Natasha - The Artist

I am a filmmaker… I am an inspirational filmmaker… I am an inspirational filmmaker in the making. Oh, how to begin this post.

I am a filmmaker. I am currently seeking the right people and the money to create an inspirational feature film.

About two years ago, I saw a girl on a city bus. Our car being repaired, I took the bus to work — which rarely happens. I sat quietly, observing people coming in and thinking about the day ahead, about their family, money problems, their ex they wish they hadn’t broken up with… I thought to myself “wow, I should take the bus more often, I see so much”. Then I noticed Abigail. The bus full and no more seats available, the teenage girl was standing near the front. She was inside herself, wondering why life was giving up on her, why she was in her body not being able to be happy. She didn’t look at one person in that bus, from fear of being judged or… from fear of meeting that one person who can tell her who she really is.  How I wished at that moment I knew how to help her find her heart.

I took out a notebook and started writting about her. I wrote about how she finds herself, how she fulfills all her dreams. I wrote about the people she encounters on her path and how they help her discover who she is, how she falls in love with herself and her heart. I wrote about how she discovers happiness and how she is guided to her ultimate future.

Today, two years later, my notes have become a feature film script. I have fallen in love with Abigail and all the characters in her life, as they are all a part of me. They ARE me. The movie is me, not about my life — but who I am at every moment.

I know this film will be made and will be successful. Abigail will inspire people, teenagers especially, to follow their heart and their instincts. Every time I think about Abi and the movie, I am attracting the right people for this film — I feel it in my heart. An example — Jessica wrote a comment on my last post, inviting me to visit her myspace page and listen to her music. I cried when I heard the first note. She is the one. She will create the music for Abigail. I invite you to be mesmerized: http://www.myspace.com/jessicaleiathompson.

If you want to see this film, I invite you to comment on this post. The more people demonstrate interest, the more the right people will be attracted to be a part of it.

Much love,
Natasha
xxoo

Well, my very first video post. Enjoy.

I was. But I worked on it.

What are your beliefs about money? Do you feel like you’re not good enough to have a lot? Do you fear you will be looked at differently if you have money? Do you feel greedy to want more money?

I could write a hundred pages listing limiting beliefs about money. The point is, all of them are limiting. In the sense that those beliefs that are engraved in our bodies are preventing us from moving forward financially. Either preventing us from making more money or actually keeping it!

After I watched The Secret, I started thinking positively about money. Yes! That’s how I can do it!! So I actually ended up making more money, but I couldn’t keep it. I still had zero dollars in my bank account at the end of each month, without even spending more. I didn’t understand why this was happening. For a few years, I had been sensing that I will have lots of money, when I say lots, I mean ‘LOTS’. I was feeling guilty about that, and the bank account wasn’t following my gut (go figure!). So I came to the conclusion that I was full of it and that maybe I’m just not meant to have lots of money. Then things went downhill even more (I obviously attracted that…). Not only did I have $0 in my account, but I was starting to get into debts too. “I need help” I told myself. When you ask, the Universe responds…

I had been wanting to get some ‘life coaching’ from an amazing coach for a while. He coached me for my career for about an hour or two and I wanted more… I couldn’t afford it. But after asking The Universe for help, he contacted me and offered to coach me in exchange for my creative services! YES! YES! Absolutely YES! Please coach me on money!

After just an hour of coaching, I realized so much and kept opening my eyes to so many things in the weeks after. I was feeling guilty about wanting to have more money, mostly because of my beliefs, but also because I didn’t really know what I would do with that money. I asked myself “what would I do with a million dollars?”… I didn’t have an answer. Actually, the answer was “I don’t know”. Then why would I need a million dollars?

