A life-long lesson on detachment as taught to me by an Indian guru when I was 12 years old and the story of my very first own grown-up friend.

When I was 11 my mum dragged me to one of her ‘new age’ events.

“New Age” was a movement that started in the late 1980s characterised by an emphasis on the holistic view of body and mind, alternative (or complementary) medicines, personal growth therapies, and a loose mix of theosophy, ecology, oriental mysticism, and a belief in the dawning of an astrological age of peace and harmony. Idk what we call that now but in my bubble it’s “mainstream”.

From my childish memory, I can’t remember if she was at a weekend workshop to learn how to play gongs, if it was about Buddhism or neurolinguistic programming but what I do remember was that the lady who was hosting the event had a beautiful garden with fragrant Jasmine abundantly throwing itself off balconies and big purple flowers attached to vibrant green tendrils cascading onto the lawn.

I remember a young woman french-braiding my hair during breaks and adorning each cross-section with tiny white Jasmin stars. I remember an elderly man who took a particular interest in me and in those two days taught me how to read palms after he read mine.

He told me that I would never break a bone, run out of money, or lack in lovers. He was right.

I lapped up the attention. Like all children I craved to be seen, heard, witnessed, and acknowledged but presence and attention were not something readily available in my household.

Sometimes I try to remember why but all I remember was that my single mum was always too busy, too harried, and too stressed to notice me for long. Now I recognise that she was likely suffering from anxiety, amongst other things.

So when this man came along — an adult who had time for me, who was interested in me, and wanted to talk to me about the world, and the future and the possibilities of life — I was enchanted.

He was old, with white hair and deep lines that crinkled deeper when he smiled and introduced himself as Donald Ingram Smith. I used his full name every time I spoke of or to him from that day on.

He was my very first own grown-up friend.

In a past life, Donald told me, he was a famous reporter and travelled the world. Then, he became the ghostwriter, autobiographer and close associate of one of the world’s most recognised gurus, Krishnamurti.

My mother allowed the friendship. She was charmed by his outward-facing success with dozens of book titles penned under his name and thought he would be a good influence for me.

One day when I was 12 he invited me to go to a 7-day “new age” festival with him. Krishnamurti would be giving a talk and he thought I might like to listen to him speak. I gleefully begged my mum to go until she agreed.

In my childish memory, I don’t remember much of the talk.

I remember that the festival seemed huge with thousands of people everywhere. I remember the woman vomiting in the toilet, eyes bulging out of her head and croaking “What are you looking at?” as she caught my innocent stare. I remember sleeping in a tent by myself next to Donald’s tent and going to the Hare Krishna’s for most of our meals where food piled high, a four-course meal, on every plate. I remember meeting a boy a year older than me who took me to the circus tent, told me he liked me and planted a kiss on my astonished mouth. I remember being left to my own devices for much of the time and going to every dancing workshop that I could find while Donald went and did his grown-up things.

On the last day of the festival when Krishnamurti gave his talk hundreds of people gathered under an enormous marquee and sat on the grass on top of sarongs and shawls everyone brought along. Donald Ingram Smith sat to my right and made sure I could see as Krishnamurti giggled and joked with his audience from where he sat cross-legged wrapped in a lungi on the stage.

“Do you want to know my secret?” he asked.

This is the only part of that talk I remember and have held close for all of my life.

“I don’t care.”

“I’ve no problem because I don’t mind what happens… I don’t mind if I fail or succeed, I don’t mind if I have money or not money… I have no problem because I don’t demand anything from anybody, or life. I wonder if you understand this…”

“I don’t mind what happens.”

“That is the essence of inner freedom. It is a timeless spiritual truth: release attachment to outcomes, and — deep inside yourself — you’ll feel good no matter what.”

I left that festival with a seed planted deep inside my mind.

Donald Ingram Smith remained my friend.

As I entered a more tumultuous teenage phase I lost touch with him which I recovered in my late teens. A friendship that became mostly forged in short phone calls where I updated him on my immature choices and life views and he offered generous guidance and hearty laughter on the other end of the line, as his ageing body became frail.

When I was 19 I received a phone call stating that he was dying.

I called him one last time and he told me of his graceful exit plan.

He told me that he was ready to go and that he was grateful for his long and rich life and the short years he was able to share with me. He told me to keep reading and to keep learning and to choose always love. Finally, he told me to trust my life. That it was going to take me exactly where needed to go. And that he loved me.

Weeks later I heard that he stopped eating and drinking in the final days before his death, as he told me would, to encourage his body with a rapid and clean journey out of this life, and his spirit the agency to pass into its next carnation.

To mourn him is to celebrate the self-belief he awoke in me, the only tender love that I knew from a man at that time and the seeds he planted in a young girl that has grown into a forest of resilience, wisdom, and compassion, shaping the very essence of who I am today, an eternal testament to the mark he left on me.

“Your conclusion that there isn’t enough of something—whether it is enough land, or money, or clarity—stems from you learning, without meaning to, a vibration that holds you apart from what you want.” — Abraham Hicks

A few years ago I had a boyfriend who was the most frugal, ungenerous man I have ever met. He would always choose the cheapest options in the supermarket, suggest low-to-no-budget dates and if we did go to dinner he would meticulously calculate the total and then split it with me. Generally, he hesitated to offer any gesture that might cost him financially.

He was so cheap that everything we did felt small, suffocating and limited.

During the four years of our relationship, our financial situations shifted. I met him in the second year of my business when I was barely making enough to get by but by the end of the four years, I outearned him by almost double.

The difference between him and I was that I did the work.

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He had a ‘lack’ mentality. So he scrimped and calculated and pinched.

