BIOGRAPHY

Woman of Unconventional Courage by Doris Gallan

Claudia’s conservative upbringing did little to prepare her for the violence and loss she has experienced in her life. Brought up to unquestioningly accept the wisdom of her elders and to place her fate in the hands of others, it took accidents, crime and health issues to wake her up and take control of her life and to understand she couldn’t survive all she faced by continuing to live in the world of thought others had created for her.

She began questioning the conventions of her society and her programming; she sought answers to questions that shouldn’t be asked. From an early age Claudia viewed the world differently than those around her; but wanting to fit in, kept those thoughts to herself.

A deep thirst for knowledge possessed her, driving her to study strange practices and religions in foreign lands.

Having more daunting personal experiences than any one human should be burdened with, her indefatigable curiosity about how others view the world, without blindly accepting their ideas as her own, built the strength needed to transform her victim self into a victor, then help others do the same.

Where Tradition Met the Unconventional

The path finding gene runs deep in Claudia, as her ancestors were Mormon pioneers whose forefathers first came to America in the 1600s after giving up everything to pursue freedom and opportunity. From them, Claudia inherited the pioneering spirit to find a new freedom for herself and others victimized and imprisoned in their own limited world of “in-the-box thinking”.

Except for the tragic death of her father in an automobile accident while she was away enjoying her honeymoon, Claudia’s life flowed much as that of any conservative Christian. After being raised in the small mining town of Ely, Nevada, she went to college, married, had eight children, and kept busy raising children and writing religious lessons for the women and youth of their worldwide church.

But, always she felt like a butterfly in a box, her spirit reaching for more connection to the ultimate Truth. In a dream, she was told that to obtain this truth she needed to look for ways to see life from different angles thus validating the words of French philosopher, Emile Cartier.

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have”.

But it was personal experience that gave Claudia her most important education. In 1990, her mother and sister were murdered in their mountain cabin, ironically called “Tiede’s Tranquility”. This and the devastating aftermath of family disintegration, and divorce, caused Claudia to experience a heart-wrenching pain for which no outlet could be found. It proved to be the breaking point in a life of blind acceptance.

Programmed to be a victim, to accept her fate and place her faith in God’s hands, she decided that wasn’t good enough. Instead, she turned her tragedy into a vehicle of assistance for others. She created a registered non-profit organization to create safer communities for families. She never again accepted things the way she had been taught.

After being diagnosed with cancer, Claudia embarked on what was perhaps her most difficult lesson yet. This would be one to take her through the inner workings of her own soul to become yet another type of survivor and through which she found and cleansed the thought demons that had held her hostage to illness.

Unfortunately, the tragedies in her life weren’t over. Claudia, her husband and many others became victims of an enormous Ponzi scheme, which robbed them of their her life savings. Sensing that little would be done to the perpetrators unless she took action, she began an eight-year campaign to uncover and provide enough evidence to the FBI and the courts to put the con artists in prison where they couldn’t defraud others. Her reputation as a gumshoe (detective) vigilante was sealed thanks to the work she and her “deep throat” source accomplished which permitted her to support the victims and prevent future victims.

Dirk Smillie, Sr. Writer of Forbes magazine said,

Claudia Nelson is the best gumshoe (detective) vigilante I have ever met…

In her search to find ways to protect others and to put the criminals in jail, Claudia experienced a number of dramatic encounters. The mafia approached her… with an offer difficult to refuse. She was given a subtle “death warning” while pursuing the con men. Despite this warning, she decided she’d rather go out helping someone than retire in a rocking chair. Besides, she figured, her story had hit the media, beginning with a Forbes Magazine exposé, so she hoped she was now a bit too high profile to kill.

Any one of the tragedies in her life would have felled a lesser person: the violent death of her father, the even more violent murder of her mother and sister, a bout with cancer, a divorce after 32 years of marriage and eight children and the loss of her life savings in a swindle. Claudia, like many others, was faced with the decision of folding in the face of adversity, fighting and winning, or jumping over obstacles to win. But, in her unique way, this victor found a way to walk – not around, over or under –but through obstacles. These tragedies have given her ample opportunities to personally test her methods of turning victims into victors. She uses her own life, which explodes with contradictions, to help others make sense of theirs.

But before she could help other victims become victors, Claudia undertook her own journey of exploration, entering territory seldom explored by conservative Christians in her search for ways to see things differently. Her explorations took her to the jungles of Peru to study with spiritual leaders, and to the deep canyons in the Sierra Madres working with the Huichol Indians. Her journey of contradiction continued as she hiked with, and interviewed,  a group of women and their nudist Christian minister husbands.  She later studied in a Hindu Ashram.

Wanting to understand the thoughts of Satanists without facing the danger of joining a coven, she studied their thought system from a Doctoral thesis containing the writings of those who had interviewed Satanists. She then entered the inner world of the mystics and participated in Native American sweat lodges.

Finally, she attended to a liberal arts school in the eastern U.S., located on a Civil War battleground, where her fellow students encountered the ghosts of Civil War soldiers. Here she studied quantum physics, art and psychology and ultimately obtained her degree in writing and literature.

It took Claudia many years to learn to become empowered thought her own adversities. She now helps others do the same. Her seminars have taken her from prisons, to courts, to the offices of corporate executives and have helped to transform lives.

Her passion is to see people become self empowered and at peace as she knows our “out there” world is only a reflection of our “in here” world of thought.” Gandhi put it this way: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

That’s Claudia’s passion to help you rid yourself of the fake and fearful you that keeps you stuck in your box of limited thinking and help you discover the real perfect you where lies all Truth power, abundance and peace. When enough of us do this, we will finally have world peace.