your journey starts here

Your journey is rich, complex and deep. It is unique to you. You take ultimate responsibility for it, and when things get tough, you sign off on the final decision, no matter how difficult that is. You have grown, evolved, flourished. You've also been as low as it was possible to go, folded away inside your own darkness, barely able to breathe. You have experienced loss, shock, fear, sadness and grief as you've struggled to make sense of the unforeseen, You know what it's like to stretch your battered wings out once more into the air. You've changed. You've altered beyond all recognition as you made vast realisations and felt the sting of stark reality checks. You've given it everything you've got, reached the top and toasted your own resilience. You've watched people come and go, enriching and intoxicating. Your ups and downs have created a vivid picture book and the pages lie behind you like stepping stones which reach into the distance of your personal history.

Now, you're here. In this moment. I salute you.

What's next? How do you take the lessons you've learned and weave a worthy dream with them? How do you shake the last shards of the past from your shoulders and walk into new terrain? Do you feel worthy? Are you in touch with your signature strengths and do you know how to harness them? What about self-love, self-awareness, self-acceptance - the things you read about in the self-help section? How can these things be grasped pragmatically? How do they become less abstract and more textured, more visceral, more real? What is 'self' anyway?

As a Spiritual Counsellor, it is my sincere belief that many different concepts and teachings can have a place in our hearts. When we need direction, healing or release, we can find the tools to build those things in a number of different places. We are not bound to just one technique, just one concept, just one teacher.. Even in the most turbulent times, you can show up for yourself by recognising that you can 'choose your weapon' in any given moment. Building an arsenal of available techniques and mindsets tends to ease fear and encourage empowerment. Some people swear by affirmations, crystal healing, chakra work or ritual practice. Some favour the use of Tarot, shadow work, meditation and mindfulness, their favourite self-help author or a little sprinkle of magick. The possibilities are endless and personal power is cultivated in the practice of discovering what works for you. If you feel a little lost, embrace that. Relish it as much as you can because, believe me, things are about to get interesting! Seek and you certainly shall find.

One thing I noticed on my own healing journey is that it's easy to get caught up in trying to choose one system and stick with it. Perhaps you're wondering whether or not you really are a Law of Attraction person since you only resonate with it about half the time. Maybe you enjoy mindfulness techniques but you also enjoy planning your future and thinking about how to reach your goals. You may find that you mix-and-match different concepts which appear to contradict each other and yet they all offer great benefits. This is because you're multifaceted!

A big part of self-awareness resides in the ability to know what's best for you. One thing I often remind my clients is that there's so much value in choosing your external support system wisely. You might have that one friend who always gives you tough love when you need it. Then there's that other friend who simply lends you their ear and lets you cry it out. Both are valuable. The trick is to know which kind of support fits your needs at a particular time. (Remember, what you need is not necessarily the same as what your ego wants. This is why you'll often hear people talk about 'what is in your highest good'. Sometimes, we must override the ego's demands in order to receive that.)

I know that I am one of an untold number of people out there who choose to enthusiastically teach and celebrate the techniques they truly believe in. Therefore, I don't feel the need to be well-versed in absolutely everything. I know that there will always be a wonderful guide out there who is offering lots of juicy wisdom in an area of spirituality or personal development that I know nothing about. (I am usually one of their biggest fans - I love to learn.) This means that instead of worrying about being 'all things to all people', I can instead focus on my true passions and areas of awareness.

I'm big on personal power - what it is, what it feels like and how to connect with it. Personal power has many layers to it - assertive communication, dealing with self-sabotage, listening to the inner voice - the list goes on. But it's all connected and it's all sacred to me. I rave about personal power because I cultivated it myself and I cultivated it because there was no alternative. I was standing on the very edge of life when I connected with my own personal power and it was a game-changer for me, so I love nothing more than to help others find theirs. I truly believe in the nourishing majesty of transpersonal experience, spiritual connection and creative expression for healing and self-discovery. I love radical acceptance and I know it from top to bottom. It is the true elixir of life. Self-love is a slippery sucker but there's more than one way to pin it down and that's another passion of mine. I encourage unconditional growth, conscious living, shadow work, belief work and release work.. (Yes, lots of work. But the rewards are invaluable, trust me.)

I see the seed of desire in people and my truest aim is to help them clear the earth so that they can plant it in fertile soil. What I use to clear the earth will change depending on the individual needs of each person. But let's say that I believe in my methods and that Tarot is a good tool for helping me to implement them. That's a sure thing!

You've got to go where you find strength, inspiration and empowerment. Perhaps this means our paths will cross one day, perhaps not. Either way, I endlessly commend your strength and I am lying in the sun rays of your desire to soak up all the beauty of life.