The Afterlife Judgment: "Thank you for your life. You did beautifully."

I had a very deep meditation on Friday, April 15th, that put me in such an incredibly profound state of being. At one point, the feeling of my body was nothing more than a mere memory. Where my consciousness actually resided at that point, I couldn’t tell you. But I do know I was far and away from the structure of my body. There was a sense of ecstasy; an intoxicating drink that my mind was floating within a dazzling sea of eternal existence; a primary ground just this side of Heaven for the soul still locked in its transitory earthly journey – not yet admitted to the infinite abode, but permitted to stand just centimeters from its gate. Being wrapped in this blanket of timeless emotion and immeasurable brilliance, it would not be without question that some kind of information, wisdom, or concept, might find its way into my “normal” earthbound cognizance. Indeed, the little sip of eternity from the cup of life made absolute sense when it flashed into my mind … It was pure harmony; a puzzle piece that fit perfectly with its partners on all corners.

The fireworks of wisdom that exploded inside my consciousness had to deal with the notion of your life being judged after death, and why the answer was always “You are forgiven, and you are loved.” It had nothing to do with the life review process – that sequence of events which puts you square in the middle of all your life’s choices and consequences. No, it wasn’t that at all. It seems, the life review process is an event for the individual personality’s benefit to come to terms, harmony, and understanding within the energetic makeup of his being – to make sense of the tributaries he traveled through the river of life; why the waterways wound about, rose, and then dived. Such revelations tie up life’s loose ends and answers many questions … It pulls the curtain to reveal the individual’s power, ramifications of choice, and hence responsibility he ultimately wielded in the course of earthly existence. Of course, this comes after the fact, after the life has been lived. It doesn’t address the whole point of living the life in the first place.

Yes, we are here on purpose. There was a point to being born into the physical universe on the day your bare bottom found air and the doctor spanked you. There was a reason why your life had a particular length to it – whether it be 20, 40, 80, or 100 years. There was a reason why you explored defined tributaries of life’s river – why you tromped upon one shore and not another. These were all potentials that were inherent in your spirit before you were born, and it was your intention to live them out for the expression of your greater consciousness (whether you wish to define that greater consciousness as the Oversoul, God, whatever).

When we start to look at life as the fulfillment of all potentials inherent within the makeup of existence, we begin to see why the structure of the universe – time and space – came into being. For the Great Soul to have complete expression – complete movement, total awareness, unbounded wisdom – to know all of this in its many permutations – all avenues of energetic experience and expression must be allowed to take form; to witness through and through on all levels these many layers – this becomes the drive and intention for life in the physical domain.

The impression I received from the quick glimpse afforded by my sip of ambrosia was awesome. The Great Soul, the Oversoul, whatever you wish to call it, sends portions of itself out into multiple time periods and domains. These time periods and domains are occurring simultaneously within the Oversoul, yet we break them down in order to fully enrapture and take in the components of each locality and bring them to the fullest expression and intimate awareness within our consciousness that we wish to experience. Each time and place can be considered a single locality, with energetic qualities and potentials wholly unique to its design. Our time period obviously is unique in comparison to ancient Greece, Middle Ages Europe, or even the American Revolution or Civil War. These localities afford unique opportunities for experience and expression which get fed to the Oversoul, so its energy (which is essentially your energy) lives out a course of existence in such localities … to sip from the intoxicating liquor each life offers. In doing so, the culmination resides in its wondrous joy of being All It Can Be, all at once, yet fulfilled through the lives of each “fragment self” spread out over time and space. It is such a rush, an amazing joy, to witness and feel the varied expressions of life happening concurrently for the Oversoul … It relishes all manner of experience.

