Malcolm: 0:46

Well, welcome to Slay your Dragons with Compassion. The podcast I'm running in conjunction with online events. My name is Malcolm Stern and I'm getting some fantastic guests to share stories where they've overcome adversity, where they've been through something that has really upended their lives and they've found some resources in order to be able to deal with that. And I met Celia Peachey, who's our guest today, number of years ago and she's been through an extraordinary experience and I've watched her really come through it and develop and find something in herself. And if you can look behind her, you'll also see in the oh, there's a picture anyway you'll see that she's living now in Costa Rica in beautiful green territory. So, Celia, welcome to our podcast.

Celia: 1:35

Thank you, Malcolm. It's an absolute honour to be here with you.

Malcolm: 1:39

Great, that's lovely. And your story is amazing because we, you know, we go through things in life that we don't dream we're going to go through, and then we don't know how we're going to find our way through the difficulties that we've had, the adversity that we've faced, and somehow something in us seems to get born and I've watched that happen with you. Something got born in you that, despite the the enormity would you tell us the story a little bit but despite the enormity of what you've been through, you found something that allowed you to not only survive but to thrive. So would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and your story?

Celia: 2:23

Okay, so, currently living in Costa Rica, I left the UK in 2020. Within 24 hours I packed a bag and said that's enough. I had created my brand then, ultimate Alchemist, and when COVID came, I was setting up groups and I was working with people and stuff previous, prior to that. But I just knew that with the suppression of COVID, that, in all honesty, with the suppression and the arguing and the dividing conquer I just had been through so much with as you know, malcolm, previously, the years recovering from my mother's murder in 2008. And with all of that, you know, after all the work that I had done on myself, and then 2020, and then lockdowns and all of those suppressive kind of tendencies being activated in society and humanity, I just thought I won't survive. I will not. I refuse to argue about petty things and I refuse to fight for simple rights anymore, like I need my freedom and I need to be able to contribute the best of myself to the world. And so, you know, there was a few sad moments with family and various people and that was it. I just decided I have to leave. I can't, you know, I can't fight tedious, meaningless battles. My life had already been taken up with fighting the criminal justice system for nearly 10 years in my mom's name, for a tiny slither of something that might look a little bit like justice.

Celia: 3:49

And leaving the UK was one of the toughest things I did in many ways, because I left on my own with one suitcase. I left everything I owned behind and my mind was like no, go in a month, make sure you pack everything up. And then it was like they're material items. Nothing is more important than my energy and then how I feel about myself and my life and if I'm to actually contribute the best of myself and become a world-class coach because that's where you know you don't overcome what I've been through without considering yourself, getting out of bed every day and saying this is the standard, this is what I want for people.

Celia: 4:23

I don't want anyone to suffer alone or feel that they haven't got what it takes to make their life the best that it possibly can be, and so I made that decision and I you know my mother's anniversary I was in Mexico and I made a video saying you know everybody, I've left the UK because I didn't want to be there on my mother's anniversary during a lockdown, because I just did not think I would survive and that I choose to. You know, I choose to contribute and create a legacy and create something meaningful in offer of, in service to the greatest good, and I've been living here in Costa Rica for three years and it's just been one of the best things I've ever done. I absolutely love it. I have a fantastic community I have. I live in a tree house right now, a house on stilts that overlooks the jungle, and I'm coaching women all over the world and it's it's a dream come true.

Malcolm: 5:18

And you talked about your mother's murder, which is obviously a very big subject and it's the subject we're probably going to look at today, because that had an extraordinary impact on you, and could you tell us a little bit about about that and who you were then, what happened and what you became as a result of it?

Celia: 5:37

Yes, of course. So my mother was murdered in 2008, the week before Christmas, and my life was in a complete state of chaos. I was 28 years old, I just got off of toxic substances and started to go to meetings and start to really reflect on how I was living and my options. And my mother had begun to get more distant as she dated this guy. She met him while walking the dog, very innocent, and I met him once and I thought seems okay, you know, didn't really have much of an opinion. He seemed to give her her space, whereas other men had been quite kind of over the top in the early stages, which made me always think, you know, you don't even know each other. So I kind of thought, I thought that he was, you know, smart or a composment, you know. But now I realize in hindsight he was very calculated because he was flattering me. He asked me if I wanted anything from the shop and he was very aware of what he was doing, more aware than I realized.

