Are You Psychic?

psychic%201(Originally published April 30, 2009)

I recently had a conversation with a woman named Janie who wondered if she is psychic. She told me that she often knows who is calling her phone before she answers it, believes she can tell what her dog is thinking, and finds that she is intuitive about numerous other things. Most people wonder at one time or another if there is something more to their “I knew who was calling” thing than meets the Third Eye.

There is good reason to wonder if we might posses a little bit of that sixth sense because–surprise!–we all do. We all have some intuitive ability. It is a built-in part of our psyche that works with our logic and our base instincts to help us figure out what’s what. Unfortunately, the intuition has been lost in a logical and practical world. We are taught to use logic and critical thinking in school, but if we cannot explain where we got an answer, well…we must be cheating!

Intuition has gotten away from our understanding, but like the appendix and the tailbone, it’s still there, whether you know what it’s for or not! Albert Einstein once said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Well-spake, Dr. Einstein!

But enough of my dismay with the current state of our collective understanding. The question remains, “Are you psychic?” And the simple answer is, “Yes!”

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Janie (or you) should hang out a neon hand and set up shop as a palm reader, but it does mean that people know much more than they think they know. We all have energetic access to all the information ever known or thought. Wow!

If you are interested in developing your natural intuitive abilities, first, forget the notion that something which catches your attention is only your imagination. When I was a little girl and told my mom that I felt like someone was watching me and that it felt like people were around me, she told me I had a wonderful imagination. While I am grateful she did not condemn me for it, it took me decades to figure out that there were spirits communicating with me from the Other Side!  Try thinking that if something means something TO YOU, then it MEANS something to you.  Got it?

Once you grasp this concept, take notice when your hunches are right. If you knew who was calling on the phone before you answered, pat yourself on the back and say, “Wow, I really DO have intuition!”  Paying attention to these occurrences will increase their frequency in your awareness. Keep it up!

We are given both gifts of intuition and intellect, and we are at our best when we use them both. Try it–you just might discover that you are psychic after all!

If you are so inclined, feel free to post in the comments your experience with your intuition.

Should Healing Be Free?

From Pamela Bruner of Make Your Success Easy
www.MakeYourSuccessEasy.com
888-736-0620
pamela@makeyoursuccesseasy.com

Should Healing Be Free?

I received an email this week from one of my subscribers, saying that he wouldn’t participate in a very low-priced tapping offering because the people that he worked with (people with addictions, depression, etc) couldn’t afford it. He also said that the spirit of EFT was to be given away, not sold.

I hear this frequently from healers. There are some who believe that healing should be given away, and that to make money, especially to make more money than you need for subsistence living, is just wrong if you’re a healer. I disagree with this, and here’s why.

1) Just because some people can’t afford something doesn’t mean that it should be given away free to all. Some people can’t afford to shop at Walmart. Should Walmart give away their wares? I’m not arguing against charity – I believe strongly in giving back. I believe that businesses have a responsibility to charge for the transformation that they provide, and then give back in some way as well. But if you give it all away, you’re broke, out of business, and have NOTHING to give back. Jack Canfield taught me ‘When you’re poor, the good that you can do is limited to your physical presence.’ Jack taught me how to write multi-thousand dollar checks to charity. Wouldn’t you like to have more reach?

2) People value what they pay for. Period. I’ve seen it over and over again. Free resources go unused, dismissed, and de-valued – no matter how valuable – just because they are free. Giving tastes of what you do for free is great – it allows people to sample, experiment and lower their risk before they invest with you. EVERY wealthy EFTer I know, and unfortunately there aren’t many, gives away free support in some form. But giving everything away – or underpricing it – means that the transformation you provide will in many cases be ignored. And that’s a real shame. (It also creates an attitude of entitlement, which is currently rampant in the world and further disempowers people.)

3) You have to take care of yourself to do your work well. It may be true in healing that the work comes through you, not by you, and that you’re acting as a channel for Spirit. But if you’re constantly overworked, stressed about money, or not practicing good self-care because you don’t have the time or the resources, you’re not an effective healer/coach/practitioner. You do actually need to live well, take time off, eat good food, etc, in order to do your best work – the work that truly serves your clients and the world.

