Elizabeth Strout has been popping up in recommendations left, right and centre lately, and for good reason. The Pulitzer prize-winning author’s latest book, The Things We Never Say, was just long listed for the same award. So I wandered into the recently refurbished Potts Point bookstore (my most favourite book store after Daunt Books in London and Ramona in Melbourne) and picked up a copy.

Strout is praised for her ability to render the ordinary extraordinary. She writes so beautifully of the pain that lives just under the skin of small lives - potential that never got realised, the grief of roads not taken, the ache of being misunderstood (particularly by those who ought to know us best). And, as the title suggests, the sorrow that accumulates in the things we leave unspoken.

She bottles up quiet desperation so elegantly. The subject matter is dark (suicide, depression, death) but the prose is wrapped up in a pastel tranquility.

Maybe it’s just reassuring to be reminded that we all house it all, and that everyone is struggling in their own way… mostly quietly, mostly beneath the surface. It’s so tempting to believe your pain is unique and somehow “more” than everyone else’s. But books like this one remind you, gently, that we’re all human together.

What I loved most about this book were the little time-hops. One moment you're witnessing a small act of kindness, the next you're thirty years in the future, understanding how that one moment altered an entire life trajectory. The book is peppered with these, like footnotes of impact, and they leave you both moved and simultaneously desperate to yell at Artie Dam (our deeply loveable, deeply depressed protagonist) to make him see his own goodness and the sheer amount of beauty he's initiated in the world.

Ripples are something I’ve thought about a lot. Artie sets these off constantly, but he never learns where most of them land. That, I’m now understanding, is the point.

There’s an Elizabeth Gilbert interview I’ve never forgotten. She’s walking in LA when she notices a painter across the road teetering on a tall ladder, completely unaware. She’d grown up on a farm holding ladders steady for her father, so without thinking she crossed the road and anchored both legs to the ground firmly with her grasp.

As she held it, the thought struck her: what if this is the entire purpose of my life… to be standing here, at this exact moment, holding this very ladder, because this man needs to live? Whoever he is, whoever he’s meant to impact next, he must not die falling off this ladder. What if the universe conspired to have someone here, and that someone was me? Someone who knows ladders and who’d have the impulse to help. It probably thought: better have her grow up on a farm where she’ll spend her days in training and embody the impulse to cross the street and pitch in. And she’ll need to be in LA at the right time, so let’s make her a famous writer based there… and on and on Gilbert went down the rabbit hole of this supposed chain of events set in motion to lead her to this exact moment.

She held the ladder firm until he was safe and no longer at risk of over balancing (he never even noticed) then she carried on her way, strangely at peace having completed not just a kind act but perhaps a divine mission.

It may sound a little far flung, but the point is you don’t know the plan.

I've devoured the research on Near Death Experiences, and across thousands of reported cases there is a common thread. In the life review, when a whole life is played back (with pure compassion and zero judgement), what stuns people is rarely what they'd expected. It's the small moments and tiny kindnesses tossed off without a second thought that shine brighter than anything they'd built or won or achieved. In those little moments too small to remember turned out to be impacts too large to measure.

I think this is what Strout may have been touching on. It’s not about healing the whole world; it’s about healing teh world that touches you.

For good or bad, your actions have unknowable consequences. We’re so conditioned to believe our purpose must be spectacular: a best-selling book, a wildly successful company, some other grand contribution. But I’m slowly coming to understand it’s a little quieter than that and perhaps your life’s work might be woven through a thousand tiny moments you’ll never receive credit for. But wherever you find yourself, you can choose your next interaction. You can choose kindness and compassion. Many times you won’t, and that’s fine too.

It isn’t your job to see where the ripples land, but it is your job to create them.

Anna xx

This is the first in a series where I explore the systems that have shaped how I see the world (The Enneagram, Human Design, Gene Keys, Integral Theory, IFS, SRF, Spiral Dynamics) – beginning with the one that started it all: The Enneagram.

I’ve always been drawn to personality systems: Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder, DISC, the lot. These systems are great for glimpsing under the hood of ourselves and others. They build empathy and describe what we do: how we process information, respond to situations, and the tendencies we fall into.

But the Enneagram hits differently. From the moment I took that first test in an employee onboarding over eight years ago, something shifted.

