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THE MEMORIES I CAN’T ESCAPE (AND WHY THEY MATTER)

Every corner of this suburb echoes with the past – some memories so powerful, so vivid, so deeply imprinted as the twin sister I never met. For me, the story begins in 1976, right there in London. For others, it starts much, much earlier. I will take you along, telling you about the flickering lights, the missing knife, the ghostly figures, the hauntings at night. I will share what it means to trust, find truth, live without fear, and how my past marked a beginning. And after all, the question is: What is your story, and how has it shaped the way you create and live today?

My roots are a story of belonging.

My parents came to London at the same time, it was 1967. She came from Germany and worked for a member of the German embassy, he came from India, making himself a name in the textile industry. They met in 1969, fell in love, got married and had their first son in 1971, their second son two years later. We moved into our house in Osterley, a district of Isleworth, in 1975.

Isleworth was originally a Saxon settlement, an old village situated around the banks of the river Thames. Later it would be the site of a fierce battle with the Vikings, a thriving Roman community, lush medieval meadows and farmlands, an aristocratic enclave and symbol of industry, until eventually becoming a suburban town in West London.

My parents were the first foreigners who moved into our street, we were the first mixed race children growing up there. We brought with us languages, cultures, and foods that were as diverse as the city it would become. But after all, we were a young family settling into a new house, a new street. And there, inside this small u-shaped street we felt safe, embraced by our small community of caring neighbours. But outside, London faced the rise of the extreme right-wing National Front, and immigration dominated the talks. So many rallies, so many demonstrations. So many people in so many parts of London lived in fear of day-to-day harassment and brutality.

I was born in 1976. I had a twin sister, but she died before we were born and until today, there are moments I keep thinking about her, moments I feel her presence. They say, twins have this special bond, don’t they. I remember the house, the feel of running down the hallway, up the stairs, ringing the old sailor’s bell. I remember how it looked, how it creaked, but everything seems more like small fragments of memories, fully incoherent. I remember the newspaper shop at the end of the street, swinging in the weeping willow at the park’s lake and finding my mother in Tony and Pennie’s bookstore, which once used to be the Osterley Park and Spring Grove Station back in 1883.

Revisiting my past for personal growth.

Not so long ago I went to a tarot reader, and she told me, “Don’t delve on the past. You can’t change what was.” At that time, I felt scattered, drifting between the questions that kept me stuck: Who am I? Where do I belong? Who do I want to be? Which path should I take? Those questions not only paralyzed me; they terrified me.

While her words would always stay with me, I couldn’t help but feel that in order to move forward, I had to revisit my past – but on my own terms. And this meant becoming aware rather than consumed. Consumed meant delving too deep, mingling too long, holding on too tightly, and maybe even the risk of getting stuck in the past. But by simply becoming aware, approaching it with a clear intention and looking at it from the distance, we wouldn’t have to live through it again – we can heal, grow, and create lasting change for tomorrow. Awareness is self-discovery on our own terms.

Have you ever thought about which of your past experiences shaped the beliefs you hold today? How revisiting that experience might help you in this moment?

Maybe you used to paint as a child, but life got busy, and you gave it up. Hey, it was just a hobby, wasn’t it? But what if that hobby was your way of releasing emotions, expressing yourself without judgement? How would you, your relationships, your life change, if you picked that brush up again?

Maybe you loved going to the kid’s theatre, singing in a choir, or baking for community events—but never became an actor, singer, or baker. And that’s okay. But what if the passion was never about the performance, but about creating spaces where people could connect? As an entrepreneur today, maybe your true calling lies in building those spaces for connection. Understanding this could give you the direction you’ve been searching for.

Maybe you find yourself in moments of anxiety that seem to come out of nowhere, but life is busy and we all need to function and get through the day, don’t we? But what if you would recognise that it all comes back to the feeling of being isolated at school and that with breathwork or meditations you could finally sense a release of this anxiety, allowing you to be more confident and at peace in your daily life.

Our past isn’t just a memory – it’s a resource for healing past wounds, gaining the power to rewrite the narritive. By listening to it, we gain the tools to shape the life we want. To create change, we don’t need to relive the past, but we must listen to it, understand it, and transform it into something that serves our present journey.

