When I first decided to start a blog, I thought about how great it would be to include interviews with people I wanted to support, people whose work I felt was interesting and important, and those I didn’t know, but felt compelled to learn more about. It seemed like a lofty goal, but one that I held in the back of my mind for months.
I recently had the opportunity to connect with Colette Baron-Reid and I immediately got the signal that I shouldn’t wait any longer to begin a series of interviews for this blog. I emailed her and she quickly responded that she’d be delighted to chat! I was very excited to have a conversation with her, and I’m delighted now, to bring that conversation to you.
Colette Baron-Reid is an intuitive, coach, educator and author. She’s given talks and taught workshops and intensives in the U.S., Canada and Europe. With a background in metaphysics, transpersonal and Jungian psychology, she’s worked with more than 35,000 people over the course of her career, spanning more than two decades. She engages and empowers her clients to live a life that is “awake and authentic” and to create a reality that is prosperous, deliberate and meaningful. She has been featured in magazines, and on radio and television shows too numerous to list here!
Colette also currently hosts her own radio show on CBS New Sky Radio, so don’t forget to tune in~
Fun Stuff—Getting to Know Colette
One place that Colette hasn’t yet visited in the world, but would like to see:
“I would love to see the Isle of Skye in Scotland or the Heberdees. I’ve always wanted to go up there. I think England and Scotsland nd Ireland are three places that are really dear to my heart.
But I particularly love the rugged terrain of Scotland and I’ve seen photographs of it and I’d really love to go there.
The other place I really want to go is The Fjords in Norway and Finland. But really the Isle of Sky is my fav.”
Colette’s favorite food:
“I love all food, I’m a total foodie, it’s hard to pick. But if I were to say… I love apples. I love Macintosh apples with organic cheddar cheese.”
Colette’s favorite movie is:
“Avatar. Hands down.”
Colette’s favorite book is:
“I don’t have a favorite book. I would say right now the favorite book I have—because I have a bunch of them going—is called the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.”
Do you prefer the term “spirit” or “God” or “source energy” or “universe” when you talk about the underlying force of life?
“I like to play around with the words. God for me has a connotation of the white punitive man in the sky that I don’t adhere to, so I like to say spirit because spirit means that there is a…and I like source, too. I sometime say universe, but I really do like the idea “spirit” being that spirit does not know the boundaries of religion and there’s a connotation sometimes when I say the word ‘God.’
But, for me, I believe that there is a spiritual force that makes everything work, that unifies all of us. The greater consciousness is something that I think about a lot because it’s really a big basis for my work.”
One thing that always connects Colette with spirit and/or source energy:
“One thing…wow there’s so many! One thing: walking by the ocean. Going for a walk down by the ocean is the exact thing I need to do, and believe it or not—driving my car. Driving my car and thinking about spirit. But definitely my first inclination is true, walking in nature, but walking by the ocean.”
One little known interesting fact about Colette that she would like to share with readers:
“I love my motorcycle. Maybe a lot of people don’t know this about me, that I ride a Harley. I ride a Harley named ‘Ruby’ and I feel so connected to spirit when I ride my Harley. And I feel completely empowered. I just really love motorcycles. I love Harley Davidson motorcycles. I ride a Softail Deluxe. It’s a big bike!”
Then I asked Colette about her Wisdom of the Hidden Realms Oracle Cards, a deck that I also use myself. I chose a few of the cards I felt were the most powerful:
If The Diamond Dreamer could dream anything for all of humanity, what would he dream?
“He would dream that all of us would share. That were we ensure that prosperity would be something that would be shared with everyone, because I believe that there should be no hungry people on this planet. The Diamond Dreamer would ensure that it was a given that we…if each one of us were to share $1 we could feed the entire planet. I think it’s as simple as that.
That there be built into our economic and our social structure that we must tithe so that the less fortune people could be empowered to create a reality for themselves that is more prosperous.
If the diamond dreamer could dream a dream he would also see that greed would not be considered prosperity, that again, prosperity is in the sharing. Whether it be wisdom or opportunity, whether it be… I believe also that every single being would be supported to be their most creative self so that one person’s prosperity could help another’s dignity.”
