5 things I know about Intuition 

About a year ago I got the best ever backhanded compliment regarding my skill as a Tarot reader. It was at a store’s celebration party and I was reading for random partygoers in a back patio. As I began describing what I saw in a querent’s cards, her eyes got wide and she looked like she had seen a ghost. I asked her what was happening. “Did you google me?” She asked. I had to laugh. While I wish I could spend hours of my life googling people I have no idea I am going to meet, unfortunately I do not have that luxury. She was a perfect stranger I had never met before who happened to wander up to my table. My response was the same as it usually is in these situations. I smiled and gently replied: “I’ve been doing this a long time.”

*Update! A week after I wrote this blog post, said person I was referring to stopped me in a store. "Excuse me, are you a psychic?" She asked. "Uh...no...I'm a tarot reader." I replied. "Well, you gave me a reading a year ago, I want to give you a hi-five because everything you predicted came true." Synchronicity, synchronicity, gentle reader.

No less than 3 thousand times in the last few years I’ve wanted to write an entry about intuition. There are about that many different points of entry into the topic, and certainly just as many books. From a personal perspective tuning into and listening to my intuition has played an integral part of my life for many milestone lifetime events: receiving important life-changing career opportunities, meeting my partner, as well moving to the city that I reside in now.

When I work with Tarot Clients every week my intuition definitely is of use. It is piqued as I take in energy, channel, and give clients impressions and suggestions. Some are very specific: naming astrological signs they or their familiars are, describing key people in their life, discussing clear steps to take, as certain messages from spirit that they must be reminded about: pointing out certain patterns or emotional gulfs that must be crossed in order to keep going. Some are more vague—they are a feeling, a suggestion as summoned up through the visual info and patterns of the Tarot.

The following are some basic premises I’ve learned through my own personal experiences over the last 15 years practicing about the ins and outs on intuition. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about intuition and psychic self-care in the future.

Intuition is enhanced by alone time and self-care

Take a cue from The Hanged Man key. Spend time alone. Meditate every day. Ground every day. Make sure your basic bodily needs are met. It sounds like a joke, sounds almost too simple.

However most people are not drinking enough water, stretching, eating the right amount of whole foods, spending a bit of time each day in nature. I am guilty of this 75% of the time! I am most intuitive when I am unplugged, when I take care of my body and mind. Most prevalently I get messages and downloads when I am in meditation, in shavasana. Journalling or walking quietly. NOT when I am on my phone,  or double-screening it, or exhausted or overworked. Before I give readings I meditate, I ground, I cleanse with mugwort, sage, palo santo. I’m well fed, well rested. I don’t drink alcohol the night before I give readings. I drink certain herbal teas, take certain tinctures. Crystal friends hang out on me, the phone is turned off. By the time a client comes over for a private session I’ve been preparing for them anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes.

I take this aspect of my development quite seriously. Take care of yourself and you’ll be able to access more messages. Be more conscious and you’ll be able to notice that most likely you’ve been getting clear messages all along.

Synchronicity is a tell-tale symptom of following your intuition

Synchronicity is a wonderful sign that you are in the zone of your intuition. It feels SO good to be in flow that most times it is a reward in and of itself. Yet sometimes there are messages coming through, or waiting to be uncovered that we aren’t always open to seeing because they appear unorthodox. Synchronicity is a muse that must be courted. Be open to animal friends coming across your path, billboards, songs on the radio, strange coincidences, words that pop out at you in conversation or on tv, unusual food cravings, etc. Practice tuning in alone: pull tarot or oracle cards then write about them. If you are feeling uneasy or having issues with something, don’t start texting your friend. Go to a bookstore and open a random book. See it there are any insights there for you. Or just be quiet and ask for guidance. If the universe keeps knocking on your door and you aren’t opening it, then over time the knocks slow down.

Tune into your inner High Priestess. She’s there, she’s waiting, wanting, just under the surface. We aren’t always taught to see synchronicity or explore coincidences. We sure as hell aren’t taught to have belief in ourselves, the invisible unknown, or in defining magick. Sometimes it is tricky because our wishes don’t always turn up exactly how we want them. Therefore we don’t always see that they have arrived. So if you keep bumping into the same stranger over and over, go up to them. If a similar topic, theme, book, mode of therapy comes up frequently look into it. I had a beautiful client once who admitted one of her many super-powers. She was able to dream numbers and then that day she’d see them on the physical realm. Everywhere: on clocks, receipts, or even on buildings. She didn’t know what it meant, or what to do with them. I asked her if she had ever gone into one of the buildings that appeared with her dream number. She admitted she hadn’t. I suggested to explore that, as well as looking into different theories of numerology. My client could see these as messages from her higher self that she was in the right place.

Enhancing your intuition boosts your enjoyment of life overall

It is usually easier to make choices when my intuition is leading the way. I’ve been more empowered in general now that I can put my intuitive abilities to work. Tarot is a beautiful vessel for this and it feels so energizing to help people through it, however small. Flexing my intuition also prioritizes more time for self-care, as written about previously, and who doesn’t need to sleep more, eat better, and overall treat their body better?

In my own personal life, when I’m in frequent conversation with my intuition I trust more, I feel more connected to spirit, to the great collective, to the Earth, the universe, and all of us in it. Gratitude and joy, the byproducts of a consistent meditation and magical practice are more present in my life. I’m happier and more open. Belief courses through my bones. And that is the way I want to feel on the daily.

