This journey goes back to early 1998. I was in NSW, north of Sydney, and comfortably living in a relationship with a lovely man. I had received my Mastership of Reiki in the USA in 1995 and had returned home to teach and practice energy healing. A long-standing friend of mine had mentioned two Indigenous women she had met who appeared to possess amazing spiritual understanding. They had been sharing this knowledge with her, and called it Spiritual Mentoring. One of the women claimed to have channelled the essence of the ancient Aboriginal process of mentoring and growing people emotionally and spiritually, and had brought it forward into the present.
She now considered it her responsibility to turn around to those following behind her to teach this process. Both of these women had been part of the ‘stolen generation’ but saw their experience as purposeful in order for them to understand and walk in both cultures.
I was enthralled and asked if I too could be part of this process. They accepted and I commenced a journey that took me to a place deep inside myself that I would probably never have reached without this work. Obviously it’s impossible to relate every amazing experience that occurred during this two-year adventure, but I’ll try to recall the significant points of the journey.
I began by visiting one of the women once a week and gradually increased this throughout the year. We would simply make a cup of tea and sit down to chat. I would talk about whatever felt right in the moment, and she would interject where appropriate to lead me to what was really happening within that conversation. By her astute and intuitive direction, the most simple situation would often lead me to an astounding early life event or past life memory that would expose my inherent beliefs attached to all that. These deep memories were being triggered by events and relationships happening in my current life, but until exposed, I had no idea of this. She would then assist me through visualization and healing to remove the residual energy attached to these memories, thus assisting to remove the emotional patterns that kept returning in my life.
Throughout this process, I also became aware of how we, as a western race, have no idea about true honour, respect, or responsibility. We think we do, but we don’t! The women were strict and I believe harsh regarding these aspects of behaviour. I soon came to discover how to truly honour and respect by really seeing how I didn’t! I soon came to understand responsibility by realizing how I wasn’t! The true focus of responsibility is responsibility to self and one’s everyday path on one’s Journey. One cannot be truly in truth and responsible to others until we have mastered that. It means that I needed to be truly responsible for my emotional responses to everything that has ever happened and is currently happening in my life.
The training was both unconditional and conditional. I was always free to choose if I continued or not. Yet, if I continued, I had to be prepared to have the women ignore and discount me if I was not being true to myself. When I became conscious of a particular negative behaviour or belief, I was not respected if I continued to behave or believe it. They believed that turning away from me was an act of love, to assist me in my Higher Journey. They were offering me the choice to move out of my negative beliefs and behaviour, or choose to leave. It was always my choice, and they were only committed to assisting and supporting me on my Path, provided I stayed true to myself.
How did I respond to all this? I cannot begin to explain the emotions I travelled through. It generated deep cellular memories of racism that I would have sworn I did not carry! It brought up feelings of fury, pride, jealousy, despair. Some days, it took all my strength to go back. I would have loved to have run away and sought solace in my old ways, but something within drove me to continue.
During this work, I realised that my relationship with my current partner had to end. I was able to see that, although I cared very much for him, I had unconsciously been using the relationship to keep me safe emotionally. I understood how dishonourable this was to him and of course to me, so I took a step in courage and ended it. It was quite traumatic for him and I knew he would never understand the perspective I was coming from, so I had to follow my intuition, stand in a place of honour, and allow him to judge me if he so chose.
By the end of the first year, I had decided that my purpose and passion was to teach and to mentor spiritual understanding. I realised I had always been coming to this point and that is why I had attracted these two powerful women into my life. I completely surrendered to the training and put it foremost in my life. It was amazingly powerful and I was completely committed. However, I do not believe it would have been possible to go so deeply and successfully into this work without such a commitment.
The women had obtained government funding for their project of teaching and training, so by the end of year one, my friend and I were invited to join them as a team to offer counselling/mentoring and teaching to the public, as well as continuing on with our own learning. The funding provided a meagre income while we were doing this. Of course we readily accepted, and our business was established in a glorious little cottage north of Sydney. During this time, I also had the privilege of regularly accompanying one of the women into the bush to be taught about the different plants, about different practices of the Indigenous people and about feeling and sensing different energies of the bush and caves. It was an amazing and humbling experience. On Saturdays I would travel with her to Sydney and set up at markets, selling their Spiritual Indigenous Art. I can’t do the art justice by just calling it art. The paintings, and most importantly, the channelled explanations, were before their time. I have no doubt they were authentically channelled. I do not believe any ordinary person could have possessed such sacred knowledge!
