It’s one o’clock in the morning and I’m lying in bed next to a man I call boyfriend The city streets outside are quiet, mirroring the peace and stillness between us. Without reason or warning, I break the silence with a quiet, but persistent cry. My mind doesn’t understand what my soul longs for, but the crying won’t stop. Next to me, my boyfriend, with his familiar warmth and smell, starts to shift uncomfortably, uncertain how to respond.
The words of a song are on loop in my head: “I don’t love him, winter just wasn’t my season. Just breathe. Just breathe.” A man I’ve decided to build a future with and whom I deeply love, but…
There’s always a but.
Choosing a life with him would be one where my wings are clipped – a magical Phoenix unable to fly. I’ll meet societal standards but, selfishly, I want more.
“Is this it? Is this really the best my life is going to get?” The unspoken question keeps milling through my mind. Until now, societal expectations have guided my career, relationships, and most other life choices. According to the South African dream, I should be happy. Yet, surrounded by comfort, with everything my heart could desire, I feel empty, restless and searching for more.
Embracing the unknown
While my logical mind and everyone around me insist it’s time to settle down, my soul screams out not to settle, that the journey is only beginning. Surely, there must be something better out there.
Soon after this definitive turning point in my life, we broke up. I resigned from the safety of my day-job and moved abroad, embarking on a fool’s journey of personal transformation.
Had I known the dragons I would have to slay and the dark nights of the soul awaiting me, I might have never consciously chosen this odyssey. My life would never be the same again. That night was a definitive before and after moment.
Blissfully unaware of what awaited, I felt only the fleeting relief that comes with movement and decision. Naively, I believed that by leaving the country, I would also leave my painful past and start anew. But that’s not how life works, at least not for me. I had to learn that you take yourself with you wherever you go. Trying to outrun pain only makes its grip tighter.
Now, as I walk a labyrinth in my beautiful new home, surrounded by vast open spaces, reflecting on my journey while writing this article, I smell the sweet scent of pine while the cool winter wind caresses my face. The promise of spring is evident in the trees’ blossoms. I realise there are no shortcuts or straight lines in nature, as in life. Once you enter a labyrinth, the only way out is through. Similarly, once you desire a different future as deeply as I did that fateful night nearly 15 years ago, your only choice is to carry on, taking one tiny step at a time. As sure as the cold winters turn into spring, so too life’s winters come to an end.
Carrying old wounds into new lands
All my friends said I’m either crazy or brave as I prepared to leave the country and everything familiar. But they didn’t know about the night I nearly left this world and that this wasn’t really a choice; it was the only option left for me. I knew I couldn’t continue the way I did, but I had no idea what to do next or how to live a different life.
Shortly afterwards, I arrived in beautiful Belgium, optimistic and full of hope, convinced that changing my environment would change my fate. But soon, old patterns started to show up again. Different names and different faces, but the same feelings of powerlessness, being restricted or held back. And the ever-looming loneliness… Even surrounded by people, loneliness lingered with the restlessness, refusing to settle into the peace I so desperately desired. Not willing to name it or admit it was there, I would buy another dress, find another restaurant, or go on another trip. But the loneliness refused to leave.
Back home, staying busy or surrounding myself with friends used to dull the ache. But in Belgium, none of these coping tactics worked any more. There was nothing left but to feel the pain I’ve been trying to avoid for so long. The pain of not being held as a child, of feeling unwanted in my mother’s womb, of never being able to get my father’s attention or love, of being excluded when my elder sisters played – too young to be included. Pain that doesn’t qualify as Big Letter Trauma, yet, for me, it was excruciating. With no one who could understand, it left me to carry the pain alone, which by far is the biggest pain of all.
At work, I worked even harder with longer hours and weekends were filled with entertainment and travel. My checklist of to-dos a futile attempt to control my life. Somehow, I believed that if I explored all the options, happiness would be waiting for me, like a hidden treasure that must be found through systematic exploration.
