Inordinate amounts of pain, both physical and emotional, alongside betrayal, heartbreak and abandonment are woven throughout Dana’s life story, but they are not what define her because it is from these experiences that she has grown and become an extraordinarily authentic, warm, and courageous woman who broke a chain that ran back generations.

A mother, a grandmother, and beautiful from the inside out, at sixty-one years old, Dana is standing in her own light, certain of her mission, and more herself than she has ever been. The proof that everything — every rupture, every retreat, every fall into the wrong arms, every middle of the night escape with her clothes in garbage bags — was, in the end, working for her.

Dana Grant is the unfolding tale of a little girl who came into a world where the women before her did not know how to love themselves. A mother who failed to attach because her own mother failed to attach. A father — magnanimous, chaotic, beloved — who carried the weight of his own father’s alcoholism until it became his own. A lineage of women who sought love and safety in all the places it could not be found.

And Dana, who chose them both. Who looked at everything they could not give her and decided — consciously, over decades, at great cost — that she would be the one to break the chain.

Her story begins the way the most extraordinary stories often do. Not with a single dramatic rupture, but with the slow accumulation of a childhood where safety was never guaranteed. Bounced between parents, between grandparents, between houses. Graduated at seventeen and thrown out by her grandparents that same day — a car, an eight-track, no cell phone, no safety net, and a very young girl dropped into San Francisco with no knowledge of what was coming.

She dragged her clothes out in garbage bags in the middle of the night to escape situations that should never have found a girl that age. She survived on survival instinct alone. And when the panic attacks came — so severe she was hospitalised, convinced each time she was having a heart attack — it was a nurse in a yellow sweater who put her hand on Dana and said: I can’t imagine what’s happened in your life to bring you to this.

Dana can still smell her. Still see that yellow sweater. Still feel that hand.

She fell into her first marriage the way women fall when they have never known what safety feels like and someone offers a version of it. Poetry. A good family. The appearance of stability. Three years, ten months. She fled with her two daughters, the neighbours’ car, and nothing else.

Nine years as a single mother followed. She set records at the US Chamber of Commerce that remain unbroken to this day — because she thought everyone was running as fast as she was. She did not know yet that it was trauma driving her. The panic attacks became migraines. The migraines became a systemic infection in her legs so severe that doctors told her they might not be able to save them both. The shame that had lived in her since childhood kept her from asking for help until she was nearly out of time.

And then she fell again. A second husband — safe, established, present. She had her mother and her father in one man, and she did not see it. Twenty-five years. A daughter together. And then the discovery that shattered everything she thought she had built. He had been sexually assaulting his patients. The medical licence. The truth.

It was the biggest rupture of all. And it was the one that finally healed the wound she had been carrying her whole life.

Bless them and release. That is Dana’s word for forgiveness. Not naive. Not erasure. Parameters, not boundaries — she will not go back, but she will not set up house in the grief either. She can hold space for the good human and the broken human. She has had to learn to hold that space for herself first.

What she found on the other side of all of it was the thing she had been seeking in every marriage, every relationship, every external validation — the safety she had to build inside herself. Her first words every morning, before her eyes are open:

All is well in my world. I am safe. I am loved. I am protected.

And the proof that it worked — her daughter’s playlist is Dana’s playlist. Her daughter’s mothering is Dana’s mothering. Now a grandmother. The chain is broken. The gift has been paid forward.

And now something new is brewing. She has surrendered half a million dollars in clients this year because the universe declared it time to clean house — and she is not anxious about it. She is expectant. She knows something magnificent is coming. She is no longer watering herself down to be more palatable, no longer blending in, no longer asking: am I okay, am I loved, am I enough?

She knows the answer now.

We are not meant to blend in, she says. We are meant to be bold, audacious, and claim. Because then we give other women permission to claim the same.

This is Dana Grant’s real life fairy tale. Mapped through Rupture, Retreat, Return, and Rise.

