What does it mean to be in a hierophant year? What does it mean to embody hierophant energy?

In this episode of Living Tarot I speak all about what it means to really embody the energy of the card of the year. The hierophant year is the opportunity for us to integrate the wisdom we’ve learned from the outside world with our own personal belief system. It requires us to be discerning about the places where we spend our money, time and energy and to pay close attention to what type of teachings we take as gospel.

Coming on the heels of an emperor year that has highlighted some issues with the sustainability of systems of oppression that are no longer working for the collective, the hierophant year of 2021 is really asking us to challenge the status quo.  It is a year for trusting lessons that we have learned in connecting with our own intuition and realizing that we are our own best teacher.

Ultimately we all contain multitudes of wisdom yet we tend to search outside of ourselves for validation and understanding of that wisdom. This hierophant year Is an opportunity to learn from ourselves and to trust that and moments of great turmoil and transition that we need to have that connection to our own wisdom.

 

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance energy healing session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Related Episodes: Episode 21 featuring Eliza Swann : https://www.starsagespirit.com/2020/11/18/anatomy-of-the-aura-setting-intuitive-boundaries-embodying-the-hierophant/

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium, and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the tarot along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition, and live intentionally with the tarot.

Welcome back to Living Tarot. On today’s episode, I want to talk about our year 2021 and how that’s reflected in the Tarot. So with the Tarot using numerology, we say that each year is represented by a major arcana card. For 2021, that card is the hierophant, 2020 with an emperor year, and this is a very interesting transition that we’re going through right now, for a few different reasons. 2020 being a year all about the Emperor, it really relates to structures and historical, stable, rooted, ingrained belief system, government, you know, all of these different systems that we have set up in the countries around the world that are considered stable and structured and kind of unmoving. And as we transition into a hierophant year, we’re talking more about challenging some of those structures. And rather than seeking wisdom from great teachers, and history, and all of those things, we’re asking to take all of those deep systems that exist and have existed for an extremely long time, and make them personal. How are you your own best teacher? Yes, all of these outside resources exist Yes, you need to take into context, historical things. You need to take into context, the way the outside world works, but how do you personally want to be showing up and what can you learn and set up for yourself that nobody else can teach you? It’s something that you have to do alone. And I’ve been thinking about these two cards, with everything that has gone on over the last couple year… over the last year. Sorry, couple months is what I was trying to say. So it’s very interesting to me to see how 2020 in some ways was not at all what I expected for an emperor year and I think what a lot of people expected for an emperor a year. And in hindsight how, when you’re talking about moving from the Emperor into the Hierophant, it makes a lot of sense, because for so many of us, we have had to take a good hard look in 2020 over what systems were serving us, and what systems are not. So capitalism being the prevailing one in most of the Western world, we saw within the first couple weeks of Coronavirus, how quickly that system could be broken. You know, that is a system in the United States that we’ve relied on since… I mean, since the United States has it has existed and it has caused a lot of harm to a lot of different people, particularly indigenous and people of color. And we’ve built a country on the backs of oppressed people. And that has played out in capitalism ever since. So we’ve had these systems that rely on people working for a very low wage at the bottom and people making a very high wage at the top. And this isn’t about… this isn’t to be you know, if you’re like, oh God, are we really going to talk about politics right now? Yes, the answer is yes. And if you’re like, this is a spiritual podcast, or this is a tarot podcast, it shouldn’t be political. Yes, it should. Spirituality is political. Running a business is political. And being a human being in the world today is political. You can’t really avoid it. And if you think that you can avoid it, it’s because you are a person who’s operating from a place of privilege. And I understand I’m not judging you, I felt for a long time like I was a person who didn’t like to get involved in politics and just thought it was ridiculous. And it is. It’s ridiculous. Politics are ridiculous. But also, I have an obligation as a person who is white and a cis woman, and who operates from a place of a lot of privilege, both financially, racially, and also, I consider it to be a huge part of my responsibility as somebody who does healing work, and shows up in the world in that way to stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves, because that is part of healing as a collective. So done with my rant. Anyway, what I do think is interesting about the shift is that this year, we’ve seen some of these systems that seemed like they were impossible to crumble, start to have some chips or all around, fall apart. And we’ve seen systems of oppression in the way that police forces operate, and systemic racism, and white supremacy, find their way into all of these different places, and into our collective psyche, in a way that permeates everything. And we would like to think that there are things that are separate and not political, but really they’re not, it’s in every day experiences. And when you are a person who thinks that they aren’t, it’s because they’re just not affecting you, it doesn’t mean that they’re not happening. So I do think it’s interesting, because this Emperor year of 2020, has brought so many people face to face with seeing these systems that need to be restructured in a way that provides stability for all people, not just people who have historically benefited from those systems. And as we slide, you know, in the last half of this year, moving towards a hierophant year, where it really is about coming into your personal power and taking, you know, wisdom that has been handed down. And being your own authority in so many ways. And I do think this is interesting, as you know, a lot of people have had to take, you know, a side gig full time this year, perhaps they’ve lost their job or been laid off, a lot of people are unemployed and needing to get really clear, a lot of people who have jobs, I mean, a lot of the clients I’ve been working with, over the past couple months have jobs, and just have realized that they’re in a job or a position or a company that’s not serving them, it’s not working for them anymore. And in so many ways this past year has been clarifying, because when we come face to face with our own mortality, and we come face to face with our own flaws, and we come face to face with the work that we’re doing, and the way that we’re showing up in the world, that can be a very abrupt and you know confounding experience where we realize that we don’t want to be spending our time either within that system, or within a job or a workplace or a business that no longer serves our needs. And we want to show up in a way that is more authentic and heartfelt. And the Hierophant is really about finding the ways to advocate for yourself, to take what you’ve learned and to question whether it serves you or whether you know, and this comes down in a lot of different ways. When I think about how it shows up for me in my business, you know, do I need another course, do I need another person to teach me about marketing or running a business or, you know, as a Sagittarius rising, I feel like I’m always looking for a new thing to learn and I’m