Anna Sayce

Author: Anna

  • The Alpha State – Why Is It Essential to Psychic Development?

    The Alpha State – Why Is It Essential to Psychic Development?

    There are four types of brain wave that can occur while you’re thinking, sleeping, dreaming, concentrating and doing what you do – those brain waves are called beta, alpha, theta, and delta.

    Let’s take a look at the brain wave states that occur with different activities and states of consciousness:

    brain wave chart

    Beta is the brain wave that’s present for your normal waking state and all the busy-ness that happens during this state. Most of us are in beta (fully conscious/awake/concentrating) throughout the day. But note that you cannot usually receive psychic insights or intuitive guidance in a beta state. That’s the state where your conscious mind is fully engaged and operative and everything is busy, busy, busy.

    You need to be in an alpha state (at the least) to receive psychic information.

    Before I begin a reading, I always take myself down to an alpha state through meditation and visualization. I don’t call it ‘putting myself in an alpha state’, but if I remain in beta (with my conscious mind engaged), I can’t read for someone – quite simply – I can’t connect with someone’s Spirit Guides in that state. If I tried, I wouldn’t get any information.

    It would be like being tuned into the wrong radio station. I’m trying to connect to the frequency your guides are at (alpha) – the equivalent of some far away, long-wave radio station, set on an island somewhere. But all I can hear is my mind chattering about anything and everything (in beta) – the equivalent of some rubbish local breakfast show with lots of adverts and small talk: “What shall I have for dinner tonight? Oh, it’s raining, someone needs to bring the washing in!”, “Hmm, my eczema’s really itchy today” etc, etc.

    Likewise, if you’re trying to hear your own guides, you may just hear thoughts. You’re just listening to yourself. It’s because you’re in beta.

    How to Take Yourself Down to the Alpha State

    If you’re not used to doing this at will, you will probably need to practise. I’ve done thousands of readings now and I have to sit down and put myself in this state – every time.

    Here are some ways to put yourself in the alpha state:

    1. Meditation

    Here’s how:

    Choose a quiet place to meditate and sit in a comfortable position. You can sit in a traditional cross-legged posture or you can sit in a chair. Make sure your back is straight – this helps to prevent your mind from becoming sleepy. I don’t recommend that you lie down to meditate as you can fall asleep while you’re doing it.

    Sit with your eyes closed and turn your attention to your breathing. Breathe through the nostrils, without trying to control your breath, just notice the sensation of the air going in and out of your nostrils. Focus on this sensation. As you’re doing this, your thoughts will continue to arise, but bring your attention back to your breath.

    A lot of intuitives make meditation a part of their spiritual practice – mostly because it trains the mind to relax at will and enter the alpha state. It’s a hard skill to develop, but it’s worth it.

    What if you find meditation really hard?

    If you don’t like regular meditation, try guided visualization to put you in the alpha state.

    Visualize what you want to happen tomorrow. Visualize meeting your spirit guides.

    I like to visualize going down a staircase to visit my guides in a garden. Sometimes I imagine meeting them on a mountain top or a beach.

    Even if you’re the one doing the visualizing and it’s not really your spirit guides, it doesn’t matter. Allow yourself to daydream – it’s good for your psychic development!

    When you daydream and visualize and imagine, you’re in the alpha state. The more often you can put yourself in that state, the easier it is to do it next time you want to connect with your spirit guides at will. And the next time, they might actually show up because you can access them at the frequency of alpha.

    2. Binaural Beats

    Another recent discovery of mine that helps me to be in the alpha state is binaural beats. I first discovered this via a friend who put me together a hypnosis mp3 to help me sleep. Firstly, she sent a hypnosis mp3 with her talking. I listened to it a few times but it was hard to get my mind to shut up and pay attention. I wasn’t sure I was being hypnotized.

    Then a few days later, she sent me an updated version of the hypnosis, with binaural beats in the background. When I listened to this mp3, straight away it was like it was speaking to a whole different part of me – that was present, and listening. I was hypnotized.

    Once I saw what binaural beats could do, I decided to order an Extra-Sensory Perception Binaural Beats mp3 with the aim of training myself to reach the alpha state more easily and quickly. So far, I have found it a really helpful tool for training myself to bypass my very busy and chatty mind and put me in a state where I can quickly access spiritual guidance. So much so that I plan on using it to replace my meditation that I do in the morning before readings.

  • 3 Mindsets to Maintain Healthy Boundaries in Relationships

    3 Mindsets to Maintain Healthy Boundaries in Relationships

    When I talk about maintaining healthy energetic boundaries, I mean defining what is your responsibility and what is the other person’s responsibility and also setting standards for what you will and won’t accept in your life.

    Why you need good boundaries:

    If you’re not taking care of your own boundaries, you’ll feel bad about yourself and self-esteem will plummet. You’ll send out the subconscious message to yourself that ‘other people matter more than me’. That’ll have your metaphorical inner child wailing pretty loudly and then you’ll have to make it up to her/him.

    How I learned that poor boundaries can = low self-esteem and resentment

    Back in my early twenties, I didn’t know much about boundaries.

    I had a reading in late 2007 with Erin Pavlina.  At the time, I was unhappy in my teaching job because I felt depleted; like I was giving a great deal in my work without getting a whole lot back.  I remember asking about this issue during the reading and my guides said that I was learning a big life lesson about establishing healthy boundaries.

    Having boundaries was alien to me. I loved pleasing everyone and got upset if I couldn’t cater to everyone (I have Libra rising in my astrology chart too, which explains that.) I was in a job that I wasn’t enjoying much and so when I got to help someone in a way that used my gifts, it felt so wonderful that boundaries didn’t seem like a big deal.

    At that time, I realized that the same thing that was giving me a rush of good energy – sharing with others – was unbalancing me. I was also unhappy in my workplace because my boundaries were virtually non-existent.  I’d get angry because I wasn’t honouring myself or receiving back and I’d project that anger onto the people I thought were violating some sort of unspoken code of how much they were allowed to take from me.

    I later left that job and went on to have other relationships that taught me more about boundaries, with people in my new business and with men in romantic relationships.

    I found out from my own experiences that a wonderful relationship can suddenly start feeling awful when two people have non-existent boundaries and unspoken expectations.  It became clear how important drawing up boundaries is.

    Here are some ideas that I absorbed which helped me to do that.  I hope you find them helpful too.

    1. Remember that you are responsible for only one person – you

    We want to look out for others, right?  That’s the whole point of loving relationships isn’t it – caring for one another.

    BUT many of us mistake caring for someone as doing their growing for them, trying to protect them from life and taking on responsibility for them.

    We don’t need to do that for another person. After all, everyone has a literal connection to Source energy and divine power, and they can use that creative power to create change in whatever situation they’re not happy with and to take charge of their life.

    Taking responsibility for another person has energetic consequences. When one person believes the other lacks the energy or strength or power to accomplish something, they ‘lend’ the other person some of their energy and instead of being hooked into Divine source as a source of power, that means the other person becomes hooked into you energetically, and siphoning off energy from you.  This often shows up in a healing session as a negative attachment between two people called a compassionate connection.  It’s the energetic manifestation of codependency.

    In the physical, it looks like you doing the growing for your partner, or offering them your energy and help in a way that disempowers them.

