30/09/2025
Resilience and growth are funny things. People often think you grow the most when life is going well, when everything feels positive and smooth. But in reality, most of the real growth happens when life knocks you down, when you feel like you have nothing left. That is what they call post traumatic growth and looking back at my own life I can see that clearly.
When I was sixteen I came off my moped and destroyed my knee. ACL, PCL, MCL, all gone. I still remember my surgeon telling me how bad the injury was. Yet somehow I fought my way back and played top flight rugby again.
As a kid I was bullied so badly it stopped me from doing things I loved, like ballet. And yet in that same year I pulled on the London Irish jersey and became county captain for rugby. I had taken the pain and turned it into fuel.
Seven years ago I was electrocuted. I could not walk. I could not hold a pencil. I thought everything was over. But step by step I came back fitter, stronger and more mentally stable than before. That experience gave me the empathy and resilience to help other people through their darkest moments.
I have faced financial struggles too. I have had to take out loans just to cover bills when I could not work. It felt humiliating at the time, but it taught me humility and how to rebuild with patience.
And most recently, losing my mum three months ago. There are no words for the kind of pain that leaves behind. Yet somehow even that loss has become a springboard for me to grow. It has softened me. It has given me a deeper understanding of grief, of what it means to lose and of what it means to rebuild when someone you love is gone.
All of these moments have shaped me. They have taught me that life will throw you things you cannot plan for. You do not get to choose the trauma, but you do get to choose how you respond to it. Every time I thought I was finished, I found a way to come back with more strength, more empathy, and more clarity.
That is what resilience really is. Not pretending you are fine, not denying the pain, but finding a way to grow through it, to come out the other side with a new perspective and a new depth to who you are.
If you are going through something right now, I want you to know this. It does not have to break you. It might just be the very thing that grows you into the person you were always meant to become.
