I feel compelled to post today. So much in fact that I have broken my regular routine of tucking my little ones in bed, cleaning up all their toys so I don't kill myself slipping on it in the middle of the night and pouring myself a drink to bring the high octane of my brain down to a soft hum. Instead, I am sitting in my store at 6:45P, listening to the white noise of the HVAC system and enjoying the filtered sun rays through our windows. I really should be home to ask my babies how their day was and relieving my over-worked yet amazing husband for holding down the home fort. But for right now, I am compelled to connect which means I need to write.
Last year my girlfriend Silvia had purchased a home with the intention of building her dream, forever house on it. When she introduced her cute little beach cottage it was on a rainy and dark day... I know, so cliche and a perfect backdrop of all things creepy. Silvia prefers a softly lit room of candles during the evenings and she usually has them sprinkled throughout the home including the washrooms. I had to use the washroom so I excused myself and enjoyed my quiet time in the candle lit bathroom. I usually love the soft lighting but I remembered feeling uneasy when I entered the room. I sat down, did my thing and sat up. Because the toilet is positioned right in front of the vanity mirror I freaked myself out. I was not expecting to see a face looking at me so the image was startling. At first I thought I saw someone and when I realized it was my own reflection I dismissed the poorly lit bathroom as a form of visual trickery. Although my mind rationalized it, my heart was still racing.
After dinner Silvia wanted to grab some Curlys snacks stored in her basement so she asked if Tai and I wanted a tour. Being nosy, of course I went with her. We trottled down the back staircase and I paused at the room directly underneath the bathroom. I blurted, "Did someone die in your house?" Silvia is used to my random questions but this particular one did shake her a bit, "Yes why?"
"Was it a man and did he die in this room?" I pointed to a door that led to the room below the bathroom. Silvia explains that her neighbors had told her that a man committed suicide in the basement and she does think it was that room. She doesn't really know of any other details. The little hairs on my neck started standing up and I shot her THAT look. Silvia brushes off my intuition and reassures my that she has never picked up any negative energy when she moved into the house. I tried to accept her verison but I really couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. I tried to be brave and when I entered the basement a giant, full sized witch greeted me in the musky basement. I almost pooped my pants but being the cool, calm and collected person that Silvia is, she giggled at the strong reaction. Silvia has a thing for collecting Halloween paraphenlia and apparently she had to buy this witch who just so happened to happily live in the creepy basement. Freakin' fantastic. Since Tai was with me, I wanted to appear that nothing was OVERLY spooky about this basement because he's very sensitive on my energies and can relay them. I was grateful when we accomplished the mission of retrieving the snacks without any other incident.
About 6 months after that day I had a horrible nightmare. I dreamt about the man that committed suicide in Silvia's basement. He told me that he was possessed by a demon and the demon was trying to get him to commit horroble acts like hurting the people he loved. Everyone thought he was just crazy but he wasn't. The only way to protect his family was to commit suicide so the demon didn't have a phyiscal body as a conduit. The man warned me that if they demolished the house, it will unleash that demon again and he was going to go after Tai because he was hyper sensitive to that energy. In the dream, I fought tooth and nail saving Tai from the same fate. The dream was so intense that when I woke up I was so disoriented as to what actually happened. My pillow was soaked with tears from my crying and every muscle in my body hurt. It felt like I was battling something. I immediately went to Tai's room for reassurance that everything was just a dream. I told Chris about my nightmare and asked if I should even tell Silvia. Maybe it was just me being a freak and nothing is really wrong with the cute, little bungalow.
I finally did tell my friend about a month after the nightmare. Silvia is very level headed and not a believer in spiritual things but she is open minded to concepts beyond what we can see and touch. We figured maybe it is a sign so just to be cautious we should bless the house. However, since it was my "feeling" I needed to go and find how someone goes about doing this type of thing. It's not exactly a service offered in the Yellow Pages.
When I went to go see the pyschic Annar she confirmed my gut. All I had to do was show her a picture of my friend Silvia. Annar immediately told me that Silvia had a negative energy stuck in her house and I was able to pick up on it. I was so relieved that someone else affirmed this and that I wasn't going crazy. I asked her if I could pay her to come out to bless it. Annar matter of factly told me that I can do it myself. I shot her a confused look. I decorate houses and make them pretty. I don't do exorcisms. She confidently lectured that my Spirit team was highly functional and I had the energy force to take care of it. She reassures me that I was highly capable of doing it myself and it was time to start practicing. "I know how to take out the trash to the curbside. I don't know how to send boogey monsters back to where ever they came from," I declared. Annar ignores my inside voice and tells me the logistics of exactly how one goes about blessing a house.
Armed with a box of salt, Silvia and I arrive on site. The cottage is gone and all we have left is a poured concrete foundation of her dream house. The sun was shining and the birds were out chirping. The plan was that I do my "thing" and Silvia sits in my car just in case. In case of what... we don't really speak of it but we know. I feel terribly out of place and incredibly silly. "So, this box of salt is the fine line of saving Silvia from demons?" Well, apparently that's what Annar says. I am suppose to sprinkle the house with salt and enclose the property in a circle of white light. Hmmmm...
"Okay peeps upstairs let get this done!" I recalled the hypnotherapist session that Laura conducted and tried to prepare my mind for calmness and emptiness. As I started sprinkling, I asked my Spirits to embrace Silvia's home in a protective embrace of positive white light. Any negative, dark energy needs to leave the home and is not wanted here. I started at the door and repeated this mantra as I sprinkled the salt in a counter clock-wise. In true Huong form, my mind starts chattering during this sacred process... "I hope her neighbors aren't looking out the door and wondering what the hell is this short Asian lady doing in our white hood of Twassassen? And what the hell is she sprinkling? Is that rat poison? Perhaps cocaine?" I was sure by the end of it the police was going to be called.
As I was nearing the end of my circle I sprinkled right over something sparkly. Like all women, I couldn't resist shiny objects so I stopped momentarily to pick it up. In my hand was a gold token in the form of a coin. Ironically it was stamped with "No value." I looked at it closer and then that same electricity started shooting through my veins when the realization hit me. My peeps had sent me a "penny from Heaven!" If you recalled my session with Laura, she had pulled a Tarot card to see if she had an answer as to why I was seeing her that night. The card depicted I was surrounded by Angels and through her meditation she had told me that "pennies from Heaven and double rainbows" would be signs that I was on the right path or that my team was watching over me.
I beamed, my heart lifted and I finished my exercise of enclosing the circle. I triumphantly walked over to Silvia who was patiently on standby in the car. I handed her the coin and told her about my find. Her big blue eyes got giant. She shared that because I was taking so long she peeked into the rear view mirror to check on me and she saw me bending down to pick up something. So at that same moment, she witnessed that sacred message.
Again, it probably was an old gold coin lost from a child's board game that was kicking around the building site. Coincidentally, it just so happened to surface as I was sprinkling salt over it.
So, don’t pass by that penny, when you’re feeling blue. It may be a penny from heaven, that an Angel’s tossed to you – Charles Marshburn
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Past Ramblings
Past life regression hypnotherapy is a robustly contested topic. It is based on the assumption that people re-incarnate multiple life cycles to experience different lessons that can only be achieved in a physical form. Advocates of this form of therapy believe that under hypnosis, the patient can access the subconscious where repressed memories from their previous lives are stored. Understanding these elements may bring clarity into one's current life cycle thus allowing the patient to move forward into a more fulfilling path. Skeptics argue that these memories are false and created under the power of suggestions from the hypnosis, imagination and previous experiences. At its best, these confabulations are more like metaphors for your life's issues.
I am a believer and a non-believer. I believe that under the ideal conditions, the power of suggestion can create many untruths. I see it everyday in my own store when I am hawking my wares. With the correct amount of nurturing I can create a compelling argument as to why you do need to spend $3,000 on a dining room table even though there is a perfectly good one sitting at home. And this is done while your eyes are wide open. I also believe that before we were born into our physical capsule, we chose the blueprint of our life, what lessons we would like to learn and appoint a designated team of "spirits" whom we entrusted to help achieve this goal of learning. So somewhere up there, I have my life's blueprints stored in the akashic records. Some life cycles we are successful in achieving the lessons we seek out to learn, some life cycles we are off track and totally miss the mark and in other life cycles we are not the students but the appointed teachers to assist someone else. This I believe.
