Creating what my previous self needed....
And being careful what you wish for...
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on creatively fertile periods in my life where following my intuition has led to surprising—and amazingly unexpected—results. Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been extremely sensitive and psychic with vivid—sometimes prophetic—dreams.
One memorable period was during my mid-30s after the rapid dissolution of my marriage. We’d been together for 11 years and one night I had the clearest guidance in the middle of the night, that if we didn’t ‘become a family’ we didn’t have long left together. Immediately afterwards, I discovered I was pregnant but it was a molar pregnancy (unusual type of miscarriage). I knew from Day 1, the pregnancy was not going to eventuate. I simply could never envisage us with a child together. And I’d always queried whether motherhood was my path (and created a podcast ‘Unclassified Woman’ on being childless or childfree 2015-2019).
For a couple of years preceding this time, I’d experienced repetitive baffling dreams about dividing furniture, a chair here, a table there—trivial mundane items (which all made sense later). As our separation and ultimately divorce unfolded, I felt deeply betrayed. A destabilising unravelling resulted in anxiety, panic attacks and periods of depression. How could I trust my instincts or intuition? I was clearly a terrible judge of character. What had been real? My perception of myself and the relationship was shattered with a rollercoaster of gradual painful realisations. A few months prior to this severing (in hindsight it had been slowly eroding), on New Year’s Eve I’d stood on our roof top balcony, gazed at the stars and set a huge intention:
Next year I want everything that is not 100% aligned with my highest truth to be dissolved. The universe heard me loud and clear. I also received the ingredients for a Truth Alchemical oil (another long long story).
Spoiler: Within 6 short months, I’d had a miscarriage and I was attending monthly blood test appointments at the cancer clinic for a year—for something I’d never heard of. My marriage was over and he moved to Melbourne without a proper face-to-face explanation, apart from a dubious brief email. I’d just stopped some part-time work as my home-based energy medicine practice had been busy. With no prior warning, in the apartment block, the owner of the floor underneath decided to knock walls down and join both apartments into one. The noise was intolerable and when I objected to the lack of communication (a theme), the neighbour was abusive. My foundations were literally being demolished. So I was suddenly homeless, with no home-based healing clients and so I decided to do some mobile work—but within a week or two, my driving licence was suspended due to some bizarre technicality of a speed limit change I’d been unaware of. I was suddenly single in my mid-30s, with no money, after an 11-year relationship, living in Australia (where I’d emigrated at 25 to get married) with family on the other side of the world. I felt as though I was acting a role in a dodgy film and every time I thought, ‘well things can only get better,’ another strange incident occurred.
Every time I meditated or dreamt, the repeated words ‘But this is what you asked for,’ haunted me. And ‘you’ve not been happy for a long time and you’ve been lying to yourself.’ Ouch. How can we have a truthful relationship with anyone, if we’re not honest with ourselves?
My mental state was fragile, I was burnt out and I found myself listening to hypnotherapy audios (Glenn Harrold worked for me) and watching EFT videos on Youtube (Brad Yates) writing positive affirmation post-it notes to myself and sticking them in various places: the bathroom mirror, wardrobe door, fridge or my wallet—my self-love reminders. Every time, negative thoughts arose, I’d look up to see a kind reframe. After a year or two had passed, the idea of creating a self-love cards deck wouldn’t leave me alone.
Maybe these would also be helpful for my healing clients as the recurrent theme in sessions related to self-love and self-acceptance. It was 2009 and one afternoon, within an hour, a list of 44 of my favourites spilled out in a stream into my journal. I saw them designed with simple graphics. I contacted the gorgeous Fran Verbeek, a graphic designer and fellow Brit also living in Sydney (coincidentally we both moved back to the UK within a year of each other, to live in Cornwall).
Rapidly, the deck was designed, a printer was sourced and amongst many deep breaths, I ordered 1000 boxes to be printed. They sold out, much to my delight. They were a tool when I facilitated self-love meditation circles and a 100% self-love course in 2012. And a much larger reprint was ordered and people still buy them. Holistic practitioners and creatives buy them wholesale.
Even now, fifteen years after their creation in physical form, I’ve often amazed how such a painful, confusing time was alchemised into creative self-expression to share with others. And this is just one of many examples. There are more stories I plan to share over the coming weeks and months. In fact, I’m fascinated by this whole topic of the magic that unfolds when we follow our intuition and those creative impulses—even when it seems irrational. Especially when it seems irrational.
In my experience, intuition is the quiet but persistent voice we can’t ignore (or we end up regretting it if we do), often extremely inconvenient with uncomfortable truths.
I believe this is one of the defining qualities of intuition—it doesn’t tell us what we want to know—but often what we need to hear.
The next challenge is to take action. It’s one thing hearing the guidance. We want a closer relationship with our intuition. But when we hear the voice, do we listen?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you ever regretted not listening to your intuition? And have you ever created a surprise product or offering that arose out of your own healing experiences?
Thank you for these raw and beautiful words ❤️