19.

Epilogue I

2020/2021

We’re back and all of a sudden we are in lockdown.

To many this is excruciating. To me it is natural. I have been working from home for some time now so nothing is really much different. I enjoy to be alone. I enjoy to be quiet. I enjoy to be still.

And what I enjoy the most in this particular case is the overall quietness. As if the whole world was given a break. A breather. And I can feel nature relieved from all of the toing and froing of modern day life. I can feel the underlying gift of this massive shift that is happening. An incredible shift. Something we didn’t see coming - at least not in this form.

The world economy is being shaken. Families are being shaken. Individuals are being shaken. Societies are being shaken. Securities are being shaken. Everything is being shaken. Turned inside out. Given a time out to eventually reassess.

As I have shared previously in these Chronicles, while we were in Egypt, Joana, my dear friend and Soul Sister, went through several bouts of strangeness. Feeling ill at ease with abundance, with simplicity and with her own self-confidence. And yet she has always been and is, willing to go beyond.

I admire her courage, always have. She has never ever said no to looking at herself honestly and taking the steps she felt were necessary to implement changes.

I mean, how many women have the courage to leave a marriage that has died years ago, as well a business that just keeps on plummeting into debt, with three kids, all at once?

She did. At first she came to live in my house and we made a deal that since she had no money to pay the rent she would provide food in exchange for her living space. And she started from scratch.

She had been so far from trusting herself and her skills, that in all that time she had had her holistic therapies and natural medicines shop, she had never really valued her own work and thus had never created a real client base.

So when she left home and closed down the shop, she had to start over. She started making some homemade pies and biscuits and started going to therapy centres offering her services as a Reflexologist and Massage therapist. And it was hard. But she couldn’t give up. That simply was not an option.

When she moved to my place, it was also when I was going through a lot of my integration process so we started doing integration together, sitting in compassion with and for each other, holding space for each one of us to bring back our bits and pieces, breath by breath. Her support was invaluable. And still she did not value herself.

Anyway, fast forward and Joana eventually came to the point where she has more clients than she can handle and she gets to have to save her free days in her schedule, in order to take good care of herself, otherwise she will easily be working every single day. Such is her success right now. She no longer struggles with self-worth and financially she is completely free and living a life she had not even dared to dream of, some years ago, and yet it is real.

But, when we came back from Egypt she had a big challenge. A big hurdle to face and overcome.

When she chose to come to Egypt, she used up all of the money she had aside, leaving only 150€ at home, because she knew that when she got back she would have a full schedule and in one week she would make all the money she needed to cover all of her bills at home and have some left over to put aside too. But this, my friends, is not what happened.

For all of the times that Joana had been frightened whilst we were in Egypt, now there was an upgrade. As if all of those fears had summed up into a big pool of terror and now she was seriously, very seriously terrified. What was she going to do? How was she going to cope?

So I invited her to do the scariest possible thing. To stop coming to the Compassionate Breath Sessions, to stop attending any and all kinds of exterior support for at least a month and be the one that she could Trust - her herself. No one else. Just be with this terror and allow the solutions to show up from within, on her own. It was this or go crazy. She was at the end of the line.

And so she did. Immediately she was capable of asking her mum for some financial support, which was offered with no questions asked and she gradually became still, silent and more and more confident. After all, she was alive, healthy, wise, and her children were also safe, healthy and happy. She had a beautiful life, a comfortable home, food on the table every day and loads of time to do things she had not yet had time to do. What more could she want, really?

And this is when creating Self-Massage classes, videos and other forms of online support for her clients really gained root. Before, it had been something she had never really trusted herself to be able to do, though she had felt a passion to do it from even before we went to Egypt. She had just not gotten down to it. But now there was nothing else to do! No more excuses.

And so three months after we came back, Joana was ready for an avalanche of clients that has only grown and grown, as she shares her truth and the magic touch that she provides in such a unique way. I honestly feel she is a pure vessel of God’s hands, the God within her, that connects with the God within each of her clients and brings forth an incredible level of healing, be it when she provides massage or reflexology in person or virtually. A Medicine Woman in a very real sense.

