INTRODUCTION
You can never unlearn what you will learn in this book. Once you start reading, you can never go back to how you feel today. And that is good news if you’re in pain at any level, or simply feeling uninspired by life. Through this book, and through discovering the messages from spirit that are at its foundation, you will begin to understand that everything you need and want is right here in front of you. You will begin to remember that you are not alone. You will know that you are powerful and you are important—not only in this wild and wondrous world of ours but beyond it as well. Most of all, you will know that you are loved.
FROM BREAKDOWN TO BREAKTHROUGH
There was a time when I was living in an apartment, with only my young daughter, watching my life collapse around me. I had just reconnected with the world of spirit, a tale of remembering that I describe here in these pages, and I was experiencing a powerful upwelling of well-being and clarity through their presence. At a certain moment, I decided to change my thoughts and change my life. Urged by the invisible guidance I was receiving, I followed all direction, faithfully. I chose to believe everything I heard, everything I wrote down, as my wise counselors helped me change my life. All of the failures and pain I’ve experienced have been great gifts. As I have allowed myself to recognize myself as a creator, without self-doubt or shame, I have been able to create my life in miraculous ways.
The first lesson I needed to hear and understand from spirit is that my thoughts mold my life. As I came to discover much later, this lesson was really the first of seven truths that spirit wanted to impart. If I could think positively about every situation, then my life would produce more positive situations. For me, this was simple in theory, but difficult in execution. So difficult, in fact, that I never followed through with this lesson—this essential truth—until my life crumbled. I didn’t follow through until nothing else made sense anymore and I had nothing to lose.
Once I committed and turned my attention to harnessing my thoughts and changing my life, it’s true that some of what I wanted to create was material, but most was not. I did want a home, a car, great shoes, and other material items that made life easier and more enjoyable. But most of all I wanted to wake up every day and feel happy, safe, and fulfilled. I wanted to have an amazing love relationship, a happy daughter, and a happy family. I wanted friends who were positive and held others up—everybody, even the people they didn’t agree with or disliked. And now I can tell you that I have it all. I have it all because I desired it all, I believed it, I thanked it, and I knew it was here for me. Then I let it all go, softly shifting my attention to seeing, acknowledging, and loving the beauty around me even when my preferences weren’t met.
This is my practice every day.
One of the greatest gifts available to us as human beings is the ability to consciously choose our thoughts and perceptions, no matter what. I embrace this gift with both arms! Now I see the beauty I desire regardless of outer conditions. I don’t wait for the world to tell me that it’s OK to feel good, to feel happy, or to be well. And because my cup is full to the brim, I want nothing more than to give to others from that wellspring of happiness. My passion for teaching others how to speak to their guides and how to choose positive thoughts, even when life seems to be insisting on the opposite, is unstoppable now. Through the spiritual lessons woven into each page of this book, I want to help you to feel unstoppable, too.
WHAT IS A SPIRIT TRANSLATOR?
As I describe in the chapters to come, as a child I had a lively and close relationship with the invisible world. I didn’t think of it as special in any way. It was just the way things were. I would “hear” spirit talking with me in a multiplicity of ways. I would innocently ask questions, and I would receive answers. It was simple.
But one thing I knew really early on was that I didn’t want to be a “channel.” My father was a spiritual adventurer and pioneer who introduced me to many extraordinary people and experiences. As a child, I attended a number of channeling sessions with my parents, and it was scary! It looked like the channelers were possessed. For one thing, in their trance states their voices would sound different and not in a good way. This was not the connection with spirit that I wanted to experience. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized you could actually be a channel and be conscious, as opposed to a trance channel. When I’m communicating with spirit, I’m in a conscious state, fully aware of what I’m hearing and saying. I receive the messages. And then I relay them to others. I essentially translate the messages into the words that can be easily received by others. My body isn’t being taken over by another force. There’s nothing scary to have to brace oneself against. Now, after years of enjoying the benefits of this give-and-take with spirit, I give readings to others, and most often to groups of people in workshop and retreat settings. This book, in many ways, is a reading for all who feel called to it. Most important, spirit is available to everyone. This book will share messages from spirit, but it will also empower you to meet your own spirit guide and speak to spirit directly.