    It’s compassionate and well-meaning, but it often originates out of pity or a belief that your help is needed by the other person; that you have something they don’t.

    Suffering happens when we believe we need something from someone that they won’t give us. The suffering can end when we realize that everything we need is inside us – including the abundance of the whole universe that we can call into being in a physical way through our power as creators. Put in a more grounded way, you can manifest anything you want in your life, and that abundance comes to you through you, not through another person – you are the source of all good in your life. Just as others are the source for their lives.

    So, we need to remember to lead others back to their own source of power instead of lending them ours. Also, be sure not to buy into anyone’s perception that they can’t create change.

    2. Don’t assume to know what others need

    An essential part of keeping good boundaries is not giving energy to those who aren’t asking and also, not expecting others to know what you need when you haven’t explicitly communicated it.

    You waste a lot of your own energy if you try to anticipate others’ needs.  Plus, when we assume we know what another needs, we can violate their boundaries.

    Instead, hold others in the perspective that they are the experts of their lives, and they know what they need.  Ask them to tell you what they want – and communicate to others what you want from them.  Know your own needs.

    I think this is a big part of keeping good boundaries in relationships because often one partner can get upset about an unspoken expectation that the other person had no awareness of.  And similarly, one person can spend a lot of energy trying to force their help on the other when it is not wanted.

    I know that I personally have wasted a lot of energy in romantic relationships trying to work out what I SHOULD be giving to the other.  In some relationships, I have felt a niggling sense of guilt all the time, thinking “am I doing enough for him/am I showing him I care enough?”

    Maintaining good boundaries is about letting go of your ideas that you know what another needs and that you can anticipate it.  That’s not your job – it’s theirs.

    3. Aim for an equal exchange of energy in relationships

    Do you ever feel guilty about getting something in return for what you’ve given?  Do you feel like you can never give enough?  Feeling unworthy of receiving is another factor that can encourage poor boundaries.

    We are energetic beings and we are here to exchange energy with one another. But remember that energy exchange between people has to be equal. When I mean energy exchange, I mean give and take. And that applies to all relationships. That exchange of energy can be anything – it can be learning, love, care, support, resources, friendship – virtually anything that is of value that you bring in your own way.

    If you don’t have give and take in relationships, it becomes unsafe to open yourself up and share yourself with others, because you become vulnerable to depleting yourself. And you are also giving yourself the message that you and your well-being don’t matter.

    So, even if you have that nasty gremlin on your shoulder, telling you that you need to give more than you get in relationships, whether they’re personal or professional, flick it off and remember that energy exchange has to be equal – and set boundaries so that your relationships don’t become one-way streets.

    So there you have it – a summary of the lessons I have learned about healthy boundaries over the last ten years. I hope this is helpful for someone.

  • Is Overactive Empathy Ruining Your Life?

    Is Overactive Empathy Ruining Your Life?

    As a very empathic person (a VEP 🙂 ), I have spent a lot of energy over the last few years learning how to manage my overactive empathy and establishing better energetic boundaries with those around me.

    I have noticed that many other people, especially clairsentient, sensitive, intuitive and lightworker types often have similar problems with their empathy and energetic boundaries.  I decided it might be a good idea to do a series of articles on my own experiences with overactive empathy. In this article I’m going to talk about the signs of overactive empathy and I relate many of my own experiences.

    First of all, let’s define empathy, and then I’ll tell you how you can find out whether your empathy is ‘running’ you.

    What is Empathy?

    Empathy is the ability to temporarily step out of your experience and step into another person’s experience, and perceive it as they do, whether it’s an emotional, mental, physical, intellectual or spiritual experience.

    Empathy is a gift most people have, to varying degrees.

    When you are a balanced empath, it is a wonderful thing, and truly a gift because empathy allows us to see things clearly from the perspective of other people so it makes for good relationships.

    Empathy arouses compassion in us.  It allows us to connect with and care about others.  If we can feel and relate to what other people are going through, then we are more motivated to offer our help.  So, empaths tend to be giving, caring people.  Empathy is also kind of cool because it also allows us to move past the veil of separation and experience oneness; what it is like to be another person.  It’s a psychic gift, one that I use in readings often and one that you can use as well if you are empathic.

    But if you’re someone who is an overactive empath, your empathy will be triggered by something and you may not even be aware that you’ve been triggered. That’s when it affects your quality of life.

    The disadvantages of having overactive empathy:

    This is a spectrum – it ranges from being a nuisance to actually being quite debilitating – such as  when you take on other people’s physical and emotional pain and you’re crippled temporarily by it while you process it and try to work out what the heck is going on.

    If you can relate to any of the below, you have some work to do on getting your empathy under control.  If you can’t, then you probably don’t need this article!

    Does any of this sound familiar to you?

    Overactive empathy in relationships

    Have you ever had a relationship where you feel what someone is going through so much, when it’s something they’re struggling with, and you really want to help them?

    That’s all good and well, but what if you want to help them so much, you start taking on their ‘stuff’ and their problems?  What if your boundaries become blurry and you take on responsibilities that aren’t yours?  What if you stop allowing them the responsibility and the opportunity to create change and want to create it for them, directly or indirectly?

    Overactive empathy is linked to co-dependence and poor boundaries in general and healers have a hard time with this because they’re so often empathic.

    Overactive empathy in the social setting

    When your empathy is triggered in a social setting, you are so focused on the people around you.  You may be subtly reading them intuitively, you’re listening and noticing intently – it’s like you’re diving into their energy.  If everyone else in the room is in colour, you’re in shades of grey because you’re not centred in yourself; you’re lost in everyone else’s energy. If your empathy is turned on in a social situation, it means you enjoy the experience less because it can be rather draining, sometimes overwhelming and a bit of a strain.

    This used to happen to me a lot.  I’ve been told that when I meet people for the first time, I can come off as a bit intense and it’s because all my energy is going out to people – I’m meeting them not just as a person but as an energetic being.  Is this appropriate?  In a reading, yes.  In a social setting, no.  And I’ve gotten a lot better at getting that under control.

    Overactive emotional empathy

    Have you ever been completely floored by someone else’s emotional pain?  This has happened to me several times.  When I was living in London, the brother of an acquaintance had committed suicide.  When this person came to my flat, I didn’t know how to shake off their pain after they had left, even though I didn’t know him very well and theoretically his pain should not have affected me so much.

    When I was supporting a bereaved relative of mine several years ago, I had the most extreme experience of taking on someone else’s pain.

    I found myself completely overtaken with grief.  At first I didn’t know what was happening.  I just assumed I felt bad for my relative.  But for about a couple of weeks, I was completely out of action.  I cried all day, I felt pain like I had never felt before in my life.  The funny thing was that when their pain began to lift, so did mine.

    Several months later, an intuitive who sees auras told me I was carrying an empathic emotional burden on my shoulders and it wasn’t mine; she told me to let it go.

    This kind of overactive emotional empathy is totally needless and inappropriate.  It didn’t help anyone for me to be overwhelmed with pain (quite the opposite), but I didn’t even know what was happening and why I was in such pain.  So I didn’t know it was my empathy out of control.