From this admittedly higher and a bit perplexing view, our earthly concepts of morality seem to break down. Similar to how the laws of physics break down the deeper you go into the quantum realm, our notions of right and wrong turn fuzzy and lose coherence once we realize life is eternal, does not end, exists beyond time and space, and the goal of the Oversoul’s life is to have full breadth of experiences across all ranges of existence. And in some ways, for this to happen naturally and organically, the Oversoul grants free will to each “fragment” personality. (Or, one could say, each fragment personality is a mini-portion of the Oversoul individualized, complete with free will as its intended purpose of mission, drawing itself out of the Oversoul to breathe into a certain localized existence). In this way, experiential ranges can be explored with spontaneity, fullness of emotion, and expansion of thought. Therefore, one fragment may end up being an energetic expression and experience of a horrid murderer or other dastardly criminal/madman, while another may be the highest saint to bless earth’s grains of sand, all originating from the same source, for the sole point of being All Things Inherent in Potential. In either case, eternity, infinity, All That Is, is the Oversoul’s true “combined” nature, so these experiences fulfill the nature of its intentions – manifest all potentials in the theater of a “real-ized” universe.

It is sometimes hard to accept this, when we think of criminal elements. However, the fragment personality doesn’t end when the physical life is over. Because of the free will granted in projecting such energy into the different times and domains, the desire for spontaneity to bring the fulfillment of expression as the lifeblood of the Oversoul, the personality continues to evolve and move into other areas of experience after this existence. This again affords the Great Oversoul its complete act of expression. We would be remiss to assume that life only exists in two different locations – earthly physical domain and that of spirit. There may be, in fact, other domains with experiential structures we cannot even imagine, and the Oversoul delights in allowing its many fragments (which it may not even perceive as fragments, but simply the nature of its life) all the possibilities of expression and experience available. Here, we have a “completed timeline” of a “fragment” madman/criminal coming to terms with his energetic imbalances and later becoming the saint through the multiple domains he chooses to travel through. The sense of moral righteousness, productivity, all the things we hold as internal personal rules and conventions (and so highly regarded, I might add) are just other forms of varietal expression and experience to the Higher Great Oversoul, fulfilling its mission of being All That Is. It judges them not on “this being good, that being bad” but rather “the fullest expression and experience of my possibilities.”

Because the fragment personality is simply doing its intended purpose for being alive in this particular time and this particular place – to provide experience and expression in concert with the unique variables co-existent in locale (and partake and shape them), to be life itself in some part of its various form – this is why the only afterlife judgment one truly receives is “you are forgiven … and you are loved.” The Oversoul is not made of one life, but the “spreading out” of many through the prism of time and space, so the judgment of one would serve no purpose – it holds no water for it cannot address the bigger picture of the whole – and who would do the judging?

There has never been (and never can be) the apocalyptic judgment that we have been so taught throughout the ages, for it goes against the very grain of why life is here in the first place. We came to life on purpose and for a reason: to live life in its unique variations. What is life? It is the release of thoughts, emotions, and mental attitudes, manifesting experiences across space and time for energetic expression. All of these are affected by various matrixes put in place by all consciousness: the value systems, beliefs, etc. unique to the moments of history, time and place.

If the course of history has taught us anything, it is that the judgments for or against life are transitory. Concepts of good and evil change and evolve as we change and evolve. What is acceptable one day becomes unacceptable the next. And these differences are but a single layer in the makeup of expression and existence. This does not mean it is okay to go out and kill your neighbor, for we have all agreed such an act is horrendous; that judgment produces a framework which informs and guides the nature of choices, and hence expression and experience along the river of life in this particular time and space framework. That is our designation as fragment personalities that we choose to adhere to.

To the eternal Oversoul – free from earthly time and space – it makes no call of right or wrong, but only love and thanks for ultimate expression in the framework of the domain. It does not recognize morality or immorality … only freedom to express and be All It Can Be (life is eternal, never ending, and a full expression of energetic possibilities, utilizing the domain matrix for inspiration, so how could anything be wrong?). That freedom, that bursting of choice manifesting into all possibilities through the prism of time and space is the whole point to existence. So do not fear a negative judgment for doing only what the point of existence was to begin with: live life in whatever way you choose, for in the end, that was the only directive to begin with. That was the purpose for exiting the womb in the doctor’s office. That was the purpose for traveling certain inlets along the river, and why certain “fragments” left the physical domain at certain times. It’s all good. It’s all life. It’s all potentials being experienced purposefully.

