I’ve taken a lot of apparent risks in my life..

 

✨ Bungee jumping 180ft off a bridge over a dry riverbed, on a whim, at the first bungee site in South Africa because I‘d spotted the sign at the side of the road on my way to say my final goodbye to my mom (she’d had an aneurysm in her brain burst and was in a coma and died the next day)

✨ Spending the last of my money on an 11 day spiritual quest with two wise women that included 4 days and nights fasting alone in the wilderness of the Western Cape, praying to the spirits for a vision for my life

✨ Arriving in the UK with little more than a British passport and a deep desire to create an alive and inspired life for myself

✨ Choosing an unassisted birth with my second baby even though he arrived ‘early’, the exact day we reached 37 weeks, because I knew that trusting him and trusting myself was a threshold that meant everything at the time

✨ And becoming an entrepreneur.. multiple times over.. as I tried to find what I was truly good at *and* that translated into a business *and* that I could show up to, day after day, with passion and excitement.

 

💚

 

And yet, not one of those seemed like a true risk in comparison to opening my heart and my hopes again after the failure of my marriage and the intense betrayal I felt when I realised the extent of the lying and gaslighting I’d experienced for a year.

 

In that last year we’d been together, I’d worked my arse off, studying new ways of relating, learning new tools, owning my shit, and experimenting with new ways of thinking and being to become the best partner I could be.

 

I worked on my tendency to be controlling, critical, and blameful; I learned to be self-responsible for my own reactions, to regulate my nervous system, and to self reflect and become differentiated.

 

I practiced what I‘d had learned in those books I mentioned in a previous post, I did EFT every day, sometimes many times a day.

I did shamanic journeying for guidance and healing.

And with meditation, practices, and journalling, I reignited my love and desire for my husband in a way that I thought was gone forever.

 

And so, when I eventually discovered (after ending up having to investigate and prove it myself) that he’d been lying to me and gaslighting me for a year, that he was in another relationship, and nothing I could do (I tried for another three months after I’d proven their affair was really happening) could save my family and keep us together..

 

I felt like I had failed in ways that were so devastating to me that I barely survived it.

 

But I did.

 

And not only that, the work I put in over that last year, plus the deeper work I did in the year or two after he left, was the ultimate gift from Spirit for me.

 

It transformed me and gave me a completely new lens on relationships, on how to be close to someone important to me and yet still be free, how to step away from codependency but not become hyper-independent and closed off, and it gave me a glimpse of what love really means and how to really love and be loved.

 

I took a couple of years to heal and wait for my youngest to wean from breastfeeding, and then I began dating.

 

I had some incredible and some dire experiences through dating for a couple of years, made some breakthroughs, and then met Jol.

 

And that’s where the real risk came. To open my heart. To put into practice all that I had learned.

 

To create a truly different basis for a long-term relationship..

.. one founded on genuine honesty

.. on self-responsibility

.. on self-trust.

 

A relationship with such a depth of intimacy – of being seen for who I really am, of allowing that – and such exquisite connection, that I realised that perhaps it’s not even possible to truly love and be loved without this new basis.

 

There are no guarantees in life and love because there is no controlling another person – their thoughts, words, or actions.

 

You can work on your relationship and it can still fail.

 

You can transform yourself into the best partner imaginable and your husband can still cheat on you or leave.

 

That’s not the real risk when you do the work, in case you’re scared about whether your relationship will make it or not

(spoiler: the relationship you currently have, in the way it operates right now, won’t make it.. and you want that! You want to be able to create a whole new and incredibly alive and wonderfully fresh relationship with your same partner).

 

But what you risk when you don’t do this work, is missing out on experiencing the deepest most indescribably transcendent embodied love, intimacy, and connection you’re capable of.. and most of all, of knowing who you really are.

 

For me, that risk is the riskiest of all.

 

The risk to discover, to uncover, who I really am, is a risk I’ll run towards every time the opportunity for it is open to me.

 

And nowhere do I get as many invitations on a daily basis for that opportunity, than in my relationship!!! 😆

 

What are you willing to risk?