Listen to some of my story on soundcloud with my interview with Michael Neeley on Consciously Speaking Podcast show
A conversation
I often felt alone and misunderstood when I was a young girl. I had ideas about life that didn’t seem to fit in with the view of the people around me. This was a knowing about my connection to my inner being, as the person I liked to talk to the most was myself. Talking to the person in my head was my only solace, as I watched the drama of my dysfunctional family play out. I never understood why grown-ups felt so bad, and thought just because I was a child I would not understand their problems or feelings. They tried their best to withhold their lies from us, my two brothers and I, spelling out big words so we couldn’t understand their conversations.
No matter what age I was, I felt I could understand people if only they would talk to me about what was going on with them. I always felt I was a grown up in a child’s body, and had a very wise person living in my head. if the grown-ups would just show me the same respect as a older person, I would understand and we could all find a peaceful place in which to live.
Fighting, verbal and physical abuse was the norm in our house when I was growing up. Communication, acceptance and understanding, were not on the agenda, even though from the out side, it looked like we had the idyllic family with a beautiful mother and a rich handsome father. Nothing could have been further from the truth!
My mother was one of the most beautiful, friendly, funny people you could ever meet, but her self-worth was always connected to her looks, and later in her life when her looks started to fade she felt unworthy of love. Leading to self-hatred and the decline of her health. Maybe she always felt unworthy of love it was just when she was young, an getting a lot of attention especially from men, she didn’t notice it as much.
My handsome wealthy father came from a respectable New Zealand family, they emigrated to Australia when he was a teenager. Like mum, he never felt quite up to par with his hard working father, who made a fortune from nothing. Dad was always trying to live up to his family expectations, while trying to satisfy his own desires. He never got over his father firing him from the family business, and was driven to prove himself worthy of his father’s approval. This he never achieved, as he was the only sibling left out of his fathers will. I think he spent the rest of his life seeking that approval, even though his father died when he was still a young man.
My mother didn’t ever feel worthy enough to be embraced by my father’s family, and they definitely did not approve of her. According to them she was from the wrong side of the street, a showgirl, which in those days was considered to be common. No amount of appearances in the social pages was going to change their minds.
Screaming matches between my parents was a part of everyday life when I was a small child, until the day my father left my mother for a younger woman. He called from overseas to tell her the news. My devastated mother never really recovered.
A few years later, when I was sixteen, she died a slow painful death from complications of cancer. My father told me years later his marriage to my mother was seven years of Heaven and seven years of Hell.
The fighting did not stop when dad left, it became even more intense as the two sides invented ways in which to hurt and disempower the other. It was war between the unfaithful husband and the miserable ex-wife. Their three children were used as a weapon. We became their spies and their sounding board, as they continually drilled into us how horrible the other parent was. On return from access visits interrogation about the other parent always ensued. The fighting was exhausting. Not only was it with my parents, my father’s family fought with each other as well. It would take about thirty years before my father would see his brother again after a fight about the inheritance of the family Rolls Royce; this was on his brother’s deathbed. My brothers and I were no exception. We fought constantly, I remember my mother saying to us.” What did I do to deserve such terrible children, other people’s children don’t behave as badly as you.” If I were my mother I would have bowed out too. How long can someone live in a war zone with their children fighting all the time and hating someone they once loved?
So one could say that the role models in my life did not portray an enlightened view of life. I thought that hating everyone around you, then turning your hatred inward on yourself, was normal. Maybe it is for a lot of people, but it was always my intention to listen to my own guidance over and above what anyone else was telling me, or showing me about life. I knew there had to be a better way to live and I was determined to find it. I was a stubborn child and thought I knew all the answers. An attitude I will always be grateful for, and an attitude my beautiful daughter has adopted. My Mother used to tell me constantly. ‘You never listen to me KAren you always argue with everything I say. If I say it is black you will say it is blue.’ It is just as well I didn’t listen to her, judging from the way she lived her family life, she didn’t have empowering things to teach me. It took a long time to change the destructive thought patterns I picked up from my parents, but I was determined to know what it was to lead a happy fulfilled life, fulfilling my souls calling. Thanks to the unhappy lives I saw around me as a child, I found the platform from which my desires to know and live an inspired, exciting, empowered life were launched.
An inquisitive child, I was always asking questions about life such as, “ If a baby died before it was baptised into a particular faith, will it still go to Heaven?” “Why do some people die when they are very old and some die at birth?” Where do you go to when you die? Where did we come from before we came here to earth? ” And when mum died of cancer when I was sixteen, my questions became more intense and changed to. “Why do people get sick?” ” What is it that makes people sick, and what is it that keeps them healthy?” And “ How can I help them?”