So Laura soothingly asks permission from my "soul" to access my previous lives. I raise a finger to show that accessing the vault is permitted. She tells me to look down at my feet and ask what color are they. I tell her I am wearing boots. I look around and notice that I am in a peaceful forest and I am riding a spotted brown horse. Well this is bizarre... Laura instructs me to hold a mirror up to my face and tell her what I see. What the? I see a white, young male in his 20's staring back at me with warm brown eyes and brown wavy hair. I also am wearing a green cap. The awareness that I was a white male made me almost fall off my hypnosis-created horse. Oh my stars, am I wearing green tights and a tunic? How dreadful... wow, I think I smell... Laura asks what I was doing. I told her I am not sure. I think I am just riding a horse. "Where are you going?" she prods. I don't know... I am just in a forest. Wait a minute, am I Robin Hood? I check my back and sure enough there is a carrier of arrows. Hmmmm... my gut tells me I was looking for something but not sure what. Laura encourages me to forward to a time when it was significant. She snaps her fingers. I am surrounded by fog. Oh wait... maybe it was smoke... I can't tell. The images don't come clearly to me like one would see in a movie. Instead, thoughts come to me and I just blab them out loud to Laura. After I blab something, the images in my head come into vision clearer. She asks what was happening. Houses are burning, people are running, there is lots of screaming and mayhem. Laura ask what I was doing. I am confused. I think I am fighting someone. I reach for my bow and arrow and expertly pierced the torso of another man that appeared to be a Viking. I am still confused. Realizing she wasn't going to get more details so she moves me to another event with a snap of her fingers. I look down and I am holding a beautiful baby boy. Laura asks who's baby was it? I think he's mine. Suddenly I feel wetness on my cheeks. What the hell? Am I crying? Why the hell am I crying? Consciously I am fully aware that I am crying but unconsciously I have no idea why. Maybe I just witnessed the birth of my own child so I am crying out of joy? Holy shit, this hynosis is so weird. Laura asks how I died. I blurted out that I died of old age. She asks what I advice I can tell my current self. To live a good honest life and to help as many people as possible. The tears stopped.
Laura snaps her fingers again and I am suddenly transported to the middle of a field. It's grassy and flat and there are endless blue skies stretched out before me. She asks me to look down at my feet and tell her what I see. I see brown skinned toes. Eeeeewww... I see dirt under my unclipped toenails. Man I need a bath. She asks me to hold a mirror up and tell her what I see. I hold up the mirror and see a dark skinned 12 year old boy with a shaved head. She asks what was I doing. I don't know. Hmmmm... why am I constantly hanging out in the middle of no where and not having a clue why? Laura realizes that I really don't have a clue so she moves me forward with another snap.
People are staring intensely at me. Not just a couple, a whole crap load of them. The group of noble looking men and women, dressed in what looked like Medival garb. Oh... the people staring at me are my councillors or... maybe advisors or... maybe they are just admiring my nice clothes. Oh my... these are nice clothes! Well, thank goodness they aren't staring at me because I'm naked... and thank goodness my hygiene level is much better in this lifetime. I think they are waiting for me to make an important decision. Laura asks what it was. I don't know. She snaps me forward and this time I am staring out from what I think is my balcony. I am admiring the beauty and happiness of that lovely morning and appreciating that my kingdom is at peace. I enjoyed the view but since there was not much going on but me gawking at my own work, Laura moves me to my time of death. I am in war. My sword is really heavy and my opponent strikes it out of my hand. He triumphantly stabs me through the torso. I feel wetness on my cheeks again. What the hell? Am I crying again? Laura reminds my soul that this was a past life and the pain I am feeling is not real. I tell her I am not crying because of the pain. I am crying because I feel guilty. "Why do you feel guilty?" I feel guilty that I let my kingdom down but I am so happy and so relieved that I am finally dead because I don't have to do this King thing anymore. I am sobbing uncontrollably and the tears are mixing in with my lovely boogers. Gawd... I am an emotional wreck.
Laura attempts to release my guilt through some therapeutic words. I am not really listening. Instead I some how got transported to another scene where I am witnessing a lovely pale maiden with flowing red locks burn to death at the stake while people are angrily chanting,"Witch, witch, witch!" I realized that she was the same maiden that was staring at me in the first scene. Oh my gawd, this maiden is Laura! I tried to save her but I couldn't. I think she was a Priestess that healed people as well and she was a close confidante to me. The guilt from not being able to save her created another wave of uncontrollable sobbing. Laura eases my sobbing by bringing me back slowly to this lifetime.
My eyes flew open and I immediately grabbed the tissue box beside me. I am exhausted but relieved to see me sitting on a Poang chair. I felt like I ran a marathon, and then got hit by a train, and then got up to drink to the point I couldn't see. I was speechless. I fully knew what I said and remembered everything.
Laura hands me a card that she pulled from her Tarot deck prior to me seeing her. She asked the Universe what my lesson here was. I look at the card and see a bunch of orbs in the modern artwork. Laura explains that it means I am surrounded my Angels. I smiled. This does not surprise me. She tells me that she asked the Universe to send me messages that I am on the right path by creating rainbows and pennies from Heaven.
The natural skeptic in me digested the events that night. Was I a King because I am an ego maniac so therefore I conjured up this need as an affirmation for my grandiosity? Or am I an ego maniac because I was a King in my past life therefore remnants of my grandeur permenated through this lifetime. Well, if that was the case then it sure explains my lack of humbleness. Hmmmm... And why on Earth did I hook up with Laura? Bizarre. I felt quite strongly that in my lifetime as a King, Priestess Laura was a teacher for me. Coincidental that she has been guiding me on this spiritual exploration in this life time? Hmmmm... You know what's really infuriating? Answering questions with questions.
Thank you Sensei Laura. I promise to not let you burn at the stake in this lifetime.
I am a believer and a non-believer. I believe that under the ideal conditions, the power of suggestion can create many untruths. I see it everyday in my own store when I am hawking my wares. With the correct amount of nurturing I can create a compelling argument as to why you do need to spend $3,000 on a dining room table even though there is a perfectly good one sitting at home. And this is done while your eyes are wide open. I also believe that before we were born into our physical capsule, we chose the blueprint of our life, what lessons we would like to learn and appoint a designated team of "spirits" whom we entrusted to help achieve this goal of learning. So somewhere up there, I have my life's blueprints stored in the akashic records. Some life cycles we are successful in achieving the lessons we seek out to learn, some life cycles we are off track and totally miss the mark and in other life cycles we are not the students but the appointed teachers to assist someone else. This I believe.
So Laura soothingly asks permission from my "soul" to access my previous lives. I raise a finger to show that accessing the vault is permitted. She tells me to look down at my feet and ask what color are they. I tell her I am wearing boots. I look around and notice that I am in a peaceful forest and I am riding a spotted brown horse. Well this is bizarre... Laura instructs me to hold a mirror up to my face and tell her what I see. What the? I see a white, young male in his 20's staring back at me with warm brown eyes and brown wavy hair. I also am wearing a green cap. The awareness that I was a white male made me almost fall off my hypnosis-created horse. Oh my stars, am I wearing green tights and a tunic? How dreadful... wow, I think I smell... Laura asks what I was doing. I told her I am not sure. I think I am just riding a horse. "Where are you going?" she prods. I don't know... I am just in a forest. Wait a minute, am I Robin Hood? I check my back and sure enough there is a carrier of arrows. Hmmmm... my gut tells me I was looking for something but not sure what. Laura encourages me to forward to a time when it was significant. She snaps her fingers. I am surrounded by fog. Oh wait... maybe it was smoke... I can't tell. The images don't come clearly to me like one would see in a movie. Instead, thoughts come to me and I just blab them out loud to Laura. After I blab something, the images in my head come into vision clearer. She asks what was happening. Houses are burning, people are running, there is lots of screaming and mayhem. Laura ask what I was doing. I am confused. I think I am fighting someone. I reach for my bow and arrow and expertly pierced the torso of another man that appeared to be a Viking. I am still confused. Realizing she wasn't going to get more details so she moves me to another event with a snap of her fingers. I look down and I am holding a beautiful baby boy. Laura asks who's baby was it? I think he's mine. Suddenly I feel wetness on my cheeks. What the hell? Am I crying? Why the hell am I crying? Consciously I am fully aware that I am crying but unconsciously I have no idea why. Maybe I just witnessed the birth of my own child so I am crying out of joy? Holy shit, this hynosis is so weird. Laura asks how I died. I blurted out that I died of old age. She asks what I advice I can tell my current self. To live a good honest life and to help as many people as possible. The tears stopped.
