Breaking Through The Illusion
My first memory in this life is of sitting on a bean bag at about age two, watching my parents and their friends singing to a strumming guitar, and having the strongest “knowing” that I was here to do something very important and make a big difference. That knowing has never left me, although for the following 35 years, I searched for what the “something important” was, often feeling frustrated, struggling with my self-esteem and sense of self, feeling like I was missing something inside, always feeling an unexplained urgency to get somewhere quickly but not knowing where the somewhere I was going was; setting objectives, achieving them and then realising I still wasn’t THERE and something was still missing.
Then one morning at the age of 37, almost two years after my awakening, I commenced teaching my very first ‘Frequency Healing Modality’ training workshop. That morning I realised I was THERE! I was doing the “something important” I was here to do, the emptiness inside me was gone as I had achieved a permanent connection to Source and my search was over as I was aware of my true self and I was where I was destined to be. The sheer joy, relief, and inspiration that came from that moment of realisation, I will never forget! I am now committed to helping others awaken to their destiny and purpose and to empowering them to step right into it, to begin living the life they are destined to live.
So if you are not aware that you are a spiritual being having a human journey, if you feel that spirituality, alternative healing modalities, and everything to do with the New Age / Metaphysical movement is “completely weird or fantastical’, ‘controversial” and “a hoax that preys upon the weak and impressionable” I urge you to read on and think again! If awakening and all the changes that come with it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone and it IS happening now to more and more people! It is time.
So let's quickly look at my life before my awakening. Nowadays I feel so distant from this life, it is as if it were a dream or that it happened to another person and it has little or no impact on my reality today other than allowing me to understand and have compassion for others. The dream is over and the person in the dream is gone. This is why I changed my name to the name of my soul and am now simply my true self “Kyrona” or “Ky” to my friends.
Before I commence, I want to say up-front, that despite the way it looks on paper, my old life wasn’t that bad, I have a wonderful family who always supported me, and my life was full of love, fun, adventure, goals, motivation, passion, and big achievements, so despite the challenging experiences, I feel that I had a relatively good life! So let me begin.
The first eight years of my life were rather enchanted! My entrance into this world was appropriately dramatic, with my mother having to be evacuated for my birth, from the very small, now-extinct township of Cardstone in Far North Queensland, that we lived in to a nearby city, due to extreme flooding having isolated the community from the rest of the world, including hospital facilities. Cardstone consisted of only twenty-something homes, a community center, a one-classroom school, a post office, and a hydro-electric power facility.
We lived in Cardstone for eight years, this little town was in the middle of a protected amazing old rainforest, on the revered Tully River. Here it rained every day, in fact, it has the highest rainfall in Australia! So my first years were spent at one with Gaia and the elementals (though I don’t recall being aware of them specifically, I do recall the magic and joy of the this part of my life). We children roamed freely within and around the fringes of our little community, running barefoot up and down mountains, climbing great old trees, bush-walking, fishing in creeks, swimming in rock pools, hiding under waterfalls, and riding down the rivers' rapid system on tyre tubes, basking in the sun on huge smooth rocks, making wonderful mud cakes with our bare hands, marvelling at the awesome display of stars at night, at one with all the animals (especially the butterflies and birds) although the enormous snakes could be a little frightening and we needed to beware of those! We were free and had few if any rules and regulations to abide by and no TV’s or computers!
On the weekends we would very regularly escape to the coast, my father shared a fishing boat located at a “shack” on Mission Beach (which at the time was completely isolated – no tourism, very few residents). We would spend our days out on the Great Barrier Reef fishing and exploring, the nights were spent camping in the open on deserted islands (again now famous tourist attractions), cooking and eating the fresh seafood we had collected during the day, and studying the starry night skies. How blessed was I! How perfect for this little Piscean soul!!
