LUXE Serendipity magazine

By Donna Richardson

After losing my job and experiencing another painful loss within my family, I found myself looking beyond the obvious answers. At a crystal healing experience with Natasha Longman, I began exploring grief, creativity, spirituality, intuition and the psychic thread that has always seemed to run through my family.

When Life Forces You to Look Within

Sometimes, everything shifts at once. Earlier this year, I faced the loss of my job, my career and industry, alongside the loss of someone who meant a great deal to our family. Losing my job was not simply about losing an income. It affected my confidence, my identity and my sense of purpose, but perhaps most importantly, it disrupted the creative part of me that has always needed somewhere to go. I have always felt most like myself when I can create, imagine, explore ideas, and follow those little sparks of possibility.

When Grief Opens Old Wounds

My sister’s mother-in-law recently passed away, bringing great sadness to our whole family, as she was one of the last remaining matriarchs of our family. It was devastating for their family, but for my sister and me, it also brought back memories of our own mother’s battle with cancer 20 years ago. Judy’s death not only caused its own pain but also reopened old wounds, as if her grief reactivated our own.

My sister mourned her mother-in-law, but for me, watching my sister grieve brought back the memories of my mum and the enormous absence she left behind. It reminded me that grief can travel through time. We can spend years learning to live with a loss, believing that the sharpest edges have softened, only for another bereavement to make the old ache suddenly recognisable again.

In some ways, we were grieving together across two different generations of loss. Her mother-in-law’s death reminded us both of our mum, and it made me think about the invisible connections between the women in our family. My mum, her mum, my sister, my daughter, her daughter, and the generations of women who came before us all seemed part of the same story.

It was as though a grief we had learned to live alongside had suddenly become much closer again. Watching my sister experience her own loss brought memories of my mum rushing back, reminding me that grief does not necessarily disappear with time. Instead, perhaps we learn to carry it until another experience opens the door and reminds us it’s still there.

During this period, I also experienced some strange things in my own home. A stamp intended for a letter to my sister’s mother-in-law’s husband somehow appeared on my ceiling, and then water leaked through a light. My sister also had a vivid dream in which she felt that she had visited the person she had lost.

I found myself wondering whether these experiences could have been a form of communication. I cannot prove that they were, and I understand that grief, memory, coincidence and the subconscious can create powerful experiences. But they felt meaningful to me, particularly because they happened at a time when thoughts of my mum and the people we had lost were already very close to the surface.

Perhaps what mattered was not whether I could prove that something supernatural had happened, but how those experiences made me feel. They made me think about the possibility that love continues in ways we cannot always see. They made me think about dreams, intuition and the strange moments when someone who has died suddenly feels very close.

For someone with a family history of mediumship, those experiences naturally make me curious. Could some of what I experience be intuition? Could my dreams be my subconscious processing grief? Could there be something more? I don’t know, and perhaps I don’t need to know yet.

All of this left me questioning what came next. I did not simply want another job or another routine. I wanted to understand myself again. I wanted to find my creativity, rebuild my confidence and reconnect with the spiritual side of myself that had always been quietly present. I began wondering whether the losses I had experienced were forcing me to look more closely at a part of myself I had perhaps been ignoring.

That was the mindset I carried with me when I arrived at Vault 50 in Mayfair for an immersive crystal healing experience with energy healer, spiritual coach and mentor Natasha Longman.

Entering Natasha’s World

From the moment I arrived, the atmosphere felt calming. I was welcomed with blue lotus tea; familiar faces were around me, including Rachel Branson, and for a while the noise of everyday life seemed to soften. Natasha encouraged us to connect with the crystals intuitively rather than simply choosing them because of what we had been told they represented. She wanted us to notice which stones attracted us, what we felt when we held them, and whether we felt an instinctive connection before we even knew their meaning.

That approach immediately appealed to me because I have always trusted my intuition. I often notice things that other people might overlook, and sometimes I have a strong feeling about something before I can explain why. I have always been fascinated by those moments when something seems to speak to you without words.

