Unbounded

PROLOGUE

Three years ago, I stood on the edge of a dirt road in front of wide open plains, tears streaming down my face. I caught the rustle of dried leaves dancing in the wind and the faint sound of cars. But in my head, all I could hear was, ‘Please don’t let the right things pass me by. Please don’t let the right things pass me by. Please don’t let the right things pass me by.’

Because in the years preceding, I had experienced much and was no stranger to hardship. At a major crossroads in my life after significant personal change, I felt lost. Disconnected, disoriented, scared. I had come to learn that the world could trick you into believing stories about who you are and where you fit.

After all, it had tricked me into these beliefs: that your skin makes you less than, that unjust violation of your body is some­thing you must tolerate, that to love to your fullest capacity is an unnatural abomination, that you’re ‘too much’ – but also too little. As I found myself in that moment, gripped by the pain of heartbreak, change and uncertainty, I felt constrained by a blueprint of who I was meant to be.

In my most desperate times that year, I had one reprieve: long drives into rural Melbourne. On those drives, the road would morph into nothing more than an unpaved gravel track, but I’d savour the crunch of the loose rocks under my tyres. I’d spend an hour in my car, driving until I felt I’d gone far enough. Finally, I’d stop on a hilltop and open my car door to the most magnifi­cent views of open farmland. Like an infinite patchwork quilt of green and brown, the sun-kissed landscape would glow orange as I’d stay till dusk, staring at the horizon. The chorus of birds, gentle breeze and cattle – the truest bush ballad – was a beautiful melody compared to the buzz of social media and external opinion.

But further in the distance, you could see where bushfires had previously ripped through the surrounds, leaving nothing but charred remains in their wake.

On one particular day, I found myself there again, looking at those partially blackened pastures. I had been driving, crying – rinsing and repeating – but felt peaceful when I arrived at my favourite spot to retreat to. As the sun sank low, its final kisses of light falling on the land, I was particularly captivated by patches of rich remarkable green emerging in an otherwise dried landscape.

How? I wondered. Even though I knew this happened after a bushfire, it sparked a bigger moment of questioning in me. Shouldn’t signs of life here be impossible? With so much flora burnt, how could anyone expect it to regenerate? In a fire-blackened landscape, how the hell could one have hope?

I didn’t know how or why, but experiencing that scene made me feel a little more assured about my own life. Something about it inspired a niggling sense that everything could be okay.

Plants in the Australian bush have learned to regenerate in the aftermath of fires and in fact, some need them to grow. Knowing and observing this, it dawned on me that as painful as things were now, there was still the possibility that they could get better. My heart could heal and something beautiful could be born out of the pain.

It reminded me that sometimes, the fire lights our path to self-mastery. That signs of life are possible even in the shadow of hardship. That no matter how boxed in to a life of limits, borders and bounds you may feel, you can always break free from what binds you and regenerate.

And even in the darkest of times, one can sure as hell have hope.

I walked away from that scene with a renewed confidence in not only the future, but in myself – reminded of the truth of my nature and all that I am.

No matter how decimated you might feel your inner land­scape is, today, you are ready to nurture your first sprouts of green. And this book is a tool that will teach you to manifest a life beyond limits. As you make the choice to honour all that you are, I’ll share with you ten things that have the power to change your life.

And my hope now? That by the end of this book, you will remember the truth of your nature and all that you are.

Unbounded.

1

QUESTION

Ask yourself why. What stories have you subscribed to that hold you back from being more?

Do you consider yourself a storyteller? You may not say yes – perhaps storytelling feels like something you left behind in high school English lessons, or maybe you never felt you had the creative gene. But I can guarantee you that every one of us is a storyteller, and in case you didn’t realise, you are storytelling all the time. And many of you, like me, might have felt like your story was told for you, prescribed to you – and it was something you didn’t have much of a say in.

From your earliest years until this moment, you have been soaking up experiences in your life and processing them as stories. Think about it – do you have a story about ‘that time I had the best sex of my life’, ‘that screwed up thing a former boss said to me’ or ‘awkwardly being in the room while two other people have an argument’? The people we encounter become charac­ters, unexpected life events are plot twists and events that happen to us can be perceived as anything from a redemption arc to a growth opportunity.