This Is Not Happening To You. It Is Happening For You.

Four years ago, during one of the hardest periods of my life, someone said something to me that at first felt impossible to receive.

“This is not happening to you. It is happening for you.”

At the time, I wanted to reject it.

Because when you are in survival mode—when your body is struggling, your heart is exhausted, or life feels unfair—growth is the last thing you want to hear about.

But over time, those words stopped sounding like spiritual comfort and started becoming a question.

What if disruption is not punishment? What if challenge is not proof life is against us? What if some seasons are not here to break us—but to wake us?

I have returned to this question again and again through different chapters of my life. And recently, I found myself standing in front of it once more.

My relationship with healing did not begin with me. It began with my daughter.

Years ago, I found myself sitting in rooms listening to outcomes, statistics, limitations and predictions surrounding her acquired brain injury.

People spoke with certainty. But something inside me refused to accept certainty. Not because I believed medicine had no value. But because I could not accept that possibility had ended.

So I began studying. Not casually. Obsessively. I immersed myself in neuroscience, human behaviour, Eastern approaches to health, trauma, psychology, spirituality, healing practices and endless books. I wanted to understand one question: how much influence do we actually have?

What I eventually discovered was not hidden brain capacity. It was something far more powerful. Adaptation. Neuroplasticity.

Recently I listened to Dr Caroline Leaf speaking with Andre Duqum discussing the difference between mind and brain. Her explanation stopped me. She describes the brain as the physical organ. But the mind as something broader—the process through which we think, choose, interpret, feel, imagine and create meaning. The brain is structure. The mind is process.

What we repeatedly tell ourselves becomes familiar. What becomes familiar starts feeling true. What feels true begins shaping behaviour. Behaviour shapes outcomes. This is not magical thinking. It is the relationship between perception, emotion, physiology and action.

And suddenly I realised—much of what I had been doing naturally all those years had a name.

Now I find myself facing another health challenge. And recently after a doctor's appointment I had a moment of uncomfortable honesty. I realised I was angry. Angry at my body. Angry at myself. Angry that I had drifted from practices that once felt foundational.

I forgot something important. Not just practices. I forgot parts of myself. I became intensely focused on the physical. And somewhere in trying to optimise health, I drifted from something that has always been one of my greatest strengths—my beautiful, curious mind.

As children we ask endless questions. Then slowly we are taught to become easier. More acceptable. More certain. Stop overthinking. Stop being sensitive. Stop questioning. Eventually many of us begin editing ourselves. Not because curiosity disappeared—but because we learned it was inconvenient.

But curiosity is not dysfunction. Curiosity is intelligence. Curiosity is aliveness. Curiosity is often the birthplace of healing. It was curiosity that made me question outcomes. Curiosity that led me to learn. Curiosity that helped me see my daughter beyond diagnosis. Curiosity that brought me back to myself.

The other morning at 3am in the gym with my partner—yes, an unusual hour but strangely sacred—I had a thought. Maybe healing is not always becoming. Maybe healing is remembering.

Over the last few nights I returned to things that feel like life force. I sat quietly. I reflected. I called on my healed and benevolent ancestors. I returned to my mesa. I asked to be shown. Show me what I am missing. Show me where balance has disappeared. Show me the next step.

And something softened. Not because symptoms disappeared. But because I stopped fighting myself.

I am not grateful for suffering. But I am beginning to respect what challenge reveals. This moment may not be asking me to become someone new. Maybe it is asking me to return. Back to balance. Back to curiosity. Back to trust. Back to the understanding that healing was never only about fixing the body. It was always about becoming whole.

So if you are in your own season of challenge—I leave you with the same words that once frustrated me. Maybe this is not happening to you. Maybe—in ways you cannot yet see—it is happening for you.