What do people mean when they say listen to your body?

It’s a phrase I’ve heard multiple times

I understood it intellectually

But I don’t think I really understood what it meant,

even when my body had been trying to tell me things for years.

Understanding what it means came with the realisation that for most of my life I’ve been living in my head

Thinking, analysing, scanning for signs of danger

Preparing for worst case scenarios

Considering multiple possibilities

It’s often what society encourages us to do

Living in my head helped me pursue my professional and academic achievements

It gives me deep insights and contextual awareness that continue to help me in my professional life

It was also how I navigated friendships and relationships

I would consider everyone’s feelings

Analyse the social context

And be the person that made others comfortable or happy

What I’m realising now is that I wasn’t just living in my head

I was completely disconnected from my body

I could read the room and read other people’s feelings

But my own feelings and needs had become invisible to me

I wonder how many of us grew up absorbing the message that difficult emotions were something to hide

That anger was dangerous

That sadness was weakness

That discomfort should be ignored and brushed under the carpet

Over time I wonder how many of us got better at suppressing our feelings than recognising them

Whenever I felt discomfort, or a negative emotion – anger, frustration, sadness,

I didn’t know how to stay with the discomfort

Instead, I distracted myself

Escaped into whatever helped me switch my brain off

Chose temporary positive feelings that never lasted

After the assault I remember my therapist saying “Next time you see him, try and notice how your body feels”

I remember the first time I managed to do that

I remember watching him walk towards me

And noticing the tightness in my chest,

Feeling like I couldn’t breathe

Hearing my heartbeat in my ears

And realising I felt completely unsafe

That was the first time in my adult life that I realised my body had been communicating with me all along

Through my physiological responses – my racing heartbeat, the tightness in my chest

Through the urge to leave

Through the feeling that something wasn’t right

I just hadn’t known how to listen

I was so used to suppressing those signals

And so used to hiding it

I noticed myself continuing as though everything was normal

While my body remained in fight or flight mode

Since that moment, I’ve been learning that those first physical sensations are information

Not instructions

But an invitation to become curious

To pause.

To ask myself why my body is responding this way.

How many of us have let our minds convince us to ignore those signals, even when something doesn’t feel right?

How many of us think, analyse, and talk our way into staying?

In situations,

with people,

or in places where we don’t feel safe, supported, or valued?

If we really started taking time to listen to our bodies, I wonder how many of us might make different choices

It’s taken me over 40 years to start listening to my body

I’m still learning its language

I’m still learning when to pause instead of analysing.

When to stay with discomfort instead of running from it.

When to trust that tightness in my chest

Or the feeling that something isn’t right deserves my attention.

Maybe that’s also part of not turning away.

This week I’ve been thinking about community.

About the people who help us through difficult times.

And the people who unintentionally make those times even harder.

Sometimes people don’t know how to understand or respond to traumatic events.

We don’t always understand something we haven’t experienced ourselves.

In my professional life, I’ve spent years supporting people experiencing harm in different ways.

I understood the theory.

I advocated for policy change and better services.

I delivered training sessions and presented research findings.

But I didn’t fully understand the lived experience until I was living it.

What surprised me most was how often people did unexpectedly hurtful things.

And didn’t seem to realise how much pain they were causing.

Every “it’s not my business.”

Every “there are two sides to everything.”

Every “stop talking about it.”

Every conversation cut short.

Every moment someone didn’t realise I wasn’t looking for solutions.

I was trying to make sense of what had happened.

And how it had happened.

I realised I needed to go over it again and again.

Not because I wanted to stay stuck.

But because I was trying to make sense of something that didn’t make sense.

I shared things I was reading.

Partly because I was trying to understand.

And partly because I mistakenly believed other people might then understand my experience too.

I was trying to understand why cutting ties completely wasn’t as simple as everyone imagined.

How much damage those patterns cause.

How hard they are to break.

For people who hadn’t experienced it themselves, it was even harder to understand.

All they could see was someone continuing to return to places and people they said had caused them harm.

And that made some people question how much harm could really have happened if I kept going back.

It was painful to realise that once you talk about harm, you often become more isolated.

It was surprising to hear people blame everyone except the person who caused the harm.

“If other women had intervention orders against him, why didn’t they warn you?”

“If his friends knew he’d been violent before, why didn’t they tell you?”

“Why did you push him?”

“Why didn’t you leave the first time he pushed you?”

“Why did you fight back?”

Always the wrong questions.

We talk about this in the sector all the time.

Always:

“Why didn’t she do x, y or z?”

Almost never:

“Why didn’t he stop being violent?”

Having your experiences questioned can be incredibly triggering when you’re already exhausted from having them denied, minimised and dismissed.

By the perpetrator.

By the police who are meant to protect you.

And then by the people who are meant to support you.

Well-meaning friends often try to tell you what to do.

Stop going there.

Stop talking about it.

Try to move on.

Instead of giving us the space and time to process everything we’re carrying.

The confusion.

The grief.

The anger.

The injustice of it all.

We’re told to move on.

