SPIRITUALITY – Living, Learning & Trusting in Spirit

For me living the way I feel comfortable, living my truth by pleasing myself and feeling confident that my choices are sound, caring and make sense to me, brings me peace and a sense of knowing.

How did I come to live my life so differently to the one I was born into?

My mother’s parents died tragically within a few days of each other when she was 11 months old-the youngest of 4 children.  My father’s biological mother gave birth to him in his adopted parent’s home.  He never met her and only found out that he was adopted after his adopted mother died.  That caused him a lot of heart ache.

I was raised in a middle class family as the third child of 4, both of my parents worked.  Our lives were very normal and I guess by other people’s standard very quiet/boring.  From 16 years old I attended yoga classes which felt so right for me.  Through the years this exercise was so beneficial in so many ways, but unknown to me had started me on a new path of being.

I married at 22 years of age and by the age of 27 I had two children.

I later attended a world class therapeutic reflexology course in Feb 1996.  I qualified and received my diploma in Feb 1997.  So began my life as a therapeutic reflexology therapist.  I enjoyed my work, I learnt a lot, I met wonderful people and I helped many wonderful people take back control of their health and learn to take charge of their lives.  Later I attended a reiki course which was life changing and so wonderful.  I slowly realised that I was able and allowed to take charge of my own life.   Both these therapies took me to a different level of thinking.

At the age of 44 my life and that of my families changed drastically for ever.  Both my parents died tragically at around 6am on 21 November 2001.  Spirit /Universe had quietly equipped me “ahead of time” to cope through these following hours, days, weeks and months ahead of me that proved to be challenging and life changing..  Foggy head, lots of new things to deal with and sort out, always busy, but always feeling as if someone had punched me in the gut and their fist had gone clean through to the back of my body.  For months I felt as if I had a gaping hole right through my body- through my heart.  I somehow remained calm on the outside and managed to put one foot in front of the other.  I resented having to react and perform the way others around me managed their grief.  All I wanted to do was to be left alone, to enable me to step back and attempt to process the entire tragic life changing event.

I started thinking back to before my parents died.  My wonderful gentle Mom had recently planted from seed, two plants for me.  A baby asparagus plant and a very special double flower Brunfelsia plant (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow plant).  Both sprouted and were growing well.  The Brunfelsia plant had two leaves, in spite of my dogs digging it out of the pot twice.  I moved both plants to the front of the house where I could nurture them without the fear of them being night time toys for my dogs.

A few weeks later while quietly sitting alone I was thinking about all the events that had drastically changed my life just a few weeks earlier.   I then began noticing a pattern of events that were heart-warming, surprising, and sometimes challenging.

  1. One Thursday 21 November 2001 I noticed that the leaves had fallen off the brunfelsia plant my Mom had planted for me. I was confused, as it was thriving the day before, I had checked it. The next day Friday the stem had died as well. I thought I must phone my Mom and tell her what happened.  I never got to talk to her.  That Friday evening my family and I found out that my parents were missing.  The next day we found out that they had died tragically in their home on Thursday morning 21 November 2001.  Now my plant dying made sense.  My mother’s energy (she had done Reiki 1 & 2, she was a very strong healer) she had put into that plant died when she died.  Wow, that struck me like a bullet to the heart. She was really gone.   Fortunately the asparagus plant did not die, I still have it today, it is growing in a pot and it stands beautiful and strong in my garden.  That was my first wow moment during that awful confusing painful time in my life.
  2. Secondly we (my brother & sister) now had a house full of furniture and personal effects, a garage full of wood work machines and tools and a back room with garden and pool equipment to take care of. None of us lived very close to my parents. How to dispose of furniture from a three bedroom home built and lived in since April 1966, was a dilemma in itself?  How to prevent the house from been broken into by car guards in the area? (We were told that this was happening to unattended houses in the area).  Oh my, we had a lot of lessons to learn; at the time it just seemed to be unsurmountable hurdles to cross.  We made up an inventory list of all household goods; I typed it up to give to potential buyers. We placed an advertisement in the daily newspaper and waited for a response.  We eventually gave a date for potential buyers to view.  This became a bigger and more complicated job than we could ever have envisioned.  Eventually only 1 group was left to view.  Two brothers who owned a second hand shop. Everyone said they would come back to us.  We were now aware that someone would have to be around a lot when potential buyers wanted to purchase one or two items at a time.  We now realised this way of selling off goods posed a security risk because I would be the only person available to open up for potential buyers.  A short while later the last group who viewed (the 2 brothers) phoned to say they would be prepared to sell everything for us via an auction held at the house. We were elated, problem solved.  Half an hour later they phoned again to say that idea was impractical as they would not be able to keep an eye on all items as people roamed around the house and property.  They suggested they remove all the furniture and household items and take it to their warehouse where they would auction the items from the safety of their business property.  This was brilliant, this would clear out the home of all items which will be sold in a safe and manageable manner and we would be able to get the home spring cleaned and ready for renting and eventually selling via the estate.

Where did these brothers come from?  Our God angels sent earth bound angels to assist us.  Indeed they had.  The brothers and their staff were kind and gentle with us.  They took great care of everything they took out of the house.  The sale and admin of the items sold was done in a friendly and professional manner.  Oh my, we were so blessed to have had those 2 earth angels to help us when we were at our lowest point.  I realise how blessed we were to have these wonderful people sent to us, to guide us through a traumatic time in our lives.

