if you quit or pass, your employer will put a help-wanted sign in the window the next day. I don't fault them for it. They have business obligations. But is that the same position that will serve you when you're no longer willing to give the more than forty hours of a work week? I realized that I wasn't just the roles that I carried. I was still someone who valued depth, treasured honesty, and love connection. You don't discover yourself by adding more. But you do discover yourself when you're stripped away of everything and you remove what isn't truly you. Now I want you to go deeper because growth that lasts is built on truth. Set a timer for ten minutes, right without stopping. And these are the questions you'll need to answer. What am I pretending is okay that isn't? What am I exhausted from carrying? And what truth am I avoiding? When I did this, I wrote things I didn't want to admit. I'm tired of feeling like I'm second in a marriage where I should feel as though I'm first. I'm tired of being the person that just wants to matter to others, to my children. I'm tired of being the person that gives and gives and gives, and in return, I get back very little. I don't feel like myself. I'm misaligned with my values. I don't feel I'm serving a purpose at times. In all honesty, I don't know what I want, where I go, or who I should be. But I do know that I have a voice that I value the connection that I've made in Cole's four short years in the Coast Guard. I'm a fierce protector. And those are charistics that I can use. But instead of judging what I wrote, and I don't want you to judge what you write either, but I do want it to be the information that you're able to utilize. Let it help you find a level of an awareness that is valued. Awareness is where identity begins to return. Even the strongest roots struggle in the wrong environment. Ask yourself where do you feel most like yourself? Where do you feel like you're performing? What environments nourish you? And what depletes you? You can write two lists on another sheet of paper with two columns with headers of nourishing and depleting. Because this part can be confronting. And sometimes the spaces that we've outgrown are the ones that we've been in the longest. But you cannot discover who you are in a space that requires you to be someone else. In the relationship, in the friendship that takes more than it gives. In a marriage that feels as though you're having to give and say you're sorry to maintain the peace. I had an acquaintance walk me through an exercise this week and I closed my eyes, and when I did so, they gave me facts. Ask yourself constantly, what drains you? What restores you? When do you feel most like yourself? When do you feel disconnected? Your energy will show you patterns and your thoughts, well, they'll try to override it. But as long as you maintain your understanding of energy, it will guide you. When life shifts, it can feel as though everything falls apart. It shatters you. It shudders you to the core. And when everything falls apart, instead of saying, I'm starting over, try this. Draw two columns. Label them rubble and root. Rubble is what no longer fits you. Your roots, that's what remains true. Your rubble might be your old professional role. It may be your marriage, it may be a friendship. It may be your expectations of who you're supposed to be. Your roots are your values, your belief systems, your strengths, and what has stayed steady through everything. You're not starting from nothing. You're starting from the truth. I remember one moment where I stopped trying to rush forward because, you know, in society we were told, get past it, move on. And in this moment I just couldn't. I stood still at my own shoreline. Behind me was everything that I had walked through. The choices I had to make. The level of what I endured. But in front of me was everything. The unknown. The uncertainty. And I asked myself three things. What am I ready to release? What am I choosing to carry forward? And what part of me is still standing? That last answer, that's who you are. Not your roles, not your expectations, but your route. You don't need a full plan. You just need one step. So ask yourself to reflect on the past week. What gave you gratitude? What made you smile? What gave you life and light in a place of darkness? What no longer served you? What boundary did you have to place? What conversation had you had that gave you an understanding? Where did you find yourself resting? These small aligned steps create real change. And before we close, give yourself this one last toll. I want you to finish this sentence. It makes sense that I feel this way because and let yourself answer it honestly. This is how you move from self-judgment to self-understanding. Believe it or not, you do not have to figure out your whole life today. You just have to understand your season and meet yourself honestly within it. You're not behind, you're not failing, and you're not lost. You're rooting. And what is deeply rooted will rise. I'll meet you here next Sunday for our Sunday at the shoreline. Have a great evening. In Missing Pieces, The Final Salute, a Mother's Journey through service, sorrow, and survival, you'll walk through my story of preparing for the service of grief, of resilience, and rediscovery. And along the way, I hope you find space for your own story. This book isn't about being perfect. It's about becoming whole again, even when some pieces feel forever changed. Order your copy of Missing Pieces today on Amazon or at MissingPiecesBook.com. Join other readers who are finding their own story, encapsulated within the pages. Gain insights and learn more at Real and Rooted Podcast, where real stories take root and healing grows. Missing Peace is the final salute a mother's journey through service, sorrow, and survival. A story of love, loss, and becoming whole again.