A Personal Story of Resilience: Transforming Struggle into Surrender
‘Resilience isn’t something you learn, it’s something that’s etched on your bones, through struggles, trials, challenges and triumphs, resilient you become. But the thing about resilience is that if you’re resilient for too long, you forget to surrender to your experience and the softness that keeps you strong.’
A few weeks ago, I drove to North Cornwall with a long-time friend to complete the final section of the Cornish Coast path. I began walking the path in the summer of 2022, on a mission to heal my mind, body and soul. And as I walked this path, I found a connection to something more.
Over the past few years, I have spent many weekends chipping away at sandy stretches, hollowing and heaving through a multitude of emotions. The first walk began after the most intense break-up of my life; it also began with a banging migraine, joint pain and brain fog galore.
Just a year before starting this mission, I had been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a complex connective tissue disorder that has a weird and wonderful affect on a multitude of bodily systems.
After receiving this diagnosis, my whole life changed. Until that point, I had spent most of my twenties feeling lost, lonely and broken; in a constant state of confusion and on a constant quest for answers.
However, this diagnosis brought my world back to life. I no longer had to put my life on pause and from this point onwards, I vowed to live, breathe and feel it all. I started to create a new life, in which I stopped striving and learnt to feel alive and find joy – even with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.
During this time, the coast path became my medicine. I sang, I screamed, I wrote poetry, I cried; I stomped through storms, finding solace in raging winds and tides. I was determined to wring out every last emotion that was sitting heavy in my heart.
And I was determined to find acceptance and peace surrounding my physical body and its capabilities, even if it meant adapting, changing and shifting, learning to live with a diagnosis rather than constantly working against it.
A STORY OF RESILIENCE - The Final Stretch
In September 2025, I drove to Duckpool Beach with my friend to complete the final six-mile stretch of the entire Cornish coast path. The windscreen wipers squealed on full speed as bright white, lazer beam rain hit the glass, threatening to shatter our hopes of an adventure that day.
However, we continued on our journey, trusting that the rain gods would hear our prayers and clear the skies for the day ahead. Today I was going to reach the end of the coast path, it was a done deal.
Having already completed over three hundred miles, I had stripped away layers of emotion, after emotion, walked through some of the most challenging conditions of my life, whilst feeling the most alive I have ever felt.
I learnt the true meaning of solitude (completing the majority of these miles alone), the true meaning of trust (in something bigger than ourselves) and proved to myself that I could live a wildly, ecstatic life – even with a gnarly diagnosis and a wonky, bendy, injury prone body.
The coast path was an elixir to my soul; through stormy days and windswept haze, she always brought me home.
And on that day, together, we were going to reach the end goal.
Another Resilience Lesson: Nearly But Not Quite
To our absolute amazement, the skies cleared within five minutes of walking. We spent the next two hours enjoying stunning scenery, with the sun of our face and a light breeze tickling our hopes for the day.
We explored dramatic clifftop points, sank and rose through zig zag valleys and enjoyed our picnic in a secret hidden hut, cradled by the cliffs, overlooking the sky and the sea. However, our idyllic experience soon became one of the most challenging adventures of my life.
Around four miles in, one of my knees started to give way; something I was now beginning to get used to when my unstable joints were under pressure for too long. We had two more miles to complete until we reached the end and so I pushed on, ignoring the fact that we would also have six miles further to then walk back on ourselves.
Five miles in, all hell broke loose.
We looked to our left and saw a dark, stormy sky, with sheets of sharp rain heading directly towards us.
My friend whispered, ‘I’m scared.’
And I thought, ‘Oh God.’
As two people who had travelled the world together in our late teenage years, we had adventure in our blood and spirit in our veins. We carried on walking for another fifteen minutes, in an attempt to push through the rain, gale-force winds, and in my case, extreme pain.
However, at this point, BOTH of my knees completely gave way.
I could actually no longer physically walk.
I fell to my knees, unsure whether to laugh, cry or scream.
We were five miles in, with no easy way out. It was one more mile until the end, and six miles back. And even if we didn’t complete the final mile, it was still five miles back to the van.
I actually couldn’t believe this was happening on the final section of the whole coast path. It was as if the path had one final lesson in store, to check I had embodied her wisdom to my core.
Me on my knees, crawling the remaining few miles of the coast path.
The TRue Meaning of Resilience: Transforming Struggle to Surrender
My friend looked at me and saw the pain in my eyes. She asked,
‘What do you want to do?’ – knowing how important this day was to me.
She then offered her hand, to pull me up out of the mud and held my shoulders softly. I felt touched, my strength crumbled and everything dropped into place.
The path didn’t want me to struggle; she wanted me to surrender.
And so, just one mile from the end of the entire Cornish Coast path, we turned around. I then spent the next three hours, latched onto my friend’s shoulder as she supported me, screaming into the wind, offering me wooden posts and anything she could find to support my wobbly knees; all whilst battling gale-force winds, icy sheets of rain and an incredible amount of pain.
At first, my heart sank. The reason I had begun walking the coast path was to prove to myself that I was resilient, that I could do ANYTHING – even with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I then laughed as I remembered the lesson the path had been teaching me all along…
‘Resilience isn’t amount proving your strength to the world, resilience is about your ability to surrender and survive the storms.’
Over the years, my planned path had been interrupted many times; whether it was fallen trees, diversions, or unexpected tides, thunderstorms, injuries, or cattle that nearly crushed my life.
All of nature’s challenges taught me that we are not in control. And through this experience, I learnt that resilience is not only for the brave and the bold.
Resilience is built by those who dare to surrender their soul; it’s not always about being strong, sometimes it’s about being soft. So next time you find yourself questioning what it means to be resilient, don’t be fooled.
Resilience isn’t about completing challenges…
It’s about surrendering to life’s storms.
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