When I was young, I would tell my mom that I could feel thickness in the room. Or I would rush past my sister’s room because I could sense some sort of energy/thickness around my sister’s desk that scared me.
When my mom got into Reiki (energy healing), she used me as her guinea pig. She would tell me all about the energy and I wasn’t sure, but I listened and took mental notes.
Whenever I was scared, my mom used to tell me to visualize white light around things I was worried about. It reduced my anxiety tremendously.
If I was nervous about a presentation or a dance performance, she would tell me to ask for angels to surround me and help me through the situation. She taught me how to visualize everything going well. It brought me to a calm and confident state.
My mom sort of, well more than sort of, taught me about the deeper side of life.
It wasn’t until she passed away in 2016 that I acknowledged that. Her amazingness was hidden by a partner she chose to be with when I was 13 up until she died. He was manipulative, an alcoholic, and prevented my mom from having a good relationship with her four daughters.
I moved to Toronto in 2001 and kept the situation with my mom on a shelf. I did everything right. Saw her when I visited home, saw her at the holidays and did my due diligence. Much of it was a surface relationship with my sisters and her. It was so clear she was not happy. She couldn’t see a way out of the relationship she was in and she always felt torn between him and us. So sad when I think about it. So very sad.
I studied holistic nutrition in 2008 and we were taught about the chakras. We learned about them so we could help clients recognize mind-body connections with their nutrition habits. My mom had taught me about the chakras in my teenage years. I can recognize now that learning them for the 2nd time felt so natural and almost like I was home.
In 2010, about six months before my partner and I got married, I was a mess. I couldn’t find my words and speak properly. I was uptight and nagging my partner about everything. I was all over the place and definitely not grounded. My naturopathic doctor, Ruchi Shetty, recommended that I take The Art of Living – Yes! course. It is one week in the evenings followed by all day Saturday and all day Sunday. The goal of the course was to learn a 20 minute breathing sequence, various meditation practices and to learn different tools to be at peace and mindful. Once the course was done, we were told to do the 20 minute breathing sequence for 40 days. By 20 days in, I was completely different. Jesse, my partner would tell me “to go do your breathing” if I was grumpy or on edge because he noticed such a difference in my calmness. Once I incorporated this meditation into my life for 40 days, the energy I felt in my hands at the end of the 20 minutes was insane. I felt so connected to my higher self. I didn’t stay on top of doing this meditation every day, but I will go do it whenever I feel disconnected and need to ground myself. It immediately makes me calm and to be able to see things from a different perspective.
While I was pregnant with my first child, I saw a Soul Couch. A program where we meditated, searched within, used our intuition and learned from others. At the time, I was needing to do something. I felt so unsettled. This unsettledness is a feeling I’ve acknowledged since I was 21. What’s next? What am I doing with my life? What should I study? Why am I still working at the government? I fell into working for the federal government at that age and I bitched about it for so long because it never felt right. Then I got married and wanted to have kids so I stayed for the one year paid maternity leave – three times.
After having my first child in 2011, I saw a psychic healer because my daughter was a crying mess. She did not sleep well and I could feel that thickness in the air when I went in her room to console her. Similar to what I remember feeling as a kid. A friend of mine suggested a psychic to me and I thought…. why the heck not?
The psychic healer – Crystal Visions, cleared and balanced my chakras. To this day, chemistry between my husband and I is the best it’s ever been. Progressively getting better after each child. Rare, I know and I feel so grateful. I know it’s from the energy clearing she did when I worked with her. I believed so much in what she did, but would fall in out of being very skeptical, because wow, this is “crazy” stuff. Two of my sisters went on to work with Crystal Visions and have had major movement and changes in their lives since (including a sister who was depressed, on medication and suicidal – and is nowhere near that state now). At this time, it was hard to explain what she did while working with me. I know now that she clears energy in the auras of those she is working on through meditation and visualization and many other energy shifting methods. It is something I am now learning to do.
In early 2015, my mom came to visit me in Toronto (after a chat with her at Christmas where I told her I didn’t think she was having enough fun in her life). She was a nurse on an Indigenous Reserve for over 20 years two weeks on, two weeks off (in Northern Manitoba). I told her it seemed like she came home and drank with her partner and didn’t come home in between shifts to “live her life”. I asked her what happened to the yoga and belly dancing she used to love doing. Or why don’t you hang out with your kids and grandkids more? Why don’t you come visit me?
In January of 2015, she called me to tell me that I was right (of course – haha) and that she had plenty of Air miles so she was going to visit. I was so happy. We had a great time in March of that year. I’ll never forget this trip because it was the last time I saw her healthy. In October of that year, we found out she had stage four lymphoma. I flew back to Winnipeg with my two kids while I was newly pregnant in October, November, December and then again in March of 2016 right as she was passing.
While I was pregnant, while my mom was dying, I also had the 100 day cough. I was a mess! My mom died on March 8th, 2016 – International Women’s day. Women! She left four strong daughters behind. She was such a good mom before she met that man and her lessons from our young childhood live on within us.
In June 2016, after the baby was born, I felt compelled to get my website re-done. To re-brand myself. There was definitely this feeling like “it’s now or never”, “why do you always stop going for your dreams?” As opposed to just nutrition, I incorporated EAT MORE VEG, SWEAT and don’t forget to BREATHE on my blog/site. This included nutrition tips, fitness tips and mindfulness tips. Anything related to these three components with the basis of helping and battling mental illness. A bonus component is SLEEP – if you aren’t sleeping, you aren’t accomplishing anything. 😉
I have been blogging once a month ever since with the goal of doing more speaking engagements/lunch and learns, and eventually writing a book.
In early 2017, I randomly met someone I already met, but couldn’t figure out from where. We chatted at a play place while I was with my kids and I learned that she is a soul coach, Reiki master and channels people’s spirit guides and guardian angels to help people move forward and find their best selves. It turned out that her spouse was a close friend of my friend’s and I had met her a couple times. Her name is Jayaleigh and she has helped me tremendously in the last year. I did a karmic core pattern reading with her in June of 2017. Then I completed my Reiki I, II and III by December 2017.
This brings me to June 2018, where I am being mentored to launch myself into this new life chapter. I can’t help it. I could never relate to knowing what my true calling was, because I had too many interests. Now I see that I can no longer live in my old ways of thinking and doing. I’m bursting from the seams and need to follow this path. It is clear I am meant to be doing work with energy and to help people look within to find self-love. I have learned that I come from generations and generations of healers. As I write this story, I am acknowledging how powerful it is. My energy experiences can help those looking for similar energy movements!
I feel that my mom passing away was her way out of the dark relationship she was in. It was her soul’s way of breaking that connection. I feel my mom around way more than I did when she was alive (at least in her last 20 years). She is definitely at peace and helping us all from the other side. Thank you mom. I am now ready to do what I was meant to do.
Michelle GB