A Roadmap For Life When Your Old Baseline Breaks

When life stops making sense, most of us assume we are failing. I see it differently: the confusion is often a sign that your old baseline has collapsed and a new one is waiting to be built. If you have ever lived through a breakup, career change, health scare, leadership stress, or a personal identity shift and thought “Why is this so hard?”, this conversation gives you a clear map for what you are experiencing.

We lay out my C2R2E transition framework: Collapse, Confrontation, Realignment, Reclamation, and Elevation. I explain what each stage feels like in real life and why transitions are rarely linear. We talk about collapse as the moment the old way of operating becomes unsustainable, confrontation as the brave work of facing what is true, and realignment as the start of rebuilding through new routines, priorities, habits, and even a thoughtful audit of your environment. From there, reclamation brings back agency and momentum, and elevation turns survival into transformation.

We also tackle a common mistake that keeps people stuck: trying to do the work of a later stage too early, like building a second floor before the foundation is set. You will leave with questions you can journal on right away to figure out where you are, what you are avoiding, and what “next” should actually look like.

If this helps you, subscribe, share it with someone navigating a hard transition, and leave a review so more people can find a practical roadmap for resilience and personal growth. What phase do you think you are in right now?

Transcript

A Question About Hidden Patterns

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 20th episode of the Next Baseline. And for this episode, I want to start out with a question here, but I think I almost started out every episode with a question before I get into it. So this is really no different. So with that, here's my question for you. Have you ever gone through something so difficult, only to realize down the road that there were there was some sort of pattern to it? And at the time that you were going through the thing or the event or the process of transition that you were encountering and experiencing, at the time it may have felt like utterly chaos. Nothing made sense. And all you were really trying to do was survive and get through the day, trying to figure out what is happening or what has happened. And then also trying to figure out what now comes next. But then perhaps after some time, perhaps several months later, and unfortunately, in some cases, even years later, sometimes we can look back and we realize something that there were stages along the way throughout our process of transition. And certain thoughts throughout that process would show up perhaps at certain times. Certain struggles appeared at certain points in the journey. And then even certain breakthroughs end up happening, but only after other things happen first. And then suddenly suddenly what once may have felt random or may have felt like some coincidence or chance. When you look back, because hindsight is 2020, a lot of these situations and breakthroughs that we experience, they all start to make a little bit more sense. And I I think that's true for a lot of the transitions we face in daily life. And and I think the challenge is that most of us as human beings only see the pattern after we've already lived through the experience and have come out on the other side. But with that, instead of looking back in hindsight, you know, what if in fact there was a way to actually recognize the pattern while you're still going through it? And so that's what we're going to talk about

