Getting the call from Hay House

I feel like I’ve been searching my entire life and I know a lot of you can relate. I’d always had that niggling feeling that there was something I was supposed to be doing, something that I was here to do. This unshakable feeling found me spending my school holidays in the crystal shops and self-help sections trying to get closer to a subtle feeling that was pulling me.

From the moment I picked up my first spiritual book, You Can Heal Your Life, I felt like I had come home. I started shouting about spirituality from the rooftops, but at the time (I was only 14) everyone in my life just gave me strange looks. So I went underground with my spirituality. I was devoted to it but I kept my two worlds separate – only confessing my true beliefs to people I felt safe with, which conveniently was not many.

By the time 2011 came along my metaphysical book collection was almost as big as the Akashic Records. I’d done every course under the sun, worked with some of the best spiritual teachers and was qualified in several intuitive and healing modalities. But still I kept my worlds separate.

Deep down I knew what my dream was but I was waiting for some external force to choose me, to pick me, to grant me permission to be that. And because I’d so carefully built my life around hiding it I felt completely trapped and desperate to be seen.

Then the best thing in the entire world happened. The life I had tried so carefully to hold together came crumbling down. One of my dearest, dearest friends passed away suddenly, followed by another a couple of months later, and my relationship that had lasted my whole adult life (11 years) ended after six years of trying to hold it together. On the other side of the world from my family and friends, I felt desperately alone and at times could not see any way out of it. I moved into a new house (which was also crumbling around me) and I began putting the pieces of my life back together. It was the most horrible 18 months of my life. But I am so blessed to have had it. I am so grateful to have had it. I was forced to start again and build my life in alignment with who I truly was.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting on my couch in my London flat feeling so content writing a chapter of my book. The chapter I was writing was about how while my biggest dream would be to be published I was not going to wait for some external force to share my message. I had already waited too long. I wrote about how I had realized that it was none of my business what happens with my message, only that I do my bit and share it. As I loudly punched these words into my laptop my phone rang. I almost didn’t answer it because I was so committed to getting this message down. When I picked up the phone I was absolutely speechless (aside from a few swear words) to discover it was the publisher I had sent my manuscript to on the other end of the phone, offering me a book deal.

I am so grateful for the amazing support that The Universe has for me (and has for us all).

I’ve learned that if you have a message that you long to share, you don’t need to wait for permission to have it acknowledged, approved or to get it out there. When you devote your life to your message, the Universe can’t help but support you. If you have a message to share, a song to sing, a movie to write, or a book in you, trust it and birth it into the world now.

This blog is about the process that led me to write my first book, Light is the New Black.