To give a bit more context to my journey, I’ve created this page to share a deeper look into my past.
This page takes you back to the time before rehab (over 20 years ago now), into my youth and some of the experiences I had during that time.
The dog in the picture was my first dog, Piki. I had wanted my own dog for years and got her when I was nine and had her until my early twenties.
Childhood
I was born in Sweden in 1973 and grew up there.
My teenage years were full of turmoil. I was rebellious, ran away from home a lot and got involved in all kinds of trouble – breaking into places, drinking, smoking, and so on. Some of my friends were not allowed to hang out with me and I was kicked out of school for being disruptive and a bad influence.
School was not for me, and I was labeled a ‘problem child’ and was kicked out when I was about 14 and had to work instead.
I have five siblings, and I was the ‘different’ one. I saw life differently, I thought differently, and I was just different. I was also more aware and curious about things that others weren’t, like psychology, drugs, and spirituality, even as a child.
While others were reading Pippi Longstocking, I was stealing books from the library (I wanted to keep them and read them over and over again) about psychology, society, and spirituality – subjects that really interested me; the deeper things of life.
I’ve always been someone who sees and understands things on a deeper level, things I noticed other people didn’t, and from a very young age, I knew that my life would be different from the norm.
Late teens
Fast forward to my later teens, around 19–20, when the drug scene years took off and really escalated. I tried amphetamine for the first time and dove into it full throttle from the get-go.
Even though I overdosed and took way too much the first time I tried it, I still went back the next day and jumped right back in. From then on, it became something I did pretty much daily.
Amphetamine was my main drug, and ecstasy was a big part of it too, along with other stuff. It was the rave era, so there was a lot of partying.
In the very beginning of this phase in my life I was shown a vision of my future – something I’ve always experienced and still do: ‘seeing’ and receiving information and intuitions about life, both about myself and others.
The vision I received back then was a glimpse into what my life would look like if I continued down this path, and it didn’t look good. But I chose that path anyway, thinking I could handle whatever came later.
Little did I know how completely it would take over my life. While it was a fun and exciting time, there was also no end to my consumption. I lost all control, and the drugs took control of me instead.
I was pulled deeper and deeper into a black hole, which then led to all kinds of mental health issues that come with drug addiction.
When I was around 25 or so, I moved to Norway.
I went even deeper into addiction
I broke one of the two promises I had made to myself when I started doing drugs. I had promised I would never touch heroin and would never use needles. I did opiates (and other prescription drugs), but never heroin, even though it was in my life. I had it in front of me but I never touched it myself.
And then, towards the end, I started using needles, and I knew that was the beginning of the end for me. I knew I was basically dying, and my life was just spiraling further into darkness. I was also hanging out with some not so good people and groups, and I knew that if I didn’t get help, I would die. It was literally just a matter of time.
My teeth were decaying too and I had constant toothache and pain. My friends kept pushing heroin on me, and I kept saying no. But deep down, I knew that one day I might give in (because of the pain), and when I did, it would be over for me.
What kept me alive was the inner knowing that I had a bigger purpose for my life, that I was here for a reason. That thought was always in the back of my mind even through the hardest parts of my life. I knew I was destined for something bigger.
The day everything changed
I was maybe 28 or 29, and I felt like a living dead.
My boyfriend and I were at his brother’s wedding, it was late summer, early fall.
Not drinking much back then, I got really drunk and ran away from the wedding, into the woods, where I had a complete psychological breakdown.
I was on my knees, with my hands lifted up to the sky and crying out to God to please help me (with my drug addiction). What happened next was a spiritual experience that still brings me to tears when I think about it.
A big hand, which to me was God’s hand, reached down from the heavens and I reached up and took it, and it lifted me up. Shortly after that, synchronistic things started happening that would completely change my life.
The rest of that day is a blur, but something happened there in the woods that would change everything. My boyfriend found me and freaked out, and I think he called an ambulance too, but I have no memory of what happened the rest of that day.
The following days I just laid in bed, crying like I’ve never cried before, and my legs were all swollen and covered in blisters from having been on my knees in the middle of an ant nest there in the woods without realizing it.
I cried and cried, for days. Completely and utterly broken down (or that’s how I felt, as I don’t believe anyone is broken beyond help).
Rehab
A few weeks later I went to a spiritual New Age-type fair in Oslo that I always went to. It was a yearly event, but that year I didn’t feel like I wanted to go because I felt like I had evolved in a different direction spiritually.
