It was only after causing a ‘complete earthquake’ in her life, that Donna Ashworth shot to fame in her 40s as the UK’s best selling living contemporary poet.
Donna’s midlife career pivot came after one of her sons was diagnosed with ADHD just prior to lockdown. “I realised life was never going to be the same ever again… so I thought I’m going to rip it all apart and start again,” she tells this week’s Second Act podcast of the moment she quit the life she once knew, selling her business, relocating from England to Scotland and moving back into her mum and dad’s house with her husband and two sons.
Having spent years writing a blog for her ‘sanity’, it was posting the poem ‘History Will Remember When The World Stopped’ on Instagram that led to global recognition and a celebrity following that includes Davina McCall, Michael Sheen and Cat Deeley. “Hope has to be at the forefront of absolutely everything… I self-appointed myself as a harbinger of hope in the pandemic.”
Now with 12 books under her belt, the 51-year-old reveals that the same brilliant brain that helped her achieve success and bring joy around the world, has also caused her strife with bouts of anorexia, anxiety, a ‘debilitating’ OCD condition and late diagnosed ADHD that has taken her until midlife to find the tools to manage.
“My head is an exhausting place to be. I’m one of these people that can do great, big things that look quite impressive in the moment. But (in my first act) I hadn’t done it with the right mental fortitude or emotional peace underneath it. And so I would bounce off every wall that I came across and just keep going until I eventually crashed, burned, wallop onto the ground,” she says, as she reveals the secret ‘magical’ hacks that took decades researching to turn her life around.
Swapping alcohol for mediation was one game changer. But she is aware that triggers such as chatter around weight loss jabs, can arise at any time – it’s how she now deals with them that matters. “The source of what caused that in the first place will always rear its head in my life, and I’ll always have to readjust it,” she says. “Awareness is everything and I don’t beat myself up for that. This is just part of the way my brain processes. I’ve learnt to love my weirdness.”
Ageing has been a ‘wonderful’ transformation for Donna who was ‘desperate’ to turn 50.
“I’ve been so excited about getting older because my life, my world has opened up,” she says. “The older that I’ve got, life gets easier every single day. The inner child, the passion within is coming out more and more and I feel lighter.
“Love. Kindness, hope. Connection, faith. You know, these are all things that will actually hold you up. Instead of carrying guilt, shame, remorse, regret, anxiety. So for me, life is just getting better and better.”
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