I talked about my appreciation and sincere love for life on one of my last Instagram posts. I talked about how I feel joy and love is cultivated from within and achieved by making the choice to live with joy, love, trust and constantly being grateful.
When I sat back and reflected upon what I had written, even though every single word was sincere and authentic I failed to give a complete story. I didn’t mention that my love for life also also comes from going through really hard times. Times that have really tested my inner strength, times when I have been in a very dark place and wondered how I would get through it, times when I did not know which way to turn but have guided me on my path and made me even more grateful for every day.
Why didn’t I initially share my story? I realised it was through fear of being vulnerable. Being Vulnerable is defined as being able to be easily physically, emotionally, or mentally hurt, influenced, or attacked. When you read it out it is easy to see why so many of us find it difficult to be vulnerable, to share the parts of us that leave us open to being hurt by others.
When I held back from sharing my story and being vulnerable I was reminded of a quote by Brene Brown-
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
So I would like to be vulnerable with you. I would like to leave myself susceptible in order to be real, completely authentic and to show you that I am not just able to be so happy and to choose joy constantly because you may think I have it easy, that it has been handed to me or because I live somewhere amazing and my life is easy. Far from it, it has been a rough journey, but one I would take again and again to get me to where I am now.
I believe it is because I have had to pull myself out of what felt like deep darkness, through deep sadness and confusion and manage to come through the other side. When you have been through that, the light seems so much brighter when you find your way out, the world seems so much more vivid, you come out and really SEE! You stop, slow down and appreciate unfolding moments, guidance and beauty, you realize life is too short to waste it in the darkness, because the light is so damn beautiful.
I am so grateful of every single moment in my life, especially the hard, challenging times I have experienced. I see them as a gift, a beautiful detour in the right direction on my path, and I know the dark times have just helped me grow and to given me the courage to step forward, to follow my dreams, my purpose and to step into the unknown and now live a life I love.
2016 was one of the hardest years of my life. My mum went through a very aggressive form of breast cancer, one that meant she had to have intense chemotherapy for and a mastectomy. I vividly remember sitting on the bed with my mum, trying to feed her, I held the spoon to her mouth and she did not even have the energy to lift her head to take the food from the spoon.
My beautiful mum on her recovery after breast cancer.
That day was hard, that day I was scared, that day I saw how close we are to death in every moment, how quickly our lives can change and just how precious life is. I had been through some really tough moments in my life leading up to this, really tough, but this really knocked me. I would never let my mum or anyone else see that. I was the strong one.
My dad has been ill since I can remember, every memory I have of him his has not been well, he has been in and out of hospital for all that time. 2016 was a tough year with my dad though. He had three strokes that year, two more minor and one more severe, several cancer operations and went through an episode of Hyponatremia, which was one of the scariest things I have witnessed. He went from a sane person to someone who appeared to have severe dementia over night.
I was in hospital a lot that year, a have quite a few memories of learning how to place two or if I was lucky three plastic chairs in the best way next to his bed so I could lie down and try to sleep! It was more difficult because my parents are not together, they do not have partners so the pressure on my brother and I was intense. At one point both of them were in hospital at the same time at one point, on the day I remember not knowing wether to laugh or cry.
“I am being really challenged right now I thought” I was so tired, I didn’t want to see or speak to people, I questioned so much. I remember feeling a bit broken one night, feeling so low and lost that I called the cancer helpline and reached some poor guy who I cried my eyes out to for about 30minutes down the phone. He could not help me, but in his own way he did just by allowing me to cry.
The whole time this was happening I found an inner strength. I reminded myself of the people who are so much more worse off than me, I always tried to wear a smile as it got me and others through the day and I practiced seeing best in the situation, what could I take from this? I would ask myself. Rather than questioning why it was happening, I was trying to see how it could help me, anything, even the tiniest good from it to get me through.
When things like that happen it really puts life into perspective again. It makes you realize that life is so damn precious and all the external things that we often reach out to, that we think will make us happy such as the houses, cars, clothes, things, actually all fade into nothingness when something like our health can be taken away.
These events made me really understand how precious life is, what a delicate balance we live in life and how we must make the most of every day and stop waiting around for the perfect moment to do things, to take action, follow our dreams and live in the moment, life is to short not to be happy.
“I WILL NOT DIE FEELING I HAVE NOT REALLY LIVED” I thought to myself.
It is easy to get caught up in life, in the tiny things that are meaningless and insignificant when you put it into perspective, in the mind chatter and external ropes that are pulling us in different directions, what we think we should be doing, who we think we should be with, how we think our life should look.