always wanting to like buy a course or take a training or learn from this other person or read a million things about you know, read a book about all of this type of stuff. And sometimes that is helpful, and sometimes it is overload. And also, especially when it comes to marketing and being a heartfelt business owner or a heartfelt employee at a business, it’s so much about how much you want to buy into what you’ve learned, because there can be things that we learned that are really helpful and that we find to be validating or help us with our own experience of talking about our work and what we do and who we serve. And that’s amazing and wonderful, but there can also be stuff that’s just kind of a distraction and is keeping us from really doing what we want to do or really feeling like we have the authority to say that we want to do something a little bit different and to really part with the status quo, because that’s ultimately what the Hierophant energy is all about. It’s about how can you take these things, how can you take this marketing training that you learned and take like the some of the grimy stuff that you don’t like out of it, and really sell from a heart centered and authentic place? How can I talk about my work without always feeling like I’m like, selling it to people? Which, you know, that’s kind of the point. I am running a business, you know, but I also want to talk about it, not just to say how people can work with me and what they can do with me, but also like how they can empower themselves with Tarot. And that’s always what I’m coming back to and trying to reevaluate for myself. And the hierophant can really be a tool for empowerment and for forcing you to look at the ways that you really want to participate in some systems. So do you follow people who have not spoken up about racial injustice, and some of the horrific, horrific things that we have seen in this country this year and over, you know, the 400 years, that we have been oppressing people and beyond. And it’s very important to notice, you know, money talks, and especially when you’re a consumer or a business person, you need to be aware and mindful of where you are spending your money, and what that says about your beliefs, and who you are as a person, because we like to think that those things are unrelated, that we don’t have to agree with everybody that we spend our money on, but the truth is, that there are a lot of people who have a lot of privilege and have a responsibility because of that privilege to help out and who would not really suffer many long term consequences in doing so, but instead have taken the opportunity to use this time to just pretend like, we should all be love and light and happy and just sending love to each other and we’re all one. And yes, maybe that is true. But also, there are some significant injustices that exists within this world and pretending that they don’t exist, because you don’t want them to exist, doesn’t mean that they’re gone and it doesn’t make you an ethical investor, or you know, human being in society to just ignore that. And so, I really want you to think in this Hierophant year, when we’re talking about embodying the Hierophant, it’s about taking that sense of discernment to where we’re putting our money, where we’re putting our intention, who we are learning from, because inherently when we are learning from other people, their beliefs and their ideas aren’t getting filtered down to us whether we want them or not. And there are a lot of different scenarios where this shows up. And sometimes we can separate the work from the person and sometimes we can’t, and sometimes we just shouldn’t. So how can you pay attention to who you’re learning from who you’re treating like an authority on things this year, and how you can separate your own beliefs from that. Because even for me, you know, I could take a tarot training from another wonderful teacher, but if they say something that is not in alignment with what I believe, or how I think Tarot should work, I don’t need to start implementing that. I can just let that go. That’s not for me. And not all teachings are for everyone and I think that’s an important thing to recognize also, because just because you pay to learn from someone, or you have paid to learn from someone in the past, doesn’t mean that what they teach is still going to serve you. And I’ve seen a lot of this this year in particular, and I talked about it a little bit in my episode about running a business last year. But I do think it’s important because I’ve seen teachers and people who teach about running you know, authentic businesses and staying in that like heart space of selling and not burning yourself out and being really mindful of your needs, who are burning themselves out this year and and doing too much and not following their own teaching. So I encourage you as we head into this hierophant year to also pay attention to that. So the people that you learn from, that you consume from, that you listen to podcasts from or content from, this podcast, you know, pay attention to the ways that they are passing stuff down to you and how you are taking it, because in everything that I do on this podcast, these are tools that you are meant to try for yourself, and, you know, take what works for you and don’t take what doesn’t work for you. My word is not gospel, you know, and no teachers word is gospel. And you don’t have to do every single thing that they say. And quite frankly, as somebody who was raised Catholic, you don’t have to take gospel as gospel. Okay? Because that shits crazy. Some of it is great, and some of it has wonderful teachings, and some of it makes absolutely no sense. So you know, take what you can, and work with what you can and make it your own, which also brings us around to cultural appropriation. Do not do that. It is hard and I think there are a lot of things and my friend, Diana Rose Harper, who’s just an amazing astrologer, tarot reader, writer. She’s a beautiful writer. Oh, my gosh, I love everything she writes, and was talking about this, and how so many people who are just, you know, under the classification of white, are disconnected from their own heritage and that’s what tends to lead to this cultural appropriation. So we take practices from indigenous people, or we take practices from, you know, indigenous people in other countries, in America, practices from religions that we don’t participate in. We take words from yoga. We take, you know, all different things, and turn them into, like this fully white version of them that’s like prepackaged and, you know, capitalist and white supremacist and really not in touch with its roots and not meant to be practiced or taken from those people, not everything is available for your consumption if you are a white person, but one of the things that I think causes that, like Diana was saying, is the fact that a lot of white people are disconnected from their own heritage. And white supremacy has also really erased a lot of white culture, and kind of distilled it down into this bland culture-less thing that puts all of us at a disadvantage of not having that connection to our heritage, and historical practices from our lineage and ancestral teachings and things like that. And I do think that that’s really important. I come from a very Irish family. I’m second generation in this country, and we still have a lot of family in Ireland, but a lot of Irish culture was wiped out by colonization, and a lot of Irish indigenous practices are very difficult to learn about, very difficult to find and to unearth, but I’ve been working really hard at trying to find some of those things and trying to learn from teachers and use herbs and use, you know, herbs to smoke and herbs to clear the house and things like that, that are in my own lineage, and to learn about them and to do ancestral work and things like that, to be more in touch with that because the more we are in touch with our own sense of community and purpose, from a spiritual perspective, the less we feel a need to take somebody else’s. And frankly, like, it doesn’t really serve you to take somebody else’s medicine, you know, that’s not for you. And so that is a really important thing to pay attention to as we move into a hierophant year as well. 