Celia: 6:41

Anyway, I thought my mom was okay, you know, initially, and I was in London, I wasn't in Essex where she lived, and so I wasn't aware of the erosion of her confidence and how he was manipulating her. But she became more and more distant from me and my therapist at the time said to me you're going to have to walk away if you're going to put your life together. And I just thought there's no way I can do that. I've been there for my mother since I was a child. I was always making sure that she was okay because she'd had mental health problems and you know, I was a kind of bodyguard. But this point in my life was pretty sacred because it was about me looking at me, breaking the pattern and breaking free from what I didn't know that I had normalized or was, you know that spell of, I don't know, destruction or denial or something like that.

Celia: 7:35

So anyway, I was in London one day and she called me and she said she was in London and I met her and him at the same time and she just wasn't herself. It was absolutely alarming. Her behavior had changed so much. She was so worried and scared and confused and I could see that this person was exceptionally calculated and manipulative. He'd been spending her money and acting like he was the Grand Casanova and I just thought I cannot believe what's happening. So I told her. I said to her. You need to get rid of him. Whatever you need to do, get rid of him. And as soon as he knew that I was a threat to him, that's when the contact cut or I just thought she didn't want to know me anymore. And I was heartbroken because my mother and I were exceptionally close. She was a challenging character in my life, but she was so full of love and so kind and gentle. But it was her own childhood trauma that was the thing that got in the way and she never meant to do the things that she did. So I had exceptional amount of compassion for her.

Celia: 8:41

I didn't realize how costly it was to my life until a lot, lot later. So anyway, I decided to go on a vipassana meditation retreat because it was desperation and divine intervention at the same time. I just reached a point where I thought no holiday is gonna fix this mind of mine. I was multitasking, I was trying to change my life and nothing was working. I couldn't be present If someone was talking to me. I was thinking I need to be over there. I should be over there. I should have done this already. I should have done it yesterday and it was destroying my relationships. I wasn't going anywhere, I was just going in circles. And so when someone told me about the vipassana, my initial response was no way, that looks awful, it looks boring. But a year later nothing had changed. So I decided to go and I went at the exact time that my mother's life was taken. Now, that wasn't planned.

Celia: 9:33

I went to see her before her birthday. I went to her house and she said to me she was a shadow of her former self. It was alarming to me, and I think at the time that he might have been in the house hiding. I'm really not sure. Anyway, I saw her and she said to me I love having you around. I feel so much stronger when you're around. And she drove me to the station. She hugged me and it was the tightest hug ever. And I said to her look, I'll take you out for your birthday when I come out of the vipassana. And I just had no idea that that would be the last time I saw her. And she just didn't have the strength or the courage at the time because she'd been so broken by this person to tell me that he was hiding in the house or that he'd been controlling her and stealing from her and threatening her, and so I went on the vipassana without knowing the extent of what she was experiencing.

Celia: 10:39

And when I was on the vipassana I really got to see my subconscious mind, I got to see the narrative, I got to see all of the entanglements that were holding me apart from being present and from feeling good about myself and my life, and I felt like my God, this is an epiphany. I reached a point of personal peace, like mental peace, that I did not know existed. It was profound. I remember sitting in a cafe, in the cafe in the vipassana, and I could hear the hum of the fridge and I could hear the birds and I just thought I don't think I've ever experienced such peace in all my life. I'd normalized so much chatter and noise and fear and other people's opinions and my own judgments, and so I was experiencing in a way, I guess, like the kingdom of heaven within. I had experienced this peace and this awareness and I was elated. I was over the moon and I thought this is it. I've broken the pattern, I'm able to move forward. I had lots of creative ideas and I thought this is my time.

Celia: 11:44

So I finished the vipassana and we went into speaking for the last day and it was really interesting because I was able to speak to people that my mind had created judgments about. That person eats like that, they must talk like this or be like this or whatever. It was fascinating to see how my mind had created these characters. And when I spoke to people, they were nothing like my mind had created them to be, and I was just having awakening after awakening about how this creates so much fabricated reality.