Why A Shared Transition Language Helps

SPEAKER_01 2:52

today. So with that, I want to welcome you back to another episode of the next baseline. I'm your podcast host, Danny DeJesus. And as always, this podcast is where we explore one central question, and that is what do we build now to reach our next baseline? So over the last two episodes, you know, we've talked about why transitions can feel so difficult. We've also talked about the difference between an event and a transition, an event being something that happens at a particular date and time where transition is more of a journey that follows after that event takes place. We also explored the idea that growth often emerges from awareness, preparation, action, openness, you know, openness from the perspective of being open in mind and heart to possibility. And then we also started discussing the framework that I developed over a span of time called C2R2E. Now, as a recap, C2R2E stands for collapse, confrontation, realignment, reclamation, and elevation. And so for this episode, we're going to start out talking with collapse. Because what I the intent here, as we go through this journey of C2R2E, I want to be able to give you and equip you with a roadmap. It's not going to give you every detail, it's not going to outline every single lesson you're going to encounter. But what I am going to provide you is a map over the next several weeks that when that collapsible life event takes place, you at least can take a step back and say, hey, this is where I'm at right now. Because before you can understand where you hope to go in your life, you also have to understand where you currently are. And so one of the things I've learned about transitions along the way, along my 39 years of life here, is that they are rarely, that transitions rarely feel like transitions when you're going through them. In fact, what they more often than not, they tend to feel like is confusion, loss, uncertainty, frustration, fear. And sometimes all of that can feel like failure. And it's also sometimes all that can make one feel like we're stuck in a situation that we don't want to be in. But looking back, especially as the many experiences I have experienced and experiences that I've seen others go through, many of those experiences are actually part of what I found to be part of a much broader and larger process. And the problem, the problem is, you know, at the time that I was even going through my own personal challenges, the reality is I didn't have a language for what I was experiencing. And no institution was able to give that to me. I think whenever I experienced something intense, emotionally intense in my life, it it's very easy to say, hey, you'll get through this. Hey, this is not forever. This is only a season of time. And here's the thing that's all great and all for inspiration, motivation, you know, things, you know, seasons come and go, but I need something for right now. And this is really why I build C2R2E. And it's not to create another framework and and God knows, only God knows how many frameworks exist in, you know, in the modern in the modern world, um, across different coaching philosophies and perhaps um psychological processes, mental health processes. So I'm not here to necessarily offer another another framework, but really what I'm after and what I'm sharing with the world is the ability to look at things from a shared language for transitions. You know, a way of answering questions like, where am I? Why does this feel so difficult? What should I focus on next? And how do I know if I'm making progress? Because as human beings, we need to feel like we're making progress. And the truth be told, grind and constant output may feel like progress sometimes, but it's not the only measurement. So so with that, you know, I want to clarify something when it comes down to C2R2E, and I want to highlight what it isn't. C2R2E, collapse, confrontation, realignment, reclamation, and elevation, it's not a checklist to follow. Life, unfortunately, is not that neat. It's not a step one, step two, step three, step four, or step five. Because again, life doesn't work that way. Life is not linear. In fact, transitions and the process of transformation doesn't work that way either. Because through that journey of transformation and transitions, people are going to move forward, they're going to move backwards, people are going to revisit old challenges, people are going to spend different amounts of time in every single phase. And the framework isn't meant to simplify life by any stretch of the imagination, but it's meant to help you to understand it so you can better engage in your life. So think of it less, think of C2R2E less like a staircase and more again like a roadmap. A map doesn't tell you exactly how fast you're going to travel, but it does help you to understand the terrain that you're walking through. And so for this first phase that I want to highlight, I want to talk about in this episode, it's going to be collapse.

Collapse When The Old Baseline Fails

SPEAKER_01 8:53

And despite how dramatic that word sounds, collapse is simply defined as the moment when the old baseline of your life stops working, because something has changed, and this could be because a relationship ended, a career changed, a dream that we are working towards fell apart, an expectation no longer matches the reality of what we're facing. And that the old way of operating now has become unsustainable. And whether we like it or not, life begins asking us for something new, something uncomfortable. Life begins asking us to go into a new direction, to become something more. But really because the familiar has now all of a sudden become unrecognizable and unfamiliar. Okay.

Confrontation Facing What Is True

SPEAKER_01 10:14

The second the second phase, the second the second phase I wanted to touch on now is confrontation. And this is where reality now becomes increasingly difficult to avoid. The explanations stop working, the excuses stop working, the denial stops working, and at some point we have to face what is true, not what we wish were true and not what we used to think or believe was true, but what is true right now. And while that may sound simple, it can be one of the most difficult phases in the entire journey of the C2R2E process because the re because to face reality is going to require letting go of things that we've been trying to hold on to or have been holding on to that cannot be held on to any longer. So phase three.

