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“For those so compelled, pursuing intuition is not a choice: It is a calling.“ Judith Orloff, MD in Second Sight
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but... I am a skeptic. Up until recently, I questioned literally everything that came out of my mouth during a reading. Every. Word. My inner critic was constantly questioning, criticizing, name calling.
Even before I ever did a reading for anyone, I would question my strongest intuitions as well. Really, this has likely been going on for my entire life. When I had a strong intuitive hit urging me not to go to that sleepover for example, or to that doctor or something more serious or pressing, I scoffed and called myself a wimp or told myself I was making stuff up.
I can still viscerally recall a time when after a long day of playing with my cousin at a family party, I decided at the last minute that no, I didn’t actually want to sleep at her house that night as we had excitedly planned only moments earlier. Something wouldn’t let me go. And no I wasn’t that kid that called her mom at midnight to pick her up. In fact I was the kid who would stay up talking all night long so that the following day, when I was a sass pot due to my lack of sleep, my mother actually grounded me from sleepovers for a time. (Sidebar, I need LOTS of sleep to function as a human.) I didn’t know what intuition was at that time but it was like something inside me put the brakes on and I could not do anything about it. Why was that visceral you might ask? Because I felt like a baby. And my cousin was so disappointed and the look on her face was painful. She felt rejected. I felt like I hurt her. I loved her. And loved playing with her. But I just didn’t want to stay at her house. (Fact. I have 25 first cousins so I am not singling anyone out. If this is you, I apologize. Although I am probably the only one still carrying that around 35 years later. 😊)
So in spite of the fact that I have been seeing mediums since I was 16 years old, and have had more readings than I could ever recall, I never thought this was something that I could do. I always thought it would be cool, no doubt, but never in the realm of possibility.
The first time I attended a class with my now teacher, it was only because the therapist I was seeing at the time told me I needed a shaman in order to sort my stuff out. She handed me a flyer for the holistic center where I later began taking classes. (While it turned out to be a very therapeutic place for me, however just to clarify for any therapists out there, telling someone they need a shaman without any background is NOT helpful.) Yet, since I always believed everyone else knew a little more than I did, I started looking up places where I might encounter a shaman, or at the very least, more people like me.
So I took a class in intuitive development at the center. Just one. Just to see. And then I didn’t go back for a long time because I felt like a fraud sitting there. The women in the class were so nice, kind and caring and all seemed very sure of themselves during our quick exercise where we offered one message for the person next to us. I literally blurted out whatever came in my mind and was certain the floor would open under me and swallow me up for interloping where I didn’t belong. Oddly the floor remained stable, and what I did manage to say didn’t sound too crazy to the lady I gave the message to, yet I literally could not get out of there fast enough.
This was all before I kept really good journals so the dates escape me. I have been keeping a dream journal for a few years which besides recording my very vivid and colorful nocturnal images and travels, also serves as my “whoa, what was that thing that just happened” journal. Otherwise I don’t think I would remember anything. This was something I started doing after reading the book mentioned in the opening quote by Dr. Judith Orloff. I read this book while I was vacationing in Hawaii with my mom and my kids in 2017. I don’t say that as an “oh, I've been to Hawaii thing, you should go.” I say that as holy hell, Hawaii is a magical alternative universe that exists on our planet where energy just moves different. When I’m in Hawaii, (or do they say on Hawaii?) I am a magical vibing being who hears, sees and dreams clearer. In fact, if I’d really like to make this medium thing full time, I should probably just move there.
Hawaii will be its own post, or possibly its own chapter in the book I’d like to write one day when I stop judging myself and find the time. What I can tell you is that after I got home from that trip with my mom and kids, all of this stuff just took off for me. I started encountering teachers and finding bread crumbs along this crazy trail to help me along my way. I can still hear Wayne Dyer say “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” which is superbly accurate. And yes, I know that isn’t Wayne’s quote, but I heard him say it on Audible, so I attribute it to him.
After Hawaii, I got attuned to Reiki, sort of on a whim. No, it wasn’t a whim. It was a bread crumb. A big, sparkly bread crumb, but a bread crumb all the same. I call it a whim mostly because I had never even had a Reiki session, I just knew it was something I needed to do. I also didn’t tell a whole lot of people I did the Reiki training because I felt like people would judge me and think I was a weirdo. Heads up, if they did, no one told me so. Also, if you think you’d like to try this connecting to the other side stuff, Reiki is a cool way to start opening up while also healing yourself and your loved ones with some really nice, gentle, loving energy.
