✨ Two Years Alive: What My Heart Taught Me About Living with Intention
Two years ago today, my life changed in an instant.
One moment I was moving through my days the way so many of us do — busy, capable, “fine” — and the next, I was facing my own mortality.
A moment like that rearranges you.
It strips away everything that doesn’t matter and shines a spotlight on the things that do.
And each year when this date comes around, I pause.
I breathe.
I honour the truth of what happened.
But more than anything, I reflect on what it taught me.
This is the story I want to share with you today — not to dramatise what happened, but to offer the same gentle nudge that ultimately saved my life:
Don’t wait for a health event, a crisis, or a scare to start living with intention.
Before the shock — I was living in the “comfortable middle”
The comfortable middle is that space where life looks fine from the outside —
you’re functioning, working, doing what needs to be done —
but inside, something is being quietly neglected.
For me, it was my body, my emotions, my energy.
I pushed through exhaustion.
I dismissed symptoms.
I ignored the whispers.
I kept telling myself, “I’ll deal with it later.”
But later never came.
The comfortable middle feels safe…
until it isn’t.
Looking back, I see how much I was drifting — reacting to life instead of leading it.
Surviving instead of living.
And then came the 3am moment that changed everything.
That moment my life changed
There are moments that mark us — moments when the world narrows to a single breath, a single choice, a single second.
My sudden cardiac event was one of those moments.
There’s no preparing for an instant like that —
when your body shocks you into silence, when fear mixes with clarity,
when everything you’ve brushed aside suddenly comes into focus.
I remember saying over and over again: “I am in so much trouble.”
That night made something unmistakably clear:
Ignoring myself had a cost. A big cost.
My body had been speaking.
I just didn’t want to listen.
Surviving wasn’t an accident.
It was a wake-up call.
It was life saying:
“Tracey… no more later.”
Gratitude in reverse — what almost losing my life taught me
I’ve learned a lot about gratitude over the years, but the last two have been different.
This was gratitude in reverse — gratitude born from what I almost lost.
I became grateful for breath.
For mornings.
For quiet.
For softness.
For the strange, beautiful way healing forces you to pay attention.
Recovery wasn’t linear. And I definitely didn’t do it alone.
In this last year, I’ve leaned on Daisy — my implanted defibrillator —
my small, techy guardian who now walks with me everywhere.
Learning to trust her was a journey in itself. But she became a symbol of something bigger:
A second chance.
A reminder that I was still here — and that there was work to be done.
The biggest shift: choosing my life instead of drifting through it
That event forced me to ask a question I had avoided for years:
“What am I really doing with my life?” Not from fear — but from honesty.
I realised I couldn’t go back to living on autopilot.
I didn’t want to drift anymore.
I wanted to participate in my life.
And that’s when intentional living became non-negotiable:
Daily choices.
Daily awareness.
Daily energy checks.
Daily honesty.
Not perfection — just presence.
My pivoting steps — which had been whispering since 2021 as things slowly unravelled — became clearer on December 11th, 2023. What followed were small, doable, gentle shifts that accumulated over time and transformed the way I live now.
Discovering health coaching — and the birth of On the Pulse Health
Somewhere in that rebuilding, I stumbled into something unexpected:
health coaching.
I joined PREKURE as a student when my body, heart, and mind were still incredibly fragile. I didn’t realise it then, but their training would become one of the most important pieces of my healing.
PREKURE didn’t just teach me skills. It taught me science, guidance, and agency.
It gave me a framework to rebuild — emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually — and with a big dose of hope.
And slowly, a truth emerged:
My lived experience wasn’t a burden.
It was a bridge.
A way to help others rebuild, too.
That’s how On the Pulse Health was born.
Not as a business idea — but as a continuation of my own healing journey.
A space where I support people navigating diagnosis, trauma, fear, grief… the ones standing where I once stood, asking: “How do I move forward from here?”
This work is deeply personal.
And it matters to me more than I can ever express.
Two years on — the truths I now carry
Standing here at the two-year mark, I feel steadier.
Braver.
Clearer.
Here’s what I know now:
✨ Change doesn’t start with the big moment — it starts with the small decisions afterward.
✨ Your body whispers long before it shouts — listen early.
✨ Recovery is not a race. It’s a slow unfolding.
✨ The comfortable middle isn’t where life expands. Courage is.
✨ You are allowed to pivot — at any age, at any stage.
✨ Gratitude comes alive when you almost lose the chance to feel it.
✨ Being alive is no longer something I take lightly — it’s something I honour.
Moving forward — gently, intentionally, wholeheartedly
So here I am…
two years alive, and choosing — every single day —
to live with intention.
To protect my energy.
To honour what my body tells me.
To use my voice.
To support others walking their own after-shock journey.
To be present in my life, not just passing through it.
If you’re reading this and you’ve had your own life-altering moment —
or if you find yourself stuck in that comfortable middle —
I hope my story reminds you of something important:
You’re allowed to change.
You’re allowed to start again.
You’re allowed to choose yourself.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
This is why I do this work.
This is why On the Pulse Health exists.
Warmest wishes,
