Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What's on the menu at Lucid Cafe? Stories of transformation; healing journeys; thought-provoking conversations about consciousness, shamanism, psychology, ethics. Hosted by Wendy Halley of Lucid Path Wellness & Healing Arts.
You're listening to Lucid Cafe. I'm your host, Wendy Halley. Hey, thanks for joining me. So I've got some exciting news. It's exciting for me.
Wendy:I don't know if it'll be exciting for you, but I'm gonna share it. So Raven's Daughter, the novel I released last year, I just found out it won best visionary fiction book of the year by the COVR Visionary Awards. How about that? It's so cool. So if you're not familiar with the book Raven's Daughter is a genre bending dream laced story about a reluctant shapeshifter, a mind virus of deception, and the power of rewriting your story from the inside out.
Wendy:The book explores the intersection of myth, mind, and machine in a world where truth is unraveling and where one woman may hold the key to restoring balance. For those who feel the world shifting, who trust dreams more than headlines, and who believe there's power in remembering who we truly are, Raven's Daughter the Storykeeper might be right up your alley. So to check it out please look for the link in the show notes or you can get a copy pretty much anywhere you buy books online or you can order a copy from your local bookstore. Alright today's episode is a fun one. My guest Colette Baron-Reid wants to teach you how to doodle your dreams and desires into existence in her new book which was co authored by artist Anna Denning called The Art of Manifesting, a Meditative Drawing Practice to Rewire Your Brain and Create Your Reality.
Wendy:In this episode Colette discusses the origins of the beginner friendly doodle based manifestation method she calls frequency art. To give you an idea of what a frequency drawing looks like, I've used one of my drawings for this episode's graphic. A little bit about Colette. She is a best selling author, internationally recognized oracle expert, a spiritual intuitive and personal transformation thought leader. With 19 best selling oracle card decks along with seven books and with over thirty eight years clean and sober under her belt Colette's greatest joy is teaching people they can have a direct and personal dialogue with the universe to help them create their most fulfilling lives.
Wendy:So please enjoy my conversation with Colette Baron-Reid. Colette, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
Colette:So excited to be here. So excited.
Wendy:I'm so excited to have you here. Okay. So you have written a new book. You've actually have written quite a few books, but your latest book really got my attention. The art of manifesting a meditative drawing practice to rewire your brain and create your reality.
Wendy:I love this approach. The idea of using art to help you create your reality. So I was I was in. Sign me up.
Colette:And your drawings are stunning. I know people are not gonna be able to see this because it's audio only, but I was blown away by what you showed me. So we will talk about yeah it's gorgeous what you did I
Wendy:thank you! I just assumed...
Colette:we're constantly amazed at what people actually do when they use the techniques that we teach and what can come out of people who don't necessarily even call themselves artists but because it is a doodle practice that you don't have to be an artist to go do.
Wendy:Exactly, you can't screw it up.
Colette:You can't and it's always really gorgeous.
Wendy:Yeah, that's why I was like, well, yeah, I don't think you can screw it up. I appreciate the compliment, but it's like, it's like, I imagine everyone's is really beautiful. Everyone's pieces, everyone who does this will will be surprised probably at how
Colette:Will be surprised. Yeah.
Wendy:How lovely their finished products come out. So, yeah, be getting ahead of ourselves, what are we talking about?
Colette:Want me to get into how it all happened or how art Well,
Wendy:yeah, the marriage of art- Manifesting is a really loaded topic. Want to kind of before we get into your book specifically, I want to hear a little bit about your manifesting journey. Perfect. What drew you to the practice to begin with? I know you cover it in your book a bit, but I'd love to hear what drew you to the practice, and I think more specifically, what's really intriguing to me is your perspective on manifesting.
Wendy:Has it evolved over the years?
Colette:Oh yes,
Wendy:oh yes. And in what ways, how do you understand it better now than you did back in the day?
Colette:Okay, so 40, I have to, I will tell you the entire story in as short a way as I can. Okay. Because everything began when I got clean and sober forty years ago. So I've been, I just hit forty years of sobriety and when I got sober, I hung around with all these people that were also in recovery and we would go to meetings like to, well we would go to recovery groups, but we would also go to the Tibetan temple for meditations on Tuesday nights and we would go to Unity Church on Sundays because they had cool music they played guitar and they meditated. It was non denominational.
Colette:So I mean I was doing some type of, I had devoted myself to spiritual path, but right off the bat I was introduced to Unity Church. Now at Unity I was introduced to all these authors, so I snorted all these books like, you know, from Ernest Holmes and like Science of Mind and and all of the new thought or the OGs, the original.
Wendy:Yeah, right.
Colette:They were all there at the library and I'm like, what is this? You create reality. What do you mean by that? That the concept of thought and the power, the positive imaging, Norman Vincent Peale, but particularly an author named Catherine Ponder, who wrote two books that were absolutely life changing for me. One of them was called The Dynamic Laws of Prayer and the other one was called The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity.
