My Spiritual Journey: From Believing to Knowing

My spiritual journey didn't begin with crystals, sound bowls or some dramatic awakening. In many ways, it began when I was a child.

I didn't grow up in an especially religious family, but different beliefs were always around me. I grew up in a community where, if I stayed at somebody's house and their family went somewhere to worship, I went too. Another week it could be somewhere completely different. As a child, I never really saw those differences as barriers. They were simply different things to learn about.

From a young age, I had always believed in God. I didn't really question it or ask why. I just held a very strong belief and knowing that God was there.

One of my earliest spiritual ponderings happened at dance class. I started dancing when I was around four or five, and while waiting for my turn in a church hall I would stare at the enormous words written across the stage: God is love.

For some reason, my little brain also became completely fascinated by the fact that DOG is GOD backwards. Why? There had to be something in that. Apparently, I was prepared to ponder this for approximately another 35 years.

The answer eventually came from a friend. We were talking about the extraordinary love dogs can give us, and he suggested that perhaps the love we experience through dogs is one of the ways God's love comes through to us. Something about that made complete sense to me. After all those years of wondering why DOG was GOD backwards, perhaps the answer really had been sitting there wagging its tail all along. Eventually, of course, DOG and GOD found their way into The Cosmic Wink.

For much of my earlier life, belief in God was simply part of me. I prayed every night until somewhere around my mid thirties. The father of my children used to find the contrast quite amusing. I could be outrageous, outspoken, funny and usually involved in some form of mischief, and then every night I would still say my prayers.

That belief also carried me through some incredibly difficult periods of my life, particularly my pregnancies. I was 20 when I became pregnant for the first time. The pregnancy was planned, partly because I had already experienced a lot of gynaecological problems, and my pregnancies themselves were extremely difficult. During those times, my faith gave me something very strong to hold on to.

During both pregnancies I saw orbs daily. With my twins, I repeatedly saw two. During my other pregnancy, I saw one. I had a very strong knowing about those orbs, and they gave me enormous reassurance at a time when I needed it.

I didn't sit analysing whether they were real or wondering what they might mean. I had a knowing about them, and at that point in my life I hadn't yet developed the maturity to start questioning that knowing. They simply brought me reassurance through two very difficult pregnancies.

For many years, my belief in God remained solid. Then life began giving me reasons to question it.

I lost a best friend to cancer, and I lost my beloved nanny. Both had strongly believed in God, angels and an afterlife. Both had spoken about finding a way to let me know they were still around after they died. And when they died, I felt nothing.

That affected me deeply, but it wasn't only grief that made me question God. My work did too.

I've always been a big supporter of the underdogs in life, and through working in crisis, palliative care, safeguarding and trauma, I had seen an enormous amount of suffering. I struggled with how that could sit alongside an all loving God.

Over time I became very pessimistic about life and the world. Eventually, I began questioning everything, including God, and for a period I wondered whether I had become an atheist.

Around nine years ago, things began changing again. Pieces of my life started coming together in ways I hadn't anticipated. I often joke that the enormous phoenix rising from the ashes tattooed across my back should probably have given me some clue about what was coming.

During an extremely difficult period in my life, I was faced with choices about who I wanted to remain in this world. Did I remain integral? Did I remain fair? Did I continue standing beside people who needed support? Or did I allow myself to become shaped by some of the things I had seen around me: corruption, greed and prioritising ourselves regardless of what that does to somebody else, the community and the Earth?

And in the middle of that period, I experienced the most overwhelming all loving presence of God.

It was far bigger than simply recognising God. It felt like a complete realignment, and with it came something very clear:

I should have known better than to doubt.

I had spent years doubting, questioning and becoming increasingly pessimistic about the world, and then I experienced something so powerful and so loving that it changed my relationship with God completely. Before that, God had been something I believed in. Afterwards, God became something I knew through my own experience.

I no longer felt I had the choice to doubt it for myself.

From there, what became important was connection. Not meditation as a rule, not religion and not having to belong to something in order to experience God. I don't believe there is one prescribed way that somebody has to connect. I believe in oneness.

Since then, my experiences have continued to develop in ways I could never have predicted. There has been Moldavite and one extraordinary amethyst. There have been dragons, snakes, synchronicities, sacred geometry and experiences where I have felt God running right through them, rather than something separate that they are simply connected to.

Some of those experiences have also shown me some very hard truths about myself. My spiritual journey hasn't simply been about being shown beautiful things. It has challenged me, changed me and at times made me look very closely at myself and the choices I make. I'm a very real person being vulnerable in saying that, because some of the hardest parts of any journey can be accepting the parts of ourselves that we would probably rather not look at. I hope that by being open about my own experience, it gives somebody else a little support when they find themselves having to face those parts too.

What has changed most is my perspective. It isn't about trying to become some particular version of a spiritual person. It is about seeing life differently, seeing myself differently, and allowing what I experience to keep changing the way I understand the world around me.

There is still a great deal more to tell. There are the crystals, the synchronicities, some extraordinary meditative experiences and, of course, the Great Mother, who has become such a significant presence within my journey and has plenty of her own things to say. Those stories deserve their own space rather than being squeezed into this one.

But this part of my journey is really about the movement from believing, to doubting, and then back to a knowing that came through my own experience.

And after everything that happened, the message that stayed with me was still the simplest one:

I should have known better than to doubt.