A childhood haunted by the unseen.

I once read – Isleworth is holding many old legends and many new ghosts. And indeed, in Isleworth, you can still look into the face of the old gravedigger Mr Bumstead and hear the screams of an old landlady who was accidently locked up in a pub cellar. The man, dressed in red, who would peer into the face of a sleeping child before disappearing, and who might be the reason why pennies or stones would seemingly fall out of the air as small gifts. You have murdered women and martyred priests in garden centres, a young boy without legs sitting near the church porch, a black dog jumping iron fences, and an old woman standing in an overgrown garden with her washing basket.

It wasn’t a single incident that had a lasting impact on me, but it would be this short period of time we lived in Osterley that would contribute to the beliefs and understandings I have today. The belief that often there is more than we can see with the naked eye and that this does not take any eligibility away. Each experience is unique to all of us, therefore none can say, that what we felt was right or wrong, true or untrue. Whatever it was to us, it was. The understanding that we need to stay open minded, sharpen our senses and trust our intuition, to not only live life, but experience life in a such grander way. The belief that we need to walk places and live lives without fear being ever-present, because this is what makes our world small.

They say, that with me coming into the house, things started to shift, and the very first situation occurred in my room, going on for months. I had the smallest room on the first floor, right next to my parents’ bedroom. I was a baby, what did I need, just a crib and a dresser. The dresser was so high, nobody could reach it without a stool. My mother placed my teddy bears on top of it, I was still far too small to play with them, wasn’t I. But at one point, the teddy bears kept falling to the floor. Each morning, there they were, scattered around the room. My mother would put them back, but the next day, they’d be on the floor again. This would be before the other things started happening.

My brothers, three and five when I was born shared a room right at them beginning of the landing. For many nights an elderly man, heavily hung with jewellery would appear from their dresser, stepping into their room. Never saying something, never doing any harm. Until today, the memory is haunting one of my brothers. Even though our family believed him, it was still difficult for my brother to cope with something so real to him and yet invisible to others.

Have you ever felt something you couldn’t explain? A feeling or presence that wouldn’t leave you, even when you tried to rationalize it away?

At first, my mother dismissed the light switch in the hallway between our rooms going constantly on and off. Today is hard for her to remember how uneasy she became or how she tried to maintain a sense of normalcy for our sake. She would come down into the kitchen in the morning to find repeatedly flour and sugar all over the floor in the pantry. And when she stood at the stove, she could hear the tip tap of children feet on the lino floor. The energy of a small girl. A small girl just playing.

The one incident that did make her uncomfortable was when she heard the sound of a knife being stabbed between fingers which are spread on a wooden table, the sound becoming, louder, faster and faster. The knife that she had placed on the table before she started hearing it, never appeared again.

She tried to reason with herself—maybe the knife had just fallen, misplaced in the shuffle of daily life. But no matter how much she tried to explain it away, the unease never fully disappeared.

I created a Pinterest board and recorded a guided meditation designed to help you explore your past, because even we can’t change what happened, we can choose how it shapes the life we create from here. Get the Pinterest link, download the free meditation and share you story with us here!

The power of trusting your inner knowing.

We moved away, sold the house a few years later. I came back a couple of times, looking at the house from the outside, walking the streets, the park, returning to the bookstore. Today I know that this old land and this old house carried the energy of many more who might have stayed there at one point of their lives. But my story is not a story about ghostly hauntings, it’s about reminding all of us that our environments share the lives of others, and that every day, we add a little of our own. It’s the story of a past that shaped me, but never defined me, and that looking back, for me, this short period of time, this tip tap of a little girl, marked a beginning. One filled with questions, one allowing for possibilities. One about trust. One that would lead me to so many different people and places, each with their own story.

What will your story be?

And just as these experiences shaped me, your story, your memories, are shaping you. Every moment, every experience holds the potential for self-discovery, for healing past wounds, for personal growth. We can’t change what happened, but we can choose how it shapes the life we create from here. So I will leave you with this question: What is your story – and how will you let your past shape the way you create and live today?