LIFE BEYOND BARS

From 11,481 days in an institution to rediscovering purpose and Ikigai.

After a personal upset last summer, I found myself unexpectedly stuck, and unsure how to return to my keyboard, or even what I wanted to say. Recovery took time. But now, with some distance and clarity, I feel ready to write again.

It’s been an eventful year, this year of the Snake. I keep hearing it described as a year of shedding, and I’ve found myself wondering how that applies to me. What am I shedding? Old wounds, old careers, old homes, relationships that no longer serve — even a few pounds here and there? Perhaps there’s something in Chinese astrology worth paying attention to.

I read an Instagram post that said:

“In snake years, everything that’s false, expired, or outgrown must fall away. Endings feel final. Old identities dissolve.”

That landed.

Diving deeper, I discovered that I was born in the year of the Tiger, 1962, and that 2025 had this to say for people like me:

“Those who are doing business, they will clearly feel the pressure this year… They want to change careers, but they don’t know which direction to work hard. It is recommended that Tiger people born in 1962 will open up their minds and adjust their business methods. They can promote through self-media… Of course, don’t ignore the importance of interpersonal relationships. Get in touch with more outstanding people in the same industry, and they can learn a lot from them.” Horoscope

Woah. That hit home! Not because I believe astrology predicts the future, but because it mirrored exactly where I already felt myself standing.

And now to my news.

In 1994, I began working for the probation service. Fresh-faced, enthusiastic, and fuelled by a desire for equity, fairness, and justice. I knew little about the organisation at the time, but I had a strong yearning to make a difference.

Alongside this, I trained as a Rogerian counsellor specialising in alcohol use disorder, which likely helped me secure my first role. I began as a support worker and, after completing a Criminal Justice and Probation Studies BA (Hons) in 2003, went on to manage a caseload of some of the most serious offenders.

In 2006, I was promoted and spent the next 19 years as a senior probation officer, working across various demanding roles. I managed teams, victim services, risk assessment teams (MAPPA), probation hostels, and in my final couple of years worked with the prison service.

For many years, I loved my profession. But in more recent times, I began to feel irrelevant, overlooked, and OLD. I used to be the person who was consulted for their insight and experience, and I had begun to acutely feel the absence of this respect for my wisdom from the new younger managers climbing the career ladder.

Last month, after 31 years, 5 months, and 5 days — 11,481 days — almost exactly 50% of my life, I quietly left.

There was no gold clock. No retirement party. No medal. To be fair, it’s publicly funded, so I wouldn’t expect anything extravagant (though I might have appreciated a bunch of flowers).

I did receive a management Teams call with a polite “thank you for your loyalty and long service, and best wishes for your change of career.”

On that decidedly underwhelming farewell, all I could think was:
Yeah, thanks. Goodbye. Can I press the exit button now?

Now that I’m no longer a civil servant, I can speak more openly about my time in the public sector. I don’t feel a need to elaborate, other than to say that probation work requires deep commitment to public protection, risk management, and rehabilitation.

The training I received was excellent. It gave me a strong understanding of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and a solid grounding in trauma-informed practice. Having spent exactly half my life wearing that professional hat, it will take time to fully settle into this new existence.

Retirement is a significant transition, though in my case, it isn’t a full stop. Perhaps this will be a gentler adjustment into part-time self-employment in a completely different profession.

And yet, even before I left, something else was already shifting.

In 2025, I collaborated for the first time in leading my annual women’s Bali retreat. It worked an absolute treat. Lisa-Jo Elsworth is the perfect Yang to my Yin, and together we created something genuinely successful — reflected in wonderful guest feedback and repeat bookings.

Recently, I felt unexpectedly euphoric after leading my first three-hour yoga workshop.

That depth of joy around work felt unfamiliar. It’s not that I’m generally melancholic, I’ve felt delight teaching yoga, deep satisfaction working with sober coaching clients, and joy leading groups in Bali. But this was different.

It felt as though a dark cloud had lifted.

That cloud, I realised, had been the institution to which I’d been accountable for half my life. For years, I’d worked around bars, literal ones that kept people incarcerated, without noticing how institutional life had quietly installed its own, invisible kind of bars.

