Blocked – 3 Things That Will Destroy Your Psychic Development

I was contacted recently by a psychic medium who needed me to help him figure out how, where, and why he is blocked.

The following is (the beginning of) a true story. Unlike my other posts, I hope you do not see yourself here.

Bobby is forty-two years old; his psychic abilities have been publicly acknowledged since he was a little boy. His family not only accept his gifts, they are his most vocal champions. Even though they all live in a very small town in North Carolina, simple word-of-mouth by family and friends has been the only marketing Bobby’s practice has ever required.

• He does not have a website or a Facebook page.
• He doesn’t blog about his experiences talking to the dead.
• The only business card he carries identifies him as a real estate agent.
• He doesn’t do readings over the phone.
• He doesn’t travel; he’s never even been on a plane.

… and yet, steady streams of clients seek him out — many of them traveling hundreds of miles to his home on a rural route state highway somewhere between Asheville and Charlotte.

This has been happening for close to thirty years.

He prefers to meet with clients in person, to be in the same room with them, and usually likes to touch their hands — it had never even occurred to him that he could read someone “over a distance” until he began talking to me about my own practice.

Bobby said he contacted me for 3 Reasons:

1. A special kind of “ghost” that has communicated with him all his life told him to work with me. Although he recognized the relationship he has with this entity when I described it to him, he was not familiar with the official term “spirit guide” — and “Akashic Record guide” was not even remotely a part of his vocabulary.
2. He has reached a point in his life and career where he needs his practice as a medium to become an actual business, or at least his primary source of income. You can imagine what has happened to his real estate business over the last few years… The donations Bobby has always accepted for his services sounded like something out of a historical novel — people bringing him home grown vegetables from their garden or packing the deep freeze on his back porch with a side of beef… He dotes on a pair of black cats, litter mates, that were given to him nine years ago by a young woman wanting to know the sex of her unborn child.
3. He told me he is “blocked” — people are not coming to him anymore — he can’t figure out why, and he needs an outside opinion. Even as he has decided, after all these years, that being a medium is his life purpose and should potentially be how he makes his living, his abilities seem to have… stopped growing. That has coincided with a drop in clients.

My first intellectual impression — just given the most common insecurities many (if not all) professional intuitives, psychics, and spiritual healers seem to share — was that maybe Bobby was having a hard time with the whole transition to “accepting money for doing readings.”

When I asked him a few questions about that, he immediately shrugged it off. He spoke quite eloquently about how he had come to terms decades ago with accepting small cash donations and gifts for his services. He let the clients choose the form of currency according to their own situations, but his views on how “paying” in some way raises the vibration and intention on both sides of the exchange convinced me that he “got” the idea of honoring his readings as divinely assigned work.

We emailed and spoke on the phone over the course of several days — most of the “obvious” problem areas that a professional psychic medium might experience were dismissed:

• He has unique, highly original rituals for protection and logging into his clients.
• He has an extensive personal intuitive vocabulary of signs and symbols collected from years and years of readings — nothing new or puzzling has been presented to him.
• He has distinct relationships with what you and I might refer to his “guide team” — and no recent instances of any new spirit entities showing up.
• He has customized very effective techniques for logging off readings, cutting cords, and religiously clearing residual energy after connecting with clients.

Bobby insisted that I come and work with him in his home. He alluded to some instinctual fears that there could be something about the property itself that was creating this block and he wanted an outsider to double-check everything.

The drive through the Appalachians from Chattanooga to Asheville is literally my favorite stretch of road on the planet. In the spring and fall, it’s stunning. The dragon’s tail curves, the tunnels, the mists like smoke hanging between softly crumpled folds of mountain tops like a giant rumpled bedspread… I bought a 2011 Mini Cooper four months ago that was absolutely built to drive that course.

I agreed to come spend the weekend and work with him in person.

Individual Development Plans

Bobby is my second “live” all day in-person client this month; and one of several established professional intuitives that I am currently creating customized programs for.

The intentions behind the Automatic Intuition Professional training is not to churn out certified Slade-clones, but to support those who are just beginning to answer their Calling while developing their OWN unique practice, professional brand, and business.

