Over the past week I’ve been making a concerned effort to keep my psychic antennae up during waking hours.

That’s a big deal for me.

You see I’m a loner. I enjoy company of the opposite sex, as well as friends and family, from time to time. But I love my quiet time even more.

A fantasy vacation for me would entail sitting in my house for a week, without having to answer the telephone or watch television.

That’s not to say that I don’t have a full and productive life. I mean if you met me in person you’d have absolutely no idea that I was a closet hermit. I don’t come across as a shy, wallflower type. Even so, at the end of the day I just really appreciate my quiet time.

And that’s precisely why an always-on psychic antennae seemed like a big deal in my reality. It thought it would take away that aloneness, and put me in the center of what would seem like a never ending storm of mental activity.

But that’s not what happened

Psychic or intuitive impressions aren’t big and clunky. They don’t normally come knocking you over the head, unless you’re in a dangerous situation.

So despite my conscious decision to leave that antennae up, I found that my intuitive thoughts flowed seamlessly with my regular thoughts. Though this time, they came with a regularity that I’d never experienced before.

For example…

Visions of upchucking dancing in my head

On Tuesday evening I had a vision of my daughter throwing up in the bed. It just came to me as I was doing some work on the computer. But since my daughter wasn’t sick, I just considered it to be a passing thought.

Even still, I kept thinking how awful that would be since she sleeps in a loft bed (which is like the top part of a bunk bed), and that bed doesn’t have a mattress cover. So basically if it did happen, all that yuckiness would seep through the sheets, to the mattress – causing one helluva stinky mess.

I made a brief mental note to check out some mattress covers on Amazon, and then I forgot about it.

The following night there was a holiday party in my building. My daughter ate shrimp and bread and God knows what else. Then we went to my neighbors house for tea and ginger snaps. My neighbor also gave her 2 or 3 small candy canes.

We went home, and I put my little Pac Man to bed. (Perhaps you see where I’m going with this!)

Around an hour later I heard a noise. Wait… it sounded like something SPLATTERING!

I rushed over to my daughters bed and sure enough, she was making my upchuck vision come true.

The coupon story

On Wednesday I was picking up some Christmas gifts from Macy’s. Along the way there’s an art supply store called Dick Blick’s that my daughter loves to shop at.

I was walking past Blick’s, when I decided to cross the street and go in to buy some stocking stuffers. But as I was about to cross the street a car blocked me. At the same time I thought about a Barnes and Noble coupon I’d gotten a week earlier.

I received the Barnes and Noble coupon for 40% off kids calendars a day after I’d just purchased a Hello Kitty calendar for my daughter. So when the car blocked me, and the thought of the Barnes and Noble coupon passed through my mind, I took it as a sign that I shouldn’t shop at Blick’s that day. A coupon was probably coming.

Sure enough, the following day I got an e-mail from Blick’s for 40% off any non-sale item.

Woohoo! That time I got the message and I understood it.

Go ahead and read the sales letter

And then on Friday I had a consultation with a client (for my writing business).

The client had sent me an e-mail a week earlier detailing the issues he wanted to discuss. In that original e-mail he said he wanted me to take a look at a sales letter he’d written, and give him some feedback on it.

A few days after that first e-mail, he sent me another one saying that he wanted to discuss other things. Basically he didn’t want to go over the sales letter.

But the morning of the consultation I had a vision of him asking about the sales letter. So I briefly read through it.

And just as I saw it, he DID end up asking about the sales letter. In fact, it was the first thing he inquired about.

An affirmation to just listen

After reading through my journal I saw there were far more clear, psychic impressions this week than those times when I didn’t have my antennae ‘on’ all the time.

I found that to be interesting.

All this time I assumed that if I left my antennae on, I’d be bombarded with random thoughts flying through the air. For me, that hasn’t been the case. If anything, I’m getting far more helpful information now than I normally get on a day-to-day basis.

Now mind you, this has nothing to do with giving other people readings.

Even though I’m accurate when giving other people readings, I sometimes find that I’m ignoring the psychic signs in my own life. So this past week has really been an eye opener in that department.

And it’s a reminder to you… if you make a choice to listen, you will hear. If you decide you want to see, then see you will. But you have to make that decision. It doesn’t come without actively deciding that you want it.

“My wife died a few months ago and I was wondering – can you connect with her?”

