THE CRACK IN MY SOUL THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

On identity rupture and the slow work of reweaving.

This year already feels different than any new year I’ve had in the last six.

I’m emerging from a long, unrelenting cycle of disruption, dysregulation, and deep untethering.

It began when my son, Calian, was born in 2019—seven weeks early. Bless his sweet little heart, but I was not ready.

He arrived like a wild, beautiful freight train and completely upended our lives. The birth was so intense that my face became partially paralysed from the sheer effort it took to bring him Earthside.

Later, after we’d begun calling him by his nickname, Cali, I realised the synchronicity: he carried the energy of Goddess Kali—fierce, destructive, unapologetically catalytic. She doesn’t gently nudge; she rips apart what no longer serves, and in doing so, she initiates rebirth.

That’s exactly what happened to me.

There I was: a vulnerable new mum, white knuckling my way through a cascade of traumatic events, shattered expectations, and a body that refused to cooperate.

The birth itself was excruciating—endometriosis scar tissue, a posterior-positioned baby, and one week later, Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, which paralysed one half of my face. It’s never fully healed.

My postpartum reality redefined “hot mess”. I’ve spent the last six years trying to rebuild from the rubble.

I didn’t recognise myself—physically or spiritually.

Who was I without my bright, dimpled smile?

Without my lightness, my joy, my unshakeable optimism?

Who was I with this fragile red baby in my arms, screaming his way into life, angry and distressed by incarnation?

Who was I when I felt too self-conscious to go out and make new mum friends? Too ashamed of my face to be seen?

Who was I without my work, my sacred service to others in their darkest moments, when I couldn’t even help myself?

The identity rupture was total. My face changed, my energy changed, my sense of self cracked wide open.

I remember the moment it happened—this internal snap, like brittle glass shattering inside me.

It was my soul.

Being separated from my newborn, enduring physical agony, holding immense emotional weight... my soul simply couldn’t carry it all.

I’ve since learned that others feel this “snap” too. This trauma of the soul. A rupture of the Self so profound, you’re not sure you’ll ever come back.

But you do.

Eventually.

At first, I thought I was broken. That I was just a hollowed-out version of who I used to be. I didn’t realise I was inside the Void, the sacred womb-space of transformation, where everything dissolves so you can be re-formed.

It’s disorienting and terrifying, but also sacred.

And like all sacred things, it doesn’t announce itself with clarity in the moment.

It took time—years, in fact—for me to even see the light again.

For so long, I could only feel what I’d lost: my vitality, my face, my joy, my confidence, the version of motherhood I thought I was supposed to have.

There was so much grief.

But then… slowly… something shifted.

Nature became my tether.

We moved to a house with a garden near the bush. I began sitting outside, soaking up sunlight, watching bees, praying by candlelight, and writing my fears onto paper to burn beneath the full moon.

I cried. I raged. I danced. I rested. I re-parented my inner child while parenting my son.

And little by little, my soul started stitching itself back together.

I began to laugh again. I began to trust again.

And one day, I looked at my wonky, asymmetrical smile and thought: “There’s beauty in this too.”

This face tells a story of survival.

Of devotion.

Of transformation.

It’s not the face I had before, but it’s the face of someone who’s risen from the ashes.

There’s a quiet power in that.

If you’re in a season of reweaving, please know it’s not forever, and it’s not for nothing.

Whatever rupture you’ve endured—a breakup, a birth, an illness, a loss—there is a version of you on the other side who will meet you with love.

She may look different. Softer in some ways. Sharper in others. More discerning. More embodied. More you.

Because when everything else is stripped away, what’s left is the truth of your Soul.

And that is a beautiful place to begin again.