And I am blessed to have her in my life. For so many reasons. So thank you Joana, for sticking around and never pulling back from the wholeness of you. I celebrate you with deep respect, honour and loving gratitude.

As for myself, during the months of confinement I had time to decide very clearly that the time had come to leave my job at Linda’s School - my workplace for the last 25 years, alongside my InPassion project and my previous work as a Fitness Professional. It was time to devote myself fully to my Passion for Inspiring Passion :) Not a mission. Not a purpose. Just a pure passion.

And so by December 2020 I resigned.

This new way of life we have come to discover through the pandemic has brought the whole world closer to me, instead of further away. I started working online more and more and now I communicate with people from all continents just at the click of my fingertips, a computer, a phone, a camera, a microphone… And there are really no boundaries.

Not travelling abroad for almost 2 years now, has not been a loss for me. It has brought me so much closer to the beauty where I live and has lead me to discover so many more incredible places in Portugal. It has given me more freedom to be in my own stillness and to love that which is at my doorstep in a way I had not experienced before.

I have been bountifully rewarded by an exquisitely tasty variety of fruits and vegetables that I had not tended to, cultivated, picked and honoured quite the same way as I do now. The chickens, the dog and the cat, the walks out in the countryside around home, the garden… everything has become more colourful, yielding and loving. When I go for a walk around here, I can literally feel the air, the ground, the whole atmosphere kissing me and hugging me, happy that I’m here and receiving it all.

I have not lost absolutely anything and this year of 2021 has been a year of “firsts” every single day.

I have finally got my motorbike - something I had been dreaming of for 10 years… and which I discovered I did not need to get a driver’s license for if I got a scooter of up to 125cc. So that’s what I did. And I have a lot of learning ahead of me but also a lot of time.

There have been new experiences in the most ordinary everyday things like making persimmon jam for the first time, and also in big ways, like taking over the olive picking season. The common ground is simplicity. And gratitude. Gratefully embracing simplicity.

… And a continuity of uncharted territory, just like it was in Egypt. No plan. No agenda. Just experiencing day by day what is available here and now. Not knowing. Not having to know. And yet knowing so much in each moment. Embracing. Letting go. Receiving more. Allowing more. Loving more. Being more. And more and more and more.

My daughter has since turned 21 and is now an independent woman, with her own house, job and life journey and my son is discovering his passion for investment and finance, blooming like a wild flower ever since he has been experiencing homeschooling. Whilst before he was dumbing himself down, never really caring to think or to question, now that he is not at school he has become curious, inquisitive, enthusiastic… sarcastic too. His critical thinking has developed so much that we now have really interesting discussions around themes and issues he couldn’t care less about just a year ago. And I have time for him. For this homeschooling experience. And I absolutely love it!

My relationship with Pedro has developed in such unexpected ways, love always showing up at each turn even stronger than before. The level of freedom we have allowed ourselves in this relationship, the trust and the surrender to a new way, have been a very precious gift.

Mt relationship with my mother, whom I have been kind of living with for over 2 years (we live in our own houses but they are together and on the same land), has improved exponentially and we both respect each other and admire each other in ways only love can allow.

New friends have shown up like flowers on a beautifully growing tree and all of my connections are meaningful. All of them. Which is an exquisite experience.

My life is full of beauty in all senses, abundance is a natural flow and I celebrate being alive, here, on Earth, now, each day.

Time has become so expanded that a year seems like 10 and a day seems like a week. Not that it is full of activities or occupation. Just that it is fulfilling in each and every moment. Whole. Completely Now. Always. This state of permanent Presence colours time in a whole new way. One I keep on discovering each day too.

And why am I sharing all of this with you? Because I can. Because I choose to. That’s all.

So thank you for rejoicing with me. It is all the more fun :) All the more significant. And thank you for being here too. On Earth. Now.

This is the New Earth. And we create it as we go along. As we allow. As we discover Isness in Human form. Welcome!

💙💚💛💜💗

Read the other Chronicles here: