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Although none of my loved ones died by suicide, I have supported suicidal people in my life almost as a constant since teenage. I am not a professional, but as a spiritual teacher I wanted to talk about this topic that from a religious and spiritual point of view is often labelled as a sin. If you have listened to my podcast before, you know I am here to debunk myths. I need to say right off the bat: it is not a sin and you won't go to hell. Or your loved one won't.
This is where I am angry at religion and spirituality: there is no need to add insult to injury. People who contemplate suicide are usually in situations that feel unbearable and they see death as the only way out, be it that they experience pain, challenging illnesses or sometimes domestic abuse. Not everyone who contemplates suicide suffers from mental ill health.
It is time we remove the stigma around suicide. One in five person will have contemplated it once in their life. It's common. There is nothing to be ashamed of.
The risk factors are the following (and the more ticks on this list, the higher the risk so watch out for your loved ones): harassment and bullying, a previous attempt, family history, difficult life events, trauma and abuse, stressful events such as job loss, divorce or debt, feelings of hopelessness, feelings of worthlessness, feelings of isolation, use of drugs or alcohol, chronic pain or disability, domestic violence, and certain mental health conditions. The risk of suicide is incredibly higher for transgender individuals and other LGBTQIA community members.
In this episode I share some tips from my own lived experience and the ten myths listed by the Samaritans, a UK based organisation that offers a hotline: 116 123.
If you know someone who is at risk, you can absolutely make a difference but always ensure that you don't do more than you can cope with. Professional help is always there to step in. I briefly want to mention Papyrus for Youth Suicide in the UK. Know that there is a trust that supports young people called Winston's Wish. And the NHS has a service called Help is at hand. If you are not in the UK, hopefully you can find resources on Google, but your doctor should have some information for you.
Last but not least, I want to refer you to a YouTube Video by a near death experiencing who met a family member who had died by suicide on the other side and who tells of how they were in a good place. If you like to read and are open to the idea, I also recommend a book called My son and the afterlife by Elisa Medhus, M.D.
I am a mental health first aider so feel free to message me on my FB profile here.
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There was a time when I was so obsessed with Near Death Experiences (NDEs) that I wished I had one myself. That was, however, at the start of my spiritual journey. As I progressed in my spiritual journey, I had what people label as Spiritual Experiences (SEs) and now, I feel these are much more gentle. I have come to the personal conclusion that not all of us need NDEs to learn spiritual lessons, and that perhaps those who do needed something much more drastic to "wake up". There is no judgment in what I just wrote. It's just an observation.
I want to recommend three books if you want to learn about NDEs: the first book is called After by Dr Greyson, the second is Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani and the third is Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander.
Contrary to popular belief, not all NDEs are pleasant. Not everyone goes to "heaven". Some people go through to a very dark place that some even describe as Hell. My understanding of this is the reason you go to the place of light as opposed to the place of darkness has nothing to do with how good you have been but more to do with the proportion of light you have inside of you as opposed to the darkness. We all have both light and darkness in us. Anyone who tells you that they are pure light is lying to you. As humans, we are born into duality. And we all have done things when gripped with fear that we are not very proud of.
What are the main teachings that Near Death Experiencers bring back from their experience?
The body can heal from the most extreme illnesses and even death when one changes the way they look at life. When it's not our time to go, we are strongly encouraged to come back, but it's always a choice. We go through a life review after we leave our bodies. This review is not a judgment. It's mean to be educational. Life is a play - Earth is a playground, albeit sometimes a very tragic one. The only thing that matters in our experience on Earth is love. Life on Earth is a playground, not a court room. Dying can be easier than living. We choose our parents Doctors and nurses are assisted by angels regardless of whether they believe in them or not and regardless of whether they are aware of being assisted or not. The spirit world wants to help us. We "survive" death as we are more than our physical bodies and our brain, and this is experienced the most by atheists. Love is all that matters and the source of all existence. We are never alone. -
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I have just signed to join Toastmasters and when I asked myself what to talk about in the icebreaker, the very first speech one does in front of the club, the words that came were "Six degrees of separation".
The concept of six degrees of separation was originally conceived by a Hungarian author called Frigyes Karinthy, although he did not use these words precisely. And the idea is that people are six or fewer connections from each other. But the way I was supposed to use this expression was different. I was supposed to use it to talk about the fact that through life, we separate from our true selves and the idea was that I chose six events that brought me back to my true self.
In this episode, I share with you those six degrees. I have given them titles and they are little stories in themselves.
Degree 1 is called Rue de Rennes, and is about how I escaped a bombing in Paris in September 1986 Degree 2 is called Mike and Wendy Noah and is about how I communicated with these people in my dreams Degree 3 is called San Francisco and is about how I found out mosaics was going to be the medium I would use in my art Degree 4 is called Angel dust and is about a psychic reading where the medium told me I had angel dust coming out of my hands Degree 5 is called Sugar in the Tank and is about the first time I had the courage to share angelic guidance with a friend Degree 6 is about my first public speaking experienceThese six steps or experiences allowed me to reclaim a part of me that I had lost and took me from being a lawyer (in 1986 I was still a student) to who I am today. I call myself a spiritual lawyer, but really I am a modern mystic.
