Читать книгу An Angel Walked Beside Me: Amazing stories of children who touch the other side - Joan Charles - Страница 8

Sadly, not all pregnancies have happy outcomes. There have been occasions when I’ve predicted, or seen, the loss of babies who never reached the Earthly plane, and this presents problems for me when doing a reading. Should I refer to it or not? Is the person for whom I am reading ready to deal with it in a healthy way?

It is my personal view that, as souls, we’ve already made certain decisions about the life we will come here to live. We might choose to be on this plane for ninety years, just a few years, or we might even pass through without being born. What is important is that we complete whatever lesson it is necessary for us to learn, or teach. The ultimate goal is to expand the growth of the soul. Each time we come here with a different set of goals to add to the ones we have previously learned – or in some cases not learned, because there are people who continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Mothers are a very special part of the wonderful journeys all souls make; in fact, those journeys would not be possible without them. I also believe that mothers make choices at some point about their own journeys, without being aware of it.

I realise that some readers will find this concept very hard to accept. They will never be able to imagine in some way having ‘agreed’ to the emotional pain and trauma of losing a child, for example. I speak from a higher spiritual perspective where there are concepts that are not always clear to those on this plane. When I went through my own darkness, before I understood these concepts, I would have considered such views to be nonsense but now I feel that there is a reason for everything. For all the pieces of the jigsaw to fall into place, everything in life must happen in a specific way.

It is necessary for us to complete each part of the journey by doing whatever we need to learn or teach. Any spirit can do one or the other, or a combination of both. I believe that women are hosts, in the nicest possible way, when they carry and give birth. You host a child into this world and prepare for the next stage when a soul will arrive and have an experience. Although we are responsible for our children until adulthood, it is up to them how they behave. As a mother, I find it hard to leave mine alone. I’m like a sheepdog herding them through life. But we all need to recognise that our children are here for their own journeys and we shouldn’t really interrupt that. If they do something wrong, it is part of their learning and parents need to stand back as much as they can.

This is a difficult area to understand. If your child has made some bad choices, what should you do? For example, if they are taking drugs your instinct as a parent will, of course, be to intervene. However, I think there comes a point, especially if the child is close to adulthood, when you have little option. No matter what you do, they’ll make their own choices. It is tough, but once you have looked after and protected them as a child you need to accept there is a cut-off point. You might not like that, you might not want it, but everyone makes their own choices and everyone has to go through their own learning process.

I’d like to emphasise that this is only my view, and I’m only one person. I don’t have the answer to everything, nor have I walked a mile in someone else’s shoes – but, if you are open to the idea of every soul being on a journey of experience, it may be useful to consider whether intervention by others is always the best approach.

Sarah’s baby

My understanding of how the ‘bigger picture’ works is best shown through some amazing experiences I have had. On one occasion I was in a house in Liverpool doing readings for five women. After the first two, a young woman of about twenty-five, called Sarah, came in. Everything was straightforward to begin with. I told her about the work she would do and what she wanted from her life, and it was all perfectly accurate. Suddenly, from spirit, a child’s energy appeared. I had to stop for a moment to gain a sense of what was happening and I realised that Sarah had lost a baby. I raised this with her and she revealed to me that she had indeed miscarried very recently. No one else knew about it. In fact, no one else had even known that Sarah was pregnant.

I could tell that she was scared about something, even though the pregnancy was over, and she confided that she was due to go into hospital the next day for a procedure to make sure that every part of the foetus and placenta was removed. This poor girl had such a mix of emotions surrounding her. She was grieving for her lost child, holding everything in as she hadn’t even gone public about the pregnancy before it ended, and terrified of the operation. However, she also had a sense of anger and guilt about her. I soon saw that she blamed herself for what had happened. Now, this is an area I feel very strongly about. While there are, of course, actions women can take that can damage their unborn children, I also believe that there are some souls who were never meant to be born. I’m not talking about babies who are lost through their mothers’ abuse of drink or drugs, or those who die because of some terrible accident, but of those who are simply not for this world.

Many will find this hard to understand, or may not want to understand, but it links into what I said earlier about us all choosing who our parents will be, even when that choice will bring difficult life experiences. It is all part of the journey we must take to make us stronger and better. Some souls agree to a contract whereby they will never be part of the Earthly plane, but their presence in the womb, even if it is only for a short while, will develop them or the woman who carries them for those few weeks or months. I know this explanation may be upsetting for anyone who has experienced unimaginable loss or tragedy, but it is simply my own belief, one that has evolved throughout my years on this plane as a psychic and also throughout my previous lives. We all have a journey to take, and we can’t expect to see the bigger picture while we are so intimately involved in one single part of that journey.

