Through this text, I share my experience on loss, recovery, resilience, and reinvention. We usually assume that bad things will not happen to us, or if they do, they will happen one at a time, giving us enough time and room to recover well before the next one strikes. However, life is unpredictable, and like many others, during the hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic, I went through multiple devastating events in a very short period. For me, the path to resilience had a turning point, marked by a fundamental question: “Do I want to continue?” From there, recovery was approached in stages—short-term survival and emotional stability, medium-term mental recovery, and long-term rediscovery of passion and purpose. Rebuilding me involved small, deliberate steps forward and actively challenging my brain through new learning and growth. Eventually, this led to my reinvention: moving from a scientist focused on academic work to a director focused on strategy and organizational leadership. Though the new role brings both challenges and opportunities, it also raises questions about fit, purpose, and fulfillment. The journey ends not with arrival, but with curiosity—wondering what comes next and embracing the possibility of taking another leap forward.
"Resilience." We define it as the capacity to withstand, or to recover quickly from difficulty. We sometimes call it "toughness." Are you tough?
Have you ever heard about someone who lost several close members in a very short period? I remember hearing about a coworker who lost two family members in a single month. I truly felt for her. But there was a voice in the back of my mind—that quiet, protective lie we all tell ourselves—that said: “That won’t happen to me.”
Maybe this scenario was unusual before the COVID pandemic. The pandemic changed many things and left many scars on families. In Mexico, losing several family members was not rare. But of course, as usual, that voice in the back of my mind told me that it would not happen to me.
In my family, we implemented a very strict lockdown protocol to protect my father, who was battling diabetes, high blood pressure, and brain metastasis, and my 99-year-old grandfather. And by strict lockdown, I mean that I only went out of my house three times in nine months. In my mind, I had calculated the risks. I had acknowledged the possibility of loss, but I denied its magnitude. I told myself that maybe, if the worst happened, we would lose one. Just one. However, the events did not happen as the probabilities might have dictated.
On December 12th, 2020, my father—my guide, my pillar, my role model—passed away peacefully in his sleep.
It was a shock that vibrated through my soul, but I managed. I leaned into the gratitude of those nine months of lockdown—nine months of being his caregiver and enjoying every moment with him. After that, my mother, my brothers, and I spent New Year’s Eve together as a family, grieving but together. I told myself, "This is it. This is the hardest thing I will ever go through."
But life does not follow our scripts, and it’s anything but predictable.
On January 1st, 2021, my husband, not my grandfather, fell ill. It was about forty-eight hours of seeing him getting worse, with symptoms that were not for COVID.
On January 3rd, I watched the man who had been my best friend and my first love since we were eleven years old enter a hospital. Less than one hour later, I was standing in a doctor’s office, hearing words that didn't feel real.
He was gone.
In that moment, the world didn't just change—it collapsed. The logic, the data, the protocols—none of it mattered. My brain went numb. I became a ghost in my own life, moving on "automatic mode," signing papers and making calls through a thick, surreal fog.
In less than three weeks, I have lost the two most important men in my life. The world stopped. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. I stayed in bed, paralyzed by the sheer weight of a grief I never thought possible. I felt like dying. You also need to understand that it was the worst peak of the pandemic in Mexico, and I had been in a hospital. So, I was isolated at home. There was no one to hug me.
The only thing that kept me breathing those days was walking my dogs in circles around my dining room table and running for as long as I could in that same small circle, just to keep my heart beating.
After my husband’s cremation three days later, it was very clear to me. I had to make a decision. The pain was too much. I couldn’t see my life beyond the next few minutes. I had to ask the question: “What do you want? Do you want to continue in this world?”
My dogs were there for me, but of course, they cared about breakfast. Their demand for routine forced me to stay stuck to the clock. Each bowl filled was a tiny victory for life over despair. I could not leave them. It was then clear that I needed help, or I would check out of this world, leaving my lovely fury babies alone. I remember the promise I had made in my 20s when I had depression and wanted to abandon this world because the pain was unbearable. I promised to ask for help before making any decision. So, I did. I always keep up my promises.
