A testimonial from Rachel Irvine-Fortescue – Thank you Secret Garden

Thank You Secret Garden

For years I have been working on and off with different teachers and therapists and healers, attending a variety of different workshops, but it is only recently that I have found something that makes total sense, and also really ‘works’.

For me, Secret Garden workshops, retreats, trainings and one to one sessions with Joy have brought about real and lasting change: light dawns, understanding and acceptance develop, fighting ceases, wounds heal, hearts open, falling apart becomes a relief, losing everything brings joy and peace, letting go of hope is a good thing because it means liv威而鋼
ing in this real and present moment rather than over there in something that is just a dream.

I always come away from Secret Garden workshops so full of gratitude.  Actually, it’s more a sense of bursting, not just with gratitude but with awe.  To have Joy and Secret Garden in my life is the greatest possible gift – and I would wish for everyone to discover and let in what Secret Garden offers.

In all my years of searching, no-one ever showed me so clearly and simply how to embrace what is – whatever it is.  And I have stopped searching – by this, I mean that I finally “get” it.  I have stopped searching for something else, for the “right” teacher, for answers, for enlightenment!  I have stopped trying to escape from my life as it is right now.  I have stopped thinking there must be something else, or wishing it was different.

And even when I do wish things were different, I can simply let be and embrace my wish that things be different!  And everything becomes ok.

I am also learning to trust, and come out from my hiding place.  And this has only, finally, been possible because all of who I am has been made to feel welcome, accepted and loved. Secret Garden holds me, and I have learnt to trust that Life is holding me – actually, I can FEEL Life holding me these days.  I feel safe.

It used to feel like my default setting was misery.  But I have connected to the hum of happiness deep inside me even when things are challenging and painful.

I used to feel so irritated when anyone told me to “just love yourself”.  They made it sound so easy, but I had no idea what it meant, and no-one offered to explain.  I wasn’t interested in theories. Secret Garden has shown me how – and in such a tender and sensitive and compassionate and patient and real way.  Loving myself has crept up on me almost without trying.

For me, my life is becoming how it should be (“should” is the wrong word, but you know what I mean) – exciting in a very quiet way, miraculous and very, very ordinary.

Rachel Irvine-Fortescue 1.8.2012 Full Moon in Aquarius