Expanding Your Soul to Narrow Your Purpose

Sometimes I know who I am, and what my purpose it, but today is not that day. Today, I wonder what on earth I am doing on this Earth, because I look at what I spend my energies on, and can’t see a focus.

I see clients in my clinic, and help them bring balance to their mind, body, heart and soul. I do this 2-3 days a week.

I make herbal and aromatherapy products, with the aim of supporting clients/customers in their health and wellbeing. I do this 1 day a week.

I live on a farm with my husband and 3 year-old, where we grow our own vegetables, herbs and seasonal fruit, and have our own chickens and ducks. I run a hops business with my husband too, mainly the accounting and administration work. When we have excess produce in season, I make jams, pickles, chutneys and sauces to sell.

Once a month, I run a fermentation workshop, where I teach people how to make their own fermented foods, and incorporate those foods into their daily life and diet. I maintain my own different ferments at home too.

And recently, I have begun making reusable food wraps so I could reduce the use of cling wrap and single-use plastic in my home, and by working with a friend, we are creating a little business to reuse, recycle and reduce fabrics we find at opshops into waxed wraps and reusable produce bags.

Then there is the part of me that wants to study more – herbalism, cosmetic formulation, more healing modalities.

And the underlying guilt which whispers, and sometimes yell, at me to spend more time with my family and friends.

And somewhere in between, I need to look after my own self-care, practising what I teach to my clients in caring for their mind, body, heart and soul.

My limitless Soul wants to see, do, experience, learn (re-learn) so much, my human ego wants it NOW. Human ego, and a lifetime of social, cultural and family messages telling me to focus on ONE thing, and be the Genius in that, be the Huge Amazing Success Story in that ONE thing.

Somewhere in between all that I have to remember that there is a greater picture, of which I may get a glimpse sometimes but more often that not, I am operating on Faith that all that I am doing makes sense, has a purpose; that *I* have a Purpose.

And I do. We all do. But the Journey to See, Hear, Smell, Touch, Taste, and FEEL our Purpose can be a long, meandering, backtracking, lane-jumping, doubling-up journey that misleads you to believe “I’m Here”, but then go “Haha, still more travelling and unpeeling of layers to do!”

It’s a Journey to Expand your Soul, and in that expansion, you get to know your True Self, and DECIDE your Purpose.

 

 

Healing Money Blocks – The Deeper Layers

Over the years, since beginning my work as a healer, I have addressed many of the beliefs surrounding healing work and money – watch this video here for a quick overview. As always, with healing work, there are many layers to unpeel.

Lately, I have been working on healing energetic blockages that have been carried through my lineage, my ancestry, with the main focus on business and money. My money story comes with beliefs like “self-worth” and “being seen”. Looking through my family history, I can see where my great-grandparents, who were landowners in China, fled the Communist regime to arrive in Malaysia, starting again from nothing. Key themes were “sacrifice” and “hard work”, and these are themes that are strong in my Chinese culture too.

That has been my biggest one – the belief that I need to work hard to earn money, and make a living. I was working hard and long hours just to pay bills and feed my family, there wasn’t enough to buy new clothes for me – my “sacrifice” to my family.

This pair of shoes is how bad it got at one stage – these are the pair of shoes I wear daily, on the farm and even to work sometimes.

I live in a First-World country…. What Unconscious messages am I sending out to the Universe?? What belief was I living in terms of self-worth and self-care?

So we have “getting paid money for healing work”, “self-worth”, “being seen”, “hard work” and “sacrifice” as dominant themes in my money story.

Let’s dig deeper. One of the issues I have with money is creditors – people who owe me money in unpaid invoices or they have products on hold but won’t come and pick them up, and this thread links ALL my businesses, including the one I share with my husband. I would feel bad about chasing creditors, or I could see that they are struggling too. So in my world, I have to work hard to have money, and I have people who work hard to chase money too.

I often ask this question when issues like these come up: “Who is the common denominator?”

In this situation, *me*. So I look within, and ask the question, “Why do I struggle with creditors?”

An answer came up recently, and it is so bizarre and weird, but oddly enough, it fits.

