There’s nothing like a double whammy anniversary for making you look back at that time last year. Especially when it’s a milestone birthday of the big 4-0 coupled with your first wedding anniversary with your husband…

A year ago, I was doubled over in pain on EVERY possible level I can think of, agony and torture seeped through me on every level of my being, be it spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical.

Four months earlier I could have saved my cat’s life (if I hadn’t been too wrapped up in work that is). The message that I was about to come undone at every level was banging hard on my door like The Ghost of Christmas Future, and I stuck my fingers in my ears and that’s where they were staying – it cost me my cat at first and then…

I had a trip planned to India for work about a month after the loss of my consciousness and my cat. I came back full of new intentions about how I was going to live my life in more alignment, give more of me to my family and less to work, but those types of intentions are powerful ones that set off a whole domino sequence of events overnight, and here I was unrealistically expecting the opposite – an overnight miracle.

I couldn’t live up to my new intention and I could no longer live like I had been. My keys, my cards, my phone – all went missing on my return, it was like I hadn’t returned at all. I was empty, my identity was being wiped clean.

This led to what I would call “an emotional breakdown”. I could no longer repress the 38 years of codependency (although I didn’t know it was that at the time) and I did something a codependent finds the hardest thing to do.

I left my home, my husband, my step-daughter, and my still living cat, Mystic, who had been with me since time, Mystic Mog, my familiar, my life before I met my husband, and still my life now. Somehow I stroked her, turned around, got up and walked out of the door in pieces, and, leaving my family in pieces, I got on a plane from London to the USA and Mexico where I spent this time last year – my birthday and my 7th wedding anniversary, doubled over in pain, not just because I actually had food poisoning from a Mexican birthday buffet in the heat, and not just because the humidity was making my arthritis flare up, but because sometimes the other layers of pain hurt so much, they actually hurt you physically – you can feel them like chains squeezing your heart.

I was stuck in the flat whilst a tropical storm raged outside, mirroring the rage I was hostage to within. I had no electricity and no light left inside of me, in the dark, I was bent double, I wanted to die.

No home, no cat, no husband, no step-daughter, no love, all that was left was the heavy crushing of regret, for the pain I had caused us all, my work was on the way down too – my life had been on the up, after years and years of hard work, business and personal wise, and now I’d face planted at the last hurdle and I had gone and blown it all.

It was a real crushing low point, I felt that all the work I had done was pointless. I was still broken, damaged, traumatized, and I felt like I was damned to never be free of my past.

Let’s fast forward to now, a whole year later…

I’m settled in a nice flat in Spain. My work is taking a huge amount from me but in an incredibly creative manner, whereas last year everything was dissolving and I was so lost, this year I have a game plan. I took a giant leap back in order to take the most powerful and purposeful step forward.

I’m forgiven. My step-daughter started making moves to say she wants me in her life. This was one of the best birthday presents I could have ever possibly received, her capacity for compassion and understanding in a situation that has been fraught with trauma for both of us astounds me.

I’m in love – with my husband, not that I ever wasn’t but all the pain and complications meant I couldn’t ever be peacefully in love with him. This year we spent my birthday and our eighth wedding anniversary together, and here’s the how.

We decided to make a go of it back in September last year, but the whole year has been so intensely painful like you wouldn’t believe. We could no longer just cozy up and pretend the issues weren’t there.

This solstice passed through me this year like a tidal wave and washed away all the pain.  I felt reborn, free of all of the past, completely open and present. It was instant and profound.

The solstice last year was when I finished my marriage, uncannily on the solstice this year I finished it again – but this time it only took six hours before I  processed what I needed to do to save it. I will reveal what I did below but before I do, here’s how we spent it, it’s important:

Our eighth wedding anniversary was spent together exploring the vast  Spanish slopes of the Sierra Nevada. To get to where we were staying we had to travel for 20 minutes along a bumpy, rocky, pitted dirt track on the side of a mountain in my little Fiat 500, which culminated in what could only be described as a “slide”.

My husband stopped the car to get out and check the road before driving it as we couldn’t see the road over the bonnet. After checking that there was indeed a road, we went down it, (very slowly!). All the time wondering how on earth my little car would get back up it when it doesn’t even cope with the little hills back home.