As if it were a simple event that should now be forgotten.

As if it didn’t change your entire life.

For months I struggled to get through a full day without waves of emotion.

Every time I saw a police uniform, I had an anxiety attack.

Every time someone on a scooter sped past while I had headphones on, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

When a neighbour raised his voice at my dog one day, I completely fell apart.

All I saw was a man shouting.

And I was back in fight-or-flight mode.

Have you ever wondered why the person who causes the most harm often appears calmer than the person who experienced it?

Because of community.

The person who caused harm often gets to continue life as normal.

Their friendships remain.

Their routines remain.

Their identity remains.

Their version of events is rarely questioned.

The person experiencing harm often loses all of those things at once.

At the very time community, safety and supportive friendships are needed most.

They are left feeling alone.

Isolated.

Excluded.

People say:

“She’s going through a hard time.”

“She’s too difficult to deal with right now.”

“I don’t have capacity.”

“I never meant to lose her friendship.”

“We don’t really know what happened.”

It takes time to realise that the life and community you had before may not be the right people for you now.

It takes time to find the right people.

People who have experienced harm.

People who have taken the time to understand it.

People who know to say:

“I’m sorry this happened.”

“I understand.”

“What do you need?”

People who truly listen.

And know how to meet those needs.

There is power and healing in finding the right community.

But we shouldn’t have to go through more harm to realise that.

I’ve come to understand that supporting someone experiencing harm is a skill.

One that most of us were never taught.

We learn how to comfort people after a bereavement.

We learn how to celebrate weddings and birthdays.

But very few of us learn what to say when someone’s reality has been turned upside down.

Maybe that’s one of the conversations we need to start having.

Because communities can be places of extraordinary healing.

But they can also deepen harm without ever intending to.

It’s time we learned the difference.

I’ve been thinking a lot about systems.

Hospitals.

Police.

Courts.

Legal processes.

Many of these systems are designed to protect people from harm.

But what happens when each individual part functions as intended, yet the overall experience still causes harm?

When a hospital is overrun, understaffed, and staff are overworked, things slip through the cracks.

I was discharged by a junior doctor who said it was unlikely there were any broken bones in my wrist.

I had been encouraged to go to the police to report the incident.

So in my initial report, I said nothing was broken.

For the first few days, I was in pain, telling myself it was okay, continuing to move a broken wrist.

A few days later, the radiologist reviewed the x-ray and saw that it was broken.

My statement to police changed.

I suddenly had to wear a sling, and later a cast, see a physio and be monitored for months.

Small inconsistencies in a victim or survivor’s account matter.

They are often used to question credibility.

To create doubt.

To justify suspicion.

What happens when the police you’re supposed to report to don’t have a nuanced understanding of violence or harm caused by people you know?

People you are close to.

People you trust.

One of the first questions I was asked was:

“So you’re married, but this isn’t your husband?”

It didn’t matter that I was separated.

That Australian law requires you to be separated for a year before filing for divorce.

That my ex-husband was already in a relationship with his now wife.

Once they interviewed the person who caused the harm, it got worse.

Their attitude changed.

The statement they finalised significantly minimised what had happened.

It changed what I had reported.

When you’ve spent months having your reality questioned by someone else.

When you’ve become exhausted by arguments that go around in circles.

When you’re no longer sure who, or what, to trust.

When you turn to systems because you believe they will help.

Because you believe they are safe.

And then you read a statement that significantly changes the story of what happened to you.

That is its own kind of harm.

It gets worse when you call to express your concern.

When you’re told you’re overthinking it.

When you’re told it doesn’t matter.

Dismissed.

The harm minimised.

By the people who you turned to for support.

That adds to the harm.

When you find out he has had intervention orders before.

And you’re told that doesn’t matter.

I can’t help but wonder:

Why doesn’t the system have a way of recognising patterns?

If every incident is treated in isolation, how do we recognise repeat behaviour?

And if we don’t recognise patterns, how do we prevent future harm?

When survivors and perpetrators are expected to wait in the same space at family court.

It causes stress.

Anxiety.

Fear.

In many ways, I was lucky he didn’t show up.

When the judge asked the police legal representative questions, he couldn’t answer some of them.

Because he didn’t know.

Because he hadn’t spoken to me.

How is that a system that protects anyone?

When the person who caused the harm continued going down my street, shouting abusive words at me or staring at me when we run into each other.

When I called the police because I didn’t feel safe.

And I was told there was nothing they could do as long as he remained outside the distance specified in the intervention order.

When he continued showing up in the same places I went.

And the expectation became that I should stop going there.

Who does that protect?

When people have done this before.

When they know exactly what they can get away with.

They will continue to get away with it.

Why would they change?

Eventually, I broke my lease.

I moved out of that neighbourhood.

I stopped going to the social places I had relied on to keep myself sane.

Because none of it felt safe anymore.

Because I got exhausted.

Because I realised the systems were not equipped to respond to the types of harm I was experiencing.

Looking back, what strikes me most is that no single interaction caused the greatest harm.

