28/08/2025
Hey Facebook… it’s been a while. 🙋♀️🫶
For a long time I didn’t know how to be here.
I felt a deep disconnect from my phone, from this space, from the way social media can make life feel like performance instead of presence. At the core of who I am, I value authenticity and being real. Being vulnerable. Being human. So that’s what you’ll get from me.
Life has felt heavy. To give some context - I had a head injury and got concussion, whiplash, and vertigo. My body went into a trauma response and completely shut down. It felt like being unplugged, like a device that suddenly loses its power source. Like taking an adaptor abroad and realising it doesn’t fit the socket - you’re there, but you can’t connect, can’t switch back on.
Then came sickness. Hepatitis. A bowel infection. Hospitals in different countries. Heartbreak. Grief. Loss. And just when I thought things couldn’t unravel further, I lost a significant amount of money while trying to pay off a debt - the money landed in someone else’s account, and because of the law here in New Zealand, there was nothing I could do to get it back. There were moments I asked myself, why is everything going so wrong, when I took this huge, brave step of moving to the other side of the world? I carried so much expectation of how it would unfold, and instead it felt like everything that could possibly collapse, did.
In the middle of it, life offered me something amazing. I went from being a volunteer, to being offered a full-time role at Aro Ha Wellness Retreat, this five-star sanctuary in the mountains. Externally, I was surrounded by nature, beauty, and purpose… while internally, I was navigating some of the hardest storms of my life.
Healing has been hard. Brutal, even.
I caught myself waiting… waiting to feel “better” before I came back here. Waiting to be caught up on every unread message, every WhatsApp that piled up. Waiting to have the energy to open up again, to reply, to reconnect. Waiting until I felt like ✨ME✨ again, until I could show up like I had it together, to not feel like a “burden”. Growing up hyper-independent, I carried this belief that I had to hold the weight of everything on my own - to isolate until I was “better.” But the truth is, my health hasn’t magically got better. And part of me stayed quiet because I didn’t want to sound like a victim, or fall into “poor me,” or overshare.
To those who reached out and worried - I’m sorry I disappeared. I’ve had so many messages asking if I’m still alive 😂, and the truth is, in some ways I was only half-alive… just surviving. It means more than you know that people cared enough to ask. But life doesn’t wait until we feel ready, and neither should we. To those who never stopped reaching out, never stopped messaging, voice noting… even through the radio silence, you’ve reminded me I’m still held, and so loved. And there’s a beautiful lesson in that - that true love isn’t conditional. All shades of us are loveable, not just when we’re shining, but also when we’re in the dark. We are all love, and therefore always loveable.
Social media can make us believe we need to perform - to be whole, shiny, healed, before we’re worthy of being seen. But the real presence isn’t in the polished. It’s in the cracks, in the quiet, in the moments we’re brave enough to be honest about where we are. So - here I am. Not better, not finished. Just here. Eyes closed, letting myself feel, and slowly remembering joy again.
If you are carrying your own mountains, I hope this reminds you: you don’t have to wait until you’re “ready.” You are already enough, even in the middle of it. And light will find you, exactly as you are. 🫂🤍✨
