On the morning after the latest royal wedding, I reflect. I reflect on a generation of new royals who have transformed the British Monarchy. I reflect on a serenely beautiful, independent woman who walked herself down the aisle, proud of her roots, her heritage, her story, in front of the watching world. I reflect on a service that was almost paradoxical in its nature, modern yet steeped in tradition, raising eyebrows as well as smiles.
With that, my reflection and thoughts turn to my own story of transformation and transcendence.
When we are honest with ourselves, our purpose in life is to be happy, and I believe that happiness stems with all things love. Put love at the heart of the change and you will find happiness. It took the death of a loved princess and beloved mother to trigger a change in the royal family, their love for two young men opened up their beliefs around tradition and a royal lifestyle. It took the death of my mother and of my first marriage to prompt a radical change in my life and in my beliefs. I had to lose love in order to love myself. To love myself, I had to understand and get to know the stranger I had become and ‘reinvent’ the new me.
I see myself today and I am a stranger to past friends, but more authentic for having found myself again. I have been reborn a more joyful person; I am comfortable in my own skin, with my thoughts, my beliefs and excited for whatever lies ahead.
In the afterglow of transformation, it can be easy to forget that the journey can be a rocky, uphill road, fraught with challenges, stumbles, failures and even roadblocks.
It took nearly two decades for the public and the establishment to be comfortable with a wedding that would have once been seen as fraught with controversial rule breaking and it has taken me 18 months to be in a situation that I never thought would be possible and feel what I once believed would be impossible.
How do you overcome the hurdles, how do you see the roadblocks as useful diversions, how do you take the impossible leap to start your own reinvention at any age?
Even with love at the heart of any transformation, I strongly believe there needs to be elements of creativity and spirituality too. They are all interlinked: You can be creative with love and find spirituality in love. You can fall in love with creativity, and spirituality can lead you to be creative.
As the new Duke and Duchess have shown us, love is the only place to start. Love is at the heart of healing and health and it is the greatest form of nourishment when it comes to our well-being.
I reinvented a life doing joyful activities and eventually, these activities formed a new purpose and a new career as a Holistic Health Coach.
In some ways, this part of my journey turned into a form of spiritual practice. To have self love, I needed to connect with my spirit and understand the purpose of my being, which really is the definition of spirituality.
To do this, I became clear on my personal values by completing an exercise in his book ‘Turning Point’ by Dr. Rohan Weerasinghe. With my values written down and pinned against my mirror, alongside my joy list, I could see the person I wanted to be for that day ahead. I knew I liked that version of me and she gave me a reason to get up and out of bed in the morning. I knew how to live, by my values, I knew who I was, what I stood for and I knew my purpose in life.
I reinvented myself by being who I really was, by listening to my heart and spirit.
I reinvented a life where it was no longer just about loving myself on my own in the Wilderness but loving myself and who I was, whoever I was with and without having to change who I was to ‘fit in.’
With love at the heart of a reinvention, you can transform your life. Mixing the love with elements of creativity and spirituality, you can go beyond the limits of your imagination and in doing so, achieve transcendence.
Congratulations to the Harry & Meghan for showing the world how it can be done.