Reframing Mental distress as a potential catalyst for positive change

I was delighted to be introduced to the lovely Kelly of Peace Within Radio because when we chatted I realised how aligned we were in our messages… the more voices the louder our messages of hope! I’m extra delighted that Kelly is now offering the opportunity to our community to be guests, and even potentially hosts! on her wonderful show… Thank you so much Kelly for all you are doing across the world through the airwaves ❤

Listen up if you feel called to speak out and #Emerge Proud on Peace Within Radio!

Mental Health and Music Radio – PEACE WITHIN RADIO

I’d like to say a warm hello to the members of the Emerging Proud community. My name is Kelly Martin, I am an author, podcaster, blogger and radio producer for ‘Peace Within Radio’. I am also a recovering darkness addict.

My journey began in childhood where I suffered from debilitating anxiety, panic attacks and as I entered my teenager years into adulthood, depression. I used to really identify with anxiety and depression, I assumed it would be a forever life experience. My identity was that of ANXIOUS KELLY or later FAILURE KELLY.

So in 2000 I started my spiritual journey, exploring life in all its aspects when backpacking around Australia. I didn’t know before 2000 that there was more to life than working, drinking and feeling in pain, but fortunately life stepped in and I was introduced to Reiki healing and also the big world of books, spirituality and different ways to find inner peace and balance.

To cut a long story short, 19 years on I am starting to emerge from the old story of failure, anxiety and depression knowing that probably the biggest dis-ease on this planet today is that of ‘not feeling good enough’, and through my work as a writer and podcaster I was introduced to radio as a mode to encourage and support those who needed it.

Born From The Darkness

‘Peace Within Radio’ was born out of a need to empower those who are drowning in the darkness of depression and other mental health issues. A voice of encouragement when the inner voice is critical and painful. I know from my own experience that to find a better way of looking at my journey was so important, but not everyone has access to the tools and words that can trigger such big change and emergence from the dark into the light, so ‘Peace Within Radio’ will be that voice.

However, we are not going to simply be ‘talk radio’, we will have music also. We fundraised for music licenses and we will be playing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We are primarily based in the United Kingdom, but we will be available worldwide.

Voices Needed

On April 1st, we will be launching the station after successfully fundraising for it in October 2018, but we need voices.

We need storytellers, therapists, coaches and encouraging people.

We need people who have been there, bought the t-shirt and are willing to share encouragement via pre-recorded messages of hope.

And for those brave ones amongst you, we are looking for show hosts to host a weekly show dedicated to emerging from the pain of depression, anxiety, PTSD, grief, chronic fatigue syndrome and so much more. You can be as creative as you wish and artistic too.

Poets and spoken word artists are all welcome.

Providing enough of you come forward I will be running the EmergeProud interview series on the station also; that all depends on numbers, but aside from the interview series we simply need open-hearted people with the time and energy to shine a light on what worked or is working for them.

Shows So Far

Examples of shows we have lined up so far include:

The Journey Of Life Mental Health Show – (A men’s mental health show, we welcome more on this topic)

The Urban Yoda (A one man talk show where a wise sage in his eighties reflects on how he has moved through crippling depression and difficulties to find his own balance through the ancient Chinese Philosophy the I-CHING and overall life experience)

The Secret Psychiatrist (shares her wisdom and expert experience with clients, along with interviews with advocates and other experts)

Megyn Blanchard (‘Fall In Love With Being Human’) delving into the reality of needing to embrace the shadow and move away from primarily positive thinking.

And we have many more coming forward.

So, if you feel you could record a show 20 minutes long (30 minutes maximum) weekly I’d love to hear from you. This can be done from the comfort of your own home while sitting in your PJ’s, relaxed and comfortable.

Or if you would like to occasionally voice a piece of spoken word poetry or your story, that would be very welcome also.

And lastly if you would like to be part of the EmergeProud interview show please get in touch. As I mentioned above I would need quite a large number for this show to go ahead and be sustainable.

To find out more about the project visit our successful crowdfunding campaign HERE our website HERE or join the FOCUS group to get further involved on Facebook.

We need researchers and voices for many aspects of the station including introducing shows. It is a big job and as we are all volunteers, an ongoing journey for us all.

Thank you Katie for introducing me to your community, I am so grateful to connect with you all.

Kelly Martin (kellymartinspeaks.co.uk)

EMAIL: mailto:kelly@peacewithinradio.com

Kelly Martin is the author of ‘When Everyone Shines But You’ a mental health blogger,
podcaster at Kelly Martin Speaks and radio producer of the new mental health and music station Peace Within Radio. Kelly is on a mission to help those suffering with depression, anxiety and PTSD feel good enough exactly as they are.