Laura snaps her fingers again and I am suddenly transported to the middle of a field. It's grassy and flat and there are endless blue skies stretched out before me. She asks me to look down at my feet and tell her what I see. I see brown skinned toes. Eeeeewww... I see dirt under my unclipped toenails. Man I need a bath. She asks me to hold a mirror up and tell her what I see. I hold up the mirror and see a dark skinned 12 year old boy with a shaved head. She asks what was I doing. I don't know. Hmmmm... why am I constantly hanging out in the middle of no where and not having a clue why? Laura realizes that I really don't have a clue so she moves me forward with another snap.
People are staring intensely at me. Not just a couple, a whole crap load of them. The group of noble looking men and women, dressed in what looked like Medival garb. Oh... the people staring at me are my councillors or... maybe advisors or... maybe they are just admiring my nice clothes. Oh my... these are nice clothes! Well, thank goodness they aren't staring at me because I'm naked... and thank goodness my hygiene level is much better in this lifetime. I think they are waiting for me to make an important decision. Laura asks what it was. I don't know. She snaps me forward and this time I am staring out from what I think is my balcony. I am admiring the beauty and happiness of that lovely morning and appreciating that my kingdom is at peace. I enjoyed the view but since there was not much going on but me gawking at my own work, Laura moves me to my time of death. I am in war. My sword is really heavy and my opponent strikes it out of my hand. He triumphantly stabs me through the torso. I feel wetness on my cheeks again. What the hell? Am I crying again? Laura reminds my soul that this was a past life and the pain I am feeling is not real. I tell her I am not crying because of the pain. I am crying because I feel guilty. "Why do you feel guilty?" I feel guilty that I let my kingdom down but I am so happy and so relieved that I am finally dead because I don't have to do this King thing anymore. I am sobbing uncontrollably and the tears are mixing in with my lovely boogers. Gawd... I am an emotional wreck.
Laura attempts to release my guilt through some therapeutic words. I am not really listening. Instead I some how got transported to another scene where I am witnessing a lovely pale maiden with flowing red locks burn to death at the stake while people are angrily chanting,"Witch, witch, witch!" I realized that she was the same maiden that was staring at me in the first scene. Oh my gawd, this maiden is Laura! I tried to save her but I couldn't. I think she was a Priestess that healed people as well and she was a close confidante to me. The guilt from not being able to save her created another wave of uncontrollable sobbing. Laura eases my sobbing by bringing me back slowly to this lifetime.
My eyes flew open and I immediately grabbed the tissue box beside me. I am exhausted but relieved to see me sitting on a Poang chair. I felt like I ran a marathon, and then got hit by a train, and then got up to drink to the point I couldn't see. I was speechless. I fully knew what I said and remembered everything.
Laura hands me a card that she pulled from her Tarot deck prior to me seeing her. She asked the Universe what my lesson here was. I look at the card and see a bunch of orbs in the modern artwork. Laura explains that it means I am surrounded my Angels. I smiled. This does not surprise me. She tells me that she asked the Universe to send me messages that I am on the right path by creating rainbows and pennies from Heaven.
The natural skeptic in me digested the events that night. Was I a King because I am an ego maniac so therefore I conjured up this need as an affirmation for my grandiosity? Or am I an ego maniac because I was a King in my past life therefore remnants of my grandeur permenated through this lifetime. Well, if that was the case then it sure explains my lack of humbleness. Hmmmm... And why on Earth did I hook up with Laura? Bizarre. I felt quite strongly that in my lifetime as a King, Priestess Laura was a teacher for me. Coincidental that she has been guiding me on this spiritual exploration in this life time? Hmmmm... You know what's really infuriating? Answering questions with questions.
Thank you Sensei Laura. I promise to not let you burn at the stake in this lifetime.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Going With The Flow
It was a long drive.
I had an appointment to meet with Laura yesterday after work. When she gave me her address I sarcastically commented that my passport had expired and so I wasn't sure if the delegates of Maple Ridge would let me in her neck of the woods. I was chatting with her on Facebook and I could sense she was rolling her eyes at my witty retort.
Traffic was at it's peak and of course the weather started to turn ugly. "Great... this is freaking fantastic." I call Chris to let Laura know I would be late. As I manuever myself through the GVRD my mind started wandering back to our Facebook chats. Laura is a clinically trained hynotherapist who I just recently started befriending. During her own journey into her life's purpose she had recalled two past lives. In one lifetime she was a Priestess who healed people but eventually felt so burdened with her talents that she decided to stop practicing her gift. She died from someone carving her heart out. She learned that she doesn't have to feel obligated to serve her entire lifetime. In another life cycle she was a Viking soldier who couldn't save his wife from being kidnapped and probably tortured. He did re-marry and lived a long life but the guilt was never let go. Such fascinating stories.
I am a strong believer in re-incarnation and cycling back into this physical plane with the purpose of experiencing lessons. I am also what you may call an "easy" subject when it comes to the power of suggestion thanks to my vivid imagination. If a person said, "Hey Huong, you want a caeser?" my mouth, like a seasoned Pavlov's dog, would start watering right on cue. For this same reason, I refuse to watch scary movies because I am very talented at impressing the images I saw onto my own landscape... for like... weeks. With this level of awareness I try to keep my expectations in check. On the one hand I am also very nervous to see what past life issues I have been harboring unconsciously. On the other hand, I wonder if my highly tuned and conditioned analytical mind would even allow me to be seduced to the hynotic level where the lymbic system runs automatically without the conscious mind.
Laura walks me through the technical aspects of hypnosis to clear up any apprehensions and misconceptions. Laura has set aside a cozy, dimly lit room where I happily plunk myself into a comfy Poang chair. I smile at the familiar IKEA best seller and start recalling how many units of this favorite lounger I sold as a sales manager. I then notice the sounds of water falling and realized she owns one of those table top Zen rock waterfalls things... the same one in fact that Chris got for Christmas from his step grandma 4 years ago. It then occurred to me that I totally tuned out what Laura was saying. I reshift my body language to focus on her. See? This is how my mind works. It rambles and rambles and rambles... all the time. The really freaky thing? I have these random thoughts but I totally heard EVERYTHING Laura had said down to the statistic that we use only 5% of our brain, leaving 95% of it unused in the sub-conscious mind. If you really know me, you would know that I recall details vividly and with impeccable accuracy. So how is it that I can have a separate conversation with myself about minute, trivial information but somehow can conduct a full conversation and acquire new information at the same time? So... I guess Miss Laura has her work cut out for her.
She starts the session by turning on the CD with the new age music. I feel like I'm at a spa. I uncross my legs, slip into a cozy throw, close my eyes and follow her instructions as she reads a script. She tells me to imagine myself floating out of my body and looking back down at it. I envision myself doing this and start giggling - in my mind so I don't get in trouble. I find it so funny that the person I imagined floating out of my body was not the actual image of the real me. Instead, I imagine myself as a blue energy being with very little facial features and long blue energy hair down to my bum. Laura instructs me to move my floating self to the left as far as the wall, or perhaps beyond it and even beyond this planet if I choose to. In my head, I methodically repeat her instructions: Okay Laura I will float my weird, unclothed blue energy being to my left... ummmm... go past your wall... go outside your home... oh wait, is your home on a greenbelt? Does that mean if I float too far a bear might eat me? I started silently smiling in my head again because apparently I am being highly amused at my own running monologue. Laura brings my floating self back to my core and instructs me to start creating a safe zone where I am at peace. My mind starts imagining a peaceful forest where the sun trickles through the lush trees and shines softly onto the... ummm... pond? Why on earth would you pick a pond? Ponds are stagnant bodies of water which means it's a ripe environment for leeches to grow. Eeeeewwww... great sanctuary if you're an animal that feasts on leeches. For pete's sake if you're going to imagine a water feature go all out and do a waterfall. Okay.. the sun trickles through the lush trees and shines softly on the small lake where it is being fed by a waterfall. Is the waterfall being fed by a glacier or an underground aquifer? Holy geezes, why do I have fairies dancing around me? Shoo! Dancing fairies you need to fly back to Care Bear Land before Laura finds out your distracting me from following her instructions. The fairies ignore my request but they politely bring me a rock where I delightfully sit in the signature yoga pose of ohm. Laura's voice then focusses my attention and tells me that I am so relaxed that my left leg is feeling so, so, so heavy. It is so heavy that I can't even lift it. Oh sure, I am so, so, so relaxed that I can't EVEN lift my left foot. Apparently my blue energy being is sarcastic to the core. Laura softly tests my state and tells me to lift my left leg. I skeptically ignore her warning that I had no control over my leg and triumphantly... failed? Wait a minute... holy geezes I can't lift my leg?! What the hell just happened here? One second ago I was shooing away fairies like they were mosquitoes and the next thing I can't lift my own leg? This can't be right. I test my other limbs, everything is dead weight. In fact, even after Laura gives me permission to float my left hand up into the air like a helium balloon I couldn't oblige. She had to come over and lift it for me. I am utterly flabbergasted. Suddenly it dawned on me that somewhere between my own running monolgue and my conscious mind following Laura's instructions I was able to relax to a state of unconsciousness. My mind goes quiet. I feel that my limbs are frozen but I sense some tingling at the extremities. I am aware that if I really wanted to, I probably can open my eyes and regain control of this physical ship so I can move limbs. But then what? That's seem silly trying to undo what you came to discover.
