Second Serving: My Story with a Spiritual Mentor Gone Rogue

SS: My story

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[00:00:00] USB PnP Audio Device: Hi, everybody. Welcome to second servings. This week, second serving, I wanted to make a little bit personal . I wanted to tell you guys a little bit about my story of Kind of dealing with. A spiritual mentor who ended up being. Harmful.

[00:00:22] And the reason I wanted to tell this story, Is because I want other people to be able to avoid this. And, we see it all the time, but I just felt that it would be good for me to share my story. And explain a little bit. Of the red flags I saw and all that kind of stuff.

[00:00:42] This all starts in 2015. Long time ago, right? Almost 10 years ago. I had been reading taro for a while. I started reading taro and I probably have mentioned this on the. On the podcast before, when I was around 19 years old. [00:01:00] I started reading taro. I loved it. I met a lot of really awesome people colleagues in the terrible world. I used to go to reader studio all the time.

[00:01:10] I love reader pseudo, super fun. Terra conference. If you get to go, should go. So I loved it. I loved reading. Terrible. But I got to a point in my spiritual path that I needed more of a practice. Aye. Again, I grew up. Going to church. Sometimes when I was a teenager, I started going to church, actually a lot, my best friend.

[00:01:35] She went to church, the same church, and I used to go with her.

[00:01:38] Then we both were in the youth group. And As like growing up. In the Catholic church. My parents weren't super strict about rules and things like that. Like religious rules, they don't really care about that. It was more of my belief that they were like, happy that I believed. They didn't care if I went to confession or anything like they did not care.

[00:01:55] What I really loved about Catholicism at the time [00:02:00] was the ritual of it. And I used to read books about saints and always hear about Seats being in ecstasy. I always remember that word because to me, I wanted to feel that I want it to be so envelops by the spirit of God

[00:02:16] that's what I wanted. I loved. To read that and know that was like a spiritual experience that people could have.

[00:02:22] I started after I started practicing terror, I realized I didn't really have a practice anymore. At that point I was in my mid twenties. I really wasn't going to like church anymore. Aye. Just. Did whatever. I prayed, cause I was used to that. That's like how I grew up in that was about it. So looking for a spiritual practice.

[00:02:42] And while I was looking for this practice, One night. I had a dream. And I had a dream and my grandmother who's one of my greatest guides and heroes. Came to me and she said, The word Sharman to me in the dream. okay. I knew the word [00:03:00] shaman. But I didn't really pay attention to it, but I have to say that I had even forgotten that two years prior to me doing this.

[00:03:08] I had also been part of a mediumship circle.

[00:03:12] I used to go to these mediumship circles and I really enjoyed it. That's actually how I met my friend, Natalie. Who's going to be on the podcast in a few weeks. I went to these mediumship circles. I really enjoyed it, but I just knew somewhere in my heart, like mediumship wasn't really, for me. It wasn't really my form of divination that I was really attached to.

[00:03:32] Meanwhile, my friend, Natalie, like got really good at it, , and I connected, but it just, wasn't my thing. I did take this like intro to shamanism class. So I didn't, when I found out later, I was like, I don't know that word, but then I remembered that I had taken this class anyway.

[00:03:47] But what I really was looking for was like the spiritual practice and I wanted to do more with that. I wanted to have more of a connection to God, the gods creator, consciousness, all, [00:04:00] whatever you want to call it.

[00:04:01] I wanted that connection. So once I heard that word, the next day I woke up and I started researching. So I researched and I looked up what it was like these shamans did. So obviously there's different kinds of shamans all over the world, depending on the The area, the practice. But I was like, I want to learn this. And I've read, like, is it okay for me to learn this?

[00:04:27] I read lots of different opinions about it, but men, I concluded that if I could find a teacher and the teacher was willing to teach me. I could learn it and then figure it out from there.

[00:04:39] I started looking for a teacher. I found three teachers. One teacher. I think her phone was disconnected. Then I contacted another woman who was actually pretty close to where I live. But this woman was like, oh, you have to read my book first. You have to buy my book. And then maybe I'll teach you. And I was like, okay. [00:05:00] Red flag. I don't want to deal with this woman. So I contacted the third woman.

[00:05:04] She answered the phone. She was super nice. Very friendly, upbeat. Nice kind lady. So I said, okay, cool. So I explained to her what had happened to me. I had the stream and I talked about how like, And then I had remembered about the. Intro class. So I told her, I took this intro class. And she was like, great. Awesome. The best thing for us to you would be for you to come to where I live. And do you mean I can do a reading? Now. This person, this woman, she lived. About an hour and a half, a little less than an hour and a half later, maybe like an hour and 23 minutes drive from where I lived.

[00:05:48] So it's far. But.

[00:05:52] At the time. As you all know something else. I talk about all the time. I'm a nurse. That's my full-time. Muggle job. I am a registered [00:06:00] nurse and at the time I was working at a hospital. And when I was working in the hospital, I only had to work three days a week. 12 hours a day. I took on a lot of overtime because that's what a lot of nurses do. But I was, I always had at least three days off in the week. I worked every other weekend.

[00:06:21] When she told me that, can you come up here? I was like, yeah, I can come up there. Like we planned a day. I said, all right, I'm going to come up there and we'll do this reading. I was really excited because I was like, oh, this is going to be really cool. Hopefully I can learn from this lady and I can find my spiritual way in the world. So I went up there.

[00:06:42] We, the woman was so nice. She was just as kind as she was on the phone. We sat down in her little office. And we did the reading. We do the reading. She was like, things look pretty good. I feel like you're willing to learn. I feel like you definitely have. [00:07:00] The openness that you're going to need to learn these things. And. I see that going forward, this is going to continue to benefit you in your life. Your spiritual path, it's going to benefit you. For your mind, body and soul, but also possibly financially.

