Two women, Claire Timmerman and Gaby Burt share their journey of countless dysfunctional “love affairs” in search of true love, having to face unworthiness, clinginess and depression and finally allowing long lasting bonds into their lives by using the Journey Method.
When Claire met her husband-to-be, Arnold Timmerman for the first time 13 years ago, little did she know that it would be the beginning of their life together.
After countless unhealthy, clingy relationships in the past, they had both vowed not to settle for anything less than perfect. They both know that even after falling in love at first sight and creating a happy marriage together it isn't all plain sailing.
“I spent many years clearing my issues around relationships. I’d always managed to manifest unhealthy ones that just weren’t quite right,” says Claire, Presenter for the Journey in Spain.
“I had always needed to be in a relationship of some kind, even turning to girls when I felt I’d been with too many men or just wanted to be in a relationship in that moment” says Claire of her relationship patterns.
Claire used the Journey Method to heal her past wounds and get to the root cause of her feelings of unworthiness and not being good enough - issues that had caused her to attract and cling to unhealthy relationships.
In 2002 Claire went through a powerful Journey process that got to the root cause of this pattern and cleared it out completely. And for the first time in her life wasn’t attracting anyone into her life. “It was like my relationship magnet – albeit an unhealthy one – had been switched off!” she says, “ I made a commitment to myself that I wouldn’t settle for anything that wasn’t the highest and best for me.”
Two years later after continuous work on her relationship issues using the Journey Method and still without a relationship in her life, Claire was running logistics at an upcoming Manifest Abundance Retreat. On the list of attendee’s three names jumped out to her as potential suitors!
“Only one of the three showed up and I remember as we drove into Latimer House and I saw Arnold sitting by the pond, there was a HUGE fluttering inside my body. I did my best to run the event that weekend while being very aware of the sparks flying between us,” remembers Claire.
Claire’s husband Arnold remembers the first time he saw her: “Claire arrived and my heart skipped a beat. I told myself to back off, this could not work, because she was working for The Journey, because she lived in a different country, because she travelled a lot for her job, because, because, because.... my mind was listing all the reasons why it couldn’t happen or wouldn't work out”.
Six months earlier at Arnold’s first Abundance Retreat, where he was a participant, Claire had put out a prayer for a man to be her life partner. “When I read her Vision Quest pages from this Abundance Retreat, I was overwhelmed by how detailed her pages and pages of this man’s description was and how 99% of it described me. Only I had grey eyes not blue and she wanted (I think she wrote) a rich man,” says Arnold.
“After the retreat, I drove with Claire to Wales and in the car I opened up a conversation about the possibility of her and I and a relationship. Three months later, after quitting my job, letting go of my stunning apartment and having spent in total only three weeks with Claire, I moved to Wales and moved in with her,” Arnold says of the start of their time together as life partners.
“The following months were a fire!” adds Claire. “My “idea” of my perfect man created a push-pull for me and our individual ego-dynamics were playing full out! Luckily, both of us were committed first and foremost we to truth and clearing our own issues which, created a huge loving bond between us and became the foundation of our relationship – and remains so today,” says Claire. “We don’t hold each other to a commitment of the relationship. Instead we stay true to our wedding vows, to honour each other and allow the other to follow their own hearts calling”.
Businesswoman and Managing Director of the Journey, Gaby Burt had very few unhealthy relationships, yet found herself on the edge of divorce.
“By my mid-30s, I was at a peak in my life, or so I thought. We had just sold our business, had money in the bank and were completely debt free - it seemed things couldn't get much better. The Champagne flowed and everybody celebrated - while I sank into a dark depression,” she describes.
“I became so deeply disconnected from my true feelings that I couldn’t actually feel anything and my marriage was in serious danger! In my mind I knew that I loved my husband, but I could no longer feel it in my heart. It felt like something inside was dead. The spark had gone along with the intimacy, the laughter, the joy, and happiness,” says Gaby.
“And it wasn’t just the marriage. As a result of my unhappiness, I felt disconnected from everything, as if the whole world had turned grey and lost all meaning. I knew others had worse problems than me, I had no serious health issues but it affected everything. I felt as if my whole life was falling apart and was clueless how to stop it,” she describes of her darkest moments.
Similarly to Claire and Arnold it was after finding the Journey that things started to get better for her. “It was incredible how my whole life turned around, like I was given a second chance to live again. Peeling back the layers of shutdown, uncovering the emotions that I had never wanted to experience before, I started to heal. And not only my health and general wellbeing improved, it literally saved my marriage,” expresses Gaby of her immense gratitude for finding Journeywork.
“I reconnected with my husband on a much deeper level than before. It’s like we fell in love with one another again and remained that way. We’ve never looked back, not even once,” confirms Gaby who has been married for 34 years now.
The relationships that we have with our loved ones are a reflection of our own inner world. So if you’re longing to improve your romantic relationships, the first step is to start with yourself.
Often we crave an all-embracing love, but mistakenly become addicts, wanting, lusting, obsessing, waiting for our next fix, from someone else, even though deep inside we know it will never be enough, never complete us.
Very often, when we focus all our attention outside ourselves and collapse into our love of another person, rather than getting the connection we yearned for, we feel separate, alone, forsaken even, and beginning looking for someone else out there to fill that emptiness inside.
Only when you are willing to let go, to realise that nobody else can fulfill you and open to a vaster non-personal love, can a true experience of love be felt.
Easier said than done! And the change starts with you. Using Journeywork you can let go of your attachment of looking for love outside yourself and allow a true, lasting, all pervading love into every area of your life.
For the first time, Brandon Bays is presenting a 3-day Journey Intensive Seminar Liberating the Divine Feminine and Healing your life, exclusively for women. You will experience processes to release your emotional and physical blocks, allow true healing and reveal your true self.
If you’re a woman struggling with any kind of physical issue or emotional shutdown, the Journey Intensive can help. Or maybe you feel there’s more to life and you’re not using your full potential. If you feel stuck and unable to make the change you need, the Journey Intensive seminar will help you get to the root cause of what’s been holding you back on every level – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
Women all over the world having previously struggled with low self-esteem, anxiety and worthlessness have witnessed their own transformation and finally learned to love themselves.
A true magic happens when women come together. Female issues need a safe and sacred environment to be fully exposed and resolved. That’s why for the first time ever, Brandon Bays is presenting a Journey Intensive for women only.
It’s time to embrace your femininity and shine as the highest and best expression of your self.
Please click here to read more about the Journey Intensive for women only >>
