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Each time I sit down to write about something spiritual, I feel there is a missing context, so I’ve gathered it’s probably time to write my story first - how I came to discover spirituality.
The first time I vividly remember questioning my existence was during a dinner with my family to celebrate my thirtieth birthday. We were sitting at the table and I blurted out. “Why are we all here?” My dad looked at me and, so beautifully innocently said, “You are here because your mum and I love each other.” 🥰 And I thought, Yes, Dad, I know that — but where did it all begin? (Humanity in general.)
Total silence.
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A year later, I was four months pregnant with my first child when my dad tragically passed away. Later that year, we saw a friend who mentioned she had spoken to a clairvoyant and was shocked about the information she told her and knew about her. I had always been interested in clairvoyants and the unseen, but was scared I’d end up with a con artist, so I knew this was my chance to speak to someone legitimate.
I booked a call. Like most people would be, I was scared and thinking I would probably be told when I was going to die or something equally dire. They do make the supernatural sound terrifying on TV. She reassured me that spirit doesn’t share that kind of information because, honestly, what would be the benefit of that? They are there to support you and want the best for you.
My mind was truly blown. During the call, she told me details about my dad only my family knew, that he didn’t like wearing jackets and that even in winter he prefered a woolly jumper and a vest. She told me what my sister eats for breakfast and that my dad liked the changes I was making that weekend to my kids’ bedrooms! I did not share that on Instagram or Facebook at all, yet she knew.
I’ve had many readings with her over the years, and they had a profound effect on me. They taught me that there is nothing to fear and gave me great comfort later on where I went through several further family tragedies and a severe depression which took years to overcome (that is for a different post, which I am not yet ready to write).
After my dad passed so unexpectedly, I searched for answers and for ways to connect with him. I wanted to know if death really was the end or if there was more.
My next big encounter with spirit wasn’t as pleasant as the readings with my clairvoyant.
We went to Australia for Christmas with our two toddlers and we did a house swap, which was meant to last two months but we moved out after a month. The house was haunted. I had never experienced so many accidents in such a short space of time. The front part of the house with the bedrooms was fine, but the back, where the living space was, made the hairs on my neck stand up every time I went there. I felt watched the whole time, and it felt so cold and eerie which included the garden. Bear in mind, this is Australia, and the sun was shining all the time and it was hot, yet the garden felt all wrong, like we were in the middle of nowhere despite being surrounded by other houses.
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One day, my husband Simon said that something touched him on the shoulder in the shower and that he saw a little girl dressed in 1960s-style clothing run past him in the garden. I didn’t know then what I know now, and I was so scared because I already feelt we weren’t alone.
I couldn’t sleep well in that house because of the fear. One afternoon, I went for a nap and (stupidly, in hindsight) asked to connect with whatever spirit was there. I fell asleep right away, then woke up to the sound of someone jumping onto the wooden frame at the foot of the bed but there was no one there! Then something heavy fell on me, grabbed me by the shoulders, and started shaking me. It only lasted a few minutes, but I was terrified! I ran to Simon and told him what happened, and he told me how he had seen a shadow walk through the front gate a day earlier.
My kids felt the spirit too. My son would go to the back of the garden and wave to the same corner where Simon saw the girl run past, but at night he would wake up screaming in absolute terror. My daughter refused to go to sleep alone, claiming she was really scared. Both kids had an unusual amount of accidents.
I was becoming more and more scared and sleep deprived, so I contacted my clairvoyant. She was it was the spirits of two children. They didn’t mean any harm, but their mischievous energy caused the accidents. She told me the most activity was in the room my son was screaming in every night. She recommended I go buy sage and smudge the house. She also said when it’s your house, you can ask the spirit to leave and they will, but since it wasn’t ours, I could ask them to leave us alone and they would have to listen.
I bought my first sage stick, lit it, and opened all windows (some hadn’t been opened in years!). I found a prayer online that resonated with me and went around the house smudging it. It had an instant effect on the house and how it felt. Later on, Simon called me to the garden to see the birds! So many birds, and the garden felt alive, and no longer eerily quiet as before.
The smudging made a huge difference, but still it didn’t feel like enough, and I still felt uneasy. We needed to try something else, so Simon called a local priest in desperation to come help. We are not religious, I was just desperate.
The priest came with a book of exorcism and went around the whole house and garden doing his thing and that really did it. I couldn’t feel the children anymore, and I didn’t feel watched. The house and garden felt nice, but I was severely sleep deprived and couldn’t shake off the month of fear. So we moved.
This experience really shook me - but it made me even more determined to learn more.
“We all fear what we do not understand”
We moved to a lovely apartment where we felt safe and had a fantastic month there. While we were there, I discovered holistic healing, and from that point on, I was off - on my spiritual train, and there was no turning back.
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I’m quite open about my SAD that creeps up on me each year (last winter was the most challenging and I experienced it several times). It can be so debilitating especially since I experienced real depression for years and so to have these yearly reminders is hard to bear. This autumn though, I am determined to thrive and not suffer.
I am NOT a morning person and my absolute favourite thing to do in the morning was to wake up late and wait for someone to bring me a coffee. I would savour it before I finally got up when I absolutely had to. But during my research into SAD and how to prevent it I read about how important it is to get outside for the morning light within 30-60 mins of getting up.
