Tower moments will often shock us as we are not prepared for them generally speaking.

I have had a fair few in my lifetime – those times when I thought life was heading in one direction only to be re-directed in a completely different direction. 

The first one of significance was I had plans when I finished university all those years ago to go on an Outward Bound 21-day course these are sold as personal development courses designed to make you feel like you can achieve anything that you set your mind to. Then do Camp America and finally return home to teach primary physical education.

One of those three events occurred and that was the Outward Bound course.  It ended up being life changing for what felt like all the wrong reasons at the time. The experience was a terrible one to say the least, I ended up in counselling over it, one I have never forgotten to this day. 

I came away not trusting that I could handle spending the 12 weeks in America if I landed in a camp that I didn’t like, so I gave that dream away and didn’t teach that year either. I took the safe option and continued to work in retail and tried to gain a qualification in retail management.  This also didn’t go to plan and left that for no job as it was soul crushing to my spirit.  I did then did a small amount of emergency teaching to only go through the process of trying to get a job to be rejected time and time again. 

I finally asked the question “If I am not meant to teach then what am I to do?” and a small voice came back and said “massage”.  It had only ever been a faint idea in the back of my mind when I was studying human movement (called exercise science these days). Little was I to know that this re-direction turned into my life’s work – I have now been in the industry 23 years. 

Lessons learned along the way:

• Trust that there is always another path. 

• You are not limited by your current reality – there are so many more possibilities and sometimes they don’t show themselves until you are ready to receive them.

• Trust the signs that are getting presented to you and follow the breadcrumbs – know that all paths lead you to where you are meant to be.

• The hard times really do prepare you for what lies ahead, without some of these experiences I am not sure that I would have had the courage to take some of the risks that I did.

• Have faith that you can handle anything that life throws at you. You have more skills than you realise.

• Hold true to your values, if you are not finding fulfilment trust that this is a guide to consider a different path.

• You cannot plan for these re-directions that often show up under shocking circumstances.

• You won’t realise the impact of some of the events in your life until possibly many years after the event. Some won’t make sense in the moment, and it is not until a couple of links in the chain are joined that you see why it had to happen that way.

• It isn’t a sign of weakness to acknowledge that something isn’t working and changing direction is sometimes the most courageous thing you can do.

• Kindness and compassion are highly important when making big life changing decisions.