Where most personality tests tell you what you do, the Enneagram tells you why. MBTI might say I’m driven, goal-oriented, and adaptable. Useful. But the Enneagram tells me that underneath all that adapting is a core belief that I’m only valuable when I’m achieving. That I shape-shift not because I’m versatile, but because somewhere very early on I learned that being myself wasn’t enough, but looking impressive was. That’s a very different conversation.

But here’s what I love about this system: it doesn’t start with what’s wrong with you, it shows you what’s right. The core premise of the Enneagram is that you were born whole and complete, essentially good, and in touch with your own presence. Your coping strategies aren’t failures; they’ve protected you, helped you achieve, and got you through. But there is another way – one that’s more easeful, flowing and aligned.

For me, it’s not like “doing” is bad. The world needs doers. But there’s a difference between action that comes from an intentional, aligned place and action that runs on autopilot, and driven by patterns you never chose.

So what is the Enneagram and what could all this mean for you?

Let’s dig in.

The Basics

The Enneagram is a symbol, psychological system and process of inquiry that draws from ancient wisdom, sacred geometry, modern psychology and various spiritual traditions. It pops up these days in workplace assessments, but it’s been around, in some form, for a very long time (I’m talking Christian desert fathers and roots back to Pythagoras) – a post for another day.

It maps nine fundamental “types”, and each type has a fixed orientation to themselves and the world: the way they think, feel, relate, react and behave, in both healthy and unhealthy states.

Here’s the quick version (note if one or two jump out at you!):

• Type 1: The Reformer. Principled and purposeful when healthy. Self-controlling and perfectionistic when unhealthy.

• Type 2: The Helper. Generous and demonstrative when healthy. People-pleasing and possessive when unhealthy.

• Type 3: The Achiever. Adaptive and excelling when healthy. Image-conscious and self-deceiving when unhealthy.

• Type 4: The Individualist. Creative and self-aware when healthy. Moody and self-absorbed when unhealthy.

• Type 5: The Investigator. Perceptive and innovative when healthy. Secretive and isolated when unhealthy.

• Type 6: The Loyalist. Engaging and responsible when healthy. Anxious and suspicious when unhealthy.

• Type 7: The Enthusiast. Spontaneous and versatile when healthy. Distractible and scattered when unhealthy.

• Type 8: The Challenger. Self-confident and decisive when healthy. Overbearing and confrontational when unhealthy.

• Type 9: The Peacemaker. Receptive and serene when healthy. Disengaged and complacent when unhealthy.

While each of us contains everything, we resonate first and foremost with one type. You were born with it. It’s your nature. Nurture, on the other hand, is all the ways you’re conditioned away from it.

The “Achiever” learns to perform, to succeed in the eyes of others, to earn a sense of worth – often forgetting they were worthy all along. The “Investigator” learns to retreat into understanding, to analyze and make sense of things, because it feels safer there than in the unpredictable, messy fullness of life. The "Reformer" organises, perfects, and sorts the world into neat boxes; because if everything is in order, nothing can go wrong. Rather than trusting that there's beauty in disorder, and that some things don't need fixing, they need feeling.

We all have our coping strategies, which the Enneagram so beautifully illuminates.

How we lose ourselves (and why it matters)

In the early years of life, being loved and accepted is essential for survival. When we feel that connection is threatened, we instinctively learn to repress the parts of ourselves we believe are unloveable.

No one escapes this. No matter how glorious your childhood was. If you’re thinking “not me, my early years were lovely, no trauma here!!”; you’re underestimating just how much we go through to simply arrive. You’re incubated in a warm womb where your every need is anticipated and met. Nourishment flows, you’re cocooned… and then suddenly the plug is pulled, you get squeezed through a tiny tunnel, your tube to all that nourishment gets cut, and your needs are no longer anticipated. You’re cold, hungry, wet, and someone has to actually figure out what the heck you want. It’s a lot. There’s a reason we don’t remember it.

I'm massively oversimplifying, but the Enneagram rests on the belief that we come into the world in touch with our essence – whole, present, and unconditioned. And from the moment we arrive, we start learning adaptive strategies for when our needs aren't met: cry this way and she comes, be quiet and he stays, perform and they notice, withdraw and it hurts less.

This is the development of “Personality”. And what the Enneagram can gently show you is the adaptive strategy you learned in response to those early challenges – a strategy that is probably still running the show in your adult life, whether you know it or not:

• Type 1: I must always do what’s considered “right.”