I was familiar with this type of thinking. I also had been brought up to believe that there is never enough. But I didn’t like the way it made me feel.

I wanted to feel expansive. Abundant. Free.

I wanted to feel like money was never going to stop me from living a good life.

The difference between having a lack mentality and an abundance mentality?

Perception.
Resulting in your life experience.
Perception is our belief in what is true.
Our experiences are the tangible results of what we believe.

Often, I hear or read conversations based on beliefs that there is not enough in the world:

• “There aren’t enough good jobs to go around.”
• “We are running out of natural resources. Water, oil…”
• “There’s not enough money for everyone to be wealthy.”
• “There isn’t enough food to feed all the people on the planet.”
• “The economy is on a constant downturn. No one can thrive with this.”

   

After years (and years and years) of studying human behaviour and psychology, I’ve come to understand one straightforward concept: whatever we believe, is true for us. Our beliefs dictate the experience we have of the world.

Here’s another perspective:

• It’s estimated that we have over 8 billion people in the world. As a small example, the world military expenditure is estimated at over 1,700 billion USD, to give you a tiny idea proportionally on how much money there is in the world. So yeah: There is more than enough money for everyone in the world. Our beautiful lesson to learn here is how to get into that stream of delightful money, by looking at our beliefs and deciding to change them.

• We all have different interests and passions. Some people love to write. Some people love to invent. Some people love to sing, to build, and some people love math. One person’s menial job is another person’s dream. This is not true for 100% of jobs, sure; but with eight billion very different people living on this planet, you’d be surprised at what different people enjoy, and consider a good job.

• We can all thrive, despite whatever the economy is supposedly doing. Some of the biggest, most successful brands and businesses came from a time when they were challenged. It’s those limitations that add fuel to genius and result in incredible success.

• Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity. For the past two decades, global food production has increased faster than the global population growth rate. The world already produces more than 1½ times enough food to feed everyone on the planet. That’s enough to feed 10 billion people, the population peak we expect by 2050.

• Or as Prof. Steve Horwitz says “There are economic reasons why we will never run out of many resources. In a free market system, prices signal scarcity. So as a resource becomes more scarce, it becomes more expensive, which incentivizes people to use less of it and develop new alternatives, or to find new reserves of that resource that were previously unknown or unprofitable. We have seen throughout history that the human mind’s ability to innovate, coupled with a free market economic system, is an unlimited resource that can overcome the limitations we perceive with natural resources.”

Let’s circle back to my ex-boyfriend. He was a middle-class man, with a helicopter licence and a passion for law enforcement and access to endless opportunities. But he had a deeply ingrained lack belief that stemmed from his childhood upbringing and father’s role modelling.

Although he could easily make more money than the average person, he still felt that he never had enough money to afford even the simplest of things.

The more lack he felt, the more life affirmed his belief that there was not enough money.

There’s a psychological term for this exact thing.

It’s called our reticular activating system.

It acts as the library of our belief system. These beliefs affect our perception of thoughts. Then our perceptions control how we feel about one subject. Or another.

His reticular activating system caused him to seek out experiences that support his belief that there isn’t enough.

And so suddenly he would be hit with a huge unexpected bill. Or make a critical decision in an investment, losing large sums of money. Or his well-paying job became redundant.

Because this is how the reticular activating system works.

This doesn’t only apply to finances. It applies to every area of life: Relationships, health, happiness. Everything you experience in life is affected by what you believe is true. (Your reticular activating system.) Your beliefs create your perceptions, and vice versa.

When you believe that there is not enough of what you want there won’t be. Because you can’t ask for something that you don’t believe exists, is possible, or is true for you.

You have to change the integral belief first, and foremost, and then start calling in what you want.

How?

It’s easy.

Start looking for and seeking out evidence to support the belief that you want. Find research that supports the sentiment there is more than enough…money, jobs, natural resources, etc.

In this way, you can break your lack mentality by choosing a new perception, a new stream of thoughts on any topic.

This is called reframing in psychology. it works the same way. When you start to believe something new, your reticular activating system starts to take effect and produce those beliefs as tangible, practical results and experiences in life.

I’d love to help you re-write the economic rules you have set for yourself.

Join me for her wealth, now. Spaces are limited.

It’s 100% up to you what you choose to believe. You get to design your life any way you want. If you want to believe in lack. Do it! May you have a powerful, positive change in the world through your beliefs. If you want to believe in abundance. Awesome! And may you have a fulfilling and enchanting positive impact on the world through your beliefs.

Don’t hold back, waiting to be ready. It will never arrive.

When I was 15 I went on a long overseas trip for the first time entirely on my own. I had signed up to be a foreign exchange student in the States for one year. I boarded the plane snotty-nosed and big, red eyes rimmed with tears and a knot in my stomach.

I was not ready.

That year ended up being the happiest time of my life so far and formed my independence and sense of self in an immeasurable way.

When I was 23 I attended my first-ever electronic music festival. I was resistant and didn’t want to go and thought it would be full of weirdos and absolutely, definitely not for me. My boyfriend at the time promised me we would leave after 1 day if I truly hated it.

I was not ready.

At that music festival, I got to know the producers of the festival and other producers of other music festivals and all sorts of fascinating, inspiring, incredible people that I admired who hired me based on my personality and skills and ended up making music festivals my career for 5 years.

When I was 28 I wrote my first few blog posts. One day I decided to share one on Facebook. I was shaking and started to get all hot and prickly inside as my finger hovered over the ‘post’ button. I took a deep breath, clicked the button and then quickly closed the computer, terrified of what people would say and walked away.

I was not ready.

After that, it became easier and easier to share and to post and to write and after 2 years of writing and sharing, I had a popular blog with over 10,000 readers every month.

