Each recovery journey is unique. We all have different challenges to overcome & may follow a different process. In a litigation culture, it is hard to get a professional answer that confirms if we can regain our health and wellness or what that might look like. We are told statistics, probabilities or possibilities, but often our doctors or therapists are concerned to reassure us that we can heal, through fear of being sued if they are wrong. 

This culture creates a normalised environment where people who could heal, improve or get well, believe they can’t. Instead, they assign themselves to living as broken people with a shattered life, not fulfilling the potential that, with some reassurance and a path towards empowerment, might be possible for them.

When we remember all healing comes from within, that our recovery isn’t given to us by others, it is claimed through our choices and alignments, our efforts and steps towards embracing it, we can discover more might be possible than we dare to admit.  

In this blog, I share my story of recovery and show what is possible when we choose to align with wellness and explore alternative, natural solutions. I explain my process of healing and offer options for recovery.

My adult life has been one of learning, growth, and recovery again and again, after challenging periods and losses, with many significant traumatic experiences. It seemed my life was an endless rollercoaster of struggles that would taint my youth. But I was conditioned, like most of us, to ignore these experiences. I cast them aside and kept on as usual, performing and pushing forward until I or my life crumbled under the strain after periods of burdensome struggle. 

For the most part, I felt cursed, with a secret magnet for trauma that others didn’t know about, and I fought in secret. Or at times, in embarrassing public ways when my mask fell, my nervous system was triggered, or my addictive solutions led me to behave in awful ways. 

I've also had some wonderful experiences; I was not void of the good times in life. I explored life in many ways, and as a creative, I had some great adventures and met some amazing people. This is what led me to be open to exploring alternative pathways. 

The truth was behind my sociable side and creative explorations, I struggled with addiction, didn't cope well with usual life due to the experiences I had and my disposition. But for me, when life happened, it happened hard at times, and I was forced to retreat. I'd faced a lot of trauma and victimisation from an early age, which led me to difficult circumstances that felt impossible to get out of. So, I had to learn to recover, and I had to do it outside of the usual approaches. 

You can read more about my journey on my Mentor Page and Love School Origin Story blog.

First Recovery Process

My first recovery process was after a suicide attempt that failed. I felt broken. I had tried to escape life and the trauma, but couldn't and was left to pick up the pieces of my life. I was an addict, depressed and had just given up my home, boyfriend, and business and moved back to my home town.

This first recovery was intuitive; I had no idea what I was doing, I just had an inkling to try new things. I was surviving as best I could while being denied proper care through the usual mainstream channels. I’d had a spiritual awakening with my suicide experience and was cautious to tell anyone about it. I was regularly going to spiritual healing and attending a mental health group session as a volunteer, which was contributing to a new way of thinking. 

I also had a family member who was deep into alternative health solutions, who would tell me research she found and different ways to heal. I saw my auntie recover from cancer using a natural, nutrition-based approach, so I was curious about new ways to heal.

I talk about some of my other insights from this phase in the blog Healing Depression, Finding Empowerment.

I wasn't fully aware of what was helping or why; I just knew certain things were, so I kept doing them. I was trying all sorts of things when I had the focus or energy, and I developed a routine that seemed to help. 

As I felt better, I went back to work and, after a while, made a career change that aligned with this new path I was exploring. At this point, I had given up alcohol, caffeine drinks, pain killers and my anti-depressant medications but still smoked cigarettes and cannabis daily. 

I was devoted to my spiritual practice... until I met my last serious partner and my life took a drastic turn and change. 

This is when I started working more with the land and community projects, so I was exposed to a lot of people. Many were also addicts, mentally ill, struggling financially or socially, or were unwell. I enjoyed being useful and used my previous experience to try to help. Things went reasonably well for a while, although problems seemed to keep happening and overcoming them was challenging at times. 

I was still coping through addictions. I found myself following an old pattern and becoming obsessed with work, over-committing and now finding less and less support, losing friends, and life was becoming more confusing. Complicated issues were arising financially, and I was becoming more stressed and triggered by all the situations happening around me. I also developed anxiety as I feared being seen as dysfunctional and felt I had nowhere to turn for help. 