[00:07:16] I said, okay, that's cool.

[00:07:18] So she said, great. Let's start. By having you come up here like every other week. And two classes. Now. Even though I was typically off three or four days a week. I was paying for these classes. Obviously this was like an, a, she was my mentor and I was paying for her. Which was no problem.

[00:07:40] Of course. But every two weeks was not going to work. I wasn't making tons of money that I could spend it like that. I was still living at home with my mom and my sister, but. I didn't have that much money. So I was like, yeah, I can't do every two weeks. Every three would probably be better. I was actually hoping we could do it once a month, but. [00:08:00] She was very insistent.

[00:08:02] So as much annoyed me, I agreed to do every three weeks. She was like, okay. You should do every two, but I'll let you do you, every three, I was like, all right, that kind of annoyed me. That was like the first thing ever that I saw was like a little bit of a red flag. But I just let it go because I really liked her.

[00:08:21] And I was like, I don't know. I'm, I don't think I'm going to find a teacher that's better than this lady. She seems really knowledgeable. She seems really interested in me the way she explained everything made so much sense. And we got along. Time went by. I started seeing her.

[00:08:38] Then also she had a friend. Who would come sometimes? And he was very nice. And then later on, she explained to me that her and her friend were dating. I said, cool. That's not my business. Cool. I liked him. He was cool. Now when I started, I [00:09:00] was her only student. At the time. I didn't know this till later, but I was her only student.

[00:09:06] I didn't ask it wasn't any of my business. How many students she had, I don't know, but I was her student. She told me that the class was going to take two years. To do. I said, okay, that's fine. It's a two year apprenticeship. That's fine. So after the first year she told me. She started a program. So she had this program and she was accepting this many students for the program. I said, oh, okay, cool.

[00:09:33] She started with this many students. And they were going to do the year one, and now I was in my year two. There's a couple other things that happened that I should maybe mention. I found that this lady started like beefing with people. Which was another red flag. For instance, one time there was a woman who was not too far from where she lived.

[00:09:57] Who held sweat lodge ceremonies. This [00:10:00] woman had trained with a lakota medicine, man. And she was carrying on that tradition whatnot. So she had sweat lodges. And I went to one and it was cool. It was really hot. Oh my God. It was so hard. It was really hard. And at the first I was like, first time. At the beginning, I was like super spiritually into this space.

[00:10:20] But after the first hour, I was like, I'm at, towards the end. I was like, I need to get out of here. And they don't let you out. Like not, they don't like if you're gonna pass out, I think they would, but it's completely dark. It's a whole situation. I could talk about that. Another time. Anyway. So this lady. I was really nice.

[00:10:37] I liked her. She wasn't super. Like sweet or anything, not like my mentor. But she was a decent lady. She was nice. And Later on after we went to that sweat lodge, I found out that this lady and her were beefing.

[00:10:51] About what? I don't know. I guess the lady didn't like the way that my mentor practiced. That's not my business. I said, oh, that's a shame. She was a nice [00:11:00] lady. Okay. So now back to I was talking about, so I did my first year of the apprenticeship. It went well, but I even had to take a six month break because the way we did it. I can explain that another time, but we did it a certain way that. There was came a time where I had to delve into my past and my own emotions and it got really heavy for me.

[00:11:22] So I had to take a six month break. During that six month break, everything was shell. She was super supportive of it. She's like, yeah, sure. You good? You good? I said, I'm good. After six months, I was like yeah, it was like around holiday time. I was like, I need a break. I think it was about me a little bit after my birthday.

[00:11:37] So it was like late may, early June. That I started being like, okay, I'm cool. I can do this again. Fine. So I start going back to classes. Cool. Next year goes by. I'm going to my classes every three weeks. Her partner now, her boyfriend is also sometimes joining me, which was fine with me.

[00:11:56] She usually asks me first and it was fine. And we're cool. [00:12:00] So now I finished my second year. I'm officially graduated from her program. She gave me a little certificate. She gives me a little gift. It's very sweet. She actually came to my apartment at that time. Cause this, by the time I finished, it was three years actually.

[00:12:17] I had moved into my own apartment. So by the time I was done, she. Came down to my apartment and she gave me a metal little good. If we had a little ceremony, it was very cute. And then she went home. No. Everything's cool.

[00:12:32] Couple weeks later. She hits me up and she's like, Hey, listen. My group is going now into their second year. And your second year that you completed. I wanted to see if you wanted to join them. Because I feel bad that you never had the group experience. And I feel like I would, do you like a lot of good to be in this group? And at first I was like okay.

[00:12:56] Like I just spent three years, like learning stuff with. [00:13:00] Minus my six month break.

[00:13:01] I'm like, okay. Like , if you go to school and you hear it, you have to go to more school. You're like, oh my God. And don't get me wrong. I didn't have to do it. But like, this was my teacher. This was my mentor. Your she's telling me something's good for me. So I was like, I'll do it. So I said, okay.

[00:13:16] And she's like, by the way, I'll let you come back. But like you're gonna pay, but it'll be half price for you because your did it. You guys, I didn't want to pay. I was, I just, like I said, I moved into my own apartment every, once you move out on your own, everything's expensive, you have to see for rent. I had bills, but. For some reason, I was like, okay, I'll do it. And I did. Okay. So I joined this group. But I have to say it was one of the best things.

[00:13:49] One of the best decisions. Cause I made a lot of really good friends through this group. And I was super happy that I did. I mean, I don't regret that part. I don't regret the people that I got to meet.[00:14:00] I joined the group.

