​One of the things I’ve come to realise is that hitting rock bottom can be one of the most powerful places for us to redefine ourselves and our relationship with well-being. 

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When everything falls apart, we are forced to turn inward and face the parts of ourselves we’ve been avoiding.

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I have hit rock bottom a few times in my life...

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A story of poignant unraveling...

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'The dark night of the soul' is a term you might be familiar with, if not, it is one that is often used to describe a process of deep and dark metamorphosis. For many, it is a threshold we are called to cross that takes us from one phase of life into another. It is truly life-shaking and touches the foundations of experience, the soul itself.

 

I have lived through a few 'dark nights of the soul'. None so deep and dark as the descent I was forced to make during the Black Saturday Fires, one of Australia’s most devastating natural disasters that swept through my hometown in 2009.

 

At the height of its wildness, I found myself cast adrift—disconnected from loved ones, stripped of my belongings, my home and life as I knew it. It was a moment of profound unraveling, where everything I had relied upon for a sense of self disappeared.

 

In this collapse, I was left with a deep feeling of meaninglessness. I questioned what I was doing and why I was doing it.

 

The experience challenged me to awaken into something deeper, something greater. To confront the truth of what was meaningful, beyond societal and cultural influences. 

 

In the face of so much loss, I was forced to strip away the masks and rebuild myself from the inside out. It was a moment of re-birth; the death of my old self and the birth of something more genuine to me.

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Years later, I found myself descending into the darkness again, this time through a different door. I was diagnosed with a life-threatening autoimmune disorder, and doctors told me I would need medication for the rest of my life.

 

It felt like rock bottom all over again—everything I had relied on in my body was failing me. But this time, I had a deeper sense of self which empowered me to choose a different path.

 

I believed that my body held the wisdom to heal. I dove deep into learning about my nervous system, and through somatic practices, I began unwinding the deep-rooted trauma and stress that had brought me to this point. Slowly, piece by piece, I healed—without the medication they said was essential.

 

A phoenix rising...​

 

Through somatic therapy, conscious dance, and attuning to my body’s natural cycles, I learned to move with my sensations rather than stay stuck in them. The healing process became a journey of unraveling the layers of conditioning, stress, and trauma, and rebuilding myself from the inside out.

 

"It wasn’t just about getting better—it was about reclaiming my inner power, discerning where patterns and conditioning were cutting me off from my body’s wisdom, and building my capacity to be present to whatever was arising in the moment."

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Movement, especially conscious dance, became my medicine. As I allowed my body to move freely, I discovered how deeply emotions are stored in our tissues, and how moving with those feelings is essential to healing.

 

Dance became a sacred practice, a way to release, reconnect, and restore. It enabled me to access the wisdom held in my body, while reconnecting with the rhythms of nature, life, and spirit.

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In these dark descents and subsequent risings, I learned that rock bottom, although it feels like the pits, is actually a profound initiation. It’s an invitation to strip away the false layers and embrace our shapeshifting abilities; to rebuild a life that is true to who we are.