Colette:And so the concept was that with our thoughts, our feelings, and our beliefs, we see the world reflected external to us at some point, right? That when we choose a path of unfolding. But the manifesting part of this made total sense when I took a little mini workshop there on how to make a treasure map. So treasure mapping was very distinct to unity, and it was all about creating a collage which then actually became vision boards like this and so we're going back forty years okay four years right there's no internet forty years ago we didn't even have cell phones I remember yes Right? Okay.
Colette:Me too. I remember this. And so they taught this little workshop about if you place the pictures or symbols of that which you want to create in your life, you will see that out pictured. Now, here's, this is not that dissimilar to what was taught in The Secret, right? But, you know, but which, which I think was all of these former teachings were not quite there.
Colette:Because we only had so much information about how the universe worked. Because post materialist science we had not yet become a thing. Right. And we were still seeing the separation of matter and spirit or matter and consciousness. And we didn't have this whole giant, you know, manifesto for post materialist science where all these different, you know, great thinkers of our world right now have signed to say that consciousness is fundamental to all life, right?
Colette:So that wasn't part of the conversation. So we're still seeing things like over there. So I want something that's not there yet. So what I struggled with, I mean, I did all these vision boards. I've done over 40 of them by the way.
Colette:And so they became a pictorial symbolic representation of that which I wanted. Now, I never got anything that I was wanting. I got it when I didn't want it anymore, right? I literally, every single thing has happened on those vision boards. Once I surrendered them and the ones that I really didn't have too much attachment to were the ones that actually came quite quickly.
Colette:Like I really didn't have, well, if I get it, I get it. If I don't, I don't but be good. Right? So that's an important piece. That's a huge piece.
Wendy:Yeah.
Colette:Huge piece that no one taught me. Nobody taught me the the actual distinction of the difference I understood it in terms of the hungry ghosts of the Tibetan concepts of, you know, you never are satisfied when you're always in wanting, you know, and I come from an addiction background. So, but what I saw was that there was an uncanny relationship between my changing, my own personal transformation, and the capacity for me to contain more abundance in in my life. You know, and that I I had to change myself in order to meet those ideas that I thought that would be, that I would have in my life. I couldn't have those things until I became the person that could, right?
Colette:Up in the very beginning, you know, the small things like, you know, being fed, right? Those were the small things. You know, like when I started practicing this stuff, I was newly sober and my parents had lost everything and so I was on my own and so that, you know, there was no money and I was living hand to mouth, let's just call it that. And at one point I had paid all my bills, my rent, everything was paid, but I realized I ran out of money and all my clients, because I was doing readings at the time, this is still early on. So this is at two years, because two years in was when I left my partner at the time and then I started doing readings.
Colette:So two, three years into recovery. So I'd say thirty seven years ago.
Wendy:Like intuitive readings or?
Colette:Yeah, intuitive readings. Okay. So, that is what I do regularly. I'm sure you'll tell your audience that. Am an intuitive.
Colette:I've written books. I've had 19 Oracle card decks that are best sellers worldwide, blah, blah, blah.
Wendy:Right. Right.
Colette:I'm also an artist and have and I made a living as an artist in the early eighties painting on people's clothes and their leather jackets and I had a whole, I lived, I made a living doing that for two solid years in while I was in recovery. So, and then quit the art when the reading started happening. So, what happened was, you know, I was struggling because I realized, oh I don't have any money to feed myself but I remembered them saying about tithing. So I thought, okay, well, if I give this away and then I trust and have faith that something is going happen, that my needs will be met, I think I'm just going to go do that. So there was a guy that was sitting in front of these, I'll never forget it.
Colette:He was the same unhoused man that would sit in front of the chicken chalet restaurant at the corner of St. Clair And Yonge Street. And I went and got him a dinner. I had so much money left over and I was like, I gotta buy this guy dinner. I'll never forget it.
Colette:He sent me in for more sauce and ketchup. I'll never forget that. I was like, okay, I'll go get you more. And then when I went home and I realized I didn't have any dog food and I was so pissed off because the neighbor down the hallway was having a big giant party. She's making so much noise and I'm like just and I always doodle.
Colette:Now at the time I didn't see what's at the foundation of my book which is the doodle process part but I just naturally took a pen to paper or pencil to paper or whatever. This is way back. Way back. So I always drew. So I was like, okay, thy will be done through me.
Colette:I'm going to trust this. I'm going to, you know, trust my turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand God. You know, I'm going to trust that my needs will be met and I drew myself to sleep basically. But I doodled eyes and those are the things that I painted on people's clothes too, My doodles. So what happened was the next day I get a knock at the door And, and I'm nervous and trying to be in faith at the same time, so I was a bit confused.
Colette:But I was about to go to a, go out to go out to whatever I did. And the woman from the party comes and says, I just want to apologize for all the noise. I have all this food. I have all this food. Would you like it?