[00:14:03] And.

[00:14:05] What I first met everybody. They had a tragedy. So in their group, For the first year they had another member who had died by suicide. So the first time we met everybody was very emotional. Speaking about this member of the group. And I'm not going to get too much into it, but something had happened. Where the, my mentor and her.

[00:14:36] Now I believe it was her fiance. Who was her boyfriend? The one who used to go to class with me. I had been involved. In a way that.

[00:14:47] They were feeling very badly. Feeling like they had maybe.

[00:14:51] Not helped this person the way they needed to be helped. Let's just say that.

[00:14:56] So they were feeling a little bad about that. And everybody was talking about their [00:15:00] experience with this member who had died by suicide. And then here I am. I'm like, this is the first time I never met that member. But I felt for everybody in the group, because they all had their own relationship with that member. So that happened. Time goes by. We're meeting once a month now, which was good for my bank account also. My mentor. She was living with her fiance in this house. It was very cute house.

[00:15:25] She said she was having problems with her neighbors. The other thing that I noticed that I always ignored was everywhere. My mentor went, problem seemed to follow. She always had a problem with somebody. If it wasn't with her family, it was with their neighbor. If it wasn't with their neighbor, it was some other spiritual practitioner.

[00:15:43] She was beefing with always had problems, but I just thought, oh, she's just so kind. Everyone's just so mean to her. This is literally what I thought. Okay. So time goes by. I'm doing my second year again with my new group. And we're good. We're good. We're. [00:16:00] We're doing stuff. One thing that happened a lot. Was. My mentor tended to talk down. To her fiance at the time. Be mean to him. Not mean, but in front of us yell, Or B. Rude to him. Now, I don't know about all you. But when you're in front of other people, usually when you're with your partner, you have your best face on, not that you're being fake, but

[00:16:31] you don't really bring your drama to your friends, to your family. But she would disparage him in front of us all the time. It was odd. And it was unsettling and it was uncomfortable.

[00:16:44] And at first, I didn't really know the other members of my group, so I never say anything about it. Then I started to get close to them, different members of the group. And one member in particular, who I became very close to and still am. I said, have you ever noticed, is it weird to [00:17:00] you when this happens? And she was like, oh yeah, it's weird. And I was like, oh, thank God. I thought I was the only one she's like, oh, you're a, we all think that, like I was talking to this other member and they also think that, so I was like, okay. Thank God.

[00:17:13] I'm not the only one. So that was weird, right? Meanwhile, I still like, look at my mentor, like with stars in my eyes. But I'm just like, okay, maybe that's their relationship. Maybe it's not a big deal to her, whatever.

[00:17:25] Time goes by.

[00:17:26] Finally we get to the end of our second year, we used to have these retreats. We go on these retreats and

[00:17:32] We'd have to pay for the retreats. Oh, God. And the retreats were never very comfortable. There was, it was like a cabin situation where there was no air condition. It was like, I didn't. To be honest, the first time I, one of the retreat, I was excited because I had never been to this place. And then the second time I really didn't want to go. 'cause.

[00:17:54] The retreat was always an August. And it was always hot. And it was [00:18:00] summer and there was no air conditioning in this building. They were doing , the retreat. The building was really old. The outside, like where it was really nice. But it wasn't somewhere where I'd want to have a retreat where I'm supposed to be relaxing and connecting with spirit. That's just me. One to our retreat, a lot of weird shit happened.

[00:18:19] I could do a whole podcast about what happened on a retreat. But anyway. One of the things that happened that kind of upset me. We used to do journeys. So journey is a really deep meditation for us. My friend has very vivid journeys. Very descriptive, very interesting. The messages she gets are so good, like they're just so full of information. And that's one thing that I admire about it. I like about her and her connection. Is these beautiful messages that she gets.

[00:18:50] So we did one particular journey, one particular ritual. And afterwards my mentor was asking everybody like, oh, what did you experience if you [00:19:00] want to share. So my friend goes into her experience. Basically she cuts her off and says, she's talking too much.

[00:19:08] I'm like aren't we all supposed to share our experiences? So she basically cuts her off and tells her she's talking too much and she needs to stop. Later on. I basically realized that this was a form of jealousy she had against my friend and her connection. Because she didn't connect in this same way. She didn't like that my friend did and that the rest of us thought it was awesome. It pissed her off, like how dare you look at her like that?

[00:19:33] Not me. So that's one thing. So there's a ton of red flags and these are just a couple, but. I don't know you guys, let me know what you think later. Okay, so then let's see what happened next. So that was one particular retreat. Oh, okay. I think it was 2020.

[00:19:53] Yeah, I think it was 2020. I think so. So anyway, so then we're finished our second year. Now our ritual, [00:20:00] our retreat was usually the end of our second year.

[00:20:03] Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah. I'm looking at the date on my wall. Okay. I think it's the end of our second year. And so we all got these certificates.

[00:20:10] It was super cute. We all got these. Like lanyards. Now my teacher announces to us. Guess what guys? We're going to have a third year now. It's going to be all the stuff I didn't teach you. And we're like, okay. So we were all like, okay, cool. We're going to learn more stuff, but at the same time, it meant more money. That we were going to be paying.

[00:20:31] I was like, okay, I'll still do it because I did learn a lot that year.

[00:20:34] I did connect with. Different parts of myself that there were an important, so I was grateful.

[00:20:39] But my teacher also have these other programs. I didn't join one of the other programs because I don't have that type of time. But a couple of my friends did. And my friends were like this other program, my friend, who were in my program, they were like, these other programs are everything we already learned our paying again for it. So she was making money. So fine [00:21:00] now. She started this third year.

[00:21:02] So we all got into the third year program. Meanwhile.

