As a ‘New Age counselor’ I spend most of my time reminding people that they need to listen to themselves. I refer to many of my own experiences as examples of how I learned to trust myself over the years (as I will do repeatedly in this blog post). However, it is not only about self-trust because you have to follow through with whatever your intuition is advising you to do – this requires self-esteem. You must deem yourself worthy enough to say ‘No’ to some people, to walk away, or, do whatever else is necessary for your well-being. This does not mean that you cannot go to anyone else for help, but you must, ultimately, decide for yourself what you believe, how you feel and what action to take next. In this article, I will focus on various aspects related to one of the biggest problems in New Age personal development: getting lost in other people’s (i.e. astrologers; tarot readers; psychics; mediums; healers of all kinds…) interpretations of you and your experiences – it is disempowering. This can lead to feeling even worse than you did before consulting these people.
Remind yourself that they are not God or even God-like – they are human beings that, no matter what their experiences, training and so on, will never be objective. That is, whatever information they are relaying to you will always be filtered through their own perceptions, education, beliefs, etc. You may consult ten different readers and healers presenting the same information, questions and symptoms, and you will get ten different readings, diagnoses, prognoses etc. More often than not, what they are telling you is merely a projection of who they are even if they claim that the information is being ‘channelled’, or, coming from your Angels or Spirit – it is not gospel as it is only their interpretation of that spiritual download. And sometimes, I wonder, where that download is coming from…
Relationship to God/Spirit/Creator is Individualistic
This applies to psychics and healers who work primarily by ‘channelling messages from Spirit’. If you started to strengthen your relationship with your Creator then you probably would not need them at all, or, only occasionally when you are too vulnerable and confused to be able to do this effectively for yourself. There have been many occasions in my own life, where my intuition has told me, while certain people are giving me advice, to ignore that advice. Since I took the time to develop the habit of following through with my own guidance, I have strengthened my relationship with Creator to levels I once thought impossible. This relationship grows deeper every day.
But I Consulted Your Higher Self…
I once went to a healer who used a variety of different methods, spiritual and physical, to help her clients. She prescribed some herbs to help ground me as I was very fragmented due to trauma at the time. After a few weeks, I realized that this medicine did not work. When I returned to her, upon further examination, she discovered that she had prescribed the wrong herbs. She created another batch that actually increased my anxiety so I stopped taking them. When I called her to tell her how I had been affected the second time around, she insisted that it was right (the only exception being the dosage) because she had consulted my ‘higher self’ before creating the appropriate medicine (as she does with all of her clients). It did not occur to me until later on that if what she stated was accurate – that she always consults the higher self – then why did she not give me the correct herbs, including the dosage, to begin with? I doubt that my higher self would, in any way, want to sabotage my health. I never returned to her but I learned a very important lesson – people tend to project their beliefs onto you. When said beliefs are attached to their livelihood, they are more likely to blame you than admit they got it wrong.
Jealousy is a Curse
This one is related to the ‘only human’ category but it deals with something most so-called spiritual people do not want to acknowledge: jealousy and envy. At the very core of these states of being is hatred. They hate you for various reasons…you have had more luck or success than them (or they can pick up on the fact that you will in the future); you have better relationships (of any kind) than them; you are stronger or smarter than them, and so on… One of the astrologers I consulted a few years back asked me if I had the right birth time because she could not believe what she was seeing in the chart in front of her (i.e. a lot of good coming my way). Her tone was dripping with envy. In my opinion, someone who hates you is going to try to sabotage you somehow no matter how nice they are to you face-to-face. Even her question as to the accuracy of my birth time was an insidious form of psychological sabotage that I was too strong to fall victim to. Five years earlier, this would have had a very detrimental effect on my self-confidence.
Racism, and other Isms
Here we have prejudices – most people have them to some extent but getting a New Ager to admit theirs is like the proverbial “getting blood from a stone” because, for the most part, they are preaching ‘oneness’. Talking about it, and actually living it, are two very different things – the former can be, and usually is, false; the latter, real. These prejudices may be based on: your race/ethnicity; your age (if you’re younger than them they know more than you, and, if you’re older than them, they know better than you because you are ‘behind the times’); your geographical location (because certain suburbs, cities, states and countries are considered inferior by those residing in, or originating from, other locations); the way you dress or style your hair… It can be very difficult to pick up on such discrimination because they become skilled at hiding it – after all, they want your money and they need to maintain their reputation. Some tell-tale signs of such bias include, a condescending look, eye roll, terms such as “you people”… If you have developed your telepathic abilities you may even hear their thoughts as I heard the thoughts of the astrologer I mentioned in the previous paragraph: “Who is this hick from Down Under with the Greekest of names, to have such success in her life?”
