My personal story (~5,500 words)
Journey to Gratitude
Discovering a higher perspective to gain new meaning, radical freedom and a whole new life.
I love my life. I have deeply rewarding and purposeful work, loving relationships, fun adventures and good health. My life isn’t all easy, and no life is. I’m in my seventies and I’m inspired about my future, despite the grim times the world is in. I have not always felt this way. For nearly fifty years I was filled with self-hatred and shame. I thought I’d have to get by the best I could until the end of my days, wearing a brave face while miserable inside. All of that has completely changed
It’s hard to describe how differently I see things now. I’m crystal clear it was the degree of pain and misery I felt that fuelled me to keep going on my quest for relief. A long search led me to discover a wiser, more accurate way to understand life: a way that gives access to presence and gratitude for what life brings, no matter what. That’s what set me free on my continuing journey to know myself, be myself and love myself. Using this framework, I now guide others to achieve the same unburdened state in far less time than it took me.
Beginning with my earliest memories, I felt doomed. My parents met when Britain was devastated after two World Wars. They knew nothing about healthy relationships or how to deal with stress. Life required coping with what you had and keeping a stiff upper lip. We lived in a small English village that wasn’t picturesque. Our house was poorly built: ice formed on the inside of windows in winter. Food and comfort were short. Dad was violent. Mum was a battered wife trapped with four kids. No job prospects, no refuge to go to, no laws to protect her. My model for life was misery. I felt I’d been born into a land of no possibility.
I was the third child. Dad had the older two do work for his business, but I was too small and too slow. They resented me for that and were sure to even the score. The youngest came five years after me and needed more care than I was capable of giving when that became my job. We lived in chaos; nothing made sense. Instinctively I knew that if only we worked together, we could do better. I couldn’t understand why we fought instead. Home felt like a war zone. I became a would-be peacemaker. I longed to escape and do life my way.
I felt closer to my father’s mother, Grandma Scarborough, than to my own. Staying at her house during school holidays was a heavenly respite. My mother sent me there as often as she could, perhaps to give herself a break or shield me from the violence at home. Grandma was fun. She drew the curtains so the neighbors couldn’t see us playing cards all day. That mysterious need for secrecy added to the thrill. She cooked food especially for me and served the unthinkable for dinner: nothing but as much pudding and custard as I could eat.
Often on school holidays, mum farmed me out to other relatives too. One day when I was eight, Aunt Beryl delivered me home. We were getting out of the car when mum hurried out the front door looking anxious. She looked at her sister across the top of my head and said, “I’ve just heard some news. My mother-in-law died this morning.”
Shock shot through me from head to toe. Grandma had been so lively, way too young to die. This was wrong!
But what was also terribly wrong was that my mother was telling her sister, not me. My aunt wasn’t close to grandma at all, but I was. In my perception, my mother had just demonstrated she didn’t think this news mattered to me, or I wouldn’t understand, or that I didn’t matter at all. In any case it meant she didn’t know me, see me or care enough to notice. In one instant, it seemed the foundation of my whole world was gone.
I’d been a sickly kid with chronic attacks of asthma. I missed out on a lot of play with other girls while they learned to skip rope and do cartwheels. I was nervous and my body was tense. My seventh birthday gift was a pair of roller-skates. These were better skates than the stiffer ones made for beginners. Dad had spent more money than usual, so I knew I needed to show I was pleased. These had ball bearings in the wheels that made them extra heavy and high.
I pressured myself to honor my dad by becoming a great skater. Nervously, I sat down and strapped them on. Now I was going to need help to stand up. Mum held my left hand, but my legs spun out of control. I panicked. Immediately she said, “Take them off”. The birthday present went back in the box, and my skating career began and ended there.
Teaching myself seemed impossible. No one was there to help. I knew there was more in me, but I couldn’t get there by myself. I was stuck. I knew I could achieve much more if only I had someone on my side who’d see me, believe in me, be kind and patient to help me while I was learning. Evidence was growing: if I were going to succeed in life or accomplish anything that didn’t just come automatically, I would have to face my fears and figure it out on my own.