When you listen to this conversation, you may hear your own life in it somewhere. The inherited wounds. The fall into familiar arms. The running so fast you didn’t know you were running. The moment someone’s hand found you in the dark. The slow, hard, magnificent work of becoming home for yourself.

That is the work of real life fairy tales. Maps and mirrors for the journey we are all on.

Through Rupture, Retreat, Return, and Rise.

Listen via the link above or watch on my YouTube Channel - @edwinamurphydroomer

Before you press play, I ask that you take a moment to pause. To receive another woman’s story is a sacred thing. What Dana has shared is a gift that few are willing to offer. Her generosity, courage, and willingness to share her story so authentically is the most vulnerable, and yet incredibly generous thing any woman can do for another.

For Inner Sanctum members: The Deep Map for this episode — Dana’s story mapped through archetype, tarot, and the Rupture/Retreat/Return/Rise framework — will be inside the Inner Sanctum soon.

With love always, Edwina x

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinamurphydroomer.substack.com/subscribe

If someone handed me the story of Kim Morrison’s life, till now, as a novel, I know I wouldn’t be able to put it down.

It is the unfolding tale of a beautiful little girl, whose light was a magnet for unimaginable evil. But somehow her light never dimmed.

Hers is the story of a child who at 9 navigated more horror and heartbreak than any child should have to endure.

Born to a mother who was 17, the wheel of time turned 17 times, until she herself was 17 and left the family home.

With a job that paid her $112 a week she found a flat, covering the cost of rent, and travel, she had just $5-$10 a week for food, but still she kept moving.

As a young woman she quit her job, sold her car, and bought a one-way ticket to Melbourne for a man she had manifested in diary entries as a child. Guided by an unseen hand he suddenly came to be standing in front of her… and not only that, fresh off the cricket field, sweaty and oooohhh so hot, he smelled divine…lol

Chapter after chapter of Kim's story is filled to overflowing with the rich experiences of life that have continued to mould and shape her into the extraordinary woman she is today.

As I continued to listen to her story unfold the one thing I kept thinking was,

“How does someone go through all that she has and remain such an openhearted, bright and beautiful light in the world?”

I believe that she was gifted from birth, the ability to look at all that life sent her way through a lens of love, not fear.

What do you think?

When we are in the daily motion of living, we don’t imagine our lives as part of a bigger story.

Being inside the story, in the trenches, or standing in a bubble of bliss on the mountaintop, or somewhere in the ordinary, unremarkable middle where nothing feels mythic at all. We don’t see the arc. We just face, head on, the next thing.

Kim Morrison’s life story shows us a journey through all seasons.

The Rupture — the experiences that forever changed her reality.

The Retreat — where ‘what now’ needs an answer…sometimes by choice, more often by necessity.

The Return — moving forward, through trial and error, with more lessons to learn and a deepening pool of wisdom to draw from, and

The Rise — when everything you dreamed of comes to life, which Kim will be the first to tell you is never the end of the story, only the top of a wheel that keeps turning.

It is beautiful to hear there are more than one fairy godmothers in Kim’s story.

A woman named Margie, who stepped in and conspired with her mother to get her out of a dangerous relationship.

Her mother, who gave her untold strength and words that became a touchstone in her life. “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” Kim had it printed out everywhere and held it like a talisman. And it served her well.

A French woman in her 80s named Jacqueline who wove into her heart the knowing that “when there is love, there is no problem”. Also anchoring in the wisdom of the seasons in our inner world. “Some of us are better in winter. Others in spring. You have to allow the full potentiality of each person in each season.”

In India, chosen from four hundred people for a one-on-one with a Tibetan Buddhist master, Kim asked the question she had been carrying since she was nine years old. Why do humans have to go through so much pain? He laughed, and then he said: “My dear, how could you possibly understand love without fear? There’s only two forces in life, love or fear. There’s nothing else. There’s only love or fear. Everything negative sits under fear or anything that challenges you sits there and everything else is love. And when there’s love, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Her Grandmother, who in answer to a recurring nightmare that Kim was having said, “When you have those negative thoughts, those fears, those worries — that’s just your angels asking you to pay attention, sweetheart.”