It’s the whole reason you burst out into existence in the first place.

I have written similar posts like this in the past, but coming out of meditation and being struck with the concept and an attached “feeling” was quite an interesting moment.



PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS

In considering this epiphany, I was struck with a couple thoughts.

1) You cannot judge another person’s life, for it is a holy expression. We have been told this for centuries, though not quite grasping or understanding the nuances of why. Yet this insight fills out some of those details. Yes, we may think the homeless man or drunken bum doesn’t have much of a life, or that some other person is “wrong” or “bad” based on any number of labels, concepts, or inferences we concoct. But that is all within the context of our own personal and agreed-upon societal value system. I am reminded of when my wife’s cousin interviewed a homeless man sleeping on a park bench for a college project. The homeless guy said “I love my life. I have no boss. I don’t have to answer to anybody but myself. I can go anywhere I want, whenever I want. I don’t punch a clock and can go anywhere in the city so long as I got a pair of shoes.” He was living his life in the expression he wished! And he was quite conscious of it, too!

2) The notion of “forgiveness” is for our personal benefit – we were never in need of forgiveness in the first place. Since we are living the directive of life, it is to the value system we cling and the psychological framework we adopt which produces the “I must be forgiven” desire. Therefore, it is by this perception that those who meet us upon entering the next world grant us the gift “you are forgiven.” Ultimately, we were never in any peril to begin with. Our only prison has been the one we built in our own minds from what we’ve accepted inside the matrix of this physical earth-life domain.

Peeling the Onion - An Angle on Psychic Development

One of the most common perceptions regarding a credible psychic is that they were born with the ability and required no development – that the evolution of the psychic signal was already fully formed as soon as they fell out of the womb. Though in many cases, intuitive and psychic abilities can be linked back to early childhood, this does not necessarily mean a fully developed sense of how to utilize these gifts existed. Yes, quite often we hear psychics say “I thought all kids were like me, until I discovered they weren’t.” However, there are others who on the surface simply perceived reality a bit differently, but could not discern just how different their perceptions were from others, and moreover, just what those differences meant. And still further, there are those who did not have an inkling of psychic ability in their youth, but suddenly became active later in life – and in some cases, it required no miraculous feat such as a near death experience, but rather something far less dramatic. The catalyst for engaging the psychic signal can be as benign as simply becoming aware of it in the first place. In other words, just paying attention.

However, paying attention doesn’t mean you necessarily go from “eyes closed” to “eyes opened” and receiving all the psychic information about a particular subject in all its varied details. Quite frankly, even when one is born with psychic functioning, there is still a process of development and evolution (unless you’re a prodigy like Mozart). The speed at which this development takes place can happen very quickly, or as is typical, gradually over a period of time. Like a muscle, the more you exercise, the stronger it will get.

But we must admit, psychic functioning is not simply a muscle, and such a metaphor, though it has its purpose, is rather crude overall. Instead, using the analogy of eyes opening seems more appropriate. Now imagine a time when you were in a darkened room, and then suddenly turned the lights on. The flood of brightness can leave you momentarily blinded and disoriented. Fortunately, just starting out in psychic development, this isn’t usually the modus operandi (though it can leave you at times a bit confused). And for good reason: it is much better to turn up the light slowly … As the luminescence brings the shapes once hidden to a more discernable form, the mind engages the environment in a brand new way. It tries to grasp what the shapes are, what they represent, what is the “wider view” that is emerging from the blackness. And – here’s the kicker – how does it relate to how we perceive ourselves in the world and what we know of the world. In other words, as these once darkened, invisible shapes and sounds find their birth in our consciousness and come into the observable mind, the ego consciousness grapples with definition, and that definition will be processed (typically) according to one’s psychological makeup, and then delivered to the subject for validation. How, too, will we assimilate the information, once verified, back into our being?