4) If you’re a healer, and you’re broke, it’s probably not because you’re chock-full of clients and not charging enough. It’s because you don’t have enough clients, which means you’re not helping as many people as you could. In order to truly help people, you need to get out, market yourself, grow your business, talk to people, be confident in what you do, and so much more. This takes time, energy, and yes – money. To do good, it takes cash. It’s been said ‘It took millions to keep Mother Teresa poor.’ She was constantly attracting money, although she didn’t choose to keep it for herself. Is your system working that well?

5) Poverty is not a status-symbol. Humans all have a need for status (this is a psychological fact.) There is always something that you are better at than someone else, and something that others are better at than you. Too many healers are claiming poverty as a status symbol, i.e. ‘I’m a better person because I’m not rich, in fact I’m barely scraping by.’ I’ll admit that I used to hold this mistaken, disempowering belief back when I was a musician. Because I couldn’t make that much money, I would denigrate those who did. It was petty. It’s not noble to be poor. Look for another way to feel good about yourself, rather than poverty.

If you want to be poor, you can. If you want to make more money, you can do that as well. Be aware that it’s a choice, and empower yourself by honoring both the choice that works for you, and the choice made by those who want to do more good in the world by becoming wealthy, and sharing their gifts.

The Dark Side of the Law of Attraction

“Why Did I Attract THIS?”

That’s the question we all need to ask all the time. Many people have seen “The Secret” and have been studying the Law of Attraction, so they’re starting to be conversant in some of its principles.

In my practice as a psychic medium and medical intuitive, I’ve noticed that my clients don’t get the whole picture of just what this attraction thing is.

Simply stated, the Law of Attraction is a law of physics that applies to your life in that what you put your attention on is naturally drawn to you. Most people look at this law thus: “How can I attract more money/love/etc.?”

And that is great. That is the best use of the Law of Attraction and if you are consistently attracting things, people, relationships, and experiences that please you, I congratulate you!  That is fantastic!

Unfortunately, that is not the case for about 99% of us out there. Most of us continue to attract at least a few things that we’re not too crazy about and here’s the kicker:  NOBODY KNOWS THEY’RE DOING IT.

By focusing our attention on things, experiences, relationships, and feelings–that we like or do not like–we attract them into our lives.

You read that right:  THAT WE LIKE OR DO NOT LIKE. Everything in your life right now, like it or not, has been attracted to you BY YOU. Ta-dum! You are the author of your own life, so I hope it’s a book you really enjoy reading.

A while back, within one week, I talked to three clients who were actually offended when I suggested that they had attracted experiences into their life that they didn’t like. “Why would I attract THAT?” they demanded. “I don’t want THAT, it’s BAD.”

Right, I get that. I understand that you don’t consciously want car trouble, health problems, bad grades, bad breath, or whatever. Who would?

And that’s exactly why you need to ask, “Why did I attract THIS?” Anything that gets your attention for better or worse, ask the question.

Here’s a dire example. My husband died suddenly several years ago and left me with two small children to raise and very little life insurance. Why did I attract THAT?

Why indeed.  I may never know all the reasons, but I know there are some, probably many.  You know what I always say–everything happens not for A reason, but for many reasons.

And with some of these larger things (and maybe the small things too), rest assured that, at some point before your birth, your spirit got together with other spirits to plan some of the important events you wanted in your lives as humans.

This is why we sometimes have trouble understanding-we don’t communicate with our own spirits very well. It’s why we attract both things we like and things we don’t.

The good news is that, once you recognize that your thoughts and energy have created what you’ve got–you have all the power to create what you DO like from here on out.

Easier said that done?  Absolutely.  Impossible?  Not at all.

I’ve just urged you to ask the question, “Why did I attract THIS?” for anything you encounter that is not the best possible thing.  (It’s a good idea to ask the question for those things you like, too, so you learn how to bring more of those into your life.)

And here’s another lesson in this seedy underbelly of the Law of Attraction: what about undesirable things that happen to other people who are in your life? Well, they are in your life, so you have attracted them, right? Parents, children, spouses, etc. So what happens to them is part of your life too.

