CHAPTER 1
Our Dream Home
I sat in my little meditation room at home, my charts on my lap, pendulum in hand and connected with my Higher Self. I was dowsing a property for a new client in Cornwall who had been experiencing many problems since living in their house which had the old Roman road Foss Way running alongside it. I had dowsed that the property had geopsychic stress, which means it had psychic presences of earthbound souls, or entities, or what some would call ghosts. I started my clearing process to send these presences on to the Light, my pendulum swinging quickly indicating that clearing was taking place. My pendulum swung round and round rapidly and in my mind's eye I could see an endless stream of souls passing over to the Light. They looked like Roman soldiers marching up to Heaven. When eventually my pendulum became still, I made sure there were no more and then closed the openings over the building. I asked how many souls had been rescued and found it was in excess of 3,000. They had been stuck in Earth's energies for a long time but now within a few minutes had been returned safely to the Light. There was also a negative energetic pattern on the land which is usually the result of a battle or similar, so I healed this to bring the land back into balance again.
You may wonder how I have got involved with doing such unusual work. Well, if anyone had told me fifteen years ago that I would be doing this sort of work in houses all over the world, I would have thought them crazy. I knew nothing about any such subjects. I didn't have any psychic powers and didn't really know much about intuition or signs from the Universe. Apart from having a few premonitions at different times in my life and the occasional déjà vu experiences, I was an `ordinary' housewife and mother living with my husband Len and two sons Christian and Jason. I had always believed in life after death and was quite fascinated when I came across articles about psychics, mediums and healers and thought how wonderful that they had been `chosen' for those gifts.
My spiritual journey really began when Len decided he wanted to build a house himself and we set out trying to buy a building plot. We wanted to stay in the village where we lived in Cambridgeshire and tried for a number of sites, but always lost out to builders. A good sized plot then came on the market just round the corner from where we lived. It was for sale by sealed bid and belonged to a local farmer. The site had been his slaughter house, although hadn't been used since the 1940s.
Knowing nothing of spirits or energies, this didn't worry us. It was just an overgrown plot of land but perfect for us to build our dream home. I had a very strong premonition that we would live there. A few days later a gypsy called at my house selling lace and table cloths. As she showed me her basket of goods she started telling me various things about me and my family. She was very accurate and I was interested to hear more, so I looked more seriously at the table cloths. She told me that we would be getting a new car within a week. This seemed strange as we had no intention of changing our car. Then she said we would be moving soon to another house. Immediately I got a mental image identical to my premonition and felt quite excited. I thanked her, bought a table cloth and started wondering how accurate she would prove to be.
I told Len about the gypsy, but he was sceptical about such things saying it was all nonsense and guess work. Three or four days later Len's mother called to say her widowed friend had decided to sell her late husband's beloved Ford Orion. It was in excellent condition, had extremely low mileage and was at a very good price. The offer seemed too good to miss, but it would leave us with a high mileage Ford Cortina to sell. The next evening as Len was coming home, our neighbour told him that their very old car had completely packed up and they would have to try and find something soon. When he said we might be getting a new car ourselves and would she be interested in ours, she was over the moon. So, just like the gypsy said, within a week we had a new car!
I felt this also meant she was right about our getting a new home and felt very confident that we would be successful in buying the slaughter house site. I was so confident that I didn't worry about the fact we had to put in a sealed bid. The market price for a building plot of this size back in the mid 80s was about £35,000, so we added on a bit and sent in our bid. I could envisage us living there in our new house and had no doubts that it would happen. I was so confident that we almost bought a second hand mobile home in which to live on site whilst we were building. Thankfully, something stopped us from buying the mobile home for if we didn't get the land we would have had nowhere to keep it.
When the day came to find out if we had been successful, we were gutted to find out we hadn't won the bid. A builder had got it instead. I couldn't believe it. It had just felt so right.
The good thing, however, was that I was a few months pregnant and I had been dreading the thought of my second child being born in a mobile home. When Christian was born we painted his nursery and furnished it, Len made a wooden crib and I made some lovely crib bedding in Broderie Anglais. There were mobiles and pictures hanging up and cuddly toys arranged around the room. It was perfect for a baby's room.
I had suffered two miscarriages before becoming pregnant with Jason. I was trying to take things easy, anxious in case I miscarried a third time, and with hindsight the stress of living in a mobile home and building a house would have made things worse. Coupled with the thought that my second baby would be denied the lovely nursery that had been Christian's, there was definitely a blessing in losing the land.
