Category: Life Stories & Lessons

Me penning down my transformative journey has been at the back of my head for a while but I never got down to it. Today something made me spontaneously write this out, and most of it a one single sitting. Its time !

I feel guided to share aspects of my own journey of personal transformation so far, for the benefit of those who are looking for answers, direction  themselves in their  own respective journeys and perhaps if in some small way you’ve connected with that below and / or taken something out of it for yourself, well the purpose of me writing this will have been accomplished.

Hence, if you’ve read so far  , do read on further, and one never knows, something may potentially resonate with you and your own journey.

I saw myself, (well, I used to see myself), as a really “tough nut” to crack, as far as personal change and growth was concerned. Looking at where I am now compared to where I was, I’d say I’m quite a different person. My opinion is, if I (gosh, of all people) can shift out from where I was, anyone can.

Me Now

From a corporate career spanning 30 plus years, I’ve now discovered and am living my passion in life. Signs of this appeared in 2011 and by 2012 whimsically, I started re-skilling myself progressively.

In 2013, out of character and again whimsically, without a goal or forward plan in place, I volunteered for a redundancy, gave up my corporate life and a good paying job as a Finance Manager. I subsequently become an Energy Healing Facilitator, Clinical Hypnotherapist, NLP Practitioner and Personal Fitness Trainer.

That was not my plan, but it happened and just fell in place through a series of events.

Nowadays, I now work from my own holistic practice helping people transform, discover and to become better and improved versions of themselves.

My journey of change has led me to this state within me ; where I am now comfortable with who I am and who I’m not, discovering the inner peace within and knowing that it can emanate only from within me and that I and only me is/am responsible for it.

More than ever, I’m now able to speak, live and walk my authentic self, my own truth and in doing so, without fear or favour. I am consciously aware that I need to project always from a place neutrality, unconditional love as opposed to that of fear and unwanted emotions.

I now understand more the reason why I was put on this earth and what my purpose is. The clarity of this grows even more as time passes and the journey continues, with its share of challenges and realizations as the growth and learning reaches up to new levels.

The Call Of The Path

All of this was not by any conscious or intentional design on my part. Instead it followed a bizarre set of circumstances that led from one thing to another. Fate, without me realizing it, was apparently paving a new path for me towards my life purpose.

I’ve always had an innate desire to help people, to reach out, but I did not necessarily always have the skills and right approach to do so and sometimes (an understatement .. LOL !) I’d put my foot in where it was not appreciated, for example, attempting to help change people who did not want to be changed or who were not ready for it. But I could not then see that completely for what it was.

For a long, long time before all of this, I’d have this whimsical thought or imagination in my head, whenever I’d come across a sick person or a crying baby, I’d fantasize and think to myself, how I wish I could simply place my hand on them and everything would be ok ? I’d never tell anyone about this, gosh how embarrassing that would have been ? “Earth calling Tony .. come back” !

I was born into the Roman Catholic faith, but these days I am more spiritual than I am religious. I have my own take on “religion” and mankind’s attempt to define and structure the Divine into a framework, but let’s not visit that proverbial can of worms .

I’d go to church and pray for the gift of healing. Well nothing happened of course and consequently I’d get into serious arguments with God .. to the tune of  “Dude, you said seek and you shall find, ask and you shall receive, what the hell ?” .. LOL !!

Decades ago, I watched a movie where a “healer” touched a person whose body was crippled and contorted with pain. The person was miraculously “healed”, but the healer in turn took on this person’s symptoms and himself became crippled and contorted with pain, before eventually coming back to his original self. He had healed by absorbing the persons ills. Something within me at that time resonated with it so much and again my fantasy whimsical imagination kicked in.

Were these were signs of my calling being previewed ? Well, looking back now, it would seem so.

All of these fantasies, imagination vanished over the years, forgotten and as mentioned through bizarre events, the path mysteriously led me back to it.

Because these days, this exactly what I do. I channel through divine energy, I place my hand on someone and things happen which I cannot logically explain. I could now look at someone and feel into their psyche. I just know what’s going on with them, I’d tell them things about their life, their personality which are spot on.