It was the accumulation of small dismissals.

Small oversights.

Small failures to understand.

Small moments where the system responded to a process instead of a person.

Many parts.

Each one seemingly insignificant on its own.

Together, something much bigger.

That’s what makes me wonder whether the question isn’t simply how we respond to harm.

But whether we have built systems capable of seeing the person experiencing harm.

Almost two years ago, I experienced something I never expected to.

It changed me in ways I never expected.

It also highlighted issues I still think about today - issues at individual, community, and structural levels.

Two years ago this July, I was navigating court, hospital appointments, and trying to make sense of what had happened.

I felt like I was losing my mind.

I felt like I was losing myself.

This month, instead of carrying those memories and flashbacks quietly, I am writing about them.

This may end up being one article.

It may end up being a few.

Writing helps me make sense of things.

I hope it helps others make sense of their experiences too.

At the time, my life had suddenly completely changed.

My marriage had ended.

I was finishing a PhD on a scholarship stipend, so had no regular employment.

I was looking for a rental while my ex-husband was moving back into our home.

With no recent employment history, every rental application was being declined.

I was vulnerable in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time.

I met someone who seemed to understand exactly what I was going through.

He said all the right things.

Offered support.

Shared stories that made me feel seen.

Looking back, what strikes me isn’t what he said.

It’s how often the words and actions didn’t quite match.

He introduced me to his friends. Who were all welcoming and friendly.

Then would say:

“They’re not really my friends. They’re just people I work with.”

He would make comments that made me cautious about sharing too much with them.

He introduced me to his ex-girlfriend.

Then would say enough things to make me cautious about getting too close to her too.

Now I suspect he was probably doing the same thing about me with all of them.

That’s the thing about manipulation.

Most of us imagine it is something obvious.

Something dramatic.

But often it looks like small comments.

Tiny suggestions.

Just enough truth to make people unsure.

Seeds planted over time.

Until eventually you don’t know who to trust.

Including yourself.

The hardest part is that manipulation often comes from people we trust.

Family members.

Friends.

Colleagues.

That’s why we struggle to make sense of harm when it occurs.

The person causing it doesn’t fit our idea of who we think they are.

I am still unravelling my experiences of harm.

Still understanding the different forms of harm I experienced.

It’s not just the physical impacts.

A broken wrist was a one-time injury.

Months of living alone with a broken wrist was not easy.

So many simple daily tasks suddenly becoming difficult or impossible to do.

Not knowing who to ask for help.

Not knowing how to ask for help.

But physical injuries heal.

The mental and emotional impacts are harder to heal from.

Silly little things that were actually huge things.

Things that still stay with me because of the injustice of it all.

Like demanding a TV back that he had previously given to me because he wasn’t using it.

Getting police involved.

Getting his friends involved.

Causing a huge amount of anxiety simply because he could.

You know what I never did?

Ask for the dining table back that I gave him.

The good vacuum cleaner that I gave him.

Things I needed too, but chose to give to someone I thought was a friend.

Other things that made no sense to me at the time.

Like recording me during arguments.

Arguments that seemed to go around in circles.

Pushing and provoking until I broke.

Then the phone recorder would come out.

Or the smirk.

The small smirk that appeared after making comments, pushing boundaries, and provoking reactions.

The minute I became emotional.

The minute I cried.

Especially in public.

The smirk would appear.

And he would back off.

Now who looks emotionally unstable?

Who looks calm and composed?

And what is easier for other people to believe?

Little things that have huge impacts.

No one talks about them.

But they’re important to talk about.

Because people ask why victims don’t report.

Why they don’t leave.

Why they don’t talk about abuse.

People say there are two sides.

People say they feel sorry for the perpetrator.

That they had a difficult childhood.

That they’re misunderstood.

That they do good things too.

What they’re really telling themselves is that their friend, relative, or colleague can’t be capable of causing harm.

Because if that’s true, they have to reconsider what they thought they knew about that person.

They may even have to consider whether they enabled harm without meaning to.

Whether they missed something.

Whether it makes them culpable.

Whether it makes them bad people.

But I don’t think that’s true.

I think it makes them human.

And susceptible to manipulation too.

In that way, they have more in common with victims and survivors than they might like to admit.

And nobody wants to think of themselves as vulnerable.

Maybe that’s why these conversations matter.

Not because every story is simple.

But because they aren’t.

If we never learn to talk about the complexity, we’ll keep asking the wrong questions.

We’ll keep asking who said what.

Who did what.

Who is right.

Who is wrong.

We’ll keep thinking we have to choose sides.

Instead of understanding that by the time obvious harm occurs, the damage has often been unfolding for a very long time.

The scariest thing about life is that it can change at any moment.

The best thing about life is that it can change at any moment.

For a long time, I didn’t understand that both of these things could be true.

We’re often taught to think in absolutes.

Right or wrong.

Good or bad.

Success or failure.

Stay or leave.

But life rarely feels that simple.

The older I get, the more I realise that many of the things I once thought were contradictions can exist side by side.

