Hello Darling,

I have a confession.

I am no longer available for small talk.

I don't mean that in a rude way. I mean it in the way that happens when something shifts in you so fundamentally that you just can't go back to talking about the weather and ‘how is it May already’ and ‘are you going away this summer'?’

I drove to London yesterday. Six hours there. Two hours in a room with a complete stranger. Six hours home. (i’m genuinely writing this to you from a service station on the M5)

Twelve hours of driving for a two hour meeting.

And I would do it again tomorrow.

Her name is Carly. She's an incredible and gifted sound healer and a certified supplier of the most extraordinary crystal singing bowls. I was going to collect my new alchemy bowls. She could have couriered them. I could have saved myself an entire day on the motorway.

But we both knew we had to meet.

I couldn't tell you how we knew. We just did.

Within two minutes of sitting down together we were deep in it. The real stuff. The sort of conversations that make you feel like you've known someone for decades. We talked about our work, our paths, our purpose. Within minutes we talked about the witch wound - of course we did.

If you haven't heard of the witch wound it's worth knowing about. Intergenerational trauma that many women carry, traced back to the Burning Times. The centuries when women who were healers, seers, herbalists, wise women - women who held power - were persecuted for it. Burned, drowned, silenced.

That trauma didn't just disappear. It lives in our bones. It shows up as the fear of being seen. The instinct to hide your power. The voice that says don’t be too much. don't shine too bright, don't say the thing you actually know to be true.

The voice that keeps you safe by keeping you small.

I know that voice very well. I spent years listening to it.

Somewhere between Cornwall and London and back again, sitting with my wildly powerful new bowls in the back of my car, I thought about how far I've come from that woman. The one who would have let the bowls be couriered because it was easier. The one who dimmed herself down, stayed in the draining job, didn't make the investment, didn't take up the space.

She's still in there somewhere. I hear her occasionally.

But she's not driving anymore.

Here's what I believe with everything I have: there are no chance meetings. None. The right person at the right moment. The conversation that shouldn't have happened but did. The soul sister who arrives exactly when you need her. Every single one of them purposeful. Every single one of them sent.

The universe is always conspiring in your favour. But you have to be available for it. You have to say yes to the six hour drive. You have to stop making yourself so small and so quiet and so sensible that magic can't find you.

I quit my job last week. I made the investments that scared me. And this week two exciting opportunities have landed - one of which has been sitting on my vision board for eighteen months - that I am not quite ready to tell you about yet.

But I will.

Because nothing that's happening right now feels like coincidence.

It feels like arrival.

I am no longer available for small talk, darling. Come find me at soul level.

That's where I'll be.

Huge love, always.Vic x

P.S. The new bowls - oh my gaaaaaaaaaaad!!!!! They are so incredible - I had to pull in on the M4 just to look at them. We are going to create so much magic and deep work together. I can already feel it.

Let me tell you about the kind of week that makes people say: ‘are you sure you're okay babe?’

I quit my job.

I signed up for a year of advanced sound healing training with my magical mentor that cost more than felt comfortable. More than felt sensible. More than the voice in my head - the one that's been keeping score of every financial wobble for the last few years - thought was wise.

And I bought new crystal singing bowls. Beautiful, extraordinary, makes-me-want-to-cry bowls. Another sum that scared me.

On paper it looks reckless. I know that.

But here's what else happened this year. Well, in the last 4 months actually…

I had major surgery. And then it went wrong. And then came the infections - one after another, each one knocking me down a little further just as I thought I was getting back up. I’ve spent a significant part of this year in a body that was fighting hard just to get back to baseline. Still is actually, if I’m very truthful.

And while I’ve been doing that - managing the fear and the pain and the grossness and the bone deep exhaustion (is that medical or perimenopause?!!?) - I was also in the middle of two separate battles.

Nearly three years of a bitter financial dispute with my ex that had ground on and on in the way only these things can.