Celia: 12:22

So again, I was just getting high on all the realizations and eventually we're giving our phones because obviously you give up your phone Like on a vipassana it's the oldest, purest form of meditation in India You're training your mind through your body to the language of sensation. So every time your mind runs off with a story to the future or to the past, you train your mind back into the language of sensation and release the memories. And they teach you that the two things that lead to misery are craving and attachment. So you're literally training your mind out of craving and attachment to just be with what is and see where the root causes come from.

Malcolm: 13:04

So this is a 10 day course you were on.

Celia: 13:06

Yes, yes, 10 day course. I did it in hera for cheer and since then I've done them in Nepal, I've done them in Mexico, I've done them in Nepal yeah, hera for cheer, numerous places, thailand Because I've made a commitment to training my mind. I've made a commitment to hardwiring to my intuition because, with all the information in the world today, what can you rely on? You really do need that discernment. So at the end of the trip retreat, after I'd had this epiphany of speaking to people, we went and got our phones and I saw on my phone that I had all these messages, like loads of messages, and my ego thought well, I'm so popular, look at this. Thankfully, I had the awareness not to answer those messages or check them before I left the retreat, because that could have destroyed everybody's experience. And I was actually meant to be getting the train and so I could have been on a train when I found out the news. So I got in a car, I ended up getting a lift with a few people that were really lovely, and as we're going down the road, I check my messages and I see there are some from the police, and then I see that there are some from my mother's best friend and I said to them. I said I think you need to stop the car. There's something's happened and I need to check my messages. And I got out and I walked into the field, I checked the message and my mom's best friend had left me a message saying Celia, please call me. Something's happened to your mother. So I gave her a call because no one knew where I was. And that's when I picked up the phone and she told me. She said I'm really sorry, celia. She said that your mum's been murdered and you just never expect to hear those words.

Celia: 15:15

And it was in that moment, you know, after 10 days of training my mind through my body, that I was given this space that Victor Frankel talks about, the space between stimulus and response. Because I just stood there and I had this awareness that how I respond to this is going to set the tone for the trajectory of my whole life. And I just stood there and I thought, wow, this either makes me or breaks me. And then, all of a sudden, I was just guided to clap my hands and as I did that, I just went it makes me. And then I just got this whole feeling through my body like a rush of energy, and then this message saying be faithful, the balance is being addressed. And I just stood there completely dumbstruck. You know, I mean don't get me wrong I think I screamed first and then I just took a moment to think well, what do I do with this information? And I swear the passenger saved my life because I walked back to that car, knowing that I had to be so conscious of everything I thought, said and did from this moment on, because this could take me down.

Celia: 16:34

You know, because my mom was my closest friend. She was one of the kindest, beautiful people I've ever met. She always thought the best of people. She couldn't see the truth sometimes, which was obviously one of her downfalls, but it broke my heart nonetheless. But I know that this space between stimulus and response has given me the power to sit with the pain and process it in the best way that I know how, over a period of time, I still, you know, I still went off the rails. I still, you know, grieved uncontrollably and had some really intense experiences with the grief. And it's taken years of constant commitment to healing. But had I not been on that retreat and had that and had not found out at that particular time. I really don't think I would be here today.

Malcolm: 17:39

It's interesting because I think shock takes us. It's a while to set in, and when we have a major event happen in our lives, it's almost as though our bodies have capacity to let it in bit by bit. And that's what I'm hearing happen for you. But you had already, with divine synchronicity, with extraordinary synchronicity, you'd already found a place of deep strength in yourself to face this challenge, and you can. As you said, you could very easily have fallen to pieces at the end of that. It's a most shocking thing to hear, and add to that the fact that your brother was in the house at the same time that this happened.

Celia: 18:20

Yeah, absolutely horrific. He was 15 years old and the man was following him around the house to make sure that he did not find my mother's body, because she was dead in the house for a week. And the police failed her on like every level you could think of. They even took the word of a convicted killer on her doorstep because he previously murdered another woman and assaulted my mother and she'd reported him. And even though she was crying out for help after that, he answered the door when they went there one day and he said she's gone on a walking holiday, even though her car's on the drive, and they say, okay, fine, we'll take your word for it. And they leave and he closes the door and carries on doing whatever he's doing, which was essentially stealing from the house. And yeah, I mean the details just are beyond horrific.

Malcolm: 19:12

But you could have lost your brother as well.