Hey there, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead, to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year, month by month, talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays. And I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode or check out my website at starsagespirit.com and if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person, I’ve also created a DIY year ahead Tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients, and help you to define what you really want out of this year, and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading. It is a very accessible price point. And you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year and it’s not even specific to this time of year. You can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday. The options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today.

And I feel like I’m getting a little bit lecture-y, but bear with me because the Hierophant is really about how do you want to do things. That’s ultimately the question that we’re coming up against this year. You don’t want to work 40 hours a week in your business. Cool. How many hours do you want to work? How much do you need to charge for those hours? What kind of work can you do outside of just one on one sessions that would help you generate more revenue so that you don’t have to show up 40 hours a week? You know, you want to be able to invest you know, 20% of what you make in your teaching. Okay, cool. And learning more. That’s amazing, perfect. So how can you do that? Maybe you need to get a part time job. Maybe you want to go back to the corporate world. But it’s really about you knowing what’s best for you. The Hierophant like reintroduces us to our own wisdom. And it’s very interesting, because in the line of the major arcana, you know, we start and we have the fool and the magician, the High Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor, and then the hierophant. So you know way back with the High Priestess, we’ve gotten in touch with our intuition. And then in the Emperor, we’ve like… we’ve come up a lot of ways against the logical rational world. And in the Hierophant, it’s like we’re trying to do both things. Like we’re trying to have that connection to our own sense of knowing, our own sense of purpose, and filter the logical learned outside world, the boundaries that we need to have, the boundaries that we need to improve, and the structures that we need to build for ourselves. So we’re looking at these outside structures that we’ve learned in the Emperor, which ones do work, which ones don’t work and in the hierophant, we’re trying to bring them into our lives. So one of the things that I think can be really helpful this year, as well, is looking at what structures you’ve put into place personally over the last year, and thinking about how you can make them more appropriate for you. So I’m going to give an example. So I had decided, like halfway through the year last year, that I needed to give up the way that I was trying to structure my time. I was still trying to, like work within like corporate hours. I was still trying to run my day, like corporate hours. And for the work that I’m doing now, that just does not work for me. There’s a lot more creativity in what I’m doing now, and that can be a little bit more fluid. And you know, I have clients that I’m working with now. And so I needed to restructure my time. So I restructured my hours to be later in the day because that’s when I feel most energetic and most connected. And I also shifted my schedule to be more flexible in general. And what that looks like is instead of saying, okay, from 9-10, I’m going to do this, from 10-11, I’m going to do this, I said okay, I have these projects that are all like one hour projects, when can I, you know, I can kind of fit them in whenever I have these time blocks and whenever I’m feeling particularly inspired or motivated, you know. Some projects are you know, Emperor type projects. I need to set up my acuity, my booking software. I need to make sure that all my forms are up to date so that people can book really easily and get their confirmations. I need to make sure all the structural things are workin. I need to reply to emails, you know, all of that stuff. And then there are other projects that might take a little bit more time like I created my DIY year head Tarot guide. And that was much more creative and I was doing meditating and channeling and recording meditations and writing channeled messages down and designing a spread. And that took a different quality of energy from me. And I needed to do it at a time when I was clear, and I wasn’t going to be get getting interrupted by things. And so now I will have a few things that I’m doing each week and very flexible, where I can fit them into my schedule. I have my client appointments on a couple of days and then I have a couple of days that are more business oriented, and I can kind of fit the projects in whenever I want. And that’s like a Hierophant thing, because I’m still using structure that I’ve learned from the Emperor and I’ve put these structures into place to help my business run really well, but I also have made it personal, because it does not work for me to just work eight hours a day, every day. Some days, I work 12 hours. Some days, I work two hours, you know, and that’s, for me as somebody who has some chronic health issues, that’s been very effective for me. And also, as somebody who has a lot of intuitive inspiration and creative inspiration, that also works really well for that because when I’m feeling inspired and energetic, I’m able to really get a lot of stuff done. And when I’m feeling very low energy and exhausted and maybe a little bit sick, I don’t feel like I have to push super hard, because I’ve already allowed that to flow in the other days. And so one of the things that I’m really working with this year, and that I’m going to talk about in a future episode is, you know, working with the moons and doing some… I hate the word manifestation, but doing some intention setting and creation, I guess I would say, with the moon, whether it’s the new moon or the full moon and using the Tarot to do that. And that’s been one of the things that has really helped me a lot this year. And in some ways that is the system, but it’s me making it personal for myself. So I hope that this hierophant year will be more of a blessing to you than our previous Emperor year was. And that you will really look at the ways that you deal with that type of energy and needing to be your own authority in your life and what that looks like for you because there’s always some stumbling blocks with it. And I think, you know, sometimes we push too hard. Sometimes we don’t push hard enough, and giving yourself the grace that you’re learning, and that it’s not about being perfect or about like nailing it immediately. The hierophant really about having that sense of, Okay, how can I discern for myself, what works for me here and what doesn’t and what messages am I getting around that? And, you know, the number that goes along with the Hierophant is five. And so if you’re into, you know, numerology, you can also look at the other fives of the Tarot. So, you know, the five of wands, the five of pentacles, the five of swords, and the five of cups, and each of them are about managing through these different conflicts, you know. You know, conflicts of passion, conflicts of, you know, authority, conflicts of emotion, grief, dealing with disappointment, especially after this past year, dealing with that disappointment and integrating that into your business, your life, your work, your relationships, because there will probably be some more subtle themes within this Hierophant year of each of those fives of the Tarot as well. You know, so if we think about five of wands, how do we come up against conflict in our passion and our intuition? How do we discern? How do we pay attention to our intuition and when are we ignoring it? You know, and when do we have a tendency to like, shut it down? I’m not listening to that right now. We all do it, you know, and I think, normalizing the conversation around that is also super important. So I do think that that’s important. And also at the five of wands, you know, you might think about how do I react when I feel like, my dreams are being threatened or when I feel like what I want to do is being threatened and like, what is my first reaction to that? And how can I learn from that? You know, how can I integrate that and prepare for that, so that when I’m disappointed, I am prepared for a certain reaction from myself and I am learning from myself. And this would be a great year to start a journaling practice if you don’t have one. And if you’re like, Oh my god, Sheila, please do not tell me to write shit down, I do not want to do that. I get it. I was super resistant. I still am really resistant sometimes. But if there’s anything that I’ve learned, it’s that it really holds me accountable to myself. And even better than that, I can see how much I’ve grown just over a couple of months, over a year, by keeping track of that, and in particular, in a Hierophant year, because we are talking about our own wisdom. Sometimes you don’t know that it’s wisdom in the moment, and you only know that it’s wisdom when you go back and reflect on it later. So I really would encourage you to start a journaling practice this year. And it doesn’t have to be long, you know, you don’t have to write your diary and then have like a couple pages of entries, but just, you know, write about what’s going on with you, you know, pull some cards, write about what’s coming up for you. And I had a friend ask me the other day, if that was like the right way to do it. And I was like, yeah, there’s no right way, you know, your way is the right way. And I think that’s really important to recognize. So really allowing yourself to, you know, maybe you want to read Tarot totally differently than I talk about it. Go at it, you know, go off, do your own thing. And I fully encourage that. I encourage that in my students as well. You know, this is… I’m giving you a baseline, but you can take it and do with it what you want, you know, and I think, you know, there’s no right way to capture it, you know, maybe some days you just get up and you write about like what’s going on in your head and other days, you want to go fully into a spread and write about all the stuff that came up. Maybe your writing what comes up in your meditation. You know, there’s so many different ways to capture this. You can write about struggles that you’re having in your business. But I do really encourage you because this is a year of really trying to learn from your own experience, from your own desires, from your own sense of agency and authority, to do that this year. So I hope this helps you reflect and prepare for this Hierophant year. It’s going to be an interesting one for sure. And I’ll talk about over the next couple weeks, some other ways to use Tarot, to use your personal cards of the year to really plan some stuff out for yourself and to lean into that energy rather than you know, fighting against it like some of us have a tendency to do. That’s all I have for you for now. And remember that my year ahead Tarot guide is still available. That is a guide that you can use to really help you plan your year and like I said before, to really lean into the natural energy flow that you’re going to have for that year, to really lean into how you’re feeling and to give you some ideas of how to approach each energy, which personally for me, I find to be very helpful because I am an action oriented person and if you just tell me to do nothing, I’m not going to be able to just like do nothing and deal with some devil energy. You know, I need to see that devil energy and know how to approach it. And that can be really, really helpful. So that is available. It is a pretty accessibly priced offer. And it is available in the show notes right now. It’s a great time of year to do that and can really give you a baseline for setting expectations for the year. It’s a PDF workbook and also some guided meditations to lead you through closing out the past year and really embodying what you want for the new year. So that is available via the link in the show notes. And if you feel like you just need a little bit more clarity, you’re feeling like you’re in a rut with your career, your business, you’re really wanting to be intentional with how you approach this year and you feel like you need some assistance to do it, I still have the availability for career ahead tarot readings with me, or with a couple other readings I have with just like a career check-in or a rut-buster reading, which is a reading where we do both energy work and clearing and some past life healing and also do a tarot reading for your business. It’s a big session but it’s also really powerful for people who feel like they are in a rut or like they don’t quite know what they’re looking for or they’re feeling dissatisfied and they can’t really put their finger on why. I really say that’s like a cure for like dissatisfaction the rut-buster. So you can find the links to read about those services or to book those services in the show notes for today’s episode and obviously I would love to work with you if you feel like that would be helpful. And over the next couple months I will be working to make my Tarot course, Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives, available full time so you can access it whenever you want. You can start your own Tarot journey or improve your Tarot journey if you feel like you’ve been on a break or if you feel like you have read too much and you’re way too confused about how to read Tarot for yourself or you just have dabbled in the past. That will also be going live very soon so you can get on my email list and be the first to find out when that’s available. So that’s all I have for you this week. I will see you back here next week. 