During the second year I accompanied one of the women to all parts of Sydney, meeting with business leaders, councillors and politicians, while she spoke of their beliefs. I found it enlightening to be in a situation where, although I was not Indigenous, I was viewed as such. This enabled me to witness and experience different attitudes towards the Indigenous people.
Many people were lovely and genuinely interested, although much of what the woman said probably was not fully understood! However, there were many who were patronising and disrespectful. I experienced this when we were invited as a group to travel to Parliament House in Canberra to meet members of the then Federal Opposition Party at an afternoon tea. We wondered whether the main reason we were invited was because the women were Aboriginal, or because the women had something of interest to say! The members were extremely polite and politically correct, although we sensed we were probably a novelty to them. They did not seem to be serious and did not really care what we were saying! What an experience that was. We were quite detached from the outcome of the visit, and we didn’t know what the real purpose was behind it all from a spiritual perspective, so we just went and enjoyed the whole experience.
Towards the end of the second year, I travelled to the Gold Coast to visit family for a week. During this week, something began to change for me. I felt as if I didn’t want to return to the group but negated this and tried to return to what I had left. This sent an energetic part of me into chaos because I was not in my truth. The first night I was home, I drove down the wrong side of the road and only just escaped a serious accident! I seemed to be in a high state of anxiety. The women recognised this and realised what was happening. They registered this by physically turning their backs on me and enlisting my friend to mentor me. Because of the two years of friendship and attachment to these women, I found it unbearable to have this happen. It produced such feelings of fury and betrayal within me. I literally sobbed and struggled through two months of mentoring. During this time I offered to surrender the income I was receiving from them as an act of honour. It no longer felt right and I felt underserving. I am still amazed that I could have believed this of myself! But that was for future learning.
So there I was, at the “bottom of the pile” with no income. I used my savings while I went through my “hell” and consequently depleted a large supply of that support also.
Then one day I felt a shift of energy. I explored it, and to my amazement finally understood that it was time to leave! I had invested two years of devotion into this and had unconsciously committed the rest of my life to working in this way with these women. I had not realised my attachment, until it came time to leave. That had been why I was struggling for the past two months. My Knowing Self had been pushing me to leave from the time I visited the Gold Coast. However, due to my fear of letting go of the attachment, I had negated this and thus spiralled into anxiety. The women had known this and had turned their backs in order to push me to make my own choice. The struggle and anguish that had followed had been my own reaction to my fear and attachment!
So I left the group! To my surprise, initially the relief was immense. Then, a week after leaving, I began to experience emotions of guilt, failure and shame. Although difficult, and thanks to what I had learned, I was able to work with the beliefs that were attached to all that and gradually I began to understand what had really happened. My Inner Knowing had urged me to join these amazing women for a reason. I had been taken by them to witness the very depth of my darkness (the unknown part of me). That same Knowing had then directed me to leave them just as I reached a very low point within myself. It was then up to me to action my own courage and responsibility-to-self to move myself onwards and to find light and strength within me.
So now began the next phase of my Journey! It took all my strength, and in doing so, enabled me to see the courage I really did possess. I took it slowly, as I had lost a lot of confidence. I could no longer use the familiar masks I had been accustomed to using before I had joined the group. I no longer identified with the person I used to be. I had become more authentic and could no longer be otherwise. Now how to integrate this into the outside world?
One year later I re-located to the Gold Coast, continued to teach and practice Reiki, studied Astrology for two years and committed to the four levels of Melchizedek Healing. These studies filled in many missing pieces towards the understanding of my Higher Purpose in life. Astrology provided the vehicle to understand the synchronisity of life. During this time, I felt directed to begin to share what I had learned and experienced.
Although the discipline and my perceived harshness of the Indigenous women’s process had been effective, I questioned the need for these extremes. While it is imperative to challenge one’s beliefs, I know this can be done in a more considerate way. So I began to mentor/coach people, using the principles I had experienced and learned, but also integrating my own methods and energy. This I continue to do, and am constantly thrilled with the response. I now see the purpose of the gift I was offered by those amazing women.
My perspective of myself has dramatically changed because of that experience, thus my perspective of life has also changed forever. I truly see the paradox in this experience. The women’s strictness caused me to really address my beliefs. However I also am amazed how I allowed that to happen to me. I question where my self-love and self-respect was? I realise it was non-existent. In retrospect, the Journey has also taught me that I will always remember, consider and love me! The journey actually enabled me to find that self-love. I am more easily able to work closely with people and to empathise with what they are experiencing, because I truly experienced most of it myself on that mammoth Journey! I see that the whole experience came into my life for a special purpose, then moved out.
What I do know is that I am so grateful for the unique opportunity that came my way through those remarkable women, and I am so grateful to myself for acknowledging it and experiencing it!