2024

It was the year where I got almost everything i asked for. And a whole lot I didn’t ask for. The best and also one of the hardest years of my life. Heading into this year life had changed a lottt from the year before it, in a way that was long in coming and absolutely the right thing, but also scary and new and I didn’t know what to expect, but I was excited. I had a new job to start and a whole new routine to get into. I was excited for 2024.

I didn’t realise how important my New Year’s resolution of wanting more spirituality was going to be with the high highs and low lows of my year to come, when at some point answering the question how are you would become incredibly complicated. Did people really want an honest answer?

I will start at the beginning. My kids and I flew back from Costa Rica as the clock passed midnight on the 1st January. We had been soaked in salty warm seawater and vitamin D and I was starting a new job in 9 days. The job and the people I have spent my days with there have been one of the highlights of this year. I was busy, working hard and also falling in love at the same time. Two things which alongside parenting eclipsed most of the rest of my life. So the first 6 or so months passed by and I did Tarot with my book club, my regular practise of Goddess cards and had pretty beautiful experiences at Gong baths in Herefordshire, Space and Exeter street hall. None of this was new to me.

I had read Raise Your SQ by Annie Ridout in Costa Rica and I was watching what i had visualised for my life from that book come into reality infront of my eyes. Every now and then I would yelp as a moment I found myself in would represent exactly a picture from my moodboard. Just be careful what you ask for because you really might get it!

In June along with 5 others I did the SWCP walk with my group of girls which was 38 miles of hard up and down walking over 3 days, beautiful and absolutely something I want to do every year, looking out over the Cornish sea and laughing and crying with my friends. I don’t know what is more spiritual than being in nature in that way with people you love.

Three events in the summer lead to a big dip in my mental health. I had restarted my AIT therapy, with my therapist who I have had for over 10 years but I remembered what I had promised myself at the start of the year and decided to visit an energy healer my friends spoke highly of. In a meditation she took me up to see the Lords of the Caché Records (people who keep all the karma, memories and energy, an idea she was woken in the night and told about?) and told me to ask them a question. I asked what I needed to know and they told me in no words but with a very strong feeling that i had all I needed inside me and I can summon as much love as I need from my heart chakra, it was a message of self love. She also pulled a very large dagger out of me. It took a long time to get that thing out! She said I’d wounded myself with it. I have thought back to a lot of the words she said to me on that day and despite my cynicism they all ring true. Was this where I found the edge of my woo quota, I reckon so.

In August with two of my best friends I went to Ecstatic Dance up at Devil’s Dyke, as the sun set we had a cacao ceremony and then we were taken on a silent disco adventure. It was one of my best memories from this year. I completely let go, danced with no inhibitions, laughed a bit, cried looking back to Brighton where I spotted the hospital both my babies were born in. Had the words ‘nature & connection’ drop into my mind like rocks. These words were my mantra in 2023 and I had some new ones for 2024 which didn’t even slightly compare. I realised that those were my words for life, not simply for 2023. 

In August I attended a community Kirtan at Lunawave. When I arrived I felt like maybe I was about to get a sore throat but within an hour and a half the singing had completely expelled all the stuck energy from my chest. It felt as if I’d drunk mouthwash, my whole throat and chest was so clear and cold and open. I loved this and I will head back in January this year.

September brought my annual mushroom weekend away with my uni girls. We went to Cumbria to stay in a treehouse, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind this weekend, still struggling with what had hurt me in the summer but I always find mushrooms bring me what I need. Before we did them we decided to do a 40 minute Nessi Gomez breathwork session. This was one of the most transformative moments of my year. We were guided through breath to return to a younger version of ourselves and told to give them what they needed. Having just done a lot of work on my attachment style I knew instantly who that version of me was and I found her, sitting naked and chubby in my childhood home in the strawberry bathroom (80’s wallpaper) in 1985, aged 17 months. I kissed her squishy neck and put her head on my shoulder. I held her really close and co-regulated with her. I let our hearts beat together, this was so healing and beautiful. We were all sobbing by the end but this has healed a part of me which needed it in a way I had had no idea at the start of the year.

When my heart was broken in October friends took me, or I found my way to almost every yoga studio in Brighton. I went to Lunawave, About Balance, Flow State, Space and Energy for Life, where I lay and let tears collect in my ears waiting for the classes to start. By the end of each class the pain was much further away. I feel so lucky to live in Brighton and have these safe spaces on my doorstep.

A few days after my heartbreak I went to see my friend Victoria for a myofascia release massage. She worked over my ankle, one which was badly broken in 2016 and as she did I felt an overwhelming  sensation roll up over my whole torso as she released stored pain and trauma from there and my abdomen, which the same year had undergone surgery for a ruptured dermoid cyst, resulting in me losing my appendix and my lungs collapsing. (RIP 2016, don’t miss you) Victoria’s hands soothed and released so much for me and she held me at a time of real vulnerability. 

My normal practise of reading fell away, I couldn’t concentrate for more than 5 minutes but I managed to listen to Untethered Soul by Michael Singer on audiobook and this radically helped me process the grief of loss. This book taught me so much about observing the constant chatter of my inner voice, letting go and feeling everything, letting emotions pass through me, keeping my heart open and living with tenderness and acceptance. 

This Autumn has been absolutely packed full of bad news, there has barely been a week without some devastating news coming from someone close to me. It has been one of the most challenging times in my life. But also beautiful and if nothing else, real. Sometimes you just need a reminder of how good life was and I know it will be again.

In the words of Angie McMahon, Light, Dark, Light Again. Oh that’s a great segue (look at me go) to mention live music, which wasn’t as huge an aspect of my year as it had been the few years before but I had truly spiritual experiences listening to some of my all time favourite songs at Angie McMahon and Idles.

In November I went to a TRE workshop at Flow State. It took me most of the session to understand what I was meant to be doing but in the final 20 minutes Calli put her finger on my forehead and said ‘your awareness is here, slide it right down here’ and pointed towards my solar plexis. Within a few minutes my legs were shaking and shuddering. Emotion rolled up my body and a sob escaped from me, the grief leaving my body. I felt truly fucked after the workshop and the rest of the day but i woke up the next morning feeling better than I had for weeks. 

In November I did the branding of Sarah Elcome, an acupuncture and face reader. I attended one of her Grief workshops and learnt so much about how to let grief pass through you and how to not hold it in the body.

In December I started Hakalau meditation, which is Hawaiian for ‘eyes wide open’. It uses your peripheral vision to help you into a meditative state. I had a huge cry after the second one of these that I did. It came out of nowhere but I’m guessing it was needed.

What I’ve learnt through these adventures is that different things will resonate with different people but sitting or moving in an environment amongst people who also want to explore this mad thing called life is absolutely always powerful.

I feel like I barely scratched the surface and I want much more in 2025.