Natasha Thompson Oral History, 2022/07/26

Self Description: "Well, I'm an energy, one of my practices I do. I'm an energy therapist, and a hypnotherapist in Clarksville, Tennessee. And I also am really big on providing affordable housing, in our community, and outside of our community. And one of my biggest goals is to have an amazing retreat in Mount Shasta, California."

Some of the things we discussed include:
Working as an energy therapist and hypnotherapist.
Affordable housing advocacy; precognition about increasing rents; We Buy Houses; private housing advocacy vs. Section 8.
Tenets’ experiences with the pandemic.
An influx of people moving from cities into Clarksville.
Locals rallying together to keep small businesses open.
Bodily autonomy and personal choice.
Having lost a child that could not be saved by western medicine, learning medical advocacy, and turning to energy healing and natural medicines.
Witnessing father dying of cancer.
The murder of Michael Brown in 2014 as a moment of spiritual awakening.
Raised with Christianity, remembering we are bathed in the blood of the Lamb.
Recognizing God’s gifts; using those gifts.
Continuing to serve clients without interruptions from the pandemic.
Connecting with ancestors in dreams and waking states.
Previous experiences with corona viruses from growing up on a farm.
Staying out of fear and helping others stay out of fear; being a light for others.
Fear as a dangerous motivator.
WWII propaganda; comparisons of the government management of COVID-19 with the Nazi government.
Life without TV and the news.
Listening to clients without judgment.
Healthcare workers who lost their jobs over vaccination.
Living without fear and staying in love; unconditional love.
Increased compassion during the pandemic; people doing things they’ve always wanted to do; witnessing growth.

July 26, 2022

Kit Heintzman

Natasha Thompson

Kit Heintzman

English Health & Wellness

English Home & Family Life

English Social Issues

English Religion

Michael Brown

energy therapist

community

Christianity

ancestors

Bible

Black

breath

businesses

Christian

compassion

energy

fear

healing

housing

Jesus

love

meditation

precognition

propaganda

Nazis

spirituality

tenets

Tennessee

WWII

Black Voices

02/25/2023

07/26/2022

Kit Heintzman

Natasha Thompson

Clarksville

Tennessee

United States of America

Audio

English

01:09:07

Working as an energy therapist and hypnotherapist. Affordable housing advocacy; precognition about increasing rents; We Buy Houses; private housing advocacy vs. Section 8. Tenets’ experiences with the pandemic. An influx of people moving from cities into Clarksville. Locals rallying together to keep small businesses open. Bodily autonomy and personal choice. Having lost a child that could not be saved by western medicine, learning medical advocacy, and turning to energy healing and natural medicines. Witnessing father dying of cancer. The murder of Michael Brown in 2014 as a moment of spiritual awakening. Raised with Christianity, remembering we are bathed in the blood of the Lamb. Recognizing God’s gifts; using those gifts. Continuing to serve clients without interruptions from the pandemic. Connecting with ancestors in dreams and waking states. Previous experiences with corona viruses from growing up on a farm. Staying out of fear and helping others stay out of fear; being a light for others. Fear as a dangerous motivator. WWII propaganda; comparisons of the government management of COVID-19 with the Nazi government. Life without TV and the news. Listening to clients without judgment. Healthcare workers who lost their jobs over vaccination. Living without fear and staying in love; unconditional love. Increased compassion during the pandemic; people doing things they’ve always wanted to do; witnessing growth.

Natasha’s background.
0:02
How spirituality intersects with healing practices.
6:21
Learning about the holocaust in high school.
13:11
How do you create a safe space for healing?
20:55
What does the word health mean to you?
27:29
Working with affordable housing.
36:08
Why it’s private vs government funded.
42:08
The only tenant who paid back his rent.
47:47
Mentorship and the mentality shift.
55:12
The power of unconditional love.
1:01:22

Kit Heintzman 00:02
Hello, would you please state your full name, the date, the time and your location?

Natasha Thompson 00:08
My name is Natasha Thompson. It is July 26 2022. It is 11:59am and I am in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Kit Heintzman 00:20
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly released under Creative Commons License attribution noncommercial sharealike?

Natasha Thompson 00:31
Yes, I consent.

Kit Heintzman 00:33
Thank you so much. Would you please start by telling me a little bit about yourself? What would you want people listening this to this to know about you?

Natasha Thompson 00:42
Well, I'm an energy, one of my practices I do. I'm an energy therapist, and a hypnotherapist in Clarksville, Tennessee. And I also am really big on providing affordable housing, in our community, and outside of our community. And one of my biggest goals is to have an amazing retreat in Mount Shasta, California.

Kit Heintzman 01:16
Tell me a story about your life in during the pandemic.

