9.5. - 16.5.2021
Week two at Tullyquilly House had a profound impact on me. There was so much going on and the week seemed to fly by with numerous things to keep me occupied, besides deepening my understanding of restoring stone walls of course. This time I will get into the topics that transformed me, rather than desribing the days themselves. And because I feel so much joy about sharing and in celebration of one third of a year passed since I left Switzerland, I will put my insights into my first ever Vlog on my YouTube channel. For everyone too tired to read or just wanting to hear my voice, here is the direct link and please let me know what you think.
So without further ado here are my epiphanies of week nineteen on the road.
Broken Heart Syndrome
Each night before I go to sleep I meditate, some nights more successfully than others. Every night I begin this meditation with giving consent to my spiritual "Guardians"to interfere in my life the next days as they see fit to serve the highest good of All. With "Guardians", as I call them, I mean my "team" or the energies I believe surround us all and send us gut feelings, protect us and, as the name suggests, guide us in many ways.
This week started with an interference by my mother who got information from a meeting with a tarot card reader. Apparently this woman spend the majority of her time with my mother to suggest that I had made a wrong choice in leaving Switzerland, as my true soul mate and love of my life remained there and in following my restless heart I jeopardised a happy family with children and will lose him forever. Maybe coloured by my mother's wishes, she ended with saying that I would never ever find another soul on this Earth with whom I would share as deep a connection as with the One that I left behind.
My heart is still in recovery from this breakup even though in August it will be two years. To understand this fully I must add that I do not open up to people, I do not know why that is. My spouse however becomes my closest and most trusted, best friend. After said breakup we stayed friends and that provided me with the chance to be forgiven for a lot of my regrets and heal pains, all mainly because of his friendship and his kind, forgiving personality.
Now that my mother triggered the very worst nightmare of being alone and never finding such a connection with any partner ever again, I had to go through a lot of doubts. My head would not stop revolving around this one subject and all of a sudden I felt transported back to the time when the reality of us not being together anymore kicked in first. I felt alone, I felt lost and I was in so much uncertainty. What if I had put all into a future that was sad, leading nowhere but into a life of solitude and sorrow?
The worst part was that I thought I could talk to no one when usually he was the one I would talk to whenever I went trough a tough time.
Long days stuck inside my head cut short and summarised, ended up with an unexpected turn of events which, indeed, made me whole again. One phone-call and pouring out my heart made me realise one very significant thing of the utmost importance: I could not return to Switzerland for the life of it. I had tasted the sweetness of freedom, had a glimpse of what a life could look like without being bound to one location. Besides that I knew without any doubt that we were on such different paths in life, had so different expectations of life, we would make two halfs, maybe even less than that. What we were able to learn from each other through our relationship was the opposite of that. Not two halfs make a relationship, two wholes make one. Something I never understood so clearly up until Monday when my hurting wounds were reopened by a fortune teller. I am so lucky and so grateful for this eye opening trigger. My broken heart syndrome was dragged to the surface. Now it is time to put away the plasters and bandages, now it is time to heal, fully and in depth.
Natures Wisdom
Marjorie and I were blessed enough to had loads of opportunities to explore different parts of Northern Ireland this week. All of this was made possible because of the kindness and consideration of our host Stewart. Whenever he makes plans with friends, for a run or a swim or a visit, he thinks about what the surrounding area would have to offer for Marjorie and I, takes us along and briefs us where to go and how to get back, either by ourselves with public transport or with a meeting point to take us with him back to Tullyquilly House.
Spontaneously our first possibility to explore arrived during the week, on Thursday. Usually only the weekend would be open to do this because the nearest bus station is forty minutes by foot and the bus schedule is, to put it politely, rather selective with times. Our first destination was a path along a Valley from Hilltown to Rostrevor, ending in Kilbroney Park.
The variety of different forests was astounding. Some of these woods gave me chills because of their dense, dark, unforgiving energy. Others made me try my hardest to take a photograph but could get nowhere close to their grace. Usually I love to go off track with Marjorie, this time I could not, I dared not as I was worried my clumsy human-ness would destroy a habitat, a small living being, a whole micro-ecosystem, maybe even the home of a fairy or leprechaun. The magic that surrounded some of these moss-covered, deep, enchanted woods was humbling and silenced my thoughts, transporting me into a Now of just taking it in with admiration what nature had to offer. There is so much more than we can see.