Colette:I'm like yes. So I had enough food for a week then a guy called and said you really helped me and know, I was suicidal and I heard you speak at a thing and and you know, you talked about your story and and I I'm a painter. Can I come in? I can come and paint your apartment. I might say, well, I can't pay you but I can feed you, right?
Colette:So, it was just this weird because my paint and my place needed painting. It was awful. So, there was just all these weird little coincidental things that happened, coincidental things, right? And then, I found the missing dog food shoved in the back of of a cupboard then and I had looked there and it wasn't there, right?
Wendy:No, shit? Okay.
Colette:But all these things were there. So, again, I'm I'm still, you know, working on me and seeing myself in these experiences But while they were impossible, they were impossible. But while they were true for me, where I didn't want it, I could have it. It was a very big distinction of the feeling state. When I was rehearsing lack, I saw lack.
Colette:When I rehearsed abundance, I saw the abundance that was right for me. Right. So, you know, and and here's a perfect example of that. So, and I talk about it in the book too because I I really believe I've I've lived two parallel lives so that I could teach that to people. One life came when I kept I every day was on my knees.
Colette:Thy will be done through me. Oh PS, I want a record deal. Thy will be done through me, right? You know what I mean? Use me as thou wilt.
Colette:That was prayer of mine. Believe me of the bondage itself so that I may better do thy will. Right? And there we go. And readings came and I'm like, oh, I don't really do this.
Colette:I'm really a singer. Don't come back next year. And I was like so good at it. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. There was like a big chip on my shoulder.
Colette:Was raised.
Wendy:Isn't that interesting?
Colette:Yeah. Right? Academics, parents, I went to law school. Just wanted to be a singer. I was like, I was a big disappointment.
Colette:I was the black sheep in the family. So never mind I was an alcoholic and a drug addict on top of all of that and rape survivor, you name it, I went through it. I'm like, no, no, no, I want this life and I'm putting it in like Uber Eats, right? That's what I've been taught by making drawing and if I do it and if I stare at it long enough and I've, if I make it as detailed as possible, which is what so many people get the goal really clear and then, have it there. I failed miserably at that.
Colette:And the thing I didn't care at all about was the readings. And then I started teaching what I was learning and then I was interested in the healing arts because I thought, well, I need a day job. I became an aromatherapist. You know, I I I studied rebirthing, holotropic breath work, all the stuff that's popular now but these were the things that were, this is for, you know, 37
Wendy:Long time ago. Yeah. Yeah.
Colette:Long time ago. Stanislav Groff, like all of the, you know, again, I studied Jungian psychology. I was fascinated with symbols. My dad had taught me how to read Turkish coffee cups when I was a kid. When he taught me about spirit animals and all these things, it all came came up.
Colette:But meanwhile, I'm like supposed to be a lawyer and I'm a disappointment and this and oh my god, I'm going be Madame Zorah.
Wendy:That's a lot.
Colette:Yeah. Get it, right? So fast forward, just fast forward years later. Music failed. I didn't care anymore.
Colette:I I was really surrendered that this is not working for me. And and I had done I don't know how many boards about record deals. And I put I even put the name of the record company down. Everything. Right?
Colette:Okay. Which Capital Records. Okay.
Wendy:You nailed it.
Colette:Yeah. I got the record deal from EMR which was Capital That's amazing. So the story is, is that when I let it go and I didn't, I didn't care anymore. I got it because I recorded Journey Through the Chakras which was the first of its kind back, I don't know, what, twenty five years ago, nobody had had like multi track recordings of meditations, etcetera. It was the first thing.
Colette:It was like an an an enigma.
Wendy:I think I remember that.
Colette:Yeah. It was the number one record for a short period of time. And then the head of Virgin Records heard it and loved it. And he and it all came about that I ended up at the record company that I had put there. And the ANR guy who had told my manager years before that he didn't hear any talent in my voice was like so blown away by my music and I had a resentment for him for like ten years and I said to him I said I need to show you something and I said I can't believe you're the same guy that said those things.
Colette:And he's like, I'm so sorry. Well,
Wendy:that must have felt kind of like a little bit of a sweet. Yeah. Around.
Colette:No. But the message wasn't yes, it was a sweet go around, but the message was about the manifesting. It's like, yes, there was some great things there, but I had to let go the dream. And then when I was ready to see it for what it really was, which it wasn't for me, right? The music business was not for me, Right?
Colette:It it it wasn't for me. I I got everything I wanted and it was it would have destroyed me. I I wouldn't drink.
Wendy:It's not an easy business. Yeah.
Colette:Do know what I mean? So I got it when I was ready. And I was and it was like use me as thou wilt kind of thing. And I was doing all this at the same time. I got a book deal with Hay House and I had to make a choice.
Colette:And the thing I wanted my entire life. And the universe gave it to me when I was strong enough to have been able to say this is unhealthy for me. The thing I wanted my whole life is going to kill me.
Wendy:Right? That's so cool. Yes.
