Begin Again Moments: Spirituality & Signs

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1:23Very high. Know your sleep score with Apple Watch. iPhone 11 or later required. I genuinely do feel that in a past life, I've had experience of mothering. Yes. So talk to me about that because it was through a medium, wasn't it? Yes. That you spoke to and she saw something which really helped you navigate that time in your life. What did she say? so this was a psychic that a good friend of mine had recommended and she is based in america and my good friend said text her to make the appointment don't tell her your real name and uh and she was a very savvy friend so i texted this psychic to make the appointment and i gave her because i am truthful i gave her my first name my real name i said it's elizabeth and i didn't say anything else and this psychic said okay i'll call you at 7 p.m your time on a wednesday evening It was a phone call.

2:20She didn't even see my face. She couldn't have Googled me. And it was an extraordinary experience. The first thing she said was, well, you love words. And I was like, I do. I do love words. That is so me. And about halfway through this conversation where she said lots of other accurate stuff about my personal life, about my husband. Does your mother have some neck pain? I was like, I don't think so. And then I checked later and my mum had put out her back bell ringing. She was like, I'm going to see the osteopart. Wait, put the car in park, Elizabeth. I just want to just repeat that. Your mother does bell ringing.

2:56Yes. Love her. So anyway, about halfway through the bell ringing and everything. Yeah. The psychic said this thing and she said, I feel like you are grappling right now with letting go of a lifelong desire. And all I said was, yes, that makes sense. I wasn't asking her any questions. I deliberately didn't want to guide her anywhere. I said, yes, that makes sense. And she said, and I don't know if it's to do with children, but if it is, I have a very strong sense that you were a mother in a past life and you were the mother of six and it almost melted you. That was her word. It almost melted you.

3:28And this life has been offered to you to live on your own terms. And that might be if you have tried to have children, you might have experienced fertility issues or miscarriage and when she said that I was like oh so I totted up the number of unsuccessful fertility cycles three and then I've had three miscarriages six so I've I've actually technically been pregnant six times it was mind-blowing and she said so did I it felt so aligned with the truth that I had been avoiding in a way yes because I had had this yearning to be a mother and I had encountered so many obstacles and I'd kept going because I felt I wanted to but I also felt that I should it's so interesting yeah and what that psychic did and I'm forever grateful to her for it is she gave me permission to see what it would be like to let that idea go and it turned out that letting that idea go was incredibly liberating and it doesn't mean that I'm not sad about it I am but I'm really at peace with it and there are so many other ways that I'm able to create isn't it fascinating when somebody sees you and she didn't see you but she sees you and they give you permission yeah to let go it was and that actually you can't let go until somebody says you know you can let go

5:00Dr Tara Swart:Yeah. And when that happens, you know, what what does it feel like? It felt amazing. And ultimately, what I come down to, I do believe that there is a spirit world. Call it what you like. Call it universe. Call it God. Call it faith. Call it something we can't explain. Call it quantum physics. But there is something, there is some energy that is beyond our comprehension. and that might not be for everyone and there are people listening to this who might not believe that either way I'm so grateful that that gave me what I needed and actually there's something really important about that because no one else could have given me permission in a way I needed someone who claimed to be able to tap into a non-human belief system if that makes sense like a beyond human thought process because none of my friends would say that to me in the sense that they love me so much they yes they want to completely support me in whatever endeavor I'm choosing to do similarly with my partner and similarly with medical professionals they're like well we're here to support whatever decision you make next but you have to make it similarly with therapists like they're not the ones who are going to say you can let it go and so actually it was incredibly helpful to me and I have since passed or made appointments with that psychic for dear friends of mine who are going through massive challenges and at every point she has a said something different so she hasn't always started off with like oh you love words yes but b she said something that has unlocked some power within them to see things differently and there's something about that power of knowing, the instinct that we can tap into.

6:53Trust yourself. Trusting yourself. And women, for millennia, because of patriarchy, because of everything else, we've been sort of bamboozled out of trusting ourselves because actually it's so powerful.

