The ghost in the mirror:

Staring into the eyes of a stranger… and beginning the journey back to myself.

“When you experience essence, you are experiencing who you truly are, who you were born to be before the world told you otherwise.” – A.H. Almaas

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

I stood before the full length mirror in the quiet spare room. The sky was dark that day, grey clouds with the threat of heavy rain casting shadows over the land, mirroring the shadows that clouded my grieving heart.

It was a year since my late partner had chosen to leave this world. My baby, still innocent to this world’s heartbreak, was asleep in the master bedroom, my toddler was at preschool, and I had a few quiet moments to myself before the world would come alive again with the demands of motherhood.

I looked into my reflection, not to judge in any way, but to meet myself.

As the sky rumbled outside I saw a woman looking back at me with hollow eyes, lifeless and limp, exhausted and broken.. holding the weight of a hundred unshed tears, her shoulders quietly trembling under the mantle of motherhood and mourning.

There was a time that I knew her joy, her laughter and playfulness, her zest for life and all that comes with it. Now, I stood as a ghost of that woman, trying to remember how to breathe in this tired skin.

Where had she gone? How had I come to be here? And how could I find my way home again?

Some moments in time are pivotal. They reveal a threshold that we must cross. An invitation to meet ourselves, to listen deeply, patiently and respectfully to what is being whispered within. To what we are being called to do, or who we are being called to be.

This was one of those sacred thresholds. Not dramatic or visible to the outside world in any way, but internally shattering… in the way we can be split open by truth. A moment when who I knew myself to be could be no longer, and something raw and unnamed within me insisted on a new way.

An invitation.

To slow down. To feel everything. To touch the broken places not with intent to fix them, but as doorways to walk through, barefoot, open hearted and awake.

And so I looked. Really looked. For years.

Not only into my grief, but also into my habits, patterns, beliefs, perceptions, addictions, compulsions, fears, longings…. and all that I knew myself to be.

At first trying to find the woman I had lost, to reclaim or redeem myself. Until I realised that what I was actually looking for, was the truth underneath all of the lies the world had told me, about how I needed to be.

I didn’t know it then but that moment was the beginning of a deeper reckoning.

With identity and with truth.

For a long time, I had been trying to find her again, the version of me who had joy, light, laughter, capacity. What I was really longing for… and what I was being called into, was not the past version of myself.

It was the True Self.

Not the self the world had shaped. Who had learned to smile while carrying the weight of everyone else’s needs. But the one untouched by loss, by time, by expectation or story.

The self that had always been there, waiting… quiet, present, whole.

The pathway home to that true self is what this project is all about. What healing is all about. What the undercurrent of this life is all about. Unmasking all that is not true, and finding our way back home.

Removing the layers that veil that truth.

Over the coming month, we’ll be journeying into the heart of what it means to truly know the True Self.

Each week, we’ll deepen our understanding of this essential nature, its qualities and expressions; not as a concept, but as a living, felt experience. We’ll explore the many layers that influence how we access or lose connection with the True Self, including the role of our physiology, biology, and psychology.

We’ll look at how trauma and early conditioning impacts our ability to stay rooted in truth, how authenticity arises from deeper self-connection, and how the True Self can become a trustworthy compass on our healing path.

This month is an invitation to turn inward; with curiosity, compassion, and presence… to meet yourself in some way, and maybe remember who you are beneath the roles, patterns, and protective layers.

And I feel really honoured to be walking alongside you.

Warmly,

Maraya