My father came from a wealthy family in Johor, a state in Malaysia. His great-grandfather started a business, worked hard, got rich. His son worked in the family business too, and made it even wealthier. And then my grandfather spent it all and mismanaged the business, combined with pressure from “greedy” cousins (so the story goes), so in my mother’s words, “an empire rises and falls in three generations”. Many nuggets of learning here, many beliefs to address!

Anyway, my grandfather passed away when I was 16 years-old, and in clearing his estate, we discovered that my enterprising grandfather, in his later years, was loaning out money with interest. The word “ceti” was used – it’s a Malaysian word for “loan shark”.

I will state it clearly – my grandfather was born into privilege, and in his later years, he used his privilege to make money. I don’t know who he loaned money to, but picture this: my grandfather drove a red sports car, had a “mistress”, and gambled. Did he enable others’ gambling addiction? Perhaps. Did he foster poor money-managing habits? What was his money habits like?

I don’t have those answers. I don’t even know the full picture. My grandfather also gave to charities throughout his life, but the people he loaned money to probably never knew that. That wouldn’t be their thought when he came collecting monies owed.

Shamanic teachings say that thoughts of anger and hatred can turn into curses, and create karmic ties. Is the karma my grandfather created playing out on some level in my own life? I have to say yes, simply because in the past two days, questions of responsible business ownership have been on my mind, in particular offering payment options to customers – do I promote responsible consumerism or consumerism based on fears? Do my products contribute to waste and the landfill, or are they eco-friendly and sustainable? I also see other parallels, including being in position of chasing creditors every month and the relationships that play out in my life.

Why me? Why not either of my brothers or my sister or my cousins?

I don’t know. It has been 5 years since I started looking at healing ancestral blocks, and helping clients heal ancestral ties and karma (see this article I wrote in 2012). If I had a dollar for each time we asked this question, I would be rich 😀

Maybe we simply choose to. And now I choose to heal this karmic patterning so my child(ren) will not carry this pattern in their life.

And I can happily pay for a new pair of shoes for myself without the second-guessing or guilt.

 

Fermented Foods

It’s funny how things play out. I never thought I would be teaching people how to make fermented foods, but that’s how the Universe works sometimes. I had been selling pickles, chutneys, jams and sauces for over a year in my local community, through a popular local community buy, sell group. One day, a program organiser at a local community centre contacted me to organise a workshop for people to learn pickling and jamming and fermentation, and in talking with her, we realised that what would be popular would be fermentation.

I was very surprised, and up for the challenge, as thus far I had only made sauerkraut and yoghurt and apple cider vinegar for our own use. As I planned the workshop, I realised I knew more about fermented foods than I had thought. My journey in healing my body after intensive and extended antibiotic use after contracting Golden Staph in hospital, has now lead me to teaching others how to support their own bodies’ gut health! And I was already excited by recent research that showed the link between gut health and mental health, and in the planning stages, even more information came up. One of the links was my father-in-law telling me he had happened to see an episode on “Trust Me, I am a Doctor” talking about gut health and fermented foods!

I have learnt to listen to signs from the Universe by then, so I went with it.

And that’s how my popular Introduction to Fermented Foods Workshops came about. We were booked out in the first two workshops, and I have now extended to teaching the workshops in other locations – Aminya Adelaide Natural Therapies Academy and the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) of South Australia - and am planning more workshops for different fermented foods. That is the beauty of fermented foods – there are so many different types coming from different cultures, and it is about cultivating a relationship with different ferments so we find which work best for our bodies and our lifestyles.

I am adamant that this information should be as accessible as possible. Yes, there are many resources online that we can access to learn and teach ourselves, but some people learn better with in-person classes and a hands-on approach. And I am pleased that in working with the community centre and now the other locations where I am teaching the workshops, we have the same aim that education and health is for everyone, not just the privileged or the wealthy who can afford healthy foods. For that end, we keep the costs as low as possible while still respecting my time and efforts (self-worth in action!) as well as the organisers’ time and effort organising and promoting the workshops.

Funnily enough, my aim is one day, I don’t need to run these workshops anymore, as most people know how to make different fermented foods at home for their own health and wellbeing, and share the probiotic cultures around!