I was struggling to cope and get support, and denying the full effects of what was happening to me. After a series of events, I lost my home, partner and found the businesses becoming harder and harder to manage. I burnt out and had to recover… again. 

I explain more about this phase in the blog Freedom from Anxiety. 

My Second Recovery

At this point, I realised I had to deal with the deeper patterns and traumas in my life. I decided to unpick the rocky foundations of my life and rebuild with consideration and attention. This was when I started my first life design process and was called to begin shadow work. I found a new home and started to rebuild my life again. 

The following years were difficult as they were for most of us through COVID and the drastic changes during that. My community work was halted, and I was suddenly left without an income or direction and again, a minimal support system. I’d had another dysfunctional relationship, lost two pregnancies and found myself struggling every time I thought I was getting ahead. 

I was generally well, though, or at least better than I was used to through this period. I had ups and downs, but I felt aligned at times, empowered and balanced. I experienced peace for the first time as I had space to process my past. This was when I started Snowdrops Sunsets and first put into action my initial ideas for Love School.

I had a life design at this point. I knew what helped; I’d been collecting data, making more sense of my symptoms, and addressing struggles as they were arising. I was learning and developing my emotional intelligence and tapping into my spiritual guidance to develop shadow work skills. Life still had its ups and downs, but I was making more sense of it all. 

Then in 2022, within six months, every support system I relied on in my life changed swiftly and drastically…again! 

My nan died, my mam had a stroke, the community garden we ran that had survived COVID was ended (in a nasty manner), my car died, so I lost my ability to explore and visit friends and my mentorship was paused while I was focusing on caring for others and sorting through all those circumstances.

After 18 months of constant trauma and loss, then becoming a carer and the adjustment period of losing my support system, I felt the effects, developing chronic pain. I had struggled with pain often in the past and had managed it before, since I had an income and a car. But now it was so bad that I had to explore other options again, try to find mainstream help. I had struggled to adapt my lifestyle, and my mental health and emotional balance were suffering.

I went through the usual channels for support, to try to get benefits or some other type of help to get my life back on track. It was difficult, time-consuming and took around a year. Eventually, I was given a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia. I was also diagnosed with ADHD, but told I did not have Autism (as I had suspected at the time), and was told all my other symptoms were due to complex and early trauma. 

At this point, I had no income, no support system, was in intense pain every day, struggled to take care of myself, was overwhelmed and isolated, and I couldn't see a way out. I felt stuck in the system, while being denied any support, and my world seemed to crumble around me.

I felt like I had to make a choice: live as a disabled person with no support or connect with my alignment again. 

My Recent Recovery

My third recovery process was different. After a series of events that made me face my potential destiny, consider my past and the future I was projecting before me, I had a realisation. This wasn’t me! I had recovered before, and it doesn’t make sense that I had become stuck. I knew there was an alternative path and maybe a different possible outcome than what seemed to be available. I realised I just needed a shift to make the change happen. That came about in 2024 when I was given an opportunity and used it to kick-start a new path for myself. 

This time, I knew what I needed to do. I had already developed skills, I had my previous life design and knew how to find wellness before. So I committed to change and embarked on my recovery. 

So, to answer the question, what is possible in natural recovery? Here’s the latest process I followed, the results and how you can access this type of process at Love School. 

My initial recovery process took about a year. To get from daily pain to functional well-being, and after another year, I have been able to rebuild my strength and flexibility to actually be in better shape than I was before! 

These pictures show three different women going through the process of recovery. 

This one was taken in April 2024. I was in pain, struggled to walk, live daily life, I was caught in the system, and it was messing with my mind and energy. I'd been processing grief and supporting others, hadn't had the time and space to recover after a series of hurts and losses.

Looking for help left me being labelled and diagnosed, but without any real support, despite developing so much pain and tension it would cry some days just trying to get out of bed! My life had become awful, and I was being forced and pushed into a place of self-sabotage to try to prove I was deserving of any social support day after day.

I ended up with two new labels and a mindset that I'd spent years cultivating was broken down and had slipped back into one of fear and uncertainty.

