I wanna know, Chezzy, how long have you been able to talk to spirit or dead people?

Well, it's interesting.

So, um, if I can take you back through the h- the process of how the book came about, um, because for most of my life, I had blocked out that I had any ability to do that, and it wasn't until I started writing that I went back through my life story.

The reason why I had to go back through, w- you know, all of my experiences, all of my childhood was, um, so three, um, years ago, I lost a very, very close friend, um, to breast cancer, and it absolutely devastated me.

I was just so overcome with grief, and I just was absolutely shattered.

We'd both had kids at the same time- And so she'd had her first and I'd had my third daughter.

Um, and we just expected that our kids would grow up together.

Mm.

Can you take us back to how your journey began?

Absolutely.

Firstly, thank you for having me.

I'm really excited to be here.

Um, so I kind of look at my life, there's a, a before my book and there's an after my book.

Um, so r- there's two very, very different sides to me.

So my journey, um, before my book, uh, came out earlier this year was I loved watching Miss Piggy on TV when I was four or five.

Mm

And I was like,

oh, my God, I can actually do this.

I don't know what I'm doing but this is really cool.

And so I started to explore it more and then after my final exam, after doing an eight-month course with a school overseas, I got high distinctions and I have never, ever had a high distinction.

Like I was so ADHD at school.

I was forever, you know, if she stopped talking, if she listened more, if she concentrated, that kind of report.

card girl.

But what was it like for you? Were you shocked at how many people were so excited about it and open to it? And do you have more of a good reaction than you did the naysayers? Yeah.

You could see things that other people couldn't and how that was taken by the people around you.

Um, yeah, look, living a lie does sound harsh and that's kind of, I didn't want people to feel that I had been living a lie, but you're so right.

It was self-protection.

And because of my experiences as a kid and, and really being terrified of being told constantly that and being, you know, it was always reaffirmed daily when I went to a Catholic school that talking to spirit, talking about past lives, you know, talking about anything that was a little bit left field was basically setting me up for going to hell.

or my family being, you know, having the worst possible things happen to my family.

So it was self-protection because of that.

I mean, when I was four or five, I was a really happy-go-lucky kid.

I was not

And I guess when I was reading that, I was like, so many of us could resonate with that, whether or not we had a strict Catholic nun principal who was really cruel to us but all of us maybe through childhood have experienced that whole dimming our light just to try and fit in

yeah it's so common yeah I think I had to do a lot of work in a lot of different avenues but uh with forgiveness when it came to the nuns And I don't hold any resentment.

I did for a long time and it really, I could never quite explain why I had this real issue with religion.

And even when we first moved back to my hometown, I was adamant that my kids would not go to a Catholic school.

And I, that also didn't feel quite right because that was my upbringing.

So I had to do a lot of work on forgiving those things that happened and also seeing it from the sister's eyes and point of view as well.

I I just think that she was so frustrated by me.

Do you want to tell us a bit about that?