These six steps are an excerpt my memoir called Spiritual Lawyer which is coming out in 2025. So if you would like to be informed when it is available for sale, sign up for my author newsletter with this link.
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Back in the early days of my career as a clinical hypnotherapist, I wanted to talk to babies in spirit. So you can imagine how excited I was when I came across Lauren Dionysius who does precisely that. Lauren is a former registered nurse who worked extensively in the NICU and helped lots of babies get better but also witnessed many baby deaths.
In this episode, which is the first in a series of three, Lauren talks about her personal journey of working with babies and how that led to burn out. She took a year sabbatical to reflect on where she was supposed to go next and ended up going back to the NICU.
She shares one of the most transformational experience there when a new born whose parents were unreliable communicated with her telepathically. I won't spoil the story for you as she tells it so eloquently on the podcast but be prepared to have your beliefs challenged, in the nicest possible way.
Lauren now works full time supporting families and communicating with not yet born babies, babies in the womb, babies who have died and so much more. Her work is phenomenal and I feel honoured she came to share about her work here on the podcast.
As the episode came to a close, I felt the presence of a collective of baby souls who wanted a voice and had a lot to say, so we literally recorded the second episode right after the first one. It will be released in a month's time and it tackles issues that I have personally been wondering about for the longest time. We also have a third episode in the works.
Not only that, but this collective has asked for the episodes to be released now, when I had initially scheduled Lauren's interview for March 2025. This has completely upset my podcast interview scheduIe but I am actually delighted to make space for these mind blowing but more importantly heart opening interviews.
To find out more about Lauren, click here.
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Until we understand how our minds work, we believe we are our thoughts and we also believe we have no control over our thoughts. We even identify with our beliefs so deeply that we can become defensive when someone enters our world and challenges them.
This is the reason I believe that in order for us to awaken, we need to understand how the mind works. And this episode is all about that.
I was lucky enough that I trained in clinical hypnotherapy in 2007 and it rocked my world. Both in the literal sense, as in created tremendous change. One of these changes is that it helped me overcome a ten-year writer's block without even trying. And in a metaphorical sense because it opened the door to a way of living I had no idea even existed.
I had had years of therapy before that, but the therapy, although useful to reflect on things and to connect the dots, never took me beyond my thoughts. I was limited to explore a room that contained past experiences and beliefs but with no real awareness of the vast world that existed outside that room. And not only outside that room, but in other realms.
It is estimated that we have an average of 70,000 thoughts per day. If we don't realise that we are not our thoughts, we stay prisoner of these thoughts which most of the time go into many contradicting directions and distract us constantly from what is happening in the now.
Once your realise you are not your thoughts, you can also become more aware of the beliefs that are thrown at you constantly by the media. And mostly, these are negative beliefs because it is what sells. But our minds becomes the repository of those beliefs and we might want to curate our space with more helpful beliefs.
We have a choice.
Although a belief is a thought that we think is true and usually we have ample evidence to support it, it might be worth us deciding if that belief is supporting us and then reverse engineer what we want to create in our lives and then choose the beliefs that support that version of reality we want to create. Once you do that, you will be amazed how you can find evidence to support this new belief, because the truth is, our beliefs act as filters. If you don't believe in aliens (and I am not suggesting you do or don't) then you will deny any evidence of them when you come across it. If you do, you might actually interpret facts around as evidence regardless of whether they are. It all starts with the belief.
In this episode I also talk about the different parts of the brain that you need to know about so you understand how every thought that crosses your mind can take you down two paths: the negative path or the positive path. This, of course, is not to indulge in toxic positivity, but my experience has taught me that with anything that happens to us, our beliefs can increase or decrease the suffering we experience depending on what thought we think about the situation.
I hope you enjoy this episode and if you do, please share it with someone who needs or needs to listen to it.
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We live in a society that values knowledge and intelligence above wisdom and kindness. Personally, wisdom and kindness rank above but it goes further than that, so I wanted to explore this topic in depth. I was encouraged to explore after listening to a very thought provoking podcast by Rory Stewart called the Long History of Ignorance on BBC Sounds.
Rory is a politician. He knows how to make a good argument and I could see how ignorance is not necessarily a bad thing in four situations.
When you are about to face a challenge or tragedy - this is important for us psychics. Knowledge of the future is not good enough. We need to have the wisdom to only impart to our clients what is going to be useful, uplifting and for the highest good of our clients. When you need to learn something. Having knowledge about something can actually come in the way of our learning especially if we think we already know the topic. When you are looking to solve a problem. You need to put aside what you think you know so that better solutions can be found. This is very important in science and Rory actually quoted a psychiatrist that claims that most scientific discoveries have not been made with the scientific method but by some intuitive leap. When you are looking to connect to Universal intelligence (see my previous episode about channeling called Not My Words, Not My Thoughts.If you would like to hear what I have to say in a bit of a stream of consciousness kind of episode, listen to this episode. I have also mentioned the podcast The rest is politics.
