The Night I Met Norman Lear — and the Lifelong Lesson of Never Giving Up

A single conversation with Norman Lear became a turning point — the day I understood that Love evolves each time we find the courage to speak our truth.

Detoxing emotionally is about noticing your patterns. A moment when we need to stop performing and start feeling. It’s not always pretty, but it’s always sacred.

We are all living a life filled with challenges to varying degrees because this is what we signed up for in this life. We agreed to learn how to go within in order to hear our highest self and translate it in everything we do in our life. I have experienced so many traumas in my life that pushed me to silence. Literally. Where those I was dependent on have left me emotionally, spiritually, physically, and as a result I stopped listening to myself because it didn’t matter. 

I know each of us has been silenced to some degree in our lives putting us in moments of deep reflection. What we begin to reflect on and to what extreme is the determining factor of how we will move forward energetically in our life. What will we allow to attach to us? I didn’t even know how to think about my experiences like this previously, but I do now. 

Where I had once detached from myself and others I have now been guided by my NDE and the hundreds of out of body experiences I had from 2012-2014 with wisdom I obtained while pulled into a different realm of reality than what I was raised with. As a matter of fact, it’s a different reality than anyone has been raised with on this planet. I say this with conviction because what I have engaged in with the other realm was unconditional Love in every interaction. No one ever judged me for being where I was at emotionally in any moment. They didn’t expect me to have mastered myself in order for Them to accept and Love me. Despite my being limited by what I didn’t know, I was treated equally. It was so comforting to feel over and over again. I was given various lessons and assignments that have profoundly changed my life. These participations I have had stayed with me and comforted me during my life since 2007. What I began paying attention to with more discernment was how I thought about experiences in my life previous to my NDE. I was given ‘golden nuggets’ of wisdom thrown my way by various contributors I didn’t even know personally. I’d like to share one with you now.

When I was 19 years old, a man had invited me to a party somewhere off of Mulholland Drive. As I was entering the home, I noticed how beautiful it was. It felt fancy. I say this because I grew up on a farm in Studio City literally across the street from the backside of CBS studios. So I thought about the approximate 800 square foot once barn converted into a home I was raised in. I share this to help give you perspective. I’ve always felt a little awkward when meeting new people, and this was one of those moments in my life. 

I was politely introduced to a few individuals and it became very clear very fast to me I was the youngest one at this party. The host was a woman who came across as being very nice when she greeted me with a warm welcome. She tried to help me feel as if I belonged there. I was surrounded by a bunch of older people who were 40’s and above age bracket. That was ancient to me then. So I figured out how to maneuver myself to the dark living room being lit only by the kitchen and the den attached to it. I went to sit on the couch by myself and began looking around the large living room. I looked at the pictures, the lights, the rug, and everything else that was placed very nicely around me. Then as luck would have it an older gentleman saw me from the kitchen and came to sit with me. My first thought was, “Oh my God. What was I going to say to this man?” He sat down on the couch with me and began talking.  He asked me my name, what I was doing in life, and where I was from. I engaged with him effortlessly because he was so easy to talk to. He came across as being very genuine. I shared with him I was studying production and writing in school. We spoke for about 20 minutes when it finally dawned on me that I didn’t know his name. So I said in a little bit of embarrassment, “I’m so sorry. We’ve been sitting here talking and I don’t even know your name.” 

He smiled and replied, “Norman Lear.”

“Your name sounds very familiar,” I said. 

Norman asked, “Have you ever heard of the shows ‘Good Times,’ or ‘All in the Family?’

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well I’m the creator of those shows,” he said in the most unassuming way. 

“I know why your name sounds familiar to me,” I announced, “We’re studying you in school right now.”

He smiled and asked, “What are they teaching you about me?” Of course I told him everything and we chatted a while longer. His final message to me was this, “What ever you do, don’t give up.”

Norman had no idea how encouraging his words were to me at that moment. I didn’t have parents who taught me things with intention. I’m not blaming them for anything because they didn’t know any better. But I was so appreciative for this stranger sitting with me and dropping that piece of wisdom on me. 

