A couple of years ago I nearly gave it all up.

It wasn’t because I’d fallen out of love with my jewellery making, it was because I’d fallen head over heels with something else.

I’d discovered writing. But not just any kind of writing; the kind that at times felt fevered, leaving me weeping into my journal, horrified at my ingrained shame, and astounded at the passion I found under it all.

It aligned perfectly with an online group I’d joined - not your average small biz community - a place where we bared all (emotionally, it wasn’t a nudist community 😂) and we cried and celebrated and worked through our challenges together.

I remember hiding up in my bedroom and whispering a voice note to my friend and accountability partner “I don’t think I want to make jewellery anymore, I just want to write”… And I nearly did it. Not long after, I wrote my first submission - my most vulnerable and explicit piece ever - which got accepted for publication in a domestic abuse anthology (more on that another day). I tasted the liberation that came from sharing some of my darkest moments.

But the honeymoon phase started to pass. Writing and sharing it publicly is hard, but that’s not what stopped me, I’m not shy of things that are hard. It’s that terrible, and terribly powerful word...

“should”.

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I did what I thought I should do. I denied myself what made me feel alive in the name of rationality. I was so ashamed of wanting something that didn’t earn me money - I’ve got two paid subscribers on substack and it’s my mum and her friend (thanks mum). As a completely solo parent living hand to mouth, it felt unjustifiable - irresponsible even - to spend hours or days writing and editing a longer form piece.

Who did I think I was?

And so I let it slide. I wrote fewer posts. I journaled for myself less. And gradually that well of inspiration dried up.

And I didn’t really notice it had gone. I didn’t realise how much I missed that part of me until I looked back through my old posts. Reading those words felt like flicking back through an old photo album from decades before. Where you recognise yourself in the photos, but they’re snippets of memories that feel detached from the present. I felt like that with my writing; words from a bygone version of me, though they were only a year or two old. I’d abandoned the part of me that felt I could be honest. That showed up and said what I felt and let it flow. That didn’t think about keywords and hooks and CTAs.

I’d fallen back into that trap again.

The false safety of doing what I thought I “should” do.

You see, I get scared of losing it all so I push and try harder. I pile on more pressure. I do what everyone else is telling me I should do to grow this little business of mine. And while none of that is inherently wrong, I don’t want to lose myself or my vision in the process. I’m not here to make jewellery that is bought on a whim, worn once for an occasion, and forgotten. This is personal - I make jewellery that holds a piece of life and stays with you, through thick and thin.

And it turns out, writing is how I process so much of my own experiences. It’s entwined with all that I do. It’s how I come to terms with the things that affect my life and my sense of self. I think and I feel and I write - and then I make.

The making comes last, because those other things must come first. What I make is a manifestation of the days - months! - of thoughts and lessons that linger. Of experiences that turn me inside out and get beneath my skin before I work out how to put myself back together again. Jewellery is how I get my inner workings outside of me - somewhere I can see them and touch them and turn them over in my hands, and stop them whirling around inside of me.

How do you honour your life stories?

"What is the point" keeps bouncing around my brain at the moment. Not in an existential sense, but more in a “sales are down, reach is down, costs are up and I'm pouring my heart into something that often feels invisible" kinda sense. But while yes, that may be true at times, let’s just try that again, ok?

What IS the point?

I believe that women deserve to have ALL their stories told - the highlights AND the heartaches. The triumphs, the mistakes, the grief, the reinventions, the moments when life looks nothing like we imagined it would, for better or worse.

When we recognise what we've been through and where we're headed - but importantly where we are RIGHT NOW - we boost our self compassion and kindness towards ourselves. We allow ourselves to be imperfect human beings.

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Jewellery might seem like an odd place to have these conversations. But for me, that’s exactly what it’s for, and it’s important. It’s more than just being pretty. It’s recognition.

And by taking that moment for ourselves, we begin to break the cycle. Because that’s exactly how the system sustains itself, isn’t it? Keep women focused on fixing themselves so they never have time to notice they were never broken in the first place.

We need to deny what we're sold; that we'll only be of value, or can only be celebrated (or rest, or take up that hobby etc) once we've obtained the socially acceptable level of perfection.

When we're more thin

When we’re less wrinkled

When we’re more beautiful

When we've finished the to do list

When the house is immaculate

When the kids have grown up

When we’ve earnt it

When

When

When

But what about now?

What if right now we are still worth celebrating, with the lines around our eyes that show the world we've laughed and cried, our soft bellies ready for our kids to snuggle into, our undulating curves telling a timeline of cuddles and comfort.

What if we could stop to look at everything we are still juggling, not just at the balls we're dropping. How about we appreciate how hard this is, because it is hard. Not because we're failing at it. Or not good enough. We're just humans doing the best we can.

So that's why I do what I do. I believe we need to stop for a minute and look at ourselves. Like, really look. Give ourselves a virtual - or heck, an actual - hug, and recognise all that we are; beautifully imperfect humans.

I’ve realised the older I get, and the more of life that I’ve lived; the less interested I am in waiting for permission to be myself, or take up space. I don’t need someone else to mark my own milestones.

So yes, to paraphrase Miley Cyrus, we can buy our own flowers.

And we can buy our own jewellery too.

Not because we’ve finally earned it, or become someone worth celebrating.

Because we’ve always been enough.

If you need this reminder sometimes too, I’ve recently released a new set of silver affirmation charms to my Mini Mantra collection (you can choose your own word too), to keep repeating these kind words to ourselves everyday. You can view the full collection HERE.

Today would have been my 10 year wedding anniversary. And I suppose technically it still is, given that the divorce is not yet final. It’s an odd feeling, when a date changes shape - from excitement to a dull thrum of hollowness; the palpable gap between the future you longed for, and the one you actually got.

The twenty-third of April now largely passes like any other - typically juggling work on my business with the busyness of life as a solo mum. Except on this day, there’s a ghost; the shadow of a date that used to bring hope of a future together, now hope for one apart.

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I talk to other divorced women and sometimes they mention a heartbreak that still remains, and I struggle to relate. My heart was broken at the start of the separation, of course it was; my world as I knew it was shattered into pieces and I didn’t know how I would ever fit it back together again. I lay in the bed we used to share, heaving ugly guttural sobs with a weight so huge in my chest I thought it would cave in. No amount of tears could shift the aftershock thundering through my heart. What did shift it was knowing the tremors came not just from my heart, but also my mind. A mind I’d been convinced I was losing. I regained my grip as I learnt that the pain being wielded didn’t come from a place of love - it came from more pain - which wasn’t mine to feel responsible for any longer.

I’d been moulded gradually and meticulously from my teens to my mid-30’s. Responsible for providing everything, and responsible for blame when I fell short of the goal posts that always moved further out of reach. I thought this was what love was, and I just wasn’t doing it well enough, and I defended it to the hilt. Thankfully I (eventually) learnt the core life lesson I needed; that love should not come at a price where I always ended up out of pocket.

Admittedly, I wish it hadn’t taken me two decades to figure it out. But I guess twenty years shows how little I understood that my self worth was for me to determine, not someone else.

So no, there’s no ache left in my heart for the end of that chapter in my life. Just the surety that the past is where it rightly belongs.

So instead of grieving the end of my marriage, I celebrate it and I save my grief for the woman I was that got lost inside it. Divorce is no longer taboo for me, I’m proud that I walked away, that I broke the most solemn of promises. Because as I came to learn, a wedding does not make a marriage.

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Ten years ago, on April 23rd 2016, after almost 15 years together, we made our vows. I wore the most beautiful dress I’d ever laid my eyes on and slicked red lipstick across my lips. The lace trailed behind me, slinking over my tiny figure, the satin lining soft against my skin. I glimpsed a version of myself that I’d barely seen before - confident and empowered. I’d crafted a beautiful wedding, family visiting from all corners of the world to celebrate our union. We were surrounded by hundreds of handmade paper cranes; a promise of fidelity, longevity and hope. As for hope, well I had that by the bucketload. Hope that the circles we slid in ceremony over each other’s fingers would at last gain me the unwavering loyalty I so desperately craved. Because that’s what we’re taught, right? That the wedding is the ultimate goal, and then it’s just happily ever after!

But of course, we didn’t live in a fairytale. In just five years, with a house and a baby, our fifth wedding anniversary slipped by, sharing neither cards nor affection, only bitter resentment. The storybook of our lives together was hurtling towards its climax. We only had a few pages left and there was no knight in shining armour coming to rescue me - so I had to rescue myself, to write my own new story. This time I would be the protagonist.

