Reframing Mental distress as a potential catalyst for positive change

Our 3rd International #Emerging Proud day celebrations are only 9 weeks away, and this year it’s a double- whammy!

Not only are we celebrating #EmergingProud day 2019, we’re also launching the first in our Kinda Proud pocket books of Hope and Transformation series…

#Emerging Proud through NOTEs (non-ordinary transcendent experiences) 

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP for your online seat (donate whatever you can afford)

Arrange a party and stream in together, or sit back in your armchair and just listen, join us however you wish – we very much look forward to celebrating with you all ❤

As Becky bravely demonstrates through recounting her own story, recovery isn’t a linear process with a definite ‘end’. It’s most likely an ongoing development of self- awareness including needing to embrace self- love and self- acceptance over the opinions of others. Healthy body weight and shape / size is different for every individual, so learning to be happy in our own skin is the most important factor. As Becky says, finding your ‘tribe’; people with whom you can be yourself and who accept you as you are, can be a life – changing step to healing…

So here goes my story of recovery. I won’t go into everything and you know what, that’s OK. No matter who you tell your story to, you only tell as much as you feel comfortable.

So, I grew up feeling very different to others, I was bullied every day and couldn’t seem to do anything to fit in, so I started just doing what I enjoyed. Sadly, the bullying didn’t stop and continued throughout my childhood. This of course impacted my self-esteem and confidence and I tended to hide away. I focused on my art and music that I connected with. I was even isolated at home and would stay in my room. I struggled with the emotions I felt and could not find a way to express them, so I turned to self-harm as a way to cope. When this was discovered this was also met with hostility and mocking.  I withdrew further and struggled to connect with others. As I grew older I focused a lot on what I ate as I could control this aspect of my life more than most others.  As I went to college all the years of being called fat, ugly and worthless caught up. That’s all I could see. Looking back, I was about a size 8, which for my tall height isn’t ideal, but I would grab skin and be convinced it was fat. I ate barely anything. It wasn’t until I kept losing weight and people started to notice and comment on how unwell I looked I started to realise. I started to eat a bit more but still struggled with body image and my confidence was still so low. My friend suggested I try modelling, which helped a bit as I was getting positive feedback on my style. I enjoyed the outfits and getting made up.  However, it could also be a point of conflict within myself as I compared myself to other others and how they looked. I still didn’t feel in control, so I became very fixated on getting top grades and this became my way of ‘being worthwhile’. This continued throughout uni and I felt I’d ‘failed’ if I didn’t get a first. I started counselling and later had CAT (Cognitive Analytical Therapy) and I slowly started to improve. I still really struggled with confidence, but it was improving.

As I grew older and found people with similar interests and those who didn’t judge me, I improved more. I wouldn’t say I’m the most confident or body confident individual, but I’ve come a long way and no longer hate myself, I accept myself for who I am and do my best to put love into the world. I support vulnerable adults as I want no-one to feel like I did growing up.

We are all always growing, but if we can recognise our negative past thought patterns and can learn from them, we can move forward. With support I’ve now not self-harmed in nearly 8 years, something I never thought possible.  I’m not super happy with my weight, but I’m not ugly, I feel like I’m a healthy size for me, I wouldn’t say I love my body, but I appreciate it. I’ve used tattoos to make my scars into what I see as transformation, and I find this beautiful. I’m grateful for all I learned and those who have supported me on my journey. Where there are shadows, there is also light. We can use this knowledge to help others and help heal ourselves.

Thank you Becky, for sharing your story to give others HOPE ❤

Do you resonate with Becky’s journey? Would you like to share your story and be considered for publication in Amy’s Kinda Proud pocket book;

#EmergingProud through disordered eating, body image and low self-esteem? 

Please contact Amy at: info@soul-shine.org.uk

Today I was inspired by listening to Russell Brand’s #UnderTheSkin Podcast interview with Prof Kehinde Andrews entitled ‘Black Revolution and Whiteness Psychosis’, to think more deeply about a message I received during the epiphanic phase of my own awakening. I was given the message that;

‘Mental Illness’ does not exist; Insanity is real Sanity.

Ever since then I have been trying to fathom out what this actually means.