One afternoon in my second year of school, the teacher called me up to stand beside her. The class was engrossed in projects and having her attention to myself felt good. She touched my head and studied my hair. Perhaps I’d been scratching. What she said next was glorious news. It meant I had pets on my head. A family of little ones had chosen me. I was proud. I had no clue the socially expected response was to be deeply ashamed about having head lice.
More great news followed: there’d be time off school and my mother would take time off work to be with me. I’d have her attention at last. The doctor prescribed a special yellow shampoo that smelled funny and a small shiny metal comb with tiny teeth. Mother spent hours on my scalp while we sat outside in the sun. I’d never had that much time alone with her. I loved it all.
Sunday school came at the end of my week off. After the class, two school mates asked why I’d been absent. Proudly, I shared my good fortune. I skipped home innocent and happy. Approaching my house, I sensed an ominous atmosphere. Dad was angry again. The door opened, his hand reached through and yanked me in. A fierce spotlight was on me: I was in big trouble but didn’t know why.
My sister had made it home before me and told my dad I’d told the village our nasty secret. Shame was now upon us all. I was awakened to the realization that what my senses tell me and what other people think, are different. You can’t know in advance if it’s better to tell the truth or to lie. My natural judgment is not the one to be trusted and it’s better to keep my mouth shut. There’s no way to figure this world out.
By the time I’d been spanked and banished to a bedroom alone with no food for the rest of the day, I’d learned my lesson: being my relaxed self is dangerous.
Once a certain low point was reached, mum found a way out. Years of black eyes and bruises hadn’t been enough, but when her husband began an affair, a line was crossed. At last, the hell of our household would change. Frustrated that she thought she couldn’t find a way out sooner, I was furious at what it took for her realize she could. I was torn between wanting to save her and punish her. I vowed my life would be different. I’d find a way forward no matter what.
School had been a place of refuge but shutting down at school followed shutting down at home. A final straw occurred when I had a leading part in the school play. I’d been ahead of my years as a natural actress with a good singing voice. The play that year was an exceptional hit.
The audience was packed. I was singing a solo full out with no expectation of what I saw next. Looking down from center stage, I saw my father seated halfway back. He’d already moved out of our home and I had no idea he’d be there that night. His face looked dark and fierce. I must be doing something he forbade. My throat instantly tightened as fear and guilt descended. Within two days, my voice broke permanently like a boy’s. I could no longer sing.
Imagining what he’d say about me when I saw him next was terrifying, but he made no reference to being there at all. I didn’t dare ask for his thoughts.
That performance accelerated my steep descent into shitty, dark teenage years. My walls went up, thicker and thicker. I desperately wanted someone to see me and understand, inwardly wondering: does anyone, anywhere, care at all? Is there anyone in the world on my side?
As many girls do, I imagined that if only I tried harder, I could change dad and then he’d approve of me. Desperate to please him, I willfully distanced myself from my mother to side with him and hurt her. I judged her harshly. To be female was clearly bad. I hated myself for my gender and was disdainful of all women. I didn’t know that if a man wanted something of me that I had any right at all to say no. I was fast becoming a deeply troubled teenager, fearful of what my future might hold.
Dad’s second family was well established by the time I was fourteen. My stepmother had grown up in an orphanage and was about a decade older than me. My nonconformist father dreamed up a scheme to get rich by buying land in the Seychelles just before tourism began to develop there. His plan was to drive overland and get on a ship from India. Bold and risky as this was, I saw this as my way out, a steppingstone to a new life on my terms, so I asked to go too. It was the summer of 1969 when a heavily loaded beige Ford delivery van set off from England with my father, his wife, her three small boys, and me.
We crossed the English Channel by hovercraft and slowly drove across Europe, camping in the rough at night and driving all day. We ate mostly bread from small bakeries in the villages we drove through. I knew I had taken a risk in putting myself back in my father’s care, but taking my chances seemed worth it. I desperately wanted to improve my prospects and a way to start anew.
Hardship on the way was expected, but as we drove east through France, Switzerland, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece, tensions rose and nightmares descended. Dad’s ugly tirades and physical violence became daily occurrences. My attempts to stop him didn’t help so I no longer dared say a word. He sensed my disapproval anyway, so my presence alone was making things worse. I was the only one he wasn’t beating, but the threat of that was rising.