Laura moves onto the next phase of the session and ask permission from my soul to explore it's past lives. I give her permission by raising my right finger. She starts describing elements of a carnival scene and although I am sure I heard her voice in the background, I really didn't follow her instructions as strictly as the first part. Instead my mind starts wandering into a bizarre silence where its quiet... I have never experienced that before. No monologue laden with sarcasm. No silently smiling at my own reflections. No digesting stimulation. No fairies dancing on mushroom tops. No going over a to do list. It was just... nothing. Just me embraced in a white light.
Laura's voice jolts me out of the nothingness and she guides me to recall a past life.
I had an appointment to meet with Laura yesterday after work. When she gave me her address I sarcastically commented that my passport had expired and so I wasn't sure if the delegates of Maple Ridge would let me in her neck of the woods. I was chatting with her on Facebook and I could sense she was rolling her eyes at my witty retort.
Traffic was at it's peak and of course the weather started to turn ugly. "Great... this is freaking fantastic." I call Chris to let Laura know I would be late. As I manuever myself through the GVRD my mind started wandering back to our Facebook chats. Laura is a clinically trained hynotherapist who I just recently started befriending. During her own journey into her life's purpose she had recalled two past lives. In one lifetime she was a Priestess who healed people but eventually felt so burdened with her talents that she decided to stop practicing her gift. She died from someone carving her heart out. She learned that she doesn't have to feel obligated to serve her entire lifetime. In another life cycle she was a Viking soldier who couldn't save his wife from being kidnapped and probably tortured. He did re-marry and lived a long life but the guilt was never let go. Such fascinating stories.
I am a strong believer in re-incarnation and cycling back into this physical plane with the purpose of experiencing lessons. I am also what you may call an "easy" subject when it comes to the power of suggestion thanks to my vivid imagination. If a person said, "Hey Huong, you want a caeser?" my mouth, like a seasoned Pavlov's dog, would start watering right on cue. For this same reason, I refuse to watch scary movies because I am very talented at impressing the images I saw onto my own landscape... for like... weeks. With this level of awareness I try to keep my expectations in check. On the one hand I am also very nervous to see what past life issues I have been harboring unconsciously. On the other hand, I wonder if my highly tuned and conditioned analytical mind would even allow me to be seduced to the hynotic level where the lymbic system runs automatically without the conscious mind.
Laura walks me through the technical aspects of hypnosis to clear up any apprehensions and misconceptions. Laura has set aside a cozy, dimly lit room where I happily plunk myself into a comfy Poang chair. I smile at the familiar IKEA best seller and start recalling how many units of this favorite lounger I sold as a sales manager. I then notice the sounds of water falling and realized she owns one of those table top Zen rock waterfalls things... the same one in fact that Chris got for Christmas from his step grandma 4 years ago. It then occurred to me that I totally tuned out what Laura was saying. I reshift my body language to focus on her. See? This is how my mind works. It rambles and rambles and rambles... all the time. The really freaky thing? I have these random thoughts but I totally heard EVERYTHING Laura had said down to the statistic that we use only 5% of our brain, leaving 95% of it unused in the sub-conscious mind. If you really know me, you would know that I recall details vividly and with impeccable accuracy. So how is it that I can have a separate conversation with myself about minute, trivial information but somehow can conduct a full conversation and acquire new information at the same time? So... I guess Miss Laura has her work cut out for her.
She starts the session by turning on the CD with the new age music. I feel like I'm at a spa. I uncross my legs, slip into a cozy throw, close my eyes and follow her instructions as she reads a script. She tells me to imagine myself floating out of my body and looking back down at it. I envision myself doing this and start giggling - in my mind so I don't get in trouble. I find it so funny that the person I imagined floating out of my body was not the actual image of the real me. Instead, I imagine myself as a blue energy being with very little facial features and long blue energy hair down to my bum. Laura instructs me to move my floating self to the left as far as the wall, or perhaps beyond it and even beyond this planet if I choose to. In my head, I methodically repeat her instructions: Okay Laura I will float my weird, unclothed blue energy being to my left... ummmm... go past your wall... go outside your home... oh wait, is your home on a greenbelt? Does that mean if I float too far a bear might eat me? I started silently smiling in my head again because apparently I am being highly amused at my own running monologue. Laura brings my floating self back to my core and instructs me to start creating a safe zone where I am at peace. My mind starts imagining a peaceful forest where the sun trickles through the lush trees and shines softly onto the... ummm... pond? Why on earth would you pick a pond? Ponds are stagnant bodies of water which means it's a ripe environment for leeches to grow. Eeeeewwww... great sanctuary if you're an animal that feasts on leeches. For pete's sake if you're going to imagine a water feature go all out and do a waterfall. Okay.. the sun trickles through the lush trees and shines softly on the small lake where it is being fed by a waterfall. Is the waterfall being fed by a glacier or an underground aquifer? Holy geezes, why do I have fairies dancing around me? Shoo! Dancing fairies you need to fly back to Care Bear Land before Laura finds out your distracting me from following her instructions. The fairies ignore my request but they politely bring me a rock where I delightfully sit in the signature yoga pose of ohm. Laura's voice then focusses my attention and tells me that I am so relaxed that my left leg is feeling so, so, so heavy. It is so heavy that I can't even lift it. Oh sure, I am so, so, so relaxed that I can't EVEN lift my left foot. Apparently my blue energy being is sarcastic to the core. Laura softly tests my state and tells me to lift my left leg. I skeptically ignore her warning that I had no control over my leg and triumphantly... failed? Wait a minute... holy geezes I can't lift my leg?! What the hell just happened here? One second ago I was shooing away fairies like they were mosquitoes and the next thing I can't lift my own leg? This can't be right. I test my other limbs, everything is dead weight. In fact, even after Laura gives me permission to float my left hand up into the air like a helium balloon I couldn't oblige. She had to come over and lift it for me. I am utterly flabbergasted. Suddenly it dawned on me that somewhere between my own running monolgue and my conscious mind following Laura's instructions I was able to relax to a state of unconsciousness. My mind goes quiet. I feel that my limbs are frozen but I sense some tingling at the extremities. I am aware that if I really wanted to, I probably can open my eyes and regain control of this physical ship so I can move limbs. But then what? That's seem silly trying to undo what you came to discover.
Laura moves onto the next phase of the session and ask permission from my soul to explore it's past lives. I give her permission by raising my right finger. She starts describing elements of a carnival scene and although I am sure I heard her voice in the background, I really didn't follow her instructions as strictly as the first part. Instead my mind starts wandering into a bizarre silence where its quiet... I have never experienced that before. No monologue laden with sarcasm. No silently smiling at my own reflections. No digesting stimulation. No fairies dancing on mushroom tops. No going over a to do list. It was just... nothing. Just me embraced in a white light.
Laura's voice jolts me out of the nothingness and she guides me to recall a past life.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Turning The Corner
I suspect I am tuning into something bigger... then myself. For those that know me, this is a giant statement that carries some hefty weight as I am not exactly a frequent eater of humble pie.
I was on Twitter last week and made a pathetic attempt of engaging in this new world of social marketing. I know you're suppose to be clever, quick on the draw and slightly edgy on your tweets. Now if this was my own personal tweet and not representative of my actual company, then I wouldn't have had a problem. But... since this is the professional world, my "Huongisms" would offend more than inspire. So I resisted my natural urge to tweet shit like: "Please leave children and food outside. Well behaved dogs are welcomed." Instead I procrastinated and started to read the threads. One tweet jumped out: What Age Is Your Soul? I clicked on the link and started reading it when halfway through a customer interupted my flow.