Many of you already know how to “do” readings — you’re self-taught, you’ve studied an eclectic mix of modalities over the years, and you’re already established and relatively comfortable with your psychic abilities.

Maybe you’ve got the woo-woo part down cold — you’re just trying to figure out how to use technology (the way I do) to market yourself, take your practice to the next level, actually make a good full-time living doing this meaningful work that you love.

Maybe you’ve looked at Automatic Intuition Professional and feel you already know all that — you’re looking for some Advanced Training — you want some mentoring and business advice customized just for you and your brand.

You’re potentially one of my favorite people to work with — someone who already speaks my language, operates as a true peer, someone who is self-motivated enough that, just by sharing my behind-the-scenes “secrets” and comparing notes with you, I can really have a profoundly positive impact on your progress.

I’ll actually create a program for you, if you’d like. So far, it is by special request only, but please do not hesitate to approach me.

Just use the Contact Form on my About page to start a conversation about where you are in your practice and where you want to go.

Infomercial over for now…

Back to Bobby’s Story

The first thing that strikes you about Bobby is that he looks like a country music super star — or an actor on a daytime soap opera playing a country music star. Really handsome man, drives a big shiny truck, wears a cowboy hat… Very funny, comfortable in his own skin, endearing, talkative, and out-going.

He did a reading for me right away. I was stunned. I’ve never had a reading from a medium that accurate and specific — picked up on my aunt who had taught me astrology and how to read tarot when I was nine years old. Described the rings she wore, her mannerisms, channeled her way of speaking, and knew her name. Dead. On. (Sorry for that pun. Spot on.)

This guy is the real deal. Not only are his abilities impressive, he also has the dreamy good looks for a television show or at least a sold out tour of live readings in concert halls.

I was almost ready to quit my practice and just become his full-time manager/agent.

How is it that this man is tucked away in a little house in the sticks and unknown on a national, international, global scale?

Bobby took me all over his old farm house and the surrounding property, saying little that didn’t qualify as small talk, but eagerly watching my face for signs of anything I might be picking up on.

Yes, the property is lovingly haunted, by a female spirit who comes in visitation, a woman who had lived her entire life in the house and had raised a family there. She is not a “problem” and certainly not blocking him. If anything, she’s like an extra grandmother, in spirit.

Bobby invited people over for a barbecue — family members, friends, neighbors — all of whom beamed with pride and wonder, eager to tell me tales of Bobby’s Greatest Psychic Hits. The vast majority of people I work with struggle to come out of the psychic closet — they are blocked by fears of what other people will think of them, especially their families. (At one point in my life, not so long ago, you could have included me in that group.)

That night, after everyone was gone, Bobby and I sat up really late talking “shop,” almost until dawn. I’ve never personally met another psychic or intuitive or healer who is that confident with his abilities, comfortable in his identity, and supported in that identity in his everyday life by the people closest to him.

What could I possibly teach him?

Bobby had absolutely zero awareness of our industry, in terms of publishing, media, etc. He knew very little New Age blather or psychic vocabulary. We spent hours just on jargon alone.

Bobby did not even know that what he does is called “mediumship.”

Pearls of information like “All mediums are psychic but not all psychics are mediums” was a revelation to him.

I just kept tossing out everything I could — everything I knew in context to the questions he asked me — and he lit up with each and every tidbit. I wish I had thought to record our conversation — my Twitter account would be cranking for months!

Bobby quizzed me about the business side of my practice — how I market myself, how I attract clients, how I use simple technology like blogging and a telephone and a PayPal account to run a global business. He’s a smart business man, when it comes to real estate, so it was easy to show him how those same principles applied to a professional practice as a spiritual teacher.

I made him a list of online resources and links to explore that will keep him busy for months.

But I went to bed that first night still wondering if there was something else holding him back. Maybe he just needed to download the practical information from me in order to go to the next level.

Was he really blocked — psychically blocked — at all?

The next day, we got ready for a hike to a nearby waterfall. The plan was to move out of his environment, and continue our learning intensive out in nature, as we both identify strongly with our Native American ancestry and the family heritage and mystical traditions that go along with that.

