I was not feeling it at all when we began our spiritual mentoring day this morning. My life is coming apart at the seams and in all honestly, talk of help from Grace, the soul’s wisdom and other such airy fairy nonsense was pissing me off. I felt overwhelmingly grumpy, until I had a panic attack during our conscious resting meditation.

My heart was pumping like crazy, then came the palpitations and the feeling that my chest was being crushed. If I didn’t know better, I might have assumed I was having a heart attack. I wanted to run out of the room, but well, I am not one to make a scene, so I stayed put.

After the session, Marion my spiritual mentor went on and talked about some exercise or other – I can’t tell you what it was about as I couldn’t listen to the words. My heart had stopped missing beats, but the terror was still rushing through my veins. Should I say something? Or was it better to suffer in silence? Was I going mad? Help!

It didn’t take long for me to blow. Within a nanosecond of Marion asking ‘How is everyone?’ I collapsed into a full on sob fest. All my fear and sadness spilled out and was laid bare, then I felt embarrassed. I am not one for public displays of emotion and for the second time, I wanted to run out of the room.

Of course, nobody laughed or looked down on me, in fact, I was shown only kindness, understanding and compassion. I was still embarrassed though.

All sorts of things have gone wrong since I started this mentoring year. It’s as if the wheels are coming off my life one by one. Don’t get me wrong, many things are working beautifully, such as my marriage, friendships, relationship with my sisters etc, but other bits are coming unstuck.

I guess it makes sense. If I am to change my mind and my thoughts, then my life has surely got to change too. I guess it’s a bit like shedding weight – some things won’t fit any more, so I have to discard them and make room for new stuff to put on.

I’ve got big decisions to make about my work and where I’m heading. I don’t want to do anything rash just now, but I have a feeling that radical action must be taken. It all boils down to trust and faith. Do I have enough of it to be brave, jump off the cliff and hope that my metaphorical parachute will open in time?

We’ll see. For now, the work has to continue. I am to carry on with the Morning Pages and the daily meditation. I must be as ‘conscious’ as is humanely possible – this means thinking about what I am doing and saying, rather than being propelled blindly through life by emotions that were laid down when I was still wearing ankle socks.

The four of us in the mentoring group were urged to examine our limiting beliefs today. Not good enough was the overriding theme for me and now I need to make an effort every day to change the record. All I have to do is remove the ‘not’ bit – surely it can’t be that difficult?