I see you craving icecream in your future...

So I just returned from seeing Marla, my psychic medium friend. "You have a psychic medium friend, Amber?" you may ask. Yes, yes, I do. Come on, are you really surprised?

To say that she's my friend might be a misnomer. It's actually like she's the person I pay to talk to dead people I know and to give me messages from Spirit. My friend, Pam, turned me on to her while I was pregnant with Jack and- mostly to get Pam to shut up about me going- I dragged my sister-in-law with me and had my first psychic reading. What happened in that first session was truly one of the most amazing and life-changing experiences I have ever had and I have been dragging groups of my friends to go see Marla ever since.

Last weekend, I dragged one such group up the winding road to Marla's home in the hills of Los Angeles. I'd been told before that I should set an intention for the session prior to it, inviting those in spirit I'd like to communicate with to bring messages and to answer any questions that I may have. In other words, you have an audience with God. Show up prepared.

As I sat with what I wanted to chat with God about, a few things came to mind. I wanted to know about my next steps as far as living in community are concerned. I wanted to know how I was doing as a parent and if God had seen that orange-throwing incident or if he was busy in Iraq that day. But mostly, I wanted to know about a spiritual teacher. In the past month or so, I've been visualizing myself as a gigantic magnet, pulling my spiritual teacher to me. I'm not sure where this idea came from, getting myself a teacher, but it's been a strong, clear, energizing visualization that I've been doing several times a day now for several weeks. (I know that I may have lost some of you already, what with the psychic talk and now the spiritual teacher stuff, but it's time I just come out of the closet and say it: I'm a woo-woo, new-agey, stuff-that-Frank-Peretti-warned-us-about-in-Piercing-the-Darkness-kind of person.) (And if you get that reference, HIGH FIVE!)

I've been somehow aware that I am about to enter into a new place of learning in my life. It's as if I graduated from Self Awareness High School a few years ago and now it's time to go to college. Will my next step be moving to a spiritual community somewhere, like Esalen in Big Sur or Kashi in Atlanta? Or will it be in living my life here, in San Diego, with the assistance of a spiritual teacher who help me break free from the limiting chatter of my mind and the distractions of my ego.

It turns out that my next steps involve... a diet. Wha...?

Okay, so let's get back to last weekend when I went to go see Marla with my buddies Donavon, Billy, Don, and Lynette. Don's childhood friend, Steve- who had passed away many years ago- came through immediately with stories and images and messages for Don. Billy's parents came through after that, telling us that he was "such a joy, such a joy, such a joy to raise." Lynette's grandmother came next, along with an ascended light being who told her that she is much more capable than she allows herself to think that she is. I was next. My heart beat loudly in my chest and I breathed in, saying, "I am open to the message you have for me, Spirit." Marla looked at me and said, "You don't feel very good about yourself, do you?"

Blink. Blink.

"But you put up a good front."

Ouch.

"You need to break this dynamic. The only things you can control is what goes into your mouth and what goes into your head." OUCH. "Your head is noisy. And you need to STOP it."

I feel tears of shame and anger burning behind my eyes and I want to scratch her face off.

"You have a large pain body and you are arrested in your development. You've been wounded and you're stuck in your woundedness and you like being stuck there. You are like a fourteen year old in how you feel about yourself and how you are hormonally. You have to make a choice about what is going to source you. You have to get a handle on this."

I feel like screaming, "What the fuck do you think I've been doing for the past 25 years of my life? I've been in therapy and in workshops and dedicated my life to Jesus and then rededicated my life to Jesus. I went to USM and have two masters degrees and, at one point in my life, basically lived in the self-help section at my Barnes and Noble. My entire LIFE has been about finding inner peace and feeling connected to Spirit. Don't you fucking sit here and tell me to get a handle on this."

"You have to be mindful in your choices, Amber. This is what they're telling me. You must live a conscious life and consume things that are good for your soul. No more tabloids about Britney Spears so you can feel better about yourself. No more junk food and no more junk for your mind. You have to make a CHOICE. You have to control what goes into your head and into your mouth."

"Well, I obviously have a problem with controlling what goes into my mouth," I blurted with a good helping of sass. Marla didn't miss a beat. "You have resources, Amber. You need to get unhooked. It's up to you. It's time to grow up."

I stare at my hands, feeling exposed and incensed. I wanted Marla to be impressed with me, to look at me awestruck and say something like, "You've done a lot of evolving since I last saw you. Your chakras are really open and your aura is shimmering. And I see you changing the world with your brilliance!" Instead, I like the Emperor who has been exposed by the little boy in the crowd who shouts out, "You're NAKED! You have no golden robe. You FOOL!"

"I want to work with this with you later, one on one. I want you to come back and we'll work on this. We need to grow you up. Okay?"

Fast forward one week and here I am, sitting at my computer, wanting to write down what just happened an hour ago. I want to write it down because I believe that what I'm embarking on is the start of a powerful journey of healing and ascension and I love reading stories like that. I've never written one, but I've always wanted to. So maybe this is my Traveling Mercies. Or my Road to Daybreak. Hopefully more Traveling Mercies and Road to Daybreak than Bridget Jones' Diary. Although, that did get optioned.

I knock on her door and she invites me into her home after introducing me to her husband. He leaves and I sit down in the chair she leads me to, a comfortable leather chair that sits facing hers. "They were talking to me about you while I was grocery shopping today," she says while finding a box of Kleenex and turning off a kitchen light.