Let’s say that your spouse contracts an illness. Did your spouse attract this illness?  Yes.  Did you attract this illness to your spouse?  No, BUT you attracted an ill spouse into your own life.

Aha!  Do you get that?  So the illness itself, as a THING, is serving multiple purposes for multiple people.

“Why would I attract THAT?”

GREAT QUESTION!  Please continue to ask it.

There can be any number of reasons why you would be served by your spouse’s illness, to wit, an opportunity to care for this person who has given you so much, proof to yourself that you are strong and capable in the way you deal with this, an urge to make changes in your life… the list of possibilities is endless.

If you are asking the question “Why did I attract THIS?”, and the answers are hard to find, a good psychic who understands the workings of the Universe and is also a medical intuitive (such as yours truly) will help you figure out just “Why did I attract THIS?”

I hope you’re hungry, because this is a lot of food for thought.

2012: Apocalypse or Genesis?

This seems to be on everyone’s lips – 2012, the end of the world!  People have been talking about it and speculating about it ever since someone mentioned that the ancient Mayan calendar ends then.

Poppycock.

I have been asked to serve on a panel of psychics to discuss the “fate of the world” with regard to 2012, and I thought this might be a good time to talk about it here.  (BTW, if you would like to hear that panel for free, it’s in Denver, at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, Sunday, October 2, 2011, 1:00 to 3:30.)

You know that I am a philosopher more than a mathematician, so I’m not going to talk about the actual calendar (although I have studied it a bit, and it’s complex and not really scary), but I do want to talk about what’s going on with the world in general.

We have been entering a new age for quite a while.  Remember back in the ’80s when we talked about “New Age”?  Well, that’s because it is just that, a new age.  A new way of thinking and talking and feeling.  A new age of enlightenment and the re-emergence of the Divine Feminine.  A time of greater prosperity for all people.

2012 represents the true turning point, but energy and enlightenment have been speeding up for years, maybe decades.  You know all those “peace, love and understanding” people in the ’60s?  They were getting the ball rolling.  Remember “women’s lib”?  More people getting things to start the change.

And more recently, the stock market crash of 2008.  It affected the entire world economy.  And why?  Because there IS now a world economy.  No country stands alone any longer.  Even when Greece was crashing, it was only about 17th in world economies, but it had a massive effect on everyone else.

And that crash was part of the re-construction of many of the old ways and methods.  Old structures are breaking down so that new ones can replace them–better ones!

And this is what all of these things are about:  Welcome to the new age. 

There will not be a cataclysmic event; the world will not end.  Relax!  But get ready for many more things to change and to change quickly.  We are coming into a time when prosperity will be much more available to many more people. 

Is there a catch?  Yes.  If you dig in your heels and refuse to change what you’re doing, it will be harder for you.  Listen to what’s going on.  Listen to your heart, your inner guidance.  Notice how you feel when something happens.  Does this feel good or bad?  If you open your mind, does it feel better?

There is a lot of conflict around us, especially if you listen to the news.  Radical factions are hating on everyone.  Those are the ones who don’t want to change, even if it’s for the better.  Don’t worry about them.  They are also the ones who are resisting, so it’s harder for them.  Send them a blessing.

And finally, I will say this.  There is no gain without a loss.  There is no beginning without an ending.  So when it seems that something is collapsing, recognize that something is also being built.  And ask yourself if the new thing isn’t better than the old thing.

Enjoy the new age!  Enjoy 2012!  It’s going to be GOOD!

Don’t Force It–Pull

For those of you who are, like me, old enough to remember such things, there was a delightful little sitcom on TV in the ’70s, called “Laverne & Shirley”.  It spun off from another sitcom, “Happy Days”.  (While it may have been a while ago, my barely-grown daughters are familiar with both shows, so you probably are too.  But if not, you can always Google it.)

Laverne and Shirley were roommates and best friends, so in the pilot episode, they moved into their new basement apartment in Milwaukee.  A scene that sticks with me is where Laverne is trying to get her key out of the lock.  She’s tugging with all her might, pushing one foot against the door for leverage, but the key won’t budge.

The landlady stops by and Laverne complains, “I can’t the stupid key out of the lock!”  The landlady reaches for the key and pulls it out with ease. 

