The Year the Contract Ended

No one tells you that sometimes the bravest thing you’ll ever do is stop holding everyone else together.

For twenty years, my life was structured around caretaking:my son, my mother, my clients, my teams, broken men with beautiful intentions, and entire households built on my spine.

I did it well.

Elegantly, even.

No martyrdom.

No complaint.

I just… handled it.

That was my coded mandate:

Earn so everyone is safe.

Work so everyone else can breathe.

Build so no one falls.

I didn’t realise how much of my money-story, identity, and nervous systemwas tethered to that single truth:

“I make money so others can live.”

And then, in 2023,the architecture changed beneath my feet.

My mother passed.

My son became his own man.

My dog — my shadow — was gone.

My clients disappeared like a flock sensing a shift in weather.

Suddenly, there was no one to hold.

And with that, my ability to earn collapsed.

It terrified me. Not because I thought I’d starve but because I didn’t know how to make money just for myself.

I could summon strength for others instantly but lineage had never taught mehow to resource myself without a dependent in sight.

It wasn’t burnout.

It wasn’t failure.

It was a contract ending.

The caretaking era closed, and my system didn’t yet know who I was without a role.

I’ve built companies.I’ve led divisions.I’ve earned well. But this silence, this stillness, asked a different question:

What happens when your value is no longer measured in how many people you carry?

I’ve been learning the answer slowly.

I moved countries.

I relinquished old identities.

I let grief settle.I wrote.

And wrote.

And wrote.

I gave myself back my own life.

Now I’m building from a place I’ve never stood before:not obligation,not rescue,not survival,

but sovereignty.

My work now - Simpatico Publishing, the corridor, the mythmaking, the writing, is not about holding the world on my back.

It’s about transmission.Creation.Co-building the future that doesn’t yet have language.

I used to measure myself annually:earnings, losses, projections.

Now the metric is different:

Am I building what is mine?Am I telling the truth?Is the current alive in my body?

I know how to take care of others.I’ve mastered that.

Now, it’s my turn.

A new season is underway.Not dependent on being needed, but rooted in being chosen - by myself.

I don’t know exactly where it leads.

But the hum is back.The spark is steady.The corridor opens when I speak.

That’s enough direction for now.

Gail x

If the corridor is calling…

Each new moon and full moon,I send a live transmission into the field - small mythfilms, voice notes, and fragments of story that land in the body.

It’s not a newsletter. It’s a doorway.

If you want to feel the work as it unfolds, you can step through here:

➡︎ https://www.simpaticopublishing.co.uk/the-corridor

No pressure. Just an open threshold.

Some arrive for curiosity.

Some for wonder.

Some because something in their chest answered, yes - I remember that place.

If you feel the pull, you’re already halfway inside.