I can be devastated that my marriage ended.

I can be deeply sad and hurt by the loss of some old friendships, and some new ones that never became what I hoped they would.

And I can be grateful for who I have become because of these losses.

I can miss the life I thought I would have.

And be excited about the life I am building.

I can feel fear about the future.

And curiosity about what it might bring.

Two truths can coexist.

In fact, they often do.

When we believe that change is only something to fear, we want to hold on tightly.

We become cautious.

Protective.

Afraid to take risks.

Afraid to lose what we have.

But when I recognise that change can also bring growth, connection, joy, and possibility, something shifts.

I become more open.

More curious.

More willing to trust myself.

Maybe life isn’t asking us to choose between fear and hope.

Maybe it’s asking us to hold both.

To acknowledge the loss without denying the possibility.

To honour the grief without losing sight of the joy.

To accept that something can be painful and beautiful at the same time.

Learning how to make space for multiple truths has changed more than the way I view my own life.

It has changed the way I think about relationships, friendships, and conflict.

So much harm comes from believing there can only be one truth.

One right perspective.
One valid experience.
One version of events.

But people can experience the same situation differently.

What matters is not always deciding who is right and who is wrong.

What matters is our willingness to hear and understand someone else’s experience without dismissing it simply because it doesn’t match our own.

You can be deeply sad about losing the life you thought you would have forever.

And excited about discovering a life you never imagined was possible.

If both of those things can be true at once, what other truths might we be forcing ourselves to choose between?

And how might our relationships change if we spent less time deciding who is right, and more time trying to understand each other’s experiences?

People seem to like certainty and absolutes.

We find comfort in labels and boxes.

Simple explanations that ignore the complexities of life.

Expectations and perceptions of what something is.

Who someone is.

Where they’re going.

But I’m starting to think most of life happens somewhere else entirely.

In the grey.

In the messy middle.

In the unknown.

When I write about difficult experiences, some people assume I’m always sad.

I write about divorce because the unexpected ending of a marriage is traumatic.

I write about manipulation, abuse, and people’s silence in the face of it because those experiences shaped me.

Changed me in ways I wasn’t expecting.

And because so many people experience these things while feeling unable to talk about them.

But writing about pain doesn’t mean pain is all I feel.

In fact, I’ve found the opposite.

The more willing I am to face difficult emotions, the more capable I become of feeling everything else too.

Joy.

Hope.

Excitement.

Wonder.

Pain and happiness are not opposites.

They can exist side by side.

So can grief and gratitude.

Anger and peace.

Loss and possibility.

This past Sunday was the winter solstice.

A crisp, sunny, beautiful winter’s day.

And my time was entirely my own.

I missed Theo so much - it was my ex-husband’s time with him.

And yet, I also loved the slow morning.

Time to enjoy the sunlight filling my apartment.

Nowhere I needed to be.

No rush.

No responsibility for anyone except myself.

I went for a late afternoon walk with no destination in mind.

Chose a neighbourhood spot to watch the sunset on the shortest day of the year.

Met a lovely couple.

Ended up watching a free gig with them.

One small, unexpected adventure leading to another.

It made me think about how differently people might interpret my life.

Some might see a woman in her forties, divorced, rebuilding, still talking about difficult experiences.

Some might decide that’s what “mess” looks like.

But from where I’m standing, it feels different.

I am no longer who I used to be.

And I’m finally learning who I truly am.

For a long time, I thought the goal was to get through this phase as quickly as possible.

To figure everything out.

To arrive somewhere.

Now I’m not so sure.

Because there is something unexpectedly beautiful about being in the middle of the process.

About allowing things to unravel.

About becoming curious instead of afraid.

About discovering what grows when you stop forcing everything back into the box it came from.

I’ve learned that not everything needs to be resolved immediately.

Some things need to be lived.

Maybe that’s why people fear mess.

Because mess means change.

And change asks us to step into uncertainty.

But change happens whether we welcome it or not.

The difference is whether we resist it or learn from it.

Lately, I’m trying to learn from it.

And honestly?

The messy middle is turning out to be far more beautiful than I expected.

The more openly I talk about my life, the more I learn about people.

Some people become uncomfortable when we talk about pain, loss, injustice, anger.

When we stop pretending we’re fine.

When we refuse to stay silent.

Others seem relieved, and find comfort in it.

Perhaps seeing someone else tell the truth gives them permission to do the same.

Many of us have spent years making ourselves smaller.

Prioritising other people’s feelings.

Staying quiet.

Avoiding conflict.

Not asking for too much.

Not taking up too much space.

We all have our reasons.

Fear of rejection.

Fear of abandonment.

Fear of judgement.

Fear of being truly seen.

Sometimes even fear of being truly loved, because deep down we don’t believe we deserve it.

Fear keeps us silent in ways we don’t always recognise.

But there is something incredibly freeing about finding your voice.

And once you find it, it becomes difficult to put it away again.

We speak for ourselves.

We speak for the versions of us who didn’t know how.