    Place empathy

    This is when you enter buildings and walk past certain places and take on the energetic frequencies within that place.  I did some interpreting once in Spain.  I had to go to the police station and interpret for some people who were being accused of some crime.  The energy in the police station felt like desperation, sadness, apathy and cruelty and many other nasty things.

    Afterwards, energetically, I felt out of sorts for a few days.

    Physical empathy

    Do you feel the aches and pains of other people?  Physical empaths can get horrible headaches, and they may feel like hypochondriacs.  What is often happening is that they are like sponges, taking on the physical pain of others.

    These are just of the most common types of empathy. There are many more types, including intellectual empathy, empathy with animals and plants.

    Are you an empath who feels like your empathy gift is more of a curse than a blessing? If so, I invite you to download the free preview of my book The Empath’s Toolkit: A Guide to Recovery for the Overwhelmed Empath below!

    Intuitive Experiment Worksheet

    Download the Free Preview
    of Anna’s Book The Empath’s Toolkit…

    …Packed with Instructions and Tips on How to Come Back
    Into Balance with Your Amazing Empath Gifts.

  • Where Is My Dead Father Now & How Can I Communicate With Him?

    Where Is My Dead Father Now & How Can I Communicate With Him?

    Where is my dead father now; I want to talk to my dad who passed away

    Hi Anna,

    I have a question about mediumship and the afterlife. I want to talk to my dad who passed away in 2018. Do I have to do this through a medium or can I do it myself? Where is my dead father now?

    – Mirush

    Hi Mirush,

    Thanks for your question. I’m sorry to hear about your father’s death.

    First of all, I wanted to say that your father most likely crossed over fully to the other side following his death. Soon after death, his soul would have undergone a ‘life review’ which is where his soul gets to go over what happened in his most recent lifetime and what he learned from it. Then most probably, he will hang out in the afterlife for a while before incarnating again into a different body. Even if your dad is now reincarnated, part of his spirit will be on the other side, and you can talk to him any time you like.

    So, the answer to your question “where is my dead father now” is:

    (1) Either his soul is in the afterlife or (2) he has reincarnated into a new body. He will have moved forwards on his soul’s path in some way.

    If you have things you want to say to your father, say them out loud. He will hear you. In order for you to have a 2 way conversation with your father, you both have to build your half of a bridge. This bridge is between heaven and earth. Your dad builds half of the bridge and you build half. That means, to communicate ideally you will develop your psychic sensitivity to reach him and he will lower his spiritual vibration to reach you.

    You need to “build” your half of the bridge in order to communicate with your deceased father

    Many times, deceased spirits are already communicating with us, but we haven’t noticed (which means that they have “built” their half of the bridge, but we haven’t built ours). So I would say it is a good idea for you to sensitize yourself further. Be really observant and pay attention to see if you notice any of the following ways deceased loved ones communicate with us from the other side. You can also ask your father to send you some of these signs.

    (Note, if you would rather watch this article as a video, instead of read the article, scroll down to the bottom!)

    #1: Through Dreams

    When we are dreaming, we are very open to communication from deceased loved ones and from the other side in general. This is because we’re already in the astral planes, which is a non-physical place that we visit when we’re asleep. It’s easier for our deceased loved ones to ‘meet us half-way’, energetically speaking, by visiting us there.

    I had a dream visitation from my great-grandmother (my mother’s grandmother) a few days before my mother got remarried in 2007 (although I didn’t realize at the time that it was a dream visitation.) Great-granny turned up, looking frail, grey and old – just how I remember her. The only thing she said to me in the dream was “your mother looks lovely in brown”. I felt a great deal of affection coming from her even though I hadn’t known her very well when she was alive. It was a nice dream, but I forgot about it soon after I woke up.

    A couple of days later, I was out shopping with my mother for something to wear on her wedding day and we had looked all over town for the right dress for her to get married in, but we hadn’t found anything suitable.

    Then, just before the shops were shutting at the end of the day, we found a gorgeous brown dress. My mum tried on the brown dress and it fit beautifully and she looked gorgeous in it. It was perfect. Then all of a sudden I remembered the dream where great-granny had told me that mum looked lovely in brown and I told mum about it. She smiled and said, “Great-granny always used to tell me how nice I looked in brown.” Mum thought it was just a coincidence that she had found a brown dress but I felt like it was great-granny giving her blessing from the other side.

    How do you know if your deceased loved one is visiting you in a dream or not?

    I’ve had a few dreams with deceased spirits in them since then and they’ve all ‘felt’ very similar to me.

    It’s hard to put my finger on it exactly, but for me, the ‘climate’ or ‘mood’ of the dream changes when a deceased spirit shows up. You might feel their love or affection for you, transmitted in the dream whereas before there was no particular mood or feeling to the dream. The setting of the dream may suddenly change to somewhere quite symbolic and it may become more vivid. You will often have the dream just before you wake up so that you remember it.

    #2: Deceased Spirits Can Move Objects

    Can the dead move objects? Yes, it is possible. Don’t ask me to explain how deceased spirits manage to mess with objects. I just know they can and do.

    My mum’s sister who passed away from ovarian cancer around two years ago made her presence felt in a few different ways after her death.

    Shortly after she passed away, my mother’s sister visited me in a dream and told me that she was messing with the clocks in my grandmother’s house. I rang up my grandmother the next morning to tell her what I had dreamt and she told me that the grandfather clock in their lounge had stopped overnight with the pendulum in the wrong position and they couldn’t get it to work again (it had never happened before and they’d had it for decades.)

    Another time a book that belonged to my mother’s sister about ovarian cancer fell off the bookshelf while my grandmother was in the room.

    #3: Communication Through Signs from Nature

    The world of Spirit is entwined with and superimposed onto the physical world and the natural world. You just have to be looking for Spirit in order to see it. I’ve heard of deceased spirits sending natural symbols which were meaningful to them when they were alive – such as flowers, birds, animals or animal symbolism. Other signs from nature include rainbows, the person’s favourite flower taking up residence in your garden randomly – that sort of thing.

    A while ago my mother told me about a local man here in New Zealand who died in a diving accident. He hit his head and drowned while diving in some coastal caves. When they recovered his body, three whales were sighted nearby, on the coast, hanging around the area where the body had been recovered. (Whales are the Maori symbol of divine protection.) In this area of New Zealand, whales rarely show up on the coast – you have to go many miles out to sea to see them. So that was interesting in itself. Then a few weeks later they were having a memorial service for this man in the place where he died, three whales showed up again.

    #4: Communication Through Mediums & Through Your Intuitive Senses

    Deceased spirits are energy, like your Spirit Guides, so they can impulse us and connect with us in a similar way if they are around. But I do believe that it is easier to communicate with Spirit Guides than it is to communicate with deceased spirits. This is because guides are connected to you, so if you tune into a person’s energy, you can also tune into their guides fairly easily if you know how. But deceased spirits are not attached to you as such.

    So, if you cannot connect with a deceased loved one through a medium, don’t despair. There are many reasons why the communication might not be successful.

    Remember that the ether is far removed from the physical plane. Communicating with the other side is a little like building a bridge (made of energy). It’s like you are on one mountain, in the physical plane and the dead on another in the ether. In between you is a valley. In order for you to make contact, someone, or both parties has to build a bridge. You can build an energetic bridge by raising your vibration and opening up your psychic senses and the deceased spirit can build half of the bridge by lowering theirs to meet you halfway. Sometimes deceased spirits may not be available to build their part of the bridge because they’re working on the next stage of their soul’s journey. Some recently deceased spirits want to build the bridge but they’re not yet fully comfortable in their new energetic state and cannot.