And greed is really coming from lack, yes, from fear?
“Yes absolutely. We live in a society where our economic impulse is based on the idea that there is not enough and that we must consume constantly in order for us to feel good. It really is economics, our entire world works on pushing us to consume more and more and more because that’s just the way things are made.
I love to spend and then I like to share, so there’s something about—that there would be more of an egalitarian viewpoint about the spreading of wealth—without losing an individual’s opportunities for advancement.
In other words I’m not a communist, but the more successful you become—that every person who becomes successful must help someone else become successful. So that’s a lot for The Diamond Dreamer!”
Yes! Dream Big!
“Dream big and help others dream big, too.”
What is The Sun Dancers favorite dance step? Polka? Tango? Flamenco?
“Gang Nam style! And belling dancing!”
What do you hope that The Dragon’s Duel will teach people about duality?
“That whatever we focus on becomes our ‘God,’ and that when we duel within ourselves—whenever there is conflict, there is always—because The Dragon’s Duel talks about self conflict—that whatever we feed will become the strongest and that detachment, that when we’re faced with conflict, the greatest opportunity we have to understand the nature of this conflict is to become detached and neutral before we act.
It’s also that duality is what we come in to learn. That one is neither good nor bad. There are consequences to absolutely everything. What we consider positive, what we consider destructive—but everything is just everything.”
Over what domain does The Shadow Queen reign and how does one appease her or connect with her?
“The shadow queen rules the world of goblins and she rules that which we want to disown in ourselves—and the things that we push into the dark—or the things that are just not present to us in our thinking minds that constantly bring us into conflict and difficulty or trouble in our lives. She also rules over patterns—self-limiting patterns.
She also points the way in that—so the shadow queen as an ally is someone who brings in the idea of learning, so she’s a teacher. She teaches us to look into the shadow without fear and to see what we can discover there, because it is in discovering who we are there—that’s where we are our most vulnerable. Because what we do not know, what we can’t bring into consciousness can actually hurt us.
But once we know it and we’re willing to own it—we name it, we claim it, we own it—it therefore no longer is frightening to us, and then the light can be shone into those dark places.
Our most powerful epiphanies will come when we visit there and when we can heal there.”
What does The Phoenix whisper about change and transformation and what does it set aflame?
“Each day we have an opportunity to reinvent ourselves. When we repeat the past over and over again, we get the exact same thing. The Phoenix bird rises up out of its own ashes anew and it comes out of death, and death brings us transformation.
We mustn’t be afraid to let things that don’t work for us anymore go. Out rooted ideas and people, places, things, ideas, ideologies that area not life supporting—they need to die in order to be born again.
People are afraid of change and The Phoenix bird says: Don’t be afraid of change, and don’t be afraid of death because beauty comes out of those things—and new life.
And just like the death of wintertime, spring comes after that. It reminds us that there are cycles of life. Things are always in the process of change.”
I also asked Colette about her Oracle Cards that complement her book The Map:
Can you share a helpful strategy for getting to the Golden Palace (23) or elsewhere, when someone is currently in the Ghostlands (#17)?
“That’s an interesting question because you’re asking how do they get to The Golden Palace, when if someone is trapped in The Ghostlands it means they may be they are too future focused or overly ambitious and only fixated on the result, without allowing spirit to show how that’s going to show up for them.
They could get too attached to the form instead of allowing the essence to show itself. And the same thing with over-nostalgia or holding on to the past or guilt or shame about the past, that can also trap us in The Ghostlands because [there] we lose all our power to create.
The Golden Palace is a co-creative experience where the root of our thoughts, feelings and beliefs in that moment will show us in the world of conditions what we have manifested.
The golden palace also talks about value and wealth to a degree. Basically the treasure chest that you discover comes from when you are rooted in your joy, and in your creativity and in your purpose that comes to you, sometimes, just by staying present in the moment. Most of the time by being present in the moment and looking at the next right action in the shorter term than it is in the big picture; I am going to plan these big, giant things.”
And so shifting from either projecting into the past or the future, into being in that “now” moment…?
“In the now everything is possible. In the now everyone has all the powers in the world—when they remain in the now. Like they say in Alcoholics Anonymous: Anyone can fight the battles in just one day.”