[00:21:09] And when we were in the second year. The first year program where while we were in the second year, broke down. She came in one day, we came to class. She was crying. Oh, the first year program has broken down and we were like, okay, we don't, I didn't know anybody in the first year program.

[00:21:26] But she told us that the first year program broke down and it was because people were criticizing, her people were being mean to her.

[00:21:34] People were. S commenting on how she speaks to her husband at this point, husband. Now, she was married to my former classmate. And actually now he was running the class. It was a whole, I'm sorry, I'm not, I'm going back and forth. Cause I'm remembering stop. It was really strange because he started with me. And then by the time we got to our quote, unquote, third year, he was helping her run the class.

[00:21:59] When I [00:22:00] thought he was with us as a student, but whatever I did grass, that's what happened. It was very odd. Anyway, the first year was like first year group was like, oh, they got really upset with her about the way that she was speaking to them about the things that she was doing and about the way she spoke to her husband.

[00:22:17] And they ganged up on her. That's what she said. And then she said they so she also was trying to get pregnant. And I guess somebody said something to her about being a mother. This is what she said to me and my group. And I felt terrible for her. I said, I can not, I started crying because I said, I cannot believe somebody would comment on that when they know you're having such a hard time getting pregnant. I felt terrible. I was crying.

[00:22:45] She was crying. Everybody was upset. All of us were upset that these people were talking to her like this. Now I haven't gotten to, I got to talk to other people about it, but not really the people who left. I'd love to talk to them. But Either grass. [00:23:00] So we were all on her side. We're like, oh my God, I can't believe they taught, refuse.

[00:23:02] You like that was so messed up. Meaning while we learned the truth later. Of how she should, art started to trade us, but. But it's fine. Okay. So let me fast forward. Now we're in our third year. Woo. She's making more money off us. Oh, God. During my third year, one day she called me. This was in the spring. March April, sometime around that. I think we're in to this pandemic had started at this point.

[00:23:25] She calls me in the spring and she's like, listen. I think it's 2020. She's like, listen. I need help from you because She didn't read terrible. I did, but she didn't. Sure at Oracle card, she didn't really know how to read terrible, not a problem. She asked me to do a tarot card reading. And she's like, I trust you to do a tarot card reading for me.

[00:23:43] I said, okay. And she's like telling me, she's had this whole idea. She wants to start this business. She wants to own a shop and they want to do this and they want to do that. I said, okay, I did the reading and I saw everything was good. I said, I see it straight. Like, we're good here. This is going to be profitable for you.

[00:23:58] You're going to make money. You're going to [00:24:00] be good. And she was like, yeah, I don't want to start this business, but I want all of you to be part of it. All of the third years and out all my like friends and all my people who've been there for me. I want you guys to be part of the business. I want you to come in.

[00:24:13] I want you to do readings at the shop. I want you to sell your products. Cause at the time I was making. Different oils and sprays. Candles. So I want you to come in. I want you to do stuff at the shop. And sell out of my shop and I want it to be like all local stuff. I don't want to bring in a bunch of buy a bunch of stuff off, like, Like a team who situation and just put it in the shop.

[00:24:37] I said, okay, cool. Cool, cool. Cool. All the reading looked awesome. The reading looked great. Oh, my God, my accent's coming out so much. Awesome. The reading look good, right? So we have a meeting. I drove up there again, drove all the way up. And she's like, I, she got everybody who's going to be involved and we had a meeting. About what we're going to do. Ah, how it's going to [00:25:00] work, how the pricing is going to work, how we're going to make money. That we're all in it. So everything seemed good. Me and another girl who was there, who was part of the revised first year. No a different first year now. Part of the third year, this, or I think I graduated that point.

[00:25:18] It doesn't matter. It was another girl who was part of a different. Shamanism program. She said we were talking like individually, she's like, oh my God. This is going to be so nice because I've worked for metaphysical shop owners who are like. Cuckoo for cocoa puffs. And I was like, girl, me too.

[00:25:36] It's crazy. I've been, I've worked out of a lot of shops where these shop owners are complete megalomaniacs. She's like same. So we're laughing about it. And , my mentor heard us talking about this and she said the same thing, and we're all giggling about it. So cool. Cool, cool.

[00:25:54] We start to shop. Everyone has their own jobs. What they're doing, there's lots of services going on in the shop. It's [00:26:00] actually a really good idea.

[00:26:01] Time goes by.

[00:26:02] We start to talk about money. And she started, we started having these, she wants us to have a monthly meeting for the shop. I'm like, okay, cool. We also were having these like, Days. Where they were psychic reading days where everybody could bring their cards. Who did readings and do readings.

[00:26:19] So she was paying us in that kind of thing. What was crazy wise. One day she came to Austin. She was like, okay, I need you guys. To I hope I'm telling this in order, I might not. I you guys, we were all independent contractors at this point, right? That's how we were labeled. We were not working for her.

[00:26:36] We were working for ourselves. She told us we had a whole meeting about many. We weren't making enough money for the shop. She told us. We need to make this much money. She calculated how much money. It took to run the shop. She's like, it takes this much money to run the shop and we're only making this much money, which means we're out this much money.

[00:26:58] You guys aren't making [00:27:00] enough money. You're not advertising enough for the shop. She was upset. She was angry at us.

[00:27:06] And the numbers didn't add up. I talked to , one of my friends who also worked at the shop, one of my friends from my group. And I was like, These numbers don't add up. And she said the same thing we were calculate and ship. Because we knew how much we paid for our education with her. So we knew how much other people were paying for their education with her.

[00:27:26] And we asked because we knew some people in the other group, how much you guys pay.