So I concentrated on looking after myself and we decided to delay looking for any more building plots until after the baby was born. I often walked past the old slaughter house to see what was happening, but nothing ever was. Eventually the 'SOLD' sign was taken down and it remained the overgrown site I had always known it to be since moving to the village.
Apart from developing pregnancy related diabetes at 28 weeks, the pregnancy went well and I gave birth to my wonderful baby, Jason, late in 1987. I was so pleased that he started life in a lovely house with his pretty nursery and surrounded by all the soft toys and musical mobiles that Christian had so enjoyed.
Once Jason was a few months old we both began wondering what was going to happen to the old slaughter house site. Len made some enquiries with the agents and farmer and discovered that the owner had lost the deeds so the sale was delayed by a legal process which would enable him to sell it. The buyer had pulled out and it was likely to be another twelve months or so before it could be sold. That enabled us to buy the plot at the market price without competition from builders.
We finally completed the purchase just prior to Jason's second birthday. We also decided to rent a small cottage while our house was being built rather than live on site in a mobile home. It felt a daunting step to move out of our lovely home into a small terraced cottage while only owning an overgrown plot of land, but once planning permission was sorted, demolition was out of the way and the foundations were finished, we became very excited about our project.
The building work went very smoothly. Knowing what I do now about blocked earth energies this is quite surprising, but we felt that higher powers ensured all went well. There were hardly any frosts that winter and the spring was warm and dry so building work was never delayed. Len started his working life as a telephone engineer and then progressed to computer programming, but had always been very keen on DIY. He had done an evening class in brick laying and built an extension on our last house and now realised his ambition of building his own home. It was a timber framed kit house so that speeded up the whole process, but apart from having the timber frame erected professionally and employing plasterers to render the outside, he did everything himself - along with help from me, our parents and two very eager little boys! We moved into the almost completed house about eleven months later.
CHAPTER 2
Candida
We had chosen all the fixtures and fittings and were delighted with what had became our dream home. We lived happily enjoying family life. I felt very contented and didn't feel I was stressed in any way, but after about five years the diabetes I had suffered from in pregnancy returned. Initially I treated it by adjusting my diet, then my doctor prescribed tablets but I had a terrible reaction and was put onto insulin. This made it much easier to keep my blood sugar levels down but it meant I had to eat far more carbohydrates and so my consumption of bread increased at this time.
Over the following year I started to suffer from bloating, stomach ache and headaches. It built up gradually until it became a constant problem. I had always believed that health was about diet and exercise. I loved walking and keeping fit and had always eaten a healthy diet although I admit to having a sweet tooth as well. I could not understand why I was feeling so bloated and uncomfortable. By the latter part of each day I couldn't do up my jeans and although I was young and slim I had to start looking for clothes with expanding waistbands.
I read about someone with similar symptoms in a health magazine and it was suggested they had a digestive intolerance to wheat. I decided to try cutting wheat out of my diet and I felt much better within a day or two. However, after about three weeks the symptoms started to return. I then decided to cut the other gluten containing grains out of my diet and this helped again. I felt more comfortable, but my diet was becoming restricted. The feeling of improvement didn't last long so I cut dairy products from my diet. Again I experienced some improvement, but it didn't last so I made an appointment to see the doctor. He diagnosed Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and prescribed some gluten free foods. Other than that he could only say it was related to stress.
I read up about IBS and couldn't understand why I should have it. My health then deteriorated rapidly over the following year and I developed aches and pains in all my joints, I became lethargic and depressed. I had no energy and I wasn't sleeping properly. Every morning I woke with a head ache, or fuzzy head. My back ached all the way up my spine so that I couldn't sit in an armchair and had to sit in a firm dining chair. I was 39 years old but felt like 90.
I was becoming a regular visitor to the doctor's surgery although they didn't seem able to help and eventually I was referred to the gastroenterology department of the hospital. I began a series of tests but none of them showed the problem and all the time I was getting worse.
My only experience of alternative or complementary therapies had been several years previously when I decided to do an evening class to get me out of the house and do something that didn't involve the children. I had scanned the adult education classes at the local school and noticed a class on Reflexology. This appealed straight away as I had always loved having my feet massaged and it intrigued me that this could have health benefits.
