Becoming

Welcome to this small corner of reflection.

This blog begins after a year that has reshaped me in ways I could never have planned.

My year traditionally starts with Hannah (my daughter) and I discussing what word we are going to ponder for the year.

Last year I chose a sentence: “With expectation comes disappointment, choose gratitude.”

I could not have imagined how important gratitude would become in the year that has just passed.

May 2025 began with a very surprising leukaemia diagnosis.

It then became a year that brought both fragility and surprising strength. Physically, much has changed. Spiritually, even more.

Illness has a way of stripping life back to its essentials. Ten weeks in hospital as an inpatient brings a combination of vulnerability and resilience. I became used to my body not being my own. Many invasive procedures — and many moments I had to just laugh my way through it with my loyal friends.

What became transformative for me was noticing the quiet things again: breath, kindness, ordinary stories, the presence of those who walked beside me. The ordinary became quite extraordinary (I’ll speak more about these amazing stories later).

In those moments, I began to understand something that has become central to my work and my life — that we are all in the process of becoming.

Becoming is rarely dramatic. More often, it happens quietly, through life’s lessons of loss, love, uncertainty, courage, and grace. We are continually formed by what we walk through.

One of the quiet gifts of transformation is that it slowly gathers the scattered parts of ourselves and draws them toward wholeness. The parts shaped by joy, the parts marked by sadness, the parts we hide, and the parts still waiting to be discovered. When we allow ourselves to grow through what life brings, we do not become someone entirely new — we become more truly authentically ourselves.

And in these parts we can learn that joy and pain can co-exist together if we let them.

And yet this kind of becoming rarely happens alone. Healing and transformation are often nurtured in the presence of another. Someone who listens with care, who makes space for the story, who holds hope when it feels difficult to find. In that shared space, something gentle begins to unfold — understanding, courage, and the quiet possibility of change.

As a counsellor, I have the privilege to sit with people in many of life’s crossroads and to witness some of these journeys

If the past 12 months has taught me anything, it is that none of us are a finished work. We are always being shaped, softened, and strengthened.

This blog will hold reflections on that journey,

on suffering and resilience, on faith and doubt, and on the quiet, courageous work of becoming.

Let me leave you with an Irish blessing for your day:

May you be gentle with the life that is unfolding within you. May you trust the slow wisdom of your own becoming. May the wounds you carry become doorways to compassion. May courage find you in the days when the path feels uncertain. And may grace walk beside you, Bright as light at dawn, Guiding you toward the life that is still emerging.

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A year of becoming. Left: after 10 months of chemotherapy.