Life works in wonderful, mysterious ways. We hear of love stories where one person is the inspiration behind another’s work – and for the first time in my life I have experienced this too.
My Little Story
I have been burnt out, exhausted, and neglecting my own cup for close to 2 years. As my best friend would put it – I feel like champagne that has lost its bubbles – I was flat champagne (still champagne). I sprained my ankle quite badly before a 6-week solo-trip to the UK. I was basically on ankle lockdown for the first 4 weeks. It was stressful trying to gauge how much I could walk before I pushed it too far. It was the frustration of not being able to move whilst on holiday, the paranoia of moving and injuring it further, that made the overall flat champagne situation worse.
Eventually, I had gotten used to staying home all day, I almost stopped trying. It wasn’t until I had two weeks left when panic struck. I didn’t want to leave the country feeling this way – so I booted myself out of the house. Rather than gallivanting the rather fast paced streets of London, I found parks, I explored east London with a friend, who made me realise that all my paranoia about a compromised foot, personal safety, and walkability were dissolved. I could walk, slowly and gingerly, for ten hours straight, there wasn’t any visible danger in sight that I had to worry about bolting from, and I experienced how nice it was to be outside again.
I didn’t get to see my friend again, but I did go on to explore more of east London myself, wandering into parks and canals, eventually I found myself in Hampstead Heath one Monday afternoon, and my breath was taken away by the vastness and generosity of nature.
In my life I have broken my spine, sacrum, irreversibly cracked the cartilage in my knee, had my jaw dislocated, amongst other injuries, but it took the recovery of this ankle, and falling in love right after I walked out of Hampstead Heath to clean the mud off my shoes, to realise the fundamentals of what I stand for, my purpose and offering to the world – to build my practice upon health and human connection.