When I was 30 I desperately wanted to turn my blog into a business. I came across a course that promised me all the answers and I thought about whether to take it or not for an entire month. 10 minutes before enrolment closed for the year, sweating with fear I assembled all my resources and courage and paid the $2,000 even though it made me feel nauseous.

I was not ready.

That investment led me to create a business where I support, mentor and teach people in areas of life that I am educated and experienced in. It has allowed me to do work in alignment with my values and has supported me on every level, especially financially over the past (almost) 11 years.

When I was 33 I bought a van to travel along the East Coast of Australia. I didn’t know anything about cars (I still don’t) or how to make my #vanlife fantasy reality but I pooled all my resources together and followed my heart, even though…

I was not ready.

Two weeks later my van blew up, but I fell in love and my entire life trajectory changed in the most wonderful and unexpected ways, that I am so grateful for today.

When I was 36, heartbroken, sick, confused and torn apart, I booked a flight from Canada to a town in Mexico that I had never heard of, knew no one in, and arrived there the next day with a suitcase filled with hope.

I was not ready.

That town became my home for two years where I tended to my heart, healed and grew. It was a safe container that held me in tender ways nowhere else had before and gave me everything I didn’t even know I needed.

When I was 38 I wanted to bring to the world an undated planner for women based on a design I used for the past 5 years. I spent an entire year trying to find someone who could produce my idea in an ethical and environmentally conscious way. Disheartened, after 100s of enquiries were sent, I gave up.

I was not ready.

One day a publishing house in Bulgaria that was run by a small family team replied and said they would love to help fulfil my dream. I moved to the UK to be closer to production and ship those books out myself. In June 2020 Plannher was born. Since then 1,200 Plannhers have been sent around the world. I have 300 left.

A few months ago I decided to go to a place I had never been to before. Africa. I was scared sad and uncertain about my decision.

I was not ready.

The day I left for Africa I let thick tears roll down my cheeks while sitting on the train to the airport. I went anyway. It gave me exactly what I needed: a contrast so strong and difficult that it gave me the deepest appreciation for the life I have. Now, I am so excited to make the most of it.

I’ve noticed something interesting…

The very best things that have happened to me were the things I did when I wasn’t ready. The things that shook me and tore at me and made me feel the biggest feelings and pushed me and stretched me and scared me and lit a flame of hope in my heart and big dreams in my imagination…

Those things gave me the most, beyond my wildest dreams, even though…

I was not ready.

Don’t hold back, waiting to be ready. It will never arrive.

Even if you’re not ready.

 

A follow-up to this was written a couple of months after the release of ‘not ready’ titled ‘not yet’. Read it here:

Reinventing yourself is about how you carry yourself through a season of becoming while bridging the gap between fear and creating or doing what you’re called to.

This morning I woke at 5.30 am — a time that I would much rather be sleeping peacefully, unlike some of those overachieving insta-people who like to boast about their 6 am ice baths — to meditate on a question that has been haunting me recently.

What is next?

I nuzzled in under the covers, having asked the universe for guidance and assistance and allowed the waves of connection to Source/Goddess/Energy roll through my body slowing down my breathing, smoothing over my nervous system.

Slowly, softly, answers emerge.

You are on your path.
The next thing will come.
Just not on your timeline.
Be patient.

It’s annoying. I want to know now. I’m in a self-inflicted cycle of uncertainty and my entire Being is trying to escape the discomfort of that.

I have had to make peace with the fact that my life journey and path as a human is centred around reinvention. To not judge myself harshly for it. To softly acknowledge and accept it. To even celebrate it. One of the ways I’ve been able to do so is to understand it.

If you’ve been journeying alongside me for a while, you will know I’m a master at reinvention.

Life took me on an incredible healing journey in my early 20s while I was studying psychology and experimenting with various things. Then, struggling with the broad systematic approach to individual mental health, decided I didn’t want to become a psychologist. Instead, an opportunity to work as a contractor for music festivals arose and I spent 5 years sent to far-flung corners of the earth acting as an artist coordinator for large-scale events. It was a wonderful wild time. Soon, that life became tiring and no longer supported my growth so I stopped for a year and worked as an event coordinator for a dance school in London before heading to India and deepening my spiritual journey there. During this time I realised that our world didn’t have moulds that I could fit and that I’d have to create my own. Inspired by the ethical organic textile industry I created a small conscious clothing label called ‘etica & ella’ but quickly realised that while I had lots of creative ideas I knew nothing about marketing or running a business and disliked having to manage lots of stock. When that idea didn’t work I felt like a failure. It hurt my ego for two years during which I lived in Sydney and worked as a business manager for a small marketing firm, gathering as much knowledge and experience as I could to start my own business. Alongside that, I started a blog, which became the platform for the work that has supported me across the past decade. During the first few years, I travelled the most: a month in Portugal, three months in Amsterdam, four months across Central America, six months in the States, five months in London, four months in India, almost a year in Australia, nine months in New Zealand, six months travelling across south-east Asia. Then things slowed down. My partner and I at the time moved to Canada, where he was from. We tried to do the ‘settle down’ and ‘buy a house’ thing, but he and the life he was offering was not for me so I left. I moved to Mexico for two years. All the while, growing and teaching and offering my work to the world through my online business. With the addition of my stationary brand Plannher, I decided to come back to the Western world for a while to support the growth of that. And then the global panini happened. I had no choice but to stay and made the seaside town of Brighton in the UK my home for 18 months until I decided the winters were too cold for me and swapped it for Mallorca which was beautiful but confining, and returned to the UK five months ago. Since then, I have moved five times, trying to figure out what corner of the universe I belong in.

