My Twin Flame Journey: 8 Years On
- Jennifer
- May 18
- 32 min read
Updated: May 29
Prelude
If you’d told me ten years ago that I’d be writing about soul mates, The Gods, or something called the Twin Flame journey, I would have laughed. Or politely nodded and changed the subject. I was practical. Grounded. A single mum working full-time in finance. I didn’t go in for anything mystical. I didn’t have a spiritual practice. I had a mortgage.
But then something happened that I couldn’t explain away. I met someone. And how that felt, and what happened alongside it changed everything.
That’s the short version. The long version is what you’re about to read.
This essay is a love story, but it’s not the kind you find in a romantic movie. It’s the kind you find in myths. The kind where the hero is called to something greater, walks into the forest of their own becoming, and emerges changed. Not with a prize or a partner, but with a truth they didn’t know they were missing. It’s not about a happy ending. It’s about a sacred transformation. A homecoming to the self.
If you’re familiar with terms like The Hero’s Journey or Twin Flames, you might already have a sense of where this is going. But if you’re not, if you’re like my cousin, who remembers me as the girl who never believed in any of this, here’s what you need to know:
The Twin Flame journey, in essence, is a spiritual initiation triggered by a deep soul connection. Meeting your “twin” doesn’t guarantee a relationship; in fact, it simply breaks you open. It brings to the surface everything you haven’t healed: old wounds, patterns, fears. It asks you to grow, fast. It’s not just about union with another person; it’s about union with yourself. It hurts. And it transforms.
The Hero’s Journey is the oldest story we know. A soul hears a call. They resist it, then follow it. They face challenges. They descend. They transform. They return. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the shape of what I was living. A myth unfolding through my everyday life.
And then there are The Gods. Not statues. Not dogma. But real. As real as grief. As real as longing. As real as the voice that rises up from your belly when you stop silencing it.
They are archetypal intelligences, living patterns of soul and spirit that exist both within us and beyond us. They are the blueprint and the becoming. They speak through dreams, through heartbreak, through astrology charts and blocked drains and butterfly landings. They are everywhere. And if you’ve never met them, that doesn’t make them less real. It just means you haven’t yet believed them into being.
Like in The NeverEnding Story, where the world disappears because people stop believing in it, I think that’s what happens with the sacred. It fades, not because it isn’t real, but because we forget how to see.
I call them The Gods because that’s what they are. Not metaphor. Not mood. Gods. When they enter your life, they do not knock politely. They storm in. They dismantle. They reorder. They ask impossible things of you, and they never leave you the same.
So what exactly is this essay?
It’s a personal story. A map. A myth. A confession. A testimony to what I’ve lived through over the past eight years. It begins with the moment I met Him, the man who activated the deepest ache and the deepest love I’ve ever known. And it follows the path that unfolded after he left.
It includes the descent into heartbreak, the confusion, the questioning. It explores the forest of grief and uncertainty, where I learned how to listen to my own inner wisdom, how to hold my pain without running, how to love myself without condition. There’s a whole section simply called The Work because that’s what it’s been. Work. Every day. For eight years.
But this isn’t just about pain. It’s about beauty. About transformation. About the return. And what it means to come back not with the man, but with a deeper sense of who I am, and what I’m here to give.
You don’t need to believe in any of this to read it. You just need to believe that sometimes life cracks us open and that what we find inside the breaking is worth writing about.
Jump to section:
The Start
Let me make something clear.
This was never a story of boy meets girl. Boy breaks girl’s heart. Girl can’t get over it and creates some wacky fantasy about him being the one, and then secretly clings to it, even though every real sign points to the opposite.
That’s not what it was. It's not what it is.
This was a meeting of two souls who, at the start, when everything was still pure, before all the wounding and projection and triggering began, knew. They knew they were each other’s. And that they always had been.
This isn’t only my Journey, though it has felt like it at times. We came together to instigate something. Something that both of our souls had agreed to before we were born into this life (if you believe any of that nonsense). Our meeting wasn’t random. Our meeting was inevitable. And so was everything that followed.
The work it provoked wasn’t one-sided. It still isn't.
He had already been walking this path. The path of spiritual expansion, of truth, of service to something greater than himself. He knew he was a Divine Being. He was also a human man who was struggling to find his place in the world. And he was doing both.
Me? I thought I’d found my place. I wasn’t searching for anything. I had no comprehension of a spiritual aspect to life. No interest. What I saw was what I believed. And what I had seen had taught me this: this is it. You live, you die. The rest is a coping mechanism. A false hope because we’re too scared to face the truth that there is no truth.
He didn’t set out to change that. He didn’t preach. He didn’t try. He simply told me about His world. A world that seemed entirely different to my own. But His soul nudged mine. And mine woke up. She remembered what she had forgotten.