Today another penny dropped after listening to Russell and Kehinde, in relation to some personal processing I’ve been doing this week. Last week I made a very clumsy comment during a live Q+A session about the #EmergingProud film, which indirectly caused offence. For a moment (or a few hours afterwards actually), I found myself slipping into a familiar spiral of guilt and shame about how my naivety may have caused me to unintentionally come across as racist, until I stopped myself and realised that I needed to walk my talk and seek the opportunity to be gained from my pain of this experience.

I had been questioned about the premise of the #Emerging Proud campaign and explained that my intention was to create a new Human Rights movement; similar to the black and gay rights movements, only for how we perceive mental distress and altered states of consciousness.

It was mentioned that my film was not reflective of the disproportionate representation of black people who end up in psychiatric detention in the West. This is very true, and has made me reflect on my own inherent prejudice just through seeing things through my very privileged white western lens. Maybe I had unconsciously avoided looking at these issues as they were easier for me to ignore as a white woman? As I listened to Kehinde talk about ‘Whiteness psychosis’ I was feeling a bit triggered, until I realised that he was right.

I’ve recently had many a discussion and thought about how working within the Western bio-medical model dominant system causes huge cognitive dissonance (and ironically perpetuates the very thing it’s trying to improve; human suffering) for Workers with Lived Experience of mental distress.

So, what if we take that concept and magnify it out?

Kehinde was talking about the dissonance caused for himself by promoting an anti- Western capitalism paradigm shift, whilst working within the capitalist education system; how his values are diametrically opposed to his behaviour, also paradoxically perpetuated by the system that he relies upon to survive and pay his bills and care for his family.

This is the very dialogue which is very prevalent for me at the moment; how is it possible to ‘Mend the Gap’ between honouring my personal calling, and needing to earn enough money to survive within the paradigm we ultimately want to change?

Has the Western world created the idea of psychosis and indeed any ‘mental illness’ being insanity as a way of denying our collective capitalist shadow, which actually prevents our evolution, the very thing we are striving for? Have we objectified our collective pain, shame and guilt from the genocide caused by creating the patriarchal society we live in, as a way of avoiding having to look at what we need to change?

When we ‘wake up’ and experience the internal discord that this realisation creates, is there any wonder that One can lose their mind? Is so called madness really true sanity in this case?

When we awaken to our spiritual Self, we feel connected to the illogical nature of the pain and the suffering of the world and it can become unbearable. As more people awaken, the suicide and homeless rates are increasing as people feel the weight of this collective shadow.

An internal split is created between our ‘true’ spiritual identity, and the human identity  which we’ve created to fit into the constructs and pressures of the current materialist paradigm, and systems that we’ve created within it.

Integrating these polarised identities is  the biggest challenge of spiritual awakening, and if that could be acknowledged within our society, then perhaps more people could more easily live their calling, which is always ultimately to create a fairer, more compassionate world.

This is why we need another Human Rights movement for those ‘awakening’ to this insanity, the REAL insanity.

What is the answer?

Russell and Kehinde didn’t have the answer so I’m hardly likely to.

However, for a start, rather than shunning those who are waking up to this split within our society and themselves, such as those we’ve labelled as ‘crazy’, suicidal or homeless, perhaps we should see them as holding vital answers; perhaps we should be prioritising the nurturing of these sensitive souls who often take themselves outside of our cultural norms because they find it just too painful to be a part of, rather than prioritising the augmentation of the capitalist society that is ultimately killing all of us.

We need to re- prioritise what we’re honouring within our current political, educational and health systems and recognise the importance of spiritual over economic practices; the practices that can assist us to connect us to ourselves and each other. This is not ‘woo- woo’, ‘wafty’ or unnecessary. Practices that make us go inwards to recognise our own pain and our collective pain, that brings us closer to our individual calling, and ultimately a paradigm shift. We need a mass honouring of our ‘humanness’. Ultimately we are all a microcosm of the collective; if each and every person were given the tools and resources we need to take care of our own healing, then the world would be healed one person at a time.

For any oppressed group to be heard, we have to shine a light on these issues and provide a platform for these narratives to occur.

