We recently connected with Kelly Sullivan Walden and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kelly Sullivan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
My Mandela Effect
It seems every time I turn around, someone’s talking about the Mandela Effect. It’s the false memory phenomenon that got its name because of the masses who believed Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 80s, but he actually died in 2013. It flew over my head like the Butterfly Effect, Ice Bucket Challenge, and TikTok until a friend shared with me that there are over 100 Mandela Effects and counting. Like the masses who swear the man on the Monopoly boardgame wore a monocle, and Ed McMahon delivered life-sized checks to people’s front doors, when in reality, there never was a monocle, nor did Ed McMahon ever work for Publisher’s Clearing House.
I was about to discount the entire phenomenon until I encountered my own Mandela Effect at the memorial of my High School best friend, Teresa.
Through puffy eyes, I peered out at the crowd of mourners, shocked to see Rochelle*, my teenage nemesis. Shot full of adrenalin, my memory wheel flung me back to fifteen years old, when I was horribly bullied. The most popular girl in school, with her heavily lined eyes, shiny-black feathered hair, and heart-shaped butt, Rochelle was the fan of all the girls and the fantasy of all the boys. Her confidence and cruelty engulfed the campus, and I was the unfortunate object of her loathing.
Rochelle and her hate squad wore the latest fashions, drove the coolest cars, and had the cleverest comebacks. When they’d catch me skittering down the halls of our High School, I’d pretend not to hear cackling jokes cracked at my expense. Nearly every day I received scathing notes in my locker that read:
“Why are you so stuck up?”
“You better watch your back.”
“We’re gonna kick your ass!”
Then one day, my hands shook as I read in blood-red letters: “Die Bitch!”
Not wanting to let the sharks smell my blood in the water, I masked my quivering with what I hoped was an “I don’t give a shit” Teflon.
“What did I ever do to them?” I wailed one night to my mom.
The only crime we could think of was that the cutest boy in school had asked me to be his girlfriend, and I had the audacity to say yes.
Despite the sneers, jeers, and Tears for Fears, I survived high school, thanks to my mom and wonderful gal pals like Teresa.
Over the post-high-school decades, I graduated to more important challenges. But always lurking in the hallway of my mind was Rochelle and the mean girls. Every time I’d start a new venture, step out on a stage to speak, make a television appearance, or publish a book, I’d picture a stadium of them, chanting, “Die Bitch!” Leading the mob, carrying a fiery torch and pitchfork, was always Rochelle, with her feathered hair blowing in the wind.
*
Forty years later, there I was, at my best friend from high school’s memorial. Shocked speechless to see Rochelle, I was even more blindsided when she hugged me, dabbed her eyes with a tissue, and cried, “I can’t believe Teresa’s gone.”
What the hell!
What’s she doing here?
Why is she acting like Teresa and her were such good friends?
A few days later, my breath caught in my chest when I read an email from Rochelle: “I hear through the grapevine you’ve become ‘Doctor Dream.’ I have a terrible recurring dream. Can I call you?”
Was I being punked?
Was she for real?
What should I do?
My thoughts fluctuated from my current self, intrigued to my high-school-self saying Hell No and back again, eventually my higher self-landed on, What could it hurt?
On our call, she shared a nightmare that had plagued her since childhood. As is the case with most conversations about dreams, it opened the floodgates of soul-to-soul communication. She revealed that her life hadn’t been as rosy as it had appeared. She’d dealt with hardships at home that made me bristle. I’d been right in assuming her life had been a fairytale—I just didn’t realize it had been of the Grimm’s variety.
Toward the end of our session, she cleared her throat, lowered her voice, and confessed, “All that pain was nothing compared to the torture of being madly in love with a boy who didn’t love me back… because he was in love with someone else… you.”
What? I thought incredulously, coughing tea through my nose.
I had no idea she’d been in love with him.
In her eyes, it was I who’d been her tormentor. In all my post-high-school years, this thought had never occurred to me.
My spirit reached across the phone lines and hugged her as the belief system I’d built my life around, brick by brick, crumbled down. Even though there were no official apologies, I forgave her. In one conversation, I was freed from the invisible shackles I’d been wearing for the past 40 years.