And here I am, day five and wow does it make a huge difference! Those first breaths of fresh air when I unlock the back door are my favourite. I greet the garden and the birds, I peel back the wet cushion and sit down on the rattan chair surrounded by autumn leaves. The weather is cold but not unbearable yet but fear not, I have a dry robe on the way. I figured it would be perfect for my morning ritual since it’s waterproof on the outside and lined and cosy inside and easy to grab. I need simple rituals in order to keep them.
I am really making lots of positive changes in my life right now across the board. I deactivated my Instagram and Facebook altogether, that was a big one for me about 3 weeks ago. The first week was horrid, I couldn’t concentrate on anything, it all seemed so boring in comparison. But slowly my attention improved and I’ve read lots of books on my kindle since. I downloaded Youtube to still follow someone I missed but within 2 weeks I discovered Youtube shorts and I was sucked into scrolling again!!! How easily do these short videos suck you in is quite mind blowing. So I had to get rid of that too.
On one hand I think I am never reactivating those accounts again because I feel so much better off without it but on the other hand I am still picking up my phone a 93 times a day but this time there is nothing to scroll. So I go on BBC News a lot and have even started to go on Reddit a bit which I never did before! It goes to show I have a long way to go with my phone addiction and social media was just a small part of it.
Another thing I have improved on recently is not eating bread and I make sure I am going to bed partially hungry and I am naturally losing weight as a result. On Tuesday I ended up having a little bit of a baguette and it felt like someone jammed rising dough in my stomach. I used to eat baguettes several times a week but I guess when you eat these things all the time your discomfort becomes your normal and you don’t realise you shouldn’t be eating them. The same goes for going to bed on a full stomach, I didn’t realise how much better I would sleep without being full. And you are probably thinking I should know these things and I do but there is one thing knowing something and another implementing it and reaping the benefits.
There have been loads more changes but I will save those for another day. Tomorrow may be colder yet, but the birds will sing, and I’ll be there - coffee in hand, showing up for myself.
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Firstly, I never want to move out. Sometimes I quietly hope people cancel because it’s such a huge job moving out of our 6 bedroom house just for the weekend. In fact it’s a massive job for any length of time - but particularly just for the weekend.
You might wonder where does all our stuff go? At the beginning of this year most of it was given away or sold. We would never have been able to do it had we not done that because there just isn’t a space to put it unless we hired a storage unit. That would have made it really difficult though so we opted for offloading stuff because really, how much do we actually need to live comfortably?
And what’s left is quite well organised. We have my husband’s office and a few cupboards inside the house that get locked and then there is the garage with plastic storage tubs. Imagine how you have your stuff organised in your own home, it’s like that except our stuff is organised in those cupboards and the garage. When we are back, we live out of our suitcases and just get our own duvets and pillows out. All the Airbnb bedding (duvets, pillows, throws, etc) gets put into one room or stays in the room that’s not used. Kitchen is actually the only real pain. It takes constant back and forth from the garage or opening and closing of plastic tubs in the cupboard in the hallway. Before we left I started to reorganise it and I think it will work much better when we are back. I decided to treat the inside cupboard as a pantry so it means less trips to the garage and less stuff that needs to be put out and packed away. I need to do more work in the garage because the cold months are approaching and I don’t want anything to go mouldy so I will most likely need to relocate those tubs inside.
It’s an ever evolving project. When we first moved out, there was still so much stuff and each time we got back we got rid of more. To be honest there is still stuff that could go but I worry I might miss that so I am waiting to see what happens. I think I would like to be able to get those items out again when we are living somewhere more permanently like all my punching stuff, my crystals, clothes and some books. It’s really not much.
I do love the feeling when everything is out of the house, the cleaners have just left and I do a final walk through the house to make sure everything is perfect. It’s such a good feeling seeing how great the house looks and by then I am excited for the people staying. I have sixteen 5* reviews now and have just got a Superhost badge. I’ve been hosting for less than 5 months so I do feel very proud.
And once we are out of the house having fun somewhere else I then don’t want to go home 😂 typical.
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Earlier this year we embraced putting our house on Airbnb and living a more nomadic lifestyles from May till now, moving in and out of the house and spending 5 full weeks in Europe. I’ve been keeping stats and so far this year we visited 8 countries, stayed in 12 different Airbnbs and spent about 83 days away.
It’s been very hard at times but we’ve learned so much. And this is what I keep coming back to, the learnings. Each time I don’t want to move out and want to stay in the comfort of my own home, there is something that happens and I learn a lot of from it. Or if I was in a bit of a funk before going, it resets the energy and it’s like a fresh start. It also allows us to just have a good time, there is no housework, no things to organise and we just enjoy ourselves.
The bookings we get aren’t always rosy and we have now decided to stop accepting adult only bookings because no matter how much they plan a “quiet weekend away”, alcohol gets involved and problems happen. So from now on we are only allowing intergenerational families, the grandparents, with two siblings and their families. Those are the perfect bookings. Those people are homeowners themselves and respect our home too. I was starting to doubt I wanted to carry on with this until I realised it was the types of bookings we were getting. The multi family bookings feel so good, adult only piss up weekends - not so much.
Last night the kids and I started to look over old photos from when we were about a year into living in this house. It looked so cosy and lived in and it made us feel a bit sad we are living in this bare house inbetween bookings but it is so easy to look over your life and romanticise about how great it was. I bet one day we will be looking over this time saying how boring life is and wasn’t it great when we had all those adventures. Funny how we always what the opposite of what we have. Anyway, I am winning the Omaze house draw tonight so I can have both worlds :)
