May my life story inspire you to find and free your true self—your Apple Tree True Self. 

An Apple Tree life story

I was given the name Colleen-Joy Brandon—born in a conservative, small town Alberton, to a loving family who lived on less but always gave more. 

At age 4 an egg-sized tumour grew behind my right eye. I learned to hide from gasps and stares. It took many years for me to be able to look at this old photograph without heartache—now I feel love and compassion.

During a very long surgery I died twice. The tumour nearly took my sight and my life, but it left me with gifts.

I was haunted by an intuitive knowing that there was more to us than what our eyes can see.

My heart burned with life’s big questions about death, life and meaning. Mostly “Who am I?” and “What is the purpose of life?”

Here a few months after surgery my sister and I pose for a photo. Free of the tumour, I thought I was free of being looked at, but my short, post-surgery hair invited cruel teasing from other children. This deepened my introversion. 

I’m grateful because when we learn to be in silent solitude, turning attention inwards, we can more easily find the intuitive voice of our apple tree true self. 

My first day at school, with a brave face.

Break times were the worst. I’d walk endlessly around the school grounds to avoid other children, pretending to be happy. That is until one day the burden of grief was too much, I found a place to hide and cried softly into my lunchbox.

That is when the inner voice of peace and love first clearly came to comfort me, as a friend. Years later I would recognize that this was the intuitive voice of my apple tree.

We all have access to loving, peaceful inner wisdom, but sometimes it takes great pain to open the heart to hear it. 

Even into my teens crippling shyness was a daily battle. Here I’m receiving a school art award at 17—ever the downward shy gaze. Intuition gave me a daily inner sanctuary where I would receive teachings about life, death and meaning. When words failed to translate I would paint and draw. 

Life pushed me into working part time after school as an intuitive coach and despite arguing that I was too young, two women insisted that I teach them—so I took on my first 2 students. 

I learned that one could be intuitive, even psychic but not necessarily wise.

Wisdom became an obsession. I wanted answers more than I wanted anything that life had to offer. Despite this fervour, my ever skeptical mind was never satisfied, I wanted to know not just believe.

In my early twenties, my second daughter was born with life threatening health challenges. Here she is after her first surgery at 14 hours old. Bless her. 

These were insanely difficult times, and if it were not for the guidance of my intuition, I would not have been able to face these years. 

A year and a half after this photo, under the pressure of our family business collapsing and trying to be a good mom for my young daughter and sick baby, I asked my intuition in desperation, “What must I do?“

The reply was, “You are asking the wrong question. You need to ask, “Who am I?”

I couldn’t see how this was supposed to help me. How was knowing who I was meant to get me money to pay our bills, or to find daily strength for my children.

The teaching that then came to me changed my life.

My intuition simply said, “If you were an apple tree, and you didn’t know you were an apple tree, how would you know what to do?”

And so the apple tree became a symbol for my true self. Something that I clung to like a mad women, just to survive.

Imagine my surprise when I realised that my intuitive inner voice was the voice of my apple tree all along. It had been my friend as a child and my guide as a teenager. 

Here are my beautiful daughters when they were children. The Apple Tree taught me how to be strong. How to heal my shyness, how to build a business that honoured truth, wisdom and love.

Every day I would rest in the sanctuary of this intuitive connection. It changed everything. 

The apple tree true self is our purpose. We are not born to do, we are born to be our true selves. All natural loving doing arises from our apple tree.

 

When we find and free our apple tree, we serve life by simply being our true self.

My apple tree has taken me to places I never imagined.

Over the decades I have spoken on stages around the world. This is a photo of me teaching in New York. 

I’ve published books, including my memoir “My Life as An Apple Tree.”

My training business has enjoyed over a decade of abundance, where I have been privileged to work with thousands of students from around the world. I have a team of licensed trainers who share my vision for empowering and enlightening others, we word around the world teaching InnerLifeSkills and Enlightened Apple Tree courses.

At least twice a week, you can meet me online for an InnerLifeSkills course where I teach coaching, training and leadership skills, all based on the Apple Tree way, or join an Enlightened Apple Tree class to learn about nondual self enlightenment. 

I would pay again and again in scars and tears to know my Apple Tree. It has made this life worth every step. 

As I approach 50, here I am walking around the sacred ancient remote Baobab Island called Kubu Island in Africa. Everywhere I go, the Apple Tree intuitive dialogues continue. But these days I find that most questions have died in the open silence of the true self. 

I love my adult children with all my heart, and fortunately, we are very close. My time is spent writing, painting, giving talks and teaching live classes online—all in service to my apple tree, and still connected daily to intuitive guidance. 

The answer to the question “Who am I?” lead me on a life-changing quest that brought me home to myself.

As my children are grown, it is my apple tree’s love to share this next chapter of my life with you and to help whoever is called to their true self.

When I’m not working, you’ll find me in wild open spaces, where the sky kisses the curve of the earth.

If you share my love for listening deeply to the whispers of the voice of wisdom, then enjoy my intuitive Apple Tree dialogue blog.