I knew, without doubt, that Sarah had not caused this miscarriage but I could also understand the pain and anger she felt at herself. It is the woman who carries the child, and when that child is lost before it has reached full term, blaming herself is the natural thing for a mother to do. Sarah was full of remorse. I tried to explain to her my belief that an energy or spirit only comes here for as long as it needs to – in some cases only for minutes, in some for a week, in some for ninety years. Sarah’s baby had been here for as long as it needed. The more she carried the guilt with her, the longer the negative impact would remain. She wanted a baby, but if she kept thinking that way she would be weighed down by heavy, negative, sorrowful energy. That doesn’t create a happy, inviting environment for another baby. I wasn’t underestimating Sarah’s grief – and would never underestimate any woman’s grief, as I’ve been there myself – but you can’t change what’s happened. You can only change how you look at things and your attitude towards the past to allow you to move on in the best possible way.

Some women miscarry very early on in a pregnancy, but they still need to know that wee soul is all right. When I give them that confirmation, I can almost see their worry lift. I meet many women who have never told anyone about their lost babies, but I can see them all. Once I tell them that, they know that the life they once held inside them, for a brief moment, mattered. It is still their child, their little one, and they still have maternal feelings towards it, so once they know that the soul is happy and forgiving it can change their whole energy. I have done readings for women in their seventies and eighties who have lost babies fifty or more years earlier, but they still think of them, and they still take comfort when I give them that recognition.

The responsibility that comes with this gift I have been blessed with is something I never take for granted or treat in a blasé manner. I often have to be a counsellor as much as a psychic. I explained to Sarah why some pregnancies end early and told her my sense that she would definitely have another child in the very near future – which she did. I told her that the baby she had lost would be with her in spirit as she went through her next pregnancy and would give her tremendous support.

Losing babies

Realising that a baby isn’t meant to be is a terribly sad thing and I feel for any woman who goes through it. Soon after I’d had my four children, I discovered that I was pregnant again. My immediate thought was, ‘I can’t cope.’ I already had four children under five years of age and simply didn’t know how I would manage. The thought that I might be carrying twins again made the fear even greater. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I didn’t want to be pregnant and I even considered ending the pregnancy, which was against every nurturing bone in my body. When I miscarried, I was distraught because I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I would have loved that baby just as much as I did the others. I would have coped somehow, no matter how bleak the picture seemed. The day I started bleeding, I knew it was over, and I blamed myself completely. I was convinced that my negative way of thinking had brought on the miscarriage.

Sometimes, when I do a reading for a woman, I can tell she’s had a termination. There’s no way of confusing it with a miscarriage. First of all, I have the sense of a sudden ending; and secondly, in all honesty, that’s often why the woman has come to me in the first place. With a miscarriage there is more of a gentle progression to spirit. I’ve often heard women say that they have carried guilt about terminations for years, but I don’t believe any of us has a right to judge. Whatever a woman goes through is part of her journey on this plane.

Recently, I read for a woman who I knew had a child in spirit. ‘I can see a small white coffin,’ I told her, and it was obvious that this was a child who had been stillborn rather than miscarried or terminated. Her eyes filled up straight away. The rawness of the emotions where babies are concerned is never far from the surface, and I held her hand as I said that I could also see a little white teddy bear at the side and several other little trinkets in the coffin. She was filled with joy at the thought that her baby, wherever she was, still had the trinkets that she had lovingly placed in the coffin for her. A teddy bear, a rose and a photograph were all very clear to me. It is comforting for people to know that type of thing – and it’s uplifting too. The spirit of the baby wants the mum to know that it has these mementoes and that it appreciates the fact that she put them there.

I advise every woman who loses a baby to be gentle with herself, and to create a positive emotional environment for any other babies who may be waiting. It could be easier said than done, but it’s what those in spirit would want. You have to grieve but you have to think to the future as well by making the best energy you possibly can. I advise women to imagine a golden light in their womb, which makes it an energetic place ready for the new soul to come into.