That’s a lot of iterations of myself and the life I have lived. I have had to reinvent myself and recreate my perception of the world at every corner.

I’m at these crossroads. I feel like I need to choose between 3 lives.

1. The online entrepreneur life, selling programs and products and refining my sales funnels. 2. The corporate career life, getting a job with a company that aligns with my values. 3. Becoming a wayfarer, chasing the summer and beach life at low costs in other countries.

As I feel in and consider each option, none delight me.

I’m in a season of life where I’m considering my future. Who do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to have? What am I setting myself up for?

I want it all. I want a beautiful home in Forest Row where I live right now. I want to teach and write and make art. I want a sense of community and belonging. I want to spend months at a time on wild unkempt beaches in less civilised places.

My whimsical 20s have come and gone. What am I building the foundation for into my wise woman years?

Maybe they’re questions I don’t need answers for but they are something I feel to consider now.

I have a financially successful online business doing and creating things I love (alongside the less-loved administrative side of things) that’s offered me incredible location and financial freedom but it’s been increasingly lonely and the mental health impact of that is something I can no longer ignore.

The corporate career world baffles me. I have this enormous skill set and range of experience that doesn’t fit into any of the boxes and when I look at the expectations of time and input vs wages… 36 hours per week in an office for £16 an hour! It’s a joke. My friends who know this world well tell me it is no more stable and secure than working for yourself.

The drifting summer and sea-chasing life is one I adore, but it has limitations too. I enjoy it to the extent that I feel invested and involved in a place. I need to be anchored into my environment to feel at peace and unified with it. Community and connection are as important in this context as any other.

Plus: I am tired of the pseudo-spiritual digital nomads that are all noise and little substance. They are not my people.

All I have is questions and no answers at this point but it’s the discovery journey that I find brings the most unexpected solutions.

What I do know is that all change in the universe is cyclical rather than linear as demonstrated by the highly scientific paradigm known as yin yang or polarity. Or ‘the medicine of opposites’ as I like to call it.

Reinventing yourself is about how you carry yourself through a season of becoming while bridging the gap between fear and creating or doing what you’re called to.

It is a balancing act between waiting to be shown and choosing your destination. And then finding the way there — weaving between working with energetics and taking action — to create the foundations and integrate with practical measures to witness the changes.

If there’s one thing I know about reinvention, it’s this:

Don’t rush life. Don’t chase superficial ideas of success over inner contentment and satisfaction. Don’t force yourself to do things for external validation. Too often people settle for things that don’t satisfy their wants and needs. Stop looking for the next new thing. Let the things meant for you find you. Your soul already knows and will guide you on your path if you get out of your way.

When I began ruminating more deeply on ‘what is next?’ during a long walk in the woods this weekend I decided to share a little piece of those thoughts on Instagram. The conversations that ensured — the most potent parts of which I shared and saved in the highlights under ‘crossroads’ — were astounding. So many women are struggling.

This world was not made for us. Or we were not made for this world.

We don’t live life in a straight line.

Life is a spiral: a series of cycles through which we are learning and growing.

Renew is a practical insight offering practices and ways to navigate this cycle. A 5-part digital video and audio program that takes you through the renewal cycle. A gift for paid Substack subscribers.

There are 5 phases to the renewal cycle.

1. FLOW
2. SPACE
3. EDIT
4. AWAKEN
5. EXPAND

The past few years have left an after-shock reverberating through us. The stress of not knowing what was happening and nothing making sense left most of us reeling and grappling for new coping habits.

Now, at times we feel vulnerable, unsteady, stripped of our prior confidence and bravado. Not only in ourselves but in the world we live in. And yet… we know…

It’s time.

For a reset… to reinvent ourselves and our approach.

We have an opportunity to recreate ourselves and our lives based on a whole new set of rules and values. We’ve grown matured, wisened, become more compassionate, de-armoured, sat with our trauma and felt it all so deeply.

Renew is about becoming radically aligned with what gives you pleasure and makes you come alive in your life and the world. It is the process of teasing out what is most important for you.

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Enjoy!

how to pull yourself out of depression, grief and other dark places…

Wave after wave it hits. The feeling of slipping beneath the surface. It can feel like no amount of struggle lessens the power of those waves. Wave after wave after wave after wave. No reprieve, no relief, no peace. you’re just being pummeled by these waves of emotions bigger than a human body can contain. Grief, depression, long anxiety…

Then with time, the waves are still there, but each wave is accompanied by several minutes of peace before the next wave. A little more time to breathe and be. The desperate sense of slipping under is replaced by a feeling of still being submerged, but no longer having to endure the grapple for a breath between each wave.

Ultimately, the waves never go away. But the space of time in between each wave gets longer and longer. Eventually you go a whole day before another wave hits. Then a week. Then a month. Eventually it’s a whole year

And maybe you feel a big wave of those familiar feelings that might haunt you on an anniversary of that loss, or the when you first started feeling this way before being okay for another year until another wave hits.

Depression, grief and other dark places move through us like waves. When you have a really, really significant loss in your life it’s never over.

You carry that with you forever. But the waves get farther and farther and farther apart as you grow and heal and grow into your new life. Being really honest about that is really comforting to know.

And then in that new space that all that depression and grief has carved out of your soul opens up for beautiful things that weren’t available to you before

Every single journey is different, but there are some life changes and circumstances that feel like a death of the life that you had, an identity, a future, a world view even.

You don’t have to be okay. Until your ready. It takes as long as it takes to consolidate.

Still… how to pull yourself out of depression, grief and other dark places?

