At age five, on a spring afternoon in the backyard of her suburban Long Island home, Anna Raimondi had a profound experience. A contemplative child, she slid her body into the small grotto that once held a statue of the Virgin Mary. As she sat reveling in nature, her body was flooded with a wondrous feeling of pure peace and nurturing love.

Then suddenly, Mary was there, smiling and gazing at her with wide mahogany-colored eyes. She looked nothing like her pictures in church, but Anna knew she was the Blessed Mother of Jesus. In a gentle, yet strong voice, Mary spoke, “Anna, I am here for you always. Always come to me.”                                  

Now, decades later, Anna Raimondi is a spiritual counselor and medium, as well as a mother with two grown sons.  In her book Conversations with Mary, Anna shares her latest, greatest gift from the mother of humanity: words of clarity and comfort directly from Heaven.

Through Anna, her chosen conduit, Mary speaks to all of God’s children—Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and the spiritual but not religious—with universal acceptance, boundless compassion, and immediate relevance. As Anna attests: “Mary’s messages are global, forward-thinking, and transformative.”

KIMBERLY: Hello everybody and welcome. I’m Kimberly Maska, your host of Spiritual Biz Chat for Spiritual Biz Magazine. Joining me today, we have Anna Raimondi. She is the author of Conversations with Mary, and she is our featured spiritual entrepreneur this month. Anna, thank you so much for joining us. How are you today?

ANNA: I’m okay. Thank you for having me.

KIMBERLY: You have this amazing story about how you came to know Mary, which is what of course prompted the book. So, share with our readers a bit about that story so that they can get up to speed with where you are.

ANNA: Okay. I am a born medium. So, since I was very young, I was able to see spirits. The first time I saw Mary was when I was about five years old. I was this little girl, so happy to be outside, because it was springtime on Long Island, and I was kind of very sensitive that day. I remember smelling the green grass and it was a warm day. I could hear the crunching of animals running around, squirrels, that’s really all we had in Long Island at the time.

My parents had a grotto in the back of their yard that Mary used to sit in, a little grotto. I kind of squeezed myself into this little grotto because there was no Mary there anymore. I was sitting there and I could hear my mother in the house, she was cleaning, and the music she was playing. And then, all of a sudden I felt this unbelievable feeling of love, it enveloped me.

I saw a woman standing in front of me, who did not look like what Mary looks like, not how she’s depicted in paintings or any of that. She had long hair and really big brown eyes. She just looked at me and she said, “I will be here for you always.”

What I didn’t realize at the time I was a child, what that there were going to be a lot of ups and downs in my life, and that she would come to me and help me through, and help me in the good times as well. That was the first time that I really communicated with her, but she’s been communicating with me my entire life.

KIMBERLY: That is a beautiful story, and to have that openness to be able to receive her is really amazing, and beautiful that she came to you as a child too.

Now about creating the book and putting this message out there… Let’s talk a little bit about that process. I know it’s one thing to have that information come to us but actually get it into a book and get it published and out there… Let’s talk a little bit about that. Was it as easy as you thought it was going to be or as hard as you thought it was going to be?

ANNA: It was interesting. I decided to go to Medjugorje with my friends. Medjugorje is 13 hours from here and it’s in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mary has been appearing there for 36 years. She was appearing to four children I think. I decided I wanted to go and stay with one of those children. I was able to do that, I stayed with her and it was wonderful, except that I got nothing out of it.

I felt her, but I came home, I was outside on my deck, was praying, and said, “Mary, I don’t understand, why did I have to go there? I’ve been feeling you always, why did I need to go there?” She said very clearly, “You will be my platform.” So I said, “Okay, you open the door and I will walk through it.” Little did I know that two weeks later somebody would be sitting across from me that I was doing a reading with from Simon & Schuster. At the end of the reading that I was doing with her, she said to me, “you really need to write a book about Mary.”

I have self-published before but never worked with a major publisher, but I have pure faith that God and Mary led me to that place, and I felt that at the time. So my first response was, “Okay, what do I do?” She said, “Well, you need to write a proposal.”

Writing a proposal for a publishing house is not, “This is what I’d like to do,” it’s a little bit more complicated than that. So I found someone to help me do that and I got them a proposal and a few weeks later she called me and said, “I’d like you to come in to meet the publisher.” I went in and I met with Judith Curr and Suzanne Donahue who is the associate publisher. They said, “You’ve got to come back and you have to meet Carolyn Reidy, who is the CEO of Simon & Schuster.” I came back and I met and I read for her, and when I left the meeting with her I had a contract. It was sent to my hotel room, I had the contract.

