Why Great Change Can Come From Powerful Loss

Sometimes in life, we can be so fixated on a dream that we don’t notice the dream is not nourishing us anymore. This was me and my dream of the mental health and music radio station Peace Within Radio, and my trip to Glastonbury in the UK that took me on an unexpected healing journey.

I had been pre-grieving the loss for some time before switching the ‘off-air’ switch on June 30th and I expected a continuation of grief and massive outpourings of tears, but this didn’t happen.

I was very surprised.

Instead I felt this relief, I did not cry, it was as if I was making the exact correct decision for my soul.

On Monday the 1st of July, I had already scheduled in a acupuncture treatment and also a Soul Guidance reading with Christopher Sell of Heaven On Earth (via Skype). I had pre-prepared statements I had been feeling during the pre-grieving place I was in, so the questions were fairly honest and deep for me. I came home after acupuncture and after some tech mishaps I was able to use Skype.

This was the start of something new for me, a reminder of my value, my worth and an honest realisation that I had been spending a long time thinking about what the world needs and less what do I need?

I had not asked myself during the creation or producing part of the station ‘Is this nourishing me?’ ‘Am I feeling valued?’ ‘Am I giving more than I am receiving?’

It was not until it was becoming too overwhelming and I was almost reaching burn-out that I started to question its value and whether I could continue. I was convinced it was a worthwhile idea, and it was, for the time it was on air.

Like a bee is nourished by the flower and in turn nourishes the flower in its role as a bee, I was not being nourished.

So I started to wake up to something I had not realised for a long time. Who am I right now? What is my purpose? And as I read a book I had picked up at a charity shop, it dawned on me:

YOU are your purpose!

And what the author emphasised was that most people do not know who they are so they flap around looking for the meaning of life or their soul’s purpose without ever enquiring to who they are. 

I realised I had forgotten what brings me joy. I did not know, apart from being in nature, what nourishes me anymore. I had spent so long pointing my inner compass outwards I had not asked if my activity and choices were right for me anymore. It was all time for change.

After my soul guidance reading I realised how much I thought that growth, abundance, joy and success was meant to be tough, was meant to be hard work and challenging.

I had become so accustomed to struggling my way for the past 40 years to get or do anything in life of value, that I had such a powerful belief that life was just meant to be tough and because of this belief I was not open to believing my life could be easy. I did not know that it was not only okay, but was so important.

Watching my father struggle with work, money and life in general I had been carrying the powerful belief that it was a betrayal to my father’s memory to have life be easy for me. This was really eye-opening.

And so from the perceived loss of the radio station, came the awareness of what matters and knowing I have a new journey now.

Who is Kelly? What brings me joy? What skills lie dormant that I have not allowed myself to access because that belief had me think that receiving ease into my life was wrong?

I believed on a deep level that to be poor was virtuous and while poverty has gifted me many great lessons and understanding, I am to see how it feels to welcome wellness, welcome easy peace, welcome joyful growth instead of struggle. This perhaps feels more challenging than staying in the status quo of the known. 

A little while back I received healing from someone in my local area and he said to me ‘Kelly, you know you’re scared of joy!’ and that really stuck with me, but I put it to the back of my mind for quite some time, until now.

My View Had Been Skewed For Too Long and Limited!

So on Tuesday 2nd of July 2019, I took my first solo trip in a long time. I have visited many people over the past twenty years, but I have not took a few days away on my own since I backpacked around Australia for a year in 2000. This was meant to be a time to let go of the station and absorb the changes, but instead it turned into a profound shift in perception, one I am just beginning to integrate.

Loneliness Arrives

Arriving in Glastonbury, it was not long into sitting in the centre, surrounded by people (it was particularly busy on my first day, with a market and a return of many people who had been to the festival), that I was hit by this overwhelming wave of loneliness.

Something I had been resisting in my busy-ness with the station. I wandered around the metaphysical shops trying to distract myself until I finally gave in, as I perused books in a book store and felt like I was going to break down in tears at the book shelf, I left the store, sat in the window seat of a cafe with a coffee and cake.

Neither the cake or the coffee satiating the lonely feelings, and I remembered ‘Just feel these feelings, let them be, they need space just to be, not fixed, or eaten away’ And in that moment of allowing the intensity to simply be, I received the thought ‘Go to Chalice Well Gardens‘.

Chalice Well is a sacred and beautiful garden at the bottom of Glastonbury Tor, where the healing water flows and the gardens simply bring you back to a place of stillness and comfort. 

