A Lay Yah

17/09/2026

Time doesn't heal everything. Love does. ❤️

We are so often told that we just need to give things time.

And yes, time can give us perspective.
Time can soften the edges.
Time can help us understand what happened.

But time, on its own, doesn't necessarily heal.

Sometimes time simply creates more distance from the thing that hurt us.

And sometimes, if we aren't willing to move forward, time can actually keep us stuck there.

I have learnt this in my own life.

I am a natural lover. I love life. I love deeply. I love fiercely. I love people, animals, nature, connection, the little things that make this life beautiful.

But I have also been incredibly independent.

For a long time, independence was my armour.

I knew how to look after myself.
I knew how to carry things on my own.
I knew how to survive.

What I didn't always know was how to let someone else in without being afraid of what it might cost me.

So I poured my love into nature.
Into my animals.
Into my children.
Into myself.

And there is nothing wrong with any of that.

But eventually I had to acknowledge that part of me was using independence to stay safe.

Because if I didn't let people close, they couldn't hurt me.

The problem is… they also couldn't love me.

Healing for me began when I stopped asking, "How do I make sure I never get hurt again?"

And started asking,

"Can I trust myself to love and still be okay, whatever happens?"

That changed everything.

I started slowly.

New friendships.
Small moments of vulnerability.
Allowing people to see me.
Learning to trust myself again.

And I realised something profound:

It was never really about whether someone else was capable of loving me.

My ability to love someone was never a blemish on me simply because they couldn't return it.

The love I gave was still real.

It still mattered.

And no love is ever truly lost.

What we put into the world has a way of finding its way back to us — sometimes through another person, sometimes through friendship, sometimes through our children, animals, nature, or simply through becoming more of who we were always meant to be.

So perhaps healing isn't about waiting until enough time has passed.

Perhaps healing is about allowing love to move again.

Including love for yourself.

Including love for life.

And, eventually, perhaps even allowing yourself to love another person without abandoning yourself in the process.

That's the kind of healing I am learning now.

Not waiting.

Living.
Loving.
Trusting.

One day at a time. ❤️

16/09/2026

I LANDED ON MY FEET.

Those were the first words out of my mouth.

We were packing the trailer for our move across provinces — more than 1,600 km from one side of South Africa to the other.

Everything we owned was being packed into this trailer.

Fridges.

Beds.

Boxes.

Tables.

Heavy, awkward pieces of our life.

The trailer was already sitting about a metre off the ground.

I was standing on a two-metre-high bookshelf on the side of it, trying to get everything packed and secured.

And then my partner pulled on the trailer.

The trailer started to tip.

I remember thinking:

Don't tip.

Don't tip.

It's not going to tip.

And then...

I was launched.

At least two metres through the air, on top of the height I was already standing at.

I went up higher than the roof.

And then I came down.

And I landed on my feet.

In the tiniest little space imaginable.

Surrounded by boxes.

Furniture.

Everything packed tightly around me.

There was literally nowhere else for me to land.

And the first thing I shouted was:

"I LANDED ON MY FEET!"

😂

It was only afterwards, when the adrenaline started wearing off, that I realised something that honestly stopped me in my tracks.

There was no impact in my knees.

No pain in my ankles.

No crushing jolt through my body.

Nothing.

And this wasn't insignificant for me.

I have an ACL replacement.

I've injured my ankle before.

The momentum of that fall should have been something I felt.

But I didn't.

It felt like I had been placed.

Right there.

In the safest possible space.

In the middle of absolute chaos.

And maybe that's the part that got me.

Because isn't that exactly what life has felt like lately?

Everything packed up.

Everything changing.

Everything moving.

The ground underneath us shifting.

Being thrown into circumstances I didn't plan.

Trying to navigate an enormous move, huge decisions, uncertainty, fear, and the complete dismantling of what had been familiar.

And yet...

Somehow...

I landed on my feet.

Not perfectly.

Not gracefully.

Not without a few bumps and dents.

But standing.

And I can't explain what happened physically that day.

I can only tell you what it felt like to me.

It felt like my guides had me.

It felt like, in the middle of the chaos, I was somehow held.

And perhaps that is the message I needed.

Sometimes we spend so much energy trying to stop the tipping.

Don't tip.

Don't fall.

Don't lose control.

Don't let everything change.

We brace ourselves against what is happening because we think if we can just hold on tightly enough, we can control the outcome.

But sometimes the trailer tips anyway.

Sometimes life launches you into the air.

Sometimes you don't get to choose how you land.

You just have to trust that there is somewhere for you to land.

And maybe you don't land exactly where you expected.

Maybe you land in the tiniest space.

Maybe you land surrounded by the remnants of the life you are packing away.

Maybe you're a little bruised.

A little wobbly.

A little dented.

But you're still standing.

You landed on your feet.

And that has become a bit of a mantra for me.

Because this move has been more than moving houses.

It has been moving lives.

Moving identities.

Moving expectations.

Moving towards something I can't completely see yet.

And through all of it, I've had moments where I've genuinely wondered:

"How on earth are we going to do this?"

And somehow...

We keep landing.

We keep finding a way.

We keep getting the next piece into place.

We keep being guided.

We keep being held.

So perhaps this is your reminder too:

If everything feels like it's tipping right now...

If you've been launched into something you didn't expect...

If you're looking around thinking there is absolutely nowhere safe to land...

Take a breath.

You don't know where the landing is yet.

You don't know how it is going to unfold.

You don't know what is going to catch you.

But maybe...

Just maybe...

You're going to land on your feet too.

A little wobbly.

A few minor dents.

But standing.

And sometimes that's the miracle.

We landed on our feet. ❤️

15/09/2026

My independence was once my armour.

