I wrote the following to help others re the Character section:
CHARACTER , MY STORY
My highest score by far in the pre-course report was for Character at 101, something which did not surprise me. I thought I’d share a brief synopsis on my background having done this section, to help others who maybe struggling with this.
I’m 61, and based in Brighton in the UK. So where do I start?
I lost my mother in June 2006 after a brief illness, she was 87 and meant the world to me. Life had presented me with a lot of challenges prior to this but was now about to become even harder. My wife and I were happily married and lived in a large house in a beautiful village, surrounded by great friends and neighbors, and best of all truly lovely children.
My background is in Accountancy, then HR then the recruitment industry. In February 2007 I was forced out of the job I loved after 11 years as Director of Talent Management for an international company. This was a tough period, and I was completely burned out so went travelling around the world with my wife and children (aged 7 and 5) over that summer.
What I did was very special, so finding a new role proved very difficult, but I managed to do a couple of interim roles before starting my own coaching and training business in 2010.
At this time, I was thrown off course by falling in love with a good friend. We didn’t have an affair as it was the wrong thing to do. However, there was a fallout as a result of this which made me guilt-ridden for years. Guilt is a very low vibrational energy, as I now understand. For a while I ran a social media site for business travellers, but didn’t give it the full attention needed to make it grow. I sought answers to bigger picture questions and developed a keen interest in all things spiritual and qualified as a Colour Practitioner using the Colour Mirrors system.
Lots have happened since then and life has been incredibly tough underpinned by constant financial worries and a stack of other emotional and practical challenges. This put a huge and ongoing strain on my family life.
The marriage guidance counsellor we finally saw in 2017 said in over 20 years of doing his job, said he’d never met anyone who had put up with such long-term stress in every aspect of their life and asked why I wasn’t dead! The marriage was not salvageable, but I never gave up on hoping that magically it would mend. We agreed to publicly stay together for the sake of our children, but privately to lead separate lives from then on.
Moving out wasn’t an option financially and we told our children, now 18 and 20 in the summer of 2019. In line with what we had agreed, I’d met someone in August 2018, which didn’t go down well with my children when we told them and my daughter has barely spoken to me since, which breaks my heart daily.
Our house finally sold in October last year, which was the formal end to what ended up as a very toxic living situation. The pressure of this soured my new relationship which ended last week, I had thought we would be together forever with at long last some stability and happiness to enjoy life fully, but structural issues and mutual baggage meant this was not to be the case. Moving forwards this is further complicated by current living arrangements and forthcoming property purchase. A few days later my divorce came through. Both major and very sad events, unsurprisingly deeply upset me so it was good timing to be doing the Lifebook Online course and focussing on Character at that point. My career and overall vision still lack clarity which I hope to get in the coming weeks having tried for many years to resolve this. Seeking a new direction, I stood for Parliament for the first time at the last General Election in 2019, but have found the political environment to be very toxic globally. Traditional work has fallen away, so I’m currently working on ways of incorporating spiritual concepts including Colour and Human Design and Spiritual Intelligence into my coaching work. I take responsibility for errors I’ve made and see no point in blaming others for what’s been such a tough 14 years.
My point in writing this is to encourage you never to give up, love yourself and believe in yourself and you will attract more positive things into your life. I’ve been back in my home town of Brighton since October, have a roof over my head and despite continuous uncertainty about the future am looking forward to a fresh start, meeting new people and living life to its fullest potential.
Gratitude is so important and given the horrors that others encounter, I am so very grateful to be where I am at the moment and know that my strength of character will continue to see me through future challenges leading to a life of joy, laughter and purpose.
To quote my favourite artist, Leonard Cohen: “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” (Anthem). Stay safe, stay strong, love yourself and those around you.
CHARACTER , MY STORY
My highest score by far in the pre-course report was for Character at 101, something which did not surprise me. I thought I’d share a brief synopsis on my background having done this section, to help others who maybe struggling with this.
I’m 61, and based in Brighton in the UK. So where do I start?
I lost my mother in June 2006 after a brief illness, she was 87 and meant the world to me. Life had presented me with a lot of challenges prior to this but was now about to become even harder. My wife and I were happily married and lived in a large house in a beautiful village, surrounded by great friends and neighbors, and best of all truly lovely children.
My background is in Accountancy, then HR then the recruitment industry. In February 2007 I was forced out of the job I loved after 11 years as Director of Talent Management for an international company. This was a tough period, and I was completely burned out so went travelling around the world with my wife and children (aged 7 and 5) over that summer.
What I did was very special, so finding a new role proved very difficult, but I managed to do a couple of interim roles before starting my own coaching and training business in 2010.
At this time, I was thrown off course by falling in love with a good friend. We didn’t have an affair as it was the wrong thing to do. However, there was a fallout as a result of this which made me guilt-ridden for years. Guilt is a very low vibrational energy, as I now understand. For a while I ran a social media site for business travellers, but didn’t give it the full attention needed to make it grow. I sought answers to bigger picture questions and developed a keen interest in all things spiritual and qualified as a Colour Practitioner using the Colour Mirrors system.
Lots have happened since then and life has been incredibly tough underpinned by constant financial worries and a stack of other emotional and practical challenges. This put a huge and ongoing strain on my family life.
The marriage guidance counsellor we finally saw in 2017 said in over 20 years of doing his job, said he’d never met anyone who had put up with such long-term stress in every aspect of their life and asked why I wasn’t dead! The marriage was not salvageable, but I never gave up on hoping that magically it would mend. We agreed to publicly stay together for the sake of our children, but privately to lead separate lives from then on.
Moving out wasn’t an option financially and we told our children, now 18 and 20 in the summer of 2019. In line with what we had agreed, I’d met someone in August 2018, which didn’t go down well with my children when we told them and my daughter has barely spoken to me since, which breaks my heart daily.
Our house finally sold in October last year, which was the formal end to what ended up as a very toxic living situation. The pressure of this soured my new relationship which ended last week, I had thought we would be together forever with at long last some stability and happiness to enjoy life fully, but structural issues and mutual baggage meant this was not to be the case. Moving forwards this is further complicated by current living arrangements and forthcoming property purchase. A few days later my divorce came through. Both major and very sad events, unsurprisingly deeply upset me so it was good timing to be doing the Lifebook Online course and focussing on Character at that point. My career and overall vision still lack clarity which I hope to get in the coming weeks having tried for many years to resolve this. Seeking a new direction, I stood for Parliament for the first time at the last General Election in 2019, but have found the political environment to be very toxic globally. Traditional work has fallen away, so I’m currently working on ways of incorporating spiritual concepts including Colour and Human Design and Spiritual Intelligence into my coaching work. I take responsibility for errors I’ve made and see no point in blaming others for what’s been such a tough 14 years.
My point in writing this is to encourage you never to give up, love yourself and believe in yourself and you will attract more positive things into your life. I’ve been back in my home town of Brighton since October, have a roof over my head and despite continuous uncertainty about the future am looking forward to a fresh start, meeting new people and living life to its fullest potential.
Gratitude is so important and given the horrors that others encounter, I am so very grateful to be where I am at the moment and know that my strength of character will continue to see me through future challenges leading to a life of joy, laughter and purpose.
To quote my favourite artist, Leonard Cohen: “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” (Anthem). Stay safe, stay strong, love yourself and those around you.