    Even if you cannot connect with your deceased loved ones through a medium or if they are not showing you signs of them being around you, you can still honour and love them in other ways.

    One of the best ways of honouring another soul is by letting them go.

    You’ve probably heard the saying ‘if you love someone, set them free’. This is as true in death as it is in life. Deceased spirits can really benefit from permission to leave and go and pursue the next stage of their long journey. I know deceased loved ones who still have one foot in this dimension one year after their death because they feel guilty for leaving their family behind.

    My grandmother told me about a friend of a friend who punched her dying husband in the face (he’d had a heart attack) because she was so angry that he was leaving her. My grandmother always found that story quite funny and sad at the same time. I’m thinking of this story because we do send out clear messages to dying and deceased loved ones about whether they are allowed to cross over that will affect their willingness to move on. And of course it is natural to want to hold onto people.

    Something that is very powerful is to give your loved one permission to die while they are still alive. My grandfather did this in the moments before one of our relatives was on her deathbed. He talked to her to sleep like a little child, telling her that it was OK to go and to not be afraid. She died shortly after.

    During the funeral, some native cultures consider that the spirit of the dead person is there, so they address them directly and tell them that it’s OK to cross over fully now. Then, they promise to honour their dead and check in with them at certain times, like on the anniversary of their death.

    Even after they are gone, you can speak to your deceased loved one and tell them that it’s OK to move on. They will hear you.

    You can also honour the dead by focusing on new life

    Death is not just an ending. With it, new life begins, although you do not see the new life and the new stages in the evolution of the soul of your loved one (you only see the ending which is what causes grief). Know that your loved one lives on, and experiences new life and goes on to the next stage in their soul’s evolution, even if you cannot see it. You can honour and witness this cycle symbolically through planting something beautiful and seeing it grow.

    How have your deceased loved ones got your attention? Please leave a comment if you have something to share.

    Further Reading & Resources:

    This article is the third part in a series of articles about the afterlife. The first two articles were:

  • What Happens After Death?

    What Happens After Death?

    There are two parts to you – your spirit and your physicality. Your body holds your spirit. So what happens to your spirit after death?

    When you die, your spirit (or Higher self) all of a sudden is no longer confined to a human body. You become the whizzing, vibrating ball of energy that you always were – except now your energy is no longer contained by a physical body. Instead of perceiving things physically, through a body, you begin to perceive energetically and you can do everything that energy does.

    This is much like being in a dream state, except it’s not a dream. You can fly!

    What happens after death is that your thoughts and intentions take you to places and people in a flash, in a way that you never could when you were physical. Because you’re energetic, the soul gets to read energy and to know what the energies are around you and what their intentions are.

    When you’re dead, you move at the speed of light. Have you ever felt impatient that things won’t manifest instantly in the physical plane, as soon as you think of them and want them? That’s because compared to being non-physical, being physical can feel like wading through mud.

    This shift in perspective can cause a sense of confusion, sometimes it’s a sense of shock, especially when the death was sudden, traumatic or unexpected. A soul always knows when it’s time to go (you choose the timing around your death) but some souls don’t integrate the event very well or they weren’t prepared for how they would die.

    I have a clairaudient relative who works in a hospital. She told me that while she was in the morgue with a young man who had committed suicide, she heard him speaking – asking questions about what had happened to him and where he was. So that kind of confusion happens after death sometimes.

    But the person’s Spirit Guides, angels, and the third order will be waiting to guide you (The third order is the spiritual order that transports souls to the Ether after death.)

    All of the above can take a matter of seconds, minutes or hours in terms of Earth time.

    Then, you cross over.

    Some souls wave goodbye and just cross straight over after death.

    Some souls at this point won’t cross over fully – there are stages to the crossing over. Some want to stay behind and remain attached to their families and loved ones for a while (some cultures believe that a soul stays with the family for seven days exactly before it crosses over). Some souls can be here for longer. This is especially common for example when there is a strong attachment in the physical – for example, when a parent leaves a young child behind.

    Some souls at the time of their death are at such a low vibration – such as fear, hatred or anger that they cannot cross over because they’re afraid. They may believe that they’re going to hell or that they deserve God’s judgment so they remain in the Earth plane after death. So, in a strange way, after you’re dead you’re still manifesting and getting what you expect. Those souls get help from their angels and the third order to raise their vibration so they can cross over.

    Shedding All That Is Human

    So we have said that when you die, you shed the physical body. You also shed certain human aspects such as any negativity or pain you were holding. Sometimes this can take a period which lasts several days. You begin the process of embodying everything that you learned in your lifetime and integrating all your experiences into the fabric of your soul. The negative falls away and the learning and wisdom remain. That is why when you connect to deceased relatives who were not your favourite people on Earth, they are usually more reconciliatory and loving. They can see more and their perspective has changed.

    You also do a ‘life review’, where you watch the movie of your life, which also helps you to see more about your life and integrate everything you have learned. I have come across souls in my Akashic Record Readings who do these life reviews with recently deceased spirits, as a career when they’re non-physical. Such souls tend to be counsellor types when they are incarnated and find that people will talk to them about anything.

    What Do You Do Once You’re Dead?

    You can do a variety of things.

    Staying Close to Earth

    You can incarnate again.

    Or you can work with souls on the Earth plane – you yourself may be a member of the third order, helping souls leave their bodies and helping souls integrate new bodies that are being born into the world. If you do that kind of work, it will be written in your Akashic Record.

    You may help others with their life reviews once they are dead (to become a kind of counsellor and healer). Again, if you do that it will be in your Akashic Record. You may become one of those advisor souls who helps others to choose their parents, family, and path for their next lifetime on Earth. You can prepare new souls for their very first incarnation. All of these are roles or non-physical ‘careers’ that my clients have had in between lifetimes.

    You can even leave Earthly life behind and become a Spirit Guide (although this is not a usual path to take after an incarnation).

    Going ‘Abroad’

    There are other places and star systems to explore and some souls (perhaps you) even come from these other places. So, at the end of your physical life, you can check out other star systems and places to incarnate. That’s a whole other ball game.

    Learning and Studying

    You can also study certain things that are useful to life here on Earth, that you could implement next time around. Are you a natural energy worker? That’s probably not an accident. Some souls study how energy integrates the physical human body and then come into their next incarnation with an understanding of how energy moves through the body and they can do cool things with it. Some souls study the original blueprint for the Earth plane and look at what they can do to bring the planet to a state of love and peace. There are many things to study and learn and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Further Reading & Resources:

  • Is There Life After Death?

    Is There Life After Death?

    This is part one of a three-part series that explores life after death. You can find parts 2 and 3 below.

    Part 2: What Happens After Death?

    Part 3: How The Dead Communicate With Us

    Clients and readers sometimes ask me ‘Do you believe in life after death?’

    Life after death is one of those things I am certain exists. I don’t offer my services as a medium but I have had plenty of experiences communicating with the other side that I want to share in these blog posts.