I connect into someone and I feel their emotions, I sense their physical pain and can know exactly where its present within their bodies. I draw their unwanted stuff out through me, I’d literally cry for them when they can’t or will not themselves.

Imagination, fantasies can come true eh ? Well, I guess, I sought and now “I’ve found”, I asked and now “I’ve received”.

Oddly today, in between writing this, I had a client come in for 2nd session, she asked in amazement something like  “Are you psychic ?, how did you know”. Well, no logical answer, I just knew !

I’ve learnt that I have innate gifts of healing and to help people transform. I am able to tap into and draw down Divine healing energy and channel it through at will. Believing, trusting and accepting this was a big, big challenge for me. Self doubt was ever so prevalent within me. Eventually the more I believed, the more I allowed myself to trust and accept, the more things happened to people I worked on, the more messages came through, all of which defied conventional logic.

The Journey

My work career started like for a lot of others, with casual work, at factories, cleaning and waitering at restaurants, I was even a Cook once. Eventually I found my way into the corporate world, primarily in Finance and Accounting. However I had this creative, curious and inquisitive nature within me, compounded with a very high drive and this saw me branching out and getting into managerial posts covering, Human Resources, Operations, Project Management , Audit, “Troubleshooting” and Business Process Improvements (I was known as Mr. Fix It), Business Development,  Facilities/Property Maintenance as well as Fleet Management.

I became a whizz, a guru with Excel in spreadsheet and financial modelling, and till present time I’ve met / heard of only a few who can do what I do.

Looking back, there was literally nothing I could not do if I put my mind to it. I was truly multi skilled and versatile. I was creative, I was passionate about what I did. I just knew stuff, I saw things and the world differently. I was always receptive to taking on new things where it challenged my ability and intellect. If it was broke, I’d look forward to fixing it.

“I could not understand why. I was kind, bighearted, sincere, my intentions were good, why did people think of me this way ?”

But I was strong minded, single minded to a fault. I saw things in black or white, no shades of grey, things needed to be compartmentalized. I had trouble though expressing myself to and with the world. Apparently I was not an easy person to get along or work with, so it has been said.

People saw me as different, perhaps odd, “the know too much” guy. It was said that I rubbed people off the wrong way and I guess aspects of that was true. But, I could not understand why, I was kind, bighearted, sincere, my intentions were good, why did people think of me this way ?

Well for one, I was overly sensitive to criticism (and reacted accordingly), I took things way too personally. I did not know what I did not know.

Moving on to sometime in 1997, I had a huge paradigm shift when it actually dawned upon me that not everyone saw the world and would think like I did. It then occurred to me that the “optimum” way I typically strived for to skin the proverbial cat, was not necessarily the only way.

Well, that whole concept took a further few years to assimilate in and my journey of change slowly started taking shape.

The Challenges

But this change for me has not been an easy one, it was bloody hard. Change did not come easy for me. I’ve had to fight hard, tooth and nail to get to the state where I am today.

Despite the description of me above, I was a classic introvert and a very insecure one at that.

I suffered for nearly all my life, with poor self esteem, with severe self doubt and self insecurities, that I was never good enough, that I could not be as good or as successful as the next person or good enough for the expectations of others. I viewed myself as insignificant, undeserving. I’d in turn pretended to be something I’m not, perhaps others may then view me differently. Self-love was probably non existent for me then.

It was hard for me to find middle ground within the facets of life, I had a severe tendency to oscillate within two extremes, which again kind of explained why people viewed me otherwise (or did they really ??) and why too I viewed myself the way I did. I recall in my younger days, my sisters describing me as “Tony is either very hard working or hardly working”.

There was an army of unhelpful subconscious programming and imprints running around within me and I did not have a freaking clue about it. We don’t know what we don’t know.

This whole concept has had such a deep rooted impact on me that it ruled my life, paralysed and stunted my personal growth and the essence of who I truly was. Such was its impact, and I cannot overstate this more, that today at the age of 56, I am still clearing up the last few remnants of these patterns and belief systems.