There, we were welcomed into the most incredible hideaway nestled in the mountains with the most incredible views. Rich and I stayed up until 3 am just gazing at the stars, with the fog below us – we felt so close to heaven.

The next morning was the actual morning of our anniversary and we had to leave. The owners said we were better off continuing going down the slope, even though the sign said 4×4 only! I said it was like putting a car on a slide, Rich agreed and said “but going up is like a car with a 1.1 engine going up a slide!” There was no other way but down!

The owner cheered us on from his rooftop as we left, saying “That’s it! You are doing great! Don’t worry if you slip, the slips happen just before or after the bends, not usually on them!!”

Our mascot faded fast with every tight turn we took, and with every turn, we were faced with an even steeper incline on this bumpy sandy mountainside dirt track with no barrier from the great chasm below. Seriously, just as we couldn’t believe it could possibly get worse, it did. Just think of a helter-skelter without the barriers around the slide and tower in the middle, so it’s more like a concertina and you’ve got it.

We did it, obviously! We have lived to tell the tale, but it sure as hell seemed a completely nuts thing to do, but then again, what choice did we have?

We were rewarded that evening in Spain’s second highest village, Capeleria, because little did we know, the town had decided that the night of 15th of August was the night that the power should be shut down in the whole village so everyone could see the stars.

At midnight, in complete darkness, we stumbled across a bench and laid on it, our heads meeting in the middle, laying on each other’s shoulders looking up at the glorious dazzling light show of stars above, and all around us, so close to heaven backdrop. I say to Rich…

“How special is this? That this should happen on our anniversary! What do you think of that?”

His response?

“That we are finally in tune with the universe.”

It was so much like a happy ending from a film that I almost expected the credits to roll, but what happened in the middle?

How did we manage to save our marriage and our family?

And moreover, what moves did I make that can help you to check your moves? For we can’t control anyone else’s moves, but it’s very true that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond. The need to go down the mountain was the 10% that life gave us, how we navigated it depended on whether we would survive it – 90% was down to us.

So let’s take the mountain drive we went down as an analogy for the way we saved our marriage…

The Four Step Process For Moving Mountains and Receiving All That’s For You In The Universe:

1. Facing Reality  – We gave up fighting with reality, we were in this situation together and we had to find a way to get through it – together. Even if there was a (hand) break between us.

2. Assessing The Way – We had to face that the path ahead of us was going to be full of treacherous challenges without any guarantee that we would make it through. But it was the only way we were going to get out of where we were, so we had to make a commitment to going down it together.

3. Relinquishing Control – I had to hand the reins over to him. I had been in inappropriate control for the length of our marriage (and the length of my life) it became blazingly clear to me after this year’s solstice that a huge amount of fear that I was not safe (from my childhood) was still running the show. I had a belief running, that I could not rely on anyone to get what I needed right, and that I had to fight for it and of course that always backfired.

Finally, I start to truly let go and hand over the reins to my husband to take control and meet my needs – our marriage shifted almost overnight. So to clarify?

The biggest thing I did to save our marriage (and turn the rest of my life around) was to leave the past behind, start afresh every day and practice relinquishing inappropriate control. @tiffanycrosara (Click to Tweet!)

What is inappropriate control? It’s anytime you try to control another, rather than your own actions.

And last but most definitely not least.

4. Patience – We had to take it so incredibly slow down the mountain, the slower the better, one hasty move and we’d have gone over the edge. This is true of the past year and the huge amount of patience we have needed with ourselves and each other.

Time really is the best healer, give everything OODLES of time. We overestimate what we can do in a year, and underestimate what we can do in ten.

What a long way we’ve come this past year, can’t wait to see where we are in ten. Keep on truckin’ slowly, and you’ll get there.

Tiffany Crosara has won a multitude of Awards for helping people to move forward in their lives, both on and off the TV screen. She is also the Author of the Award Winning The Transformational Truth series. She is passionate about helping people to live their their life with connection, meaning and purpose and is giving away a chance to get started on the journey free, see here for access: www.tiffanycrosara.com/invite/birth-cards

Image courtesy of rawpixesl.com.