This is Kim Morrison’s real life fairy tale.

A story that follows the Wheel of Fortune, turning as the seasons continue to roll forward, each bringing a lesson that deepens into an unfathomably deep pool of wisdom.

“I do believe in fairy tales,” she says. “I do believe in happy endings, and that there are just often new beginnings as well.”

When you listen to this conversation, you may hear things that cause you to think of your own story, yes different, but yet somehow a mirror. The ruptures that forever change your reality. The retreats that ask you to reconnect to your intuition, to grieve, to heal, and to consider what’s next. The returns that bring the beginning of a new chapter. The rises that bring celebration and gratitude for all that is. The moments when someone said something that became a touchstone in your life. And the wisdom to know that the Wheel will turn again, bringing with it a new chapter in the story of your life.

This is the work of Traditional Fairy Tales.

The maps and mirrors for our Real Life Fairy Tales.

Through Rupture, Retreat, Return, and Rise.

You can listen via the audio above or watch on YouTube.

Before you press play, I ask that you take a moment to pause and give thanks. What Kim has shared is a gift that few are willing to offer. Her generosity, courage, and willingness to share her story so authentically is the most vulnerable, and yet incredibly generous thing any woman can do for another.

—

For Inner Sanctum members: The Archetypal Vision Board Experience begins Monday the 8th of June. Subscribe now to join us. x

With love always,

Edwina x

Kim invites us to explore the ways we can use her exquisite essential oils to enrich our journey through each season in our lives:

✨ Ground Me—Find stability and inner peace✨ Nurture Me—Embrace deep self-care and restoration✨ Inspire Me—Awaken creativity and clarity✨ Love Me—Cultivate true self-worth

To learn more, connect or shop with Kim head to her social media or website twenty8.com.

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1. Learning about wolves

2. Two clients messaging me in one weekend

3. A question in my messages this morning asking - how exactly do I help people reconnect to being who they were meant to be.

What Life University has taught me.

“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” - Paulo Coelho

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinamurphydroomer.substack.com/subscribe

Following on from > When the way out or the way forward isn’t clear.This is the story I told you was coming.

The mythic fairy tale that mirrors Sohana’s modern-day real-life fairy tale.

Start here or start with Sohana. Follow your intuition.

When you are ready — press play. Let the story do what it does.

With love Edwina

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinamurphydroomer.substack.com/subscribe

I want to open a door for you.

A door into a private world, where women tell other women stories.

Stories that will take your breath away. Stories that will shock you, and make you grit your teeth in fury. Stories that will make you snort with laughter, as you bury your face in your hands. Stories that will make your eyes widen with wonder and awe.

Real life women, living real life fairy tales.

Through Rupture — when life pulls the rug from beneath our feet and reality is forever changed.

Through Retreat — when sitting in the ashes of what was, we wonder what’s next.

Through Return — when we re-emerge, try and fail, and try again, all the while becoming the next evolution of who we are here to become.

Through Rise — when we pause and notice a breathtakingly beautiful moment that now captures the essence of the life we have built.

Through stories we connect. Through stories we learn.

Each is a mirror and a map. Illuminating the path between where we are and where we want to be.

— — —

When I thought about women in my world whose stories I was intrigued to capture, Sohana was the first woman who leapt into my mind. My intuition was clear, and so I followed the nudge.

Some months back I had followed Sohana’s journey on social media as she journeyed through an intense health retreat in Thailand and fell in love with all that she embodied. Authenticity, strength, beauty, compassion, grace, and a gentleness that is rare... oh, and humour. She is funny.

Little did I know that her story would be a journey of epic proportions. A true heroine’s adventure.

But also, a mirror.

Women I know, women I work with, women worldwide will see themselves in this story.