There once lived within me, an ever smiling, happy go lucky, little boy. But within all these above, he lost his glow and disappeared. I’ve since rediscovered aspects of him over the past few years, with no doubt, more to come.

This will be a surprise to many who know me now, but I’ve been a loner for most of my life (still am to an extent), past patterning, imprints and conditioning had reinforced that further, which did not help that little boy.

I can’t say I’ve ever had really close friends back then, confidants whom I could truly open up to. Less than a handful came close, but not close enough. Hence it became such that I became my own solace, if something needed fixing within, it was up to me. Sometimes it became just too hard for me to fix, but I felt there was no one I could reach out to. I just lived with it, but I still was always there for others, every ready to help, putting the needs of others way ahead of myself.

Hence, this became the tone of my life. It was fine, manageable but eventually it took its toll on me. I had the tendency to place onto my shoulders the burdens of others, through my self-imposed ideals of loyalty and commitment. At the same time having to deal with my own challenges, with hardly anyone to turn to for myself. But I sucked it up, that’s the only way I knew how and I forged on. What choice did I have ? Well, those were my thoughts then.

The Awakening

 “I started finding myself, I was interacting with the world better, I was interacting with “me” better. I realized that while I could not change the people, the situation and the world around me, I instead had influence over the way I perceived and interacted with these”

From the year 2012 onwards, I began to “awaken” more and more both consciously and spiritually. I started facing more my  internal demons. I went through cycles of changes, I was starting to move away from the person I used to be, my thinking patterns changed, my associations with people changed. My philosophy on life started to change.

Those familiar with journeys of the spiritual path, will understand the ups and downs, its like a personality detox, with spirals, highs and dips, roller-coasters, etc. Its a lonely journey. It’s the kind of journey that prompts one to jump off the cliff, without the surety of a parachute or a safety net, but to instead place trust that all will be well regardless.

Ha !! Easily said ! 

I started to discover an unfamiliar sense of peace and ease within. I was at a phase where I did not know where my next dollar was coming from, but it did not matter, I was happy, and strangely in spite of this, I felt a sense of stillness and peace within. This was a big contrast compared to an otherwise state of being when I was earning big bucks in the corporate world.

Hang on ! there was something wrong with this equation … or was there?

This aspect of the journey was a true “mixed bag of nuts” for me. I started finding myself, I was interacting with the world better, I was interacting with “me” better. I realized that while I could not change the people, the situation and the world around me, I instead had influence over the way I perceived and interacted with these.

But within that “mixed bag of nuts” came bouts of depression, loneliness, mood swings, withdrawing within. However, it was all part of that process of change. With that “detox”, the challenge was to recognize it as a process, a staging area leading up to another staging area and another.

I’ve always considered myself to be a loyal friend (to a fault). My word was my honor and I always tried to keep to my promises. For a very select few (new friends), I was just that. I’d be ready to drop everything in a blink of an eye to help if ever called upon, and I have done so. But alas, there was a critical time period when they were not there for me when I needed them most, as I would have been for them. I was alone once again to face my struggles on my own.

I remember all to well the days of crying on my own, in secret, so that no one would see, so that no one would know. Eventually, tired and exhausted, I begun to pull back.

“It was a process and I now recognize it as that”

As I was not in paid employment and too did not have a sustainable source of income, financial worries added to it, and that looming financial uncertainty took a big chunk out of me. Savings were drying up fast.  As a result, I even contemplated suicide a few times. Oddly though it was not due to depression but more as a practical, logical approach. My insurance policy would still pay out on suicide, hence I’d be assured that this way the family would be in relative financial stability … well in comparison. It all made logical sense (Accountant’s brain kicking in). Hee Hee !  

I researched as to the best ways to end my life. Being the planner and perfectionist that I was,  I knew exactly how I was going to do it and the places where I could do it at. But I also had this desire that I needed to tie up all the loose ends first for the package to be complete. That aspect of addressing the “loose ends” instead became too hard to do and I eventually abandoned  that idea and moved on with life instead. Something had subtly nudged me into an alternate direction.