I have always been the person who makes a plan.

The one who figures it out.
The one who carries it.
The one who finds a way.

I have been incredibly proud of that part of myself.

But I have also come to realise that there is a very fine line between being independent and being so fiercely independent that you don't allow anyone else the opportunity to love you, support you or be part of your journey.

Recently, life brought me to a place where I simply couldn't do it all on my own anymore.

Work dried up.

Decisions had to be made.

And eventually I had to make one of the hardest decisions I have ever made — to move my family back to KZN.

Not because it was easy.

Because it made sense.

A lower cost of living.
Better schooling opportunities for my children.
A chance to focus on my health.
And the space to rebuild stability around work and our future.

But making that decision required a level of vulnerability I wasn't prepared for.

I had to ask for help.

Actually ask.

Not hint.
Not pretend I had it handled.
Not make a plan quietly in the background and somehow magically pull it off.

I had to let people see me.

See my fears.
See my uncertainty.
See my heart.

And then I had to allow them to choose.

And that part was hard too.

Because the truth is, not everyone helped!!!!

Some people couldn't.
Some people chose not to.
And some of the people I genuinely believed would be there for me, because of the role they had played in my life or the place I thought I held in theirs, weren't.

That hurt.

I think it would be dishonest to pretend it didn't.

When you are already vulnerable, discovering that someone you thought would reach for you doesn't can feel like another wound.

But I had to learn not to turn their choices into a measurement of my worth.

Their inability or unwillingness to help didn't mean I wasn't worthy of help.

It didn't mean I wasn't loved.

It simply meant that people have their own capacities, circumstances, fears, priorities and choices.

And sometimes people we expected to stand beside us don't.

While other people, sometimes unexpectedly, step forward and hold out their hands.

That was one of the greatest lessons in all of this.

Because I have spent so much of my life being the cheerleader.

The supporter.

The person making the plan for someone else.

The one saying, *"Come on, we've got this."*

The one reminding people that we are human beings, living here together, and that we are supposed to help each other.

To love each other.

To lift each other when one of us can't stand.

I believed that so deeply for everyone else.

But somehow, I struggled to offer myself that same compassion.

I could see the worth in everyone else's vulnerability.

I just couldn't always see it in my own.

So this chapter has taught me something I think I needed to learn for a very long time:

Being vulnerable doesn't make me weak.

Asking for help doesn't make me a burden.

Allowing someone to support me doesn't take away my strength.

And receiving doesn't make me less capable.

It makes me human.

And perhaps that is the whole point.

We weren't put here to do everything alone.

We are here in community.

To love.
To support.
To share what we have.
To carry each other when the load gets too heavy.

And somewhere in the middle of the hardest season I've walked through so far, something beautiful happened.

I asked.

Not everyone answered.

But some people did.

And those who did came together in ways I will never forget.

People saw me.

They saw the fear, the struggle, the determination, the heart behind it all.

And they chose to help.

It felt like a miracle.

But perhaps the miracle wasn't only that people showed up.

Perhaps the miracle was that **I finally allowed myself to be seen enough for the right people to show up.**

And perhaps there was another miracle too:

Learning that I could survive the disappointment of the people who didn't.

I could let go of the expectations.

I could be grateful for those who came.

I could bless those who couldn't.

And I could keep my heart open.

Because I don't want someone else's inability to show up for me to turn me into someone who stops showing up for others.

I am still learning.

Still unlearning the belief that I have to carry everything.

Still learning that I am worthy of receiving the same love, grace and compassion that I so freely give to others.

And perhaps true strength isn't always standing alone.

Perhaps sometimes strength is having the courage to say:

"I can't do this one alone. Can you help me?"

And then being brave enough to let someone answer.

Even if not everyone does.

Because the ones who do...

Those are the blessings.

And sometimes, allowing yourself to receive is how you finally discover just how much love was there all along. ❤️

10/09/2026

New Paper Alert! Published in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network by Jeremy McGuire et al., the randomized pilot study "Feasibility and Efficacy of Reiki Versus Massage for Cancer-Related Fatigue in Patients With Breast and Prostate Cancer Receiving Hormone Therapy" evaluated the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of Reiki compared with massage therapy for reducing cancer-related fatigue in 87 patients with breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitors or prostate cancer receiving androgen deprivation therapy. Participants were assigned to two massage sessions, two Reiki sessions, or four Reiki sessions. All three interventions significantly reduced fatigue, with improvements sustained at the 10-week follow-up; however, Reiki produced larger within-group effect sizes than massage, particularly the four-session Reiki regimen, which showed the greatest reductions in overall fatigue, worst fatigue, and fatigue-related interference with daily life. Although differences between the treatment groups were not statistically significant, the findings suggested a possible dose-response effect, with greater benefits from four Reiki sessions. The authors concluded that both Reiki and massage are safe and feasible approaches for managing cancer-related fatigue, with Reiki showing particularly promising results that warrant confirmation in larger, adequately powered clinical trials.

Read the paper at: https://bit.ly/4yd1QRE

10/09/2026

30/08/2026

Six weeks is enough time for your life to surprise you. Someone you haven't met yet can become someone you cannot imagine your days without. A conversation can open a door you didn't know existed. You can make one brave decision and watch it change what becomes possible after it. You can wake up one morning and realize that something you carried for months no longer hurts the way it used to. Life does not always need years to become different.

So much of this year may have been about becoming the person who could meet what comes next. Now you get to find out what all of that courage made room for. Go into these next six weeks expecting your life to expand beyond what you can currently see. Say yes when something excites you. Let people surprise you. Take the chance you would have talked yourself out of six months ago. There is still enough time left in this year for something wonderful to happen that changes the way you remember all of it.