Oftentimes, people view psychic development as a series of events, lessons, or circumstances that lead to acquiring the ability. “I have acquired clairvoyance” or clairaudience, what have you. This as if to say they didn’t have it before, and like a blank slate, have now added this ability whereas earlier no such functioning existed.

This may actually be an incorrect view.

Early in the U.S. government’s remote viewing program, once psychic ability was accepted as a valid tool, the task then became to discover how to make it more reliable – how to get better at it, in order to achieve more “hits” about a location. In collaboration with their lead psychic, Ingo Swann, it was determined that psychic abilities had much more to do with letting go of personal beliefs and feelings surrounding psychic functioning rather than developing strategies to “acquire” further or more advanced skills. As described by Lyn Buchanan in his book “The Seventh Sense” it was more like peeling away the layers of an onion inside the self.

Ideas about psychic abilities have a lot of “junk” that can easily get in the way of utilizing the functions, when one takes a closer look at it. We all know about the stigma, the potential loss of family and friends who might think us “crazy” or “weird” when embarking upon this part of our creaturehood. But aside from that, there is actually quite a bit more, such as: what do you think is possible? Yes, you might see some psychic on television do some amazing work – he gets names, actual dates (down to the day), street numbers, etc. but how does that sit inside you? Do you think you can really get a glimpse of the future? Or receive details about events from somebody’s past? What are all the varying degrees of beliefs and feelings you have surrounding psychic functioning within the context of your self?

There could potentially be several concepts; beliefs harbored not just in mind but also by the swirl of emotions. This biological cocktail may block certain psychic information from boiling up to the observable mind. Again, you must peel away the onion of your being.

For years, I never thought I would get names during the course of a sitting. “Too hard. Never happens. I will never get names.” It wasn’t until I stopped telling myself that erroneous belief and started declaring its opposite (and inviting into my consciousness that it was possible) did things start to change. In deliberately peeling back this layer, I started to notice names floating by in later sessions – or at least the phonetic sound of the name or first initial. Am I always 100% accurate? No. But any percentage of hits, no matter how large or small, is better than zero, which is what my consciousness was batting at the plate before I turned it around.

Oftentimes we struggle for wanting more, when perhaps the “more” has always been there, crouched in the darkness waiting for the light to come up. Perhaps that light is not a bulb outside of your being that you acquire or that someone else gives you, but is rather something that happens as a result of releasing a belief or emotion. It is the belief, it is the emotion which harbors that darkness inside creating the obscurity. If you can identify the limitation and release it, the eyes open just a bit more, the light glows a bit brighter, and a more defined image comes into view.

This makes sense when the instruction for development has been the need to learn how to relax, quiet the mind, get out of the left-brain and into the right … These are all directives to try and let go of intrusive thoughts and emotions that would hold our consciousness captive and blind the reception of observable psychic phenomena. In other words, Get out of your own way. It is a process I endlessly work on and have noticed success.

I think the biggest question one needs to ask in the course of development which might uncover some of those onion layers (and it should be the very first question before entering development to begin with) is “Why?” Why do you want to develop psychic functioning? Is it because you think it would be “cool”? Fun? A great sense of personal thrill to delight and amaze your friends? If so, then don’t bother, or at the very least, don’t expect too much. One of the other factors the U.S. government remote viewers discovered was that there was a deep sense of personal responsibility and even a type of personal “spirituality” in order for the psychic signal to be proficient. As a parlor trick, one may get some higher level “gestalt” information, but aside from that, not much else. This is because “everything else” takes commitment, honor, and respect for the process. And that means the viewer has to engage himself (or herself) in order to “interact” with the information … He must be willing to examine what is keeping his eyelids only open so far versus going all the way (or opening at least a little wider). He must be willing to look inward and discover his own onion, and be willing to do the work to peel its layers away. This may take years, and some layers may never get penetrated.