Four tumultuous years later, I sold my wedding dress to play its part in someone else’s marriage. Hopefully for ever after this time. I did grapple with the ethics of selling a wedding dress that held so much anguish, but serendipitously it coincided with a brand photoshoot to commemorate changing my business name. I took my dress along, held it up to the wind, and let the sea air blow its history away. I said goodbye to not just the dress, but to the young woman I’d been when I wore it. Then, we continued the shoot to honour the woman I have since become, and my jewellery business that has evolved with me.

I’ve made jewellery for almost two decades, but that’s not how this business truly began. It grew not from the craft, but from the cracks in my life. In 2021, when I knew in my heart that I was closing one chapter and starting anew, I made a piece of jewellery to mark that transition. It was a birch leaf, hewn from golden brass, the colour of autumn leaves as they let go in autumn. I was letting go of so much, and soon too would be wintering. But I knew spring would come, and Birch trees are the first species to unfurl their leaves, marking a new beginning. As I crafted this life marker for myself, something shifted inside me and my business. I’d discovered something that felt - for the first time in my life - like it was truly mine.

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Through it all I’ve learnt that honouring our junctions in life is a remarkably powerful tool for self awareness and compassion - which in turn increases our resilience and capacity for change.

By creating talismans that other women can hold onto when - for better or worse - life is swirling around them, I can give something back. To learn from my own experiences and pay it forward.

Some anniversaries are to remain as you originally intended, and sometimes they need to be reclaimed. I will no longer remember April 23rd for what my marriage was; I will remember it for who I am now.

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Something unexpected happened last month. I was in the midst of all the overwhelm of Christmas as a solo parent with a young child and a small jewellery business, and something small snowballed quite wonderfully. It had such a profound effect on me, I wanted to write about it to share it with you. And yet, all that overwhelm - combined with my perfectionism - meant that I couldn’t meet my self-imposed deadline to publish it within a few days. I quietly declared it as too late. It was abandoned, untitled and forgettable in my drafts. But since choosing ‘imperfect’ as my word of the year for 2026 (read more about that here), I realised I wanted to start as I mean to go on. This piece may not be perfect, but it means something to me, and that, I hope, is enough.

It all started with a piece of writing by that I was compelled to read (in a moment I really didn’t have to spare) as I was gathering our things and cajoling my son to leave the house in the middle of December. It’s rare I read anything on Substack these days, and even rarer for me to write something. This place has increasingly made my imposter syndrome run rampant - who was I to think I could take hours out of my working day to write when it doesn’t even pay my bills? I would occasionally open the app and see notes with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments; the kind of visibility (or was it validation?) I could only dream of. I would close the app again, deflated.

White Ink with Anna Wharton

What If You Can't Afford to Buy Presents?

I have been enjoying all the gift guides that have been doing the rounds on Substack. I open them and scan through all those lovely, shiny goodies that offer people ideas for what they can buy their loved ones this Christmas. Sometimes I even click on some of the links (£27 for a packet of biscuits?!), and everything looks so pretty and enticing, and then I close them again…

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9 months ago · 188 likes · 118 comments · Anna Wharton

And yet I did read this piece. “What if you Can’t Afford to Buy Presents?” by Anna Wharton. I read it and it struck a chord, and I commented to thank Anna for writing something so honest and relatable - and then I put my phone back in my pocket and thought nothing more of it. I took my six year old into town for the local festive market, and fended off about a hundred “pleeease can you buy this, I neeeed it”. I succumbed to a couple of these requests, or more accurately, I succumbed to the messaging we’re fed; that if I did not buy nearly every piece of plastic or E-number fuelled sweet he laid his eyes on, I would ruin his weekend, nay, his Christmas.

Later, when we returned home, I discovered that Anna had replied to my comment asking to see my work. I was delighted and quite touched that she had even replied, let alone wanted to see my jewellery. I sent her my links, and again put my phone away, thinking nothing more of it. Afterall, I didn’t think she’d really take a look.

You can imagine my surprise when she later published a note describing her vulnerability in writing that article, and how it had (unsurprisingly) resonated with so many people - and then she mentioned me. She had looked at my jewellery, and simply suggested for others to do the same.

Those few words restored something deep in me, and I unexpectedly - and quite profoundly - felt seen. Was it the public nature of her share, by someone I respect, with a reputable following and therefore greater reach? Yes, partly. But it wasn’t just the business potential of someone with influence putting their words behind my work. It was much more personal than that. More intimate. I felt like someone believed me… Someone who otherwise had no connection to me - no obligation or duty to share. Anna saw something in my work that can sometimes feel hard to translate, when my tongue gets tangled and I forget the words that can flow much more easily from my pen when I’m alone. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just knew what it was like to be a solo parent juggling being everyone and everything, pouring every drop of yourself into your child, your job, your house, and trying to build something with meaning when it sometimes feels the odds are stacked so greatly against you. It doesn’t matter what Anna saw really, it was an act of kindness that, by design, became something far greater than the few kind sentences she wrote.

We have graphic phrases for this act of baring our souls - pouring our hearts out or spilling our guts - but nothing for what happens next when this is met with connection and acceptance. The flooding warmth that envelops our hearts, or the gentle holding of our tendermost parts. Heart-holding, perhaps?

When I craft my jewellery and my words I practise holding my own heart. When my pieces find their way into someone else’s hands (or inboxes), my hope is that they offer some of that same tender heart-holding in return. Not the pretence or performance of perfection. But something honest, something real… passed quietly from one person to another.

This piece of writing may have arrived late, and it may feel unpolished in places, but I knew I still wanted to share it. Imperfection is where connection begins; and I believe in letting silver and stories build synapses between our souls.

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Journal extract, 2nd Jan 2025

… I know my word for this year is Dare, because there is so much I fear. Not fear of the things that are bad, but fear of the things that are good. That have such meaning and importance. They are the things that matter and losing or ill-achieving them is what scares me the most.

I’d had two main goals for 2024. To finalise my divorce and launch my new collection. I’d achieved neither. The divorce was largely out of my hands despite my best efforts, and so for 2025 my focus narrowed on my new collection. It had remained just an idea for over two years; a concept I felt passionately about, and yet struggled to turn into something solid. What if I didn’t have the technical skills to pull it off? What if no-one ‘got’ it? What if it was a flop? I couldn’t let go of it though. I kept returning to the notion that creative ideas are like butterflies that land on your shoulder; if you do not act upon them, they will fly off to someone else. My butterfly was getting itchy feet and I knew in 2025 I would have to dig deep and Dare to prevent it flying away.

I started the year confidently; I was in the planning and research phase - my comfort zone. It soon became clear however that I was still resisting actually doing the thing. This idea had transmuted from a butterfly into Schrödinger's cat. Simultaneously alive and dead, whilst safely tucked away as theory, the box (of my wax sculpting kit) sealed tightly shut.

But with the moral support of an understanding friend, I opened the box. The wax inside was neither dead nor alive of course, just an inanimate block amongst a few simple tools. It really wasn’t that deep. And yet it really was. I watched in awe as I picked up these brand new tools and, to my surprise, my hands instinctively knew what to do with them. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that while it’s true I’d never used a wax file or saw before, the years I’d spent cutting and filing metal would mean it felt quite unexpectedly familiar. I suddenly realised that I had got the practical and emotional anxieties all muddled up together:

I was elated, and more than a little embarrassed, but finally I’d cleared that first hurdle. The box was open. It wasn’t an absolute disaster. I’d actually even… enjoyed myself?! I’d become so accustomed to all the fear and worry of the what if’s, I’d forgotten that creating new pieces could be fun too.

Unfortunately, this revelation and initial momentum getting the ball rolling, also coincided with the start of one of my most challenging phases of parenting yet. Said ball ground to a halt and was abandoned, as my energy was re-routed for sheer survival; fighting fires that blazed fiercely every day, desperately advocating for specialist assistance from under-funded and over-stretched support systems. Some listened compassionately, some made things worse, and we got added to waitlist after waitlist. And I had a health scare. My nervous system was absolutely wrecked.

Unsurprisingly, progress on the new collection over those months was slower than hoped. Somehow, I managed to make two pieces from wax - a coffee bean and a feather - though they were far from becoming anything actually wearable. The summer holidays soon arrived, which I spent recovering. Not resting. Not catching up with my limping project.

The new school year began in September and I knew it was do-or-die time for this project. I’d reached my limit for delays and I simply couldn’t afford the luxury of time, obsessing over the details and what ifs any longer. And so I forced myself to complete the two wax masters and sent them to be moulded and cast into silver. The next week I officially released my silver coffee bean, a symbol of transformation and resilience through life’s challenges. I launched it imperfectly, just a single piece, not a full collection as I’d always envisaged. I was mortified… Was it enough? Had I killed this project before it barely had chance to live?