THE POWER OF TALKING WITH SPIRIT
We all have questions. We all seek answers to why we experience difficulties and obstacles, why things are not going as we had hoped. We have problems with finding good relationships, having enough money, feeling good physically, having enough energy to do what we want to do, navigating relationships with co-workers and bosses, knowing our purpose, and the list goes on. When we are given an answer, another question is born. The questions will never stop, and the answers alone will never really cure a problem. What cures our problems, what changes our lives, is a real, visceral understanding of the spirit lessons outlined in this book. An understanding of these lessons will answer every question, give meaning to every situation.
I practice asking questions and receiving answers on a daily basis. The question and answer process calms me and allows me to feel connected to my spirit. It’s like a meditation practice in that sense. But the big life-changing shifts happened for me when I stopped discounting the messages I was receiving from spirit and really heard them, when I began to pay close attention to the spirit lessons I was given and apply them to my daily life.
As I went back and reread my conversations, I realized that they all tied back to the core spiritual principles that are now contained in this book—the seven truths. They are not the only truths, but they are nonetheless essential lessons that my spirit team guided me to share within these pages.
To get the most out of this book, I have a few basic suggestions. First, I invite you to read with an open mind. Some of the stories may appear fantastical, and they are, but they are also real. Next, there is no need to take notes, because I believe some of these pages you will want to read over and over to help you in times of need. I include three exercises at the back of the book that will help you to fully absorb and integrate the wisdom that is here and start a new life today. Most of all, I want you to be able to relax and enjoy the journey.
PREPARE FOR SUNNY SKIES
Now that I understand the lessons in this book, I am able to fully enjoy my life, to enjoy the great adventure. I don’t have to hold my breath, hoping for sunny skies, fearing the next storm, wondering why I don’t have the life I want. The life I want is mine. I wish that for you, too.
By my recounting my story and taking you along on my journey of discovery, I hope you will be led to understandings and insights that bring you unimaginable peace and joy.
Diana ColeSpring 2020
Part I
CONNECTING WITH SPIRIT
Chapter 1
OTHERWORLDLY BEGINNINGS
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
I am an open channel who communicates with spirit and then translates their messages to you. This communication happens vibrationally and with total clarity. Spirit, to me, is the allness of energy—the invisible, the visible, the everything. This energy holds all wisdom, all love, and all answers. I have the ability to communicate with collections of this energy. I have psychic sensitivities that I have lived with my entire life, and yet, until recently, almost no one knew this about me. I had been protecting myself by appearing to be bulletproof, but in fact, I am porous—absorbing every emotion, energy, and thought frequency I encounter. I’d been told many times that I should share my abilities with others, but instead I had been holding myself in a space of privacy. For a long time, I even tricked myself into thinking I was “normal” by focusing on my ordinary daily to-do lists or on mindless entertainment and fun.
But here is the truth: I am never in silence; I hear subtle sounds and frequencies around me that are beyond those that naturally emanate from either nature or man-made things. What I often hear is more easily distinguished as a musical note progression or sometimes verses repeated over and over. I used to complain to my parents that I could hear electricity. It would become annoying and distracting. This, my father said, is a gift. He said, “If you are someone who can see what others cannot or hear what others cannot, you are being called to heal and you must act on this calling.”
My receptivity to sound frequencies and tones increases exponentially when I am communicating with spirit. I believe that my ability to hear in this way is a message to me that I am in alignment with the non-physical world. Since my dad passed in 2017, these sounds have changed, with their qualities becoming more nuanced and the volume being raised. It’s almost as if he is helping to increase and refine my abilities to receive communication from the other side.
My olfactory receptors work overtime. My sense of smell is so keen that I have physical reactions to most scents. I can smell people; I smell their energy. I smell good intentions and bad intentions, which can make scrolling through social media and watching the news tough for me. Some nights, my sense of smell is so great that my sleep is disrupted by the many odors wafting in from outside or those being emitted by the rugs, the fabrics, and even the walls of my house. Everyone I meet leaves a scent with me. If I stay in a hotel room, I can smell the energy of the guests who stayed there just before me. There is an emotion or a feeling attached to every scent I inhale. To put it plainly, I can smell the problems and the pain that people are carrying.