Somewhere in remote countryside beyond Istanbul, things came to a hideous head. Appalled by what I had witnessed and fearing for our lives, I begged my stepmother to let me help her and the boys escape. She refused and wouldn’t be persuaded. I fell back on the one option I could see. I would have to act alone.
I chose my moment and said, “Dad, I have to leave.”
“Shut up, do as you are told and we won’t speak about this again. If you don’t do as you are told right now, you’ll no longer be my daughter and I’ll never see you for the rest of your life.”
I held my ground, his temper snapped. He gave me my money he’d been safekeeping: twenty pounds in banknotes and the rest in a cheque to cash in the UK. He threw my personal goods out of the van window and drove off.
Hopes and dreams smashed to pieces, I felt broken to my core. I concluded that I was a reject human, never to be good enough. Assigned to the scrap heap of humanity, I’d exist as a shell until I died. Standing by the side of the road somewhere in rural Turkey, a few grubby clothes stuffed into a green army rucksack, I was sixteen, on my own, hitchhiking anywhere more or less to the west.
In no rush to go anywhere, with the help of kind hippie travelers, I eventually returned to England. I lived in London and wore wild fashion through the 70s. By the early 1980s, I was living in San Francisco. Although outwardly bold at times, the pain inside me remained deep. I felt driven to find resolution. That desperate low in Turkey had fueled me with an equally desperate need to make sense of life. The tone of my quest was do or die.
Spoiler alert:
It was thirty-two years of searching before I found answers that brought me a genuine relief. Three decades worth of workshops, diving deep into healing methods, therapy, training and education didn’t satisfy my yearning to be whole. All my sincere and dedicated study of all the human development modalities I could find only worked so far. For all my study, I merely improved my capacity to act while feeling deeply broken inside. All the skills, concepts, marvelous insights I learned and the experiences I threw myself into, only amounted to icing layered on top of an essentially rotten cake. I wanted true resolution.
At last, my prayers were answered. Life began to make sense and I could genuinely begin to heal. Words can’t describe how profoundly life has changed since that first deep shift more than two decades ago. I was shown the universal principles that provide a structure for understanding life - there all along, hidden in plain sight. A shift in perspective had everything click into place. I became clear that my life has purpose. Every aspect of my life improved, career and money took off. The following describes before, after, and how that happened.
For most of my twenties I lived in central London with a partner who took the brunt of my cluelessness about how to relate to men. I was so indoctrinated by patriarchal domination, I walked on eggshells around him due to my own conditioning, not actually his demands. These were rock ‘n’ roll years of wild parties, music, drugs and painful inner angst. My search for internal peace was on but could barely find a first foothold in London.
I was twenty-seven when a curious sense of knowing hit me out of the blue. Somehow, one day I’d move to California to pursue my quest. In practical terms, becoming an astronaut seemed equally, impossibly out of reach. And yet, at twenty-nine I left all I knew and began a new life near San Francisco. Everything shifted gears.
Concerns for romance and socializing largely fell away and life became about work and my pursuit of answers. My first job in America was for a human development training program and I devoted myself completely to serve humanity and make the world a better place. Or so I thought. Eventually I woke up: I’d joined something of a cult. When the scandal broke, I realized I’d given my all for a pittance to help make the patriarchal founder rich. Deeply betrayed, I vowed I’d never work for anyone, ever again. That reactionary decision served me well. A solopreneur was born.
Terrified, but driven by determination and hope through a series of seemingly random events, I became a trainer in the corporate world. I led teambuilding retreats, facilitating communication and leadership for businesspeople with far more formal education than myself. I learned how to coach. I practiced long and hard, caring deeply that my clients would fulfill their intentions and improve their careers and lives.
I learned negotiation and influence skills and my hard work paid off. Each successful job led to referrals to higher and higher levels. By my 40s, corporations paid me handsomely to fly to cities around the world to coach senior leaders in fancy offices in flashy headquarters; people and places I’d never seen before.