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you loved today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episode show notes, you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On episode 29, I speak with Angie Flynn-McIver ( @ignitecsp ).  Angie Flynn-McIver is a leadership coach via a long career as a theatre director. Angie likes to describe her work in both areas as being a “detective of human behavior.” Now as the leader of her own coaching company, Ignite CSP, Angie relies on her experience and intuition to make decisions about business, growth, personnel, and even how to select the ideal client. Her book, “Before You Say Anything,” is coming out in spring of 2021. Angie and I discuss the importance of authentic communication. Communication is so much more than just what you’re saying, it’s how you say it, when you say it, and what information you deliver along with it. Angie uses her own brand of intuitive gifts to guide clients both one-on-one and in small group work, towards the most effective way to communicate presentations, ideas, or products.

 

• Angie talks about how intuition shows up in her communication coaching work.
• Angie explains what it means to be a detective of human behavior and how it helps her investigate and empower the underlying motivations of her clients.
• We discuss how Angie’s backgrounds in theater led her to a greater understanding of the importance of effective communication and how it shows up in all areas of life.
• Angie shares some of the ways that intuition has guided her as an entrepreneur and helped her to bring her knowledge and coaching to a broader audience with amazing results.
• We also talk about the pitfalls of ignoring intuition in business and building wisdom through that experience.
• Finally I explain how Angie is an embodiment of the chariot card and the page of swords.

Communication affects every area of our lives and can greatly improve our interpersonal relationships and our career prospects. 

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance energy healing session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Connect with Angie:

Find Angie online at www.ignitecsp.com

Or on Instagram at www.instagram.com/ignitecsp

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium, and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week, on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the taro along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition, and live intentionally with the Tarot.

Welcome back to Living Tarot. On today’s episode, I’m interviewing my friend Angie Flynn McIver. Angie Flynn McIver is a leadership coach by way of a long career as a theater director. Angie likes to describe her work in both areas as being a detective of human behavior. Now, as a leader of her own coaching company, Ignite CSP, Angie relies on her experience and intuition to make decisions about business growth personnel, and even how to select the ideal client. Her book, Before You Say Anything, is coming out spring 2021. I’m so excited to have Angie on this episode, because her work is very unique. She’s done a lot of work to help people with public speaking in terms of how they can use it to advance their careers. And as somebody who has a theatre background myself, I really love the energy and that sense of like intuitive understanding that Angie brings to her work. I loved this episode so much. And we really talk about how intuition comes into play in leadership coaching in general, and also specifically how it shows up for her in the work that she does now. And we also talk about how she is truly the embodiment of the chariot card, and the page of swords. So without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Okay, so welcome to the podcast, Angie. I’m so excited that you’re here today. Can you tell us kind of, in your own words, what you do in the world?

Angie Flynn McIver  2:38  

Yes, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to join you on the podcast. I call myself a detective of human behavior. And not like Sherlock Holmes, I guess, although that would be really cool. I am a coach and I specialize in communication skills. And so what that means for me and my work and the company that I run is that we really help people get to know themselves really well so that they can be as effective and clear at communicating as they want to be. So that they can really show up the way that they want to whether that’s in public speaking or in having difficult conversations or leading meetings, really anywhere communication shows up. That’s where you’ll find us. 

Sheila M  3:32  

Yeah, I love that you do this so much. So first of all, I have to say that Angie and I both have theatre backgrounds, which is super relevant to me, because it’s a huge part of my life. But I think it’s so interesting how you’ve taken something that is so traditionally like… you know, you’ve taken this background that’s kind of not in the corporate world and turned it into something that’s actually really effective in corporate America, and really in all areas of life. And I think it’s so powerful because one of the things that I think has really helped my career in the long term is all of that theater background. I feel like I have the ability to improvise on the spot. I’m very comfortable in public speaking. I’m not nervous in front of people, obviously. And I really feel like it’s had a huge impact on my ability to show up publicly in front of people and really, like share my voice and communicate effectively, even when I was in corporate America. So I think it’s so interesting that you made that kind of transition over. What inspired you to move from just that theater background into talking about public speaking and coaching, especially in business?

Unknown Speaker  4:46  

Yeah, yeah. So to connect the dots a little bit, I’m a theater director and producer. My husband and I founded professional theatre here in Asheville, North Carolina, where I live and we’ve been running that theater since 2001 and my husband really runs that full time now, or at least when theater is happening in the world, he is running that theater. And so I really started to take a step away from theater and towards, as you say, this communication coaching about 10 years ago, and I got really interested in how we create authentic communication on stage, the process that we use, with actors, actors and directors use to make something happen on stage or on film in a way that feels real to the audience watching. Excuse me. And the way that we’re able to do that is by really bringing that detective power, right, that observational power of what do people do when they are trying to make something happen, when they are trying to reach somebody else, when they are frustrated, when they are, you know, trying to achieve something. What does that look like? How do they embody that? What are their voices do? What is the interpersonal communication like? So what I wanted to do was see if I could bring that process that we use in theater to a non theater audience. And that was when I really started taking these steps into leadership development, into coaching, and as you said, into corporate America. And I have to tell you, it kind of makes me laugh whenever somebody says, Oh, now you work in corporate America, because I don’t. I totally do, but I don’t see myself like that at all. In fact, I always kind of joke when i get dressed up to go to one of these companies that I’m in my corporate drag. It just it doesn’t feel like… it’s still feels like I’m a mole. You don’t know that I’m really an artsy theatre person who’s there. 

Sheila M  7:02  

Yeah, I think that’s so interesting. And like you said, I feel like it’s one of those soft skills that nobody really talks about, but is extremely, extremely important, because we’ve all sat through a really boring presentation. We’ve all sat through really boring meetings. We’ve watched people talk about things and known that their messages good, but for some reason, it’s not engaging. And I think we’ve all had that, like it’s such a communal experience, for sure. But I think it’s so interesting that you’re really adding something to all of the messaging because it’s all in the delivery is like what you’re connecting with, because you could hear the same…you could hear two people say the exact same thing, and it not connect with you in the same way, which I think is so interesting about the type of work that you do. So how do you…what would you say to someone who was like, I don’t know… I don’t know, if I need this type of work? Like what do you think it can really do for people in terms of like, being able to effectively communicate what they’re all about?