As I settled down to heal, I tried to quiet my mind and simply pay attention to what I was experiencing. Then I felt a sudden whoosh of energy towards my solar plexus. My attention moved towards a carnelian, the stone Natasha associates with creativity, drive and new opportunities, and somehow it ended up flung onto the floor. It was such a dramatic little moment that I could not help but laugh, but afterwards I kept thinking about it. At a time when I was trying to rebuild my confidence and rediscover my creativity after losing my job, I had instinctively been drawn to the very stone Natasha associated with creative energy.

Natasha’s Lifelong Connection to Crystals

Natasha’s own connection with crystals began when she was just seven years old, during a school trip to London’s Natural History Museum. She remembers being fascinated by the crystal section and feeling an energy around the stones that captured her imagination. Almost 40 years later, some of those crystals still sit on her windowsill.

She was born into a spiritual family, and her mother played an important role in nurturing her understanding of healing, energy, space and time. Natasha has spent more than 20 years working with Reiki and crystals, and she sees healing as a process of alignment rather than something that is about fixing a person.

That idea stayed with me because we often talk about ourselves as though we are broken when life becomes difficult. We say we need to fix ourselves, find ourselves or become someone different. But perhaps healing is sometimes about coming back into alignment with the person we already are.

Natasha’s own life has included moments when she felt that same need to realign. Years before the pandemic, while meditating in her garden, she felt strongly that she was not fulfilling her true purpose. The pandemic eventually forced her to pause, while her father’s cancer was worsening. She began researching alternative approaches to wellbeing, and a difficult experience with a business partner became another catalyst that pushed her to create her own business.

Today, through Always Believe In Miracles, Natasha helps people reconnect with their soul, higher self, purpose and inner peace. Her work combines energy work, intuitive guidance and heart-centred conversations, and she also mentors other healers who are trying to understand their own purpose.

Listening to her made me think about my own relationship with purpose. Perhaps purpose is not always a job title or a career path. Perhaps it can be creativity, connection, spirituality or simply the thing that keeps calling to us quietly until we finally stop long enough to listen.

Natasha’s Experience of Loss and Connection

One of the most moving parts of Natasha’s story was hearing her talk about losing her father. She described her own experiences of feeling a continuing connection after his death and spoke about meditation, spiritual connection and the importance of allowing someone we love to move on rather than holding them within our grief.

I found that particularly poignant because I was already thinking about my mum and about the people my family had lost. Natasha’s experience made me consider whether grief and connection can exist together. Perhaps we can let someone go without letting go of the love we have for them. Perhaps a person can leave our physical world while continuing to influence our dreams, memories, intuition and the way we live.

I cannot say what happens after death, and I would never claim to know that someone is communicating with us. But I understand why Natasha’s experience resonated with me. At a time when my family was once again navigating loss, her story made me more open to thinking about the possibility of connection in ways I cannot necessarily explain.

The Psychic Thread in My Family

Perhaps my fascination with this subject is not entirely new. I can only describe it as a psychic thread running through my family. My great-great-grandmother was a medium with a spirit guide, and my uncle has spoken about seeing departed ancestors. My mum has also remained a strong presence in my life since her death, and I sometimes feel connected to her through the smallest things.

A feather can catch my attention at exactly the right moment. A robin can appear when I am thinking about her. I sometimes wake at 4:44am with an inexplicable sense that someone is nearby, or have a vivid dream that stays with me long after I wake. I have always noticed these things, although I have never been able to say with certainty what they mean.

One particular childhood dream has stayed with me for years. I stood in a garden and heard loved ones calling me. I could hear them clearly, but I could not quite reach them. There was nothing frightening about it. Instead, it felt strangely peaceful, and the feeling of being close to people I could not quite reach stayed somewhere inside me.

As I have grown older, I have wondered whether that dream was simply my subconscious expressing something I did not understand at the time, or whether it represented the beginning of a sensitivity I have always carried. I do not know. But the mystery has never frightened me. If anything, it has made me more curious.

That is why I want to explore my psychic side more deeply. I am not looking for certainty or trying to prove that every strange experience has a supernatural explanation. I want to understand my intuition and learn to recognise the difference between an inner knowing and the stories created by fear, grief or imagination. For me, spirituality is not about abandoning reason. It is about allowing myself to remain open to mystery.

