We recently connected with Nicole Hawkins and have shared our conversation below.
Nicole, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
My defining moment that changed the trajectory of my career path was when my husband and I heard those three words that none of us ever want to hear, “you have cancer.” March 20, 2020, at 10:18 am, he was diagnosed with stage 4 Central Nervous System Lymphoma. This is when our lives change forever, but not necessarily in the negative way that most would think.
As he prepared to embrace his cancer journey, and I for my caregiving journey, we had no clue how this journey would transform us. Questions and fear infiltrated our minds. Would this be the purpose for his transition? How would the treatments affect him? How do we relay this to our girls? And not only the questions, but all the emotions moving through the journey. Now, I know my husband was going through his own thoughts and emotions, but speaking as the caregiver, I was hit with feelings of depression, exhaustion, anxiety, sadness, fear, hopeless, frustration, resentment, guilt, shame, impatience, wondering why my family, having thoughts if my husband died through his cancer journey, I wanted to go as well; being angry at God/Source or even my friends who were moving through their lives having a ball while we were coping with this moment of hardship; feeling lonely most times even though people were around. I felt it all.
The darkest part in my caregiving journey was when he had to stay in the hospital for almost a total of 30 days to take very strong dosages of chemo because the cancer was in his spinal cord and was starting to affect his lower extremities. I couldn’t be there for him because the world was also dealing with a pandemic. During this time, there were days where I would cry all day; days where I would just lay in the bed; days where I would ignore calls and isolate myself; I would call out of work. I had to figure out how to snap out of that negative funk, and that when I started to meditate heavily. Meditation became my best friend. Now, I have always been a meditator, but during this time, meditation was my saving grace.
The more and more I meditated, the deeper they became. Something was happening inside of me. I started to perform shadow work, I started to heal some of the negative emotions that were swirling through my mind. I began to get clarity about our co-creative journey here in the physical reality. I began to see the journey in full color instead of surface level. And this is where I started to see my husband’s cancer as a gift. A gift of evolution, a gift of alchemy, a gift of unconditional love and growth; a gift of knowledge spiritually, mentally, and physically. I was able to get clarity about the question was who actually takes care of the caregiver?
I began to research this question, and every time I would see the question answered, it would always point to the fact that the caregiver would have to take care of themselves with self-care and maintain a healthy balance of love, to make sure they continue to take their caregiving walk with source or God, to always stay positive and keep a smile on their faces. And though these things are true, I felt it was necessary to dive a little deeper into this question. Who really takes care of the caregiver? Who really opens the caregivers heart chakra in a way that is transforming in every aspect of their lives, mentally, physically, and spiritually? Was it the caregiver’s best friend? Was it the family pet? Was it the caregiver’s siblings, or aunts, or uncles, or even their kids? During my quest to find the answer, my higher self showed me that it is none of them. Now can they contribute; yes, but do they truly take care of the caregiver? No.
What was shown to me through my deep meditation is the person who takes care of the caregiver is the person with the illness or the disability. What a SHIFT! I know you’re like Nicole, how can this be? But this is where you have to go within to understand this on a soul level. I allowed myself to dig a little deeper for the details of this answer.
The answer continued with, the person going through the illness or disability is gifting the caregiver with spiritual and mental gifts in the form of more empathy, more compassion, more patience, more knowledge, wisdom within the journey, more mental and spiritual strength, an abundance of inner strength, boundary setting, more organizational skills, and an abundance of love, especially self-love, self-awareness, and much more. But in order to obtain these gifts, you have to embrace and understand the negative emotions that I spoke about earlier. And as a polarity shift, the caregiver is gifting the loved one going through the pain and suffering with spiritual, mental, and sometimes physical gifts in the form of care, unconditional love, support, wisdom, companionship, listening, motivation, free to heal, live, or transition; whichever their soul desires during their journey, and they too have a choice to go through the humbling process during their journey to understand these gifts.
You and your loved one are spiritually evolving. You both are growing through the process, which encompasses a lot of dualities in the journey. And I always say light cannot form without darkness. During this process, you and your loved are helping each other understand yourselves on a totally different level. This is where you level up spiritually. This is where your become a master alchemist. You both start to focus on what’s really important throughout our journey on this physical plane, and that’s learning growth and unconditional love.
In me, the phoenix emerged. Through the spiritual activating journey of caregiving, I was able to find the perspective shift. Because of my husband and our co-creative journey, I was able to find myself through meditation, shadow work, and release so many emotional traumas I held within me. I no longer saw my journey, or any other adverse journey, as a burden; I saw them as a learning lesson. Through this journey, I was able to see that my husband’s cancer was a gift to me in the form of my spiritual activation.