Angie Flynn McIver  8:13  

That is such a good question. I don’t even… there’s so many answers to that. I have to choose like a way into the answer. And the first thing that I would say is the way that we move around in the world, the way that we have relationships, the way that we negotiate, the way that we move things ahead, and, you know, talk about projects, anything that we do in our life requires communication, not to put too fine a point on it. But it is really hard to do anything without needing to communicate with other people at some point. So this is really… I think of communication is really being the like the river that carries every other single thing that we want to accomplish as human beings. And so when you start to delve into what is motivating me, why am I speaking right now? What change am I trying to make? What need do I have? When we get really clear with ourselves about what we’re trying to do, then we can transform our communication so that it is a more direct connection to the person or the people we’re trying to talk to. So communication skills to me goes so far beyond and you’re exactly right, a bad boring presentation, a meeting that could have been an email, you know, all of those things are such a, particularly in the corporate, you know, or not even just corporate, any organization, those are the real standouts in terms of, Wow, if we could fix that we could get back all this time, we could get back all this, you know, person power that we’re losing in these meetings. But even more than that, I think we can use communication skills and coaching to have better relationships, too. You know, I’ll tell you a quick story. I was trying to start the conversation this morning with my husband that goes, we need to talk about the holidays. And I know many, many people have some contention around these conversations in their homes, and my home is no different. And I tried really hard to start by saying the thing that would take the temperature down on the conversation, and instead I turned it right up, like full flame under the conversation. Like he immediately… it triggers all over the place. And I was like, Okay, I think about this all the time, like, I think all the time about how to be a better communicator, and how can I be clearer. And I will say that the thing that I have on my side in a situation like that, is that I could kind of call a timeout and say, Okay, hold on, here’s what I was trying to do, I see that I was unsuccessful, can you tell me what I said that, you know, reflect back to me what I did, so that I can do it differently next time. So that the next time I try to have a conversation like this, it can go more easily. Anyway, so that’s a very, very long answer to your question. But I’m passionate about how being better communicators can really help us in so many ways.

Sheila M  11:48  

Yeah. And I it’s so funny, because I actually majored in communication in college. And one of my corporate jobs shortly after I graduated, there was a gentleman who worked in our office, and his son was also majoring in communications. And he was like, really put off by it, because like, he just would like rant about it all the time. And he’d be like, What even is that? You know, and like, I think like not realizing that I had majored in it. I don’t think he was like, trying to be a jerk, but it was just like this weird thing that happened over and over. And finally, the one day I was like, Hey, you know, when you get an email from somebody, and you understand what they’re saying the first time and you don’t have to send an email back and ask questions. And he was like, Yeah. I was like, that’s a communications manager. He was like, oh, and it’s so funny, because I, you know, I spent 12 years in corporate America and I saw so so so often how poorly communication was managed, and how it was kind of always the last thought. It was like, okay, like, we’ve decided all these things and we haven’t given any thought at all to how this thing is going to be communicated out. Or we just don’t know how to effectively communicate this to the team, or my personal favorite, when they create like a whisper down the lane effect, where like something is decided very far away from the people that have to actually do it. And then the people at the top train the next people down, train the next people down, train the people who are actually doing the work. And then you’re like, wait, what, and everybody was like, completely wrong, like some part of the message gets lost all the way down. And so I do think it’s one of those things that like you were saying about that argument with your husband… or not argument, but like disagreement with your husband, changing like the slightest bit, and having a sense of like, curiosity about your communication, I think that’s so powerful, because we are all really different and we do hear different things. You know, there’s not one universal way to communicate a message. And I think what you’re talking about is so important, because beyond just regular public speaking classes, and generally how to get an idea across, there is something very personal to the way that each person speaks and I think it’s so interesting with the coaching that you’re doing now, because it is really personal. And it’s specific to the person and the situation and what it is that they’re trying to do. So can you talk a little bit about, I loved how you described yourself as like an investigator into like, why this is important, and like what the message really is. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Angie Flynn McIver  14:33  

Yeah, so I’ll give you an example. I have a client who I’ve been working with for a couple years, off and on, and she is just this rockstar, super interesting woman, has a very cool job. She’s a scientist. And she was referred to me because she was already a pretty good speaker, but she wanted to be great. And those are some of my really favorite people to work with because they’re motivated. She’s really ambitious. And she wants to be great at, you know, everything. And she knew that being a great speaker was going to help her. So we’ve been meeting for a while. And she and I were working on this presentation that she was going to give. And it was really strange, like, she would get up and she had her slides, and she was going through the presentation. And it just wasn’t like her personality wasn’t really coming through. She was swallowing her words in ways that wasn’t really… I mean, I’d worked with her long enough to know that this was not typical. And I said, Okay, hold on. Let’s sit back down. Let’s figure out what’s going on. And I started really talking through with her what this presentation meant, who is it for if you do a great job, what does it mean. And we did some some digging, and kind of got down to this layer, where it turned out that if she did a great job at this presentation, she was probably going to get promoted. And she really loved the job that she had. And so she wasn’t really sure that she wanted to do a great job at this presentation. Now all of this was on a totally subconscious level for her. And so in our coaching work, we call that your default intention. So it’s this engine. Your intention is driving your communication all the time, and it affects the words you use. It affects how quickly you speak. It affects your body language. Everything about the way you show up is really driven by your intention. And when something like.. and I’m making this up, but essentially for her it was I want to hide my light under a bushel a little bit. Right? I don’t want to show up as powerfully as I can. And again, she hadn’t put that into words. But she was afraid of what would happen if she didn’t sabotage herself. But then we needed to talk about, Okay, well, how can you make some different choices, you know, what are the conversations you need to have around your career that have nothing to do with this presentation, right. The presentation was a symptom of what was going on underneath, but that’s always happening. So in our work, we’re all about figuring out what that default intention is. A really common one that I think a lot of people can relate to is, I just want to get this over with, right. So if I just want to get this over with, whether it’s a presentation or leading a meeting or whatever, then it’s all about me, it’s all about what I need, and not what we call a deliberate intention, which is okay, I’m actually here to serve other people, what can I do to further this and make use of their time. So that’s, that’s really the crux of our work. 

Sheila M  18:01  

Yeah. And so this is what I think is so interesting to me, because we were talking a little bit before we came on about how you’re not, you know, a you don’t consider yourself to be a particularly like, witchy type of person, and would that still come across to people. But one of the main things I really wanted to do with this podcast was talk to people from both kind of traditionally witchy-er things and also people from, you know, the regular world or the muggle world, whatever you want to call it. But I think it’s so powerful, because there is something really intuitive in what you’re doing when you sit down with your clients, because you’re reading something off of them, and you’re hearing the subtext and everything they’re saying. And of course, that’s also due to I’m sure extensive training and years of experience as well. But there’s also just something of feeling that like underlying intention, and seeing what’s really true for people when they can’t, which I think is like truly, really intuitive work, just not work that we think of that way. So can you talk a little bit about how that kind of shows up for you in your work? I mean, the story you just told was like a really good example. But like, is that something that typically happens with people? Is that kind of like the crux of a lot of this investigation that you’re doing in your work?

Angie Flynn McIver  19:23  

It is. And I love this question, because I think that intuition shows up for me in really particular ways, in my work, both as a theater director and as a coach, and I’m trying to think of how to describe it because I think that… I mean and you’re exactly right. There’s a lot of experience that comes into it and reading that I do and research that I do and all that, but before that, before I can apply the experience, there is this intuitive feeling that there’s a…. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like a place in my chest, that isn’t… that just tells me there’s work to be done here. And once I know that that is happening, I can’t ignore that, right. That saying this is where the work is. And the really interesting to me part of this work is that walking into a session with somebody, I never know when that moment is going to happen, you can’t plan for it, right. You can’t plan that that sense is going to reveal itself. But I’ve done this for so long now. And I think I really honed this as a director, sitting in rehearsal and you’re watching a scene happen, and there’s just something that’s not happening right. There’s something that’s not clicking, there’s something that’s not the way I want it to be. And I may not know exactly what I do want it to be yet. But I know that we have to start to sculpt that. So once I started doing this work, as a coach, it became easier for me to do what I call “let go of the trapeze.” So I’m going to start this coaching session, and I’m going to let go of the trapeze and I’m just going to trust that that intuition is going to catch me, right. By the ankles. Now we’re just going to swing and we’re going to do the work and that’s the the magic and the serendipity of it to me. It’s the stuff I love the most.

