My story

My story

I didn’t have much self-confidence growing up which I believe led me to getting into bad friendships, bad relationships and making poor decisions.

My family life, was quite normal, so I thought. My mam had suffered from post-natal depression after having me. She recovered and we have a great relationship now but in those early years, it had a huge impact on who I was, and how I lived my life. My dad worked away. He also had issues. He grew up with an alcoholic father who beat him. He was taught by nuns and priests, some of whom were very cruel. He ran away at the age of 14 with the fairground to escape from the abuse.  Understandably, they both found it difficult to show love.

When I look back, the main thing I remember early on was feeling as though I was not seen or heard, which can lead to not feeling loveable.  I believe this was one of the main reasons I lacked self-confidence and why I was getting into bad relationships and friendships. I was looking for validation / love somewhere else, instead of loving myself and knowing my self worth, which I know now is the key to a peaceful life. I was attracting people to confirm to myself I was not loveable.

The most significant event that changed my life path completely, was being in a domestic abuse relationship for over 18 years. I shut down emotionally, to the point of feeling nothing and was pretending to everyone around me that I was OK. It was very draining and the only way to cope with it was to be detached from my feelings, I believe this can lead to serious health problems.

My dad passed away relatively young. He was 58 and it hit me hard. It was at this point that I decided I wanted out of this relationship. Life is too short!! It still took another 7 years after that to pluck up the courage to end it for good.

My ex-partner knew I wasn’t happy and threatened me that if I left, he said “if I thought he was difficult now, just wait and see what I will do if you leave me”.

He started seeing someone else which he thought I didn’t know about. This was when I took the opportunity to call it a day. He was OK with it as I knew he would be because he had a new love interest and he moved out. He made it clear I was to find somewhere to live as he wasn’t giving up our house.

Then, 4 weeks later, I was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of breast cancer, which shook my world. The diagnosis wasn’t good but despite this, it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. It made me feel again, I wanted to live, we had 2 boys together and I certainly didn’t want to leave them. This is when it all began!

My ex-partner insisted on moving back in to help with the kids. I didn’t feel I had a choice and at the time I didn’t care. I felt I had bigger problems to face, and somehow the abuse that I’d endured didn’t matter so much anymore. It’s as if it was so insignificant compared to what I was facing.

I no longer felt a victim. Something had shifted inside me and all I could focus on was living and staying alive.

I made it very clear that we would not be getting back together but he had a different idea and thought he could make me change my mind.

I knew I had to get out of there, but I needed to get through the treatment first, mastectomy, then 6 rounds of chemotherapy.

Then the information started to flood in!!

The book “The Secret Language Of Your Body” was given to me by a friend of a friend and this had a profound effect on me. She highlighted what to read in the book. This message confirmed to me my environment and my mindset had created my reality. It helped me understand the connection between mind and body and how it affects your health.

Then another book “The Secret” was sent to me by a friend who I hadn’t had contact with for a long time. She had heard I had breast cancer. She wrote a lovely letter asking me to read the book and that she hoped it would help me as it had helped her, My friend was a nurse and had learned through experience that a positive mind whilst dealing with illness was essential for a positive outcome. She highlighted a section on breast cancer. It described a lady who had decided to have no treatment. She surrounded herself with her family, watched funny movies and done joyful things and became cancer free, there are many more stories of people out there who changed from a fear-based mindset to that of love who have experienced similar outcomes, including me, this book also gave insight of the power of thought and mind.

Because of the book I wrote a “wish list” even though I had no idea how I was going to get these things, I truly believed in the process and things started to happen and my list became reality, I believe it was the power of belief that allowed them to come to fruition. Other books and people came into my life, some people were dropping out of my life too. Things I had asked for started to happen.

I came across a YouTube video called “Biology of Belief” by Bruce Lipton, He was talking about Angelina Jolie and this was relevant to me because of the breast cancer. Something clicked watching the video. It all made sense to me and it gave an answer to the question - why is this happening to me?

When speaking to the nurses that cared for me, there was a common thing being repeated by everyone,. They too had noticed that the negative, stressed people who had “given up hope”, even with a good diagnosis, often did not survive. But those who were positive and not in fear, often survived even with a poor prognosis. This confirmed what I had been researching and answered my second question, “why do two people with the same diagnosis often have different outcomes”.

Bruce Lipton’s work further confirmed and gave me the understanding and knowledge that I believe is one of the main reasons I am alive today.

My environment and my own thoughts (stress), being a victim was the cause of my condition and the great thing about this information was that I could change those things and survive!

There are many other sources of information that confirm my beliefs. The main one is the years of struggle, emotional shutdown, which I believe led to the cancer diagnosis. It was like a switch being flipped from being in victim mode to a desire to live.

No one has to wait until something so bad happens to make a change. My journey into this field of knowledge made me hungry to find out more. A friend recommended contacting Nicky Forbes to try an alternative therapy. She introduced me to EFT (emotional Freedom Technique) and from there I decided to study to become an EFT practitioner. The whole process and information gained complemented my healing journey. Nicky was an inspiration and deepened my desire to share my story to help others embrace love and process fear. I am living proof it works!

As soon as I moved out of that environment and changed my mindset, everything changed in my life for the better. A 10 year skin condition dramatically reduced, the breast cancer tumour shrunk a little on its own before any treatment, severe neck and shoulder pain disappeared. I sailed through the treatment feeling better than ever before, except of course for the first day after treatment but I still felt fine compared to how I was told I would feel.

As a result of the cancer, a critical illness insurance paid out allowing me to buy my own home outright. I found the perfect home for my boys and me. I got the keys for this house on my last day of chemotherapy. It was one of the things on my list.

Everything happened so fast. Soon after moving into my new home, I found a new job which I loved. This job, in time, introduced me to someone who also helped change my life for the better and ended up being the love of my life.

Even though I had left my abuser, contact continued as we had the boys together. He was still controlling me, abusing me and stalking me He used the boys to get access to me. I was just so pleased I didn’t have to live with him. I put up with it and it was so much less than I had endured before but in reality, I was being controlled, stalked, abused and coerced most days.

I had the tools to deal with it but I knew it couldn’t carry on. It was affecting the boys most, really in my head. My new friend made me realise the severity of what was going on and that we shouldn’t have to live like that and that it was totally illegal what he was doing. Even though he pointed this out I was still dubious to do anything about it.

The turning point was a simple flat tyre. My abuser asked who had changed the wheel (he watched everything that I was doing). In his mind there was only him allowed to do such things and he went crazy and he verbally attacked my friend to me.

I told my friend, which led him to call my abuser and explain that if this behaviour towards me carried on, he would be contacting the police and that he was happy to divulge all he knew and that it was serious enough to warrant prison.

The contact stopped immediately.

My friend put me in touch with support from the police and helped me find a solicitor to put legal boundaries in place for me and the boys. The remaining pressure had been lifted and no more contact of any sort was allowed.
My relationship developed into a loving healthy one, probably the first I had ever had.

Everyone’s backgrounds and circumstances are different. We all have our own issues. Some can be living nightmares but the same issues to others may seem trivial and have little or no effect on them.

We all have a story to tell. These stories are generally private and can remain that way. The tools we will use together will help guide you to feel and release any fear based emotions to live a calmer and more peaceful life, whatever that story is.

Contact me to find out more.