At eight, my parents decided to relocate to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. My father was to help rebuild the city from Cyclone Tracy, a two-year contract that extended to a 25-year residency! As well as helping the community rebuild, my parents explained to us that their decision was to a large extent for our benefit, as we needed access to a good education and more opportunities, more than our little township of Cardstone could provide (So the social programming had begun! Of course it was all coming from a place of love and their desires for us were achieved.)
I was no stranger to cyclones, I had survived the devastating Category 4 Cyclone Althea in Townsville on Xmas Eve some years earlier (we were the only house in our end of the street that remained standing that night – it was something else to see houses exploding and experience the full force of nature first hand quite terrifying for my young mind! I have never forgotten that night, my Auntie playing on the piano as we all gathered in the living room, loudly and stoically singing Irish /Scottish ballads, pots all over the floor collecting water leaking from the roof, the house creaking, the noise and explosions, my father and other males dashing outside to rescue neighbors as their houses succumbed to the storm, the fear – boy did we sing and pray!). So arriving in Darwin and seeing the sea of devastation, was not a shock, what shocked me however was the lack of green, and the flatness of the land, there were no trees or butterflies as they had all been blown away (of course that changed over the years!), the extreme heat and humidity and the weird weather that consisted of wet and dry seasons!
Anyway, settling into what I perceived to be the “big city life” of Darwin (Northern Territory, Australia), we quickly discovered that I was a natural leader, a very talented athlete, and high achieving student. I now realise that a significant motivation for my many achievements throughout my life (my over-achieving really) was the fact that deep inside, despite all external appearances and evidence to the contrary, I felt “not good enough”. This drove me to achieve – in order that I prove my worthiness to myself and the world. A fundamentally flawed way to approach life, generated from my disconnection to Source and my true self, which ultimately lead to a personal health crisis in my late twenties.
For the majority of my teenage years competitive sport was central to my life, my sporting commitments meant that I trained on average four hours a day. As a result, I learned many important life skills. I learned to never give up, that to achieve and excel you need to work smart, have commitment, tenacity, know how to push through barriers of pain and exhaustion by going within and drawing on the inner strength we all have, how to concentrate on a goal and work towards achieving it and very importantly – I learned that I could do anything I put my mind to and I learned how to balance the commitments in my life (at that stage study, friendships, and sport).
I was a leader even as a child; being a school captain in primary school, receiving an Australia Day Young Citizen Award for outstanding contribution to the community, playing state-level representative netball and tennis for many years, and in 1985, in my final year of high school, winning a Weekend Australian Essay Competition with an essay the topic of which was “The importance of closer Chinese/Australian relations”. This achievement lead to a wonderful trip to China for 2 weeks as a member of an Australian Youth Delegation meeting with many young Chinese high school/university students and ultimately participating in a Youth Forum on World Peace.
As a student, I was particularly passionate about maths and science. In the 80’s there were very few women studying science and maths in high schools. This was particularly evident in Chemistry and Physics subjects. Going into my matriculation year I sought successfully to be allowed to study Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and pure maths. This had not been done before in my state as teachers believed the workload would be too heavy. I was one of only two girls studying chemistry and physics subjects in my graduation year and I was passionate about them. Now that I look back, it is evident that from an early age, I have been breaking down barriers and walking forward into new territories, good training for what was to come on many levels!
In 1985 I won the NT Science Prize, Research Investigation Senior Category. I was flown to The Australian Science Academy in Canberra for the National Finals, at which I was highly commended. I also received a very high final year grade and successfully enrolled for a Bachelor of Medicine at degree. So I left my home in my country town and went to a bigger city at the other end of Australia, for the first time living away from my parents.
Although I loved the science element of medicine, I quickly became aware that I was not meant to be a traditional doctor. I was very squeamish around blood and most other bodily fluids, body parts, and cadavers, I had great difficulty inflicting pain on people (even giving needles was too much). Thus after completing my first year of study, I informed my understandably mortified parents that I would not return the following year and that I was going to go out into the big wide world and spread my wings! Oh, the blissful ignorance of youth! Of course now considering that I have re-entered the healing arts, using frequency as the healing tool, without any need for physical contact, this too all makes sense.