Sheila M  21:38  

Yeah, and I think that’s such a beautiful way to put it and, and what’s funny about what you’re saying is, you know it is so intuitive, and I know exactly what you’re talking about because it can be very difficult to put words to some of these senses, but it feels like you were saying you don’t know exactly what it’s supposed to look like, but you know it’s not supposed to look like what you’re seeing. And I think that’s so… it speaks so much to how it shows up a little differently for everyone, you know. So often for me, I can look at something or someone and know that there’s like a lack of something. I don’t have any… I’m not actually seeing something, you know, like I don’t… I’m not physically seeing something with my eyes. But like, I can see that something is there, or I can hear that something is there. And it’s so hard to explain because like it’s so personal to you and what you’re experiencing but like this is a good example from like my family, for example. So my youngest sister is like very, very good at math. And she also edits the transcripts for my podcast, so Hi, Mary Kate. But she is like, excellent math. And always has been just like very… just gets it. You know, and a lot of people think like, that’s not intuition, that’s just like being smart. But it’s not because it’s a very specific. You have a very specific eye for something. And she could just look at something and do it. So over Thanksgiving, we did a virtual Thanksgiving because my family’s kind of located different places. And one of my sisters is a nurse. And so we were all online, and she brought this game for us to play online, which was great, because we normally do like board games after Thanksgiving dinner. And in the game, there was one part where you have to like, memorize this…it was like these squares this little like pattern thing. And it was not small. It was probably like 30 different pieces or something. And you only had about 10 seconds to look at it and and figure it out. Now I was looking at that and like, because something like that does not come naturally to me, it’s not one of my gifts, I was terrible. I did not do well. But she literally I mean, we looked at this thing for 10 seconds. She got it 100% right. I was like, I cannot even imagine but that’s just like her thing. Like she looks at numbers and she sees something that I don’t or she looks at a pattern like that and sees something that I don’t and I think we say like, oh that’s just like smarts or something you know, or that’s just like being like highly intelligent but like there are people who are highly intelligent and communication like yourself and like people who are highly intelligent in like emotional understanding and emotional intelligence and there’s all these different ways that we have like that intuitive like push that’s just like yes, this thing or like I can see this thing. And I say all the time on this podcast, like inventors and scientists like you have to be so intuitive to do those things because especially with science, like it’s not a thing until it’s proven. Like the man who invented electromagnetic fields, like all of his peers thought he was out of his mind, they thought he was crazy. And now we use them for all kinds of things. They’re in MRIs and like all of these… like, we use that technology now, but at the time, it was just like this crazy idea. And it just takes somebody to see something…they’re like, I’m seeing a lack of something, I know that there’s something else to this, and I just haven’t quite figured it out yet. So I loved the way that you described that as like letting the trapeze go. And just like trusting. I think that’s so important too for any type of business, whether you have like, a corporate job, or a traditionally more like intuitive business, because I always say like, you have the exact same amount of control, whether you think you do or you don’t. So like at some point, you got to just kind of like, let it go and, and figure it out and trust that the training that you have and the experience that you have are really going to serve you and that you’ll know when you see it, which can be really hard. 

Angie Flynn McIver  26:03  

Yep. Yeah, I agree. I think as an entrepreneur, I mean, to zoom out a little bit. I think intuition has really served me well in a whole bunch of ways, in knowing, excuse me, where I wanted to spend my time, in having a sense of what I might be good at, like, what’s… how can I connect the dots of the things I already know to create something new. And then in terms of, you know, hiring people, as a director, and as a producer, you’re hiring people all the time, right, because we have a staff at the theater, but you have to staff every show separately. And in terms of intuition, I think the place I always listen to it is in hiring actors. If there is anything in me that says, I have a question about whether this person is really going to show up and do what we need, I can’t hire them. It’s just… it won’t work.

Sheila M  27:02  

Yeah. That’s so important. I know from years of experience. Like you really need everybody to be committed no matter how, you know, small or large their part is, because it’s such a community experience of putting on a show like you really need that. 

Angie Flynn McIver  27:22  

Yeah, Tina Fey has this great thing in her book, Bossy Pants, where she talks about working for Saturday Night Live. And she talks about her hiring philosophy, and it’s basically how am I going to feel if I run into this person in the hall at three in the morning on Thursday night, right, where they’ve, you know… and so you might be able to be great in the writers room, or you might you know, you may have a stellar resume, but if I don’t want to be in the trenches with you, then this isn’t going to work. And that really… I love that part of her book. I’m sorry, I’ve got a little cough.

Sheila M  27:55  

No, you’re good.

Angie Flynn McIver  27:59  

When I read that part of her book, it took me back to one of my first jobs out of college, I worked for the National Shakespeare Company and I ran their touring company in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. And it was, you know, a high school/junior high tour taking Shakespeare plays, you know, we would get in the, our little touring van at, you know, 5:30 in the morning to… anyways. It was awesome in lots of ways that I learned a lot, but it was good that I did it at the age I was at that time, not now. But that really did end up being one of my big criteria when I was casting was like, Am I gonna want to be in this van with you at six in the morning? Are you gonna…are you gonna pitch in and carry all the stuff? Are you gonna be on time? Are you gonna be pleasant? Are you gonna take the turn to drive the van? I mean, it was all of those things that, again, are really an intuitive… there’s only so much you can learn about somebody in a, you know, five minute audition. So a bunch of that is really honing that intuitive muscle and learning to trust that, that what’s on the piece of paper isn’t the whole person. 

Sheila M  29:09  

Yeah, oh my gosh, I know. And I think that is so, so important. And just going back to my days in corporate jobs, I saw that a lot because I you know, I always have a sense of people and I would see somebody coming in for an interview and I would be like, Oh, this is not gonna be good. I mean, I still remember one time at one of my corporate jobs, they had interviewed somebody and when I met him, I was like, Huh. I was like, he’s not gonna… I was like, he’s never gonna start. And they offered him the job and they were like rushing everything along so that he could get started and ordering the equipment and getting everything set out and everything set up. And sure enough the day he was supposed to start he emailed and was like, he accepted another job somewhere else. And my boss was like, how did you know and I was ike, I don’t know, I just, I knew. Like, I looked at him and I was like, nope, this is not the right fit. Like, I just I knew it. But it wasn’t… he was wonderful. I mean, anybody coming in for an interview is usually on their best behavior. You know, it wasn’t anything he did it. I just could tell.