I’ve never considered myself a medium, in the sense that I could connect with the deceased friends and relatives of my clients, on demand. But here I was – doing a reading – with this heartbreaking question resting on my lap.

I quieted my thoughts for at least a minute. I thought I would start getting nervous. But somehow for that minute I managed to stay in a calm state-of-mind.

Slowly the images began to come through. And then that damaging thought occurred…

What if I’m wrong?

With such a delicate situation underfoot I hesitated a bit to relay what I was seeing. What if the images I was getting were off? Do I really want to launch into a scenario and be terribly mistaken, possibly hurting this man even more?

Before I could contemplate any longer I started to speak. I began describing the woman that I saw. My leg started to tingle, and I inquired why.

Turns out that I had indeed connected with his deceased wife. She apparently had a limp, hence my tingling leg.

When I got off the telephone with him I was both excited and shocked. Excited because I’d just done a “John Edwards” move. And shocked because the images that came through were so plain and matter-of-factly.

I always thought when I connected with the deceased it would be some kind of glitzy inner production. You know like some kind of flash you see on shows like Ghost Whisperer.

But it wasn’t ANYTHING like that.

And that’s why TRUST is such a big deal for us.

Psychic thoughts are almost like chameleons. They’ll blend in with whatever’s going on in your mind – to the point that sometimes you’ll barely recognize them.

For example, while I’m giving a reading I might have a passing thought about a conversation I had with a friend earlier in the week. I used to ignore those fleeting thoughts. After all, what does my private conversation have to do with my client?

I quickly realized that that’s the way your psychic mind works.

If a conversation I previously had pops up out of nowhere during a reading, the basic message of that conversation almost always applies to the person I’m reading for.

It’s just a matter of trusting what you see, hear or feel when you’re in that psychic state-of-mind.

And it’s actually a lot easier than it sounds.

You simply have to be open to trusting what you see, feel or hear. And if you’re doing a reading for somebody else, you have to be trusting enough to relay those thoughts.

So if you were looking for the whiz-bang method, there is none. There’s only TRUST.

Friends and family who know what I do often ask – “What’s it like when you realize that you’re picking up an intuitive impression? Do you feel differently?”

It’s a valid question. When you’re watching these television shows and movies it sometimes looks like the psychic is going into some kind of over-the-top trance. Their head starts jerking around, or their eyes shut really tight. And not surprisingly they only pick up impending disaster or gloom.

My impressions aren’t quite so dramatic!

When I close my eyes to get into my heart chakra I sometimes see a hand. And that hand might start drawing a picture for me.

I find that when the hand starts drawing a picture it means the situation the person is asking about is still unfolding.

One of the most frequent pictures I see is a house being built. Sometimes it’s just the outline of the house. On occasion I’ll see entire pieces of the house being put together – kind of like a puzzle. Or I’ll see the house being outlined in various colors. I’ve learned to interpret each one differently.

Although there is a Hollywood-esqe quality sometimes…

Sometimes a scene from a movie will pop into my mind. It’s often something totally off the wall, but meaningful. That’s how I know it’s my intuition – it will be totally random.

I once got a scene from the movie Kung-Fu Hustle. (Not one of my personal choices, but my family loves this quirky movie!) I saw a lotus pen-type dagger going into a persons body. The man who did it had actually tricked the other fighters into believing that he had given up the fight.

To me, this scene was metaphorical. Like letting your guard down and then being tricked or being hurt.

And they tend to be very behind-the-scenes.

I find that I pick up a lot of the hidden agendas or the inner emotions and thoughts that my clients aren’t discussing. That’s the one aspect of giving readings which amazes me.

During a recent reading someone asked me about money. They wanted to know whether it would start flowing in.

When I pulled the tarot cards I saw a woman who looked like she had a lot to do with the money situation. I saw her spending a lot of the money that was already coming in – but that she wasn’t exactly proud or happy about it. She wasn’t doing it to be a gold digger, it was more out of necessity… or at least what she perceived to be necessity.

The client cut me off while I was giving him what I saw. But later in the reading he admitted that there was a woman in his life who was, in fact, bleeding him dry.

Sometimes it’s hard for people to hear the messages. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get certain messages about myself and my own situations! So I can understand when people cut me off. Most times they need a few days just to slowly soak it all in.

But the bottom line is-

My intuitive impressions almost always appear as regular thoughts. And that’s what makes them so hard for people to pay attention to. You might be swear you’re having a normal thought, and it’s really your intuition.

