when I first started to hear voices, I was a child. I paid it no mind- to me this was an extension of my imagination. my experience was personal and not at all intrusive.

as a young woman though, these voices started to intensify. traumatic experiences had left me fractured and fragmented. what I was hearing was a cacophony of people.

I’ve seen an alarming amount of people listening to random voices in their head and just doing whatever they tell them. and believing it. believing whatever narrative 100% without question, without discernment.

this is why I work with national paranoia network to deliver practices that help press pause on action and create more space in the uncomfortable in between.

unfortunately if your voices are commanding you will have to learn to sit in discomfort, even against what you feel god or someone is willing you to do. you have to become stronger.

after working with these experiences now for 20 or so years, having been on medication, in therapy, to healers, on pilgrimages i have the space to say everyone’s experience is different and that they all feel true.

working in the inner space is a skill: people practice this for a lifetime.

so don’t believe everything you hear, but in case you are worried “spirit” rarely will ask you to do anything that directly or indirectly hurts another human. For example, sexual assault, murder, assault, theft, surveillance, monitoring.

this are lower actions for “lower beings” (as Buddhist literature describes)

there may be some exceptions but that is why it is vital to work directly and physically with teachers, healers, guides and psychologists who can help you to interpret your inner signalling without judgement.

if you’ve been struggling and don’t know the first steps to take, I suggest you go to the National Paranoia Network and sign up for their newsletter, to receive monthly practices from me.

if you want more help go to the books page, which has plenty of resources to help you press “pause” and learn how to sit with your own discomfort.

I think most of us know – ginny weasley made the same mistake out of loneliness. And I know as well that trusting these intrusions usually comes out of that. You feel like if you can appease them they’ll stay. the connection feels special and you need that.

mine presented as commanding and as anxiety: all my fears were confirmed in chorus and they gossiped all night so that I couldn’t sleep. meditation, rest and a lot of inner work helped me and it can help you too.

that is why I created all these activity books and written offers, because while I cannot be there in person, I get it. I have been there and these are the things that helped me get well again.

everyone talks about losing a person. we can recognise grief where there has been a death, or in the case of a relationship, a visible loss.

but grief is a tricky emotion to work with. often it masquerades as grumpy, depressed, angry or even hyper-focused or fixated.

nobody talks about the grief that comes when your life is shaken up when a lie is exposed.

it strips back the relationships that rest on those foundations, and you can start to feel and be very isolated.

so why don’t we talk about it?

it is not for shame, but, I think,

the weariness that comes in anticipation of having to change everything, even if your life is primed for that anyway.

nobody really talks about how to grieve your own life plans either, of your hopes and dreams and how people weave into that.

but it can feel a lot like the same –

like jumping into freezing cold water only to feel your lungs constrict and there’s no way you could breathe even if you remembered how

for a moment

then it’s like, back into the normal quotidian

the mundane, the routine

the same old same old

except, everything has changed

and your whole future is gone in a heartbeat

and it never existed

and neither did you really

shaped by people who never really were what they said they were

cold plunge, airless shock

back to housework, make dinner, fold laundry

rest, repeat

continue walking ahead but there’s nothing there anymore

this has been my experience a few unfortunate times

the deeper levels of unwinding someone else’s deception takes a very palpable toll on the health

if this is you

lay in bed

rest

breathe

eat something

don’t drink all the wine

life breathes new life into you as you live it