And sometimes we speak for people who aren’t ready to yet.

The more honest and vocal I am, the more I notice something interesting.

Living out loud seems to act as a filter.

It helps me find people who value honesty, growth, vulnerability, and change.

And it creates distance between me and people who need life to stay neat, predictable, and comfortable.

I used to think that was a problem.

Now I think it’s a gift.

Not everyone wants to hear that lives can unravel overnight.

That relationships can end.

That careers can change.

That people can completely reinvent themselves in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond.

But people do change.

They’re supposed to.

As Maya Angelou wrote:

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

We’re meant to learn.

To grow.

To question ourselves.

To change our minds when new experiences teach us something different.

Life isn’t tidy.

It’s messy.

Painful.

Beautiful.

Sometimes all at the same time.

I’ve learned that acknowledging pain doesn’t diminish joy.

In fact, it expands our capacity for it.

The more willing I am to feel grief, anger, disappointment, and loss, the more able I am to recognise joy, gratitude, love, and wonder when they arrive.

And so I’ve stopped trying to make myself smaller.

I’ve stopped hiding parts of my story to make other people comfortable.

I’m grateful I have a voice.

And I’m no longer afraid to use it.

Fear is a strange thing.

Lately, I’ve been realising that much of the fear I carry isn’t actually mine.

Sometimes it comes from people who love us and want to protect us.

Sometimes it comes from people who want to control us.

Either way, if we’re not careful, their fear becomes our inner voice.

The voice that tells us we’re not ready.

Not capable.

Not good enough.

The voice that always has a reason not to take the risk.

Recently, I’ve been trying not to let fear stop me.

I still feel scared.

I still feel anxious.

I still overthink things.

But I do them anyway.

People often say the magic happens outside your comfort zone.

I always liked it, but I don’t know if I truly belived it.

Now I’m starting to think it’s true.

Not because something magical happens immediately.

But because every time you do the thing that scares you, you collect a little more evidence that you can trust yourself.

Sometimes that looks like saying no to a life that no longer feels like yours.

Choosing loneliness over people and places where you feel unseen, dismissed, or disrespected.

Trying again after you’ve been knocked down.

Refusing to stay there.

And then, slowly, something shifts.

You stop needing everyone else’s approval.

You stop outsourcing decisions.

You stop asking permission to be yourself.

You begin trusting yourself.

You begin liking yourself.

You begin treating yourself with the same care you offer everyone else.

This weekend, facing my fears took me on a beautiful adventure.

I drove on the freeway alone for the first time.

A small thing for some people.

A huge thing for me.

I spent the weekend in a cosy retreat surrounded by nature.

I discovered a beautiful winery.

Sat outside under a blanket with a glass of wine, good food, and an autumn sunset.

Just me.

No distractions.

No one else’s expectations.

I spent a day with a group of remarkable women.

Women from different backgrounds, different generations, different walks of life.

Yet somehow connected by the common experience of carrying more than we should have had to carry.

There is something profoundly healing about women creating space for one another.

Something transformative about being witnessed without needing to perform.

Driving home, I realised something.

A few years ago, fear would have stopped me from doing any of it.

And if I had listened to that fear, I would have missed one of the most nourishing weekends I’ve had in a very long time.

This weekend brought a blue moon, at the edge of a changing season.

Autumn preparing to give way to winter.

A reminder that change is inevitable.

And maybe that’s the magic.

Not that fear disappears.

But that we learn to move forward with it anyway.

Because there is beauty waiting on the other side of fear.

Sometimes it arrives quietly.

And sometimes, when you least expect it, it arrives all at once.

Content warning: This piece discusses abuse, violence, and institutional harm.

In a previous post, I wrote about how manipulation doesn’t happen in isolation.

How harmful behaviour is often protected - not just by one person, but by the silence and complicity around them.

I heard something recently that stayed with me:

It is easier for people to support harmful behaviour because it requires nothing from them.

Life continues normally if they look away.
If they minimise.
If they convince themselves there must be another side to the story.

Supporting the person who experienced harm is harder.

It asks people to risk comfort, relationships, certainty, reputation.

Most people don’t want to do that.

It took me time to understand that what was happening to me was harm.

Manipulation makes you question your own reality long before anything physical happens.

You become exhausted trying to work out whether you are overreacting, misunderstanding, imagining things.

And while you are stuck in confusion, the harm escalates.

People call speaking out retraumatising because suddenly what was happening in private is happening publicly.

You watch other people go through the same confusion you experienced.

The doubt.
The uncertainty.
The slow stepping back.

People who once seemed concerned become quieter. More distant.

And somehow, you begin feeling like the problem for speaking at all.

I saw it in the rewritten police statement that minimised what had happened.

I heard it when I called to ask for it to be corrected and was told:

“I think you’re overthinking this.”

I wasn’t.

Because I saw the judge pause and ask:

“If this is what happened, why does she have a broken wrist?”

Months later, I was told they would not pursue charges.

Not enough evidence.
A “he said / she said situation.”