[00:27:29] And it didn't make sense that they weren't making money. Also. It didn't make sense because they were buying lunch every day from a shops down the street. How can you afford to buy lunch every day and buy dinner every night? And have a laundry service, but you can't afford this and that. Okay. . Fine. So the pricing didn't make any sense.

[00:27:48] Let me tell you what happened. Shit starts to go downhill. We are making suggestions about the shop. She shooting us down left and right. Basically telling us we don't know anything. She's like I ran a [00:28:00] business. I ran a business. Like she used to run a business. She kept saying. And she kept always talking about making flyers and we're like, bro, it's like, It's 2000 what?

[00:28:09] 2122. At this point, we're in COVID she's making all these things about flyers, who uses flyers. Like I say, and we all were suggested like, yo, make a QR code. And she's like, nah, like QR code. I can't do it. It's too hard, bro. You're spending all this money on paper, make a QR code.

[00:28:27] It's so weird that you're not doing that. Okay. Fine. She don't want to do that. Fine. She wanted to print out flyers. There's a big metaphysical fair in New Jersey. She decided she wanted to be part of that. Metaphysical fair. No problem. It's very, I'm letting you know now it's extremely expensive.

[00:28:44] This metaphysical fair. So she wanted to be part of it. And she told us basically, if we wanted to come and do readings at her stand, we could pay because it was really expensive. I said, fine. That's fine. I that's fair

[00:28:55] USB PnP Audio Device-1: Meanwhile, she's only done.

[00:28:58] USB PnP Audio Device-2: One or two fairs [00:29:00] ever. She didn't really know what to do. She bought all this stuff, but she. Didn't have like a Dolly, it's a whole situation. So if any of you, and I know people who listened to this podcast, a lot of you guys do fairs or you have metaphysical shops and things. They die. Are you reading his public life? If you do have fare, if Europe, somebody who does a fair and you sell products. You have to have your shit together in order to get in and get out.

[00:29:26] You have to know the space that you're going to being a vendor is hard. I'm not going to lie. Vendor. Life is hard. I haven't done vendor life in about a year because I've taken my business a little bit of a different direction, but vendor life is no fucking joke. It's a good time. Joe get me wrong.

[00:29:42] I've loved. I love vending. It's so fun. But right now in my life, it's not fitting in.

[00:29:48] But yeah. If you do fairs, that. You have to have organization, you have to know where your shit is. You'd have to know how to pack and unpack quick. 'cause that's the only way to get in and get out at the end of the night. You're tired. [00:30:00] You want to go home? She didn't really know about that.

[00:30:03] She wasn't a fair person. She didn't really know how to run one. She tried to run one maybe a month or two, a few months before this with a different person that we knew who also worked at the shop with us. And she was freaking out the whole time, the person I know who would work there, the shop was trying to comfort her, trying to help her and she wouldn't let them help.

[00:30:24] Fine. Okay. Now. We get to this big metaphysical fair. She basically asks us if we can volunteer. That's another thing she would ask us is if we could volunteer at the shop. As cashiers or just being shop attendant. She asked us to do this. She never, she did not pay us for that. She don't want to pay us for that. She just asked us to volunteer because she had no money. I'm so poor.

[00:30:50] I'm so poor. She cried poverty a lot. And it made us feel bad. So a lot of us her students. We would volunteer our time. [00:31:00] I would volunteer my time. I think I volunteered a shift or here or there I, again, I lived an hour and a half of just about an hour, just shy of an hour and a half away.

[00:31:10] And I would spend my weekends driving up there for free spending all my gas money to go help her because she needed help. I would even attend her Her programs that she had a class, I would try to attend. I attended other classes with my friends with sometimes it was just too hard. I had to drive all the way up there.

[00:31:29] And at this, by this time now I had a different job where I worked five days a week and I didn't have to work on the weekends. So the weekends were my only time to chill. I spent so much time driving up there. So much time driving up there, not doing things with other people. My other friends who were local, who had nothing to do with my, like the metaphysical scene, just my. Like regular hometown friends.

[00:31:54] And I wouldn't see them because I was always up there. Anyway. We go to this [00:32:00] fair the first day. One of my friends did readings, she made a good amount of money. She did a lot of freedoms cause she's a fantastic fucking reader. The next day. And I think my mentor was very jealous of her, that she made so much money back down. I think she wants to change the pricing structure because she had made a lot of money.

[00:32:19] Cause she's a bomb ass reader. So the next day I. I was helping my mentor's husband cause he was doing mediumship readings. He's a medium, here's the mediumship readings at di. So I was like, all right, I'm going to help him. I'll be the one running the register, basically. Again, I didn't get paid for that.

[00:32:38] I just did it out of the kindness of my heart. Also the metaphysical fair was much closer to where I lived than where they were. It was only about 30 minutes. I did not mind driving 30 minutes to this fair. So during the day, My. Mentors husband asked me a few times. Do you think I've done more readings then? [00:33:00] My friend who did readings the previous day, I said, I don't know. I wasn't there the previous day. I had just heard from my friend that she was hopping and she was doing a lot of readings. Now.

[00:33:11] He was also a little jealous of her.

[00:33:12] I think.

[00:33:13] Now because I'm a nosy bitch. And my mentor was always crying. Poverty. I was a little curious. Okay. I'm a bad girl. I was curious to see how much money they really made. They use square. Like a lot of people use square. So I was running credit cards. I was collecting my knee that day. He happened to go to the bathroom and I was trying to figure out something on the square.

[00:33:37] And I ended up actually in the section with all the transactions, because I was trying to make sure that somebody had paid. And. You can see month to month, what people make on square. Very easy. So I ended up in that section. Maybe I ended up there or I just landed there cause I wanted to see, but it doesn't matter. I looked at how much money they had made the previous [00:34:00] month. I was sick.

