There was a season of my life when everything I thought was steady seemed to fall away at once.
 

I found myself navigating the end of a fourteen-year marriage, fighting to protect the people I loved most, and facing painful experiences from my childhood that I had spent years trying to leave behind. Things I had carried privately were brought into the open, relationships I thought I could depend on changed, and suddenly I was trying to survive what was happening in front of me while also confronting what had happened long before.
 

I felt lost. Exhausted. Afraid.
 

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized I couldn't keep living in survival mode.
 

At one of the lowest points of my life, I found a women's retreat tucked away in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle. I traveled there alongside women who were each carrying stories of their own. We didn't need to explain every detail to one another.
 

Somehow, we just knew.
 

Away from the noise, surrounded by the jungle, I experienced something I hadn't felt in a very long time: stillness.

And in that stillness, I could hear God again.
 

During the retreat, we were asked a question:

If fear and shame weren't standing in your way, what is one thing you would do, become, or change?
 

I remember taking a deep breath.
 

For just a moment, I let myself imagine my life without allowing fear to make the decisions. For the first time in a long time, instead of only thinking about what I was trying to survive, I started thinking about what I wanted to build.
 

And I allowed myself to be brave.
That question became a turning point for me.
 

Healing didn't just happen in Costa Rica. It wasn't one beautiful moment in the jungle that suddenly made everything okay. There were incredible therapists, groups, resources, exercises, hard conversations, tears, setbacks, and countless small steps that helped me begin finding myself again.
 

But Costa Rica was where I realized I wanted something different.

It was where I began imagining what could grow from everything I had been through.
 

Eventually, that idea became New Roots.
 

I began gathering the tools, creative practices, reflections, and resources that had helped me through some of the hardest seasons of my life and turning them into something I could share with other women finding their own way forward.
 

New Roots isn't about pretending the past didn't happen.
 

It's about discovering that the past doesn't get to decide what grows next.
 

Sometimes the first signs of a new life aren't visible yet.

Sometimes, you're simply growing roots.
 

— Katherine York
Creator of New Roots Project