• Type 2: I need to give love in order to receive love.

• Type 3: I have to achieve and do what others see as “successful” to be valued.

• Type 4: I need to differentiate myself from everyone else.

• Type 5: I must withdraw and understand the world before I can engage with it.

• Type 6: I must do what’s expected of me to create security.

• Type 7: I’ll be fine if I keep doing new, joyful, stimulating things.

• Type 8: I must be strong and confrontational to feel my aliveness.

• Type 9: If I lessen my own wants and needs, I can keep the peace.

This is oversimplified, but here’s the thing that genuinely shook me: while these patterns may look more sophisticated in adulthood, the flavour of how we respond to the world is distinctly rooted in our two or three-year-old selves. The outer trappings are grown-up. The inner core is still that small inner child, looking for acceptance and belonging.

And it’s worth noting this isn’t really a nurture thing. It’s nature. Some Enneagram content frames it as though your childhood made you your type, as if Type 3s were literally only praised for achieving, and that’s what shaped them. But it’s more that you are a Type 3, therefore that’s your perception i.e. you are valued for doing, not being. Otherwise your type would be determined by what happened to you, and it isn’t. Two twins born to the same mother will respond differently based on their Type. In response to the same lack of attention, one might think “I need to do what Mum values so she sees me and loves me” while the other thinks “to hell with you, I don’t need you anyway”. One is a Type 3, so responds by performing. The other is a Type 8, so they respond by pushing away. Same mother, same childhood, same yearning for unconditional love beneath it all.

You are not your personality

This is the part most people miss, and it’s the part that matters most.

Your Enneagram type doesn’t tell you who you are. It shows you all the ways you distract yourself from who you are.

At the heart of Enneagram teaching is the interplay between your Essence (your “essential nature”– what IFS calls the Self, what Buddhism calls Buddha-nature, what some traditions simply call presence) and your Personality (all the ways you get in the way of that). Actually, it’s at the heart of most spiritual teachings, religions, therapeutic models and philosophical traditions. They’re all pointing at the same thing: there’s something underneath the noise, and it’s been there all along. The Enneagram just gives it a particularly sharp and practical map.

I’m a Type 3 – The Achiever (although I prefer Oscar Ichazo’s original name: “the doer”). It means my particular flavour of distraction involves performing, adapting, and unconsciously shape-shifting to be whatever the room needs me to be. When stressed, I just go harder and “do more” to skirt the uncomfortable feelings. Sounds useful, and professionally it is. It’s also an incredibly effective way to lose touch with who you actually are (and burn out).

When I first read my type description, I had that disorienting experience of being seen in a way I hadn’t consented to. It was uncomfortable. It was accurate. And it was the beginning of something I didn’t know I needed.

As Riso and Hudson put it: “The Enneagram doesn’t put you in a box. It shows you the box you’re in – and the way out.”

Knowledge isn’t wisdom

But knowing the map isn’t the same as walking the territory. And this is where most people stop… at the personality typing, the “oh I’m such a Type 7” dinner party chat. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s often where the system meets you before it gently entices you down a deeper spiritual path.

But the Enneagram’s real power isn’t in knowing your type. It’s in catching yourself, in real time, doing the thing your type does. It’s in the moment between the pattern firing and you choosing something different – that’s where actual transformation lives. And that is something that comes from dedicated self reflection and practices, which I’ll explore and offer for each Type as part of this series.

But knowing your type is the first glorious step into all that.

Want to explore this with people you trust?

Are you intrigued? Want to know your Type, if it didn’t jump out at you already? I hope so. Let me just say, I believe above all this work should be fun. Yes it’s messy and difficult at times, and certainly uncomfortable, but we can hold it lightly.

In the spirit of that, I’ve put together a free guide for running your own Enneagram evening; whether that’s with friends, colleagues, or anyone curious enough to sit in a circle and get honest. It walks you through the basics, has a Typing quiz you can do, gives you conversation prompts for each type, and doesn’t require anyone to have read a single book.

Because the Enneagram isn’t really a solo project. It comes alive in group dynamics, when someone else sees your pattern before you do, and loves you for it.

If you know your type, tell me in the comments! I’d love to know: what was the moment it first showed you something you couldn’t unsee?