Realignment Building New Routines

SPEAKER_01 11:10

What's phase three? Realignment. And this is realignment is where I think the the real rebuilding begins. Not rebuilding the old life, but building the next one, new routines, new priorities, new habits, expectations, new ways of thinking, new ways of operating. And realignment is really where we stop asking how do we get back to what was, but rather how do we start to move forward? What do we, what's the newness that we need to embrace? But then also part of moving forward is also realigning who you hang out with, the things that you consume, the things that you're around, your environment, taking an audit and assessing what is beneficial for your growth and what isn't beneficial from for your growth. I'm not saying go out there and blow up your entire life. I'm not saying to go dump your friends at at this time, but what I am saying that for you to get to where you want to go, sometimes the people that we associate, the environments that we're in, it's gonna potentially need to be looked at and some adjustments are gonna have to be had. That's just the truth of the matter. You know, I know in my own personal life I wouldn't be where I am today if I had the same friends over and over. Some friends are great for certain seasons, some greats, some friends are great for a lifetime. And then there's some friends that don't last probably more than just a couple of months. And that's something that we just have to learn and learn how to accept. Because sometimes to move forward in life, especially in romantic relationships or careers or things, you know, things of that nature, um, we have to be okay with understanding that our uh our social circles are gonna change over time. All right, enough of that. So the fourth phase here, reclamation.

Reclamation Getting Agency Back

SPEAKER_01 13:01

And reclamation, this is where confidence begins to return. You're gonna begin to feel like you're able to take control of your life again. Uh, you're gonna have a return of that personal agency. And not because circumstances have become all of a sudden a perfect, you know, a perfect place to be in, but rather because action now starts creating the momentum that you're needing. We this is where we stop viewing ourselves as passive observers, and but rather we start becoming more active participants again. We start becoming stakeholders within our own lives. We start making decisions, we take more ownership, we create movement, we become creators at this time. And through that move movement, we begin to reclaim parts of ourselves that have felt lost during earlier phases. Um, you know, parts that we felt like we lost control over. So this is the part where we start to reclaim that. All right. So with that, so now we move, you know, we just talked about, you know, the first four phases collapse, confrontation, realignment, and reclamation.

Elevation Transformation And Bouncing Forward

SPEAKER_01 14:09

And now we move on to the final phase here that I call elevation. And this is where growth becomes transformation. It's not survival mode, it's not recovery, but what it is, it's transformation. And this is where you begin to recognize that the goal was never to return to who you were before. You know, you went through this whole journey, starting from collapse to reclamation. You have reclaimed certain things at this point in your life. You start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So now the goal, the goal is to become who you need to become for this next chapter of your life. In fact, you should have already started to see elements of that already happening. And elevation is not going to mean that you've made it. It's not going to mean that life all of a sudden becomes easy. But what it does mean is that you're able to integrate the lessons that you learned along the way, along the journey of transformation and transition to build a stronger baseline for yourself to move forward. Because again, from a resilience perspective, and this is what I call transformational resilience, from a resilience perspective, you never bounce back. You know, we I think the consternation I have with a lot of talk about resilience is a lot of talking about bouncing, bouncing back. But the truth of the of the matter is life does not work that way. We just don't bounce back to the persons that the person that we were. We can only move forward. We can bounce forward. We can build something forward. You know, if you even look at the the logo that I have for Elvadas, it's representative of a almost looks like an upward arrow with different with different levels in between. You know, that's a by design because we're constantly moving up. We're constantly going up different levels. The next baseline, you know, if you look at the logo of the podcast, it's a mountain. You know, life is built on mountaintop experiences upon mountaintop experiences. When we get to this point of elevation, we all all it is is we just reach a new level of whether that's could be a new level of life, consciousness, what what whatever it is, a new level of awareness. And so this to me is what life is based off of. So my question again to you is what baseline now are you going to build moving forward for yourself? And then you do it again and again and again. Because again, life is built on experiences, and this is not going to be the only collapsible moment that you have may experience in your life that you started this journey of transformation. So

The Pattern Holds Across Life Changes

SPEAKER_01 17:07

as I say all that, as I have described all of these phases, you might I think find yourself thinking perhaps this sounds very familiar and good because this is supposed to be familiar familiar to you. Because these phases are not unique to one type of transition, because what you're gonna find is you're gonna find these phases, you're gonna find them across divorce, career changes, retirement, parenting transitions, health challenges, personal growth journeys, leadership challenges. So the circumstances can change. You know, it's like nothing, you know, this this system, this framework, C2R2E is not a static framework that's only applied to one to one facet of life. It it's it's available for a multitude of challenges that we may be facing. So here's the fact of the matter is the circumstances can change, but the pattern doesn't. The patterns that we face of transformation and transitions are all the same. It's all the same process.