We need to shine a much brighter light on the relationship between trauma and awakening; the seemingly very logical nature of how extreme someone’s awakening experience is in its manifestation in relation to how much trauma they have experienced in their life, or even, if we look at the bigger socio, economic and political picture, their whole ancestral history… But that is an additional discussion.

Maybe we need to start a Human Rights movement for the wisdom contained in ‘insanity’; Is madness the real sanity pushing us towards a very necessary anthropological shift for the survival of our species?

Kehinde talked about a pan- Africanism revolution, I think we need to go for broke and aim for a pan-humanism revolution.

Linda’s story is a special one for me, (Katie, #Emerging Proud Founder), to share, as Linda was one of the few people who offered me a non- judgemental safe space to work through my own spiritual crisis in 2012. We travelled the unfolding of our journeys alongside each other, often mirroring, and triggering each other to growth…

As Linda explains, her repressed trauma catalysed a spiritual awakening for her, and without a prior context for that, the chaos that ensued caused instability, as it does for many who experience a spontaneous awakening.

Today, 7 years on, Linda is bringing her individual passion for providing deep listening that emerged from her crisis into both her own life’s mission and a joint project that we are evolving together; the transformational opportunities of crisis indeed! Hear Linda’s journey through her own words…

As the dowsing rod spun faster and faster above my head, I felt a release in my body and a tear drop trickled down my cheek.

Confused by my emotional response, I asked what was happening…

The course leader explained that I was probably feeling the relief of freely accessing my innate feminine gift of connecting with earth energy. She explained that for generations, we have repressed our innate sensory, intuitive and supernatural gifts, to protect ourselves from the risk of being drowned or burnt at the stake, as these gifts were associated with witchery. Now it is ‘safe’ to be who we really are, without the risks of the past; the release I felt was ancestral, as well as personal.

There had been no room in my life for drama, or the non-ordinary and I had no context in my upbringing for the spiritual, supernatural or transcendental. My 45 years had been happy, stable and sweet.  In early 2011, I began to feel increasingly highly sensitive and euphoric and this coincided with a new awareness of synchronicity and receiving messages from vivid dreams with symbols of sacred geometry. As well as feeling more emotional, I also felt frequent blissful moments as though cradled in a silky wrap of unconditional love and floating on a cloud of cotton wool. The euphoria continued intermittently for around four months.

More extreme, was having a vision (or hallucination?) of light emanating from the soil. I had a knowing that the mirror like points of light were some kind of message, though it must have been for my subconscious, as I had no idea what the message was. Although I felt completely comfortable during the experience, I did feel concerned the following morning, when I described the event out loud.

A few times over those months, I found myself emerging from spontaneous, trance-like states with a disparate view of the world; the revelations were liberating and I became evangelical (and probably very annoying), about what I had ‘seen’ and now ‘knew’ to be true. Although many of these revelations have since become mainstream, my values changing 180 degrees overnight, caused chaos in my life and for my family.

We had no context for my experiences and it was assumed that my ‘instability’ was at best a mid life crisis and at worst a psychotic breakdown and imbalance of chemicals in my brain. Feeling misunderstood, alone and alienated from everyone who had ever known and loved me, it was a relief to meet someone who shared their similar anomalous experiences and so fully accepted and understood what I was experiencing.

I was only fleetingly aware of the internal split I was feeling and at one point, when feeling desperately confused and alienated, I fell to my knees and prayed for the first time in my life.. and within 15 minutes I had received an answer – a direct experience of ‘God,’ which considering my atheist upbringing, was.. unacceptable! I was buoyed up by visions of angels radiating their healing light to protect my family… chaos ensued…

Within a few months, the gravity of the pain and shock I’d passed on to my family, began to pierce my heart and I spiralled into despair. Amidst my vulnerability, I made it my mission to understand exactly what had happened to me mentally, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. I embarked on a journey and immersed myself in exploration, research and study: including questioning and listening to peers. This gave me good understanding of the nature of my spiritual awakening, experiences and life crisis, as well as the healing processes that followed…

In February 2011, I was shocked at being introduced to my half brother at a family party: he had been kept a secret from us. I felt gushing compassion for him, as he had not known the wonderful Dad my late Father was: I welcomed him into our family. A series of revelations about my birth family followed and I tried to understand my parents’ decisions. Although I was dealing with my anger consciously and moving towards forgiveness, something deep within my psychological foundation had shifted and it was as though, as the truth about my family was revealed, so to was the truth about the world and in time, the truth about who I am.

