We’re not getting out of this alive.
Instead of that being dark or depressing, I’ve found it energising.
Clarifying.
Sharpening.
One of the women I’m working with right now is living this truth in a very real way. She’s facing serious health issues, and it has stripped everything back to what actually matters.
Watching her has sharpened my own focus.
Because one day, every one of us will take our last breath.
There are no guarantees about when that will be.
I’ve spent time this week imagining that moment.
Not morbidly. Honestly.
And it reminded me of something I think many women quietly forget, especially in midlife, especially when alcohol has become a way of coping with the weight of life.
So much of what we give our energy to is just… noise.
The overthinking.
The people-pleasing.
The nightly glass of wine that promises relief but keeps us stuck.
I’ve caught myself this week wondering why I’ve been handing my precious energy over to things that won’t matter in the end.
If we’re lucky, we’ll grow old. Silver-haired. Looking back on our lives.
But we don’t have to wait until then to gain that perspective.
We can step into it now.
We can imagine sitting with our future self, looking back from that final stretch, asking one simple question:
What really mattered?
We’re not getting out of this experience alive.
There will be a moment when we don’t breathe anymore.
And that truth isn’t frightening.
It’s galvanising.
Because while we don’t have the power to stop time, we do have the power to leap.
To stop numbing.
To stop postponing.
To stop telling ourselves we’ll deal with it “later”.
We get to do the things we’ve been avoiding.
We get to make the decisions we keep hesitating on.
We get to question the habits, including drinking, that quietly steal our clarity and keep us small.
So if you sit with this for a few minutes, really sit with it, ask yourself:
What new clarity does this give me?
What decisions suddenly feel urgent?
What are my priorities now if I stop distracting myself from my own life?