Anna x

I’ve experienced enough synchronicities to not have to take anyone’s word for it. Jung coined the term synchronicity to describe “meaningful coincidences”: events connected not by cause and effect, but by meaning. He wasn’t saying the universe sends you signs because you’re special. He was saying that the inner world and the outer world sometimes mirror each other in ways our current understanding of reality can’t fully explain. And that when they do, it’s worth paying attention.

It took me a while, but I’ve been paying attention and here’s what I’ve seen.

Three sheep

As I shared in my first post, I’ve had a thing with the number 33 since forever, and my Grandma convinced me this was my connection to my Grandpa (his number and his birth year). As I turned 33 I was pregnant, joyful, expectant in all the ways. And then I found a hard, unmistakable lump under my arm. A blur of tests and biopsies later: triple negative breast cancer, already in my lymph nodes. I felt so let down. How could this be what 33 was about? I was more on the “I’ll probably win the lottery this year “track. Not a “life-threatening diagnosis while carrying my son” track. But trauma, I’ve since learned, is a kind of purifying fire. It burns away the inessential (money worries, prestige, career) with terrifying speed.

My obsession with 33 intensified. I’d wake at 3:33 every night. I’d casually glance at my phone: 3:33. My phone would light up, no message, every day at that time. It was on buses, receipts, signs. Once, coming home from chemo, feeling particularly hollowed out, the bus lurched to a stop. A cyclist had swerved in front of us. And right outside my window, exactly where I was sitting, a massive 33 was spray-painted on a brick wall, and then a hurst with a giant “grandpa” in flowers positioned on top drove by. I felt him everywhere getting my attention, letting me know it would be fine.

Around that time, Laura Lynne Jackson’s book Signs kept appearing in my orbit: mentioned in conversations, an instagram story here and there, featured in the window display at the local bookstore, popping up in Amazon recommendations. I was still fairly closed off to this stuff, but eventually I caved. Fine. I’ll read it.

Jackson, a medium tested through the Windbridge Research Center, describes how to create a symbolic language with loved ones who’ve passed. After talking it over with my grandma, I settled on my sign for my Grandpa: three sheep. Not one. Not two. Had to be three.

Two days later, I was walking through the backstreets of South London to collect my daughter from nursery. And there, sitting squarely in the middle of the path, was a small wooden sheep figurine on a wooden stand, about 20cm high.

I was so completely startled that I crossed the road to avoid it. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the front of it. It probably was three sheep from the front view (to this day I kick myself for not looking!). When I went back after pickup, it was gone.

On the walk home, my daughter sang “Old MacDonald had a farm”, and during the second verse, she turned to me and said “and on that farm he had three sheep.”

Ok, that was weird on top of some other weirdness. But kids are weird. Coincidence. Ignore.

The next day, my husband picked her up. When they got home, she ran straight to the bookshelf and pointed to a baby counting book she hadn’t touched in over a year. “That one!” she said, as she tried to get at the out-of-reach shelf. Adamant about what she wanted, he gave it to her. She opened it, turned it facing outward, marched into the kitchen, climbed up on her little stand.

“Mummy, look!”

I was distracted making dinner. “That’s great, honey.”

“No. Mummy. Look.“

I looked up. She was holding the book open at the number 3. Illustrated by three sheep.

I dropped the knife.

“Three sheep!” she said, delighted. Then tottled back to the other room, happy as Larry, job done. That one I really couldn’t ignore.

They say children are more open. More porous. I believe this now, completely. Something in my bones knew it was him. And since then, three sheep always arrive when I need them most. My grandma on her birthday, joking: “Don’t forget to ask Grandpa for three sheep!” Five minutes later I walked past a charity shop. In the window: three identical stuffed toy sheep. Countless situations like this.

I tend to only share stories that other people witnessed, because then I know I’m not making things up. My husband, a skeptic, witnessed the three sheep – although I can still feel him lovingly rolling his eyes at me as I write this, ha! – and this next one was all him.

I’d been reading about an Eastern meditation practice where you visualise sitting opposite your guru, staring at each other. I’ve always been drawn to Ramana Maharshi (those eyes) and one night I tried it. My husband and I were going through a rough patch, as couples do), and I remember thinking: Can you sort this for me? I’m dealing with cancer and a newborn. I can’t do relationship problems too. I’m handing this one over.

I didn’t think any more of it.

