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Welcome to the Drop the Needle Podcast, your backstage pass to the mystical realm. I'm your host, Jim Alstotten here. Gifted souls, step up to the mic sharing their spiritual journey.

We're hitting the high notes and the low notes of their awakening, creating a symphony of enlightenment. This isn't just another interview show. This is where divine insights are channelled and universal truths are revealed.

So crank up your stereo and sit back because who knows, this just might help you compose the next transformative chapter of your soul's purpose. Are you ready? Let's go. I'm Jim Alstotten and this is the Drop the Needle Podcast.

My guest today is the founder of SoulLove and author of the SoulLove Journal, a woman who turned her own experience of grief, loss, and healing into a gift for the rest of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Carolyn Sidgwick. Welcome, Carolyn.

Oh, thank you so much. I'm just so excited to be here. Well, we're excited to have you.

Really, truly, I am. I think it's going to be great for everyone to get an understanding of who you are, as well as what we're talking about today. And I'm not going to steal your thunder on this, but can you do me a favour or do everyone else a favour? What I generally ask is for you to give a little bit of a background so people get an understanding of who you are, where you came from, that sort of thing.

Okay, so my name is Carolyn Sidgwick, as you said, and I live in Qatar. I'm all the way from Doha. Yes, exactly.

I was born in Sri Lanka, actually, but I was very, very young when we moved to the UK, so I've been brought up and bred, as they say, in the UK. And I came to Doha in 2018 to help turn my sister's business round, which we did. And then in 2021, obviously, COVID came along.

And around that time, in actual fact, going back a little bit, I had only been in Doha around about five months. And very sadly, we found out that my mother's cancer had come back. And she had been given six to 12 months to live.

And we were just trying to get our heads around all of that, but she actually only lasted five weeks. And from that moment, it was a kind of a turning point in my life, my journey very much changed, I kind of ended up getting so many amazing people come into my life, I ended up turning towards spirituality. I was like, I would call myself, I was very much very open to everything, a bit of a junkie, I used to call myself, you know, anything that was different, I would try it, I loved it, you know, energy healing, Reiki, all of that, I would try it, I loved it.

And through doing work on myself, I think one of the big points was that I found out that I was looking at basically why I attracted certain relationships into my life. And it transpires from doing a bit of hypnosis and different things that my when I was about six, my mother decided to go back to work. And she asked my sister if she would take me to this ladies house, he was going to look after me while she was sleeping, because she was going to do night duty.

And I remember this almighty feeling of Oh, my God, my mother doesn't love me and want me anymore. And I never grew up with that. I never thought about that.

But that's why I attracted these kind of relationships. I'd only had three big relationships. They all finished for different reasons.

But I realised the underpinning reason was commitment and security. And so through doing that kind of work, and I was very, very much into Mindvalley, I did lifebook, because I realised that we organise are very good at organising our careers, but not very good at organising our lives. So I looked at those 12 areas of my life.

And, you know, they always say that when you set an intention, even if you do nothing towards it, you naturally gravitate towards it. And I literally did do that. And one of the areas, the guy, the two, I think then John and Missy, it was, you know, I actually watched their relationship.

And they've been together like 30 years, I saw how special and intense and beautiful it was. And I thought, God, you know what, I could just feel this yearning for this oneness, this kind of that, that, that kind of relationship that we all crave for on an energy level. And I was in a relationship, one of 10 years, to make some lovely amazing man, but I just felt I needed something deeper than he could give me.

So I knew if I was going to be true to myself, I had to let that relationship go, which I found very, very difficult, very difficult. And I actually thought at one point, maybe, you know, we might just get back together, we just need to have a bit of a break. But in actual fact, a year later, at a party, and in actual fact, it is a year today.

By the years today, I met my soulmate at a friend's party. Wow. Yeah, absolutely.

And thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I mean, for him, it was instant. For me, I kind of wasn't too sure. But it didn't take very long to realise that all the work I had done, all the work I'd done, and myself, that he was the one, he was the one I was supposed to be meeting.

And we had the most magical life. I've never experienced anything from an energy point of view, we would laugh every day, we did so much together, we did charity car rallies around Europe, every day was a fun day. I mean, it was absolutely magical.

And, you know, he wanted to get married that year we met, which was in 2021. But we actually got married in Sri Lanka in 2023. Oh, wow.

And then literally nine months later, he had a massive heart attack here in Doha. And yeah, I lost him. And you know, that has been, we always knew that we were going to do something special together.