And in this we learn we are not alone.

Fairy tales have existed for hundreds, and even thousands of years, and the rhythm of Rupture, Retreat, Return and Rise is mirrored as it was then, in equal measure as it is today.

We are after all not so different as we have been led to believe.

What I see in me, I see in you, and in the women whose stories I will share. And I hope you will do the same.

Story One — of Real Life Fairy Tales — A Eudaimonia Podcast Production is now live.

Listen to Sohana’s story, via the audio above, or if you prefer video, on

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Episode 5 — The Hierophant | The Archetype of the Role ModelConsciously or unconsciously, we are always watching and being watched.

So, there is much to be gained from noticing what you notice —what magnetises you,what repels you,and who embodies the way of being that epitomises who you want to be in the world.

What are those ways of being?

Becoming consciously aware of what you are role modelling for others, what you want to role model, and what you don’t, is part of the journey of becoming.

The character of Vianne from the movie Chocolat has long been my muse.

She gives us a powerful visual of the Maps of Becoming archetypes.

She is:

The Fool — I begin. Courage.

The Elemental — Earth, Air, Water, Fire.Skills, physicality and matter, thoughts and beliefs, emotions, life force, action and energy.

The High Priestess — intuition and knowing.

The Empress — the Earth Mother archetype.Nourishing, nurturing, pleasure, love, abundance.

The Emperor — the builder.Structure, protection, logic.

The Hierophant — teacher, guide, connector between spirit and human.

The Lovers — masculine and feminine energetics in harmony and unity.

The Chariot — moving in harmony with the unconscious and conscious, light and dark, feminine and masculine.

Strength — inner strength, compassion, resilience, confidence.She shall not be moved.

The Hermit — stillness, solitude, illuminating the truth and the path forward.

*

Role ModelsMay we be themMay we know themMay we raise them

*

In this week’s episode of Maps of Becoming, I explore:• The archetype of the Role Model• The Hierophant in Tarot• The shadow of arrogance and intellect• Why energy is contagious• What films and stories reveal about who we long to become• The archetypes alive within the movie Chocolat• Why your soul’s yearning matters

And I share more about the new offering:Maps of Becoming — The Archetypal Vision Board

A vision-building process designed to clarify what you want and illuminate who you are becoming.

Because The Eudaimonian Woman is the woman who knows herself.

Listen now on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.

With love always,Edwinap.s. If you would prefer to watch on YouTube, you can find this episode here > The Role Model

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinamurphydroomer.substack.com/subscribe

Hello beautiful women,

This week on Maps of Becoming, I explore one of the most powerful archetypes in the Tarot:

The Empress.

The Great Mother.The Earth Mother.The archetype of abundance, creativity, nurture, fertility, love, renewal, truth, and ferocious devotion to life itself.

And unexpectedly, this conversation arrived just days after I became a grandmother for the very first time.

In this episode, I share the moment I met my grandson Lachlan over FaceTime —the overwhelming flood of emotion that followed —and why becoming a grandmother opened something profound within me.

From there, the conversation unfolds into mythology, fairy tales, archetypes, motherhood, creativity, truth, courage, and the different expressions of love women encounter throughout a lifetime.

Inside this episode we explore:

— The myth of Demeter and Persephone— Why the Tower card appeared in my daughter’s Tarot reading before she gave birth— The difference between coddling love and ferocious love— Baba Yaga and the Wild Woman archetype— Motherhood as initiation— The creative force of the feminine— Why courage is love becoming stronger than fear— The role of truth in becoming fully ourselves— The women who “mothered” me into becoming who I am today

This is one of the most personal conversations I have shared so far.

And perhaps one of the most important.

You can listen now inside The Eudaimonia Library.

With love always,

Edwina x

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinamurphydroomer.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded under the Flower Moon.

A reminder that something can be both delicate and powerful,temporary and meaningful,simple and profound.

Knowing the importance of this work,Knowing the potential it holds,Wanting the perfect words to arrive.