Colette:All right. So the universe will give us what we are ready for. So what I learned and what I, you know, and I've been teaching the concept of manifestation as part of personal transformation because you can't have one without the other. Unless it's just like parking spots or you know, T shirts at a store or like, you know, Japanese block T shirt. You know what I mean?
Colette:Like, whatever it is. There's a dynamic between not what you don't get what you want, you get what you are. You get what you rehearse. You get what you believe yourself to be. Right?
Wendy:That's a wicked powerful comment. That's what I really wanted to do a little bit of a deep dive with you about is the the power of the unconscious. How many of us are aware that we're doing that, that we're actually sabotaging ourselves. And how do you recommend that people become aware of the ways in which they're actually getting in their own way?
Colette:So, again, everything, you know, everything I teach is something I've been through. I've been on the other side of it, and I know how to take you through this. Right? So that I don't ever teach anything that I yeah. Which is the book, the art of the Yeah.
Wendy:I mean, yeah, you do have steps to do that. Yeah. But I wanna hear your take
Colette:No, on it rub it. Self reflection and really asking yourself what is attached to this desire that I have and go deep into the why. Is it because, like in my case, was I wanted what I wanted because of redemption. I wanted to believe that I was useful and that I could make an impact on the world. That was a thing that all the shit that happened to me when I was younger, you know, could could have a reason for it and I could help other people.
Colette:And I thought that music, because music really did and it still does. I'm recording an album now. I'm gonna be 68 years old. Nice. Music comes back the way I will do it, right?
Colette:But the whole idea was that music did save me in a lot of ways. So did art. But that wasn't what the universe had in mind for me. The microphone in my hand was teaching. The microphone in my hand was mediumship.
Colette:That, you know, like me standing in front listening to my music being played was Hay House playing my album in front of thousands of people. Not me getting on stage as a singer songwriter. Me getting on stage and talking how I overcame the things I overcame and the unconscious or subconscious program, the conditioned self, you know, needs needs to change in order to have a different reality. And we first have to say like, okay, well, what is it? What is it that I'm rehearsing inside myself every day?
Colette:Now, I teach this and I still get afraid. Like I will always tell people this is a human, we are human so it's not as easy as wiggle, it's not wiggle your nose like Samantha and
Wendy:Bewitched
Colette:know it's not that it's like it's work And it's the willingness to take a look also at what shadow part is running the show. What is that? And that's scarcity and that's the idea of fear when we are conditioned by society to see ourselves a certain way, for example. We have to acknowledge that there are certain, like my parents were immigrants, and they had a very specific work ethic, but they were also traumatized by World War II when they came over. My mom particularly never told us what happened there and where in some of our heritage.
Colette:So that was all stuff that fear. So it's like we need to go there and go where is this active? And I had a therapist. I did this with help that has been trained to do it. People who are trauma experts, people who are experts in addiction, people who are, you know, I went and got extra help outside of say 12 step programs or whatever because I knew I couldn't go there alone and that's why it's so fantastic that we have so many great coaches and therapists out there that we're in a place right now where the stigma is not there.
Colette:I had mental health issues. I've I wanted to change. I needed to I needed to look there.
Wendy:Dig deep.
Colette:You know. Yeah. We need to go deeper and also right now, for example, you know, we're we're unconsciously sabotaging ourselves when we let algorithms choose for us too. No, it's so true.
Wendy:Don't get me started on that.
Colette:Why not? We're turning into like
Wendy:we don't have
Colette:agency. We don't have sovereignty. The book and the exercises in the book and doing it actually restores your sovereignty because you're not in a conditioned mindset anymore. You're like, oh, I can choose now? Wait a sec.
Colette:Shouldn't I be afraid? Because all we see is the reality that is very dramatic and that is given to us as food. Think about that. Who's feeding us and who We are not benefiting from any of it. We're not.
Colette:Somebody else is. So if we don't want to be conditioned by everything external to us that we see, we have to choose to release ourselves from what we know is held as hostage and find something else. There are many tools that can help us stay in a place of safety, openness, peace. All of those things has to come from within. It's not going to come from outside.
Colette:We can't wait
Wendy:It's to get out of the a great reframe. Yeah.
Colette:Right? So I just say, be brave and go look and see where have you been held hostage by your thinking, by the thinking that you don't know you're thinking. Go look and see. What is it that I believe? Well, sit down with yourself.
Colette:But if it's if you have a big trauma background or whatever, go get somebody legit to help you through it. Like, yeah, I tell students in my classes too. Look, I have a limitation. I'm not a therapist. I'm not, you know, like go and get extra help if this is this could be triggering for you.
Wendy:One of the things that I found in the work that I've done over the years is that when people are willing to take that deeper look, that they will not uncover anything that's really surprising to them.
Colette:No. You won't be surprised.
Wendy:I think that's sometimes the reluctance that they're going to open Pandora's box.
Colette:Well, Pandora's box does get open because you might be suppressing all the things that you don't wanna deal with too. Right?
Wendy:Well, yeah.