Celia: 19:15

And so grateful, honestly. He had everyone very infected with a renal disease. He's one of the kindest, strongest people and I really believe that it's because he has a fantastic father that's been a real pillar of strength that he's been able to to cope with what happened. I mean it sent both of us crazy, as you can imagine that, like it doesn't being on the path and it doesn't mean that I didn't fall apart. I broke into a million pieces and so has he.

Celia: 19:43

But thankfully we have each other and it was by being a coach and guiding guiding myself, guiding other people and guiding him that he's now found that that's what he wants to do and helping other people, because you know, if you teach what you've learned, you're living in the solution. But yeah, we nearly lost him and he won't mind me saying this because it's the truth and he's overcome a great deal. But you know he tried to take his life numerous times and it was by taking him to Thailand and saying let's give you a fresh start that I was able to do that for myself. I thought, well, if I can do that for him, if I can take him to Thailand and help him get himself set up so he can get some objective perspective, move away from the same energy, the same people and just collect himself, then he's got a chance and it was one of the best things that ever happened, you know.

Malcolm: 20:40

And I know that you sort of found your way through this. You actually use this experience First of all to make people aware. You found your voice in making people aware of the dangers that are out there as well for women with basically psychopathic men, and you challenged the police and you have recreated your life and, interestingly, michael Meade says that in order to become who we truly are, not only does our heart have to be broken, it has to be broken many times, and your heart was broken in this.

Celia: 21:15

It's been broken so many times. And that's. You know. I often say life will break our heart, but we cannot break our own heart. And so I knew if I did not leave the UK, I would fall prey to the insidious thoughts and normalization of suppression and, you know, I would divide and conquer and all sorts of meaningless stuff that I just couldn't stomach.

Celia: 21:40

And yeah, being an activist for over 10 years, maybe even 12, fighting for women's rights I'm a human rights ambassador for amnesty, working with safe lives, peaceful organizations, trained in nonviolent communication with them, it's just been an absolute game changer. I think. With the vipassana and the nonviolent communication, or compassionate communication, as I like to say, that's when things really shifted for me, because I wasn't in constant debate in my head you should just know. Well, you were going to do that. And it's like, by the way, you didn't do that. Okay, we're going to do it later, don't worry. And there was just a lot more collaborative energy within me that I've been able to pass on to other people and my clients by being curious, because I don't know what's right for anyone else. I just see what, what lights people up and help them honor themselves in that direction.

Malcolm: 22:33

I think there's something extraordinary that happened, because you, of course, you know I lost my daughter to suicide as well, and what happened is that unexpectedly I became wiser. I didn't choose that path, and I can hear very similar things have happened to you. See as well that actually it's like it. It, if it doesn't sink you, if it doesn't destroy you, something is born in you. In the face of suffering, you start to take what you've learned out into the world. So what I'm hearing is you've got involved with amnesty, you've got involved with, with women's rights, you've got involved with things that are really giving you an opportunity to bring the best of you to the world, to be in service effectively.

Celia: 23:16

Absolutely 100%. I mean, I'm literally trained in everything you know conscious breathing, yoga, nonviolent communication, acting, presenting into. Because I had to become curious, I had to become less about myself and more about knowing myself so that I could help other people know themselves and how to access the best of themselves. Because the victim consciousness is so insidious and it doesn't serve anyone but the media loves to feed this archetype and I found that I had to pull away from even some of the organizations that I was working with because I was under their wing as a kind of victim energy, and so it served me only so long to be finding my strength within that vicinity. Then it was like, okay, I need to create a whole new one, or not a whole new identity, but a new identity that supports, you know, the woman that I've become and everything that.

Malcolm: 24:12

Yeah, so it's not really creating a new identity, so it's like shedding a skin, isn't it? That actually is that you've found something in yourself which is a strength you didn't know you had, and you're living a life now that you know you, you you're writing your own script to live a very beautiful life.