Natasha Thompson 01:21
So during the pandemic, I see a story of my life during the pandemic. So in the beginning, I, I had a business that I ran for 20 years. And I had left that I had sold, I had bought out that business and I had started my energy therapy practice that we were just talking about, and Adam know where my husband wanted to get into assisting people with affordable housing. So I had to take like a W2 job to go and get income, you know, extra income for capital to get everything started for that avenue. And so four years of was it like almost four years of doing my energy theory practice to a month and a half after that, that's when the COVID had started. So I had just went back into the work. The I guess a W2 type of job. And that's when it had happened. And I remember when it happened, the first thing that I was, because I do a lot of meditation, the first thing that I heard was, you know, internally was, you know, stay out of any type of fear. And the story that stands out the most about the COVID, that experience with the pandemic was just being the light for so many people. I remember, our business was only close where I worked at for maybe a month, because I am in Tennessee. And there was a lot of activists here that kept our businesses open. But I remember when, I remember being in the light around people saying, you know, stay out of fear. You know, stay in love, stay in light, what is you know, God has to offer for you. So that's the main story that I remember. One of the a story that stood out about that incident was I was at work, and one of the guys was at work. And he was acting really nervous because you know, he was assisting customers. And prior to that he was really into the Bible. He read the Bible every single day. Like that's all he talked about was reading the Bible before the pandemic, and you know, me I was raised with Christianity. And he was acting, like really scared. And I said to him, you have the you have the blood of Jesus all over you. You remember your practices, he goes, You are right. And he just stopped. And that was constantly doing that for everybody around me. And so many people prosper. People purchase homes, and people got married and like found love and it was just a beautiful thing for me during that experience just watching people like grow through a fear they had and then seeing what reality is what's in front of me. You know, and just helping people work through the fear was just a beautiful thing.

Kit Heintzman 05:02
I'd love to hear more about your spiritual journey.

Natasha Thompson 05:08
So my spiritual journey started when I was younger, like a kid, I had very vivid dreams. And I've always could like go into people's dreams, but I thought everybody could do that, you know, I thought everybody could go and people drinks and come back. And you know, I thought that was completely normal. And until when I got until when I got older, I realized that, you know, a lot of people were not doing that. So it was just coming into the terms that, you know, God kind of gifts, everybody with different abilities. My spiritual journey really started when what really catapult me to what I do right now going full blown with my practices was when Michael Brown had got shot by that police officer. That was when I got pulled out of this reality. That was when he got shot. And the weirdest thing happened, he got shot in this girl, out of nowhere, came up to me and was like, did you hear about this guy getting shot. And I was looking around like, you know, I knew her but she just like she drove to the mall to tell me this. And then I started like, reese, then just Something just hit me with the police. And he had got shot. And he was laying in the street for six hours. I didn't even know that even half could happen. I'm just the whole, everything just seemed out of place like the the commissioner was coming out, saying that he that he had did something. But I'm like, Well, what this got, what does that have to do with him being shot in in the street? So all this is happening, and nothing's making sense to me like nothing. Everything's all out of order. You know, this life was taken and then you have people justifying why the life was taken. All this stuff like this whole, all this stuff is just like going around me. And I literally just walked outside, maybe five days after it had happened. And I looked, I walked outside and I looked up in the sky. And out of nowhere, I said to myself, wait a second. The sky is blue. It's always blue. Why is it blue? Wait, the sun comes out every single day? Why does the sun come out every single day? Why am I breathing? Well, I'm breathing without any cords attached to me. So all this and then I started going into this whirlwind of trying to find out about God and like all this stuff. It was that Michael Brown incident that led that that like that pain, it was such pain, witnessing that, that it just it just catapult me into what I do right now.

Kit Heintzman 08:52
Thank you so much for sharing that. With would you say more about how you see spirituality intersecting with healing practices.

Natasha Thompson 09:03
Oh, wow. I feel like I'm a really strong believer. And well, I know I'm not a believer. I feel like when you get to a certain age, you know, you know, because I've experienced, you know, my ancestors, you know, being around me. Their spirit, you know, seeing them in my dream seeing them, you know, in awakened states, you know, knowing that they're there. But before I the Michael Brown incident was there I was like in a cocoon of blindness. So after that happened, I feel like the the Spirit the spirituality is important because that is the unseen energy that affects a lot of people, especially the humans that come to me, they get caught up in what they see in front of them the materialistic things that they don't realize that that that energy of that of the that spirit is whats causing maybe them to be ill, or they have the spirits that are actually trying to assist them and their recoveries. I believe that it's I believe it's a huge part I would say during the healing process. I would say 70% of it is the spirituality.

Kit Heintzman 10:46
Do you remember when you first heard about COVID-19?