When someone is moving from the known Into the Unknown (#7), what are some ways to keep the Goblins (#5) in check?
“The goblins represent fear, so the goblins are the voice of fear, the voice of self-reproach, the voice also that exists within us. These are active parts of our personalities that have been wounded.
When we are wounded, that part of us resists change because then it won’t have any life. So we don’t resist them, we acknowledge them b/c they carry a lot of power and they have a lot of beauty to show us—if we pay attention to them—because those are the parts that need to be reclaimed.
Often times, when we are stuck in to The Ghostlands we are projecting in to the future because we refuse to acknowledge what’s happening to us in the present. And we go over it like a broken record about the past.
The goblins are more likely to overrun the village when we’re not present in the moment, and when we’re unable to just ‘be’.”
What does the Magic Stream (#18) have the potential of washing away? What does it nourish with its waters?
“The Magic Stream reminds us that there’s an ebb and flow of all life and water flows…and the stream of consciousness, and we connect to the stream of all things…
When we are tuned into the Magic Stream—or when the Magic Stream shows up for us, for example—it washes away everything because nothing exists in the static form. Nothing remains exactly the same.
It’s an opportunity for us to flow, basically to go with the flow and to experience new things and to remain in curiosity and it washes away the untruths that we tell ourselves about ourselves.
It washes away our unworthiness, it washes away when we consider that we are without value.
It washes away guilt and shame b/c we see that we are just co-creative beings doing the best that we can and we see that we can always start again—that’s the other thing—it always reminds us that this is a never-ending stream of life experience and each moment is a new moment.”
When someone is Flying (#20) what can they see from an aerial point of view?
“They see that every place that you exist is just another place on a vast map so that when you fly and you’re able to see a bigger picture, b/c you are not in anything, specifically, you have a much broader vista, and literally you have a distance between yourself and a more detached freer sense of things. You move over obstacles rapidly.”
I also asked Colette about patterns of addiction because I feel that many in our society struggle with this pattern. I can spot it right away in my readings with clients on Souls Journey Lightworkers, and I see it firsthand as an epidemic in our culture. Personally, I smoked cigarettes for a time, and after having quit years ago, I find these patterns a curious phenomenon, and something that signals a spiritual crisis. I often think to myself about the magnitude of potential that goes untapped when addiction is chosen instead.
Here’s what Collette had to say:
How do you feel that spiritual crisis manifests as addiction?
“An addiction comes in many forms. I’ve been in recovery for 27 years. I am an ex-addict, alcoholic, myself, so I’ve struggled with addiction all my life. I’ve been sober and clean all this long, but I’ve also had issues around food and sex and all kinds of stuff, so I think it is a spiritual malaise and very deeply rooted in our cultural wound at the moment.
Because we’re being taught over and over again that there’s not enough and that there won’t be enough, or that there is a need for us to jump away from the moment because we’re bombarded and assaulted by so much information all the time, that we get caught in that moment of ‘medicine,’ if you will, and then it turns against us.
I think people turn to substances because it’s more of a modern illness right now because it’s part of the modern social dilemma of needing to escape the moment at all costs.”
How does that manifest as a subordinate to the now? I think that any kind of addiction is sort of the “maya”—this illusion of being taken out of body—it seems like you’re being put into a more amplified sense of the now, but I think that’s illusion.
“You are and you’re not. You’re altering the now. Originally people turn to substances to alter their now. They want to get out of the now and into a new and different now that they can control through a substance so that they can be somehow elevated to a different perspective.
It’s a sensory experience, too, people use it [substances] because it feels good in the beginning and then it doesn’t anymore, and then they can’t stop because it becomes a physiological or chemical addiction.
But it is always about refusing to be present to the truth of the moment and is always about lying.
I think, too, that people want quick fixes and they want to get out of their discomfort immediately and they don’t want to spend time to self reflect and to surrendering to what is, if they can avoid it. It’s a way to avoid being accountable.
It’s happening to everybody, it’s either cigarettes, it’s alcohol, it’s pot, it’s sex, it’s power, it’s consumerism, it’s shopping.