I can “taste” people vibrationally. I remember the first time I was aware of this sensation. When I was young, my father ran a center for handicapped children in the San Francisco Bay Area. He would take me on occasion to meet the children who were there. It was my first exposure to kids with severe Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other debilitating conditions. I was nine years old when I told my father one day that I could no longer make those visits with him. When he asked me why, I told him that I could taste the children in my mouth and that I was overcome with this flavor. This made me sad because I wanted to help them. He told me they did not need my help, assuring me that they were happier than most people because they were all pure love. He said that what I was tasting was a strong positive energy, which was a crucial distinction for me to begin to understand as I was growing into my extrasensory abilities. Today I taste some people so strongly it overtakes me. I can taste when people feel truly happy about what they’re doing and joyously aligned with themselves. And I can taste when people are sick or dying. When I visit hospitals, I can taste the patients, and so it works best if I keep my visits short. I have always known when someone close to me is going to die. I can taste it first. I taste physical conditions and emotional disharmony with a strong flavor that is as intense as the way one’s mouth tastes after smoking a cigar. I have had to work hard to modulate this ability and to shut it off sometimes.
My sense of feel is the strongest of all my senses. I feel everything. I feel all people, all things physical and non-physical. I feel the emotions of my pets. I feel the non-verbal communications of people here in the physical world and those who have passed. I feel the ocean when I am near it. I feel the trees when I turn my attention to them. I know this is a gift, but I must admit that it has also been a curse at times. Until recently, this ability made it almost impossible for me to socialize in most crowds. Even now, I am still unable to go to certain parties or social events. When people are focused on me, I feel them in a very pronounced way.
I especially feel people who have passed when I am with someone they loved when they were physical—someone they continue to love from beyond the veil. I have never considered myself a medium, but on occasion I receive messages to deliver to the loved ones who are still here. I see scenes from other places, scenes from the past, the future, the unknown; I can see where people are in space and time. And from where I am looking, where all of us are in time and space is a delicate and precious moment that passes quickly. I don’t attach too much to the present other than gratitude, because I believe that this present moment isn’t all there is. There is a bigger story giving rise to everything we see in front of us right now.
I feel the emotions of other people. I feel strong waves of emotion such as sadness, fear, and loneliness, as well as the calm stillness of happiness. I feel people who are looking at me and people who are talking to me. I also feel those who are a great distance away from me simply by thinking of them. I have found through my spirit translation readings that when I am asked a question through email, I feel the asker, even if we have not yet met each other. In the asking, I am given permission to step into their energy field. Once I do that, I feel their gifts, their hopes, their barriers to happiness, and who they dearly miss. I can feel their pain in my physical body.
I am in communication with a group of non-physical energies that is a part of source energy and that holds the knowledge of human consciousness. I have come to know this group as my spirit team. The strongest of these energies is the one who comes toward me to address questions and answers; this is my spirit guide. I feel the messages I receive and the conversations I have with both my spirit team and my spirit guide with more clarity than I experience verbal communication with another person. This communication comes to me in blocks of thought or condensed information that is exceptionally coherent and clear. The practical meaning and energy being transmitted is unobstructed by human concerns and also amplified by my spirit guide. Because my spirit team is a collection of non-physical energies who are not bound by the density of the physical world, I can feel them strongly. I feel the energy of the group, and when the group changes I can feel it. I feel what I am being told with a clear knowing. I get inspiration and new ideas from this knowing place.
I communicate with my spirit guide every day. She hovers over the left side of my body, and she is there any time I ask. She can be summoned in an instant. In fact, we are so practiced at communication now that I can feel her come forward in the middle of my request. It’s as quick as a thought. I refer to her as “she” because my spirit guide is a feminine energy. I have known her since I was four years old, and she translates all other non-physical energy to me in a way that I can speak it or write it. She is the gatekeeper and can summon others. When I meditate or practice a deep-breathing exercise, or when I am very still, I can feel her blended into my energy. I feel this blending tactilely at first, like a smooth stone being placed in the palm of my hand. Sometimes I feel her so intensely that I can almost see her floating over me and smiling. Her boundless understanding, care, and love make everything more vivid. Though I may have unique abilities, spirit is available to everyone. Our spirit guides are present and willing to communicate with us, if only we pause and find the clarity to speak with them.