It is only in retrospect that I realise, that in hearing the truth around my Father, I’d felt a trauma and it had triggered a deep break in my psyche. I had indeed lost much of my rational capacity: it was as though my left brain took a break and my energy flooded my right brain. Maybe just as the truth about my family had been repressed, parts of who I am had been repressed and the revelations gave an opening and permission for those repressed parts of my psych to be liberated, in an explosion of unconscious chaos, as I suddenly became sensitive, tuned in and alive with my new intuitive gifts and emotional state, contrasting to the fairly quiet, logical, rational and composed wife and mother, I had been.

There are maybe two reasons that I managed to hold on to my sanity through these months:

1 – I had a strong solid foundation – for 45 years before the shock, I had lived a stable and happy life

2 – Intuitively, I found a group of people who listened to me with skill and validated and normalised my experiences as they shared their similar experiences. Gaining courage to share more and hearing myself, helped me make sense of my story. I began to accept myself and realise the strength and gifts I’d gained from my crisis. My confidence grew and gradually I clawed back my rational capacity and the spirals of healing, rebalancing and integration continue..

Making sense of my challenges in a way that contributes to others feeling heard and understood, to enhance wellbeing, is an important part of my journey.

Initially, I felt compelled to offer the same support I’d received and so facilitated a peer support group. Katie had encouraged me to start the group through a vision she’d had! We all felt the relief each week, of having a safe space to share our experiences that we couldn’t comfortably share with family, colleagues or other friends. The bonds we made over those two years were strong and we are still connected now.

I developed my KindaListening project as a training programme to enhance connection and empower people to resource themselves and each other, through developing stronger skills in deeper listening and empowering conversation. Feeling heard helps!

KindaListening is proving to be a strong ‘revolutionary’ foundation for communication that empowers self awareness and authentic, conscious expression, enabling creating a safe space for others to share. As such, it has become a key foundational training for Peer Group Facilitation. This was initially for the Emerging Kind Peer Group Facilitator training, inspired by Katie’s Emerging Proud event in 2017, and then for our Support Source Community Sharing Circles Facilitator training which was Big Lottery funded. We are now rippling out the benefits of being heard to sustain wellbeing within organisations.

Magic!

To find out more about what Linda’s training offers, go to:

www.KindaListening.org

www.LindaAllen.net

Have you experienced a personal transformation that was catalysed through a crisis?

Would you like to share your journey to give HOPE to others? Please CONTACT US HERE 

Have you experienced a NOTE?

Do you find yourself existential questioning, aware of the subtleties of life that it feels like most people don’t even notice? Do you feel ‘different’ from the crowd?

Come and share a weekend of connection with others who feel the same, and get to chat to Dr Nicole Gruel who will be joining us online from Australia on Saturday evening – find out about what led Nicole to do her PhD studies in this area, and what kind of challenges experiencing a NOTE can bring…

AND, Nicole is kindly gifting everyone who signs up a free PDF copy of her latest awesome book, The Power of NOTEs!

 CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE RETREAT FLYER

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL VENUE 

For details of the weekend schedule, and to book a place (payment plans available) please CONTACT US 

Multiple brushes with death led Louis to his purpose and helped him to find meaning in life. Once full of guilt and exhausted with searching for who he was, finally learning to love and accept himself as he is means that Louis now lives a life happier than he could have imagined. He’s found his purpose in creating music and art to spread messages of LOVE and HOPE to others who are struggling like he once was…

Growing up was never going to be an easy win for me. From the age of four I was dressing up in my big sister’s clothes, and shuffling around in my mums high heels. Most days a Barbie doll would accompany me to school, and this would invite a lot of ridicule. Reaching my high school years, I had already endured a constant eight years of bullying. Never feeling good enough, or strong enough to speak out, I kept this to myself for many years until I told my parents about the nightmare my school life was. I had always had a passion for singing and acting, so at the age of ten I enrolled to a local theatre school and quickly built up my confidence to take on lead roles. This newly found confidence would slowly and surely crumble as I began high school at the age of eleven. Through a series of traumatic events whilst abroad, my parents broke up and filed for divorce. This happening within the first two months of starting high school really affected my overall years in education. I became very secluded, depressed, and alcoholic. I remember days where I would arrive at school and be sent right back home by a teacher because I stank of booze and was clearly inebriated. I was also an extremely rebellious and secretive teenager, so all of this went on for years before my mother and sisters knew.