The next morning, my husband was stretching outside our house, about to go for a run. An Indian man walked up to him. Full traditional attire. Turban. Bindi. He stopped, looked my husband in the eye, pointed to his forehead, and said: “You’re holding a lot of sorrow. You’re worried about the lady inside. But you don’t need to be. Everything is going to work out. If you invite me in, I can tell you more.”

He completely freaked out, said “No thank you!” and darted back inside. A few minutes later he came upstairs, visibly shaken, and told me.

I asked for him. I literally asked for him. I ran outside but couldn’t find the man anywhere. But to this day, I know my request was answered.

It was around this time that the trusty green tree frog became my friend.

On a trip back to visit my family in Aus from London, we found a cute little spot called the Buddha Cafe. We were talking about whether to move back from the UK. I felt like it would be so much better for my health (not to mention the kids): sea, sun, nature… They had oracle card decks there, so I pulled two. I think it might have been the first time I ever had.

The first was numbered 33 (…of course) so I paid attention. The sugar glider: all about taking the leap and trusting you’ll land on your feet.

The second was the green tree frog. All about health: you’ve recently overcome a health challenge and now need to be in nature. The green tree frog can only survive in clean, natural environments.

It felt like we had our answer. Make the move.

And from that day, the tree frogs came. A clear sign. Always to do with health, always showing up when I needed them.

Like Christmas Day a couple years later, when I found a lump on my collarbone and couldn’t sleep with worry. At 11pm I crept out of the bedroom to grab my journal and dump my racing mind on the page. As I tiptoed into the hallway trying not to wake anyone, there he was. A green tree frog, illuminated in a sliver of light from an outside street lamp, sitting in the middle of the carpeted hallway, staring at me. I don’t know how he got in, but I knew he came just for me.

The worry melted instantly.

The frogs visit regularly now. Usually wearing a crown. A giant statue of a crowned frog in a hotel lobby, appearing just as I was receiving truly awful news on the phone. A text from a friend in North London who’d stumbled across a box of green frogs: “I feel like these are for you, in case you need them.” That day, I did. (Thanks, Lou).

The drawings on the wall

I’ll never forget when I was visiting my parents and drove over to Ettalong, a little coastal suburb with a distinctly woo-woo vibe. Wandering through a mini mall in my usual “what should I do with my life!?” spiral, I came across a sweet little florist.

Around the back, there was a window with two drawings in it.

I need you to understand: these were my exact drawings. A giraffe and a zebra. Perfect replicas of two drawings I’d done when I was at school, the ones my mum had framed and proudly displayed on her wall, because she’d frame a scribble of mine if she could. And across four A4 sheets of paper in between them was written: “You just need to create.”

I was convinced my art had grown legs and walked there. I raced home to check the originals were still at home. They were, hanging right where they’d always been.

I went back a couple of weeks later. I couldn’t find the drawings or the florist again.

My dad was one of the first people I talked to about all of this. He’s open and we’re pretty similar – same birthday, even. He told me a story: after his dad sadly passed away (a man who loved frangipanis) the kids were all driving somewhere in the back of a car, reminiscing about him. Sharing stories, remembering him with love. The windows were up.

Then the strongest smell of frangipanis filled the car. Instantly, out of nowhere, in the middle of a treeless street with no flower field in sight. They all smelt it. They all acknowledged it. They all knew it was him.

Then I remembered all these crazy stories from when we were little, like when we moved into our family home. Dad was visiting a mate in a lovely street on Sydney’s North Shore and was taken with the area. He said to his friend: “You couldn’t point me to the worst house on the street, could you?” and was directed to one a few doors down. “I think they’ll move into a retirement home soon,” his friend advised.

Dad went and knocked. The elderly owner opened the door and immediately said: “You’re not Tim Bray’s son, are you?”

Dad looked exactly like his own father, who had died more than 50 years earlier.

“Your father saved me during the war.” The man went on to explain how he’d gone AWOL, and my grandfather had rescued him. He invited Dad in and shared stories and memories my dad had never heard.

The house was pledged to someone else. But as you can probably predict, it fell through. We bought it, and spent many happy years there.

You can’t make this stuff up. It’s too true to be good.

