Who Decides What You Deserve? (Spoiler: Not the Universe)

For most of my life, I was sure if I just worked harder, loved deeper, or played by the rules, I’d finally deserve a little peace.

For most of my life, I was sure if I just worked harder, loved deeper, or played by the rules, I’d finally deserve a little peace. Then the rug got yanked out from under me at 63, and I realized the universe isn’t handing out rewards or punishments—it’s only echoing what we believe we’re allowed to have. This is the raw truth about deserving, and what really changes for women over 60 when we stop waiting for permission and start claiming our lives.

Me at 63 on the left, at 69 ( near 70 in a few weeks ) on the right

I used to believe deserving was a calculation.
A secret formula somewhere—
Be good, be selfless, work twice as hard as everyone else, and eventually, life would balance the scales and hand you what you’d earned.

That’s how I moved through the world.
I was the woman who saved for rainy days, who worked late, who showed up—always.
I believed I had to deserve the raise, deserve the dress, deserve every single kindness life might offer.
Even a soft place to land at the end of the day.

Deserve was the contract I signed with the universe, again and again, every morning when my feet hit the floor.

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And then, just after I turned sixty-three, the phone rang.

Not a letter.
Not a warning I could prepare for.
Just a flat, tired voice on the line, telling me my house had been foreclosed.
That home—mine on the deed, years of sweat, all my dreams stacked inside the walls—
was gone.

Gone because my ex-husband, who held the mortgage, decided not to pay,
even though I had given him the money.
Gone because it was easier for him to torch the house than to split the proceeds the way we’d agreed.
Gone because—after a lifetime of doing everything “right”—someone else’s choice snatched away everything I’d built.

I lost the roof over my head, my retirement cushion, every blueprint I’d made for the future.
I lost the feeling that anything, ever, was safe.

For weeks I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop running the numbers.
What had I done to deserve this?
What hadn’t I done?
Every night, that question gnawed at my bones.

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And it wasn’t like I was new to spiritual work, either.
God, I’d done it all.
Twenty years of metaphysics and spiritual reading—
Gratitude journals, affirmation post-its, walking labyrinths until my knees ached.
I meditated, visualized, whispered “thank you” into every sunrise.
I chased alignment like a woman hunting for lost keys.
I did the work.
I did all the work.

And still, I lost everything.

That’s when it hit me—harder than any mantra or midnight prayer—
Deserving was never the point.

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Here’s what finally cracked the shell:
We are always, already in alignment,
because we are born in alignment.

There’s no cosmic bouncer checking your credentials.
There’s no finish line where you finally “earned” a life worth loving.
What matters is not if you’re aligned,
but the QAULITY of your alignment. That is wholly on each of us.

For years, I was perfectly aligned—
with lack, with fear, with betrayal, with the expectation that I had to earn every crumb.
And the universe, cold and precise, reflected that right back.

But the moment I finally stopped trying to deserve my own breath—
the second I stopped bargaining with life for the right to want, to hope, to begin again—
that’s when everything started to change.

The quality of my alignment shifted.
Instead of asking, “Am I worthy?”
I started asking, “What am I aligned with now?
What new vibration am I willing to inhabit—today, this hour, this breath?”

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If you are a woman over 60, you might have a similar story of loss.
Maybe your loss was a house, or a husband, or years you can’t get back.
Maybe you’re still tallying up everything you’ve done “right,”
and wondering why the math never adds up.

Let me tell you:
You don’t get what you deserve.
You get what you are aligned with—what you allow, what you expect, what you are willing to receive, right now.

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This is why I created REFOUNDATION—
not as a reward for suffering, but as a map for women like us
to lay down the ledger and start building a life from soul-truth.
To recalibrate not “if” we’re aligned, but the quality of our alignment—
to finally call in what our spirit has always ached for.

You don’t have to deserve it.
You just have to know how to train your alignment.

And the second you do, your whole life turns toward the light,
like a ship—finally, gloriously—coming into port.

P.S. If you’re craving more than just words on a page—if you want real connection with other women who are walking this path—I host a gentle, zero-judgment Zoom every Sunday night. It’s the ideal space for paid subscribers and for those who’ve said yes to REFOUNDATION. We check in with each other about the quality of our alignment (not whether we’re “doing it right”). No performance. No pressure. Just a circle of soul sisters rooting for each other to live deeper, wilder, and more true.

If you’re ready for that kind of community, you’ll fit right in.

If you want to join us this Sunday night, be sure you subscribe today so you’ll get the special invitation with the Zoom link.

See you Sunday night?