Incredulously, people had asked to be told when they could buy this piece while it was still a wax master, not yet cast into silver. I hadn’t let myself truly believe it. And yet, despite everything my self doubt was telling me, I dug deep and dared myself to message them with the update, nauseous with the conviction they hadn’t really meant it, or at least they would have changed their minds by now if not, and I’d just be making things awkward.

SPOILER: I didn’t make things awkward.

The first sales started coming in.

Again and again I dared to deny the stories my self doubt told me were truths. Again and again I wrote my own new side note... But what if it goes right?

And, to my surprise, it mostly did go right. OK, some things didn’t go to plan - I didn’t manage to launch my silver feather as hoped before christmas, but to be fair, it was an incredibly intense time. I have subsequently vowed to never EVER again launch a new collection, whilst building a brand new website, whilst going through a rebrand process with a designer, whilst navigating the busiest time of year as a small business owner and being a fully solo parent… but I bloody well did it. I kept showing up even when it felt like tumbleweed and all I wanted to do was hide away. I focussed on what I was able to do, and I sold more coffee beans than I had quietly hoped. I restored some faith in myself and my little collection. The butterfly that I didn’t let fly away.

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And now? Well, the fear of failure is still there (I’m not sure it will ever fully go away) but it is not quite so loud now, because there is a new voice to remind me that what I dream can also become real.

And I did it because I dared to show up imperfectly, even when (especially when) I felt wildly out of my comfort zone. So, I am taking this lesson into 2026. To embrace being imperfect, because really that just means being human, doesn’t it? Perfection is an unattainable goal, and to hold myself to that impossible standard is only going to keep me small and silent. I don’t want to whisper my work into the world anymore. It scares the living hell out of me to shout about it, but I will learn how to do it, one wobbly wail at a time.

So this year I am going to lean into being imperfect. Even writing this I’m putting off hitting the ‘publish’ button because I’m scared it’s not good enough. But it’s where I am right now, a little rusty after months away from writing. And where I am now has to be good enough, right? Where else could I possibly be?! If I continue to wait for the ‘perfect time’ or until I’ve achieved something I deem to be ‘perfect’ - the butterflies will just fly on. I’ve come too far now to let that happen. So you’ll find me here, keeping my butterflies close.

Do you have a word to carry you through this year?

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I've never been more disconnected from my normal everyday life, yet never felt more connected to all the things that really matter. I was surrounded by the people I love most in this world, in a place that calls to their heart; and it whispered to mine too. That land is the epitome of the sublime - not in the modern sense of excellence, but of the wonder and awe mixed with terror, as in the 18th century art movement. I felt at the land’s mercy, and not just in the hours before storm Floris hit, but along the winding single lane roads, relying on pure luck and the mathematics of probability that we wouldn’t meeting a fully-laden logging truck hurtling round the relentless blind corners, or at the vast expanse of deserted beaches, surrounded by cliffs and mountains, bereft of any other visitors except the occasional sheep or horse, and without a shred of signal. The land is beautiful and it is powerful. The epitome of life itself.

I feel like I've been living inside some kind of parallel universe for a week, where the real, hard, world, didn’t really exist for me. There were no To Do Lists beckoning, or jobs around the house accusing me of neglect; just family, beautiful rugged landscapes, clean, fresh air, and the ability to snatch moments in time when I returned to the parts of myself that weren’t just The Mother, The Business Owner, The Home Owner, The Divorcee. When life is full and heavy to hold, you quickly forget what it’s like to hold life lightly. To side-step the demands and dance with joy.

This week away came slap bang in the peak of one of my most intense and challenging parenting chapters yet. Since our bumpy landing home (not literally, despite Storm Floris' best threats), it feels like I am returning to my homeland. I am remembering who I am and how I function and, thanks to a particularly brilliant Scottish swim in the sea with my brother, niece and nephew (and many jellyfish), what joy feels like too.

The hard reality of life hasn’t miraculously disappeared now we’re back home, but it was good to get some distance from it. They say you can’t run from your problems but just escaping them temporarily is sometimes necessary. I’ve been able to put some fuel in my tank, so I’m not just running on fumes as I have been for weeks, probably months.

I’ve reminded my brain and my nervous system what the alternative is. What the goal is through all of this.

We are only now embarking on the summer holidays at home, and it’s a real mix of all of the above. Some beautiful moments and memories being made of slow mornings, meandering chats and going with the flow, muddled up with meltdowns, overwhelm, overstimulation and exhaustion. I mean, it’s not a patch on Scotland of course, but we will find our magic where we can here in Cornwall.

Until next time, Scotland.

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Recently I realised that my Work Ethic is excellent, my Rest Ethic is a work-in-progress, and my Play Ethic is completely and utterly non-existent. Play, for me, is HARD.

All too often it falls to the bottom of the To-Do List, which inevitably I never get to - something else is always prioritised that is more ‘productive’. This one seemingly harmless word is such a huge block for me - my time and energy resources are so limited, I always prioritise work, home and family life (and all those other things I feel I *should* be doing) over anything else ‘just for fun’. But let’s not sugarcoat this, because it’s not always just a case of not prioritising it - I actively resist it.

Yesterday I was invited to spend an hour or two going for a walk and sea swim with a close friend before we started work together. My mind went into complete overdrive, I could feel my entire body tense and panic at the sheer thought of taking time off work to do something nice for myself, and I had to drag myself, kicking and screaming to that swim date. It didn’t just feel uncomfortable, it actively felt like a threat.

You see, I tend to push through, and keep on pushing, until I crumble to pieces. The more depleted and stressed I am, the harder I grip onto work and productivity, and the harder it is to stop and let go, even just for a moment. But by then of course, self care isn’t self care at all, it’s become recovery and repair. Sticking a plaster on a gaping wound.

And yet, when I do allow myself to do something just for joy (and importantly, before I get to complete breaking point, which I won’t lie, I was perilously close to yesterday), something magical happens. My body unwinds its tightly coiled insides, I loosen and I remember the forgotten feeling of laughter bubbling up from my lungs, the tight embrace of a good hug, or conversation (and even tears) that flow in safety. I walk away from these times feeling physically lighter, taller, and filled with an energy and thirst for life that otherwise all too easily feels like a distant fading memory; a forbidden fruit.

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Why is it so hard to have fun?

A lifetime of high-pressure expectations for high-achievement, coupled with being a lone parent of a small, highly sensitive child, unsurprisingly begets hyper-independence. That need to be ‘productive’ is so ingrained, it takes a huge amount of energy to break; energy that is usually in short supply. But I am (getting better at) forcing myself through the discomfort of guilt and shame and utter fear of taking time out of my days for joy. I have never, ever regretted time for pleasure, and it has always, ironically, made me more productive. A fact my brain struggles to re-write over the old narrative, but one I’m trying really hard to imprint.

So here's to making time for play. Because time doesn't just miraculously appear; we need to actively forge that time into our days.

And in that spirit, last week I threw caution to the wind, abandoned my normal weekly routine and went out on a school night to see a band from my youth play at the Eden Project, for no other reason than pure JOY! (Thanks Mum for the 400 mile round-trip for babysitting duties!!). It was everything I needed - and more. Since that night I’ve been listening to the set list on repeat, tapping into that memory of freedom and release as the bass lines rattled through my chest and I moved with thousands of other people to the music, reliving the favourite years of my youth and honouring the woman I have since become. Drinking up that memory as if it were an elixir keeping me alive.

It wasn’t just a night out; it was a night to reignite the spark that I forget still glows quietly inside, and feel the heat rise as I stoke that fire once again. To let it burn holes in a life that sometimes feels like it’s drowning me, and let it clear space to breathe. Sometimes we need to get loud and defiant and take risks in the hope that the payoff is worth it.

It was worth it.

I wonder, what sets you alight?

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Today marks the return to school for my son, and for me, it feels as if my life opens up again to more possibility and balance. His anger and resentment from a morning of enforced time schedules and school uniform is dissipated by the (thankfully) sunny walk to school with it’s route and routines that carry us towards the comfort of familiarity. Awe spotting to help us on our way, as we reconnect to the term-time rhythm that feels so alien after over two weeks off. A shield bug was sunning itself on the low breezeblock wall that has become the pitstop for a drink. We giggled at the black speck that might have been poo it left behind on my son’s finger after he carefully moved it onto some leaves. We gasped, rounding the corner of the playground, and through the throng of shrieking children we saw the huge cherry tree, now frothing with blossom. Remembering last year when the petals fell in their thousands like snow, swirling in pale pink eddies in the wind, before being thrown in by the handful and crushed underfoot in puddles on the tarmac.