Reading for Olivia

I knew a woman called Olivia whose baby had died only months after it was born with severe cerebral palsy. Olivia kept asking me for a reading but I didn’t think that she was in the correct frame of mind to have one, so I put her off. When people are still in deep mourning they can misinterpret readings and take negative implications from them that aren’t there, so I will try to make them wait till their outlook is more positive. One day, Olivia rang and asked for a reading again, and this time the energy around her felt different, so I agreed. I began the session with information about her work. She was being manipulated by a woman who was fearful for her own position, and this was making for a very toxic working environment. I told Olivia that she should detach herself from this negative relationship. The matter would be resolved whether or not she did anything, but it would be for the best if she distanced herself from it.

I was trying to keep the reading away from Olivia’s baby as I was still unsure whether she was in the right place to discuss it. I also felt very strongly that what she was going through at work was draining her so much that I hoped I could steer her in a direction that would help. However, I began to get a sense of her baby coming through. If it were not for the fact that I trust spirit implicitly, I would not have carried on with the reading. I had to listen to and recognise what I was being sent. It was quite clear that the child – a little girl – had moved on in spirit and was being well cared for by her grandmother, Olivia’s mother, who had passed with cancer in her early fifties. The child told me that Olivia needed to know many things: not just that her mother was caring for her, but that she had always known her time on the Earth plane was to be limited. She wanted Olivia to know that she was grateful to her for allowing this to happen, as it was necessary for her spiritual progression.

I relayed this information with great care, as the most important thing to me is the emotional well-being of the person I am reading for. This is top of my agenda at all times and I was concerned that Olivia might be angry that I was passing on a message which could have been seen as insensitive.

‘I want you to know that I am giving you these words from your child,’ I told her. ‘She sends them with love and she is indebted to you for allowing yourself to be part of her journey. She knows it was hard and she knows that it still hurts, but, without you, she would not have known such love and she would not be able to move on.’

To my surprise, and absolute relief, Olivia understood immediately. This showed what a remarkable woman she was and totally backed up what her daughter had said about her. Olivia smiled and said that it made much more sense now. She said that she had been reading lots of books about how and why spirits come to the Earth plane, and she realised that sometimes it wasn’t for long. Olivia said that if I had told her these things when she had asked for a reading before, she would not have been equipped to deal with it, but now, although she was still grieving, she appreciated what had happened. The fact that her daughter was with her meant a lot and the fact that they had both learned from each other would stay with her forever.

This was such a touching story that it has stayed with me as well. Olivia was a gracious and brave lady, and I feel that her child was spot on when she said it took a remarkable individual to allow the next stage of her journey to occur.

Moving on

Women who miscarry often conceive again quite quickly, and that can be a blessing. Sometimes it is a gift from the little one who has passed. If a new pregnancy doesn’t happen as quickly as you may wish, you should look on it as your healing time. However, if you can’t move on emotionally you may be preventing your child from moving on too. Whether it is in practical terms, such as keeping a nursery exactly the same when there is no baby to put in it, or if you keep bursting into tears the whole time, be aware that your child is watching you. They are with you in spirit, and they can’t feel free to do what they need to do while you are still laden down with grief and negativity.

When a baby – or a child – passes, the most loving thing a mother can do is grieve, accept that it has moved to spirit, let go and put it in a place where the experience can be healthy. Of course it is an awful thing to go through, but living in a shrine to a lost loved one, or spending every minute of every waking hour thinking of them, helps no one – including the soul who has passed over.

Here are some ideas of ways in which you can move through your grief by making a connection with your child in spirit.

 Writing a letter to spirit is a lovely thing to do – you can keep it, burn it, let it drift away, it doesn’t matter. It’s the intention that counts.

 Take some quiet time to think of all you loved about your child and the happiness you feel when you think of them– focus on the positive. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t hurt, but it will help you so much to take a moment to think only of the good things. If the pain is very new or very raw, you may only be able to do this for two minutes, one minute, even thirty seconds at a time. That’s fine. Do what you can, and you can build on it. If you lost a baby through miscarriage, think of the joy you felt when you got your first positive test – your baby will feel that joy. If you went through the agony of stillbirth, think of those times when your baby kicked inside you – your baby will feel that joy too. Your pain is real, but you did have happy moments; don’t lose them, because they were real too.

 Send out love and thanks to your child, and tell them that you give them the freedom to move on in spirit. This will help you, because by them moving on they will be able to make their presence felt to you much more often and much more explicitly.

 Recognise that they are with you and look out for signs of this – a feather where one shouldn’t really be, things moved when you know you put them somewhere quite specific, a breeze on a still day, a rainbow when there has been no rain. Those in spirit love to communicate with us and get terribly frustrated when we don’t see what they are doing – help them!

