I’ve been back in ‘civilization’ for just over a week now. Back in the busyness of a city, back in the traffic, back in the field of other’s emotions, feeling, electricity, WIFI and all its resulting energy. It’s like an assault on my system after a month in the quiet and peace of the Rocky Mountains and there are moments where I long to escape back there.
I’ve always been ‘sensitive’ and can feel the currents and undercurrents of energy, emotions and feelings as well as the pulse of electricity as it throbs and vibrates through our cities and environments. There are days where it is a blessing and I feel connected to the beauty and the light and other days where it’s not and I feel assaulted by too much energy, too much external information, emotions, feelings and too much technology. Those are the days I struggle to connect to myself and the peace of my inner world and want to literally run for the hills and find a quiet, remote and isolated island. Yet my isolation in the Rocky’s did reveal that I rather like the vibe of a city. I like being able to connect with people and get a good coffee.…..just not all of the time. I need peace, I need quiet, and I still need to master being in the world but not of it!
Growing up in Apartheid South Africa life didn’t feel safe and the volatility and instability at home added to those feelings. As a result, I sought safety and comfort from within and developed a strong connection to my inner world, my soul and the presence of God in my life. I don’t know what prompted me to turn inward. I don’t remember God being explained to me. Church wasn’t a big part of our lives and yet I had a strong feeling and connection to the presence of the Divine. It was God and the angels who were there when I was feeling, lost, unloved, unwanted and unsafe.
To cope in my environment, I developed an extremely empathic survival instinct which enable me to feel and sense the undercurrents of what was going on around me. It proved useful but was also exhausting feeling and sensing my environment, the people in it and their emotions all the time and I didn’t know how to switch it off. As a teenager I discovered alcohol as a way to tune out, black out and disconnect. Alcohol gave me an off switch and the relief of not having to feel, not having to care and not having to be so plugged in was immense. Not a healthy choice but the only one I found at the time.
When I was about 21 an uncle admitted that he had a drinking problem and was attending AA. I remember him telling me about his black outs, his rages when drunk and the problems alcohol had created in his home and work life. I was stunned. He was a very intelligent man, the life and soul of his friend group, and very successful in his career. To admit that he had a problem was huge and had a profound impact on me. I remember quietly thinking ‘SHIT, I think I may have a problem too.’ My drinking habit didn’t take me into a rage, but I was out of control and experiencing black outs. That conversation caused me to pause. At the time I didn’t equate alcohol as the tool I was using to tune out or quiet the noise of what I was feeling and sensing, but I just knew this was a wakeup call of some kind.
Having learnt not to trust anyone as a child I didn’t say a word about my realizations but recognized that I needed to stop drinking. There was no way I was going to AA. My survival instinct told me that being that vulnerable was unsafe. I decided then and there to just stop. It was hard. No one could understand why suddenly I was drinking water when out at bars and clubs. It was tedious to sit and watch as everyone else had ‘fun’ and I was sober. It was boring and there were a few times a year where I’d just say, ‘fuck it’ and join in only to feel incredible shame and beat myself up about it afterwards.
At the same time, I really started exploring spirituality. Reading books, going to talks and having long and deep meaningful conversations with a few friends of like mind. I was a sponge and really longed to dive in, connect and understand this spiritual world. I had no conscious awareness of my empathetic nature or that the things I saw, felt and knew where unusual. I truly thought that everyone was like me or at least that I was just like everyone else.
Later being the mother of two young children, recently divorced and feeling incredibly lost. Life was overwhelming and exhausting which meant that I was operating in survival while desperately trying to contain my own energy, emotions and feelings and block out everything else. I had started drinking alcohol again and it was becoming a crutch which I mistakenly believed was helping me relax and have fun. Alcohol had just become a portal through which I could escape when it all just got to much.
In the past my inner world had always been a place of comfort and safety. Easily accessible and reassuringly present. But through the turmoil of my 20’s, my marriage, having children, the loss of a corporate career and my divorce I had somehow lost my way and the path to take me inward. I was still able to sense, feel and intuitively connect but it felt blurry and hazy.
While the chaos of life as a single mother was erupting in and around me, I was attempting to build and create a spiritual business. I had been writing for some time about parenting Indigo and Crystal children and created a website with another healer and teacher where we shared channelled messages and the information and insights, we were getting about what was happening in the world. 911 had just taken place and we were working to try and make sense of what was occurring from a spiritual perspective.
I mostly felt like a fraud while being seen as some kind of ‘spiritual teacher’ with others coming to me for help, clarity and wisdom when I was feeling lost and out of control myself. My spiritual awakening may have started in my 20’s but I had yet to really commit to my spiritual path and face all the pain and trauma of my past which needed to be done if I was to make any head way in understanding myself. I did not have my shit together and as a result, the relationship with my business partner fell apart. I lost access to the website and all the thousands of contacts we had made around the world. It was a blow but also another wakeup call that got me to look hard at the path I was on. I knew I needed help but really did not know which way to turn.
A friend suggested I have an astrology reading and recommended someone she had recently seen. I immediately booked a session ever hopeful that this would be an answer to my prayers. It wasn’t so much an answer but a sign that pointed me in a new direction. And so began my shamanic journey and the recovery of myself where I consciously committed to my spiritual path and resolved to do whatever it took to feel good about myself. I began to see that my alcohol crutch was a desperate attempt at creating a boundary and a container and that there must be a better and healthier way.
I dived deep into the shamanic path and reignited by connection with God. I found the pathways to my inner self, my truth and the wisdom of my soul while facing the shame and humiliation I felt about the choices I had made and the resulting consequences. Initially connecting to my inner world felt like going into battle as I confronted my shadows and my weaknesses. I came to recognised that the ‘love and light’ idea of spirituality was misleading, ungrounded and ultimately toxic, and found that a true spiritual path involved a deep dive into the dark, into the shadows of the self where you find the light and the love. It wasn’t something you found out there, it was something you found inside.
In this time, I searched, experimented, and finally found the tools and practices that helped me to focus my gifts, cleanse and clear my energy and create healthier ways of setting up boundaries to shield me from the empathy overload I had experienced in the past. I no longer needed alcohol to rest and could just let that toxic behaviour go.
Today I can see my sensitivity as a gift that can be of help to others as well as myself. The memories of survival and having to cope are still with me and every now and then when life gets particularly challenging and stressful, I do still think that a touch of tequila would make it a bit more fun and manageable, but I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s a road to self-loathing and disgust all of which I have worked too hard to overcome to take myself back to. Now I find connection, peace and balance in nature with the trees, the oceans or the mountains where I can feel the vastness of the Divine and my place in it. When I’m in the city it can be difficult but often a walk in the park or around the block soaking in the beauty of the sun, the sky and even the rain can bring me back to me.
All that I’ve learnt and discovered on my journey I share in my online courses, one-on-one sessions and webinars. Contact me if you’d like to learn more.