My Journey began with that. Not pain. Not confusion. Recognition. Mutual. Clear.
And then came the sudden understanding. A mystical experience that told me the truth and left me with no doubt. The truth of who we are to each other. Of how deep our connection runs. We are the same. Born of the same frequency. The same resonance. The same tone. The same energetic DNA. We are equal. We have lived lifetimes as one, and lifetimes apart. On this planet, and others. And when we met in this lifetime, we both knew.
But we are not only Divine beings. We are not just made of light. We are also human. Human beings who have lived complicated lives, over and over and over again. And before we can come together in this life, we have to heal the parts of ourselves that push us apart. We can only hold what we are together, when we are both ready. Not before.
And we both knew that.
The difference was, I kept the knowing. He had to forget. That was the only way it could work.
He had to forget so I could remember. So I could walk through the abandonment, the loss, the pain of separation. So I could find myself.
I didn’t begin this journey heartbroken. I wasn’t devastated. I wasn’t left. We chose not to begin a relationship. That was clear. That was conscious. What happened was that I met another me. And in seeing him, I saw my self for the first time.
And I chose to begin The Journey that would lead me back to him. Not by chasing. Not by waiting. But by doing the work I knew I had to do.
So that when the time comes, when We are ready, We can meet again.
The Activation
He told me I was carrying a darkness. That my heart wasn’t clear. It wasn’t a judgment but a fact. Something He could see. Something I had never thought to look at. He didn’t say it to hurt me. And He didn’t say it gently either. He just said it. It was as if we stood together at the entrance to a dark forest, endless in its depth. And He told me it was mine. The Forest where my Wild Things are. Where those stories that scarred, that built walls around my heart, waited. He’d been walking in his. It was time for me to walk in mine. And you can only enter your Forest alone.
Looking back, I can’t believe I wasn’t afraid, terrified of what I’d find in there. But the fact was, I was ready. And I knew this man in a way I’d never known anyone, even though we'd only just met. I trusted him with my life. I didn’t need to question. I couldn’t. I knew it was time for me to enter. Time for me to walk the path. To embark on The Journey.
My soul heard him. Not my mind. Not the version of me who had been holding it together for years and calling it a life. A deeper part. The part of me that remembered.
And I said yes.
Not to him, to The Work.
That’s how this started. With an instruction. One I didn’t ask for, and one I didn’t resist. I didn’t need to know where it would take me. I didn’t need to be promised anything. I just needed to start walking.
Another gift I was handed by this other me, through His awareness, His expanded consciousness, was a faith in something bigger than me. A belief in a power beyond my awareness that I could call upon, if I needed to. So I started The Journey by asking The Universe to help. To lead me where I needed to go. To hold my hand as I walked down the path and into The Forest.
And The Universe answered. Said: 'Yes, my love. Let’s walk it together.'
The Descent
The pain of separation lives in the The Forest.
I had to leave Him behind to find it. That’s the part I'd like you to understand. This Journey wasn’t just about Him. It was about walking into the place inside myself where I had always been alone.
I left him at the entrance.
I thought if I looked back, I’d see him standing there, watching me with love in his eyes, like in the stories. I thought he’d be there as witness, as protector, as something steady to return to. While He still remembered, He told me he would.
But when I turned around, He’d gone.
And that was the first cut. Not the absence. The disappearance. The way it undid the illusion that we’d walk this path together. He had to forget, I know that now. But back then, it just felt like He vanished. He didn't care. I meant nothing to Him. And I was left to walk alone.
For a while, there was nothing. Just silence. Just the trees. Just the ache. I kept going. I thought I’d find him waiting around the next bend. I didn’t. I thought I’d feel him beside me in the quiet. I didn’t. Not then.
The Forest
The truth is, I’d been walking in The Forest my whole life. I just didn’t know it had a name until He left me at its edge.
I thought The Forest was something I was entering. A sacred quest. A spiritual journey I was embarking on. Something new. And maybe it was. But it was also something familiar. A place I knew in my bones. The Forest was the room I grew up in. The ache in my chest at night when I was small, and afraid, and alone. It was the silence I learned to live with. The way I swallowed my voice before I ever got a chance to hear what it sounded like.
There was a children’s book I loved. It was about a girl with a secret twin, living in a golden palace beneath the rose bush in her garden. A twin who called her “My Very Own.” I wished that book was real. Every night I would lie in bed and hold it close like a map to somewhere I couldn’t find. I'd pray I'd sleep and go there in my dreams. I wasn’t unloved. I wasn’t abandoned. I had parents, a sister, a brother, friends. But none of them could reach the part of me that believed I was alone in the world. None of them knew it was there.