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Have you ever comforted someone who came to you to share their problems and said words that you thought were wiser than you? You are not alone. It happened to me a lot, until I trained in mediumship and then I started to understand better what was happening.
I actually believe that some of my mosaics were channeled. In particular, one called maternity. I never learnt how to do mosaics. I just did. I admired a lot of the mosaic artists like Gaudi and wanted to give this medium a try. Funny that: the word "medium".
This needs not be spooky, although I would understand if you panicked a little. After all, we know so little about it. And religion would tell you that you were being possessed. The reality is very different but discernment is important.
How do you know these are not your thoughts? They feel novel. It's not the usual kind of thoughts that you have. They are usually inspiring, uplifting and positive without being cliched or invalidating. You might think to yourself, "I am not that clever", or "I am not that wise", or "I am not that talented". In fact this is precisely the thought I had when I created my mosaic called Maternity. I am not that talented.
Channeling is a lot more common than we think. It happens to regular people. All they need is an open mind, literally and metaphorically. What you need to understand though, is you can be channeling good spirit guides but also mischievous ones. If you don't know what you are doing it's like opening your front door for everyone to come in. Every possible stranger, and you can't trust that all of them are going to have the best intentions.
How does channeling work? We channel when our minds reach Theta waves and we are in a state of trance. That is a state that I have learnt to understand very well as a clinical hypnotherapist. In the podcast episode, I talk about the most common kinds of brain waves we experience. I also share where you should practice channeling and why.
There is a warning, though. As I wrote earlier in this blog, not every entity you will channel will be benevolent. There are such things as entities and I sometimes wonder if people who suffer with schizophrenia are not actually channeling dark entities, especially when the "voices" tell them to hurt themselves or others. I once met a shaman who worked in mental health hospitals to support people who were going through a spiritual crisis that disguised as a mental health crisis.
In the episode I shared what it feels like when I channel and my training in this modality, and the incredible benefits it can bring to public speaking. However, I do not recommend channeling on your own, without the guidance and supervision of a mentor experienced in that field. At the very least you should listen to my episodes about:
clearing your space energetically the five things you need to know about energy and light and darknessThis is something I teach my VIPs, so if you are interested in channeling, why not book a discovery call with me with this link.
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Answering this question can be particularly offensive to people who have had abusive childhoods or have been abandoned by their parents. If the question offends you, then move on. Ignore this blog post and the associated podcast episode. I am not writing it to offend or hurt you. And I respect that you find it offensive.
The reason I am asking it, though, is because as a teenager, in the middle of a heated argument with my sister, instead of telling her how awful she was (and she was, but so was I), I said to her "We chose each other, so why don't we try to get along." At the time I did not know where this came from. Now I have an idea and we will be discussing this in next week's episode.
If I chose my sister, then the next logical thing is that I chose my parents too. I do find it particularly interesting to try to suss out why we might have chosen them. And this episode is about this. Why would those of us who have had abusive childhood chosen our parents? Who in their right minds would choose abuse?
One of the explanations I have been shown is that there can be a difference between what our souls want and what we want after we incarnate. Our souls have access to the bigger picture and also, tend to be quite ambitious for us. Our souls want growth and resolution for us, so they sometimes plan ambitious blue prints for us, and abusive childhoods can be a stepping stone for greatness. Don't think for a minute that I command abuse. I don't. However, hardships and challenging life circumstances can, as long as we have the support of at least one caring adult, build our resilience.
This can also be the result of the soul thinking that the choices it is making for its next incarnation are a lot easier than they seem. In addition to this, souls have no ego, so they don't care about comfort, fame, riches, reputation, success or money. They care more about experience and growth. And at this state of evolution of humanity, we learn a lot better from hardships than we learn from ease and fun. This could change, but we are not there yet.
Generally speaking, it is more advanced souls (and by that I only mean souls with more experience, not superior souls) that are likely to choose childhood abuse or hardship. These souls know they can do and they also know that they will embrace these challenges and turn them into opportunities to be better persons but also help humanity. I am not saying however, that advanced souls do not suffer. I think they do, but they are not victims. They do not need your pity.
But I also don't want you to feel any pressure to be a hero if you have experienced childhood abuse. The priority should always be your own healing first. You don't have to help others or turn your pain into gain. What is most important, though, it to let go of the shame. We all know that children and victims tend to take the shame of their abusers on and think that there is something wrong with them. Let go of that right away.
To book a discovery call with me, click here.
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Kayla Subica is an artist, singer, writer and director. She is just back from the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh with a show called Happy Medium where she brings all of herself on stage. She is all about presence and flow, yet for her to come out as a medium in her singing career took a little bit of work.
Happy Medium is a musical about a quirky psychic medium in 1970’s New York. She was meant to be a singer-when life derailed and handed her the gift of mediumship. Her dream isn’t dead, even if her chosen company is. This interactive dark comedy includes live audience tarot readings; both comedic, and sincere!