Natasha Thompson 10:55
I first heard about COVID night when I first heard about COVID-19. So I wouldn't have to say I first heard about the Coronavirus first and that was I heard about the corona virus because there were people saying you know, the Corona beer and the corona virus because I was raised on a farm growing up. That wasn't odd it was just something that you know, the animals got it was a regular like cold, it wasn't anything that was serious. I mean, you got you will get sick or whatever. So when it was a Coronavirus, it was like, you know, it was just the Coronavirus, you know, the a Corona? I don't. So it got so the word got changed to COVID Because a lot of people were not taking, you know, the word got changed to COVID Because a lot of people were aware of the Coronavirus from it, especially if you weren't lived on a farm that was an odd. So, the name just got changed to to COVID

Kit Heintzman 12:05
What were some of your early impressions of way of hearing about the Coronavirus, circulating, and it coming up in sort of context outside of the farm?

Natasha Thompson 12:26
So so my, so my earlier when they started coming out, it was triggering, for me, it was triggering when I was in school. And they were when I was in school, I was taught about the Nazis and Hitler and the things that certain powers do, to keep you know, the population under control and fear to keep them working to keep them in control. So when, when I kept when it kept changing, it just kept changing. And then it was triggering memories of things. It was like, I felt like it was a pattern of everything that I was taught in school just being recirculated. You know, I do remember that I remember their strong feeling of, of how the Nazis had got into power and how how the control it started with that type of fear. And then they started with that. And then they started implementing all types of control that was right in the beginning that felt that energy. That was my impressions was that.

Kit Heintzman 13:53
That's so interesting. I would love to learn more about what you learned about the Holocaust in high school.

Natasha Thompson 14:00
So I learned that you know, when you get older as a child, you know, you're just told what the writer of the, you know, the material observation of what, you know, what, what they wrote what they saw, and then some of the stuff was, you know, commentary of the actual people who were there in their, you know, oral interviews, and then some were from whoever was there, wrote from their perspective. So, how I took it, of my teachers teaching me about it was, there was a guy that got into power, and did these things and from my perspective, as a child, it was just him. It wasn't a group of people, it was just him. And he had all the control because that's, that was from a child eye, I was, I was told that this guy, Hitler, Hitler, you know, like, by himself, this is my mentality as a child in school, because I'm going back there had killed like 2 million Jews because they were different, you know. And that's what I was taught my, as a child, my person I was taught mostly it was, the Jews were just being killed. As I got older, I realized there was a lot more people that got killed. It, you know, it wasn't just Hitler, it was a group of people that believed in his message. And he was just doing what the group wanted him to do.

Kit Heintzman 15:58
What were some of the early resonances that you were feeling between what you'd learned about World War Two, and what you were seeing at the beginning of the pandemic?

Natasha Thompson 16:09
um, it. So in the beginning, I was seeing a lot of propaganda, the same thing I felt, as a, you know, growing up as a kid, that we were, I was, you know, the books were saying, they started with propaganda. And the propaganda started, and then they use fear, it was always fear, that was the underneath everything, you get people in fear. And then you can get them to move in a certain way. You can get them to do things from fear, and you can get them to do things that other people, they normally wouldn't do it if the fear wasn't there. But it's the fear that they put in into the people. You know, the constant stuff on when I was a child, they did a lot of stuff in the news. They spoke bad about certain classes that didn't move and didn't do what the other people were supposed to do. Because the government said they were supposed to do it. And it was all really the same is what I was seeing. And it was like, Oh, wow, you know? Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 17:34
What are some of the reactions you noticed and other people around you?

Natasha Thompson 17:40
So in reference to the, the, the COVID, the people who I was around because I was very, I didn't portray a lot of fear. So when I was around them, they didn't have a lot of fear. Like I was saying, In the beginning, if they did have any fear, I reminded them of who they were, you know, what is what it what is your purpose in life? You know, you you could still achieve it, you know, what's going on in your life right now? You know, are you looking at something so far outside of yourself, and your brand get into yourself? And that's not your experience. The people around me were very, like I said, they prospered. I mean, like they bought houses, you know, met people got, you know, married I it's just a list of wonderful things that happened to people Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 18:51
What brought you to energy work?

Natasha Thompson 18:53
So, in the beginning of the energy work, it was I would say, in the beginning, it was, I guess, my ego, because I felt like, I did have an ability. And when people came to me, for my, my practices, you know, they felt better, and then, you know, they will send me their testimonies how they have healed, but you know, all healing is self healing. You know, in the beginning, that's what kept me going, but I realized oh, all healing and self healing, I'm just here to assist them in front of me. But in the beginning, it was a just a strong sense of helping people. But not only that, seeing my potential in the practice of energy work, you know, and how important energy is and you energy is, you know, emotions energy is the unseen force that you cannot see it is the spirit is the energy, you know. But, you know, that's what moved me into, to doing it. And just just really finding out more about my myself and in others and doing this practice I really, really loved I know, we're all one

Kit Heintzman 20:32
Could you describe sort of generally your client base?