I didn’t cry. Even as a baby I didn't cry. I didn’t tell anyone how I felt. I wouldn't have known how to. It was all I knew. I adapted. I became compliant. I became kind. I became whatever was needed to make it seem like I fit. But even then, I knew I didn't. I was always outside, looking in. I didn’t know that life was supposed to feel good. That it was supposed to be fun. I didn’t know that joy was a birthright. Life was something you endured. Survived. 'Get through it', said The Voice in my head. The Voice was firm: 'Be good, be useful, be quiet.'
The darkness He spoke of, the one He told me was living in my heart. That wasn’t something that had arrived later, it wasn't the conclusion of difficult experiences I'd had. It was something I had always carried. My original condition. The weight I had been born into.
I had always felt afraid. I'd always felt at a distance. That was the feeling of my life, long before He arrived.
And the thing that undid me wasn’t that I had to walk into The Forest.
It was that I realised I had never left it.
I didn’t know what it meant to stand in the open field. To feel The Sun on my face. To lift my head and see sky. I didn’t know there was anything outside of the trees. I thought everyone felt this way. That the silence inside was normal. That love, if it came at all, came with conditions, with pain.
He changed that. Not with a relationship. Not with words. With a recognition. He looked at me, and for a moment something in me remembered the open field. The warmth of The Sun. The embrace of the sky. The daisy I had once been.
And then He turned and disappeared.
And I was left with The Forest.
The Separation
At times it has felt as if I am out in space. No one around me. No sound. No tether. No Earth to orient myself toward. Just the slow, disorienting drift into nothing. Or like I’m lying at the bottom of the ocean. Heavy. Flattened. Not quite dead but not alive either. Just pressure. Silence. Miles of water between me and the world.
I had a vision in a healing session once. I was on a small sailing boat. Lying on the deck, staring at the sky. Alone. In the middle of the ocean. There was no wind to carry me. No land in sight. No hope of being seen. Found. Saved. I knew, this was it. The way things are. And the way it has always been. A part of me lives on that boat. Alone in the middle of the ocean.
It doesn’t feel that way all the time. But being apart from Him, when I let myself remember the feeling He evoked when I thought He was mine and here to stay, that’s how it feels. That’s when I drift into space. When the water rains down. When I'm back in the boat. And when the darkness sets in.
That story I'd loved as a child. The story of the secret twin, the twin who lived in a golden palace, hidden from the world. That story held something sacred. That book conjured something in me I couldn’t name. It lit up a longing I've held since then. I had longed to be her, wanted nothing more than for someone who called me their very own. Someone I could call my very own.
“She calls me ‘my very own sister.’ Lalla-Lee loves me very much. My father loves Mummy best, and Mummy loves my baby brother who was born last spring best. But Lalla-Lee only loves me.”
A belonging I’d never felt. A being seen that went beyond understanding. And when I met Him, when I Met Him, I remembered. I remembered that feeling. I remembered that I had been searching for Him all my life. I understood why I had always felt alone. It was because something in me knew He was missing.
And then I found Him.
And then I lost Him.
He was the twin. The one I’d dreamed of. The one who called to me from the pages of the book I read every day when I was small. He knew it too, for a moment. But after a while, He didn’t recognise me. He looked at me, but He didn’t see. Not the way I saw. Not the way I knew. And nothing compares to that. Nothing prepares you for that.
Eight years. Eight years of carrying this ache. Of waking every day with a love that has nowhere to go. Of feeling Him in my soul but not in my arms. Eight years of holding something sacred, something vast, something ancient, and being the only one who knows it’s there. Am I insane? Am I deluded? Why can't I let go?
There are no words for it. Not really. Nothing that captures the scale. The emptiness. The fullness. The grief. The God-shaped hole. The knowing. The not-having. The silent scream in the body that never goes quiet. It’s the feeling I’ve searched for in every face, every place, every prayer. The one I only ever found in Him.
And the despair. The grief. The torture. It isn’t that He’s gone.
It’s that He was here. That I did feel it. That I was known. For a moment. Before it slipped away. Before He forgot.
Coincidentally, this is also in the book. In words, as in life. Barbara has to let go of her twin too:
“In the Most Beautiful Valley in the World the flowers sing and the trees play musical instruments. Through the valley runs a small, clear brook. It can’t sing or play but it hums a tune. I’ve never heard a more beautiful tune. Lalla-Lee and I stood on the bridge over the brook, and she held my arm and said, ‘My Very Own Sister, there’s one thing you must know.’ I felt a stab in my heart.‘ No,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to know anything.’ ‘You must,’ said Lalla-Lee. The flowers stopped singing, the trees stopped playing, and I couldn’t hear the brook’s tune any more. ‘My Very Own Sister,’ said Lalla-Lee, ‘when Salikon’s roses fade I shall be gone.’I leapt on my horse and rode off, the tears running down my cheeks. I rode as fast as I could and Lalla-Lee followed.”