Kayla was very religious as a child. Although she wasn't necessarily psychic she knew things and voiced them. But it's not until she reached the age of seventeen and had a palm reading that she felt that she could do what the reader did for her and felt seen for the first time. As things turned out, when she did theatre school, she was asked to play a witch which led her to immerse herself in the culture of local witches where she learnt a lot. She shares much wisdom during the interview, including how important it is to take what resonates with you but not all that a mentor teaches, especially if does not feel right.
Kayla has managed to carve herself a unique space on stage where she brings her mediumship skills and her tarot reading skills into an interactive play with her audience, that is for entertainment but with that respect for the messages that come through.
At the end of the interview, she shared her magic with us by doing a mini reading for me, as she would do in her show, by pretending I was in a telephone booth and me asking a question. If you would like to find out more about Kayla, go to her Instagram account, her Facebook page, or her website. She also has a YouTube channel.
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When I was younger and something bad happened to me, my default mode was to say "Why me?" It came from my religious conditioning, but deep down I probably thought I deserved it because my entire life I had been told I was a bad person, so naturally bad things should happen to me. And yet, I thought it was so unfair. I was a good person. I was generous, kind and generally compliant. So why me?
I was pretty young when I observed around me that bad things happened to good people. They happened all the time. When I embraced my spiritual journey, though, I started to realise that asking why was not helpful. It was actually a bad question. How was a much better kind of question.
So how do good people cope when bad things happen to them?
First by reminding themselves that it is not a punishment. I have been watching Kaos on Netflix this past week and it's all about vengeful Gods that punish humans, or sometimes not even punish but play with them to increase their power. There is nothing like that going on in real life, no matter what your religion tells you. So if we are not going to ask why and try to find answers, what are we going to do?
First, we are going to challenge the good and bad spectrum. Good is only something we desire or approve of. Bad is the opposite. It's entirely subjective. Sometimes if we take the label out of the situation, it can actually make it easier. Not always, but sometimes. It is what it is. In the episode, I also discuss that when we often get what we need not what we desire (the good) and it is actually for our highest good.
Second, sometimes, bad situations have hidden blessings. There is an art in harvesting these, but first we need to tend to our emotions around what is happening by honouring them and sugar coating things is actually counterproductive and can even be harmful. No matter what your emotions are, they are valid. They need to be experienced to the full before you can get to the other side. This being said, sometimes we have emotions that are triggered by unhelpful thoughts. I used to think I was cursed, and that served no purpose whatever other than make me feel miserable. I had to get rid of that limiting belief. I actually recommend the work of Byron Katie for that. It's powerful.
When facing a crisis, I have four tips for you:
Tip #1: Accept the situation
Tip #2: Trust that you have what it takes to face it
Tip #3: Reach out for help from the right kind of people
Tip #4: Realise that you are not alone
Joseph Campbell gave us a remarkable framework to help us cope with challenges, called the hero's journey. I have talked about it in Episode 56, so if you have not yet listened to it, I encourage you to do so.
Challenges transform us and can make us better persons. I know I am a better person for the challenges that I have been through in my life. And you are probably too. But they can make us better or they can make us bitter. It's always our choice.
Make sure you sign up for my webinar called Why bad things happen to good people so that I can show you the process more in depth and you get a chance to ask me questions about this. It's on the 28th of October, at 7 pm UK time in zoom. To receive the link, sign up for my author newsletter with this link.
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The Akashic Records is an expression that was first used by C. W. Leadbeater in a book called Clairvoyance in 1899. However, the concept is not new, and has been called the Book of Life in nearly all religious traditions, albeit with a slightly different understanding.
It is defined by Theosophists as a compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions and intents ever to have occurred in the past, present and future in terms of all entities and life forms, not just humans.
C.W. Leadbeater claims that all clairvoyants can read them, but I disagree.
In this podcast episode, I share with you the difference between a psychic reading and an akashic records reading and help you understand what is best for you between the two. I also share information that will help you understand if you are ready to learn how to access your own akashic records. I refer back to an episode of the Intuitive Revolution in Business podcast that went into this topic, which is also available here on YouTube. If you are on Android, you will need to scroll down on your app to find the episode, so look for episode 12. If you have an iPhone, just click this link.
For thousands of years, these records were only known to initiates within traditional religions. The reason is that knowledge is power and one had to be trained and tested extensively before being given access to this information. It's not just that the information could be misused, it is also that if you are given it without being ready, it can actually be detrimental to you.
In the episode, I give you the things to look for that will prove that you are in the records.
If you want to learn more, I recommend Linda Howe's book, called the Akashic Records.
I share guidelines of the dos and donts in the records but I think more importantly I share tips that will help you find out as a client if someone is really reading your records.
If you would like an akashic records reading with me, head over to my shop here on this website. Either check the menu above or click this link. If you would like to discuss me teaching you how to read the records, for yourself or others, book a discovery call to discuss my VIP package with this link.
I mentioned on the podcast that I would be doing Black Friday deals for the first time in my business in years, but only to people signed up to my mailing lists. I have several but the three you want to check out are:
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Joseph Campbell changed my life and I realised recently that I probably ought to dedicate my entire podcast to him because he gave me a non religious framework to explain my spiritual experiences.