As an aside, while at University in Tasmania, I was subjected to a system of disempowerment, objectification, fear propagation and sexual abuse, which was a tradition in my Christian Brother residential cottage. The object was for the “old boys” to make us “freshers” all closer and bond as a collective team through these rituals. Again I found myself standing up against the norm! After one particularly terrorising (read criminal) initiation ritual, I was brave enough to make an official complaint, which after much grief (as you can imagine – I wasn’t popular for a while there) lead to the official BANNING of this particular event and all similar ones forever! It was worth it indeed.
Also while there I actually managed to receive my third lot of serious burns to my legs! Yes in the course of the first 18 years of my life, I actually managed to receive second and third-degree burns to the entire bottom half of my body – miraculously I have no scaring to show for any of these injuries! For those of you who understand karma and the purification process, this was also perfect!
Anyway, I have to say that my year in Tasmania and my stay at my college – were actually very special to me, despite the rocky start! How strange is that? I made some wonderful friends, had some exciting adventures in that beautiful unique part of the world, got to live by myself for the first time, and learned a great deal in my studies.
Having made the decision to quit my medical studies, regardless of my good grades, I returned home where I rented my first unit (with a girlfriend – the two of us having absolutely no furniture or cutlery, but plenty of freedom and fun). I worked in a few jobs, until I commenced a career in the field of medical research at the renowned Menzies School of Health Research (Darwin, Australia). I worked at Menzies for four years as a laboratory technician in Immunology.
While at Menzies, in November of 1988, I lost the eyesight in my left eye, as the result of a particularly bad migraine headache that caused an occlusion of the artery to my retina. At the time doctors thought I could be dying of a brain tumor, blood clots, multiple sclerosis, or any number of other nasties. I was evacuated by plane to Adelaide for tests. This was the first time I faced my own mortality, I had two weeks of soul-searching. Fortunately, the tests showed that it was an isolated rare occurrence and that I was going to live, unfortunately, I would never regain sight in my eye. On the bright side – I was a very healthy person and I could still see! (Visit My Personal Miracle – and the blind will see! for an update on this. With the wisdom of retrospect, again, it was all happening perfectly.)
Losing sight in an eye is equivalent to losing a limb. You lose 3D, as well as depth and distance perception. This meant the end of my tennis and netball. And it took me a great deal of re-training to learn to undertake normal daily activities both at home and work. I did adjust to a point where most people could not tell I was vision impaired and the experience certainly gave me cause for laughter often, as I could be a “little” clumsy!! It was this experience and the need to face my own mortality, that lead me to marrying early and having children very young.
I left the Menzies laboratories in 1990 after the birth of my first child, motivated by my desire to work with people and not test tubes. Within three months of my son's birth I was working as a receptionist in a recruitment agency. Within six months at the agency, I was trained and promoted to the role of recruitment agent, where I stayed till the birth of my daughter. I recommenced working for a client of my recruitment agency within two weeks of my daughter’s birth, not by choice but because we couldn’t afford for me not to work. She used to sit in a bouncinette under the table and I would rock her with my foot while working, only stopping to feed her. It was all very stressful on me and my relationship. To make matters worse, my husband was working two jobs and was also struggling with his new responsibilities and alcohol.
My life now took another unanticipated and unwelcome detour. Unfortunately due to my husband's continued illness and a great many painful events that resulted from it, I had to decide to end my marriage after only two and a half years. So at the age of 23, I found myself a sole parent of a six-month-old daughter and 22-month-old son, living in what I perceived to be poverty, with relatively large debts, low self-esteem, low income, afraid of being alone and afraid that I would not be able to give my children the role model and life that they deserved. I felt guilty about everything to do with parenthood, I felt trapped. I had lost my dreams and for a moment I thought I would never achieve all the great things I always believed I would.