I could never read beyond the part where she leaves. Where Salikon’s roses have faded and poor Barbara is stuck in her real life without her twin. I’d stop. Leave us both there in that moment. Still in the magic of loving and being loved in return. Of having each other.
The feeling is too big to bear. To hold. To accept. To fathom.
It’s the separation from God. That’s what it feels like. It’s the severing from the womb. The moment the cord is cut and you’re thrust into the world. Screaming. Naked. Alone. It’s not metaphorical. It’s not poetic. It’s in the cells. It’s in the breath. It’s the way you wake up at 3am and forget where you are, who you are, what any of this means. And there’s no one to hold you. Not even yourself.
The pain is so deep that at times it feels like it will kill me. Not the dramatic kind of death. The quiet kind. The one that leaves your body moving, your mouth smiling, your eyes functioning, but there's nothing inside. Just a body moving through the world. Haunted by a truth no one else can see.
This has been as brutal as Metamorphosis. I’ve died in it. I wake up different. Unrecognisable. To myself. To others. And no one notices. No one stops to ask where I went.
I’m back in the boat. Or maybe I never left it. Maybe I’ve been here all along. Lying on the floor. Staring at the sky.
The child is here too. The one who clutched the book to her chest. The one who prayed it was real. Who whispered please into the dark. Who wanted someone, just one person, to say, you’re mine.
The separation lives in The Forest.
And I didn’t know there was anything outside of it. I thought the darkness was life. I thought the silence was normal. I thought the aching was just being human.
Until I found Him. Until I lost Him. And now I know the difference.
I know there’s a grassy field where the sky of blue is vast and the daisies meet the sun.
And that knowing is its own kind of hell.
The separation lives in The Forest. And I had to leave Him at the edge of it.
He had to leave me to walk into it alone.
The Knowing
(or The Flame That Stayed Alight Within The Dark)
I have held two truths for eight years and neither one has ever let up.
I know He's gone. That He's not mine. That He never was. That I'm in this alone. There’s been the ache: missing Him so deeply and so completely it’s impossible to explain. Impossible to describe. To put words to.
And I also know that this is how it's meant to be. How it was always going to be. That we planned this together. And that while it feels as if he left, feels like he went, feels like he abandoned me at the entrance to The Forest, he hasn't. He's with me in it. He's by my side, holding my hand. Just not in a way I can see with my human eyes. He's with me in a way that I feel with my soul. I can see Him clearly with my third eye. He's in my heart. And He's not leaving.
I know that The Journey is something I agreed to. That there’s meaning and purpose woven through every second of our separation.
That was how The Universe held my hand, and walked with me.
When I found Him, I remembered. I remembered why I’d always felt alone, why there’d always been a weight in my chest, why nothing had ever quite felt real or full or here. It was Him. I’d been waiting for Him. Not just in this life. I’d been waiting across lifetimes. For eons. And when I looked into his eyes and felt that ancient recognition in my body, in my soul, I knew I’d finally found the piece I’d been missing. Not because I was broken, but because there was something sacred we shared, and when it clicked into place, everything changed. We belonged together. I to him, him to me. Our very own.
And at the same time, I knew I couldn’t have Him here with me in this life. Not now. Not yet. I knew I had to let Him go. Even though I didn’t want to. Even though it felt like I was being torn apart. Like this was some cruel cosmic trick. To tease me with a possibility, a miracle, with the feeling of belonging, of home, and then tell me I couldn't have it. Amidst the pain, the disbelief, a deeper truth. Something wiser in me knew that holding on wasn’t the point. That letting go was part of the contract. That it was always meant to be that way.
It never made the pain easier. The knowing didn’t come in and cancel it out. It was just there beside it. I was still sobbing on the floor. Still waking up with that heaviness. Still questioning whether I’d ever feel anything but the hole He left. But at the same time, something in me was steady. Something said this wasn’t a mistake. That it had to be like this. That He was doing what He needed to do. And so was I.
That sense of purpose didn’t lift me out of the grief, it wove through it. The grief was never separate from the grace. I didn’t alternate between pain and peace. They lived together. They still do. The longing and the miracle. The devastation and the devotion. I’ve never been able to pull them apart. Or at least not for long.
From the very beginning I understood that this was something sacred. I wasn’t spiritual before. I didn’t even know that part of myself. I thought life was small and bleak and that meaning was something we made up to survive. But when I met Him, everything inside me opened. My soul remembered what I’d forgotten. I saw the shape of something I didn’t have a name for. I felt God. Not as a belief. As a truth I’d always carried but never been able to touch. Meeting Him woke something in me I couldn’t unsee. A deeper layer of reality revealed itself, and I stepped into it. And I’ve never stepped back.
