The Restoration Principle-How to Rebuild after a Setback

By Deborah Johnson

September 18, 2026

Butchart Gardens, limestone quarry, Move beyond, power of after, rebuilding, restoration principle, setbacks, sunken garden

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The restoration principle was vividly illustrated in a place that stayed with me long after I left. This was Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. I knew little about it beforehand. It was simply part of a fun overnight adventure—a ferry ride from Friday Harbor, Washington, a little exploring around Victoria, and a visit to a beautiful garden. But what I discovered there was far more than beautiful flowers. It became one of the most vivid illustrations I’ve ever seen of the power of restoration.

There are moments in life when the landscape changes without asking our permission. A relationship ends or changes in a way we never expected. A business we poured ourselves into struggles. A job disappears. A health issue interrupts plans we thought were secure. Children leave home. Parents need care. A trusted friendship fractures. Retirement arrives and, instead of feeling like freedom, leaves us wondering who we are without the role that defined us.

Setbacks have many names, but they often leave the same question behind: What do I do with what remains?

Our first instinct may be to get back to normal—to restore life exactly as it was. But sometimes that isn’t possible. And sometimes it isn’t even desirable. That brings us to what I call the Restoration Principle: restoration is not simply returning something to its previous condition. It is taking what remains, understanding what has changed, and intentionally rebuilding toward something that can become strong, useful, and even beautiful again.

One of the most remarkable pictures of this principle can be found in that garden, The Butchart Gardens, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

From Barren Quarry to Beauty

In the early 1900s, Robert and Jennie Butchart moved to Vancouver Island, where Robert established a cement operation near rich limestone deposits at Tod Inlet. Limestone was valuable to the business, so the land was quarried for what it could produce.

Eventually, however, the limestone was exhausted. What remained was not a beautiful landscape. It was a depleted quarry—a deep, barren reminder of what had been removed. If you’ve ever seen a quarry, you know how barren—and sometimes deep-- it is. Jennie Butchart saw something different.

Rather than treating the exhausted quarry as useless land, she envisioned a garden. Beginning around 1912, topsoil was brought into the quarry by horse and cart. Can you even imagine how many loads of topsoil it would take? But she did it and started planting. Ivy was planted along the quarry walls. Trees, shrubs and flowers followed. Little by little, the depleted industrial site was transformed into what became the Sunken Garden.

The official history of The Butchart Gardens says the Sunken Garden took nine years to create. Today, the original quarry walls still rise around a landscape filled with paths, trees and flower beds. The quarry was not erased. It became part of the garden. That is the part of the story I find so powerful.

The depth of the quarry became the depth of the garden. The place that looked depleted became the very place where something extraordinary could grow. Restoration did not require pretending the quarry had never existed. It required seeing new possibility in the landscape that remained.

When our Own Landscape Changes

Life can leave us with its own versions of an exhausted quarry. A relationship changes, and suddenly routines, friendships, finances, holidays and even our sense of identity may change with it. We can spend enormous energy wishing the landscape still looked the way it did before. Restoration begins when we acknowledge what is true now and ask a better question: What can be built from here?

The same is true in business. Perhaps an idea that worked beautifully for years stops producing results. Technology changes. Customers change. A competitor enters the market. A partnership dissolves. We can keep digging the same quarry, hoping to find limestone that simply isn’t there anymore—or we can examine the assets that remain. If you’ve ever changed course in your business, you understand this.

Maybe you still have expertise. Relationships. Intellectual property. A customer base. A reputation. Skills. Hard-earned wisdom. The business model may need to change without declaring everything you built a failure.

Health challenges can be even more personal. A diagnosis, injury, surgery, or simply the realities of aging can force us to reconsider routines and expectations. Restoration may not mean getting our twenty-year-old body back. It may mean learning how to care for the body we have now, building strength where we can, changing habits, accepting appropriate help, and investing our energy differently. In each case, restoration starts with reality—not denial.

Restoration is Different from Replacement

We often assume that when something breaks, the solution is replacement. Replace the appliance. Replace the relationship. Replace the job. Replace the business. Replace the dream. Start over.

Sometimes replacement is necessary. But not always.

The Butcharts didn’t fill in the quarry and pretend it had never been there. Jennie worked with its contours. The walls, depth and history became part of the beauty. This was so apparent when walking along the paths, as they curved in and out and also rose in different areas.

That gives us an important distinction: restoration asks what can be retained, what must be released, and what needs to be rebuilt. After a setback, we can ask three simple questions: What remains valuable? What is no longer serving the future? What needs to be added for growth to occur?

Those questions change the conversation. Instead of asking, Why did this happen to me? we begin asking, What can I build from here?

That does not minimize grief. Some losses should be grieved. Some disappointments are genuinely painful. Restoration is not positive thinking pasted over a wound. It is the decision that the wound does not get to design the rest of the landscape.

The Work of Restoration

There is another detail in the Butchart story we should not miss: the transformation required work.

Topsoil had to be brought in. Plants had to be selected. Roots needed time to establish. The garden did not appear because Jennie had a beautiful vision one afternoon.

Our lives work the same way.

We often love the reveal but underestimate the rebuilding.