These questions lead me on many journeys that would reveal a variety of answers. For years I would sit in bed at night and read all manner of self-help, personal growth and spiritual books. These words were the only conversation that made any sense to me in a world, which at the time I thought had gone mad. I tried to talk to my friends and family about what I had discovered in the pages of these books, like the ability we have to create our own reality, and that we alone are responsible for the outcome of our lives.
I was excited to read about the reality of spirit guides and inner guidance, as I always knew I was guided. I wanted to talk to people about these things, but it fell on deaf ears. The response was something like, “KAren you spend too much time thinking about useless things that we can’t change and have no control over, and the world is a cruel place and bad stuff just happens.
My inquiring mind was not rewarded with support from the people around me at that time. But no matter how they protested and told me I was wasting my time, or I was crazy, I kept reading and reading and reading. The conversations became one I had only with my books and myself. I spent a good part of twenty years having this conversation with myself. I discovered a truth in the pages of these books that seemed more real to me than the world I was looking at. When I read I was filled with hope, gratitude, peace and love. The conversation inside my head took on new magnitude, as I read other peoples interpretation of what life is all about. I discovered a clarity in my own thinking and an understanding of what I knew and had always known. But life outside the books was filled with struggle, fear, anger, stress and doubt. It was everywhere, in the news, on TV, in the lives of people around me and in my own life.
To overcome my abusive childhood, in my teenage years and early twenties, I became a party girl, and experimented with all manner of drugs, alcohol and good times. I felt a freedom in those times I had never felt as a child. A carefree, wild adventurous freedom and abandon. I remember saying to my best friend Kate, one night as she drove me home after a big night out, and my legs hanging out of the window of the car; ‘I wish I was drunk all the time, I love this feeling of carefreeness, and abandon. I wish I felt like this all the time.’
Something I think we all feel at some stage in our live. A call to return to the freedom and the feelings of our true nature of unbounded love and unconditional freedom, without needing a drug or drink to get us there.
It was at twenty-four, when I started to study Natural therapies, that my conversation expanded outside myself. I talked to the other students about the ideas I had read about life and the Universe, although only on a level of health and well being. I was still starved of deep juicy inspired, spiritual, philosophical, cosmic conversation.
Most of my fellow students seemed to be busy trying to workout why they had certain ailments, and of course like any other student studying illnesses, a lot of them became hypochondriacs, taking on the particular symptoms we were studying at the time. I studied full time for five years, and when I finished, I had a baby and opened a furniture and homeware shop. The natural health conversation was not enough to inspire me to help anyone, armed with the knowledge I had gained from five years full time study. I did not find anything that I thought was going to change the world, so to speak. I felt that, although the information was valuable and should be in every school, especially the study of the human body and it’s workings, I didn’t see anything that was going to satisfy my craving for an understanding of why things happen and how we can return to our brilliant natural healthy self.
How do we make our dreams come true or how do we restore health to our bodies? I was driven by the questions, why do people get sick and how can we prevent this or what is the root cause, and how can we lead meaningful, fulfilled, satisfied, happy lives.
My search for understanding was always a personal quest. I wanted to know why I would beat up on myself so much and how I could overcome this bad habit that was running my life. I had a strong feeling of unworthiness, even though I was a tall, talented, healthy, good-looking and intelligent woman.
I never felt I was good enough, and past experience had shown me that no one wanted to listen to what I had to say. I wanted to know more about the workings of the mind and our belief systems and how our spirit fitted in with all of this. I wanted to know why some people are successful and others are not. I knew success had nothing to do with what you looked like, how intelligent your are, or the opportunities that came your way as a child, as I had come from a privileged background. I knew there was so much more to healing, or achieving true fulfilment, than anything I was seeing through mainstream media, or TV.
I kept reading and started doing personal growth courses. I think I must have done most of what was on offer at the time. My family and friends’ opinion of me didn’t shift, they still thought I was crazy and wasting my money. My family called me a mung bean hippie or gullible, I was being brainwashed by these gurus of self-help. “Better brain washed to love yourself then brainwashed to hate yourself,” I say. I looked into different religions, and went to see all manner of mediums, healers, psychics and seers seeking answers to my burning questions. Still not too many of them lined up with what I knew to be true in my own heart.
It started to become clearer after I read the “Conversation with God” trilogy. So, inspired by the messages in these books, I started a study group in my home. This attracted other like mind individuals, and the conversation took off… It was fantastic, wonderful! I had found pals to talk to that knew what I was talking about. My conversation expanded yet again, and every Tuesday night a hand full of people would fill my living room with inspired, philosophical and spiritual conversation. Then one of the participants Paul Fitzgerald, told me about other Meditation groups, so we decide to go on field trips to see what others were talking about.
