Seven years ago, I burnt my life to the ground. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I gathered up everything that I knew. The life I was living. The life I understood. The life that had made sense to me for so long. I took it all and held it really close. Trying to reconnect to it. Trying to rescue it. Trying desperately to save the familiar. The comfortable. To understand the fears. Quell the anxiety. Silence the unsettling voices so I could listen to my inner knowing. To remember who I was. To touch my soul.

And when I realised there were pieces missing and the fractures couldn’t be healed, because I kept stumbling and tripping over the same things, I gathered everything up, set it alight, and walked away. Not necessarily in the neatest way, or a way I’m especially proud of. I fumbled and lacked grace. It was messy. I was messy. But once I lit the match, I put something in motion, and I knew it was time and I needed walk this new path.

Walking away from the fire wasn’t easy. It was a slow burn. Some embers would smoulder, then relight. Others untouched would suddenly ignite. Sometimes the wind picked up and the flames took hold and almost engulfed me. Sometimes the flames gave me some warmth. Other times they felt suffocating and I struggled for air. Sometimes I got burnt and I had to tend carefully to the wounds. For a while, the fire held all the power because it held my old life. My limiting beliefs. My history. I didn’t want to forget—I just wanted to set myself free.

I didn’t even know what was stifling me, but I knew I felt shackled. I wasn’t fundamentally unhappy, but I wasn’t happy either. I felt like my wings had been clipped, but maybe I created that cage for myself. Maybe my need to people please silenced my voice and stuffed down all my anxieties, and they festered, as I repeatedly swallowed down my words. Maybe my conflict avoidant nature knocked down my weak boundaries, teaching people that they could treat me in a way that chipped away at my worth. Maybe my need to rescue and fix everything distracted me from dealing with my own wounds and voids.

Resentment is a slow leaking poison that will destroy you, if you let it. Complacency will keep you stuck in places far longer than you should be there. Comfort is simply fear holding you back. All the while, time passes. More wounds are created to heal. You shrink instead of grow. And the biggest risk of all is losing yourself so deeply that it takes the longest time to find yourself again.

Starting over is hard. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s not for the fainthearted. Some days, you will be on top of the cliff overlooking the vast ocean and you’ll feel your wings warming up, eager to fly. Other days, you’ll be on your knees begging for the pain to be taken away. And the crying, the crying became a sport that I was clearly a champion of. Some days, it was all, and other days, it was nothing. Some days, I was full, and other days, I was empty. Some days, I was drowning, and other days, I was parched. Some days were sunny and other days were not only dark, but it felt like the destruction of a cyclone was coming. I was splintering, leaking, and thought I could fully sink at any moment. But through the cracks, I saw distant light, and I held onto that desperately because that would be my life raft.

I have been asked why I did it. Why I left that comfortable life. Why I burnt that old life down. And there were days I would have not been able to answer those questions, but seven years on, the clarity hits like a neon sign and the answers are succinct.

I couldn’t grow in an environment that didn’t water me. I couldn’t heal in an environment where my wounds weren’t tended to. I couldn’t learn in an environment that repeated the same lessons and patterns. I couldn’t put myself back together in an environment that kept creating new cracks. I couldn’t find myself in an environment where the maze kept changing and my compass was broken. I couldn’t use my wings if they kept being clipped. Nobody is to blame—it’s who we were and what we knew. We grew differently. We didn’t nurture ourselves or each other in the way we individually needed. We worked together, until we didn’t. I was slowly withering away. My external shell outwardly whole and neatly constructed. My inner shell breaking down. The cracks growing. The wife and mother, the roles I gave myself, yet the woman was lost.

Going within is far harder than any external validation or fix we can get. I would peel a layer, only to discover more rawness. More shadows. More gaping wounds. The toxic spiritual journey that some perpetuate is dangerous. The jumping to the top of the stairs after reading a few books, dismissing anything perceived as negative, and rug-sweeping the hard stuff is a lie. It’s used by those who are too weak and scared to do the real work. You see, we need to climb all the stairs, as each one is an intricate part of our past that needs to be addressed, and if we simply jump over the top of them, we are doing nothing but avoiding what actually needs to be worked on and using distraction as a therapeutic tool. The shadow work, inner child work, and resolving the unresolved pain within us isn’t a two-week course or a few sessions with a life coach. It’s not chanting affirmations whilst looking at ourselves in the mirror. It’s not pretending to be “positive.” It’s not faking it until we make it. It’s not mask wearing. The quick fix is a billion dollar industry preying on the vulnerable and ultimately causing far more damage.

It’s messy and confronting. It’s facing your own toxicity and acknowledging your own unhealthy traits. It’s being prepared to keep digging through the weeds and the dirt, knowing you may get bitten more than once as you search for those healthy roots. It’s knowing that it’s never-ending and there’s always work to be done. It’s falling on your sword when you recognise your f*ck-ups. It’s forgiveness of situations and yourself. It’s complex and complicated. It’s honest and ugly. It’s really f*cking hard.

But on the other side is truth. Authenticity. Rediscovery. Healing and growth. On the other side is wholeness. Limitless beliefs. Self-love and inner happiness. There’s the beauty of standing metaphorically naked in your power.

Perhaps I started playing with the matches long before I lit the fire. When I was trying to silence the noise, distract myself, and toxic positivity my way through. Maybe my growing anxiety was a sign all was not well within; rather than looking for the answers in my external world, I needed to start soul searching. So many mistakes were made in my quest to ignore those inner rumblings.

Seven years on, and I still wear many hats. But they are the glorious hats I choose to put on, and they fit me perfectly. I am deeply connected to those I choose to be connected with, but more importantly, I am deeply connected to myself. To the depth of my essence. I speak my truth and I live my truth. I make mistakes and I own them. I welcome my lessons as growth. I question with curiosity rather than defensiveness or judgement. I know who I am and what I want. And I define myself as a passionate woman first and foremost. I feel like I came out the other side of a dark, painful, terrifying, and formidable cave, where every turn I lost myself further and constantly feared what was around the corner. Where there were jagged surfaces that I repeatedly cut myself on. Where the only sounds were my rapid heartbeat thumping in my ears and my shallow breath as I fought for air.

When I finally lit that match, I burnt down a 25-year marriage, my life the only way I knew it, a few friendships, my financial stability, and I threw a few smouldering embers toward a long-term career. Foolish? Perhaps some will see it that way. Selfish? Maybe. Life saving? In a way, definitely, because the biggest lesson I have learnt is when we live inauthentically and ignore our truth, we wither and die. Maybe not in the physical sense, but our spirit dies, our energy vibrates at a low frequency, and we lose the core of who we are. I guess I needed to be a bit foolish and a little selfish to save myself. To thrive as a woman, which makes me a better mother and a better human.

Lighting the fire was hard. Watching my old life burn down was painful, sad, heartbreaking, and I grieved that life for a long time. There’s always some grief through transformation.

The fire was powerful. It had an energy all of its own, and once it took hold, nobody could control it. It was resilient and fearless. The more air and space it was given, the more it grew. It was a force to be reckoned with—not because it was destructive but rather like it had a job to do. It had to remove all the dead foliage so that new growth could sprout. It was wild and untamed. Beautifully chaotic but simultaneously calm in its approach to get the job done.

Seven years ago, I started a fire. A fire that held within it so much fear, but I no longer fear the flames.

Because I became the fire.

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