03/05/2026
I’ve been quiet. Creating, building, living and doing the kind of becoming that doesn’t really have words until it does.
I chose to have children young. For 22 years I raised them, mostly on my own, while building a business and life around my craft. It was full. It was rich in experience. It was also, at times, really hard. And it was mine.
Have you ever looked back at a season of your life and thought — how did I do all of that?
Since coming into my 40s, I’ve been doing something I’d never done before: travelling alone, then living in Vietnam without knowing anyone. No expectations, no roles to perform. No one to manage my edges for. Just me — unravelling, softening into myself. Slowly, imperfectly, honestly.
I moved through the noise about what women are worth as they age. The world’s relentless conditioning — stay small, stay young, or risk being invisible. Bu**er that. The beauty of an embodied woman with a cultivated soul radiates so differently. Incomparably.
A new adventure in a new place — new connections, new perspectives, fresh challenges. Yet living in Hội An cracked me open in ways I didn’t expect. The aloneness was often difficult. I made friends with grief — letting go of what once was, and the comfort I used to take for granted. Being apart from my sons, my cats, my Australian life — reminded me how blessed I am.
Out of the comfort zone, we can face unexpected shadows in the container of the unknown. Some of it was a deep ancestral fear of survival and lack. Slowly, I continue to show those fears that we are safe now. We don’t need to just survive. We can expand and thrive. In this aloneness, I’ve been doing another level of internal work. I’ve built a deeper sense of discipline, self-trust, self-love — they come hand in hand. When you can find that within, everything in life changes.
You know that feeling? Being called by something you can’t fully explain — God, the universe, my ancestors, instinct, the land itself. In this ancient town, surrounded by waterways, rice fields and coconut forests, I finally relaxed into belonging somewhere. Connected through my blood and DNA, I feel supported here.
This story — all of it, the hard parts and the becoming — is exactly why I believe so deeply in jewellery made with intention, to honour who you actually are. Not who the world thinks you should be. The real you. The full you. The one you’ve earned.
That’s what I’m building toward with Ritual Self. More on that, and sharing the things I’ve quietly been working on…
