7. One Reading, and the Floodgates Opened

What is an Akashic Reading? I messaged Clifton at 3 AM his time. I was on east coast time and had just started my nursing shift at the cardiac stress lab. He explained that he has been studying with a guru and has activated this unique ability to be able to read someone's past, present and future, as time is non-linear. I'm like what does any of that even mean? He said it's best to just experience it. He is offering 21 readings today and asked if I'd like to be one of the people.

We scheduled a reading for my lunch break. I took the call from one of private nursing lounges and before I know it Clifton closed his eyes chanted a special mantra, started doing a body scan, which I could feel in my energy body his awareness moving through it. He was going to find a memory from which had lingering energy in my body and tell me about it.

Knowing that my parents' divorce was a painful time in my childhood, I was positive he was going to bring up a memory from there. But, he started asking me about a past experience where I was dancing on a table in my childhood and wanted to get my mom's attention but she was looking away too busy. I widened my eyes because I remembered the scene of me dancing on the table, but I did not remember my mom looking away or me being bothered by it.

That isn't a memory I really told anyone about, and the fact that he could tap into it and see it so easily and accurately was surprising. I didn't even realize that memory was of any significance to me, or had been something I was carrying until that moment, and I was surprised that had a larger impact in my subsconsious than than the divorce.

Growing up I had many dance costumes and when I was 6 or 7 years old, would put them on and dance on the coffee table at home. I especially did it when we had company over. My dad and the guests would often applaud, but my mom did not give it as much attention. I'm not sure if she was embarrassed by it or what the story was, but what I had internalized at that age was that she wasn't giving it any energy and I didn't have her approval.

Clifton led me through an integration experience after surfacing that memory. I was shocked about what profound experience I was just led through, in this private nurses lounge, remotely on Facebook video chat.

I had a zillion questions about how he was able to tap into this kind of energy, how he had gone through such a transformation, why he was dressed in white and had a red dot on his bindu third eye point, if he was a monk now, if he was celibate now? Afterall, this is someone I had gone on a date with 3 years ago, and wrote off as a finance bro who was playing the field, using pick up artistry that I recognized and not that emotionally attuned at that time. I couldn't wrap my mind around how that was possible and how energetically attuned he had become.

My break was over and I had to go, and he had to go do his next practice reading. I had many more questions that I wanted to ask him later, the main one being how was he able to do this? I also wanted to do this. We continued chatting on FB messenger and had another video call later that weekend. He shared more about the guru he had been training with, introduced me to some popular YouTube videos of his and before I knew it, I was signed up for their next free workshop.

The free workshop was a 3rd eye opening initiation taught on Zoom about how to realize your infinite potential and experience life as a conscious creator. The woman who sent me instructions for how to prep for it told me to bring a coconut. I thought it was a typo. I thought she meant to write notebook. I thought what was I going to do with a coconut that didn't make sense. I couldn't find a coconut in Brooklyn in the middle of winter.

At the event, I found out what we were going to do with the coconuts. We were to practice moving and rolling them with our mind, with our intention off of each other's hands. Mind over matter. We connected in oneness with the guru, with the coconut, with the other person. The act of rolling it off someone's hand signifies removing the block towards what you want to manifest in your reality. They taught that there is no difference between the reality where the coconut is still in the palm of the other person's hand and the reality where the coconut is lying on the table, having fallen from the hand.

I stretched out my hand, with my orange, which was the only juicy fruit I had access to in my apartment, keeping it as still as possible as a woman on the other side of the world in India, over a zoom screen began manipulating the orange's energy all the way over here in Brooklyn in the palm of my hand.

I was stunned to experience the juice in there begin to slosh around inside as the particles built up energy through our conscious intent. It didn't quite roll off my hand at first. I felt resistant to that being the case (many people are. Afterall, it's kind of mindblowing if you think about). But I witnessed where person after person dropped their fruit across the zoom screen. This felt so surreal, like a scene from the movie, the Matrix. It was as if she pulled a white rabbit out of a hat, my view of reality had just been shattered.

I practiced the skill daily, repeating the steps the instructor walked us through and I was able to roll it off my hand each time. I shared what I'd learned with Clifton and asked him how long he's been doing this work. He mentioned the rolling a coconut was a shakti, or ability to tap into the power of the universe within you. And his ability to read the Akashic record was another shakti.

I decided this was unlike anything I've experienced in my life and worth exploring further. I asked him about the lifestyle he led, what kind of morning practices he did to be able to access these powerful states and unique abilities. He described the vegetarian sattvic lifestyle, that he lived completely sober, that he gave up watching tv, movies, anything with sexual references or violence. Sounded quite monkish. I asked him if he was a monk, he didn't quite answer my question. I considered if I could make those kinds of changes, was it worth the upside?

That weekend, I made my decision. I went and bought some plants for my apartment in the morning, saw a movie with a friend, had my last seafood lunch, and then made my first shopping trip as a vegan. I wasn't 100% sure I would do it, but when I saw Trader Joe's was out of stock of all my favorite meats and fish, I took it as a sign and bought my first tofu. So in 1 day, my apartment went from having 0 plants to 12 plants and I'd become vegan. With all the new trendy vegan places that had sprung up around me, I felt more confident that I could stick with it and wouldn't see it as a sacrifice. I guess when I make a shift, I go all in. And I signed up for morning mysore Astanga yoga at my local studio.

I went from experimenting with spirituality to restructuring my lifestyle around spiritual development.

I told Clifton about my decision and all the quick shifts I'd made. I joined a 21 day program an incredible woman in the sangha was leading with her unique remote energy healing modality that helped to clear your energy, your karma, your old programming, old wiring, old stories, old beliefs. I was committed to attending every single day, and before I knew it it became easier giving up certain things I thought I'd never be able to, like drinking alcohol, which was a big part of my social nightlife and brunch enjoyment experience living in Brooklyn.

I learned about the dulling effect alcohol has and didn't want to disrupt the incredible heart opening, elevating experiences I was having, so it was pretty easy to let it go. I still went out socially, but I stayed sober or drank seltzer, and became wiser and more discerning which people I spent time with. If I did not enjoy their company and they were not " life positive", I cut them out. I became interested in sober nightlife and discovered there several bars springing up around Brooklyn that were completely sober, serving only mocktails.

I learned the power of what I called "taking back your Saturday night". If you don't spend your Saturdays and Sundays recovering from the night before, binge watching Netflix and ordering takeout, you can really get a lot done and get ahead at life! I started attracting more friends who were entrepreneurial, had left their jobs to go all in on their business and who also weren't drinking. I started spending more time with them and organizing dinners and sober Saturday night fun activities with them.

As I was in this 21 day program, a lot of old patterns and past hurts were surfacing that I began journaling about and having conversations about forgiveness with the family members each one involved, like my mom, my dad, my stepdad, my stepparents and some close friends. I couldn't even remember what many of those stories are today, but I filled up pages with them back then. Pandora's Box and the floodgates had been opened. I did not want to stop until I was 100% healed.