Celia: 24:30

Yes, yes, I always say, malcolm, live the wisdom of your experience. I try and encapsulate like one sentence or questions that really help and you know what's the best that can happen or when things go wrong and like, okay, I may not see it now, but I trust that everything's coming together better than I ever imagined. Because my mother's death was an absolute tragedy and it was. It was one of the worst deaths and cases of neglect really within the police force, you know, one of many incidences, but just an absolute travesty. And I feel that the thing is is that if I was, if she was meant to be saved because there were so many opportunities and I was aware at that time, surely it would have happened and because she was suffering with depression and unprocessed trauma from her childhood. You know, and this is a really important point my mother had a really tough childhood, like she was betrayed in the worst possible way and that was a lot of unprocessed trauma because that generation didn't have access to the same tools. Now, you know, a lot of us are trauma informed. We can, we can see how to access the wisdom of this experience, or at least we have the opportunity. So it's a slight divergence, but I think it's important is that my mom, with my brother's dad, met the love of her life and she didn't do all the work that I've done on cultivating what is love and healthy relationships and all those things, but she attracted an incredible human being, my younger brother's dad.

Celia: 26:03

However, as a child, I watched how, when she was pregnant with my brother, postnatal depression activated her childhood trauma and she thought that that was all happening again and she projected that into the present moment and destroyed her happiness. I literally saw it. I could see the arc of the energy and the past playing out. And after that happened, she was never the same. They had the divorce, she moved into this small house and then she saw that he'd moved on and and she kind of clicked at what had happened, because before she was just you know, she was in a almost like a psychotic episode, you know, and so she regretted it and she never forgave herself and that's where her vibration went so low, to the same vibration of the childhood trauma, that on some level I feel she attracted the same thing, a similar vibrational experience.

Celia: 27:00

Now, I'm not sure that everybody can understand this, but if your trauma is unprocessed, this is the importance of doing the work. It doesn't. It comes back, you know it doesn't. It has to be dealt with, and so I feel that that, for me, is almost like her death because of the level of suffering. She's free now. That's what gives me some strength and some faith is that she's not suffering. I'm not waiting for a phone call to say someone else has taken advantage of her or something else has happened. You know she's finally free.

Malcolm: 27:35

Yeah, I mean it's very difficult to digest. No, no, it's. I really hear it. I really hear that actually you've had to go through a whole journey with your mother's death to come to terms with something and to find something in yourself, and it's almost like you're living the unlived part of her. To some degree, you're actually finding your way. You're consciously looking for meaning in life.

Celia: 27:59

Yeah, consciously looking for it, consciously creating it. I have, after years and years of work, I have a really good relationship with my father now and that's that's been a constant commitment. He's a great man and you know in his letter part of his years he's. He's such an inspiration to me the way he takes care of himself and how I've I've just learned to interview him and ask him About himself rather than make assumptions about who he is, because if we don't get curious about each other, we could lose a loved one without ever knowing who they really are and just have a load of assumptions. So I've taken the time to get to know him and it's healed my heart, you know, immensely. And now we have a great relationship and I just feel that had a lot. Had a lot of this not happened the way that it did, I wouldn't have asked such deep questions of life.

Malcolm: 28:47

Yeah, I think I had the same thing with. When Melissa died, I suddenly my relationship with them not suddenly, but my relationship with my other children really deepened because I realized what I've, what I've lost, and what I'm hearing is that you lost your mum and you found your dad.

Malcolm: 29:04

I mean, it's a little bit sort of simplistic, but there is something about that. You're finding something in yourself and looking forwards to where you go now. But I know you've been doing quite a lot of work. You've been on quite a lot of television programs around victim support and and other things along that lines. What's what's your? I mean right now you're in in paradise, but what's your, what's your aim? Do you have an ambition in life now?

Celia: 29:29

Yeah, absolutely it's to. I'm working on a quarter second round of a launch of a course called illumination, which is all about focusing your time and your energy and bringing the best of yourself to your dreams and creating that space to honor yourself so that you can grow every year with a plan and a clear vision, because without that, you are just a victim of the past. You need to have a vision and I think that you know, for a long time I was running from the past and it took a while to flip into this vision. I'm not being divided and not being driven by fear, but I'm being propelled by love, you know, and and it took a long time to clear that fear from my system years and so it's about.

