Frances describes living “through a lens of resentment for being brought into a life that seemingly attracted so much chaos and the kind of pain tied to grief that felt inescapable.”
As she turns 30, Frances Bean Cobain is celebrating entering a new decade of her life, however, she says she “wasn’t sure” that she’d make it to her milestone birthday.
On Thursday, the model — who is the only child of Courtney Love and the late Kurt Cobain — took to Instagram to open up about the struggles and challenges she went through in her 20s, including a near-death incident that “catapulted” her to start living with “gratitude.”
In her post, Cobain shared a carousel of photos of herself with friends and family, including a shot of herself posing in an elevator with her boyfriend, Tony Hawk’s son, Riley. The first image in the post featured a photo of herself posing with a soft smile.
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“30 !!! ❤️🔥 ☀️ 🦋 I made it! Honestly, 20 year old Frances wasn’t sure that was going to happen,” she began in the caption. “At the time, an intrinsic sense of deep self loathing dictated by insecurity, destructive coping mechanisms & more trauma than my body or brain knew how to handle, informed how I saw myself and the world; through a lens of resentment for being brought into a life that seemingly attracted so much chaos and the kind of pain tied to grief that felt inescapable.”
Cobain added, “Then, an event on a plane which brought me closer in proximity to death is ironically the event that catapulted me towards running at this lived experience with radical gratitude. I’m glad to have proven myself wrong & to have found ways to transform pain into knowledge.”
The visual artist then referenced a quote from Dr. Jaiya John that she “hold[s] closely:” “The softer she became with herself, the softer she became with the world.”
“It’s a sentiment I try to remember daily,” Cobain said.
Cobain then concluded her post by sharing her hopes for the next 10 years of her life.
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“Entering this new decade I hope to stay soft no matter how hardening the world can feel at times, bask in the present moment with reverence, shower the people I am lucky enough to love with more appreciation than words could ever do justice & hold space to keep learning, so the growth never stops,” she wrote. “I’m happy to be here & I’m happy you’re here too. ❤️🔥 ☀️ 🦋.”
The plane incident Cobain discussed in her post occurred in September 2017. According to PEOPLE at the time, she revealed on Instagram that she was on a flight from Paris to Los Angeles when she noticed that one of the plane’s wings caught fire.
“When I felt the plane tilt, saw the wing directly in front of me catch fire, and basically came to grips with my own mortality I made a deal with myself,” Cobain wrote in an Instagram post, sharing photos of a damaged engine from the plane. “I promised myself that if I made it through, that I would no longer try to escape the moments of my life.”
“So I’ve entered the phase of my life where every moment is truly precious,” she added. “All the mundane ‘crippling’ anxieties I once let dictate how I functioned have dissipated. I was jolted awake and awake is where I need to stay in order to live authentically. As cheeseball as that sounds. It resonates at true. To me. As you were – FBC.”
Air France made a statement at the time, per CNN, saying the plane suffered “serious damage to one of its four engines.” Following the mid-air incident, the plane made an emergency landing in Canada.
