Sometimes circumstances are just so that we have to take the opportunity for change…

I love how what is happening on this walking journey from Edinburgh to Croydon, seems to parallel what was happening when I lived in some of the places I’m passing through. But then, maybe it’s just me concocting stories, building connection, and attempting to make sense of The Journey.

In sum, my foot journey is changing direction – heading to Bristol via Oxford, rather than via Hereford. Other than this making the journey a tad longer, this isn’t such a drastic change, especially when compared with the change I made when I first moved to Coventry nearly 19 years ago.

Time in Coventry

Coventry isn’t too dissimilar to Croydon, in that it’s a busy, mostly concrete, urban area, that’s not been designed to optimally nourish human life (or any life really).

Being largely obliterated during World War 2, Coventry was rebuilt with cars and industry central to its infrastructure rather than wellbeing. It has a classic ring-road layout, with a city centre tightly squeezed within that ring road. It’s not very lovely.

Whilst the idiom being ‘sent to Coventry’ (which means to deliberately ostracise someone) doesn’t have anything to do with Coventry per se, it doesn’t paint a glowing picture of the place.

Safe to say I was neither sent there or ostracised. But I was apprehensive about going there in my mid 20’s. And although it was the beginnings of my career getting deep into happiness and also where I discovered that you don’t have to go far on a bicycle to get into leafy areas, both of these things could not have happened without the sudden decision I made about a week before I arrived to begin my studies – to stop drinking alcohol, forever…

Circumstances ripe for change

It turned out to be the most important decision of my life. It’s been nearly 19 years now since I last drank and I honestly shudder to think what would have happened otherwise.

I’ve written extensively about my experiences with alcohol elsewhere, but what I want to highlight here is the importance of tuning into ourselves, knowing that there is a different way to do something, and then taking the opportunity when it is right, and the space we are in and those we surround ourselves with will support it. Coventry was an opportunity to begin rebuilding myself.

I had long known that drinking was a major problem. Coventry, although not largely different to Croydon, where the problem originated and I had struggled to stop drinking, gave me the best opportunity up until then to try out something different. And without the usual reminders to do what I used to do – the people, environmental stressors and cues – I could more easily break the addiction and form new habits with new people and new cues.

That’s why I am happy to be back in Coventry. And grateful for my move here many years ago and the 5 years I spent here. I feel lucky to have had a ‘relatively’ easy opportunity to change.

Why Oxford?

I’m also happy to be making decisions here to take the journey in a different direction – to go to Oxford. The journey calls for it and it feels 100% right to make the detour. The Wellbeing Research Centre is based at the University there, and the director, Jan, whos long been inspired and supportive of my journeying, got in touch to let me know that if I passed through he’d host me.

So I’m going…it’s a fab opportunity to connect…

But first to my friend Katie, who designed my book cover (what a work of art that is), then to Leamington Spa, where I lived for a bit but never enjoyed, and then to Stratford-Upon-Avon, where I’ll pick up the Shakespeare Way and weave my way to Oxford. To get back to Bristol I will go upriver along the Thames.

All these delightful places we have in the UK…that is if we dare to take the opportunity to discover them.

***Thank you for reading this article. It’s part of a series of blog posts that I’ve been writing to share my journey on foot from Edinburgh to Croydon. If you’d like to find out more then go to this page.