Your intuition is not 100% accurate

Once in a while intuitives, psychics, healers, whatever you'd like to call them,  etc. are not completely accurate. Why is that?

One reason is good old-fashioned free will. From my perspective, a reading is about what is going on right now. In the moment. This is where we have the most power. A Tarot reading is a sacred pause. A coming together in the service of spirit, self-care, and love. It is a deep form of being conscious and present in the current moment. That being said, things change from moment to moment. You have free will. If the cards tell you that a move might be a good idea but there is no way no how you are leaving your bomb apartment with the rad view, than obviously a move will not be the outcome. We all have free will people, isn’t it beautiful? We can quit a job or stay there for 11 years or leave the creep or decide they are actually not a creep, you are the one with intimacy issues and have their babies or take the risk or stay in the same place to infinity. And in most cases, as long as you are not a danger to yourself or you are surrounded by true violence or danger, any choices made are generally ok. I’ve said this 90 thousand times so here it goes again. Tarot readings function similarly to a horoscope: they are a suggestion by one other person. If your horoscope says you are going to meet a hot babe this week, if you don’t leave your house the said horoscope hottie isn’t knocking on your door this Saturday night. It is the same with casting spells, setting goals, manifesting etc. If you don’t put in the work in the physical realm nothing will happen.

Another reason for inaccuracy that I haven’t ever read or seen discussed, but is one I do truly believe happens is that of confused energy. As intuitives we are tuning into another’s energy, and perhaps reading it as “outcome”. She knows that her ex isn't right for her, but ALL of her energy is jumping up and down to get back together. So I might read that positive excitement emanating off her as coming from the cards. Our if we get a spread that indicates a heavy soulmate theme, maybe this person IS one of the loves of her life, but their time has come to an end and she hasn’t quite accepted it yet. I could tell her up and down as gently as possible that lover ex person isn’t the one anymore, and if she doesn’t want to hear it, she doesn’t want to hear it at this time. Again: we have free will. We can be given information and do nothing, or the opposite with it. That’s ok.

The last reason, and this is the reason no one wants to hear but for sure it is the most honest reason why your intuition reading might not be 100% on point is that there are just some things you aren’t supposed to know in the present moment. I know this answer is annoying! I’ve had the same groan when I’ve checked in with my guides about something I realllllllly just NEED to know the answer about and they just laugh. I’m not supposed to know about it.

Sometimes your client needs to process it in real time, as it comes. Obviously from my viewpoint one of the most important aspects of a reading is having a client talk about and process various challenges in their life as a way to give voice to them and thus start creating their own solutions. Consciousness rises up, truth rises up, communication begins. This gentle processing is an aspect that I utilize in all my readings, and when I teach workshops I mention this as well. That way the client is empowered to start thinking about their situation in a tangible form, to start figuring it out on at least one level. They are forced to step into the Queen of Swords mode, that master of communication, truth, and decisions.

Following  your Intuition is not a promise of a happy ending

It is much more a reminder that the focus must be on the journey. When I followed my intuition to move to LA for a degree it couldn’t have been more fraught with stress and unease. For years. My partner and I both left extremely fulfilling, well-paid careers, a wonderful house, great friends etc. etc. etc.  to basically start at ground zero at all levels. Before we jumped off the cliff into the abyss of risk we had no idea of the outcome and were quite optimistic about our decision. My intuition was telling me it was the thing to do! At times over the first few years it a Sisyphean task to keep going through the debris of obstacles that kept getting thrown both my way and my partner’s. For sure I lost my optimism—indeed I was clinically depressed and downright paralyzed in dark for a while. Fast forward to the present moment and myself and my partner are doing fantastic. I am more than ever living the life of my dreams: a flexible, creative life where I enjoy almost all the work I do, I get to help empower people every week,  and am surrounded my inspiring, wonderful, authentic friends. After numerous trials and tribulations my partner is now in his last semester of Nursing School, in a program where he literally won the lottery to get into, where he will graduate with minimal loans doing what he loves and has been dreaming of doing for years.

Looking back, it is super clear to me that many of the lessons I needed to learn, live through, and be reminded of resided in that darkness, those challenges. The lessons one can only attain through struggle, through consistent hard work and belief in one's self,  as well as through trust. It was truly darkest before the dawn. And it will be dark again, that is part of the path. In true Wheel of Fortune style, when you trust your intuition and make change on it, there must be a level of trust and faith that through the turns and twists there is, in fact, a higher reason to the seeming madness happening around you. And the trick is not to turn into some noodle-armed balloon puppet at the side of the road getting whipped around by the wind, but to turn the focus inward. Deal with what is directly in front of you. Trust that you have some level of protection, though it isn’t always apparent. Get right with what is truly important with you and leave the distractions.

I’ll be teaching a class about Tarot and Intuition 101: Ways of Seeing Next Sunday, October 23rd at Homestead Apothecary. Sign up here! 

I’m so excited to make my twice a year journey down to the Bay to teach at my favorite Apothecary! I also have 2 Tarot slots left that Sunday at Homestead. $40/35 minutes, $80/50 minutes.

Reach out to book a reading with me in the Bay! out to book a reading with me in the Bay! 

If you would like to book a one on one season with me in person (Los Angeles) or via the internet, reach out here.