“Life is a whole journey of meeting your edge again and again. That’s where, if you’re a person who wants to live, you start to ask yourself questions like, “Now, why am I so scared? What is it that I don’t want to see? Why can’t I go any further than this?” — Pema Chödrön

I’ve always felt things very deeply. It’s a sensitivity that I cherish yet in the most difficult moments resist. This feeling of going under, head barely above the water, treading lightly, where everything hurts…

There have been times in my life where I have fallen into a depression in response to the world, my experiences and and perceptions of it. One of those times has been recent. Life isn’t all good at all times. But the depth of feeling gives me a breadth of compassion that extends beyond the superficial and that’s where the beauty and true kindness lies.

When I talk to my therapist about being depressed and not wanting to be anymore he says things like:

“This is what you do. You try. You do everything in your power to feel better. At first these attempts may be feeble, seemingly pointless. You accept and love yourself for drinking water and eating nourishment that day, for talking to a friend for ten minutes, for taking that shower, for working out, whatever small accomplishment you managed. You stop comparing yourself to what everyone else is doing and love yourself for making an effort. You stop insisting you need to be a certain way and support and encourage yourself for whatever steps you can do, and you try to see beauty in it.”

He is very pragmatic.

The thing is, I can do all the ‘right’ things. I make my bed each morning and exercise and wash and eat well and take care of my emotions and my mind. I understand that these small and simple gestures are necessary and meaningful.

Maybe I’m a high-functioning depressive. Maybe I’ve just learned to love myself enough to treat myself like I would a child taking myself through the motions of what I know is good for me even when I feel completely disconnected and apathetic to it

Here is what actually helps me pull myself out of depression, grief and other dark places…

Deeply engaging with nothing but what is present for me in each moment. It means focusing my full attention and being fully conscious of what I am doing each moment, like making my bed. That kind of focus leaves no room for the noise of internal dialogue and in that moment gives me a sense of stillness and peace.

Allowing depression, grief and other dark emotional journeys to happen to me. When I am willing to see them as a gift, and allow them the space to move through me without resistance… When I feel them all the way through, even if sometimes they last for a year or more… At the other end they open up a space for something significant that wasn’t there before. That couldn’t have existed within me or my life prior to the painful inner journey.

Noticing what in my life is causing this deep sense of loss and disconnection from life. This been a really interesting… I have been taking some time off work and unpacking, around hustle culture and productivity, toxic productivity and productivity addiction and worthiness being attached to busyness, and how all that is connected to money as well.

I keep circling back to the fact that we live in a sick society that values superficial things which causes a disconnect.

“Illness in this society, physical or mental, they are not abnormalities. They are normal responses to an abnormal culture. This culture is abnormal when it comes to real human needs. And.. it is in the nature of the system to be abnormal, because if we had a society geared to meet human needs.. would we be destroying the Earth through climate change? Would we be putting an extra burden on certain minority people? Would we be selling people a lot of goods that they don’t need, and, in fact, are harmful for them? Would there be mass industries based on manufacturing, designing and mass-marketing toxic food to people?

So we do all that for the sake of profit. That’s insanity. It is not insanity from the point of view of profit, but it is insanity from the point of view of human need. And so, in so many ways this culture denies and even runs against counter to human needs. When you mentioned trauma.. given how important trauma is in human life and what an impact it has.. why have we ignored it for so long? Because that denial of reality is built in into this system. It keeps the system alive. So it is not a mistake, it is a design issue. Not that anybody consciously designed it, but that’s just how the system survives.” — Gabor Maté

I’ve been on a journey of trying to integrate a way of living that is inclusive to meeting my human emotional, spiritual and physical needs alongside supporting myself financially.

I’ve had to face my fear of running out of money and replacing it with the reality that I am capable of earning more money whenever I want to, or need to and that I will always be supported in my endeavours. That I don’t have to compromise my needs and values for money.

At times I may choose not to exercise my capacity to makes money. I may that it’s not my priority for periods of time and that is okay. And that whenever I want to turn on the money faucet, I have that capacity.

Understanding that has been a huge revelatory attitude shift and so empowering, and something that spills over into other areas of life, not just financial, that realisation that “If I really want to or need to, I can. There’s always a way.”

Taking uncomfortable and unconventional risks. I just left a beautiful island in the Mediterranean and a cute 1-bedroom flat overlooking the sea for a greyer, colder country. Intellectually it makes no sense I had a good life in Mallorca but my entire body couldn’t settle there. I was always anxious. I couldn’t relax. I kept asking the universe in my personal form of prayer to show me where I needed to be. Then at the start of the year a whole domino effect of events guided me to leave the island and return to the United Kingdom. I could have ignored the signs but I chose to listen and take that risk even though it makes no sense. It’s still to early to tell but I already feel much more at peace, safe and see the dials of momentum and opportunities ticking up for me in a whole new way.

Let it happen.

Let the depression, grief and other dark feelings swallow you whole and chew you up and spit you out.

Because on the other side of this is always a new version of you a life that wants to be lived. New things that yearn for your love.

You can’t get to them without going through it all.

This is the art of life.

I have one month left on this island and after that, the story is yet unwritten.

I untie my espadrilles from around my ankles and tie them to a tree. My feet dig into the sand/soil/pine-needle ground and I let myself sway and roll to the rhythm of the beat that the DJ is enchanting us with.

A man I dated for 5 minutes last summer comes charging at me with determination. He holds my shoulder tenderly and kisses me on both cheeks with an intimate “Que tal?” whispered into my ear before wandering off like a lost soul.

In that moment I catch a flash of a different life, a different story that could have turned into. There is a stretch of unknown rolling between each music track lingering with potential gyrations and side-stepping. Feet grinding into the ground.

I find another barefooted being and touch his toes with mine in camaraderie. We smile at each other and high-five before returning to our dance floor stations shoulder to shoulder with friends and strangers.

