MY JOURNEY TO LOVEFEST AND BEYOND - Part 6

In early December 2016. I had no community, no money, literally I had $0 in my bank account and no assets except my car. I came back to my 2 children who were being home-schooled and shared between myself and their mother. I broke down many times, thinking of myself as a failure. Even though I still had one or two face to face clients, my online coaching business had failed and I had run out of funds to continue. I was devastated and felt like after all the hard work, I had amounted to nothing.

I was now living a nomadic life. Not knowing what was next. I was housesitting where possible, slept in my car, in a tent, on the beach, on couches, and at friends' places all over the Central Coast and also at my mothers in Fairfield. I stayed at a friend’s house one night at Ettalong Beach and met another friend that night. He asked me what I was up to these days, when I told him, he responded with “oh so you are homeless”. I felt so much shame from hearing that. I felt shocked and angry at myself for letting myself get here. Although deep down a part of me somewhere new there was something coming.

I was very grateful to have been able to stay at my mother’s house in Fairfield whenever I needed. I went to a birthday party one night at the Bayview in Woy Woy and remember struggling to stay in there with everyone drinking so much. I would often go out to the park and river nearby and connect with the ducks and then walk back in and struggled to socialise. I felt so empty inside. I felt alone and disconnected. Then thankfully I connected with my friend Hayley who felt the same as me, so we both walked outside and I showed her where I was going to connect with nature. She loved the ducks. We noticed that there was electronic music playing out through the river like a DJ was spinning tunes. I said to her. “Wouldn’t it be great if we created an awesome event with great tunes to dance to, with no alcohol and great vibes. Her response was “yes we will definitely do that”. I felt a huge sense of excitement and wonder.

Eventually I started asking my heart again “What would you like me to do?” after a few days the answer started coming loud and clear. It said, “Bring large groups of people together”. I didn’t know how to or what to do but I called 2 people on the Central Coast for support and the idea was to bring heart centred entrepreneurs together and they agreed to collaborate. We had just tried this a couple of months before but only had 3 people come but this time I knew it was different. The intention was to bring people together on the Central Coast to form a Conscious Community like the one I had experienced in San Diego.

So I called and visited other leaders on the Central Coast including Modern Organic Café in Long Jetty, The Rhythm Hut in Gosford, Gnostic Forest in Woy Woy as well as many others including Yoga teachers, musicians, and holistic healers. We all came together at Bamboo Buddha which was quite central. We called it Building up Conscious Community. On January 19th 2017 we had 23 people attend, and it was magic.

We started Central Coast Conscious Community facebook group with the 23 people that attended the event and this now has over 3400 members. I kept hosting monthly gatherings with support from various people each month. It was for free, and then sometimes my fuel would get paid from donations. Sometimes I would drive for 2 hours to host a gathering. It was completely from my heart and I did it for Love. I trusted in my heart and abundance and that returns would come in unexpected ways. I could feel things in my body I had never felt before. A special kind of electricity that flowed through my heart. I knew this was my purpose and where I was meant to be.

We were published in a magazine called The Announcer which also caught the attention of the local MP of Gosford. On March 16th, we had our 3rd gathering. We held an internal survey to find out what everyone wants the most, and the most popular answer by far was “CONNECTION”. Human connection stood out more than anything else. We also had talked about some of the major issues on the Central Coast including high suicide rates for young males, and domestic violence towards women so raising funds and awareness for Coast Shelter became important. Love our community back to health became our tagline.

I also began sharing the vision of a festival that does not include any drugs and alcohol. Which would include musicians, artists, healers, and poets. Others also contributed to the vision, and we identified that the purpose was for us to embody love and connect with love to then share that with others entering the space so it can be healing and transformative.

The vision was to create a high vibrational space of love together with everyone there which then creates a ripple effect to impact the entirety of the Central Coast filling the area with Love. One person said “yeah, It’s all about Love and then Yvonne Lamont (Founder of Waves of Wisdom) said “It’s a Lovefest”. I said very loudly “ YES THAT”S IT” so I ran to the whiteboard and wrote the word LOVEFEST in big writing. I now had this mission of organising a festival for the first time in my life without any funds and had no idea where to start.

TO BE CONTINUED....