Then it was time. Tight hugs and kisses and high fives as we saw the classroom door open and his nervous chatter was already tumbling out his mouth the moment he stepped over the threshold. Eagerly telling his new teacher about our family holiday fossilling in Dorset, as she smiled broadly and warmly back at him and all the other children pouring through the door. I turn to leave as he wanders off to find his peg and spot him through the window, stopping to comfort another girl crying and frozen to the spot. His tenderness touches me and I watch him for a moment, as the mother of the little girl stands there too, watching her child, helpless. I know that ache. He catches my gaze and we exchange blown kisses tucked into invisible pockets over our hearts and I walk away.

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I join the mass exodus of parents and caregivers pouring from the school gates. I’ve been inside the school system for nearly two years now but I still find this time surreal. The flood of people, all leaving this place en masse, each gradually paring off to their own complex and layered lives. A moment of sonder, every weekday morning, following the flow down and away from the gates, catching snippets of conversations and the intricacies of all these unique existences, stepping aside to let through those few coming uphill; upstream against the current. Before long we spread out, our paths untwining, and space and solitude finally returns.

As I step back into my house - my life - where I can be so much more than 'Mum' now I’m alone, I notice my own comforts of familiarity. My morning coffee, maybe a cold dip, and the long To Do list that now feels enticing after some time away. The undercurrent of overwhelm is still there, with all the ways I'm pushing myself out my comfort zone this year, now watching the clock tick towards the summer holidays. The expiry date for solitude and focussed work days that creeps forwards until the juggle really begins, and the seasons shift once again. But through it all I can feel the excitement bubbling up too. A fizzy and nervous excitement for the potential of all there is still to come. And so on I go.

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When it became clear my marriage was irretrievable, keeping my married name was never an option. But what I didn’t realise for quite some time was that I wouldn’t return to my maiden name.

So much had changed… I had changed.

I was no longer a maiden.

For verging on four years now, I have been moving towards a future that past me would never have dared to imagine. Toward freedom. Toward my true self. And slowly I realised I couldn’t go back to a name that belonged to the me from my past, who knew nothing of what I know now.

But how to choose a name that I would carry to the end of my days?

How could one single word possibly hold all the meaning and significance of this turning point in my life?

“I can’t just pluck a name out of thin air” I groaned to my therapist one morning. Yet, that very night, I did just that…

It came to me, as I sat up in bed, cocooned by the darkness and quiet, curtains open to reveal the twinkling possibility of stars in a dark night sky. A dawning revelation that caught my breath and grew a smile wide on my face.

Of course.

How could it have been anything else?

The one symbol I return to again and again to recall the power of new beginnings; for growth and resilience through hardship. A source of life, strength and protection.

The symbol I turned to when I was in the initial throes of separation and needed a constant when my life as I knew it was crashing down around me. It was the daily reminder I needed that this road I was embarking on - taking me away from a 20 year relationship - was taking me towards myself. That what was immeasurably hard was also undoubtedly right.

I marked that moment in 2021 in the only way I knew how; with my craft. I hewed this symbol from solid brass and with every bite of the saw’s teeth through metal I cut away the rough shape of what was to come. And as I did I cut away the parts of myself that needed to be shed. I filed and refined the shape of this metal, smoothing the edges of it and of myself. Running my fingers along the edge to see where rough parts remained, where they needed softening; coaxing out the shape of my life to come.

This was a reminder of what I was creating. Just a necklace to some, but to me it was my life beginning again. My season of spring after a long, harsh winter.

It was a leaf I carved. A special and very particular leaf that has barely left my neck since the day I made it. It’s always been there and gives me the strength I need when I need it most.

It’s been resting on my skin, close to my heart, patiently waiting for me to embrace it deeper into who I am. Because it is who I am.

It is the Birch.

I am Cat Birch.

I need to confess something… I'm seeing someone else. Quite a lot of people, actually.

That's why I've been so absent here, I'd hoped you might not notice, but this secret is eating away at my insides.

I've known them for a very long time… years in fact. We've grown up together but it’s somewhere different, away from this place - a little safe corner of a monstrously huge place called Instagram. You are new and exciting and I still really want it to work out between us; but, despite all its flaws, I have something really special in that other place and I can’t just abandon it and all the people I know and love there.

And, well, there’s something else… about five years ago something happened. A young woman I met started to grow and blossom - and then some big life stuff happened, and since then I’ve got to really know her and she’s evolved into someone quite unexpected. It's been a privilege, and I'm just so very proud.

I've written you a letter and I'll send it on Thursday morning - I do hope you'll read it.

I really want to spend more time with you, it's just a lot to juggle right now.

Promise you'll wait for me?

See you Thursday,

Cat x

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What if self-sabotage was your friend?

It’s hard to think of Self-sabotage as my friend. I know she’s there to protect me, and I suppose that’s what friends do, to a large extent. But Self-sabotage is an overbearing friend. One who wants her story heard above everyone else; so she forgets to listen to any other voice except her own. She is desperate to be heard because she is hurt. She craves the attention from others because she can’t find the validation she seeks within herself. She raises her voice, harsh words drowning out any attempts of rational conversation to challenge her dictatorship.

When I spend time with a friend like this I have to shout louder too. I dredge up my deepest darkest thoughts to catch her attention so she might spare me a moment to speak. She gladly helps pick the meat from my bones, ravenous, gorging on doubt and worry.

But still, Self-sabotage is loyal company, sitting in the dark with me, though neither willing to let me leave, nor offering me a light. She’s scared of being abandoned, so pulls me in tighter, swaddling me in her suffocating embrace. Her sensible clothes are dowdy and heavy, layered up against all weathers: Self-sabotage doesn’t leave anything to chance. Her billowing skirts mask her figure beneath, which grows old and stiff. The weight of the thick blankets that prepare her for the cold drags her down. Her preparedness is her ball and chain, her booted feet lost in a tangle of muddied linen, sodden with the rain and years of pooled tears.

She is worn down. Tired to her bones - and afraid.

It is hard untangling myself from those relentless limbs that cling. She has become a strange but faithful companion over the years, her cloying words reassuringly familiar. She hushes me, holds me tight, tempting me back into the warm cocoon of her embrace - and the safety in my smallness.

But now I’ve met her sister, Trust. She is lithe and stands tall, with hair that cascades in tousled auburn waves down her long back. At her side she holds her worn, trusty staff, hewn from a fallen oak branch she found at the bottom of a ravine. It offers her protection and a stable footing, a place to lean on to rest as she navigates the rough terrain ahead of her.

Trust’s head is held high, eyes cast far and wide. She scans the horizon, scoping for new pathways, fully aware of the threats that may lie out of sight, yet still she strides on. She is prepared with just the bare essentials for survival. She doesn’t weigh herself down with what-ifs and maybes. She travels lightly because she knows she has all she needs. She trusts, because she knows the depth of her strength and stamina; from experience she knows that the deep pools of despair hidden and murky over the grasslands can - and will - be traversed. Instead, she focuses on the mountains that tower beyond, reaching to the clouds, promising the exhilarating perspectives that the well-trodden paths don’t venture near.

“Seek the Wild Path” she whispers to me as she continues. I follow, her scent lingering on the breeze. A familiar smell I can’t quite pinpoint; somewhere between the damp earth and the hanging mist, with the intoxicating, sweet woody scent of herbs as we brush through the foliage. I look up again, distracted for a moment by my surroundings, and see her striding ahead. She is patient but she will not pause for tardiness. She knows for what she is searching, but not where she will find it. She is an explorer, not without fear, but with a wisdom she has earned along her journey.

She remembers

she learns

she trusts.

She trusts and she trusts, and she moves through the storms and the chasms that lie in her path. She rests under the glowing sun and in the boughs of sturdy trees.

Then she pauses for a moment and turns to me, a wisp of red curls blown from her face by the wind rushing up the mountainside. I see her face for the first time and in her eyes I see myself reflected back. The lines in her skin echo the crags in the rocks, holding the shape of the land that surrounds us. I feel her heartbeat rising through my feet planted firmly on the ground beneath me. She is not just following the path, she is the path.

My heart quickens and I take a step towards Trust. Towards this being that I know in my heart is a part of me, but is tantalisingly just out of reach. She is an apparition of who I can be. So closer I step, and a knowing smile curls across her face. She turns and continues her journey.

I follow.

I trust.

My first word of the year was Forge in 2021. We were a year into the pandemic and my son was nearing the terrible twos as well as dropping his one and only nap (my time to run my jewellery business), so I knew it wouldn’t be without its challenges.