Reaching almost sixteen, I was at my all time low. I had been self harming, and drinking excessively for many years now, and had also been seeing a psychiatric doctor. In the winter of 2011, months before my sixteenth birthday, I was groomed and sexually assaulted by a man three times my age. At the time, I brushed this off and almost acted like it had never even happened. I continued doing this for another eight years until finally opening up about it, and taking action. I believe this was a huge trigger for me that resulted in me taking my first overdose in April 2012. The last thing I remember is slashing my arm open so wide that blood was pouring and squirting out all over my mum’s living room. The next thing, I was in hospital throwing up my guts and itching like crazy all over my body. I had washed down a huge concoction of paracetamol, ibuprofen, tramadol, diazepam, amongst other things, with a litre bottle of whiskey. The tramadol had caused me to itch so much that I scratched my head and face until it bled.

I hated the way I was treated by some of the staff in hospital. I was looked down on because I wasn’t valuing my life at such a young age. I was also on a ward surrounded by elderly men dying of terrible causes. So I already felt the guilt of being the one person there not grateful for life, and actually trying to die! One man from the crisis team actually took me into a private room and lectured me about how selfish I was, and how I was ruining my family’s lives. Because of the poor care plan that was put in place after my discharge from hospital, I just sank lower and lower. Within the next four years I went on to attempt suicide another six times. I also left dreaded high school, went on to study music at college, but then started training as a hairdresser! I call this my gap year because it was between graduating college and going to university when I didn’t know what to do with my life. When I finally made it to London at the age of nineteen, I felt like my life would turn around. I’d always dreamed of moving to London and it was finally a reality. However the freedom of being a student, and the social life that goes with it took its toll on me. I began drinking excessively again, and would often become very depressed. I lasted two years studying in London until my soul felt like it was exhausted and I needed to leave the city behind. This was also the time around my twenty first birthday, when I traveled to New Orleans for the first time and met my fiancé, Price. Falling in love with him, and his city, was definitely a contributor in dropping out of university. However, I had been considering this before I met him, and was already looking for a change of scenery.

Strangely enough, none of my near death experiences were special, or transcendent. It was the aftermath that shaped me, and the recovery was when I heard my calling, and received my message. For a long time after my first NDE, a beautiful Victorian lady dressed in pink would appear on my stairs landing every night. I’ve often wondered if it was a passed family member because she felt so familiar. I named this lady Maria, and she was the first one to protect me after my first suicide attempt. I regularly had, what I believe to be, demonic entities surrounding me, feeding off of my low, negative state. I truly believe when we are not in good places in our lives, it can be an invitation for dark spirits to latch on to you. The insidious haunting I experienced during my dark times my mum and I named ‘Jimmy’. He eventually departed and left me alone, but it was the petrifying tribulations and challenges he put me through that made me the strong and defiant person I am today. I am still very much connected to spirit and see these abilities grow all the time. It is my ultimate belief that my series of NDE’s sent me on a journey of self discovery. It was never going to happen overnight, but over the last eight years I have honed my skills, figured out who I am and where I want to be, and dedicated myself to that. In order to spread my message and help change the world, I needed to love and accept myself, and push my mission forward every step of the way until I get to the platform I need to reach huge audiences. In my life I want to create music for people to relate to, I want to make art that makes people feel things, I want to act in movies that make a difference and highlight important issues, I want to be an activist and fight for human rights; And as a gay man I feel very strongly about this. I believe we are all equal, and all deserve the same treatment in life. I have become empowered, and I am still transcending, I want to take over the world with love & light. I am grateful for my troubling past because it has made me happier than I could ever imagine, and taken me to places I have only dreamed of. I count my blessings every day, and continue to work on myself to become the best version of myself possible. I want to help others do the same. If everyone could accept themselves and hear this message, we could collectively change the world and make it a more peaceful utopia for the future generations.