The picture was taken on a day I felt good!  I thought I might try to get some TV extra work and needed a body shot. It was awful looking at it and seeing how much I was suffering. To me, it was obvious in my swollen body and forced expression.

It was another 3 months after this that I committed to the change that got me out of this cycle.

This second image was taken a year later (April 2025), after nine months in my recovery process. I was stable, I'd got my diet and lifestyle back on track. I was out of pain, I was regaining my mindset, processing and focusing on my energy. I'd left the system and decided to fend for myself, whatever the consequences, which was not easy since I was in a recovery and healing process with lots to unravel.

My lifestyle was simple and focused. I was working from home when I could, but most of my time had to be dedicated to healing and moving through what had happened over the past few years, how it affected me and what it all meant.

That picture was taken nine months into the process of change, and celebrating being pain-free for that time.

You can access my process for this initial recovery in the How I Healed My Fibromyalgia Flare-Up course. 

This, the most recent picture, was taken this spring (April 2026). This isn't about weight-loss, although you can see that's obviously been part of it. Instead, this is showing the benefit of my lifestyle as it is now. I'm able to do things with my body and fitness I couldn't have imagined doing, probably ever, but definitely as the people in those previous two photos. 

I'm out of a recovery process, and my lifestyle is natural, easy and aligned with who I am again, as an active, creative and flowing in my natural state. My material world hasn't fully recovered, but what's most important is that I have.

Through these two years, I have levelled up, had a glow up, whatever you want to call it, so I am not the same as either of those previously photographed women.

I'm experiencing my lifestyle and body in a whole new way, like never before. I've been using my time to create products and content others can follow and benefit from if they choose to, I've been learning new skills, growing, relaxing, as I've never been able to in my life!

I've developed this space based on everything I've learned through real, lived experience. This is the third time I've had to save myself from a barrage of circumstances that could have broken me and left me defeated.

And this third time, I knew what to do, was fully present and have developed a muscle memory that makes this type of recovery part of my DNA! I've spent more than a decade, time and time again, being a real-life guinea pig for myself, figuring out how to heal, recover and evovle. And now, I get to enjoy the benefits of all the years of work and experiments. 

I'd like to think I'll never have to go through another recovery process like this, but if I do, I know how to do it, what works and helps and how to approach the process to find alignment again. For now, I'm feeling aligned and ready for whatever arises in my life, and I've been preparing it as a fertile foundation for health, wellness, abundance, and it's full of love... from the inside out.

Through this process, I've been building and collating all my experiences to support others, like you, here at Love School. Writing up courses and blogs such as this. Fine-tuning the insights and understandings, the processes that took me from a traumatised victim who was depressed, suicidal and an addict to someone who is healthy, well and at peace with herself (most days!).

You can benefit from my experience in the courses and learn the skills that helped me. From understanding energy alignment with intention, processing emotions and connecting with spirituality to the practical support of grounded living, good nutrition and helpful exercise and movement or body work.

I teach others how to create a life design and learn skills to do the deep healing of shadow work. 

Each recovery journey is unique, and we all may have a different result or process to follow since we all start in different places and face our own challenges. But the benefit of following a process like the ones offered through our  Daily Wellness flow or Quick Wins Recovery Protocol is that you get to skip the uncertainty of where to look and what to do and follow our guidance. Then you can utilise the experimentation part for your benefit, harnessing our wisdom and direction. 

What is possible from a natural, holistic recovery journey?

Wellness is possible, better health and fitness are possible, and a pain-free day-to-day life is possible… when we choose to embrace a path towards those potentials. 

Additional Support

To embark on a healing journey here at Love School, I recommend one of our daily prompt courses.

They have been designed to follow a process like the one I followed to get results like this. The Daily Wellness Flow is ideal for this type of recovery process.

You can also access one-to-one support as part of this process with our Recovery Support Weekly Mentorship offer. 

Find out more by visiting our Daily Prompts Page. 

If you would like to know more about how to use the Love School space for healing and recovery, or explore which pathway here is best for you, I recommend reading the Love School Pathways blog.