Life looks very different today than it did in 2010. Ten years ago, I was entering my fifth year of living in Shanghai, I owned a textile business, I had started a new relationship with a man, and I had begun the inner journey of working on myself.

2010 was a good the year because it’s the year I was introduced to Oneness University and to the healing powers of deeksha energy. It was also the year I discovered the practice of meditation.

Although I started my business in 2008, by 2010, it was already in financial difficulties. I was stressed and worried but kept the business afloat by doing my best to manage the poor sales performance, by injecting my own funds into the business.

Joining a deeksha energy and weekly meditation circle, is what enabled me cope with the daily challenges of running my failing business.

The combination of both these profound spiritual tools helped me back then and still continues to help not just me, but also the people who come to me today, for healing and guidance.

On paper, I had everything I could want, but the reality wasn’t quite so rosy.

The relationship I was in was clearly not going anywhere—in fact he told me plainly that he didn’t want a commitment, so I knew we were on borrowed time. It took just four months for the remaining embers to burn out.

With another failed relationship behind me, I knew I would need to delve deeper into the root causes of my relationship breakdowns, if I was ever going to find the loving, committed relationship I craved.

I had read and had come to believe that my outer world mirrored my inner world, so if I spent the time healing my inner world, my outer world would have to follow suit and change too.

This knowledge drove me to stop dating altogether, giving me the time to focus on learning more about myself. I hoped that in doing this, I would find answers to why I wasn’t attracting the type of relationship I wanted.

Taking the conscious decision to be single, took the focus away from desperately searching in the dark for that so-called right person and freed up the energy I needed to focus on myself.

When I began looking into my relationship history and started analysing the cause of their breakdown, at first, I couldn’t see any failings on my part. All I could see were plausible reasons why the relationships failed each time and the reasons I saw, had nothing to do with me.

However, in delving deeper, I began to discover some of the unconscious childhood decisions I had made about myself. I saw how much I hated myself, I discovered my negative views about relationships, and I saw very clearly how directly the limiting beliefs I held about myself and about relationships, impacted how I behaved in relationships.

Although seeing the truth was a bit of a shock (I didn’t like seeing that I was in fact responsible for unconsciously destroying my relationships), it opened my eyes and gave me greater insight into the workings of my inner world.

I knew that in order to expose the deepest levels of my mind, I would need to invest more time and energy to discover my self-sabotaging patterns. This led me once again to Oneness University in India, to participate in their intensive deepening courses. Each course I did, provided me with new levels of understanding, allowing me to penetrate deeper into my own psyche.

As I began the job of healing my inner pain, small positive changes started occurring in my outer-world. However, although no outward change occurred in my relationship status, this didn’t bother me, because I was now, totally focused on healing myself, not on finding a partner.

I began to believe what I had heard and read that; when I was ready, I wouldn’t need to search for a relationship, the right relationship would happen naturally, because I would attract it.

By the end of 2012 my business was in serious financial trouble. Again.

This time, I decided to take a healing trip to Peru, in the hope that I would gain clarity about what the next step regarding my business should be.

I returned after my month-long trip feeling spiritually invigorated, but with no concrete answers regarding my business. But within three days of my return, it struck me that the only possible course of action would be to close the business, because I realised I didn’t get any joy from going to work. Additionally, the business was a money sucking black hole that gave very little in return.

In closing it, I felt no sadness, only crystal-clear clarity.

It took no more than three months to dissolve the business and sell its assets.

With nothing to keep me in Shanghai, I began contemplating my next move.

A year later in 2014, I left Shanghai and moved to Ghana with the intention of starting a meditation centre there. But after three months, I returned to the UK to study a master’s course in Childhood studies, inspired by a belief that I could help orphaned Children in Ghana.

The course opened the previously closed doors to my own childhood, enabling me to dive even deeper into the issues I still needed to resolve. The course also rekindled my love of writing—a love I’d discovered back in 2010.

My study year was a time of intense self-reflection and of dipping in and out of depression, but it was also a time of great healing—it had become impossible to hide the pain of my inner truth, so I stopped trying. It was time to face up to the ugly truths I had pushed away for so many years.

After my master’s ended, I decided to build my energy before returning to Ghana, so I embarked on what would be a yearlong self-healing project.

In the first week of my planned four-month long volunteering trip to Oneness in 2015, the all-important change in relationships finally happened and I met my life partner. For the first time in my life, I felt ready for a true commitment. Although I couldn’t have predicted that my life partner would be a woman.

My return to Ghana was shelved, and I instead made a move to Sweden where my partner is from.

Although the last three years have been a period of adjustment, of learning a new language, integrating into a new society and learning to live as one part of a couple, with all the challenges that brings, I’m pleased to say that I am happy. Happier than I’ve ever been…We celebrated our first year of marriage this year.

The happiness I feel radiates from inside and is a result of the commitment and effort I put into healing my wounds.

From this perspective the last decade has been one of the most emotionally and physically challenging I’ve had to face as an adult, but it’s also been the most transformational decade I’ve lived through to date.

So, as we move into 2020, I’m excited, because I feel poised on the precipice for more transformation and positive change.

I can’t wait to see what new opportunities this coming decade will bring.