mental-health – The Balanced Equation

When Life Sends You Sideways

It’s been a long time between posts.

And not the kind of “life got busy” pause — but the kind of full-body halt that comes when life flips your world upside down and knocks the breath clean out of you.

A Dream Realised… Briefly

At the start of 2025, I finally did it — I boarded a flight to India for a long-awaited adventure with Camel Treks Australia. It had been years in the making. I was craving wide skies, desert stillness, shared stories, and soul-deep restoration.

For a while, it was all that and more.

But life doesn’t always follow the plan.

A Message at 4am

I had barely touched back down on Australian soil when everything changed.

Jet-lagged, disoriented, and still holding the scent of incense and dust, I checked my phone at 4am. A message was waiting from my partner of 2.5 years — a man I love deeply, who knows me in both stillness and storm. The message simply read:

“Are you awake?”

Something in me braced. My reply was quick.

His answer came faster — and chilled me to my core:

“I’ll be with you whatever happens. But there’s been an accident. I’ve heard something’s happened — you need to call the police and find out what hospital they’ve been taken to.”

My heart dropped.

The Unfolding

My son and my ex-husband — my life partner for 30 years and the father of my children — had been in a horrific car accident. Both were critically injured. Both were fighting for their lives.

What followed was a surreal blur: hospitals, emergency teams, burns units, and the heavy silence that fills the space between questions no one can answer.

Within a fortnight, my ex-husband succumbed to his injuries and passed away on my 55th birthday.

The complexity of that grief is hard to name. This was someone I once loved, built a life with, raised children with. Our paths had long diverged, but the roots ran deep. His death marked the end of an era I hadn’t realised was still quietly shaping me.

Holding Death in Both Hands

I’ve been here before — near death’s edge. I’ve walked alongside it during illness, felt its breath on my neck through my own near-death experiences, and sat vigil with loved ones as they crossed over.

Death, to me, has never been a stranger. It is a powerful, mysterious teacher — one that strips away the unnecessary and leaves only what matters.

But this time… it asked more of me. It pulled at my roles as mother, as former wife, as woman, as witness — and forced me to sit with all the tangled pieces.

The In-Between

In the weeks and months that followed, I stepped back. From the blog. From work. From almost everything.

I poured my energy into being there for my son, into finding a path forward, into grieving with honesty and gentleness. I went quiet — not because I had nothing to say, but because there were no words wide enough to hold it all.

And Now

I’m not who I was at the beginning of this year.

Something in me has softened. Other parts have sharpened. I feel more grounded, more awake, more certain of what really matters.

This isn’t a return to blogging as usual. It’s a continuation — from where I now stand, in the middle of the mess and the meaning, still choosing to tell the truth, still choosing to grow.

Thank you for your patience, your presence, and for being part of this space — one that holds not just the light, but also the shadow, the mystery, and the unexpected turns that come with living a fully human life.

More soon — from the heart.

Finding Joy in Packing Up Memories

In the chaos of post-Christmas packing, the narrator grapples with a monumental task that evokes nostalgia and emotion. Each item unearths memories, blending laughter and tears. Emphasizing small victories, the process becomes a journey of letting go and making space for future growth, ultimately finding humor and humility in the mess.

It’s just a few days after Christmas, and here I am, staring at my house like it’s a life-sized game of Tetris, with pieces I have absolutely no idea where to put. The task before me is monumental: pack up my home, get it ready for inspection, and somehow, miraculously, make it all happen before I fly to India. Simple, right? Except it’s not. Not even close.

I start the day ambitiously, tackling three spaces at once—the garage, the upstairs landing that needs painting, and my walk-in wardrobe. Rookie mistake. Within an hour, my head is pounding, my patience is gone, and my house looks more chaotic than when I started. It’s like I’ve unleashed a tornado, but instead of Dorothy and Toto, it’s me in leggings, clutching a paintbrush in one hand and an old sweater I can’t part with in the other. Honestly, even Marie Kondo would throw her hands up and walk away at this point.

I pause and do the only thing that seems remotely sane: I clear the dining room table. Just the table. One surface, one tiny victory. And it feels glorious. I can see the wood again, and for a moment, I convince myself I’ve got this. Of course, the rest of the house is still a disaster, but I decide to reward myself with something that always helps me find my footing: writing.

When Memories Hide in Clutter

As I wade through my stuff, I quickly realise this is about more than just packing. Every box I open, every drawer I rifle through, feels like opening a time capsule. There’s the top I wore on that disastrous first date. There’s my boys’ old Lego set, the one I swore I’d never step on again, and here it is, mocking me. Each item carries a memory, and with each memory comes a wave of emotion that crashes over me like an unexpected tsunami.