I remember the same policeman casually warning me about car break-ins before ending the call.

And thinking:

Is this what justice is supposed to sound like?

This experience changed the way I think about community.

It taught me that shared values matter more than simply belonging somewhere.
That safety is built collectively.
And that silence has consequences.

It also taught me the kind of person I want to be for others.

Someone who listens.
Someone who believes people.
Someone who understands how much courage it takes to speak at all.

I’m still learning.

But more and more, I think part of not turning away means refusing to look away from harm - even when doing so would be easier.

Have you ever noticed the magic in ordinary moments?

The beauty hidden in daily life?

I’ve been realising that the more attention I pay to small moments of joy,
the more they seem to appear.

I used to live at a relentless pace.

Always busy.
Always performing.
Always saying yes before asking myself whether I actually wanted to.

I was so disconnected from my body, my feelings, my own sense of presence.

I lived almost entirely in my head.

While surrounding myself with people who didn’t really see me.

Lately, I’ve been learning how to slow down.

And surprisingly, I’m starting to enjoy it.

Some of my favourite weekends now are the quiet ones.

Just Theo and me, walking early in the morning before the world fully wakes up.

At that hour, it feels like the neighbourhood belongs only to dog walkers, runners, and cyclists.

Everything is quieter.
Slower.

Have you ever watched a dog experience the world?

The way they stop to sniff every tree, every patch of grass, every tiny change in scent - as though each one deserves thoughful consideration.

Theo notices things I would have walked straight past. He helps me notice them too.

I deliberately don’t listen to podcasts or scroll on my phone when we walk.

That time feels precious to both of us now.

Time to be present.
Time to notice things.
Time to simply exist together.

Lately I’ve been sitting on the balcony watching the wind move through the plants - and through Theo’s glorious beard!

Watching him savour the experience of sitting facing the wind with his eyes closed.

Watching and feeling the sunlight shift across our space.
Watching beautiful sunsets.
Bright moonrises.

Tiny moments I never took the time to notice before.

And slowly, I realised what I was feeling in these moments:

Joy.

Peace.

Contentment.

I used to be terrified of stillness.

Terrified of being alone with my thoughts.
Terrified of what I might feel if I stopped distracting myself long enough to notice.

But the more I lean into quiet moments,
the more life begins to feel softer.

More spacious.

I’ve started calling it magic.

Not because anything extraordinary is happening -
but because I’m changing.

For the first time in a long time, uncertainty doesn’t only feel scary.

It also feels full of possibility.

Now when I think:

“I have no idea what my future looks like…”

the thought that follows is:

“But I’m looking forward to finding out.”

That, to me, feels like magic.

Maybe the mundane was never mundane at all.

Maybe we just forgot how to notice it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about safety lately.

In friendships.
In relationships.
In family.
At work.

What does safety actually feel like?

Physical danger is easier to recognise.

But feeling emotionally unsafe can be much harder to name.

Sometimes it just feels like:

• shrinking yourself

• walking on eggshells

• rehearsing what you want to say before you say it

• or leaving conversations feeling confused, dismissed, or small

I think I’m only now learning what emotional safety actually feels like.

Safety is feeling like your full self is welcome.

Not too much.
Not difficult.
Not needing to silence parts of yourself just to be accepted.

Safety is being able to speak honestly
and knowing you’ll be heard.

Not necessarily agreed with
but genuinely heard.

Not dismissed.
Not minimised.
Not turned into an argument about someone else’s feelings.

There’s something powerful about being able to say:

“This hurt me.”

And hearing in return:

“I understand. I’m sorry.”

Not defensiveness.
Not justification.
Not denial.

Just accountability, care, and willingness to understand.

Because intention and impact are not the same thing.

Someone can mean well and still cause harm.

And safe people are able to sit with that reality without making it about themselves.

Safety also lives in the pause between reaction and response.

The moment someone chooses curiosity instead of assumptions.
When someone seeks to understand instead of escalate.

That small pause can change everything.

Safety feels like being trusted.

Trusted for your instincts.
Your experiences.
Your capability to move through the world.

Not constantly questioned.
Not treated like things will inevitably go wrong.

But met with support.
Excitement.
Belief.

Most importantly, safety feels like being believed.

Your experience matters.
Your feelings are real.
Your pain doesn’t need to be justified to deserve care.

Safe people don’t rush to fix you.

They can sit beside you in the discomfort, pain, and messiness and say:

“I’m sorry this is hard right now. I’m here. What do you need?”

The more I think about it, the more I realise there are countless ways people create emotional safety for each other.

Which makes me wonder why it can feel so rare.

Maybe many of us are only now learning what safety was supposed to feel like.

Many of us are only now learning how to be a safe person for others.

We grew up talking about “types.”

They’re your type.
What does that even mean?

I used to think it was about attraction—
a certain look, a certain energy, chemistry.

I’m starting to realise it’s not that.

It’s not romantic at all.

It’s pattern.

We are drawn to what feels familiar.

Tone of voice.
Ways of reacting.
How someone holds power.

