Pay Up and Shut Up

Today I want to share something that happened very recently, and touch a little on Russia, because a few things about it reminded me of that country. You could say I encountered Russia in miniature. Let me explain a little about the current situation in Russia so you understand why I saw it that way. I’ve never been particularly interested in politics, so I’m speaking from my own perspective. This is simply how I see things, based on what I know.

There is no freedom of speech in Russia. It exists only on paper, in the constitution. If you publicly speak out against those in power, you could end up in prison at best. At worst, you could end up dead. The opposition to the current government has already been wiped out, one way or another. Elections are just a formality.

The thought of going back there terrifies me. Being part of the LGBTQ community essentially makes me an extremist already. Publicly speaking about my identity could mean not just a fine, but criminal penalties. I’m also part of the childfree movement. In that case, the penalties are limited to fines. A little less severe, yes, but still: God forbid you say anything about it that makes it sound appealing. That’s already “propaganda.”

Basically, if you don’t like something, sit down and shut up. You have no right to challenge whoever is in power, because they’re always right. In my view, Russia has already become a dictatorship, a totalitarian regime, and the Iron Curtain is being rebuilt, more and more, all over again.

Now, let me tell you where I encountered something similar.

I decided to work through the negative subconscious patterns and blocks that were keeping me from earning more, so I joined a course about money led by a woman from Russia. Let’s call her N. She claimed to be both a psychologist and an esoteric practitioner who could channel information from an energetic “flow.” That eventually turned out to be bullshit, of course, but I’ll get to that.

At first, I believed her. Then, out of nowhere, she paused the course and went on vacation. Around that time, everyone in the course started struggling financially, while she was doing just fine. It felt as though she was taking something from us, energetically, of course. After that, my trust in her gradually began to disappear. I wanted to finish the course as soon as possible, leave that collective energetic field, and disconnect from the egregore that had formed there. I felt as though nothing would improve until I got out. As though she was taking something from me. Little by little, things started coming up in the group chat that I disagreed with. Why should I agree with something that isn’t true?

The most glaring mistake she made was saying that energetic capacity equals financial capacity. Even an idiot can see that those are different things. To put it simply, financial capacity is part of your overall energetic capacity. But you can have enormous energetic capacity and still have very little capacity for money, which makes it difficult to hold on to it even when it comes in.

I wrote several messages in the chat. But the moment I pointed out that mistake and said that, since we were taking a course about money, perhaps we should be expanding our financial capacity, her followers came after me and started defending her. They had put her on a pedestal. They accused me of being disrespectful and told me to create my own course if I was so smart. The argument ended with me saying I wouldn’t write another word in the chat. After that, two more women jumped in to defend her. I didn’t respond.

That was exactly where I saw Russia in miniature. You’re not allowed to challenge the teacher in that group, just as you’re not allowed to challenge the president in Russia. If you disagree, keep your mouth shut. You have no freedom of speech. Agreement is the only thing you’re allowed to express.

How did it all end? With me completely losing respect for N, both as a teacher and as a person.

When she started responding to the messages, she came out with absolute bullshit: that I had projected my mother onto her, and that the anger I was feeling was actually directed at my mother. Hearing that made me furious. I thought, “What the fuck does my mother have to do with this? What are you even talking about?”

At the beginning of the course, she had said she was a student just like the rest of us and was going through the course alongside us. But after my messages, she suddenly placed herself in the role of a teacher who must not be questioned and announced that she wouldn’t tolerate disrespect. Where, exactly, was the disrespect?

She never acknowledged her mistake about the difference between those concepts. Instead, she said we were doing deeper work, which was why we were expanding our energetic capacity. Sweetheart, going deeper would mean working on financial capacity, precisely because it’s one specific part of the whole.

Then she started saying it was all a gift. A gift? We all paid for this course. What fucking gift? Honestly, every one of her messages was complete bullshit. There’s no softer way to put it. Then she announced that the course wouldn’t end that week, as it was supposed to, but at the end of the following week instead. My first thought was that she was deliberately dragging it out so she could take more for herself.

First she went on vacation, then she bragged about all the gifts her husband had bought her, without saying a word about the fact that almost everyone in the group had seen their income drop. Then she said, “I’m a shoemaker who actually has shoes” (a reversal of the Russian saying “the shoemaker has no shoes,” about someone whose expertise benefits everyone but themselves). “I do the work for myself first, then for my clients.” Have you lost your fucking mind? Who even tells that? On top of it all, she kept bragging about how many positive reviews she had and how great she was. At the very least, that’s unprofessional. That’s arrogance. That’s pride.

Speaking of pride. During the course, I hit an emotional low and had suicidal thoughts that scared even me. I wrote about it in the chat. The thought was: I’d rather die than go back to working at the club. And here, the club really represents any job you hate.

Do you know what she said? “That’s pride.” Then she started feeding me bullshit about how, whenever she feels she’s becoming too prideful, she washes the floors in her apartment building’s common areas or wipes down the elevator mirror. From what I’ve seen, she clearly doesn’t recognize pride in herself. Those things have nothing to do with each other. I’d have no problem doing either of them. What does pride have to do with not wanting to work at a job you hate? I have no words. A client at serious risk of suicide could have taken their own life after a response like that.

In the end, I didn’t reply to her at all. When I got home, I immediately did a practice to disconnect from her egregore and left the group chat, which, to me, also meant leaving that collective field. Right afterward, I had an overwhelming urge to clean the entire house, physically and spiritually, and cleanse myself as well. It felt as though a lot of her energetic dirt had stuck to me.

Afterward, I started thinking it all through and questioning whether she could really channel information. And I turned out to be right: the tarot reading confirmed it. It was all psychology. I thought back to our one-on-one call. She couldn’t seem to pick up any information, kept asking me question after question, and said the flow was difficult to access. But the explanation was much simpler: she was having trouble reading me. Apparently, I’m not that easy to figure out.

The tarot reading also showed that this situation was her own karmic backlash, so to speak. It was a lesson she needed to work through herself. Whether she understood that or not is her problem. And her motives for running the course were purely self-serving: money.

As for me, this situation was clearly a lesson that it was time to stop all this inner work and simply take action. It was already time. I’d actually been feeling that myself. I just thought I might as well see the course through to the end. Either way, I’ll still get the remaining material and watch it whenever I feel like it. I stayed in the separate group where it’s posted. And since she isn’t actually channeling anything, my presence or absence won’t make any difference. At least no one is draining my energy and my resources anymore.

I see her as a charlatan now, and I can’t help it. I understand that she has knowledge, and that what she taught us, the things we worked through, did help. No question about that. But she wasn’t honest about everything. The very first lie was the promise of results. Later, she walked that back too, saying she’d never promised any results and that they wouldn’t come right away. It’s not that I was expecting some impossible miracle. But I did expect my financial situation to improve, at the very least, rather than get worse.

What I’m taking from all of this is that I’m glad I live in a country where freedom of speech is valued. And enough with the endless inner work already. It’s time to take action, lol.