We just never dreamt it was going to be in different realms. Because I thought we might might actually be do something with orphans in Uganda. But I now realise that the Soul of Journal, which actually went global as of today.

Congratulations. Yeah, I know another very special thing, connecting with you. And today is such a special day, not only to connect with you, but on two other levels that it's the day I met my husband and my soulmate.

And today that I actually, you know, start going global with the Soul of Journal. So that was the beginning, the beginning of the Soul of Journal. That's great.

So I want to jump into some questions, if I can, and thank you for sharing that, that beautiful, sad, and beautiful all at the same time. What I'd like you to do is finish this sentence for me. The thing nobody tells you about grief is how painful and deep it is.

The big, the big lesson for me is that it feels like a really, very lonely place. But it doesn't need to be. And, you know, for me, the biggest thing was gratitude, because even though I lost my soulmate, and I was it's beyond words, you just go into shock your body, your nervous system, everything goes into shock.

But I knew that I had so much still to be grateful for. I was grateful for the fact that we met the grateful that I experienced that kind of relationship. And grateful that I was actually with him, because you know, circumstances can always be so, so different.

But that doesn't that and I knew from the moment that I didn't bring him back from the hospital. I knew that he was with me, I know that he is with me right now. And I get so many messages.

And that is just such a beautiful, beautiful, something I am so, so grateful for. But that still doesn't eliminate the pain. And everything that you have to go through with grief.

Well, you know, what's interesting is that I've in my research in when I was putting the my book together, did I just have a spiritual awakening? Or was it something I ate? That's actually our mutual friend, Carrie Muller, did the cover for me. I mean, it's right behind me. The interesting thing that I learned was that oftentimes it's a situation where the people that you lose that are so close to you can sometimes be around you even more than they were when they were on earth with us.

And it's I think that that is a feeling that is it's comforting, right to know that you're not alone. And that person is there. And all of those things.

And it's, it's just kind of a beautiful thing. So that's, and it's, it's also interesting to me that you felt your partner immediately. I think that that's fantastic.

So I have another question that kind of goes hand in hand with your answer. Take me to the lowest moment. The one where you weren't sure you'd come back from it.

Where were you standing? Yeah, I, I remember coming back from the hospital and thinking that I've got to tell his whole family and contact them. Oh my gosh. And then finding the words that you're trying to tell them that, you know, they'd lost their daddy or that they have lost their son or their best friend even, you know, because I, I feel I wanted to let all his friends know and not for them to find out through social media or anything.

And, and I don't know, I remember the second day, actually seems that somebody messaged me, said, Oh my God, Caroline, tell me what's on Facebook. Isn't true. I was thinking, how on earth has it got onto Facebook? But I then had to knew I had to do something myself to put it up there.

I was, I was going to be bombarded with, with questions, but I think one of the most difficult was also that after having told them, you just can't sleep. It is, you can't come to terms of your reality. You, you keep thinking you're going to wake up, you keep thinking, how on earth can this be happening to me? How can this be happening to me? I mean, oh my God, you just go through so many emotions.

It's just like, it's the nervous system. It just, you know, it's like almost shuts down. It's like, you're not, you're living, but you're not living it.

You know, you can't think you can't function. You can't, it just, it's, it's actually 10 times worse. But you know, a lot of women go through this, these types of emotions when they go through menopause.

And this is another thing that I'm a big advocate. And I have many ladies group and we had our monthly meeting last night, because there is so much that so many of us go through, but we just don't understand. And we don't know.

And this is why I am so big to share everyone to share their stories, you know, no matter what it is, whatever difficult times, because the more you share, the more you realise you're not the only one, you know, it feels like you're the only one, because you've never experienced it before. But if you hear the people's stories, you always find that they are the inspiration to realise, Oh, I'm not the only one. That common thread.

So sometimes when people gather like that, the trauma bonding that occurs. Now, there, I guess for some, there may be a negative connotation as it relates to trauma bonding. Personally, I don't think that it is a negative thing all the time, all the time.

Because I truly believe that there's a need for something like that. Because as you said, when those things happen, you feel so alone. And so I didn't have my partner or my wife, spouse, pass away.

But I had my mother pass away. And I had to make that call to my aunt and my grandmother and my grandfather. So I know what you're talking about that, when you mentioned that.

And I shared that in my book. And I'm fairly certain that I wasn't nearly as gentle with the delivery as you were. I think I'm the same.

