Wisdom for Your Life: What I Have Learnt from Those Who have Passed Over
Wisdom for Your Life: What I Have Learnt from Those Who have Passed Over
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781743431801 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Allen & Unwin Pty., Limited |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 641 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Wisdom for Your Life
What I Have Learnt from Those Who have Passed Over
By Katrina Cavanough
Allen & Unwin
Copyright © 2013 Katrina CavanoughAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74343-180-1
CHAPTER 1
Finding my way to spirit
I lay in bed. The house was quiet except for the distant hum of the fridge. Suddenly, a howling wind started up outside, prompting my heart to a faster beat. I pulled the covers up close beneath my chin. To my eight-year-old ears the wind sounded like a monster trying to blow our house down. My father appeared in the doorway, and he used what were by now familiar words to try, for the hundredth time, to soothe away my night-time terrors. 'Rabbit, it's the sound of the wind. There's no need to be afraid.'
Later, as I lay wide awake in the darkness, I felt the hairs across the back of my shoulder blades and neck stand erect. My pulse beat loudly in my ears, and fear raced down my arms, nearly exploding out through my fingertips. I could feel it again. It was there.
I rolled over slowly to face the doorway. In it there stood a ghostly apparition. I closed my eyes. But the figure was still there, even clearer in my mind's eye: a man, tall, with a beard, and wearing blue overalls. He stood motionless at my door. Just there. I had often sensed he was there, but until that night I had never actually seen him.
I leaped out of bed and raced through the darkness towards my sister's room. 'Ruth! Can I sleep with you?'
As always my sister obliged and with a sleepy 'Yes' moved over, allowing me to climb in next to her. Wrapped in the rhythm of her breathing and her warm presence, I felt safe once more. My heart finally returned to its usual beat, and I slipped into sleep.
The next morning, as I ate my breakfast with my dad, I described what had happened. He listened to me with an unusual expression on his face. He was calm, quite matter of fact, as he explained that I had seen a ghost, possibly the ghost of the man who had once been married to a lady my dad was currently dating.
I smiled. In the safety of the morning light I felt happy that I could perceive ghosts, lucky to be able to see the unseeable. Dad told me that it was a special gift that others in our family also had. I was excited. I felt magical.
On the way to school I told Ruth what Dad had said.
'Wow, you can see ghosts? That's cool!'
Later on I heard her telling her best friend that 'Katrina can see ghosts.' For the rest of the day I walked with a spring in my step. I was happy. My mind delighted in my newfound understanding of my world.
But that evening, as I was getting ready for bed, I was struck by the reality of the long night ahead. The enchantment of my newfound ability dissolved. As the light waned my wonder and excitement were replaced by fear. I knew that with the darkness came the ghosts. Most people believe that the souls of dead people are in heaven, but I knew they were down here with us, and I didn't like it. I said a prayer begging God to take them up to heaven with him.
When my father tucked me into bed I pleaded with him to leave the light on. He tried to talk me through my fear, but his words made no difference. The terror that grabbed my chest and clutched at my back could not be talked away.
As the years passed this became the rhythm of my life: happy with my intuition by day, full of fear by night. And so my extraordinary adventures began.
* * *
By the time I was fifteen years old my life had changed dramatically. My father had remarried, and my home life had become unbearable. Home was no longer a happy place to be. Ruth and I moved out. Ruth went to live with our beloved grandmother, while I was taken in by our kind Aunty June. In the school holidays I would travel to the country to stay with another aunt, my Aunty Gwen, who is a psychic and clairvoyant. Aunty Gwen introduced me to a wondrous world. My years of learning with her gave birth to a lifelong journey of discovery that I continue to live today. We immersed ourselves in a daily practice of reading the cards, meditation, and crystals. She taught me many different ways to connect with spirit on the other side. She also taught me how to control my metaphysical experiences. I learned how to make contact with spirit only when I wanted to: I could decide when, where and how I experienced my intuition. After those years of frightening night-time encounters with spirit, I found learning to control the way I experienced my sixth sense liberating. At times I was still scared at night, yet in Aunty Gwen's presence I always felt comfortable.
Having family members who were supportive of my intuition was a great gift. Not all children have this support; some are told that what they are seeing, feeling and hearing is not real. I feel for those children — it creates unnecessary confusion. For me, those years represent a time of returning to the familiar.
Aunty Gwen was involved in a new age group — people who were psychic or simply interested in the paranormal — that gathered in the village regularly. When I was visiting her on holidays she would take me along with her. The group members were everyday people: if you'd passed one of them in the street you wouldn't have guessed that only the night before they might have been sharing time with the supernatural. I loved every moment of attending that group. It was exciting to sit in a room full of people whose life was full of spiritual phenomena and intuitive practices.
