When I interviewed Jason Hairston last week, he revealed a story about himself I hadn’t heard before.
I’ve only ever known Jason as an energy healer and transformational coach.
But some years ago, as he shared with me, he was driving trucks for a living. And, one day, his truck crashed into another vehicle, knocking out his two front teeth and leaving him severely shaken, but miraculously unharmed.
In that moment, it was as if grace came down upon him and he dropped into a place of deep inner stillness and knowing of his eternal oneness with all that is.
He hadn’t been into spirituality before then, nor had any intention of becoming an energy healer.
He lost his relationship. His lost his apartment. He lost his job.
But that seemingly devastating event, was to catalyse his rebirth into the person he is now: switched on, tuned in, flowing with life and offering a powerful service to the world through his teaching and healing.
There are many such examples of people, whom we may admire or even envy a little today for the fact that they “have all their shit together”, even though it took the shit hitting the fan for them to get there.
International spiritual teacher and author of “Conversations with God”, Neale Donald Walsh, was famously homeless for a couple of years before his life turned around. What you might not know is that before that, he’d also lost all his belongings in a fire, gone through divorce and broken his neck!
Byron Katie suffered from depression, agoraphobia, over-eating and alcoholism, before experiencing an awakening that pivoted her into creating her world-renowned personal development process known as “The Work”.
Most of the incredible, brilliant and inspiring light-workers I interviewed last year for Heart to Heart, including Elaine Young, Franko Heke, Katchie Ananda, Destin Gerek and Kenny Mammarella D’Cruz spoke of similarly intense struggles or experiences of absolute despair, as providing a gateway to their alignment with destiny.
And I mean, not just a bad day at the office. We’re talking suicidal impulses, dark depression, severe injury, generational trauma and the death of loved ones here.
From my current perspective of immersion in Goddess myth, I would attribute these confronting situations and radical shifts in awareness with Kali: Goddess of birth, death and awakening.
I experienced her awesome power for the first time, when I was in labour with my daughter Rose.
Contrary to the softness of her name, I pushed Rose out crouching on my haunches and roaring wildly – not in pain, but over-taken with an elemental surge of primal power.
And, in retrospect, I’d say it’s been my dance with Kali over the ensuing 14 years that has defined my sexual and spiritual awakening; given as it has been to a series of relational shocks and devastations that have taken to my ego like Indiana Jones with a machete.
Now I’m not saying this to glorify suffering. Nor suggest for a moment, that we should start inviting difficulty into our lives as a fast-track to evolution.
But what I am saying to anyone who’s been through a situation that has rocked their foundations or precipitated them into a nose-dive, is that right there in that injustice, right there in that shattering of all your dreams, right there in the agonising loss or heart-break, lies a nugget of gold: a GIFT to your soul that – if you’re willing to look – could catalyse you into something far bigger, better and more beautiful than you ever thought possible.
It could in fact, be the very making of you!
What this demands of us is to let go of our victim story, find our authentic gratitude and recognise everything that manifests in our lives as the choice of our soul. As one of my favourite spiritual teachers, Matt Kahn, says: “Everything is here to help you.”
It’s powerful shift that I’ve made countless times in the past decade, so I know it’s possible.
The ego will resist this because our story gives us excuses for not showing up fully in our power. We might imagine it will be easier to blame something or someone else, rather than face ourselves and grow.
The reality is that we’re more likely to keep on feeling a niggling dissatisfaction and sense of unworthiness if we choose to ignore our wake-up call. Perhaps we’ll even repeat the same old soul-destroying patterns over and again.
Whereas choosing to find the Gift (c) will, even if it’s at first a little uncomfortable, open us up to a new perspective full of hope, energy, empowerment and clear direction.
Care to join me?
I’m offering my break-through workshop – The Gift – as a one-day intensive on Saturday, May 12th, 2018 in north London. And I also offer one-to-one coaching packages around the same theme. Please message me if you have questions or are called to join us.
And if you’re a woman curious to know more about Kali and other Goddesses from the Tantra-Yoga pantheon, then do join me for my 10-week course: Dancing the Goddess, at the London School of Capoeira, starting Thursday, May 3rd, 7.30pm.