Vulnerability in Psychic Mediumship

I am finally back from a month's blogging-break. I had a very busy month with my mother who came to visit from Norway, in addition to doing quite a few readings. My mom came with me to one of my psychic workshops, and she did really well for her first time. Something she mentioned though, is that she felt surprisingly vulnerable when doing a reading. I hear this all the time from students who have just begun practicing doing readings for others. It is frankly terrifying for most  to do readings for others.

I sometimes joke with my clients when they come to me for a reading, that if THEY feel nervous, just know that I feel doubly nervous because not only am I terrified that I might mess up the reading somehow, but I can also feel their nervousness quite viscerally.

There are several reasons we psychics or mediums might feel nervous before a reading:

• That we won't be able to connect, for some reason
• That we will grossly misinterpret the information coming through
• That we will be completely off throughout the whole reading
• That we will be off on anything in the reading
• That our client turns out to be difficult
• That we're not wearing the same socks that we wore last time we did a successful reading. (It's so easy to become superstitious about our abilities.)

I think most of us are afraid that any or all of the information coming through will be wrong or off. It can be hard to trust the information coming through because it can feel remarkably similar to your brain making things up. The hard evidence for us is in the feedback we get from clients, about whether or not it was spot on. But that means we have to get over the hurdle of actually telling our client what we are getting. And that's when we feel most vulnerable, because we don't know yet if what we are getting is correct.

Our logical brains never know what a reading is going to be like beforehand, which is why it freaks out. It has no idea what to expect or how to prepare. You can't practice a specific reading beforehand. You can practice doing readings for many different people, but you can't practice one specific reading beforehand.  Every reading is different. It comes spontaneously in the moment.

The only thing I can liken it to is as if I, as the psychic medium, am a musician. With each reading it is as if I have to improvise a duet with a different musician (the clients' spirit guides or loved ones) every time. Every reading is wildly different, a lot because every spirit is wildly different. Some spirits are great communicators, and some not so much. Some spirits I have a lot in common with and we get along great and the information flows effortlessly. With other spirits, the communication is halting, difficult, and slow. There's no way to prepare for these things other than practicing doing readings for many different people. 

Students sometimes ask me if it gets any easier to trust what is coming through. Yes, it does get easier. But you are always jumping in the deep end with every reading. That is just a fact of doing readings. But you do get more used to jumping in the deep end. From practice, you build confidence, and you get used to the feeling of not knowing what's going to happen. You get used to that discomfort and learn to embrace it. And you also learn to set your nervousness to the side, while you just go ahead with the reading.

This reminds me of July of last year, when I felt like I was going to vomit or pass out (or both) for a full two weeks. This was leading up to my first ever large audience reading. I had done several small group readings before, but never for audiences of 30+ people. It turned out to be a great experience, and since then we have been doing audience readings once a month. We did one again just last Sunday, and I was reflecting on how much more relaxed I am before the events. I am still a little nervous, naturally, but nothing in comparison to those first few times. I got used to it, and now I simply trust Spirit to show up like they always do, and I trust Spirit to guide the readings.

I think it is amazing of my students to come to my classes and keep at this, because it does take a lot of courage to do this work. Hats off to those who push themselves to develop even when they're feeling vulnerable and insecure.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.