That night after the kids were in bed I tried to locate that link on the Twitter feed but gave up after 15 minutes. Instead I Googled, "What Age Is Your Soul." I found a link but not the orginal link. Instead I found "Micheal's Teachings" which I tried to digest while downing some bad wine. The content was substantial: http://www.michaelteachings.com. The really bizarre thing is that it summed up my hodgy-podgy belief system that I cut and pasted from whatever I believed made sense to me. So strange that a document would summarize my views... and here I thought I was being original... apparently not.
The following night I learned through another social media, Facebook, that my mother-in-law's friend is a clinically trained hypnotherapist. I started chatting with her and she agreed to do a past life regression on me which I am totally excited about! I have an open mind so we'll see what she finds hidden amongst the cob webs and many life cycles of perfecting the soul. I just hope she doesn't tell me I am the incarnate of Jack The Ripper or something. I am more hoping she might be able to channel my Spirit Guides as I am still floundering in my sea of options. We'll see.
Yesterday I watched Oprah which is not something I normally do. She is an amazing woman but because of my busy life I have not been able to follow her as much as I would like. On her last episode, she did however hit some very high spiritual notes. So much resonated with me that I started crying... actually it was an all outright bawling session. Again, if you know me... I don't cry. I usually replace crying with anger unless I am hormonally retarded like during my pregnancy days. Just something about that show clicked.
Oprah mentioned that life lessons are first done as whispers and they get louder and louder until you die from it or the lesson is learned. My analogy throughout my life is that lessons are usually thrown at you like pebbles, which eventually grow into larger rocks and then into boulders until you have no choice but to face it - if you continue to ignore it, the boulder will fall on top of you and kill you - sort of like the house that squished the Wicked Witch of the West. Again... why is Oprah echoing my life philosphy? So strange.
So I have been highly contemplative, opening my channels, tuning in and observing from my seat. I know a couple of truths about myself on this journey of life so far:
- True success is being true to yourself, regardless of what society tells you. Accept your true self and feel the power of real happiness and peace.
- Real wealth is defined by the depth of your relationships.
- There is a higher power out there. I am not alone.
I was on Twitter last week and made a pathetic attempt of engaging in this new world of social marketing. I know you're suppose to be clever, quick on the draw and slightly edgy on your tweets. Now if this was my own personal tweet and not representative of my actual company, then I wouldn't have had a problem. But... since this is the professional world, my "Huongisms" would offend more than inspire. So I resisted my natural urge to tweet shit like: "Please leave children and food outside. Well behaved dogs are welcomed." Instead I procrastinated and started to read the threads. One tweet jumped out: What Age Is Your Soul? I clicked on the link and started reading it when halfway through a customer interupted my flow.
That night after the kids were in bed I tried to locate that link on the Twitter feed but gave up after 15 minutes. Instead I Googled, "What Age Is Your Soul." I found a link but not the orginal link. Instead I found "Micheal's Teachings" which I tried to digest while downing some bad wine. The content was substantial: http://www.michaelteachings.com. The really bizarre thing is that it summed up my hodgy-podgy belief system that I cut and pasted from whatever I believed made sense to me. So strange that a document would summarize my views... and here I thought I was being original... apparently not.
The following night I learned through another social media, Facebook, that my mother-in-law's friend is a clinically trained hypnotherapist. I started chatting with her and she agreed to do a past life regression on me which I am totally excited about! I have an open mind so we'll see what she finds hidden amongst the cob webs and many life cycles of perfecting the soul. I just hope she doesn't tell me I am the incarnate of Jack The Ripper or something. I am more hoping she might be able to channel my Spirit Guides as I am still floundering in my sea of options. We'll see.
Yesterday I watched Oprah which is not something I normally do. She is an amazing woman but because of my busy life I have not been able to follow her as much as I would like. On her last episode, she did however hit some very high spiritual notes. So much resonated with me that I started crying... actually it was an all outright bawling session. Again, if you know me... I don't cry. I usually replace crying with anger unless I am hormonally retarded like during my pregnancy days. Just something about that show clicked.
Oprah mentioned that life lessons are first done as whispers and they get louder and louder until you die from it or the lesson is learned. My analogy throughout my life is that lessons are usually thrown at you like pebbles, which eventually grow into larger rocks and then into boulders until you have no choice but to face it - if you continue to ignore it, the boulder will fall on top of you and kill you - sort of like the house that squished the Wicked Witch of the West. Again... why is Oprah echoing my life philosphy? So strange.
So I have been highly contemplative, opening my channels, tuning in and observing from my seat. I know a couple of truths about myself on this journey of life so far:
- True success is being true to yourself, regardless of what society tells you. Accept your true self and feel the power of real happiness and peace.
- Real wealth is defined by the depth of your relationships.
- There is a higher power out there. I am not alone.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
On The Right Path
It is my belief that nothing in life is coincidental. Everything is meant to be, you just need to be open to receive the "whys." So... I had the bizarre coincidence of meeting a highly talented intuitive about 6 years ago. My mother in law gave me her contact info and convinced me to meet with her because she was so creepily accurate with her own reading. I met Annar, tested her talent and yes she proved to be deadly accurate about many aspects of my life that only close family members know. She is human so of course, her future predictions so far have only been 50% accurate. Considering that the actual stats of knowing your future are usually zero, 50% is pretty damn amazing.
I felt it was time to schedule another reading to try to give some insight into my crossroads. The reading was suppose to be this upcoming Friday but she rescheduled it for yesterday. Chris was originally going to come along but of course his beloved Canucks were playing so I was once again a hockey widow. As instructed, I drove to her home with a blank cassette tape, my photos of the people I wanted to discuss and $90 cash. I arrived on time but had to wait in her living room for about 30 minutes as she was running behind her appointments.
Annar called me in and I handed her the tape so she could record the session. She popped it in and tried to record it but for whatever reason the recorder jams. She starts cursing that she just bought it and then attempts to wrestle with the machine only to have the tape unravel in her hands. She apologizes for her recorder eating my new cassette tape so she rummages through her desk to see if there was a spare kicking around. Of course, there wasn't. It then occurred to me that my camera was in my purse so I go grab it and ask if it was okay to record the session on video mode but I wouldn't point the lens at her. Instead I would aim it at the tissue box on the desk. She gives permission so I started recording in movie mode.
The last time I was at Annar's she mentioned at the end of the session that a maternal spirit, probably my grandma, "popped" in to visit. I was highly confused at this comment because both my grandmas are alive. Annar then said her name starts with the letter E... like Evelyn, Eleanor. It just occurred to me that it might have been Chris' grandma Elaine who was very close to Chris and passed away from cancer when he was really young.
Well when we started the session yesterday the first thing Annar mentioned was that my grandma was here with me. Again, I told her both my grandmas are still alive. Again Annar says, "Well the spirit is definitely maternal and her name starts with the letter E". Realizing it was Grandma Elaine again, I told Annar to tell her I said, "Hi!" On my list of questions to ask I had written down, "Is Kaiya the reincarnation of Grandma Elaine?" I wanted to know because Kaiya's birthday was 2 days after Grandma Elaine's birthday so I always wondered if it was possible. Well considering Grandma Elaine was still hanging out at my readings it was pretty clear that she didn't cycle back into this lifetime. Suddenly, I noticed my camera retracted it's lens and shut itself down. Frustrated, I tried to turn it back on and it never did.
Annar then asked, "Do you jam technology?" "What? No, not really. Why?" I replied. "Because your energy levels are so high! I sensed you were arriving about a block before you actually were here! People with your energy levels sometimes jams electronic things." I raise an eyebrow and challenged that maybe it's not me but it's my "friends." She then stares intensely at my forehead and tells me she can't read past 3 months into my future because my chakra is changing. Apparently it's going from a purple back into a bright green which means in the next 3 months my life will be intensely changing and I will be entering the next phase of my life. She tells me to come back in July because my purple aura is blocking her abilities to see past the immediate future. I stare at her like she has two heads. She reads my confused body language and attempts to explain something about a Saturn rising in my fifth moon... wait... or was it the Unicorn will be rising above the happy Leperchaun? I can't recall because she spoke so quickly and I don't have a damn taped session to review.
Anyways, I pushed her to see what she can because I had a list of questions that I needed to rattle through. She entertains me and discusses the future of my business and the future of Chris' business but then mentions she can't really tell because I am blocking her abilities with my blinding purple. She starts going through the photos I brought and she tells me I will have a really blessed life and my 3 children will grow up to be amazing adults. She pauses at Kaiya's photo and says she's very special. Annar proceeds to tell me that she is an energy giver and highly intuitive like her mother. What... come again? She tells me that children like Kaiya, around the age of 2, will point up into the corners and start babbling to the air because they are conversing with the spirits. Great... this wasn't exactly the talent I was envisioning for my daughter. I was kind of hoping she was able to sing... or at the very least reflect my witty sarcasm.