When I wasn’t working for money, I’d be working on myself in workshops and with all kinds of healers and bodyworkers, searching for inner peace and relief from a chronically tense body. The results I achieved only went so far and didn’t fully satisfy. My career was inspiring, but I was exhausted. Eventually I reached a point of realization that my life wasn’t actually going well at all. I’d learned to take bold action in the face of fear, but the fear remained. For all the skills I’d developed and money I’d earned, I was still fundamentally depressed. Something told me I needed answers, or I’d get ill and die. I was as good as bottomed out. It seemed I was godforsaken after all.
To my utter shock, one day, in my late 40s, in yet another seminar with yet another teacher, in yet another city I’d traveled to, at the point when I had as good as given up, my prayers were answered. This one had a very different take on life, something I hadn’t heard before. He challenged my assumptions completely, getting me to find answers to questions I’d never been asked. Revelation upon revelation struck me like lightning. I’d found my holy grail.
I came to realize this truth: nothing in this entire universe we perceive and label bad or good is only one sided: we see it that way out of incomplete perception. Our biased minds label events and then get stuck in stories that are skewed. If we look deeply and fill out our misperceptions, we’ll discover that all events are in balance. There are two sides to everything. Our biased minds make us blind to what’s actually there. The more I examined my life in detail to see how exactly this applied to me, the more realizations came.
I’d only been looking at my loss, failing to notice my simultaneous gain. I’d never considered that all the time that I was being challenged growing up I was simultaneously being strengthened, awakened, redirected in some marvelously beneficial way. I’d been so stuck in resenting what I’d called the curses of my past, I was blind to how I’d been simultaneously blessed. When I saw both sides at once, good or bad no longer applied. The premise of my stories simply fell apart.
My career success and expertise weren’t developing despite my upbringing: I was becoming expert and accomplished because of my life experience, especially the hard parts.
Again and again, I connected the dots between painful experiences, how I was prompted to learn and how I became equipped to do what gives me meaning. I began to realize that if the so-called terrible things hadn’t happened, neither would the things I treasure. To have one without the other would be impossible.
The more I did the work, the more insights came and the more the meaning of my memories changed. Increasingly, my sense of self transformed. I discovered that only through our struggles do we develop the attributes we need to deliver the very thing that we are most inspired to do. That the universe (or God) loves us and doesn’t judge suddenly meant something, rather than some kind of cruel mumbo jumbo or riddle. Our individual struggles are intertwined with our gifts. It’s a wholly different reframe on life. This frame made sense, whereas victim mentality just goes around and around in never-ending cycles of victim-persecutor-saviour roles.
The day my mother spoke over the top of my head to break the news of my grandma’s death was a profound awakening of my core desire for people to experience being seen, known, deeply understood and rewarded for who they really are. My drive to ever improve skills of seeing people deeply began right there. Of course I didn’t realize that at the time, but now this is one of my greatest gifts. It’s central to my work, seemingly natural, effortless and key to my success.
The day my mother told me to remove my skates was the day I was awakened to the power of standing for one another. I know in my bones how much we can contribute by believing in another person, showing up for them to give genuine support and encouragement. I love helping others succeed in achieving their dreams. My impulse is to go to the ends of the earth to ensure their win.
Growing up in the “land of no possibility” instilled in me the determination to pursue my heart’s desire, no matter what. I’ve got a conviction that if the heart says there is a way, then we can find it, no matter what the odds. We just need to persist creatively, be open to what might be possible and not give up. I know for sure that while most of life is beyond our control, our response and adaptation to it is not. I won’t settle for victimhood in myself or anyone else.
I also know with certainty that no matter what, we can find self-love and gratitude for what life dishes up. We may not get the specifics of what we think we want, but we can find the perfection in what we do have. The amazing thing is that there really is a way to see life that makes gratitude spontaneously arise. With that, baggage drops away, the mind clears, we become present, physiology balances and aging slows.
Without my family as it was, I would never have cared enough to find out how to enable teams to function, for groups to cooperate and humanity to thrive. I developed my early career straight out of what I’d considered missing. Everything I felt that wasn’t present in my family was what I was paid to instigate in the corporate world. Without my specific family as it was, I wouldn’t have become relentlessly attuned to the reality that everyone has a contribution, everyone has a need to be heard, everyone desires to be appreciated for being themselves. Without all of us being included in some way, the whole misses out.