You’re probably wondering why I would share this particular encounter with you. Here’s why: What Norman Lear was so famous for bringing to the forefront matters of the time period that were happening. He was a catalyst to television.  His works introduced political and social themes to a platform where he could reach more through the art of storytelling. He was an activist and funded both liberal and progressive causes, and politicians. He founded the advocacy organization ‘People for the American Way’ to counter the influence of the Christian right in politics in 1981. Additionally he served in World War II in the United States Army Air Forces in Mediterranean theater as a radio operator and gunner of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. He even partook in bombing Germany. He was a Jewish man who stepped forward to be a part of stopping a strangulation happening in humanity on multiple levels. 

His translations of violations to mankind were being reminded through his television sitcoms. Norman was reminding us with seriousness being merged with humor about the realities of life. These were realities of people who were making decisions that had already affected us as a collective and were going to continue to do so if we didn’t pay attention differently. What happened to me and kept happening to me because of my NDE and OBE’s were lessons from the highest and Holiest frequency of Love realm teaching me about issues happening in our world. Norman helped bring to light the social themes and political issues of the 1960’s and 1970’s.  What I am sharing with you is a personal struggle in getting to a mindset of why I needed to pay attention to the matters of my life with a new set of eyes and ears. I needed to listen to me differently.

My life review helped me to understand myself in a way only a small percentage of our world have ever experienced. It may be uncommon, but it represents the reality I’ve lived and how I’ve gathered the wisdom to share with you now. 

I stood and watched my life play out before me as my personal movie with every moment of happiness, sadness, violation, deception, and so on. I even felt every moment again. This was a time for me to pay attention to the matters at hand that had happened to me. I was being detoxed with the steadiness of Love being emitted unconditionally by my guides who were standing with me. I learned it all happened for me. During this experience I was silenced on multiple levels within as I could hear what others were thinking and feeling in every moment I encountered with them. This was my first lesson in detaching with a greater understanding of what was actually happening in my life. I began to understand what Norman said to me, “Don’t give up.”

All of the pain I had swallowed and silenced by my own doing was the most profound encounter with myself I had not been introduced to yet. I was experiencing a personal shedding while at the same time being held by Love to feel the emotions of everything I lived and surrender to having no judgement of myself or anyone else.  This was a profound inner split of my human self with my highest soul self that was only the beginning to my healing. The purest form of me was a soul awareness when I began to step outside of my limited human, suffering self and observe with Love’s wisdom. This was far greater and stronger than my intellect and ego. I felt my sorrow transform. I was no longer the victim of my life, but an active participant who was starting to have empathy for me. I was at the beginning of learning to hold myself the way Love holds all things. Unconditionally, with consistency, and accountability. I couldn’t change what had already happened, but I could fix how I felt about the experiences by accepting each with a new understanding and awareness of how to behave toward myself and others. I was beginning to understand true compassion arises only when the silent witness within becomes aware of the voice that has been speaking all along. I could look at my own pain without judgement and say, “I see you, I hear you, and I Love you no matter what.” This was my initiation into Divine self-compassion. I could see Love as the being I am. I didn’t need to look outside for what was already in me. It was a moment when I recognized it hadn’t been discovered yet. 

It is my hope in sharing with you the conversation I had with Norman and my self-realizations sparked during my NDE, you can receive each of our messages. He never gave up Love for shining a light on the injustices that weren’t being heard, and I won’t stop articulating what Love is through my experiences. As Norman did, I too am conveying an inheritance of strength, endurance, and refusal to give up. I know we will both carry this mission throughout time. Love has entrusted me to move forward in every moment with its continuation. I was never supposed to silence myself in any way when I felt voiceless and unseen. I was always to partake in being an instrument of transformation through my articulation of Love inside of me to help continue the shift on deeper and deeper levels. My voice has always been sacred and so has yours. My self-expression is not tolerance but purpose. So is yours. I know now by sharing the scars of my life I am being an act of service to Love for who ever wants to listen. Every time I speak truth, express wisdom, or share my experiences, Love gains new form and understanding through me. Silence is not humility but suppression. My words are how Love reveals and refines itself. I speak a language that makes itself known in unseen dimensions within a human experience. By me choosing to keep speaking, I am both declaring Love and helping advance it. 

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