Natasha Thompson 20:35
Oh, they're there from the ages of 18 all the way up, think my eldest client was 97. My clients come for some come with illnesses, illnesses, disease, then some people come for consciousness awareness. They've had mystical experiences. Some people come because they've had abductions. What somebody might call an alien abduction, abductions, I get every body that comes and I turn I do not turn away anyone. Nobody gets turned away. I'm here to help everybody.

Kit Heintzman 21:20
How do you go about creating a environment where your clients are comfortable and able to share these things with you?

Natasha Thompson 21:33
It's my personality. I'm non judgmental. I try I wholeheartedly practice removing, you know, I wholeheartedly practice removing certain vocabularies, words out of my vocabulary, like good, bad, right and wrong. By removing those out of my vocabulary, vocabulary, I'm able to ask the person you know, what's underneath that, you know, versus just just not judging anybody, when someone comes, they have a safe place to talk, and to release whatever energy or to go inward, to discover or to see more of what they came to seek. But just being just not judging, you know, and, and knowing that that person is here for information to seeking or they want to be healed, and they want to go inward to heal and to heal themselves, because they've been going to doctors, and the doctors haven't done couldn't do anything. They've been on the pills. And tired of the pills. They've been on the drugs. And they realize they constantly have to take the drugs. They they want to self heal.

Kit Heintzman 23:01
You mentioned that there had been activists in Tennessee helping to keep businesses open. What was locked down, like when that happened?

Natasha Thompson 23:13
That was it. I don't really, I really don't recall any lock downs. Like because I was going to work. We had our customers, we have customers, you know. I recall, certain businesses if they didn't want to shut down, they shut down. You know what I'm saying? I remember I remember when when they were when Tennessee where we live, because every county is different. This is my county. You know, in my in my county. I remember. They were trying to implement things in other cities that were not our city. And the people stood up, and we're like, no, that's not going to happen here. And we all just rally together and, you know, everybody's just use their own judgment. In this situation, they went off whatever they felt what's best for their families. I remember me and my husband, not to go too far off your question about the the activist [inaudible], and that's what I meant about activist they were actively we came as a group actively for one cause to make sure that the power stayed with the people. And that was everybody had their own choice and how they wanted to what they wanted to do. I do remember me and my husband did Um, I remember my husband, we did make a point, to go to our local businesses to buy stuff every day. And I do remember, three businesses, I think, maybe three months, they wrote us letters, and say how they appreciate us because but they didn't realize we were doing it. Because we realize that was important, when we realize that, you know, if you want your community to stay open, you have to still be a part of it, you still have to not stay in fear, you still have to make sure that the, you know, the employees can have a job. You know, we knew how important that was. So, you know, we got like, three, three letters from, I guess the employees must have told them about us. So that was really cool. You know? Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 26:06
To the extent that you're comfortable sharing, would you say something about your own experiences of health and healthcare infrastructure, pre COVID?

Natasha Thompson 26:22
So, before I became an energy therapist, and before that, I used to be really, really into the white, I used to be really into western medicine, like, always going to the doctor's appointments. Always, like, anything that a doctor said, was, there were just the gods, I didn't think nothing about it until I actually gave birth to a child. He's passed, but I gave birth to the child. And I was told he was only going to make it for 30 days. And I was told that he was only gonna live for 30 days. And I remember saying, you know, what, who has that power, he can live longer. So I, I signed up for every single program. And then I found out my rights, as you know, a sovereign being that the doctors work for you. And in that, if a doctor told me, my son couldn't have a surgery, I knew the policies to get them to do the surgeries, I knew the policy, they had to do everything because they worked for me. And then, so before, I was 100%, trusting and then when I actually got into the system. Then I understood that they were not gods. I understood that. My, my, I just understood that just we're not Gods anymore. And my son did did die, he did pass. But he made it to almost four. But at that point, when he was like two the doctors were like this, there's nothing we can do because he was two and he only weighed like, he never got past like 18. He never got past 20 pounds. So it was me and my energy keeping him alive. Kind of like if you had some out on a ventilator. And he was just constantly keeping them on the ventilator. That's what I was doing. You know, but when my dad, so that happened, and then when my dad got cancer, then I really realized, wait a second, there's a lot more to help. You know, the doctors couldn't do anything. And I was seeing there's something missing from here, there's something there was something unplugged. There was a disconnect from that. And my dad's like, it was some disconnect. And that's when I got into the when he died. That's when I really didn't when he when he actually died was when I started investigating more about you know, foods and natural medicines and that, you know, I was so into if it was a pill or a medicine, from the doctors, that's all there was. There was not anything else. It was not even a thought until I got thrown into those situations.

Kit Heintzman 30:03
I'm curious, what does the word health mean to you?