For the first time in decades, I felt as though I was experiencing ikigai, and it felt bloody fantastic. I had removed the one thing that provided financial security, but which had slowly been crushing me mentally. The sense of liberation was profound.

“Understanding ikigai doesn’t need a deep understanding of Japanese culture. Think of ikigai as having a compass in the vast sea of life. The compass doesn’t necessarily tell you where the treasure is, but it guides you, ensuring you sail in waters that resonate with your heart. Ikigai is that compass. It’s the blend of what you’re deeply passionate about, what you excel in, what the world needs, and what can sustain you — be it emotionally, mentally, or financially.” Ikigai – Japanese Theory Of Happiness

Ikigai sits at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what can sustain you.

Looking back, I can see how this thread was always there.

In my 30s, I had stumbled across a probation job advert in a newspaper with a circulation of around 80,000. I didn’t feel fully qualified, but I had felt drawn to work that aligned with my values. I had considered social work, but something pulled me towards working with people in conflict with the law.

My own background likely played a role. I grew up on a council estate surrounded by poverty. I experienced family breakdown, parental alcohol addiction, an estranged step-father familiar with the criminal justice system, and I am a survivor of abuse.

I once shared this with someone, and they replied:
“Ah — you were rewriting your story by searching for a happy ending.”

That stayed with me.

I will always be grateful that I found myself, almost by chance, in a career I loved for decades. You could say the stars aligned at exactly the right moment.

And yet, in this year of the snake, I feel ready, and extremely relieved, to shed that skin, and to begin a life beyond bars. Yoga has been key to my understanding of myself and my evolution into the woman I am becoming in my 60s. 2025 was the year I completed a 300-hour Yoga teacher training.

Alongside this transition, I’ve recently qualified as a mindfulness teacher. In many ways, it feels like a natural continuation of everything I’ve learned — through years of public service, trauma-informed work, yoga, and recovery spaces. It reflects a way of working that values presence, compassion, and clarity of mind.

As I step into this next chapter, I’m increasingly drawn to work that centres connection, reflection, and shared experience. Over the years, in retreats, sober groups, and women’s circles, I’ve witnessed what becomes possible when women gather with honesty, safety, and intention.

This next phase of my work will sit under the name Clarity and Calm with Carolyn Clark, a home for the practices, conversations, and spaces I now feel called to offer. As part of that, I’ll be opening a monthly women’s circle rooted in mindfulness, lived experience, and the work I’ve led over many years: a space to pause, to speak freely, to listen deeply, and to explore what it means to live beyond the structures and stories that once shaped us.

The first circle will take place over zoom in January. It will be a gathering of women who have travelled around the sun a few times, women who have given much of their lives caring for others, putting their own needs on hold, and are ready to step into their full power, women who are sober or perhaps are curious as to what a sober life might have to offer, women who are ready to experience the power of being in a non-judgemental sisterhood, to feel the collective power of female connection to help reduce isolation, improve mental well-being, increase empowerment and confidence.

Each circle will be a monthly 90 minute meeting, held on the first Wednesday of every month, and will consist of a meditation, the opportunity to share and be heard without judgement, to listen to poetry or readings, to journal, to practice a movement sequence, and to breathe a collective sigh. Each circle will have a maximum number of 10 women to keep the space feeling intimate and safe. Booking will be necessary, and the exchange will be £15 per circle. If this is something that interests you please email me at Clarity and Calm and we can have a conversation about this.

Other ways to link up with me:

• If you are sober curious, or in recovery but looking for additional support, I work with 1-1 clients as a sober coach. A free discovery call can be booked on my website here Carolyn Clark Coaching

• Also, if you are considering going on a fabulous sober retreat in Bali, there are some spaces on the retreat in which I am collaborating with the amazing Lisa-Jo Elsworth, reiki practitioner, sound therapist, founder of Bee Sober CIC, and director of the International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine IPHM.

• The details of the Bali retreat on 11-18 September 2026 can be found here at Bali transformative retreat

• I teach yoga in person at The Ucheldre Centre, Holyhead, each Monday at 6pm. This is an amazing venue, and our hall is an old church with it’s stained glass windows, which feels like a wonderful place for our spiritual practice.

• I teach yoga in person at the Llanfairfechan Community Hall each Thursday evening at 6pm.

• I can also be found at Sober Happy Sixties