But what is really important? What do you really want? Everything starts with us in this life, this beautiful capsule we have been gifted to allow our souls to move through and experience living and it is our choice to make how we decide to live it and life can be short. In a book called the untethered soul Michael Singer says- “whatever you are doing in that moment someone has died doing” So what are you waiting for?
In this same year that this was happening I also decided to leave my husband, this thought of “I will not die feeling I have not really lived” haunted me and gifted me. I did not feel I was really living, I was living a from the outside perfect life but I did not feel in my gut that I was really living. This was one of the most difficult decisions of my life and one that would have been so much easier not to make especially when all the other difficulties and challenges were presenting themselves to me at the same time. It would have been so much easier to stay in my from the outside ‘perfect life’.
This was not something that happened quickly or easily. I went to a very dark place and I felt I had completely lost myself in the relationship, I remember looking in the mirror and not recognising the person looking back at me, what did she want? What did she like? How would her life look if she had the courage to make the choice? It took every bit of courage I could muster to make the decision and step into the complete unknown but I knew there was something I else, something i was being called to do.
“The only way I can describe it was it was like I was a caterpillar who had completely forgotten that there was an amazing beauty within me, that I had wings to fly but I had forgotten what I already held inside me.
I was moving around every day feeling like I was not fulfilling my purpose, like something was not right but I could not put my finger on it, that there was something more inside me that I needed to get out and yet I just could not see it.
It is funny because everything I was searching for outside of me to fix the problem was lying dormant inside; I had to look inside for whom I was, to go forward with courage and to believe in the butterfly inside me!”
Every day I was waking up, my heart beating out of my chest, so anxious and unhappy and I was trying to figure out why. From the outside I had the perfect life. What is wrong with me I used to ask myself? And my husband used to always say to me “Hannah why cant you just be happy, you have this perfect life and yet you cant just be happy in it, what is wrong with you?”
I remember even going to the doctors and talking to them about how I felt. I thought I might be depressed, they offered me anti depressants and I even thought about taking them for a tiny moment but then had a big wake up call. I do not need tablets; I need to figure out what is going on within me, why I am really unhappy. Not just put a plaster over the problem and make the life around me a little more hazy.
This brings me back to happiness and where it comes from.
“You can’t find happiness in external things, the journey to happiness starts within.”
It does not come from external things, it does not come from objects, money, or relationships, it comes from within.
It is a choice that we make for ourselves and only we get to decide. This is cultivated through our choices, our choice to be grateful, our choice to put out the energy into the world that we would want to receive back, our choice to live with love, to go forward with courage, to go after the path that is meant for us, to decide to transform into the butterfly we have within us all. To fly with the wings we have inside us.
Our choice to trust our journey and our choice to slow down, pause and to marvel at just how incredible it is that we are alive! Go back to the things that are important, let go of what does not serve you, choose joy and love always!
There is never a perfect time to start on that journey, just now and life will always present challenges to you, it is how we see them and redirect them that defines our life. I used these moments to propel me forward, I used them to give me the courage to follow through with leaving my husband, to selling most of my material possessions and setting off with my backpack on a journey into the complete unknown, leaving behind everything and everyone familiar to me. Leaving with no safety net, no security, just me, love, courage, trust and joy by my side.
I now live in Bali, in a beautiful villa that is a complete dream, surrounded by incredible people, 10minutes from the beach, living a life I love.
The one key thing that was my constant throughout this tough time, that helped me discover what I wanted, that gave me the courage to step into the unknown, to leave my husband and follow my dreams was writing. There is something magic that happens when you put pen to paper, I cannot emphasise enough the power of this practice and it has become an integral part of my life now.
Writing was without a doubt the thing that’s saved me, it is the most powerful, life saving practice and I learnt how to use it deliberately and I have since developed incredible ways to use it to not only uncover who you are and what you want from life but to deliberately manifest the things you want and create a more joyful, loving life.
I use my writing practices with my 1-1 clients in every session, it is such a powerful tool that so many no longer use with the existence of computers and phones and it has such incredibly transformational effects. If you would like to find out more, maybe work with me one to one or if you would like first look at my upcoming free 3 part video series then pop your email in below to my brand new website, if you have signed up previously to my newsletter please pop it in again for me as my entire website was deleted (sad crying face, but I saw the good side in it, I was able to authentically build it again as the person I am today) soooo much love and light and I can’t wait to send you your free goodies :).
So much love and light, Han.
P.S never ever stop believing in you and never let anything or anyone stop you chasing your dreams and living a life you love! You are the creator of your destiny.
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