No, I don't know that I was. Because I was in shock myself. I remember actually, I remember phoning his daughter.

And I didn't even consider the fact that she might be at work. I just phoned her mobile. And she knows I never call her.

I barely ever call her. I'm more of a messenger. And I didn't even think where she might be.

I didn't even ask her. None of that. I wasn't even subtle.

I just said, your dad has had a heart attack. Oh, right. Oh, yeah.

And I went, and I just said, I think I said, I mean, to be honest, I can't even remember. I think I said, and he's dead. You know, not like, and I'm so sorry, he's passed away.

No, because I was sharing that pain with her. And I was still in shock myself. I just, you know, it was just, you know, and I, you know, now I look back and I think, you know, I can't be, you know, I can't be hard on myself, but I didn't deliver it at all in a very good way.

And she was absolutely hysterical and distraught, you know, awful. And there's nothing you can do about that. There's no point in me digging it all up now.

Well, no, because you're right. You can't go back and change what happened. And the fact that you were in shock, there's some grace that's given there.

And from my point of view, I think that it's easy to beat yourself up after the fact. And it's harder, it's harder for most people, for that matter, to give themselves grace, because we're so prone to picking ourselves apart. So I totally understand that.

And when I made the call, it was when that three-way calling was a new deal, because my mom passed on April 11, 1994. And sometimes it feels like it was a lifetime ago, and sometimes it feels like yesterday, right? But I remember, to this day, the blood curdling screams from both my grandmother and my aunt. Yeah, so that still resonates in my mind, for sure.

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So I'm curious, his soul love. Was there one moment that soul love was born? A real before and after? Or did it just kind of creep up on you? So, you know, from the moment that he passed, I knew I needed to work on my psychic abilities, because I know we all have them, but I really didn't. In fact, I forgot.

I had done a course about three years previously, and mine was of a knowing, which I think is one of the most difficult in some way, because you don't trust your knowing. Not at all. Not at all.

We're sceptics. Yeah, absolutely. So I knew I needed to work on my psychic abilities.

And, you know, 15 hours after he passed, I got my first message by a friend. And then about 24 hours later, I got my second message of explaining why he passed. And our purpose together, basically, this was always what had been planned that we we've had many lives, we always knew we'd have like, if anything, we were only actually together, Jim, two and a half years, right, but we felt like we've been together a lifetime.

So I actually don't feel like I've been robbed, because I actually feel like I have been lived every second. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even my sisters, who've been married 30 years, they said, you know what, you've done more in your two and a half years than we've done in our 30 years, because we did we absolutely and he, he took photos, videos of everything everywhere we went, you know, so I have just so many memories of everything.

Yeah, yeah. So, so I just knew that I needed to, to, to work on those psychic abilities so that I could, could, you know, feel this connection. Now, my psychic abilities aren't fully there yet, but I can feel him now, I've smelt him, and I know my knowing, and I just get it reaffirmed all the time, all the time, all the time.

And you know, it's super special when now I can go out and have lunch or dinner with somebody, if somebody's psychic, I can tell, and they don't look at me, they look beside me or above me. And I always know that looking at him, because he's always around me. So what happened was that from the moment he passed, I was just mothered.

No, it's mothered, isn't it? Well, in a beautiful way, I was just supported right away by the most amazing, my amazing family, my friends, my community. And I could see such abundance coming into my life. And I used to write it down that somebody had bought me breakfast to make sure I'm eating, somebody sent me flowers, somebody had taken me out, somebody had bought me coffee, somebody had come around to visit me, you know, I would write everything down.

And then because I was trying to work on my psychic abilities, I have signs for him, I knew my signs for him. And you know, I would write them down every single day, a sign, every time I had a message, I'd write that down. And then I started doing automated writing.

Are me, I write letters to him. I even actually the first time I did it, I actually did write a question. And the question was, how long is this pain going to last for? And I remember writing letters to him, it just it just gets out all those emotions and pain that you're going through.

Then I wanted to dream so badly about him. So and I did use to dream about him. And I used to write my dreams down because you know how quickly you forget about them.

Absolutely. I would. And then I would, I just did lots of different things.

And I found that I had journals of journals. And then I think it was the following year. Oh, that's right.

It was new year. And one of my messages from him was to go and reflect. So I went to Bali to this amazing retreat.