Natasha Thompson 30:15
When I think of the word health, I think of breath, I think of the breathing the life, just the that, that breath that the, the breath that keeps the consciousness going, you know, whether that's it doesn't have to be like this extravagant body, it just has to be a space to where that breath is coming in. And you still have a consciousness to experience.

Kit Heintzman 30:59
Have you been paying much attention to, and if so, what have you noticed about sort of stories about health care workers over the course of the pandemic?

Natasha Thompson 31:09
Oh, so I, the health care workers, that was very disheartening, you know, you know, with people having their own, you know, they're someone having their own choice on what their spirit moves them to do. And their body and their, their inner self. And then someone taking that away from them, you know, whatever someone feels, you know. So, but what about the young lady because I work with, she lived in California, and she was a nurse there. And she decided that, you know, she didn't want to take the vaccine. And they let her go. And she just, you know, just wasn't in her, she just made that choice. So I just felt like, there was a lot of fear that, you know, cause them to you know, just, you know, what the nurses is, it was just a lot of fear underneath that, you know, I felt they were already working. They were working in the beginning. And you know, if let them keep working, it's their choice, it's their body, I don't you know

Kit Heintzman 32:59
What does bodily autonomy mean to you?

Natasha Thompson 33:03
Oh, that your, your body is your vehicle that keeps you your body is your, your vehicle that keeps the breath going for your consciousness, whether you know, you can have a body in a wheelchair or whatever it doesn't. Like I said, it doesn't matter. I just feel like your body is needed for the experience that you're choosing to do in this lifetime. You know, if I want to go and sit out at a lake, you know, might need an experience stuff here. That's I feel like the body's important a body anton autonomy is very important that everybody has an individual right to their own autonomy of their their body and not from someone's judgment or fear or somebody else's opinion of what they feel. Someone should do to their body from their understanding or something they read from someone else's experience that that other person is not experiencing or someone that is in pain or not healed. Trying to direct somebody else on how to how their bodies should be you know, I just feel the body autonomy. body autonomy is really important.

Kit Heintzman 34:31
Did you notice anything about your clients needs changing during the pandemic?

Natasha Thompson 34:40
No, they all came for the same thing. They was really came for the same thing. You know, it was it was all everybody not everybody had their own individual reason of why they were coming to me then it wasn't any different than before the before COVID Or, or COVID, or after, you know, or the pandemic, you know, that it was all the same thing. They they were trying they had they had an experience. They weren't either or had an illness or disease need to information. It was all this under the same categories

Kit Heintzman 35:32
And did anything about your practices and healing change? Did the room set up differently, anything, or what did the practices look the same?

Natasha Thompson 35:44
They were all the same. Yeah, everything was the same. Nothing changed. Um, yeah. Yeah, nothing changed with the practices or anything, people came for the same reasons nothing changed. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, nothing changed. I only see one person like, like, when I do my practice, nobody is allowed to be in the room. But that person. I don't. There have not nobody even even before that. The the, the pandemic, that person is the only one that supposed allowed in here in my practice. So there was no. Yeah, that's always been the case.

Kit Heintzman 36:40
I'd love to hear more about your husband's work with affordable housing.

Natasha Thompson 36:47
So he had he wanted to. Well, he worked together, we were seeing that. I don't know if it was just a pre cognition. But we were seeing that something was going to happen. And people were not going to be able to afford rent. So we, I mean, that was before this even this was in I had went back in March. But we had already had started. I want to say sometime in November or December, but so the key thing that we we wanted to do, we knew that something internally knew that something was going to happen, and rent was going to be going up for people. And if rent goes up, people would want to move or go into an energy of lack and fear. Because they, you know, the biggest thing that someone can do to someone to trigger fear is to get them in a mode to where they can't feel they can't survive. And if someone's in the mode of they feel they can't survive, they start doing things from that energy, creating policies, you know, maybe stealing or just talking about the fear and the pain. And so we just started, you know, just buying properties and, and just keeping rents really affordable for people. And we just work and we do the labor like today before I even did this interview. It's funny, because people come up to me, I was out there in our truck because it says, you know, we buy houses. And I was doing the landscaping there. And a lady came up to me and she was like I explained to her for me to keep the rents low, I have to do labor because if I pay somebody how can I keep their rents low? So it's like so it's just little things we do just to help our community. So you know, the people will stay and keep the fear down

Kit Heintzman 39:33
What's the housing situation been like where you are?