In a moment of clarity I decided that I would not be defeated, I was not going to let this ruin our lives! I took stock of my situation; I searched to find a way forward. I realised that on the bright side, I had two beautiful, healthy children whom I loved dearly to inspire and motivate me. I also had intelligence, organisational skills, a personality, and determination, I was a loving person and had much love to give. I read self-help books and as a result, I developed my first three-year plan. The strategy was to work hard, upskill, start working towards a business degree, and in this way to develop my career, thereby increasing my earning capacity. The driving force behind this strategy was both self-actualisation and to provide my children with the opportunities they deserved through financial security. I was determined to get to a place where I did not need to rely on anyone but myself for our security (again a fundamentally flawed concept, but all I knew of at the time).
By implementing this strategy – I started to regain my dreams and live up to my own expectations of myself (and boy did I have high expectations for myself, as all over-achievers do!). By 1995 I had successfully implemented my three-year strategy. I had received five promotions within two organisations (overcoming several of the challenging situations that inevitably occur when you are young, female and moving up the corporate ladder quickly) and I had completed the first year of my business degree (part-time studies), I was also engaged to a loving man.
It seemed cruel to me having successfully worked to get my life back on track, that I would now experience Panic Anxiety Disorder (of course retrospectively it was inevitable). In 1995 Anxiety Disorder was not well known, it certainly wasn’t something people spoke about, it was considered a weakness, very socially unacceptable. For this reason, I struggled on with my attacks in silence for 12 months, my problem went undiagnosed. I didn’t tell anyone about what was happening to me and I somehow managed to keep up the hectic pace of my life including; a high-pressure management job, sole parent to two toddlers, university study, and a new relationship, without anyone around me realising the nightmare that my life had become in my mind. My mind, which had always been my strength, became my worst enemy. I found myself in the lowest place I think a person can get to.
After not addressing my illness for so long the time eventually came when I couldn’t go on pretending anymore, I was so alone, I was absolutely exhausted. One evening after work, I simply dropped my children at my parents' home, drove myself to an Emergency Department, and collapsed onto the floor in surrender. I felt like an empty shell, with nothing left inside of me. I realised sometime later that I had actually been trapped outside of my body for a long time, looking down upon myself and berating everything that I did, telling myself all the things that could go wrong with every situation I was presented with – on top of dealing with the constant 24/7 physical symptoms of anxiety attacks, how exhausting, it is hard to believe I managed for so long without help!
It got worse before it got better. My engagement ended as a result of my mental illness and to complicate matters I could no longer work and had to deal with more financial issues, resulting in moving back to my parents' home, where my children and I shared a room and I slept of the floor. I became agoraphobic and developed depression. Shortly after I had a serious cancer scare (my uterus was very depleted – for you healers, no shocks here is there!). Again I faced my own mortality, I was successfully operated on and I have not had a recurrence and don’t anticipate one in the future.
Most unfortunately for me, the Emergency Department had referred me to a psychologist, who it transpired was lacking in integrity (and has since been jailed). Despite my telling my psychologist I thought it wasn’t good to take medications and all I needed was for him to show me what I could do to fix myself, he quickly convinced me I had no choice but to take medications (I was in no position to argue – I was desperate for help). The end result of this miss-information was that I became heavily addicted to prescription medications, taking massive doses of Xanax, Vallium, and antidepressants. After a year in this medicated, yet still anxious nightmare, I realised I had become addicted, that I was not getting better, but rather worse and I knew there must be an answer as to how I could heal myself – despite my doctors' assurance to the contrary. So I sought help from addictions counselors and started to look inside and heal myself, importantly I started to meditate and I found the newly established PADA (the Panic Anxiety Disorder Association). It took me 1.5 years to completely free myself from prescription medications and was one of the most painful and challenging things I have ever had to do.