My cousin and aunt, both therapists, remained my emotional guardrails and referred me to proper medical and psychological support. Their calls weren't just check-ins; they were reminders that while I felt disconnected, I was actually deeply rooted in a garden of people who refused to let me fade.
The physical restoration was the first anchor. With proper hydration and sleep returning thanks to medicine prescribed by a doctor, the foggy, suffocating veil of grief began to lift just enough for me to see the floor beneath my feet. I wasn't "better," but I was functional—and for my furry babies, functional was everything.
I listened to tons of podcasts and watched many TED talks on grief. There was one in particular that resonated with me. It was clear that moving on from my losses was not possible, but I had the choice to move forward. The pain hasn’t disappeared, but it has changed shape. It became less like a sharp blade and more like a heavy stone I had learned to carry, and, with time and work, it grew lighter with every step.
The following week, I went back to work and to teach, all online, but still. I remember that I was still out of myself. Then, one afternoon, I got an email. It was from a photographer who needed to take some pictures of me for a magazine. I was already writing my reply, saying I was sorry but could not do it. I was about to hit “SEND” when something clicked in me. I actually wanted to live. So, I deleted the original email and agreed to meet the next day. The next day arrived. My body and my brain were very numb, but I forced myself into my favorite dress—probably the only one I had back then—put my hair up, and drove to the photo session. The photographer’s lens felt like a giant eye, watching a version of me that I barely recognized. As the shutter clicked, I felt like a ghost trying to inhabit a body that didn't quite fit yet.
The session wasn't about vanity; it was an act of defiance. Every time I adjusted my posture or forced a soft smile, I was telling the grief that it didn't own my entire image.
The Internal Struggle: My brain was still screaming for the comfort of my bed and the safety of my "furry babies," but my feet stayed planted on the floor.
The "Click": It wasn't just the camera clicking; it was the realization that I was capable of performing "normalcy" even when my heart was in pieces.
The Aftermath: When I finally walked back to my car, the numbness hadn't vanished, but it had cracked. Through those cracks, a tiny bit of light—the Xyoli who loved her work and her life—was beginning to leak through.
I drove home in silence, the weight of the dress heavy on my shoulders. I had been hiding, making myself small and invisible so the pain wouldn't find me. But by showing up for that magazine feature, I had stepped into the light. I had allowed myself to be seen. I have decided to live.
The fog was still thick, some days, still is, but right there, I knew I had the strength to walk through it. Today, if I need to find that strength again, I look at these photos and remind myself I was able to stand up, walk, run, and even fly again.
How to get back on your feet and, maybe most important, how to get your brain back. The decision was no longer a question; it was a map. I began to move with the mechanical determination of a long-distance runner. One foot, then the next. I wasn't sprinting yet, but I was pacing myself for the marathon that is life.
Just as I found my stride, the ground shifted again. On April 30th, my tenure as head of the National Seismological Network concluded—a professional identity I had carried through the literal and metaphorical tremors of Mexico's 2017 disasters. Two days later, my grandfather passed away. These twin losses would have leveled me again. But this time, I was reinforced. My heart and body were resilient, even open enough to welcome a new love into my life. My brain, however, was a "frozen engine." As a seismologist, I was used to high-velocity data and complex problem-solving, but now, every intellectual task felt like wading through knee-deep mud.
I knew I couldn't wait for my mental sharpness to return on its own—I had to provoke it. I began a deliberate campaign to "taze" my intellect back to life:
The Soft Start: I enrolled in a diploma program for Science, Technology, and Society. It was familiar territory but viewed through a sociological lens. It forced my brain to pivot, shifting from cold data to human complexity.
The High-Intensity Workout: When that wasn't enough, I upped the stakes. I signed up for speed reading and—most daunting of all—Japanese.