I have one month left on this island and after that, the story is yet unwritten. A cacophony of possibilities, undreamt dreams, unseen connections. I can’t think too much of the future because it brings me waves of sadness and uncertainty.

Instead, I hold a steady gaze on the here and now. The only thing that can save me until the next wave of life comes.

Too much has happened in too short a time that has brought me to my knees and I am afraid of my own vulnerability. So ready to falter. I have had to let life break me all the way through these past few years. And from the fragments and shattered parts, I will rebuild a life that holds more of me.

I am still very much in existential crisis mode. I am simply trying to get through each day with as much kindness and care as I can. I really yearn for life to make sense and hold meaning and feel like I belong somewhere or a part of something.

The only thing holding me together in some way in my writing and hope in my heart that one day soon the future will unfold with promises that are more fulfilling and brighter than the past.

I keep dreaming of lands, tropical and lush, swollen with heat and humidity, free from glorified ambitions and Western ideas of gentrification. I don’t know. I don’t know.

There is no perfect one place. I will always be torn by the many parts of me. Am I just trying to escape a world that has become more unfamiliar to me year by year?

It is strange to me to have existed in such a beautiful setting whilst being grief-stricken and under psychological duress for the majority of my time here. The past 18 months have been amongst the small handful of deeply difficult times in my life.

I have always felt life too deeply and had depressive phases and seasons, but none like this. I wonder if this sense of caged heart and mind will stay here when I leave or will accompany me on my journey onward.

I hope the former and fear the latter.

Either way, I have learned to welcome and accept all that is.

One day it will make sense.

It takes more than 200 years for a t-shirt to decompose in a landfill.

That same t-shirt was grown in a field and then passed through a minimum of 24 people’s hands, over 13 stops spanning 3-5 countries, sometimes on 3 different continents to go from farm to closet.

We live in a culture that values speed in all things — instant payment, lightning-fast downloading and streaming, same-day free shipping, tap-post-click-swipe, and immediate gratification.

When something doesn’t happen immediately, we often shrug and decide “it’s not meant to be” and give up. In our feverish pursuits, we forget what it takes to bring all our material possessions into being.

Many years ago — out of necessity — I decided to embrace the capsule wardrobe philosophy because I was living my life out of a suitcase.

Stuffing our closets with fast fashion isn’t just harmful to the planet, it’s a lot of work. Hence the emergence of the capsule wardrobe, the philosophy of paring down our clothes to a few key pieces that all work together. Forever.

It works because most of us spend 90 per cent of our time wearing 10 per cent of our clothes.

My approach isn’t perfect. I’m no saint nor immaculate in my purchases. But I strive to do better for myself and the world, in the best ways I know how, every day.

This is how I sustainably curate the wardrobe of my dreams.

1. I get clear on my style by developing a ‘style guide’ for myself for the season or year ahead. I have one mapped out in my Plannher. This gives me the vision and direction that I filter all my clothing investments through.
2. I ‘shop my closet’ before I buy anything and only then make purchases based on ‘missing pieces’ that will carry me through many seasons. I don’t go shopping because I’m bored or lonely or feel like I should. I don’t go clothes shopping much at all, and when I do, I do it 90 per cent online.
3. My favourite place to buy clothes is second-hand on Vinted. The way I find the perfect pieces is by knowing what brands I know and love and searching those brands by size from time to time to find those beautiful, essential investment pieces.
4. The brands I search for the most include Doén, Christy Dawn, Spell & the Gypsy Collective, Sézane, Rouje, Tigerlily, Faithfull The Brand, Chasing Unicorns, Lack Of Color, Zadig & Voltaire, Reformation, Maurie & Eve, Loewe…
5. My special, unique pieces and jewellery either come from local designers when I occasionally pass through their shops and pop-ups or from Etsy, where I know my purchase is directly supporting a maker. I don’t have a favourite Etsy shop but rather go in with a specific vision in mind and search until I can find someone who can make it for me. I recently had some beautiful gold handmade pieces made for my birthday by the lovely Ieva from Dzerve Jewellery here in Mallorca. I also had a couple of silk slips made by Tu Anh Nguyen from Lela Silk on Etsy.
6. I buy active wear from Free People. Yes, I know that they are not the most sustainable brand. But the quality is good, I wear their pieces for years and the cuts suit me so at a pay-per-wear level they make the most sense for me
7. Most of my underwear comes from French niche brands like Le Petit Trout, Ysé, Noo Paris and Icone. I love delicate, lacy bralettes and panties to give me a ‘put-together’ feel no matter what I’m wearing over the top. My girlfriends are often more excited about my lingerie than the rare man that gets to strip them off me.

 

Buying and wearing clothes in a sustainable, conscious and intentional way has had a ripple effect across all of my life.

It has taught me that the things we treasure hold more value, that being resourceful with what you have makes looking and feeling good now more important than waiting to look and feel good in the future when you have that coveted piece that you don’t need, and that not everything needs to be fast.

Sometimes, the best things move slow.

despite my attempts. 3 times, I tried. Here are those (hilarious) stories… and also why I choose to be intimate with men in a very intentional way.

When I was 29 I exited a long-term relationship with a very sweet man. Staying would have meant me settling, a sentiment that is unacceptable to me. Throughout the relationship, the sex was awful. He just… I won’t go into details but it was unsatisfying, to say the least.

I was young, free and sexy and yearned for a sexual revolution to make up for four years of truly subordinate sex. What could be more experimental and liberating than a few innocent one-night stands?

The first I met at a friend’s house party. He was the cousin of her housemate, a c list celebrity footballer (soccer) with a kind face and a hot body. The perfect candidate. As I left the party he asked for my number and asked me out on a date a few days later.