As we pulled out of his driveway, I noticed the “For Sale” sign in his front yard.

I asked about it, and Bobby talked more extensively about the actual history of his real estate business and the pain of watching his success disintegrate since the housing market collapse and the Recession.

He told me that, not only was he just putting his house on the market, he was planning to move away. When I asked why… a whole new voice came out of him. A different person emerged. An angry persona, parroting Right Wing radio talking points.

Racism.

Judgment.

Hate.

I was in shock, but I didn’t show it or outwardly respond. I put on my best therapist face and started actively listening with all my channels.

Bobby’s vibration shifted. It got dark.

The 87 degree sunny summer-like weather forecast literally turned into a tornado warning and a black storm on the mountain.

The hardest thing for me to do as a blogger with a large audience is NOT espouse my political views. I bite my tongue on a daily basis. It’s not the topic you come to read about — and my political interests are an on-going challenge in the management of my energy.

I am constantly called to renew my vows to keep things spiritual, positive, and practical. (All while still maintaining the edgy integrity of who I really am, avoiding the nausea of pastel hearts and flowers you can find elsewhere, and without too much cloying goody goody moonpie in the sky Unicorn crap. Of course. As promised.)

But Bobby shared his political views with me, at length — the associations he’s made between the failure of his real estate business, the economic downturn, the ethnic populations within the US that rely on social services whom he blames for his personal financial problems… (Uh, yeah — you know exactly what I was thinking.)

The worst thing about this (maybe it was the “good” part) is that these were not Bobby’s original beliefs. Unlike his uniquely colorful, eclectic, self-made spirituality, his politics were acquired from elsewhere — generic, off-the-shelf, pre-packaged racism for the uneducated.

My opinion: The tiny population of Haves in this country, the ones who control the bulk of the wealth, are so greatly outnumbered that one of the ways they ensure their sanctioned survival is by manipulating the uneducated underclass populace through their fears around narrow-minded social, ethnic, and religious issues.

How could someone like Bobby — so strongly connected to Spirit, so sensitive and empathic and aware, so psychic — be susceptible to that?

I was overwhelmed by a feeling of… intense grief.

And then I realized that, as with each and every one of my clients, I have been chosen to be a vessel — to deliver a message, an insight, a life-altering spark of perspective. And then get out of their way and let them unfold that special package, however they need to.

It’s not about me — it’s about them.

My work, my role — OUR job as spiritual teachers and healers — is to simply act as a vessel for Source.

That divine appointment — to act as a representative for Spirit — is NOT in alignment, is never going to be in alignment, with hatred in any form:

• Racism
• Sexism
• Classism
• Homophobia
• Religious Fundamentalism
• Misogyny
• …the list unfortunately goes on…

Carrying this kind of energy, whether intentionally, consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously — allowing a vocabulary of hatred to persist in your thoughts, no matter how small, even if you don’t share it out loud — will simply NEVER be in alignment with the Highest Truth available to you.

Excluding any human being, dismissing any group of people, as less than another IS inviting Evil to work through you.

My dismissing Bobby as a racist and refusing the assignment from God to deliver the messages that will return him to his Path and his greatest potential — that would also be unacceptable. So, it’s time for me to strap on my heaviest, hardest, toughest compassion and at least try to make a difference.

He reached out to me.

My “diagnosis” of Bobby’s situation was very carefully communicated. The conversation was painful for both of us. The work with Bobby is going to be challenging and potentially ugly.

He was very quiet for a few days following our meeting. He claimed to be “processing” everything. He finally came back to me and admitted that I was “right.” He gave me permission to alter his name and share his story with you as a way of at least beginning to release this poison he’s allowed to invade his heart, mind, and spirit.

I’ll never forget what he said to me — that even though it was hard to hear:

“Thank God it at least bears the grace of being the Truth!”

Hate?

Judgment?

Racism?

I’m pretty confident these are the Top 3 Things that will for sure block the fuck out of anybody’s psychic development.

Image credit Julian Rodriguez Orihuela via Creative Commons on Flickr