Angie Flynn McIver  30:16  

Yeah, and I wonder, I mean, it’d be interesting to me, from a, obviously from a detective of human behavior standpoint, that I wonder if there were things that you picked up on, whether it was a… I don’t know, I just wonder, like a turn of phrase or something, something tipped you off, and something ignited that intuition in you and I’ve been in that situation so many times. There was an actor several years ago, several, many years ago that auditioned for me. And he asked me one question that was fairly innocuous, and I thought, Well, I’m not going to work with you. And then a couple years later, a different director at our theater hired him for something. And I called him and said, in my, you know, job as a producer, I said, Are you sure you want to use this person? I don’t get a great vibe. Like, I’m not sure he’s a team player. I’m not sure he is a great fit. And he’s like, no, no, he’s gonna be fine. And we went to the same grad program and I’m like, ok. If that’s all that it takes. And then sure enough, I mean, you know, where the story is going. He was a nightmare. He tried to kind of insurrect a mutiny in the cast. He was a, just generally unpleasant, just like an unpleasant person. I mean, I still haven’t, I haven’t quite gotten over it if you can’t tell. But anyway, I just… anytime I have ignored that thing, or tried to talk myself into hiring a person after I’ve had that feeling, I have regretted it every single time.

Sheila M  31:54  

And you’re already on top of it. Because I was like, that was gonna be my next question is like, have you had times where you have ignored it or where you just kind of like, let something go. And I know, it’s complicated, too, especially when you’re managing a team because if you’re not in charge of that part of the decision, you can’t be like, No, I don’t want this person in here. Like, you’re in charge of kind of a different part of the collective thing. But like, you can’t really throw your weight around that much. So yeah, I mean, are there any other times where you’ve really like been like, you know, I knew better, Like, why did I do this to myself? 

Angie Flynn McIver  32:29  

Oh, so many. I mean, as you’re asking the question there, all… the Rogues Gallery is flooding into my head of the people who are like ugh… why you know that… but you know, those are all good experiences. I mean one that I’m thinking of is an actor who had a great first audition. And then when I brought him back in for a callback, basically did the exact same… did it the exact same way and didn’t… wasn’t really great at taking adjustments, didn’t really change what he was doing, based on what I was asking him to do, or what he was getting from the other person in the callback. And I had this trepidation. I was like, he seems like… but he looked the part, like he just looked, and then I was also a little lazy. I was like, I mean, surely I can get him to be good enough, and he’ll be fine and I don’t really want to audition any more people. I really want to move on. Auditioning is not my favorite part of the process. And then he was just not… he would never change from that first audition. I mean, that was… he was incapable of doing, he’s a perfectly nice person, but he was incapable of growing past those first instincts that he had. And yeah, I mean, there are way worse examples of this. Like, there was one guy we hired, who works in theater, who not only did I not have a good vibe about, but a good friend of ours flat out said, like, I’m not sure why you keep this guy around. And I ignored it. And then he ended up being like, basically trying to start another theater while he worked for us.

Sheila M  34:09  

Oh my god.

Angie Flynn McIver  34:10  

Yeah. You and I have talked before about instances of betrayal and I just… I am a really trusting person. So I want… it takes a lot for me to be like, Oh my goodness, you don’t deserve my trust. You know, it takes me a while to get there, you know, but once I have I do learn the lesson.

Sheila M  34:37  

Hey there, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead, to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year, month by month, talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays. And I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode, or check out my website at starsagespirit.com. And if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person, I’ve also created a DIY year ahead Tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients, and help you to define what you really want out of this year, and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading. It is a very accessible price point. And you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year. And it’s not even specific to this time of year. You can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday, the options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s hard too because for so many people they can recognize it once it’s gone wrong. You know, it’s more like trusting it, like before it gets to that point that I think is something that I think both comes with, like wisdom of age and experience. And also, you know, it depends, I think how that relationship was with intuition and with like, your own sense of agency was cultivated, like through your life. So what was it like growing up in terms of like, your upbringing, and like, were you taught to kind of think for yourself or was there kind of like one way of being? You know, like, what really helped you cultivate some of those skills?

Angie Flynn McIver  37:15  

Hmm, I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about this before.

Sheila M  37:17  

I know, it’s kind of a complicated question. Just explain your entire childhood in one short, succinct answer.

Angie Flynn McIver  37:26  

I’m going to actually try to back into this answer from a specific story. So this was probably my early 20s. And I went to see a reflexologist, who was also a psychic, who my parents had been seeing, and they were like, you should go see, whatever her name was, Linda. And she was working on me. And she said, Oh, I’m getting this really strong image. And she said she was gonna describe it to me. And she said, it’s like you have…she said, it’s like, I’m looking at your feet, and you’re wearing two shoes and one of them is a big like a clown shoe and the other one is like a pump, like a high heel. And she knew both of my parents. My father is a musician. My mother is a banker. And she said, it’s like, you’re a perfect blend of your parents, you’ve got the entertainer, that’s the clown shoe, right, and then you’ve also got this business head, o foot in this case. And what was interesting about it was at that time in my life, I thought I was 100% theatre all the time. This was going to be my calling forever. And so I really rejected that business part of it. But what has ended up happening as I have, to your point gotten older and hopefully have attained at least some wisdom and experience, is that I’ve really started to value that balance. So when you ask about my childhood, that’s what really comes up for me is that I was certainly allowed to follow my own path and encouraged to think for myself in most ways. I mean, I think every…. probably most families have unspoken  and spoken guidelines and rules, and this is going to be this way and this is not going to be that way and I had some of that, for sure. But the fact that my parents had kind of non traditional careers in the sense that my father was self-employed and a musician and, you know, worked kind of weird hours. And my mom was the you know, big career banker, set things up, interestingly, for my sister and me to think past a certain structure that other people might take for granted.

Sheila M  40:11  

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And like such an interesting experience to have when you’re so young, first of all, but I also think, really cool that your parents kind of left that open ended and let you decide for yourself. I think one of the ways and a lot of the stuff that we’ve talked about, and I feel like why we both have such an appreciation for each other’s work is because I feel like you’ve taken this thing that’s kind of, you know, with the theater, and with that experience, and speaking and really like, communicating a message with like heart and like, dynamic, you know, presence is really, really cool. But you’ve taken that, and you’ve put it into such like a… you know, this kind of creative, wild thing and put it into like a pragmatic, understandable, like usable in so many areas of life, but even in like the corporate world, where people can kind of like brush, you know, kind of brush things off a little bit and be like, Oh, that’s silly, what’s communication anyway, you know. And I think, you know, it’s so much like, what I’ve tried to do with Tarot is like, really bring it into everyday life and talk about like, how does this show up? How do you access this practice on a regular basis? And how do you take it from just being this like, cool, spiritual thing that you do to like a practical tool for your life? And I feel like so much about what you’re doing is doing that same thing. Like, how do you take all these skills that are kind of like, yeah, this is cool and fun, but also, it’s extremely practical, and even down to stuff like you were talking about with your husband, like having good communication in your relationship… oh, my God. If there’s ever been a year to have good communication in your relationship, I mean, I know I am feeling it, I know a lot of people are feeling it. Like, I feel like this year, we’ve gotten a crash course in communicating with each other effectively. And we both like my partner, and I… he hates when I call him my partner. He’s my boyfriend, but I think he’s too old to be called a boyfriend. So I call him my partner. And we’ve had so many conversations this year, because we’re very different… very, very, like almost like opposite communication styles. And so I can be very, like, open and like too much. And he can be very, like withholding and like afraid to share. So it’s been like a huge learning curve to be more effective in communicating with each other. And really being forced to be around each other this much. I’m like, you know, we’ve been together for five and a half years now, but so we know each other very well, but we’ve never spent this much time together. And I know that that’s true for so many people. I feel like I’ve been having like very similar conversations with so many people. But I do think that that’s really important to talk about, too, because it’s beyond just your work and your career. And, you know, even just like making presentations that are for entertainment, or shows that are for entertainment, is how are you going to effectively communicate the message that is driving you to want to speak about this thing in a way that is effective, and will be understood by the person that you’re communicating it to.

