I believe in serendipity, and wow, did my Angels go into overdrive once I absolutely decided to sell my slimming salon. Within a few days of signing with a local agent a wide-eyed young woman came by to have a look. It was clear that she had dreams of setting up her own salon and she was inspired by my own tales of getting this business going.
Her naivety was probably an advantage for me at that time. I myself was now a little less clueless after having barely survived my first year of self-employment; my prospective buyer was yet to have those experiences. My contract stated that the franchisors needed to approve a new owner, but they didn’t care much, so after a brief meeting with them the sale went ahead.
To say I felt relieved was putting it mildly. In order to regroup financially I moved into share accommodation with a guy who would become a great friend and found myself a job in a bookstore. Once again my guidance aided me at this time. Jobs in bookstores were always in great demand, especially with university students who needed a lot of books for their studies. When applying for the role that showed up in the paper a week after I sold my business I felt the urge to do something a little different. So instead of the usual bland, typed CV and chronological information, I sent a hand-written letter.
The content was much more personable and conversational. I explained to my prospective boss that I had worked in fashion, was
I was very happy with my work in the bookstore.
studying and changing the whole course of my life, that I had always been a voracious reader (one book a week was my norm) and that I wanted secure, interesting employment for the next four years. Two weeks later I had the job and began learning things about the book trade that would later become very useful to me as an author. I was in heaven.
My spiritual development continued on apace too. Over the next twelve months I offered free, ten-minute readings to my housemates’ friends and had loads of fun learning, without the pressures of earning. Every Thursday evening my housemates would invite some of their friends around. They would gather in our large kitchen eating pizza and drinking wine while I sat in the lounge-room conducting these readings. It became so popular that many of these people gave me lovely gifts and brought their friends along. It was a wonderful way to gain some experience in what I still believed would be a fun sideline to my – more serious – homoeopathy.
Each week I would sit there nervously, hoping that I would say something meaningful to each of my volunteers. We’d sit opposite each other and I would hold one or both of their hands, close my eyes and hope. Incredibly, something would come to me and I wasn’t left waiting there silently for too long. Sometimes I would open my eyes to check that my ‘client’ hadn’t drifted off into boredom, or to ask them to close their eyes too so that I didnt have to worry about them staring at me. It was nerve-wracking to say the least!
During those brief readings I began to understand many things about the way divine guidance works and the way human beings think. The former is often very subtle, indirect and metaphorical. Instinctively I realised that the images, feelings and messages I received on behalf of my ‘client’ wasn’t meant to mean anything to me. It often took a great deal of courage to pass on information to them that seemed meaningless or even ludicrous to me. But miraculously, when I really trusted what I was being shown and had the courage to share it, they were almost always appreciative. I say ‘almost always’ because as a newcomer to this I did receive gobbledygook at times. A process which my Angels and Guides later described to me as ‘getting the rust out of the pipes’. Whether I realised it or not I was exercising my rediscovered clairvoyant muscle and flushing out old blockages that had accumulated because of the over-rationalisations we adhere to in life.
As for learning about they way people think, well, that was a major learning curve. Thankfully I was nervous enough to let each person know that I was just a student and still learning. That they were, in effect, a guinea-pig for me to practice with. Soon I also felt guided to tell them that the information I gave them meant little or nothing to me and wasn’t meant to. It wasn’t my responsibility to interpret it for them. That was their task and this was a fascinating revelation for me. I began to understand that the Universe is here to give us guidance and support, NOT to make our minds up for us.
During this time I had another experience that stunned and thrilled me. It was during one of Marilyn’s full-day workshops that
she offered occasionally. Whilst most people chose to have their lunch inside the hall that day I went to sit under a beautiful, big tree in the surrounding parkland. I ate for a while then had a clear thought “stand up and give this tree a hug”. I felt bashful about the prospect of someone seeing me hug a tree back then. Nowadays I embrace them like wise old friends. Within seconds of hugging this tree and pressing my chest against it, a hot, bright pulse of energy and light bolted through my chest FROM the tree itself! Its an experience I will never forget. I became emotional and truly understood that this tree was a conscious living Being. Delighted, and a little shaken, I rejoined the class with an increasing sense of awareness.
The tree and the ten-minute readings in my lounge-room on Thursday nights were just the beginning of what would become an endless procession of incredible experiences, personal growth, enormous challenges and an ever-increasing clairvoyance. This journey of a lifetime opened new worlds to me and showed me a whole new way of looking at life.