[00:34:01] You guys, I was sick. They had made so much money. They lie their asses off to us. We even with the fees of square, I know their bitch ass has made a profit.

[00:34:13] They had made.

[00:34:14] I'm trying to remember. They had made at least $30,000. The previous month. They're made at least $30,000. And the months in the summer, they made even more money. And the amount of money they were paying us for classes was pennies. And they were making bank guys bank. And they have the audacity to tell us that they weren't making a profit.

[00:34:38] There was literally no way. It hell they weren't making a profit. There was no way in hell. We were putting our products on the shelves, us and some other some of her other students, we who may products, we put our products on the shelves and we paid a fee for the shelf. And then they would pay us the money. Which wasn't [00:35:00] a problem.

[00:35:00] My products aren't expensive. They'd be like five, 10 bucks. A lot of the other people's products were not also not super expensive. We weren't making shit tons of money. But we were still paying a fee, no matter if not, if we did, or if we didn't make money, number one. Also

[00:35:18] It, maybe they just need so much money that they lied.

[00:35:22] They lied to us. I say they, because now her husband was in on it too. They both lied to us about how much money they're making to make us try to make more money from that. I was honestly disgusted. I couldn't believe that she had lied like that. So this all had happened. It was like September, this point. And a couple other weird things had happened. She had asked us to become, employees of hers instead of independent contractors. And she's like, oh, it's because my Accountant said we had to be. I didn't understand that at all and I didn't want to be anybody's employee. I didn't want to be an employee.

[00:35:59] [00:36:00] So I was like, I'm not signing that. I don't want to be your employee. And then at that point, I was like, I'm not going to do my services here. If you're telling me I have to be an employee to teach a taro class, I'm not doing that. So I stopped. I said, I'm not going to do that. Oh, that's another incident that happened.

[00:36:14] I was supposed to teach a taro class. Only one person signed up for my taro class. I, and even for that one person, I went all the way up there to teach for one person. It wasn't a problem. I like teaching taro classes. It's fun. But I left early because I finished with the one person early. And I gave the person, my car told her if she had any questions to contact me, I left. She messaged me the next day was like, I thought you were going to stay for the other person.

[00:36:43] I said, I didn't know. There was other people she said, yeah, somebody else was coming late. Two hours late. Okay. And I'm embarrassed by you. I'm embarrassed by you. You're making me look bad and unprofessional. Cause you left bro. I live an hour and a half away. She wanted me to stay there for [00:37:00] four hours. I mean. And I said to her, I said, I'm so sorry.

[00:37:04] I embarrassed you. And I meant it. I was like, under this woman's spell,

[00:37:08] it was me. I was the problem. It's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. It was me. That's what I truly believe it was me. She also would turn out any suggestion, any idea that I had? Nope, I couldn't do that. Oh, Ashley, you're not strong enough spiritually to do it. She told me that before I wasn't spiritually strong enough to do stuff.

[00:37:27] Oh, that's you can't do it. And half the time she would, I would think of ideas and then she would do it. She be like, oh, I'm going to do that. I'm going to teach that kind of class because she thought that like, I could do it, but then she could. Then shit really got crazy. And this is not my story to tell.

[00:37:44] So I'm going to give you a brief overview because this happened to my friend and her wife. She treated my friend and her wife, like dog shit. I'm not going to get into it because I don't have all the details and I'm not going to hear tell their story, but.

[00:37:57] She would get, okay, this is another thing. [00:38:00] Another point of contention that she had was like,

[00:38:02] She wanted us always to sign contracts, signed contracts. Basically that if we had a client, whether it was for taro, whether it was for another service and they came through the shop. If we saw them independent of the shop, she was going to Sue us, basically literally that's the kind of thing she had a sign and she would tell us that. You cannot see anybody.

[00:38:25] You cannot poach our clients. That's what she used to try to sell us. We were poaching clients. If we saw anybody outside of the shop, we were taking them, which was not true. There was things like, and she would sign us up for hours that we couldn't do again. I said I worked nine to five. Monday through Friday, basically.

[00:38:46] I don't want to drive an hour and a half from my job. Which is almost the same distance, a little less. Maybe my job was maybe an hour and 10 minutes. I didn't want to drive an hour and 10 minutes to do spiritual work. After I had done a whole day of my [00:39:00] muggle job to then drive home an hour and a half.

[00:39:02] I also have a family. I have my fiance here. Like I like to spend time with them. I'm not doing that. She used to sign me up for shit where I would be doing okay. Can you see somebody at this time? They want to see, I can't, I'm tired. I don't want to drive up and down.

[00:39:17] Plus. Side note about me. I'm the kind of girl that could fall asleep driving. I know if I'm going to be tired, I don't need to be driving at night. I just don't. I know myself after work. I'm not the girl to be driving long distances. I get sleepy in the car. No. But she used to do that and sometimes guess what?

[00:39:36] I would fucking do it like a dummy. And I would miss time with my family. I would miss time seeing my fiance who also works late hours. It was terrible. Anyway.

[00:39:46] She was always had this thing about us poaching clients. She had this whole drama with my friend and her wife about them poaching, their clients.

[00:39:52] Meanwhile, the services that my friend and her wife were even doing. They could not offer. So they couldn't like, it [00:40:00] doesn't make sense. They were offering professional services that my friend and her wife were actually licensed to do. My mentor and her husband were not licensed to do those things. So how could they poach their clients? They can't, you can't take clients when you can't even do this service.