We’re all here to live, we’re all here to experience, and if we don’t do that we can’t move on. I knew of one woman who had two children with her and two in spirit. Whenever she met anyone new she would say that she was a mother of four – which she was. However, this prompted the other person to ask questions and she would then have to explain that two had passed. Every new relationship she formed began with her bringing up her grief and becoming upset. Now I fully accept that she is a mother of four, but there is something to be said for not allowing that way of thinking to define you. It becomes a habit, like carrying a sack of coal on your shoulders that gets heavier and heavier with each day. It becomes a learned behaviour – but learned behaviours can be broken.

When a woman comes to me who has a child in spirit, I will always count that child amongst the ones she ‘has’, because that is appropriate in the context of a reading. If I say, ‘You’ve got three children,’ and she replies, ‘No, I had three, but one died. I have two now,’ I will refute that as I can see three when I look at her; she has three in her universal family. It’s about recognising the right things at the right times in a way that allows you to make the most of your time on this plane and to progress in your life’s journey. A mother who is constantly upset about a baby she has lost doesn’t love that child any more than a mother who can see the beauty and happiness in life. Love can’t be measured that way.

I once met a woman called Harriet, who came to me for a general reading. She was a lovely lady, but it quickly became clear that she had a child’s energy around her, which was affecting every part of her life. I could see that the baby had been a stillbirth. I did what I always did and provided Harriet with information that I couldn’t possibly have known unless it was being passed to me, and then I had to move on to the very difficult subject of her baby. The reason it was so difficult to broach was because Harriet was still badly affected by the loss of her child. The little one had passed almost ten years earlier, but Harriet carried the grief in her mind and her heart every single day. The baby who had passed wanted her mother to move on – not to forget, but to get to a stage in her life when she was allowing happiness and welcoming the future, rather than always being bogged down in the past. I knew that Harriet herself would find this a very hard message to receive – in fact, I wasn’t sure she would welcome it at all.

In the event, when I described her beautiful daughter in spirit and provided her with evidence of what I knew to be true, she was more open to the words her daughter passed through me than I had anticipated. Maybe it was time for the past to be put to rest. Sometimes people come for a reading at exactly the right moment in their lives. Often they will begin our chat by saying, ‘I don’t really know why I’m here,’ or ‘I’ve never done this sort of thing before but I just felt I had to come and see you.’ They don’t seem to realise that the spirits facilitated their visit for a reading. The signs and messages may have been there for some time, but a moment arrives when all is aligned and suddenly even someone who has previously been terribly closed will open up to the wonder which exists all around us.

This was the case with Harriet. She didn’t make rash promises – I’m not sure I would have believed her had she done so – and she didn’t commit to changing overnight, but she left with some of the weight lifted from her shoulders. I reassured her that her daughter was happy, and that she had a right to be happy too. In some ways, it was hard for her to accept that her child was happy as she still felt the loss so keenly, but she took the first steps on her journey to recovery that night.

There will be many women reading this who have lost babies before it was their time for this world, and these words may bring up old memories for them, but I hope they have found comfort over the years. It doesn’t matter what age a woman is; she never forgets the ones she has lost. I imagine many men feel the same way, but most people who come to me for readings are women, so that’s the area I know best. What I would like those parents to do is take a moment to send their love to the babies they have lost. If you have never allowed them to go, to grow in spirit, try to find the strength for that to happen now. As they grow, you will grow too. As you send them love, you will receive love. In no way will this mean that you have forgotten – that will never happen – but you are acknowledging and honouring them. You are giving respect by saying how lovely it was that they were here at all. Of course, you are sorry that they had to pass, but you can still hope that they are growing in spirit and that you will make a commitment to grow too.

There will still be a connection; there always will be. You can still love your child. Speak to them as much as you ever did, if that’s what comforts you, but do it with a lighter heart. Tell them what you intend to do that day, point out the flowers and the sunshine when you go for a walk, and understand that your child wants to see you happy.

If this chapter has triggered anything for you, then please take it in a positive way. Follow the practical advice in Chapter 3. Write a letter to your baby. Light a candle to them. Go to the beach and shout to them as the waves crash. Then move on. You can go back whenever you want – nothing is closed off – but try to see the wonder in this life too. I can assure you that’s what your baby in spirit will want.

