Life

5 Things I Learned About My Intuition After Taking A Class To Become A Psychic Medium

Suzannah Weiss/Bustle

I haven't always believed in psychics. But recently, a series of odd experiences made me wonder. A psychic diagnosed my chronic Lyme disease based on no information after 16 doctors missed it. Another psychic somehow knew my childhood cat was black with a white spot on her chin, again without me telling her anything. After more and more experiences like these, I began to wonder if I could develop intuitive abilities. While searching for a way to fine-tune my psychic intuition, I stumbled upon Hillary Michaels' Beginner Psychic/ Mediumship Workshop.

Michaels began developing her psychic abilities after her husband died so that she could communicate with him, and she gradually worked her way up to giving readings professionally. In addition to running her own practice, she teaches others how to become mediums through her workshops and a mentorship program, where she guides people as they give readings.

The central belief governing Michaels' work is that everybody has intuitive abilities. "We are all mediums," she tells Bustle. "Everyone in this world has the ability to receive information from the spirit world; you do it every day. This is how your spirit guides help you stay on your life path and achieve your life purpose. They work through your heart to help you make decision and take certain steps in your life. A lot of your own life choices are assisted by attending spirits who are always with you. This transaction of receiving information from spirit is called mediumship."

Here are some things I learned from Michaels about psychic abilities, intuition, and our guides on the other side.

1

There Are Different Kinds Of Intuitive Abilities

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Michaels explained in her course that there are three types of intuitives: psychics, mediums, and empaths. Psychics can tell what other people are thinking and what’s going on in their lives, empaths can feel what they’re feeling, and mediums can connect with their ancestors.

Most people are capable of all three, but many will find that they’re best at one or two. If you’re good at feeling what’s happening in someone else’s body, for example, you may be an empath. If you’re better at giving advice about their direction in life, you may be either a medium (if you’re getting the information from their guides) or a psychic (if you’re getting it directly from them). Once you know what your strengths are, you can use that ability to tune into nearly any aspect of someone’s life.

2

Psychics Are Real

Andrew Zaeh for Bustle

I know this sounds out there, but the class fully convinced me that psychics do exist. For an initial activity, we were each paired up with another student and had to read each other, and my partner’s reading of me was freakishly accurate. She asked the guides what I liked, expecting to learn about my hobbies, and instead got “cats” — I’m obsessed with cats. She told me I had anger in my jaw — I clench my jaw when I’m angry — and that it came from not using my voice, which was absolutely true.

Another student told me I had “moments of anger” and not to worry because they’d be gone one day; I had rage attacks as a result of Lyme disease, and they did indeed pass as I got better. After people said more and more extremely on-point things about me, any lingering doubt I had about the existence of psychics faded.

3

Psychic Intuition Feels A Whole Lot Like Guessing — But It’s Not

Andrew Zaeh for Bustle

Michaels’ course inspired me to sign up for a mentorship, where her students read each other and gradually work up to reading clients. I really felt out of my element at first. I felt like I was guessing. The weird thing was, my guesses kept being right.

During my first reading, for example, I said, “I’m seeing a car… you have to fix your car or something.” My partner had a flat tire. Another time, I asked a woman if she had a deceased loved one named Robert. “Yes, my brother-in-law,” she said. “When I think of him, I picture a teddy bear,” I told her. “His wife just gave me a teddy bear,” she replied. When I tuned into her mother, I pictured a piano — which her mom had bought her as a child. As I realized that a psychic intuition doesn’t have to be felt on a deep emotional level, I got more and more confident in sharing these random-seeming images, and I often found that they were significant.

4

Psychic Intuition Is Sometimes Wrong, But That Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real

Hannah Burton/Bustle

Even though I believe psychic intuition is real, I also believe it’s error-prone and can take a while to fine-tune. Part of the issue is, when you connect with the other side, there’s lots of information coming at you, and it’s hard to tell what’s coming from where. For instance, another student was channeling my late grandfather when she said, “I’m getting something about diabetes; did he have diabetes?” He didn’t, but his wife did.

Michaels says this often happens because somebody else is calling on you to connect with them. Another tricky thing is that sometimes, we’ll confuse symbols that are personal to us with messages for another person. For example, when I connect with people’s cats, I always see them as orange, but that’s only because my own cat is orange. However, just because we’re often wrong doesn’t mean we don’t have intuitive abilities; it just means we need to work at them.

5

We Really Are All Mediums

Hannah Burton/Bustle

I’m so glad I took a chance and put in the effort to develop my psychic abilities. It’s such a cool skill to have! And I really do think it’s accessible to everyone. The other students in the course and the mentorship program weren’t all people who had supernatural intuitions since childhood; they were regular people like me who had a hunch that there was more to life than what they’d seen on Earth. And they all had gifts, whether that was giving relationship advice, knowing exactly how others were feeling, or connecting with other people’s loved ones.

If psychic mediumship is a skill you want to have, I’d highly encourage working on it. You don’t even need to take a class; paring up with a friend and reading each other or getting out a pen and paper and jotting down messages from your guides are good places to start. After my own training, I’m truly convinced that there are guides around us who are eager to help and advise us, if we’ll only listen.