I have been reading Neuro-linguistic Programming for Dummies. The tagline on the book is “Turn positive thoughts into positive action”. It’s a very good complement to The Secret. You can read more about NLP on Wikipedia. One of the suggested exercises is to write your obituary. Why obituary and not biography? Because a biography is about your life until the moment the text is written. The obituary is about your entire life, until your death. You want to look at the end result. So I wrote my obituary. I let myself go and was writing without judgement, whatever was coming out. Whoa. Was I ever surprised. I found out why I was sensing I am going to have a lot of money. I need it for my project. You see, my ultimate dream, my true passion is to guide people to realize their dreams, to follow their heart and their gut, on a really, really big scale. 

Right now, the world is opening its eyes to new possibilities, bigger possibilities. The adults are just starting to learn about this. We need to teach this to kids, so they can grow up fulfilling their dreams, by doing that they will teach their children, and their children, and so on. Kids are learning all they need to know about math, language, physics, etc in schools. What about life? What about following your instincts? I want schools to coach children about this ‘new’ life. So that’s my ultimate goal. 

In my obituary, I wrote not only about making inspiring films that are recognized worldwide and are helping the world believe in the ‘impossible’, but also about the ”Natasha Jetté Foundation” that implemented the “Strong Heart, Mind, and Soul” program in schools internationally.

I don’t feel guilty about having lots of money anymore.

It’s been five months since I quit my full-time job at the government. At first, I took on many contracts, worked a few weeks as Production Coordinator and Graphic Designer on a show, took on more contracts, then more… Then it hit me. I was taking on all those contracts for the money. I was becoming overloaded with work and obsessed with making more money, in case I wouldn’t have any contracts the next month. I was miserable. I slowed down. I took on less and less jobs. I made less and less money, but I’m still here five months later. I am budgeting differently, limiting my expenses, but I am happier. I realized that I like graphic design, but I am really doing it just to survive. My true passion is acting. I am craving it, enough that I don’t feel like doing anything else. But acting isn’t cutting it money wise right now; so I have to kick myself to take on at least a few contracts a month.

It’s been five months… Five months of independence, non-scheduled days, no one to report to, freedom. I am happy. I love it. I don’t like having a routine to follow. It’s also the end of thirty-three years of routine, schedules, reporting to parents, teachers and bosses. It’s like reprogramming my system to live a completely different life. I’ve been programmed that you ‘have’ to work for a company with a boss to survive. You ‘have’ to have money to live. You do what society expects from you. For the past five months, I have done exactly the opposite.

My body is in shock. It’s grieving. It has realized that this is it. This is how it was meant to live. There’s no turning back, I’m too happy. So I grieve. I have reached the point where I don’t know what to do now. It’s like I am at the point of no return and I am confused about how to keep moving forward. Looking at the future right now is like looking into the abyss. Although it’s really like that all the time, we never know what tomorrow will bring, but in my case right now, I am letting myself feel it more. I face the unknown in a much stronger way than I used to.

Two years ago, I spent a weekend at a solitary camp not far from where I live. I needed the isolation from reality, and the quiet of the country. I got there the Friday around dinner time. It’s a great place. I had my individual cabin, with a wood stove and no electricity. It was amazing. I walked in trails all over the huge, wooded property. I was at peace. I would go pick up my food at the ‘kitchen’, a cabin near the entrance of the property, and bring it back to my cabin to cook it. Simple foods were always on the menu: potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, all kinds of veggies, fruit, cheese, milk, whole grains, … I picked up my water at a source about a 7 minute walk from my cabin.

The weekend was going so well. I was getting my energy back, energy I had been lacking for years. I was talking to no one (which is mandatory at this camp). Being an introvert, working in a very open area full of contractors at the time, plus raising a family at home, I never had, or took rather, the time to be by myself, to be quiet. So this weekend was a God send.

Sunday morning, I go out for a walk in a trail in the woods. After being out for about twenty minutes, I hear howling… like a wolf. Struck with panic, I freeze for a moment, trying to talk myself into just keep going. I loose it and turn around and run back to my cabin. I think it took me five minutes to run back. I catch my breath and make myself some lunch. While eating, I can’t get out of my head: “What am I doing here? I should be home with the kids. I want to go home.” My husband was picking me up the next day after dinner. I still had a day and a half to go. “Oh God, what now?”

