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Hi, my name is Almerinda
I am a HeartCentred Teacher.
No matter what you’ve been through in your life or what you may feel you are stuck in, there is a way out! The solutions are always found deep within your heart. HeartQuest is taking that courageous journey to listen to and follow your heart!
In June 2017, I retired, after working 30 years in an extremely satisfying and rewarding corporate career as a Human Rights Consultant, and now I marvel at what has come into my life after a very acrimonious marital separation in 2004, where I left everything behind. Prior to my separation, I was so carried away by all the doing, the striving, the planning, the reacting, the busyness in my life, as a wife, mother, employee and friend. I didn’t know who I was anymore or how to be with “me.” I was running around doing the usual things we do, such as working, running errands, cleaning the house, taking vacations, taking care of everyone else. My life was filled with obligations and entanglements and busyness – a lot of time I didn’t feel like paying too much attention to my being because I was hurting.
I learned that no matter how much other people wanted to help me, and they did help me, the basic effort still had to come from me. After all, no one is living your life for you, and no one’s care for you could or should replace the care you can give to yourself.
Once I saw the need to calm my heart and my mind and found an inner balance with which to face the storms in my life, I eventually found all my answers.
It was a deeply profound learning experience. In the process, I came to know myself better and became more accepting of myself, not as I wanted to be like but as I actually am. I reclaimed my life, making myself more real and more alive!
“A wealth you cannot imagine flows through you. Do not consider what strangers say. Be secluded in your secret heart-house, that bowl of silence.”
— Rumi
Your Inner Voice Has a Purpose
The memory of March 8, 2004, no longer hurts; however, I vividly recall the excruciating pain in my heart, and how I fiercely clutched to this pain as all I understood. That was the day I decided to leave my marriage of over 15 years, and the beginning of my estrangement.
Every step we take leaves an imprint. I spent the next three years in battle, in a kind of trance, as a result of my exodus from my marriage, my home and my daughters – I left everything behind because I simply could no longer stay – my inner voice was screaming for release!
And so, began the fight – within myself and externally. Both were fierce. I couldn’t exist without my two daughters, so we fought, and we tortured ourselves, emotionally and financially.
Despite the support of my family, I experienced the biggest and deepest feelings of loneliness, emptiness and sadness. I wailed every night before bed in deep lamentation.
Nothing mattered to me except being with my daughters. All I was able to do for three years, was observe them from a distance, and throughout this time, my family’s encouragement always surrounded me. At times, I felt they feared I might consider returning to the marriage, but life presented me with the most surprising turns, and what seemed initially to be a misfortune, turned out later to be a blessing.
It turns out, my inner voice had a purpose. I listened to it and followed my heart. I felt in every ounce of my being that I would re-unite with my daughters. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but I never stopped believing. All I knew, deep in my heart, was that I was ready to move forward with my life, as a single mom, so I kept reminding myself of who I was. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have it all figured out. I accepted deeply that I was truly ready and able to start living my life.
What was going on? I followed my heart! Little did I know that the pain of my past would birth the gifts that my current business, HeartQuest, now provides, and which takes people on a “journey to grace, faith and self-love”. It has been so rewarding.
How did I do it? I had faith in the magical power of love and completely trusted in myself. I believed deeply that what I truly wanted, would come to me!
This chapter was published in 2019 in the book “365 Empowering Stories”, and is available for purchase on Amazon.
I hope that by telling my story, I will empower you to follow your own path, to reach for and achieve your own profound and unique potential.
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