I was a woman who always knew. Until life broke my heart.
I used to be a woman who just knew. I knew who I was and I trusted my intuition. I had this almost outrageous confidence in myself, in my ability to create what I desired, and in my capacity to navigate life. Even when the path in front of me made absolutely no sense to anyone else.
And I genuinely thought I was f* amazing. Not in a way that made me better than anyone else. Not because I never questioned myself or never had moments of insecurity. But because I really, truly loved being me.
I could look at my husband and feel incredibly grateful that this man had come into my life, while simultaneously thinking: And you should be fucking grateful that I'm your wife.😏
I was the queen of my own life…and then my daughter died. Anna Sophia Rose was stillborn at 41 weeks.
There are things that happen in life that change everything. And then there are things that change you in ways you don't even begin to recognize until much, much later.
The changes I didn’t recognize at first…
For a long time, I don't think I fully understood just how deeply losing her had affected my relationship with myself. Of course I knew I was grieving. Of course I knew that my heart had been broken in ways I had never imagined possible. But there were other changes, quieter ones, that I didn't immediately recognize as part of that experience.
I remember walking through shopping centres and feeling different. Not necessarily anxious. That's not quite the right word. I wasn't afraid to go outside. I wasn't hiding at home. I was living my life, doing my things, raising my family, creating, loving…but there was something different about how I moved through the world.
Almost as though I had become a little less visible. Or perhaps it wasn't even that. Perhaps there was simply so much happening inside me that being out in the world, surrounded by everything and everyone, could become a lot. I already had enough to hold within myself.
And the woman who had once moved through life with this delicious, almost unapologetic certainty about who she was, didn't always feel quite so available to herself anymore. I felt duller in certain ways. Not empty, without joy, or without love. Just different.
And what's so interesting to me now is that, in other ways, I had never seen life more clearly.
I remember listening to people in business masterminds worrying about their next 50k month, trying to figure out how to control every little detail of what was going to happen next. And part of me wanted to say: Guys, get a f* grip.
There are things in life that are so much more important. If that next 50k month is yours, you don't have to spend every waking moment trying to control how it arrives. That doesn't mean you stop going after what you desire. It means you stop trying to control life down to the last centimetre.
Losing Anna Sophia hadn't taken that knowing away from me. In some ways, it had made it even stronger.
And this was the strange place I found myself in. One part of me had a deeper understanding of life, love and control than ever before…and another part of me was still trying to find her way through a world that had hurt her so profoundly.
I had chosen life
I had chosen life.
I want to be very clear about that.
I had chosen to love again, to laugh again, to create, to be a mother, a wife, a woman who still wanted so much from her time here. But choosing life doesn't mean that every part of you immediately feels ready to be fully available to it.
I think my heart was opening again, little by little, while I was still carrying so much. And without necessarily making a conscious decision to do so, I had started playing certain parts of my life a little safer.
That realization came later.
The woman I wanted to bring back…
I remember looking at photographs of myself from an earlier chapter of my life and I could feel her. That woman…
The one who took risks. Who followed her intuition with this almost ridiculous certainty that somehow, one way or another, she would find her way. The woman who didn't need to know how everything would work out before she moved.
The woman who felt like the fucking queen.
And looking at those photographs, I knew I wanted that part of me back. Not because I wanted to become the woman I was before Anna Sophia. I didn’t…
That woman didn't know my daughter. She hadn't lived through everything I have lived through since. She didn't carry the wisdom, the depth, the love and the experiences I carry today.
I don't want to erase any of that.
I wanted to bring that part of me into the woman I am now.
❤️ The woman who knows what it feels like to have her heart shattered.
❤️ The woman who knows that no amount of intuition, love or devotion can guarantee that life will never hurt you.
❤️ And the woman who still wants to take risks.
Who still wants to desire extravagantly. Who still wants to feel that delicious certainty in herself. And who still wants to be completely, unapologetically alive.
And as I began recognizing that part of me again, I also started seeing something I hadn't fully acknowledged before:
How much more carefully I had been moving through certain parts of my life. How much of that beautiful, bold energy I had been holding back. Not because I had stopped trusting life entirely or because I had stopped trusting myself. But perhaps because I had needed time to learn how to be in this world again, with a heart that now knew something it could never unknow…
And I don't want to make that wrong. I don't think the woman I became in the first years after Anna Sophia died was any less powerful.
She was navigating something enormous. She was loving, grieving, creating and finding her way through a reality she had never imagined having to live.
But looking at those pictures, something else was asking to come forward again. Not a simple return to who I used to be, but the expansion of who I have become.
A woman who can carry all of it. The grief and the joy. The wisdom and the wildness. The tenderness and the audacity.
The mother who will always miss her daughter and the queen who still wants to live a f* extraordinary life.
Trusting myself again was never going to look exactly like it did before. It got to become something even deeper. Not because I always know what life will bring, but because I am willing to keep showing up for the life that is here. And I want all of me to be here for it.
That to me is fully choosing life again.
All of it. The good and the bad.
And trusting that no matter what happens…there will always be more love. ❤️
I've created a free womb audio to invite you to soften, reconnect with your body and listen to the wisdom that has always been within you. Not another thing to fix or work through. Just a beautiful moment to be with yourself and all that you are.
Comments