We are One and the same. And I knew this from the start. I didn’t read it in a book and apply it to Him. I felt it. We have the same frequency. The same resonance. The same energetic memory. We’ve lived lifetimes together and lifetimes apart. The recognition wasn’t emotional, it was cellular. It was cosmic. I knew. I know.
And I knew the connection wasn’t here to give me what I wanted. It was here to destroy everything that wasn’t true. It was here to unravel me. To show me who I am when I’m not hiding. And I knew I wasn’t ready to be in it. And neither was He. That knowing stays with me even when everything else breaks apart.
The love never left. It didn’t look the way I wanted it to. It didn’t give me comfort. It didn’t show up in form. But it stayed. It became the fire. The teacher. The mirror. It became the reason I had to look at everything in me that wanted to abandon myself again. I could feel what it was asking of me and I couldn’t run from it. I was never allowed to numb it. It asked me to grow up. To face what I’d never wanted to face.
And I said yes. Because I couldn’t not. Not when I’d felt what I’d felt. Not when I knew what I knew.
There were times I wanted to run into His arms and disappear again. I wanted to hand over everything I had, just to stop feeling alone. But something greater than me wouldn’t let me. Something wiser in me said: no, not this time. Not until you know who you are. Not until you stop disappearing into people and start standing in yourself. And even when that felt like punishment, I knew it wasn’t. I knew I was being protected. That the delay was grace.
The signs were always there. Even when He wasn’t. Songs, magical numbers, moments that cracked open the ordinary and let something bigger speak. I never talked about them much. I’ve always been careful not to grasp. But they came. They still do. And when they do, I remember. Even when I’ve spent days doubting, when I’ve told myself I made all of it up, something small and wild will land in my path and I’ll know again.
There’s a place in me that’s never stopped knowing. It doesn’t shout. It’s not loud. But it’s always there. It holds the truth. Even when the rest of me breaks apart.
And there's plenty of sense in it. Reason. There were children who needed me. Lives that weren’t just ours. Timing that wasn’t right. It’s not romantic to say that. It’s not comforting. But it’s true. I wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready. The Universe knew what I couldn’t. That we would have burned. That the intensity would have swallowed us. That there wouldn’t have been enough space for family, for the work, for anything else. That I still needed to become who I am.
I have never once felt punished by The Journey. I’ve had moments where I raged. Where I felt forgotten. Where I wanted to scream at the sky. But I’ve always known that I was being guided. That this was for me. That the relationship is a possibility. That the visions I saw of the future weren't a dream. That the future I felt is still alive. That miracles exist. That time changes things.
And that this work takes time. It has taken eight years. And it needed to. I needed to. I am not done. I’m still here. Still doing it. Still changing. Still grateful, even in the grief.
Even when the pain makes me feel like I’m going to die, I still know it was a miracle to find Him at all. And even if He never comes back, the fact that He exists, that I remember Him, that this love touched me, that I glimpsed it in this life, found the sun dappled glade in The Forest, that is enough to keep me breathing.
Even when I’m in the dark, the flame stays alight.
I had a vision in a healing session once. I was on a small sailing boat. Lying on the deck, staring at the sky. Alone. In the middle of the ocean. There was no wind to carry me. No land in sight. No hope of being seen. Found. Saved. I knew, this was it. The way things are. And the way it has always been. And the feeling was visceral. Desperate. I was so alone. It was worse than death. It was hell. And then, in the distance, in the aching expanse of the sky, I saw something. Something black. Something coming. A crow. And I knew. I wasn't really alone. I had never been alone.
How it is On The Journey
That’s what separation has felt like. What it feels like to be in this life, to know He exists and to be separate from Him. It’s being alone in that boat, with no way of knowing if the journey will ever end. If another boat will find me, or if I'll find land. But knowing, that somewhere out there, even if I can’t always see it, there is a crow.
That’s what joins the dark and the light. The grief and the grace. They don’t cancel each other out. They sit next to each other in the boat.
Why It Is On The Journey
From the beginning, I knew this wasn’t about love. That part was already there. Solid. Immediate. No resistance. Love is the easy part. It always has been. I would have given everything to Him. Happily. Without hesitation. I'd have broken myself open just to make Him feel safe, or warm, or wanted. But that kind of giving comes at a cost. I’ve paid it before. I can’t pay it again.
This wasn’t about Him. Not really. It was about me.
I knew from the start that this was a healing path. That it would have to be walked alone. That something in me was unfinished. Untouched. I wasn’t ready for the kind of love that asks you to stay whole inside it. I didn’t know how to stay me and still hold Him. Not both. Not yet.