The nits in my hair episode and so many comparable events taught me to appreciate that each of us has contrasting perspectives, interpretations, meanings and concerns. The moment we designate one right and the other wrong, one valid and the other not, life shuts down. Someone is excluded and resolution is incomplete. This gives me the gift of relentless curiosity towards understanding different points of view and negotiating creative outcomes. I am a skilled facilitator for that.
So many moments of wondering, not knowing, being uncertain about where I stood, instilled in me the drive to communicate clearly and distinctly with regard for the other person’s point of view. I care about people being clear and to know where they stand. I’ll speak up where others won’t. I’m driven to ever-refine my skills. My expertise was borne out of my pain, wanting someone to do that for me.
In a particularly intense session coaching a senior executive, it suddenly occurred to me that I was working extraordinarily hard to find a way through his defenses. He had no awareness of the effect of his behavior on his organization and how that was costing him a productive workplace and the results he wanted. The realization came over me: I was being paid good money to do everything I’d ever wanted to do with my dad.
The impossibility of the task with my father had become my superpower at work. Through my genuine desire to understand him and appreciate his perspective, I found a way to get my message across and help my client have greater success. I realized I was unstoppably determined to catalyze life changing breakthroughs for people, relationships and results. All of that came out of my perception of my dad, and I was being paid well for it.
Shutting down my talents as a child gave me an acute awareness of my inhibitions. In turn, that instilled a desire for ever expanding levels of free self-expression, endlessly testing assumptions that limit possibility. With that, the adventure of my life continues to expand regardless of my age or accomplishment. I’ve discovered there’s a lot generally accepted about aging that simply isn’t true.
Being so thoroughly trained in the ways of patriarchy and what that has cost humanity, I stand boldly for true partnership between the genders. I see a systemic view and the individual issues of both women and men. I continue to validate my own voice in speaking up for what’s been denied or discounted. I’m grateful that I lived the role of a wife for a few short years and had the choice to then go my own way.
Experiencing painful consequences of overriding my own senses to conform to other people’s expectations and rules taught me to honor my own inner guidance. When I do that, things invariably work out for the best. Over the years, I learned to trust my own intuition above all else. Had I felt safe to trust my parents - the God figures to a child - I wouldn’t have been so attuned to learning to trust the God within me.
Learning at age 16 that I could make it through the challenge of being in a foreign land with foreign language serves me now in countless ways. If I hadn’t learned self-reliance by being set free in Turkey I doubt that I’d have ever found the courage to move to America, to have dual citizenship, to fly to strange places to coach executives I’d never met, to experience so many countries around the world, to live nomadically today and continue to expand my mind and appreciation of what is similar and different about all varieties of humanity.
Being disowned at 16 seemed to be the worst thing imaginable at the time it happened. I now see it as the greatest thing possible. I used to think of it as abandonment and rejection. Now I see it as recognition of my abilities, fitting liberation and the beginning of living my own life.
If I had had the family I wished I had, none of what I value highly now would exist. I came to see that there really are two sides of everything, just as the Yin-Yang sign depicts. As with any muscle, we get strong through challenge and get sloppy and weak when things are easy. I worked through all the memories that carried strong emotion and now there’s nothing about my life I’d change.
As monumental as all this was, it’s not the whole story. Another key discovery was that what bothers us about other people is in fact a reflection of what we don’t see, own and love about ourselves. Anything we deny about ourselves gets projected out on others. The qualities and behaviors we own are the ones we value and label positively. In some form or another, we all have all possible human traits. When our buttons are being pushed, we’re not seeing that what we judge in others is in us. When it came to my father, this was very hard for me to accept.
I saw my father as monstrously wrong, so how could I possibly think I was the same in some way? My mind was a rock wall in resistance to the notion that I had the same traits as my dad. I needed help and eventually I saw. He was in relentless pursuit of what mattered to him - and so am I. He was determined and thorough in what he went after - and so am I. He applied these traits with great focus on to the people and circumstances that mattered to him - and so do I. My world view is different, but the traits at play are the same. Other people with different world views understandably judge me harshly like I had judged my dad.