TWITTER LINK / FACEBOOK LINK 

When Everyone Shines But You http://www.kellymartin.co.uk/when-everyone-shines-but-you.html

Mental health blogger https://kellymartinspeaks.co.uk

Kelly Martin Speaks https://kellymartinspeaks.podbean.com

As most of us discover after years of trying to make a difference in the world by being busy ‘doing’ good, Magdalena Smieszek found that it was her journey within that really gifted her the insight of her personal quest in connection to the whole of humanity. Her personal agony acted as a ‘wake-up call’ for healing both individually and collectively. As Magdalena explains, it was her birthright as a human to experience a profound spiritually transformative experience, and one that is now helping her to integrate more fully with her life purpose…

The Human Quest for Meaning

Our individual stories are connected in intricate ways to our collective stories. Like all stories, mine has had twists and turns, but the one thing that has been consistent is my search for meaning. Throughout life, I was especially drawn to the theme of justice. Influenced by my migratory and refugee childhood, the plight of the outsider in whatever form tore at my heartstrings. This embedded sense about injustice led to a career as a human rights advocate and humanitarian, hopeful that I too in Gandhi style wisdom can realize the change I want in the world. In fact, this objective took me around and around the world to do my little part in alleviating suffering. That to me was the right thing to do, the most meaningful one. Giving and receiving should equalize, I always thought. That’s a reasonable view, but also contentious as to where and how we attribute value.

Then came a time in my mid-thirties where the accumulated connection to the suffering of others had compounded my own suffering. I started to lose hope. The extent of human misery was overwhelming. I felt helpless when reflecting on the seemingly endless road of hurt that human beings inflict on each other. Distraught by the predicament of humanity as a whole, all the conflicts around the globe, and my own identity crisis in thinking that despite efforts I’m unable to do anything about it, I was thrust into despair. After years of connecting with many people and places, I disconnected from the outside world. I had gone far and wide to explore the external reality, and finally here I was, turning back to the point of origin, turning inside for much needed inner work and exploration.

I went into a deep meditative and transcendent state in which a powerful energetic force took over and pulled me through the doors of perception. On the other side was something incredibly profound – a tour of my own unconscious inner world, and even further, an exploration of the collective unconscious. So much of it is beautiful, for volumes to be filled. Just as much of it is dreadful, and yet we must confront it. Whatever doubt of the divine that I held, it dissolved. To me there was no mistaking it, I had a spiritual awakening of the most profound kind, the kind on which prophesies, spiritual traditions, and sacred texts are based. These days it can be shameful to say something like that. Who am I to say I had a visionary revelation, a Buddha-like enlightenment, a shamanic initiation, an awakening of such perfection and insight as Christ consciousness. Well, I am not ashamed to say – I am a human being, hence this is my birthright, and it happened.

In various degrees it lasted for days, weeks, and years, and it is still doing its work. This wasn’t a one-time occurrence but an opening and a process, sometimes blissful and sometimes distressing. The most meaningful part has been connecting my very personal experience to consensus reality – that process of integration, because as long as we live, it is not just in this miraculous inner universe but in a shared truth, even if this truth is continually shifting. I can get immersed in my inner experience, but the point is to bring it back, learn from it, expand, transform, connect, evolve, and create more beauty. Not only did I have a renewed hope, sense of purpose, and a vision, but a new index of downloaded information that I had to sort through.

How to bring it back and connect has been revealing itself as I moved forward in life. In some ways it’s obvious because human rights, aka the topic I’ve been obsessed with most of my life, are the evolving wisdom about human treatment drawn from numerous sources over generations and that includes spiritual traditions. But it goes back even further. An aspect of what we now call human rights have been in our unconscious before they took the form of conscious creations. They are tools for healing. This is our evolving universal morality for our betterment as individuals in our own unique story, and as humanity in our continually expanding collective story, transforming from immense pain and suffering towards greater compassion, care, inclusion, and love. We’re doing this by recognition of our shared dignity, our sacredness, our increasing empathy, and our expanding consciousness about what it means to be human as we include more and more experiences into our domain of understanding. This means also confronting the shadowy expressions of our existence.

Clearly there’s more work to do. There’s no shortage of pain and suffering in the world. That agony is a wake-up call for both individual and collective healing. Throughout history, mystics of all sorts have sought to create conditions for peace and love among humankind, not perfectly I may say, but in a very human way. They took the extraordinary turmoil of their awakening experience to create knowledge, movements, shifts in consciousness, and we are living their achievements. Now it’s our turn. How’s that for meaningful.

We couldn’t agree more Magdalena, what really seems to be at the core of our search for meaning is to collectively make the world a better place to live. As Roald Dahl says;

“Inside all of us is the power to change the world” 

We are no longer taking submissions for our Kinda Proud NOTEs Pocket Book, but we ARE still seeking stories for the 3 other titles. If you have a personal transformation story you’d like to share, then please CLICK HERE to find out how.

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…