Yesterday marked 20 years since our family arrived in the UK.

🤍

This is me in the photo, twenty years ago…

Sitting in Australia, labelling our linen before we left for the United Kingdom.

Our two little dogs, Jazz and Teddy, were quietly keeping me company.

I knew we were moving countries…

I had absolutely no idea what the next twenty years would hold.

And I certainly did not know how much life was about to teach me.

🔥 🤍 🔥

23 August 2006 to 23 August 2026

Twenty years.

What an adventure.

It is a story of many parts.

There have been chapters that I could never have anticipated, when we arrived in Britain all those years ago.

There are things that I know now, which I could only have learned by living them.

So, in honour of those twenty years…

Here are 20 lessons that life has taught me along the way:

1. Calm changes what becomes possible.

2. We make better decisions when we pause first.

3. Not everything that feels urgent is important.

4. We cannot use outside solutions to fix inside problems.

5. What we avoid has a way of waiting for us.

6. Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is become still.

7. We do not have to have all the answers to take the next right step.

8. What looks like an ending can sometimes be part of a much bigger story.

9. People need compassion more than we realise. We are all dealing with something.

10. Boundaries and kindness can exist together.

11. Peace is not passivity. It is a powerful place from which to act.

12. We cannot control other people. We can choose who we are in their presence.

13. When life becomes chaotic, come back to what matters most.

14. Some things cannot be hurried.

15. Our hardest seasons can become the places from which we eventually help others.

16. When we have walked the journey, we know the steps.

17. There is enormous strength in staying grounded when everything around us is moving.

18. Sometimes progress is happening long before we can see the outcome.

19. Count your blessings. Especially in the difficult chapters.

20. Never underestimate what can change when we begin with calm.

Twenty years ago, I could not have known what the years ahead would hold.

I could not have known the challenges, of course.

Nor the adventures…

The people…

The losses…

The blessings…

All the lessons.

Nor the woman I would become along the way.

On reflection, I know that is part of life.

We don’t get to see the whole road from the beginning….

We simply keep walking it.

And when we have walked the journey…

we know the steps.

🤍

Holly x

PS. Some of what I learnt, I learnt the hard way. I hope that you won’t have to 🤍.