Walking in Two Worlds

A little story of my spiritual journey. I’ve always felt as though I’m walking in two worlds: the everyday, tangible world we inhabit, and another that is harder to define but feels just as real to me. I’ve always known a sense of home, and never really doubted the presence of something holding it all together. What that means to me has evolved over the years, but the knowing has remained.

I understand the Divine as an energy of which we are all a part. We are Divine sparks from the ever present flame that holds a nucleus of love vibrating with intensity and brightness. We are souls having a human experience, holding human bodies in our orbit and living lives of valued importance. There are many layers to why and how I understand this, but perhaps those are for another time.

My interest in spirituality has been a constant throughout my life, from an eight-year-old’s determination to join a church choir to a lifelong fascination with horoscopes, readings, rituals and the metaphysical. Christianity never felt like the right path for me, although I discovered something deeply meaningful in singing with others in a sacred space, in humility and praise. It wasn’t the doctrine that drew me, but the experience itself.

For much of my early adult life, my family and business left little time for exploration beyond reading and following my curiosity. Around the mid 90’s, however, I was meeting weekly with a small group of people in my first ‘circle’ to meditate and practise connecting with love and spirit. As my confidence grew, I began offering practice readings to friends.

In 2006, aged forty, I was ordained as an Interfaith minister in London, UK. My seminary training introduced me to the beauty and wisdom of many faith traditions, both religious and earth-based. I came to appreciate the different ways in which people seek, experience and honour the sacred, seeing them as pathways towards the one source.

After ordination, I had the honour of mentoring student ministers for three years. I held a few ceremonies, including weddings and baby blessings, but the demands of this work proved difficult to sustain alongside my AuDHD. I continued to offer private readings seeing them as a way of serving others and helping to bridge the connection between someone seeking guidance and the divine. Around this time I also studied counselling in adult education for two years, wanting to strengthen the support I could offer.

The following years I trained in Deep Memory Process, a method of therapy that combines elements of Jungian psychology, psychodrama, and bodywork to explore and heal emotional and spiritual issues, including those stemming from past lives. It aims to facilitate deep healing by allowing individuals to access and integrate their unconscious memories and experiences in a supportive environment. This was the most hands on and practical approach to spiritual healing I had discovered and was very effective, especially when combined with my other trainings, at helping people to overcome difficulties and to thrive.

Whilst no longer practicing my spiritual work in the traditional sense, day to day I try to show up authentically – in real life and on social media. My hope is that something I share might offer healing, encouragement, connection or a different perspective. I recognise too that just being a present, accepting, allowing and loving presence is valuable and I try to offer that to all.

But perhaps, for now, my spiritual journey is less about doing and more about being.

I think of it as learning to hold a sacred space of peace within myself. To remain connected to what I know and value, and to live as an anchor in these wild and uncertain times. Not by withdrawing from the world – although chronic illness has meant that’s had to happen to some extent too, but by finding a steadiness within it.