Colette:Not surprised and you wanna shove them back in the box. But you're right. Nothing that's nothing surprising is coming out of the box.
Wendy:Yeah, exactly.
Colette:That's exactly what I mean.
Wendy:Yeah, you're not going to uncover something that's completely: What the fuck
Wendy:was that? Yeah, I mean, body remembers. And so even if you're not consciously aware, you will remember. Of course, with guidance, you can walk through that.
Colette:So you just said something really important when you talk about the body because this is an embodiment practice. Like that was the other thing, all this, the kind, the ways of manifesting that I learned was it was in my head. It was how it was what I visualized. What I could see. What I could image.
Colette:And the thing that I put in front of me what I made me feel but it would be like often it wasn't happening. So it made me feel mad. It was all like I said when I gave it up and I didn't care anymore I was like why I don't even want this now like what's it doing in front of me and I think that I'm doing it wrong and a lot of people felt that way too like it well it came kind of but not exactly what I wanted but that's exactly how it's supposed to come. When that hit me, that's when I started teaching it differently. Also, it was like, this is exactly, this is the zone of synchronicity is when the universe decides to form.
Colette:Not you. It's okay you have to start somewhere, but it's the feeling. It's in the body. I embody this. I embody gratitude in advance of the having of the experience I say I want.
Colette:Therefore, I'm going to become that person because right away the whole neural system sets itself up for change.
Wendy:Okay, so now let's talk about embodying this practice, right? Because using art, and you have a co author, Anna Denning.
Colette:Correct, do. She's an artist and art teacher. I was I met her because I joined her membership over two years ago, and I had developed a half of this on my own. And she was teaching a number of different things, including a a Russian technique that was too heavy on rules that I didn't like it but I liked kind of how it looked and it reminded me of art that I was already doing and and then we made friends and I'm like this is what I'm doing. Are you interested?
Colette:And then the rest is history. Right. Yeah. And she's a total nerd like me because like our idea of porn is quantum physics books. Okay.
Colette:So we're like, let's, we are artists and I'm a metaphysics person and she had all my Oracle cards and stuff, but she didn't know it was actually me. Then it was really crazy and we had all this coincidence.
Wendy:That's a cool synchronicity.
Colette:Oh yeah, she had my deck. She goes, What did you say your name was? Said, Because I saw her on a video saying, You know what? I'm doing a drawing around bringing in the person. I just know it's a person.
Colette:Career is going to blossom. I'm like, I'm listening. Hello? So I called her, hi. You you did a drawing and I'm in your membership.
Colette:My name is Colette Baron-Reid. She goes, what did you
Wendy:That's very cool.
Colette:Yeah. The deck later.
Wendy:I don't know if you are referring to this style of approaching art as neurographic art.
Colette:We are not doing neurographic art. Neurographic art is specific to the technique that is designed. It's mistakenly referenced as neurographic art. Neurographic art and neurographic ka belongs to a Russian so that's a totally different It's psychological. It has a different purpose.
Colette:And it has different meanings. Even the lines mean something very different. Ours is about flow and synchronicity and it's about frequency. They represent frequency and his represents moving against resistance. It's completely different.
Colette:But no, it is under the umbrella of the neuro arts. Okay, So neuro arts is an umbrella term for any kind of art that the doing of which shifts neuroplasticity. So it's intentional art. So ours is called frequency art. They all look similar.
Colette:Zen tangle looks similar. It's a meditation form of art which they use these little tangles and that make big drawings. Then there's all kinds of different art technique, neuro doodles, zen doodle. They have all different names, but they all look similar because they're line art. And they all have circles and triangles and wavy lines.
Colette:But what we make them mean, the symbolism, what this means in this drawing is specific to our method, which is called frequency art Because we are depicting the frequency of conversation, which is the symbolic representation of the broadcast to and from the universe, from us to the universe, the universe answering us. And that is our frequency that we broadcast to the universe and the frequency of how it responds. And then what we see as a result of it. That is why ours is very different. It's very specific.
Wendy:I like the idea of a conversation too. That's a very, it's a very cool way to frame it.
Colette:Yeah, it represents conversation, but there's some extraordinary artists like who really was very much an original interest of mine was Greg A. Dunn. His paintings or his drawings, some of his original ones are at my friend's office, and he was a neuroscientist that in 2010 became an artist and he drew these extraordinary drawings of neurons and so did Ramon y Cajal, no, I always get his name wrong. Anyway, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, he is the head, originator of neuroscience in the late 1800s and he also drew. So there's really wild and we noticed in our drawings that they start to look cellular.
Wendy:They do, yeah.
Colette:Have DNA ribbons like yours did. The gratitude bubbles start looking like cells, cells. So we believe that what we're drawing are mirror neurons and again we had the science the research behind it we're not scientists but we're both nerves so we had a phenomenal research assistant who went out and found all this and we can prove it. Like we have all the pieces of it now that's backed by science.