The Humility of Learning: There I was, a seasoned scientist, sitting in classes alongside high schoolers. While they picked up kanji with the ease of youth, I had to fight for every character. But with every botched pronunciation and every timed reading drill, I could feel the gears in my head finally beginning to grind back into motion.
I wasn't just learning a language; I was rebuilding the architecture of my mind. I was proving to myself that while grief could slow me down, it couldn't take my desire to continue.
I loved my life as a professor—the thrill of research, the energy of the classroom, and the connection with society through outreach. But there was a void where my sense of mission used to be. After leading the National Seismological Network through the literal shifting of the earth in 2017, "normal" academic life felt a bit like a radio tuned to the wrong frequency. The grief from my losses made it worse. I was moving, but I wasn't driven. I knew that for me, a lack of purpose wasn't just a career slump; it was a danger zone. Without a "why," the path back to despair was far too easy to stumble upon.
As a professor, I had the luxury of a sabbatical—a chance to step back, breathe, and recalibrate. It was during this period of reflection that a door opened which I had previously only seen in my dreams. The call for the Director of the International Monitoring System was released. This wasn't just another job; it was a global responsibility, a mission far broader than anything I had tackled at the national level. When one of my mentors pointed it out and told me, "Xyoli, you were made for this," my first instinct wasn't pride—it was a flood of questions that felt like a seismic event of their own:
The Internal Audit: Was I actually good enough? Did my skills translate to this international stage?
The Personal Cost: Could I really move to a distant country–this time alone?
The Heart Check: Most importantly—after all the loss and the rebuilding—was this what I truly wanted?
The decision had to come from both my brain and my heart. Moving alone to a distant country and doing something different required me to be certain of the decision. I analyzed as many variables and outcomes as possible, and the result was: “I want to do it!”
My life has undergone an unexpected metamorphosis. I have reinvented myself. Research and outreach, once the pillars of my identity, have become the cherished hobbies of my weekends and holidays. Today, I stand as a director in a major international organization.
The "tazing" of my brain during those dark months has paid dividends: the speed-reading training is now my daily survival tool for the mountains of approvals in my inbox. My world is now one of strategic high-stakes and rapid decision-making. My mind, once numb and sluggish, now thrives on the adrenaline of optimizing systems and architecting a better future for my team. I have found my purpose again.
Working in an organization with six official languages is a constant cognitive workout. While I had to leave Japanese behind when I moved here, I’ve "undusted" the French I learned fifteen years ago.
Living in Vienna, however, added a layer of practical necessity: German. I needed it to buy my daily bread, navigate the legendary coffee shops, and—most importantly—find someone to tailor my clothes, as my body shape seems to exist entirely outside the Austrian "standard" fashion mold. I’m also tackling Russian, with my sights set on Chinese or Arabic next year. Why not? It’s not about achieving a perfect accent; it’s about the promise I made to myself to challenge this brain until its very last spark. And as I mentioned, I keep my promises.
I don’t just feel recovered; I feel resurrected. Yet, as a seismologist, I know that no state is permanent. Every era has its end, and I refuse to be caught off guard by the next shift in the tectonic plates of my life. I constantly ask myself: What is next? How do I better prepare?
I have learned that while I cannot control the pain the world throws at me, I am the sole arbiter of whether I continue. And if I choose to stay, it must be with:
Purpose: A reason to wake up.
Pride: A belief in my own capability.
Fulfillment: And the knowledge that my work matters.
Happiness isn't a constant state, but it is the foundation of the ride I choose to take.
So, despite the lingering shadows of fear, I am ready. I am jumping into the uncertainty of tomorrow—into a reality I never dared to dream of because it seemed "too high" for a Mexican girl. I have moved beyond survival and into a space of limitless possibility.
The abyss is gone, replaced by a deep well of future surprises.
I am ready to jump. Are you?