Forge /fɔːdʒ/

verb

1. To move forward in a determined way although progress is difficult

2. Create something strong, enduring or successful

3. Make or shape (a metal object) by heating it in a fire and hammering it

I could never have known how apt that word was going to become. The ferocity of the following months burnt and beat my life to ashes. The years since then have been both a brutal and beautiful climb up from rock bottom.

Last year’s word was Embrace. I knew, as with the three years that preceded it, it would be a tumultuous year. I would need to keep moving forward, but this time with soft, open arms, as the necessity for becoming hardened and braced for battle was becoming an over-familiar cloak of protection. I wanted to embrace all that came my way, whether joyful, painful, successful or a lesson learnt the hard way. But what I didn’t anticipate was a different kind of embrace; to be held - loved - inside nurturing friendships and creative fellowships, and truly, it transformed my year.

In the September of 2024 I eagerly turned 40. It marked the start of a new decade that will belong to me in a way that no chapter of my life ever really has. Someone sent me their regards - just a handful of words - but which clung to me like hooked seed heads on a jumper during an autumnal walk. I couldn’t brush them off and they kept replaying in my mind, until I realised they were the words to take with me into - and through - this next year.

And there it is. To dare to imagine.

In previous years I couldn’t imagine a wonderful life, because each boulder that lay between me and that possibility was so huge I couldn’t see past it. I could only see as far as my feet, taking tentative steps as they traversed the land in front of me.

But what if I dared to imagine the freedom and beauty that lay beyond the rocky terrain? What if I dared to let my attention sprawl over my dreams and goals, instead of being consumed by the potholes of hardship that scattered my path?

So this year I dare.

Dare /dɛː/

verb

1. have the courage to do something.

2. defy or challenge (someone) to do something.

   noun

3. a challenge, especially to prove courage.

I dare to believe that my future could be more wonderful than I can even imagine.

I will grow my courage, to defy the doubts that almost swallowed me whole last year.

I dare myself to trust beginning again - and again.

Last year was the warm up; I put my hands out in front of me into the dark, and felt my fingers round my fears and hewed the rough shape of what I dreamt. This year, I bite down, knuckle down, and bring in the light.

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My material goals remain the same. The disappointment of fulfilling neither of them last year only fuels my resolve this year. To finalise my long and messy divorce and be free of that emotional burden and legal bind with the past. More importantly, I will bring my business realignment out from my mind and into daylight, stepping publicly and proudly into my true self. To taste my freedom and agency, reigniting all that I am and all I have potential for. To not just step forward, but stride.

I dare to believe that my deep resistance to this isn’t because I can’t do it - it is because I know I can. I’m just scared shitless of stepping out of my comfort zone, even when I know it’s slowly suffocating me.

I need to push off from the seabed and swim to the surface where I can gulp the fresh air of what I really believe in. So now, I focus on that light that glimmers and flickers through the waves and weight of the water above me.

And I swim.

’ voice still echoes in my mind after devouring her book Twelve Moons in every moment I snatch alone. She describes a life I recognise deep in my bones; of parenting alone, feeling the shock waves of the past ripple through daily life. She lights a candle early in the morning before she is needed by her waking daughters - and describes being ‘cocooned by the darkness’.

I want to be cocooned too, inside these dark and featureless mornings. I turn my stiff neck to glance at the time and realise it is too early still to rise, yet too late to go back to sleep. The warm bed is inviting me to slip my shoulders back under the sheets and I consider it for a moment, but sense that familiar tug in the pit of my stomach that whispers no, not this time - this is a moment to be seized. I can sense some words are there, lurking, waiting for me to claim them, so I pull myself up to sitting. I don’t yet have a writing desk in my bedroom, which for a moment I’m glad about, so I can stay in bed, guilt-free, with my legs tucked under the duvet that is still warm with the heat from my body.

I light a candle and am momentarily blinded by the sudden flash of flame that passes from lighter to wick. How is there that much light from one small flame? It spatters, and then settles, and so do I.

I tug gently on an ear plug, tentatively allowing the outside world to enter my brain. The cat is snoring faintly by my feet and the dual carriageway thrums in the distance. The sounds are quiet and familiar yet still feel intense and overwhelming. When I wake, all sounds feel like an assault, alerting my cognitive brain and banishing that quiet, inner voice. So I return the spongy silicone plug and I cling instead to silence, because - I’ve learnt - this is where the words are.

Curiously, my eyes (unlike my ears), seem to feed intuition, not deny it. I open the curtains to reveal the dark smudge of the sky with clouds glowing a strange and silvery grey. A moment later the clouds part to reveal the waning moon; a distant cheshire cat smile that hangs there in the black. On the cusp of a new moon, this sliver of light is an anchor to my morning. A flutter of gratitude for witnessing it flits across my chest as the clouds return to cloak the luminary as if keeping a secret. I don’t see the moon again for almost a week when the clouds finally clear and I peek at its then-waxing profile once again.

I return to my journal in bed and my sudden movement disturbs the air around me, making the candle flame flicker. It settles with me but my ears prick to a sound from my son’s room as he stirs. I remove an ear plug - quickly this time - my ears reaching for clues to decipher what that noise implies. Sure enough, the faint, sticky padding of small bare feet across the laminate floor of his room preludes his face peering around my door frame, sleep-filled eyes blinded by the candlelight.

He climbs into the warm safe sanctuary of my bed, his legs tangling eagerly around mine. The cat chirrups a morning greeting - even her voice is creaky and not yet warmed up for the day. He chats to me as if already mid-conversation and he tells me about a local artist he’s learnt about at school. I know their work well from my gallery days, not to my taste but synonymous with local cornish life and art. I asked my son if he liked the paintings and he says they make him feel all mixed up inside because there are so many colours. I wonder if one day I might be able to take him to experience a real Rothko painting, and imagine him being swallowed up in the expanse of colour, and for a moment I dream of the chats we could have about how colour makes us feel. His nattering continues and the cat settles down, curling up on top of us, soaking up our body heat through the soft blankets. Her ready presence and reassuring little weight completes our family, and this moment.

Peaceful mornings like this are rare and I try to photograph the scene to immortalise it in some way, then feel a sharp pang of guilt that turns my stomach. Maybe it is me that’s contributing to my son’s current struggles with loss and permanence. He is obsessively and compulsively photographing every tiny minute detail of his life, terrified that if he doesn’t, he will forget them and the memories will be lost forever.

But isn’t this just what I’m doing? I too want to preserve this moment, preventing the recollection of it from fading into obscurity as the weeks inevitably pile on top of this single moment, burying it under the bulging months and years of life.

This moment still feels important, so I continue taking photos in an attempt to capture this essence - to bottle it into a single frame that I can later pull out of my pocket, gleaming from my phone screen to ingest that peace once more. But I grapple with my phone, contorting myself to capture our tangle of bodies, with a camera that is struggling in the dim candlelight. I am suddenly and starkly aware that I am no longer in the moment, but observing it, detached, from the outside, sidetracked by composition and focus.

So I put my phone down. My attention returns to the room and to my tiny family nestled together, in this rare, fleeting moment. The clock on my phone screen blinks as another minute passes and takes us further from the night. We are on borrowed time now and the morning routine for school beckons urgently. My son shuffles off and I return to my journal to scribble these thoughts before they fade. The photographs, the writing; all desperate bids to conserve an ephemeral and fallible memory.

It is true when they say if you want to see what someone fears losing, then look at what they photograph.

My tiny family, in safety and peace. I will preserve this in any way I can.

I’ve known for weeks I needed to write this post.

I played hard to get with myself at first, savouring the thrill of impromptu flurries of inspiration. Anticipation grew as ideas flitted through my mind, deliciously peppering days otherwise spent dutifully tending to admin and orders.

As the days passed, my began to mind race. Giddy fervour slid to panic and I couldn’t keep my eyes off the date in the calendar marked in red biro:

GUEST POST DEADLINE

The same red biro that ordinarily marked the weekly online group sessions I so looked forward to; where I cajoled, consoled and worked alongside the very people who this post was for; fellow creative entrepreneurs who I admire and respect. Many of whom have become very real friends who know me and my journey more intimately than most. But that red biro scrawl, happily written weeks ago, now felt alarming. A stark red threat of my inevitable disappointment.

The once freely-moving words that filled journals and the notes app in my phone, now started to choke. The pit of my stomach hollowed as self doubt crept in making itself at home inside me.

The deft strokes of my fingers on my keyboard began to falter.

They hesitated -

and stopped.

When I finally braved the expectant empty page, the irony was not lost on me that the given topic was on self sabotage and how our insecurities hold us back.

Well, no shit.