I have responsibilities. A life. Things I carry. People I carry. I couldn’t put them down for Him. I couldn’t vanish into Him. And I would have. Without even meaning to. Without noticing. That’s what scared me. That’s what the wiser part of me saw.
So I stayed. Alone. And I kept walking.
The path hasn’t been clear. It’s been dark and uneven and full of dead ends. Sometimes I’ve walked in circles. Sometimes I’ve wanted to lie down and disappear into the moss. But I kept going, not because I’m brave, but because I had to. Because something was pulling me forward. Not towards Him. Not exactly. Towards myself.
I had to find myself. That was the real quest.
To know myself. To love myself. To sit in my own skin without trying to peel it off or trade it in. To stop shapeshifting into what I think others want. To speak. To stay. To choose me, over and over again, even when it hurt.
That’s what this has been. The Work. The Forest. The Lessons.
I've stayed with the path. I stayed with myself. And it’s been hard. I’ve had to let go of everything I thought I was. I’ve had to meet the parts of me I was afraid of. The ones that hide. The ones that lie. The ones that want to be wanted more than they want to be free.
And somewhere, in the centre of The Forest, I see it. The glade. The sunlit clearing. Light falling through the trees in the kind of way that makes you stop thinking for a minute. And in that clearing, The Stag. Watching. Waiting. Holding something I’ve been trying to find. To earn.
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. I know what this is.
The Gold. The True Self. The strength to love without vanishing.
The ability to hold Him, if the time comes, and not lose everything else I’ve built. To choose Him, and not lose Me.
That’s what I’ve been walking toward.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still hoping that a Union waits at the end of the path.
I still long for that end of the movie kiss. The fairy-tale ending I tell myself not to believe in. Because believing in it feels too risky. What if I do and then it doesn't arrive? What if there never is a happy ending and this is all there is? What if none of it was real?
What if it is just some cruel cosmic trick? Teasing me with possibility, with a miracle, with the feeling of belonging, of home, only to tell me I can never have it?
I still want it. I still wish for it. I still whisper his name when I see a falling star. I still close my eyes and imagine a life where The Forest ends and He is waiting there. Where everything that broke is somehow unbroken. Where we meet again and it’s quiet and clear and right.
Yes I've been searching for me. Working for me. Walking towards me. But that isn't all.
I’ve wanted both. I still want both.
I want to be whole.
I want to be Me.
And I want Him.
The clearing holds both.
The sun dappled glade awaits. The Stag waits.
So I walk.
'The Work'
It started with listening. That was the first thing. I had to learn how to hear myself. Not my thoughts. Not the noise. But the truth underneath it all. The wisdom within.
I couldn’t tell you everything I’ve done. Not because I’ve forgotten, but because there’s no way to pin it down. The Work doesn’t move in straight lines; it doesn’t come with certificates or clean endings. It’s not glamorous. It’s not something you can list like a CV.
I can tell you that I've been 'At Work' since the moment I stepped foot into The Forest. Every moment. In every day. For the last 8 years I have woken every morning and set an intention: to do what I need to do to become my best self. I haven't always known what that meant, or what getting there looked like. I have rarely been clear on how to get there or what I needed to do next. But one thing has led to the next and while I'm not there, maybe I'll never be there, I am much closer now than I have ever been.
I can't tell you exactly what I've done.
But here’s some of it.
When I walked into The Forest I didn’t know how I felt. Not really. I'd learned a bit about how to think about feelings, talk around them, assign them labels, but not how to be in them. Not how to hear what they were trying to say. I had to learn that feelings are messengers; they bypass the mind and speak straight from the soul. They point to what’s underneath. Always the tip of the iceberg, what hurts now is never just about now. Every feeling was a signpost, guiding me into the wound beneath it. Into the place where something long ago got buried. My body always knew, even when my mind didn’t. The tight chest, the lump in the throat, the heat behind my eyes. The ache in my gut. I learned to follow those signs. I learned to feel. Not analyse. Not explain. Just feel. That’s how the heart clears. That’s how the healing begins.
And I’ve cleared the heart. Not once, but every day. Every time something loosened and an old pain, an old feeling once stifled or suppressed, rose into view. I’ve sat with the pain. Felt it. All of it. Not just His absence, but every ache that came before. The early heartbreaks. The betrayals. The damage. The parts of me that broke long before I ever met Him. I’ve relived the stories and let my body remember. I’ve cried on the floor. Cried in the car. Cried while walking the dog. Cried while doing the washing up. And I’ve held the child inside me while she shook. Soothed the nerves of the teenager within. Comforted the inner mother every time all she wanted was a hug like the ones she gives her children.
Feel to heal, they say. And it’s true. You can’t skip it.
