Life; A Beautiful Adventure

If we are to really live – abundantly – we need to make space for messy. We need to embrace the truth that life can be really hard, challenging, scary, and painful – but also a beautiful adventure.

My Corona Coaster

For the first 2 weeks of lock-down I was miserable, exhausted and depressed. I could see no way out. I felt physically and mentally unwell and woke up every day feeling hopeless. It was like Groundhog Day, and I just wanted it to end. I knew it would of course end at some point, but I felt at that point all I could do was to endure it. I still tried each day, but something had left me… my vision, motivation, energy, positivity, my sense of hope. My mind felt closed, like a prison and I was trapped inside, scared and accepting my fate.

Like many of you I have my 8-year-old daughter, Mia at home. I also run a digital marketing company with my sister alongside Maverick Mums, which is my dream, my passion, my vision for the future.

I was awakening each day to the barrage of media and the home-schooling projects and advice across social media, wondering how on earth I was meant to home-school and work at the same time, let alone parent, exercise, stay connected to family and friends, keep the house clean, walk the dogs, ensure we eat healthily (the list goes on) and somehow also remain sane, calm and grounded?!

My situation is by no means the worst, but it’s the only one I am in and so I can only speak from there, from my heart to yours. I also had the added pressure and grief of nowhere to call home, to feel safe (as at this point, we were living in an Air b ‘n’ b). And it was the 4-year anniversary of my dad’s death, and the first anniversary of losing a very close friend last year to cancer.

The answer is that you simply can’t do all of those things successfully at the level you did previously, or all in one day. I think that was the first big step I made in accepting and readjusting to the ‘new normal’. I lowered my expectations considerably!

I think this is very much a process, but not a very linear one. Like grief there is shock, denial, overwhelm, panic. At first, I felt completely unequipped to cope with the situation, but then I began to realise that we are in this for the long haul and I/we must find a way through. We need to find hope again, because where hope is, fear cannot also remain. We have to dig down deep in our souls and be resilient, but that, I know is easier said than done.

Lets adapt together

As mums, as the matriarch we have to adapt, and lead our families through this and to the other side. How we navigate this time will test us to our core, but we can each find our own way through, together.

In the past, when I have felt this sense of grief, of being lost, disconnected and depressed I have often found comfort and resolution in embarking on a journey. A journey which is both physical and emotional. An adventure that feeds my soul and offers me the opportunity to be part of something bigger than myself, to reconnect with myself, to remember what’s important in this short and precious life, what my values are, who I am, where I have been and where I am going.

These physical journeys volunteering in Africa have had a huge and undeniable impacts on me and the course of my life. Things seem to become far clearer in the Namibian wilderness tracking desert elephants or living and working as part of the community in Tanzania. Each time I have returned home with renewed hope, a sense of peace and feeling grounded.

Find your own truth

At first, I thought I would like nothing more right now that to ‘escape’ to the Namibian desert, away from all the worry and noise, to remember who I am so that I might regain control, but of course I can’t, we can’t, and so we must go on a different kind of journey. A journey only in our minds, in hour own homes and gardens, or very close proximity of where we live. A journey with family, with friends, with the world, and everyone and everything which inhabits it. A journey of global scale. But I recognise that, as always, the work begins with me, and with you. You can’t change the world, but you can change your little corner of it!

I am not a life coach, a yoga teacher, an adventure leader, a meditation queen or a philosopher. I am just a regular mum like you. I have been through a great deal over the last 10 years, I have endured and worked through social anxiety, PTSD, my husband’s cancer, the sudden death of my dad at age 60, followed closely by the death of my mother-in-law, and more recently the death of a very close friend who was only 34 years old. These are some of the most difficult and painful times of my life, but I have also grown enormously as a person, learned a huge amount about myself, and what is truly important in life and emerged a better mum, friend, daughter, granddaughter, wife; a better human being. I think my greatest gifts are my honesty, my ability to be vulnerable and my curiosity for life. That curiosity feeds my adventurous soul and encourages me to try new things, to live an adventurous life, to go against the grain, but that is by no means the easy path to take. It takes real guts and strength to gain against the grain and to stand up for what you want and believe in.

I don’t have all the answers, that’s not what being a Maverick Mum is all about. It’s about finding ‘your own way’, because that’s really the only way. These are life changing times on a global scale, but focus on you, and the rest will start to flow naturally. Try not to force stuff but be open in your mind to receiving. I think the biggest shift in my mindset so far over the last 6 weeks was reminding myself about what we can and can’t control right now. We can only control our own minds, that’s it, not even our bodies are within our control.

Relight your adventurous soul

It would be very easy right now, as mums, to put ourselves to the bottom of the pile, but that’s the last thing we should do! We simply can’t help our families if we don’t help ourselves first. It might actually be the perfect time to work on you, if you’re ready to do so? Or even if you are just slightly curious? To go on a journey within, and to relight your adventurous soul, to create change, to rewrite your story, and to emerge from this time more connected to yourself, to those around you, to the world, and as a result far happier.

I don’t believe it’s possible to have a meaningful encounter with others, or with our environment, if we don’t first have a meaningful encounter with ourselves. First inwards, then outwards. I also know that times of great tragedy and loss can also result in personal growth and opportunity.

I had begun to lose sight of my own dreams again, and to ‘settle’. To convince myself that all the things I have been striving towards are too much, are unreachable. But that’s not me, and that makes me sad. That’s fear talking; and hope and fear can’t exist in the same space, so I chose hope.

We can’t go on a physical journey together right now, and who knows when we will be able to (hopefully the end of January, in time for my 40th birthday!). But we can still share a journey together. If you have read this far, and what I have to say resonates with you then I would love to share this journey with you. I am searching for ‘my people’ and by that I mean people with a similar mindset. I want so much for us to have a shared experience with you as this creates real bonds, real relationships, and from that confidence and love. And when the world has reset and been replenished, we will be ready to emerge together, stronger, more confident and connected than ever, ready to explore together and even more appreciative of this one wild and precious life we have been given, and grateful for the world in which we live.

I have watched closely while people close to me face death and have vowed never to forget what it means to truly live. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe that they are inside each of us if only we tune in and listen, we can hear our own truth.

Real life is harsh, brutal, finite, but hope and love is everything. We are here now, so what shall we do? We have to make the most of it, and I would love us to go on a beautiful adventure together.

If you want this too, or even if you’re just slight curios then please just get in touch with me – I’d love to hear from you – from your heart to mine.

With love,

Rhi x