I try to ride the waves, but let’s be honest—it’s messy. Sometimes I laugh; sometimes I cry. Occasionally, I find myself doing both simultaneously, which must look absolutely ridiculous. But this is where I am: mid-fifties, physically fit (thankfully), and knee-deep in a task that is equal parts cleansing and chaotic. I’m grateful to have the energy to do this on my own, but let’s not romanticize it—this is hard, humbling work.

Finding Humility (and Humor) in the Mess

Something about packing up your life makes you realise how absurdly attached you are to random objects. Why am I holding onto the hideous vase a distant relative gave me in 1992? Why do I own three fondue sets when I’ve never made fondue? And why, oh why, did I think it was a good idea to start painting and packing and decluttering all at once? I have to laugh because if I don’t, I might cry again, and I’m trying to pace myself on the tears.

But I do know why I’m doing this. Letting go here, in this nurturing space that has been my home for over a decade, feels important. This house has held so much of my story, and clearing it feels like honoring the past while making room for the wonderful things I know are coming my way in 2025.

Writing gives me a chance to breathe, to step back from the chaos and make sense of it. It helps me process the emotions that rise like a tide—sometimes gentle, sometimes relentless. I remind myself that these e(motions)—energy in motion—are a natural part of clearing space. As much as I’d like to think I’m in control, the truth is, I’m just here for the ride, trying to keep my sense of humour intact.

Small Wins, Big Lessons

Clearing that dining room table taught me something important: start small. One surface, one drawer, one box at a time. It’s not about doing it all perfectly or all at once. It’s about finding those little wins that keep you moving forward. Each cleared space is a reminder that I’m making progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.

This process isn’t just about letting go of clutter. It’s about creating space—for growth, for joy, for whatever comes next. As I pack up my house, I’m not just saying goodbye to things; I’m saying goodbye to old stories, old identities, and old expectations. And that, my friends, is no small feat.

Embracing the Waves

When the tsunami of emotion hits, I grab my pen and write it out. Writing helps me remember that these waves, as overwhelming as they feel, will pass. It reminds me to breathe, to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and to trust that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be—surrounded by chaos, covered in paint, and slowly, steadily clearing space for what’s next.

And you know what? That’s enough. One box, one memory, one laugh-cry at a time, I’m moving forward. Here’s to finding humour, humility, and maybe even a little joy in the mess.

Transform Anger into Love: A Simple Ritual

Don’t you just love those moments when you think you’ve got life figured out, and then—bam—the universe sends a gentle (or not-so-gentle) reminder that there’s always more work to do? Yesterday was one of those moments for me. After what felt like a very long week, I visited my beautiful teacher. I’d gotten caught up in my own thoughts and tasks, letting the noise of the week, work, and the infamous “cactus incident” dominate my focus. My teacher saw it immediately, calling me out on my lack of presence. She said she felt anger in me. I was resentful, but I hadn’t been aware of the proximity of my feelings of anger. Astounded, I knew she was right.

Walking afterward, I tried to understand why this anger had suddenly bubbled up. I reflected on why I was so frustrated and found myself feeling resentment toward people in my life who, for one reason or another, seemed unwilling to take charge of their own healing. But rather than let this anger control me, I decided to take a creative approach to transform it. The ritual I created made me feel so empowered that I wanted to share it with you, in case you’re also feeling the weight of emotions you’d rather not carry.

The Ritual: Pouring Out Anger, Pouring In Love

This ritual is a simple way to shift anger, fear, or frustration into love, hope, and gratitude. Simon Haas explains in The Book of Dharma that it’s essential to treat the here and now—the “field of now”—as a sacred place. When we take care of our inner world, we create the space to nurture our highest self.

The idea is to transform what feels negative into something nourishing, like turning air into water in a jug. Or, if you prefer, you can expel the air (negative emotions) by replacing it with water (love). Here’s how I did it:

Set Up a Sacred Space
Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Gather a jug (or any vessel that feels significant), a candle, and a glass of water. The jug represents your heart—where all emotions reside. Lighting the candle is important, spiritually fire often represents transformation, purification and rebirth.
Pour Out the Anger
As you hold the jug, take a deep breath and begin verbalizing everything you’re feeling. Let it all out, there’s no one to hear or judge—your frustrations, disappointments, fears, resentments. Let your words flow into the jug, as though you’re physically pouring the anger out of you. Imagine that every emotion, every word, is leaving you and settling into the jug.
Pour In Love, Hope, and Gratitude
Take your prepared water and begin to pour it into the jug slowly. As you do, focus on feelings of love, hope, and gratitude. Imagine each drop of water washing away the negative emotions, replacing them with compassion, peace, and joy. Just as a swan is said to be able to extract milk from water, we, too, can learn to separate the good from the unwanted. By pouring in these positive feelings, we’re consciously choosing to let go of anger and welcome in love instead.
Reflect on Your Intention
Once the jug is filled, take a moment to focus on the peacefulness you feel. Commit to nurturing your inner world with the same care and intention, understanding that what we choose to focus on will come to pass.

