‘You seem stronger, happier, more your self than ever before,’ my sister said recently.  It is the strangest paradox. I get whiplash trying to understand how this is possible. How do great loss and happiness go together. It is not even 18 months since I lost the person I loved most in the world; my soul mate Laura. And it is exactly 2 years ago that we discovered Laura had a deadly mucosal melanoma.  How is it possible that such great loss and this new strength and happiness can co-exist?

With Laura, I was ridiculously happy;  happier than ever before.  Our relationship was an oasis that protected us from the storms around us and from the pain that existed elsewhere in our lives.  So when Laura died she took my happiness with her. At least she did at first.  But out of this great loss I’ve learned a new way to live, a new way to be in the world.

Great tragedy if it doesn’t destroy us, brings in its wake extraordinary gifts. Being with Laura as she passed, and experiencing her spiritual presence afterwards, I’ve come to understand how much larger and more beautiful the world is than I ever imagined. And I’ve also learned (mostly through the experience of doing two regressions – a life between lives and past lives regression – and also by following the teachings of Abraham Hicks) that our purpose here is joy. Sounds easy – right? But it has taken me a year of patient practice (and I am still learning) how to cultivate joy from the simplest most mundane things; mostly how to spin happiness out of just being. Like a survivor in the wilderness, I can kindle a spark out of nothing more than a couple of sticks and a piece of fluff and create a flame to light the way forward.  At first after Laura died I thought I would leave New York and lose (or find) myself in travel abroad.  But instead the journey has been to go within,  discover my own strength and learn how to cultivate joy inside (rather than finding someone or some thing to bring it to me).  It is a journey that is still unfolding. Every day a new piece of the path lights up, but i am walking forward hopefully, happily and with a host of spirit guides (including my own higher self) and wonderful new and old friends by my side.