In a recent blog, I listed the top five challenges psychics face. I'm going to break down each of these challenges, going into more depth on the issues we face when we're born with the gift of second sight. Things are definitely changing. There is much more acceptance of healers who channel, but many areas of the world still distrust psychics, and it may feel scary to expose your abilities.
One of the biggest challenges for me when I gave up journalism because of a sudden psychic opening was the stigma, skepticism, and disbelief tarot readers and other mystic healers faced. As a journalist, I had respect, bylines, and good pay. I didn't want to face being thrust to the fringes of society, and I fought against this lifestyle for a very very long time.
I write about my kicking-and-screaming resistance to my psychic calling in my fourth novel WATER. As a former media person, I'm particularly offended by how psychics are represented in the news and in most films.
Let me give you a poignant example of something that happened to me in the late 1990s in Seattle. I was interning at the local NPR station. At this time in my life, I was a full-blown psychic who did tarot readings and healings for hundreds of people. Meanwhile, I was still resisting my gift and trying to get back into journalism, my first career.
One day, at the radio station, the on-air talent (I won't name him; he's famous now) made an announcement in the newsroom. He was doing a piece on psychics and he was looking for a list of local psychics to interview.
I write about this in WATER:
"One of the hotshot on-air guys is on his back on a big leather sofa against one wall. Arm flung over his head, he calls out into the newsroom, “I’m looking for anyone who has any contacts for local psychics. I’m putting together a piece on psychics. I need contacts, people.”
I write numbers and names on a Post-it . I don’t give him my name and number. I’m careful not to mix my journalism self with my psychic self. I don’t want to sully my professional reputation. Somewhere inside me, though, I’m desperate for this journalism life I’m leading to accept the metaphysical. I want to see if they’ll take it seriously, treat it as sacred, before I step up to the plate and open that side of myself to this old male world. I know the people on my post-it are strong enough to take on these guys. I am not.
He moves from the sofa to his desk. He’s tall and skinny and his corduroys and shirt are wrinkled. His desk is positioned in the center, at the head of the room, facing two lines of desks where hunched women do their work.
I go up to his desk. He sees me or doesn’t see me—I’m an intern and a ghost. He picks up the phone. Talks to someone named Roger who doesn’t seem to know any psychics. He puts down the phone and I’m still there, but he acts like I’m not.
“Hey,” I say.
He’s bouncing up and down in his chair. “Did someone take my chair? Is this my chair?”
Bounce. Bounce.
“Hey,” I say louder.
He looks at me. His face is gray, and he looks like he spent the previous night on a bender.
“Yeah?”
“A list of legitimate metaphysical healers,” I say, and hand him the note.
He looks at it, puts it to the side.
I don't say to him how much I would love to hear a well-rounded radio show on how psychics work, on channeling, on how there exist energies in the world beyond the everyday. I actually think that would be one of the most interesting shows I’ve heard in a long time.
“I’ve worked with the psychics on the list for years. They're the real thing.”
He bounces in his chair. I go back to my desk.
The next day, I hear him on the phone doing interviews, and he’s obviously found quacks and is making a joke of it. When the spot comes out on the radio, I try to listen, but it’s hackneyed and cliched. His goal is to prove them all wrong. Worse—to prove them all ridiculous. I shut off the radio. I feel so relieved he didn’t call my people."
I would leave that NPR station, and go to work for the local newspaper. I'd always believed in the power of truth-telling to create change. It was just that what "truth" meant to me was changing. Where I once believed that reporting the surface facts was truth, I was beginning to see there were other truths, layers of truth, some truths people could not see. In my new newsroom job, pinched nerves in my arms would end my journalism career forever. The universe didn't want me in a newsroom. They wanted me to share my gift.
The above is just one of many examples of mockery I've encountered as a mystic. I think I'm particularly exposed to this because I still to this day like to wade into the mainstream every once in a while to gauge the water temperature. Some mystics only stay within their tribes, but I like to travel and mingle with nonbelievers.
Being a mystic is easier in some parts of the world. As I like to say, "You can't swing a black cat without hitting a psychic on the U.S. West Coast." The West Coast is a Disneyland of alternative healers. But there are many places that still fear women with psychic powers. Here on the West Coast, sometimes we forget that. We get in our safe bubbles and think everyone should just own their mystic gifts and get on with it. Depending on what part of the world you live in, sometimes that isn't always easy.
All I can advise for anyone reading this who is trying to accept themselves as psychic and trying to find their place in a divided world -- remember, you were born to be a healer. You're part of a movement to re-ignite these gifts and bring healing to the world during a time of great global change. It takes courage, tenacity, creativity.
Find your tribe, surround yourself with people who believe in a world beyond the veil (even if this tribe is online)...and later, when you feel safe and supported, don't forget to mingle with the mainstream every once in a while -- it's our job to shake things up.
Looking for support on your mystic path, join my self-study Mystic Circle program.
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