This principle challenged me so much I was forced to deeply appreciate the matter of personal values. Every one of us has a unique view on life that is determined by our values, and our values are determined by our life experiences. No two people on earth have an identical set of values, hence we all see the world in our own unique way. Values govern what we notice. Values shape our opinion of what is right or wrong; good or bad. The absence of this framework of thinking is what drives us to righteous frustration, fighting, war and staying stuck in victim mentality.
My values were so different from my dad’s, that of course I judged him as wrong. We saw the world in completely different ways. Now I could get beyond my rigid judgment, I knew his actions had aspects equally good and bad. The more I understood his values, the more I understood his actions. The more I considered his upbringing, his experience, his available resources and education, the more things made sense. What I saw in him is in me.
When I wove all the parts together, things truly began to shift. When I lamented the feeling of missing a kind and wise father, I realized I’d found the equivalent in father figure substitutes. I’d benefitted from attending closely to male teachers at school, but most of all, I realized that I’d been prompted to find God. Not that I envision God as a man, but that I looked to nature, the sky and the stars to connect with a higher power at an unusually early age. That alone was worth giving up the idea of the dad I thought I wanted.
Continuing this kind of examination eventually took me to a profound realization that there’s a consistent, hidden order that permeates everything. Engaging deeply to dig out what had been hidden, I glimpsed into the unfathomably intelligent universe and was changed forever. Then I saw something I’d never believed possible. I became crystal clear that my father was my greatest teacher. He was the one who most enabled me to attune to what I care about most and all that gives meaning to my life. My judgment vaporized, my mind was blown and I was free.
I became truer to myself. All my relationships felt better. My effectiveness at work was vastly improved. My fear of dealing with money fell away. I became wiser, more confident, far less reactive. I accomplished outcomes that I’d considered completely impossible before.
I generated a rewarding relationship with my father before he died. Visiting him wasn’t easy; I still found him difficult to be with. He tested me and I continued to learn to relate effectively on the spot with tough characters. He’d taunt me and I’d name his behavior and tell him what I wanted instead. He’d taunt me more and I’d match him and put him in his place. It wasn’t entirely fun to spar in this way, but I honed skills and grew fast. I’m grateful that I could sincerely say “thank you, I love you” to him before he died. I’d gained more of myself through him than I imagined I had in me. When I think about my dad now, I feel warmth in my heart.
Similarly, I found love and respect for my mother, in depth and detail, exactly as she was. So too for my siblings, my exes, past colleagues, so-called friends who lied, cheated, betrayed, stole from or disappointed me. I became wiser, stronger and more myself through every one of those experiences. The view of life I learned transcends the need to forgive or be forgiven and takes me to a quiet mind, a sense of purpose and knowing the true nature of reality, every single time.
The more I dissolve my judgements, the more freedom and love for myself and others I have. The more I look at the world this way, the more I live free of remorse, shame, guilt, regret, resentment and free from infatuation or believing that someone else has a better life than me. The more I continue to apply these principles, the more I create a life I love. Each time I look at a situation this way, I’m rewarded with gratitude, presence, quiet mind, inspiration and health.
Of course, my buttons get pressed and I get emotional. There’s always so much more to go. No human can achieve a state of permanent enlightenment and still be alive. Moments of enlightenment is as good as it gets for anyone.
I’ve come to realize that every drop of life consists equally of light and dark, heaven and hell, easy and difficult, peace and war. This is the essential nature of life that we cannot escape. It’s how we learn, grow and evolve. And yet, collectively, we think life should be easier and more kind. It’s time for us to transcend victimhood and know our true nature as part of an infinitely connected universe where consciousness is fundamental to all.
Through this understanding, I’ve glimpsed the nature of unconditional love. I’m a philosopher, a spiritual teacher, a mystic, a wise woman elder, a catalyst for transformation who guides people to know themselves, be themselves and love themselves. I see no other way to have been prepared for the task so thoroughly, than exactly the life I’ve lived. My work now is to guide others to the freedom that took me decades to achieve in a mere fraction of the time, so they become unburdened from their past, free to live meaningful, rewarding, purposeful lives they love.
Wholehearted gratitude and love to my family, my clients, Mother Nature and life itself. To my brother in spirit, my teacher and valued friend, Dr John Demartini - genius and extraordinary polymath who guides me to think for myself and provides no church, religion (or cult) to join: thank you, I love you.