7:19Sweet? Yes. Perfect for a snack or dessert. Mmm, delicious. Get answers on the go without interrupting your flow. Ray-Ban Meta. Iconic style meets Meta AI. Available at Walmart and other authorised retailers. For anybody that has lost somebody and, you know, there's a blueprint in the signs of lots of different ways that we can prepare ourselves to be more open to signs. Could you talk me through some of those?

7:55Dr Tara Swart:I think, first of all, having this conversation and having the psychological safety in your own community to have that conversation is important. Because obviously, if I started talking about signs and everyone just thought I was losing my mind from grief, or my friends started to get worried about me because I was talking about signs, it would have pushed my you know it would have changed my journey um so i i already in the past few years have been having that conversation a lot with my friends and they get signs from robin as well which is wonderful um oh that's even want people that didn't know him um and i don't see him in dreams that much so but i two or three of my friends they get dream messages from him I get so jealous of people that dream of loved ones.

8:43Dr Tara Swart:I know, because it's like you're actually seeing them. You see them. Yeah. I never get that. I've had it a couple of times, and I can partly do lucid dreaming, so I managed to extend one of them a little bit, but then I think I must have fallen asleep or something, and I was like, oh, I wish I'd stayed in that dream for longer because it was so vivid. What is lucid dreaming? So lucid dreaming is when you're aware you're dreaming and you can actually control the events in the dream to some extent. I think I've had that like once or twice. Do you get that a lot? No, not a lot, but I've had it. So, yeah.

9:15Dr Tara Swart:Yeah. If I ever became aware that I was in a dream with Robin, I would try to keep it going. Of course. And so one of the things, obviously, is getting your community aware that you're not going that shit crazy. And being able to have mutual conversations about it. And then for me, the first two things that started me, you know, on this journey that I had no idea how I was going to navigate were nature and community. so I mean people came to visit me every single day I got so many flowers that I had I ran out of vessels to like put them in and so I one thing I learned is that if someone close to me loses someone I'm going to buy them a vase not flowers yes um oh my god that's good that's a good learning um and and I'm talking about like six months solid of getting flowers like all the time wow um even now and it's been nearly four years and that's really lovely isn't it it's it's um well you were talking about community yeah so I was you know living on a a large property that I would just like walk around for half an hour every day and then because I didn't really have anything else to do or couldn't really do anything else I just started walking for longer and longer and I felt the benefits on my mental health of doing that.

10:37Dr Tara Swart:And I also had a weird analogy, which is that I have a terrible sense of direction and where I was living, I would have no signal. So if I got lost, I wouldn't be able to use Google Maps and I could walk for hours without seeing anyone. But I started going down paths I'd never been before and I just had this, a bit like that, you know, the weird feeling of him not being him when he died. I just had this weird feeling that I would find my way. and on some kind of spiritual level that I'd been in that place before, which I can't explain. But for me, I mean, I can lose my way in London. I can be crying on a street corner in London that I've lived here my entire life.

11:15For me to say it's okay to just keep walking

11:18Dr Tara Swart:because eventually you'll find your way back felt like an analogy for grief. Yes. Even having to drive because Robin always drove and even when he was between treatments, I would drive to to the country but he would say get into this lane go down to 50 turn off here so suddenly having to drive on my own um at first I was like you know shaking and terrified and didn't even feel like oh my god I got home safely that's great I just looked at the seat next to me and just thought like why aren't you here um but then my driving improved you know like it had to and so I use that as an analogy I was like I can't see my grief journey but I can see that I've improved in driving this much in six months so it must be the same

12:12I like this idea of nature being so healing and often you know these long walks are like I just need to keep going and how much they help

12:24Dr Tara Swart:yeah and I think so my neighbor she lost her brother and she said to me just walk your way but you know back to healing wow um she specifically said that yeah so great yeah but I think the thing for me was when you walk and it goes across the seasons as well you see this continuous cycle of of how nature recycles everything yes like yes and even in weirdly in the bouquets of flowers I would get the roses always die first and so I became a bit obsessed at watching the life cycle of a rose um but understanding that the petals and you know they go back into the earth and they form some of the soil that helps new ones to grow and but also when you know when nature is so beautiful you feel awe and you feel connected to something greater and I think that really helped me as well and also a lot of signs come from nature because the classic ones like the white feather the robins you're more likely to see them if you're spending time in nature