Check Out Elizabeth Blake-Thomas’ Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Blake-Thomas.

Hi Elizabeth, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I am 48 years old, and I believe my story is only just beginning.

This feels like the start of my next story, chapter two of my life. Everything I have experienced, every mistake, loss, success and challenge, has led me to learning who I am today. But this past year was different. It was the year I was brave enough to look deeper, to really question who I am, what interests me, what matters to me, and where I want to put my time and energy for the next 48 years of my life.

I suffered a huge loss last year, and in the aftermath, I was diagnosed as autistic as an adult. That diagnosis gave me a completely different lens through which to understand myself and my life. It also pushed me creatively. I completed my memoir, wrote 50 children’s books, started my own Etsy store, and began stepping away from people and an industry that no longer serves my nervous system or the person I am becoming.

None of these decisions happened in isolation. They have all brought me to the same place: a realisation that this next phase of my life needs to be intentional. I want to spend my time creating things that matter to me, surrounding myself with people who genuinely add something to my life, and building a life that feels authentic rather than one that simply looks successful from the outside.

As Hunter S. Thompson famously wrote, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body… but loudly proclaiming, What a Ride!”

That is how I want to live the next chapter.

It isn’t about wanting to be worn out by society or the world around me. It is about reaching the end of my life knowing that I was brave enough to be completely myself. That I followed the ideas that excited me, created the things I wanted to create, loved the people I wanted to love, and achieved the things I set my mind to.

I don’t want to arrive safely.

I want to know I lived.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Being a member of the grief club was not on my bucket list for at least a few more years, but it arrived rather abruptly last year.

I now have what I call “terminal sadness.” The physical reality of living with a broken heart.

I lost my 13-year-old four-legged partner, my registered service dog, and my best friend. Losing him forced me to experience and understand something that had always been incredibly difficult for me: grief.

Grief is difficult for everyone, of course, but I was experiencing it in a way that seemed unusual to the people around me. I didn’t understand why I was processing it so differently, and I needed to understand the how and the why of my own reactions.

That search eventually led to my late autism diagnosis.

It was life-changing.

For the first time, I began to understand that the way I had experienced the world, processed emotions, communicated, reacted to situations and understood certain things wasn’t wrong. It was simply different.

And that realisation brought another kind of grief: grieving the younger version of myself who had spent so much of her life believing there was something wrong with her.

But alongside that grief came something I hadn’t expected.

Freedom.

The freedom to stop trying to explain myself through someone else’s definition of “normal.” The freedom to understand myself with compassion rather than criticism. The freedom to look back at the girl I was and finally realise that she wasn’t broken.

She was just trying to navigate a world that wasn’t always built for the way her brain worked.

And somehow, through the deepest grief I have ever known, I have begun to find a part of myself I never knew existed.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m an author, TED Talk speaker, artist and slow-living advocate. At the heart of everything I do is one simple philosophy: “Living with Intention.”

It might sound a little flowery, but to me it is actually very practical. It means making conscious decisions about how I spend my time, what I create, what I say, who I surround myself with and how I want to show up in the world, always considering what those choices mean for my life and for the people around me.

What makes my approach different is that I don’t simply come up with ideas and talk about them. I practice what I preach.

Over the years, I have developed my own methodology around intentional living, shaped by who I am, how I experience the world and my neurodiversity, long before I had a diagnosis to explain any of it. That methodology sits at the heart of my writing, my retreats, my children’s books and my memoir.

For me, this isn’t about creating a perfect life. It’s about creating a life that feels true.

I am incredibly proud of myself for being brave enough to live with that level of authenticity, to question the things that no longer serve me, and to build a life around what genuinely matters to me.

And if my work can help other people feel brave enough to do the same, then that is probably the most meaningful thing I could create.

What are your plans for the future?
My next book is currently being written, and I am incredibly excited about it. It explores adult neurodiversity, with a particular focus on autism, relationships and the ways in which being neurodivergent can shape how we connect, communicate and understand one another. It is a subject I feel deserves far more honest and open conversation.

I’m also continuing my writing with *Health & Wellbeing* magazine and *AwareNow* magazine, exploring the ideas that sit at the heart of my work: intentional living, authenticity, creativity and what it means to build a life that genuinely works for you.

Alongside my writing, I’ll be running a series of writers’ retreats and *Living With Intention* retreats in Spain and the UK.

For me, this next chapter is about bringing everything together: writing, creativity, slow living, neurodiversity and creating spaces where people can step away from the noise of everyday life, reconnect with themselves and think about what they actually want their lives to look like.

Pricing:

• 250 per hour
• 2,500 per 4 day retreat

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elizabethblakethomas.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth_b_t?igsi=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Image Credits
Isabella Blake-Thomas