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I See Dead People, End of Story. January 7, 2008

Posted by greenlavender in About a Medium, Death, Energy, Life, Mediumship, Metaphysical, New age, Personal, Spirituality.
7 comments

I had been doubting my abilities to connect with “the other side” for the past few months. I was ignoring that side of myself, all because I unexpectedly encountered one sceptic who made judgemental comments about what I see and feel. It was already difficult enough for me to talk about it, fearful of not being able to “prove” my abilities. So many people I know are curious about it, they believe in what I can do and want me to share it. But as soon as I face a little scepticism from one person overhearing my words, I freeze. I don’t know how to deal with that, or so I thought.

I read a few books on the subject these past weeks, thanks to my husband who bought them for me this Christmas. I learned a few new things, but in most part the content confirmed my abilities. What struck me the most, is that scepticism shuts everything down. When someone tries to make me prove my abilities, it does quite the opposite. Why? How do you react when someone implies you’re not doing your job right, or you’re not good enough? Your body shuts down. You do it instinctively to protect yourself. Well, it’s the same thing when someone is trying to show I’m lying, or I’m “full of it”. To connect to the other side, I need to be fully open, in a relaxed state, surrounded by good energy.

I can usually spot sceptics without them even speaking one word, because I feel their energy first. When I feel that kind of energy, I concentrate on protecting mine, which makes it more difficult to do my work. When scepticism creeps up unexpectedly through spoken words, and I don’t have time to veer it off, the ’damage’ takes a while to repair – I feel put down, not good enough, I doubt what I can do, and my confidence takes a dive.  In which case, the people who do believe are not benefiting from my abilities.

My message to sceptics: You’re allowed to believe in whatever you want. That’s the freedom of choice and I respect that. But others are also allowed to believe in life after death and that a handful of people have the gift of communicating with the other side. My gift is not to prove my abilities to you. I help people that believe I can help them. Who are you helping by trying to disprove my abilities?  If you don’t believe, you don’t believe – just leave it at that.

Are You Listening? December 20, 2007

Posted by greenlavender in Acting, Art, Emotions, Energy, Health, Inspiration, Life, Love, New age.
2 comments

Our minds are constantly flowing with thoughts. Actually, flowing might not be the best choice of words… Our minds are constantly bombarded by thoughts, thousands of them per day. You know what? We choose to be bombarded by thoughts. We choose to listen to our own thoughts, despite what they are. They are the source of our stress, anxiety, impatience, and also of our happiness and joy. They also make us distracted. When was the last time you truly listened to your friend telling you a story? Without thinking about the story you want to tell? Without thinking of what you need to be doing at that moment? Without thinking of what you should have done that morning?

As an actor, thanks to many great teachers, I learned that the number one crucial thing in acting is listening. To be present with another actor, to make it about him or her. When you listen, you allow the other’s words to hit you, creating a natural reaction, free of ego, that is mesmirizing to watch. This is a great technique. But, why aren’t we taught to apply that in our everyday life?

Constantly listening to our thoughts while another is speaking is actually a way to feed our ego and to hide who we truly are. And we are all guilty of that, including yours truly. That’s the way we are taught, to live with our egos — because that’s the way our parents were taught, and their parents, and so on. We all want to feel important, needed, knowledgeable, you name it. We think that the way to do that is to make sure our words our heard as soon as a split second of silence appears in a conversation. Instead of listening to what the other is saying, we end up listening for a slight moment where we can jump in, and concentrating on what we want to say so we don’t forget it. When we end up getting our ‘moment’, we blurt out our words, without realizing that the person standing in front of us is also not listening, because they found something else they want to say. 

I have been practicing listening in my everyday life and I have had conversations where no words were spoken but were much, much more meaningful than ego-filled exchanges. You can discover so much more about another person and about yourself if you just let go and free your mind.

I dare you to try it today. To truly listen, you need to free your mind of your thoughts – ignore them basically. You need to concentrate on the other person, just make it about them, and don’t judge. Oh, and breathe… You’ll know why when you try it.

If it doesn’t work the first time, just keep trying. It takes practice. A great hockey player doesn’t make it to the NHL without having played for years.  

Let me know how it goes.

The Point of No Return December 7, 2007

Posted by greenlavender in About a Medium, Acting, Art, Design, Emotions, Empowering, Energy, Family, Healing, Health, Inspiration, Life, Love, Metaphysical, New age, Personal, Random, Spirituality.
9 comments

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.   

What Assumptions Have You Made Today? October 17, 2007

Posted by greenlavender in Acting, Art, Emotions, Empowering, Energy, Healing, Health, Inspiration, Life, Love, New age, Personal, Random, Spirituality.
1 comment so far

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.

What is Fear? October 14, 2007

Posted by greenlavender in Emotions, Empowering, Energy, Healing, Health, Inspiration, Life, New age, Personal, Random, Spirituality.
3 comments

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.

I Promised I’d Keep You Posted… October 3, 2007

Posted by greenlavender in Acting, Art, Empowering, Energy, Inspiration, Life, New age, Personal, Random, Spirituality.
4 comments

On my ‘Actor’ page, I wrote that I would keep you posted when I get acting jobs. So here goes.

A few weeks ago, I went to an audition for a lead role in a short film — a union production for that matter. Living in Ottawa, there aren’t that many union productions going on, compared to Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. Let me explain about the union thing… I became part of ACTRA fairly early in my acting career, before having had the chance to gain more experience in the non-union independant world — although I have theatre experience which helps. Once you are in the union, you can not act in any non-union production. But as I said, in Ottawa, union productions are scarce. So it is probably best to get as much non-paying experience possible on your resume before getting into the union. Which wasn’t my case. I jumped on the opportunity to get my first union credit knowing that some people work years and years before even getting the chance.

One big advantage of having the ACTRA acronym on your resume is that it demonstrates in a way that you are a serious, professional actor (for non-union actors — I am in no way saying that you are not professional or serious). Plus, many union productions don’t audition actors that aren’t in the union. So yeah for me.

Anyway, to come back to the audition… I went in focusing on just doing the work and not on results — which is usually what I try to do. It went great.  I came home, my husband asked me how it went and “do you think you got it”. Well, I don’t know. You never, ever know if you got the part or not. Many factors come in to play when it comes to casting. You could have done the best audition ever, but if you don’t have that particular look they are searching for, or if you don’t quite have the chemistry with the lead actor, etc. you won’t get the part. So you can never take auditions personally, or feel rejected.  For this particular part, I was hoping to get it, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up. Do you get it? ;-)

A few days later, I got the e-mail offering me the part. Well, let’s just say my hopes went WOOHOO!!! My first lead in a film! We had the first rehearsal last night, wow did I ever have fun.

I LOVE IT. I LOVE ACTING. I WAS BORN TO ACT.

I now realise that the reason why I didn’t start when I was younger was because I had years of preparation to do.  I now know myself, love myself, and trust myself — it all comes through in my acting. I also realise there’s no way I could have made it in this industry when I was younger. I wasn’t meant to do it then. I was only meant to do it now.

I want to show the world that if you follow your heart, you can do anything. I want to show the world that anything is possible. I am doing it. If I am doing it, you can do it too.

Much love,
Natasha