The date started at lunch and extended into dinner then clubbing then my tiny studio apartment. He laid back on my bed as I slowly began to undress for him. By the time I made it down to my lacy panties, I’d straddled him, kissing, peeling his shirt off his back to reveal the body of an athlete.

Minutes later he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his face in his hands. I don’t really know what happened but… he turned away from me with shame, and then ended up curling up on the bed with his back to me and falling asleep.

I assume that for whatever reason, maybe he was overwhelmed or shy or felt insecure… he couldn’t get hard. He didn’t have the emotional maturity to handle that situation with much grace and it was an awkward goodbye in the morning. He still watches all my stories like a hawk 12 years later.

The second was a friend of mine. A very tall handsome Belgian man. We had a very sincere and comedic conversation beforehand explicitly agreeing that we were attracted to one another and both just wanted sexual satisfaction and would remain friends afterwards. It was pragmatic and sweet.

As he stood naked before me when the time came I gasped and recoiled. The size of his penis was… immeasurably enormous. It was the girth and length of one of my forearms. The thickest part of my forearm. I… I would have been like a pig on a spit skewered onto that thing. I was so terrified we didn’t even try. He was very cute about it and we cuddled while we slept instead.

Life continued as normal.

Months later I met and started seeing someone else who initiated my sexual revolution. The sex was so good nothing has quite measured up to it since. Even though I’ve enjoyed some pretty mind-blowing sex since.

Our sexual connection brought a level of presence, bodily awareness and liberal experimentation into my life that blew open every cell in my body and changed me forever. We once subtly had sex against the hood of a car in a queue to get into a festival with thousands of people around us. He had a way of arousing parts of me that transcended the physical and even went beyond the psychological and emotional realm.

It was then that I understood that sex is so much more than the surface-level rubbing up against each other that most people seem to be satisfied with. When done right, with full surrender and presence and devotion, it opens a realm untouchable by the day-to-day human experience.

The romantic entanglement didn’t last, our lifestyles didn’t match each other, but we remain close friends to this day. My desire for trying to have a one-night stand evaporated. I discovered how much more satisfying a real, deep and meaningful connection is. Why would I want anything less?

A few years later I was working at a festival in Costa Rica. I met this man on the first day, totally my type. Spiritual, blonde, surfer-dude, man-bun and all. We had instant chemistry and flirted throughout the festival sharing a few kisses and cuddles here and there. After the festival ended our paths parted. He returned to California, I continued my quest to southern parts of Central America. We casually stayed in touch.

3 months later I moved to San Francisco for a change of scenery and because a friend of mine had asked me to dog-sit for him while he was in New York on an important legal case.

Blonde man-bun got in touch and asked if we could meet up. He was coming to town to drive a friend to the airport in San Francisco. We met up at Mission Park and sat on the grass making out. Fully dressed, no other parts of our bodies touching aside from our lips at some point a bizarre whimper erupts from his throat. He follows it by pulling away with a look of humiliation and saying “You’re just so pretty.” I am confused. We both look down at his crotch and a recognition spreads across my mind. He’d just come. I giggle. Whatever, it’s no big deal. But he gets up awkwardly, walks to his truck, and drives away. I never see him again.

I began to wonder if there was a reason that my attempts of casual sex were always intercepted. After telling her those three stories a friend recently gave me quantum healing on this topic just to make sure there weren’t any weird subterranean blocks in the way.

The more intimate my relationship with myself, and in tune with my inner being I am the more I recognise that I am incredibly sensitive and these kismet hijacks of potential sexual interactions were protection.

Something that I have felt and witnessed within myself, that no one seems to speak openly about, is the imprinting we receive from the men we are intimate with.

When a man leaves his seed inside a woman he leaves parts of him — his DNA, his trauma, his healing — inside of you. He imprints his entire being and his nervous system into your body and being and you start to experience life through a filter that is yours intermingled with his.

I know because, after each relationship, I often spend months clearing emotional and nervous system dysregulation that isn’t mine, but belonged to him. Yet it is inside my body requiring attention and emptying.

The guy who had anxiety? I took on his anxiety and then had to clear it through my own body. The guy who had deep subconscious fears about being abandoned? I felt those fears as if they were my own and had to work through them.

Our vagina and womb are deep receptacles. Through making love our hearts create bonds of feeling and attachment.

I have an exceptionally feminine and receptive system so I feel all of this more intensely.

Some women are more naturally impenetrable and resilient than others but many are feigning this, later on, finding how deeply impacted they have been by their engagements.

Knowing this, I have become very discerning with whom I welcome inside me. I know that the connections that are made through sexual intimacy impact me physically, emotionally & spiritually.

I have to feel safe that the person from whom I am receiving transmissions and imprinting is going to leave me with more gifts than losses. I need to walk away from all of my intimate allyships feeling like I have been cared for, loved and respected through to my bones.

There’s a beauty in this.

To choose who you want to be woven with.

To know the power of sex.

On the new moon in Gemini on Monday the 30th of May, after a long interlude, I resolved I was ready to open myself up to love again. I went on 4 dates across 4 weeks.

And then…

I stopped writing about dating.

There’s a fine line between vulnerably sharing my heart and world with you, and carefully nurturing and protecting the beginnings of a delicate new connection.

A mistake I have made and learned from is recklessly revealing too much too soon and hurting both the other person and myself in the process.

After that first night, we meet several times more. At different beaches, at a festival, at cafes in town. Each time carefully peeling away at each other’s layers. There’s no risk greater than that of opening up your heart to another.

Navigating and negotiating one another’s communication styles and expectations haven’t been entirely smooth and easy. Yet we both bring a willingness to listen and adjust.