I have uncovered these abilities slowly over time. I have always known I possess something different than most, but until I was able to be still enough to recognize that they are, in fact, gifts, I wasn’t able to embrace them. I was practiced at ignoring them or pushing them down so I could function like normal people do. I’ve always felt strange or out of place but didn’t want to. My feelings are so sensitive that I’m challenged by some kinds of relationships. I cannot engage in social chatter with people who intend to harm, or who have bad intentions toward me or someone else. In the past, I would easily get caught in the crosshairs of other people’s energy, unable to hold my own energy without merging it with what I was feeling around me. For this reason, my friend circle has always been very small. Today I still have to be mindful of my energy, remembering that it can get depleted quickly and making sure that I spend time alone to replenish myself.
I now understand that of the eight clair senses, or spiritual psychic senses, I possess seven: clairvoyance (clear seeing), claircognizance (clear knowing), clairaudience (clear hearing), clairempathy (clear emotional feeling), clairsentience (clear physical feeling), clairsalience (clear smelling), and clairgustance (clear tasting). These spiritual senses are different from the five common senses that most humans have—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. These basic five senses help us perceive and make sense of the physical world. The spiritual senses are more subtle and are intended to help us to connect with and make sense of the non-physical world, yet they often get pushed aside or ignored. As I get older, these senses are becoming more and more heightened.
It is believed that people usually inherit the gifts of their parents or other close ancestors. My psychic and empathic gifts, I believe, are inherited from my father, who possessed all eight of the clair senses. Unapologetically and masterfully, my father practiced his gifts on a daily basis—doing so for himself, for me, for our family, and for his patients. He nurtured in me the gifts he himself was a faithful guardian of.
* * *
To say that growing up the way I did was unusual would be an understatement. My upbringing was otherworldly. I didn’t realize it as a child, of course. But I realize it now. Seeds of awareness were planted then that are now in full bloom. Being raised in the early 1970s during the burgeoning New Age movement in the San Francisco Bay Area, I encountered a luminous cast of characters in the early days of my life journey. My father was a prominent physician and spiritual pioneer whose colleagues and peers were some of the great leaders of that era in the fields of meditation, prayer, personal development, and the evolution of consciousness—people such as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the renowned pioneer in the field of death and dying; Swami Muktananda, the founder of Siddha Yoga; and Werner Erhard, creator of est. I have vivid memories of being a young child in a progressively spiritual household—and in the wake of my father’s powerful journey. He was a living example of everything he taught me and everyone else around him, including his friends, clients, and students. He taught us how to listen to ourselves, how to go inside to find answers, and how to look at life itself as our greatest adventure.
I loved when my father’s friends would come to our house. They would meditate, chant, and talk about fascinating subjects, like helping people to find the god within. Often they would sit for long periods of time without speaking, perfectly comfortable in the silence. It was fun for me to be quiet and listen—listening to what was stirring within and around me. It was during these gatherings, as they each talked about their meditative experience, that I first realized my father had ways of sensing and knowing that were different from most people. There was a mythical quality about him, like a timeless warrior who was here to teach from the wisdom traditions of past, present, and future.
Throughout my childhood, my dad had offices in various parts of the Bay Area, including an office at home. He was completely devoted to his patients and would get calls at all hours of the day and night, often helping people over the phone rather than making them wait for an in-office visit. On one particular day, I sat in the chair in front of my dad’s desk, quietly listening to his call with a patient while also trying to distract him so he would hang up and hang out with me.
When he got off the phone, he asked me why I was trying to get his attention.
“I want to be your patient. I have problems, too!” I asserted, my four-year-old self trying to sound big.
He smiled and asked about my problems. I told him I wasn’t sure what they were, but I needed him to figure it out. He pulled his chair from behind his desk and sat next to me. He asked if I wanted to talk to little Diana to find out how she felt.
I was confused. “I am little Diana!” I told him.
“No,” he said calmly, “you are big Diana. Little Diana lives in your belly and always knows how you feel and what you need.”
He asked me to put my hands on my belly so I could talk to her. He asked me to ask my belly what I needed to feel better. Several ideas and images bubbled up.
After a few minutes of my describing what I was seeing, which included a variety of images—from napping in the sun with my favorite stuffed animal to drinking a glass of cold chocolate milk—he asked, “Which idea makes you feel like you have butterflies in your belly?”