    An ‘Intuitive Knowing’ that There Is Life After Death

    I personally have always believed in life after death. It just made sense to me, on an intuitive level, that a spirit that exists in a body would still exist long after the body has disappeared.

    I remember that this belief really hit home for me when I was in my early twenties and I saw our dead cat Hunter who had just been killed by a car. Her body was empty – just a shell. It was then that I consciously realized that there was something in the cat – you could call it the cat’s “essence” or “consciousness”, that had been there and which was no longer there. The people around me were talking as if Hunter no longer existed, as if she had just dissipated into nothingness. But I knew that if the cat was no longer here, she had to be somewhere else.

    Then something that I had been taught in physics popped into my mind – that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred. To me, this seemed like a good metaphor for the dying process. It seemed wrong to me on an intuitive level (the level I have operated on for my whole life) that the life that animates an animal or human just dissolves into nothing.

    I later learned (or remembered) that we are all pieces and individual projections of Source or God energy. You can’t destroy Source/God, and you can’t destroy our souls. I do believe our souls can and do return to Source or the Creator and lose their individual essence, but I don’t believe they can be destroyed or can just disappear after death.

    My belief in life after death actually became something I could verify when I began practising as an intuitive. That was when I began to see and hear evidence of the afterlife.

    Evidence of the Afterlife: Talking with the Dead

    I wrote about the very first experience I had with a client’s deceased relative in this article and my boss Pete wrote about it in a testimonial for me. That experience stopped me doubting my psychic abilities once and for all because the deceased spirit I communicated with told me things that were true, specific and which I could not have known otherwise.

    Since then, I haven’t connected with clients’ deceased loved ones very frequently (only a handful out of 350 or so readings) but when I have, it’s been an amazing experience. Last week I had the pleasure of contacting a client’s deceased relative during a reading. At the end of this reading, this client asked me to tune into her Spirit Guide team. Well, someone else showed up as well when I tuned into her guides and it was a lovely surprise.

    At first, it was difficult for this spirit to communicate with me. Unlike when I talk with Spirit Guides, who present to me in my mind’s eye clearly, easily and quickly, I could tell it took energy and effort for this spirit to convey who she was. At first, she looked like a green and white ball of energy that was moving and whizzing really fast. I felt she was trying to convert this energy into an image I could understand and convey to my sitter. She told me her name and then this energy changed in a flash to a human appearance which I described to my sitter and then changed back into the whizzing ball of energy. The spirit, because of her name and appearance was identified as a dearly departed relative. The messages the spirit conveyed showed that this deceased relative was still watching over my sitter and being her ‘cheerleader’ in the non-physical.

    Feeling the Love the Dead Still Have for us

    One of the nicest things about connecting with some deceased relatives is feeling the love they still have for those they’ve left behind. As soon as I connected with this deceased spirit, I was hit by this overwhelming love and such beautiful energy. I think this was the love the deceased relative had for my sitter. It felt so lovely to be bombarded with this energy – quite different from speaking with a Spirit Guide.

    Reasons for the Dead to Come Back to us

    Why is communicating with the dead so hit and miss? Why can mediums sometimes communicate with the dead and not other times? I have noticed that usually, the dead have to have a strong motivation to come back to us AND actually make their presence felt, probably because it takes a great deal of energy and effort to communicate with us.

    # 1: To give us peace, reassurance and comfort

    Spirits who come back to remind the living of their presence do so often because they see the healing it brings. They remind us that there is no imposed separation from those you love. The dead can be with us in spirit in a flash, when we think of them. Whether we perceive them is another matter. The Maoris – the native people of New Zealand – say that the spirits of the dead are on the shoulders of the living and we carry them with us wherever we go.

    # 2: Because their path is still entwined with yours

    Sometimes deceased relatives stay very attached to their living loved ones. This can be for a variety of reasons – sometimes because they want to see their loved ones succeed – like the deceased relative I encountered recently. (She was standing behind my client’s Spirit Guides and had a ‘cheerleader’ and supporter role.)

    In another case, a spirit can stay attached because they feel a responsibility to watch over the actions of the living and warn them of certain things. This has happened before in one my sessions. A deceased spirit warned against doing something the client was considering, that would have had dire consequences. This spirit had been dead for many, many years and you would have thought he would have cut ties with the living, but he was obviously still quite attached to whether or not this person was doing the right thing, and he had vested interests also in the situation.

    # 3: To say what went unsaid

    If there’s something important that’s left unsaid, spirits can stay around to attempt to resolve it instead of moving on. The dead returning to communicate with us is also a reminder to check if there is anything left unsaid in your life. I have a stiff upper lip that I either inherited or picked up from my background, so the people around me rarely know just how much I respect, admire and love them because I am not good at getting it out. My encounters with the dead have taught me how important it is to say the words that can heal, reconcile or just communicate how much you care, because once you’re gone it’s harder to do.

    So, I know it’s a massive cliche, but make sure YOU communicate to those you love how much you love and appreciate them.

    # 4: To resolve something that went undone

    The spirits that are most motivated to hang around are perhaps those who left something unresolved or undone. In particular, I’m thinking of those who experienced some sort of injustice in their lifetime, like a murder which is still unresolved.

    The dead can also remind us not to leave things undone for an extended time period. The biggest thing you can leave undone is pursuing your own dreams. Are you happy with how you spend your days now? Or do you live for tomorrow, planning, with your mind continually in the future, putting off life? The lesson that the dead brings to us is to live in the present moment and do what we want now, because there may not be as many tomorrows as we think.

    # 5: When you’re reviving their memory

    Sending the dead a lot of energy also brings them to you, in spirit. For example, my mother as a hobby digs up the past and reconstructs our family tree. She has uncovered interesting and scandalous stories of our family. In dreams, I have seen the bodies of long-deceased relatives turn in their graves and communicate to me that they are watching what she is doing with the family tree. So, sending our ancestors energy – studying their past and our ancestral roots – can also call them to us.

    Do you have any thoughts you want to share on the subject of life after death? Please leave a comment!

    Further Reading & Resources:

  • What’s the Meaning of Life?

    What’s the Meaning of Life?

    Would it be cool if I could write you an article in which I told you what the meaning of your life is?

    I don’t know what the meaning of your life is. I know what the meaning of mine is, but only right now. The meaning of life changes for me every second. One year I think it’s to experience joy and the next I think it might be to save the world from itself.

    The fact is that there is no meaning of life that someone can give you – a purpose given to you from on high. You with your free will get to choose what life means to you. I really believe that there is no right and no wrong answer.

    Here’s what the meaning of life has been to me over the last several years:

    #1: To be a lightworker and save the world from itself

    At times over the last few years I have really believed that I am here to improve and have an influence in the world. Isn’t that kind of arrogant? Yes, now I think it is a very self-centred way of seeing the world. How can I possibly know what another human being truly needs? Only they can know and choose what they need through their own free will.

    I have had a tendency sometimes to see life through a tragic lens. I know there are people starving and people dying and animals being maltreated and occasionally I feel guilty that I don’t spend my days trying to save the world. Is this just me? The truth is that I am a tiny grain of sand on a very big beach and I can’t save the world or hold the perspective that it needs saving.

