I am no stranger to uncertain times, much like the ones we are living in now.

Five years ago a neurologist told me that I’d had a stroke, and it was most likely an early warning sign of events to come. Nothing could be done for me, I just had to wait and see how things panned out. So, for the next five years, I spent every single day waiting. Waiting for a headache, waiting for a visual disturbance, waiting for that stroke that would end my life. I was just waiting to die.

I went from being a fit, 20-something year old to a ticking time bomb.

Understandably, life lost its colour for me. I became completely shut off from my emotions because all I could feel was crippling fear, all day, every day. It was easier to train myself to feel numbness, than to live in constant panic.

A new, wonderful relationship gave me a glimpse of hope. He encouraged me to get a second opinion, and argued that whatever another neurologist said to me couldn’t make my life any worse than it had been.

After numerous tests, I got the verdict that the episode had simply been a severe migraine that mimicked the symptoms of a stroke, and there’s nothing to worry about at all. WTF?!

Hearing that, I thought I would be instantly freed of all the fear I had carried around for the last few years, but I wasn’t. Being scared and disconnected from my feelings had become habitual, and all habits take time to be overturned. I got incrementally better as more time went on, but I was not quite yet back to being who I was before.

Then the COVID-19 lockdown happened, and my fear spiked again. All of these unhelpful thoughts started flooding my mind. What if the first neurologist was right and the second one was wrong? What if it happens again whilst I’m in lockdown and I can’t get urgent medical attention because hospitals are overwhelmed? What if, what if what?

There were no every day distractions to bury my attention in, it was just me and my mind.

So… instead of running from them, I decided to listen to all the demons that had been following me around for years. I really went inside myself to confront the parts of my mind that terrorised me on a daily basis. Here’s what happens when you face your demons… they show you that the fear of something is worse than the thing itself.

They forced me to look at this whole health scare with crystal clear vision and I realised that what actually had happened was only a minute fraction of the things I thought were going to happen. And through that, I found access to all of the positive feelings that I had parted ways with so long ago. Acceptance, Compassion, Connection, Discovery, Gratitude, Hope, Motivation, Peace, Reflection & Stillness.

I turned them into my new series Going Inside, to share them with you. To give you a little piece of those things, whilst we are all stuck inside.