The Lion’s Gate and a Family Reconnection

The timing felt particularly significant because all of this happened around the Lion’s Gate Portal, a period with spiritual and astrological significance for many people and often associated with transformation, manifestation, and reflection. Around that time, my sister, whom I hadn’t been in contact with for a while, suddenly reached out to me.

The message arrived unexpectedly, just as I was already thinking about family, grief, spirituality and the people we had lost. It felt like a strange coincidence, but one I wanted to pay attention to.

Her loss had brought our mum back into both our thoughts, and somehow we were finding our way back towards each other too. I began thinking about the thread that seemed to connect the women in my family, and about whether the spiritual sensitivity I have always felt might be another part of that inheritance.

I did not need to decide exactly what the timing meant. It was enough that it felt significant to me.

The Crystals That Reflected My Inner World

During the session, Natasha explained the symbolic associations she gives to different crystals, and I found myself recognising different parts of my own emotional journey in them. Clear quartz represented clarity, which felt appropriate when my mind was full of questions. Kyanite was associated with spirituality, the higher self, the third eye, communication and emotional balance, while aquamarine represented courage, calm and communication. I was particularly drawn to these blue stones because I have been thinking so much about communication, connection and my desire to explore the intuitive side of myself.

Amethyst was associated with healing and connection to the higher self, while green aventurine represented opportunity and new growth. Citrine represented abundance, confidence, accomplishment and sunshine energy, which appealed to the part of me desperate to find some light after a difficult period. Pink stones were associated with self-love, trauma and healing, while smoky quartz represented grounding and releasing negative energy. I used selenite as part of a ritual of cleansing and clearing.

I understood these associations as part of Natasha’s spiritual framework rather than scientific claims, but I found the symbolism surprisingly powerful. The crystals gave me a language for things I had been struggling to articulate. They became almost like mirrors, reflecting back the qualities I wanted to develop as I moved forward.

Creativity, Carnelian and Starting Again

Of all the stones, carnelian stayed with me most strongly because creativity has become central to how I see my future. Losing my job made me question where my creativity belonged, but the crystal experience reminded me that creativity isn’t simply attached to a particular career.

It is part of how I think, communicate and process emotion. It is how I imagine possibilities and make sense of the world. It is also deeply connected to my spirituality because when I am creating, I often feel most in touch with my intuition. Ideas can arrive almost as if they are being received rather than forced, and there is a sense of flow that feels difficult to describe logically.

Perhaps that is why the carnelian felt so significant. It represented the part of me that still wanted to create, even as another part of me grieved. It reminded me that I did not need to put my creativity aside while I rebuilt my life. Perhaps creativity was actually one of the things that could help me rebuild.

Citrine, Confidence and New Possibilities

I was also strongly drawn to citrine, with its bright yellow colour and association with confidence, abundance and accomplishment. Something about its warmth felt hopeful. I wanted to believe that there could be something beyond the uncertainty I had been experiencing.

And slowly, opportunities began appearing. I had a job interview; I was reconnecting with friends and people from my past were beginning to resurface. Rather than viewing those connections simply as nostalgia, I started to wonder whether some of them were invitations to explore what might be possible next.

Maybe life was not asking me to recreate what I had lost. Maybe it was asking me to create something different.

Finding Stability Without Losing Myself

My relationship has also made me think about the balance between stability and creativity. My partner is naturally more practical and steady. He values security, consistency, and holding onto what we have, while I am instinctively drawn to possibility, creativity, and the excitement of discovering what might be around the next corner.

Sometimes those differences create tension. When I feel controlled or restricted, I can become emotional and frustrated. When I feel free, I am happier, lighter and much more creative. But I am beginning to understand that neither of us is wrong. We simply approach life from different perspectives.

Perhaps the answer is not choosing between stability and creativity but finding a way for both to exist. I want strong foundations, but I also want space to grow. I want security, but I do not want to lose the part of myself that needs freedom and possibility.

Releasing What No Longer Serves Me

Smoky quartz became a symbol for another part of my journey: learning to release what I no longer need to carry. There has been grief, uncertainty, disappointment, doubt and old emotional pain, and I have spent a long time trying to understand what to do with it.

I am beginning to realise that releasing pain does not mean releasing love. I can remember my mum without living permanently inside the sadness of losing her. I can acknowledge the pain of losing my job without allowing it to determine my worth. I can honour the people my family has lost while still building a future.