Natasha Thompson 39:37
So here because we are in where I'm at, because we didn't have the lock downs like other communities had, so our businesses prospered. So a lot of people move here. I mean, it's like 1000s and 1000s of people moved here. So our housing market is amazing. The prosperity here has really became amazing. But I think the precog what buying the, the, doing affordable housing, was when the people had flooded into our community and started buying property. Rents did go up. So I guess, like I said, it was a precog. That, you know, God was guiding us to do that, what we what we did. So rents had went up, but thank God, we were able to help many people not have, you know, high rents and stuff. Because when people came in, from say, California, you know, they sold their house for, you know, $500,000, they come over here, and they find a house that was 100. But then they set up there, and they have not set up there, they decided to pay $200,000 for it. So now the property values have went up. And now, you know, obviously, if someone is trying to rent a house, they paid $200,000, for the rent is going to be a lot higher. So but think, thankfully, we got in, you know, and got ours a lot lower. And then to be able to assist people with the lower rent, and then, you know, we have a lot of people, older people who are okay with selling us their house, because they believe in our mission of the affordable housing to to keep rents low. So I, you know, people don't have to have that fear of housing or, you know, high rents

Kit Heintzman 41:57
Is the work you're doing in collaboration with the state. So is it something like section eight or isn't entirely independent?

Natasha Thompson 42:08
It's it's private. One of the reasons why it's private is because I remember when I was, so I was a teen mom, I got pregnant when I was 16. And I was seven, I was 17, when I gave birth to her, and I, you know, worked a job, I worked in McDonald's and Burger King. And I had saved my money like, I, I mean, I was penny pinching. Like, I was saved all my money. And then we, me and my family, we had moved to a different state. And I remember, I, I was like, my mom, I got my own place. And I was like, I'm gonna go and apply for assistance. You know, and I went to go apply for assistance. And keep in mind, I, I had just saved my money, like, but I, I sacrifice, like, I literally went to Goodwill and wore the same outfit. Like I said, when I say I sacrifice I sacrifice to save. And when I went to go apply for funding for food stamps, because I had got my own place, and I had a child. And they didn't give it to me, because they said, I had saved my money, because I have money in an account. And I was like, well, so I was supposed to blow all my money, you know, and that made me realize that it was a system. And that not some people are like me, who do need help, that don't qualify for public assistance. Because they might say, like, how they, how I got treated, you know, because I wanted to work. I didn't, I didn't want to be on the system, but it was the cycle. So we try to create things where people don't, you know, removed are, you know, you know, they have strict rules, you know, you have to meet a certain income to get their assistance. But, you know, some people make a little bit more, but they're still struggling. They're right at the edge of losing everything. So that's why we are private.

Kit Heintzman 44:28
Are those experiences part of what brought you to care about and do work in affordable housing?

Natasha Thompson 44:36
Definitely. Oh, definitely. Definitely. Definitely. I do. That's the pain when I was a single mom, I couldn't find daycare one of we my husband, we get more. Our next goal is we bought a small apartment building, but we're going to buy a bigger one. Our goal is to have daycare in there and tutoring so that not only are their rents going to be affordable, but daycare. I mean, daycare almost literally would have bankrupt me when I had children like, it was it was like the biggest. My biggest because I love my children, but I still had to feed them. It was like so what do you do I want to take that burden off of if somebody needs that burden, and they don't qualify for state assistance. You know, because you have to meet, we have to be a lower income to qualify, but somebody might just be might not be low income, but still on the verge of losing everything. You know? Yeah, I want to be I want to be that person. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 45:54
Have you had, did you have any sort of COVID specific interactions with any of your tenants?

Natasha Thompson 46:05
No. Um, could you elaborate on that question?

Kit Heintzman 46:11
I guess. So you had talked about the sort of pre cognition of acquiring the housing. And then we were in this moment where like, everything with rent, did really go up in the air and became really chaotic. There were like, a lot happened with rent, I feel like that's a really a lot, a lot with housing happened in the last couple years, both at the individual scale and that, like, people were terrified of eviction, and were evicted. And like, some people had really great landlords and things went really well. But I think that it was a moment where lots of conversations opened up between landlords and tenants. Because every, because there was this possibility that one or both of those sides were in some kind of crisis. So I'm wondering if any of that emerged, if there was just sort of more back and forth conversation?

Natasha Thompson 47:13
There was really no issue, everybody paid it, we didn't have anybody not pay their rent. I, we tell everybody our mission, we tell everybody. And I believe because they felt they were part of that mission. They kept it going. You know, I, I really feel if you tell everybody, your intentions of why you do things. And they believe in you. They will make sure that it keeps going. The only tenant that stands out that and he only didn't pay for two months. But he paid it back. And that's because he had found out he had cancer. And he called me and he was like, I found out I have cancer. So I had to take that. And I was just told him, you know, take the time that you need. And he's just and he, he ended up paying it back and this was during the COVID and the pandemic. He still paid it back because he believed in us. Yeah, he paid it back because he believed in us. And he appreciated us. I mean, the whole time he was telling me he's got cancer, and the whole time he's like, I cannot you know, I'm not this type of person. I cannot believe I'm you know that I'm doing this. I don't normally do this. I normally don't humble I normally always pay my bills. I mean, he was really like, and I'm thinking in my mind, he's got cancer, he's gonna have to heal. I'm okay, you know, but he you know, but that was the only one that was the only one Yeah, but we Yeah, that was the only one but but I yeah, that was the that was the only one

Kit Heintzman 49:10
You've mentioned a few times how were you were things stayed pretty consistent. Pre and Post COVID I'm wondering what it was like watching different parts of the US change. Did you have friends or family in other parts of the country and what was what was it like seeing what they were going through?