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Restoring trust in a relationship may require repeated honest conversations and changed behavior. Rebuilding a business may require learning unfamiliar technology, letting go of an outdated product, or listening more carefully to customers. Rebuilding after a health setback may require months of small, unglamorous choices.

Restoration usually happens through repeated acts that seem unimpressive while we are doing them: one load of soil, one conversation, one changed habit, one phone call, one new skill, one boundary, one decision.

Eventually, those choices begin changing the landscape. Some of my favorite books talk about taking little steps, like Tiny Habits and the Power of Habit.

Don't Waste the Depth

One of the greatest temptations after a setback is to view the difficult season as wasted time.

But what if the depth created by that experience can eventually hold something it could not hold before?

A difficult relationship may teach us discernment and boundaries. A business failure may teach us what spreadsheets and success could not. A health challenge may reorder priorities. A career disruption may uncover abilities we had never needed to use. Grief can deepen compassion. Disappointment can clarify what matters.

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None of that means we should romanticize suffering or claim every painful event was necessary. It means we can refuse to let pain have the final word.

The quarry was still a quarry. Limestone had been removed. The ground had been altered. But Jennie Butchart did not confuse altered with worthless. Neither should we.

Sometimes the very places where life has cut deepest become places where we develop the greatest capacity—for wisdom, empathy, resilience, faith, courage and purpose.

The depth does not have to be wasted.

A Simple Restoration Framework

If you are standing in a changed landscape right now, consider four steps.

First, recognize what has changed. Name it honestly. Restoration cannot begin while we are pretending the quarry is still producing limestone.

Second, take inventory of what remains. What strengths, relationships, resources, knowledge, faith, skills and opportunities are still available? Setbacks rarely erase everything, even when they initially feel as though they have.

Third, decide what needs to be brought in. Jennie brought topsoil into depleted ground. What is your topsoil? Perhaps it is new knowledge, counseling, medical guidance, a mentor, better systems, stronger boundaries, spiritual renewal, financial discipline, or simply rest.

Finally, plant for the future. Take one action that belongs to the life you are rebuilding rather than the life you lost.

That step may feel very small. Take it anyway. Restoration is rarely one dramatic decision. It is a direction supported by many decisions.

What Will Your Quarry Become?

Today, The Butchart Gardens is a National Historic Site of Canada and welcomes more than a million visitors annually. People travel from around the world to admire what grew from land once considered exhausted.

Think about that.

The quarry’s usefulness appeared to be over. In reality, one purpose had ended and another was waiting to be imagined.

That may be true for parts of our lives as well.

The end of a relationship as we knew it does not mean the end of meaningful connection. A business setback does not erase the entrepreneur. A career transition does not eliminate decades of experience. A health challenge does not remove our capacity for contribution. A season that looks barren does not get to decide what can eventually grow there.

We cannot always choose what gets excavated from our lives. We can choose what we begin planting afterward. That is the Restoration Principle.

Beauty is not always found in what was never broken. Sometimes it is revealed in what has been restored.

So if your landscape looks different today, resist the urge to dismiss it as ruined. Look carefully at what remains. Bring in what is needed. Plant deliberately. Give growth time.

And then keep moving. The quarry may be part of your story. It does not have to be the end of it.

Additional Resources

Women at Halftime: Principles for Producing Your Successful Second Half by Deborah Johnson: Will you merely face into the second half of life, operating with a tired and outdated strategy, living on autopilot? Or will you successfully reinvent yourself and climb to your personal peak of Hero Mountain? Chapter 4 includes Core Common Denominator®

Power of After: What’s Next Can be Your Most Purposeful Chapter by Deborah Johnson. This book helps you answer the crucial question, "What's next?" as you create your ideal business using AI and other current technologies.

Stop Circling: Steps to Escape Endless Roundabouts: provides both the inspirational perspective and solid tools to design an individual or professional future path and to get individuals there successfully.

Get The SUMMIT on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4z3mDIs

HALFERS Position Free Download

YouTube Channel: Mindset & Mental Strength for Mid-Career Growth

Personalized Mentorship: Thoughtful guidance for your next chapter creating clarity, confidence & momentum.

The Summit book by Deborah Johnson

Goal Setting Worksheets-free download!

Hero Mountain Summit- a 5-month "Power of After" journey to help you answer "What's Next?" with your desired lifestyle & maximized skills and experience.

FREE Resources and links: https://GoalsForYourLife.com/DJWorks

YouTube Podcast Playlist: Women at Halftime/Power of After

The quarry may be part of your story. It does not have to be the end of it.

deborah johnson

Thought Leader, Keynote Speaker, Author

If you are interested in growing and learning, check out our online courses here: Online Learning

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Deborah Johnson

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About the author

Deborah Johnson, M.A. understands the challenges of reinvention at mid-career or halftime. After building multiple creative businesses and guiding hundreds through transition, she’s developed practical strategies to help others thrive. Author of multiple books and albums, composer of hundreds of songs & musicals, producer of popular podcast, Women at Halftime. (now Power of After Show), and up for multiple GRAMMY Awards, spending over 20 years in the entertainment industry performing headline shows across the U.S.