The Power of Transforming Your Inner World

In The Book of Dharma, Simon Haas explains that protecting our inner world requires us to recognise when disabling forces, like anger and fear, are present. He outlines three stages of conscious creation, each representing a different level of awareness and ability:

Stage One: We recognise negative forces only after they’ve caused damage. In hindsight, we can see how fear or anger led to rash choices we later regretted. This stage teaches us to see the impact of negativity on our lives, even if only after the fact.
Stage Two: We become aware of negativity as it enters, without letting it control us. At this level, we’re wise enough to pause and avoid decisions while we’re compromised by negative emotions. This is where we begin noticing our feelings as signals, guiding us to protect our inner world before harm is done.
Stage Three: We recognise negative forces as they begin to form and are able to transform them into something positive. In this stage, we can replace anger and fear with love, hope, and gratitude. It’s here that conscious creation comes alive because we’re not just reacting—we’re actively cultivating the emotions we want to experience.

Just as filling a jug with water replaces the air within, filling our hearts with positive emotions like love, hope, and gratitude leaves no room for anger or fear.

My Journey of Transformation: From Anger to Peace

After leaving my teacher, I was surprised to find how deeply this anger ran. I’d spent so much time tending to my responsibilities and others’ needs that I’d let frustration fester. Walking later, I listened to The Book of Dharma, and it felt like Haas was speaking directly to me. I realized that I had failed to recognise the disabling force of anger creeping into my world. But thanks to my teacher’s insight, I could now see it clearly—and I was ready to transform it.

This ritual of pouring out the anger and filling the jug with gratitude, love, and hope felt like a powerful act of self-care. It reminded me that while I can’t control everything around me, I can choose how to respond. By shifting my focus to the good, I felt my perspective expand and my heart feel lighter.

Moving Forward With Love

This ritual is one I’ll turn to whenever I feel negative emotions trying to take over. The lesson here is that while we can’t always prevent anger, fear, or frustration from arising, we can choose how to respond. By treating our minds and hearts as sacred places, we allow love, hope, and gratitude to replace the things we don’t need to carry.

If you find yourself overwhelmed by emotions that feel too big to hold, try this ritual. Let it be a reminder that you have the power to create a peaceful inner world, one drop at a time. May we all keep finding ways to transform our lives, turning anger into love, fear into hope, and challenges into lessons.

The Creative Awakening – Finding Joy After the Empty Nest

Hello, dear readers! Today, we’re diving headfirst into that gloriously weird, wonderful journey of finding creativity once the kids have flown the coop. The house that was once bustling with slammed doors, lost homework, and constant noise is suddenly… quiet. Really quiet. And let me tell you, that silence? It can be both freeing and terrifying. What the heck do you do with all that empty space? I’ll tell you what I did: I had a creative awakening (involving paint, plants, and yes, even a blowtorch—but we’ll get to that).

The Empty Nest and The Great Identity Crisis

The Creative Awakening: Finding Joy After the Empty Nest (And Yes, a Blowtorch Was Involved)

When my children left home, it was a mixed bag of emotions. There was pride—they were off living their lives, which meant I’d done something right. There was a weird sense of relief—I no longer had to negotiate breakfast menus or rescue socks from the dog. But there was also a gnawing emptiness. My role as “Mom” had always been my headline act, and suddenly it was a bit part in a play where everyone else had moved to a new theater.

So, what did I do with that emptiness? Well, for a while, I did what many of us do: I tried to fill it with productivity. I threw myself into work, reorganized the pantry (to an obsessive degree), and even attempted cycling—once. Let’s just say cycling and I did not become fast friends. But something was missing. I needed a spark, a sense of joy, something that was just for me.

And then I remembered creativity—something I had pushed aside for years, buried under the chaos of raising kids and being everything to everyone. And it wasn’t always that way. Back in high school, I had been incredibly creative—I even won awards for textile and fashion design. I loved making things, experimenting with textures, and creating pieces that were uniquely mine. And I danced, oh how I danced! I studied classical ballet for 12 years, even teaching younger dancers, and finished just six months shy of my teaching certificate. That spark had always been there, but life had dimmed it.