"Oh, it's nice to know someone was talking about me today," I say, lamely. I'm nervous, afraid of another rough scrubbing like I got last time. I'm aware that I feel a little like I'm standing in front of a firing squad and the gunmen are making small talk with me.

"Yes, I was walking up and down the aisles and they showed me this cycle. This crazy-making cycle that you're in." She sits down and places the kleenex box in front of me. "They tell me that you need to get out of that cycle." Her eyes glint with what looks like mischievousness.

"So, it's like this." She picks up a pen and starts drawing a circular spiral. "It starts out with you. Then," she draws an arrow along the spiral, "it goes to you looking at your life and having all of these expectations of what your life should look like right now. House, education, yard, dog, marriage, kids, career... and you don't meet the expectations. Right?" Right. She draws another arrow. "Then, it goes to your family, who support this notion of you not meeting the expectations. Right?" Tears. Right. She hands me the kleenex. "And then it goes to food, which is what you use to manage the bad feelings. And so you stuff yourself with food, and then you feel even worse, and then you go to Jack to try to make yourself feel better. But then," she draws more arrows, "the old bad feelings about your life choices come up again and you're in it all over again. It's crazy making, right?"

Right.

"So, you need to find a way to stop this crazy-making cycle. If you could ask any question to God right now, any question at all about anything, what would you want to know?"

"I would want to know how to make the Eckhart Tolle book make sense to me," I answer. "I would ask God to give me the experience of no longer identifying with the ego but with my true Self. There are times when I feel like this is happening but is scares me because I feel like I am disappearing."

"Well, yes, but would it really be a bad thing, or a scary thing if the ego disappears? And you are no longer bought into the image of you? The image that you are your job, you are your body, you are a mother, you are your feelings, you are a...?" And instead you were able to say, 'I am not this image, I'm just.... I'm just.' It is time for you to dis-identify with the image of you, Amber, that you are a thirty-something woman who lives here who has made these choices..."

Choices. Every time she says that word, shame and self loathing wash over me. "I have a lot of judgment about the choices I've made," I say.

"Yes, you do." She goes on to tell me about a client of hers who makes unconscious choices out of her woundedness and doesn't stop herself and say, What is it that I really need right now? "When we're unconscious, we get ourselves into trouble. Look at America! America is desperate for fathers and so we make ourselves sick so we can go to the doctor and get some nurturing. It's crazy, Amber. So, you have to make a choice to live consciously, to see yourself going round and round in this deadly pattern you're in and get the hell out. But you don't. So, what's the pay off? What is this giving you? What are you getting out of living this way?"

Tears burn in my eyes. I picture myself making good choices for myself. I picture myself choosing fruit instead of a bowl of icecream. I pictures myself declining a cigarette. I picture myself balancing my checkbook and overwhelming fear comes over me. "This way, I can stay victimized. I can stay wounded. I don't have to feel responsible for my life and I don't have to take care of myself. Because I feel too small to take care of myself."

"Okay, that's honest. But here's what's going to happen. Spirit is going to have to drop a huge brick on your head, like cancer or diabetes, to get you to stop all of this nonsense and then you'll be flat on your back in the hospital. "

"I know that," I say to her. "And sometimes I think I want that Spirit to throw that brick at me so I'll be forced to stop."

Marla looked at me. "I know you do. And this scares me. Because that brick could be deadly. That brick could be debilitating. That brick could leave you unable to care for that beautiful baby of yours and leave him totally devastated that his mother is gone. Seems to me that it would be smarter to simply choose to leave this deadly pattern than to have to end up in the hospital." She went on. "What do I have to say to you today to get you to realize that I am the brick. Do I have to slap you? Spirit is saying, 'STOP!' Spirit is saying, 'I will stop you if you don't.'"

I felt the resistance to begin to lose it's grip. I realized that I was being given an opportunity here to step fully into life. Which, quite frankly, scares the shit out of me. Marianne Williamson understood this fear when she wrote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

So, I'm on a diet. It's The Perricone Weight-Loss Diet, although Marla swears this isn't about the weight. She even made me take the cover off of the book she lent me so that I won't be focused on the weight part. Four weeks, I've committed to. Four weeks of no sugar and no corn and no rice and no bread. Four weeks of no icecream, among other things. Marla believes that this process will be lifechanging for me, and she's offered her help. She and I will talk over the phone throughout the next four weeks and she'll guide me as I detox my body and learn how to take care of myself in a whole new way.

I can't help but wonder if she's the spiritual teacher that I've been drawing to me. I can't help but think that she is, if only for the next four weeks. But I feel her commitment to me and to my healing and it makes me want to be just as committed to me as I am. I realize that I have been given an opportunity here and I am not going to snub my nose at Spirit and miss the boat. I am going to drop everything and take advantage of this big gift.

Toward the end of our session, Marla said something that I believe. It scares me to admit it that I believe her, but I do. She said, "Amber, this is not from me, this is from Spirit." Pausing, she closes her eyes, and listens for a moment. "Whoa," she says, opening her eyes and looking intently into mine. "This is why you are here. You have to do this because you are going to help millions of people. This is why you chose the family you chose, this is why you went to USM, this is why you came to me. Everything has led you to this. You are going to help millions of people heal, Amber."