I discovered a group called The Southern Cross Academy of Light. A gathering of people in search of more meaning to life, often feeling beaten up by life, and what society expected from them. They were seekers like me, looking for a deeper knowing, wanting to include their spirituality in the bigger picture of life, and looking to fill the holes religion did not address.
We were people looking for a freer way of thinking and living. The night started with a meditation, then a speaker was introduced and a different type of life knowledge was explored. It was an opportunity to meet other seekers and discover different types of healing techniques and spiritual philosophy. We could network and expand our new age business and healing services as well.
The first speaker I heard was a self-professed enlightened being. He was speaking a language I understood and I knew I had found a place were I could find some answers to the burning questions inside me, and life would never be a conversation alone again.
The connections grew and my conversation kept expanding. From that time on, all manner of miracles happened. I discovered other views on healing, courses and teachers that adjusted my inner lens, so I could see an ever clearer and expanding vista of life.
I was doing some body massage to make extra money to support my little family around that time, and found that during these sessions I knew all manner of things about my clients. What made them tick, what was running them and how they were feeling. I had regular conversations with their guides, or inner being, about what was troubling them and what would help them. I could see some of their past lives, and know why they felt as they did about themselves and life.
It was a fascinating and confusing time, filled with wonder and excitement about what else was possible. My massage clients told me that my hands seem to know exactly where to go. That without any verbal communication from them, I would find the source of their discomfort and give them the relief they were seeking. But for me it was also a frustrating time, as so much information was going on in my head, I felt I had to speak it to them, but felt unsure about how they would receive my blabbering. After all they had come for a massage not a psychic reading. So I decided to change the way I presented myself, and I set up shop as a spiritual healer.
More healing courses came my way and seemingly impossible things started to happen. I wanted to see with my physical eyes, the universe heal the physical body instantly. I had been told it was possible. And like anything else we ask the universe for, I was given this opportunity to see it for myself.
My daughter cut her foot badly one afternoon after school. She was playing in the garden while I was taking a shower when she came running into the bathroom screaming and crying. I put her foot under the running water to wash off some of the dirt and blood, but her screaming continued. So I thought, “if I can just stop the bleeding she will calm down”. I put her on the top of the toilet seat and placed her foot in my hand commanding a healing from the universe. I noticed I couldn’t feel the blood running under my hands as I had expected, so I removed my hand to see what was going on. The cut had sealed instantaneously. My daughter and I sat there stunned and in shock at the speed at which the cut had healed. Then I knew that what I was learning and contemplating was a reality, and that nothing is impossible, one only has to believe in it.
There comes a time when the searching is done, when you have to stop looking at why you are the way you are. Why you feel so bad and just get over it. No amount of healing or therapy will fix it or take away your emotional pain. I discovered that you cannot focus upon something and have it go away. Our thoughts are creating all the time, and what you focus on expands.
There comes a time when you just have to stop beating up on yourself and start to think better about who you are and why you are here on earth. You have to stop asking questions and start allowing the answers to filter into your life. I realised that when we are in the mode of asking we are not in the mode of receiving. Like when you are looking for your brush or keys, and in the panic of searching for them, even if they were right in front of your eyes you cannot see them. But when you let it go and forget about looking for them, they turn up in the most logical places. As if they were in front of you all along, but your scattered searching mind couldn’t see then because of all your confusion.
This is what was happening to me after I had done many healing courses, left my marriage, left behind the party lifestyle and started to meditate. My inquiring mind was being satisfied and my questions were ceasing. This was the time when my dreams started to come true. I was returning to the happy, bright, loving self I used to be as a small child, before I took on the belief patterns of my family. I started to realise how capable and worthy I am of achieving anything I want, how loved I really am, how magical the universe is in bringing to me what I had been asking for, and how thrilling it is to remind others.
It took me a good part of forty years to feel this about myself, so convinced of my own unworthiness despite my many talents as a artist, singer, dancer, anything creative I could nail it, privilege schooling and upper class background, and I think it took far too long!
My wish is to give people back to themselves. To remind you all of you how brilliant you are, how worthy you are how LOVED you are and how capable you are of creating everything you want in this life, in a much quicker time frame than it took me.
My own spiritual healing gained new heights as more insight illuminated my path. People came to me wanting to know why they were here and what they were supposed to do with their lives.
I soon realised I was speaking to healers, uplifters and teachers. People wanting, more than anything, to contribute to others, make a difference and to return to the loving, helpful, blissful beings they new in their hearts they are.