And then one day, dead people that I was aware of yet didn’t have the pleasure of meeting started popping in to my dreams at night offering messages for me to share and showing me things I couldn’t know.
Another day, I was walking in to Wegman‘s with my daughter and got this overwhelming yet familiar smell of my former father in laws house. He had passed away about 8 years earlier and it was a smell I had not smelled in a very long time. I recall wondering why that smell would be greeting me as I walked in to Wegman’s. Cinnamon brooms, sure, we all expect that but this was much more specific: think olive oil mixed with a whiff of dog and musty hallway that only a single man who cooked a lot might create. Then I looked up to see his ex wife standing there. And I was really kind to her despite a long estrangement because it felt like the right thing to do. And I’ll be real honest, it it hadn’t been for the really pungent and totally out of place smell as I entered the store, I probably wouldn’t have acknowledged her like that. I didn’t know what came over me but it was heart warming for sure.
Eventually I ended up back in class with Angie, my teacher. Again, something I didn’t tell a lot of people about because they would think I was out of my tree. Except I loved these classes where I learned how to meditate, met my spirit guide, did some past life regressions and mostly, enjoyed being with people who believed the stuff that was happening to me, and I didn’t feel nuts at all. If I had realized that some of the people sitting around me in these classes were practicing mediums, I probably would’ve pooped my pants. But I mostly didn’t and just enjoyed what I was doing. I enjoyed working in the collective energy and felt my connection to spirit was so much stronger in a group.
I recall one class I took where I met a man in spirit who said he knew my mom. I got a very distinct boyfriend vibe from him but I didn’t recognize his name. When I left the class I called my mom and asked her about it. She said, “The only man I ever knew with that name was a boy I had a crush on when I was in 8th grade. I don’t know what ever happened to him.“ She told me his last name was long and Polish and she didn’t remember how it was spelled. I googled his name as I imagined it to be spelled, and in fact there was a man with that name who was my moms age who had died a few years earlier. I recall feeling like I was prying and quickly shut down my browser. I also shut that door in my brain but this time just long enough so he didn’t come visit me in my sleep because I was afraid I had kicked down some mystical door I wasn’t meant to.
I went to one more class that fall. My twins had recently left for college which left me feeling raw. And I needed something to do for me that felt uplifting. (Note: This work always makes me feel that way.) It was a daylong class on a Saturday with a different teacher who was a long time medium from Lilydale. He pushed us a lot, trying to get us to read for each other by offering us mini readings in turn for our participation. He even claimed to see the energetic connections between those of us in the class. Oh sure buddy, I thought to myself. But when he called on me, he knew I had a message for the woman across the room. We had done a brief meditation exercise just before to conjure up information for a classmate. I did see something for that woman. But how did he know? So I said what I saw and heard. “Petunias.“ It did not seem like enough to report on to me, before he called on me anyway. She looked startled. I said I saw her on a deck of a large house with several porches. She was watering flowers. I simply heard the word, petunias. Again, this seemed made up and inconsequential to me. How many middle aged women like flowers? A lot. She told me that she had been watering her plants that morning. And yes she had a house like that. And she spoke out loud to her petunias because they were still so beautiful for so late in the season. I did not know what to say.
Shortly thereafter my mom got sick. And six weeks after that she died. I didn’t go to class again for a long time. I do know that my blossoming intuition absolutely enabled me to help my mom and to take each step we needed to take to get her what she needed. In spite of this horrible loss, there was so much magic along the way that I had no doubt that spirit had a hand in all that was occurring.
So this post was supposed to be about intuition. I hope that has been the message. I have denied mine, ignored it, listened to it and allowed it to flow. All the ways I’ve done it have been a learning process for me. Denying and ignoring it lead to very challenging and hard earned lessons. Even listening to it when I was younger made me feel guilty beause I had no intellectual reason for the things I did when I allowed my intuition to take the lead and it made me feel weak and soft. I tried to ignore it. I tried to stay in the spiritual closet. But I can’t. As Dr. Orloff said, it’s a calling.
Eventually my body piped up and showed me just how sensitive I truly am. That was also a hard earned lesson. So now I trust. Doing readings has helped me trust. Spirit people have helped me trust. My parents on the other side have helped me trust. Messages from strangers, signs that are too obvious to ignore, all things that have helped me trust. I am blessed that the universe stepped in to get me back on track and start accepting my gifts and for that I am truly grateful.
Do you have any stories about your intuition? When you followed it or ignored it? I’d love to hear it! 😇