Who was Joseph Campbell and why should his work matter to you? Joseph Campbell was an American professor of literature and is the author of multiple books; his most famous being the Hero with a Thousand Faces. He was made famous notably by his influence on George Lucas, the director of Star Wars.
Why should you care? Because we are all the heroes of our own lives and knowing the twelve steps of the hero's journey can give us a road map to guide us and give us comfort. One of the biggest negative beliefs when we face challenges is the belief that we are alone. In truth, it is very likely that someone has been through something similar to you and could be a great mentor to help you through the ordeal.
In the episode I illustrate the twelve steps of the hero's journey with my own experience of losing my job as a corporate lawyer, which I am going to list briefly here. If you would like to hear me talk about these steps and ask me any questions you may have about spirituality in person, sign up for my webinar by joining my author mailing list with this link. I will be running them regularly so if you have missed the date of the 28th of October (2024), or if you can't make the time, don't worry. I will be running plenty more.
The twelve steps of the hero's journey are the following:
The call to adventure The refusal of the call Meeting the mentor Crossing the threshold Tests, allies and enemies The approach to the inmost cave The ordeal The reward The road back The resurrection The return The freedom to liveThis framework is so famous now that even Grammarly has a blog post about it. There is a reason for this. Joseph Campbell has become the golden standard to write Hollywood film stories thanks to the popularisation of his framework by Christopher Volger in his best seller The Writer's Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers.
The biggest insight that Joseph Campbell gifts us is that the biggest dragon we have to slay on our spiritual journey is not the enemies of this world but our own ego. And in a way, this is incredibly empowering because it brings us back in control. It's not a popular path, as I mentioned already in Episode 48 of the podcast called Dancing in the Light and Playing with the Shadows. It is so much more glorious to slay dragons or enemies of the public. But this illustrates that the spiritual journey is rarely an outer adventure but an inner one.
We need to descend into our own darkness and free ourselves from our fear, guilt, shame and other negative emotions because for as long as we live our lives by them, they are our masters and they drive our behaviours in very powerful ways.
Don't forget to sign up for my author's newsletter so that you can be informed of when my memoir about my own hero's journey of going from corporate lawyer to spiritual lawyer will be available for sale. Here is the link to do so.
To listen to the episode, click here.
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Shireen Khanum is a paediatrician, who grew up in Austria, England and Pakistan and who now lives in the United Arab Emirates. Raised by a mother who was a Roman Catholic and a father who was a Muslim, Shireen turned to Islam more because at the time it was the dominant religion where she lived, although most of her education was done with Irish nuns. Luckily, Shireen has never experienced islamophobia in her life.
I invited her on the show because I feel that in the West, and I am producing this podcast in the UK, there is an underrepresentation of islam but also a vilification. Stereotypes are rife and what better way to combat stereotypes than to meet and get to know real people.
Shireen is actually a dear friend of mine and I wanted her to have an opportunity to share about her religion and debunk some myths. Shireen shares the fact that both her grandfather and her father were very enlightened and did not put any pressure on Shireen's mum to convert.
But Shireen is also unusual inasmuch as she can see through her patients' bodies and is often able to diagnosed them before they have a chance to share what is troubling them, and for her to examine them. By night, Shireen writes novels. She has just published her fourth one about the Indus Valley, with a bit of a science fiction angle. To listen to the episode, click here. To find out more about Shireen and her books, head over to her Facebook profile where she uses her mother's maiden name, Magedin. She has a website and all her books are available on Amazon.
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I believe that rather than God having created humans in "his" image as claims Genesis in the Bible (we will talk about God's gender in a minute), it is the opposite. Humans have created God in their image. And my best bet is that they have done so to soothe themselves from the disturbing thought that the world has no rhyme or reason. But before we go any further, I want to highlight how much wrong there is in the sentence "God created man in his image". For one, why the male gender for both? The answer comes from the fact that most religions have been invented by men for men. Words matter, my friends. So please try to change the pronouns you use when referring to God: they, them.
In today's podcast episode, I explore the difference between monotheism and polytheism.
On the one hand we have the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, that all worship a single God. On the other hand, you have Indian religions, Iranian religions and East Asian religions, that worship multiple Gods. If you look at all these religions from my premise that humans have invented God in their image, the fact that a religion worships one God or more, doesn't really matter. In my opinion, the only difference is that in one case the single God will reflect the complexity of the human personality whereas if we worship multiple Gods, each one is likely to reflect one aspect. No offence meant to religious people. But I guess the point I am making is that I don't see any valid reason for the monotheist to look down upon the polytheists as less evolved, because it's the same. What is rather disturbing is that the monotheists usually claim that if you don't follow their god, you will go to hell. I am not aware that polytheists threaten people in the same way.
In the episode, I talked about the main twelve Gods of the Greek Pantheon, and observed that the roles assigned to these gendered Gods and Goddesses reinforced the social roles of their time, be it in a divine feminine and masculine way, which resonates with the episode I did about why I do not use the terms divine feminine and masculine. To me it's nothing more than a patriarchal model, that has been handed down through the centuries and sadly espoused by the New Age movement, thereby continuing the bias.
