What happens when the worst chapter of your life becomes the first chapter of a completely different future?

Lela Stovall knows what it means to hit rock bottom. After growing up taking on adult responsibilities as a child, making decisions that led to federal bank fraud convictions, and receiving a 77-month prison sentence, she faced years of consequences that followed her long after her release.

But that wasn't the end of her story.

Today, Lela is a licensed mental health therapist, author of 72 Months (writing as L.A. Armstrong), and entrepreneur who built an event business while working toward her education and rebuilding her life. Along the way, she faced the stigma of her past, worked to repair relationships with her sons, and discovered the power of having even one person who believes in you.

In this honest conversation on the Messie Missy Podcast, we talk about personal responsibility, shame, second chances, the importance of a support system, and why rebuilding your life takes time. Lela shares what helped her keep moving forward when the road ahead seemed impossible.

Her message is simple: Your worst decision does not have to define the rest of your life.

If you're in the middle of a mess and wondering how you'll ever put the pieces back together, this episode is a reminder that you don't have to rebuild everything overnight. You just have to figure out your next step.

Listen in, find your next step, and remember: there is no mess too big to build through.

Connect with Lela: Look for Lela Stovall and her book 72 Months, written under the pen name L.A. Armstrong.

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Building beautiful businesses and beautiful lives through our messes.

You keep waiting for the day your life finally changes. But what if the change is already happening? What if every difficult decision, every lonely step, every day you choose to keep showing up is the reinvention you've been praying for?

What if the reason you feel stuck isn't because you're lost—but because you're in the middle of reinvention? And what does reinvention even mean?

In Day 17 of Project Homeward Bound, Messie Missy shares an unplanned, deeply personal reflection on rebuilding a life after loss. After spending years in survival mode, navigating heartbreak, uncertainty, financial devastation, and the loneliness that often comes with starting over, she's beginning to recognize something powerful:

Reinvention doesn't happen after the mess. It happens inside the mess.

In this raw episode, Melissa explores what reinvention really means—not the glamorous social media version, but the daily decisions, small acts of courage, and consistent actions that slowly create a new identity, new income, and new independence.

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Email Me: Melissa@messiemissy.com

Building beautiful businesses and beautiful lives through our messes.

Nine Questions to Help You Rediscover Yourself in the Middle of Life’s Mess. Melissa reflects on grief, identity, and rebuilding after divorce, career loss, and the collapse of the life she thought she would have. She shares how running has remained part of her identity through difficult times, then answers nine challenging questions designed to help listeners reconnect with themselves when life changes. This episode is a personal invitation to reflect, journal, and find a new anchor.

• Melissa’s experience of losing her marriage, career, home, financial stability, and sense of the future she expected.
• How running has been part of her identity for more than 30 years—and remained a source of inspiration through uncertainty.
• Grief that comes from losing a marriage, career, home, routines, or a hoped-for future.
• Nine self-reflection questions, answered honestly in real time.
• Why Melissa would tell her children if she had one day left to live.
• The baptism bracelet she lost on a run, and why she would look for it first in a box of lost things.
• How she lost herself trying to become who others needed her to be.
• Her belief that people can become home when you no longer have a house.
• The “what if” that still haunts her: stopping her first business, Empowering Movement, which aimed to help ease loneliness for women and children going through divorce.
• What she would advise a child facing a similar struggle: stop worrying and put trust in God.
• How listeners can use the questions as journal prompts and share their answers to build connection.

Work with Messie Missy 1:1: ⁠Apply Here⁠

Apply to work with me on a 1:1 session

Download the FREE Messy to Momentum Framework:

⁠Download Framework Here⁠

Connect with Missy:

Facebook: ⁠Facebook Link Here⁠

Substack: ⁠Follow Me on Substack⁠

Instagram: ⁠Follow Me on Instagram⁠

Youtube: ⁠Youtube⁠

Email Me: Melissa@messiemissy.com

Building beautiful businesses and beautiful lives through our messes.