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A random Google search on, “How to become more intuitive” is an exercise in strange advice. To clarify, I use intuition instead of clairvoyance because I feel they are on a continuum. It can be difficult to asses what is intuitive information and extra-sensory information. For the purposes of my talk here, I use both words nearly interchangeably because to me, they work so close together they might as well be. The most common advice via Google for increasing intuition is as follows: meditation, pay attention to your dreams, journal, pay attention to your 5 senses, avoid fluoride, get your chakra (reiki, etc.) energy in balance, eat clean, and avoid alcohol.If this list were in the least bit accurate, by all rights I should be totally and completely lacking any intuitive abilities. I eat nachos, drink bourbon, gargle with fluoride, haphazardly meditate and forget my dreams as much as anyone else. Nor have I used any of these suggestions to increase my ability. Just like eyesight, hearing and touch, intuition is as natural and reliable (okay maybe not 5 bourbons in). Your intuitive sense is robust. You do not need to be a yogi on the mountain, or a champion meditation guru, or a vegetarian with balanced chakras. Intuition is a gift like all the other gifts we have as bodies, it is innate within you. There is no need to shroud this inexplicable sense anymore than it already is. Just like eyesight, hearing and touch, intuition is as natural and reliable (okay maybe not 5 bourbons in). Your intuitive sense is robust. You do not need to be a yogi on the mountain, or a champion meditation guru, or a vegetarian with balanced chakras. Intuition is a gift like all the other gifts we have as bodies, it is innate within you. There is no need to shroud this inexplicable sense anymore than it already is. Intuition is easily observed in children. Most children have an innate sense that at some point begins to fall off. This usually coincides with the start of school. School does not train us for listening to this sense and I would argue, actively dismantles it. We live in a society that does not honor, nor recognize intuition. In that vacuum what was natural talent atrophies in many. We can see further evidence for the lack our society has for intuition just by the dearth of words to adequately explain this perceptive sense. When our language lacks the words to describe what we are experiencing then it is hard to understand that what we sense is real. How could you possibly ever communicate your experience to a society that has decided that thing you are describing is not real? English (in my opinion) is not verbose when it comes to describing inner states and complex emotions. There has been a recent spate of research around how words of a thing change and shape how we feel and what we sense. There has also been research on the use of words and the perception of things like time and color perception. Namely, the language you use to perceive changes what you are perceiving. Ifind it hard to explain the process of intuition because I am grasping at words (inaccurate, clumsy substitutions) that are not up to the task of my perception. The closest analogy I can think of is trying to live as a person with sight in a blind world. That blind world telling the rarer sighted individuals that the color red is a delusion of their weak mind. How could you possibly ever describe the color red if there were no words for it? How could you possibly ever communicate your experience to a society that has decided that thing you are describing is not real? This is the first in a series of conversations I would like to have regarding intuition/extra-perception. This first piece sets up the conversation I wish to have with you later. If the advice we get about enhancing perception is mostly off-base, then what works? How can we create language that will help us identify what is going on inside and later explain it? How has a society that eschews this sense affect your intuition and your relationship to it? As an intuitive who makes her living by using this sense. I aim to question the advice that I have seen so often in fly by night articles (yes, I do see the irony). I also endeavor to replace them with methods that I use and know work. But, caveat here, what I may offer will not work for everyone. Merely, I offer a different way of viewing what ‘this’ is and how to enhance it. I hope to help you train your sense of your sense, namely, to be able to isolate what is intuition and what is not. I will offer a three-part series: The first is learning what intuition feels like. Gaining a lexicon that might be useful. Many things that I hear people call perception is often just suggestion. I’ve read bad advice where suggestion and subconscious to conscious conversations were labeled as extra-sensory. I want to clear up the difference so that you can easily recognize when it appears. I hope to help you train your sense of your sense, namely, to be able to isolate what is intuition and what is not. Half the battle here is just to be able to recognize it.
Once we have a clear idea of how and when our active intuitive state is present, we have to learn to listen to it, to trust it, and to turn up the volume so we can hear it better. I have some pretty novel ideas regarding how to do this that greatly increases our ability to catch the impression. Finally, upon identifying what the sense is like, and training our minds to hear it, we then can learn how to call it on command. Like tuning into a distance conversation we can train our ‘ears’ to pick up on the information from the ambient noise. We can easily put ourselves into a listening state that helps us catch what we need to sense.
