Setting the Scene – Part 6: Rock Bottom to the Dawn of Transformation

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” — J.K. Rowling

From where I stand now, it is hard to describe what rock bottom truly felt like. As I said in my very first blog, everything is subjective — my rock bottom will look different from someone else’s. But one of the reasons I write these blogs is in the hope that someone might see themselves in my story and open their mind and heart to what is the truth and the light.

During this darkest of times, I was consumed with thoughts I had never imagined I would face. There were moments when death seemed like it would be a relief. My daughters had seen behind the mask. They had witnessed my deceit, and the trust between us was shattered. The pain I had caused them overshadowed everything. I felt humiliated, ashamed, and stripped of worth.

And yet, every morning I got up, walked the dogs, and went to the coffee shop. That small community became my lifeline. Among the crossword regulars were people carrying their own burdens — terminal illness, ageing, loneliness. Helping them gave me a sense of purpose. Their laughter kept me standing when my own world had collapsed.

After years outside the business world, I feared I would never find work again. But when I registered with agencies, a position appeared. To my surprise, I was hired immediately at a higher salary than expected. 

I know now there are no coincidences. People and circumstances enter our lives for a reason — sometimes to teach hard lessons, sometimes to teach positive ones, and I look at these now as life lessons and grow from them.

My new employer was a wealthy man, and I managed his properties around the world. It sounded glamorous, and sometimes it was. I had always been deeply attracted to the power that money could bring, but I witnessed during my time working with this gentleman what sadness and destruction it can also bring. People say “money can’t buy happiness,” but I started to see it was actually about choices. Our choices can’t be blamed on money or other people, but are our own responsibility to take — and to then experience the consequences of those choices and hopefully learn a lesson.

My choices had left me penniless. I chose to follow a spiritual teaching that if I lived as though I already had wealth that abundance would come. In practice, it meant I maxed out credit cards, borrowed from my parents, and destroyed financial security.

In Part 4: Guilt and Loneliness, I described this period as my “decennium doloris” — my decade of pain, where I was still searching outwardly for answers but slowly, during my rock bottom, I started to turn inward, listening to myself and feeling what I felt.

For years my old companions of shame, guilt, and deceit — shadows that had followed me since childhood — kept me from looking honestly at myself. What I saw felt ugly, so avoidance was easier. But then, within my new community of friends, I began to hear something different. I was receiving compliments about the light I carried, and being acknowledged for the good I was doing — especially helping a terminally ill gentleman and his wife. For perhaps the first time, I started to look at myself properly: who I really was, and the good person hidden underneath.

I began to change — slowly at first. I dressed differently, acted differently. From trying not to be seen, I started taking care of myself. I went to the gym, wore smarter clothes in brighter colours, and carried myself with more intention.

Then an enormous shift came — an unexpected step forward. On a trip to Denmark to assist one of my elderly coffee-shop friends, I visited a therapy clinic that had been recommended to me, hoping for relief from my back pain. The clinic combined massage, joint work, and breathing techniques to restore both the physical and the emotional. What happened was profound. For the very first time, I realised I had never truly taken a full breath.

As women, we often only breathe into our chests, holding in our stomachs. But learning to breathe deeply into my core and gut I felt the most extraordinary sensation — a blend of power, love, and peace. Even though I had lost almost everything, was living in rented accommodation and only just scraping by financially, that breath gave me certainty. Not just hope, but a gut-deep knowing: my life would be glorious and abundant. The answer I had received years earlier as I cried out a question to the heavens was going to manifest.

From then on, I also started making different choices — healthier friends, healthier habits. I started to leave the old companions behind. If I started to tell a lie or to act in a deceitful way, my inner self pulled me back, as if whispering: no more — you are not this person anymore.

And then, in September 2023, my decade of pain ended. In August, my daughters had left to travel, and I sensed something big was coming. I didn’t know what, but I felt it. One day in the gym, friends casually mentioned they were going to a church in East London. Out of nowhere, I asked if I could join them.

It shocked me. I had only been in churches for weddings, and I considered myself an atheist. So why did those words come out of my mouth?

That one decision — one simple breath and one instinctive question — would lead me to a place I could never have planned. To a rebirth. To transformation.

It is here that I end this six-part series of Setting the Scene. In the next piece, I will tell how that single decision changed everything.