I lay on my bed, crying, scared that I wasn’t doing the right thing. I decide to walk to the main house to call home so my husband can pick me up that same day. I knock on the door, a priest appears in the doorway. The place is run by Catholic priests, they don’t talk religion at all, unless you bring it up. Which is good for me, because I don’t practice anymore. They are there to listen if you need to talk. When I suggest I want to call home to leave, he kindly asks me to sit and chat before I do so. So I sit. He explained to me that I was at the point where my body was relaxed, I was truly with myself, and my body was starting to panic because it wasn’t used to that. I was used to always being busy, always having something to do, so I was now feeling guilty because I wasn’t ’doing anything’. He suggested I stick around just to see what would happen, to keep myself ‘busy’ by reading the books I had brought or by drawing. So I did, and how glad was I to have stuck around!

The Monday was amazing. I starting seeing things around me in a completely different light. It’s like I could truly see life. I heard things I had never heard before. I went back to my favorite spots to take mental pictures so I could return whenever I wanted in my dreams. At the end of the day, I was waiting for my husband and kids. I sat on a bench up on a hill. I had an amazing view. The wind was blowing gently on my cheek. I closed my eyes to feel it more. Then I heard a voice. I was channelling my guide for the first time. I was truly at peace with myself. I was grounded and centered. Holding on despite what my head was telling me was the best thing I could have done.

What I am feeling today, the confusion about where I am going, what I should be doing, is just like what I was feeling that Sunday afternoon. I think I should find myself a job, what I am doing is ridiculous. Who am I to ‘defy’ what society expects from me? You see, I am about to embark in the greatest journey of my life, and my body is resisting it. It’s trying to bring me back to what it’s used to — to the illusion of safety. I just have to stick with it. I have to keep riding the wave and not look back.   

I am sitting at my computer writing this post, when my heart tells me to paint today. I know what I want, but my head  thinks it’s not logical. Hmmm. Logic. What is logical? My head does not know what will happen a minute from now, nor tomorrow, nor a year from now, and even less five years from now. My head can only make assumptions. Like right now, since I am sitting at my computer writing this post, I assume that in about five minutes from now, I will be publishing it, then returning to working on a Web site I am designing. What if I choose something different in five minutes? What if I choose to listen to my heart, let go and just paint. I don’t know what I will choose to do in five minutes. I only know what I choose NOW. So any time we try to ‘figure out’ the consequences to a choice we make, we make an assumption. So many other choices can come into play in the future, whether in a minute, a day, a year or a decade, that can change these consequences. Our choices guide our life, stear it in a particular direction, but we can never really know how our lives will turn out.

That’s when our instincts come in handy. Our instincts tell us what we truly want and need, from deep within ourselves. Our head has a tendancy to judge our choices. For example, if I think about painting right now, my head is telling me “Are you kidding me? You have that Web site to finish. Someone might see your painting and think it sucks. Are you willing to take that chance? Plus, you risk nothing by sitting here at your computer, you’re safe.”

… Wow, my head said all that? Blah. How annoying is that! Do I want to be ’safe’ all my life? What is safe? Not facing people and their opinions? Having money? Not being myself? Not being happy? Yuk.

If I think about painting right now, my gut says “GO!”, because it knows that painting makes me feel alive, it brings out my true self, and makes me happy. If I am happy and feel alive, then I can concentrate better on that Web site I need to finish. :-) 

In conclusion, just follow your gut, not your head.

Fear is the emotional response to believing one is not good enough.

The world’s constant search for perfection… “Am I good enough?” is engrained in most people often because of one event or sentence that was said in their past. It is engrained so deep in the body that it is usually not even consciously brought up. The body automatically reacts to situations in fear because of that deep thought.

Think of every time you have been scared and you will find that the very root of this feeling is believing you are not good enough. You can change that… you just have to choose to change it.