Me revealing this now, will be a surprise for many who know me and even my dear wife would not realize the true depths of what I’ve mentioned above. Still, if my story helps someone else on their path, it would have served a positive purpose.

But, deep down, somehow I knew I’d never take my own life. The Universe had bigger plans for me and I sensed it. For me it served as a process I had to go through to eventually come out at the other end. It was a process and I now recognize it as that.

“Hence, every step I took, every falter I encountered it would seem, served as a stepping stone, a launching pad, if you will, through my journey of change”

Through all of this time frame, no amount of therapy, energy work, etc. done on me seemed to produce any sort of apparent change or impact, though undoubtedly something was working at a deep / base level. I was probably just too much in my head to recognize it.

My interpretation from this was the Universe / God / Fate (take your pick) was telling me that I needed to sort “my shit” out on my own steam. No compassionate friend, healing or therapy was going to give me that magic pill.

For me it had to come the old fashion hard way, via self realization! Hard Yakka ! (an Aussie term, for those of you not in the know )

I understand now why this was so. All these challenges were in fact presenting me with invaluable lessons and knowledge for me to move forward and to get to where I am today. It also served well to enable me to help people who came to me for help.

Hence, every step I took, every falter I encountered it would seem, served as a stepping stone, a launching pad, if you will, through my journey of change. That very essence today forms one of the cornerstones of my personal philosophy.

Hence most of my change came through my own awareness, discovery, my own energy work done on myself.  I started  to recognize and be in harmony with the perceived “shortcomings” and “demons” within and in turn recognizing and appreciating that child of creation within.

One large aspect of this for a start, was me learning to move out from the busy thought patterns, the “Accountant’s Head”, the noise within and learning to manage the busy mind. In turn, I learnt to move down to the heart, my gut and to learn to feel and trust with that. I eventually learned to connect with and trust that inner voice, that niggling feeling within, that dream, that vision which at kept playing in my head and the resonance I felt with it.

I always had good intuition from way back, I just did not know it, I did not recognize it as such.

Self trust and self belief was something I truly struggled with, to overcome the volumes of self doubt within me. I was hard for me to accept that I could be special, that I was deserving. It was hard for me to accept compliments, that someone could actually see me as what I secretly wanted them to view me as. Aha ! that “secretly wanting others view me differently” was an inadequacy in itself !

It was bloody hard, I tell you, bloody hard !!! But the solution, the direction was in fact simple, Just Trust And Believe In Myself !, Change My Thought Patterns !

The only thing in my way was me !

“The knowing that I sought, came through me letting go of the need for expectations, the outcome. It came through me walking within the dark, not knowing, just trusting and accepting”

I’d say these days I’ve grown to hone my intuition, my psychic abilities and my gift to channel to an extent where at times I have to pinch myself to remind me that this is real, LOL !

I’m able to listen to and trust my intuition, my higher self, more and more as time progresses. This has taken me working with clients, especially in Energy Healing, to a whole new level.

Most of my decisions these days are done from me searching within, my intuition, my gut, just trusting. Gone are the days of analysis paralysis and the stress and anxiety that came with it.

So, for those of you struggling with your own “perceived inadequacies”, know that your beauty,  your greatness, your essence lies with the greater sum of your own “imperfections” ..warts and all.

“You do not need “fixing”, for you are “perfect” within your “imperfections”. All you may require is an awareness, a recognition, a rediscovery of the beauty and power of you within …. and once you achieve that, you will recalibrate, grow and become new and improved versions of yourselves.

Know too, that the journey and the learning never ends.”

There’s more I can write, more stories I can tell, but I’ll end it for now. Potentially there could be a Part Two to this somewhere, but it has not been written yet. Hence till Part Two then.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you for your patience and for taking the time read through. Would love to hear your comments and would love to hear about your journey as well … Blessings to you.

I leave you with this clip, simply because this tune has been playing in my head the entire time I’ve been writing this. In a way its reflective of aspects of me overcoming myself, or it may resonate with one of you out there. The amazing, inspirational and brave Mandy Harvey.

“Try”