We recently sat down with Gillan Brown, Self Care Teacher. I am sure many people are curious as to what led Gillian and many other individuals in her field on to their current path; health and wellness. It’s a lot easier to relate and learn from people when you understand their story and can appreciate their journey. It let’s you know that you’re not alone and that everyone at some point in life will embark on their own path of self-discovery. A journey that will teach them how to live a healthier life and hopefully in turn help others do the same.
You know the saying “don’t preach about it, be about it”, well I think in order for you to see that you’re not just being sold an idea, that this is an actual ideal and reality. It’s important for you to get a in-depth look at what motivates individuals like Gillan and what led them to where they are. You can make the changes needed to have the best life possible. It’s not impossible to go from an unfavourable situation and transition into a new space where self-love is abundant. It’s not impossible to transform, you’re not unfixable and you are more than worth the effort. Gillian shares a bit of her journey with us. I hope it inspires you to start today, even baby steps are more than enough.
TTIWIK: So I was browsing through your profile and I noticed that you talk a lot about your relationships. On this site we are about sharing the things you wish you knew now that you didn’t know back then. From what I have seen, it seems your health journey is influenced by your relationships?
GB: There’s a very strong connection between our relationships, not even just our intimate relationships, friendships, relationship with money, our relationships with source or spirit plays into what is manifesting into our physical reality.
TTIWIK: Is there a particular experience?
GB: Several, with traumatic experiences or stressful experiences that really leave a mark it’s not just one thing. Usually they all kind of layer on top of each other and that’s why it’s during our time of self discovery that’s why it’s so challenging to peel back the layers of the onion because it’s not clear cut. There’s a lot of grey areas, there’s a lot of confusion, a lot of mixed emotions. It does take sometime to decode.
TTIWIK: For most people there’s usually a particular life event that happens…that one day. When they start listening to their body, a particular incident that stopped you and made you realize?
GB: That moment when I was kind of waking up?
TTIWIK: Yeah there’s a lot of reasons why something happens. The catalyst of change.
GB: Yes, maybe it can’t be traced to my health but the one moment that comes to mind. That really sticks out in my memory. My life was very different and that’s kind of a whole other conversation for another day. But I was with my boyfriend at the time, who was a very bad influence. He had some very bad habits and the life that I lived was run by money and material gain. We worked in the club industry so drugs were around us all the time. Actually it was a strip club that his family owned so there was drugs, sex and alcohol and all that stuff.
Anyway I had been very wrapped up in that life for a better part of three years I guess at that point and I decided I was driving home at 4 or 5 in the morning whenever the sun was coming up and he was passed out in the seat next to me from drinking too much and doing too many drugs and I was so resentful. I was just, it was not a good place to be inside my head. I am driving on the 400 and I look over at him and I look at the sun coming up ahead of me and he’s drooling and I remember saying and thinking to myself…that this is not my life.
TTIWIK: Oh So you had that this is not my life moment?
GB: Yeah, this can’t be it. From that moment I acknowledge I wasn’t living my truth and in alignment with what I was supposed to be doing. The universe kind of reached out its hand, picked me up and took me out of a really dark situation. Opened many doors for me to get myself out.
TTIWIK: Did you find that there were little, what I call whispers, before you had that moment, whispers that were saying ‘what are you doing Gillian this is not your life’; that weird gut feeling. Did you have that at the beginning of your relationship?
GB: There were definitely many and that’s the type of synchronicity we hide from because if you listen to it we are going to have to change and our lives will never ever be the same again.
TTIWIK: I wrote and article titled “When Loves Makes You Sick” a few years ago. A lot of times your body will react to this and you will get sick or you’ll breakout for instance. Did you notice weird external things happening with your physical appearance. Your body telling you this relationship is not healthy for you?
GB: Most definitely, in that relationship, given that environment I was very deep into an eating disorder and during that time as well, given what was happening, that I was trying to not see. I also had cyst growing inside my right ovary that was a size of a mango that I had to have surgically removed. I was having all this pain in my reproductive organs. Looking back I am able to see, of course, that’s just a reflection of where I was giving my power away at that time in my life.
TTIWIK: Absolutely, how long did it take for you to make that initial change? It can take years for people to make the change because it is kind of scary.
GB: It did take me years and the reason why it did take me years was because my self-esteem was so low and we if we know our self-worth and if we are sure of who we are. Having that strong connection, that anchor within us, then it’s easy for us to make decisions and get ourselves out of that situation. But you know if you are constantly looking outside yourself for external validation that’s going to be a challenging thing for you to do.
TTIWIK: And you found that you were stilling doing that and you left the relationship I’m assuming, did it take you a couple of years after that relationship? Sometimes with women, particularly, we will date the same guy (that same can be true for men – date the same person). Did you find yourself getting back into the same pattern in other relationships? Because you were still working on yourself obviously, or was it something where you took time away for yourself?
GB: Definitely, well I wasn’t attracting the same kind of person but I was still attracting the emotionally unavailable person. Not necessarily a drug addict club owner, but each person came with their set of challenges. But I realized every relationship is a divine assignment and that people that we attract into our lives are there for a reason. They are there to teach us something because they hold what Caroline Myss calls a fragment of your soul. Through that relationship you’re reflecting to each other what parts of yourselves you need to work on. So I think the overall thing you need to take from relationships is kind of what the overarching lesson was and what you need. The greatest thing you can ever take from a relationship if it doesn’t workout is that you’ve learned what you want and don’t want. What you need and don’t need.
TTIWIK: What are the things you ignored back then that you realize now in terms of your needs and wants in relationships?
GB: To be honest, only in the last year or so have I even come to understand what a healthy relationship is and that’s because of direct experience before that. Before…a year ago I didn’t know what healthy relationship was. I didn’t know what love really was and that is something a lot of people have trouble with. Because you don’t know. You can only read about it.
TTIWIK: It’s hard to say what love is because it’s an ever-flowing feeling, it’s very present. I think that you read about it, but you actually don’t even see displays of it anymore.
GB: You kind of have to experience it first hand to know what you are really missing.
TTIWIK: Yes, absolutely. So do you know what it is that you need now, because you said in the past you didn’t know what you need?
GB: I had no idea who I was, so there’s no way for anyone who doesn’t know who they are to know what they need and what they desire. It’s all just this muddled mess of imprints from your environment. That’s what it is on the inside and of course you feel scattered and jumbled because you don’t have that anchor.
Next we discuss Love, Ego and Self-discovery with Gillian. Until then, take a look at her site for some great recipes and her insights on how to live a balanced and happy life.
Image courtesy of: JW. Law via Gillian Brown
