New Moon Coaching for Expat Women

On the morning of December 30, 2021, the wind kept knocking over my recycling bin. I remember rushing out several times to chase down plastic containers—small, frantic attempts to maintain order against spiteful, treacherous gusts.

By lunchtime, order was gone. Rumors of a fire nearby turned into a dense, ominous orange cloud galloping toward our house.

For those of us who have moved across oceans to build a life here, “home” is more than just a building; it is a hard-won victory of belonging. As I followed an evacuation list—grabbing passports, cell phones, and chargers—I realized how quickly the physical markers of our “new life” can be reduced to what fits in a trunk.

There is a specific kind of shock that etches every detail into your mind: the way I urged my son to stop playing Minecraft, the garage door that wouldn’t open because the power was out, and the image of my friend Mary’s son grabbing the portraits I had painted of them—saving the art that captured their history before the fire could take it.

We sat in a standstill on the main artery running east to west, watching smoke columns approach while being stuck in “lucid panic.” Every face in the cars reflected the same expression: a mix of terror and a desperate hope that the life we built here wouldn’t go up in smoke.

We were lucky. After five days of displacement, we returned to a cold house that was still standing. But the landscape of our community changed forever. The Marshall Fire destroyed 1,084 homes—1,084 sanctuaries of families who, like us, were just trying to grow roots in Colorado soil.

Two years later, the physical rebuilding continues, but the internal rebuilding is a longer journey. In my coaching work, we often talk about resilience, but surviving a disaster like this teaches you about re-rooting.

It’s the realization that while the “whistling of the wind” still brings fear, we have developed a new kind of strength. We aren’t just survivors of a fire; we are architects of a life that knows how to stand firm even when the wind tries to scatter our pieces. We learn that home isn’t just the walls that protect us, but the inner ground we stand on.

Have you ever experienced a sudden and unexpected change in the landscape of your life? What was the first thing you did to find your footing again? Share your story in he comments.