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I have an intense and intimate relationship with my insecurities. I can vividly recall a powerful writing prompt by from a year ago that catapulted me into a neon-lit holy-shit penny-drop moment when it dawned on me what a toxic relationship it really was:

Q: If I was my biggest cheerleader, what would I achieve?

A: Well, I’d achieve SO much more - obviously.

Yet it hadn’t been obvious until that point.

Suddenly I understood. What was really holding me back was not primarily my lack of time or money or any of those things I was so gravely concerned about.

It was me.

I’d already been doing a lot of personal growth work following my 2021 summer of horror when my life blew to pieces like a dandelion clock in a tornado, but this was the moment it truly sank in for my business. This is what I needed to focus on to move the needle; because my business isn’t a separate entity from me; it is me.

It was so simple and liberating, and daunting too.

And so began the long and painful process of working through all the inner resistance that makes me want to crawl out of my skin and hide in a deep dark hole.

I made good headway to start with. I’d recently had a bold and insistent germ of an idea for a new jewellery collection, but I couldn’t shift that self doubt. There were so many unknowns with new techniques, carving tiny sculptures from wax, not metal, finding companies to cast it into silver or gold, then there were all the rules, hallmarking, mould costs, processes, pricing, systems, regulations to learn…

My virgo-brain attempted to research my way out of the burgeoning fear, but got overwhelmed. My hope felt increasingly hollow and futile, while the doubt grew solid and oppressive.

I’ve never sculpted anything before

I don’t even have a GCSE in Art

Who do I think I am?

Look at all the real jewellers using this technique

I’ll never be as good as them

What’s the point?

Nobody will probably buy it anyway

It will be a waste of time and money

…but, what if, just maybe, I might be able to do it?

I desperately wanted to try, but the fear of failure was too great.

And here’s the thing - it's not even failing in any rational sense.

It's failing at being PERFECT on the first attempt.

There is no margin for error.

It is perfection or failure.

This story I tell myself is a lifelong belief, but it’s no longer a whisper in my subconscious, I hear it loud and clear now. I watch how it holds me back as I put off doing The Thing until later (which of course never comes), to avoid coming face to face with the sheer possibility of failure. I kid myself that it will all be just fine in that miraculous hypothetical future.

It feels safer that way.

And I know that's all my brain is doing - keeping me tucked safely inside my comfort zone.

But I can’t grow inside the cage it has built around me. Brute force can’t bend those bars. I have to coax myself out from its shadow, talking to it kindly, reassuring my brain that yes I understand you’re scared and you’re trying to stop me from getting hurt, but really, don’t worry, I've got this - and I'm going to try it anyway.

And I did try it.

In January I took a phenomenal leap of faith and invested in the tools and waxes to create my dream jewellery collection.
I’d done it!

…But I hadn’t.

That box of tools remained unopened for nine months; a gestation period of sorts. Life moved on, and inspiration shifted as I discovered my lust for writing. I fell head over heels with it and love-bombed myself into believing it was my one true love. I let my loyal companion of jewellery-making fall by the wayside, kicking it to the curb in my heart.

I ignored the fact I breathed a notable sigh of relief that I could finally avoid that wax dream I’d had. Forget about it, I told myself, I’m not good enough, it was just a distraction.

Then the honeymoon phase of writing passed… My feet returned to solid ground. I still love writing, but I want a long term relationship with it, not a fling. My attention drifted back to my first love, my jewellery making - and to the collection living only in my fantasies.

I felt a solidness grow in the pit of my belly that I recognised now as resolve. The seed of an idea that refused to wither.

And I opened that box.

I began, braced for clumsy, botched attempts at a tiny carving in this strange new medium. But to my surprise, there emerged something quite acceptable. Good, even. How could that be? I’d been so convinced I would be awful at it. I’d focussed so much on honing a radical acceptance of my shortcomings and failure as I pored over all I was unaccustomed to; I forgot to pay attention to all the ways that it was still remarkably similar. The dainty size of the work, the symbolism and minute detail, and - crucially - the familiar tools I was using. My hands knew what to do, I just needed to trust them.

I needed to trust myself.

To trust that I would be good enough.

That I was already good enough.

Because that’s where it starts, right? To trust we’re good enough. Not perfect, not flawless; but good enough to start, then keep going.

I have no doubt that I will enter this cycle of doubt and trust again. To be honest I’m not sure it will ever fully go away. I do however believe that it will be worth every painful, writhing, skin crawling second that I challenge and coax myself through it.

It's not easy and it doesn’t feel safe.
But I know now that staying safe inside my comfort zone is what keeps me small.

And what if the real risk is in staying small?

The tides are slowly beginning to turn - what was once a pathological fear of not being good enough, is slowly morphing into a fear of never even daring to find out.

For the first time in my life, staying within my comfort zone scares the living hell out of me.

I just need to give myself the opportunity to succeed.

Now that’s the big O I’m really looking for.

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Today I walked a familiar walk, but one that is mostly familiar from another time in my life. A time that imbued this place with bitter memories that leave the distaste of regretful grief and crawling skin. Yet re-treading these old steps feels like it's gradually stamping out those lingering memories and imprinting this place back into the present.

At the start of this summer I walked here with my son, for the first time since everything changed. It was like time folded in two and thrust me face to face with the moments that left their residue in the mud and brambled pathways. I found myself in two places - or rather, two times - at once. Both 15 years ago with the man who would become the father of my son, and in this present time, now alone with my son. I viscerally re-lived the duty-bound coercion and conversations of casual exploitation. My insides wrenched as an overgrown alleyway and a particular corner of the path brought long-forgotten memories flooding back with cruel clarity. All whilst in real time, I chatted with my 5-year old about puddles and birds, as he wobbled on his bike and we stopped for snacks.

Yet this time, with summer fading rapidly into autumn, it felt different. I was more present, in the here and now. The old memories were still there but they didn't rage through my body and my mind like they did a few months ago. They flitted in, and I let them drift away again with the breeze that promised yet more rain.

I will walk these paths again, gladly leaving new footprints and memories to cover the traces of times gone by. Of memories I'd rather let fade.

So now I mark this path - this life - as my own. As it always should have been, and how now it will be.

Since entering the school system a year ago, I have come to realise that school holidays have been a surprising help to my own rhythms. I have a tendency to push myself hard and burn out, so these enforced breaks remind me the value of slowing down. This periodical respite from the grind allow my thoughts to wander instead of cram, and my nervous system to take a break from the frantic go-go-go of the relentless school days. Days where I am constantly shifting between the hats I wear, from mum to business owner to home owner - and back to mum again, over and over until I forget who I am under it all. And instead, during the holidays, mothering alone, I mostly have to wear my mum hat. The mother of all hats. The one that outshines all the others in my millinery; for its sheer size and weight - yet also for its beauty and craft, its value - and for the joy it brings.

~

My son has now emerged downstairs, half dressed, with a delightful smirk of humble pride at his accomplishment shining from his face. He has climbed into my lap and his cool skin presses into me as he wraps his arms and legs round me. “You keep working if you like Mummy” as he nuzzles his head into my neck and, after relishing in the cuddle for a few treasured moments, I button my oversized cardigan around him to free my hands and take him up on his unexpected offer. I continue typing and don’t really mind him distracting me from my work with his excitement for the sparrows dotting about on the feeder in our camellia bush outside the back door.

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There’s less than a week left of the holidays and while I’m ready to get back to routine and longer, more intensive, daylight hours to work without distraction, I’m trying to savour these last days without getting too impatient for the change.

And so much is changing. Summer is slowly muting, the sharp bright summer sun is dulling to a throbbing enveloping warmth, and nature is taking its cues as blackberries line the hedgerows like delicious garnets, and mornings feel damp and ethereal. The new school year is about to start with new demands and change and expectations to adjust to. My son is growing and learning at an alarming rate. And also, I am too; my 40th birthday is less than two weeks away. A time to mark the passing of time, but it’s so much more than that; it is an opportunity to close some old chapters and start anew. A time to see how far I have come, with open arms for all there is before me. There is a tendency to say how much I have changed over the years, but I know now that it’s not a change from where I was, but instead a return to who I am.

I have so many thoughts and ideas to explore, but they will all need to wait just one more week. My son is still wrapped round my body and I am going to try to embrace these moments while they are here. Because they won’t always be here, will they? Sometimes it’ll just be because life is messy and imperfect, but one day it’ll be because he’s grown too big for these kinds of things. So for now, I will stay here for as long as I can.

And as if on cue, he’s off.

So I adjust my hats. I remove one as I close my laptop, and fix the other that will never truly leave my head.

What does Forgiveness actually mean?

