They say that time stands still when you experience shock or trauma and that's how it was for me when I crashed my car, causing it to overturn and start rolling at 70mph along the A14.
Exhausted from a long day at work, I'd briefly nodded off at the wheel while travelling from my retail job in Cambridge to my home in Ipswich.
I woke with a jolt to find my vehicle about to hit oncoming traffic. Instinctively, I turned the wheel in the opposite direction but lost control, spun off the road and hit two trees.
I remember thinking: 'OK, this is it, this is how I'm going to die.' I also had this overwhelming feeling of sadness that I never got to speak to my mum one last time. I'd tried to call her as I left work that Sunday afternoon but she didn't answer.
I passed out from the impact of hitting the second tree and regained consciousness to see two men I didn't know staring at me - one burst into tears when I opened my eyes, saying 'thank God you're alive!' Seeing the state of the vehicle he must have been convinced I was dead.
In fact, despite the speed at which I crashed and my car being crushed to pieces, I escaped with a concussion and minor cuts and bruises.
I heard the word 'miracle' a lot after the accident - from the fire crew who cut me out of the wreckage, the paramedics who strapped me down and loaded me into the ambulance and the hospital staff who treated me. All of them repeatedly told me how lucky I was to survive.
I think so, too - but it's also my firm belief that I did, briefly, die on that day 20 years ago, only to be rescued by angels. The same angels that continue to guide me at the age of 41 today.
If that sounds weird or incredible to you, then you wouldn't be the first to express that view. I don't need to make everyone believe me, but I am convinced that fate intervened that day because I still had a purpose to fulfil in this life.
Everything changed after that accident. Every night I would experience the same dream. I could see myself floating above the scene and looking down at my mangled car.
In the dream a violet light would appear along with these two 'beings' either side of me.
They linked my arms and gently guided me down inside the car and back into my body. Then, at the exact same point in the dream, I would always wake up with a start. This was the first time I experienced a force spiritualists call 'the violet flame'.
It's a capacity within all of us that we can utilise to eliminate negative energy, heal and transform. Whenever the angels appeared to me I could feel their purity, love and light. I felt reassured and safe.
A s the shock of the accident started to fade, I kept wondering why I was still here, but I didn't know how to process all these mixed emotions and signals. I was eventually put on medication for PTSD and the dreams stopped.
Lost and confused I turned to alcohol to numb my feelings, and even though I was still doing well at work, I felt unfulfilled, as though I was just going through the motions.
I was continuing to be promoted, earning good money and had bought a house, had a company car and was travelling all over the UK in a management role for a big retail chain.
Initially, I assumed the purpose I was seeking was to be as successful as I could in my career and yet... it all felt so hollow and meaningless.
It took the death of my beloved grandmother in 2014 for my full spiritual awakening to happen. She always believed we are souls inhabiting human bodies and, after we pass, our soul lives on.
I would say that, until then, I had a spiritual awareness and was always sensitive, but I would ignore my feelings and intuition because they didn't always make logical sense.
My nana told me that, after she died, if everything she believed was true, she would find a way to contact me and prove it - and she did. She would speak to me in my dreams and things would start to move around my house and a powerful smell that reminded me of her would appear from nowhere.
She was a chain smoker; her one vice in life that she refused to give up. She barely inhaled; she'd just light a cigarette and let it burn down while she chatted away. Her house stank of tobacco and it became a bit of a family joke.
After she passed she would send a smell of stale cigarettes into my home. It was so strong it was as though there was an ashtray under my nose.
I knew this was her as it was so typical of her sense of humour and I knew, too, she was signalling to me to do all I could to develop my spiritual side.
I joined a spiritual group and worked on my intuition, psychic ability, tuning into different frequencies. It was also around this time that I started to connect more with the 'violet flame' I'd first seen after my accident.
It's the subject of my book, The Violet Flame, which has just been published. I can best describe it as a spiritual tool you have to learn to become aware of, tune in to and connect with.
It's been studied by mystics for centuries and using its power you can transform your life. For me it's a guiding light that's always there.
Tapping into the flame and communicating with the angels has helped transform my relationships, including with my dad, whom I'd previously been estranged from for 14 years.
I'd always had this deep feeling of sadness that he hadn't always been there for me as I was growing up and that I didn't have the same relationship with him that other children had with their fathers.
When I was a child I assumed it must be because there was something wrong with me. But the violet flame lit up the truth and let me see that Dad had his own issues to deal with, including drinking and gambling.
I was able to see people from a point of compassion. That ability had always been within me; but the flame helped bring it to the surface.
For years I had what I call a 'mean girl' inner voice that would criticise and self-sabotage, making me feel small and worthless. Now I can take that negative energy and transform it into something more positive.
What I have lived through has been so transformative that I want to make others aware of it, which is why I've written the book. It was no easy task trying to explain something that really can't be understood until it's been experienced!
I know there will be sceptics. Plenty of people won't accept things without conclusive proof.
I sometimes liken the violet flame to being in love. We know when we're in love - it's an intense and joyous feeling - but hard to describe and there's no tangible proof, it's just an overwhelming emotion.
These days I feel liberated, empowered and free from past limitations. I believe that crash was part of my destiny and that it took my very brief death to teach me how to live.