Lucy’s brother

Children who pass over often become the spirit guide for someone in their family. I’ve come across this time and time again. On one occasion I was doing a reading for a woman in her mid-forties called Lucy. Like most people who come for readings she wanted to know about work and romance, and everything was coming through pretty easily. Then I stopped because I got a very clear sense that she was more in tune with the spirit world than she was letting on.

‘Do you ever feel the presence of a spirit with you?’ I asked, knowing full well that she did. When she admitted it, I felt free to tell her more. ‘There’s a wee boy in the spirit world who gets your attention more than most, isn’t there?’

Lucy agreed again.

‘To me, it feels like your brother. Is it? Have you lost a brother at some point in your life?’

She told me her big brother had died of leukaemia when she was only a toddler.

‘He’s there to be with you,’ I told her. ‘He is there to assist you in your life and help keep you on the right path. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Kind of,’ Lucy answered, ‘but I don’t really know how I can work out what I’m meant to do. Is he sending me messages?’

I tried to explain. ‘You’re very psychic but you’re scared at the same time. There’s a part of you that wants to take your gift forward but you’re not sure how to do this. I sense that there’s also a part of you that doesn’t know if it’s right. Am I correct?’

Lucy nodded. I notice this in a lot of people; even if they are intuitive they still have some residual wariness about how appropriate their feelings and senses are. In my opinion there is nothing more appropriate, but not everyone has that secure knowledge.

‘Your brother is here to ensure that you follow your path. Be guided by him. He wouldn’t lead you into danger or allow you to be drawn to anything that wasn’t good for you. He may not be on this plane, but he still has your best interests at heart – he’s still your big brother. He will be your guide for the time being and this may or may not change depending on how your development progresses. Be open to what you feel, act on your intuition, and you will blossom – he’ll make sure of that.’

Lucy said that she felt such relief that I had brought all of this up and confirmed what she had always felt – that her brother was there beside her. She said that she had barely known him, but actually that wasn’t strictly true. He had been beside her all of her life in one form or another, and, as we chatted further, she told me many examples of times when he had clearly been communicating with her. A brother’s love, or a sister’s love, does not fade or disappear because they have passed over, and Lucy was a remarkable woman in that she had an awareness of her spiritual connection. I only hoped that she would take what I had given her and use it to move forward in the rest of her life; thankfully, her next words made me feel that this had a real chance of happening.

‘I want to take this as far as I can,’ she told me. ‘I want to make a real start on developing myself.’

I told her that she could go to a spiritualist church and also recommended some books to set her on her way, but emphasised that the most important thing was that she should listen to her brother and follow her intuition. That was the biggest gift that she could give both of them.

Lucy has kept in touch with me since then and her journey has been an inspirational one, as has that of her brother. I know that her mother and father, not the sort of people who would have believed in ‘this sort of thing’, have actually become very open-minded as they have witnessed concrete examples of their daughter’s talent. Lucy has been able to pass on information about the son they lost, and they have realised that she is indeed communicating with her brother. In doing so, she has brought all of the family together again, and given her parents tremendous peace.

The face in the window

Those who have not lost a child can never fully understand the pain and emptiness of those who have. We can sympathise but never empathise. It would be terrible of me to say that there is nothing to grieve as your child is still here, albeit on a different plane, because that would underestimate the horrific emotional cost of a child’s death. However, I would gently suggest that there are ways to channel your grief and perhaps to look at whether signs remain of your son’s or daughter’s continuing involvement in your life.

The idea of reincarnation can be very helpful to people who have lost children. For some it may be an unthinkable notion, a step too far – but why? If you have ever thought to yourself that a child has ‘been here before’ or that they are ‘old beyond their years’ then surely the logical progression is to consider reincarnation?

It is difficult to find healing energy after loss. For a time you will feel despair and you may feel as if you will never be happy again. You won’t want anyone to tell you that you need to move on or that time will heal, but it’s true. In my experience, the child who has passed may also need some help.

One woman, Diane, asked me to come and do a reading as their son kept seeing a face at their window. Diane told me that her little boy, Nathan, was very disturbed by it and that no one else could see what he was seeing. She told me that there was no way anyone was playing a prank, and that the face Nathan could see was that of a baby.

I went along to their house one night. First of all I noted that there was definitely no way anyone could get access to the first-floor windows from outside. I started doing a reading for Diane while Nathan, who was about six, played on the floor with his toy cars. I asked him how he was, what school he went to, and lots of little questions like that. He answered them in a friendly fashion, then asked me why I was there.