[00:40:14] Okay. That's one thing. So they were treating my friend and her wife, like dog shit. And they ended up breaking away and being like, we can't deal with this shit and I didn't blame them. Even after that, I was still holding on another incident. She was doing things that she was not licensed to do. She would literally, she was also I'm not going to say, cause I don't want to like rebel.

[00:40:34] She also did another modality that she did have a license for.

[00:40:39] But there's things within those modalities that you need training for. It's kinda like a nurse, I'm not a labor and delivery nurse. I'm an oncology nurse. I don't know shit about labor and delivery.

[00:40:49] I, you shouldn't float me if I was still working in the hospital. They can't float me to a labor and delivery floor because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. So I can't just watch a YouTube video about labor and delivery for an hour and then [00:41:00] go be a labor and delivery nurse. That's not how that works.

[00:41:02] You need to be trained. Same thing with my mentors modality. There is certain things in there you need to be trained to do. She was not trained to do those things. And she was doing them in the shop. I witnessed this, she said, I'm going to give this person, this kind of service literally went on YouTube, looked at it and was like, I can do that.

[00:41:20] And I was like, bro, I don't know because the part of this person's body that you're going to be doing this modality to seems sensitive. You probably should know a little bit more about it. Whatever.

[00:41:30] At aggress. She did shit like that all the time. She was. Rude to us. She said to somebody that the best way to motivate us, the students that she apparently loves so much. Was too. Be rude. Like what was the word? Was to just like, Be nasty to us. Like that was the best way to motivate us, was like to tell us all the things we were doing wrong. How is that a motivator?

[00:41:58] I don't know. I, that doesn't motivate me. It [00:42:00] makes me not want to do shit, but she used to say that. She used to, like I said, she shocked down everybody's ideas. Tell you that you can't do that. You're not good enough to do that. You don't have enough spiritual knowledge to do that.

[00:42:14] So people are dropping like FYS around me.

[00:42:17] The other people I know who are associating with her they're not associating with her anymore. I was one of the last ones because I was just like, I was making a little bit of money from the shop. Sometimes a little bit of money when you don't have a lot of money. Seems like a lot, right? So I was making a little bit of money. And not a lot, a little bit.

[00:42:35] And I liked that. But I'm like, Damn my morals. We're going out the window for this little bit of money. Finally, I broke away from them.

[00:42:44] And I realized so much that I really believed everything. She said I was so enamored with her. I was, so I thought she was just the moon, the earth and the stars,

[00:42:55] finally, I broke away. I send them an email. [00:43:00] They made the sign, these contracts that said, if you wanted to get out of stuff, you had to send a 30 day notice. So I sent the 30 day notice. I said, this is my 30 day. Notice that I don't longer want to be in the shop. I want to pull my products, all that kind of stuff.

[00:43:11] And then after that,

[00:43:14] I wash my hands. I wash my hands with them.

[00:43:17] It was weird. It's like a loss when that happens. You grieve it even though, it was not healthy. Even though you look back on all the things that this person said to you and realize damn like.

[00:43:28] This person really. Wanted me to just believe that they wanted to be the ultimate ruler. The, I truly believe that she wanted to be a co-leader. But she didn't know it. And she would say, oh, I'm not like those people who do those types of things. I know. I just work for spirit. It's not me.

[00:43:47] It's not me. It's not me. But it became that it was her.

[00:43:50] Oh, my God.

[00:43:52] And the other thing was with the shop. She basically wanted.

[00:43:56] All these things. She sh which is not a bad dream to [00:44:00] have, but she wanted to create peace centers and she wanted to have them internationally. And she wanted to have these like a bed and breakfast situation, but also like a retreat center.

[00:44:10] And she wanted to have all these things and.

[00:44:12] We were all going to be a part of it.

[00:44:13] When everything broke down. I was sad. Not that I thought all that was going to happen, but I did, honestly, I believed her, but. Also, it's just like you realize that was all a pipe dream. And then this what happened? Her breakdown and her losing everybody was really the inevitable thing. Like that's what was actually going to happen.

[00:44:35] There's other stuff that happened.

[00:44:36] I feel like I'm missing stuff. And there may be a follow-up episode to this one day that I tell you other details. Cause I'm forgetting. Cause I have to ask my friends other stuff that happened. And if they're okay with me telling you, but. It was just a wild ride. This person who I was like so enamored with. Is now someone I don't speak to. I'm [00:45:00] blocked on all channels.

[00:45:02] So I know she'll probably never hear this. I'm totally blocked. Maybe she.

[00:45:05] I'm blocked on all social media. I can't see. Last I know she's not even doing what she used to do with us. She's doing some other modality.

[00:45:15] Oh, my God.

[00:45:18] I have saying to. My other friend who was in the program with me. I was like, I never thought it would end up like this. I thought we would be friends forever. I thought that she was like, she considered me, her friend, and she told me that.

[00:45:29] She's like, oh, I forgot to bring this part up. Okay. This is getting towards the end. Now the last part about this is.

[00:45:36] All this broke down. I left the shop and it was November. Again, I'm getting the years wrong, but just know it wasn't November when this happened. I left the shop. I was one of the last ones to leave the shop. Then in January. Now, one thing you need to know about me is I'm a bitch who always has more than one job.

[00:45:52] I was at one of my side jobs. And. I get an email. And [00:46:00] it's from her. I haven't seen her name in a while. Like I said, she blocked me.

[00:46:06] So I get this email

[00:46:07] and the email is saying basically with the new year, she wanted to make peace. She wanted to make peace with all of us. And she said she was contacting me first. 'cause she, I was one of her first students. And it started with me the whole program, the shamonic program. And she wanted to see if I could like give peace a chance basically. And. I didn't know what to do. MI here's what the, another problem with me. I truly, when somebody comes to me like that, if somebody comes to me in peace, I truly believe they mean peace.