This whole process didn’t take longer than two months. So to me, hearing the stories about how to get a publisher to publish a book, I think that’s miraculous because it could take seven years, so that was the easy part. Writing the book was the easy part because Mary would wake me up in the middle of the night with answers to questions that I hadn’t asked yet. I didn’t know what I was writing.

First, we worked on the introduction, that took about a month, month and a half. That’s where I was hearing, “This is what you should do, this is what you should write.” The book is all question-and-answer. I asked the question, she answers the question. But truly, in the middle of driving the car, I would hear her talking to me, and I’d have to pull over and record it into my phone and then get home and type it. So the writing of the book was really easy. It was just a very easy process. I didn’t have any … nothing that I can say that was difficult, but again, there were ups and downs, and days I wasn’t happy about things but it was easy. It was good because it needed to come out.

KIMBERLY: That’s beautiful. Truly divine intervention in making that occur. So what are the next steps … now I know it’s one thing to write it and get it published, and being able to get it out there, and get the word out and be able to create some financial abundance with that is always the next big challenge. So how has that gone for you?

ANNA: I’ve been doing a lot of speaking engagements. People have come out of the woodwork to say, “I’d like to go on a tour with you,” or “I’d like to do a documentary of you,” or “How you’re feeling about a Netflix show?” That’s all happening. I think that it brought me into this place where I could feel like a sense of appreciation, and God wants us to be in abundance. There’s nothing wrong with earning money. It’s the way of this world, we have to, to be happy, unfortunately. As long as we don’t worship it’s all okay. So it’s opened up doors across the border for me.

KIMBERLY: That’s fantastic and true because we are supposed to be abundant, we’re naturally abundant until we let our minds get in way of it all. How do you balance yourself, balance your alignment with the source in creating that financial abundance? Do you have a certain process that you use?

ANNA: I still see clients, I see clients every day, whether it’s in my office in Connecticut or in Manhattan. I do book readings, I put it out there. I intend it, I manifest it, I know it’s going to be there because I could see it. You know if you can see it, it can be. If you can’t see it, it’s not happening. So I put it out there.

In the past, I have fortified myself, I have a couple different counseling degrees, I’m an energy healer, I do all that kind of stuff. But these days it is mostly the readings because after reading the book people want to connect with me in that way. I’m doing okay.

KIMBERLY: I know there’s always that struggle. For spiritual entrepreneurs, when they’re trying to create some money and still be in service, there’s always this wobble. With my clients there’s always this big conversation, “How do we get past that wobble?” It sounds like you haven’t had that, I think it’s come very naturally for you. Is that fair to say?

ANNA: I think that I had my process, I’ve been through the ups and downs and there was a time that I wondered, “Is it okay?” We don’t always think as much of ourselves, like what are we worth? And in the beginning that was a little difficult. I’m coming out of a place of a gift I have but then I’m taking away from my family, the time I could be with them, and my personal life as well. I’m happy to do that, but I am doing it.

I came to terms with it after the first couple of years of actually going public. It was an easy segue into we all need that sense of appreciation. When I first started, I was doing Reiki, and I was teaching people for nothing, and none of those people appreciated what I was teaching them. When I started to charge, all of a sudden, there was an appreciation and those people really wanted to do what they were doing. It’s not only for me, I think it’s for the person that I’m working with.

KIMBERLY: Absolutely, when I teach my clients I always say, “You’re charging because you have faith in your client, you’re not charging for you really, but you’re really charging so that your client can see their value and really step up and own what they’re doing and that’s so important.”

ANNA: I tell people all the time I can help them along their path, but they are fully responsible. There’s a responsibility in saying, “I’m willing to pay you for this because I’m going to absorb it, I’m going to take it, I’m going to leave here with something.” It’s also a balance, not within myself, but between me and people that come to me.

KIMBERLY: As you build the business, and as it grows, now you’re speaking, and the book is out, and you’re seeing this expand. What are some of the challenges that you’re facing … it sounds like it’s gone so smoothly for you, maybe they’re not challenges, but what are the things that you’re seeing as you’re seeing the expansion of the business that you can share with other entrepreneurs that are looking at taking that next bigger step?

ANNA: I’m overwhelmed with work. I’m constantly working. Right now, here in Connecticut, it’s 6:15 am, and I’ve been working all day long. After I speak to you, I’m going to speak to somebody else about a radio show that I’m going to be on. It’s constant. I’m thrilled with it, but I have to learn to take care of me, and that’s really hard. “Healer heals thyself”… It doesn’t work that way, but it’s about personal love to yourself. Taking the long hot baths and the walks, getting a massage to ease my tension… I think it’s a little hard time wise. There are not enough hours in my day.