I duly enrolled and enjoyed learning about reflexology for the next six months. The teacher, June, was also trained in aromatherapy massage and herbs so I followed the reflexology with these classes as well. I found them very interesting but at the time I was perfectly healthy so I didn't follow it up. I did keep June's business card, however, just in case I should need her help in the future.
Now, several years later I was undergoing tests at hospital and June's card fell out of my handbag. I hadn't seen it for some years and didn't even know I still had it. I wondered if she could help me with all my problems but told myself that reflexology and massage wouldn't be any good and put it back again. The card fell out again a few months later and I went through the same mental conversation with myself, but again decided it would be a waste of time to get in touch. I struggled on for several more weeks and the hospital then suggested one more test. As I was getting ready to go for my appointment, my handbag fell over on the bed and the card slipped out again. I know now of course that the Universe or my angels and guides were trying to give me a message, but I was still unaware then of how things worked. I decided that if this test was negative, I would contact June and arrange for some massage to try and ease my aches and pains.
After spending about five hours at the hospital the nurse told me that nothing was showing up and so the doctor was going to put me onto the 'total exclusion' diet in the new year. The doctor explained that this would involve me eating only chicken and pears for two weeks, returning to hospital to see if I had any symptoms and then adding in rice as well for the next two weeks. He said I would continue like this for maybe a year or even two until they could work out exactly what I could eat. The thought of this filled me with horror. There was no way the total exclusion diet would get me better, so I decided to take my life and health back into my own hands.
I telephoned June and made an appointment for some treatment a couple of days later. The experience was so different from hospital. I spent two hours having reflexology and massage and she listened to all my problems. June felt sure I had an overgrowth of candida bacteria in the gut and recommended her programme of herbs and vitamins to clear it. I had never heard of candida before and wondered why the doctors had never mentioned it.
Candida albicans is a yeast based bacteria found in everyone's gut. Ideally it should be in a ratio of no more than 20% candida to 80% healthy gut flora and at this level it causes no problems. Various factors can cause it to grow excessively and then it can become a major problem. As it proliferates it changes form and can burrow through the gut walls creating little holes which let particles of food escape into the body. The body reacts to the escaped particles of food so you develop a digestive intolerance. The candida bacteria can also migrate to other areas of the body and lodge into joints, organs and even the brain.
The symptoms can be many and varied and cause joint aches and pain, headaches, blocked sinuses, skin problems, chemical intolerances as well the obvious dietary problems.
I arranged to have a Vega test done a few days later and this confirmed all the foods I had a problem with and the practitioner confirmed an overgrowth of candida. Two complimentary therapists had come up with the same cause.
There was no doubt in my mind that I had to give this a try and so I started on the herbal programme to cleanse and detoxify the body and then re-populate the gut with healthy gut flora, taking anti-fungal herbs, with lots of vitamins and minerals to help strengthen my immune system. My diet was so restricted as I was already following an anticandida diet, but now had to cut out all fresh fruit as well.
Within four or five weeks I started to notice a big difference. The uncomfortable bloating had finally gone and I was able to re-introduce fresh fruits and some dairy. The aches and pains in my joints had started to lessen and I was feeling much more positive. I was so impressed that I wanted to learn more about the herbs and supplements and start selling them to help other people. Despite feeling so unwell for so long I had also been feeling that I should be doing something else with my life because I didn't want to return to office work and this really appealed.
I think because I made the decision to go in that direction, which was what my soul wanted me to do, I got better very quickly. I learnt about the herbs and Len made me a web site to start selling them.
CHAPTER 3
Awakening
Although my digestive problems continued to improve, I still suffered from poor sleep and daily headaches. These were often so bad that they woke me at about three or four each morning. I would come downstairs and take painkillers and then sit in the armchair with a pillow and blanket. I couldn't bear to go back to bed. I would sit for a couple of hours until the headache eased and then doze until the children got up for breakfast, but it would take till mid morning before I felt my energy levels start to lift.
I hated taking painkillers on a daily basis and was determined to find the cause of these debilitating headaches, so I worked my way through all the natural remedies to solve the problem. I tried each supplement for at least three or four months, but nothing made any difference.
This pattern continued for about eighteen months with the headaches getting worse rather than better. We booked a fortnight's holiday in an old granary in East Sussex. I was worried that my headaches and lack of energy would spoil things for the boys and I always tried to keep from them how rough I felt. I packed a supply of pain killers to last the holiday plus a selection of supplements.