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The vast majority of my clients prefer to come in whenever possible. Most people seem to believe that a phone reading is not as accurate. This however, is completely untrue. In fact, I have found not only do my phone readings match my in person readings, they can often be more accurate! The reason why I think this is, is because I need to spend much of my processing speed on vision, which is huge and greedy demand on our brains. You can see this in action when you notice a singer close her eyes, or when we are trying to remember something; we shut our eyes in order to re-purpose our processing speed on something else. In fact, it is very natural to do so! I believe that there is a biological center for clairvoyance, or perhaps that there is a place where soul and biology meet, and this place needs a lot of my neural synapses to do well. Even if we are not talking about clairvoyance, but rather, intuitive insight, it draws on the brain from a myriad of places into one big thrust. Only recently, have neuroscience began to attempt to understand that mysterious factor, intuition. If you have been a client of mine (or any other intuitive) you perhaps have noticed the phenomenon where I don’t look at you to give insight. In fact, I often look away from you (and, sometimes, clients will turn around to look where I am 'not looking!) Eye contact with you (lovely as you are!) distracts me. Your reactions, your facial expressions, your body language (that con artists might use as ‘tells’) just gets in my way. If I am concerned about your reaction, then I am not paying attention to the thing I really need to listen for, the information. Looking at you means I have to divide my processing into visual and clairvoyance, and you are not paying me to look at you, you are paying me for the latter.  Chuonnasuan, the last shaman of the Oroqen,(Photo by Richard Noll) You see the same kind of thing with traditional Shamanic clothing and rituals. They almost uniformly seek to shut down visual input. If I could, I would read for you from behind a screen! But, since most people want to see me, to visit me, to see the cards, then I make that accommodation; but from the perspective of strength of clairvoyance, in person readings can often hinder, rather than help, a session. I can feel when I have made a connection, proximity has nothing to do with this connection. When it comes to clairvoyance, it does not really matter. There have been successful experiments where connected individuals had remarkable results across continents replicated experiments that, of course, have been largely ignored because the scientific community has its own bias to work through. Whether we are talking about connecting to some kind of super string consciousness, or another dimension; I just do not know. All I know is that you being with me, sipping tea, while I love having you, does not help what I do from an insight perspective.  Okay, I have a thing for Whiskey Alcohol, Illness, and Fatigue
As a full time intuitive, I have found other strange things to oddly helpful, too. Against what many ‘New Age How to Be Psychic’ articles on the internet might say; being buzzed, ill, or extremely tired makes me a better clairvoyant. On the surface, I feel like crap. I don't feel like playing nice, or being a good host or pretending I'm pleasant when I feel gross. However, these times can often be the most powerful readings I ever conduct. In my full time practice, I noticed that, strangely, when I feel like crap, I am often the strongest intuitive. My best guess is that these three things exhaust the conscious, judicial mind. My rational, linear, judgmental, logical mind, the ego, is laid low by any one of these things and when that happens, the clairvoyant aspect of my mind can rise more clearly. In fact, I have joked to friends that to have the best possibly reading with me is when I feel absolutely crummy. Or, if I have had 2-3 glasses of wine. Now, drinking and reading in most circles is actively frowned upon big time, but for me it totally allows me to relax inhibitions, not worry about the message, don't focus overly on social approval, and I just allow that nonlinear space to come in and reveal great things. You also see traditional Shamans using these techniques to increase clairvoyance; from taking substances that alter consciousness: not eating, not sleeping, doing rigorous performances that subdue the ego and allow the vision–all of these actions were hacked by Shamans millennia ago. They also noticed that when we find ways to lay the conscious mind down, amazing things can be seen. So when I am ill, under the influence, tired, I give great readings. To have an intuitive session is to be slightly out of mind. For some reason, the shift has to be outside of the general work a day. Have you ever, when in deeply in love, felt that other person’s energy so strongly you knew if they were having a bad day? The extreme chemicals of falling in love create a small ‘madness’ thereby allowing that clairvoyant mind to rise up more keenly. What Doesn’t Work: Anger and Anxiety– If I am angry, or anxious, these are both emotions firmly rooted in the ego. “How dare you treat ME this way” or “What if they don’t like ME?” These emotions come from that busy monkey mind and that mind is not where clairvoyance lives. I try very hard to eliminate these emotions from my practice. For me, this is why I rarely do last minute readings and need things scheduled well in advance. I find that last minute changes, demands, or abrupt shifts in my schedule to be anxiety-producing and I know that anxiety shuts me down. Every intuitive is different in terms of what causes anxiety, for me, last minute changes produces it! This is also why, when a skeptic comes in with the, “No, YOU tell Me! YOU’RE the psychic!” kind of energy, I don’t do well, either. Clairvoyance does not respond to challenges, anxiety, or testing; these are all places of the ego and if I am worried about pleasing you, or meeting your challenge, or proving myself right then that actually makes the work I need to do (quiet my ego to hear the message) much, much harder to do. Then when of course the skeptic, after filling their reader with anxiety, doesn’t get a good reading it only reinforces their belief. It is like standing over an artist, pointing a finger at the canvas and yelling at them, “You better paint perfectly or you are no artist!” Who can work under those kinds of conditions? Prior to my reading day, I have to keep things calm, I have to be in a very receptive place. When booking tarot parties I am now very careful in what I accept. I know that I will not be a strong intuitive if I just battled heavy traffic to get to you. I also try to keep