Ancestral Communication Part 3: Caroline

Karmic choices. Guide. Powerful Healer from the beyond.

Our spirit guides are not always angels and our own ancestors. Sometimes they are the loved ones, by blood or marriage, to those with whom we are in a relationship. Today in part 3, I want to talk about Caroline who was the second wife of my late Dutch husband Johan. In part because of her, I learned that sometimes we need to move beyond our own insecurities to be able to receive support from others beyond the veil. My opening up allowed Caroline to not only work through me for Johan, but also be a spirit guide for me.

Johan was diagnosed with two cancers, throat cancer and lymphoma, a month after we met in 2016, and he spent three months undergoing chemo and radiation. He lost a lot of weight throughout his treatment. This was expected. It was also expected that he would regain some of it over time after treatment since he was on a feeding tube for his meals and would slowly learn to eat orally again.

Due to the damage to his throat because of all the radiation treatments, eating and swallowing safely was a struggle for the rest of his life. It became so bad that his doctor put him on a feeding tube 14 hours a day because there was no other option to keep him alive. Johan never put the weight back on or truly followed what the doctors suggested. In his mind if he was ill and people were catering to him and showing attention to him, that was what he required. Being ill served a purpose for his life. Perhaps there were lessons he needed to learn through the illness. I am certain there were lessons I was to learn through his illness.

I never had the opportunity to meet Caroline, for two primary reasons I believe. First, I didn’t specifically ask or push Johan to introduce us after he and I got together in 2016. I was a little jealous she still spent so much time with Johan. Most people who get divorced never spend time together again. However, Johan was never one to let go of anyone in his life out of fear he’d upset someone, even when it was in his highest good to walk away. He always had to be the one everyone liked. After his death he reminded me of this in an energy healing session he came into with his late father.

Caroline also took care of Johan from time to time as he was going through his cancer treatment. I admit I felt strongly I should have been able to be in two places at one. In Chicago with my boys and in the Netherlands with him, taking care of everyone at the same time. I felt then that I was the best person to take care of him. In reality, we can only be in one place at a time. Not every journey with the people we love requires us to be participating with them 100% of the time. That guilt of not being able to be and do it all was a hard thing to release and make peace with, within myself.

Second, Johan never wanted to introduce us out of his fear. You never know what a former spouse will share. Also, I was an American. I later discovered Johan wasn’t as fond of Americans as he pretended to be and looked down on us because we were not as “good” as the Dutch. I also learned much later that I was to be kept mostly a secret. Something hidden not celebrated.

Caroline’s Cancer & Death

Caroline was diagnosed with cancer about a month or two after Johan was diagnosed with his two cancers. Of the two of them, she was more willing to go the holistic route in addition to the chemical hospital treatments. As she went through treatment, she still showed up at least once or twice a week, as she felt able, to help out at Johan’s house with cooking, cleaning, ironing, or whatever he required. Johan was very ill throughout much of his treatment and required additional support. This was due in part because he didn’t follow doctors orders and take care of himself as he was instructed, which led to several hospital stays and additional issues.

While they were married, Johan told me that Caroline practiced Wicca and tried more holistic healing modalities. It was she who introduced Johan to Tarot reading and Wicca. She attempted to help him embrace his spiritual gifts. Johan became a good Tarot reader but beyond that, he chose not to use the powerful gifts he was born with and chose to hide them instead. Caroline, I believe, was his first opportunity/teacher to do the healing work his soul signed up for in this lifetime and I was his second. In the end he refused us both.

Caroline did not survive her cancer. She died in May 2017. Her funeral was a day after I flew back to the Netherlands to be with Johan for several weeks. He did not ask me to attend the funeral with him as support. He did not share how he felt about her leaving him. I later learned in some energy healing sessions that in past lives they were siblings and she died before he did. Apparently in this life, in his soul contract he had decided that he was going to die before her but she changed the plan.

Can Soul Contracts Change?

That made me wonder – if we soul contracted to be in certain relationships and have certain experiences, can we change the plan or does our soul always end up where it is supposed to? Was Johan supposed to die from his cancer before her, but because I was in his life, the plan changed? I believe we can make different choices and end soul contracts that are no longer in our highest good. I believe our plan can change and we are not required, at this time due to the massive shift in consciousness on the planet, to remain bound to soul contracts that will not serve us.

Caroline’s Healing Energy

After her death, Caroline showed up to support and guide me in some energy healing sessions. Normally before I flew to Europe to see Johan, I saw my energy healer to work through and release anything that was holding me back or would keep me stuck in an energy that was not in my highest good. I flew to Europe each time feeling lighter and clearer about what was ahead.

This was important not only to maintain my spiritual health but also my energy. I never knew what I was walking into when I returned to see Johan. I never knew how many doctor visits or hospital stays he would have which would wear me down.. Energy healing sessions, journaling, and my meditation practice were ways I tried to take care of me. As a caregiver, when our cup is empty and we have no energy, we are unable to care for those who are ill.

