You Already Have Everything

Embracing Phase Two of an Authentic Life

May 19, 2026

I wrote this over a year ago and dug it out of the archives of musings. It captures an important moment in my blossoming and so I wanted to post it retrospectively. Beautiful to notice how much more settled into Phase Two I now feel… more to come!

I’m kneeling on the kitchen floor with my Jack Russell puppy in my arms, she’s snuffling into my neck. She’d found the oblong patch of sun cast on the floor from the kitchen window and positioned herself on a pillow in it. The warmth of the Portuguese sky is now on my back as I cover my body over hers.

She wriggles to look up at me and seems confused by my solemnity.

My partner comes to join me on the floor and we chew over a familiar flatness that seems to descend after returning to Lisbon from a trip ‘home’.

A sense of, “why do I want something so different?”

I know many struggle with this exact ailment of modern living. Seeing out professional and personal lives vastly different to previous generations. Yearning to thrive in our own special brand of ME.

I’ve not acknowledged how insipid the churning was that I had around this, until this very moment.

I’ve carved a radically honest and non-traditional existence far from my heteronormative roots. It’s taken courage and multiple iterations.

Since a divorce 8 years ago, coming out, leaving a career in law, moving from Singapore to London to the UK countryside to Lisbon… I realise that, well, I’ve done it. I’m at the precipice of the right next step.

The teenager in me looks back over her shoulder to hear her mother say, “I will always love you, and I will always be with you.”

And it’s time for us to grow up. To not seek that validation, or need to check how aligned we are to the dreams laid out before we were born.

There’s a lot of talk about finding your authentic path, figuring out what is resonant for you, being bold with your boundaries, fighting for your truth.

But this is only Phase One.

Granted, this Phase — the ‘working it out ‘ bit— is tough. Placing a foot onto the grass alongside the well-trodden path takes bravery. And discovering the oasis beyond the valley is exciting.

Then you’re in it. You did it. And it’s really new. Like nothing your care-givers, or your old world, or your young you can understand. And they might never.

And that’s ok.

How do we ‘be with’ both? How do we live this resonant existence over here, and acknowledge it’s divergence from what’s been before?

It’s a ‘yes and’ situation, and those are the trickiest to navigate. Yes I’m grateful for my upbringing, and I want to make different choices in adulthood. Yes I want a relationship with my past, and I want to be proud and thrive in my emergent identity.

Yes I want to hold both, and not lose what I’m discovering.

There’s a tension in me, a part pulling me backwards to familiarity, and a strength in my sternum grounding my feet as the roots spread deeper into this fertile soil.

It’s uncomfortable to experience this embodied polarity. Part of me wants desperately to ask, ‘is this ok?’ and another part trusts deeply that it already is.

To trust that knowing — here’s an ironic and grateful nod to the wisdom handed down from my mum, “you already have everything you need within you.”

If I try to reconcile the pulling back and growing forward, I will stay in the stuck-ness of trying to please both. Which is an impossible task.

This pulling comes from fear. Because originality comes with a price. By its very nature, there’s alone-ment in it. It doesn’t have to be lonely, or selfish. But it is, by definition, unique. Solely yours.

Once you are in that place of originality, it feels a little like you’ve been stripped back. You’ve shed, you’ve reduced. Down to a centred core. Which requires a deep knowing of self-love to retain.

So what do I need in Phase Two of taking this coveted authentic path?

How do I not just watch the walls rise around me, but instead enjoy the building of a home?

How can I soothe the pulling, nourish the roots and build my existence in glorious technicolour?

I sit silently with that question, already inside the soup of Phase Two. That familiar sense of arrival returns and with it brings a reminder.

I might just find I already have everything I need within me.

I am a Somatic Coach and through my writing attempt to capture the human experience, through our minds and bodies.

If you’re interested in what Somatic Coaching is or would like to try it, find out more about it here.

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