When I discovered the PADA organisation, I finally found out what I was suffering from and what I could do to get well, directly from other survivors! The members of the group explained that I should not be ashamed of my illness and that it was very common in high achievers, the people that others turn to in times of crisis. They also reinforced that although I would definitely think they were mad, my illness was a blessing and that “I would be grateful for it one day!”
Two years of counseling with a holistic counselor specialising in anxiety. Personal hard work aimed at healing my emotions, rewiring of my thought processes, learning to control my very strong mind, in addition to mastering meditation, I emerged on the path that lead to my awakening.
So I discovered I was not SUPERWOMAN and never would be – I STILL TRY TO REMEMBER THIS OFTEN. I learned I was not a victim of my illness but rather that I had created it from within. I learned much about whom I was and I became more comfortable with myself, I even learned to love myself. I learned the tools to manage stress and my fear of failure. I discovered the power of the mind and the fact it is my choice whether I let it take me to dizzying heights or desperate lows. I learned the importance of truly looking after myself mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I learned the importance of looking within to heal yourself, as well as, the awesome power of the individual to self-heal! I learned empathy for people who suffer from such illnesses (something you can not know unless you have been there).
Most importantly I discovered a philosophy of living that I truly believe in and will continue to live by for the rest of my days. I discovered the power of the mind, that thoughts create reality, the power of a positive attitude, the importance of asking, “How may I serve” and living your life on purpose, the importance of not judging but accepting people, and of giving unconditional love. Plus I now know that “no matter what happens, I can handle it!”. A special thank you also goes to such books/writers as; The Celestine Prophecy, many books by Wayne Dyer, Susan Jeffress “Feel the fear and do it Anyway”, Shirley McLain “Out on a Limb” and Depak Choprah, for starting my passion for a new type of information and opening the doorway to other opportunities and ways of being!
So my PADA advisors were right after all, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me and though I would never wish it on my worst enemy, I am glad that I had the opportunity to grow as a person.
In 1997, on the tail of my recovery from anxiety disorder, I met and fell deeply in love with a man who I was to have a five-year complicated relationship which ended in 2002. This was a very karmic relationship and in it I lost myself for a second time, getting off the train I had boarded to healing and empowerment and taking another detour.
During this relationship, I became someone I never thought I could ever be, a contradiction in and of myself. Again to the rest of the world, my life went on very successfully, especially my career – where I continued to move up the corporate ladder, inspiring and mentoring many young women marketers. It was all an image covering up a not-so-pretty reality that was my home life. I experienced travel and adventure, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in this relationship.
I was pulled willingly I admit into the thick of the matrix and the materialistic high-life of the corporate world. I had achieved everything that I had set out to achieve many years before – I had earned my degree (after 8 years of part-time study), I had an awesome high-paying job in a field I loved, the recognition of Awards for my work, the respect of my colleagues. My children and I lived in an inner-city penthouse, with all the trappings. My children were happy, healthy, and doing well in private schools. Great right? Wrong!
It was all image, a life lacking substance, again I had got my goalposts wrong! Now I wasn’t addicted to medication, I was addicted to an unhealthy relationship and an unhealthy lifestyle! I had to fight for my self-worth constantly, in fact, I seemed to be always fighting for something! No matter how hard I tried to make my relationship work, no matter how big the betrayal, mental and physical abuse within it, I simply couldn’t seem to disconnect from my relationship. Who was this person I had become? So many challenges, so much heartache and so humiliating – I could never let my friends and colleagues know the real truth!
