I had a shock this morning. A Facebook memory come up from three years ago and it featured a woman I could barely recognise – me. I was in beautiful Assisi and I was slowly and calmly talking to the camera. But I was way too calm and speaking way too slowly. I was in town I loved but almost too exhausted to enjoy it. As I watched the footage, it looked like I was swimming through energetic mud.
Over the preceding months and years, I had worked every minute of the day to make ends meet. At one point, I had five casual, contract and part-time jobs at once. Immediately before the trip, I had also become, once again, romantically entangled with a man who was not worthy of me – he just took what he wanted and I let him. I was making the same decisions on repeat and nothing was changing. I was surviving not living. Even though I had finally returned to Italy (where my Soul longs to be), I was a burnt-out shadow of myself.
I’d love to tell you I came back from that trip and things were different. But they weren’t. I went back to doing all the things I had been doing before – working every hour of the day, doing things I didn’t want to do anymore, holding onto things I needed to let go of, and guess what, that guy broke my heart.
Early last year, I finally cracked and made some radical changes and when I returned to Italy in August 2019, I was a different person. I had connected to a joyfulness and peacefulness within myself that I didn’t know was possible. I didn’t have everything worked out (of course not!) but I was definitely moving in the right direction.
I always had the keys and it was never about anyone else. It was about the choices I was making, the stories I told myself, and the boundaries I didn’t put in place. I had to get real with myself and draw on some major internal courage to make uncomfortable choices.
Covid-19 and all the crazy 2020 happenings remind us we need to be living as much as we can, not just surviving.
Is the person you see in the mirror, photograph or video only surviving? If so, what are you going to do about it?
A lot of my channelling and mentoring work focuses on helping women align with their purpose. I regard this as some of my most important work because it empowers women with the information they need to do what their Soul is calling out for.
We can spend a lot of time, spinning our wheels and going down blind alleys without this information. While I don’t believe any of that time is wasted – there is always a reason and lessons to be learned from these situations – living in alignment with your purpose helps you stay motivated when the times are tough. It also helps us understand why we might do things that aren’t obviously connected but are still, definitely, taking us in the right direction.
Using words to heal, empower and share stories is a key part of my purpose. This explains why I have spent 20-plus years working in communications and public relations. The same theme is also evident in my work as an author, blogger and mentor. For me, words are the key to everything. I may explore other avenues along the way but I will always return to my words.
Your mind may tell you that your purpose must look a certain way and lead to a specific outcome. But your mind will usually be wrong.
You can do more than one thing in this lifetime – your purpose is a theme, not a destination.
Think about Cleopatra, Michelangelo, Marie Curie, Martin Luther King – none of them did only one thing. If you let your thoughts restrict what living in alignment with your purpose looks like, you could miss out on all kinds of adventures and discoveries.
If you want to learn more about living in alignment with your purpose, let’s talk! One of my programs might be just what you need to get you moving in the right direction for you.
I had a vision during savasana at the end of my yoga session yesterday. At some point, my mind drifted away from my teacher’s words and I found myself somewhere else entirely.
I heard the screech of plane tires hitting the tarmac and saw a plane taxiing along a runway. I saw inside the plane and heard the pilot say, “Welcome to Fiumicino Airport, it’s a beautiful sunny day outside. Then I saw myself, getting ready to deplane with a look on my smiling face that said, “Here we go.” This was followed by a moving image of me walking through the airport with a single, large suitcase.
I shared this vision with my teacher afterwards and found myself crying. Just by holding the space to allow me to drop into the moment so deeply, she had given me a beautiful gift – a vision of what is yet to come.
It’s the second time I’ve had a vision at the end of a yoga class. A few years ago, an image of a ticket was shown to me with a specific date on it. I hadn’t asked for any insights regarding tickets. I was just enjoying a yoga class. In my mind, I was already planning to head to Italy mid-year. But the date on the ticket was a few months later. I convinced myself that it wasn’t a plane ticket. Maybe it was for some other trip? Perhaps I would stay longer in the country than I’d planned and it was the date for a train trip. After all, there was no way it would be that long until I got on a plane and got out of town.
The Universe had other plans.
My intended departure date kept being pushed back. Work and other commitments kept putting blocks in the way, again and again. Months passed and my frustration grew. Finally, when I could see a way out, I asked a friend who specialises in travel to find the best value ticket for my departure. I specified the time I wanted to land and the week but not the date.
Guess what date she came with?
I remember shaking my head and rolling my eyes. The Universe can be terribly annoying and irksome when she is right.
Fast forward to early last year and this time the date came to me in a different way. I was planning to travel to Italy again but I couldn’t feel into the best time to go. I just knew I was going and waited for more information to present itself.
A while later, I had a night disrupted by spirits and my guides discussing things in my house. Doors were opened and shut, and I caught random words and phrases as I traveled in and out of consciousness. They seemed to be organising things (who knows what) but all I felt was irritated. I repeatedly asked them to take their discussions elsewhere because I wanted to sleep without interruption. They paid me no mind and kept at it.