Natasha Thompson 49:35
So a lot of my family lived here so we still saw each other. It wasn't like we saw each other there was no we still did parties we didn't do there wasn't there was really not huge changes. The only there were really no huge, huge changes. And I want to also let you know, we don't watch television at all. We we normally so I want to make sure we normally just go out, we normally me and my husband when we when we do things, a lot of things outside we're really focused on our, our practices and our, our business businesses. And I think that was a really key that you know, we didn't watch television and you know

Kit Heintzman 50:46
What's the word safety mean to you?

Natasha Thompson 50:54
Safety? Um, when I think of the word safety, I think of keeping something inside of something. You keep it on the inside of something. And you don't let anything in that's when so when someone's when, so that's what I think of the word safety like something's inside of something. And nothing can come in from the outside

Kit Heintzman 51:35
Is that maybe something like a fortress?

Natasha Thompson 51:40
Or like a, you know, like, a safe that you might put jewelry in? Or? Yeah, when I think of safety, I think of like, like something you would put, you know, like, you will put something in something and nothing or no one can go inside of it.

Kit Heintzman 52:03
What are some of the things you do in consideration of your own safety?

Natasha Thompson 52:14
So I don't keep so when I don't? How do I say this? There's no fear. So there's, there's no fear. So I just know that when I go outside, or anything in my car driving or sitting by, you know, go to a lake or I'm outside and it's dark outside, and I'm walking outside in the dark. I know. I know that there's love and unconditional love around me at all times. It's just unconditional love and a light. Like a light always around. It's in that light. There is no closure on that light. It's not in a box. So I would the word safety for me. It's I don't use that word. It's just unconditional love and light.

Kit Heintzman 53:36
How are you feeling about the immediate future?

Natasha Thompson 53:40
The future? Oh my god, it's amazing. Oh my god, I'm so let me so. Wow. Let's go back to the pandemic. I saw so many more people be so compassionate. I saw like there was someone that came into where I worked at. And they said they had got stopped by the police. And normally they would have got a ticket. But the cop was like, It's okay. Like they I mean it was just so much love so many people that started valuing life and its happiness. So many people who thought they couldn't achieve things are thinking outside of the box now. They're traveling. They dyeing their hair. They have always wanted to have pink hair. I mean, it's oh my god, the growth that I've seen where I'm at from this experience, and the people that I've been around has been amazing, I think It just, it's just amazing. Even my mother, even my mother in law is a different person. Like, her mentality. Like Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 55:24
Could you give me an example of what you're noticing in her mentality shift?

Natasha Thompson 55:29
So before she was, I want to say kind of, I would say rigid, like like black and white. And when that happened, she could actually go into the grays and see different perspectives. And she was sharing those perspectives. And aspect that I thought that she was going to be scared, like, when this happened, but it like did something different for her. Like she was out. Making a point buying blankets and giving people blankets, she was out there on the. Like, just like. Yeah, I mean, just her mental her, her talk of, like, the body autonomy, the choices, you know? Yeah, it was it was just so different, you know? Yeah, it's just really different.

Kit Heintzman 56:49
What are your right, you raise something really important, which is that the last few years have been a lot more than just COVID, there has been a lot going on. In addition to COVID, in addition to the work you've been doing in affordable housing, are there other issues that have been sitting with you in your mind and heart?

Natasha Thompson 57:21
I think, in the beg now, it's, it's, it was just the fear. I remember, it was just, I was just watching people in fear and not staying in love. I believe what bother me now is the so I was raised in Christianity. And I was told that, you know, you're always God's always has a lot of over you the blood of the Lamb, and, and all the people who told me this, and that's what I walked in, like, for sure, like, I wasn't worried about anything. I was supposed to be the light, just like I was taught in church when I was a child. And then the people who I felt, gave me that message went into this fear. And that threw me off. I'm like, I was more like, you taught me this, but you're not doing it. Because something got in it was like a fear got in. And but, I know that if I if I hadn't been on this path, and Michael Brown hadn't happened to me. You know, which if I hadn't experienced that awakening, through the Michael Brown's death, I would have been in the same situation, I would have been buying all the toilet paper, we didn't buy no extra toilet paper, I would have been in fear, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have been like telling people you got this, you know, you're the light of the world. What are your goals? What do you need to do? You know, I would have been in a cave, but it was. But so it was seeing all the work, I think will work now. It's like seeing so much more work needs to be done. But then just holding the pace space for that piece. You know, like when I was talking about affordable housing. You know, if somebody doesn't have to worry about survival, can they focus on love? Can they focus on why they came into this lifetime? Can they focus on nothing not being scared? You know, it's just that that was the fear you know, that, yeah.

