at 35: the life lessons that shaped me

how I found happiness through hard times

10 years ago I was living on a horse farm in outback Australia.

It seems like another life, but also I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember turning 25 there, sat in a field alone thinking ‘how the fuck did I end up here’. My boyfriend had ended things a couple months prior, I was living on the other side of the world, I had just been told that actually I wouldn’t be paid for work, I had lost my passport, needed a new visa, and had another 2 and a half months to spend working on the horse farm with no one I knew, surrounded by the *pick* of Australian wildlife. All this, and no internet.

Yeah, it was quite the experience.

But looking back I’m so thankful for it - when else would have I had to deal with all that? I’ve always enjoyed experiencing life, and although at the time I cried daily (the barn when I was mucking out was a good time to hide it from the other workers there) it was so shaping. It was so bleak, so raw. And don’t get me wrong, the people there were lovely, and I have so many wonderful memories from that time too. But it was so much at once, both mentally and physically; that it taught me so much and I truly believe it shaped me hugely and helped me be the me I am today. So in retrospect I’m thankful for the experience. It was definitely a time for some life lessons to be learned!

I pride myself on having really lived life. Not really as a decision of my own, but since childhood I have been in some outright crazy situations - through no fault of my own (ok, fine, the farm was my decision, but that’s minor in comparison). I won’t go into huge detail about them, because honestly I don’t think you would believe half of them, even when I think of them I think: how the hell I am still alive? This wasn’t me being a huge rebel, this was down to some very lax parenting and being adultified at a very young age. Once I had what felt like freedom to live on my terms in my late teens, I wasn’t ‘afraid’ of life or people or places, because I had already been exposed to so much.

I went travelling around the world, alone, at 18. Without being at all conscious of it at the time, I was eager to continue the adventure of life. The freedom I had, to be far away from people I knew - felt a bit like a drug. I could constantly reinvent myself, rewrite my past. Eventually, over a decade later, I maxed out on this type of living, and realised how fried my nervous system was from it. And that’s why I write this newsletter of finding happiness and balance, because it wasn’t always a given for me.

---

---

All this to say: I’ve learned some lessons along the way, and here they are…

Back to now, and time feels like it is going so fast at the moment. Even the version of myself 3 months ago feels like a whole other me - like I was in a whole other timeline or alternate universe. It really does feel like we’ve jumped timelines and we’re continuing to do so, which is why I think time feels like it’s going so fast. (You can read more about this and the energy and my about the new paradigm here) but in this one, I wanted to share my top learnings from life at the age of 35.

Below are my 6 top Life Lessons, I hope they can help.