“How did you do that?” Laverne asks, incredulous.

“Don’t force it–pull,” replies the landlady quite simply.

Later, the scene is played out again with Shirley sliding out the key and telling Laverne, “Don’t force it–pull.”

I’ve thought about this a lot lately.  Not because I have so much time to think about 1970s sitcoms, but because any time I feel like I am not attracting, creating, or accomplishing what I really desire, this simple phrase pops into my head:  Don’t force it–pull.

Replace “pull” with “allow” or “receive” and you’ve got a powerful motto. 

Sometimes when I feel like I am working very hard to create or attract what I want, I get this message and I think, I have to walk away, let go of all this “action” and simply allow my desires to manifest. 

This is for you.

Shy Spirits

Just for fun, I thought I’d share something about working with spirits, or people on the Other Side. As a psychic medium, I have worked with my share of such energies. It’s fascinating work for me and is almost always very satisfying for the client.

When I am doing a psychic medium reading, we’ll hear from one or more of the client’s late loved ones about 50% of the time. The rest of the time, there are several reasons for not hearing from someone from the Other Side:

1) The client is too young to have lost anyone close to them or has simply not had that experience at any age.

2) The client is not interested in hearing from those on the Other Side. The spirits will accommodate that sometimes–but not always! Sometimes, they come on through anyway, and I convey their messages.

3) The client is already in touch with his or her late loved ones, being naturally in-tune with that, or having had such a close relationship that it continues beyond death.

4) Rarely, I’m not the right medium for that or those spirits. Sure, it can happen!

When I did group readings specifically to communicate with those on the Other Side, as John Edward does on television, there were always plenty of spirits to choose from. Some are more insistent than others, while some wait patiently and hope to have a turn.

I can’t speak for John, but usually when I am through working, either by the clock or my own fatigue, the spirits will leave me alone until I give them another opportunity.

Intuition and Intellect

[originally published May 18, 2009]

A message that has been coming up a lot lately, both for my clients and for me, is that about aligning your energy and working on it the same way you work on the practical, logical, tangible things. Think of the energetic or vibrational wonder that happens to you when you work in your garden. You’re physically and practically doing something, taking action, to get your garden to grow. But at the same time, you’re thinking about and feeling the goodness of connection to the earth, you’re putting your energy and thought into your garden.

Your life is like that. If you don’t like your job, then you are only doing the logical part. If you’re unhappy in a relationship and you do things to help it like going to counseling, having conversations, or setting up date nights, that is only the logical part. Work on the energy part.

Look at it this way–you were given both intellect and intuition. When you use them both, you are at your best.

Flying without a Plane – or a Body

[originally published July 29, 2008]

flyingI have read only a couple of things about astral projection, also known as astral travel, out-of-body experiences, and transcendental meditation. What I have read did not satisfy me with regard to my personal experiences. Thus, I want to share with you those experiences, in the hopes that you will find it helpful.

Some people believe that everyone’s soul travels out of his/her body during sleep. I disagree, mostly because I know the difference between astral travel and dreaming. Someone once told me that if you dream you are flying, your soul has left your body. That may actually be possible, but again, it is not my experience with being out of my physical body.

When I was in my early teens, I experienced my first out-of-body travel. I was lying on the couch, resting with my eyes closed but not asleep. Suddenly, I was also across the room, next to the fireplace. I was aware of both my physical body and my consciousness, even though they were separate. Then my soul went back to my body and was lying back down. In the process, as my soul-head was still above my physical head, I opened my physical eyes. And I could see from both perspectives! It was a very odd sensation and I admit I was not altogether happy about it.

I knew this was not something to discuss with others. How? Well, maybe you’ve read some of my stuff about how I finally gave in to a disbelief in magic. I was trying to be a “mere mortal” at that point, so I didn’t accept magical things anymore. Or I tried not to. This one was pretty overwhelming. I had no idea until I was about 40 that these spontaneous out-of-body experiences might have indicated that I was psychically and spiritually gifted.

They continued to happen periodically throughout my teens. The second experience happened while I was sleeping at night. I left my body and shot down through the floor into the living room below. Another odd feeling that left me wondering what was going on. I didn’t encounter anyone else in the non-physical and didn’t want to ask anyone about it in the physical.

