Utterly Uprooted (Carol)

My name’s Carol. I’m 54, I’m single. I’m a therapist by trade but in my previous business I was the CEO and a director of a national franchise business. I successfully ran it for six years but it’s not my passion and it’s time for me to follow my passion.

What is one of the greatest challenges you have had to overcome in your life?

I’m in an interesting place in my life at the moment. I sold my business and packed up my life in Brisbane. I’m in Canberra for a few months, re-climatizing, processing and grieving over some experiences before I move back to Melbourne. I’m staying with friends and family in Canberra and taking some very important ‘me’ time.

For me this challenge is two things. Firstly, it’s the end of a very long journey of putting myself back together after a lot of traumas from my childhood, teens years and into my twenties. So, I’m exhausted, on every level. This is time to rest and celebrate what I’ve achieved, and acknowledge that personal growth, which I think at the end of the day, is what life is all about.

I’m taking that deep breath before I move back to Melbourne, my hometown. That is where I want to set up my full-time counselling practice, publish my book and I just want to spend the rest of my days helping people with the tools I’ve learnt that helped me put myself back together.

It’s challenging times to be a woman in her fifties on her own, it’s definitely challenging. But I know what I want, and I know to grow it, find it, manifest it, and I’m a pretty determined soul. I do have moments of ‘holy fuck’, but then I meditate, do some yoga, or go for a swim, remind myself that so far, my success rate of dealing with challenges is pretty damn good. When it’s the right time, the divine time, everything will unfold but right now, I’m just learning to ‘be’ instead of ‘do’. Being in my feminine instead of my masculine.

How did you initially react to changing your whole lifestyle landscape?

It was kind of like the universe saying, ‘we’ve got to pluck you out of here’. It was brutal. But I have a strong spiritual faith, I’m not religious but I’m plugged into the divine and I like to think I have a direct relationship. I knew in my soul that this was happening for a purpose and a reason, and as soon as I realised what that was, everything fell into place. Starting with moving away from Queensland.

When you flow with the river, everything will unfold as it’s meant to. On a human level everything has been fear and terror and the unknown and ‘what the fuck is going on with my life?’ But on that soul level I knew what was going on. I have an amazing tribe of people, especially women, who have stepped up in life to help me. I think women underestimate their strength. The collective strength of women can be world-dominating.

Did your reaction change toward the challenge?

This change in my life was short, sharp, and painful. It was like the universe picked up my life and shook the hell out of it. My business, my job, my home, my dog dying, that had all happened in a six-week period. I thought I was heading down one road, but the universe said ‘nope’. I look at it now and realise how much of a blessing it’s been. Because looking at it from a different lens I’ve got this space to breathe. Because if I had gone down that other path, initially it would have been financially more successful. But it wouldn’t have been the right path for me. It wasn’t going to fulfil my dreams.

But at any given time because I’m still madly processing, I can be fine and then suddenly sobbing on the floor. The challenge is to sit with that. In the past I’ve been successful and I’ve been homeless. At the end of the day if we aren’t being who we are, as women especially, nothing is ever really going to change.

What did you ultimately learn? Good or bad?

I don’t see it as good or bad, I see it as necessary for the evolution of who you are. When I was younger, I was the most black and white person, but life has taught me in the last 20-30 years that it’s all about shades of grey. There are very few moral absolutes. But this last experience has taught me that all of our unconscious and unresolved trauma, if not processed and learnt from, our bodies continue to keep the score. I’m convinced that’s why women experience so many health issues. I work holistically and the number of women who experience sexual assault, who also end up developing genital cancers is astounding. This happened to me in my late 30s. There is so much generational trauma that we just don’t talk about and although we survive the trauma, we rarely heal from it and that is the journey I have been on for the past 29 years.

Do you often tell people about this challenge? Why or why not?

I have my own counselling business. If I feel like some part of my story would help the client in some way, I will share my own journey. It works quite well, and it helps my clients relate and whilst I don’t know exactly what they’re going through on some level I can relate. There is that great saying ‘Teacher heal thyself’.

Some people think talk therapy isn’t the way to go and if we talk about it, we will re-trigger ourselves and relive the trauma. But we are already re-living it every day in our bodies, even if we are conscious of it or not. We are triggered and reminded every day. I tell my clients that we need to let the trauma come up and out. So, yes, I am more than happy to talk about it with people and utilise other techniques and tools I have learnt.

Would you go through it again for the same outcome?

I have to say yes. It’s like ‘sliding doors’, if I had made another decision, I would have had a very different life, I would have perhaps had it easier, but would I be who I am now? I really love who I am, I have a fantastic relationship with myself. The only relationship we are guaranteed from birth to death is the one with ourselves and its often the one we ignore, neglect, mistreat, abuse and abandon. I don’t regret a moment of it but it’s not for the faint hearted and I’m in no rush to go through it again. If I needed to go through it again to be me, I would need to take a deep breath, but I would do it again.