When Everything Fell Apart… I Found Me
I’m a 29-year-old small-town girl who has been through more in her short life than most people go through in a lifetime. From health crises and identity collapses to personal heartbreaks and starting over more times than I can count, my story isn’t one of perfection—it’s one of survival, resilience, and ultimately, self-relationship. When everything seemed to fall apart, what I truly found was the version of me I had been searching for all along.
If you looked at me, you probably wouldn’t have known what I was battling on the inside. On the outside, I looked like I had it together—but behind the smile was exhaustion, anxiety, and a constant pressure to be “enough.” Like so many women, I carried the weight of guilt perfectionism, and the need to prove myself, all while feeling more and more disconnected from my own body. We get so good at looking fine on the surface that nobody sees how much we’re fighting to hold it all together underneath.
For most of my life, I was searching for myself in all the wrong places. I thought if I could just have the perfect body, be the perfect girlfriend, the perfect coach, the perfect friend—then maybe I’d finally feel enough. Instead, what I found was a trail of trauma and health scares that forced me to stop and face myself: an eating disorder, a car wreck, being overweight, a blood clot from birth control, my body rejecting an IUD, depression & mental health battles, getting caught in the party scene, and even a cancer scare that left me wondering if my life was about to end before it ever really began. And still, I kept running from myself, throwing everything I had into being “enough.”
By 27, I had turned my physical weight loss transformation into a successful fitness coaching career. My videos were going viral, my following was exploding, and I was making more money than I ever thought possible. From the outside, it looked like I was living the dream. But behind the screen, I was completely burnt out, living in a constant state of dysregulation. My body was screaming at me to slow down, and I ignored it—until it shut me down in a way I couldn’t avoid.
At the end of 2023, I went from perfect vision to legally blind in just six weeks. Cataracts in both of my eyes, caused by the unknown—stress and burnout I had been drowning in. One moment I was on top of the world, and the next, I couldn’t even see it. That was my true breaking point: the moment I realized that no amount of achievement means anything if you abandon yourself to get there.
After losing my vision and being forced to stop, I realized I couldn’t keep leading women down the same path I had walked—the one that looked like success but left me sick, burnt out, and disconnected from myself. I knew in my soul that women needed more. Changing their bodies wasn’t changing their lives, and I couldn’t keep pretending that it was. So I did the scariest thing I’ve ever done: I walked away from the fitness industry, even at the peak of my career, and chose to start over. This time, I built my business from my heart, not my hustle—which led me to creating built to be REBUILT.
After losing my vision and being forced to stop, I realized I couldn’t keep leading women down the same path I had walked—the one that looked like success but left me sick, burnt out, and disconnected from myself. I knew in my soul that women needed more. Changing their bodies wasn’t changing their lives, and I couldn’t keep pretending that it was. So I did the scariest thing I’ve ever done: I walked away from the fitness industry, even at the peak of my career, and chose to start over. This time, I built my business from my heart, not my hustle—which led me to creating built to be REBUILT.
Less than two years later, my life is unrecognizable. I’ve created a business that feels like home. I have zero health concerns or limitations. I’ve never felt better about myself, and for the first time in my life I live fully led from within—not by rules, numbers, scales, macros or external expectations. I don’t measure my worth by how I look or what I achieve. I measure it by how deeply I trust myself and that’s my goal for every woman I work with. Because I’ve learned that you can try everything else—fixing, chasing, proving but the real transformation begins when you choose you.
About the Author
Nikki Kruchen is a Self-Relationship Coach, speaker, and founder of the Love Yourself First movement. With a background in health and wellness coaching and a powerful personal journey of transformation, Nikki helps women rebuild their lives by strengthening the most important relationship they’ll ever have- the one with themselves. Through her coaching programs, podcast, and speaking, she empowers women to break free from guilt, shame and perfectionism, and instead create lives rooted in self-trust, alignment, and fulfillment. Nikki brings a refreshing, real and approachable perspective to wellness, blending mindset, nervous system regulation, and holistic lifestyle practices. She inspires women to remember who they are and step into their highest potential with clarity and confidence.
