Healing After Grief: Learning to live in a world that keeps changing
It all begins with an idea.
Grief changes you. Grief changes everything.
It reshapes your world quietly, deeply, and in ways you never asked for, ways that you cannot control or change.
This is my story, it’s raw, honest, and human and the reason why helping others through their own healing has become the heart of my work.
Growing Up Too Fast, Losing Mum
In 2006 everything changed.
I lost my mum to cancer, and with it, the structure of our family shifted overnight.
My younger sister, my older sister, my dad… we were all suddenly navigating life without the person who held everything together.
Although this journey started when I was only fourteen, when we found out Mum had been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
We watched her become sick.
We watched her fight.
We watched her go through radiotherapy, surgery, and chemotherapy for eight long years. Yet somehow she still made everything feel safe, like she was always going to be here.
That was her gift. She always put us first.
You don’t realise how much someone anchors you until they’re gone.
She was the organiser, the head of the house, the one who made sure things got done and that we were looked after, even walking miles to sort out our school bus passes. She said the right things, did the right things, but she also made us laugh. Dancing in the corridors. Baking scones. Listening to our teenage dramas and our dreams.
When she left, it felt like everything fell out of place.
We were all feeling the same pain, but expressing it differently.
We were young. Dad had three girls who needed their mum, but he had to keep going too.
And life didn’t pause for us.
I remember looking around thinking, How is everyone else just carrying on?
I wanted the whole world to stop and feel what I felt.
But everything kept moving, and we had to move with it.
Mum’s motto in life was always:
“The only thing that matters is happiness, if you’re happy, nothing else matters.”
Those words have stayed with me, even on the hardest days.
Losing My Little Sister
Just a few years later, in 2009, my little sister died in a car accident.
Another painful heartbreaking moment for our family to carry. Another moment where life split into “before” and “after.”
She was full of life, full of dreams, she should have had her whole future ahead of her. Losing someone so young shakes you in a different way. It’s unfair. It’s shocking. It changes how you see the world because you suddenly understand how fragile everything truly is.
The guilt of smiling again, laughing again, even breathing without that ache…
It’s a weight that sits in your chest. You don’t want life to move forward, but it does and you have to learn how to walk with the grief instead of against it.
Over time, I began to look at the world through her eyes, the things she loved, the things she never got to do, the moments she deserved to have.
Living fully became my way of honouring her.
Taking in moments she didnt get the chance to. Traveling the world, Feeling the sun on my face. Saying yes to things she would have loved. Carrying her with me by choosing to live, not shut down.
She changed me.
And she still guides me.
And Then, Losing My Older Sister
In 2025, my older sister passed away after her own fight.
And even though I had already lived through so much loss, losing her felt different again.
A sister bond is something you don’t need to explain, it’s built from childhood secrets, shared jokes, the same history, the same memories of growing up. It’s a silence that only a sibling understands. When you lose that, it creates a kind of loneliness that sits deep beneath the surface.
Grief isn’t just sadness; it’s disorientation.
It makes you rethink your whole life.
Her passing forced me to pause. To reflect. To ask myself who I wanted to be now, and how I wanted to live. It made me re-evaluate everything for myself and for my family, what matters, what doesn’t, and what kind of future I want to create.
There’s an emptiness in not having that older-sister presence anymore, but there’s also a strength that comes from carrying her with me. She is still part of the choices I make, the woman I’m becoming, and the work I do today.
Why I Do What I Do
These losses shaped me, not by making me hard… but by making me soft in all the important ways.
I learnt that everyone carries something unseen.
I learnt:
People are not always where they want to be.
Life throws you in directions you didn’t choose.
Sometimes you just need someone to sit in the dark with you until the light feels possible again.
This is why I help people find their healing journey.
This is why I love creative wellbeing and mindful art.
It gives people a gentle way back to themselves.
I am a just a human too!
I’m a mum of four, a wife, and the mum of a very cheeky Maremma!!
I’m busy, I’m a perfectionist, and even though I’m confident in my work, I can be shy in certain situations too.
People see the strong exterior, but they don’t always see the girl who rebuilt herself from broken pieces.
I love the simple things, picnics in the park, days at the beach, the sound of the sea and the warmth of the sun. Watching my children play, feeling the breeze, noticing the small moments… those are the things that ground me. They remind me that life is meant to be lived and it’s all around us, something that we can easily take for granted. Being mindful keeps me grounded, keeping me in the present moment.
I’ve walked through enough darkness to know how important it is to feel supported, family friends collegues even strangers sometimes can all offer support. Others that are going through similar experiences care even when they don’t know you.
I don’t believe anyone can “fix” you but I do believe the right support can help you choose the next right step.
Healing After Grief , What I Want You to Know
Grief never fully leaves; but it softens.
Some days it whispers.
Some days it hits like a wave.
But healing is possible.
Life can feel full again.
Joy can return without guilt.
You don’t “move on”
you move forward, carrying love with you.
You are never alone in this even when it feels like you are.
