Life does not often arrive in tidy packages. Challenges tend to crash in without warning, pulling you off the map you thought you were following. Yet in the messy wake of upheaval, something unexpected can unfold—an opening, an insight, a new stretch of yourself that could not have existed without the trouble.

Everyone talks about self-care like it’s a checklist — meditate, hydrate, unplug. But when your brain feels like static and your chest...