I could share stories like these for days, but perhaps I’ll finish with my coaching course. When I was diagnosed, I was in the middle of completing my PCC (professional coaching course qualification); an intense year long process of self discovery, research and learning, and actual coaching with clients. Sadly I had to drop out. At the time, my incredible fellow trainee coaches were from all over the world (UK, US, China, Europe), as is the beauty of being able to do this online. When I felt well enough to join another cohort and work toward graduation, I was on the fence with whether I should and whether I had the energy.

But I met my new small cohort (I’m talking 15 people max, from all corners of the globe), and would you believe, there is someone I’d never met who lived on my street in South London four doors up. Not only that, literally two minutes to my right around the corner there was another participant. What are the chances!? It was like an actual geographic hug from the universe - two shoulders to lean on to get over the finish line. Another sign to reassure me that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Tell somebody.

I’ve learned that those little stories of synchronicity, the ones that seem so niche and weird, are actually universal. So share yours. Even the most strait-laced colleague, who you’re sure would laugh in your face, will almost certainly have a story of their own to trade.

Some of my most treasured connections started this way.

There’s my friend Steph, who I spent two years rolling my eyes at before I figuratively sat at her feet and said “tell me everything you know.”

Or Dan, who I feel like I’ve shared many lives and friendships with, exploring various spiritual threads across all of them.

Or Juz, who’d had her own series of challenging and beautiful experiences that we traded like excited little kids.

These people are expanders. Find yours. Because the strange thing about telling someone your strangest story is that it almost never lands in silence. It lands in recognition. And then they tell you theirs. And suddenly you’re both standing in a world that’s a little more magical than it was five minutes ago.

Just the other day I was telling my cousin how I’d agreed on a symbol with our Grandma, Rose, before she passed: rainbow kittens. And how I’d felt so disappointed that my life wasn’t filled with rainbow cats. We had a deal! Rose was my person. I expected her to wow me from the other side. And at that moment, mid-sentence, we both looked at the fridge behind us. Multiple beautiful patchwork rainbow cats her daughter had drawn, pinned right there.

We just stared at each other.

Sometimes the signs aren’t billboards. Sometimes they’ve been on the fridge the whole time, and it’s in the conversation that they come alive into recognition.

If you have one of those stories – something weird but wonderful, something so real you can feel it in your body but find it impossible to explain with your mind – I’d love to hear it. Share it in the comments, DM me, send a carrier pigeon… truly nothing makes me happier than hearing them.

Anna x

* Frog artwork by Ona Martin

My love of 33 was my enduring connection to him, she told me. Simple as that. I liked that. Let’s go with that.

I’m aware of the contradiction. I was a self-proclaimed atheist, a devout reader of popular science, and a dismisser of all things woo woo. But I suppose lucky numbers were my guilty little pleasure; like the odd piece of beef on an otherwise vegan diet. We’ve evolved to be meaning-making creatures after all. Looking back, I was nothing if not a ball of contradictions (still am!).

Nonetheless, I chose to invest meaning in this number. My number. I couldn’t wait to turn 33. This was the year everything would make sense and things would magically align. I didn’t know what to expect, but it would be BIG and BOLD and life-making.

Life had been pretty cruisy up until that point. A gorgeous daughter, a husband, a beautiful house in London, a great job at a big tech company. My ego was satisfied that I had it together “enough”, and now I would be rewarded with something truly wonderful.

Then 33 came.

And so did cancer.

Shortly after my 33rd birthday. At 22 weeks pregnant. What. The. Fuck.

To say my world caved in would be an understatement.

I won’t tell the full cancer story here… it deserves its own space. But I will tell you what it did.

Cancer was my alarm bell. It woke me up to the world. To my family. To the beauty in every moment and day. It drags you to the present, at first kicking and screaming, then more gently – like a wise older friend holding your hand.

And in that terrifying, disorienting, ground-cracking-open experience, something else happened too that I didn’t expect. The universe (or life/God/whatever you want to call it) started talking to me. And I started listening.

Not because I became spiritual, but because it felt like I had no choice.

When everything you thought you had figured out falls apart, you either collapse into meaninglessness or you start looking for a deeper kind of meaning. I did both, actually – sometimes in the same afternoon.

The door I didn’t remember knocking on.

In the years that followed, I started exploring. Quietly at first, and definitely secretly: ain’t no way this fits with the well crafted view I have of myself.