He echoes my fragility and vulnerability and strength. I’ve never experienced that in another before.

On Saturday he comes to my apartment for the first time. He arrives feeling tense and stressed. He seems to have a habit of taking on too much, trying to be everything for everyone.

We sit on my living room floor under the fan hiding from the hot Spanish sun. He rests his head on my knee and I stroke his back while he tells me about the things he’s trying to handle and how he’s feeling and I tell him about my recent trip away.

We both go quiet for a while, a comfortable silence falls between us.

He sits up and pulls me close for a hug. I feel myself melt into him and my body fully relax. “It’s amazing what a hug can do,” he says and finds my lips with his. I shift my body closer and we kiss for a while until he pulls me up onto his lap, my long legs lazily tucked on either side of him.

Heart to heart. Face to face. We continue to kiss and gently rock together. He begins to open up, quietly, gently.

“You said I was shy”…

“I meant the way you communicate with me“

“I am a shy man”

“That’s sweet” I smile. “I thought that maybe you found me very scary”.

“Not at all” he laughs. “I’m in a place in my life where I need to take things slow”.

“Ok,” I softly reply. “I appreciate that. I think it’s what I need. It makes me feel safe”.

“It’s more than just a physical thing. It’s more than just sex.”

“Ok”

“I think this could work.”

I nod. I’ve felt it from the first moment.

“Should we try”

“I’d like that”

“But we’ll go slow”

“I’d like that even more”

“I don’t usually do this you know” he gestures at the air between us.

“Me neither. It happens very rarely” I respond. “But I picked you out that day.”

“Was it my singing”? he grins.

“You’re singing was alright” I tease rolling my eyes. He acts offended.

“It was the way you felt” I continue.

He nods.

We kiss some more and say goodbye.

This connection feels very sweet and tender. A deeper knowing and understanding hangs between us. And while it gently unfolds I will no longer be writing about it. Until it feels like it’s the right time.

He looks at me. “I don’t like this type of music.”

“I can tell.” I smile. “Shall we go for a wander?”

He nods, his long sun-burned surfer hair streaming out from under his wide-brimmed fedora. We walk away through the crowd shoulder to shoulder to another stage.

The music is no better but we are away from our group of friends. For a moment it’s just the two of us. He holds me close. I pull away so I can see his face to I ask him what’s on my mind. “I feel like you are a little bit shy with me.”

He fumbles with the statement, startled, starting several unfinished sentences. “Is it because I don’t throw myself on you?” he says.

If you prefer, listen to the 6-minute audio recording of this story here.

It’s not what I mean.

I mean, in general. Whenever we are together he’s so shy and gentle and sensitive with me. But the music is too loud and I don’t want to explain myself by yelling. I look at him trying to read what he’s thinking/feeling/saying.

He continues. “There’s no rush is there?” I shake my head.

Suddenly, we both lean in at once, our lips press together, his tongue fast and eager in my mouth. Our first kiss, followed by another and another. He takes my hand and pulls me towards a tree for a little privacy and holds me close for a minute more.

Instinctively, the moment has passed. We return to our group.

I break away from him and collide with some girlfriends, 4 of us hand in hand. Together we squeeze ourselves to the front of the stage where Muse is playing.

After their set we run to the next stage, losing one to an ex-boyfriend she’s still in love with. Three of us dance to Justice until 4 am swaying our hips, teasing the men around us with long glances under long eyelashes as if to say ‘come here but don’t dare touch me.’

The festival ends. The taxi queue is a kilometre long and there are precisely 0 taxis. Two girls walk in our direction and we see car keys in one of their hands and quietly beg them for a lift home. They look at us and turn to each other to discuss between them and then nod. They are Italian — one a Ryan Air flight attendant the other a waitress — who have lived on our little island paradise since just two months.

At my stop, I throw €5 euros over the seat to them and thank them profusely. They laugh and refuse. “We don’t need your fucking money!” “Please take it!” I beg. I cannot be more grateful to be home. After 3 nights, dancing a total of 50 kilometres, there’s nothing I want more than to lie horizontally in my own, familiar bed.

It’s 5 am as I quickly shower to rinse off the night, dust and sweat and crawl between the comfort of my sheets. Instantly, I disappear into a deep coma made up of dreams and secret wishes.

☽

I wake to an unfamiliar sensation. My cat, Danger Zone, has jumped onto the bed, but this instant feels different. I roll over, away from the wall and come face to face, with a soft, small, sweet little dove. Still warm yet very dead. Shocked out of my slumber I look at my phone. It’s 7 am. 2 hours have passed.

At some point in those 2 hours, I must have opened the sliding door to the terrace for him to go out, but I don’t remember. For the first time in 3.5 years, he has killed a living creature and then brought it to me as a token of his love and devotion.

But the timing…

I get up and find a t-shirt in my dirty laundry basket to pick up that sweet little dead dove and transport it outside. Danger looks at me confused. He doesn’t understand why I’m not overjoyed by his gift. I lay the pigeon deep into a thicket of bushes to let nature takes its course and vacuum the little soft feathers scattered around from my cat’s deadly rampage.

And then crawl back into bed, and sleep.

☽

When I wake again, the sun is high in the sky, my lips parched and dry. I get up and slice some watermelon to relieve my dehydrated body from the 3-day dancing marathon I put it through and let my mind wander.

I have never, in my entire life, met a man who wants to take his time. All of my experiences until now have been of men hurrying into physical and emotional intimacy with me as fast as possible. I have never met a man who has made it clear with his words that he likes me and wants to intentionally and purposefully draw out the process of getting to know one another. I start to wonder if perhaps it’s because I’ve never been with a man before.

Maybe all the ones before were just boys.