Into the flames of chaos
Yet, after another dark night of the soul with the pain still raw, I woke up one morning unable to get my body out of bed. “I am so tired! ” I sent my boss a message: “I can’t come in today. I’m resigning. I’m sorry. I can’t do this any more.”
Each day I walked into that sterile environment, so silent you could hear a pin drop, I left my soul at the door and stepped into a persona that wasn’t allowed to think or feel – just do. I felt as unwanted as I did in my mother’s womb, as rejected by my sisters and as unable to get the attention of my father, only this time his label was boss.
Desperate to outrun this pain no one seemed to be able to understand, I packed my bags once more — this time for Asia. As if it’s a place I was searching for, while in fact what I was looking for was a feeling inside.
Lost and alone, and with a blank page in front of me, I realised I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. I’ve been so busy trying to please others and meeting society’s definitions of success that I’ve never spent time getting to know myself. I sat down to articulate a life goal, but couldn’t find that one thing or sentence that would give me the next thing to pursue. I knew I wanted to be happy, but I didn’t know how. Eventually, I settled on a life manifesto, taken from all the people I admire for one reason or another:
“I want to think like Da Vinci, live like Paulo Coelho, grow old like Jim Hall and die like the Buddha.”
I was convinced that happiness comes from having and achieving. I didn’t realise that the reason for my unhappiness was as a result of this having and achieving, that I was in a body that didn’t have a relationship with the soul living inside it. Everything I did was to chase an elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I didn’t realise that the road to happiness is the road to rediscovering your purpose. Happiness comes from finding your ikigai, that intersection of what you’re good at, what the world needs and what people are willing to pay for.
It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Just find what you like and start charging for it. “How come it’s not so easy for me? What am I doing wrong?” I would ask myself over and over again. Only much later did I realise I wasn’t doing anything wrong. This is the journey of transformation. You have to burn in the fires to be able to fly.
Saying yes to destiny, the phoenix learns to fly
No one tells you how hard healing is. No one tells you that to find happiness, you have to be present with past traumas, not run away from them. They only talk about the result and the outcome, never the journey. They don’t tell you that opening your heart is as unglamorous as giving birth. You’re vulnerable, afraid and in immense pain, with no one but you to push through.
If only there were a manual. Or a guide. Someone to show me the way. But my mentor and all the books with the answers I thought I could rely on, like all my friends and earthly belongings, got taken away one by one. Everything had to be stripped away before I was able to uncover the truth of my soul.
You don’t become a master by following someone else’s methods or rules. The phoenix doesn’t fly without first burning in the ashes. So too, our ego must die before we can touch the essence of our soul and rediscover our purpose.
Little by little, I kept taking one, tiny tiptoe forward. Each day, my glass that always used to be half empty had one tiny little droplet added.
Finding happiness
Finding happiness isn’t an event, like that fateful night 15 years ago. It’s more like seeing something that was there all along for the first time. For me, it happened on a morning like every other. I bought my morning coffee and went to sit in the park to watch the squirrels play when I realised I’m happy.
My average day started with excitement to get up, looking forward to the hour of stillness in the park before business as usual started. While there was nothing tangible resulting in my joy – I didn’t have the job, the boyfriend, the car or any of the material comforts I used to have, I was blissfully happy. My days were mostly filled with joy, regardless of where I was or who was around me. I was able to find happiness regardless of my environment.
Then, one ordinary, happy day, I got a message. “Would I like to come and design and run retreats on our tourist farm in the Drakensberg?”
It didn’t take me long to pack all my bags and embark on the long drive towards my new home, as it’s easy to say yes to something you’ve been desiring your entire life. And as I’m designing my first retreats, helping others’ purpose-finding journey to be easier than mine, it dawns on me that I no longer believe that it’s impossible to live the life I desire. It’s possible to create a life exactly the way I want it, with even the smallest details taken care of, as I look at the squirrel carved in the handmade wardrobe in my room. All I have to do is say yes.
My invitation to you: say yes to yourself. Be brave enough for your own Odyssey. Be willing to dream impossible dreams. Because if I could rise from the ashes and learn to fly, so too can you.