I came to understand exactly who I am in this life and what I am here to do. I am a healer of the healers, a teacher of the teachers who are here to assist in the transition of this world from one way of being to another. The grand SHIFT to a more connected, more expanded, more unified way of living life on planet earth. Connected to the greater universe and all her forms of life.
Not only could I see the world-changing around me into a place of more Grace and Love. I could see inside people’s bodies, read their thoughts and feel their emotions. Their deepest passions were no secret to me. I was now in a place of deep understanding of most people; what they were looking for and how best to help them. Every conversation I now have with my clients is filled with insight and meaning. Discussions about health, life, love, purpose and our place in the evolution of the Universe.
It is a familiar feeling, I remember always knowing what people were thinking when I was a small child. But I felt confused when I knew one thing but they were saying another. No one told me then to trust my intuition, so I started to doubt it.
A feeling of belonging arrived in my life that I had not experienced before. My circle of friends expanded, and a profound bliss took charge of my being that started to channel through me in most of my conversations. I had put down my beloved books and I was fast becoming the library. The most profound words would spill from my lips and enrich the lives of those who would listen. I ran courses in Medical Intuition so that others could see what I was seeing. And talked about our psychic abilities. I wanted everyone to know about the guidance within them. I wanted them to discover or remember as I had, that we are never alone and everyone has an emotional guidance system that is guiding and working for them throughout their lives.
I wanted people to feel the reassurance that the Universe loves us, that we are connected to a magnificent brilliant source of creation. To remember we are all an extension of source energy and the force which creates all life. And unworthiness should never again be an issue in anyone’s life.
Through the Academy of Light, I started to talk with small groups of people, which helped me overcome a huge fear which had haunted me most of my life! The fear of public speaking. I was so shy as a young girl, even at school I would cry when an adult talked to me or asked me a question. When they asked me why I was crying, I would say I didn’t know why, but speaking to people, especially adults just terrified me.
No matter how bad your life may look right now, if you can find that place of self-acceptance and then start to really love who you are and what you have to offer, every trial will turn around for you.
The light that had been dim in me for so long became brighter. Not only illuminating my own path, but also the path of others. Life seemed to be moving quickly. In my 40’s I moved to a beautiful new neighbourhood north of Sydney city on the beaches and fell in love with a wonderful man who was a nurturer like me. Incredible blessings were bestowed upon us. We announced to our friend we had committed ourselves to each other in a beautiful sacred marriage ceremony, and were given a trip around the world as a honeymoon present. On that trip we met wonderful new friends and had experiences I could never have dreamt of. I stopped beating up on myself and the Universe rewarded my self-love, with more love.
To me the world is a beautiful, wondrous, magical place. I no longer pay any attention to the horrific news reporting on our television screens and radios that play hour after hour, as I know from my personal experience that life is fantastic and this planet is an incredible place to live. There is so much well being that surrounds us. There are so many wonderful things that go on in the world. We are so blessed in so many ways. All we have to do is STOP.
Stop giving our attention to what is wrong with ourselves, our bodies, our work, our family, our lives. And start appreciating what is right, what is good and fun about who we are and what we do have. And the Universe through the powerful law of attraction, will bring more good things to us.
The enthusiasm and love is spreading. People all over the world want to feel more connected to their joy and pursue their passions. In this new age when so many people are getting what they want and seemingly impossible dreams are being realised. Life seems to be supporting the desires that have been born from the dramas we have all experienced. There are many people providing different ways of thinking for people who are searching for it. And as more people start to believe in the well being of our planet and in the well being that is available for us all, when we allow it. A blessed, abundant, healthy and happy life will become the norm in mainstream thinking and not the unusual.
There are so many opportunities to connect with people who want to be of service to humanity in a personal way. Just like the World Wide Web, it feels to me like there is an ever-expanding web of light allowing us to express our joy and serve each other in a variety of creative ways.
In this changing world there are many voices, many messengers of Hope and Love, and now more than ever before, the new age thinking provides us with a platform to express our passions. This is the time to remember our unity, to sing in harmony with each other and celebrate our differences.
I am so fortunate to have found my place in the world and I feel so grateful to be living at this time in history. Today when so much of the world is focusing on how to live more in harmony with each other and know peace. There are just so many amazing people out there reminding us to reconnect to our authentic selves and act from an inspired place and not a place of denial.
When we all come to an understanding that we are all one divine spirit dressed in different clothes, what we do for another we do for ourselves. We will live the Peace the world is looking for.