I’ve faced the mind. Sat with it. Watched it. Listened. I’ve seen the way it loops. The stories it clings to. The beliefs it inherited and never questioned. I’ve traced those thoughts back to where they began, to the moment the child made a decision about what love meant, what safety meant, who she had to be in order to belong. I’ve learned how to stop identifying with it all. To become the witness. To observe the programming and remember that it isn’t me. And slowly, piece by piece, I’ve re-written it. Rewired the old patterns. Repaired the dialogue. Chosen new words.
I’ve filled notebook after notebook with the contents of my head. Pages and pages. Letters to Him. A thousand versions of the same question: why won’t you come back? Why won’t you choose me, the way I choose you?
I’ve written the goodbye letters too. Burned them. Buried them. Let them go.
I’ve said goodbye to past loves. To the illusions I clung to. To the hope that someone else could save me from myself.
I’ve worked with my shadow. The parts of me I didn’t want to see. The ones I hid. The ones I judged. The ones I thought made me unlovable. I’ve pulled them into the light and sat with them. Let them speak. Let them soften. Let them come home. And not just the difficult ones, but the golden parts too, the shiny, strange bits that didn’t quite fit, the parts that were too bright for who I thought I had to be.
Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” I’ve spent years unearthing what was unconscious. Calling it into the room. Facing it with as much love as I could muster.
And I became an astrologer. I learned to read the sky. To see how The Gods speak through our lives. To take what I’ve learned in The Forest and offer it to others, as they begin their own descent. Not as a map. But as a hand. A light. A reminder that they won’t be alone.
And I’ve learned how to stand in the middle of the unknown without trying to escape it. No answers. No guarantees. Just presence. The more I've learned, the less I know. And I know I can stay in that place, in peace, and not need to find an answer.
This is what The Work has looked like. Not fixing. Not perfecting. Just staying with all of it.
There’s no medal for that. No parade. Most of it happened quietly, in the dark, with no one watching. Just me and The Gods and the forest floor. A process through which I learned who I am and how to love who I am without judgement. With acceptance.
But I didn’t do it alone.
Back at the start I asked The Universe to help me heal and I was answered. Not always in the way I expected, but I was led. Nudged. Shown the next step, and then the next. The path was never laid out in full, but it always unfolded exactly as it needed to.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”—Matthew 7:7
That’s always in our gift. To ask. To seek. To trust we’ll be guided. Even in the dark.
The Return
I don’t know what this part is meant to be. I keep waiting for something to click. To land. A sentence that sounds like an arrival. A way to say: I made it. I’m out of The Forest and into the open field. But there’s nothing. Just this version of me, sitting here, trying to name what can’t be named.
I’m not fully fixed. I’m not fully healed. I’m not above any of it.
But something is different.
I still ache for Him, occasionally. But it’s not painful anymore. It’s softer, sweeter. I know He’s with me now. I’ve accepted His place alongside mine, in my heart. And I don’t need anyone else to tell me that it’s okay to hold Him there, not even Him. I’ve chosen Him. I’ve accepted Him as part of me. And I trust The Universe to show me where I need to go next.
I’m in service to something greater; a wisdom beyond my own, a timing that isn’t mine.
When I land in this moment, in any moment, I can look back and see that it’s all been exactly as it needed to be. Every step. Every ache. Every silence. I wouldn’t be here without it.
I’m still tired. But I don’t have many questions.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve missed something, like there’s more work to do. But I’ve learned how to meet that voice with love. I remind myself that I am where I’m meant to be. That I am loveable as I am. That I was always ready; it was only my wounds that told me otherwise.
I don’t ask the sky for answers every night. I don’t sit at the edge of the bed waiting for a sign. I move differently now. Slower. More honest. I don’t pretend I’m fine when I’m not. And I don’t need to be seen to believe I’m real.
I’m here. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
I don’t need a fairy-tale ending (though I wouldn’t mind one, Universe? If you’re listening? 😉). I just need to keep showing up. For me. For this life. For the version of myself that keeps on walking.
There is no moment the music swells, the lights shift, and the world claps you back in. Well, except for those moments when a round of applause rises at the end of a song and The Universe gives you a nudge, whispers that’s for you.
There’s still the endless meals to be cooked. The washing up. The bills. The laundry. The dog needing to be walked. My kids still need me - my time, my attention, my presence. They’re growing up, as we do.
But I am at peace. And maybe that’s always been the destination.
The Becoming
I know who I am.
That’s the difference.
I didn’t, back then. I thought I did, I had a name, a life, a story that made sense if you didn’t look too closely. But underneath, I was stitched together by other people’s expectations. What I thought I had to be to be safe. To be loved. To not be left.
That’s what changed.
