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I was asked the other day,
"Where did this all begin? Where did this fascination in personal growth and change start?"
The truth is I have always been fascinated in belief, spirituality, religion, the mind, consciousness and personal growth and development. However I thought I would share with you a few of the key steps along the way.
When I was in my early 20s I had a spiritual wobble, well, more of a train crash. I was supported by this by a vicar named David. Everything I thought I believed had given way, people had been people and I was young and disillusioned. David supported me, gave me reading material and even offered to arrange for me to go on retreat to a monastery to get my head together. But I did not, instead his support ked me to Druidry, a journey that for ten years was a major part of my life.
During this time I met my first tutor, a wonderful gentleman by the name of Barry who lived in Cornwall. He helped me to see what it was I wanted to do. To help and to guide others.
A few years later on and I had been lining in Croydon, there had been lots happening in regards to camps, workshops and retreats for me to plug into. I moved back up to #Shrophire, the county where I was born. There was a lack of events and things to plug into so I decided to start offering them myself. My partner at the time Wendy and I began running retreats and workshops, discussion groups and they grew and became very popular.
It was at this time I trained to be a person centred counsellor, not because I wanted to do counselling, but the workshops that I was planning and facilitating were transformative and I wanted to make sure I could take care of people if issues arose.
The first stirrings of what has become IMeditate started during this time. I wanted to to start a centre, calling it The Centre for Self. The goal was to end up with a retreat centre somewhere in Wales. But life leads us in different directions, often to give us that which we need, to achieve that which we want.
I stepped back after 10 years from running retreats and focused upon my other love. Performance. As a close up magician, I loved the interaction with the audience, being able to connect with individuals and open them.
My own personal development continues throughout this time. My studies focused on eastern spirituality and mysticism, western spirituality, and I started to use hypnosis in performance.
As I approached 40, I realised that something was not satisfying me about my life. There was something missing. I decided it was time for a change, looked at my skill base and decided I would start to study hypnosis, hypnotherapy and change work. I mentored initially with Jonathan Chase. Whilst spending time with Jon in Devon he helped me realise that as much as I loved performance, it was taking people on that journey of self discovery that I missed. Helping others to realise their potential for personal transformation.
For me it is so important to keep learning, to keep growing. As part of the Western Mystery Tradition we have the Great Work, this is the dedication one makes to spend a life in learning, and personal development to become the very best version of ourselves. Which, in anyone moment we always are, yet each day, each learning brings us to something even more.
I Completed my mentoring with Jon, and set myself up as a hypnotherapist and started to see clients. I love working with clients going on the journey that leads to healing and change. I also remembered how much I love working with groups and started to run workshops. My training continued, I have studied Hypnosis, NLP, Coaching, Spiritual Coaching and I also am trained as a meditation teacher. I have learnt from the likes of the Jacquins, Bob Burns, Richard Bandler, Igor Ledochowski and many others, I have a library, every expanding that I devour so as to be the very best at what I do.
Everything was building nicely and then, Covid hit. My entire real world practice disappeared. After a few days of panic I decided this was not going to beat me. I had been looking at starting online so I developed the website and learnt the necessary skills that I would need.
It was at this point I also had the idea to teach 1,000,000 people to meditate. What is more, I had the notion that if I were to combine all the wisdom, insights, training I had gained through my life and studies, by combining it I could get anyone to be able to meditate, and to use that as a platform for personal change, that did not take 10 years of meditation on a mountain top to experience. So IMeditate was born.
For twelve months I have taught regular, free meditation classes and, as I had hoped, by combining all I have learnt have been able to get people who thought they could not meditate to be regular meditators. What is more, the feedback of how this approach has changed lives has been humbling.
Earlier this year I decided that IMeditate was the expression of what I do that I have been looking for. The challenge now was to keep it accessible for people, yet also to make a living from running it. So the all new IMeditate community was born.
My aim, to be the very best provider of hypnotherapy, meditation and training, to equip people to be able to maintain a good inner sense of wellbeing. To help people get through stress and anxiety, and empower them to overcome the limiting beliefs that get in the way of their fulfilment. All within a community that nurtures and supports your personal growth.
And so the IMeditate online community was launched. The virtual equivalent of the retreat centre I dreamt of all those years ago. Although it is early days the content within the community is growing, articles are appearing in the forum with hints and tips to manage mental wellbeing. The Secret Cinema provides recommended watching, listening and also videos that I put up that share with you the ways to manage your inner world, to help you succeed and grow.
New members are signing up and it all feels like the right way forward, to bring you the support you need. An exciting twist is someone has been watching in the real world and asked if I would bring what I do out into the real world when lockdown finishes, which is also really exciting.
So, I hope this gives you an insight into the development of IMeditate. It has been an awesome journey and one that I look forward to sharing with you.
I will add that it is also probably the best value service of its kind in the world. When I
talked to others about the idea they told me I could charge £100s of pounds for the service. But I want it to be available for everyone so I set the monthly subscription to start at just £10, which over a year works out at less than £2.31 a week.
If you like the sound of the journey so far, and want to be part of the future, why not subscribe to IMeditate yourself. Happiness and fulfilment need not cost the earth.
Visit THE IMEDITATE COMMUNITY
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