KIMBERLY: I think that’s probably what scares people the most as they build the big business, “How do I get my life back? What happens with that?” I know that’s one thing with the year-long clients that I teach them, “How do you do the half million plus and still have your life?” Because if we don’t have our cup full, we can’t give what we don’t have, that’s for sure.

ANNA: Right. I was in business for 14 years, I have an MBA, which I always said, I don’t know why I got this degree, plus business is not a place for someone as sensitive as I am, picking up everybody’s stuff. On the other hand, it prepared me. Everything along the way has prepared me for where I am now.

I think that in the next six months or so, I’m going to have to hire more people, and that scares me because it’s giving up control. I think that scares a lot of people who are entrepreneurs or people in their own business, especially spiritual businesses. Plus, most people who are working in this realm, I can’t say to someone, “You’re not going to come to see me, you’re going to see her.” That’s not my business model, they’ve got to see me. I have to be the one, but giving up control in the background to have other people help me, and that’s a little whit and that’s a challenge sometimes.

KIMBERLY: It’s scary. I’m in the process of bringing on more people on my team. One of the first interview questions has to be the explanation of what I do and who my clients are. I say, “My clients talk to dead people and they talk to aliens, and they channel other beings, are you okay with that?” It’s a different hiring process, for sure, than most companies.

ANNA: In my mind, I would think everybody would be interested but some people are just too…

KIMBERLY: Not quite awake enough to follow what we do…

What’s the main message that Mary is trying to get out there for all of us? What can you share so that someone who’s listening can take that away? We can really help spread that word, and really, get that message out there so that we can have this shift in consciousness on this planet.

ANNA: That’s exactly it, a shift in consciousness. In order to shift our consciousness, we have to raise our vibration in unity… not only here in the United States, but people in China and Afghanistan, and recognize that we are made from one creator, so we are related to all those people.

There should be no barriers between us, and the more that we look up to God, talk to God, communicate to God, you can call that prayer, you can call that conversation, it doesn’t matter… Praying any way you want but just keep the communication going. And to be compassionate, not only to other people but to ourselves.

Many people don’t know how to love themselves. If you don’t love yourself, you’re going to have a hard time loving up everybody around you. And to keep it simple, you don’t have to complicate this. Say hello to the guy in the grocery store that you see every time you walk in there, ask him how his day is. A bird outside who’s having an issue, go out and try to save the bird. It’s to all creatures of the land. To say kind words to people. To pay attention to how you’re saying things and why you’re saying things. You don’t have to lay down your life, you don’t even have to lay across some puddle and have somebody walk over you. It’s about kindness which goes back to the words of Jesus, the words of Buddha, to be kind, to be good. The world will change, it’s like a domino effect.

KIMBERLY: So simple, yet, not always the easiest for people to do. But to get that message out there of kindness is beautiful.

ANNA: People hold anger and unforgiveness, it stops the individual from moving forward with the rest of the world and themselves. They always say, “you can forgive, you don’t have to forget…” because that would be repetition. But forgive and be kind in love. It’s all about love. God is … Whether you call it God, or you call the creator, or the beloved or Sam, it’s the energy of pure love. We are made in that energy, we carry that energy within us. It’s about sharing the energy of love.

KIMBERLY: Beautiful message, and I hope that gets out there more. How can we help? Where can people get the book and find out more about you? If they want to do a reading or see you speak, where can they go?

ANNA: The book is available through all online booksellers, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I will be doing a book signing in the Malibu area in February, which is on my website. I will also be doing some group readings down there, which are also on my website. My website is annaraimondi.com. I also do Facebook Live’s, and I try to do them once a week or once every other week. If people go into Facebook and look up Anna Raimondi, they can be a part of my Facebook Live’s. I send out inspirational messages from my website, they can sign up for that. So there are lots of ways to tune into what I’m doing and to be a part of it as well.

KIMBERLY: Thank you so much for sharing. Are there any last words that you have that you’d like to share?

ANNA: I just hope that everybody recognizes that in order for us to find peace in this world and within ourselves, we really do need to turn to the highest power.

KIMBERLY: Beautifully said. Thank you so much, Anna, for joining us. Everyone, the links for Conversations with Mary will be right below this video so you can get your copy and find out all the information about Anna. Anna, thank you so much for joining us.

ANNA: Thank you so much.

Comments

comments