Kit Heintzman 59:49
What are some of your hopes for longer term future?

Natasha Thompson 59:55
that that people walk into they're there, their power that they are amazing. And they they can contribute whatever they want to contribute, whether it's a smile, or whether it's a new building that has wings that fly I don't know. But that's this just my hope that people put like, like I was saying Michael Brown pulled me out of eat sleep work, and oh my god survival oh my god, I gotta survive you know all this stuff it was constant that like that's my hope that everybody's pulled from that to where they can focus on experience life to its fullest because it's amazing when you're when you're at this level and your life it's at your at that fullness of life to where you are really at the purpose of why you came into this lifetime it feels amazing

Kit Heintzman 1:01:08
What are some of the things you do to take care of yourself?

Natasha Thompson 1:01:17
Oh my god, I love myself unconditionally. I speak highly of myself. I love others. i i I eat food but I really focus on eating food with light which is raw vegetables. I meditate a lot a lot of meditation I you know just a lot of love for myself and a lot of love for others. unconditional love for others. And unconditional love for myself in the breath. The breath, the breath, the breath. Just staying in that moment and just taking in this, that that breath you know and enjoying that breath. You know, the breath that it's just just just amazing. I mean, I that's how I take self care. All the other stuff that I used to do before I found this, that power of the nails the hair the clothes. That was a never ending cycle. I mean, I feel you know, enjoy those things. But it's not the same anymore. That's just a choice to do before a felt like an obligation. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 1:03:01
Where did you learn about unconditional love?

Natasha Thompson 1:03:08
So I did. So I'm gonna tell you the first time I heard about unconditional love. But I didn't grasp bit. Until the Michael Brown incident. The first time I knew I believed in unconditional love with the story of Jesus Christ. When God gave His Son for man's sins, to love something so much, and to take it away so people can see. So to have that love into, and to take away your chart, take away your take to take the energy away from love. I thought that was the most amazing things. So people can feel loss. So they could feel the pain of wanting to change. Because sometimes change come to pleasure and sometimes people only can change through pain, aka the pandemic. You know. For me, my pain was the Michael was the Michael Brown incident. So Jesus Christ was the first time I actually heard the story of unconditional love. But it wasn't until I actually got into the Michael Brown incident happened and when I started exploring the unconditional love which was when I had looked up in the sky and I had asked you know the sky the sun and I'm moving. I am moving without a cord. I am walking without a cord. Something is fueling me to walk this breath. Something is energizing me I, no matter what I decide to do is going to keep energizing me and loving me. And that's when I really grasp that power of unconditional love. Of the consciousness, my, the consciousness of that, that love. And it's not just the body, it's not just the breath, it's just more of the trees. You know, I went outside, and I saw that there was a sun there, something brought that sun there, for us to have this experience. That's unconditional love, it comes out every single day. That's the fabric of that I didn't even pay attention to it. I didn't pay attention to the clouds, I didn't pay attention that every spring, the the flowers came out on a rotation. That's all this, this no conditions to that. You know, that's just, it does it because it's just no conditions on it. And then I said, I could do that too, in a human form. So I started walking in it, you know, and that's why when you had asked about the income, when you had asked about the people who come to see me, I put no conditions on anybody, because I want to walk in that same path of unconditional love. And it feels amazing when you let go when you trust. You know, it feels great.

Kit Heintzman 1:06:33
Want to thank you so much for the generosity of your time and the grace of your answers. Those are all of the questions I sort of know how to ask at this moment. But I'd love to open some space, if there's anything you'd like to share that my questions haven't made room for.

Natasha Thompson 1:06:55
I did want to just say about this whole incident with the the pandemic I just saw so much love. I mean, when I say love just, I mean, we we grew so much mentally. Physically, the people we met so many amazing people. And we just it just brought out like, I feel like that fear some people that fear had to come to the surface, just like dirt on a bottom of a pool, that when it surface, when somebody's there, they can help wipe it and clean it to where it can't go back down and start this back up again. I just felt like everybody had their own choices. And every choice was the right choice for them. And they made it and, you know, then some people make choices out of fear. And they regretted it. But guess what, they can always start back over. You know, as long as they have that, that that consciousness and that love and the breath you know they can always start back over. If they went into fear and the fear took them down to a dark place. That's really it. And I did want to say thank you for for allowing me to speak my experience. I know so many other people have complete, maybe the same exact experience a different experience, but it's good to have everybody's experience through this weather whatever they chose to be heard. And I thank you for that.

Kit Heintzman 1:09:01
Thank you so much.