As I made the walk up to the gardens my mood began to lift. I had forgotten that in the centre where the high street is, the energy of the masculine Michael ley lines was strong, it always is, but as you go up to the Tor you meet the Mary ley lines, the feminine energy and I needed that nurturing embrace.

I walked into the garden, paid at the shop entrance and had a brief conversation with the gentlemen behind the counter, I needed the human connection. So I walked to the well and sat by the well, embracing the energies there, the love, and set the intention that the healing I was to have the following day helped me to let go and to also welcome in the new.

It was so peaceful and needed and I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the meadow. 

Being in nature nurtures me, this I know, it is like I don’t feel lonely anymore, because I am not alone. And so as the evening began I took a steep intense walk up Glastonbury Tor.

New Beginnings – Trust The Climb

As I walked towards the gate at the bottom of the Tor I was greeted by two baby birds. First a male baby robin who hopped around me in a circle, the second a female robin on the branch looking at me. This reminded me of a dream I had a little while ago, where I was looking up at a tree and a baby bird fell out of the tree onto my throat and it felt very significant.

Climbing the Tor felt like a rite of passage, that even though life has felt a struggle, the view at the top is worth the climb. It reminds me of the song ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus, which was the song that helped me have the courage to birth the dream of Peace Within Radio, but now it takes on a whole different meaning to me.

These moments in life are not meant to crush us, but to remind us of what we really need. What are our really deep soul desires? Are we meeting them? Or are we doing what think we should be doing? Maybe we feel if we just keep giving we will be of worth, of value… but there comes a point when we know that it’s not about this, we can’t give so much that we lose our truth, lose what we are meant to do for us, whatever that may mean.

I could have continued with the dream of the radio station, as many people told me they would miss it, but I had to ask myself how many people were there to help me, how many people stepped forward and gave me what I needed to keep it going at the time I needed it?

I was doing it on my own (with the exception of my best friend who stepped in near the end) and because of this it could not continue.

We all need nourishment, but if another’s nourishment is to the detriment of our own, why continue?

Let The Healing Begin

The following day I left the Bed and Breakfast early because I had little sleep that night, my whole body and mind were tossing and turning in resistance, probably in preparation for the healing experience. So I had breakfast and a coffee, wandered to the Mary Chapel and did a finger labyrinth with the intention of a deep healing and left for The Goddess House where I received a 90 minute Soul Essence journey by Anna-Saqqara Price.

The Goddess House is such a special place (not only open to women, they welcome men because they believe in the balance of masculine and feminine, but obviously some events/therapies may be female only)…

…with many rooms, of many colours representing many Goddesses and elements. I always feel even simply visiting this place is healing.

The room below is a room I waited in on a previous visit, but this time I was taken into room all bathed in the colour Turquoise, stunning artwork everywhere, but the colour I have been drawn to for most of my life.

This healing was a big treat to me, because one thing I had realised through my reading on Monday was in the past I would treat myself to things as a compensation for doing something more challenging, not simply to treat myself well, so this was a change for me and also I felt quite nervous beforehand. I knew this was a sign it was going to be powerful.

I entered the room with Anna, a lovely warm-hearted woman and she immediately helped me feel at ease. I had felt blocked for some time in my third eye and with my inner sight, I did not expect anything to happen, but instead I saw so much.

Tears came and went, anger arose and I let that go. After some big releases through sound and my voice, I lay on the couch and met my soul. This was the most profound experience I have had in a long time. I felt supported from above and below and I saw myself surrounded by my ancestors and many many women queued up to enter me, it felt like parts of me I had lost or left behind that had so much to offer in this lifetime and I welcomed them home.

The overwhelming voice in my mind was ‘I AM home’. 

I left the healing session floating on a cloud, had some lunch and felt more whole than I had felt in a very long time. I then took another trip to Chalice Well, where I just sat and did nothing. I felt very grateful for this experience.

The rest of my trip felt open, expansive and freeing. I felt that certain limits I had placed on my life were lifting, but this was only the beginning.

It is easy to be in the blissed out, peaceful state when in a sacred space, the challenge is coming back to ‘reality’. And so this is where I am now, integrating what happened, in my home in the city of Gloucester.

A noisy urban street which can make integrating, something of a journey in itself, but I am feeling more trusting in my ability to welcome in easy now…it is just the beginning.

From loss comes change, where grief was thought to be, release can come instead. We never know how much one decision can make a difference in our lives, until we choose to make it.

What in your life are you holding onto that is no longer nourishing you?

 

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