If I Had Three Lives

Stella Sharing If I Had Three Lives by Sarah Russell

If I Had Three Lives: A Poem on Love and Longing

I Had Three Lives      

After “Melbourne” by the Whitlams

by Sarah Russell

If I had three lives, I’d marry you in two.

The other?

Perhaps that life over there

at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing — a memoir,

maybe a novel or this poem. No kids, probably,

a small apartment with a view of the river,

and books — lots of books, and time to read.

Friends to laugh with, and a man sometimes,

for a weekend, to remember what skin feels like

when it’s alive. I’d be thinner in that life, vegan,

practice yoga. I’d go to art films, farmers markets,

drink martinis in swingy skirts and big jewelry.

I’d vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt

weekend guy left behind, loving the smell of sweat

and aftershave more than I did him. I’d walk the beach

at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks

water makes in sand. And I’d wonder sometimes

if I’d ever find you.

What If I Had Three Lives Really Means for Us

The Lives We Imagine and the Selves We Leave Behind

We all carry alternate lives inside us.

The one where we stayed.

The one where we left.

The one where we were braver, wilder, softer, quieter.

These imagined selves whisper from the corners of our mind - not to shame us, but to remind us of the choices we’ve made, and the choices still available.

When we imagine “If I Had Three Lives,” it is often our nervous system longing for what we once needed but never received: safety, recognition, freedom, love. These alternate selves aren’t fantasy. They’re fragments of us that still ache to be seen. The work of healing isn’t to reject them — it’s to honour them, integrate them, and choose consciously which life we are living now.

Think of the life you didn’t choose. The job, the city, the relationship, the version of you that still tugs at your imagination. What does that self represent? Adventure? Rest? Freedom? Belonging?

Those imagined lives are signposts. They reveal what our soul is still craving - and point toward small, courageous changes we can make today.

📝 Reflection Prompt

If you could step into one of your “unlived lives” for a day, which would it be?

What feelings or needs does that version of you hold - and how might you honour those needs in the life you’re living now?

Healing Requires Pause: Why Reflection Is Essential For Recovery

When was the last time you paused long enough to ask yourself: Where am I now? What’s the life I’m living - and what lives are still unlived within me?

For survivors of trauma, pausing can feel almost impossible. Stillness once meant danger - waiting for the next outburst, the next disappointment, the next abandonment. Our nervous system learns that movement, distraction, and busyness are safer than quiet. But survival mode is not the same as living.

Reflection creates the space where survival loosens its grip. In that pause, your nervous system recalibrates. Your body learns that calm can be safe, that silence isn’t punishment, that rest isn’t laziness. Pausing becomes a way of teaching your brain a new pattern - one built on choice rather than fear.

Emotional Recalibration is this process in action: taking sacred stock of your inner landscape, your relationships, your health, your work, your joy - without shame or spirals. Just truth. Because if we want different results, we need different directions. And that begins with knowing exactly where we are.

Try this: take ten minutes today to sit without distractions - no phone, no music, no agenda. Notice what thoughts rush in. Notice the emotions that surface. Don’t judge, don’t fix, just notice. That’s the beginning of reflection. That’s the first recalibration.

📝 Reflection Prompt

When you give yourself even a few quiet minutes, what comes up first — peace, restlessness, fear, or longing?

What might those feelings be trying to tell you about where you are right now?

🌱 Micro Recalibration: A 3-Step Pause Practice

✨ Try this now. It takes less than three minutes, but it can shift the whole tone of your day.

1. Notice the Body

Close your eyes and place one or both hands on your heart or belly.

Ask yourself: What is my body feeling right now? Tight? Heavy? Restless? Calm?

Don’t analyse - just notice.

2. Name the Feeling

Say softly (out loud or in your mind): “I feel…” and add the first word that comes.

It could be sadness, tension, hope, or even numbness. All are welcome.

3. Nurture the Moment

Offer yourself one sentence of kindness, as if you were speaking to a child or friend.

For example: “It makes sense you feel this way.” or “I’m here with you.”

Take one slow breath in, and one long breath out.

That’s it.

That’s recalibration in action — noticing, naming, and nurturing without spiralling.

Even the smallest pause can open a doorway back to yourself.

And when those moments of noticing become a practice - repeated across days, seasons, and years - they grow into something larger: a recalibration of how you live, love, and heal.

Emotional Recalibration: A Practice for Renewal and Healing

Most of us wait for crisis to stop us in our tracks. A breakup. A burnout. A grief that knocks the air out of our lungs.But what if we didn’t wait for collapse? What if we chose to pause and recalibrate before life demanded it?

Emotional Recalibration is not about fixing what’s “wrong.”It’s about reorienting yourself towards truth - again and again.It’s a practice of renewal: gently aligning your inner compass so the life you live matches the life you long for.

That’s why recalibration matters. It interrupts the loop.It offers a moment to ask: Am I still living in survival? Or am I ready to live in alignment?

Emotional Recalibration is not about erasing your past.It’s about giving your present self the clarity and compassion your younger self never had.

Each reset allows you to see where you are - and choose, with honesty, where you want to go.

When practiced regularly, recalibration becomes renewal. Like tending a garden season by season, you pull out what no longer serves, plant what you wish to grow, and witness what is thriving. No shame. No self-criticism. Just compassionate awareness that clears the path forward.

When I guide clients through this process, we explore every layer of their landscape with compassion:

🧠 Mindset - noticing the beliefs shaping your choices

💻 Career - asking if your work honours or drains you

💷 Finances - exploring your relationship with money and safety

❤️ Intimate Relationships - healing old attachment wounds

👯 Friendships & Environment - who feeds your energy, and who depletes it

💪 Health - tending to the body that carries your story

🔮 Spirituality - reconnecting with meaning, purpose, and possibility

💫 Emotional Landscape - learning to feel without fear, and to soothe without shame

Recalibration means committing to honesty.It means facing the places where you’ve been looping old patterns.And it means choosing, with tenderness and courage, the directions that bring you closer to wholeness.

📝 Reflection PromptIf you paused right now and looked across these areas - mind, work, relationships, health, spirituality - which one feels most in need of recalibration?

From If I Had Three Lives to Living Fully In The Present

Sarah Russell’s poem asks us to imagine the lives we might have lived. The lovers we didn’t choose. The adventures that passed us by. The selves that still tug at our imagination.

But recalibration is about something braver than longing.It’s about deciding that this life - the one you are in right now - is worthy of being lived fully.

When you pause and reflect, you don’t erase the other versions of yourself. You honour them. You thank them for showing you what you crave - freedom, love, belonging, creativity, rest - and then you weave those threads into the life you are living today.

You don’t need three lives.You need this one, lived with clarity, compassion, and courage.And that begins the moment you choose to stop looping survival patterns and step into alignment with who you really are.

📝 Reflection Prompt

If you could bring one quality from an “unlived life” into this present one, what would it be?What’s one step you can take this week to embody it here and now?

Begin Your Emotional Recalibration Journey

Every reset is an act of courage.It’s choosing presence over patterns.It’s choosing the life you are in — and deciding to live it with clarity and compassion.

This is the work of Emotional Recalibration Therapy.Not endless talking. Not bypassing with positivity.But gently teaching your nervous system that it is safe enough to pause, reflect, and live differently.

🌿 If you’re ready to begin your own recalibration journey, I’d love to walk beside you.

→ Explore Emotional Recalibration Therapy→ Book a free Discovery Call

You don’t need three lives.You need this one — lived fully, fiercely, and in alignment with your truth.