“How do you know where the pain is?”
For those of you who may not know me or what I do, I have several ‘jobs.’ The ‘medium’ one is fairly obvious. You may also be aware that I’ve got a show on BlogTalkRadio.com. The two that actually ‘pay the light bill’ are reading manuscripts for a spiritual publishing company and full time Massage Therapist. When do I sleep?
As a former member of the corporate world, it’s been quite the past few years trying to survive in this economy. I, like many others, found myself laid-off from my job without any prospects. After 10 years working in advertising and communications, I found myself in unfamiliar territory. I had just moved to Texas, and had no friends or family to fall back on, nor did I have any connections for job leads. The funny thing is, as much as I was upset over the lay-off, I was also relieved. I even felt guilty about feeling relieved! This is the part of my life when I knew I was headed for a major shift and for the first time I had enough alone time to turn my attention to my inner voice. This is when things really began to happen. Away from the intensity of Boston, settled into a small apartment in San Antonio, I began to gain an understanding of what I never realized was anything more than just talking to myself. Even at that time, I didn’t know that I was doing anything special at all. I just knew that I knew things, and could feel the emotions of others without any effort at all.
I had to think fast. Bills just don’t pay themselves! I had been thinking about learning massage for a few years. Something about healing a person through touch has always felt natural to me. I was the person who would rub your feet for an hour without realizing how much time had passed. If someone was having pain of some sort, I’d automatically start to massage them wherever the pain appeared to be. Something I didn’t count on was having the ability to locate the pain without being told.
One of the strongest of my abilities is empathy. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had trouble being in situations where there were too many people around, or a whole lot of noise in general. I didn’t know I could ‘turn down the volume.’ I felt EVERYTHING. Parades were utter hell for me, but every year we had to go to the Veteran’s parade in East Boston. And every year I would protest and block my ears as they fired those guns. I just wanted to run back into the house and watch from there. People called me ‘sensitive,’ as if it were a major defect. It was really hard as a teenager going to rock concerts. At times I was in overwhelm. Then there were moments where I could feel the connection between all of us in the crowd and suddenly I understood that there was a part of this gift that could be beautiful.
I wasn’t prepared for what I encountered as a massage therapist that has strong empathic ability. I started connecting with people in ways I had never imagined. The only way to describe it is to say that I communicate with the person’s body and energy through my hands. With the help of who I now know to be my spirit guides, I used my expanded awareness to develop my own technique and process for working on a client. I’d close my eyes and move into a space where I can connect to the client and the rest would flow from there. On a daily basis clients would ask me, “how do you know where the pain is?” The only honest answer to that question is: “because I can feel it.” I had the education piece of the puzzle, but what they could not teach me was how to become in tune with a client and use my gifts to step into that space where I could actually help them heal and come out of a state of pain. For that I had to trust my instincts, and my spirit guides.
You may have gifts that you are unaware of, just like I was. And having a gift that you don’t know how to use is like having a book that holds all of the answers you’re looking for, but is printed in a language you cannot understand.
One of my missions here is to shake up and tear down old beliefs. The other is to help you establish new ideas about what it means to be psychic and a medium. I encourage you to spend quiet time with yourself for a few minutes each morning to tap into your own inner voice. You may discover that there is more at work than skill or talent. These abilities are as varied as a field of wildflowers, and each of us has something to offer.
Confessions of a Spirit Messenger 