Annar throws her hands up in the air and says that I really don't need her at this point in my life - I just need to trust my gut instinct. She says I have the same talent as she does but I'm just raw. I stare at her in disbelief. My entire life I have been given many opportunities to explore this "talent" but never have because I was afraid of opening Pandora's Box. Seeing that Annar couldn't do a good reading anyways I saw it as a good opportunity to finally ask a trained expert. I explain to her about my stories of my "friends". She studies me and then explains that my guardian spirits don't just randomly hang around. They only come when I ask them too and or in times of need. I bravely ask her to describe to me my guardian spirits. She concentrates on my forehead. She says I have a dominant one that is an old female soul and a distant one that is a younger male. She also mentions that they are both Vietnamese. I laughed because the weird thing is that it never occurred to me that my spirits were Vietnamese. I know that sounds stupid. Annar then says that my Guardians like taking the form of big birds. I stopped laughing.
She tells me she will send a blessing to help sell my house and I better start house shopping because as soon as she starts praying it will happen quickly. She says the house will sell for $525,000 to a nice young couple. My new house will be beautiful and will have the numbers 8018 in it. She tells me that as soon as I sell it I need to phone and tell her so she can focus her prayers on someone else. I ask her why she is doing this for me. She says because I have helped her more then she has helped me tonight. Annar says it has been a long time, years in fact, since she has met an energy giver with such an intense purple. She has been heavily drained for the past 3 weeks helping other people and my own energy has been able to re-energize her. I look at her funny. She notices the time and hints to me that my 60 minutes are up. I take $90 out of my purse and she says she feels awkward taking my money because I helped her and not the other way around. I said I felt weird not paying her so Annar compromises and takes only $60 with an agreement that I can come see her in July for a follow-up. By then my purple would have subsided so her reading can be more accurate.
She walks me to the door and I ask her for a prediction on the Canucks. She says I better have a tissue box ready. I lectured her to keep the faith and she says, "Well they will need a miracle. But hey, if you focus all that energy of yours towards them that might be the miracle that they need."
I drove home lost in thought. I started to digest the evening's teachings and then blurted out loud, "Okay G1 and G2, if you are actually watching over me then send me a sign that I can't miss that everything will be okay." As I started to cross the Queensborough Bridge, through the dark clouds, a double rainbow appeared. One was brighter than the other one and to make sure I wasn't crazy, I took a picture of it while driving (which wasn't such as smart thing to do considering I am Asian and driving in the rain so thank goodness I didn't cause an accident).
I came home and told Chris everything and tried to retrieve the data from my camera. The weird thing was that the camera does not have the video of the first 5 minutes of my conversation with Annar but it did have bad photos of the rainbows. The other weird thing is that the Canucks did win - like I said, Annar is usually 50% wrong.
I also had the chance to Google the green and purple colors of my aura since Annar didn't really explain it to me in terms I understood:
Purple: Nobility of purpose, Spiritual and visionary leadership, Spiritual teaching and goals. Symbol of power, passionate belief, and respect. Idealism, Psychic manifestations. Abstinence and Sobriety. Indicates spiritual thoughts. Purple is never a strong point in the Aura. It appears only as temporary "clouds" and "flames", indicating truly spiritual thoughts.
Green: Restful, modifying energy, natural healing ability. All natural healers should have it. People with a green strong point in their Auras are natural healers. The stronger the green Aura, the better the healer. They also love gardening and usually have a "green hand" - anything grows for them. Being in a presence of a person with a strong and green Aura is a very peaceful and restful experience. Green thought indicates a restful state and healing.
After I read these definitions the whole evening made sense. Well it's as clear as mud anyways. I tried to post this entry last night just before I went to bed but the Internet crashed. Apparently Shaw was down for the entire Richmond network until the afternoon. Coincidence... maybe? Weird... absolutely!
I am adopting the Rainbow as my sign from my Guardians. I find it so poetic that as I crossed the bridge and demanded "whoever" to present themselves that I would be greeted with not one, but two rainbows through the dark clouds. Movie symbolism don't get better than this.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Embrace Your Light
As part of Best Buy's comprehensive training I was shipped (against my better judgement) to Edmonton in the dead of winter for the entire month of January to master the art of pushing imported electronics designed to "create a better life."
I am a reluctant traveller. Contrary to popular belief, travelling for work is not glamorous and for a creature of habit and comfort such as myself, it's actually a form of torture. By this point of my career I was already a seasoned traveller thanks to the demands of my previous role at IKEA. I knew the ins and outs of living comfortably in a basic hotel which meant that yes, I took along an extra suitcase packed with my own pillow and blankie for long hauls. Ya, go ahead and snicker but it is essential for my sanity.
I remember this day so clearly. I was trapped in the back of the Operations room learning the archaic system of scheduling people to budgets and paying them properly. It was about as exciting as watching beige paint dry. I looked at the time and was excited to see that it was 5PM which meant I would be free from the shackles and finally able to leave the dark room of no windows. Just before I was going to pack it up and call it a day I heard yelling and then a shriek coming from the Customer Service counter. I flew open the door and my superviser and I ran into a crazed man holding a syringe to one of our Customer Service reps demanding money. My adrenaline kicked in which meant my brain usually shuts down. I immediately started using my big girl voice, "Put that fucking needle down and leave the store NOW!" The wide-eyed man obviously strung out on some kind of high started to lunge over the counter that separated us from him. I instinctly picked up the chair that was beside me and threw it at him creating enough aggression that he dropped the syringe and ran out the door. "V," the General Manager who was also in training with me and was in charge of this ship for the shift came running up from the back warehouse after the other staff alerted him and called 911. This all happened in less than 3 minutes. We locked down the store and went through the painstaking process of filing all the police reports. Luckily no one was injured except for the poor chair which probably had some DNA from the culprit attached to it since it did clip him in the head.
Let's just say it was a bad day. As a manager I have chased down junkies, kids stealing toys and yelled back at aggressive customers that felt they were entitled to the world but... being robbed was definitely a new achievement on the old resume. It was 9PM by the time V and I finally left and we were heading straight to our hotel's bar. Since all the staff and men in blue were finally not around us anymore, he started laughing like a crazy man. Although he never witnessed the altercation first hand as he was 3 seconds too late, he did review all the security tapes with the police. He confessed it was hilarious to see me bolt out the door like a bat out of hell, yell obscenities at the junkie and then hurl a chair at him when he started to climb over the counter. Ya, really hilarious I'm sure. I am 5' on a good day. The junkie was over 6' and we logged him on our paper work as being approximately 200lbs. It never occurred to me that further agitating the obviously strung out man was a poor decision. Luckily the chair bashed his head enough to scare him.
My heart never slowed down since that incident and I badly needed a drink. As V continued to chuckle through my glares I slammed the button on the elevator door to the floor where our usual watering hole was located. The elevator door was just about to close when suddenly this woman that looked eerily like Bette Midler pryed open the doors and then just stared at me. Our eyes deadlocked for the longest minute... E.V.E.R.
"Oh my God! All this energy is from you?" incredulously asked the the stranger who was hysterically waving her finger at me. I am a person with a very large personal bubble. On any average day this bubble is usually 3 feet in radius which means no one except my immediate family can enter within it without making me feel uncomfortable. After today, it had effectively increased to 10 feet, especially for spazzy women rocking a red fro. V can see my fists clenching up so he automatically stepped in between us. "Excuse me, but do we know you?" V protectively asked.
The high energy woman embarrassedly apologized for the abrupt invasion and explained that she was one of psychics partaking in the "Psychic Circle Convention" that was being held at the hotel. Her area of expertise is reading auras so when she noticed this huge "light force" pouring out from the elevator she had to rush to see what it was. The intensity in her eyes as she was studying me made me feel like she was looking at me naked. The woman with the massive hair just kept shaking her head. She then explained that I had 5 times the normal person's aura radius which was so different. She then grew quiet and stared at the space above my head. "You have a black light that is hovering above your own life energy! But it's not attached to you, there is an actual gap between your light and the black light. Do you notice if street lamps or other electrical items surge when you walk under or near them?"
