For a long time, I thought purpose was something I had to find; a destination. A title. A role. A sentence I could write neatly on a website or say confidently when someone asked, “So, what do you do?” But purpose — as I’ve learned through my own healing and the work I now do, isn’t a fixed identity. It isn’t a job description or a mission statement. It isn’t even something you ‘discover’ once and then carry forever.

As one of SIRPA's Ambassadors for Fatigue, this is a personal story from my lived experience. There are chapters of my life I can still feel in my body if I close my eyes - not because the symptoms are still here, but because the emotional imprint of those years was so deep and so consuming that it reshaped the way I understood myself.

The short answer is yes. Anxiety is deeply neuroplastic. In other words, the brain circuits that create and maintain anxiety are not fixed; they can change, soften, reorganise, and settle through new experiences, learning, and intentional practices. Anxiety isn’t a personal flaw or a permanent identity; it’s a pattern the brain has learned over time - which means it’s also a pattern the brain can unlearn.