The Cost Of Working Out Of Order

SPEAKER_01 18:20

So with that, you know, one of the biggest mistakes that I think people make is trying, you know, when we look at the C2R2E framework, you know, one of the downsides that I think people or I one of the things that I think people underestimate is the fact of trying to do work in a different phase from where they are. So C2R2E only works when people go through the process. You know, we shouldn't be trying to build before we, you know, trying to build forward before accepting the reality of whatever it is that we're facing. We shouldn't be trying to reclaim things or reclaim a level of confidence before we establish some sort of stability to be confident about. We shouldn't be trying to go through the process of elevation before we've been able to do the deeper work required to support that. So it's a little like trying to build the second floor of a house before you've poured the foundation. It's not gonna work. It's like trying to build a house on sand, it's not gonna work. Because here's the thing: timing, the process of transformation is gonna require that timing. We we have respect for time. Time matters, the sequence matters. And not because there's one right way to do things, it there isn't, but because every phase is gonna prepare us for the next. And here's the thing, what I found is from collapse to elevation within that uh collapse, confrontation, and realignment, that's gonna take the most time. Because reclamation is really where it starts to get fun. Reclamation is really when you start to feel like you're moving forward. But the work is really done those first three phases. Collapse, you have you face that collapsible moment, you confront with brutal honesty, and then you go through a process of realignment. You take that action of realignment, of realigning your life again and what you value. And then only then will you then be ushered into reclamation and elevation. So as I continue to refine C2R2E, you know, I I've come to believe that one of the most powerful things a framework can do is normalize the experience.

Four Questions To Find Your Phase

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Because when people don't understand what they're experiencing, I think they often assume something is wrong with them. When it's not. And what I think happens is when people understand they're navigating a transition, I think something changes inside. You know, confusion becomes context, frustration becomes information, and then the experience starts making a little bit more sense. And when things start making more sense, I think that's where progress now becomes possible. So before we close today's episode, I like to I like to leave you with a few questions. Um specifically, I'm looking about three different uh three or four different questions. I think four. Uh so first question here which phase sounds familiar to you right now? So out of C2R2E, class, confrontation, realignment, reclamation, elevation, what phase sounds familiar to you?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Where do you feel stuck? Question two. Where do you feel stuck? All right, question three? What work are you doing right now that belongs in a different phase? Are you getting are you are you getting ahead of yourself?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

And then last and final question here, question number four. And what would change if you stopped judging the process and the progress and started understanding the process instead? And what I mean by that is versus trying to do it your way because you think your way is working, but it's really not, try something different. Stop judging the process of transition and transformation. Stop thinking that you know you're gonna have that aha moment tomorrow, that things are just gonna magically change tomorrow. But rather start understanding and studying the process of transformation and transition. So, with that, take some time with those questions. Grab a notebook, write some notes down, see where your your mind takes you, you know, spend some time in the quiet, be reflective, and be open. Because awareness is gonna come usually before you you can even venture into transformation. So work on that.

Recap And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_01 22:55

So, with that, you know, as a recap, if we go back to episode 18, episode 18 is where we were talking about understanding the problem. And episode 19 was about understanding that there may be a pattern behind successful transitions. So we go from problem to then the process and the pattern behind transitions. And so then today's episode was more about seeing the map, the overview, the terrain, the roadmap, the roadmap that I call C2R2E, collapse, confrontation, realignment, reclamation, elevation. And so over the next several episodes, we're gonna be walking through each phase in greater detail. We're gonna talk about what it looks like, how people get stuck, how people can move forward, and starting with the phase where many transitions begin, and that's collapse. The moment that the old baseline stops working. So that's what we're gonna talk about. I'm pretty excited about this. I'm pretty excited about taking you through this framework and hopefully that it can provide value for you or someone else. So, with that, I'm Danny De Jesus, and this has been another episode of the next baseline. The links to the Elevatis ecosystem is going to be in the description. And so until next time, I want you to keep asking the question what do we build now to reach our next baseline? So, with that, take care.