Grief was the beginning: my path into spirituality

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.

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.

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.