For me, to examine this function of consciousness, there is no greater or more important aspect to life. In discovering these abilities, what does it reveal about us? What does it show us about who and what we are and how we are wired and connected with the universe? By studying psychic phenomena, can we learn something far deeper about the nature of our beings other than the standard materialistic “cog-and-wheel” system? Can further discovery in this field propel us into a more harmonious and evolved state of existence? To me, it speaks of possibilities which then turn into potentials … Not for me personally, but for us collectively.

I know a part of me has always feared what others might think – “freak, fraud, delusional weirdo,” and this fear has definitely hindered more than helped my process of development. I think it contributes to why I never feel I “get enough” or miss certain details over others. It doesn’t matter that I’ve done this for over a decade, and have great and wonderful people think so highly of me. Perhaps this fear has arrested my consciousness to work from a certain plain, one single “hue” of light inside that somewhat darkened room. I think in order to fully engage it, I need to let that stuff go. In worrying about what others might think, it is keeping me from turning that light up just a bit further. It is another layer of the onion that must be stripped away.

What will happen? I do not know. Will I get more details? I do not know. Will I learn more? Absolutely.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just beginning to uncover your psychic/intuitive gifts, what have you had to let go in order to further your development? And how has this letting go process helped?

Remembering Rose

This week I received the sad news of the passing of one of my eldest clients, Rose, affectionately known as “Grammy.” I met Grammy at my first private household group reading back in 2007. Though her body was frail because of her advanced age, when it came time to do her reading, her spiritual energy was still a fiery whirlwind of desire and exuberance. Over the course of several years and numerous readings, it was clear that Grammy led one heck of a life, filled with drive and zest. It was always a hoot when I would connect with one of her deceased husbands.

“I have a male here who he’s really close to you … There’s an age gap …. He’s passing a lot of affection to you – a husband figure.”
“They all wanted me. Oh god - which one is it?”

It was obvious, Grammy was quite the hot momma back in her younger years, leaving a trail of ex-husbands in her wake. Listening to these boisterous readings, through the laughter one could sense that she never wished to be tied down and wanted to live life to its fullest. Even still, you could tell she loved all her husbands, and they all loved her. And each husband, by the nature of her energy and the information that came though, was a relationship filled with fiery magnetism. She outlived them all, but in the course of these readings, her sway over them remained. I can remember one reading where 3 or 4 them came through, giving some quick evidential material to identify themselves, then commented about how they were all sitting around the card table partying and waiting to see her again. In the last few years when she was able to attend the group sittings, she was always curious about when that next cowboy was going to ride in and sweep her off her feet.

But things got tough, as they always do. In the latter end of her golden years, her passion for romance soon shifted into a desire to simply be free of pain. Her body hurt; it was tired. And the last time I saw Grammy, I think it was around November or December, when I took her hand to better connect with her energy, it was clear some of her fire had dwindled. (Even still, ex-husbands were there to say how much they loved her, and also provide a few quick glimpses of moments from the past that would get everyone laughing). Naturally, Grammy’s family was wondering how much longer she had, and I, too, wondered. The contrast of her energy from earlier readings to that final sitting was definitely different; but it was to be expected. Still, I knew I wasn’t going to get answer of when the dreaded timeframe would be for her departure, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it in the first place.