* * *
With maturity and experience I have grown to understand my intuition and use it powerfully in my life. My intuition helps with everyday living as well as tackling broader issues, in areas ranging from whether I will be able to get an emergency appointment with my hairdresser today to whether a patient in the emergency department will survive.
Sometimes I am asked how I communicate with spirit and experience my intuitive impressions. It's difficult to describe succinctly, because I receive them in many different ways. Sometimes they come to me in the form of words, images or an overwhelming emotional feeling, which I call impressions. At other times I am given a whole concept. Depending on their subject, messages generate a range of feelings. If I receive a strong impression that I am going to get a job I am applying for, then of course that feels good, but if an impression comes to me that there is conflict in a relationship, this feels unpleasant. An impression concerning a future event will remain with me until the event has transpired. I rarely find fault with my impressions, though at times I haven't liked them.
Occasionally I feel the presence of an impending death; in fact, I am able to know that I am going to experience a tragedy well before it happens. This is something that I can turn on and off at will. I have control over whether I feel it or not; impressions come only if I ask the question. I am fortunate in this, as it is not the same for everyone: some people are continually flooded by intuitive messages and feelings as they go about their everyday lives. For these people it can happen any time — they might be walking down the street and as they pass another person they will suddenly know something about them. Some people might describe this as their gut instinct; I describe it as powerful intuition.
Our society is not yet at a stage where knowledge of the afterlife is considered a normal part of everyday life. But everyone is intuitive; everyone has the capacity to connect with the spiritual world. When we discover that there is no veil, no separation between the physical and the non-physical world, our fear and grief are softened a little. I hope the following chapters will help you to understand and connect with the spiritual realm, leading you to a fuller life as a result.
CHAPTER 2The intuitive social worker
When I took up my position at the hospital I had no idea that my knowledge and experience of spirituality would play any part in my work. Of course, it should not have come as such a surprise: I knew I had an awareness of spirit — I had been sensing spirit all my life and had been studying and practising many aspects of spirituality and metaphysics since I was fifteen years of age. Eventually, though, while I was unable to share with anyone else my communications with those in spirit, I felt that I had no choice but to engage with them. It enabled me to serve in a greater way. When I discovered I could work at both the physical and the spiritual levels without compromising my professional role as a social worker, I was keen to do so.
In the ten years I spent at the hospital I worked with over four hundred deaths. I could never have imagined that they would have so great or profound an impact. I stood with each family as they experienced one of life's greatest tragedies with the intention of being of service, of being all that I could be for those thrown into a surreal and terrible nightmare. I knew I could not change their pain; I had no control over that. But I could make their passage through the hospital system as easy as possible and treat each person with the deepest compassion and respect. This was not difficult for me. I love treating people kindly — it's part of who I am. These experiences changed totally my understanding of the process of dying and of the afterlife itself. It made clear to me what really matters.
* * *
The heat of the summer sun beat through the car window, stinging my skin. 'It's too hot,' I complained to my husband, Alan. The fluster of the day was beginning to catch up with us as we drove home, and I was feeling sorry for myself. 'What were we thinking, going out on such a hot day? We should have stayed at home in the air conditioning.'
Reaching over, Alan patted my leg. 'It's been a good day, though.'
We turned a corner close to home and soon after were forced to slow down. Lights were flashing. There was a car accident ahead and police were redirecting traffic. Our eyes were drawn to the wreckage as we passed the accident. A crowd of onlookers had gathered, watching the drama. People were standing around with their heads lowered.
We arrived home at five o'clock, and I turned on my pager. Immediately, it buzzed at me. I phoned the hospital to confirm the details: a girl aged in her early twenties, dead at the scene of the accident we had driven past.
I hadn't been working in the emergency department for long and had not yet had any spiritual encounters at work. This would be the first time I had attended a person killed in a car accident. During the drive to the hospital I tried to prepare myself for the shock. I was afraid: I didn't know what horror I might face. I turned off the car radio, needing silence, and prayed, asking for strength to get through the challenge before me.
When I arrived at the hospital I phoned the assistant director of nursing, who told me that the deceased, Selena, had been prepared for viewing for police identification. The family and police officers were yet to arrive. I made my way to the mortuary viewing area, grateful for this gap in proceedings, which meant I could take the time I needed to prepare myself. I felt some nervousness brewing in my stomach — little butterflies fluttering around.
Standing before the closed curtain in the viewing room, I decided I was as ready as I was ever going to be. I had a deep sense that this was part of my job on earth. 'Okay, let's go,' I heard myself say.