And knowing that clarity comes through the willingnessto face the uneaseand take the initiative to move.

In the awareness of what you don’t want.Comes the emergence of what you do.

It is the language of knowing,felt but hard to put into words.

An unease that holds your attention.An unease that desires distraction.But if you can face it and resist the temptation to turn away…

This is where the portal to awakening opens.

In the language of fairy tales, this is the moment before the wheel of fortune turns again.

The moment when something that demands your attention is seen for what it is, not what it looks like.

In The Frog Prince and Faithful Henry, a golden ball falls into deep water.

The gold ball—a shiny, valuable item, which represents the material world of the known, which is soon challenged by what is unknown.

It disappears into the deep watery depths of her emotions.

And to retrieve it, she must face an uncomfortable new reality.

The choice becomes:Comfort,or Courage.

Choosing comfort leads to growing agitation and unease.

And here the lesson begins.

The willingness to face the unease,the agitation that thrums through your being.

When you let your intuition guide you,when you take the initiative to trust your truth,and when you act in alignment with both…

something awakens.

In the story, the turning point arrives in a moment of raw truth.

This is the movement:

From unease and agitation,to intuition and initiative,to clarity and awakening.

Each phase has its place.Each one plays its role in your becoming.A seed of potential,A blossoming beginning,A flourishing reality.

A universal truth said three different ways.

Your mind is not a camera.It is a projector.

What you think you become.

Suffering, more often than not, comes from the inside not the outside.

What you perceive reality to be is shaped by the way you think.

Changing the way you think, and the words you use, changes your reality.

Let your intuition guide you here.Give yourself the gift of time with no distractions.

Notice what you notice.

This is how clarity blossoms.

🎙️ In this latest episode of Maps of Becoming,I explore The Frog Prince and Faithful Henryas an initiation story—as a map of how we move from unease and agitation,to intuition and initiative,to clarity and awakening.These are your 51st and 57th Gene Keys.Reminder: This podcast is also available via my YouTube Channel.If you feel called to go deeper with this story…Below you will find a guided meditation to support you in integrating what has been stirred.

The Frog Prince Meditation

With love always,

Edwina

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinamurphydroomer.substack.com/subscribe

Stories for women—stories that reveal their secrets with time, experience, and reflection.

Each one, a Map of Becoming.Each archetype, an aspect of self.

The earlier they are received, the better…And it is also never too late.

What seems simple begins, with time, to reveal itself as something far more intricate.

This is the first story.

It is no accident that this story stands at the very beginning of the original Brothers Grimm collection…

The desire to avoid what life wants us to face.The wisdom of aligning thoughts, words, and deeds.The gift of responsibility.Unbound love—for self and others.

These tales have been carried across generations for good reason.

Within them live life’s rhythm of rupture, retreat, return, and rise—the turning points, the Wheel of Fortune, that shape a life.

If you listen closely, you may find yourself within this one.

I look forward to exploring what lives within this story with you in a coming podcast.

Today, I have for you The Frog Prince + Faithful Henry.

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A good story is never just a story.

It is a map.

A map of becoming.

And within that map live the forces that shape who you are, who you have been, and who you are becoming.

I’m sharing this with you on my 54th birthday—a moment that, as with all anniversaries of the day we arrived earthside, is a threshold.

In this episode, I take you deeper into my own story—beyond the rupture, into the retreat, the return, and the gradual, powerful rise that follows.

And into a moment that unfolded as a real-life fairy tale.

This episode is an invitation.

To reconnect with the part of you who is willing to begin.To listen to the part of you who already knows.To honour the part of you who creates, builds, leads, and loves…and the part of you who trusts, aligns, and rises.

And to return to the fullness of who you were born to be.

Love always,Edwina x

P.S. If you prefer video to audio, I’ve shared this episode on YouTube here:Maps of Becoming — The Eudaimonia Podcast

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edwinamurphydroomer.substack.com/subscribe