    The way I know that this is true is because it feels awful to me to think that I need to save people from their fate. If I get the opportunity to help someone around me, I will gladly. But I can only spread good vibes in my corner of the world. To aspire to do more than that feels bad to me, like being a little too selfless and self-sacrificing, and then I’d be resentful and spreading bad vibes.

    And that is definitely not the meaning of life.

    #2: To be incarnated in ‘Earth School’ in order to learn and evolve spiritually

    Is the meaning of life to learn things, evolve and grow?

    We pick a primary life lesson to work on over a period of two or three lifetimes. We work on it by attracting certain experiences which allow us to learn certain life lessons. For example, if your life lesson is authenticity – you attract negative and positive learning experiences which allow you to learn authenticity. For example, you could experience being inauthentic and not yourself.

    Even though I talk about life lessons in my readings, I feel that Earth is a playground, not a school. I don’t feel we’re learning certain things in order to become bigger and better, spiritually. In my book, we are already everything we ever were. For me, it’s more about remembering certain things – re-learning them; being reminded of them.

    Of course, you can only see life as a playground if you feel safe. Perhaps being reminded that I am safe and the world is kind is part of what I’m here to remember. Maybe it is what you’re here to remember too.

    #3: To translate the true desires of your spirit into the physical world and experience your own magnificence as a spirit, here in the physical world

    What do you really desire on a deep level? Success? Money? Love?

    Abraham Hicks would say that you have desires because your spirit is all of those things and in the physical you want to keep up to speed with who you really are.

    On a soul level, your spirit is huge and is everything – already successful, loving, free and abundant. So the meaning of your life here in the physical could be to take action to create those states in your 3D life. It’s about summoning those states that you are in the spiritual and creating them in the physical through accomplishments, through things in your real, every day life.

    For example, I can translate the abundance of my spirit into dollars, into a beautiful meal for my family, into an abundance of affection that I give to people I love. I can translate that abundance into charity donations, into giving to others, into giving to myself, into anything that feels good to me.

    Doesn’t it feel good to do that? Doesn’t it feel good to know that you are abundant and loving, not just in the spiritual, but you summoned that into your world and into the lives of others?

    This is what you call creative self-expression.

    Choosing fun and creative ways as a human being to express who you really are.

    To do this, you have to be tapped into the essence of who you really are. You need to be OK with expressing it.

    #4: To Learn and Evolve through Suffering

    Isn’t it Buddhists who believe that life is about experiencing suffering so that you can transcend it?

    I sometimes read for people who have this belief “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” I used to have that belief too in a very unconscious way.

    When I was a Christian, I used to believe that suffering did me good because during the times of suffering that I have experienced, I’ve grown massively as a person.

    I remember when my parents split up when I was 21. I was really traditional, conservative; I believed in marriage and the family and I thought that my parents would never split up. So, my parents splitting up so suddenly and then divorcing tore me apart and shook my foundations of what I thought was important in life. I also spent the next six months or so looking after someone who was bereaved, and being empathic, I felt their grief all the time.

    About six months later, when the pain ran out, out of that experience I had a new found confidence that I could face anything – strength.

    So, in the past I have thought that life is partly about experiencing suffering. Now I think it’s about experiencing contrast – that’s to say, by experiencing the opposite of what feels good to you, you get clear on what it is that you really want to experience yourself as next. Out of suffering comes strength. Out of pain can come joy. That reminds me of the quote in the book The Prophet:

    The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
    Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
    And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
    When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

    ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.

    But I don’t believe you need to experience this kind of contrast if you don’t want to. I believe that you make the rules for how life is here on Earth. Which brings me to my next thought…

    #5: To make your own rules and be fully in control of what happens in your life

    My soul is a passionate dancer; she dances to hidden music which only I can hear… Whatever police the world may prescribe to rule the soul, I refuse to obey them

    ~ Bettina Brentano.

    The meaning of life for me right now: To move beyond everything that limits me, to create my own rules, discard all that doesn’t serve me, so that I can keep pushing the boundaries of joy, freedom and growth.

    You could also call this exploring and pushing the frontiers of what you think is possible – moving beyond your own self-imposed limitations.

    #6: To worship the Christian God and follow His path for you

    This used to be the meaning of my life. But it didn’t feel that good to me. I thought that God wanted me to suffer, deprive and sacrifice myself. I felt guilty with every step I took in case it wasn’t what God wanted for me. I looked for a written invitation from God to do everything. I stayed stuck in the same places for a while.

    So I dropped it. I still meet with God and Jesus. But when I do this time he gives me loving messages, like follow your own spirit. So now rather than following God, I follow the desires of my spirit and she takes me wherever we want to go. In fact, she holds me to ransom. If I don’t go with her, I cut myself off from feeling good. And feeling good is the meaning of life for me.

    #7: To celebrate the beauty of being alive

    Stroking my cat.

    Dancing to a lovely piece of music.

    Walking on the wet grass.

    Listening to the rain and watching a storm.

    Biting into a piece of chocolate.

    What’s the meaning of life to you right now? 

  • Four Tips for Choosing a Psychic Reader

    Four Tips for Choosing a Psychic Reader

    I’ve been offering readings, and having readings as a client for over ten years now. Here are my 4 best tips for choosing a good intuitive or psychic to read for you…

    1. Don’t use a telephone hotline psychic unless you’re OK with taking a risk

    Although I personally know one trusted and reputable psychic who works on a psychic hotline, I also know that some less scrupulous phone lines employ virtually anyone. If you call one of these hotlines you could get lucky OR more likely, you’ll end up speaking to someone who has very basic intuition or worse still, a cold reader.

    The safest bet is to find someone who works for themselves and who finds their own clients.

    2. Get referrals from people you trust, and also trust your gut instinct

    Recommendations from people you trust is a good sign that the psychic is the real deal. But above all you need to trust your own instincts and judgment.

    I remember a reading I had done a while back with a guy who had been recommended by a friend whom I trusted. My friend thought this guy was a brilliant psychic. At one point, I booked a reading with him but on the morning of my appointment I did not want to go. I felt dread but I didn’t know why. I called my friend and told him I didn’t have a good feeling about it but he talked me into going, saying it was my ego’s resistance. When I arrived for my appointment at this man’s house, it was a really unpleasant experience.

    I really couldn’t understand what my friend saw in this psychic. My feeling of dread and fear before the reading was trying to keep me away from that particular person and I should have heeded that.

    So, listen to your feelings in the presence (or web-presence) of a psychic you plan to get a reading with. Do you feel comfortable and safe? It’s normal to feel a bit nervous before a reading, but you should not feel negative or fearful. If you do, stay away.

    Your feelings or intuition might also alert you to a psychic who can help you. My clients often say to me that their intuition impulsed them to get a reading with me and they were glad they did. The same thing happens to me when I get my readings – I feel drawn to certain sites and not so much to others and I heed that to help me choose the right reader for me at that time.

    3. Make sure the psychic can do what you want them to

    Just because someone calls herself a psychic/intuitive doesn’t always mean that they can tell you your life purpose AND connect with your dead auntie AND predict your future.

    Some psychics are competent in a few different areas and most good psychics will tell you upfront what their specialisms are. Some can connect with the dead, some are good at future predictions, some specialize in telling you about past lives, life purpose, relationships, etc. Some are good at all those things. So when you are choosing a psychic reader, if necessary, email the psychic and ask them outright – is X, Y, and Z something you could help me with?