“Chocolate milk!” I told him.
“Good!” he said. “Then you know what you need to feel better. You always know what you need; you just have to slow down long enough to listen.”
I asked, “Why does my belly know?”
He replied, “Because your belly is your feeling center; your soul lives in your belly.” I didn’t understand what my soul was, but I liked my soul because it got me chocolate milk.
This was my first experience in learning that my belly is my feeling center. Everything I feel, I feel in my belly. The soul lives in the belly. This was a revelation that I wouldn’t consciously understand until much later. However, this point of connection between the invisible world and the physical world would eventually be one of the great keys to understanding how to live well.
* * *
My father taught lectures and led trainings that delved into fascinating mysteries of the mind and spirit and explored the depths of meditation practice. I faithfully participated and did the exercises that he taught, even though I was too young to be taken seriously. I wanted to soak up everything possible. One of my favorite lectures was one my dad conducted regularly on the subject of “Mind Trips.” This lecture included the guided journey my father would instruct people through in order to go deeper into meditation and deeper into themselves, just as he always practiced with me in our meditation room at home. During these Mind Trip exercises, I would wander through fields and clouds and would meet my spirit guides. I would talk to the all-knowing force inside me so that I could learn where I came from and discover my potential.
As he was a Harvard-trained physician and modern mystic, many of my dad’s teachings and views were too advanced for me to grasp most of the time, but I loved how it felt to stretch myself—how it felt to try to understand. One of the skills I most enjoyed learning from him was thought communication. He told me that there were times long ago when people could communicate through thought alone. He also explained that animals still communicate this way and that the spirit world communicates with us primarily through thought. We would play a game where he would give me a picture of someone and ask me to “read their energy.” He was mentoring me in how to sense and then describe the subtleties of their energy—the vibrational frequencies of the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs they were holding and therefore emanating.
“You can read people’s energy by looking at them, even in a photo,” he promised. He was exceptional at this and showed me how we can all read the energy of others, especially their feelings and thoughts, without the use of language. I learned that thought itself is a language and perhaps the only language we really hear. The words that may accompany thoughts are sometimes in line with what we think and feel, and sometimes are not.
“Verbal communication is not always accurate,” he taught me.
This was one of the pivotal lessons I learned during those early years, although I didn’t understand at the time how important it would become to me. I loved every moment of our informal curriculum when I was a child, but it just seemed like a curious adventure to me then. I had no idea that all roads would lead directly to where I am today—a spirit translator. And I certainly never would have guessed that I would love it as much as I do.
But this is a love that would take time to blossom.
* * *
As I grew into young adulthood, I wanted to find my own way. I wanted to discover my own voice, and so I rebelled. Does that sound familiar to you, too? I rejected what I had learned about metaphysics and spirituality and moved to Los Angeles to live a “normal” life. I wanted to see the world and have normal friends. I thought I knew what normal looked like. My mom was normal, and still is. She doesn’t meditate or concern herself with the inner workings of herself or the world. She makes yummy food, drinks pretty martinis, and enjoys what comes her way on any given day. That, I determined, was a good way for me to proceed.
The people I knew who questioned the nature of reality and who possessed real depth of understanding about the world seemed troubled when they looked around and saw people living in despair. I would hear about how “people need to shift, to change, to live more fully.” Honestly, this seemed heavy, like a big downer for a girl who wanted to go out with carefree friends, dance, have fun, and drink champagne in a big, sparkling city. I somehow believed that people who did not sit in contemplation or consider greater truths were happier. Like ignorance is bliss. If you don’t ask the big questions, you can skate by on the surface ice of fun and freedom—freedom from the weight of knowing there is more, something bigger, some larger truth that binds us all. I wanted to break those ties and live on the surface where it seemed people were enjoying life, without any hocus-pocus.
I had been awake to my power, to the power that lives in us all, and I shut it off to fit in. But you know the old saying, Be careful what you wish for. My wish was for normalcy and so that was what I chose. Yet big choices and decisions come with big consequences. Not surprisingly, pushing down who I was and trying to disguise myself as “normal” brought me to my emotional low. I fell asleep for a long period of time, but life would do its very best to wake me up again.
Copyright © 2020 by Diana Cole.