Ashes to Beauty: From Ashes She Rose and Beauty Happened

By Karen Callaghan

Based on a true story, Karen Callaghan experiences life through trials and error; her resilience takes her life to the next level, and she never settles and accepts mediocrity. Despite Karens struggles, she sees the good and learns from her pain and mistakes, thus becoming emotionally stronger.

In Ashes to Beauty, Karens story is used to help and inspire women and men to live life to the fullest and to celebrate and appreciate the gifts of life. It demonstrates how to:

be appreciative and grateful;

be attuned to your intuition;

live and create life on your own terms;

recognize your patterns in life and have a good breakthrough that will change your life and future generations;

focus on what will make you grow as an individual

understand that working, developing, and growing ones self will inspire others to do the same; and

develop strategies to maintain the changes.

Ashes to Beauty offers a narrative to show you how to grow, get creative, and master your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Dec 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504305143

Karen Callaghan

Karen Callaghan understands happiness is an inside job that involves positive emotions, and she works on maintaining those feelings on a daily basis. Above all she believes in serving and giving back with conviction and love, which also makes her feel connected spiritually. The money aspect follows and consequently flows automatically and abundantly. She currently lives in New South Wales, Australia.

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Copyright © 2017 Karen Callaghan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0513-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0514-3 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 12/20/2016

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Acknowledgements from a Developed Perspective

About the Author

Acknowledgements

T his book was written from a place of love. Karen owes where she is today to her parents, whom she loves. They did best with what they knew in raising Karen. Karen’s parents didn’t know any better, and Karen understands that, now that she is more developed as a person. She loves her father for his authenticity and her mother for her faithfulness and endurance. Though it took a lifetime for Karen to really understand her life and its dynamics, she is ever so grateful to her parents for contributing to make her the strong individual she is today.

Karen has beautiful children, and she owes her progress and success in life to them too as they motivated her. As Karen grew through personal development, her children were looking on, and she believes they were learning too. Karen loves them dearly with all her heart.

This book is non fictional and based on true events. The author has changed the characters’ names to protect identities of the people involved.

Prologue

Saturday, July 4, 2015

K aren was giving a presentation to her clients about modelling at a modelling agency situated in the middle of a busy and bustling city. She had now moved to this city to start life from scratch, on her own.

She received a call in the middle of her presentation. Normally she would not answer any phone calls. She hung up two times, however her instincts told her that the call needed to be taken. On the third time, Karen excused herself from her clients. It was her sister, Flolyn; she said that their dad had been accused of fondling their brother’s step-daughter.

The remainder of her day wasn’t good. At first she wondered how a child could come up with such a story. Karen did not know what to think, a lot of questions ran through her mind and she was in turmoil, the love for her father defies the odds of one who fondles. She was placed in a position to support her father despite of the pain she was in. Meanwhile this is the root of all the demons she was facing her entire life and the day of reckoning has come.

In the evening of that same day, Karen rang her parents, who lived in a country three hours from where she lived. She told them that she loved them and that they would just wait and see how this would progress. Karen mentioned to her father that whether one does good or bad in life, he or she is going to be judged anyway. She told her father that if he knew himself that he hadn’t done anything of the sort, then he should not worry about it. He should just sit back and relax. Karen talked again with her parents via Skype the following day whilst they were at her younger sister, Flolyn’s house.

On Monday, July 6, Karen’s daughter, Mikaela opened up about having been fondled by Karen’s father herself when she was four years old. Karen’s sister, Flolyn immediately called her. Flolyn had just picked up Karen’s daughter, Mikaela from work because she was in no position to drive and she needed to get the story off her chest. Karen spoke with her daughter, Mikaela and asked her to tell her in detail what exactly had happened to her. Mikaela was in tears, and she told Karen that she had to say something about this, as it had been hanging over her head for years.

Karen told her daughter that now that she had brought this to light, she was free. Karen told her that she could always talk to her if she needed to unload any pain. She also reminded her daughter that with her mind progressing and going forward, she should really feel liberated. This was something to be celebrated, as she was now free. The chain was broken, and everything had come full circle for both of them. Personally for Karen, a lot of things had now begun to make sense. The unanswered questions she’d had for years had now been answered, as her daughter had shed light on an issue that had been hidden in the darkness for almost an entire lifetime.

With that being said, the weeks after the revelation were very challenging for Karen indeed. It was as if she were grieving. She felt like she was mourning a loss because of the fact that it had taken all these years to get here. There had been so much wasted time, confusion, and complete chaos—a muddled-up life, if you will. She felt betrayed; it was like her whole life had been a joke. What’s sad about this was that it explained why her life was the way it was. She had always had questions running through her head, and she had thought that one’s life surely should not be chaotic like hers. Her intuition told her that life could be better. She had blamed her messed up life on herself, but at the same time, she had always thought, How could I have known, anyway? She had no point of reference, and the very person she thought she could trust, her father, was after all someone who was untrustworthy.

He was weak after all, and he had done nothing about helping himself. That had had its ripple effects on her and her siblings’ lives, and now she found that it had affected her daughter!

On the bright side, though, this was a huge breakthrough. One could say the cycle had now broken. However, she felt a lot of pain, as it had taken almost her entire lifetime for this all to be