I was caught off guard and highly annoyed because I can feel my coping system shutting down. I really needed a stiff drink and the last thing I wanted to do was discuss the colors in my rainbow with the short, roundish woman who kept invading my space. "I'm sorry we have dinner reservations and we're running late." The woman again realized how poor her social skills were and apologized. She gave me her card and told me to call her for an in-depth consultation and since my aura was so unique, she wouldn't even charge me! V pushed her out the door and I quickly pushed the button to take us to our final destination.
Dinner was unusally quiet. There was no witty banter, no sarcasms about our favorite topic - stupid people... just... nothing. It was an uneventful dinner where the only conversations taking place was completed with gestures and eye contact. Finally V broke the silence and asked if I was going to see her. I told V I already chucked the card, so no. He seemed shocked that I didn't want to learn more about my aura. I told him it was like opening Pandora's Box and right now I am not curious enough to handle the truth. Besides, that lady's energy gave me the heeby jeebies and I wouldn't be caught dead alone with her in a room by myself. She probably would keep me trapped somewhere and use my body parts for potions or something.
V walked me to my room like he normally does and before we said our customary goodnights, he blurted out in a drunken slur, "You know what was so weird? On the surveillance tapes your face kept going in and out of focus when you were raging mad and freaking on that perp. At first we thought it might have been a dust mark but then the cops realized you moved so it wasn't a static thing on the lens. I didn't think much about it until that crazy lady asked if you surged electronics..."
Uuuuuuuuuuggggggghhh! I am not having this conversation. It's past midnight. My brain is marinated in fermented wheat and my heart is shot from all the adrenaline rush. I rudely walked past V, slammed the door on him and fell face first into my "comfort" pillow where I happily stayed until noon the next day.
I am a reluctant traveller. Contrary to popular belief, travelling for work is not glamorous and for a creature of habit and comfort such as myself, it's actually a form of torture. By this point of my career I was already a seasoned traveller thanks to the demands of my previous role at IKEA. I knew the ins and outs of living comfortably in a basic hotel which meant that yes, I took along an extra suitcase packed with my own pillow and blankie for long hauls. Ya, go ahead and snicker but it is essential for my sanity.
I remember this day so clearly. I was trapped in the back of the Operations room learning the archaic system of scheduling people to budgets and paying them properly. It was about as exciting as watching beige paint dry. I looked at the time and was excited to see that it was 5PM which meant I would be free from the shackles and finally able to leave the dark room of no windows. Just before I was going to pack it up and call it a day I heard yelling and then a shriek coming from the Customer Service counter. I flew open the door and my superviser and I ran into a crazed man holding a syringe to one of our Customer Service reps demanding money. My adrenaline kicked in which meant my brain usually shuts down. I immediately started using my big girl voice, "Put that fucking needle down and leave the store NOW!" The wide-eyed man obviously strung out on some kind of high started to lunge over the counter that separated us from him. I instinctly picked up the chair that was beside me and threw it at him creating enough aggression that he dropped the syringe and ran out the door. "V," the General Manager who was also in training with me and was in charge of this ship for the shift came running up from the back warehouse after the other staff alerted him and called 911. This all happened in less than 3 minutes. We locked down the store and went through the painstaking process of filing all the police reports. Luckily no one was injured except for the poor chair which probably had some DNA from the culprit attached to it since it did clip him in the head.
Let's just say it was a bad day. As a manager I have chased down junkies, kids stealing toys and yelled back at aggressive customers that felt they were entitled to the world but... being robbed was definitely a new achievement on the old resume. It was 9PM by the time V and I finally left and we were heading straight to our hotel's bar. Since all the staff and men in blue were finally not around us anymore, he started laughing like a crazy man. Although he never witnessed the altercation first hand as he was 3 seconds too late, he did review all the security tapes with the police. He confessed it was hilarious to see me bolt out the door like a bat out of hell, yell obscenities at the junkie and then hurl a chair at him when he started to climb over the counter. Ya, really hilarious I'm sure. I am 5' on a good day. The junkie was over 6' and we logged him on our paper work as being approximately 200lbs. It never occurred to me that further agitating the obviously strung out man was a poor decision. Luckily the chair bashed his head enough to scare him.
My heart never slowed down since that incident and I badly needed a drink. As V continued to chuckle through my glares I slammed the button on the elevator door to the floor where our usual watering hole was located. The elevator door was just about to close when suddenly this woman that looked eerily like Bette Midler pryed open the doors and then just stared at me. Our eyes deadlocked for the longest minute... E.V.E.R.
"Oh my God! All this energy is from you?" incredulously asked the the stranger who was hysterically waving her finger at me. I am a person with a very large personal bubble. On any average day this bubble is usually 3 feet in radius which means no one except my immediate family can enter within it without making me feel uncomfortable. After today, it had effectively increased to 10 feet, especially for spazzy women rocking a red fro. V can see my fists clenching up so he automatically stepped in between us. "Excuse me, but do we know you?" V protectively asked.
The high energy woman embarrassedly apologized for the abrupt invasion and explained that she was one of psychics partaking in the "Psychic Circle Convention" that was being held at the hotel. Her area of expertise is reading auras so when she noticed this huge "light force" pouring out from the elevator she had to rush to see what it was. The intensity in her eyes as she was studying me made me feel like she was looking at me naked. The woman with the massive hair just kept shaking her head. She then explained that I had 5 times the normal person's aura radius which was so different. She then grew quiet and stared at the space above my head. "You have a black light that is hovering above your own life energy! But it's not attached to you, there is an actual gap between your light and the black light. Do you notice if street lamps or other electrical items surge when you walk under or near them?"
I was caught off guard and highly annoyed because I can feel my coping system shutting down. I really needed a stiff drink and the last thing I wanted to do was discuss the colors in my rainbow with the short, roundish woman who kept invading my space. "I'm sorry we have dinner reservations and we're running late." The woman again realized how poor her social skills were and apologized. She gave me her card and told me to call her for an in-depth consultation and since my aura was so unique, she wouldn't even charge me! V pushed her out the door and I quickly pushed the button to take us to our final destination.
Dinner was unusally quiet. There was no witty banter, no sarcasms about our favorite topic - stupid people... just... nothing. It was an uneventful dinner where the only conversations taking place was completed with gestures and eye contact. Finally V broke the silence and asked if I was going to see her. I told V I already chucked the card, so no. He seemed shocked that I didn't want to learn more about my aura. I told him it was like opening Pandora's Box and right now I am not curious enough to handle the truth. Besides, that lady's energy gave me the heeby jeebies and I wouldn't be caught dead alone with her in a room by myself. She probably would keep me trapped somewhere and use my body parts for potions or something.
V walked me to my room like he normally does and before we said our customary goodnights, he blurted out in a drunken slur, "You know what was so weird? On the surveillance tapes your face kept going in and out of focus when you were raging mad and freaking on that perp. At first we thought it might have been a dust mark but then the cops realized you moved so it wasn't a static thing on the lens. I didn't think much about it until that crazy lady asked if you surged electronics..."
Uuuuuuuuuuggggggghhh! I am not having this conversation. It's past midnight. My brain is marinated in fermented wheat and my heart is shot from all the adrenaline rush. I rudely walked past V, slammed the door on him and fell face first into my "comfort" pillow where I happily stayed until noon the next day.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The Man "Upstairs"
I grew up in a Fourplex in Richmond and shared many happy memories with our neighbors the Azures. They lived directly above us and the common door that separated the two rental suites was often left open so the herd of six children had easy access to whatever toy, playmate, food or parental mentor they wanted. I often played with Aliea, my brother would stir up shit with Bobby and Stephanie would be creating bad messes around the house with Merissa.
Our typical day on the weekend would start with one of us yelling "Knock, Knock!" at the actual door that separates the units as a courtesy to let the actual inhabitants know we were invading their territory. It was usually the babies in the family (Stephanie or Merissa) since they were the first up so the first looking for something to do. When the afternoon rolled around I would go upstairs and see if I could get someone engaged in a card game. Lairay and Bob would often be out in the yard, fixing a bike or building forts. Anytime it was close to meal time, all six kids would check out the offerings of both household and strategize how we were going to fill our tummy. Would I eat dinner downstairs but have my desserts upstairs? Or would I secretly eat dinner upstairs and fake I don't feel well to avoid eating whatever my mom prepared downstairs? Near the end of the day, we would all pile in one of the living rooms, claim some piece of upholstery or floor and settle down to a movie selection. Our parents had a really hard time sending all 6 kids to bed on time and getting our homework finished.