The course of the last year was a tumultuous one, for both Grammy and her family. There were periods where they thought she was going to pass away, but then her fire would come back. I remember forecasting a series of months where things were going to get really tough physically and medically, and everyone wondered (including myself) if that was going to be “the time.” When those months came, a few events did trumpet some big struggles. Throughout the course of her decline, there were times when she would stop eating and drinking; she would become incredibly stubborn and difficult to deal with. But, when you’re holding onto life, or recalling your younger years when your body could exercise the choices of your mind, no doubt frustration and anger boils up as a natural reaction to the dissonance of mind to body, coupled with a sense of spiritual repression as things wind down. “To stay or to go” had to be a tremendous struggle for her. When one lived life with such gusto as she, how do you approach what can only be perceived as the end?

The last time I saw her, I was so honored. It was a testament to her strength, just to be there.

Earlier this week, I started receiving some signs. I did not know who they were for. When I saw an image of a Raven land on my kitchen counter while washing dishes, there was an unmistakable sense of knowing, someone was about to pass. And when you receive such a chill, it’s hard to shake off. I wasn’t told who, and truth be known, my emotions probably would’ve blocked the information.

The next day at work, my car was practically dive-bombed by a crow – a relative of the Raven. Here was another sign, which sent my mind spinning. To my detriment, the week was busy with many projects and events, keeping me way too tired to do my usual morning meditations. Perhaps if I had, I would’ve been open to receiving more information …

Then I received two more signs … A crow flew right by my head, nearly striking me as it went. The definitive answer came when I did my radio interview with Rhonda Hohmann on Wednesday. She mentioned she had pulled an animal card earlier in the day. When she said it was a butterfly, my heart sank. Though the card itself had a very upbeat and positive message for Rhonda, the butterfly itself is a personal symbol I had chosen over a year ago to represent that someone was going to pass over to the Other Side … A caterpillar getting its wings. The butterfly symbol came through significantly a week before my cat passed last year, so there was no doubt when Rhonda said it was the butterfly card she had received, the spirits were not only giving her a positive message regarding her experience, but also telling me “This is it. Someone will be passing shortly.”

I got the news Thursday evening through a friend. I knew at that moment, it indeed was Grammy the spirits were warning me about. When I contacted her family to give my condolences, they told me how her caregivers could feel the time was close. Terri, her granddaughter, had connected with spirit guides earlier in the week through her spiritual development circle, and they informed her Grammy would pass within 3 days – and they were right. My friend Carol, when she tried to psychically check in on Grammy before the end, mentioned all she could pick up was a very high-energy, high-level being protecting her. She detected this being around the same timeframe I had started to see the Raven and crows. Carol wasn’t given a date, but the presence of this awesome angel gave her the real sense of foreshadow.

As I turned away from my desk when receiving the news, I wondered when it would be before I would hear from her. I’ve connected with the newly departed in the past, in some cases within just a couple of days. Curiosity getting the best of me, I opened my senses just a little. I didn’t expect Grammy to come through, and indeed she did not. Instead, however, I was given a wonderful snapshot of moments just after her departure.

All the loves of her life were there, welcoming her as they said they would. And I was shown Grammy with an awestruck gaze, smiling joyously, FEELING free and gasping “Oh my! This is so wonderful! Why did I wait so long to finally experience this side of life?” She was definitely ready to burst with that fire, passion, and exuberance that I was so honored to experience from her several years ago – bursting brighter than she had been in decades. There was this definite sense of casting off the physical world without a moment’s hesitation – running off into the sunrise of newfound bliss.

Grammy’s life and death has affected a great many people. For me, she is my first client to pass away while I still do this work. She is my first client the spirits tried to forewarn me about with a message of demise. It is sad and I will miss her at the gatherings, yet I know in just a few short months, her energy will come back into my field again and we will have a great conversation. I suspect, it is going to be one of the most profound and moving sittings of my life. I wonder, selfishly, how it will change me.

No doubt, with Grammy, it will be filled with excitement, passion, and laughter.

