My Journey
A path well travelled
Welcome … here is my story of how I ended up here …!
23 Years ago….
It all started after the breakdown of my second marriage, in the year 2000, I felt so low, I felt a failure in relationships, and my self-worth had gone out of the window. Then came the realisation that it was all over, and the big question:
How had I ended up here … how had it come to this?
I was 38, and if the truth be known, I didn’t know who I was. At first, I started with the usual blame game, wanting to put the onus on anyone else but myself! However, I was well and truly stuck, lost, confused and did not know where to go or what to do.
This quote by Dante could not have put how I felt any better.…
“In the middle of the road of my life,
I awoke in a dark wood,
where the true way was wholly lost.”
… and I had well and truly lost my bearings in Life.
Unknown to me I was about to start my journey of deep personal growth and of waking up!
Over the next few weeks, two things happened, firstly, I found an old business card, tucked at the back of my bedside drawer, that led me to my first spiritual teacher/guide and secondly, I had a profound personal experience. I was sitting in bed on holiday, at a friend’s house in Spain, reading a magazine when I saw a half-page advert, immediately I saw the image, every hair on my head/neck stood up, it was like receiving an electric charge. It was an advert for a trip to Peru (The Andes, Machu Picchu and the Amazon) with Dr. Alberto Villoldo and I just knew in my whole being that I had to go. I had received my call. At the time I had no idea how it would materialise, yet it did, it was amazing, and the beginning of a completely new way of life and of being (that trip is a story for another day!).
That was where the journey of starting to find myself really started, with the realisation that there must be something more to life!
Over the next few years, I undertook various courses, programs, and retreats in both the mind body spirit and personal development arenas, and along the way fought my own demons and shadow aspects, my addictions of self-denial, alcohol, of being a yes-man and continued pretence that despite everything being shit, that all was ok and that this was the norm when in reality it was far far from that!
Along the way I began to learn the difference between what I thought I wanted and what my heart and soul really sought, taking many apparent wrong turns and dead ends along the way, often wanting to just give up, give in, and take to the bottle again!.
Yet these detours turned out not to be so much wrong turnings, as valuable lessons, powerful self-reflections and teachings.
This part of my life journey lasted around 10 years before I was able to realise, through the help and assistance of some amazing teachers, mentors and my amazing wife, that I was good enough, I did have what it takes, and more importantly, I was ready to share my experiences, learnings and my way of being in the world.
This was my own life transition as a rite of passage.
In the beginning, there was a separation from both my wife but also from myself and who I had become to that point.
In the middle phase, the journey of both discovery and growth, and yet many u-turns and dead ends, often feeling lost and upside down, often at times not knowing who or where I was.
The last phase is where it all came together, I metaphorically crossed the threshold and had a deeper sense of what I had gone through, a clear direction of where I was heading, and the confidence and understanding to bring my newfound self to my family, community and the world at large.