Durga Strength
Certificate

I started seeing colours when I close my eyes and bring myself to stillness. Vivid, unexpected. I don't have a neat explanation for it. I'm learning to receive it as it comes.

The inner work this month was about releasing old anger and grief. Grudges I didn't even know I was still carrying. Past experiences that used to land on me like stones don't have the same weight anymore. They're experiences now, not wounds. And people have started noticing I glow differently these days. I notice it too.

I also invested properly in botanical skincare and haircare for the first time — not as indulgence, but as devotion. Looking after my body because she deserves it, not because I need to look a certain way.

This month I started kickboxing. Twice a week, after the studio closes. The first session I cried in the car afterwards — not because it was hard, but because I realised how long I'd been moving my body for other people's pleasure. For audiences, for choreographers, for students watching. Moving for myself felt almost rebellious.

Boundaries have been my biggest Durga lesson. I had a conversation with a colleague this month that I'd been avoiding for two years. Said exactly what I needed to say, clearly, without softening it to the point where it disappeared. She heard me. That was new.

I'm more energised, more direct, and surprisingly — softer. Like the strength and the softness are finally allowed to exist in the same body at the same time.

But that's the thing about Durga — she doesn't wait until you feel ready. She meets you exactly where you are and says: this is enough. This is the starting point. Now let's go.

I started walking daily this month. Nothing dramatic. But every morning, just me and the city waking up around me. I began noticing how my body felt different in open air — less compressed, less like I was bracing for something. I started saying no to two things that had been quietly draining me for months. Both times, the world didn't end. One relationship actually got better.

The biggest discovery was this: I always thought boundary-setting was about pushing people away. Durga showed me it's actually about creating space for the right things to arrive. When I stopped saying yes to everything, I suddenly had room to breathe — and in that space, I started to feel like myself again.