Margaret Fleming

Master Your Own Destiny to me is a self help book with a spiritual twist and my hands tingle every time I pick it up to read it.  The book focuses on developing the inner you and enables you to overcome your own conflicts and challenges.  Importantly it makes you understand where you are in your life and what journey you’re on.  I believe that the book comes in to your life at a point when you need to learn from it’s sound advice.

Sheila finished an early draft of her second book she asked me if I could take a look and give her my thoughts on it.    As I was reading the book tragedy struck my life when my eldest daughter was killed in a helicopter crash.  Understandably I put down Sheila’s book as I struggled to deal with the practicalities of her death, as well as my own and my family’s grief.

I did not read the book for over six months.  I would pick it up and read a few pages, then put it down again.  I found that grief had severely affected my concentration, yet I was still drawn to the book.  The beauty of the book is that you can dip in and out of it and simply open a random page, which you find normally holds some relevance to the challenge you are facing at the time.  Then two months ago I returned to Master Your Own Destiny and read it from the beginning.

Reading Master Your Own Destiny after losing a child gave me a lot of comfort.  It made me realise that everything happens for a reason.  Experiences come our way to make us grow, no matter how difficult they may first appear to be.  You have a lesson to learn from every experience which has been sent to teach you.

My daughter was a beautiful, positive, vibrant and out-going young woman.  We had a close relationship and would socialise and take holidays together.  Although I felt loss, I also felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I had been given the opportunity to enjoy so many wonderful times with her.  Master Your Own Destiny brought out that gratitude within me, an awareness which I found enlightening, comforting and supporting.  This idea certainly made the grieving process easier to manage as I had no regrets.

When I lost my daughter I had this awful feeling that she was on her own, that the rest of the family were all together, and she was all alone and missing us.  Master Your Own Destiny made me realise that she was not alone, she was always with us.  The book gave me this spiritual awareness and I am now beginning my own spiritual journey, which giving me complete balance in my life.

The book talks about soul families and the idea that families have been together in past lives.  Also, that children choose their parents.  It’s comforting to think that when you lose someone dear to you this is not the end of your relationship.  Also, to think that my daughter chose me as her mother was wonderful.  She was given to me as a gift to cherish and look after and to think she chose me was a compliment.

Master Your Own Destiny made me review all areas of my life and helped me to focus on what I really wanted.  I realised that my career was an area of my life that I wanted to change.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work anymore.  I felt as though I wanted to close my door and to move away.  I thought about what I liked, what I wanted, what I enjoyed.  I eventually came to realise that I did want to work, so I thought about where I could make improvements without changing it all completely.

I run my business from home and wasn’t happy about my working space, so I changed it.  I stopped running parts of my business that I no longer enjoyed.  I wanted to do more professional speaking events and I have been looking into joining the Professional Speaker’s Association to improve my skills.  I am now lucky to be doing more work with corporate clients and more public speaking, both parts of my career which I really enjoy.
I have begun to meditate, an idea which came from the book.  I find it gives me clarity of mind and enables me to practice visualisation techniques.  Importantly, Master Your Own Destiny has taught me to let things go.  Instead, I take action and wait for results.  There is no need to worry anymore and this is such a relief.

I am grateful for the inspiration Master Your Own Destiny has given me as it has enabled me to make lasting changes to my life.    I feel that the real beauty of the book is that it’s like having Sheila sitting next to you guiding you the whole time you are reading it.  Despite the loss of my daughter I am now fulfilled and at peace with the life I have, something which I doubt would be possible had I not read Master Your Own Destiny.

Margaret