For anyone in need of change
Greetings from the UK, where I’m back for Christmas! Today’s Wonderstruck is for anyone who feels in need of a change in their life, which is a topic that’s been on my mind a lot this past week, along with this wonderful quote from Anais Nin:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
I’m currently staying at my best and lifelong friend’s house. She lives in a great town called Berkhamsted, or Berko to the locals, which is north of London, and I lived here once too, for six very happy years.
This town is where my son went to high school and spent his teenage years. This town is where I reignited my writing career after being dropped by my first publisher, and won a national book award, whilst commuting into London four days a week to work as an editorial consultant. It was a very happy and hard working six years!
My son and I (and our maverick rescue dog Max) moved here from London in 2010. 2009 had not been a good year for us for several reasons and I remember going into the new year feeling absolutely desperate for things to change. I didn’t know how they might change at that point, I just knew that they had to. To paraphrase the Nin quote above, the pain of remaining tight in a bud of unhappiness had grown so strong I was prepared to risk just about anything to change our situation. I so badly wanted to feel happy again. And more importantly, I so badly wanted that for my son.
And so the day came when I asked my son if he’d like to move somewhere new for a fresh start. He said yes in a heartbeat, so I did one of the most spontaneous and impetuous things I’ve ever done - I opened Google maps, took a look at places that would be outside of London but still easily accessible to the capital so I could commute to work, and chose Berkhamsted at random. It was a town I’d never been to before and that I knew nothing about.
A couple of days later I got the train there and when I arrived at the station I thought it looked strangely familiar, then realised that I used to go through it regularly, years previously, when I lived in Liverpool and would take the train back and forth to London. On my journeys to and from Liverpool I always used to think how pretty Berko looked as the train went whizzing by, and remembering this seemed like a good omen.
It was.
Long story short, after walking around town for a bit, and falling in love with the canal and the countryside and the sweet smell of wood smoke and the quaint houses and high street stores, I enquired at an estate agent’s about rental properties. They instantly found me a lovely little cottage and - defying all the usual headaches and delays of the rental market - we moved there three weeks later! SIDE NOTE: I’ve found that when you’re on the right path, the universe conspires to help make things happen as quickly and easily as possible.
Looking back now, I see what a huge risk I took, uprooting our lives in London to go somewhere completely new, where we knew no-one. But the good thing about pain is that it can make the best catalyst.
I left Berko in 2016 after my son went off to university, and being back here this week has brought back a lot of great memories. It’s also made me see a parallel between my life this year and the year I moved here.
I started both years vowing that things had to change because the pain of remaining in the ‘tight bud’ of my existing situation had become untenable.
Both years I used my pain and discomfort as a catalyst to take a huge risk - this year leaving my home in the UK altogether to become a writer nomad.
And I ended both years having transformed my life beyond all recognition. Which makes me think of another favourite quote of mine, this one from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
“Whatever you dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
In those years when I was really bold, magical, powerful things happened.
In 2010, fuelled by my desire for change, I was also bold enough to enter a book I’d self-published for a national book award. It won, beating books from major authors and publishing houses, and overnight my career was transformed. The year ended with eight publishers bidding at auction to sign me and republish my novel, and I haven’t looked back since.
I started 2023 burned out and depressed, stuck in a town on the south coast that I moved to during the pandemic and hated, feeling lonely and isolated. I’m ending the year having travelled to seven different countries, leaving home to live a nomadic life, making wonderful new friends and creating some incredible memories along the way.
So… if you’re ending this year feeling unhappy and stuck, I’d urge you to use your pain as a catalyst for change. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see how you can change things just yet - I couldn’t this past January. But in my experience, becoming determined to bring about change is a vital first step. And I found the following to be really helpful too..
Journal about the part of your life you’d like to change
Don’t put any pressure on yourself to come up with solutions immediately just have fun brainstorming possibilities
Take these different possibilities for a walk and mull them over while you go. I did this a lot at the start of this year, taking long walks along the seafront where I was living, weighing up whether I should go travelling and where I should travel to
Reflect on other times in your life when you’ve done something bold. Tap into the energy reliving these times brings to you
Surround yourself with images that inspire you to make change. At the start of this year I put pictures of the places I’d like to travel to around my flat and as the screensaver on my phone. Seeing them always gave my spirits a lift and motivated me
Challenge any fears that might come up while contemplating change by asking yourself is your fear really 100% true, and would it really be as bad as you're imagining? For example, a big fear of mine when I thought of going travelling was, what if I get sick with covid while I’m on my own miles from home? Thankfully, I ignored this fear and funnily enough, I ended up getting covid while I was on my own in southern France. But I was absolutely fine and it actually proved to be a great bonding moment with new friends I’d just made, who rallied round and brought covid tests and food to my airBnB for me!
I hope this edition of Wonderstruck helps you find the determination to go from bud to blossom in the new year. And remember, boldness has a power and magic to it, so don’t be afraid to take a risk if you have to.
Siobhan
Inspiring to me, Siobhan. 💜
Welcome back Siobhan