What Anchors You?

This may look like an ordinary coffee cup, but to me, it represents so much more. When my husband and I visited the country we would eventually call home, I came across this little coffee cup sitting alone on a shelf in a small shop.

At that moment, I was overwhelmed, knowing that I was about to go through one of the biggest changes of my life.

I bought the cup, leaving it behind in our half-built home across the sea on a shelf as an anchor—a reminder of where I had come from as I navigated one of the most emotionally challenging periods of my life.

✨Selling the home where I raised my four kids for 20 years

✨Letting go of a friendship I thought would last a lifetime

✨Going through significant hormonal body changes (ladies, you know if you know)

✨Preparing to move to another country without speaking the language

✨Leaving my four kids to navigate adulthood on their own, trusting the tools we’d given them would guide them.

I think I cried for three months straight, my poor husband bearing the weight of all my emotions—my sense of being untethered and uncertain.

That coffee cup sitting on a shelf across the sea became my anchor, my totem for the life I was about to step into—one where I could finally breathe, exhale, and feel at peace.

Every day, I would imagine holding it in my hands, visualizing myself sitting in our new home overlooking the ocean, surrounded by a sense of calm and peace, and my kids thriving even without us.

My other anchors during that time of uncertainty were:

✨Prayer

✨Faith

✨Friendships

✨Journaling

And now, what was once just a vision is my reality. I sit here today, at long last holding that lone coffee cup I purchased a year ago, looking out over the view I dreamed of for so long. My kids are thriving, and the tears I shed have been replaced by gratitude, realizing that the big change I feared most became my greatest gift.

And my poor, wonderful husband… he survived all of me.

What about you? Do you have an anchor, your totem that helps you visualize a future you’re working toward? What connects you to that future and allows you to be present with the knowledge that one day, it will become your lived experience?