Seeing clearly

When life backs you into a corner and the sun shines down upon you

What a year, this 2025, of illumination and transformation. At the start of it, I was moving to a long-cherished dream of a farmhouse in Tuscany with my hubby of almost 2 decades, after a tricky period since the pandemic, with much loss and change already behind us. We thought we were back on track, set for the start of a new period of our lives together with the potential for it to become our happiest.

Life however had other plans. It set me definitively on a personal journey of discovery and growth that I could never have anticipated, that has brought me to a new home in an area of London I have been coming to since I was a teenager, and a new chapter of life, alone, in my mid-fifties. There is much to be grateful for, and at the same time, I cannot pretend I’m ok with it all because my human self did not intend or choose for any of this to happen. Or that’s the story that feels easiest to go with, because the other, truer version is distinctly more uncomfortable and difficult.

Embarking on this adventure emerged as a call from a much deeper part of me. Some might call it our soul, I prefer to describe it as a message from one of my Spirit Guides. That particular facet of my intuition or higher self, has spoken a few times in recent years, always with a particular quality of tone and clarity that I have learned, sometimes the hard way, to give space to. I can say with hand on heart that I hope it stays silent for a while now!

This prompt from my inner world and the subsequent exploration led to the fast unravelling of most of what I spent years building up, at a pace that left me breathless and gasping again and again, usually not in ways that feel pleasant. The depth and breadth of the razing to the ground has been shocking, painful and liberating in equal measure. Within the space of 8 months, we have filed for divorce, I have left my home, city and country, returned to the land of my childhood - largely because I didn’t know what else to do and to make sure my elderly mother is taken care of - begun a new business and found my new home. I give thanks every day for my little Sanctuary, my oasis of peace and calm in the midst of very stormy waters.

I have been learning so much in a proverbial little wooden boat on that turbulent sea, largely about parts of me that have been in shadow for many years. The patterns of thinking and feeling that kept repeating themselves through my marriage and other relationships, my old work, where I spent my free time and how I generally lived my life. When the light came in, strong, fast, and relentless, it lit up those those dark alleys like a Christmas tree, not just for me but also for my dear hubby. Suddenly there was - indeed is - so much we could no longer hide or feign ignorance about. All my deepest fears seem to have been brought into sharp relief one after the other: being single at this stage of life, no work or income for a year and a half because I was focused on other things, and the falling away of all the old scaffolding that kept me feeling loved, safe and secure. He is adamant that our marriage is over. As the immediate hurricane begins to slowly subside, a period of deep healing and rebuilding has arrived, where I need to take full responsibility for what I feel, choose, say and do, whether I accept or like what has happened, or not. The first approach is a heck of a lot easier in a situation that is already challenging, speaking for myself.

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.

Pablo Picasso

Growth seems to always begin from reconnecting with parts of ourselves that our younger versions have pushed away or just not been able to see. There is a little one in all of us who sometimes, despite our maturity, wisdom and love, comes out to run the show. And not always in a way that befits the selves we show the world, especially when our choices in every moment and the life events that result, bring up the parts of us that we would prefer not to experience. Break-ups of long-term relationships are rarely simple and clean, particularly if you don’t want or welcome them. And ‘collapse’ of multiple areas of your life like a falling line of dominoes, beyond all realm of what you believe you can deal with, just devastating. All I could really do was not resist, watch and try to be as stable as possible within myself.

I have been very lucky to be blessed along this path - that somehow I sense has only just begun - with great guides who can help me to acknowledge and own what is mine, clear up my own backyard and heal so I can move forwards into this unexpected new life as gracefully and autonomously as possible. I hope in time that I will also feel grateful and joyful. I have one guide for my spiritual growth, another more focused on my emotional healing and a third who can span both of those and also supports me to do my best work. Opening up my own inner channel to Source is proving essential too, for the guidance and illumination that no human being or AI can really give me. It’s really interesting what is similar among what they all share with me, and where they differ. I want to be able to look back in some future time at this mother of all transitions and see clearly everything I’ve learned, where it has taken me and feel good about the person I have become. That requires me today to be grounded, curious, open, willing to question everything and full of love.

I do my best not to have regrets and to reframe all that feels like adversity and hardship into opportunities for expansion. It definitely doesn’t always feel that way, and I have never been so emotional or reactive in my grown-up life. My little one has had a major meltdown before she is finally getting what she needs - mummy and daddy Asha to hold her gently and make her feel safe and loved, so that she no longer needs to go apeshit. Our most tender growth edges can yield such precious, rich gifts but we will never find them without going there. I have raged and lashed out as people important to me have pushed me towards exploring those places. And I’m starting to understand the great service they are doing me, particularly when I was expecting them to take care of me and love everything back into being alright again. That isn’t love.

Our psychology and social conditioning unconsciously hardwire us to resist change but if we just look around us, life will remind us that it is constantly in flux. With a little awareness, we can begin to pay attention, learn, grow, change, flourish…whatever is happening inside or around us. Then we become unshakeable and trustworthy, authentic and free, masters of our own destiny. And beacons for others in similar situations.

There’s something quite magical about that, don’t you think?!

~~~

If you are navigating challenging transitions and thresholds in your life, whether personally or as part of a team or group, whether they are tender, joyful or fierce, try:

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Thanks for reading.