Every single one of us has an accomplishment to be proud of this year.

We made it through a pandemic for starters.

If you are here reading this, alive and breathing—I f*cking salute you.

We did it.

Some of us made it through extreme loss; others moved through a time of alienation—a complete and utter identity crisis.

I’ll never forget the moment it hit me: the realization that the shaky foundation upon which we had built our lives could be burnt to the ground quickly.

I was running through the Amsterdam airport trying to find a flight home to Portugal before the borders shut.

I was in Barcelona for what, unbeknownst to me, would be one of my final DJ gigs; not as a result of the clubs being shut down for the foreseeable future, but because—whilst in quarantine alone—I realised I was living a complete and utter lie.

The borders were shut between Spain and Portugal that morning, and I had to sneak through Amsterdam in order to get back into the country I called home.

As I navigated my way through an airport full of masks, it hit me in the heart space that something terrible was happening—the world as we knew it would never be the same again.

Over the following weeks, all my gigs were cancelled, my roommate had to flee back to Germany, and I ended up in the hospital with a cyst on my ovaries—my entire world came crashing down.

As someone who has overcome bulimia, severe depression, and moved to the other side of the world on a whim, I certainly had a tool belt of self-mastery tools.

Quarantine was a profound time for all of us to go within. And if you asked yourself the right questions, it was a profound time for growth and redirection.

But nothing could have prepared me for the death I was about to endure.

I hit rock bottom.

I drank wine for breakfast and ate cereal for dinner.

I mourned the loss of my ego as a DJ—my identity.

When I was told I would have to have expensive surgery on my ovaries, as an Australian in Portugal with no health insurance, I muttered, “F*ck this” and decided to heal myself. Within eight weeks, I did.

My singing bowls arrived in the mail.

I studied life coaching, breathwork, and sound healing, relentlessly.

I started following other coaches and sound healers to let my subconscious know that what I wanted was real—it existed—and it could be mine.

I developed a kick-ass morning routine that had me bursting out of bed and kept my mind in check.

I faced all of my shadows in hypnosis: thoughts about myself that were so deeply ingrained in me from childhood and social media that I believed they were true.

Without the sticky opinions and energies of the outside world, I began to rapidly transform and change.

I held sound healings every Sunday for free and hosted donation-based private sessions.

I began to realise that all the pain I had endured was inspiring people, that in retrospect—my pain had become my purpose!

When I eventually began to socialise again, everyone noticed a profound change in me.

The people I was coaching were recommending me to their friends; before I knew it, I had an online business.

I fought bouts of imposter syndrome by becoming an expert in what I was preaching; I relentlessly stalked and booked sessions with the healers and coaches who inspired me.

I created a brand new Instagram away from my 25k follower DJ page and started posting about my story.

I now have an online program that propels people into their purpose by conquering their limiting self-beliefs, based around my belt of self-mastery tools.

Do you see what I am getting at?

When I began to unblock my shadows and find wisdom in what I had witnessed, I began to step into alignment with what my soul was craving.

What are you proud of?

What did you think you would never make it through, yet here you are?

Who do you want to be in one year from now?

What can you let go of right now in order to be one step closer to her?

It is all on you to confront your demons; in doing so, you will sweep away your fears and the illusions they are based on, and you will have the ability to bring forth your true, authentic self to the world.

The authentic self that does not self-sabotage with food, social media, alcohol, and inauthentic or toxic relationships and friendships.

The authentic self that lives and breathes its purpose arises when what you do is in sync with who you are.

Conquer that brain of yours, my dear friends, and you will never have to conquer anything else.

You can be healed, but you must go out there on the pathless road and make mistakes, these slightly tragic, yet temporary bloopers, are the very factors that will shape you into who you are.

The inner work is worth every single minute of your time on this earth.

Work on yourself relentlessly and without abandon, until you love yourself so deeply that everyone else will too.

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