Until we meet again, Grammy, I will be here ready to hear from you …

Jeffrey

Fear in the Course of Development

Not much more to report on this week in regards to working with the “new sight.” Tuesday was the start of a long week of dealing with a sore throat, congestion, headache … You know what I’m getting at: the blahs. Though it could have been worse. Typically when I get a cold, my muscles really ache and my body feels like it’s been knocked around by a freight train. That didn’t happen this time, and I have faired a heck of a lot better than some of my co-workers who were out for three or four days with this.

At any rate, I’m going to take a cue from my good friend Carol Geiler and talk a little about fear. If you haven’t yet, you need to check out her blog for the week, on the fear of being psychic. I have to say, this is probably one of the best blog articles I’ve read on the subject, and there were so many points that I could relate to from my own journey that I decided to scrap my original entry for this week and write a little about them. So, yes, I’m going to reminisce, and hopefully this bit of indulgence will show something as to the nature of spiritual development, namely that at times it can be incredibly uncertain, scary, and yet also the most expansive force in one’s life.

As Carol mentioned, the two main crux objects that produce fear when it comes to dealing with psychic phenomena is judgment and education. For me, I’d have to say the main culprit falls into the judgment arena. It’s one thing to do psychic readings for friends and people who know you, it’s entirely different when you set out to do it for complete strangers. When I first began, I started with friends from my job (which at the time was in downtown Seattle). Friends are easy, because you know they will forgive you and not hold anything against you if it turns out you are wrong in your reading, or conversely, if you’re absolutely right. Friends like to see friends explore, grow, and become greater. Friendship carries with it the sense of comfort from knowing the person, and hence less stress. The fear comes with the introduction of someone you have never met before, because you have no clue as to their orientation: how do they view psychic phenomena? How do they react normally to the strange and unknown? How closed up are they going to be because 1) they don’t know you, and 2) they may have prejudices and their own fears about things psychic. The first year of doing readings for me was a mixture of friends and strangers. However, the strangers were friends-of-my-friends, so there was some connection within the network. When my company laid off nearly two-thirds of the staff (me included), I had to bite the bullet and actually go do a complete non-connected, no-contact stranger.

That wasn’t easy. It was actually sheer terror. Here, Carol talked about such moments as resulting in either facing your fears directly or shutting them down. By this stage, I had done enough readings to know that I had some ability, but knew that if I didn’t keep moving forward, I would never know just how much more I could learn – and who I might be slated to help with whatever I could do. My sense of needing the education, mixed also with a meaning of purpose, helped me push through my fear. But I have to tell you, it was tough. I was an emotional and physical wreck leading up to the reading.

I had placed a simple flyer on a bulletin board in a supermarket advertising free readings. When I got the call, my heart ended up in my throat. On the day of the reading, my head was spinning with thoughts of “What are you doing? Are you crazy? You could potentially look like a total fool! My god, it will be a miracle if you get anything!” Yes, I seriously was terrified. But I also knew if I didn’t go through with it, I would never be able to look at myself in the mirror again. It was one of those things that, had I abandoned it, I would wander through the rest of my life asking the question “What if?”

It’s the “what if” that has propelled me to push through a lot of my fears. I prepared as best I could for that reading: I meditated, I recounted some of the really good “hits” from previous readings with my friends … I could feel my spirit guides pressing me on. When I got into the car to travel to the client’s location, I played soothing meditation music. When I arrived and stepped onto the pavement of the apartment complex, I don’t think I was any less fearful than what I was that morning when I got of bed. But I had made the trip and was going to move ahead so I would never have to ask “What if?”

And good thing I did, otherwise I know I wouldn’t be here right now. The reading lasted 90 minutes and was filled with some wonderful evidential details. My favorite piece of info was that I saw a Native American in my meditation prior to my arrival, and he handed me a book and said it was for the client. My client was not Native American, nor did she have any Native American paraphernalia on display. During the course of the sitting, the spirit showed up again. When I mentioned it, she laughed and told me she just picked up a book a few months earlier to speak a Native American language.