But something within me kept telling me to go, so I went anyway.
Later I understood why I was so strongly guided to go even though I didn’t feel like it – and it was because of what happened there. While I was there, I met a man who was selling crystals and stones.
I asked him for a stone that could help me stay clean and away from drugs. He looked at me and asked, “Do you really mean that? Do you really want to quit?” I said yes, I really did. Then he gave me a number and told me to call her.
A couple of days later I called the number. It was the founder of a rehab center a few hours from where I lived. The center had just opened, or was about to. It was a brand-new concept, combining both alternative and traditional treatments and therapies – something that had never been done before in Norway.
By some synchronistic and miraculous unfolding, I was there just a few months later, in January.
This too makes me cry every time I think about it. It was a miracle, because I had tried to get into rehab for a couple of years already, with no success. It can take years before you can get help in Norway, and many people die while waiting.
And interestingly, the rehab center shut down shortly after I left due to pushback from the government.
They didn’t like the alternative side of the treatments, even though it helped a lot of people (yes, I know, it’s so weird, but not exactly a surprise either). It almost felt like the Universe had created it for me!
Of course it wasn’t just for me, but it really felt synchronistic when I heard that that had happened.
My healing journey began
I stayed for 2.5 years and did intense work on myself – hours and hours of therapy, psychotherapy, group therapy, and all kinds of alternative therapies: reiki, qigong, acupuncture, meditation, sauna, ice plunges into the lake, gestalt therapy, and more.
I even got to bring my dog with me (a beautiful German Shepherd), which was unheard of. It really was a miracle! I still get emotional thinking about it.
Like all the pets I’ve had, she came into my life and left when it was meant to be. Just a short time before I left rehab, she passed away, at eight years old.
I knew she had been in my life as a guardian angel – because without her, without the responsibility of caring for a living being, I don’t think I would have made it out alive from my years of drug addiction.
I’m so incredibly grateful for that time in rehab because it literally saved my life.
There were about 10–12 people there in the beginning, and I was one of the first females – just me and a group of guys (besides from the people who run the place and the staff).
We lived in a huge house together, right in the middle of nature by a beautiful lake, and did everything together. As time went on, more and more people came, with around 20 in total at a time.
People came and went, depending on the severity of their addictions and all the mental health issues that come with that.
As my healing journey progressed, I started taking courses and trainings, and worked as staff at the center too later on. I became a Reiki Healing Master Teacher, an NLP Master Practitioner (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and certified Life Coach, and did all the ‘walking on coal’ stuff too, and other things like that.
I also went to music school at one point, trained in dog massage, sound healing, energy massage, and more – just took a lot of different courses along the way as I was exploring and figuring out who I was and finding my path in life.
Around 31, I left and moved back to Oslo to start my new life, completely free from drugs.
I also stopped taking ALL medications (and I had been on a lot).
Doctors had told me I’d need medication for the rest of my life, that I could never be able to be happy naturally, that my brain was too damaged from all the drugs. But I refused to accept that, and healed myself from everything.
By the time I left rehab, I was 100% free and happy – without any prescription drugs at all. I’m so glad I chose to believe in myself instead of the doctors that were throwing pills at me saying I need them.
It’s not something I recommend, by the way – this was just my personal journey and decision. It was an intuitive knowing for me, and I believe everyone should follow what feels right for them in their own life.
My new life
In the decade after leaving rehab, I started the path that I’m on now. During that time, I honed in on my purpose in life, developed it, traveled to the USA, lived in Spain for a while, and spent time in Finland with my half-sister.
And then Life planted me back in Norway for a 6–7 year chapter where the awakening process unfolded. It was a time of utter isolation and living on welfare, and at one point, I even lived in a caravan in the woods with my cats. I couldn’t relate to anyone and was just focusing on doing the inner and outer work which also birthed this very website.
You can read the full summary of my journey (the awakening process, my move to Spain, and the years of being homeless and living out of a suitcase) on the My Story page.
So that’s a little bit more background information about me. If I hadn’t followed that nudge to go to that fair decades ago, I never would have gotten the number, but I listened, and I called, and it saved my life.
That’s how inner guidance works, and when we go with it, it takes us right where we are meant to be: to live in truth, in freedom, and in our own flow and alignment.
All the best, always,