It has taken me years to disconnect from this relationship, but the gifts have been immense. In so many ways this man was one of my greatest teachers and he was a huge catalyst for my awakening the second time around. It was the nature of this relationship that made me aware of and believe in the concept of reincarnation and karma. This relationship displayed to me through life experience the level of disconnection that most people live in, the destructive nature of the material, ego, power, and fear-based world our society has created (a reality I call the matrix). It was this relationship that ultimately took me to a place of such extreme disconnection that paradoxically it lead to my awakening. Surviving this relationship and not experiencing a return to my anxiety disorder proved to me beyond a doubt, that no matter what I experienced, I could handle it and I was truly well again! Since ending this relationship, processing it has become a catalyst for a great deal of self-discovery and the healing of many past life wounds and key aspects of my Chiron wounding, as well as, my reconnection to significant past life spiritual gifts. What a gift from my soul-mate, for him to agree out of love to come to Earth in order to deliberately cause me such pain, so that I could learn important lessons, heal, and wakeup!
(I have to admit I have been very tempted to skip over this period of illness and relationship addiction in my life, as it is not the most attractive! But that would be the easy road, not the right road! In honouring the purpose of this communication I need to speak of it, because I am aware that I never would have got so ill and found myself in these situations, if I had not been so disconnected from Source, if I had been aware of my spiritual self, aware of a better way of perceiving and experiencing my life and my world.)
In 1998-99 I accepted a position, working for my partners' corporation, which saw me live and work in Malaysia for 11 months (he remained in Australia, visiting quarterly). This was a milestone in my career. I had wanted to gain marketing experience in Asia and this appointment allowed me to do so. Despite the fear of moving away from my support network and living in a Muslim country (as a single career woman, who drank and smoked!), I employed my “face the fear and do it anyway attitude” and moved to Kota Kinabalu with my children. It quickly became obvious that my children couldn’t remain with me – the educational infrastructure was not suitable. My parents came to the rescue and my children moved back to Australia and lived with them full-time for 10 months.
On a personal level this was both a difficult time (separation from my children and partner) and a wonderfully enlightening time. I had the opportunity to be a career woman (minus the parent element), something I guess I had often fantasised about… only to discover that coming home to a family is what makes it all worthwhile for me! A great learning indeed.
On a professional level, the experience was challenging, fulfilling and as anticipated ultimately instrumental in my career moving to the next level.
In 2000 I was awarded the Northern Territory Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award – Private Sector. The entire experience was rewarding both personally and professionally. Upon winning this award, I decided my children and I were ready to move away from our support networks and relocate to the East Coast of Australia, in particular, Brisbane (where my partner lived and ran his business from). I believed it was necessary in order to further my career and to provide my children with greater opportunities while broadening their views of what life can offer them. I quickly secured a transfer within my company and moved.
Little did I know that I was moving to the spiritual hub of Australia, returning to the mountains, rainforests, waterfalls, oceans, and beaches that I am so connected to, and what challenges and changes were to come! In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined that I would be sitting here today writing this communication for www.kyrona.com! Goodness, I would not have even known who Kyrona was!
Again, not wanting to be overly repetitive, I would like to say, that despite the way it looks on paper, my old life to me doesn’t feel that it was all that bad! I have had a family who loved and supported me as best they could (if not always understanding me). My life was full of love, fun, adventure, goals, motivation, passion and big achievements. I was physically fit and healthy most of the time. So despite all the challenges you have just read about, I feel that my old world life was a relatively good life!
Looking back now, I can see nothing but absolute perfection in my life, from the beginning to the present. I always sensed that even if I didn’t know why at the time, things were always perfect and now reviewing my life with the wisdom of my soul, I see just how perfect it all was and is, how divinely orchestrated life really is, how blessed I have always been. All my experiences have been perfect for someone with Chiron in Pisces – a wounding of faith, of knowing the disconnection from God, with a life purpose of reconnecting and becoming the mystic and teacher! They have been integral steps on my path, allowing me to gain knowledge, experience, compassion and strength, to purify and heal, to reconnect to Source, and discover my true self. All were preparing me for my sacred contract and the work that I now undertake as a bridge, helping people move from the old to the new, heal and ascend.
In Love, Kyrona
April 2006