Message from Julia Maslen, Founder of Revive on May 30, 2025

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By Julia Maslen 

As I prepared for my early morning run on the fateful day of February 22nd, I slipped on ice at the end of my driveway, just as I was about to take off. I hit my knee and collapsed to the ground, feeling the reverberations of pain throughout my entire body. It hurt SO BAD. I’ve tripped over roots and fallen on sidewalk cracks a few times in my running career, but this fall struck a deeper, more profound pain.

That fall on 2/22 became a portal to more inner and outer transformation.

Before February 22nd I was an insanely consistent six-day-a-week runner - rain, ice, snow, sleet, wind, hail - you name it. I was so committed (and/or insanely obsessive) that I even wore ski goggles during winter storms so I could still run and protect my eyes.

I lost a part of my identity on February 22nd.

And yet, as I woke to my alarm one recent morning, one of my first thoughts was, "Wow, I feel so light inside." Somehow, letting go of running has lifted a weight I didn’t know I was carrying. I now love my morning yoga chatarangas. I start slower, I feel more open.

Losing my ability to run was literally one of my fears. It was as integral to my routine as coffee, a warm shower, and brushing my teeth. But I’ve faced that fear for over three months now. While the early days and weeks were rocky, I’m now fully settled into this new reality. Early on, I told myself to focus on what I could control including what foods I chose to support my body, and new movements that felt safe for my knee and that choice set the tone for new ways to care for my body.

This portal of 2/22 hasn’t just led to a transformation in my physical wellness; it seems it was just the first domino to fall. May 2025 has been a serious intense focus on letting go of what no longer feels right. Change is afoot and most of my energy this past month was dedicated to releasing and honoring numerous completions, in a conscious and intentional way.

Everything is changing.

There’s no cabinet in my kitchen that hasn’t been purged, cleaned, and organized in recent weeks. My closet? It’s so orderly it almost takes my breath away when I walk in each morning and evening. Even my garage and basement have been sorted, cleaned and organized. I’ve been a frequent poster on freecycle.org and I’ve donated bags upon bags of stuff to Goodwill. Even though I don’t seem to have many material possessions to begin with, I always seem to find more to pass along.

I even uprooted the overgrown shrubs at the front of my house, which had been blocking energy to my front door. Now, they’re growing beautifully in my neighbor’s yard. 

I’ve also weeded out attachments I didn’t fully recognize until recently, attachments to people, places, and things. I’m done with them. Attachments have only ever made me miserable. Inevitably, the things I’ve been most attached to eventually crumble and fade away. Life is impermanent, and attachments are our ego’s attempt to grasp, cling, and control, trying to make things stay forever. Nothing lasts forever. We create our own misery each time we cling futilely. The loss feels sad at first, and I have to face the inner void we often run from, but without fail, I feel freer afterward.

Attachments bog us down.

Do you have any strong attachments to people, places, or things in your life? Do you feel like you couldn’t live without them? Is fear behind this attachment?

Releasing attachments doesn’t mean releasing love or care for our people, it just creates a different energy dynamic based on choice and intention rather than fear, neediness, and clinging.

You’ll know it’s unhelpful attachment energy if there’s a sense of desperation tied to that person, place, or thing. It’s attachment energy when you notice an insecurity lurking there in some way. If you sit with it long enough, you’ll notice that fear fuels the attachment. 

I think of my attachments as a clenched fist grasping, tightening. Releasing attachments feels like opening my hands, holding gently, not trapping.

Some of our attachments may blind us from the truth and prevent us from receiving what life truly wants to offer us.

I’ll keep decluttering both my inner and outer world, releasing all that doesn’t serve me, anything that even slightly tugs at my energy and yields a drain rather than a boost.

Just about a week or so ago, I had a strong sense that I needed to release the current Revive studio. How could this be? I rented it just about a year ago with a very different vision of how things would unfold. Nothing went according to my plan, and what I thought was right a year ago is shifting now. I am no longer attached to the studio space. It’s not mine forever. Another transformation unfolding.

I texted my landlord after sleeping on this intuitive feeling and exactly a week later I had an enthusiastic person agree to take over my lease. Things are often very natural and easeful when you honor the stages of natural life cycles. 

The part of natural cycles most of us run away from is the final stage before the new - the end, the death, the completion, the letting go. The problem with this? We remain stuck. The more aligned refresh has no space to blossom.

I’m learning to master that art of consciously letting go. I’m starting my book about conscious completions. Revive reminded me of the importance of sharing this message in recent days.

I have a new vision for a community space. It’s one I had years ago, and it's circling back and coming up strong for me. My timeline is always years ahead of when things appear, so I don’t know when I will be able to share this new space with you but I trust it needs to happen and I will fill you in as I have more clarity and concrete steps.

For now, it seems completely unrealistic and out of reach, but so have all the other major changes and leaps of faith I’ve taken. Following my intuition stretches me way beyond my comfort zone. Just when I think I can settle and coast even just for a day, the next challenge presents.

Are you in transformation mode too? How’s it going?

I’m always in transformation mode. It still shocks me how new I feel right now. Didn’t I just go through a massive life overhaul just a few years ago? Indeed, I did. And yet, there’s still so much more of me to be revealed through continual transformation.

Last summer, I shared my surrender adventures, and they’re only getting stronger now. My mantra from last summer is circling back. I don’t know if I’ll go skydiving again, but I do know I’m getting closer and closer to even more fully embracing my wild, wild, unconventionally free nature. Are you?

Surrender, surrender, surrender.

Release, release, release.

Allow, allow, allow.

Thank you for being part of the Revive journey. 

Endings clear the space for new beginnings.

With love,

Julia