    For example, if someone books a reading with me and they just want me to make predictions about their future – for example ‘will I meet my soulmate?’ or ‘will I be rich before I’m 30?’, their Spirit Guides are more likely to tell me what the client needs to do to get there. The Spirit Guides I encounter tend to be more interested in the client exercising their free will and reminding the clients that the future is in their own hands.

    One client may be delighted with that, but another client may just think “all I wanted was a prediction”.

    I myself go to different psychics for different areas of my life (I don’t tend to read for myself especially when it’s an issue that’s right under my nose).

    I am not personally offering readings at the moment, but when I was, the readings of mine that tended to be really successful were in the areas of life/soul purpose, making decisions, business and career. So, I used to structure my readings around all of that. I’m also good at seeing past lives and I get a lot of information about peoples’ issues and the negative mindsets/beliefs which hold people back.

    On the other hand, I suck at finding lost objects – I can’t even find my own let alone anyone else’s. I would not call predictions one of my specialisms. I am also not a very skilled medium. From time to time I get deceased relatives coming through during a reading and I can get names and appearances, but I am not that skilled at interpreting their messages.

    4. A high price does not always = quality

    If you’re paying a lot of money, it should mean you’re getting a better, more accurate psychic, right?

    Well, not necessarily. Most regular psychics (the ones who speak with your Spirit Guides) just pass on the messages you need to hear from your guides at that time. The messages don’t generally become better or more exciting if you pay more money.

    I have paid between $10 and $400 for psychic readings and I have to say that the $400 reading wasn’t that much different from the $10 reading. Sometimes it can be that a cheap reading is very good.

    A high price usually means that a psychic easily gets a long waiting list. So, in order to cope with demand, they put their prices up. Psychics can have a long waiting list for numerous reasons – they can be in high demand because they’re very good. They can also have a long waiting list because they’re great at marketing and publicizing their work. Or they have a referral source who sends them shedloads of clients.

    A low price can also mean a psychic who’s a newbie to the profession. When I started I didn’t charge that much. Although I have got better over the years, I still got some great testimonials from clients I read for around that time, so clients seemed to be as happy with my work then as they are now.

    So, a high price can mean a great psychic, but it doesn’t always. My advice is not to pay too much attention to price as an indicator of quality.

    What have your experiences been with this?

    & Please leave a comment if you have any other tips.

    Did you know we offer readings and other sessions via this site?

    I’m not offering readings right now but our guest intuitives are. Go here to book a session.

  • What’s Blocking Your Intuition?

    What’s Blocking Your Intuition?

    A certain proportion of my clients book a reading with me because they want to tap into their intuition but feel something is blocking them somehow. Here are the two major ‘blocks’ to good intuition that I’ve come across in healing sessions with clients. If you’re in the same situation, see if either of these strikes a chord with you…

    #1: ‘Little Old Me’ Syndrome

    Every one of us, on a spiritual level, knows exactly what is best for us. When it comes to making our decisions, no one knows better than us – not our parents, nor our spouse, nor our friends.

    But some people hold beliefs like ‘I need the guidance of other people to make good decisions’. If such people are also trying to develop their intuition, it’s probably not working out for them. They need to shed this limiting belief first – the one I call ‘little old me’ syndrome. This is the belief that other people’s perceptions are somehow better, or clearer or more accurate than theirs.

    These people who have ‘little old me’ syndrome are usually very open people and they take the opinions of others to heart. When their own hunches and impressions conflict with the opinions of those around them, they are swayed by external opinion more often than they listen to their own feelings. They also often feel a need to run things past other people before they take action.

    I understand ‘little old me’ syndrome completely because I had it too. I had to have a painful experience to wake me up to it.

    When I was living in the UK, I met a guy who was an intuitive and I was blown away by him. He was extremely talented and clearly could teach me a thing or two. I was about to begin training with him when I allowed our relationship to take a turn that I did not want it to take. But I saw myself being swayed by his viewpoints of why our relationship should be more than platonic. He seemed wise, intelligent and he was a gifted intuitive (he seemed to know more about me than I did!), so when he told me that it was my fear stopping me from being in a relationship with him, I decided to take a chance and see if he was right, even though my intuition was screaming at me not to. I made a very conscious decision to ignore my intuition. Within a couple of days I saw that my intuition had been for a reason. It was one risk I really wish I hadn’t taken.

    But I learned a valuable lesson through this, and one I see reflected in my clients from time to time. The lesson is that no matter how wise, or knowing, or well-informed, or intuitive someone else seems – they don’t know better than you. They have their agenda. Your intuition will help you navigate your life with your own true needs and desires in mind.

    This is a particularly tough lesson to learn because it goes contrary to everything we’re taught. We have been taught by religion that God knows better than we do. If it’s not God that knows better, it’s your parent, or your teacher or the education system. Even modern spirituality sometimes implies that spirit is a force, separate from you, that can guide you better than you can guide yourself. You are Spirit, just as you are physical, and so you can get the guidance you need because it’s within you.

    Second Block to Intuition: Being out of Touch with Your Feelings

    Recently, I’ve done a few healing sessions for clients who have been trying to hear and recognize intuitive guidance, but not getting very far. The message from their guides was the same for all three:

    “You are looking so hard for guidance from outside of you, but ignoring the intuitive input that’s already there in the form of your feelings. Tune into your desires and feelings…they’re telling you something important.”

    Through this, I’ve learned that…

    Listening to our feelings and desires is the basis of good intuition.

    But for most of us, having feelings and desires is such a mundane, non-woo woo part of life that we don’t expect feelings to have much value or wisdom. Feelings are barely psychic guidance now, are they?

    Well, they may not seem psychic, but they’re perfectly valid feedback from your Higher self about the path that you’re on, and how things are going in your life, and about the way you’re seeing the world.

    But what if you’re the type of person who’s totally out of touch with their feelings? This may sound an unlikely scenario to you, but one that is really quite common if my experiences with people are anything to go by.

    Let’s take Mary. Mary is clairsentient, which means that she’s very good at getting intuitive guidance through her feelings – emotional feelings and gut feelings. We all feel things – but as someone who’s clairsentient, Mary’s feelings are like amplified Divine feedback about what she’s coming across and the direction she’s going in, in life.

    For example: she meets someone and doesn’t feel good about that person at all and later she finds out they’re a swindling ratbag. Or her parents want her to go and study nursing at school, but she wants to study acupuncture. She applies to study nursing, believes it’s a more prosperous career but then she begins to feel so awful about it. She knows that her feelings are telling her to back up and go down the road she really wants to go down.

    If Mary was in intuitive integrity, she’d heed these messages, wouldn’t she? But the thing is…

    Let’s say Mary’s parents were a tad controlling when she was growing up. They thought they knew what was best for her and they made lots of decisions for her. Mary had her own feelings about things, but to please her parents, she ignored this feedback and did what her parents wanted instead. Being a people pleaser, she didn’t want to rock the boat.

    So, now she’s left home and her parents aren’t there to tell her what to do so much, BUT the thing is, she can’t tune back into her feelings to know how she really feels about the paths ahead of her, because she’s been tuning her feelings out for so long, she’s a bit numb actually.