Colette:It's like we are the artists. We are, you know, we are the spiritual, but we're like, okay, let's go find some science that tells us this is true. And if it is true, then we need to tell people. And that's what we did because it is true and now we're telling people. This is a way for us to change ourselves, to get back into a sense of flow, get into that flow state by not thinking our way through it.
Colette:Exactly. Being our arm.
Wendy:Forces you to get out of your head unless you start criticizing the work that you're And then you have
Colette:to get out of your
Wendy:head. My friend
Colette:does that. She's such a good artist. She goes, I can't, I don't like my drawings. I'm like, well, you got to start it again then and wait till you get out of your head.
Wendy:Well, that's good advice. Yeah. So, if anyone does that, start over.
Colette:Yeah and it's not about the beauty of it even though there is beauty in it. It's about the feeling and your hand is making a mark on paper. You are making your mark on paper and rehearsing a state of being while you are marking the paper. And you are doing it in a symbolic ritualistic way that your body then takes on as, oh, this is real. Right?
Colette:So it's healing
Wendy:as well.
Colette:It is. Oh yeah. I started using it for food noise because I've always had a bit of an, I had an eating disorder when I was young. And just recently I decided, well, I'm struggling. Everybody's getting, you know, like the whole focus on weight, etcetera.
Colette:And I've struggled with this. And so I'm like, you know, this would work for that. And so far so good. Like,
Wendy:I'm just processing out. Yeah, just sort of. The noise in your in your interior work.
Colette:Well, what I do is instead of thinking of noise at all, I doodle peace. Okay. I doodle peace with my food. Like, you can do it with pretty much anything which is fascinating. Since I never thought of it.
Colette:Well, that didn't, that's not in the book but I I just started trying it. Like, you know, not too long ago and I'm like, peace with the food and and I do did a drawing for inspiration around music and I didn't ask for specifics. I wanted the inspiration back. I wanted to
Wendy:feel To get to a state.
Colette:Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking for states of being. So, I rehearse the state without knowing the outcome.
Wendy:I love that. Yeah. So come to find out it's a versatile practice.
Colette:It's very personal. It's not one size fits all. It's personal. It is personal. And it's also, you know,
Wendy:I said, versatile with a V. Personal? I said versatile. It's also versatile.
Colette:It's versatile. And it's personal and versatile. It's both. Correct. I'm sorry.
Colette:I was listening. Versatile. I love that. It is versatile. And I have no idea what else it can do until I find out.
Wendy:Yeah. Stay tuned.
Colette:Yeah. Stay tuned. But it does I think what we need now, no matter what, is a little more joy, little bit more play.
Wendy:Just a little.
Colette:Yeah, please. Just a little bit, you know. Without waiting, without looking outside of ourselves going like, oh my god, everything is bad, everything's gonna be bad. My husband is great, but he's very pragmatic and very grounded. And he's like, history keeps repeating itself.
Colette:Was going a different version of this happened this time and that time and that time. Go, let's sit down and look. Let's look. Look. Look.
Colette:Look. And I'm like, yeah. He goes, and
Wendy:and and.
Colette:You know? And what do you do with people? And I'm like, right? You know, that we can if we don't look, if we acknowledge that that exists and both and can be true at the same time.
Wendy:But you can be in relationship with it in a different way is what you're suggesting. Correct. That does in
Colette:seem to a very neutral relationship with that which you cannot control.
Wendy:Neutral is a perfect word, but that takes practice, of course.
Colette:You can't do it just because you want to. Yeah. And the neutral gives you energy. So, when you neutralize the charge around what you're seeing, right? Because you you when you're being bombarded by images that are upsetting, you're going to be upset and you're going to want to feel you're naturally going to have a reaction.
Wendy:Well, that's how we're wired.
Colette:Yeah and we're very easily manipulated, right?
Wendy:It's like a tad, holy shit.
Colette:Right? So I'd like to manipulate myself personally, me personally, I would like to manipulate myself to a different reality and yes, it takes practice and yes, you're still going to get scared some days and you're going to forget everything that you learn and then you have to do it again. But it's a day, a daily practice. That's the other thing for me. That's learned, the most important thing that I learned in recovery is to live one day at a time.
Colette:It's one of the reasons why that I also, you know, stop doing predictive readings as much because I made a, I made my reputation on how good and accurate I was on predictive readings. But I'm like, well, if what if you didn't know that was gonna happen? Like, if what if now you're armchair astronaut? You're not gonna work on your life anymore now because you think, she said it's gonna be great.
Wendy:Yeah. But then it becomes kind of a self fulfilling prophecy in a way because you get kind of focused in on that outcome when there could be a variety of Yeah. About Depending on where you focus.
Colette:My question was what if there was something better?
Wendy:Yeah. That's I
Colette:thought there was something better.
Wendy:But we long to have the illusion of control. So we want to know what the future outcome's going to be, which is I think the appeal of a predictive reading. Right? Yep.
