The shoes that saved my life - about grief, leadership, and intuitive choices

Sometimes you make a decision no one understands.
Not because you can explain it - or even need to.
You just feel it: this is what I have to do now.

It’s been nearly ten years. But I remember that day vividly.
My husband had been murdered six days earlier.
My daughter, just two weeks old, lay in the stroller.
And me? I knew one thing with absolute clarity:

If I don’t move now, I’ll collapse. And if I collapse, I may never get back up.

When grief demands leadership

Grief can be paralyzing. It strips away your ability to think, to plan, to function.
But personal leadership - real, raw leadership - asks for something different.

It doesn’t wait for clarity.
It starts with stillness inside the chaos.
It asks you to stand up when you have no idea how.
To listen to what your body is whispering when your mind is screaming for answers.

That day, I didn’t choose based on reason.
I chose based on intuition.

Running as a form of grief recovery

I walked into a specialist shop in London - Runners Need - just off Camden High Street.
I had my feet measured. My gait analysed. Not because I had a fitness goal.
I needed a lifeline. And those running shoes were going to be it.

The shop assistant looked at my baby. “Two weeks old?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe it’s too early to start running again.”

My response?

“There are quite a few things in my life that aren’t wise...”
Thinking of the man who walked down the street with a kitchen knife in broad daylight
and stabbed my husband to death.

Those shoes became my anchor.
My decision not to go under.

 Movement as a way to cope with trauma

I laced them up every time the walls closed in.
Every time the grief swallowed the air in the room.
I ran. Through Camden. Kentish Town. Islington.
Not to escape, but to stay connected to myself.

My body was still broken from birth.
But somewhere inside me, a primal force awakened.
My recovery was faster than expected - not thanks to any plan,
but because I trusted my instinct.

My legs burned. My lungs screamed.
But for the first time in weeks, I felt something other than sorrow:
I felt alive.

Intuitive decision-making in crisis

And that, too, is what leadership looks like.
Not waiting until you have all the answers.
But moving, because standing still is not an option.

Sometimes, action matters more than understanding.
Sometimes, going matters more than knowing where.

Grief is not just about loss.
It’s about choice.
Choosing to live.
To take back ownership of a life that shattered in your hands.

That was the moment I chose.
And it started with a pair of running shoes.

Leadership begins with a single step

Those shoes are worn out now.
But I’ll never throw them away.

Because they remind me of that exact moment
when everything screamed “Give up,”
and I chose to move instead.

They stand for:

• Movement as survival.

• Daring to trust your intuition.

• Claiming leadership in the middle of heartbreak.

Maybe it wasn’t wise to go running two weeks after giving birth.
Maybe it looked crazy from the outside.
But it saved me.

And I never stopped running.