When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully. When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light. When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it. When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway. When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back. When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some. When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going. When times are tough, dare to be tougher. When love hurts you, dare to love again. When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal. When another is lost, dare to help them find the way. When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand. When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile. When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too. When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best. Dare to be the best you can – At all times, Dare to be!” ― Steve Maraboli

Sometimes in life we are emotionally compelled to re-visit and to some degree mentally “re-live” certain life-changing moments which we have experienced. Perhaps it is to once again offer us perspective as to just how far we have come, when we are beginning to feel depleted and lose faith in what we have achieved and overcome.

As the years have passed, I have shared this story in many different ways, be it written or spoken… I have contemplated it mentally, processing it and re-processing it. I suppose it has all been a part of my healing journey, which I know is nowhere near done… there are still plenty of demons I need to face and I carry sometimes unmanageable amounts of emotional baggage – but I never cease trying. I never stop learning, growing and healing.

I suppose to some degree the experience will always feel a little surreal to me, as we do tend to shut out certain hard to swallow realities dealt to us, and I think they become real a little bit at a time – enough for us to process and work with.

So, this is me re-visiting my story…

I will never forget the morning that my life and my perspective on absolutely EVERYTHING about life changed forever! I opened my eyes that morning and it all made sense to me. I no longer just understood the words of the things I had read or seen - I suddenly FELT them! For the first time, they were actually travelling through my entire being like electricity!

It has been eight years now that I have been walking this healing path, and whilst the damage had started many, many years earlier, the change began shortly after my son Jude was born. When he was two months old, his father walked out on the two of us as well as our marriage of eight years. It was an exceptionally difficult time in my life. In fact it was almost insurmountable. To give you a little background, my marriage was an abusive one – both physically and emotionally and despite the fact that I knew this, I saw no way out – as I know many who have been in this situation would be able to relate to.

People who see me today cannot believe that I am the same person I was eight years ago – in fact sometimes; I too am quite blown away. I had been broken down mentally and emotionally to such an extent that I no longer even felt like myself. There was absolutely NOTHING left of “ME”.

My emotional state of desperation got so chronic toward the end of it all and I was so emotionally “weak”, that I used to CREATE arguments with my “then” husband, being willing and prepared to take the wrath that came along with them, in the desperate hopes that he would eventually get fed up and leave, finally giving me a way out of that utterly toxic marriage.

It could have happened a little quicker, but I suppose everything in life happens precisely when and as it should. For the last half of my pregnancy, I took to working from home as I found it a lot more manageable. During that time, he was almost never around. He would come home briefly and then go out drinking, turning off his phone and coming home sometimes only after sunrise the next day. I eventually became aware that he had been having an affair throughout my entire pregnancy. Needless to say, when I found out, things reached quite an ugly head – and my intent was finally fulfilled – he moved out.

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Even though I knew in my soul, that this was without question the best thing for both my son and I – I honestly could not see it at that point in time. All I knew was that I couldn’t breathe. Now that he was gone, along with all his anger, bitterness, jealousy and abusiveness, I had NO idea what to do with myself.

I was completely and utterly lost! – Hopeless to the core.

I no longer knew who I was by myself and it felt like I was being choked by my complete state of despair. I could not figure out how I was going to carry on living. There are actually no words adequate enough to describe how desperately DEAD I felt at that point in my life.

Throughout it all, and just prior to the divorce, I had been made aware of a book called “The Power of Intention” by Dr. Wayne W Dyer. I had read it several times and had also made a copy of it, so that I could take notes. This book has become like a written mentor to me over the years. I used to start every single morning by putting on the DVD “The Secret” too and would listen to it whilst getting ready for work. I understood the concepts. It made sense. It was logical, practical and I thought I “got it”.

Well, I thought wrong!

As they say… when you hit rock bottom, the only way is UP. Well, it took me hitting that state of rock bottom to completely grasp this.

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I say the day it changed was different because when I opened my eyes that morning - the first thing that crossed my mind was “You have NO right to have so much POWER over my life and my emotional state of being ANYMORE – in fact you NEVER DID.”

