Dear Alex...

Dear Alex,

I've written you a few letters over the years, and part of me wants to say I wish I didn't have to write you this one. The other part of me wants to say, this happened for a reason, but who the fuck wants to hear that when they've just lost a baby. I know you're confused and disoriented by finding out you're pregnant and miscarrying within the same sentence. I know you're also mad because the doctor that told you in A&E was a dick and asked, "why are you crying?" I know you're in extreme pain, both physical and emotional. I know no one can take that pain away from you, even though they might try. I know it's been weeks since you've struggled to get out of bed, let alone shower. It's like being depressed all over again, only this time, your body feels and is literally falling apart. I also know that you feel alone, that this is probably the most alone you've ever felt. Your partner will be there, but he won't really be there. He'll text you three years later to apologise for not understanding what you went through, and you will cry as if it were yesterday.

But I promise you, you will heal. You will heal your womb several times, in the mountains in the south of France, in the Wicklow mountains of Ireland, all the way to the mountains surrounding Bogota. You will heal your heart from the indescribable pain you feel, and you will learn to love again. You will heal your soul and the soul of your family as you constellate and bring to the surface the unspoken miscarriages in your female lineage. You will heal from your loneliness because a magical group of women in an enchanted woodland are about to appear in your life, and they will hold you. They will hold you when your knees give in, hold you when you feel the ground unstable, and hold you when you don't even know you need holding. But for them to do that, you must let them. Let them be there for you. Let them cook for you and feed you. Let them mother you. None of this "I'm a strong and independent woman". Let them work and weave their magic around your heart. Let them sing songs around the fire. Let them laugh with you through your tears. Just make sure you take a few boxes of tissue.

This will take time. This will take so much time. So much more than you can possibly think right now. You will wake up weeks, months, and years from now and wonder if this sadness will ever go away, and it won't, but it will get better. At some point, you'll learn that time is a construct any way. You'll be less in a rush to get back to work, to be productive, and to be seen. You’ll start to understand that if you try and fight, control or ignore your grief, it will just delay the healing process, so eventually you’ll surrender. Your online presence will fade over time, and you'll retreat from the world. You'll move to Berlin, somewhere you’ve always found healing but thanks Saturn in your house of health you’ll spend most of it in bed. You'll move back to the UK to get better and go and live next to the enchanted woodland surrounded by those magical women, where you’ll pick apples and sit in a blue beach hut. Then you'll move to the other side of the world. You'll be shocked that three years have gone by.

You'll slow down, right right down. You don't have a choice in the matter, really. And when you slow down, eventually, the things you loved that you stopped loving, you'll begin to love again. You'll moan over mouthfuls of food. You'll twirl in the sun with your eyes closed. You'll jump and roll through waves naked. You'll dance ecstatically barefoot in the mud. You'll indulge in pleasure, lots of it. You'll watch cheesy rom-coms on long-haul flights. You'll be moved by listening to a cellist play. You'll sing karaoke at the top of your lungs. You'll laugh so hard you can barely breathe. You'll get high for the very first time. You'll pick up a paintbrush again. You'll pick up a pen again. You'll pick up a book again. Things will happen again. You will feel again. You will hear it all again. You will see again. You will live again. And between all this joy, beauty, and love you will experience, it will be peppered with grief, sorrow and sadness. It will be the contrast that makes life so rich. I know that's hard to believe right now, but I promise you will live in a way you didn't even know was possible.?

You will learn about grief, death and loss. What it means to love something you didn't know you wanted until it's gone. You will learn that people process grief differently. Unless a man has a baby in his arms, he can't fully register that a baby exists. You will learn that relationships rarely survive this, and I'm afraid to tell you yours won't. You'll become a seeker, I mean, you already were one, but this time you'll really become a seeker. You'll look for healing in the most unusual of places. You'll meet the most interesting teachers, and let's be honest, you'll do some pretty weird shit in the name of healing. Then, a few years later, you will cross the Irish sea as you begin training to become a Death Doula. Bet you didn't see that one coming! You won't come back from that trip the same. Some unpredictable stuff will happen shortly after this retreat, but I don't want to spoil the surprise! You're going to meet two people that will play a significant role in your new beginnings, people you weren't expecting. They will hold some clues as to what your career looks like next because, yes, you're about to begin again.

And after all the grief and healing, you, yes you, the crazy woman that you are, decide that it's a good idea to pack your bags and jet off to Colombia on a one-way ticket to do some ancestral healing, because why the hell not! But joking aside, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you how proud I am of you. With all the pain and suffering you experienced, you made it! You abso-fucking-lutely made it. I sometimes wonder how you did it and how you've done it with all your past childhood adversity. How you manage to fall down and get back up, fall down and get back up and with even more fight than ever. How you manage to transmute your pain into power and prose. How you talk about the things that no one wants to discuss so openly, vulnerably and authentically. I don't know how you do it, but whatever you're doing, keep doing it. Even when no one is listening, especially when you think no one is paying attention, keep doing it, because someone is, and someone needs to hear this. So put one foot in front of the other. I believe in you.

Now you just have to figure out who you are now. Good luck!

With love and care,

Alex

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Upcoming news and events…

***NEW COURSE ALERT*** I've recently launched a new creative writing course based on my current Ancestral exploration, which you’ll be reading about soon. If you’re curious to connect with your ancestry, then?you can?find out more here. Beginners and experienced writers are all welcomed.

I recently launched the Café of Endings and New Beginnings with my wonderful friend Tracey McEachran. The Cafe is a virtual place created to explore all our griefs within community. There is power in the group, because everyone is holding up a mirror to allow us to see ourselves more fully by exploring what we cannot see on our own. Our next Café is Monday 13th March and is by donation, you can?sign up here.

Lastly, I stopped coaching this time last year as I needed the space to get clear if it was something I wanted to continue to do and if so how my approach needed to evolve. I realised what needed changing was incorporating a more holistic approach that includes both the practical and the spiritual. I specialise in guiding people to cross the threshold. If you’re curious to know more, please?reach out.