Perhaps healing is not about erasing what happened. Perhaps it is about changing our relationship with it.

Learning to Trust My Inner Voice

The more I explore crystals, dreams, spirituality and my family’s history, the more I realise that what I am really trying to develop is trust. I want to trust my intuition without automatically believing every feeling. I want to understand my dreams without assuming that every dream is a message. I want to explore the psychic side of myself while remaining grounded enough to question what I experience.

Perhaps developing my intuition is less about predicting the future and more about becoming more aware of the present. Some of the things I notice may be spiritual experiences, or the subconscious connecting memories and emotions before my conscious mind catches up. I am comfortable with not knowing.

Mystery does not have to be frightening. It can be fascinating.

Rebuilding Through Creativity and Spirituality

Looking back, I realise I was not really searching for a crystal that could change my life. I was searching for a way back to myself.

The stones became symbols of what I needed: clarity, communication, confidence, creativity, grounding, opportunity, and spiritual connection. Natasha’s story reminded me that purpose can arrive as a quiet calling. Her experiences of loss made me think about how connection can continue after someone dies. My family’s history reminded me that my fascination with mediumship and intuition has deep roots. My dreams reminded me that there are parts of myself I have never completely understood.

And my creativity reminded me that something new can still grow after loss.

I think that is what I am rebuilding now. Not simply a career or a routine, but a relationship with myself that gives equal space to the practical and the mystical, the grounded and the imaginative, the grieving woman I have been and the creative woman I am becoming.

What I Choose to Carry Forward

I went to Vault 50 thinking I might find some answers, but instead I came away with better questions. Who am I becoming? What am I ready to create? What am I ready to release? What does my intuition want me to hear? What does my family’s spiritual history mean for me? And can I create a stable life without losing the magic and curiosity that make me who I am?

I do not know whether my dreams are messages. I do not know whether the signs I notice are spiritual or simply meaningful coincidences. I do not know whether another world sits just beyond the one we can see. But I know that I am curious, and I know that I want to listen.

After a period of loss, I feel something beginning to return. It is not necessarily the person I was before. It feels more honest, more intuitive, and more creative. I am learning to see grief not simply as something that has taken things from me, but as something that has made me question what matters and encouraged me to look more deeply at who I am.

Perhaps rebuilding is not about starting again from nothing. Perhaps it is about gathering every part of yourself – the grief, the memories, the dreams, the spirituality, the intuition, the creativity and even the unanswered questions — and allowing them all to belong in the same story.

For now, I am listening to that story. I am following the creative sparks when they arrive, paying attention to the dreams and the little moments that make me pause, and allowing myself to wonder about the psychic thread that seems to run through my family.

I do not need to have all the answers.

For the first time in a long time, I am simply curious about what comes next.

Learning to listen

By the end of the session, I felt less interested in finding definitive answers and more interested in asking better questions.

What if intuition is something we strengthen by listening to it? What if creativity needs space rather than control? What if grief can eventually become a source of compassion and motivation? And what if some experiences do not need to be explained immediately to be meaningful?

I want to explore my intuition without abandoning reason. I want to understand my dreams without assuming every dream is a message. I want to remain open to the possibility of mediumship without feeling I have to prove it. Most of all, I want to trust myself enough to recognise the difference between intuition, fear, emotion and imagination.

For me, channelling my inner psychic is not about predicting what comes next. It is about becoming more attentive to what is already happening within me.

The crystals gave me a language for things I had already been carrying: grief that needed somewhere to go, creativity that wanted to be released, relationships that needed tending, opportunities that deserved my attention and an intuition I had spent too long questioning.

I left Vault 50 with no grand revelation, but with a quieter sense of certainty about what I want to take forward. I want to build stability without losing my creativity, embrace opportunity without forcing it, remain open to the mysterious without abandoning reason, and carry the people I have loved and lost through gratitude rather than pain.

Perhaps I will never know whether the feathers, dreams, 4:44 wake-ups, angel numbers appearing at opportune moments and fleeting sensations of presence are coincidence, instinct, memory or something more. Perhaps I do not need to.

For now, I am listening.