This wasn’t just a coincidence. It was something else...

🔥

This month has been a ficken tough one

Like… really tough.

The amount of wobbles. The heightened anxiety. The uncomfortableness just sitting in my body. Waves of grief and sadness, then picking up and feeling alright again, then dipping again. It’s been one total rollercoaster.

And I’m not even saying it’s been one big sh*t mess.

It’s more like something has picked me up, shaken me, and everything that’s been pushed down for a long time is bubbling to the surface.

I can see it in my skin. I can feel it in my gut. And weirdly, I’m taking that as a good sign.

End of year stuff does this to me. (Here comes a tiny bit of woo.) It feels like some huge transformations are about to take place. I’ve had an epic year. I still have some epic days left this month.

So many things are going swimmingly amazing… my home, my business, so much is good. And yet, there’s this thing I’ve pushed down for so long that it’s just erupting now.

This time of year is always more raw for me. The festive period. Old memories. Childhood stuff. My dad passed away in 1998, around Christmas.

I still have the memory of him on life support, visiting him, and then in January the machine was turned off and that was it. I know I buried a lot of that, but it always bubbles back up around now. And then there’s the choice I made to live in Bali, which I love, but it also comes with moments of loneliness. It all mixes together.

So yesterday, I went to a Melukat water blessing with some friends. It wasn’t touristy at all. Very quiet. Very real. And I just knew… this is what I needed.

We were wading through these rivers and got to a point where the guide said, “This stone represents the mother. This stone represents the father.” He said you go up to the stone and say whatever you need to say. Whatever you want to release. Apologise for. Forgive. You just talk.

I went to the mother stone first. Gave love. Gave gratitude. Thanked my mum. Then I went to the father stone. I laid down in the river, put my hands on the rock, and I just felt this need to reconnect.

Over these 27 years that connection has faded. And I realised I didn’t want the only connection I had with my dad to be the sad memories of how he died. I wanted the good memories back too. The things I enjoyed about him. The warmth.

The tears welled up. I could feel it moving through my body.

Then we carried on through the river, turned a corner… and there it was. This huge stone elephant statue.

My dad’s animal was an elephant. Always. I have an elephant tattooed on my arm for him. He used to carry a small stone elephant in his pocket. Elephant has always been him.

My jaw dropped. Like… wow.

And then, straight after, we finished the water blessing and went to a café for a drink. I opened my phone and there was a message from my mum. A photo of me as a baby, maybe two years old, next to my dad’s shoes. And the message said something like, “Too small for daddy’s shoes.”

My jaw dropped again.

That wasn’t just coincidence. That was connection.

So I think the thing underneath all of this, the message for me, is that sometimes when you actually open up to something, when you stop pushing it away, you receive.

Not always how you expect. But you do.

I’m going to share more about that photo another time, because that took me down another whole rabbit hole. But for now…

What connection are you missing.

What feels like it’s asking to be felt again.

If you feel like sharing, you’re welcome to.

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