I stepped around the curtain and looked down at Selena, who had been positioned lying on her back. I was relieved to find that her face looked like all the other dead faces I'd seen so far, except for a deep laceration across her forehead. You wouldn't have guessed what her body had been through. I quickly looked over the rest of her body, taking in all the injury details so I could prepare the family before they viewed her. Suddenly I was struck by the magnitude of what had happened to this young girl and how it would be affecting other people's lives as well. From today their lives would be forever changed. None of them would ever be the same again.
My pager went off to tell me the police and Selena's family had arrived. When I found them in the foyer the police officer in attendance introduced himself and the girl's family: mother, father and grandmother. Straightaway I noticed that her dad had been drinking. It was Saturday night and he had been at a friend's place having a few drinks when he got the call.
Introducing myself, I accompanied the group down the long corridor to the mortuary viewing area. Asking the family to sit down in the waiting area, I explained the viewing process. This is never easy. I began gently, with the greatest respect, trying to prepare the family as far as possible for what they were about to see. 'Because the accident is a coroner's matter,' I explained, 'your daughter needs to be left exactly as she was found so unfortunately that does mean that there are intubation tubes that must remain until the autopsy.'
I concluded the preparation by telling them that: 'There is no right or wrong way of doing this. Please take as long or as small an amount of time as you need. I will not rush you. Everyone has their own way of stepping through what really is something that no one should ever have to experience. I am so sorry this has happened to you. When we step into the next room you will see that it is separated into two areas by a half wall and a curtain. Selena is laying down and most of her body is covered by a sheet. Okay. I'll go first. Come through in your own time.'
As each member of Selena's family stepped into the viewing room I felt for them. Facing the harshness of their new reality, they were in a state of shock. As they spent time with their daughter, the police asked Selena's family to confirm her identity. The required paperwork was completed and the police officers left. Selena's parents remained, unable to make any sense of the sudden and unexpected death of their daughter.
She was too young. It should not have happened: it was against the natural order — parents should never bury their children. Their hopes and dreams for Selena were lost forever.
I went into the waiting room to give them time alone with her. I closed the door and heard a wail as Selena's mother began to express her grief.
After some time Selena's parents indicated to me that it was time for them to leave. I walked them back through the hospital, allowing the reverence of the moment to rest in the air between us. To know when to speak and support and when to be quiet and listen was an important part of my job. Sometimes, simply being quiet, giving a person the chance to speak if they wanted to, could be the best form of help. When we parted I expressed my deepest sympathies, knowing that my words would make no difference at all.
By this time it was about two in the morning. Time passes even when people's lives are changing forever. I left the hospital and walked to my car feeling heavyhearted. I was tired and my skin was tight from the day's sunburn.
Inside my car I was suddenly filled with the familiar intuitive feeling of a spiritual presence. I caught a glimpse in my rear-vision mirror of someone in the back seat. I looked closer, and there she was: Selena. The girl who I had minutes ago left in the mortuary was in spirit in the back seat of my car. My heart thudded and I quickly shut my eyes. Opening them again, I saw she was still there. I sensed her distress and disorientation: she didn't know where she was or what was happening. She needed help to cross over to the other side.
I closed my eyes once more and found that I was too scared to open them again. My breathing was rapid and shallow. Of course, I knew about spirit; I simply hadn't expected something like this to happen at work. I didn't feel ready. And I was at that time still quite frightened of actual encounters with the other side.
Eventually I decided the only way through the experience was to slow down my breathing, take some time and help Selena to cross over. I felt I had no choice. From somewhere in the back of my brain I dragged out the steps Aunty Gwen had taught me to help someone in this way. I took some deep breaths, calming myself, then opened my eyes to see if she was still there. She was.
I closed my eyes once more. Using intuitive imagery, I saw myself sending Selena love and peace. I spoke to her telepathically: 'Selena, go now. Return to the light. Return to your original source.' I saw angelic white light around her, and the spiritual guardians. They are here to help, I thought. Thank goodness. Selena's attention shifted towards the magnificence that was flowing around and through her. In a matter of moments she was gone. Peacefully, she had crossed over to the non-physical world. She had stepped into spirit.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Wisdom for Your Life by Katrina Cavanough. Copyright © 2013 Katrina Cavanough. Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,An unusual perspective,
1 Finding my way to spirit,
2 The intuitive social worker,
3 Spiritual guardians,
4 Life's meaning,
Death,
5 The soul,
6 Dying,
7 Going too soon,
8 Grief,
Life,
9 Precious moments,
10 Freedom from regret,
11 Thoughts matter,
12 Your greatest power,
Epilogue,