During some of these energy healing sessions, there were instances where Caroline channeled messages to me to reassure me I was on the right path and that all would be ok in the end. Occasionally she would appear in my meditations and provide information or guidance. She also let me know that Johan did in fact love me in his own way, even though he was who he was and carried the fears and prejudices he did.

An Angel Appears

I am a firm believer in holistic medicine and energy work. I know they can heal. There was one point about mid-way through his cancer treatment that he had an energy healing session with someone I worked with for my own healing. The tumor in his neck shrunk by half overnight after it had grown considerably the previous two weeks. His doctors were amazed.

Not wanting to be the Dutch medical miracle through energy healing, Johan never worked with the energy healer again. I have often wondered what his life would have been like had he done more sessions and allowed the cancer to be healed.

Many months after treatment, I began running energy on Johan to help him heal or just feel better. In those sessions I would often see his late father sitting in a corner of the room in his old brown chair just watching us. Occasionally his father would talk to me and pass a message or just ask me why I bothered staying with his son.

There were others who appeared when I ran energy on Johan. Quite often a group of Native Americans would sit in a circle around a campfire in the living room. Sometimes I would also see a ridge with soldiers standing guard at the top. All of these spirits were there to help in Johan’s healing.

Johan was very powerful and he could have done amazing things with his gifts. However, the Dutch do not like to stand out. Johan and many other Dutch friends told me they are raised to listen, obey, not question, not be different, and just plain fit in. So that’s what he did. That’s also what he tried to do with me and my gifts - make me small, less shiny and fit in. Sadly, I almost let him do this and gave away some of my power. It took a long time for me to break that pattern and call my power back.

At times, Caroline would appear in the energy sessions I ran on Johan. Once when Johan was really ill and I wasn’t sure he was going to live much longer, Caroline showed up as this brilliant white light looking angel. I watched her work on him with with crystals and healing white light while I also ran energy through him. When I told him she was doing this powerful work, he stopped the energy session and got off the table. He chose not to receive her help or mine.

Remember, being ill served him, at least until his friends stopped calling and coming around as often. Everyone seemed to have grown tired of his constant hospital stays and issues. By that point he was so far gone it would have taken a miracle for him to recover. Johan stopping the energy healing session made me sad and angry. In the end it was always his choice to heal or not. To live or die.

We are all connected even if not by blood. I have no idea what other past life connections Caroline and I may have had. Those details were never discussed so were likely unimportant in my soul journey. I am grateful to the assistance she gave me as I processed and healed my own stuff and her contribution to the few times Johan let me run energy on him in an attempt to help him heal.

Life Lessons

As I mentioned, I was jealous of Caroline. More that she was with Johan and assisting him in a time when I should have been. Wasn’t that my “job” as a fiancé after all? To be there to love, support, care for this man? Distance prevented that and over time I realized that he and I were never supposed to be physically together as he went through treatment. We had two separate soul journeys to take. If we had been togetehr, our relationship would have ended for certain. Even apart, it almost ended a couple of times while he was in treatment.

The jealousy triggered in me several things I had to look at within myself. Why was I jealous? Where did I need to stop over-giving and allow others to step in when I couldn’t? What was creating the insecurity within me? Why did I feel the need to be the only one to take care of him – what did I have to prove? That was a big question that came up repeatedly while we were together – what did I have to prove? I didn’t realize it at the time but he and I were both well functioning co-dependents on different ends of the spectrum. Co-dependency was something I had to look at for myself in 2020 when I had space from Johan and heal so I would stop attracting partners who required so much from me.

On an unconscious level I knew he was forcing me to constantly prove myself, my love, and my worth. I would never and did never measure up to what he wanted and expected. Proving myself was also a trauma response and it took years and many layers of healing work to release that need, with him and everyone in my life.

Throughout our time together, Johan also hid a lot and made sure I never met certain people or discovered certain information (at least I never told him I discovered certain things). There were a lot of lies to gaslight me so I’d stop questioning certain topics. I had to learn to fully trust my intuition when it was telling me he was lying about something or hiding something. That also took a long time and by 2018 I was starting to trust it less because I had been so worn down by his toxic behavior. Once 2020 came and I had space at home without him to process, and felt safe enough to look at why I didn’t trust myself as I should, things began to change.

Another lesson I learned (again) throughout my relationship with Johan is that we are all mirrors for each other. What irritates us in another person is something we carry inside that can be explored and released. Also that people connected to those we are in relationship with can impact or trigger us, which invites us to then create change in our lives. Change is of course always a choice.

Which Spirit Guide Will Appear Next?

We never know who our next spirit guide will be. It isn’t always our blood ancestor. Sometimes it is other people’s ancestors. Johan’s World War II traumatized mother in some ways acted as a spirit guide for me. That’s a whole other story I’ll share soon. Of all the guides or soldiers that have appeared to work with me or guide me, his late mother was the most intense and soul damaged of them all, so far.

When we can be open to who shows up and be curious about what they have to share or teach us, our soul can grow exponentially and we can release so much that has held us back. We can release personal and ancestral trauma, negative energies, and old beliefs, behvaiors and patterns.

Who has shown up to guide you that you never expected?