This will only apply to those of you who believe in multiple lifetimes. Your choice to consult these people is related to some karmic connection or pattern that needs healing, even if at first you are unaware of this relationship. Your intuitive abilities need to be quite well-honed before you will be able to pick up on it as they will (usually) not tell you due to one of two reasons: they are not aware of the connection, or, they are very aware but don’t want to scare you away if what they once did to you was horrific. I have now reached a point where I know, usually within a few weeks, if not days, when I have unresolved karma with certain individuals. In most cases, I do not return to them because they cannot help me any further. A recent example would be a healer I consulted about a certain physical ailment, which, as I discovered, she (along with a few others) was responsible for due to actions taken in another lifetime. For this reason, she could not help me heal because her own block in relation to the cause of the problem prevented her from doing so. Then there are patterns. One that I became aware of again, quite recently, was several lifetimes as a slave. The slave owners were often royalty in other lifetimes (this may explain why I detest royalty) – they believed they were Gods. These people have shown up in my life as readers and healers and are more often than not, the ones who are the most bigoted because they believe themselves to be above anyone who is not of their ‘stock’. When I learned my lesson (i.e. that I am worthy), I moved on quickly so as to avoid creating more karma for myself. I realized that their interpretations were merely a reflection of their own karma.
No Crystal Ball Here
This of course, applies primarily to readers. No-one can tell you with absolute certainty, what will happen in your future. I mean “crystal clarity” – absolutely everything – which is why I used the crystal ball analogy here. They can inform you of general energies, or circumstances, but until that time arrives you will not know exactly how it will show up for you. You also have Free Will so you can decide in any given moment what you will do. The most significant example of this in my own life was an astrologer informing me – about ten years ago – that I would meet a man within the next couple of years, that would result in a long-term, committed relationship. I did meet this man the following year. It was a very intense few months after basically falling in love at first sight. However, the reality of the situation as I got to know him was very different to what she told me. I chose not to turn a blind eye to his lack of integrity (something that is very important to me) or any of the other issues that arose back then. If I had believed this was ‘destined’, I probably would have married him in order to be with him constantly as he lived abroad…and I would now be a divorcee.
Divinatory Vagueness
No-one but no-one will ever know the real you, or, everything that you have experienced via your birth chart, a tarot reading, channelling messages from the Pleiades or whatever… I once met a very honest astrologer who told me that she could not see everything about a person through their birth chart. In fact, unless she knew that the chart was for an individual, it could be interpreted in relation to the birth of anything – a country, business, building etc. The closest that any astrologer ever got to ‘seeing’ the horror that was most of my childhood was this: “You had some power struggles at the age of five”. This statement is so far removed from my reality that I don’t even know how to explain it. Everyone else has said something along the lines of: “You were very badly hurt in the past”: Who hurt me? When was I hurt? How was I hurt? When did it end? How did I heal? The only way to get this information was for them to ask me these questions directly as I was – and am – the only one with the answers. I realized it was up to me to make specific sense of my own life here on planet Earth.
Lack of Compassion, Life Experience and Training
This applies mostly to the healers as they are the ones who need the compassion required to help people navigate their pain. But…many of them do not have this as they often start by completing some short courses so that they can go into business for themselves (a very common practice in the New Age/alternative healing arena). It is essentially a career change for these people, one that is usually very lucrative because they will charge exorbitant fees in order to fool those who think that “you get what you pay for”. Some of the best healers I’ve been to, both from the perspective of integrity and expertise, were the cheapest. Then, you have those who haven’t had much struggle or suffering in their life so they could never understand someone that is in extreme pain. I once went to a healer who referred to her clients and students as “freaks”. She could not understand some of their psychological states because she had not endured their traumas. After her father died, she began experiencing panic attacks which made her feel their anguish for the first time in her life. She was almost forty-years-old before she had her first panic attack and she had been a practitioner for at least ten years by that stage. I have often found myself amongst healers that could not help me because of a profound lack of life experience and/or self-healing even when they were much older than me. So, I learned to heal myself as well as amassing tons of self-compassion along the way.
The Only Expert On You Is You
An expert is someone who is very knowledgeable about a certain topic, field of study and so on – an expert is also referred to as an “authority”. Regardless of their level of education and hands-on experience, they do not know everything as there is always more to discover. You are also an authority on yourself – the ‘author’ of your own life. The more you discover about yourself, the more you can change the script that tells the story of your life. It is inevitable since you are with yourself 24/7. You are also the only one who can feel your feelings, think and change your thoughts and take action to create what you desire in life in your own way and in your own time. If you haven’t taken a course on You yet, I highly recommend that you start studying ASAP for it will empower you in ways that you cannot yet imagine.
Helen