    If her feelings are the compass she was born with to show her where to go, she’s lost her emotional ‘true north’.

    The bottom line is, if you’re someone who tunes out and ignores your feelings to please other people or get ahead on a path someone else has chosen for you, then your psychic ability is not going to develop fully until you tune back into them and honour them. That’s your starting point.

    This is because when you ignore or bury feelings (internal guidance), you broadcast to the Universe that you’re not ready to hear other, extra-sensory input and feedback, which is at odds with your intention to develop psychic abilities. So, you’ll be sending out mixed signals.

    On the other hand, honouring your feelings builds the foundations of your psychic ability. If you don’t honour them or listen to them, you’re building intuition on shaky, unappreciated foundations.

    Do either of these apply to you? For me, a big part of developing my intuition was in ‘realigning’ myself with my own truth and perceptions.

  • The Two Keys to Recognizing Your Intuition

    The Two Keys to Recognizing Your Intuition

    I recently received a question from a reader:

    Hi Anna,

    I’d like to know how to differentiate intuition from other thought patterns and feelings because I wouldn’t want to follow what I thought was my intuition and then find out it’s wrong. How do I recognize the voice of my intuition?

    -Stephan

    Hi Stephan,

    Thanks for your question.

    While you’re on a path of intuitive development, putting yourself on a quest to distinguish your intuition from other ‘less valid’ input can be problematic and make your journey really quite difficult.

    This might sound like a rather ridiculous thing to say – you’re developing your intuition to help you in your life, right? – I know. But just hear me out for one moment on this.

    Being attached to what is intuition and what isn’t when you’re starting out is problematic BECAUSE opening yourself to intuition involves becoming sensitive and noticing all kinds of input – including body language, ‘vibes’ from other people and sounds. It also involves becoming more aware of your own inner world – your feelings, your thoughts. Just opening yourself up to this input and processing it is difficult enough without having to constantly sort through it and triage it into two categories: ‘real’ intuition and stuff you shouldn’t listen to.

    So how do intuitives ever manage to know which is which? What is their secret?

    Their first secret is this:

    They are not terribly attached to what is ‘real’ intuitive input and what is not, in the beginning.

    In the beginning, they don’t beat themselves up about possibly getting it wrong, or agonizing over whether that feeling they have is really from their Higher self or not. That should not be your focus if you’re a beginner at hearing spiritual guidance. Instead just begin by exploring the spirit world and by…

    Becoming open to all signs and input

    Many native cultures, such as the Aboriginal culture, read the signs and messages in nature. We don’t just see signs in nature though – we can see signs in things that others say and do and what happens around us.

    We can begin to see life as we would analyze a dream that’s rich in symbolism.

    We can bring out the common thread. We see that everything is meaningful – everything is manifested by us, and we can see all input and signs around us as relevant. Of course, there are always the signs and signals that jump out more than others – the particularly strong intuitive insights. But the first stage of developing ESP is sensitization. Noticing things more – noticing sounds, noticing what you see, the people you meet, noticing what is going on inside you emotionally and the thoughts that enter your head – developing a tremendous self-awareness. In this intuitive, perceptive mindset, the thought ‘oh no, what if this is not intuition?!’ does not arise. The attachment is not there as much. In the beginning, it’s about exploration of what is around you and in you.

    This stage is really important. I have noticed that many intuitives are just people who notice things.

    My students used to tell me that they could never say anything that went unnoticed by me in the classroom. My sense of hearing is very good as is my sense of seeing. This is partly because I am naturally inquisitive and nosy. I want to perceive more because I like reading people, reading motives and finding out more. And I think that most intuitives are naturally interested in people and in human nature.

    So, this is how you activate your intuition – by expanding your view of what you notice, inside you and outside of you.

    Once you have learned to sensitize yourself to what is going on in you and around you, you will be in a position to receive real intuition and recognize it. But if you try to differentiate between intuition and other input right from the beginning without allowing your sensitivity to develop in an unattached way, you will be hindered by doubt.

    If you find this approach of putting the matter of ‘accuracy’ to one side while you’re learning difficult to stomach because you just want your intuition to help you get from A to B, then reconsider your reasons for wanting to be psychic/intuitive. Intuition is not a switch you can flick once and then be intuitive. It is a mindset, a way of being that you can’t separate from the spiritual world. And the motive for living an intuitive life cannot be solely because you want to gain from it (although that can become part of it), but because you love your world to be rich in symbolism and magic.

    Secret #2: Re-think the distinction between intuition and non-intuition

    I prefer not to think of intuition as one thing and everything else as something to discard. I prefer to think in two categories – input that is low-vibrational (such as input from the ego or from a wounded inner self) and input that is spiritually high-vibrational, which you might class as intuition. Is all the high vibrational, good-feeling input from your Higher self? Some of it will be. Some of it will also be from your Guides and Angels.

    There is a clear difference between a low-vibrational thought from your ego, such as ‘You’ll never manage to do that’ and a higher vibrational thought, which reassures you, which feels truthful and loving. You can feel the difference between the two energies. The low vibrational, bad-feeling thought makes you clam up and your body tense. The high vibrational, good-feeling thought gives you emotional relief and lets you breathe.

    All strong intuitives have this ability to differentiate between what feels true and good to them and what doesn’t. This is called spiritual discernment and it’s a tool you’re using everyday to make your choices. You also need to run all intuition past it.

    For example, let’s say you think your intuition is telling you to quit your job and do something different. If your feelings aren’t in agreement, you know you’re on the wrong track. But, of course you have to have high awareness of your emotions in the first place.

    For me, when I get an intuitive insight, there is a little dialogue that goes on in me between my spiritual discernment and my intuition which says ‘ooh, that’s right, isn’t it?’ and straight away I get a feeling of certainty, perhaps of being excited or uplifted as well. It’s like the landscape of my emotions suddenly changes, like the clouds clearing and the sun coming through. For me, this is the seal of approval; the sign that the information I’m getting is relevant and meaningful. It feels right to me. In fact, this ‘feeling’ has proved such a powerful marker of truthful, accurate information that even when someone tells me I’m wrong but the feeling tells me I’m right, I’d trust that feeling first.

    To develop more awareness of your feelings, practice going inside and listening to your emotions. Face up to uncomfortable ones which keep your head buried in the sand. (In my next post I’ll be talking more about this.) Work on noticing the thoughts you’re having as much as possible, without judgment. Are they positive or negative? Hear and notice the loving, high vibrational thoughts that come from your Spirit Guides and Higher self. Notice the low-vibrational thoughts that can come from your shadow side or a wounded inner self.

    Everyone has their own personal, unique inner language of feelings and symbolism that they need to familiarize themselves with. In this respect, the landscape of your intuition is very much like the dreamscape. In my readings, my Spirit Guides often draw comparisons between a client’s situation and situations that have occurred in my life or the lives of those around me, by sending old feelings that I recognize that apply to this situation, such as sinking feelings, excited feelings, feelings of pride or anger. Many people are not even aware of their feelings to this degree. To be intuitive, you have to have a high level of awareness and notice the feelings and inner patterns which crop up time and again, or which are humming along in the background.

    Everyone receives intuition in different ways. All of what is written above is based on my own personal experiences.