Emile Durkeim seems to agree with my theory that humans have invented God as an extension of human life. Matt Rossano adds an interesting dimension to this debate. He believes that humans have invented God to enforce moral values. He claims that whilst humans lived in small groups of people, morality was easier to establish due to social pressures like gossip and reputation, but that the larger the groups, the more difficult that was to maintain. As a lawyer, I am hoping that law does this better than religion, although arguably, laws do not deal with morals as much as religion does.
To receive the first three chapters of my new memoir, Spiritual Lawyer, click here.
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I chose quite a dramatic topic for this week's episode and wondered if I chose more than I can chew. But it's just a start. This episode is part of a series that is helping you decide if a religious or spiritual concept resonates with you, or aligns with your values and if it doesn't, I give you permission to get rid of it. Personally, Heaven and Hell do not form part of my spiritual blueprint.
If you would like to download the PDF I created to help you create that spiritual blueprint for yourself, sign up for my True Spirituality newsletter with this link. I have several newsletter so don't assumed that because you signed up for one of them, you are on my main one.
Before I start on the meat of this episode, I want to list all the episodes of the podcast that are relevant to your spiritual blueprint:
EP 6 talks about Prayer EP 10 talks about Twin Flames EP 11 talks about Tantra and Pleasure EP 18 talks about Angels and EP 47 shares how to work with them EP 23 talks about Signs from the Universe EP 27 talks about Meditation EP 30 talks about Feng Shui EP 32 talks about Manifesting EP 34, 35 and 36 talk about the Tarot EP 49 talks about the Spirit World EP 50 talks about the Divine feminine EP 52 talks about ReincarnationThe definition of Heaven by the Oxford Dictionary says "Heaven is a place regarded in various religions as the abode of God and the angels and the good after death". Right away this rings alarm bells for me: the "good". What does that even mean?
Asking about heaven leads to ask about God, which is going to be expanded on in our next episode but suffice to say there are two camps, to simplify matters: monotheists and polytheists. Sadly the monotheists look down upon the polytheists and have been, at least that's the case for Christianity, involved in many atrocities including colonialism.
A great person to learn about myths and gods, is Joseph Campbell and I particularly recommend his interview series with Bill Moyers called the Power of Myth. Sometimes I wish religious people were more transparent about what is myth and what is fact. There are a lot of myths presented as facts in religion, such as for example, the Virgin Mary. And I suppose that requiring that you buy into the myth blindly could be part of the enrolment strategy, so that you don't question other tenants of that religion.
Heaven is also used metaphorically to describe a place of bliss where people are happy and there is an absence of conflict. I want to mention here the Vortex, often talked about by Abraham-Hicks, as I believe that it refers to the same space as heaven. My personal experience is that the energy of the akashic records is similar.
As someone who has experienced both Heaven and Hell on Earth, I would say that Heaven is a place where we feel that everything is going to be ok, that there is nothing going wrong, where it feels that the Universe has our back and where we feel loved unconditionally. Overall, not very common experiences. I would add that I believe Heaven is a place where you are able to see the bigger picture.
Now, Hell. Jean-Paul Sartre defined Hell as Other People. War is definitely one flavour of Hell. As is pain, but also, in my opinion, mental illness. In the TV Series called Lucifer, Hell has one special room for each of us where we are confronted with a situation in a loop until we can free ourselves from our own mental hell. And Dan, one of the characters, is only able to escape his own prison cell in Hell, when he lets go of the belief that he was a bad father.
In a way I agree with Sartre, but I think that Hell can also be something we create for ourselves through guilt, regret, shame and fear. Sadly it can also be domestic abuse. So let's not blame a hypothetical God in heaven for our problems on Earth, or the Devil aka Lucifer Morningstar, and aim at creating more pockets of Heaven on Earth.
The ultimate question, though, is: Do you resonate with the concept and would like to include it in your spiritual blueprint or not? My personal vote is a no. Please share yours in the comments below or on my Facebook page.
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I have a special announcement: I will be launching my second memoir this year and would like to invite you to join my launch crew. If that is something that interests you, Click on this link to join the pop up facebook community where all my supporters are gathered for this event. There will be games and competitions. You can find out in the Facebook community or on my author newsletter by subscribing with this link.
Reincarnation is an interesting topics that has a mixed bag of beliefs attached to it. Although traditionally pertaining to religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, it has now become a lot more mainstream. It wasn't part of my original religious background, but it is a concept that I have been interested in for several decades.
In this episode, I explore the beliefs around it and debunk some concepts that do not resonate with me.
I share about the work of psychiatrists that have explore and written about past life regression, which have enabled them to describe their clients' experiences not just around past lives but also in between lives.
But this only remained theoretical until my own children shared about their own past lives at around the four-year old mark.
Then a few years later, when I trained in reiki, I had my first spontaneous past life recall. What I saw threw a very interesting light on the relationship dynamics I had with my mother and my first husband, that helped me get closure.
