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Over five years of working on The Chrysalis Effect’s support team I have read hundreds of health profiles submitted by new members. Each one is asked, ‘What is your greatest fear?’ The answer I read again and again and again is, ‘That this is all my life will ever be.’

If this sounds familiar to you, you are not alone. It is a fear that I shared for a long time. As life dwindled down to what felt like nothing, I began to feel like an old, old woman. I crept around the house, as stiff as a board. I bumped down stairs on my bottom, and when I looked down at my ankles, they were as puffy, thick and immobile as some of the women in their 80s that I used to nurse. I was convinced that by the time I recovered it would be too late for me to develop a career, or do any of the activities I had enjoyed so much when youth and fitness were taken for granted.

Last year I took a holiday in Orkney. This was one of those dreams I had almost given up any hope of achieving. I had wanted to visit the incredible neolithic sites of Skara Brae and Maes Howe ever since I took a first year course in Scottish archaeology at university. I was asked if I would consider transferring to do an archaeology degree, but by then nursing already had its hooks in me. I sometimes wonder what if …. It was a real Sliding Doors moment. I didn’t get around to visiting Orkney before my children were born, and then it didn’t seem a great idea with toddlers. Time and health slipped away, until I found myself, during Lockdown, in tears looking at a news image of a police car closing the Scotland/England border at Carter Bar. It felt like a door slamming on that particular dream. Now I was not only unfit to travel, but I was not legally allowed to cross the border. I knew, rationally, that it was a temporary closure, and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. After all, I wasn’t allowed beyond my village, let alone to Orkney! Nevertheless, I felt trapped, old and hopeless.

And yet, last year, after a long hard recovery journey taken one tiny step at a time, there I was, exploring the Viking runes inside the Maes Howe burial mound.

'Ofram the son of Sigurd carved these runes'

'Haermund Hardaxe carved these runes'

'Tholfir Kolbeinsson carved these runes high up'

'Arnfithr Matr carved these runes with this axe owned by Gauk Trandilsson in the South land'.

I toured the dig at the Ness of Brodgar, climbed to the top of Marwick Head and watched puffins and gannets fishing. I watched seals swimming in ‘the Gloup’, an inlet in the cliffs caused by a collapsed cave roof. You can watch them too here.

Best of all, after my kayaking lessons earlier in the year, I was able to finally take my new inflatable kayak out on the sea for the first time! I manhandled the bag out of the car, pumped it up, and carried it through the heavy sand of the dunes, before launching rather inelegantly into the waves. Getting into a kayak that is bobbing around in the swell is much harder than climbing in on dry land before being pushed into a pool by an instructor! Soon I was ploughing through the water, feeling on top of the world and racing my husband who walked/trotted alongside on the beach. I’m no Anna Hemmings (a multi-gold medal Olympian, recoverer from CFS, and Chrysalis Effect Ambassador), but I felt like an Olympic Athlete.

Looking at the pictures I was transported back to my community nursing days. I remember running a group session in a care home that was aimed at encouraging the residents to get more active. We had fun thinking of all the non-sporting, competitive things that they could do, and I helped them to stretch their minds while thinking about their bodies. 'Never mind what you can or can't do, what would you love to try? What silly things get you moving and laughing?' A tiny little woman in her late 80s, who had Parkinson’s, said, 'I'd love to have a go in a canoe', and we all laughed with her.

I went back to the care home the next month and there she was with photographs of herself in a canoe!! She had told her two strapping grandsons about our session, and they responded with, 'Why not?' They whisked her off in a car, and between them lifted her into their canoe. They paddled her around in a loch for a while and made her dream a reality.

They didn't see an ill old woman, just a beloved granny they could give an amazing gift to. She made it possible by speaking her dream and accepting the help that came.

It still makes me smile and tear up to think of the joy and excitement of that moment as she shared it with the group.

Tips

So, never mind what you think you can or can't do right now. What have you always wanted to try? Where would you love to go?

Write it down

Make scrap book or mood board

Start talking about when, not if you are going to do it.

Tell people about it. Saying it out loud to other people is the first step in transforming it from a dream to a plan, and plans are what motivate us to keep stepping forward each day.

Break that big dream down into smaller steps and begin today with just one tiny, achievable thing you can do to start moving towards your dream.

One first step for me was starting every day with a set of ankle exercises that loosened me up and, over the months, literally changed the shape of my feet and lower legs.