The Power of Grief and how it led me to Start my Business - by Zoe Wheeler founder of Nettlefold Home

Grief does strange things to you, you experience so many feelings, yet so much more intensely and extreme than you could have ever imagined. But, it can also bring positive new beginnings too.

When I lost Mum it was sudden and unexpected and I was terrified. How on earth would I cope? How would I exist? There was no me without her. Yet I was 43. Old enough surely to look after myself, get on with my life?

First there’s the sadness, the loss, the huge gaping great hole. Then there’s the reflection,

could I have done something differently, I wish I’d said this, wish I’d said that (that feeling never

really goes away), then the anger and hatred of the cruel evil world. What’s the point to all this?

But then, comes a silence, a calm, and the chances in those moments to remember the love,

the fun, the silliness and that extra special, incomparable friendship.

For me, with the anger came this knee jerk reaction to change my life, to give it up, I’d lost all

that fear. What on earth had I been doing coasting along in the same job, the same life, chasing

some dream of enlightenment, of romance, of that Hollywood movie life that never seemed to

come. Suddenly my own mortality became very apparent and I knew something had to change.

Three months later I left London, rented a cottage in a village where I knew no-one and took a

punt on a guy I’d only just met.

But then a strange thing happened, with that change came a light, a new-found joy of simple

pleasures which I’d never seen, or perhaps just never really appreciated before. Friendships

from years gone by felt more rooted, more solid and more real. The nature around me felt more alive and therapeutic and I started to see a new future.

My life is a little simpler now; quality time with real friends, not short sharp nights out with

acquaintances. Walks are a little slower, work a little less rock n roll but no less challenging and

now I’m a Mum. The love I feel for my boy is something I could’ve never imagined possible. Yes

I wish Mum could’ve met him, could see what a little powerhouse he is, but the most heart-

warming thing is to see how like her I have become, how much I learned from her love and it’s

that I hold dear and celebrate every single day.