On Turning Pain into Purpose
How loss, a little triumph and a gentle nudge helped me find my way.
Trigger warning: This essay contains references to miscarriage and fertility struggles.
I recently won a writing competition. I write this not to brag, but because winning this competition has profoundly impacted my life. Not that the win itself has materially changed anything. We’re not talking life-changing money or even life-changing visibility. It’s what I’ve chosen to do with this win that has had such a big impact.
I’ll start from the beginning.
I was in the middle of an IVF cycle when I discovered the competition. It was during the stimulation phase, which, for those uninitiated in the rigours of fertility treatment, means that I was injecting myself daily with hormones intended to fill my ovaries up with lots of juicy eggs that would be surgically extracted once they reached optimal maturity.
This process is about as fun as it sounds.
I was bloated and uncomfortable, fed up of feeling like a science experiment, and desperate for something positive to occupy my mind and time.
One morning, I opened my inbox to see an email from the fantastic writing publication Mslexia. It was their monthly round-up of writing competitions, and the first one listed said that they were looking for “candid writing that lays bare the challenges that one can face, and inspires and uplifts with the desire and strength to overcome them, even if one is not successful in the end.”
I instinctively opened a Word document I hadn’t touched for a long time. It was a partially written description of my experience of having a missed miscarriage following our first round of IVF. I had begun writing the piece just a month after it happened, and it started more as a journal entry than a story. At the time, it was much too raw, and I had written less than two paragraphs before I had to stop. But reading over what I had written with some distance, I was touched by the visceral, raw vulnerability of it. It felt both heartfelt and subversive. And I knew this was a story that I could now write in a way that could be inspiring and uplifting. I decided to write the story that might have helped me back then. One where hope and resilience can be found in even the most traumatic and painful of experiences.
To write this story, I had to dig deep into a time in my life that I had tried to forget. I had to transport myself back to the terrified woman I was, lying exposed on a clinic bed, waiting to be told that my baby no longer had a heartbeat. How did I feel in that moment, or right afterwards? What were the thoughts running through my mind? How did I find strength and hope? Because I did. The fact that I was in treatment again was proof of that.
Writing the story was mentally and emotionally draining, but it was also incredibly cathartic. It helped me to process my pain in a way that months of counselling alone had not. Through writing it, I was reminded of the healing power of stories, and how during earlier challenges in my life, I had always turned to the honest and vulnerable writing of others to comfort, inspire, and get me through. The thought that one day, my story could be what helps another woman to find hope in similar circumstances kept me coming back to my laptop on the days when reliving what I had been through felt too hard. On the day of the deadline, when I was finally satisfied that it was good enough, if not perfect, I submitted it.
Fast forward two months and I was, once again, in the middle of fertility treatment – this time preparing my body for an embryo transfer, one of the most emotionally loaded events in an IVF cycle. I was getting ready for my evening injection when an email popped up on my phone with the subject line beginning “Congratulations…” I clicked on it, breathless, to find out that my story had won first place in the non-fiction category. I shrieked in delight that I had “won a prize”, much to the excitement of my husband, who came running into the room, most likely thinking that we had won the lottery.
For me, I might as well have won the lottery.
This was the first time I had ever entered a writing competition. And I had won. I had won with a story about the pain and trauma of infertility and miscarriage. I wrote it whilst I was deep in a round of IVF. I found out that I won the competition just before I had yet another transfer – a transfer which we would later find out, sadly, was not successful. I just knew that it meant something. That it was the start of something.
Everything happens for a reason is probably one of the worst things you can say to someone who is grieving or going through an acutely difficult time. Certainly, I would not have thanked you for saying it to me at the height of my grief.
And yet, in a way, I think it is true. Not that there is a divine plan in place for each of us, and we are powerless before it. Quite the opposite. I don’t believe that everything happens for a pre-determined reason, but I believe it is our job to give it a reason. I believe that we are all capable of finding purpose in the most painful plot twists of our lives. We just, sometimes, might need a gentle nudge from the universe to help us get there.
When the organisers informed me of my win, they asked me to send them links to my online platforms so that they could promote me when they announced the winners. Cue a minor panic from me. I didn’t have a platform for my creative work yet. I had been quietly writing in the privacy of my own home for a long time, and more seriously for the last year, but I had not been brave enough to put myself out there in the world. I thought I was protecting myself by keeping my work invisible until I had reached a mythical state of perfection. But this was a lie. All I was really doing was stifling my potential for growth.
This was the nudge I needed to finally make myself visible. And when I decided to take this leap, I considered what I really wanted to achieve with it, as I knew I didn’t want it to be purely self-promotional.
I thought about everything I had learned and experienced over the past year. My miscarriage and the period of anxiety and chronic insomnia that followed it had been my dark night of the soul. But then, as in all the best stories, I had crawled my way back to the light. I had taken mindset, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) courses. I had devoured stacks of self-help books. I had developed daily mindfulness practices that kept me grounded and motivated. I had discovered the strength that can come from being part of a like-minded community. I had established a regular writing practice and learned how to channel my experiences into compelling stories that people could connect with. Through all of this, I had learnt how to honour my pain and to pick myself up after each setback and keep going.
So, I decided my purpose, my reason, was to use my voice to help others do the same. I created Plot and Purpose to be a supportive and empowering space for anyone who feels like their life has taken a different route from the one they had planned, or who is trying to live well and create while navigating a difficult journey, whatever that journey looks like. This space, like so many elements of my life, is a work-in-progress, and no doubt it will change and evolve. I hope that you will join me on this journey.
If you’d like to think about how you could turn your own pain into purpose, try the journal prompts below. You might be surprised by what you discover.
Journal with Purpose
Writing has the power to heal and reconnect us with ourselves. If this essay resonated with you, I invite you to take a moment to explore your own story. Below are two prompts—one to help you reflect and one to help you create. You don’t need to be a writer to begin. Just be honest, be curious, and see where the page takes you.
🧠 Reflective Prompt
Think back to a painful or challenging experience in your life. What helped you get through it at the time—or what do you wish you had known or done to support yourself better? Can you identify any strength, wisdom, or sense of purpose that emerged from it?
Take your time with this. The meaning doesn’t have to be obvious. Sometimes, the simple act of reflecting is the beginning of healing.
✍️ Creative Writing Prompt
Write a short story or personal essay that begins with someone receiving difficult news and follows their journey towards hope and resilience.
This may be inspired by your own story, or be entirely fictional. Focus on the emotional shift from the shock of pain to the gentle awakening of purpose.
👉 If you feel comfortable, I’d love to hear what came up for you. Drop a comment, send me a message, or share your thoughts in your own space and tag @plotandpurpose. Let’s write our way to something meaningful—together.