My son came home from school recently, enthusing how he'd learnt about forgiveness in the class assembly and that it was "just a really kind thing to say". He clearly missed any contextual points that I assume must have been made, so later, when I told him I loved him, he said, "I forgive you". A memorable and delightful moment of childish naivety, but not one I could let pass by unaddressed.

My son’s misunderstanding of the concept of forgiveness brought up some surprisingly strong triggers for me around the subject. It necessitated some quick mental gymnastics to find clarity from the blur of my own complex emotions, so I could explain it in an age-appropriate way to my only-just-turned five year old.

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I have been on the receiving end of deeply damaging breakages of trust; both the slow, creeping, insidious kind that drip by drip eroded me over two decades, as well as the kinds that are more explosive - betrayals that unfolded over a much shorter period, faster and more furious; yet the effects still catastrophic. I have received multiple pleas for forgiveness, which has necessitated a closer look at my feelings around this matter and what I consider Forgiveness to truly mean for me.

I understand forgiveness means many different things to different people, but for me, forgiveness and trust are two sides to the same coin. When trust is broken, forgiveness is something that has to be consciously earned, namely by intentionally rebuilding the damaged trust through sustained meaningful change. It is not something that can simply be plucked from thin air, handed over, and hands washed clean of all memory and feeling.

As a direct result of my experiences, my views (or perhaps I should say conditions) regarding forgiveness are heartfelt and, perhaps ironically, unforgiving. At a first glance I don’t consider my stance to be particularly unorthodox - I think it’s perfectly reasonable to require evidence of even just a desire to change, before forgiveness can be considered. I appreciate this is likely a much more urgent requirement when the benefit of distance and time away from the offender is simply not possible.

Forgiveness or Healing?

I have spent a large proportion of recent years in trauma recovery and exploring wellness on a holistic level, and something I see a lot is the same bizarre insistence; that to move on, first we must forgive.

I just cannot get on board with this. I mean, maybe our definitions of forgiveness differ somewhat, but my deeply felt belief is that forgiveness is - in clumsily simplistic terms - to no longer hold something bad that someone did against them.

This would likely involve understanding why they did it, but more importantly, trusting that they will actively try to avoid doing it again. So when the consequences have been (or continue to be) deeply damaging and long-lasting, I think it's a prime example of reductive and toxic positivity to say you must forgive them first before you can move on.

To me, this quote is predominantly describing healing, not forgiving. Being empowered to recognize your pain without it defining you and allowing you to move on, is how I would describe a huge part of healing from trauma.

This is entirely separate from forgiveness, which I would argue is fundamentally an interaction between two people - the one that forgives and the other who is forgiven.

So could it just be a simple case of the wrong word being used? Don’t we really mean that to move on, first you must heal. Surely?

Forgive and Forget Repress

Yet this is the trope that often follows. Forgive and Forget. But it’s not that simple, is it?

Are we forgetting or repressing something here?

These experiences we have leave a wound on our psyches, in our sense of self and belief and how we show up in the world. This wound needs attention and tender healing, otherwise it will fester and poison the whole body and mind.

You can’t heal anything by pretending it isn’t there.

I am fortunate to be able to attend therapy following (and during) a slew of distressing events in recent years, and among many of the transformative takeaways I’ve had from these sessions, there has been one important (and often frustrating) lesson to be learnt:

We cannot control how other people act, only how we respond.

This overlaps seamlessly into healthy boundary setting as well as looking after my general wellbeing. All of this comes together as a fundamental part of moving on and therefore why I do not believe forgiveness of the perpetrator is necessary precursor.

Who really needs Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is granted from one person to another to release feelings of resentment. Many people believe that to be able to truly move on, first you must forgive.

However; I do not forgive my offender for what they did - and continue to do - yet I am moving on.

But, what if my fierce beliefs on this are misplaced?

What if - in these instances - the forgiveness needs to be directed elsewhere? Not in fact towards the perpetrator, but towards oneself.

Perhaps I’m the one who can be released from the feelings of resentment, through my own inner work to show compassion; for the reasons I stayed, for the things I did to survive, for the challenges that arise now as a result. For everything I am working through to change my behaviours and patterns in a positive and meaningful way.

To do the work I wish they were willing to do.

So perhaps I’ve got it wrong; if I can’t forgive them, I need to forgive me.

This is how I move on.

Through writing this, my own feelings around forgiveness evolved hugely and I’ve found it a very thought-provoking exercise to really interrogate my own beliefs.

I would very much love to know your thoughts on forgiveness and what it feels like or involves for you. It is a very subjective topic and I’m sure will vary a lot between different people depending on our personal backgrounds and experiences, so I’d be intrigued to hear other perspectives on it too.

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Two years ago I made a leap of faith that was to reroute the rivers of my life significantly. I've never been religious so have never considered faith to be a part of my life; until I began to feel it as a deep, thickly warm feeling beneath my breastbone, a sense of rooting down into myself. An almost itchy feeling, with a desire to scratch it and make that sensation bloom and course through my body.

The actual moment of this leap was a somewhat hasty last minute decision as I lay alone in my bed trying to distinguish whether the feeling bubbling up in my body was just FOMO or in fact gut instinct trying desperately to be heard. At around 11.30pm I negotiated with the all-too-familiar voices of doubt and what-ifs, with the assurance that there was a money-back-guarantee if this was all just a terrible mistake in a moment of madness. With just half an hour to spare until this opportunity passed me by, I was staring once again at the small illuminated square of my phone beckoning me to sign up to a soulful and heart-led marketing membership called Empress. Investing financially in my own development was a small but important act of defiance against my previous stay-small-and-safe-to-avoid-disappointing-anyone mindset.

I'd ummed and ahhed and downplayed for weeks as to whether I should join. As my finger hovered over the button to join, the part of my chest behind my sternum did a little flip as I debated for the last time whether I should listen to my yearning to join.

I did, and so I did.

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And from that point I came to recognise that little flip in my chest. The same hollow churn in your stomach when your name is called for interview or when a foreboding letter from the doctor or tax man drops on the doormat. Your organs do a sudden pirouette in your belly, defying physics.

I was going to say 'but it's not nerves', but isn’t that exactly what it is? A sudden sip of fear as I choose to listen to intuition and possibility, instead of logic and certainty. To step into the unknown and trust and... just try it. To take a gulp of the life that is mine, not politely nibble as if it belonged to someone else who was letting me take a meagre slice for myself.

Tentatively, I entered this new space as the person I was at that time; someone who I now barely recognise. I’d had only an inkling that I had more to offer and embrace in this world than I was then able to muster; and to be fair, life was kicking me in the arse. I was teetering on the edge of the most re-traumatising few months of my life as I got pulled into incomprehensibly harrowing & distressing court proceedings following my separation the year before.

During this tumultuous time and every single week of the two years since, Empress always has time for me. It became a sanctuary where I could breathe and be myself. I could let the bruised and rotting parts of me be seen, and to my surprise still be accepted - embraced even - as a whole person. The work I did on my business (which stemmed from the wrenching changes in my private life), passed on their learnings back into my personal life, and the work I did in my private life seeped back into my work too. It was a dynamic and emotionally charged relationship. One that is only possible in a place of trust and safety.

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Through the mentorship I received - a type of therapy for my business in many ways - my vision was becoming more authentic to me, and I was beginning to use my process of designing and creating jewellery to help me heal so much of the trauma that I had experienced. To use it to forge a new understanding of who I had been, who I had become, and importantly, who I still had the potential to be. To embrace my uncomfortable truths; the parts of me I instinctively wanted to hide, but instead to bring them to the surface, to let them breathe and feel the gentle warmth of the sun.

Jess, the holder and facilitator of this space, has been a steadfast witness to all the changes twisting and turning inside of me these last two years; poking at my doubts, tactfully questioning the well-trodden stories I told myself, and holding me gently when I needed tenderness not tenaciousness. She recognised what I craved long before I let myself see it too, but she watched and waited with patience, knowing I would get there when I was ready. She skillfully guided me but did not clear my path for me; she let me do the work myself, lopping down the bindweed and brambles that smothered and sliced at my resolve. She saw me squirm and twist in the discomfort of my indecisions that kept returning until I truly answered them, and witnessed the painful molting of past patterns that were holding me back. She sat in the darkness with me, she understood me, she was there for me; and she held her trust in me to forge my own path.

It was inside Empress, with Jess and the incredible coterie she built, that I began the terrifying act of starting to believe in myself - and in my potential. To step out of my comfort zone and sit in that agonising purgatory, to scrape off all the feelings of shame and smallness, the persistent fear of failure. It was here I’ve connected with women who’ve come to know me on a far deeper level in two years than some I’ve known for twenty.