As I woke in the morning, a date was clearly in my mind. It didn’t mean anything to me though and there was no accompanying image of a ticket or any other information. Perhaps I needed to know the date for some other reason?
I Googled, researched and asked friends if the date had any significance. But I came up with nothing. Eventually I accepted what probably should have been obvious from the start – I booked my plane ticket for that day and the people I subsequently met and the experiences I had on that trip have set me up for my eventual relocation to Italy (post-Covid-19 crazy).
I don’t have a departure date for my next trip but after my vision yesterday, I know the Universe will let me know when the time is right. I have trust in that. It’s hard not knowing but, the Universe tells us what we need to know, when we need to know it. That’s how it works.
This is how I function in the world – I have one foot here and one in the ether. It’s a balancing act that has sometimes been difficult to maintain.
Early in my psychic awakening process, I was so ungrounded and my connection so strong, that sometimes it felt like I was being pulled out of my body. That’s what happens when you have a powerful gift that’s unmanaged and it’s one of the reasons I do my mentoring work now. I understand how it feels to be ungrounded and strongly connected, and I know there are ways to manage things better. So I teach others what I’ve learned along the way.
Receiving insights and premonitions during yoga classes and during the night are just two ways the Universe sends me information. It’s all part of the weird, freaky world of being a psychic channel.
Welcome to my slightly crazy and definitely unusual metaphysical party!
If you’d like to learn ways to harness your intuitive gifts and live your purpose, please book in for a free chat. I can tune in and help you map out a way forward that is right for you. Or check out my courses and sessions on my website.
You have a choice about how you want to be in the world, what you do, where you go, how you respond. This has nothing to do with anyone else.
Others might have convinced you that you don’t have a choice. But this is a story you have been taught and it is untrue. It is based on someone else’s beliefs and experiences, not yours.
Sometimes we need help to make different choices because the stories are so deeply embedded and have become so normal to our minds that we can’t break the habit of believing the story.
But we must break it if we are to grow, expand and change ourselves, our lives and our planet. There is no other way, no special shortcut.
It starts with you alone, taking one action, asking for help, then taking another action, then asking for help, over and over again. Believing that you’re alone in this challenge you face is the worst lie of all. You are never alone. There are millions of souls also here on the planet with you, some with similar challenges to you. Imagine if none of you asked for help, talked openly about your problems or decided to take a different action – nothing would ever change for you, for them, for anyone.
And that would be a wasteful travesty.
But who can you ask?
That is for you to decide. Trust yourself. Ask yourself the question, “Who can help me?” then listen to the answer and follow that lead. Each time you get stuck, ask yourself again, “Who can help me?”
Keep asking and answering and acting on those answers. Don’t stop. Don’t give up. Don’t give in to that old story tellingh you there is no other choice. Because that is just another lie.
There is another choice for you. Keep making it.
Lucretia is an author and guide for those who have lost their way. You can read her advice about love, sex, relationships, anxiety, choices and working out life on DearLucretia.com
It all started in the early hours of New Year’s Day when a very tall and very wide bloke (you could say he was built like a brick shi!house) decided he give out free hugs in the nightclub. He said he’d had to bulk up so he could “keep up with the boys back home”. Then he proceeded, in his rather inebriated state, to lean all his bulk into me while he hugged me. My spine curved into a C-shape backwards and I felt a tugging sensation in my lower back. My stilettoes were more than three inches high and didn’t give me a solid base. Later, as I stood in the inevitable line waiting for a cab, my back felt a little sore.
Over the next few weeks, I had a bit of physiotherapy and then continued on with my life as normal. I was in a full-on, senior role in a high-pressure work environment and had a frenetic social life that matched a single woman in her 30s who loved to meet people, dance and have a good time.
Then, somewhere between ANZAC Day and Easter, I bent over in the shower and felt a sudden, sharp and very painful feeling in my lower back. I could barely stand back up again and can remember feeling fearful and panicky. Aside from my much-loved cat, Super Puss, I lived alone. I called in sick and somehow managed to lever myself into the car to drive to see my physiotherapist, Anne. I remember the look on her face when she came into the waiting area to greet me – she knew something was very, very wrong. I was in so much pain.
It turned out I had a desiccated disc in my lower back. As someone with hyper-flexible hips who danced Latin but didn’t have much core strength, my back didn’t have enough support. I was also highly stressed. That guy and his hug had triggered a weakness and begun a trajectory that led me to Anne’s office.
Ironically, I’d never really understood when people said they had back pain. I mean, I was compassionate to a point but a small part of me always thought maybe it wasn’t really that bad. Ha! Turns out I was definitely wrong – thanks Universe for that lesson.
I had to give up all the things I wanted and valued – my yoga, my dancing, socialising, my stilettoes (going to work in sandshoes everyday felt humiliating by my standards). I went to work, came home, went to physio, came home and that was about it. Most movement was painful most of the time. Getting out of bed was a challenge that required strategic thought and concentrated coordination. Anne was incredibly supportive during this time – every step of the way, she encouraged me, propped me up and was firm when needed. She was a godsend.
