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STAY WILD, STAY TRUE

Dear Mum, dear Dad, dear siblings, dear ex-lovers, friends, clients, colleagues, readers; teachers both knowingly or unknowingly, please know this:

I love you.

Forgive me.

I’m sorry.

Writing this book has been one of the most joyful and most terrifying experiences of my life! I have lived the hell out of my life, and yet this – sharing my truth – has been tougher than anything else I’ve done yet.

Fear that I may hurt feelings, fear of being misunderstood almost stopped me. However it is because this is a truth for so many of us that I want to share my story with open-heartedness and transparency, hopefully in some small way setting a precedent and giving you all permission and desire to share yours too.

So many of us carry secrets and shame and are reluctant to share these with our closest friends, and this saddens me. I hope that somehow this book enables you to open a window and let in some air and some light to the closed dark spaces that we are all afraid to look at more closely. I hope that through personal growth and awareness we get better at discerning who is trustworthy and upon finding those people trust them; sharing our vulnerabilities and allowing them to do the same, so that we may all experience the honour and connection of this kind of intimacy.

The story I am about to tell is my truth, and it may not be the same as yours. Both can exist, just because you remember it one way and I another doesn’t mean that one is right and the other wrong. The truth is that each minute of each day, each of us gives meaning to our experience differently, and so many times it is not the event itself but our reaction to it that colours our perception of a situation. Reading through the diaries and journals that made this book possible, it became really clear to me just how much our perceptions and memories change as we move through our lives. Please know this: I take responsibility for my life and I wouldn’t change a moment of it, for it has brought me to where I am now. If you have played a part in the tale so far, whatever that might have been, I am truly grateful.

The way I see it; life is a series of soul lessons, and as my father1 once told me:

‘You sat up in the sky as a star looking down on earth and picked us, you picked all the players in your life and they picked you. You chose those souls to experience the interactions of life with, you chose the heartache and the joy, the frustrations and the ease, all of it.’

Thank you for picking me, I’m so glad I picked you.

To every single person who has supported me in writing this book, from the 50 or so people who generously crowdfunded it to those friends and coaches who listened while I wept in sadness, frustration and fear – Thank you. I particularly want to thank Alison Jones, without whom I may very well have given up when it got tough, all my clients who have shared with me their stories and offered me their encouragement – often explaining to me using my own words back at me why it is that I do what I do, and what the point of the book is – and in memory of Freya Marylin Moonbeam Murphy (I love you sis! You are in my heart always) and Claire Louise Hose (you were a huge inspiration to me and I often ask myself, what would Claire do?).

So, to YOU, the misfits and the mavens, I hold my hands up in reverence:

Let’s live our lives NOW, not waiting for a retirement, or for skinny, or for richer, or for permission.

The happiness we seek can only be granted to us, by us. The happiness we seek is also seeking us.

Each of us is unique and it is that uniqueness that is our gift to the world. In your weirdness is your wonder! Every one of you sees problems to be solved; it is not your job to bemoan them but instead to be a part of the solution. It is your duty to shine, to creatively bring your gifts to the world, and to encourage others to do the same.

I hope this book inspires you to do just that.

STAY WILD, STAY TRUE,

XOXO EBONIE

‘FAITH MEANS LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY – FEELING YOUR WAY THROUGH LIFE, LETTING YOUR HEART GUIDE YOU LIKE A LANTERN IN THE DARK.’

– DAN MILLMAN

1. These are probably not his exact words: I was young, 7 or so when he explained how it all worked and where we came from, and 14 when he reminded me of it as I slammed the door in his face. Later as I read Caroline Myss’s Sacred Contracts I more fully understood what he had said and honed my beliefs about this.