I have never felt that level of trust, belief and support barely anywhere else in my life and have found it to be contagious and deeply transformative.

This is not an advert, this is an homage. To a woman who saw a tiny glint hidden in my depths, and whose faith in me enabled me to find my faith in myself. The Empress in me.

P.S. Jess wrote a beautiful and powerful poem recently, entitled Tell Her. I strongly recommend you read it.

Read it here

To be honest, I’m pretty pissed off.  

I’m fed up with fending off curveballs, major life events and decisions, and challenges piling onto me as if I’ve got nothing else to do.  Over and over this pattern is repeating and I’m starting to wonder if I’m the common denominator?  Though I don’t think it really is, I’ve learnt some tough lessons and changed hugely as a result. I’ve deep-dived to the depths of my limits; nearly drowned on multiple occasions and pulled myself out again every time.  But 3 long years of this shit is enough to make any person question themself.  It’s been a catastrophic chain of events that have continued to unfold these last few years, with no real signs of abating either.  An unravelling of a whole life I had built around (internal and external) expectations and from desperate hope, sadly without listening to the quiet murmurings rumbling beneath the surface of my mind.  

It’s a painful yet very necessary crumble, to pull it all down to enable the re-build. There seems to be eternal dry rot and cracks in the brickwork and storm damage that I am forever having to repair and reap some kind of existence around, not only for me but for my young son too.  It’s exhausting and I’m honestly so utterly bored of saying how tired I am.  I’ve had enough of having to be the strong and responsible one, the one that actually has her shit together (as much as humanly possible), that picks up all the pieces and repairs the damage left by the previous owners and irresponsible landlords.  I wish I could walk away and leave behind that devastating bonfire of a life like in the movies where the heroine walks toward the camera, slow and determined as the explosions erupt behind her without a backward glance.  But that’s my home back there; my life and everything I hold dear.  Yes there are parts that I will gladly sit and watch burn - I’d eagerly start smoking again just to light my cigarette from the embers of the things that have caused me immeasurable pain.  But my precious valuables and people that I treasure the most are tied up in it too.  I can’t just burn the whole lot to the ground and walk away. I have to painfully pick apart the combustibles and simultaneously hose the flames here whilst lighting matches there.  

I was recently (wrongly) assessed as ‘having suicidal thoughts'; but there’s a huge difference between wanting to end my life, and wanting this life to end.  

There’s an ocean between those two statements, and I’m far from wanting to leave this world.  I’d just like to step off it for a bit, y’know?  To rest, and just live my actual life.  To not have constant firefighting and crisis management on my daily agenda, but to just have periods of my life when all I’ve got to be worried about is whether my washing on the line will get rained on.  Not whether I can put food on the table or the emotional repercussions of all this on my child in later life. Whether I’m going to lose my house, or calmly considering emergency plan procedures that should never be a necessity in anyone’s life.

But I’m also resolute.  And I’ve learnt through all this what is really important to me.  Not just on a nice-to-have basis, but on a need-to-have-if-I’m-ever-going-to-stay-sane-through-all-of-this basis.  

I’m not surviving all this to return to a life of greyness, of it’ll-do-ness; of just holding onto the hope that one day things might get better and I might just get that mediocre pre-determined cookie cutter life that we’re all told we should want if we want to be worth anything. 

Fuck that shit. 

If I’m rebuilding my life from scratch - I mean, it’s not even as simple as that - I’m trying to methodically deconstruct existing structures and consider the lie of the land and rebuild where the metaphorical sun can shine and the rivers flow and the birds sing; whilst a load of cowboys are coming in with their bulldozers and razing it all to the ground, trees and all.  Decimating the landscape, covering it in choking rubble and toxic dust that sifts down into every crevice and fills lungs with poison.  And so I have to clear up all that carnage again and again before I can get back to planting & re-planting my seeds, tending to them, growing, and constructing the life that I want - the life that I need.  The one that sustains both me and my son, ‘cos he’s in the thick of this too.   He’s trying to find his way in a rapidly demanding life, through years that in any ‘typical’ life would be intense and full of change and development.  And he’s having to do all that under cruel circumstances and I just have to dig deep (and keep on digging) until my fists are thrust through the soil and burning deep in the magma under the crust of the earth.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I too want to crumble.  I want to collapse and tumble into a formless heap on the floor, chest heaving with sobs that strain to purge the stress from my body without worrying who might hear or what they might think or how it might upset or inconvenience them too.  I want to be able to forget the clock exists.  To sleep til the nightmares relent, to curl up into that soft sanctuary as the sun rises and sets and rises again. For as long as it takes.  Who’d have thought it could ever be a privilege to truly fall apart.  I can only ever crumble just a little bit.  Controlled and mitigated, scheduled within days that begin abruptly with noise and demands, alarms set to abide by relentless responsibilities and the insistence of the school run that returns alarmingly in the blink of an eye.

I just need a break.

Yet I do not have that luxury.  There is no option to press pause and return when I’m ready.  To jet off for a week or two and temporarily leave behind all the stress and strife.

So instead I stick to my only real option.  To keep going.  I’ve done this long enough to know that ‘this too shall pass’ and all that (just hurry the hell up and pass soon, ok?).  

Finding out last week that I’m losing nearly £300 (half) my welfare support now feels almost weirdly exciting.  Even though I could really do without yet another curveball, there’s something about this DWP-branded bombshell that feels like a bow drawing back ready to release me forward.  Yes, the reality of the drawback is such a horrifying thought, I feel blank emptiness where you would expect there to be sheer panic.  It has all the markers of my old friend dissociation, yet I really don’t believe that’s the full picture of this juncture.  There are rumbling undertones of dread beneath the surface like the roll of thunder echoing around distant hills, and yet there’s also a strange peace in the simplicity of these matters.  I breathe deeply this calm before the storm as best I can.

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The motions I have been through that got me to this point are so very deeply complicated and tumultuous.  So perhaps it’s unsurprising in some ways that matters of money - no matter how terrifying and sobering they may be - at the end of the day are quite simple.  

There are choices; difficult and stress-laden for sure, but they are somewhat black & white, which feels peculiarly clean and tangible.  I can compare figures on paper, tot up totals, and add and subtract my way through the mathematics of it all.

There are no formulas that exist to calculate the myriad possibilities of all the major life events and decisions I am facing at the moment.  Or indeed whether the trust I have in my choices is well placed or not.  Those are the things that tie me up in knots and chip away at my ease.  The consequences of which I will be living with for decades to come. 

But money?  To find £300 a month when finances are already tight and summer holidays as a solo parent are around the corner (so next to no time to work yet a greater need for money)? This monstrous little problem I have; it is temporary.  It’s awful and it’s ill-timed and it will hurt like hell, but it won’t last forever.

Thank fuck for that.

It was pure joy, but my heart was already stretched beyond its limits by the guilt of mothering alone as a persistently imperfect human after my patience had evaporated quite spectacularly the night before.

My eyes heavy with grief and thick with sleeplessness, I was already teetering on the edge, knowing apologies were all I could give but never feeling they were enough. Knowing I am doing the very best I can (and a bloody good job at that, despite the circumstances), but still knowing that my son deserves so much more. My shoulders are strong but they are not made of steel. Bone and sinew can still snap, even with all the will and love in the world.

The petals flew in their hundreds and it felt like each one was attached by an invisible string to my heart, pulling it from all directions, tearing at the seams. Thankfully there was no time for more than a hello and a quick how was your weekend? with other mums, else I think any more tenderness would have been the final brick plucked from the dam, allowing the torrent of emotions to overflow.

How can exquisite beauty be so excruciatingly heartbreaking? Why does it crack me open so utterly that I want to crumple to the floor and weep and wail like a child?

Or, perhaps, is it the insanity of being stretched between such polar opposites of feeling? Strapped to the rack of a wholehearted life, pulled in both directions by pain and joy, cracking the heart open at its centre.

I could feel it in my chest; the adrenaline, the pounding, the hole opening up. And in the next moment I was smothered in kisses, tipped off-balance as I caught myself with my wrist already throbbing from an unrecognised injury this weekend, but without a wince I steadied us both, kissed him back, grinned and marvelled at the moment, as my son walked away without a backward glance to his classroom.

I paused for a moment before leaving, to try and capture on video the swirling petals as they danced in the wind, but luck was not on my side as the scene was interrupted by more pairs of feet rushing to the same door and the wind subsided wherever I pointed my camera. I may not have captured the scene as I felt it - but by god I felt it. I felt it all. What a raw, bloody mess but what a gift: To feel.

Thank you dear heart.