Colette:And it's also why people, why the word manifesting is thrown around all the time right now. Because most people, if you look on TikTok, a lot of the younger, real younger people who haven't really lived or really failed yet too often enough, know, wait to get a little older, are seeing it as Uber Eats, right? Like I'm going to get this magical thinking and that might right. And they're going to be very disappointed over time.
Wendy:But that's good.
Colette:Why not? Right. But
Wendy:that's part of evolution. Right? You have to kind of go through all that.
Colette:Yes. You or you or you might run across a book like mine that would still help you not do that. Right? And real But if
Wendy:you're looking I'll I'll just play devil's advocate for a second. If you are at a evolutionary place in your life where you want to believe in a magical outcome. You want to skip the hard work, you want to get right to the outcome. Yeah. You could even do that with your book.
Colette:You can learn anything.
Wendy:The school of hard knocks that we all have to attend.
Colette:But the other thing is about the school of hard knocks is this. So when people come to it for the sake of certainty, right? As opposed to meaning, right? They want certainty and they want control. That's where I say people are going get disappointed.
Colette:But once in a while the magic happens like what just happened? Like it's happened to me frequently but I get it. It's for me, I want to teach people how to be curious because that's that is your the curiosity is your superpower.
Wendy:The, not the Of my favorite words, yep.
Colette:Right? Not the fact that you can put an order in, it's the fact and get something back. It's the fact that something really cool is happening. I wonder what the universe is going to match me with.
Wendy:It's addictive, right? When it works out. When you had that really beautiful story you told about being in your apartment and at the bottom down and out, not knowing how you're going to feed yourself. And all of these magical things just came into place and you had completely I don't know. I don't know what Right?
Wendy:To You had to surrender. You had to get to that place and then all of these magical things happened And you could go in a couple of different directions at that point. You could go, the universe is on my side. It it maybe not have gotten the surrender part, but just sort of like, all's I needed to do was wish that it'll all work out that you see what I'm Yeah.
Colette:Yeah. And I do think when I look back on who I was back then, I was in awe. But I think the difference here is that I was working through, you know, I was an addict and alcoholic. Right. So it wasn't, that wasn't my mindset.
Colette:It was more like, wow, that actually happened for me?
Wendy:Or
Colette:like, holy, this is amazing. I mean, wow. Yeah. So but you're right, there can be
Wendy:I'm a mental health clinician. So I'm working with folks all the time on the ways in which they get in their own way, we get in our own way. And it can be a tough thing. And so everybody has to just do it in their own way, in their own timing, it seems. Yeah.
Wendy:And you were I mean, sometimes it has to get a little dark. Like you
Colette:Well, me.
Wendy:Yeah. Sometimes. I mean, not saying for
Colette:everybody. No. No, not for everybody. It's a work for you the way it's meant to work for you.
Wendy:Yeah. Everybody's on their own journey.
Colette:Yep. And they and that's I love that you pointed that out because everybody starts the journey from a different place. Like, you know, some people come in like I was raised. So, I I went to private school. My parents worked so hard.
Colette:My they anglicized their last names so that we could fit into this waspy society and this fancy schmancy girl school. And they literally lived for us that we could have this education and that we would have a chance. Yeah. In the world. My mom believed that status and money would protect you.
Colette:We know that's not true now. And also I was born with these weirdo capacities to know things that I shouldn't know. And I didn't know where I ended and other people began. I had meant as, you know, I did. I had horrible anxiety and all kinds.
Colette:I I can list out what the names of those things are now today because but they didn't have names when I was growing up. And I was a mess. But you know culturally, I see a lot of those people manifest things because they they were born to believe they were entitled to them and that means something. It's not just having privilege. It's seeing yourself as privileged.
Colette:It's recognizing, it's like really honestly expecting the thing on the other end. When you are taught not to expect it, that things will be harder. Like I remember the the teacher, the geography teacher telling me that I wasn't Canadian enough because my parents had heavy accents. My dad was Serbian. My mom was German and that was even terrible.
Colette:They wouldn't touch her cake at the bake sale because it was German and all that. Yeah so you know it was a lot of prejudice back then different than it is today they were white right too but it had its own thing but you know so there's a sense that we have to try harder we have to work harder it has to but then there are other people that are conditioned to see themselves. You're absolutely right.
Wendy:Yeah. Some manifest much easier than others, I guess is kind of what you're saying. Yes. Because of that programming.
Colette:Yes. And it's not their fault. And sometimes it takes a little bit more to let go of the old thinking. Makes sense. But I recognize that.
Colette:I'm like, yeah, you know what? That has merit. Yeah, you're right. It is harder for some people and it's not their fault that the conditioning that they're born into says to them, it's going to be harder for you. Because guess what?
Colette:Nobody, this group here is not going to accept you there. It's terrible thing that human beings have done to each other, but we can. That doesn't mean that we can't do it. Right.