My appreciation deepend with every step forward. Who was I, little human, walking along, caught up in my head about so many unimportant things, when within these woods lay so much hidden Microsystems, depending on each other, complementing each other without ego driven decisions, without destroying their very own nurturing life-giving ground. Instead of falling into the trap of negative thoughts about what all of us humans do everyday to make sure our Earth dies, something sparked in me. I knew that there was change, change on a larger scale, I knew I was not alone with these thoughts and I knew that all of us, sooner or later, will turn the wheels around, dedicating ourselves to making up for what we were once a part of wrecking. We can heal the world if we all heal ourselves with love and kindness for us and everyone, everything around us.
On Saturday Marjorie and I spend four hours in the castle grounds of Castlewellan. This time blossoms of spring, scents of wet wood and musical twitter from so many different birds inspired me to capture as much of it on camera as possible.
There was a robin, following me at least five minutes until I was able to take a picture of him or her, only then it flew away, leaving me with so much appreciation that it allowed me to capture its likeness.
And the variety of colours, I was in heaven, the lush greens, the sizes and textures of blooms, the trees, oh my god, these wonderful trees. Each of them telling stories of a whole century or more, each of them seemingly old souls, gentle and full of wisdom. Some of them dead, turning back into soil, sometimes remaining stumps would breath life into their dying substance, giving life back literally on their stub. A peaceful image when life and death appear as friends, side by side. What would our world look like if there was no fear of death. Would there be greed, or envy if a deep anchor in us suggested that death is just a transition into another energy, another kind of life?
The total contrast to all of that came on Sunday when Marjorie and I walked from Dundrum through the National Trust Murlough Nationalpark to Murlough Beach and all the way back to Newcastle Beach. It took us over four hours, including one meditation on the top of a huge, grass covered sand dune overlooking the sea. For the first time expansion came back to me, I felt my breath deepening without focusing just to take in the vastness of the ocean, nothing but wide, open water to the horizon.
It is no secret how I feel about the sight of the sea, it gives me the most profound serenity, peace and tranquility. To experience these emotions here in Northern Ireland for the first time deepened my appreciation for this land and at the same time sparked curiosity to go further, find more wonder and discover the yet unseen.
How everyone is Special
Unplanned and out of the blue an advertisement caught my eye. Tony Robbins and a 5 day challenge to "Own Your Future". I saw a Netflix documentary about Tony Robbins called "I Am Not Your Guru" once and although, what I call the American way of, getting people to believe in themselves and their abilities is a wonderful thing in general, it does not appeal to me with this intensity and high energy. However this challenge was, apart from my email address, free of charge and since I am a real sucker for self-development, I signed up. Little did I know that it required more than three hours each evening from seven to ten, as well as dedication and trust in the process. Nonetheless I did it.
Needless to say that whenever you spend so much time and invest in your self, it transforms you. And so it did. Thanks to a free online live seminar over five days with a lot of entrepreneur guest speakers, in-depth knowledge shared about the "self education industry" and more encouragement I ever received from anywhere, another shift inside of me happened. In their program they teach you that everyone has something to offer, basically everyone went from their mess to a message. Something happened, maybe an accident, maybe a breakup, maybe a passion you discovered. With all the knowledge you gained about this topic and with all of the various perceptions on it, you could help another person to skip a long, excruciating path of discovering the solution themselves, you could build a bridge between the problem and the solution. If your heart's desire is to serve others, lessen their pain or help them learn something they aspire to learn, then selling becomes service. This is the essence of being authentic, true to yourself and a human being. If you serve others with what you have to offer, you fulfill the deep desire in all of us to connect.
This message moved me and transformed my way of thinking, especially when it comes to money and ability. The "impostor" feeling goes away if I think about how if I share what I went through and my approach to it, might help just one single person. I might not be a psychologist, I might not (yet) be a coach, but I can share what I know worked for me and people can take away from it what serves them regardless of my education. If I feel like advertising a course of which I know I gave it my all to establish, to serve others in this way, I do it because I cannot be of service to others, if I do not tell people that I have something to offer them. Leaning into this, money simply becomes a transfer. My time and energy for the other person's time, energy and maybe even hurt spared.
In short, and more valuable than explaining all of this in my words, I gained a lot from something that was offered to me free of charge and I feel pure gratitude for all the people involved to make this happen. I will face what scares me, I know this is the way to learn and grow and start believing in me. Thank you, your generosity and kindness helps me see my light more clearly, I will act upon it and I see it as my moral imperative to share what I have to offer. Which in return is why I decided to record my first Vlog. And which also means that I rely on feedback to get better at what I am doing in order to be of more service and higher value to anyone out there that can take away something from it.
With that said, I deeply appreciate all of you and wish you health, happiness and warmth.
Love and light, beloved souls
Nadine