Celia: 30:09

I'm creating a small video series called Portals to Paradise and it's about, you know, one of them is about presence as an entity. When I, when I read that in the presence process and when I was breathing something else, it really helped me. I thought, if I relate to presence as an entity, as a gorgeous being that I'm in love with, I'm going to, I'm going to be safe, whereas before I didn't feel safe in the present moment. So, those key concepts, or something that I choose to bring awareness to, and pivoting and flipping the script so that we can be alive, you know, in this moment, and present to the gifts of life. Yeah, just building out my business and speaking to people like you and just getting the message out there that we, we have to do the work on ourselves so that we can clear the fear and embody the love that we, we already are.

Malcolm: 30:58

Well, the lovely thing is that you're doing it at a young age as well. It's like it took me a long time to become an old gift with some understanding of how life works and it's like, and often we have to age. But I think when we go through trauma I think that's the one of the basis of this series that we're, the podcast series that we're doing here when we go through trauma and we find something in ourselves, it's, it matures us, it brings us something when none of us look for it, none of us look for the terrible tragedies that happen in life, but somehow, if we are able to sort of almost surf the wave of tragedy and find the next step, which is what I'm hearing that you've you've done Before. I just want to check out about your, your brother, because obviously your brother would have been incredible need of you and it sounds like you really stepped up to. It was easy with your young, younger brother. He stepped up and helped him find his way through the mess as well. What happened there?

Celia: 31:55

Yeah, I mean it's been a real journey with him.

Celia: 31:58

He's battled alcohol and addiction and, you know, trying to take his life at one point a few times, and it was just I didn't know what to do and so I suggested ayahuasca and it took him to the limit because it was an extreme choice, because I didn't really know where else. It was an existential crisis. So he did it and it lifted, it opened Pandora's box. It made him see that he really didn't think like me for a long time, that people wanted the best for him, that people were out to hurt him and how he felt about himself really low, and it just brought all of that to his awareness and then cleaned it out of his system. His life kind of fell apart and then it came back together. He's now, after being in Thailand for so long, he's now married to a beautiful girl called Jojo and he's just signed up to do a Mindvalley certified coaching course and he's on the path, malcolm, he's on the path and he's committed to himself in his own evolution. So I'm like over the moon.

Malcolm: 33:00

And just to say that you know, these hallucinogenic substances and things that can do amazing things and we have to be very careful because they can mess with our minds as well.

Celia: 33:10

Absolutely. I think it's really important to know who you're taking it with. You know I've had a few experiences over the years. I did five years or more of shamanic work, with various meditations and yoga and conscious breathing and all sorts of different shamanic work, you know, going on manual journeys, training my mind through my body, reclaiming my imagination without any medicines. And it was only five years later, after doing all that deep, consistent work, that I decided that I would try ayahuasca and then I would do it maybe once or twice a year with really deeply trained indigenous facilitators that I knew could hold that space. And so yeah it's. You've got to be very, very smart about who you select, because there's a lot of people doing things now that you know maybe they shouldn't be.

Malcolm: 33:57

Yeah, and I think that's right. You know, I think it's a, it's a mind field out there and we've sometimes we find our way through and we become a gift to the world, which is what I can see that you're working on in yourself.

Celia: 34:10

Yes, doing my best, Malcolm. I mean I just I pray in gratitude to leave people better off and to focus on being the most conscious, compassionate human being that I possibly can be, to be curious about other people and live my life without regret.

Malcolm: 34:30

So just to close, if you were to just take a moment to just sort of what was your mother's name?

Celia: 34:36

Maria.

Malcolm: 34:37

Maria, we just take a moment just to sort of like to say something in memory of this beautiful soul that you've lost. What would, what would, what would want to come through you?

Celia: 34:55

That she's been my greatest teacher for how to value myself for who I am. She had a fantastic laugh and excellent wicked sense of humour. She was one of the kindest people I've ever met and that she lives on in my heart and in my brother's heart every single day and because of her I am the woman that I am today and it just keeps getting better and better. So I have her to thank for that and bringing me into this world.

Malcolm: 35:23

It's very lovely. It's a lovely finish. Thank you so much, Celia. I really appreciate you coming on our show here and I look forward to catching up with you again when you're next in the UK or we can get out of. Costa Rica.

Celia: 35:35

I'll be. I'll be there in May, so I'll see you soon.

Malcolm: 35:38

Lovely, brilliant.

Celia: 35:39

Thanks so much, malcolm, thank you so much.

Malcolm: 35:41

And we'll be in touch. Okay, perfect All right, see you out there. Bye.