Now that the house was quiet, I decided to find out if I still had that spark somewhere in me. Spoiler alert: I did, and it was ready to roar back to life.

The Messy, Beautiful Joy of Creating

I started small—a sketchpad and some colored pencils that I found gathering dust. I gave myself permission to be messy, to draw terribly, to doodle like a bored teenager in math class. And you know what? It felt amazing. It wasn’t about making art to impress anyone; it was about feeling the pencil on the page, about letting my mind wander and play. It was freeing, and it was fun.

Then I branched out. I took to painting, and let’s be clear, I am no Picasso. But my abstract attempts—full of color and chaos—now hang proudly in my office because they are mine. They represent my refusal to be perfect, my willingness to make a mess just because it feels good.

Next, I went into the garden. I dug my hands into the dirt, planted herbs, flowers, and vegetables, and felt something come alive in me as I nurtured those plants. There’s something wildly satisfying about seeing life grow out of something you’ve put in the ground. Plus, you get tomatoes, and who doesn’t love a good homegrown tomato?

Cooking also took on new meaning. I stopped seeing it as a chore and started experimenting—trying new recipes, using spices I couldn’t pronounce, and giving myself permission to create disasters that sometimes, miraculously, ended up delicious. The kitchen became my playground, and I discovered that there’s a kind of magic in turning random ingredients into something wonderful.

And then, there was welding. Yes, welding. Because why not? I’d always been curious about it—there’s something kind of badass about fusing metal together. It made me feel powerful, capable, and like I was creating something solid out of the raw materials of this new chapter in my life. And sure, there were some mishaps (burn marks are just creative scars, right?), but there was also a sense of triumph in every finished piece.

Travel also became a huge part of my creative awakening. With the kids out of the house, I had the freedom to explore. Whether it was a quick weekend road trip or a longer adventure, each journey sparked something in me. Seeing new places, tasting new foods, meeting new people—it was all fuel for the creative fire. I realized creativity isn’t just about what you make with your hands; it’s also about how you see the world and the stories you tell.

Creativity: The Ultimate Growth Hack

Creativity became my way to reconnect with myself. It reminded me that I wasn’t just a mother, or a worker, or a list of responsibilities—I was a person who still had things to explore, things to express, things to laugh about when they went hilariously wrong. It wasn’t about being “good” at anything. It was about the process, about giving myself permission to make a mess, to be curious, to find joy in something simply because it brought me joy.

Exercises to Rekindle Your Creativity (and Your Sense of Fun)

If you’re feeling ready for your own creative awakening, I’ve got some exercises to get you started—no pressure, no expectations, just fun:

The 10-Minute Doodle: Set a timer for ten minutes, grab a pen, and doodle. It doesn’t have to be anything specific. Let your hand move and see what happens. There are no rules—only the joy of making lines on a page. Bad doodles are highly encouraged.
Create a Collage of Joy: Grab some old magazines, newspapers, or print some photos online. Cut out images, colors, words, and textures that make you happy, and glue them onto a board. It’s like being a kid in art class again, except now you get to have wine while you do it.
Cook Like Nobody’s Watching: Pick a recipe you’ve never tried before, or better yet, make one up. Be messy. Add spices that smell good. Taste as you go. And if it turns out awful, well, you’ve got a story to tell and a reason to order takeout.
Take a Nature Walk/Hike and Collect Inspiration: Head outside with no agenda other than to notice what catches your eye. Pick up leaves, rocks, weird-shaped sticks—whatever speaks to you. Bring it home and let it inspire a drawing, a poem, or even just an arrangement on your table that makes you smile.
Try Welding (Or Something Equally Unexpected): Get out of your comfort zone. Whether it’s welding, woodworking, or something else that feels a little intimidating—go for it. There’s a thrill in trying something completely new and letting go of the expectation that you need to be great at it. Trust me, the experience alone is worth it.

Finding Joy in the Chaos of Creativity

The empty nest doesn’t have to be empty—it can be full of new possibilities, of rediscovery, of creation. It’s a chance to reconnect with yourself, to find out who you are beyond the roles you’ve played for others. It’s a chance to get messy, to play, to explore. And if you’re anything like me, you might just find that embracing creativity is the most fun you’ve had in a long time.

So grab that sketchpad, those gardening gloves, that blowtorch, or whatever it is that calls to you, and let’s make something—something joyful, something imperfect, something that’s purely yours.