I’ve always thought it took courage to stay with your truth when people say you’re crazy, and most people in the psychic field have been called crazy. You’re just imagining things…until someone else can see it.
Renowned medical intuitive, Caroline Myss, says intuition starts with self-esteem. Without that magic ingredient, you will not be able to stand up against people’s closed minds, raging scorn, unconscious expectations, and unmet needs. You will not be able to hear and trust that still small voice within amidst the noise of this world.
Is this true? From childhood, intuition was my go-to skill. It told me when I was safe, when to duck, when to run. I ignored it to my own peril. Intuition alone couldn’t solve everything. I needed to learn other skills and lessons that would then give the intuitive a fruitful place to live.
After I was employed as a professional psychic my self-esteem increased as my ideas and I were treated with respect. But could I have gotten to the point of asking for a job, putting my voice into the world without already having developed some measure of self-regard?
Intuition may be all-knowing, all-seeing all the time, but it lives in human beings and we’re flawed. Self-esteem helps us listen and trust ourselves when others are trying to convince us we’re wrong.
Unlike how it’s portrayed on TV, information often comes in softly, and might need interpretation before it makes sense. It may never make sense and it can still be absolutely accurate, as in those times when you say, “I don’t know how I know, I just know.” And you turn out to be right. It’s different from arrogance or a desire to be right even when you’re wrong; that comes from low self-esteem, having to be something, or prove something.
People can understand your having a broken leg, for instance, something visible by x-ray. It reminds me of former congressman, Patrick Kennedy (Ted Kennedy’s son), who struggled for years with bipolar disease, alcoholism, and drug addiction.
He said he was almost elated when an MRI showed he had a tumor on his spine. Finally, he was dealing with an issue anyone could see. He had a tumor, it was undeniable. It wasn’t like asthma, or depression, which had derailed his life but were largely invisible to the eye. Being psychic, you see and feel things at a level that other people don’t. It’s hard to explain why you’re affected by something they can’t see.
Myss claims some people pursue being psychic because they believe it will give them “a surrogate shield” against wrong decisions, like a knight in shining armor or a husband to protect them from calamities. She finds it ridiculous that anyone would think that their life will be easier if they’re more psychic. But we do think that. If only I knew a little more, had a few more IQ points, a little or (a lot) more money. If only I had this or that.
For most of us in the psychic field, this work is more a calling than a pursuit. Edgar Cayce, the most documented psychic in history, said don’t pursue the psychic. Become more spiritual and your intuition will expand as a natural result.
There’s something beyond what Myss calls “dirty street information.” (Dirty street information could be the fortune telling that most people seek as the end all…i.e., will I get that car, is this person going to call, who will my husband be?) That differs from the larger context of the mystical world. I don’t know if all psychics are called to be mystics. Or if we can assume there’s an “all” to anything. I truly relate to the mystical realm. But it’s probably the desire for that dirty street information that first lured me and sent me well beyond it.
I’m also intrigued by Dr. Pinkola-Estes who talks about what it is to grow up with that mystical frame of mind. It’s like you go into fugue states, she says; where you don’t know where you are in the material world, you run into things, hurt yourself because your mind is elsewhere. You’re holding many realities at once.
That reminder, alone, helps raise my self-esteem because it tells me there are others out there who understand. There are admirable, intelligent people who not only live in this mystical realm but have a language to describe it.
Where are you in your own mystical experience? Do you feel grounded? Do you share your intuitive insights with others? Are you afraid of being called crazy, or do you have that self-esteem that lets you trust your own ideas?
