Nottingham, UK
English
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Like many of us, I spent decades trying to fix what felt like my fundamental flaws. While I often appeared to function well, I struggled with food issues, anxiety, sensitivity to criticism, perfectionism, relationship issues and a deep lack of self-worth.
From my late twenties onwards, I explored psychotherapy, meditation, complementary medicine and a variety of spiritual teachings. I learnt many valuable things, but didn’t reach the sense of feeling whole or contented that I longed for.
By my mid-forties, I was the co-founder of an award-winning health project, had my own home and child, and yet… something still didn’t feel quite right. When I lost my much-loved job in early 2007, my life and I fell spectacularly apart.
For several years, I experienced a dark night of the soul. Everything I had been trying to fix or escape from came to the surface. Terror, panic, grief, shame, anguish, humiliation, yearning, shock, neediness, trauma; the floodgates opened and I began to truly face the legacy of my troubled childhood. It was a very intense time and I couldn’t work for several years. Yet there were also moments of grace, moments when it became clear that this undoing was part of an awakening process.
When I first experienced Scott’s Unfindable Inquiry in 2011, it was a revelation. I sensed that inquiry was the answer to a question I didn’t realise I’d been asking. Learning how to come back to myself, to be present to myself whatever my state, is a continual process of revelation. I continue to inquire, both on my own and with other facilitators. The sense of being fundamentally flawed or damaged is gone. I’m no longer plagued by anxiety. The critical inner voice that used to drive the perfectionism has very little to say these days. Life feels simpler, saner and more normal.
Since 2012, I’ve been at the heart of the Living Inquiries community as a senior facilitator and trainer. I am also the editor of two of Scott Kiloby’s books. My book about the Living Inquiries – The Art of Finding Yourself: Live Bravely and Awaken to Your True Nature was published in 2016. My latest book, The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence was published in 2018, and I continue to write poetry and articles about all aspects of awakening, spiritual crisis and embodied inquiry.
I work with men and women from around the world and have facilitated thousands of sessions. I accompany my clients gently and unflinchingly as they journey into the depths of their experience. Whatever arises – pain, tears, laughter, anger, numbness, resistance, surrender, defensiveness, shame, realisations, insights, or blocks – I’m fully present, holding my clients wherever the process flows. I always allow ninety minutes per session, so there is plenty of time and space to rest and talk both before and after inquiring.
I work with clients on a wide variety of issues, so whatever challenges you face, it’s likely that we can inquire into them together. As one of the first group of facilitators that Scott trained, and as co-creator of the Anxiety Inquiry, I am a very experienced and skilled facilitator.
If my words resonate with you and you would like to know more, or you’d like to book a session, you are very welcome to get in touch.
Senior facilitator Fiona Robertson’s latest book, The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence is resonating with many people.
One reviewer recently wrote:
“Having found myself terrified and overwhelmed in my own unraveling process several years ago, and still grappling with it in new and old ways, this book feels long overdue…What I appreciated most was the way she presented it: honest, unapologetic, and down-to-earth…My hope is that her book finally gives us permission to openly and frankly discuss an aspect of human development that so many of us have found ourselves struggling through, and my guess is that as the world shifts, many more of us enter.”
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This video is from one of Fiona’s book launches. Here she joins Zahra Achouak in Amsterdam to talk about her new book, The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence. In the beautiful surroundings of the Buurtboerderij, Zahra and Fiona discuss many aspects of the dark night journey, including falling apart, the nature of the persona, the feeling of pain, and discovering the hidden parts of ourselves. This honest conversation and the questions which follow may be of support to anyone who is in or has gone through a dark night of the soul or any kind of spiritual crisis or emergency.
For more details about the book or the events, please click here