Addiction is the extreme way that our society manages the assault of our society.
It’s a way to numb out or a way to feel more, it’s different, it depends on what you’re addicted to, but bottom line is, it’s all about escaping from where you really are.”
When I read for clients, what I’m seeing is that what comes through, it’s not that the frequency is higher, but it’s like there’s a more frequent pulsation in the energy—the pattern is repetitive.
“Addiction is repetitive, that’s the nature of it. It’s to chase something that never happens again. It’s repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
For those who are in the midst of the spiritual crisis of addiction, what is the best advice that you can provide to them to help step out of the repetitive energy that keeps them stuck in that space?
“They have to hit bottom. They have to surrender to the fact that this is true and that they are powerless, that they only way an addict can stop using is to admit they are powerless over that thing that they are addicted to and there is only a power greater than themselves that’s beyond willpower that can help them and I really believe since it’s a spiritual crisis, it needs a spiritual solution.
I really believe that the best place for people to go that have addictions is a 12 step program, or whatever spiritual…I just know that 12-step programs are specifically designed for addiction.
There has to be a spiritual piece to that solution, not just: ‘I’m going to stop now.’
It’s: ‘I’m killing myself, I really am.’
Or: ‘I’m completely powerless over this.’
And then you stay off of it one day at a time.”
I was also excited to talk with Colette about her coaching program, which is one of the newest pieces to her body of work.
What would you like readers to know about your Master Intuitive Coach Institute? For whom is this program a good fit?
“MICI was born out of a series of intensives I held in Sedona, Arizona, so there’s a whole evolution of these ideas that happened there, where I started working with the fragmented selves and being able to reclaim them—and then seeing the world as a map.
And then the book The Map came out, and the content of The Map, the IN-Vision® process, became a trademarked process that I decided to train coaches in, in how to work with other people, so that when they were able to use this methodology, they could first of all, be able to help their client completely de-stress in a very short period of time, and also show them a place of neutral objectivity and observation that they could access within them, in order to become the most authentic empowered version of themselves.
I train coaches in 6 different modules—one of them is called Weight Release Energetics, which is connected to my new book, that’s coming out in January, called Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much.
I train coaches to use the IN-Vision® process and work with clients who are struggling with their issues around their food and their weight, and have particularly hypersensitivity to the assault of the world and they are highly empathic, so they work with those people.
I have another module called Heart Dynamix, so it’s holistic, what I’m teaching people. We apply the IN-Vision® process to wealth, right-livelihood, creativity, kids, Intuition Divination Dynamix is one of the modules, and Relationships. But we specifically separate out the subjects and coaches can decide which are the ones they will use are their primary coaching skill set.
People who sign up, and the people who are best, are compassionate people who are interested in being successful at a business that enables them to use a slightly ‘woo woo’ technique, that no one else has, because I’ve trademarked it, to be able to work one-on-one with clients, people who are already coaches take to this like a duck to water.
People who are already in the healing arts, intuitives, people who have some knowledge or educational background in psychology; we have a few psychologists and a couple professors, who are my students.
People who are just genuinely interested in making a living as a coach with a twist; so it is life coaching but it’s very specific—it’s very, very specific.
It’s not general; we teach a very specific process and it’s powerful!”
Do you find that there are some folks that will want to do all the modules?
“Absolutely! People sign up for the entire year. We’ll certify people who just want to do IN-Vision® and one module, but the people who are most successful do the entire year.”
The MICI certifies in the following specific modules:
Wealth Energetix®
Divination Dynamix®
Weight Release Energetix®
Heart Dynamix®
Creativity Energetix®
Intuitive Kids®
To learn more about Colette’s Master Intuitive Coach Institute, click here.
At the end of our converstation, I asked Colette what she would like to leave readers with and here are her closing words:
“Just play nice in the sandbox and don’t take yourself seriously! We only live one life—that we know of at a time. Seriously, seriously, seriously: take what you do seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously.
Be willing to laugh at that absurdity of life—and be kind. Be kind to yourself and be kind to others.”
I’m honored to present this interview and hope that you look forward to future interviews as well! I already have a few more lined up, so check back soon—or even better—subscribe!
