You’re tired of living by everyone else’s rules, of having to hide who you truly are, of pretending you don’t want something more out of life. Yes, I’ve been there.
At some point, you have to take control of your life and forge your own path.
Alone
“I’ll be back soon.” She said as she held my hand and led me through the wrought iron gates. Those fateful words saturated my brain day after day, night after night as I sobbed myself to sleep. I felt abandoned. Why would she leave me? Was it something I did? I grieved for her…
It should have been shocking, but for me it was normal. I stood in the background, watching my great aunt bark orders at her male employees. The men stood around obediently, seemingly inhaling her every word. I thought all women were in charge of the world like that, why wouldn’t they be!
My great aunt was my sole guardian after my mother left me, age 3, in her care and moved to another country. I was treated like a precious doll, and showered with all the stuff money could buy. The lazy days under my great aunt’s orange tree in Jamaica would have been idyllic if I hadn’t been so lonely. For all the toys I had, I was friendless, kept safely inside the walls of my great aunt’s compound like a jewel to be kept under lock and key.
My absentee father would enter my life on occasions, treating me like a temporary fix he needed to get out of his system. He’d show up and we’d be inseparable, and then he’d vanish just as quickly as he appeared. I wanted for nothing but it was hard to find something stable and solid to hold onto.
Aged 9, I was put on a plane and sent to a foreign country to live with strangers. For that’s who they were. My mother, her husband and… “by the way, this is your brother.” I quickly realized that I was whisked away from one gilded cage to another. I arrived in the UK into my mum’s upturned life, where she’d nestled herself into her own cage of fear, abuse and hardship. Seeing my mother as the passive object of her husband’s rage was such a change from watching my great aunt take full control of her life and the group of men who worked for her. I was soon to become the object of that rage. I was no longer special. The struggles of loneliness and now insignificance brought my stammering back. I had no identity of my own; I felt that no one cared. There were many tears, but no one noticed as I trudged my way through a very isolated and lonely childhood.
Invisible
“What is your problem?” My husband lobbed the question at me like a weapon, his voice accusatory, and his demeanor wavering somewhere in between exasperation and apathy. He made sweeping gestures at our beautiful home, fully equipped with things tennis courts, a swimming pool, and many other vestiges of privilege. I looked at my husband, and realized that he’d become a stranger I no longer recognized.
But I was no stranger to gilded cages. Despite a lifetime of being locked up by someone else’s whims, I’d never become very adept at being a dutiful prisoner. My husband viewed me as his trophy, and I was expected to comply.
Anything I’d put my heart and soul into was disposable and readily discarded like rubbish. It was as if my aspirations didn’t exist at all, outside of being a wife and mother, along with the chief organizer of the family’s social calendar. We seemed like the perfect family on the outside, but everything was different on the inside. I watched as other women, professional and well educated distracted themselves from the numbness of being a trailing spouse. The next boob job, that beautiful piece of gold jewelry, yet another spa day!
Hard as I tried, I just couldn’t play this role any longer. I wanted something more. I needed something more. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I knew I had to find it.
I could have discovered it had I looked in the mirror and really looked myself in the eye, but this sort of logic and reason didn’t come so easily when I had two precious children to look after. I weighed my options, and it wasn’t an easy decision. Putting the key into the door of our home where there were no guards, or maids, or drivers, or anyone but me and my children, flooded my body with an odd sense of relief. It wasn’t an easy journey, but it was my first step toward the redemption I’d been seeking my whole life.
Empowered
Sitting in my home in London, I think about my children, now grown. The struggles of dealing with my divorce, being a single mum and reaching out into the world to make a career to secure my family’s future. I’d given the stable and normal childhood I’d so desperately wanted for myself. Weaving my way through my journey into single motherhood and self-discovery finally led to my conquering the loneliness beast that had been such a fixture throughout my life. I’d finally stopped engaging in the futility of trying to fit in and started living my life on my own terms, in pursuit of my own passions, and living in joy every day of my life, even on the gloomy, rainy days we have in London. I discovered my own brand of sunshine.
We are all here to be the masters of our own lives. I’m here to help you overcome the negative patterns that are holding you back, to stop looking outside yourself to find your happy place, and learn to find it within.
If you’re ready to take your first steps to conquer a lifetime of ingrained fears and boldly pursue your passion and purpose without hesitation, without holding anything back, without seeking anyone else’s validation, and without worrying about all the things that could go wrong, I’m here to show you how to make it happen, to reconnect you with yourself, that person you were meant to be before you were forced by society, your parents, or anyone else into being something you’re not for someone else’s benefit. I’m here to help you discover the joys of just being you with no qualms and no apologies. This is your moment, take it!