Past Lives

(Spellcheck tried to rename this chapter “Past Loves” — insert face-palm here. Honestly though… that might be more accurate. I’ll stick with Past Lives for now. Maybe.)

It hit me in the chest when I typed it. Because what floats through my awareness isn’t just another version of me — it’s the love of what used to be ‘easy’ including the delusional kind. (No offence Sammie. None taken.)

The love of just getting up, getting in the car and walking my boys.

Running out of chocolate and thinking, I’ll just nip to the shops.

Fancying a sit by the sea — off you pop then.

Calling a friend, “Fancy a cuppa?” — “I’m on my way.”

Feeling crappy and deciding to go for a drive. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just not here with my thoughts.

So many up-and-outs. So much just going where I wanted, when I wanted.

I’ll probably boomerang back to that last one later… hmm. Stuck sitting with myself. Now how did that happen? The one thing I resisted the most — being alone with me — is exactly where I landed. (Insert thinking emoji.)

The boomerang definitely just came back and clobbered me for going there too early. I’m wincing, squirming (no idea if that’s spelled right but it fits the discomfort). Surely that’s not the cause. (And don’t call me Shirley.) There it is — humour. My default setting. My superpower.

And I’ll forgive myself for it. Because I’m still here, right? Typing while the nerve is exposed. That’s progress. It used to hijack me for days, weeks — or I’d quickly self-medicate with a brandy-infused soother. (I really, really get why I drank.)

Blimey, it’s all coming now. I should write a book — oh wait.

Right. Back to Past Loves. I mean Lives.

The things I used to love doing — or even simply could do — feel like they belonged to another lifetime. This week I visited an area I once lived in. A place where I found peace and comfort. Where, with the help of an incredible therapist, I began unravelling what in the pyjamas was actually going on inside me.

What I was putting up with.

The toxic individuals.

And the why behind it all.

Why did I accept so little?

Why did I allow abuse?

Where were my boundaries?

Why did I believe I should stay small?

Why couldn’t I stop addictive coping strategies?

Why would I harm my own skin for relief?

Why exhaust myself until my body forced me to stop?

Why was I not important too?

Who the hell was I?

That’s just a snippet. But it was deep, necessary, life-changing work.

Being by the sea helped me breathe again — really breathe. It helped me step back and see the whole canvas of my life. And I realised no matter how many bright colours I used, I kept painting the same muddy picture.

I’d love to say I found a new palette, created a masterpiece and proudly displayed it for the world. But life doesn’t wrap up like that. The rose-tinted glasses I still clung to needed smashing. The expectations of who I should be. The dragging my body around exhaustingly to “figure it all out” immediately. The controlling of circumstances because deep down I was still petrified.

Petrified of a world that hands cruelty and pain to innocent children, humans, animals, the planet.

I don’t need to unpack my trauma here. But the impact on my nervous system was profound. My central nervous system struggled to regulate — at times to the point of unconsciousness. I wasn’t failing. I wasn’t weak. My system was doing its job — protecting me from perceived danger, even when I was safe.

Zoomed out, it’s intelligent. Zoomed in, it felt and was terrifying.

Like a drunk Mr Tickle windmilling his arms in a violent rage trying to swat a mosquito that just won’t show itself. You know the one.

Looking back, it feels like several past lives crammed into one. And yes — past loves too. Humans, of course. But also places. Safe spaces. The sea. The kindness of people. New friendships. Nature. The Red Arrows flying overhead. My dogs. My cats. All Lifelines.

Without therapy that opened my eyes and heart — where would I be?

Without kindness?

Without those friendships?

Without the sea?

This wasn’t months. It was years. Digging deeper than ever. Waking up to truths I could no longer avoid. Something was calling me forward.

No matter how afraid I was, I knew the fear wasn’t who I truly was.

I loved to laugh.

I loved painting and how it made people smile.

I loved my friends dearly.

I believed in Love — not the small version, but the Love that connects all life.

That belief unknowingly kept me here. Hope. Faith.

Way down deep, I knew what was happening inside me wasn’t the whole truth of life — or of Love. It was a survival version. A worn-out, over-compensating, trying-so-damn-hard-to-be-good version. Pushing sludge down. Holding everything together.

The energy to do that took its toll.

The toll was not loving myself. Living outside myself. Compensating for a void. Blowing up my nervous system so dramatically that the only place left to reside… was within.

No more up-and-outs.

No more doing what I “wanted” when I wanted.

No more walking the dogs just to clear my head.

No more distracting relief.

Whoosh. That life ended.

I had to go inside.

Into the body I resented because it wouldn’t keep up. Because it stopped me doing the things I thought I wanted.

But I know now — my body and I were refusing the bigger “No” I’d been living.

The No to loving myself.

The No to rest.

The No to feeling what hurt so so deeply.

The No to truth.

The No to my own worth.

For years I’d been saying yes to everything else. Yes to being strong. Yes to coping. Yes to carrying. Yes to surviving.

But underneath it all was a quiet, abandoned no to myself.

My body wouldn’t carry that anymore.

It stopped me — not to punish me, not to ruin my life — but to bring me home.

Home to the only place I’d been avoiding.

Me. (And there’s the boomerang)

And somewhere in the rubble of past versions, past coping, past identities, I began to hear something softer.

Not a roar. Not a grand revelation.

Just a small, steady whisper:

What if this isn’t the end of your life — just the end of the life that wasn’t loving you back?

Past lives.

Past loves.

Past coping.

Past running.

All of it brought me here.

And here — in the stillness I once resisted — I am learning something that goes deeper.

Not how to get my old life back.

But how to say yes.

Yes to being.

Yes to healing.

Yes to a nervous system that tried its hardest.

Yes to grief.

Yes to joy in smaller, quieter forms.

Yes to Love — the higher one.

Yes to living.

Not the loud, up-and-out version.

But the honest, inside-out one.

Past lives and loves and losses and lessons — all of it counts.

All of it is me.

And this life, right now, slower and smaller and deeper than I ever imagined…

Is still a life.

And this time, it includes me.