Louis Christian Roseveare is a 23 year old Jazz singer, wig stylist, poet, & artist located in Lincoln, U.K., and New Orleans, U.S.A. His destructive, and almost ‘demonic’ adolescence, gave him the tools he needed to survive in this world, and spread a message of peace & love through music, art, and expression. What he experienced in his teens drastically shifted his entire perception and beliefs about life, and its purpose.

One of Louis’ poems… ❤

Do you have a story of #Emerging Proud through adversity that you’d like to share for the blog, of possibly for one of our Kinda Proud books? Do CONTACT US!

Here’s a sneak preview of some of the wondrous- ness you can expect if you join me on our #Emerging Proud through NOTEs retreat from 19th – 21st April…

Our weekend schedule will include; 

Group session on the Sat afternoon, facilitated by Kate Fisher;

Communing with nature; how can we connect to truly ground our experience and gain insight from the messages that the natural world is trying to convey for our healing? 

And to top it off… on Sat evening we will enjoy a relaxed and intimate

Live call with Dr Nicole Gruel from Australia, expert on NOTEs and Author of The Power of NOTEs to answer your questions and have a chat! 

DOWNLOAD THE #EP NOTEs Retreat Flyer HERE

CONTACT ME HERE FOR MORE DETAILS OR TO BOOK A PLACE – LIMITED SPACES ONLY!

This retreat will be especially supportive if you are trying to make sense of a spiritual experience, or if you are struggling to convey your reality in your everyday life. Come and be amongst those who understand what a challenge that can be…

All of these beautiful brave faces have #Emerged Proud as part of our Kinda Proud series so far…

We are no longer taking submissions for our first Pocket Book of Hope; #Emerging Proud through NOTEs.

However, if you’d like to share your story for the blog and be considered for publication to our other 3 titles, do get in touch with the Reps below!

# Emerging Proud Through Disordered Eating, Body Image and Low-Self-Esteem – due for release on 12th July 2019;

Please contact Amy at: info@soul-shine.org.uk

#Emerging Proud Through Suicide – due for release on 10th Sept 2019

Please contact Kelly at: info@kellymichellewalsh.com 

#Emerging Proud Through Trauma and Abuse – due for release on 18th Oct 2019

Please contact Mandy at: ambrieleve@gmail.com

By sharing your story you are spreading hope for the transformation of many ❤

Erica McKenzie, a registered Nurse, was able to find and love her authentic Self only catalysed through a crisis, which she now sees as a blessing, that led to an NDE (near death experience). Erica’s words will resonate with many;

“I’ve spent my entire life trying to be everything to everyone, and in the process I lost myself.”

Through the messages received during her transcendent state of consciousness, she discovered that it was going within, listening to our intuition and surrendering to ‘God’ (which others term, Source or the Divine / the Universe), is the only answer we need to find our purpose in life. That purpose is to be true to ourselves, for each one of us has a unique gift to offer the world.

Here Erica recounts her incredible brush with death that led her in and out of a psychiatric unit…

Many of us feel lost and struggle to find direction and purpose in life.  In my case, one of the most challenging things I was faced with learning was to love my unique self, just as God made me.  In fact, this challenge was one that stuck with me my entire childhood and accompanied me into adulthood.  I spent too many years wanting others to accept me and was convinced that changing myself to fit in with whomever I was around at the time, was the answer.  This behavior sent me down a path where I made several poor choices which included a twelve-year battle with bulimia and a drug problem that ultimately led to my death.

I was unaware that in my desperation to fit in, I wasn’t changing the right things as I stifled myself and put value on other’s impressions and expectations of me instead of to God.  In doing so, I must admit, it’s been quite the battle to learn to love and accept myself for who I am and be at peace with knowing that I AM ENOUGH.  I had become so lost that in the few moments before I died all I could think was, Who am I?  As I took my last breath, I couldn’t remember my name.

