It’s so nice to have you here.
I have to confess, writing a blog is new to me. So, as with most things in life that are new, I am a little nervous and my overthinking mind is working overtime – so please bear with me. Let me give you the quick guided tour on how this all began and how I ended up here talking to you.
When I was a child, I was (and still am) obsessed with books. The smell of the fresh print, the feel of the pages as they flicked through my fingers and thumbs, the way they acted as a portal for me to escape through whenever I wished. To me, books are magical – a direct access to the minds of millions – I truly believe if you have a room full of books, you are one of the richest people on the planet. As I grew older and into my teens and twenties, I stopped reading. I lost myself in what I call the ‘invisible cage’ and fell asleep to life. Then in 2011 I was suddenly forced to wake up and what I saw, I didn’t like. I had everything materialistically anyone would wish for, but I felt empty and completely out of alignment. That event in 2011 was my little brother Syd’s cancer diagnosis. The journey (sorry had to use that word here but I will make every effort to avoid it in future) we embarked on together from that moment forward was life changing in the worst and most joyful ways you can imagine. Then in 2014 I had a vision, a knowing, that I would one day write a book about this journey (Shit! I’ve used it again already – sorry!) unaware that it wouldn’t be until 2021 before I put pen to paper.
So here I am – now a published Author – a dream I never thought I would realise in my lifetime. The birth of my book ‘Losing You, Finding Me’, was the result of a long and painful labour, but as with the birth of my own children I instantly forgot about all the pain as soon as I cradled it in my hands. It is now up there with one of my greatest achievements in life.
This blog centres around many of the subjects I raise throughout my book – and although I am a writer, I do not want this to be a place that is perfectly edited. Life isn’t perfect – we are not perfect, and that’s OK. In fact, it’s more than OK, I’ve come to know that it’s what makes life beautiful. I find with too much editing we lose the essence of life.
This is a place (I hope) you can come to for some refuge from perhaps your own ‘invisible cage’ a place you that brings you comfort, like a hot chocolate in front of a log fire on a crisp cold winter’s day. Here is a place where I hope we can all share our life experiences, struggles, and stories all in the name of gently navigating our way through life and back to our authentic selves. It’s a place I hope you laugh, cry, scream, and ultimately leave feeling better than you did when you arrived.
I will warn you now that I am not here to skim the surface of life – I want to take a deep dive into what really matters. I want to talk about the big stuff – why are we here? What have we long forgotten? How do we face our fears? How do we deal with death and grief? Why are we so unhappy in our lives? Or as my brother would say “what’s it all about?” – I cover a lot of this in my book.
If any of that puts you off, please don’t worry it won’t always be so intense. I’ve certainly had to learn how to embrace the lighter side of life – and laugh even when things are tough. Being an overthinker, and a highly sensitive person I have had to work hard to cultivate a more emotionally balanced life, which hasn’t come easy for me. But here I am talking to you and learning to relax my way into it.
My ultimate wish for this blog is that it serves as a platform for connection. Where we can all be human beings, instead of human doings. In the world right now so many of us have become disconnected from what really matters. We’ve lost our way as a species, and we have forgotten so much of the wisdom of times gone by. Here is a place for us all to peel back the layers of our conditioning and find our way back to our true selves – the loving, kind, supportive and creative beings that I believe we all are underneath all of that nonsense.
We must remember who we are. Our lives depend on it.
So, let’s begin.