The caregiving journey really opened me up to a different understanding. What made me truly view cancer as a gift was when I started to understand that if it were not for my husband, I would have never wrote my book, “F*CK CAREGIVING: A Practical Approach to find the Joy in your Journey,” became a certified sound healer, took guitar lessons as a way of occupying my mind while he was in the hospital, performed shadow work on myself and others, started my podcast called “A Shift in Perspective Podcast,” I would have never started my own album of meditations or my own clothing like called AFFIRMED Apparel, or decided to start my healing company called The soul RESET Project to help other souls release and heal their own emotional traumas. If it wasn’t for him going through cancer, I would not be sharing my story with you. He opened my eyes to an entirely unique world of healing that I didn’t know existed within me. He gave me the greatest gift in the world; the healed, aware, powerful version of me. Alchemy at its finest.
Nicole, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am an Author, Keynote Speaker, Spiritual Activator, Sound Therapist,Perspective Shifter and an Emotional Release Facilitator, who facilitates healing for other souls by helping them reawaken and revitalize their mind, body, and soul to the frequency of self-love through the art of meditation, channeling, emotion release therapy, chakra therapy, and sound therapy.
My spiritual activation and understanding that our adversities are here to push us to our greatness began when her husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 Central Nervous System Lymphoma. During this time of uncertainty, I began incorporating these modalities above to aide me in my healing. Through my caregiving journey, I decided to detail my journey emotions, and the modalities I used to find my joy as a caregiver, thus, my book “F*CK Caregiving: A Practical Approach to Finding the Joy in your Journey,” was born. Through meditation, I started to understand that my earthly mission is to help other beautiful souls take back their light as I was able to during difficult times!
Through my spiritual activation, I started a podcaster called “A Shift in Perspective Podcast,” which is a weekly podcast created to help others consider different perspectives around spirituality and the dualities/adversities in this game we call life and to help reprogram the subconscious mind to become happier, powerful, evolved versions of ourselves.
I am in the process of becoming a licensed hypnotherapist, which is another modality of healing, and pursue my bachelor’s in psychology to help me learn more about releasing and healing negative emotions through the psychedelic journey.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Once I started to tap into that intuitive part of me, I no longer saw things as black and white. My mind started to shift and began to see things in full color. I no longer saw our adversities that we move through and the programming that we’ve been taught all of our lives in a surface level capacity. I saw thing much, much deeper I didn’t see our adversities as negative any longer. I saw God/Source in a differently light. I was always told that if you go out here and do something that doesn’t fit society’s standards or sin, that God was going to punish you. I based my entire life off of that one statement, and now knowing God/Source on a deeper level, I understand that it is the overseer, and you are the one in control. That was one of the biggest lessons I learned.
I also learned that the program we were taught like go to school, go to college, get your degree, go to church, get a job, find a good mate, have kids, and live happily ever after; I understood that it doesn’t fit everyone’s life, and when people’s lives didn’t go as society programmed it, they thought that they did something wrong. I realized that particular program is one of the main reasons why depression and resentment, and so many other negative emotions exist. If you don’t have a degree, no kids, or no mate, or don’t identify with church, that doesn’t mean that your life is bad, but that is how society has programmed us to believe. That life is supposed to flow a certain way, and that’s not necessarily the case for everyone. Everyone’s physical reality is unique to their lives, and through. This is why I do what I do in my podcast because people need to hear that perspective shift. They need to hear that life is what you make it and healing through our traumas is one of the most important elements of living a balanced life in the physical reality. What we were taught was good during our ancestors’ time on this earth, but they went through that so that we can know what we want and don’t want and evolve our lives and make this world a better place.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
If I could go back with the knowledge that I have now, I would definitely pick my specialty sooner. To understand the power of helping others find their healing and release their negative emotions and transform themselves through different modalities like meditation, sound healing, psychedelics, hypnosis, speakings, books, and more, is life changing. It creates the phoenix within us. To be of service in that way is what gives me fulfillment. But I also understand that no timing is the wrong timing. Everything and everyone is placed intricately in your soul’s blueprint until you’re ready to bring it forth.
Contact Info:
- Website: iamnicoleyhawkins.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i.am.nicoleyhawkins/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicole.thomashawkins
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-hawkins-04a470219
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-shift-in-perspective-podcast/id1656802243