Sometimes time can move so swiftly and you wake up each day to new changes. Big changes. Life altering changes.
Sometimes they are beautiful. Sometimes shocking. Sometimes terrifying. And sometimes they are so significant, so profound, that you know your life will never be the same.
My past 5 years have been like this. Some of the most incredible, beautiful, painful, heartbreaking, funny, adventurous, passionate, difficult, challenging, rewarding, breathtaking, devastating, exciting, happiest, saddest, most fulfilling, yet despairingly f*cked up moments of my life. But every one of those moments I lived and I felt every depth of those emotions and feelings and they taught me more about life, the electricity and energy of aliveness, the ability to reach parts of my heart and soul I didn’t know existed. And that is an amazing gift.
When I lost my mum 6 months ago, it shook me to my core. It didn’t matter that she had been sick for a long time. She was still only 74, too young to die, and no matter how old we get, we still need our mum. She had been such a big support through those years of torment and struggles and I realised when she had gone that, nobody had ever had my back like my mum. My grief has settled around me now, I can move forward and have more energy to direct elsewhere, and each day I’m reminded that she maybe physically gone but she’s still around me, within me.
Then 3 weeks after that loss, my littlest love was born. She entered the world 4 weeks early, in the midst of our grief and she reminded us of joy and love. A depth of love so deep, my heart feels like it will explode. Reconciling the loss of a loved one and the arrival of a loved one, is an emotional level, I cannot adequately express in words. Polar opposite feelings, swinging back and forth, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
Christmas and New Year hit differently this year. There was a lot of reflection. A lot of memories. A lot of sadness. A lot of excitement. A lot of happiness. And a lot of gratitude.
These past years and the loss of my mum have put many things into perspective. Life is meant to be about pursuing your passions and enjoying what you do and I’m fortunate enough to be able to do that. It’s about being in relationships conducive to happiness and based in truth and when they’re not, being brave enough to walk away. It’s about being grateful and satisfied with what you have and not constantly chasing something, because how can you ever be happy if you are never satisfied with what you have. It’s about the success of living a life from your soul, not the success of job titles or how much money you have. It’s about knowing your truth, speaking your truth and living your truth.
6 months later, I’m in a good space. I never understood that the harsh lessons of life, were trying to teach me what I needed to learn and that if we don’t listen, we keep living the same lessons repeatedly. And when we do listen we are rewarded and it starts with honesty. Honesty with ourselves and if our truth affects others, honesty with them also. It’s followed by forgiveness, forgiveness of ourselves and others, but this can only happen after the truth is spoken. Next comes the hard-work, inner work, shadow work, changing limiting beliefs. Acknowledging what requires healing and beginning that journey. I feel for the people that don’t understand this and continue their patterns, distracting themselves from their issues and pain, because I know they will never live the life that’s available to them, their best life.
In a rapidly changing world, where commodities and things become more important than people, I’m glad I can comfortably follow my own path because the greed that I see, will never reflect happiness. I say this because how is anyone happy, if all they want is more and more. Bigger. Better. Shinier. Newer. I’m so grateful to finally be in a place where people, love, moments and the simple things bring me far more joy than anything material ever could.
We learn things in life, often in the most painful and devastating of ways but when we allow ourselves to feel and learn from these experiences, we change and grow into a more at peace, fulfilled, happier, honest and better version of ourselves. It’s interesting when we are prepared to really dig deep, we discover how many lies we have told to ourselves. Lies about what we thought would make us happy. Lies about who we thought we needed to be. Lies about how we needed to be seen. Lies we told ourselves because the truth is often too painful to face, and that is sometimes we are living the life we are expected to live, rather than the life we want to live.
Life is short. Yes we all know this, but do we really actually contemplate what that means? Life is too short to live the life of someone else. Live life for yourself. Finding my truth and living it was not easy, in fact, it was f*cking hard, but the ultimate reward is you finally find how to be happy and fulfilled from within. It is at that point, you know you are finally following your soul.
“Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us”– Nicole Reed
Find Your Inner Goddess 