So if you’re someone who’s exploring their intuition, the most important thing you can do is to pay attention to those seemingly out-of-place thoughts that zip through your mind. Especially if you’re in a meditative state or you’re intuitively asking a question.

You’ll quickly find that your intuition really is constantly giving you hints.

It’s easy for most of us to feel intuitive and spiritually connected right after we’ve meditated.

The not-so-easy part comes when you’re trying to get into that mode when you’re at work, dealing with a significant other, or when you’re in the midst of the proverbial “shit hitting the fan.”

In fact, that’s the part that stunted my intuitive growth for many, many years. I couldn’t figure out how to match the inner intuitive me with the outer worldly me, at the same time.

It’s hard. And for me, the two halves didn’t really become a whole until I started giving intuitive readings.

When you sit down to give a reading you have to be “on” in front of somebody. So you’re forced to communicate from an intuitive vantage point. You have to be able to think it/feel it/see it/hear it (get the insight), speak the information you get, AND often try to interpret it as best as you can.

It’s like buying some CD’s to learn Italian, and then being shuttled to Rome to practice what you’ve learned. Although you probably know most of what to say, you’re going to feel nervous whenever you have to communicate.

But you also know that the more you force yourself to speak Italian, the better your pronunciation becomes, and the better you’ll be able to understand the natives.

I guess that’s why the act of giving readings – even just practicing on friends and family – helped me to become more intuitive in my everyday life. I was forced to speak the “language,” ultimately helping my fluency levels increase.

Now I’m not saying that you should run out and start giving readings. I mean if that’s your calling, then by all means do it. But if not, there’s a more direct path you can take.

1) When you wake up in the morning, acknowledge to the Universe that you’re intuitively doing or saying the right thing at the right time.
I’m not an affirmation practitioner, but I do believe that habitual repetition of action is golden. Even if you’re repeating the same thing once a day instead of 50 times a day.

As soon as the alarm sounds off at 4am, I smile a great big smile.

I say the same prayer of thanks every morning. I greet my guides and we exchange pleasantries.

I do this every, single morning without fail. It seriously helps to establish my mood for the day. And my philosophy is that you start things the way you want to finish them.

2) Pull a cue card.
A friend of mine shuffles her tarot deck and pulls a single card every morning. She uses that card as a point of awareness for the day. When a tricky situation presents itself, she thinks back to the significance of the card.

I started off pulling a card-a-day, but now I’m a bit more esoteric in my approach. As I’m performing my morning duties I allow an object to speak to me. Sometimes it’s a book. Sometimes I’ll notice that the clock times are different. Maybe it’s just an emotion that comes over me.

Either way, when I see or feel the object I instinctively know that it’s my cue card for the day.

If I’ve got an ongoing situation, I attempt to interpret the significance of that object. Otherwise I just remember it. Its purpose will normally come into play sometime during course of the day.

3) Listen and think with your whole body.
When I’m getting ready to give a reading over the telephone, I’m listening with much more than my left ear. I listen with my entire body.

And though it might sound strange, I can feel the energetic vibrations within the person’s voice. It will travel right through my body like a mellow shock of electricity.

I noticed that when I allow my whole body to absorb the sound, I get a much clearer reading. And yes… it can work for you too.

Take a few moments right now to imagine a white energy field circling your entire body. Keep it close to your physical body and imagine that it’s pulsating like a heartbeat. That’s your aura.

Listening with your aura is a good thing because your aura always surrounds you. So whether your speaking to someone face-to-face, over the telephone, or even online, you can take a few minutes to feel the situation out with your aura.

With daily practice you’ll notice how your aura changes depending on the situation. Sometimes when I’m thinking about doing something I get a steady humming feeling. For me, that’s a positive sign. Other times it’s like a rolling wave of energy. And sometimes there’s absolutely nothing.

Nothing is important too, so don’t try to force a feeling if you’re not feeling anything.

The thing about listening with your body is that you have to learn how to interpret the feelings that you’re getting. Because a hum might be positive for me, and a big NO for somebody else.

So initially you’re also going to go with your first impression (as far as what you should do). And you’re going to keep track of how your decision panned out. Was it good or bad?

4) Be consistent.
Perform these steps on a daily basis and you’ll begin to notice that your intuition is actually helping you in your everyday life.