In my last blog, I wrote about not being lost but grieving.
Grieving the woman you were. The certainties that used to anchor you. The life that once fit but now pinches like shoes two sizes too small. Who would wear shoes that were too small? I did once. My dad died, and all I’d taken to Spain was a rucksack of things. Two days before the funeral, a Saturday, I went shopping and bought a gorgeous dress, but couldn’t find shoes, so I borrowed my mum’s – one size too small.
Grief, it gets you in strange ways. I miss my dad, not like I miss me. I miss what more we could have had if he hadn’t drunk his way to death.
Even in the midst of my deepest grief for my old self, I would never have given up and drunk my way through the pain. Old me might have and probably did.
But this time I needed to make a clearing. Not to become paralysed by inaction – more of a sacred pause. A stepping into the void.
The Problem: We’re Terrified of the Void
Our culture has no reverence for the in-between. We worship action, productivity, and forward momentum. We’re meant to have a plan, a purpose, a next step. But what happens when you don’t? Then what happens? I invite you to consider these. You might be in the void if:
- Nothing feels real anymore – the old certainties have dissolved, and the new ones haven’t formed yet.
- You can’t see the path forward – not because you’re stuck, but because there isn’t one yet to see.
- You feel guilty for “doing nothing” – even though your entire being is screaming for rest, space, silence.
This liminal space – this messy middle between who you were and who you’re becoming can feel like failure. Like you should be further along by now. Like you’re wasting time. Despite knowing this stuff, I have felt a failure. And you know – that is okay. It’s okay because it’s feedback.
In the void, I found I missed laughing, being ridiculously silly and feeling alive.
Coming Alive
I consider myself divinely blessed that I still have my mum with me. This weekend I was staying with my mum. Facebook throws up a 2018 memory: me banging on about pea protein powder, all evangelical about my latest health kick.
Mum, bless her, thought I meant actual green peas. Mashed them up and made scones. They were… bizarrely okay.
In the car on the way to the shopping centre, we were still laughing. That’s the thing about my mum and me – we find the absurd hilarious. We live for the ridiculous.
Mid-drive, she interrupts my thoughts: “I watched something with that actress. You know, the one with the strange name.” I’m meant to guess. This is the game.
I start rattling off names. Nope. None of them. She gives me more clues – something about a film, a character, vibes, she’s sung in something. I guess a few more names – no.
But we’re not done. Oh no. Now she’s off on a tangent about The Ink Spots and “Whispering Grass” and how a friend guessed the answer she was looking for (still no idea what actress we’re talking about, by the way).
I try Meryl Streep.
Jackpot!.
This spirals into a song. Someone else sang it first. She hums it – timeless, toneless, utterly Mum. I haven’t a clue. We’re laughing so hard I nearly miss the car park entrance.
Then she remembers one line. We start singing – badly, loudly, joyfully. It’s Alison Moyet. But she doesn’t want that one – it’s the other people, followed by loads of clues, and I have to Google it.
The Flying Pickets. “Only You.”
We sing even more – loudly and badly. We’re both crying with laughter now, the kind that makes your ribs ache.
This was fun – okay, you had to be there and be us. But it was lovely to be silly. My mum gets me, and I get her. We gel in this ridiculous, meandering, utterly unselfconscious way that I forget I’m capable of.
I miss silliness not just with her, but with myself and with life.
Somewhere along the way, I got so serious. So heavy. So focused on healing, transforming, becoming. But joy? Joy lives in the pea protein scones. In the guess-the-actress games. In singing The Flying Pickets off-key in a car park.
This is what the clearing in the void is for.
Before we go onto the clearing, one more thing. When we were home, Mum was lamenting not having her funeral poem, so we created one. That’s another thing we do – we write together and cryptic crosswords, which I can’t do without her.
Then we created my poem, which I am going to use in an 8-day self-love experience.
In the Clearing
In the clearing stands a woman.
Brave, bold, beautiful and wonderfully weird.
The shadows of the forest have fallen away.
Leaving only the scent of damp earth and the first light.
She is no longer the rescuer, the weaver, or the ghost.
She is the owner of this quiet, sacred space.
She loves the untamed things.
The birds singing their morning secrets.
