I get asked this constantly, in different forms, by women in completely different circumstances: widows figuring out an income after everything changed overnight, mothers building something flexible around school pick-up, women who left a marriage and need to stand on their own financially. The question underneath is always the same: where do I even start?

Anna Heenan is the founder of HerSphere — a platform supporting women in the UAE who are rebuilding their lives. She writes about grief, resilience, legal realities for expat widows, and what it actually takes to start again.

A few months after my husband passed away, I hit a wall. The initial shock had worn off. The numbness had started to lift just enough to let something darker in. I wasn't living. I was existing. And some days, barely that. I knew I needed to find a reason to get up. Not for my children—though of course they needed me. For myself. Because a mother running on empty is not really present for anyone. So I started building again. I am a builder by nature—I always have been, even as a child. I create things, connect people, and make things exist that didn't before. It's not what I do. It's who I am. And going back to it was my way of finding the thread back to myself.

But here's the thing about grief. It doesn't just take the person. It takes your sense of yourself, too.

I realised this when I was trying to introduce myself in a Facebook group and completely froze. Everyone else seemed to know exactly who they were. And I had nothing. Not because I'm nobody—I have built businesses, raised four children, lived across countries, and survived things I never thought I'd survive. But I had spent so long being someone for others—wife, mother, daughter, friend—that I had never asked the question for myself.

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