It began with the Enneagram. I came to it the way most corporate people do: through a workplace personality assessment. I was a marketing exec looking to understand my team better, give sharper feedback, be more effective at doing things that looked good on a performance review.

And then the Enneagram did what the Enneagram does: it gently, quietly, devastatingly showed me to myself.

Not just my work style. My patterns. The ways I’d been asleep. The stories I’d been running on autopilot since I was small. The box I’d built around my life and called it “having it together.” And once I saw that, I couldn’t unsee it. A door had opened that I didn’t remember knocking on.

So I kept going.

I explored Human Design and discovered I’d been living against my own energy my entire career. I pulled up my birth chart and found things in there that made me uncomfortable with how accurate they were. I stumbled into the Gene Keys and felt something I can only describe as recognition.

I explored theosophy, quantum physics, Integral theory, akashic records, reiki, breathwork, tai chi, tapping, actual therapy, aromatherapy, yoga, soul evolution therapy. Not all at once. But not not all at once, either.

I was jumping from wave to wave in search of wetness.

And the thing is, each of these systems revealed something genuinely useful. They weren’t all the same, but they seemed to be pointing in the same direction. Like different maps of the same territory. Different languages for the same unspeakable thing.

The moment I stopped being able to ignore it.

The synchronicities started getting louder. Not the gentle 33-on-a-clock-face kind. The kind that make your rational mind short-circuit. The kind Carl Jung would have had a field day with — what he called “meaningful coincidences,” events connected not by cause but by meaning.

I’m going to tell you the full story of those synchronicities in my next post, because they deserve the space. For now I’ll just say: there came a point where the signs weren’t nudges anymore. They were more like the universe putting up a billboard on the road I drive every morning.

And I realised I had a choice: keep filing these experiences away as “weird but probably nothing,” or start paying attention.

I chose the latter.

Why I’m writing this here, now.

I’d been wanting to write about all of this for years. But I kept stopping myself for the same reasons many of us do:

Who am I to write about this? I’m not a guru. I’m not enlightened. I’m one phone notification away from a full-blown nervous breakdown most days.

This is too personal. Too weird. People from work will read this.

I need a strategy first. A content plan. A brand. A logo. A font. The exact right shade of terracotta.

That last one almost got me. I spent months designing a brand instead of writing a single word. Classic avoidance dressed up as professionalism.

But here’s what I’ve learned from every spiritual system I’ve studied: the thing you’re avoiding is usually the thing you most need to do. And the belief that you need to be ready before you can begin? That’s the ego talking. It’s that protective part of you that wants to keep you safe.

What you’ll find here.

This space is called Accidentally Spiritual because that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t go looking for meaning. Cancer blew my life open, and meaning walked in uninvited. Then it sat down, made itself comfortable, and refused to leave.

I write at the intersection of spirituality, science, and creativity. If that sounds like an odd combination, I’d argue it’s the only combination that makes sense, because the deepest questions sit right where those three things meet.

Here’s what to expect:

Personal stories. Real things that happened to me, told honestly, including the parts where I felt ridiculous. I believe the most useful spiritual writing comes from people who are still figuring it out, not people who’ve arrived. I am most certainly in the thick of it.

Investigations. Deep dives into systems like the Enneagram, Human Design, astrology, the Gene Keys, and others I haven’t discovered yet. I take them seriously enough to study them properly, and lightly enough to say “I’m not sure about this part.”

The space between. I’m interested in the places where lines aren’t boundaries but meeting points. Where science touches spirituality. Where ancient wisdom meets your Monday morning. Where being a VP of Marketing and someone who reads tarot aren’t contradictions, but the same person, fully alive.

Who this is for.

If you love the Enneagram, Human Design, and astrology but cringe at the thought of the “woo”, you’ll love it here.

If you’ve ever felt drawn to something you couldn’t quite explain and then immediately talked yourself out of it, then this is for you.

If you believe you can care about quarterly targets AND the position of the moon; welcome!

What’s coming next.

In my next post, I’m telling you about the synchronicities. The real ones. The ones that broke my rational brain open. I’ll ground them in Jung’s work on meaningful coincidence, because even when the universe is being weird, I still like my footnotes.

Subscribe so you don’t miss it.

And if this resonated – if you read this and thought she’s my kind of unhinged – forward it to one friend who’d feel the same way. That’s how this grows.

Ok I’m pressing “publish” now. Here goes!

Anna x