Eventually, I learned to have a little bit of control over this process. I couldn’t make it happen, but I could sometimes guide it if it did. Once, I went to see the boy I liked in high school. I simply concentrated on his name-like, “I want to go see X”-and there I was in his bedroom. He was asleep and I could see exactly where the furniture was and the position he slept in. The next day, I asked him how he slept. He showed me and it matched what I had seen with my soul-eyes.

Years later, I focused on someone in particular again. This was on a Sunday afternoon. I sensed vast amounts of water under me, for the brief moment I was “traveling”. Then I was in front of my friend. He was at a resort, a large hotel on a beach. The hotel was distinctive, with two separate buildings that curved toward the ocean. There were terraces from the hotel going down to the beach. I tried to talk to my friend, asking, “Can you see me? Can you hear me?” I thought my friend answered, “Almost.”

I’ll interject here that a disembodied soul in this physical dimension “feels” a little funny. There aren’t really eyes to see, ears to hear, skin to feel. But you “sense” things in a different way. So when I say that I saw or said something, think of it as being rather ghostly, non-physical, or angelic.

A few days later, I talked to the friend I had “visited” for the first time in a while. I asked what he had been up to and he said he just got back from Grand Cayman. I got excited about the prospect that I could prove I had been there in spirit! It just so happened that my next-door neighbor at the time had lived in Grand Cayman for a while. I described the hotel to her and asked her if she recognized it. She said, “Oh, yes, that’s the _____ Hotel in Grand Cayman. I am very familiar with it.”

Still, I didn’t tell anyone what had actually happened, but I had proved to myself that I really had done what I thought I had done!

Many years later, when I began teaching spirituality seminars, I began to talk openly about these experiences. At the first seminar, a woman in the audience raised her hand and said, “I do that too.” Then a young man in the back gingerly raised his hand. “I am so glad to know what that is,” he confessed with relief. “I didn’t know what was happening and I was scared.”

I explained to him three very important things: 1) It’s only your soul going around without your body, 2) nothing in the non-physical can hurt you in the physical, and 3) you have more control over it than you think you do.

I have finally learned about this control factor. If I start leaving my body, I can say, “I want to go to _____” and I will go to that place or that person, no matter where it or he or she is. I can also decide not to go at all. I have occasionally encountered other spirit-seeming entities who look like people but seem to be in the non-physical as I am. I cannot easily communicate with them, though, so I can’t say for sure. Thought is usually more effective than trying to speak words, but I still haven’t achieved communication with either physical or non-physical beings when I am astral traveling.

Sometimes, the experiences will meld with dream-like situations, which I can mostly control by choice, deciding what I want to have happen. If there is ever anything that seems frightening-and that doesn’t really happen to me anymore-I have learned that these things are manifestations of my own fear. This is key in your waking physical life, as well: If you sense something that frightens you, speak to it in love. Demons, gargoyles, and other scary things are only your fear appearing to you, reflecting back at you. Use words or thoughts of love, such as “I love you,” “I love,” “God loves you,” or “There is only love here.” And you will banish your demons.

Talk of Recession Harmful to Economy

[originally published May 30, 2008] —>  NOTICE THIS ORIGINAL DATE!  I’VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR A WHILE!  (And this was BEFORE the crash in October, 2008.)

“This has GOT to stop!” Thus spake my beloved grandmother on the occasion of her 80th birthday, as she craned her imperious, permanent-waved head toward the car’s power window to criticize my father. Several members of the family were packed into two cars and had discovered yet a third Houston restaurant to be closed.

Grandmother’s words were never more pertinent than now:  This talk of recession has got to stop!

Every headline reeks of havoc, recession, human-rights violations, oppression, fatigue, war, and Arma-crazy-geddon. I’m telling you, I’ve had it.  This has got to stop!

I look around me and everywhere I see a nation of big consumers. Sure, we gripe about the high price of gas, but we keep buying it. We keep driving wherever we want to or have to go. As a nation, we give generously to charitable causes at home and abroad. We keep buying more iPhones® and Wiis® and the other latest gadgets. We have so much disposable income, we now lag only behind Brazil in per capita elective plastic surgeries. And we have so much good food that we continue to be the fattest people on the planet.

