The contemporary hero’s journey isn’t fought on battlefields,

but is often an inner journey through a long dark stormy night. This is my own tale of my soul’s initiation through the storm. I share this story in the spirit of openness, and for anyone walking through something similar.

You are not alone.

Many years ago, I went through a life-altering collapse that became,

ultimately, a journey of transformation.

It began quietly, a slow unravelling from the inside,

after years of avoiding feeling my feelings and isolating

myself in all sorts of ways.

I didn’t notice how exhaustion and stress

accompanied every waking hour,  

until everything in me started to crumble.

Sleep vanished, anxiety and panic became constant companions,

I lost the will to eat, and my psyche became an unfamiliar place haunted by fear and confusion. Eventually, my body also gave in, and I hit rock bottom.

I remember shaking, trembling, so very weak, unable to function and full of mind-scrambling fear. As I descended to that rock bottom place, I lost ordinary consciousness and entered into a vision:

I was running backwards from the most terrifying, shadowy,

overwhelming storm, full of disembodied voices and threats of total annihilation. I’d backed myself into a corner; there was nowhere else to run,

nowhere to hide.

Then a gentle and kind voice spoke clearly in my vision and told me:

“Walk through the storm, there will be sunshine on the other side”.

My consciousness swam back up into the waking world to see my dear carers with tears in their eyes readying to take me to the hospital. But I stood up shakily, and holding the arm of my partner, I took a few steps.

I imagined each step as a step through the storm.

Each day I took one small step: eating a little, walking a few metres, watching the sunrise, listening to the wind in the trees and the humming of the bees. Each step a huge and at times exhausting effort of willpower, but each step

a commitment to life.

So I began to ascend, and I walked through my storm.

And little by little, light began to return.

Birdsong sounded like birdsong again.

The yellow of the wattle blossoms looked

like sunshine rather than sorrow.

Healing wasn’t a straight line.

There were times of anger, grief, and frustration. But gradually,

I stopped fighting the shadows. I faced my fears and felt my feelings.

And when I turned toward them instead of running away,

and met them with compassion instead of fear, they softened.

I realised that what I had lived through was not just a breakdown,

but an initiation.

The myths and fairytales I loved as a child came back to life in me –  

we are all heroes meeting the dragons, living our personal

heroes’ journeys.

If I had to choose, I would still walk through that storm again.

Because it brought me home to myself, it taught me courage, acceptance, compassion and more gratitude for life than I could ever imagine.

So to anyone finding their way through their own dark night,

whatever the circumstances:

You are not broken.

You are becoming.

There are treasures to be found in the caves

of the long dark night.

And the dawn always comes.

Much love

✨

Give yourself time to listen, feel, and experience Laura’s Journey: