my life. We remain close friends today. She told me months after I had been working for her that she had felt in her intuition she should hire me, though she had many doubts about hiring someone for a demanding job just after such an unexpected event. Yet, she felt she was somehow put in my life at that time to sort of watch over me. Knowing what I did about my experience with Tucson, I also felt that this meeting was meant to be, and meant to be in its timing.
A year and a half after taking this job I had a similar test with my intuition. One of my syndication sales mentors had introduced me to a man named Lonnie who ran the research department of a major entertainment studio in Los Angeles. I was told that getting a job in his department could lead to a job within the studio selling syndication—my goal. When we talked he was very kind, but he was concerned about my lack of experience and had no current openings. Something sparked for me in the call, though, and so I went full force into asking him for any opportunity to let me show him my abilities.
Lonnie graciously gave me numerous projects. I say “graciously” because I know I was a bit of a pain in hounding him for them. He acted with integrity, however, and each of the projects was a test to see how much I really knew about the industry. I worked on them at night or on weekends. But still no job offer.
After a year of talking to Lonnie and preparing projects for him, I moved of my own accord to Los Angeles. Lonnie still did not have a position for me and so I began interviewing at other studios in earnest. Lonnie and I became friends, and he also became a true mentor. He continued to give me projects to hone my skills and to teach me about the industry. Through Lonnie, I became much more professional and versed in the business. Then I had an interview with a small, startup syndication company.
The start-up company was run by a very skilled man who did things in the business that many people didn’t think were possible—such as starting this company. He was a bit of a rainmaker and a master salesman. When I met with the company, my body felt bright. They liked me, but didn’t have a job selling syndication, so they offered me a job working on one of their productions with the promise that if something became available in syndication I would be in position for it.
The same day I received this offer from the start-up company Lonnie asked to take me to dinner. At the dinner, Lonnie beamed that a position had just become available in his office and that he could, finally, after all this time, hire me! He was thrilled. One would think I should have been. But, inside my body, I felt dark.
With great fear I told him I had to think about it. He was aghast, and rightfully so. After over a year of basically badgering this man for a job, almost any job, I now had one offered to me and I was asking to think about it. I explained to him the situation, and that I thought the other position might lead more quickly into my getting a job selling syndication. He blew up and told me at least forty reasons why I was wrong—start-ups go under, they had nothing to sell, his was a legitimate position but what the other company offered me would be a step back on some little production, etc. I heard him, but I still told him I needed three days to think about it.
During those three days, Lonnie called me several times a day to give me reasons as to why I should take his job over the start-up. I am very grateful for his generosity in doing this. He was acting as a true friend who was genuinely worried I would make a decision that would derail my career. Lonnie’s reasons were sound: his offer was at a giant, established studio with name value, it would afford great experience to set me up for my goal, the studio would generate networking and other door-opening opportunities, his position paid twice the salary I was offered at the other job plus benefits, and so on.
I greatly appreciated Lonnie’s attempts to sway me to his job. I thought each of them through. But my inner voice kept telling me to take the start-up. After my three days thinking, I did just that. Despite my fears that I would lose a great friend and mentor, I followed my inner voice and turned down Lonnie’s job offer.
My job at the start-up was the lowest level production position available. I did grunt work all day. However, true to their word, when a position opened up for a syndication sales job I was allowed to pitch myself for the role. I got it. The start-up had led me to my goal in less than a year.
The new position came with a salary that surpassed what Lonnie’s studio position had offered. More important, it evolved into a five-year successful working experience that opened far more doors than would have opened had I taken Lonnie’s studio job. I also made some of my closest friends at the start-up, including a future business partner. And, five years later when I was ready to move into a new venture, so, too, were the heads of the company. They left the start-up to form a production studio and brought me over to run it for them.
A few years into my working for the start-up, Lonnie and I were having dinner together. He suddenly said, “You were right.” I asked about what. He said I was right about taking the job at the start-up and turning his down. He said there would have been no way I would have ever moved into selling syndication that quickly and gotten promoted as fast as I had if I had taken the job at his studio. To him, I had gambled and won; to me, I had once again verified my inner voice.
Lonnie is a dear friend to this day. He is also the friend who financed the building restoration company I mentioned in the last chapter. He and I also co-founded a company that put me in the maelstrom of politics at a national level. But both of these ventures came much later. It was clear that the initial spark with Lonnie meant we had things to do together, just not that original job at the studio.
Intuition is a part of dreaming. I learned about it by experiencing it, and then I developed my facility with it doing the dream work with Catherine.
Bodily signs are an integral part of intuition and dreaming. As Catherine would often say: In-Tuition: learning within. Dreaming is the language of the body. Our spiritual body is housed in our physical body, thus our experiencing is through that specific lens of what we take in through our senses, and how our body responds to this information (in-formation). Thus, knowing how the body moves in response to images and feelings is very important.
In my untrained days, I could only say that I felt “light” or “dark” about job possibilities. As I trained, I learned that I have specific movements and feelings all through my body in response to experience. For example, when I hear a truth I feel a silver, sparkling electric “wiggle” up and down the middle of my chest like unzipping a zipper, and when I make a shift an expansion occurs in the middle of my chest. These feelings are signposts and they often precede physical manifestation, which is one reason they are integral to intuition. I will talk about how to map the body in this way in “Part II.”
Responding to intuition, as I’ve described in this chapter, often means going against conventional thinking. Dreaming requires us to make brave choices, like I did in saying no to the offers from the TV station and Lonnie. Selfhood is a brave endeavor. Making choices from our innermost Self, however, ultimately brings much greater rewards.
In the previous chapter, I described a dream of my father’s in which he sees himself clearly finding the knife he thought he had lost. By asking his dream he stepped into a deeper, more knowing part of the Self. My grandmother extended that by showing me that dreams also allow us to connect with others. They can connect us in the way that my grandmother knew to bake the cake for Uncle Charles, as well as in the way that she would meet with family in dreams. Dreaming, I came to understand, is both individual and communal. It is access to the dream field where connections and movements outside of time can occur. Intuition is a part of dreaming, and dreaming begets intuition.
Lesson Seven:
Dreaming is both individual and communal. It connects us to the deepest, knowing part of the Self, and also connects us to others. We stay in relationship by responding to our dreams.
Конец