Eight years later, I’m still me. But I don’t abandon myself now. I don’t shapeshift to be held. I don’t keep quiet when something in me is screaming. I don’t hand over the reins just because someone else says they know better. I live here now. In this body. This mind. This life. Fully.
I don’t ask for permission anymore.
And I don’t ask anyone to save me.
The Embodiment
I used to try and think my way through it. Feelings, choices, healing - like if I could just understand enough, I’d be safe. Like clarity would save me. Like insight was the end goal.
It wasn’t. You don’t think your way into embodiment. You live your way into it. Or you fall into it. Sometimes you drown.
This part came slowly. The realisation that I wasn’t watching myself anymore. That I wasn’t hovering somewhere above, narrating, managing, correcting. I was just in it. Here. In the body. Not outside it. Not fighting it. Just here. The fear didn’t go away, but I stopped letting it drive. The panic still comes, sometimes. The shame still knocks. But I know what they are now. Old ghosts. They don’t belong at the wheel.
I’ve stopped disappearing. That’s how I know something has changed. I don’t hand myself over so easily anymore. I don’t trade myself for closeness. I don’t lose my voice in the hope someone else will offer me theirs.
I know how to stay. In conversations. In rooms. In love. In myself.
And it’s not always graceful. Sometimes it’s a mess. Sometimes I say too much. Sometimes I still go quiet. But I’m here. I come back quicker. I notice sooner. I forgive myself faster.
That’s what it looks like. Not confidence. Not some shiny version of womanhood. Just presence. Just this. Just the way I move through my days now.
I don’t need to be good. I don’t need to be chosen. I don’t need to be seen.
But I choose me. And I see me. And I think She's fucking ace.
The Offering
I don’t have answers. Not really. Just a story. A path I walked. A thread I followed into the dark and found still trailing behind me, even now. What I’ve gathered along the way isn’t a solution, it’s a language. A way of seeing. Of listening. Of remembering.
I became an astrologer not because I had all the knowledge, but because conversations with The Gods helped me qualify the meaning. Because They offered a mirror when I needed one. A map when I was lost. They told me that what I was experiencing was purposeful.
Now I offer what I can. Not certainty. Not salvation. Just presence. A willingness to sit beside you as you walk into your own forest. A voice to remind you you’re not broken. You’re becoming. Just as we all are.
And still, He is part of this. Always was. Always will be.
The Little Red Thread
He didn’t disappear. He didn't walk away never to return. The silence never lasted. He didn't leave me, alone. That’s not the story. He’s here. We speak. We laugh. We fight. We fall out. But We reconnect. We support each other. We love. We feel loved. It’s real. It’s steady. It’s grown with us. Each time we’ve reconnected, the thread has thickened; each return has brought us closer, not to a finish line, but to something truer. A foundation. What we have now is solid. Trusting. Intimate in a way that doesn’t need explaining. It doesn’t look like it did at the start, but it’s more honest now. More human. And more sacred, more real, because of that. We’ve shed the fantasy. What’s left is the thing itself. And it’s still becoming. I don’t know what shape it will take next. I don’t need to. I’m here for all of it, for the friendship, the truth, the endless love in whatever form it arrives. This is what love becomes when we stop asking it to be anything but itself.
One more magical thing of note...
The Book That Returned
The treasured children’s book I mentioned, the one about the girl with a secret twin who lived in a golden palace beneath the rose bush, and called her 'My Very Own', had actually vanished when I was a teenager. Gone. Slipped through the cracks of time like things sometimes do when you’re not looking.
I’d forgotten the title. Forgotten the plot. But not the feeling. That stayed. Tucked in the corners of me like a pressed flower. I remembered loving it. I remembered needing it. And for years, without knowing quite what I was looking for, I searched.
Then, one crisp autumn day in 2017, just as He had entered my life and the real story was beginning, the name of the book dropped into my mind. Quiet as a feather. Certain as fate.
What happened next felt too exact to be chance. The book didn’t just come back. It found me. And when I opened it, older, and changed by my walk through The Forest, eyes wide, I saw it all. The longing. The twin. The Journey I was living in the pages of The Book that had been lost. My Story, in My Book. The golden thread that had been winding through my life since the beginning. The story hadn’t just comforted me. It had called me. It had known. And somehow, it had waited.
✨ You can read the full tale of its magical return here.
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A note on AI & my writing:
I use ChatGPT as a writing assistant—not as a writer. These are my thoughts, ideas, and words, shaped by my lived experience and deep love for self-work, self-awareness, the spiritual journey, and astrology. AI helps me refine, structure, and nudge me toward better phrasing, but the voice you’re reading is mine. I use it as a tool to help me put into words everything I believe is valuable in sharing my insights. Honesty matters to me, and this is simply one way I bring my thoughts to life.
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