And it was, it was a it was not a retreat. It was like a boutique retreat, like only got six bedrooms, you just went along and other people were there, they were there if they weren't, but they were there about there about four of us at the same time as me. And I took all my journals.

And I, I read through every single one of them. And I wrote down every person I had met, every course I had done, everything I had done. And it wasn't until I did that, that I realised, oh my gosh, how far I had come in just one year.

And it isn't until you reflect, and you can appreciate where you were, and where you are, if I've never done that, or if he'd not told me to do that, I would never have appreciated and given myself credit for how far I had come. So then I realised, oh my God, maybe I should put this all together into one journal to support other people on their journey. And that's what I did.

Excellent. So you brought up writing. So there's a natural question that occurs to me.

And that's, let's say someone just lost the person that they love most. And they're staring at a blank page in front of them. What's the very first thing they should write? So, you know, I used to wake up regularly in the middle of the night.

And, you know, when you're not fully awake, but you're not asleep, you know, this is when you just need to let your pen are, not awake, exactly. Well, this is when you're in that, that, that best, that best alpha mode of just letting your pen flow, whatever words come into your head, just write them, you know, if you repeat words, repeat sentences, it doesn't matter just five, 10 minutes, let your pen flow. I put it down, wake up in the morning.

And I was quite shocked at what I didn't because I had forgotten. But, you know, for someone when you're in such a deep place, you know, whether it be anger, whether it be denial, whether it be acceptance, it doesn't matter. Just get those words on the paper.

You know, you're going through so much at that point. You know, sometimes, you know, if you can get to a point of writing, fantastic. But sometimes, you know, it takes a, you know, it takes a little while even to get to that point, because, you know, there's so much where we are feeling, you know, we all go through it, right? Well, if you're not here, I don't want to be here.

And it's that denial anger, and the what ifs, and what if I've done this, and the guilt and the blame, and there's so much that goes through, and it's an automated response. And this is the other thing. It's like with menopause, and it's like with grief.

I want people, women, I want people to understand why they're thinking, why they're feeling that way, because it's an automatic response that body, the body does, you know, your hormones, when your hormones go all over the place, this is what happens. And you know, it's people not understanding that. And when you start to understand why, then you can start getting a little bit more, you know, understanding of yourself.

Sure. And so I'm going to bring up an obvious point here that, and I understand that you're geared more towards women because you're a woman. But what do you say to a man? Because I can tell you with the utmost certainty, there aren't a lot of men that journal.

I'm one of the few that I know that journals. So what do you say to somebody like that? And because it's not menopause, people refer to it as menopause. No, exactly.

But it's still a man. It's all the same for all of us. The reason I say, you know, I like to emphasise the whole menopause thing, because of what women's go through.

But men go through it too. But on the menopause side, not to the extreme of women, but grief, of course they do. And you know, it's understanding what the body is going through.

It's about being understanding. It's about self-love. It's about nurturing yourself.

Because I promise you, the more that you look after yourself and come from a place of self-love, the easier it is to navigate everything that you go through in grief. You know, if you're going to start, you know, when we, unfortunately, when we don't practise or don't understand what self-love is, and you're putting yourself down because you're feeling like this, and then you're feeling like that, and you don't understand why you're feeling like that, and you're angry, and you start getting bitter, and you know, you start dealing with things in a very different way than if you came from a pace of nurturing. It's like, you know, if you had a friend that was going through grief, going through whatever difficult times, you know, you're going to be there for them, supporting them, holding their hand through it.

Well, do you know what? You need to do the same to yourself. You know, your body just goes through so much trauma of just accepting your reality. But yes, you do need a massage.

Yes, you do need to give yourself time out. Sometimes the tears, your head feels like it wants to burst out of your, the brain burst out of your head, right? You need to give yourself a break of just trying to maybe watch a film, something that takes, distracts you just for an hour, you know, and don't feel guilty about it, because you feel guilty. You haven't thought about them for two minutes.

You feel guilty that you've been laughing. You feel guilty you're having to get on with your life. There is so much emotion around grief that everyone experiences, but you just, you just don't realise when you've never experienced it before.

I understand full well what you're talking about and describing. One of the things that often happens when someone passes is you tell them something. You have these words or like this pat sentence, but what I'm curious to know is, what's the biggest lie we tell grieving people? You know, the thing that everyone says that actually makes it.

I know what time is a healer. Yeah, that is bullshit. The thing is, we all know, actually, time is a healer, right? It gets lighter and lighter.

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