I have had the privilege of seeing clients' past lives in sessions and the information has always been useful and brought a new level of healing to their lives. So my conclusion about reincarnation is that it does not matter what the religious background says about it, it has a therapeutic value that I encourage people to explore in safe hands and at the right time.
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Kathryn Rickert lives in Canada and has been a primary school teacher for twenty years but there is another side of her that most of her pupils know nothing about: her psychic abilities. Kathryn could see and hear spirit from very young. They opened up when her grandmother died and she used to see her uncle all the time, even though she had never heard of him because he died when Kathryn's mum was sixteen. Luckily Kathryn's mum was not dismissive of her experience but sadly a lot of parents are. And that can create more harm than good.
There was a long period of time when Kathryn ignored and suppressed her gifts because her friends mocked her, but they all came back running when she became a mum and a primary school teacher. During a mediumship training course, she called upon her uncle and he explained to her that the little girl he often brought with him was her sister. Kathryn didn't know that her mum had a miscarriage. And from that moment on, she was hooked.
It started off with burnout, sadly, and the need for her to look after herself when the demands of her job, particularly as she was heavily involved with special needs kids, whom she loves, started to impact her health. This coincided with the birth of her second child. She describes that period as both a break down but also as a breakthrough as in her own words "it brought me back to me".
She did a lot of different trainings relating to psychic abilities that led her to build her business around the time of the pandemic but is now back in the classroom and what she learnt has been invaluable to her as a teacher.
Kathryn and I discussed how parents can best support their children when they mention unusual things such as imaginary friends or maybe have instant likes or dislikes of people around them. This was a fascinating conversation. And the first thing that came up was how important it was to ask children about their experience. They might be experiencing all sorts of psychic phenomenon or visits from spirit beings but they assume that everyone has these experiences so they are not likely to share with you automatically.
But also, as important if not more, is to believe them when they share with you even if you don't quite understand what is happening. We also talked about the fact that it's often around the age of four to five that kids share memories about past lives or talk about imaginary friends. Often times, as they progress through the schooling system, these experiences either fade away or the kids don't talk about them anymore because they are mocked for it. But it's important that this age group gets the right support so they don't get scared.
If you would like to know when Kathryn is launching her course for parents of kindergarden kids, sign up with this link.
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When I started exploring spirituality outside of religion, everybody seemed to talk about the divine feminine and masculine. There were circles for women, and circles for men. It was made very clear that we both have the divine masculine and feminine within us, whether we are male or female, but everything was labelled as feminine or masculine. Intuition was feminine. Leadership was masculine. And I tagged along, because I didn't know any better.
It took me to go on a journey with people that are close to me who are non binary and transgender to realise that the binary model is everywhere and that it is quite toxic. Why should being sensitive be a feminine quality? I knew plenty of exquisitely sensitive men. And why should taking action be a masculine quality? I am an action taker myself.
I started to read more content written by queer people and even though I was disconcerted at first - I was after all unlearning from years of binary thinking - I truly felt like I was seeing the world afresh. And it felt exciting. I am not queer but I know a lot of queer people now and if you have listened to any of my podcasts before, you know I am a passionate ally. Naturally, this led me to question this whole divine masculine and feminine mumble jumble.
When I was a child, I had more male friends than female friends. But here is the thing: I did not see them as male or female. They were just my mates. It's only when growing up and particularly when reaching adolescence that the whole feminine and masculine debate started to kick in. Back then, I did not know that gender was a social construct designed to control people. And that it had been used by missionaries all over the world to oppress indigenous cultures.
A man only acts like a man because he is conditioned to do so from a very young age. This was made very clear when I gave birth to a child that was assigned as male at birth. I remember my child, as a toddler, picking up some of my earrings and trying them on. I thought it was delightful. However, his dad rushed to his side and took the earrings off his ears at light speed and confiscated them. How interesting? This was one of the millions of micro actions that his father and all the adults around me took to reaffirm his gender. The same happens to girls.
Schools continue to reinforce these models if only by pushing heteronormative literature and addressing pupils as boys and girls. That is not even necessary. And yet they pretend that talking about gender is an ideology. They are obviously blind to the fact that the binary gender model is an ideology in itself and that they are perpetuating it.
Women should be aware that issues around gender fluidity affect them even if they feel strong in their own gender, because gender roles have been used to oppress women and non binary folks for centuries. By men.
Science has actually established that there are more similarities between genders than difference, so this whole gender binary model is based on social construct exclusively. It also varies between cultures. Dresses are routinely worn by men in certain cultures. As well as jewellery.
Even the World Health Organisation has stated in 2023 that gender is hierarchical and that it produces inequalities that intersect with other social and economical inequalities.
To me, being spiritual means doing everything in my power not to harm others. And then learning more to do better. I feel that the gender debate should be brought to the spiritual world and for us to question it. After all, spirit beings - which I have covered in my last episode - do not have gender. Angels are not male or female. Even spirit guides are not, even though they might have preferred to incarnate as a certain gender over their various lifetimes.