The long, slow walks where the soul can catch up
The peace that settles like dew on the grass
And the sunrises that promise a fresh, unwritten page.
She is watching and waiting in the void.
Not with the ghost of anxiety, but with the grace of the wise.
The void is not empty; it is a cupped hand held open.
A fertile silence where the “not yet” begins to stir.
She waits for possibilities to choose her.
For the song that resonates with her wild heart.
In the clearing, she stands her ground.
The alchemy of her life is finally turning to gold.
She has crossed the chasm.
And now, she waits and simply breathes.
The clearing is hers.
The woman is home.
The Clearing Is Where Your Wild Heart Returns
The poem probably needs a tweak or two, but for now, it’s done. It may call to you, it may not, but you won’t get the message and hear the deeper truth while you are still running and still trying to save the whole bloody world. The world does need saving, and I have no idea how, but for now, all we can focus on is what we can change.
In the clearing is where our wild heart returns. Away from the noise to simply listen to the beat of our heart.
We don’t need to do more. It’s about doing less – but doing it with intention. So, some steps and thoughts for you.
Step 1: Stop Apologising for the Pause
You’re allowed to not know what’s next. You’re allowed to sit in the void without a timeline for when you’ll emerge. Every time you catch yourself thinking I should be further along, replace it with: I’m exactly where I need to be.
Step 2: Create Your Literal Clearing
Make one small space in your life that’s just for waiting, not for producing, performing, or figuring it out.
Maybe it’s:
- Ten minutes each morning with tea and silence
- A corner of your home with nothing but a cushion and a candle (this is a great excuse for a declutter)
- A walk with no destination, no podcast, no purpose – just the birds and smells of Mother Earth
This is your clearing. I invite you to protect it fiercely.
Step 3: Practice the Art of Cupped Hands
There’s a line that says “The void is not empty; it is a cupped hand held open.”
And that’s the point, if you close yourself off, nothing will come to you, open your eyes, heart and hands. This is receptivity. Openness. Willingness to receive what comes, not what you’ve planned.
Ask yourself: What would it feel like to stop chasing and start receiving?
Step 4: Grieve What Needs Grieving
You’re not just waiting for the new. You’re mourning the old, and this is such an important step. That version of you, you may miss some wonderful parts of her, but there will be parts that played small, knew her place, didn’t question, and whatever was your thing.
She deserves to be grieved, not bypassed in the rush to “become.”
Write her a letter. Thank her for what she gave you. Release her with love.
Step 5: Trust the Emptiness
I have been doing a lot of this trusting malarkey, and I know it’s preparation. The seeds that we planted goodness knows when will not grow in concrete, but they will grow in dark, rich soil – in spaces that look like nothing is happening. Your wild heart is the same.
The clearing is where your roots go deep before your branches reach wide.
Wild Heart Reflection
Sit with this for a moment:
What if the clearing isn’t where you’re stuck – but where you’re seeing with clarity?
What if this pause, this grief, this not-knowing is the most important work you’ve ever done? And may well do again and again?
Write this down: I am not lost. I am making a clearing. Say it until you believe it. Honest moment for me – I found this hard to keep saying.
The Hope at the Heart of the Void
The life you might find in the clearing might not be what you envisaged. You might find it hard to sit in the void, I do, I am a well practised creative escape artist.
I’m not doing nothing. I’m tending to my heart in the void. I’m learning to live again, slow step by slow step, in the darkness. I’m sitting with what’s real: the grief, the uncertainty, the knowing that the old life is gone and the new one hasn’t arrived yet.
And in that space – that sacred, terrifying, odd clearing – I’m waiting for my wild heart to return. She will not necessarily come up with answers or a plan for world domination, but with my sunrise.
“Your wild heart doesn’t need you to have it all figured out. It needs you to make a clearing and wait.”
Keep Walking (But Slowly)
If you’re in the void right now – if you’re grieving, pausing, sitting in the not-knowing – you’re not behind. You’re not lost. Yeah, okay, it can feel like it. You’re doing the bravest work there is: creating space for what matters.
If you’re in the void right now – grieving, pausing, sitting in the not-knowing – you’re not alone. The Soul Writers Lounge is where wild hearts gather to tend the clearing together. Come sit with us.
