#5 Stories Written by Life

When I began my training as a Registered Massage Therapist in Alberta, I had already made a clear decision.

I wanted to become self-employed, build a successful practice, and become one of the most respected massage therapists in the area.

After graduating, I approached the owner of a successful clinic and asked if she would mentor me. For nearly a year, I drove two and a half hours each way—often on challenging winter roads—to learn everything I could about building a thriving business.

Eventually, I opened my own practice.

As much as I loved working hands-on with people and being part of a close-knit community, I had another dream as well: owning my first home.

Although I was married, I often felt responsible for moving our life forward. I was the one making plans, setting goals, and taking the necessary steps to achieve them.

We were still living in a rental property that I had wanted to leave seven years earlier. Yet I stayed because I was the only one who wanted change.

As the years passed, the rental market became increasingly difficult, and rents continued to rise. It became clear to me that if we wanted long-term stability, I would need to buy our first home.

Just outside Banff National Park lies the mountain town of Canmore. Surrounded by breathtaking scenery, it attracts outdoor enthusiasts, artists, and tourists from around the world. Hotels seemed to spring up one after another, and vacation properties became highly sought after.

Breaking into the real estate market was anything but easy.

Then a townhouse came onto the market.

It needed some renovations, but the location was excellent. It was close to downtown Canmore, in a neighborhood I loved.

As a first-time homebuyer, I felt completely inexperienced. Before entering negotiations, I asked Spirit for guidance.

And I received it.

Again and again, I was shown information about the negotiation process, the style of communication I would encounter, the realtor's attitude, and even the final purchase price.

But there was one image that appeared more persistently than all the others.

About twenty centimetres of water covering the hallway floor.

The same image kept appearing to me.

This area connected every room in the townhouse. If water collected there, it would affect the entire house.

The image was so persistent that I couldn't ignore it.

And yet I tried.

I wanted that house badly.

So I did what many of us do when our intuition tells us something we don't want to hear.

I pushed it aside.

I told myself that my mediumship abilities weren't developed enough.

I convinced myself that I was imagining things.

And so I continued.

I negotiated the purchase, arranged the financing on my own, and signed the contract.

Everything unfolded exactly as I had been shown—including the final purchase price.

By the end of May 2013, everything was in place.

Possession day was scheduled for September 1st.

But only three weeks later, everything changed.

Canmore was hit by one of the most devastating floods in its history. A combination of rapid snowmelt in the mountains and days of heavy rainfall caused widespread destruction throughout the region.

More than 1,300 people were evacuated.

Homes were damaged. Some were completely destroyed.

Businesses flooded.

Entire neighborhoods were left underwater.

Thankfully, no lives were lost.

The townhouse I had not yet taken possession of had to be completely gutted.

The image I had been shown for weeks had suddenly become reality.

Panic surged through my body.

The seller attempted to prevent me from accessing the property.

The realtor stopped communicating with me.

I contacted a lawyer, hoping there might be a way out.

Instead, I was told that the legal situation largely favoured the seller because the damage had been caused by a natural disaster.

Everything seemed to move both painfully slowly and far too quickly at the same time.

Insurance questions remained unanswered.

Contract issues became complicated.

Construction companies were overwhelmed with work for years to come.

And yet time raced forward.

In both situations—in my marriage and in this crisis—I felt alone.

Not because there weren't people around me.

But because I felt as though I had to carry everything myself.

The responsibility.

The decisions.

The worries.

And the fear of what would happen if I failed financially, or if my body could no longer sustain the physically demanding work of being a massage therapist.

Back then, I rarely spoke about my struggles.

I carried everything quietly within me.

Eventually, I reached my breaking point.

One day, I sent a simple prayer out into the universe:

"I need help.”

The following morning, I went to the bank to deposit the earnings from my practice.

While standing in line, a woman who lived just a few houses down the street struck up a conversation with me.

She had heard that I had been affected by the flood and asked how I was doing.

There was something sincere in her voice.

For the first time, I stopped pretending that everything was fine.

Tears filled my eyes as I explained my situation.

She simply listened.

Then she recommended a lawyer and gave me something I desperately needed in that moment:

Hope.

I called the lawyer.

He explained that he couldn't take my case because he didn't have the specific expertise required.

But he referred me to someone else.

One of those lawyers you're grateful to have on your side rather than against you.

When I contacted his office, I learned that he couldn't take me on as a client either. His schedule was already full.

But because of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the flood, he did something unexpected.

He called me back during his lunch break.

Like everyone else, he explained that the law was not on my side.

Then he took the time to coach me on exactly what to say to the realtor and gave me permission to mention his respected name.

One final phone call to the realtor.

And suddenly, I was out of the contract.

When the confirmation came through, I simply sat there in silence.

An enormous sense of relief washed over me.

At the same time, all the tension of the previous months left my body.

I was so exhausted that I had to reduce my workload to about thirty percent for the following month.

It took the entire autumn to recover.

But the silence that settled within me after that phone call revealed something I had been ignoring for a long time.

The same silence had already taken hold in my marriage.

Loneliness became my constant companion.

In an email, I thanked the lawyer and offered to pay him for his time.

I never received a reply.

But I never forgot what he did for me.

Looking back, I can see that help arrived every time I asked for it.

The first time came directly through Spirit.

The second time arrived through a neighbor standing beside me in a bank.

The biggest lesson had nothing to do with real estate.

Nothing to do with the flood.

And not even with the lawyers.

The real lesson was this:

Spirit had been speaking to me all along.

The real problem was that I wasn't listening to myself.

For years, I had placed my own needs at the bottom of the list.

I hadn't listened when I wanted to leave the rental years earlier.

Looking back, I can see that I wasn't only trying to build a home.

I was also trying to save a relationship that had quietly been resting on my shoulders for years.

I doubted my intuition.

My abilities.

And my own needs.

The flooded hallway wasn't the beginning of the lesson.

It was simply the moment when the lesson became impossible to ignore.

More than a year later, I purchased a beautiful condominium on the fourth floor of another building.

Two months after moving in, I filed for divorce.

One day, I found myself sitting with a feeling I could no longer push away.

I was tired.

Not physically tired.

But tired of fighting.

Tired of hoping things would somehow change.

And in that moment, I admitted something to myself that I had avoided for years.

No matter how hard I tried.

No matter how much I gave.

I would never be able to carry the relationship on my own.

The moment I admitted the truth to myself, I stopped fighting.

Not because I had given up, but because I finally understood that acceptance and surrender aren't the same thing. I accepted that I couldn't change anyone except myself.

For the first time, I truly listened to myself.

During the divorce, something shifted inside me.

For the first time, I stopped focusing on what everyone else wanted and started asking what I needed.

I learned that listening to myself wasn't selfish.

It was necessary.

Looking back, the flood did not destroy my future.

It redirected it.

The house I never moved into taught me one of the most important lessons of my life:

When we ignore ourselves for long enough, life eventually creates circumstances that force us to listen.

And after learning that lesson, I stopped holding myself back.

I began openly integrating my mediumship into my work.

Because I could no longer hide the part of me that had always known who I truly was.

The gift I was born with no longer wanted to remain hidden.

It wanted to take its rightful place in my life.

For years, I had doubted it. For years, I had doubted myself. And this time, I was finally ready to trust both.