  1. We duly rented the house out; oh my, what a lesson!! One we would like never to repeat. To make a long story short, we were not so fortunate this time.  This was a lesson for us to learn the hard way. We went in with our eyes closed.  After 6 months and much aggravation we managed to evict our temporary tenants who had only signed a 6 month lease, which was approaching due date.  And once again in spite of everything our angels & spirit were at work for us, but this time strangely they worked their magic by getting the tenants lawyers to seal the deal for us; by sending us and the tenants a letter which actually ensured the tenants had no option but to adhere to the terms of the lease and vacate the property as agreed to, at the end of the six month period. I guess angels/spirit always help the good guys, even in a comical roundabout way.  Once again I gave huge thanks for the intervention of our angels.
  2. In May of 2002 I was booked to attend a counselling course with FAMSA just off Jan Smuts avenue. I had actually booked this course in September of 2001. A nursing sister who had recently lectured our Aromatherapy group to increase our anatomy module requirement,  told me over the phone that I should cancel the counselling course because I would not manage it so soon after the tragedy. Every time I phoned to cancel the course the line was engaged.  I eventually just gave up and attend the course in May.

On the third day of the course I began to find the work we were covering was making me become unravelled.  I could not stop crying.  The lecturer asked me to wait outside while she got the class started on a project.  After hearing my story she agreed that this course was too soon for me to attend.  After a while she came back to me and said I had been excused from the course and I could attend the next course a few months later.  She also suggested very strongly that I have counselling which would be a debriefing of events to assist me to manage to move forward with my life in a positive and useful way.

I attend the debriefing session with that lecturer.  There were 4 sessions in total.  Oh, what a difference that made.  I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and the cloud started to lift from my brain.  My family members then also attended debriefing in various places to assist them.  Without attending that course for those few days I would never have even considered or even thought of going for counselling.

I guess spirit knew what was in store for me when I originally booked that course.  Three months later I attended the course again with a new group of people.  It was eye opening and very beneficial.  It has helped make me the person I am today and helped me to be a better and more aware holistic therapist.

  1. About a year later I attended a care-givers (volunteer counselling) course at Hospice Houghton. (A colleague suggested I do this to help build my business). Surprise, when on the first day, an hour into the course I realised this course was to help hospice secure volunteers to visit their cancer and terminally ill patients. It was a volunteer’s course which I also had to pay for, Ha-ha.  I guess spirit knew what I did not know.

The Hospice’s volunteer course and the 5 years of voluntary work that followed was rewarding, life changing, and oh so healing.

About 18 months after my parents died I was preparing to visit a hospice patient.  I chose to read through a particular article before visiting the client;

As I read the article I suddenly realised that I had arrived.  I had come to the end of my grieving period. What an amazing feeling.   This had occurred because I had obviously worked with the universe, accepted what life threw at me and followed the 5 steps of grieving with the help and push given to me by spirit.

I was amazed that in the space of 18 months I had being through so much and learnt so much  with the guidance and nudge from spirit.

  1. My grieving had come to an end and yet I felt as if I was empty inside. The hole inside of me had healed but I wanted something more. Then I remembered a lady called Sandra who had given a talk and flower reading demonstration at a reflexology meeting. She also mentioned that her and her husband managed a spiritual church/sanctuary in Germiston. After some searching I found this little sanctuary.  “The Germiston Sanctuary of Light”.  I had long ago stopped attending the Catholic church I had been brought up in and got married in, due to lack of interest in how the services were run and the fact that I never came away feeling uplifted.

The first Sunday morning both my daughter and I were free we decided to attend a service at “The Germiston Sanctuary of Light”. By the end of the service I knew I was home.

We had no idea what to expect from the service.   My dear Mom would so have loved this little sanctuary.  My daughter and I cried through the entire service.  It was so freeing, not one person tried to shush us, or hold us, or touch us, or interfere with us in any way.  They allowed us to cry in our own space.  Then a lady on the platform gave me a message from spirit.  Oh dear that set me off again. How strange, I never knew they gave messages in these little sanctuaries.   By the time the service was over we had no dry tissues left.  They were a sodden lump in the bottom of our bags.   We also heard that they sat in circle on Thursday evenings and Sandra took the group.  We had no idea what sitting in a circle was but the following Thursday we went to circle??  Oh my, surprise.  It was a spiritual circle to learn to use our God given gifts by developing and enhancing our psychic/intuitive skills. The end result, being able to connect with spirit by working towards becoming a  medium to help bring closure to those who have lost loved ones and are having a difficult time moving on without their loved ones at their sides.

  1. That night after circle I realised that there was actually a word for the way I had been living my life for the past 5 to 6 years. It was called Spirituality. I had started changing how I lived, ate, how I interacted with others and my family, and doing things I chose to do , not just doing things because that was the norm or expected of me.  I was a free agent and I could decide how to think and talk.  As long as I spoke my truth and did no harm I was free to live as I choose.  It was so refreshing to understand that what I was doing was the way we should all live.  Not only go to church on Sundays, but live our lives the way we pray.  Live what we preach.  On my I felt alive and free.  I ignored those around me who called me names.  A family member even called me a witch when I started doing reflexology as a career.

My healing is complete and I give thanks daily for the presence of God, Spirit and the God angels who came into  my life at a very trying time.   Obviously still to this day I have quiet days were I feel lost or long for a word or touch from one or both of my parents.  I get a little sad and nostalgic at anniversaries, birthdays and celebrations because two important people are missing from my physical life.  But then I smell familiar comforting scents or see unusual sighting of birds, butterflies or feathers or hear or read a message that brings back wonderful memories, then I know I am not alone.  They are constantly in my life, guiding me and encouraging me.   Always giving me signs that they are very close.  What more do I need, I know I am truly blessed.