Our subconscious recognises it before we do.

And we move toward it—without even realising that we’re doing it.

I was recently asked to reflect on the last three men in my life.

On the surface, they were completely different.

But when I looked closer, the pattern was clear.

They needed control.
They avoided accountability.
And when I expressed hurt, it became about them—
defensive, dismissive, or turned back on me.

But this post isn’t about them.

It’s about me recognising that I keep choosing what feels familiar—
even when it was not good for me.

The relationships we see growing up shape us more than we realise.

What we witness.
What we tolerate.
What we learn to call love.

It stays with us.

And it doesn’t just show up in romantic relationships.

It shows up in friendships.
In workplaces.
In the environments we stay in.

We repeat what we know.

Even when it hurts us.

It makes me wonder—

If we really stopped and asked ourselves
what makes us feel safe, respected, valued…
how many of us would choose differently?

For me, it took hitting a kind of rock bottom
I didn’t know I was capable of reaching
to finally see the pattern.

Now that I see it, I can’t unsee it.

And that means I have a choice.

I choose to break it.

Breaking the pattern isn’t easy.

It’s uncomfortable.
It’s confusing.

It’s unfamiliar.
It means choosing differently than you ever have before.

But it’s also the first time something feels possible.

It feels empowering and hopeful.

Because maybe the patterns we inherit
don’t have to be the ones we continue.

And maybe choosing differently—
even when it feels unfamiliar—
is how we start to change everything.

In my last post, I wrote about the kindness of strangers during a difficult time in my life.

This is the other side of that.

Because not everyone is kind.
Not every stranger has good intentions.

When you’re grieving—loss of identity, safety, community—you can be drawn to people who feel familiar.

People who carry their own wounds.
People who understand disappointment, loneliness, not feeling like enough.

It can feel like connection.

I thought I had found that.

A group of people who shared good times, good conversations, and what felt like belonging.

At a time when everything in my life was shifting, I wanted somewhere to land.

Turns out, they were not my people.

What I didn’t understand then was how easily truth can be bent.

How one person can shape the perception of an entire group.
How someone can appear one way in public, and something entirely different in private.

I was open.
Honest.
I believed people were good.

I didn’t know how to filter.
I didn’t know how to protect myself.

So when things started to feel wrong, I didn’t trust it.

Even when my body was telling me something wasn’t right,
I questioned myself instead.

I was pulled into conversations that went in circles.
Arguments I didn’t want to be part of.
Moments where reality felt just unclear enough that I started to doubt my own memory.

Eventually, I stopped pushing back.

Not because it felt right—
but because I was exhausted.

What stayed with me the most wasn’t just what one person did.

It was how quickly people changed.

People who had been kind, supportive, concerned—
became distant.

Quiet.

Uncertain.

That was the hardest part.

Hard truth:
Manipulation doesn’t happen in isolation.

It’s often held in place by people who believe they are doing the right thing.

It wasn’t all bad.

Because I was open, people who understood reached out.
Others who had experienced similar harm.

That’s when I started to see the pattern.

And that’s when something shifted.

I had to leave that community.

Start again.

It taught me something I’m still learning:

To listen to my body.
To trust the discomfort instead of explaining it away.
To understand that not everything that feels familiar is safe.

And that people will believe what they want to believe.

That part isn’t mine to carry.

Maybe learning when to walk away—
from unsafe people, from unsafe places, from what no longer feels right—
is also part of not turning away.

When my marriage ended, everything else collapsed with it.

I had no job. No home.
I was trying to finish my PhD while completely exhausted.

I didn’t have space to grieve.
I didn’t even have space to be.

In the middle of the storm, I did something simple.

I posted in a local “good karma” Facebook group.
I asked if anyone needed pet-sitting or house-sitting.
And I told the truth about why.

What came back wasn’t just offers.

It was kindness.
It was empathy.
It was people—mostly women—who had been through something similar.

They invited me into their homes.
Trusted me with their stories.
Shared what it had felt like for them—what helped, what didn’t, what still lingered.

We supported each other.

I looked after their homes and their pets while they took a break.
But they were holding me in ways they may not even realise.

They gave me something I didn’t have—
Space.
Time.
Permission to grieve without making it feel like something I needed to explain.

I walked through unfamiliar neighbourhoods,
Finding solace in the quiet, beautiful spaces people had created for themselves after their own storms.

I was surrounded by animals who didn’t need me to be anything other than present.

In the evenings, when everything felt heavier,
the dogs and cats would come and sit beside me.

They didn’t ask anything of me.
They didn’t try to fix anything.

They just stayed.

I watched beautiful sunrises and sunsets with the arthritic senior dog who still had the spirit of a young puppy.

I spent evenings on the sofa with the cantankerous rescue cat, who accepted me into her circle of trust, on my lap.

And through all of it, Theo—my dog—remained my constant.

I will always remember the kindness of strangers who became friends,
and the quiet comfort of animals,
during a time when I didn’t know how I would keep going.

They reminded me there is still good in the world.

