December 22, 2025

Breaking Up With the Fight

At a Sidebar Women’s event earlier this year, we did a book exchange as part of Elevating Your Brand. When it was my turn, I gifted Rising Strong by Brené Brown.

At the time, it felt intuitive. Later, I realized it was deeply personal.

Because Rising Strong isn’t about a checklist for how to get back up after something hard.

It’s about the emotions that come with rising — the reckoning, the vulnerability, the internal weight you carry when you stand up again. And it leaves the most important decision to the reader: ** reminder of if, when, and how you want to heal.

That distinction mattered to me more this year than I expected.

I Always Had the Will

After leaving Meta, then Adobe, I found myself in a familiar place.

Not defeated. 

Not incapable. 

Just… done.

I always had the will to get back up.

Every time something went sideways — a role, a team, a startup — my instinct was automatic: put the armor back on, step into the gauntlet, fight again.

And I was good at it.

What I didn’t understand for a long time was the emotional hit I was taking every single time I rose again.

I didn’t slow down to process it. I didn’t integrate it. I just kept going.

When Consistency Became an Endless Loop

One of my Sidebar peers, once made an observation that stopped me in my tracks.

He said that every time he saw me, I was still showing up — even in the middle of chaos with my co-founder. That consistency mattered to him.

I realized later what that consistency actually looked like for me.

It was like an old VHS tape stuck in a loop: rewind → fast forward → rewind → fast forward.

Always getting back up. Never pausing long enough to ask:

• What did that last fall take from me?

• What did I actually learn?

• Do I want to step back into this fight the same way?

Resilience without reflection quietly turned into exhaustion.

A Different Kind of Strength

If there’s one thing I’m carrying into the next chapter, it’s this:

Rising strong isn’t just about getting back up. It’s about deciding how you want to get back up — and whether that way is sustainable.

I always had the will to rise again.

What I didn’t always give myself was the space to choose how I rose — or to change that approach when it stopped working.

This year, I finally slowed down long enough to make that choice consciously.

And that’s what breaking up with the fight really meant for me.

—

Maria is the founder of Lila the Stylist — building AI that actually gets your vibe. She writes about product building, AI, and the chaos of turning inspiration into something real.

Follow her on LinkedIn for product building, emotional design, and occasional sass.💁🏻‍♀️