That fateful day in 2002, I went on to have a Near-Death Experience.  That experience was the point of my awakening which led to my transformation.  My experience taught me so many lessons but one of the most important things I learned was that, “Your uniqueness is your value and your value is your contribution on this Earthly Journey.”  It doesn’t matter who you are or aren’t, if you are here on this planet, you are valuable!  I quickly came to appreciate the significance of this knowledge and for the first time in my human existence, I finally understood; My uniqueness is my value because it holds my unique blueprint and unique gifts that serve to truly fulfill my life’s purpose.  In fact, it is who I am and what it meant to be me.

The mind is a powerful thing, and yet it fails in comparison to the knowledge found within our spiritual hearts.  That knowledge is divine power.  If we choose, we can unlock the answers by turning within and reconnecting to our creator through our hearts.  I discovered it is through this connection that I remember who I am and it is through this connection that I am able to grow and nurture unconditional love for myself.  By doing so, we can recognize and develop a connection with our Creator, fueled and sustained by unconditional love.

This unconditional love is the key to ignite the power within.  When we seek that power within, we gain the knowledge needed to help us through every life experience, and as we step into our power, we reveal our blueprint and gifts. Our blueprint is unique just like you, which means no one else has one the same. It is by design, the pattern that when followed; helps us to see that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, our sense of self, our identity and beyond the boundaries that may try to define our authentic life. It is also there we’re able to see that we can overcome fundamental human limitations, and it was revealed to me that it is through our connection with God, that we can access them on an exceedingly profound level. It is there that we find the power and knowledge needed to overcome and heal from every change we face no matter how challenging or difficult. We can get through them, grow, and come out stronger because our blueprint contains the most vital information essential for us to fully embrace change and to attain total health and wellness by gaining the knowledge needed to help us heal from our challenging life experiences.

This blueprint holds the unique information necessary for us to create profound healing of our body, mind, spirit and identify, grow and use our unique gifts at the capacity and magnitude for which they were designed. We each have these unique gifts and these God-given gifts are incredibly powerful contributions on our Earthly Journey. To fully achieve their potential, we must use these gifts in conjunction with each other. It’s only when we come to the table with our unique selves, whether it’s the business table, the relationship table, or the dinner table, that we empower each other and can go on to do great things.

As I realized all of this, then it happened. In the winter of 2002, I surrendered and in doing so, I knew this meant that I could no longer look to others for my value and wonder what people think about me. I had to refuse to let those feelings define me. In the face of change, I may not have all the answers but I don’t have to look to others for approval and having feelings of uncertainty is actually… ok.  I acknowledge those feelings, using them as tools that help me trust there is nothing I can’t get through because I see things differently now.  I have faith that God is at work in my life, and He has the answers so I don’t have to have them. It is a huge relief and comfort to let go and let God. It helps me to be free to focus on my responsibility, to be present for the changes that I am faced with, not trying to control but embrace them. At the same time, I remain true to and love my unique self, for it is there that I will find my value and that value is my contribution here on my Earthly journey.

My purpose is to learn. My mission is to serve. My heart is to love. My boss is God and my work is to be me.  It was easy to accept this challenge when I was in Heaven with God so armed with this new Divine knowledge, I returned from my NDE more determined than ever to share my story in hopes to help to create needed healing and awakening in others who were hurting.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a hospital bed and didn’t know how much time had passed.  I was desperately trying to make sense of my trip to Heaven when a doctor walked into my room and asked me how I was.  I remember being flooded with a sense of urgency to share my NDE with him.  As the words came flying out of my mouth, I began to sense his disbelief and concern for my mental health.  Without a word he quietly left the room and returned several hours later.  At this time, my NDE was dismissed, labeled a delusion and replaced with a medical diagnosis of late onset bipolar disorder.  What followed next was a trip to the psychiatric ward against my will for sharing my experience with God.

Overcome with memories from nursing school, I remembered the rotation I had on the psych ward as a nursing student. It was one of the more difficult things I’ve done. I felt like the patients there were forgotten people. My instructor said it was important to appear attentive and to act as if you were listening. “Mental health care provides people the opportunity to lead a normal life like everyone else, and these people are not normal,” she stated.

She also said not to believe what the patients were saying because they were not speaking truth, but merely attempting to manipulate. I knew it was wrong in nursing school and didn’t understand how some people could be so cruel. I was told they were crazy. Yet several of them appeared to have the ability to communicate with something we couldn’t see. I felt that many of them were medicated because of it. It was horrible.

