I first connected with Orsika inside a coaching mastermind, one of those sacred containers where people show up week after week on Zoom, and if you pay close enough attention, you start to see the gifts each person carries. That is exactly what happened with us. It did not take long before we both noticed the overlap: in our stories, in our values, in the way we see the world.

We scheduled a one-on-one connection call, just the two of us. What we found on that call was something that does not happen every day: the kind of easy, deep recognition that makes you feel like you have known someone for years. We have been encouraging and supporting each other ever since.

In February of 2024, we attended a live event together through our mastermind and shared a room. Spending that concentrated time together, in each other's energy, cemented what we already suspected: this is a God thing. There is a lot of likeness between us, a lot of similarity in our stories, and an ease in our friendship that is genuinely rare.

I am honored to call Orsika a dear friend and a future co-creator. This fall, we are stepping into something new together: our very first retreat. It is the beginning of something we believe will be beautiful, and we are praying over every part of it.

But before all of that, I want you to know who she is. Not just the woman who shows up full of light and energy, but the woman who walked through fire to become who she is today. This is her story.

Orsika is the kind of person who sees the best in people. She always has been.

But for a season of her life, that beautiful quality, the one that makes her such a powerful support to others, was the very thing that kept her stuck.

She was a young divorced mother of two small children when a mutual couple introduced her to the man who would become her next husband. Society had a script for her: you need a partner. You need to be married. With with low self-esteem already whispering that no one would want a single mom, she chose to overlook what she now recognizes as caution flags.

He was living with his parents. He had a strained relationship with the mother of his child. He was eager, too eager, to move in quickly.

The yellow flags turned orange. Then red.

His relationship with his mother was unhealthy.  The mother of his first son showed up at their door with an accusation of infidelity. There were violations of her trust and her body that no woman should ever have to name. And yet she stayed, because each betrayal came with a new question that her wounded self-esteem answered for her: Who would want me now?

The turning point came when the family traveled to Michigan for a visit. When they returned, Orsika told her husband she wanted to rebuild their relationship on a healthier foundation. He wanted to rebuild the relationship physically first. When Orsika refused, he did what no woman should ever have to endure. He forcefully took what he thought was rightfully his.

She found an apartment.

She worked part-time while searching for full-time work.

Organizations helped her with deposits and costs she could not cover alone.

It was hard. She kept going anyway.

Healing is not a moment; it is a marathon. And Orsika ran it with intention.

During her years working as a house manager and nanny for a family in Michigan, she filled her hours with self-improvement audiobooks. While she cleaned, while she organized, while she cared for others, she was rebuilding herself. Self-help content was in her ears sometimes for six or seven hours a day.

But the pivotal moment came in the summer of 2019.

Her dear friend, Tracy called her up: Jack Canfield is coming to Chicago. You are coming with me. Buy one, get one. Orsika resisted. She could not afford it. Tracy upped it to the VIP package and would not take no for an answer.

Orsika sat in that room, surrounded by people who wanted to grow, who wanted to be better, who were investing in themselves, and something shifted.

That weekend, she says, was when she first truly felt it in her bones: I am worthy of a better life. She became a certified Jack Canfield trainer. And she began to understand something important about her own journey: she had not only been healing the wounds from her marriage, she was also healing childhood trauma she didn't even recognize as trauma. 

The full arc, from the day she left to the day she genuinely felt capable and free, was about six and a half to seven years.

In September of 2023, Orsika married the love of her life, Craig.

She describes it as the good life she could not have imagined from inside her worst season. Just months later, at a routine annual appointment with her breast surgeon, a woman who had cared for her through a lumpectomy back in 2019, there was a new lump.  They kept an eye on it.

By May of 2024, the decision was made: go in and remove it, just to be safe.

Seven days after the procedure, Orsika received the pathology report. She did her research, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and already suspected what the results might say before she reached out to her surgeon.

The call came. Yes, it is cancer. Come on in.

Today, Orsika lives in a house she loves, with the right amount of land and good neighbors and chickens she talks to for five-minute breaks throughout the day. She is married to a man who is her partner in every sense of the word. She can go to the grocery store without counting every penny. These things, she is quick to say, are the lowest rung of her gratitude, the material baseline of a life rebuilt.

Above it: the people. A community of friends and a church family are her deepest relationships. The ability to set healthy boundaries with those who would drain her, and to hold space for those who are ready to grow. A self-worth she had to fight to understand and now holds firmly.

Her parents escaped communism. Her family overcame adversity before she was even born. She carries that in her, the knowledge that she was not built for a mediocre life, and that the struggles she walked through were not meant to define her, but to refine her.

She pours into others now. She shares her story openly and vulnerably, not because it is easy, but because she believes, deeply believes, that one person hearing her story might catch a small glimmer of hope. That they might think: maybe that could be me.

One of the biggest takeaways from Orsika's story is this: We are far more resilient than we realize.

In her story, I was struck by how many times life asked her to begin again. To rebuild after betrayal. To rebuild her self-worth. To rebuild her health. To rebuild her future.

And yet, she kept moving forward.

Not because it was easy. Not because she always felt strong. But because she chose the next step, and then the next one after that.

I think many of us underestimate what we're capable of when we're standing in the middle of a difficult season. We look at the road ahead and wonder if we have what it takes. Orsika's story is a beautiful reminder that strength often reveals itself one step at a time.

Orsika Julia is a writer, speaker, and healing advocate passionate about helping others navigate burnout, caregiving, boundaries, and emotional healing. Through honest storytelling and practical guidance, she empowers people to rebuild self-trust, rediscover their voice, and move forward with resilience, compassion, and hope.

If you’d like to connect with her or learn more about her work through Out of the Quicksand, you can find her here:

Out of the Quicksand Website

Reach out at: orsikajulia2020@gmail.com

And as always, thank you for being here and for being part of my community.

Jen