*
The late Carlos Castaneda taught that we all have “assemblage points”—a playlist of thoughts and beliefs, like deeply etched grooves in a record, that repeat throughout our minds, binding us to our habitual orientation to life. The longer we believe a thought, the more real (to us) it becomes, even if its premise is fundamentally flawed. Transformation happens when we scratch the record and override the critical song with a newer, healthier, more truthful one.
According to a 2020 study *by the Human Connectome Project, we humans think 60,000 thoughts a day. 75% (or 45,000) of those thoughts are repetitive. I have no idea how much of my mental bandwidth had been wasted on Rochelle over the years. All I do know is that when I was given the opportunity to peer beneath the façade of Public Enemy #1, instead of finding a devil with a fiery-hot pitchfork, I discovered a tender, flawed, warm-blooded soul under there, causing my brain to short-circuit (in the best possible way).
I envisioned Nelson Mandela, Ed McMahon, and the Monopoly man (sans monocle) arriving at my house and rewarding me with a life-sized check for clearinghouse of my old, incorrect assemblage points in favor of a new, more accurate, and empowering one.
According to the late Victor Frankel, we humans are storytellers. The stories we tell ourselves make or break us. The story I’d made up was that the world was full of cruel people. Despite having four sisters and wonderful friends, I still held in the back of my mind that at any point, women, if given the chance, would crush me.
Going forward, I had a lot of revisioning to do to my personal history. Now that the martyr and perpetrator of my story were scrambled, my own personal Mandela Effect left me questioning all my self-destructive beliefs.
Who would I be if there was no enemy?
What if, despite the painful things I’d experienced, I believed, as Einstein did, that I live in a friendly universe?
What if everything, everyone, and all of life is on my side, whether it looks that way or not?
In today’s hostile political climate, I bet Nelson Mandela would be proud to not only be credited with ending apartheid but also for causing people to question their flat-earth beliefs. I hope my personal Mandela effect has the Butterfly effect—and that the flapping of my new wings might inspire someone on this side of the planet and (maybe even across the world) to alter their internal weather pattern to behold what seemed against them may have been for them all along.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
You might know me as Doctor Dream. But what you may not know is how passionate I am about helping people to discover the wisdom of their dreams and dreamafesting the life of their dreams. I like to think of myself as a bridge between the nitty-gritty and the airy fairy, the conscious and the unconscious, the spiritual and the practical. In other words, my job is to help you become a light of the world while supporting you to discover creative and soulful ways to pay your light bill.
When I was younger, I dreamed of being an actress…or a psychotherapist. In a million years, I never would’ve thought I would’ve become a “dream expert.” But I’m a believer in the words of John Lennon’s that “Life happens to us when we’re making other plans.” I’m grateful my path in dreams has led me to become an award-winning, international bestselling author of ten books, seven oracle card decks, two journals, and two apps. .My latest book, a slight departure from dreams, is A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste: The Art of Transforming the Tragic into Magic and was named: Woman’s World Book of the Week Aspire Magazine’s Top 10 Most Inspirational books of the Year and has garnered the New York City Big Book Award Royal Dragonfly Award American Literary Book Award (finalist). As a dream expert, certified clinical hypnotherapist, popular media guest, inspirational speaker, workshop facilitator, and podcast host with a doctorate degree in spiritual counseling, it seems in all that I do, I teach what I most need to know: how to allow nighttime dreams to help us manifest our daytime desires. Join me weekly on The Kelly Sullivan Walden Show podcast for the latest insights about dreams.
I should also mention, if you are interested in becoming more fluent in the language of dreams, to check out DreamWork Practitioner Training.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
My business chose me, as I say above. “Life happens when we’re making other plans.” But I wouldn’t change a thing. The work of our lifetime, in my opinion, is to surrender “my will” to “Thy Will.”
How’d you meet your business partner?
I met Jo-e Sutton in line to enter a huge relationship seminar over 25 years ago. would’ve known that we’d end up co-hosting a podcast entitled “Anatomy of Friendship” about the incredible rules, tools, and jewels we’ve learned from each other in the way of building and sustaining phenomenal friendships?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.KellySullivanWalden.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellyswalden
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KellySullivanWaldenDreams
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellysullivanwalden
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kellyswalden
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KellySullivanWalden
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kelly-sullivan-walden
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@kellyswalden
Image Credits
Carl Studna