06 Sep The Story, Your Story Matters

In the Celebrating Spirit Monthly Membership we are starting to look at the story of the contact, being able to tell their story, to enable that presence, that essence to truly come into being, both for the loved one here but also for the loved one in the spirit world.

Each week, we have a development prompt; it might be informative or task based or both and for this week’s development prompt, the first in our Story subject, I’ve asked the members to think about their story – the key aspects and events in their story, what has brought them to who they are and where they are today.

In my story, as in yours, there are numerous events, situations, circumstances, instances, people that have all played a significant part in who you are and where you are today. And all of this matters because it has informed your choices, your decisions, your beliefs, your opinions and your perspectives.

I am sure we have all had events and instances that we absolutely know to be true yet which we cannot explain logically, rationally or in any sort of linear way. I know I have. And they are experiences which will always stay with me, which significantly contributed to who I am today and my beliefs and they continue to play their part.

If you have followed me for a while you will know that one of the things I often say is that if you know something to be true will all of your being then don’t let anyone persuade you otherwise. I say that because I have had those experiences – there are things that occur, that we are part of, that are not rational, practical, logical and yet they are absolute truth and we KNOW it.

One such experience for me happened back in 2000, so 7 years before I started ever working with Spirit, or rather developing with Spirit I should say (on some level we all know that they have been present for far longer than we have consciously chosen or been aware of them).

I was on holiday in Spain, it was mid August and sweltering (oh gimme some of that heat now!) – it was one of those nights where it was just too hot to sleep and the apartment did not have aircon! Around 5am I gave in and got up, making myself a good old cup of tea (it sorts everything doesn’t it?). I sat on the balcony watching the street below, listening to the hustle and bustle of street cleaning and the early morning workers going about their business.

I headed back to bed to lay down again with the aim of just trying to doze for another hour. As soon as lay down, I felt myself shooting upwards, up a tunnel and suddenly I was in a room which was all light. I was light, I remember ‘looking’ down and there was no ‘me’ – I knew it was me but I was just light. I knew I was in a room because there were what I would class ‘walls’ – they were different densities of light to me and I remember moving, gliding, thinking about moving and just moving – but where ever I moved to I was always in the centre of this place. And I remember the most incredible sense of love. It was everywhere – it surrounded me, it absorbed me, it filled me. I was simply enveloped in the deepest, most profound sense of love I had ever experienced. It permeated every aspect – it was incredible and I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that I was with and in Spirit. And then I became aware of 3 other spirit energies, again all light, a different radiance of light to me, a different density of light and love just emanated from them. I felt the words ‘You must experience the pain of true grief’ and I was aware of love imprinting with each of the words and then all of a sudden I ‘dropped’ and I was back on my bed.

The whole experience can only have last a minute but the detail, and the memory of the detail even know, was incredible. I knew, I absolutely KNEW, I had been in Spirit. I had a moment’s fear when I thought about the words – thinking about grief and pain but the love was just so strong and so powerful that I knew the words were not an omen, premonition or warning but a prayer and a guiding hand.

As with most profound experiences, you hold onto them for a while, ponder them, think about all the different aspects and connotations and then life gets in the way and they move into the background until such time as something happens to bring them to the forefront again.

Four years after that experience, my grandpa died. He was like a father to me in so many ways, not having met my own dad until I was in my late twenties and I felt his loss deeply.

So why am I sharing this story now? Partly to share that our stories are important, they are part of we are and they do help to shape our views, our path, our beliefs. I was not actively developing with Spirit when I had that experience in Spain and I was not in development when my Grandpa died either – I remember standing at the bottom of my Gran’s bed, giving her some crystal therapy to help support her a few days after my Grandpa’s passing, and being aware of him with me. But I didn’t feel him, sense him as a person but as an energy.

The experience I had with and in Spirit shaped my belief, awareness and understanding of Spirit – of their energy, their resonance, their essence. It shaped and shapes how I work with them, and also how I teach mediumship and trance and it shapes how I teach people to teach mediumship. That experience shaped the foundations of all of my work with Spirit. What you KNOW to be true, you must follow, hold faith in and trust.

The second reason I am sharing this is because of the words I was given – ‘you must experience the pain of true grief’. I have remembered those words every time I have lost someone close, and every time I have lost a significant aspect of myself, every time I have been in pain and in trauma. Those words, and the love that came with them, have enabled me and given me the courage to move into my grief and allow it to break me.

Grief, pain, trauma – they have always been the catalyst for immense personal change and breakthroughs; change and breakthroughs that I would never have consciously chosen simply because I did not believe I had that capability, because I did not understand where that path might take me, what potential it might open up.

One of the questions that I get asked is: why do awful things happen to wonderful, kind, decent people? The world just is not fair.

I don’t believe any of us would consciously, intelligently, objectively choose pain, choose trauma. Challenges appear, yes – and we can choose to embrace them, to grow with them, to evolve and progress through learning how to meet and overcome them but most of the time we don’t choose for a challenge, for an obstacle to appear – it does because of a set of circumstances that we are part of, some of which we are more in control of than others.

Pain, grief, despair, trauma – these are more than challenges or obstacles but they happen. Yet there is a gift, a seed of light, an opportunity within each, difficult though it might seem, unfair though it might appear to have to be in that place, that situation or circumstance.

We do not have to lean into it but there are changes, opportunities, there is light within that darkness which we would never fully understand, embrace or allow unless we had no choice. Not because we don’t want to learn, to grow but because sometimes we doubt our ability to survive, we doubt our resilience and also simply because we do not know that path and what we don’t know, we simply don’t know.

Awful things do happen to wonderful, kind, decent people – I don’t believe it is about life being unfair, but about life being a set of incredible experiences, situations, encounters and moments. All of them hold all sorts of potential for learning, growing – and most importantly…for living.

Sometimes, it is only when we move through an experience that we would never have chosen that we access aspects of ourselves we never even knew were there, because when we break we do then begin breakthrough. I am forever grateful for that experience within Spirit – for the love that touched my soul and which will never be forgotten, for how it shaped my view and experience of Spirit but also for their words which changed how I moved into certain experiences.

I would not be who I am now if not for that part of my story; I would not be who I am now if I had not listened and allowed their words to guide my response to certain experiences.

Sometimes it is only when we move through an experience that we would never have consciously chosen that we truly start to live rather than to simply exist because through that experience we touch our soul and we start to enable its expression.

When we think of Spirit, we have the honour of telling their story and touching their soul. The story matters. Your story matters – each and every aspect of it.

Much love x x