However, I wasn’t always gracious and accepting of my situation. It’s incredibly hard when your body decides to do something you don’t want it to do. There were times when I felt so resentful and frustrated. I can remember being halfway through a rehabilitation Pilates class for people with back issues and thinking, “I don’t belong here with these back problem losers!”. I felt so full of anger that I started to cry. I got up (slowly) and left. My exit was a concern to Anne and later, when I told her what was going on in my head at the time, she didn’t say a lot but she didn’t recoil from me either. It wasn’t my finest moment but I guess she’d seen people caught in the lows of the healing process before. It sucked.
But while I was in all this pain, stuck mostly at home, feeling, resentful, lonely and wondering if I would ever get back to where I wanted to be, something interesting happened.
For years I’d been talking about writing a book. I’d written ideas and anecdotes on random, scrappy pieces of paper, post-it notes and in notebooks. They were shoved them into a box in my office and left there. Then were also notes in journals and on my computer. I was going to write a book…someday. People told me I should definitely write a book. But it never quite happened.
Suddenly being forced to stop, be still and stuck at home with nothing else to do, I found myself wanting to pull all those notes together. At the very least, I could compile everything into a single Word document.
Over the following weeks and months, Super Puss and I spent a lot of quality time together as I sifted through all those random thoughts and typed them into the computer. But hey, it’s not as if I had somewhere else to go. Being stuck meant I had nothing else to do – so I moved on something long overdue.
Eventually it was all in one document and eventually too, my body started to heal and I was on the road to recovery. Dancing still wasn’t really on the cards but my sexy stilettoes were back on my feet.
A year or so after that awful day in the shower, I was fortunate enough to obtain a lucrative voluntary redundancy. I could be self-funded for a year and in my mind were two things – I could finally tutor at the university part-time and write my book. I did teach at the university and completed the first draft of my first book, The Men I’ve Almost Dated, just after my birthday in October that year.
Why am I sharing this story now? Honestly, I’ve been feeling very resentful and irritated. I am here in Brisvegas when I had planned to relocate to Italy by now. By 30th June I would have obtained my 12-month student visa to study Italian and would be moving into my apartment in Florence. But due to Covid-19, I am not doing these things and instead, I feel stuck. Freaking incredibly and frustratingly stuck.
I’m in the process of accepting that I won’t be moving there for at least 12 months. Of course, I am grateful to be in this country, safe and with all the bounty we have here. And I know a lot of people are in far more desperate situations than I am. I recognise that I am lucky, so very lucky. But I am fighting an internal rebellion with my Soul – she longs to be in Italy and is always called back there. Unfortunately, 2020 has a plan and an energy of its own that, let’s face it, is turning everything we all planned and hoped for, on its head.
I was musing on my frustration and feelings of stuckness this morning and then recalled that time when I hurt my back. That injury led me to take my writing and my book seriously. If that bloke hadn’t pushed all his weight onto me, I may never have written my book at all. One thing leads to another and another but it doesn’t always lead to what you plan for or necessarily want at the time.
I know I’m not the only one who feels stuck right now. We’ve all got things that we want and can’t have at the moment. Sometimes I feel like a bird locked up in a cage – all I want to do is fly.
But when I recall how my first book came together, I’m reminded that the Universe will often force us to pause when we don’t choose to do it for ourselves. In these times, the Universe is saying, “Wait. Now is the time to focus on all the things you’ve delayed because you were too ‘busy’ before. Wait. There are more things that need to shift first before that other thing can occur. Wait. Be patient. Focus. Just wait.”
I’ve got books to finish and a business to keep building. I will get to Italy, just not when I planned to. This breaks my heart. But I realise there is always a reason for the unplanned and unwanted delays we experience.
We just have to be patient and wait for the Universe to reveal the answers when she’s ready.
You can get your copy of The Men I’ve Almost Dated at all good online bookstores or via Lucretia’s Book Store.
I was thinking today about how quickly life slips through our fingers. One moment we’re in school then suddenly we’re out in the world, studying, getting our first job and doing all the ‘adult things’ we were longing for.
But, often there comes a moment when we realise the adult life we were told to work for, isn’t quite what we want. And that throws everything up in the air because we don’t know what to do next.
There is a great line in the song, Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads, where the singer asks “How did I get here?” The song tells of looking at your life and knowing it looks great on the surface but it has no meaning.
Without meaning in our life, why live it?
For me, meaning comes from doing what I know I’m here to do. Part of that involves constantly unthreading the blocks and beliefs that hold me back so I can step more fully into my purpose.
Even if you don’t know what your purpose is yet, look for the things that feel meaningful for you, then do more of that. It doesn’t have to look sexy to someone else. It doesn’t need to make world headlines or meet the approval of a single other person. It only needs to have meaning for you.
If you’re doubting your direction, go back and pick up those things that have meaning for you. In doing so, you will reconnect to what your Soul is longing for. And that is far more valuable than any prescribed ‘adult’ path.