Talking to people and helping them find peace with their lives and within themselves, is my passion and I love it. The expansion of my conversation has been a reflection of the expansion we all can live, when we decide we are worthy, beautiful, Blissful Beings.
Keep reading
more of my story
below
Five things no one knows about me…
- 1. I am really NOT good a talking about myself, yet find I have to if I want to help others and get my message out there, and this in itself has been the best personal growth workshop I have ever done.
- 2. Apparently I have a neon sign on my forehead that says, ‘Please tell me your life Story,’ and wherever I go and whomever I’m with, I get their life story.
- 3. I was once in a relationship with a cross dresser.
- 4. I used to have dreams as a child of rescuing people on a ride at Luna Park that spun out of control and crashed into Sydney harbour.
- 5. When I heard about Jesus in a scripture class at my non denominational junior school, I was 9, I really wanted to meet him, even though I hated Scripture class and thought religion was ridiculous! 🙂 I REALLY wanted to BE with him 😉 .
Love is you.
Remember to feel it!
KAren Swain: Sydney Australia
I’m all about the JOY of Deliberate Creation, showing people how to flow their energy, so we can create a world we all want to live and thrive in. Connected to the same source as you, I have encouraged my connection to source, my inner-being and my guidance because I wanted to understand this part of myself better. I always had enlightening conversations with something, or someone within me, because most times when I wondered about something, I would receive answers by way of clear visions, knowings or common sense guidance and thoughts. Little did I know when I was receiving these thoughts, I was being communicated with by an exalted infinite intelligent consciousness, which would guide my entire life and help me help, teach and awaken many others.
I’ve never felt alone, as I always had my thoughts to chat with, and after a while I started referring to these conversations with my unseen thoughts as ‘talking with the gang’ or ‘my mob.’ Eventually I came to know them as Blissful Beings, because this type of communication was always blissful and I called my healing business, Blissful Beings. My Blissful Beings encouraged me to speak with others, to bring answers to questions like.. ” How do I create my own reality? Why am I here? How can I know more Joy? How do I find my power to create and receive? How can I enjoy my life more? and Who, or what is my source and how can I be more connected to it?”
I receive answers from your guides and higher-self or mine. That part of our broader perspective, which is connected to all that we can be, and together we find ways to live a more enriched life.
I don’t call my teaching channeling, as I believe we are all tapping into this part of us all the time. It is all about the intent we have with allowing more of this to shine through us, and our ability to let go of our stressful or resistant thoughts, which can slow this energy flowing to us and through us, more readily.
I Love talking with people about finding connections with a broader view of life. Teaching this feels so very natural and easy to me, no need to create a different personality to bring through clarity and higher guidance.
Inspiring people to remember who they truely are and why they are here on earth at this time in history, lights me up. That’s why I do this!
I call myself a teacher of teachers. Everyone who is attracted to my work, is passionate about contributing to this world and others in profound and powerful ways. I’m a qualified Naturopath, Energy Healer, Inspirational speaker and metaphysical practitioner, who lives in Sydney Australia, near our incredible pristine Australian coastline.
Passionate about sharing what I have come to know, and teach Deliberate Creation, connection to your spiritual guidance and many teachings and teachers in our Reminders from Home and Inner Sanctum interactive online gatherings, in my private sessions, through my book series, and through local and international media shows.
My ATP radio and youtube podcast show is pioneering the way in which we receive more empowered messages, about who we are and what we are capable of through the media. Television and radio are powerful tools and ways in which we receive life altering messages that determine how we feel about our lives. So I’m really passionate about presenting life affirming messages through our media, to people who are attracted to it.
I have studied many healing arts including Meditation, Medical Intuition, Soul Journey meditation, Hypnosis, Naturopathy, Theta or Orion Healing, Reiki, Yoga, Pranic Healing, oh you name it, I did them all on my quest to find answers to the meaning of life. I found the best of all courses of course; is LIFE !
Extraordinary higher wisdom and well being is available to all of us when we remember how to live connected to the energy that creates all life. I call this energy Joy, or Pure Positive Energy. Many have called it Love, God, Source, Grace or Bliss. Regardless of what you call it, connection to it will transform and enrich your life enormously.
People have asked me to explain the process through which I receive answers to your questions and how this occurs, and I tell them; ‘It is the expression of all that I have lived, which has caused me to become a vortex to my desire to communicate exalted knowing from my broader perspectives.’
Visit Who are Blissful Beings to read more.
There are many teachers who can show us the way to understanding ourselves more deeply. The most important teacher is the one inside us. Our Inner Knowing. This is the best guidance we could ever listen to. This is the message that was brought to light thousands of years ago and is more relevant today than ever before.
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