I grew up believing that the purpose of medicine was to heal the sick, not to turn people into something they were not. Here I was, years later, in the exact same position as some of those patients, being dismissed and medicated because I had an experience, a crisis, the doctor couldn’t explain.

Call sharing my NDE crazy if you must – you won’t hear me challenge it. But what did being crazy really mean? And did it constitute a solution if the cure came in the form of a pill? Maybe I was just broken and lost or maybe I was displaying acute mental distress that was evolving into a positive healing transformation.

I realized through my own experience that those patients needed to be heard by an educated, empathetic and caring staff. I couldn’t help but feel the majority of the drugs administered to many of these patients acted as a Band-aid, only able to reduce or mask the symptoms temporarily, if they were therapeutic at all. I sensed the drugs affected the ability of several of the patients to think clearly. Even more terrifying, I sensed the drugs were changing those people, and I’m certain in some cases they blocked communication to God.

It was a crash course in mental health care, starting with my perceived “crazy behavior and delusions.” I learned in nursing school that medication was the most “therapeutic” way to treat “crazy behavior and delusions.”

Now the tables were turned. I realized it was a multidimensional lesson. Everything that happened to me up until the day I died, including my trip to Heaven, Hell and the psych ward, was preparing me to help myself and others. That help would include educating the medical community about near-death experiences, the presence of God and our ability to connect with our Creator, as a miracle, not a medical issue. In fact, those miracles would provide great healing.

I later learned that my trip to Heaven was called a near-death experience or NDE (http://ndestories.org/). During my NDE, I learned that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I can’t imagine the countless individuals who have experienced spiritual events and have been medicated and dismissed because of it. When does communicating with the unseen or spiritual realm validate a diagnosis of psychosis? It appears society, and especially the medical community, is in dire need of education on NDE’s from a spiritual level. The effect of doing so would have the potential to increase their receptiveness and support of their patients’ experiences.

Going through the experience in the hospital revealed to me a lot about myself. I honestly had no idea that eventually, I would be able to view this tragic experience as a great opportunity for learning, but it’s true. Today, I can share that I am thankful for all of the experiences in the mental health facility because these lessons have shown me how strong a person I really am. It’s true that no one can define my potential greatness. But I don’t have to be a victim, and that is empowering!  At the same time, I knew before I could begin to fix the system and help others, I had to heal myself. I was broken, so it was going to be hard work because it was a constant battle between healing and changing me. I understood these to be two completely different approaches, and according to everything I had just learned in Heaven, it was more evident to me than ever that the answer wasn’t to change me. Even if the staff had the best intentions for restoring my health, it was clear that their approach was going to lead to changing, not healing, me. I identified the need for education once more, but this time it was essential for all of us, as I came to comprehend the significant meaning of the word “change.” I understood for many that the word change had taken on a meaning that had the potential to improve or destroy the human condition.

And yet there was no doubt in my mind that all the obstacles I had been through and the roadblocks that were ahead were no match for the knowledge I gained in Heaven. I knew that with God all things were possible.

I’ve spent my entire life trying to be everything to everyone and in the process I lost myself. I have loved many but I couldn’t love myself. I didn’t think I was good enough or deserving of that self-love. And I felt selfish for wanting it. Now I see that way of thinking was not healthy because thinking that way and engaging in toxic behaviors changed me and led me in the opposite direction from becoming a self-advocate and completing my earthly mission.

My NDE has not changed my life. It has given me life by opening my eyes to see my value. It has reawakened me to the real Erica, the little child who was in touch with God and His gifts before I let fear in and started to stifle my feelings, doubted my intuition and drowned out the voice of God in effort to listen to others. Listening to my feelings, intuition and God first, I found that I could use them as powerful tools and as a catalyst for creating a healthy life. I knew what was best for me. Which meant I could finally begin to fully access my blueprint. It was time for me to get real with myself by taking full responsibility for my health. So, armed with my tools, I began the long and challenging road that would lead to healing, valuing my life, and becoming an advocate for myself and others. My hope is not just to have the strength to change but to also be the change needed to bring light to the world.

“You matter.  You are important.  You are unique.  You are valuable and most of all You are loved!”

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