Despite the record federal debt, we remain fabulously wealthy, compared with any time in history and any nation thus far. And yet, all we see are headlines and news stories reporting that the Dow dipped again or the NASDAQ saw its worst day since two-thousand-whatever or the economy is headed for heck in a handbasket, if it hasn’t already arrived.  A cautiously optimistic headline like, “Retailers rejoice over a strong May” gets buried like it’s decomposing.

Stop it already!  The thoughts and ideas that we entertain the most are the ones that continue to grow.  In other words, talk of a good economy encourages more of that good thing.  Likewise, endless talk of recession creates recession. Think about it. The last time the economy was great, it just kept getting greater. Remember the famous quote from the first Clinton campaign in ’92, “It’s the economy, stupid”? Well, that was no accident. The economy seemed to take on a fanciful life of its own when everyone noticed how great it was.

When was the last time you saw a good headline about the economy? I have actually seen a few, but they seem to be snatched off the internet headlines like dry laundry off the line, to be replaced with dirty laundry about–what else? Recession.

If you need help, here’s a great story to hang your hat on: Very recently, a couple of my friends decided they wanted to move to another neighborhood. They listed their house with a Realtor® and held an open house on a Saturday. That day, there were 11 showings of the house. By the following Monday evening, they had six-count ’em, six-offers on their house. The best one was considerably higher than the asking price.

2011 update:  My sister recently sold her house similarly quickly–listed on Wednesday, open house Saturday, three serious offers on Monday, two of whom got into a little bidding war, and my sister and her husband reaped more than their asking price!

This is not an isolated incident, and yet we hear nothing about it in the news. We must find those happy stories and hang onto them with all our might! Believe me, our might is better spent that way than on sorrier tales.

I’m not asking you to give up all bad news. And I’m certainly not suggesting that you live in a dreamy bubble, ignoring war or famine or people who need your care. All I am saying is, please stop writing and reading and listening to the news stories that say only bad and negative things every blessed day. And when you find a good story, for all our sakes, milk it for all it’s worth!

Remember, as Grandmother said, “This has GOT to stop!”

Why Did I Attract THIS?

[originally published October 19, 2007–and still completely relevant]

WHY DID I ATTRACT THIS…

That’s the question we all need to ask all the time.

Many people have seen “The Secret” (and if you haven’t seen it, please go to http://www.thesecret.tv/ and watch it) and have been studying the Law of Attraction, so they’re starting to be conversant in some of those principles.

In my practice as a psychic medium and medical intuitive, I am starting to notice that my clients don’t get the whole picture of just what this attraction thing is.

Simply stated, the Law of Attraction is a law of physics that applies to your life in that what you put your attention on, you attract to you. Most people look at this law like “How can I attract more money/love/etc.?”

And that is great. That is the best use of the Law of Attraction and if you are consistently attracting things, people, relationships, and experiences that please you, I congratulate you! That is fantastic!

Unfortunately, that is not the case for about 98% of us out there. Most of us continue to attract at least a few things that we’re not too crazy about and here’s the kicker: nobody knows they’re doing it.

Just this past week, I have talked to three clients who were actually offended when I suggested that they had attracted experiences into their life that they didn’t like. “Why would I attract THAT?” they demanded. “I don’t want THAT, it’s BAD.”

Right, I get that. I understand that you don’t consciously want car trouble, health problems, bad grades, bad breath, or whatever. Who would?

And that’s exactly why you need to ask, “Why did I attract THIS?” Anything that gets your attention for better or worse, ask the question.

Here’s a dire example. Many people know that my husband died several years ago and left me with two small children to raise and very little life insurance. Why did I attract THAT?

Why indeed. I may never know all the reasons, but I know there are some, probably many, and some of them I do understand. And with some of those larger things (and maybe the small things too), your spirit got together with other spirits to plan some of the important events you wanted in your life as a human.

This is why we sometimes have trouble understanding—we don’t communicate with our own spirits very well. I work to bridge that gap for my clients, helping them communicate with Spirit and understand why they’re here—even when they’re attracting things they don’t like.

Food for thought, eh?