despair

I didn’t recognise who I was anymore...

If you prefer, listen to the 10-minute audio recording of this story here.

When you no longer relate to the person you see in the mirror.

When the words you speak feel flat and uninspired.

There’s lethargy and numbness within the places and spaces that once lit you up.

The plans you energetically paved feel lacklustre and empty.

There’s aching for more meaning, to contribute more divinely.

We suspend the timeline.

And stop.

And sit.

We create space.

And get cosy with the in-between.

For roughly 6 months from October last year to April this year, I moved through one of the most difficult chapters of my life. On the surface, the logical reasoning was due to a back injury and feeling displaced while in-between homes. But beneath it all, a pandora’s box of unprocessed emotions had been cracked open.

One day, without reason or warning, my lower spine was in so much pain that it twisted and warped and I could barely move. Unresolved grief centred around my genetic history and ancestral lineage came to the surface. I had to address the way I walk forward in life and find my place. Where I belong in the world with, or as in my case without, the support of family or ancestors. My creativity, and how I hold joy with my closest community, and the world around me, all came forward to be addressed.

It was really hard. Hard to sit with it all. Hard to feel the depth of despair, the sense of crisis and desperation.