And separately a case against the DWP. A government body who came for me, who used their considerable weight to try and frighten me into backing down.

They picked the wrong woman.

I represented myself in court. No barrister (couldn’t afford one). No safety net. Just me, my homework, my truth and an absolute refusal to be intimidated.

I won.

I'm going to say that again because I want you to really hear it.

I won.

And this week I just sort of thought, if I can do that, if I can go through everything this year has already thrown at me and still be standing, still be fighting, still be showing up, then what exactly am I waiting for?

What door am I still leaving closed out of habit? Out of fear? Out of some old story about what I deserve, or what's possible, or what a woman my age should sensibly be doing with her life?

So I quit the job that was draining me. And I said yes to the training. And I ordered the bowls.

Not because I have it all figured out. I absolutely do not.

Not because the timing is perfect. It categorically is not.

Not because I can afford to fail. Less than 12 months ago I was skipping meals so my kid could eat. I know exactly what financial rock bottom feels like and I have no desire to go back there.

But because I have learned - the hard way, multiple times - that playing it safe has a cost too. That staying in the draining job, saying no to the training, keeping yourself small and sensible and practical, that all costs something. It just costs something quieter. Something you don't notice until one day you look up and realise you've been paying it for years.

I am done paying that particular bill.

So I'm investing in myself like I'm already her. The woman I'm becoming. The one who does the work that lights her up, who stands on stages and sits with bowls and writes letters on Sunday mornings to women she hasn't met yet but already loves.

I'm spending like she already exists.

Because if I don't believe in her enough to bet on her, if I don't, then who will?

Here's what I want to say to you, darling, if you're sitting with your own version of this.

You don't need a perfect year or a perfect starting point to make a brave decision. You don't need to have it all together. You don't need to wait until the scary thing stops feeling scary. Spoiler - it won’t.

You just need to decide that you are worth the bet.

The maths never quite works before you jump.

It works because you jumped.

Leap and the universe will catch you my darling. I truly truly believe that.

Huge love, always.

Vic x

I want to tell you about this space. What it is, why it exists, and why I’m here writing to you instead of doing ‘The Big Shop’ at Sainsbury’s.

This is Hello Darling. Named after the way my grandmother used to open her letters to me. Always those two words first. No preamble, no fuss. Just - hello darling. Like we were together in a room about to have the best conversation - she could not be doing with small talk

That’s what I want this to feel like.

I’m Victoria. I’m 49. I’m a radio presenter, a sound healer, a speaker, and apparently someone who is very good at burning her life down and starting again from the ashes. I’ve done it more than once now. Lost the dream job at 43. Walked away from the relationship and the life and the house I was building at 46. Hit financial rock bottom at 48. And now here I am. Coming out the other side. A bit battered. Considerably wiser. Still standing.

Still writing.

This newsletter is for anyone who has ever looked at their life and thought - this is good, I know it’s good, so why does it feel like it’s not quite enough? For the women who want more and feel almost guilty saying so. For the ones who are brave enough to want change but haven’t quite worked out how to start. For anyone sitting in the messy middle of something hard, wondering if it ever gets better.

It does, by the way. It gets better.

I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. The world does not need another middle aged white woman in 90 quid leggings doing that. What I will do is tell you the truth about mine and the lessons I learned when I was stuck in the deepness of it all: The anxiety weeks, the colouring books, the bonkbuster therapy, the dark nights of the soul and the one word replies that sting. The crystals on the windowsill, the perfect amount of woo woo and the eye rolls at the wellness industry I work in. The magic and the mess of it all.

Think of it as a letter from a friend who has been through it, has got the t-shirt, and genuinely believes you’re going to be okay.

Because you are.

Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. I know it can be lonely - but from this point forward it won’t be.

Huge love, always.

Vic x

ps - if you’ve found your way here from my Mailchimp newsletter, hello again darling. Same letter, better home. You’re in the right place.

pps - if you’re completely new, welcome. Pull up a chair. There’s always room.