You know the old saying everything happens in 3’s? Well this last year everything happened to me, threefold times ten.
There was a broken shattered heart, deaths of those I love, watching people fall to addiction and suicide I couldn’t stop, and some of the most painful, excruciatingly deep lessons I’ve ever learnt. The kind that you experience, and are never ever the same again.
8 months ago, I felt like life was all but handing me the noose as I desperately tried to get through the day. The darkness of depression and grief whispered in my ear anytime I tried to smile. Tears would stream down my face as I went about my day. My belly would ache with this longing this deep insatiable longing- for peace, for something, just anything to lift the pain out of me- It’s a feeling I will never forget, and one I hope never to revisit.
At the time to say I was suicidal was an understatement, death sat on my shoulder every second of every day. At various points in my life she has come to visit, whispering to me “you can end the pain” but this time- she was shouting, screaming louder then I had ever heard before. The trauma was back standing in front of me and it felt like my day was shrouded in dementors and that I would never feel happiness again.
I consider myself pretty lucky that when the worst things happen- my world somehow usually leads me to the best. This though was different. The days moulded in to a stream of anxiety, depression and soul aching pain. I’ve visited this place before but I never knew it could go so deep. I never knew the darkness could have no end.
I sat one day tears streaming, chatting to a dear friend on the other side of the world. It was 3am and the streets were dimly lit as I paced up and down confessing and crying and just seeking answers to a question I didn’t even know how to ask.
She listened patiently, she heard my pain, and she simply said “Sweetheart, Just let go.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
She reminded me that pain exists to show us something, to teach us more of who we are. That we can’t change the pain, and holding on to it means it never gets released. We need to give it space, feel it, and then let it go.
“Girl we can’t change that which has happened. You’re driving yourself crazy.”
She was right. I was choosing to hold on. I was fighting my life and the new direction it was taking by being stuck in the past. Grief was always going to be there. It doesn’t go away, it just ebbs and flows in our life. Some days it’s loud and crashes around you, others it’s a whisper that just taps on your shoulder- but when we are holding on, replaying all of the pain, trying to find answers and looking for the what ifs- the voice of grief takes centre stage. It’s all we hear. Yes pain demands to be felt, but life also deserves to move forward.
I sat and I cried to my beautiful American friend who could feel my pain so loudly from the other side of the continent and I realised that it was only me who was going to take this pain away. I accepted that yes I wanted the pain to end, but I wanted to live more. I wanted to be all that everyone else saw in me. I wanted to be the girl who could give someone strength to keep going in their own pain- I just had to get through my pain first.
With this realisation, I did what any broken hearted girl should do- I got on planes. Last minute flights out just to find the space and clarity I needed. To find the silence to hear my pain, and the spark of life and it’s beauty to bring the much needed contrast. I was determined to turn the pain into something beautiful. To learn the horrific lessons thrown at me and see just what it was the universe was trying to lead me towards.
So with little planning I found myself, alone on the other side of the world forced to confront myself. Forced to learn my lessons and what the universe was trying to show me.
All I can say is after coming out the other side the blessings that came from those lessons- were some of the more beautiful I have ever had. Random once in a lifetime adventures in New Zealand with my Mum, yogi centres in Thailand where I met souls that changed me, sunsets and sunrises surrounded by love, midnight naked beach trips and fires by the moonlight, tears and laughter and release, ninja warriors opening my mind to the world, old friends coming back, and new ones joining my tribe. Healing, adventure and laughter that hurt my belly. The realisation of my strength, and that no matter what even if I nearly die, I’ll be ok. (Thanks Thailand)
Most importantly though- I learnt forgiveness, I learnt love. Not love for someone else- but deep, soul level, neverending, unwavering, all consuming love and forgiveness for myself.
It wasn’t easy, and as I fell I felt like nothing would ever be ok again, everything was so damn scary and unknown. There was still days where I would still find myself crying, and my belly would feel ripped open and torn. Those days became lesser as my world was filled with love from a million different people and places. I was staring into the unknown only knowing I had to keep trying to move forward.
Here’s the thing though- that unknown meant creation and new beginnings were possible. For once you hit rock bottom, you’re forced to rebuild, you are forced to surrender, you realise rock bottom is the place where the most beautiful magic can be found. Rock bottom is the place you are forced to find your light, you are forced to find you.
After searching the world the last 5 years to find spirit, healing and belonging I realised I was really looking for magic. That thing we can’t explain, the thing that just is. That energy that turns our world around. It’s ironic to realise, that magic I was searching for, it was really with me all along. Inside, just waiting, that indefinable spark- that part of you that makes miracles happen….That’s magic and ultimately that is you.
Magic is not something we find, it’s actually who we become, when we let self love and belief set our world alight.
I didn’t know my own magic, until I was forced to find light in the dark. Until I was forced to see nothing but myself could take the pain and transform it. It was in the darkest parts of my life I found my light. I found me. When I did just like magic my world started to transform. The tears stopped, my smile returned and instead of a world of grey, I was seeing life through self loves technicolour lense. It just took a breakdown to get there.
So brave ones, be magic, be love and remember if you are sitting at rock bottom, it may not seem like it now but that is the place where our greatest transformations will happen… if only you love yourself enough to keep going. If only you trust yourself enough to just let go. It may not seem like it- but as a beautiful friend once said to me…
The healing is coming, I promise.