With the blink of an eye my entire world (and life) changed. It felt as though the rock on my chest had been blown into smithereens, finally allowing me to breathe! I got out of bed, and actually made an effort to look good – and that REALLY FELT good! I went to work, opened up my shop and started to face all the things I had been sweeping under the rug for months, because I had simply not felt emotionally equipped to deal with any of them.

Climbing back onto that horse was EXCEPTIONALLY challenging, but I did it, one step at a time and with each and every step it got a little bit easier. Everything was in such a mess, but I took a breath and started to make sense of it all once again.

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As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, the chaos disappeared, people started to compliment me, telling me that I was looking good and I – TRULY started to feel good.

I could smile again… REALLY smile… and more importantly, I could BREATHE!

I had unconditional and endless support from family and friends, near and far. Each and every one of them played a pivotal role in that part of my journey. They offered me their words of support and motivation, songs to get me going, they embraced me and welcomed me into their circles and slowly but surely my life started to change.

When I said that I did not TRULY grasp – FEELING GRATITUDE to my core, I meant that in that one moment, I realised that no person has the right to destroy another’s soul to the point where they no longer see any value in themselves. We ALL have a purpose here on this earth and we are all EQUALLY important.

When I embraced that realisation, and applied it to everything I had been through, I knew that I understood the true meaning of gratitude. I am ETERNALLY grateful for that realisation, so, so grateful! It was as if my soul saw me lying on the floor and gently came and picked me up, embracing me, telling me “you can shine now.”

Absolutely everything I looked at was different after that.

My beautiful, BEAUTIFUL little boy - that I looked at almost resentfully because of what had transpired and the mess that I was left to handle when I was least equipped to do so, I suddenly saw as the blessing he was from the start.

As for me, I started a whole new journey. A marked journey... I know not everybody is a fan of tattoos, but mine are symbols of every challenge I have overcome - as I have overcome them, so... I love them. Many people ask me about "my neck tattoo" and I have to explain to them that it is not one - it is many.... many symbols and many experiences...

My company – that I had built, was still mine. That too, was a blessing – I very nearly gave it up because I simply felt like I could not cope with it. After that, I started to remember how to smile, laugh and look at EVERYTHING around me with a lot more attention. I made sure I gave everybody as much love as I could and offered them whatever I could in terms of my attention, advice, time or presence.

In fact, I crossed so far over that bridge that it actually got to a point where my ex-husband was coming to talk to me about the troubles he was having in his new marriage. I kid you not! Everybody who knew about this asked me what was wrong with me and looked at me like I was crazy – “why would you help him” they would ask me.

Well actually, why wouldn’t I?

A song springs to mind...

Every single circumstance in every single person’s life has shaped them into the character they are currently. They too, have suffered. They too, are damaged. I am not perfect, so I am in absolutely NO position to judge them and yes, he broke me, more so than anybody else in my life, but he was genuinely sorry and will regret his choices for the rest of his life – but that is his journey. And the reality is, I had forgiven him – because I NEEDED to do that in order for ME to be able to move on with my life.

Anger and bitterness is only useful to a point. Then you need to let go of it or channel it at something more constructive.

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I know that I will never look at life the same again. I am grateful for absolutely everything that comes my way now - The good, the bad and the ugly. I have accepted that I am “imperfectly perfect” – and so is everybody else. There is a wonderfully liberating state of being that comes with this realisation.

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Tomorrow when you wake up and get up, try to REALLY appreciate the details of your life – even the frustrating and somewhat annoying ones. Just be thankful for the fact that you woke up in the first place – no matter what you have to face in your day ahead, or how much your kids or colleagues might annoy you.

Try to look for the good in EVERYTHING! Stop looking at the negatives! If your spouse or partner is irritating you, adjust your focus off that and start to think about something that you love about them. If your children are frustrating you, take a moment to stop, breathe and remember that you too were young once with the same level of uninhibited energy and spirit.

Life in itself is a blessing and it is a journey that should not be squandered. No matter where you stand right now, you can seek out the positive and be thankful for those fragments, no matter how small. Finding the true MEANING, FEELING and EXPERIENCE of gratitude - saved my life. And it will do the same for you if you just give it the chance to…

So, cheers to that!!

Until next time...

Much Love from Cape Town, South Africa xxx

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