So on the back of this week's episode I invite you to question what you hear in spiritual circles and ask yourself if this is not rehashing toxic gender stereotypes. Listen to the words you use when referring to God. Do you use pronouns? Why? Do you really think God is male or female and can you take a moment to question if this really makes sense? Next time someone tells you that intuition is a feminine attribute, stop and pause. I am not even going to go down the path of entertaining statements like men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But also ask yourself, am I being inclusive in my spiritual practice?
As a final note, I just wanted to add that the University of Birmingham published an article stating that there is no evidence that creating gender neutral spaces increases levels of sexual violence against women and children. So when someone uses that argument to justify having women circles only, think about what hidden agenda might behind this.
PS: I am not denying that it is important for victims of sexual abuse to have safe spaces, which might involve it being female only spaces. That is an entirely different topic that I care about tremendously.
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In this episode, I attempt to define the various spiritual beings that you might come across when you reach out to the spiritual world. I have listed eight of them, in no particular order. They are often confused even by some of the most famous spiritual teachers.
Spirit guides Elementals Ascended Masters Celestial beings Power animals Entities Ancestors Our higher selvesI just realised that I forgot to talk about magical beings so I may talk about them in a separate episode or bring someone in who specialises in them. I think that is why I haven't covered them in this episode. But also this is just an introduction to the spiritual world.
What is important to realise is that all these beings, save perhaps Ascended Masters are not necessarily of the highest of intents, so you should always be discerning about who you team up with or work with. As you listen to the episode, I also want you to know that what I am talking about is my understanding of these beings, but that this might not feel right for you. So by all means, follow what feels right for you and understand that this could be because you are not ready for what I am teaching, but also that we may never fully agree and that's ok too.
How do you work with these beings? The same way you work with angels, so go back and listen to episode 47 if you have not listened to it already. There is a difference though: these beings have free will of their own.
One of the dangers of working with spiritual beings is the natural tendency to hand our power over to them because they are wiser. This is dangerous for two reasons. First, you have a wisdom of your own that you can access through your intuition and your higher self. Second, you are the one living your life on earth and you chose to live this life so you can make your own decisions. A CEO does not delegate all decisions to experts and consultants, he/she asks them for guidance then they make their own decisions.
I also want you to know that you don't need to be psychic to work with guides and spiritual beings. I explain how this can happen without you even knowing that it is happening and it's nothing to be scared about. They might show you signs or plant ideas in your mind directly. It's really fascinating. I personally don't think I have any truly genius ideas of my own. I know my guides plant a lot of them in my mind and I am so grateful for that.
I also want you to know that just because someone is dead does not mean they are wise, so be discerning when you work with guides or your own loved ones in heaven. They might have access to higher wisdom but they might still have limiting beliefs and unhelpful ways to look at the world. Always be discerning.
If you would like me to help you connect to your guides or know who they are, why not work with me. Find out on my website www.angedelumiere.biz what services I have available and feel free to book a discovery call with me to discuss the options.
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Dancing in the light and playing with the shadows used to be my catch phrase for years at the start of my spiritual journey. I was well aware that we all want to think that we are these luminous and loving being, but sadly, as humans, we have a shadow. You cannot have light without shadow on Earth. It's a fact.
A fact that a lot of spiritual folks deny or hide, because having a shadow is "unspiritual". However, in my opinion embracing your spirituality requires you to embrace your shadow. So what exactly is the shadow and who coined the term?
Carl Jung defined it as "the part of us that contains what lies dormant beneath the light of our awareness and contains unacceptable traits and feelings, but also our hidden gifts and talents." The man did not invent the concept, he just made it popular in the white western world, and probably borrowed it from shamanic communities that he came in contact with.
As Joanna Penn mentions in her book Writing from the Shadow, it is not unnecessarily evil, illegal or immoral, although it can certainly be. But the truth is that we all have one. Even Gandhi often mentioned how imperfect he was and resisted the tendency of portraying him as a saint.
That part is also sometimes labelled as the ego in spiritual circles, which is a different definition to the one espoused in psychology circles. Some spiritual people even claim that the death of the ego is the goal. I personally believe this to be a dangerous goal, as it is virtually impossible and when you do that, there is a risk that you start hiding parts of you that don't conform with this unrealistic ideal. Two things can then happen: you project it onto other people or it erupts like a volcano after being repressed for too long and you go into a rage.
Of course this comes from the misunderstanding of what the ego is. Most people think the ego is that propensity that some people display to boast about themselves in an exaggerated manner. But the ego can pretend to be humble. It can make you manipulative. And it will usually try to convince you that the thing that you are doing that clashes with your values is justified because... fill in the gap. The ego is incredibly clever and persuasive. And if you don't understand how it works, it will play you.
Even Jung defined enlightenment in relation to making the darkness conscious rather than imagining figures of light. But to paraphrase him, making the darkness conscious is vastly unpopular as it requires looking at things we do not want to look at and doing hard work.
Feel free to head over to the show notes on my website www.angedelumiere.biz/podcast if you want to comment with your thoughts and experience so we can start a conversation going.
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