[00:46:43] Cause why are you going to lie about it? I'm not gullible, but I just believe people when they tell me shit like. I know it's wrong sometimes, but I do. I just believe because why would you lie off the bat? Like, not that people don't lie and not that I've never lied, but like, I just don't believe people are just lying off [00:47:00] the bat.

[00:47:00] I believe people tell the truth. Mostly. So she tells me this shit and I'm like, okay, I get this email. I call I'm in the middle of eating a slice of pizza. So I quit call my friend who I was like, bro, did you get this email? She's like, yeah, I got this email.

[00:47:18] I'm texting my other friend. Did you get this email? And she's like, yeah, I got the email. So we're all conferring. And then I even sent my email forward it to my friends so they could read my email. And guess what you guys, our emails were basically all exactly the same wording. For like few tweaks. In the email. In, and I don't want to say it. I'm not going to use the buzzword. But as a true person who thinks they have never done anything wrong, she did not apologize for one thing. She said, we all did things wrong.

[00:47:54] What the fuck did I do, bitch? What did I do? I didn't do anything to you. She said, we all did [00:48:00] things wrong.

[00:48:01] And I want us all to make peace. She said something like, I just remember her saying, we all do things wrong. I guess I can see, I can say this. My one friend is a therapist.

[00:48:12] Who is one of the people involved in this and. She was like, Oh, look at the wording. She's the one who helped me see the wording and be like, damn, she really doesn't mean any of this shit, because at first I'm like, yeah, let's get piece of chance. Not that I was going to email her. Without conferring with my friends first, because I had to call my friends and see what we were going to do.

[00:48:33] Cause I wasn't going to do this by myself. I was like, let me call these girls. So I call my friends. And when I found out that. All of our emails are the same. I was so disappointed. I said, wow, she didn't mean any of this shit. Meanwhile, my friend's wife. Who the original beef, even one of the original beefs [00:49:00] started with. She never reached out to her. And I'm like she don't reach out to her.

[00:49:06] Why is she reach out to the rest of us? Because that was the original beef. That she's the one who started. My mentor started with her.

[00:49:16] Shit was crazy. So anyway, after that, I never replied and then I never heard from her again.

[00:49:21] I say all this to say. Be careful who you let guide you. There's a lot of things you need to look out for. But what I want to tell you is to always look out for the first red flag. Right that shit down. Write that shit down or keep it in the back of your head and don't ever put anybody on a pedestal. Don't ever put anybody on a pedestal. Like I said, I didn't look at her like a God, because in, in my life, there's nothing more than the creator than the gods.

[00:49:55] But.

[00:49:57] I put her on a pedal school of like, [00:50:00] ah, she's more spiritual than me. At what made her more spiritual than me? There is nothing. We were on the same wave length. Nobody's more spiritual than everybody's on their own path. That's not how that works. But I literally thought it was.

[00:50:17] It was crazy guys. Like it was really crazy.

[00:50:20] It was a wild ride. Like now that I look back, I'm like, damn, but she always positioned herself as knowing more than us. It was really interesting. And she never like.

[00:50:30] I dunno. She's always positioned herself as knowing more and being greater than us and like being the guider, like the teacher. And almost, and then the last thing I'm going to say, And she told us about her previous teacher a lot.

[00:50:46] And how she had a falling out with him. This should have been my first. Red flag. When I met this woman, because she had told me. She had a falling out with her teacher. Like I told you earlier [00:51:00] in this, she had a falling out with everybody. She was always falling out with people. And I just thought everybody was being mean to her.

[00:51:06] But bro, where was I? Like, I know this as a fact. If everybody. Doesn't like that front it's usually that friend. It's usually not everybody else. It's usually that person who just sucks. But she told me she had a falling out with her teacher. And she was explaining how her teachers guide one of the guides left. His primary guy left him. Because his ego got too big.

[00:51:33] And she's always telling me that.

[00:51:37] Yeah. He's primary guide left him. Spiritually. Because his ego got too big.

[00:51:45] And she used to say a lot of things to us about spirit and what spirit was telling her.

[00:51:51] But I've often discussed this with my friends at a point. I don't know if it was spirit , or if it was just her own ego, guiding her at the [00:52:00] end and not spirit anymore. And I think that even if it was spirit.

[00:52:05] It wasn't it. Wasn't what she thought it was. I did a journey not to her. Cause that's like weird, but I did a journey and I asked my guides, what's the deal here? And.

[00:52:17] The one thing they showed me. Was destruction. And downfall. And.

[00:52:25] I don't want anybody to have a downfall. That's not what I want. I don't want anyone to get hurt. I wish nothing but the best for her.

[00:52:32] But.

[00:52:33] No that like in every spiritual path. These people who then start to think of themselves as these. God's among men. They all end up falling.

[00:52:47] They all end up falling.

[00:52:49] You can't try to bring people down. You can't try to be the greatest.

[00:52:52] Because spirit will remind you who is in charge.

[00:52:55] So that's my story. I'm sticking to it. I hope you guys. [00:53:00] I hope this wasn't too wild and crazy. This just gives you a little insight on what happened to me. Be aware of the spiritual leaders who. One always tell you who you are. Spirituality is an individual practice. We can read books. We can go to classes and I encourage people to do so because you can learn from others. But in the end who you become and your spiritual being and your spiritual life is dependent on what you want.

[00:53:29] It's not what other people want. Nobody can tell you who to be.

[00:53:37] So that's my story.

[00:53:39] I

[00:53:40] and this is your second servings for this week and I won't talk to you. Y on Thursday. Guys. Bye.