Wendy:Absolutely. The timing of your book is perfect too, I think, because what I'm finding in my own practice is that, and I'm using the word ripe, it's like a ripe time for healing where people can really if they want to put their energy in that direction, and I think people are feeling really pulled to do that because the overwhelm is so great that a lot of us are experiencing, that you can make pretty big leaps Yeah. In your healing and your growth. And Yeah. This is a great practice to help you, your book, I think.
Wendy:Do you wanna before we sign off, you wanna talk a little bit more about how the book is kind of designed, what your hope is for it and
Colette:So I'll just say that the book is now it does talk about a meditative drawing practice, but I just want to level the playing field and tell you it's a doodle practice. Right. If you know how to doodle, you can do the book. Doodle and do. That's what you gotta do.
Colette:If you can draw a wavy line and a circle that looks like a potato, this is my favorite line, you can do this. Okay? So nothing needs to be perfect. As a matter of fact, it's more beautiful when it isn't. So the book takes you through a process of self revelation around why you want what you want and then helps you get to be the person to become the person that can have the perfect match to that energy that you put out, right?
Colette:That's basically what it does and you draw drawings and you have and we we and actually to be honest with you, we did it over seven weeks because we wanted people to slow down and think. Think about, oh, and then do it again, whatever. Like, I I draw every day now. Like, I doodle and I doodle about everything. You know, I like do my little circles of gratitude and it and believe it or not, the the fuel, so your fear can be fuel.
Colette:Yes, like I'm afraid I'm going to be where I am because I know I've been hearing a lot of people say that. Let it be that but why? Why don't gratitude be fuel, right? Because in our book gratitude, like Being stupefied and gratitude is the fuel. Is your fuel to see a match in the outer world of what you genuinely want and you're going to be so surprised that it's so different than what you're being told that you're allowed to have.
Colette:That's especially if you are programmed to believe it's going to be harder for you. It's fascinating and it's and it's and neuroscience you are who you are right and you are built away like everybody else right? And we are all this person. We are all the person that can have this because we all have the same biochemistry that like if you will flood yourself with feel good hormones and you won't feel like crap or fearful anymore for at least an hour, won't you be like, well, I would make a much different choice here, would I not?
Wendy:I'll take it though. Yeah.
Colette:Right? Yeah, me too. I'm going to take it. I don't care for how long it is but eventually, it becomes quite addictive because you want to keep doing it. Not because the perf, like, I always believe whatever manifest is perfect.
Colette:It's completely perfect. I never believed that before and that was what the problem was. I was one of those people like other people like, oh, blaming myself. We must have not done it right but that was right for me.
Wendy:Yeah.
Colette:Right? I'm like, wait a sec. What if that was always right? Because then it makes total sense why so many people that can come together in a group because the group is essential. That's why I'm saying when I give, we do these things in groups.
Colette:Like, I I have 35, zero people that came to my vision board challenge this year. Right? That's a lot of people online. Together, doing something good.
Wendy:That's what
Colette:you can also get groups that do something harmful and that manifests too. So, we are seeing the result of people who are centered on something for an outcome and they're saying it. Something different for yourself because I have no control over what happens in the bigger picture. You can have that for you.
Wendy:Great message. Also, if I'm understanding you correctly, too, it sounds like a big part of what you've come to is accepting that everything kind of unfolds the way it needs to.
Colette:Totally.
Wendy:And the cool thing about acceptance, at least from where I stand, is that you don't have to like it. It just you accept that, okay, this is how it is. So this must be how it is.
Colette:Radical acceptance is exactly part of it. And if you don't like what you have accepted, or like you say, I've accepted this. I wonder what I need to become in order to have the next step revealed.
Wendy:Use it as information rather than.
Colette:Use it as information, exactly.
Wendy:Rather than a punishment or if I see it as a failure.
Colette:No, look at it like an experiment. Life is one big fat experiment.
Wendy:Yep, that's a good way to look at
Colette:it too. If you listen to Greg Braden, he seems to think we're in a simulation. So I want to go to the next level of the game then.
Wendy:Well, the indigenous people would say this is all the dream. Right?
Colette:Well, that's what you would say is Lucid Dreamer. We're in the dream together right now.
Wendy:We are collectively dreaming this.
Colette:Yeah. And I'm gonna collectively dream your t shirt into being in my Amazon. My god. Dig in my
Wendy:t shirt. I have this this, koi. She
Colette:looks Yeah. So Which is yeah. A buttoned top boy outfit. Love it. I love it.
Colette:I'm like, oh, I want that. I want that. I manifested a t shirt. I needed a new black t shirt with a thing on it. There you go.
Colette:Thank you for having me.
Wendy:Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it so much. It really is a fun process. And like I was saying at the beginning of the interview, you can't screw it up. So to learn more about Colette, to purchase a copy of the art of manifesting, you'll find a link to her website in the show notes.
Wendy:And there's a link to my book, Raven's Daughter, in the show notes as well. I may have already mentioned that. Alright. So that does it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
Wendy:The season is winding down. Believe it or not, we have two episodes left. In the next episode, how to meditate without trying. Until next time.