They made me feel less alone—
in ways the people I knew couldn’t.

Grief was lonelier than I expected.

Which is strange, because grief is everywhere—
people grieve the loss of people, places, futures all the time.

But what I’ve noticed is this:
people seem more comfortable supporting you when you’re grieving in socially acceptable ways—
when you’re avoiding it, numbing it, or quietly turning away.

I learned the hard way that avoiding the pain only stretches it out.

Feeling it—really feeling it—
is what moves you through.

The truth is, grief is isolating.

Even when people care about you, they can’t fully sit inside your experience.
Some days, it felt like I was moving through something no one else could see.

There were days I didn’t think I could keep going - every sunrise and every sunset made me cry.

I had made it through another day.

I learned from a very young age that I couldn’t rely on anyone to fix my problems.

So I became the one who helped everyone else.

And when I was grieving, I did the same thing.

I focused on others.
Surrounded myself with people who were also numbing their pain.
Filled my time with things that gave temporary relief from having to feel anything at all.

But it wasn’t helping.

It was compounding the grief.

I was getting more hurt.
Feeling unheard, unseen, misunderstood.

The people I was surrounding myself with had their own pain.
They didn’t have the capacity to hold mine.

I had to face a hard truth:

Helping others was how I avoided myself.

And the version of me that was hurting didn’t choose what was good for me.
It chose what felt familiar.

At the same time, I was realising something else.

The people who had known me before—
before the divorce, before I started really understanding myself—
couldn’t always support me in the ways I needed anymore.

Grief changes you.

There is a before, and there is an after.

And I needed something different.

I needed people who could acknowledge that I was going through something hard—
without trying to rush me out of it.

People who could ask what I needed, and respect the answer.
Who could hold me without trying to fix me.
Who could see me without needing me to be okay.

I had to learn that not everyone is a safe place to land.

Even if they’ve been in my life for a long time.

I’m still learning.
Still grieving parts of what was.
Still understanding myself in ways I didn’t before.

Maybe this is what healing looks like.

Not fixing everything—
but not turning away from it either.

My marriage ended very abruptly, and two and a half years later I’m still not sure who left first.

What I do know now is that I didn’t just leave my marriage.
I left a version of love I learned long before I knew what love was.

I’ve heard the phrase “hitting rock bottom” many times without thinking much of it.

Now I know what it means.

Hitting rock bottom woke me up.
It made me stop sleepwalking through life.
It made me start getting to know myself.
And it made me stop turning away from hard truths.

Hard truth one: I don’t know what safe, healthy, consistent love feels like.

I grew up watching women cry, and men cheat.
Watching men get angry and shout, or withdraw and shut down.
Watching women justify it. Stay. Shrink. Abandon their needs, silence their voices, and call it compromise.

I learned to check how everyone else was feeling before I expressed any feelings of my own.

I never learned what it feels like to be met with patience and understanding when I’m hurting. Instead, I learned that if I express my hurt I then have to face their reactions - anger, disappointment, withdrawal.

I carried the weight of other people’s needs like they were mine to fix.

In every relationship, I was choosing what felt familiar.

Love felt conditional.
Something I had to earn by being the version of myself that made someone else happy.

The truth is, I didn’t know who I was.

So when someone I loved was upset—even if it had nothing to do with me—it felt personal.
Like I had done something wrong.
Like I was about to lose them.

I took on their emotions as my responsibility.

Not consciously.
Just… automatically.
Like it was my role.

It wasn’t until later that I found language for this.

That I had been shaped by a deep fear of not being chosen.
Of being abandoned.
Of not being enough.

For most of my life, I didn’t feel like I belonged.

I became the easy one.
The fun one.
The one who didn’t say no.

I let people define me because I didn’t know how to define myself.

And underneath it, something always felt… off.

I kept chasing fulfilment.

I left my career as a medical doctor.
I followed things that felt more aligned.
I kept searching.

But I still didn’t see it.

I wasn’t just searching for purpose.

I was running from myself.

Everything started to shift when I understood this:

When children learn that it’s their job to manage the emotions of the adults around them, they grow up believing they are responsible for how everyone feels.

Of course we feel like we’re not enough.
Of course we don’t know our boundaries.
Of course we think it’s our fault when our boundaries are crossed.

Understanding this didn’t fix everything.

But it changed something important.

It replaced shame with compassion.

My marriage ended at the end of my PhD. A PhD that had reignited a fire that has always been burning in me. A fire to work on things I feel passionate about.

To connect with who I am and what drives me. A fire to keep building connections with people who are truly, unapologetically, themselves, and are held in community with love because of who they are.

At the time, when my marriage ended, it felt like confirmation of what I already believed:

That when I finally showed my true self, it wasn’t worth staying for.

Now I see it differently.

Love didn’t leave because I became myself. Love left because I had never been myself to begin with.

I’m only just starting to learn who I am. And, slowly, how to like who I am. To meet myself with compassion instead of judgment.

I’m still learning what it means to stay.

Not in something that hurts — but with myself.

Maybe this is part of not turning away.