Determined to celebrate the wonders of life

When you experience something traumatic and life-changing you lose all sense of purpose.

This happened to me four years ago, my whole life turned upside down. I felt so lost for a really long time.

I then started to process my grief, I started to accept what had happened and things have changed. I had learnt nothing in life is permanent and I was lucky. I was alive with the opportunity to live my life the best I could, when others, unfortunately, couldn’t. I decided I wanted to do something big and get out of my comfort zone. I wanted to do something for me, something I could be proud of. Life can be really rubbish a lot of the time, maybe even dark some times, but life can be amazing and beautiful. I wanted to regain control of my life and enjoy it rather than downing in grief, depression and anxiety.

I decided I wanted to travel solo and I loved the idea of volunteering and helping animals. I felt this was something I needed. After some research, I found an opportunity to volunteer with Giant Panda in China. I have been in love with these beautiful animals my whole life and I had never seen one before. So I booked my trip. It was really scary, but I finally felt I had some sort of purpose again. I had something exciting to look ward to and to think about.

I felt so proud of myself after my trip. I did it! It taught me that I could do anything I could set my mind to and work hard.

I wanted to share this story in hopes that it could help and encourage people. Life can be really hard and feel out of our control some times, but you’ve got to work hard to build the strength to get up and keep going. Maybe you can’t plan big things right now but maybe you like the idea of gaining control. Try something different, something that you’ve been wanting to do, but just never got round to it… learn a new language? Learn to dance? Learn an instrument? Maybe paint or draw? Even if it’s just an hour a day, a couple of times a week. Distract your mind just for a little bit, learn to enjoy the journey of our crazy rollercoaster called life.