My daughter put this post-it note on her vision board at the beginning of last year. Only this weekend I reflected that this important mantra guided my life last year.
In the Autumn of 2019 I was utterly broken & lost emotionally, mentally, spiritually even. We had exited an extremely toxic living situation & moved again, for the second time in that pandemic year. My mental health was spirally & I was just beginning to understand the part the menopause had played in all of this.
I vividly remember saying to my brother when he said, ‘Something’s gotta change, sis.’
‘I know, something has got to change.’
Here’s the thing, I didn’t know what or how. But I had made the decision, the commitment to change. Although I didn’t realise until later what a defining moment that had been.
I am passionate about self-development, serving my clients better. I love what I do & I believe in it. And so I embarked on my own journey of self-discovery & spiritual healing, so that I could heal & change because I believed I could & I believed I had the skills & the training to do it. And because I have a moral & spiritual obligation to my clients to show up walking the walk, not just talking the talk. And invariably once I start to understand things & KNOW they work I start sharing it with them.
So I invested in a course with my mentor & guide, Gemma Sandwell, discovering HSP, Human Design & this understanding was crucial. I began to understand the energetic piece more profoundly & the amazing impact this has had in my life & my business.
I began to explore the science behind what we do. First I listened to Dr Joe Dispenza on Audible, then I bought his book, Becoming Supernatural & read it, read it again, studying it. Then I signed up for his online Progressive & Intensive courses, over 21 hours of teaching, training & practice explaining the science behind how & why meditation, mindfulness or developing a more conscious awareness works & can lead to profound health benefits.
In short I invested in my understanding & skills so I could continue to instigate change in my life.
I became unapologetic about my self-care rituals: I get up an hour before my kids to practice yoga & face yoga; I meditate daily; I spend time in nature with the dog daily, I practice gratitude.
The more I understood about the Quantum & energy & the powerful & profound impact meditation has the more inspired I was so the more meditation I did. As well as practicing daily for 10-20 mins at the beginning & end of the day, I would meditate in the bath & practiced other longer meditations several times a week.
I became much more consciously aware of the power & energy of my thoughts & this awareness helped me to not get caught up in the narrative of those thoughts & down the rabbit hole with them. And more capable of challenging & not believing unhelpful thoughts.
I started to notice what worked & do more of it.
And things started to change.
I would see set-backs as opportunities & possibilities. Life started to flow with more grace & ease. My business started to blossom. I was having fun again.
I could see clearly that everything happens for a reason. There is healing, growth, a lesson in every situation & that this takes a lot of the sting out of things. I almost come to look forward to them now because I know there’s something to learn from it.
I started to develop a real belief that we were being looked after & a knowing that The Universe only gives us what we need & no more than we can cope with & this gave me comfort & reassurance.
I started noticing little synchronicities which before would’ve passed me by & loving them – these are the little bits of magic!
There is no struggle. I feel better than ever. Our life is not perfect or finished…but it never will be, that’s the point! But we are happier & more settled as a family than ever, my business is growing & doing better than ever, I feel better than ever, life is better than ever.
I look back with gratitude & appreciation that the menopause broke me into a million pieces to let the light in so that I could heal & grow. The Japanese call this Kintsukuroi – the art of repairing something that is broken with gold. It is more beautiful because it was broken. Although it was without a doubt an horrendous experience full of fear, doubt, confusion & chaos at the beginning, I am grateful for the journey & I wouldn’t change a thing now.
Some people believe we choose to manifest in this dimension, this reality, this time & space because we have a lesson to learn whilst we are here. If we don’t do the work to heal from the energetic bonds of past trauma, we will keep getting the lesson, each time a little more harshly to get our attention until we do the healing, the growth & learn from it.
Now I know this & through my practice I am more consciously aware so I see the lesson before it has to floor me to get my attention.
I am more present, not caught in a cycle of automatic pilot, automatic conditioning.
I started to understand how the autonomic nervous system works, how yoga & meditation can bring our life force back into balance & alignment & that this has tremendous health benefits & began incorporating different practices to boost this.
I started to appreciate the epigenetic aspect (essentially we are not defined by our genes), having always been intrigued by the neuroplasticity (we are not defined by our thoughts or stuck with how we think). I found it extremely liberating to know we can change the way we think. Even more liberating knowing changing how we think has a profound impact on our way of being.
If you think about it, if we keep thinking the same thoughts, making the same choices, doing the same things & behaving the same way, we’ll keep feeling the same feelings, thinking the same thoughts. We are stuck in the loop of the old state of being.
But if, by becoming consciously aware of our thoughts, we can choose to think different thoughts, which lead to us choosing to making different choices, choosing different behaviours & actions, leading to different experiences & different feelings. We are now operating in a new state of being.
I believed I could change & so I did. This belief is powerful. This knowing, faith, trust opens up the space to create the change because it liberates energy. That moment you decide to change stays with you forever, because you will never be the same again.
When I look back on that moment, talking to my brother that was the moment I decided to change. I believed I could so I did.
This year, after focusing last year on building my scientific understanding of what I love & teach, this year I have decided to invest more deeply in my spiritual journey & I am part of a beautiful community on a year long journey.
Someone in this community said, ‘How will I know this will work, when everything else I’ve tried hasn’t?’
Here’s the thing: if you believe it will, you’re more than ½ way there. I won’t go into the quantum, energetic reasons (that’s another blog in itself!) but belief, intention is your sign-post or your compass to where you are going. It has a high vibrational energy or force.
She believed she could so she did.