When the reading came to a close, I was on such a wondrous high. On the drive back home, I couldn’t wait to read another stranger.

Of course, time sets in and the further away you get from a reading, the more you get back into your rut. Though this first real “blind” reading was a major success, I still feared doing the next one. And the next one. And the next one. Even now, after having done this for eleven years, there are times I get frightened before doing readings - worried if things are going to work and if I will be seen as a loony, or worse yet, a fraud.

But one thing the course of my development has taught me: timing is everything. Though you may not necessarily believe in yourself, spirit doesn’t push you into something if they know you are not able to do it. For me, I’m a resistor – I push back when my spirit guides tell me to go do something. Again, fear has a lot to do with it. And when this happens, my guides will keep pushing, knowing that I haven’t given up the course, but am just dealing with fear.

This type of “fear in the face of development” all came up again when I had to do my first group reading, which was simply going to be an experiment. Again, I was terrified, but came through.

I could go on, but suffice it to say, fear for me has been a big issue in my work. And for some of you who know me, you might even say it’s held me back; a lot of people were predicting when I first got started over a decade ago how far out into the mainstream I was going to be, as if to say I was going to be the next celebrity psychic. That hasn’t happened, and I have no idea if it ever will or even if that’s where I want to be. But I still do the work because of what it says about the multidimensional nature of our beings, so that’s the force behind my drive these days.

Carol mentioned you could lose friends and family during this journey. Absolutely, and I’m no exception. I didn’t speak or hear from my family for nearly two years after I divorced my ex-wife – something I absolutely had to do because of the incompatibilities in our relationship, and psychic phenomena, though not all of our issues, was certainly a part of it. That event to this day is still the darkest period of my life. When I walked out the door leaving her behind, I prayed to my spirit guides that “they had better be right about this.” Yes, indeed, during my struggle to decide the course of my future leading up to that fateful day, they told me “You have to leave.” This was the true test of my faith, as I left everything behind. I took very little with me. And had to weather the storm of being called “crazy,” and having lost my mind by my family. I only had one or two close friends around me, and I still had to battle every day inside my consciousness for nearly a year that I was doing the right thing. I left my family, a home, a place that at least provided shelter, but never would have given me room to grow and be who I am meant to be. Now when I look back, had I stayed, I most likely never would have moved forward in reading groups; becoming a member of the Ghost Society; and writing a book and being on the radio? Forget about it. Not only that, there would be another very lonely soul in the world trying to find her way – my wife, Heidi. For those of you who see me and Heidi living such a great life, know that it came on the work of some very hard and fearful events.

When you open up to this kind of work, you really can’t objectively close the door and go the other way. For me, shutting down in my earlier years would have been tantamount to death. At the time in my former marriage I was very overweight and fighting for my own sense of self in the world; to have a purpose and a point for my existence and why the relationship was just never working. And, yes, when you come to the threshold of going out into the unknown, as I have done with attempting my first reading with a stranger, or my first group reading, or the extreme measure of ending a marriage, it is extremely terrifying. But again, timing is everything; spirit doesn’t give you something you aren’t prepared for. (I think this is different in comparison to jumping in with both feet when you are being told, on some level, it’s not the right time. Then the question becomes: how do you know the difference between the two? Well, I suppose that could be the topic of another blog.)

With the release of my book, I’m facing a new set of fears. Now I am being exposed to a wider audience – a whole massive slough of strangers throughout the world, as I call in and talk on various radio shows being broadcast over the airwaves and the internet. Feeling vulnerable? You bet. It’s not for the squeamish. But I’ve gotten this far and survived it all … So at least in this endeavor, I feel I have a very good foundation to jumpstart from. And is typical, when the guides told me it was time to write a book, I resisted. Then accepted. And have moved forward.

Yes, there is a fear with being psychic.

Development and evolution, in some respects, isn’t meant to be easy. It’s the challenges that make us grow and become stronger. And I think it’s something we all share.