by Erika Demshar
I Was Slapped By The Universe
It usually doesn’t start with something big. It starts with a feeling. A quiet nudge. A whisper that something isn’t quite right. And just as quickly, we explain it away. We stay. We push through. We keep the peace. We tell ourselves it’s fine.
Until one day, it isn’t.
I didn’t recognize it at first. I was excited. I was building a business with a friend, a home staging company, something I had never done before. Something I didn’t even know I was good at until I was in it. It felt like the perfect intersection of creativity and business, and I was all in. I was taking one of the biggest risks of my life, becoming a small business owner. And we built something beautiful.
Over five years, we grew a successful business. But like any business, and especially partnerships, it wasn’t without its challenges. And those challenges felt heavier and more personal. I worked harder than I ever had before, growing the business, learning staging, strengthening communication, and balancing life and work. But more than anything, I worked on the partnership.
Somewhere along the way, my body started speaking to me. At first, it was subtle. A flicker of anxiety. A wave of frustration. A feeling of being misunderstood again and again. Confusion. Fear. Deep, quiet fear. And every single time, I dismissed it. I analyzed it. I justified it. I talked my way out of it. “More communication,” I told myself. More time. More understanding. More forgiveness. More of everything, except truth.
Because the truth was, I was slowly disconnecting from myself. Instead, I poured all of my energy into keeping the peace. I made sure I was agreeable, that I wasn’t rocking the boat, that I was easy to work with, easy to like, easy to keep. I convinced myself that being kind meant being accommodating. That being a good person meant being endlessly forgiving. That someone else’s comfort mattered more than my own. My mind overrode my body, and my spirit got quieter by the day.
Until one day, everything stopped.
Slap.
After nearly six years, my partner ended the business with a phone call. Just like that. I remember the moment clearly. My body collapsed before my mind could catch up. It was as if everything I had been holding together finally gave way. What was I going to do? What about my family, our finances, and my identity? I had poured so much of myself into that business and that relationship that when it ended, I felt like I had lost myself.
What followed was grief. Real, deep grief. Not just for the business, but for what it represented. For the version of me who had worked so hard to hold everything together. For the friendship that had quietly faded long before it officially ended. And as painful as that time was, it was also the beginning of awareness.
In the stillness, I started to piece things together. Slowly. Honestly. And what I found was hard to ignore. I hadn’t been fully myself. I hadn’t been honest about my needs. I hadn’t spoken up when something didn’t feel right. I hadn’t trusted the quiet voice inside of me that had been trying to guide me all along.
Why? Because I was scared. Scared of conflict. Scared of being seen differently. Scared of not being liked. Scared of losing what I had worked so hard to build. So instead, I abandoned myself first.
There were so many signs, so many moments where my intuition tried to get my attention. And every time, I chose logic over feeling, control over trust, peacekeeping over truth. Until I couldn’t anymore.
That’s when the Universe stepped in.
Not gently. Not subtly. It didn’t whisper this time. It slapped me.
A full-force, life-altering slap that stripped everything down to what was real. There was no more ignoring, no more analyzing, no more bypassing what my body had been trying to tell me. It was all right there. And for the first time, I had no choice but to listen.
That was the beginning of my healing. Not the kind that happens overnight or looks perfect or linear, but the kind that asks you to sit with yourself, to feel what you’ve been avoiding, and to rebuild trust with yourself.
I started journaling. I started forgiving myself. I started allowing myself to feel instead of thinking my way through everything. And slowly, I found her again. The version of me who creates, who feels deeply, who finds joy in beautiful things, who lights up over color, texture, and the smallest details. The part of me that had always been there, buried under years of trying to be who I thought I needed to be.
That’s when I realized alignment doesn’t come from forcing something to work. It comes from listening. Listening to your body. Listening to your intuition. Listening to the quiet whispers that tell you what is and isn’t meant for you. Staging wasn’t aligned for me. That partnership wasn’t aligned for me. And as painful as it was to see that, it was also freeing, because it meant I could choose differently.
And I did. I built Erika Demshar Design, my interior design and home styling business, on my own. This time, I made decisions from a place of trust instead of fear. Was I scared? Absolutely. But I was also grounded in something I hadn’t fully accessed before: myself.
What I discovered is that this same work, this returning to self, is at the heart of how I design. Our homes are not just places we live. They are reflections of who we are and what we need in the season of life we’re in. When I work with clients, it’s not just about making a space look beautiful. It’s about helping them feel aligned within it. Creating a space that supports their life, their energy, and their sense of self. A place where they can exhale. A place that feels like them.
Today, I look back on that moment differently. It wasn’t the end. It was a redirection. A necessary unraveling so I could rebuild something that was actually mine. Something rooted in truth, alignment, and trust.
And maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is this: the Universe will always try to guide you. Sometimes softly, through a feeling. Sometimes through patterns. And sometimes, when you’ve ignored it long enough, with a slap strong enough to wake you up.
But it’s never happening to you. It’s happening for you. To bring you back. Back to your body. Back to your truth. Back to yourself. Because there is nothing more healing, or more freeing, than learning to trust yourself again.
And when you do, you stop abandoning yourself to keep the peace. You stop shrinking to be accepted. You stop searching outside of yourself for answers you already hold.
You come home.
And when you come home to yourself, everything else—your life, your work, your space—finally begins to feel like home, too.
Connect with Erika: https://linktr.ee/erikademshardesign
“Sometimes you need the push to get back to yourself.”
– Erika Demshar
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