Let's just say it was really rare that our home was EVER empty. However, there was the odd time when the Azures left their home base and because of our tight relationship we knew for a fact that NO ONE was home upstairs. That's when we heard noises from the upstairs suite. Most of the time it was footsteps. It would start from the front of the house and trek towards the kitchen. They were always heavy footed and always the same path. Sometimes we just heard banging in the kitchen. The first time this happened its scared the crap out of all us Nguyen kids.
Joyce's boyfriend at the time, Garry is a self proclaimed intuitive. He claims that he has a knack for picking up "residual energy" and is able to read if they were harmless or malevolent. When we reported this to Garry he nonchalantly said, "Oh, it's just the old guy that used to live here. Don't worry, he's harmless." R-i-g-h-t. Obviously I never took his word for it so I told my parents. They too annoyingly mimiced Garry's apathetic reaction. My dad, not knowing that Garry identified the "ghost" as "an old man" blurted out, "It's okay, he's not going to come down here. He only lives upstairs." Wow...
I was 13 at the time. The only ghost I considered friendly was Casper. The re-assurance from both sets of parents was mildly insane to me. So, let's get this right. When everyone leaves upstairs, there is a lonely old man that I can't see but can hear walking around bored and you're trying to convince me that he won't come downstairs because why? How is it the adults are not unnerved at the 11th person inhabiting the Nguyen/Azure dwelling?
Strangely, we all grew accustomed to the walking footprints. As I got older, I had earned enough trust to babysit all the kids while the parents were out. That's when this story gets weirder. Almost everytime I was babysitting the kids during the evening, there was some kind of active paranormal activity - mostly objects falling and even breaking depending on the impact. Being the responsible babysitter, I always reported this and the parent's always questioned if we were rough housing - they never believed it when I blamed the busted items on the resident "ghost."
That all changed around Christmas. The Azures had set their Christmas tree up in front of their living room window. It was a typical tree with a typical amount of ornaments. After setting it up, it fell down a couple hours later. No big deal. They re-setted their tree and to ensure it didn't topple again, the base was weighted with rocks and water and the top was tightly tied to a ceiling hook. That baby wasn't moving even if all of us 6 kids tackled it. Later that evening, we heard this huge crash that caused everyone downstairs to go running upstairs. Now the layout of the Azure's home was an average rectangle. The front of the house was the living room and dining room and a wall separated the kitchen which was located at the back of the house. When I ran upstairs the tree looked like someone threw it against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living/dining room. Just so you know, that distance was approximately 30 feet. There was so much force that we found busted ornaments into the kitchen!
My dad was shocked. Garry was quiet. The moms gathered the kids out of the way so we wouldn't cut ourselves with all the broken glass. Garry and my dad went to the front of the house where the tree once stood and just stared at the empty spot. Now being 14, I already knew from my rudimentry understanding of physics that a 6 foot tree could not have fallen down with that much force - it seemed illogical and unnatural. First of all, the flooring was carpet so that should have insulated the fall. Secondly, the tree was some how 30 feet away from it's orginal position. Lastly, it was tied up and weighted down.
I can hear Garry and my dad whispering. In his broken English, he told Garry that the man was mad and maybe he should not set-up a tree. Garry nodded in agreement. We were all sent to bed while the adults cleaned up the war zone. I didn't sleep well that night. My dad's words kept echoing in my dreams and the man finally appeared to me.
In the morning, I was the first to scream "Knock, Knock!" I was given the okay to come in and I rushed straight to Garry. Breathlessly I told him I had a dream that I looked into the window of his house from the street and I saw an old white guy with long white hair sitting in the window in a chair looking back at me. Garry smiled and said, "Well yes, that's why he's so mad we put our Christmas tree in his spot."
Apparently our resident ghost was not as friendly as Casper - especially around Christmas time. The tree was re-located to the back of the house and it never fell again. However, anytime something broke on my babysitting shifts, Garry and Joyce never accused us kids again of rough housing.
Our typical day on the weekend would start with one of us yelling "Knock, Knock!" at the actual door that separates the units as a courtesy to let the actual inhabitants know we were invading their territory. It was usually the babies in the family (Stephanie or Merissa) since they were the first up so the first looking for something to do. When the afternoon rolled around I would go upstairs and see if I could get someone engaged in a card game. Lairay and Bob would often be out in the yard, fixing a bike or building forts. Anytime it was close to meal time, all six kids would check out the offerings of both household and strategize how we were going to fill our tummy. Would I eat dinner downstairs but have my desserts upstairs? Or would I secretly eat dinner upstairs and fake I don't feel well to avoid eating whatever my mom prepared downstairs? Near the end of the day, we would all pile in one of the living rooms, claim some piece of upholstery or floor and settle down to a movie selection. Our parents had a really hard time sending all 6 kids to bed on time and getting our homework finished.
Let's just say it was really rare that our home was EVER empty. However, there was the odd time when the Azures left their home base and because of our tight relationship we knew for a fact that NO ONE was home upstairs. That's when we heard noises from the upstairs suite. Most of the time it was footsteps. It would start from the front of the house and trek towards the kitchen. They were always heavy footed and always the same path. Sometimes we just heard banging in the kitchen. The first time this happened its scared the crap out of all us Nguyen kids.
Joyce's boyfriend at the time, Garry is a self proclaimed intuitive. He claims that he has a knack for picking up "residual energy" and is able to read if they were harmless or malevolent. When we reported this to Garry he nonchalantly said, "Oh, it's just the old guy that used to live here. Don't worry, he's harmless." R-i-g-h-t. Obviously I never took his word for it so I told my parents. They too annoyingly mimiced Garry's apathetic reaction. My dad, not knowing that Garry identified the "ghost" as "an old man" blurted out, "It's okay, he's not going to come down here. He only lives upstairs." Wow...
I was 13 at the time. The only ghost I considered friendly was Casper. The re-assurance from both sets of parents was mildly insane to me. So, let's get this right. When everyone leaves upstairs, there is a lonely old man that I can't see but can hear walking around bored and you're trying to convince me that he won't come downstairs because why? How is it the adults are not unnerved at the 11th person inhabiting the Nguyen/Azure dwelling?
Strangely, we all grew accustomed to the walking footprints. As I got older, I had earned enough trust to babysit all the kids while the parents were out. That's when this story gets weirder. Almost everytime I was babysitting the kids during the evening, there was some kind of active paranormal activity - mostly objects falling and even breaking depending on the impact. Being the responsible babysitter, I always reported this and the parent's always questioned if we were rough housing - they never believed it when I blamed the busted items on the resident "ghost."
That all changed around Christmas. The Azures had set their Christmas tree up in front of their living room window. It was a typical tree with a typical amount of ornaments. After setting it up, it fell down a couple hours later. No big deal. They re-setted their tree and to ensure it didn't topple again, the base was weighted with rocks and water and the top was tightly tied to a ceiling hook. That baby wasn't moving even if all of us 6 kids tackled it. Later that evening, we heard this huge crash that caused everyone downstairs to go running upstairs. Now the layout of the Azure's home was an average rectangle. The front of the house was the living room and dining room and a wall separated the kitchen which was located at the back of the house. When I ran upstairs the tree looked like someone threw it against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living/dining room. Just so you know, that distance was approximately 30 feet. There was so much force that we found busted ornaments into the kitchen!
My dad was shocked. Garry was quiet. The moms gathered the kids out of the way so we wouldn't cut ourselves with all the broken glass. Garry and my dad went to the front of the house where the tree once stood and just stared at the empty spot. Now being 14, I already knew from my rudimentry understanding of physics that a 6 foot tree could not have fallen down with that much force - it seemed illogical and unnatural. First of all, the flooring was carpet so that should have insulated the fall. Secondly, the tree was some how 30 feet away from it's orginal position. Lastly, it was tied up and weighted down.
I can hear Garry and my dad whispering. In his broken English, he told Garry that the man was mad and maybe he should not set-up a tree. Garry nodded in agreement. We were all sent to bed while the adults cleaned up the war zone. I didn't sleep well that night. My dad's words kept echoing in my dreams and the man finally appeared to me.
In the morning, I was the first to scream "Knock, Knock!" I was given the okay to come in and I rushed straight to Garry. Breathlessly I told him I had a dream that I looked into the window of his house from the street and I saw an old white guy with long white hair sitting in the window in a chair looking back at me. Garry smiled and said, "Well yes, that's why he's so mad we put our Christmas tree in his spot."
Apparently our resident ghost was not as friendly as Casper - especially around Christmas time. The tree was re-located to the back of the house and it never fell again. However, anytime something broke on my babysitting shifts, Garry and Joyce never accused us kids again of rough housing.
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