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Last year, during my “annus horribilis” as my mother-in-law once called it, I learned many valuable lessons about life and myself.

The main lesson I learned was that in order for anything in my life to change, I had to change. That in order to be happy, or rather to be in a state of happiness and harmony, I had relinquish the illusion of controlling my environment and instead focus on myself.

As I was met with the same experiences over and over again, instead of losing myself in the chaos as I had done previously, I decided to let it all go. It was so freeing, and felt so revolutionary for me. It is one of the great ironies of life—that once you decide to be happy where you are and with what you have, your circumstances will surely begin to change and reflect that.

It is not by any stretch of the imagination an easy thing to do and is why most of us only ever have this awakening when we are pushed to do so. I turned the needle inward and instead of putting myself down, I greeted inner me with compassion, love, and honesty. I wrote “letting go” lists to burn in the fire, I prayed, journaled every morning, and meditated.

I stuck my feet in the dirt and visualised laying my pain at the root of the trees for them to take away. I allowed myself to cry out all the sadness, which eventually led me to tears of joy. As the darkness began to lift, I could once again marvel at the beauty of a sunset, the wonder of the curls on my daughters head as she lay in my arms, the simple joy of cooking a wholesome meal from scratch.

I gave endless gratitude for this life I have been given. I gave gratitude for the pain and all of the lessons I learned from it. I even felt gratitude for experiencing the pain in and of itself, to be human, to be alive.

When you end up as I had, in a codependent relationship with an addict, there are many layers to uncover and truths to face about ourselves if we want to heal. Again, it is not an easy thing to do, which is why I believe I really had to be pushed to a level of desperation to get there.

Instead of taking on another’s problems and identity, I had to take an inventory of my own life. I realised that relationships had been my addiction. They had served as a distraction from myself and my pain since I was a teenager. It took the burden off being accountable for myself, for being my own person at all. If this person had their own big issues, I could throw myself into their healing and growth.

Having all these realisations is hard and feels so heavy, but it was so necessary if I wanted to live a life free from this pain. As Robert Frost said, “The best way out is always through.” So this is what I did.

At times, all the inner work felt futile and like I was better off just resigning myself to who I am. Better off accepting that I was doomed to be the victim of life circumstance, that I was spoiled goods incapable of true change.

But something inside me was saying that change is absolutely possible. It was the same voice inside me that used to pray as a child for a different life, my inner compass that made me believe without a doubt that a better life awaited me beyond the unhealthy environment I grew up in. The same inner me that picked up a copy book to journal in as a child, that has this self-awareness beyond my own understanding even now.

I realised now, as I seemed to understand on some level as a child, that I had to really block out the outside noise and the voices and advice from a broken and sick society.

After years of relying on doctors and psychologists to cure my partner, while wondering when my own support system would arrive, I realised that none of this was going to happen. As humans we love to label everything in order to feel safe. We trust doctors and nurses and psychologists to have all the answers, the pillars of our society, who can do no wrong.

I knew on some level that this was not the way to true healing, but at the same time in such a desperate time, I lost myself. I felt I couldn’t trust the same inner compass that had led me into this less that ideal situation in the first place. Although a lot of what they said felt so out of alignment with how I viewed things, I didn’t think I had a choice and feared judgement from the outside world if I wanted to pave my own path.

But as I sat in my kitchen alone again after another long day with my daughter, feeling lost and confused, I wondered if this was really the way. Did these people who gave advice really have my best intentions at heart? Why was I living in such isolation during one of the most traumatic times of my life?

And so, I prayed for the first time since I was a child. I begged for some guidance, some sign that I was not alone, and I got it (ways in which I can share another time). I still remember the rainy evening that this happened and I feel emotional whenever I think or talk about it. A light went on for me in my soul, and in that moment, I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be.

It was like I was being dragged to the brink to see how far I was willing to go to abandon myself. How long was I going to allow other people to tell me what was right for me and my family? I looked at their lives and knew that wasn’t how I wanted to live. I knew there had to be a better way, that I didn’t want to just survive all of this but to thrive.

I knew I didn’t want to leave the man I loved at his darkest hour. I would have visions of us living a healthy life in peace and abundance, and whenever I saw this, although it was different from where we were at that time, it filled me with hope and excitement. If I dared to utter this to others they would tell me it was not realistic, which I couldn’t blame them for, but for me it was like a world of possibilities for healing and growth had opened up and there was no going back.

Instead of pushing these notions away like I had done previously, I decided to allow myself to dream and to pray. I allowed myself to feel these good feelings and to write down the exact life that I wanted and not the life I felt other people wanted for me.

I have never been a religious person, so the notion of praying was new to me, but as something that just spontaneously began that night in my kitchen, it felt so natural I almost had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. The more I did it, the more I felt god and the universe was opening up for me, and the more it opened up the more I began trust.

It’s been a really crazy ride, but as I sit in our new home with a garden I dreamed of, with my sober partner dedicated to his own growth and healing in awareness (and many many other blessing’s in my life), I cannot help but feel overwhelming gratitude, and I continue to trust.

I have learned that beyond the labels and limited view we have of life and ourselves, we are all on a spiritual journey to evolve and grow if we can only dare to reclaim our power to do so.

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