my personal life as calm as possible. Being angry at someone will effectively kill my ability to read for you. If I tell you I am sick, overworked and tired. Book a reading with me. I won't promise to be pleasant, but you will get something more often than not, extraordinary. And, if I tell you a phone reading will be just as good, please believe me. And, if you are the type to demand last minute things, to want to test me, know that that works against you, too. As many of you know, I Co-Organize a vibrant and interesting meetup group called Not Your Mother's Tarot and we meet about once a month to discuss all things Tarot and all the intersections that Tarot has with other things including channeling and mediumship. Recently, one of our own long time members and wonderful friend, Angela Dawn, wrote a book about her experience of channeling her Mother and her sister after they both crossed over in close succession. Angela chronicals a series of conversations she channels between her and her Mother and sister who disclose to her very descriptive information about the after life and also our meaning here on Earth. The book is meaningful, engaging, heartfelt and a true labor of love. I even have the joy of having Angela at most Meetup groups sitting on the yoga floor and reading tarot with me! Love Never Dies: From Heaven My Sister Speaks was a great comfort to me when my own family member was about to cross over. Angela shares the gift of her incredible bond as well as her channeling ability with the rest of us, who question, "What's next?" There are many stories out there that talk about life after, but what really moved me was this incredibly gentle, loving and close bond that only a Mother and sisters can share, that Angela then shares with us. Angela expands more about channeling and her incredible journey below: What plans do you have for helping others pursue a connection with lost loved ones? Very often I meet people who have lost a loved one and I share my story and experience with them. Most of them are very interested in learning more and whether they too can communicate with their loved ones. I would like to teach as many people as possible about the existence of the spirit world, that life does continue after the physical death, and how they too can communicate with their loved ones. I plan to do this through small development circles where people meet on a regular basis, and by holding workshops at churches, community halls, libraries or anywhere there is a place for people to gather. Do you still maintain contact with your mother and sister? If so, how is this contact continued? If not, what kind of contact do you still maintain with that world? When I am in need of help, I find that they do come. Let me give you an example, when I was trying to finalize the second part of the title of my book “from heaven my sister speaks” I had written over two pages of proposed titles. When I wrote the words “from heaven my sister speaks” I became overwhelmed with emotion and I began to cry. The tears streamed down my face and I sobbed. I knew that it was my sister communicating with me. Thoughts of her came into my mind and I felt a sense of knowing that these were the right words to use.  Angela (right) and her sister Can you explain more of how spiritual energies work in our world? As many people are aware our bodies are composed of seven energy centers or chakras. The higher we raise our energy level through our energy centers or chakras the more elevated our consciousness will be. It is through our consciousness that we blend our energy with spirit energy. We can raise our energy level through meditation which I had done when writing my book. I had raised my energy level to a high level where I could very easily blend my energy with spirit energy. Do you feel that spiritual energies are existent in those getting ready to crossover? How does energy change in situations such as prolonged illness? I feel that our loved ones are there to help us at the time we are ready to crossover to the other side. I asked my sister in the days before she passed whether she had seen mother and she nodded her head. Then, she looked toward the corner of the room, as if to say that is where mother appeared. I know that our loved ones bring their love and it is this love that gives us courage and comfort prior to our passing. Also, they come and bring their loving energy during times of prolonged illness. Once, my mother had a prolonged illness where she was in pain for many months with an undiagnosed abscess growing on her brain. The doctors stated that it was only a matter of time before she passed away. It was during this time that her grandmother, who had died many years before, appeared to my mother at her bedside and told her that everything was going to be alright. The loving energy that her grandmother brought eased her pain. My mother was able to lift her head up off the pillow and sit upright in bed. This was something that she had not been able to do in several weeks and something she did not do again until after the abscess was surgically removed. So yes, I do believe our loved ones come and use their loving energy to help us in our time of need. You also talk about reincarnation in your book, can you tell me a little more about that? I did not have an opinion on reincarnation until my sister explained it to me in the book and showed me our past life together. Since that time, I have read several books on reincarnation. Now, I do believe that we are on this earth for a purpose whether it is to learn a lesson for our own soul’s development or to help another soul on their journey learn a lesson. If we look at nature and look at the trees with their branches and leaves we can see how the old leaves fall in the autumn to make way for the new leaves and new growth in the spring. In this analogy, our souls are like the trees and the new leaves and new branches represent our lives on earth. In the same lifecycle of the trees, I believe that our souls can and do repeat this process.  Angela is on the right Angela is also hosting a Not Your Mother's Tarot Meetup group Feruary Friday the 13th at 7pm called, Connect With Your Loved Ones :Connect with your departed loved ones through a guided meditation along with your individual tarot card spread! Angela Dawn, author of “Love Never Dies: From Heaven my Sister Speaks” will be talking about her book and sharing her techniques so you too can receive a message!
You can also catch her at the Holistic & Psychic Fair is Saturday March 7, 11am to 5pm at the James Lorah House, Doylestown |
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Jenna Matlin
M.S. in Organizational Psychology and Leadership Categories
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