Like most of our stories, my story is not linear. So I will give an overview and then zoom in the lens on a few places. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee to middle class parents, in public and private schools, in a family of artists. I started singing and dancing when I was a child, soaking up old music and movies, writing poetry, and generally being precocious. My parents divorced when I was 6, I got my first acting gig at 13, and by 18, I went to school at Northwestern University in Chicago for theatre. I stuck around to play music and act and flirt with boys, and then started a spiritual practice in the recovery rooms after my mother nearly died from brain trauma. I moved to New Orleans on an intuition about singing and a tree that captured my heart (the Tree of Life), and there I formed a band or two, sang in a gospel choir, formed a resistance choir, wrote a one-woman show, acted in films, quit drinking, had a nervous breakdown, made great friends, and moved houses and jobs and relationships every year for almost ten years. I taught everything from ballroom dancing to voice and elementary school. I did the Artist's Way three times. I discovered I liked to paint and knew nothing about finances or cooking. I was afraid of ghosts. I adopted and either lost or returned five different cats. I joined Twin Flame Ascension School, and learned how to be happy with myself. Things got more peaceful, and on another intuition during quarantine, I decided to move back to my home town and start a coaching business with all I had learned along the way. So far, I'd say it's been a pretty interesting ride. Here is where I'd like to zoom in the lens: my teachers.
They say you get one good teacher in your life if you're lucky. I feel blessed to say that I've had at least three. The first was probably my mother or maybe music itself, but the one that first shook me to the roots was my acting teacher in college. Ann had a way of presenting complex layers of information about life and acting in such a way that she never had to lecture. We would always come to the big aha's she was after on our own. She also never cared if we were great actors. She cared mostly if we were great humans, and she knew we'd be great actors as a result. I remember one class in particular our senior year. We had been struggling to understand the Greeks-- the tragedies and moralities and causes as large as the Gods that were written into every play. One student put up a scene that was particularly difficult (the endless messenger speech from Medea where the messenger must tell the exiled queen information that risks his life in the telling), and when she finished, to all of our shock, Ann announced that the work and student were not fit for the class and should leave. We all came rushing to our classmate's defense, explaining that her work was no less than anyone else's, English wasn't her first language, the speech is impossible, this was unfair, etc. Everyone was eloquent and brilliant and the stakes were sky high in our college minds. Ann sat silent listening to us until one student finally got what she was after --- Ann was playing the part of deadly Medea, and in speaking out against the injustice towards our classmate, we had all become the characters in the Greek plays, defining grand concepts like justice in the face of sheer brutality and primal emotions with Gods who didn't play fair. Half of us laughed at the reveal of the lesson, half of us felt betrayed, and I felt a lazer-sharp recognition that what she had done was what I wanted to do more than anything. In one lesson and three years of work building up to it, Ann had managed to shift our consciousnesses.
The second teacher that changed my life was my sponsor in the recovery rooms. She was the first person to teach me anything about boundaries, and she modeled the principles of the program in how she lived in such a grounded, warm way. She was also very funny. She taught me how to hear my intuition and to have a relationship with a loving higher power for the first time. She was the first person I told my darkest secrets to, and the first person who was able to hear them without judgement. ("We're only as sick as our secrets," she'd tell me, and "our worth comes from being children of God.") She patiently walked me through the twelve steps, showing me how simple they could be and giving me a spiritual discipline for life. We spent maybe a year together in the same city, but what I learned from her has never left me. (We're also still good friends!)
The third teacher, or teachers, are Jeff and Shaleia of Twin Flames Universe. Several years ago a friend asked me what I'd want to learn if I could design the perfect graduate school. I told her that I wanted to know what Jesus and Mary Magdalene knew. I was a religion minor in college, and despite my spotty experiences with Christianity, I was very drawn to the idea that these two figures were indeed lovers, and that Christ consciousness could be achieved. I also had a mind-blowing experience on a Goddess pilgrimage to Cornwall (another story altogether), and I was in search of an official mystery school to teach me these things. The universe delivered me Jeff and Shaleia, a couple who claimed they were twin flames in harmonious union (a phenomenon of perfect partners in harmony with themselves and God) and Twin Flames Ascension School. I was skeptical at first. I loved the concepts but was wary of online schools and spiritual teachers who were my age. I had learned from recovery rooms to "place principles above personalities," though, and with a good friend's help and an open heart, I dove in to their teachings. I discovered so many things-- the first being their very powerful, elegant, and efficient healing tool, the mirror exercise. Using it, I started to feel less and less like a victim in my life and found myself deepening in self love and love of God. Years of confusion and broken- heartedness started to lift, and I was able to handle things that had once sunk me. I learned the power of my own choice-- that suffering is optional, and the way out of it comes down to simple choices of fear or love. And the wildest thing started happening: my outer reality started to reflect the peace I was finding in my inner reality. Money started coming in. Love was everywhere. I stopped being afraid of ghosts. I also started learning about twin flames. How "true love" isn't a fairy tale, but a very possible reality built on a foundation of self love and love of life. I was also given a path for creating a coaching business and access to spiritual classes and a community that operated on a vibration I'd never encountered before. I started to understand that I had the tools to shift my own consciousness and have been doing so ever since.
And the story continues! Now you know some of where I'm coming from and have glimpses into my teachers and what we might get into should you choose me as your coach. I'll say that I love what I do. I think we're all pretty great at our core and that life is pretty magical. I'll say that it's an honor to work with you. And that you as my client are always my next great teacher. I thank you in advance.