Spirit Prepared Me For This. What About You?

It’s been a while since I shared publicly, because as an entrepreneur with mental health conditions, self-preservation is of the utmost importance to me. Any job or experience can miss me if that’s not taken into account. Like most so-called “spiritual” folks, I’ve been limiting my time on social media, decreasing content output and really sitting with myself to figure out what is next and what to do with the current life experience when the “new-new” comes.

Well, my future has been calling and I was a fool not to answer. I have been scared at what I would be sacrificing, but honestly I was breaking my own heart as well as those of my Ancestors and those who have called me forth. I have heard them for years and couldn’t explain my way of being and why I have the gifts I do. I felt in order to live this path, I needed those words, that language, to clearly communicate my intention and purpose to those that would never hear me. I needed to subscribe to the academics of preparedness before I could speak. Nevertheless, I am here now and I will answer. This means leaving those who are not ready to travel with me behind. Sometimes it’s for the time being (a limited time) and other times it might be forever.

I say this in a literal and figurative sense.

Since 1998, I've been actively seeking connection with Spirit and all things related to Spirit. It was Spirit that taught me what I needed by living each experience, not by being told or corralled into what worked for everyone. My mental health and self-harm journey has brought me through a hands on the wall, feeling my way through darkness, kind of education. That is what it felt like, an application of intuitive learning in a way I didn't even realize and yet am grateful for now.

In 2016, my sister and I held our first Spiritual Healing retreat in Montego Bay, Jamaica. It’s funny because at the time no one wanted to talk about needing spiritual healing. Yoga, sure. But spiritual healing? Many folks couldn’t make the connection. Particularly, New King James version Bible-loving Black folks. No shade, NKJV is my favourite. No matter, Spirit was calling. Between 2016 and 2021, I’ve been back about six or seven times, each time coming back renewed in a deep way I could never access “at home” in Canada.

Each time coming back to Canada with a vow to make my dreams of living in Jamaica, full or part time, a real goal. Something I could work towards realizing in this lifetime.

Over the next few years, I was placed in a holding pattern. As family dynamics and structures changed, I also went through what I like to call a “relationship disintegration”, in that the partnership I was in fell apart due to constant infidelity, emotional manipulation and deceit on their part. Rather than advance forward as I was hoping, I was called even further inward between 2018-2020 so when COVID happened, I was already emotionally prepared to sit and receive the messages of my next steps. In February 2020, I met with a few other Black women in the wellness industry for a coffee and stated that I was ready to leave the post-secondary education field for entrepreneurship because of the systemic issues I had faced while there. I had no idea of timing and in the back of my mind, I thought I’d give it a year, Maybe two.

After all, I had been slowly taking courses to complete my undergrad degree in psychology 15 years or so after I should have graduated. Being connected to a post-secondary institution through work meant I could get reimbursed for my courses. I was still thinking so small.

In the last quarter of 2019, I was threatened, harassed and stalked by a student on my caseload. I immediately reported the initial incident where my mental health red flags went up and nothing was done. The incidents became frequent and when they began to involve other employees weeks later, Human Resources and Security was called in and I resented that my initial alarm wasn’t heard.

As the situation and mismanagement intensified, I was being asked by Spirit, “How else were we going to get you out of a situation that didn’t serve you when you didn’t even see it? When you still tried to hold on?” and still I resisted. Even today, I notice myself resisting the story. It was less than a month later that Spirit answered the call of my flippantly shared vision in such a way that I felt I was made an example of. Would I stand up for myself and fight or walk away?

By March 9, I was ready to quit my job with “no safety net”, but Spirit said to wait and by the end of the week my boss had given their notice and we were ordered to work from home. I felt incredibly grateful to Spirit and elated that I was able to work from home as I had previously requested and was denied. With seeming to have “extra time at home” in April 2020, I took a Certificate in Psychedelic Integration in order to feel comfortable undergoing my own solo sessions of exploring the darkened terrain of my mind. Soon, I was sharing my profound experiences with family and friends and began trip-sitting for other folks as well.

By June 2020, already having felt burnt out by the inadequate response to the recent student experience combined with societal upheaval, an increased level of expectation of employee output with no consideration of the impact of the stress of COVID, familial medical emergencies, I needed a timeout and took it. At first, I felt guilty for taking time for myself when everything was falling apart, but as time went on my Spirit team showed me clearly, I wasn’t valued or needed in the way I pictured myself to be. I filled a seat and that’s all that mattered to them as long as I wasn’t making too much noise.

As an annual tradition, I give the women in my family tarot readings around Christmas time. In late December 2020 or early January 2021, I was doing a session for my mom by her request and received a message that my grandfather, her father, would pass in June 2021. I tried to read it a different way, but it felt very clear that a father figure would transition.

My own father had recently come out of the hospital just before Christmas after an unexpected medical emergency related to low potassium. I thought perhaps I was confusing it with his recent medical episode, but Spirit said no, it was unlikely to be my dad. June came and by the 25th I thought, “Maybe I was wrong. Thank God”, but on the 28th, my mom called to give me the news of my grandfather’s passing. I felt him so near me, his laughter and lust for life. His regret at not being able to show more of his heart, his affection and yet grateful and happy for the life he did live, the loves he had and the folks he left behind. I felt him ask me to accompany my mother to Jamaica for the funeral and battled with her inner child to allow me to hold her emotionally during this time. To be in communion with my mom, uncle, grand-aunties and grand-uncle at the nine night ceremony for my granddad was a blessing for me.

Almost two years later, on a leave of absence, I’m still in pursuit of a grievance to make changes to the way things are done before I move on. I say it’s for the people that come behind me because most likely they will look like me, but is it? Is it a way to keep myself regulated? Tethered? Accepting the limitations of what it means to be attached to an entity that keeps folks like me hanging in the hopes I’ll come back or walk away?

Now I see clearly that these last several years were to prepare myself for this time. I was being called to a land my Ancestors loved, cultivated and made their home. I was being called to return and remember what I am made of - red dirt, green gauge mangoes and yams. Spirit, rhythm, ingenuity and wisdom. I have been welcomed, not only by family, but locals. Those who look like me; a distant relation, a faint remembrance of community personified. I have been welcomed by my Self.

I seek to continue the work I do online and in person wherever I am in the world as I share the gift of what it means to be pulled along by your own heartstrings. Will you join me?

I've launched a mentorship 6 and 13 week Spiritual Mentorship Course, mostly one on one intuitive guidance sessions with pre-recorded virtual healing and more. Visit OnePeopleTO.ca for group offerings.

In gratitude.