Angie Flynn McIver  43:40  

Yeah, absolutely. That’s the and I love what you’re saying about what…. we’ve all gotten a crash course, right, in how do we… you know, part of what comes up for me, as you say, that is like, one of the tools that I find most helpful for me when I am trying to figure out how to talk to the people I’m closest to is what’s my internal monologue. What am I saying to myself, especially with those conversations that are harder, you know, when you you have challenging conversations, or conversations, maybe that are more difficult to have, when you…. and not everybody does this, but I think a lot of people, even if they don’t mean to, rehearse it ahead of time, you know, they think through, oh, I’m gonna say this, and then they’re gonna say that. And then often what happens when we do that is that we catastrophize and we make it a worst case scenario. And in some ways that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. What we… you know, we really create these neural patterns, when we think through it’s like, it’s visualization, but it’s visualization not in a positive and productive way. It’s visualizing the worst possible outcome. So when we can tap into that inner monologue and think, okay, if I say this this way, what might happen? What outcome do I want to happen? How do I want them to feel when this conversation is over? And that to me, I would say particularly as a spouse, but even more as a boss and as a parent. Those are huge for me. And in looking at this kind of outcome driven communication, it’s not so much about what do I need to say or how do I need to get this across to you? Right? It’s about, do I want you to feel at the end, like we’re on the same side, do I want you to feel like we’re on the same team or that I’m your ally. And if that’s the case, that changes everything about my face, and my voice and the words that I use and the way that I come in the room. And it has been, at least for me, this idea has been really transformative.

Sheila M  46:05  

Yeah. And I think that’s so important, too, because I think we can get so locked into, this is just what I’m trying to say, I’m trying to get this thing across, and not really like touch base, and not even really, totally understand for ourselves why that’s important. Like, why am I feeling this way and why does it feel so important that this person understands what I’m trying to say right now? Like, what’s behind that, because I found so often, when we have a miscommunication in our relationship, as soon as I explain, like, where that is coming from, or like why I was feeling the sense of like, urgency or desperation isn’t the right word, but like this sense of, like, really wanting it to be communicated the right way, is like… it totally, like deregulates, any kind of like argument or anything that was like escalating. It completely calms everything down. And it has such an ability to, I think, like, humanize the conversation for the other person. And like, anybody who was feeling really like emotionally, like, turned up is like, Whoa, Okay, wait a second, like, now we’re just kind of talking about what’s going on. And it’s had a huge effect on our ability to effectively communicate with each other about, especially things that are kind of emotionally charged, you know. 

Angie Flynn McIver  47:27  

Yeah, yeah. I think that’s… I think that’s the key part of what you’re saying is that, if you set up a way to talk to whomever it is, where you can cut through to, here’s what’s really going on with me, here’s what I’m really after, or here’s my fear, and it may be showing up in this funky way. And if we think about what I’m really trying to do is enlist your help, or what I’m really trying to do is show you that I’m here for you, or if I’m really trying to do is, whatever… get you to pass me the salt, like whatever it is. There is…it’s like we can cut through all of the crap to get to what’s really going on and isn’t that a huge relief?

Sheila M  48:17  

Yeah, I love the way you said that too. Because I think it’s in so many different relationships. And it’s really the heart of our connection with each other, and why some relationships feel close, and some don’t feel close, you know, and I think it’s something kind of unconscious for a lot of us, you know, not for you, because it’s what you do, and not for me, because I literally studied it for four years in school. But I do think, you know, for a lot of people, it’s very like, unconscious, the way that they’re talking about things. And I remember at my…it’s so funny, I don’t know why this is popping into my head right now, but at my last job before I left the corporate world, for four years in a row, I was trying to have a conversation with my boss about the fact that I felt that the work that I was doing was deserving of a significant raise. And I basically, I was like, okay, like, this is my expertise is like communicating a point effectively, like, I should be very good at this. And it’s literally what I did, like, for my team. It was part of my job, you know what I mean? Like, I know that I was good at it, because that’s what I was hired for. And so, you know, the first time I tried like my own way. The second time I tried another experts way. The third time I tried another experts way and the fourth time, I tried another experts way and I was like, okay, I’ve tried four different people’s way of doing this now. Three people, who know more than I do, one person who’s myself and in this situation, and I know that I’ve effectively communicated it, but no matter how I’ve gone about it, it hasn’t been heard. And that was honestly like, a huge part of what led me to leave that job. And I didn’t necessarily… it’s funny because, like, I left, and I think I trust my intuition. So I think I kind of knew that I was leaving to just do my own thing. But I was also just kind of leaving, because I felt like that had come to a close, like, I was like, This is no longer a relationship that that we can effectively communicate in. And we had this conversation really shortly before I gave notice where a lot of changes had been made. And the structure and the team, a lot of… basically, like a lot of attrition, and a lot of people have been cut, and I was seeing a significant influx in mistakes that were like silly mistakes, so not things that I was seeing a lot before that. And so we were having a conversation, this was way back before COVID, so we were in person. And she asked me, if I, like what I had noticed or if I had noticed anything significant. And I basically said that, you know, in a nice and professional way, but I said, you know, having less staff has had a huge impact and I’ve seen it on a daily basis and when I talk about it, it sounds like just like one or two little things here and there, but it’s happening, you know, three times as much as it was happening before and they’re not like… it’s not misunderstandings or stuff that’s related to just people having new territory to cover. Its people feel like… I can tell from looking at it, that it’s people rushing through stuff or feeling like overwhelmed by something. And I was like, you know, this is just what I’m noticing. And then she basically just disagreed with me. I was like you just asked for like, you just asked for my, like, professional expert opinion on this thing, that is the process that I invented, that’s used by the whole company, like, I am the expert, like I have my 10,000 hours in this thing, you know, like, truly. And I was like, okay, like, it’s just time now, you know. And I think that people, you know, whether you’re a supervisor, or whether you’re talking about family, like there’s so many ways that you need to be aware of both what you’re communicating, and also what people are communicating with you. Because I think that that’s important too. Like you were talking about actors who can take direction and those who can’t, you know. If you can’t take direction, you may as well not bother, in my opinion. You know, that’s a huge part of acting is being able to take direction, because your vision for the role isn’t always what works cohesively with the rest of the show.

Angie Flynn McIver  52:53  

Mm hmm. Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. And I think it’s so funny the story that you were just telling about… it is so frustrating even to hear you talk about that, but what was coming up for me was there’s… we can think about this, you know, 100 hours, and we can, you know, practice and practice and practice, but at the end of the day, we are only responsible for what we put out in the world and we can’t control what other people can hear. But to your point, also finding a way and I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, in terms of how to choose a moment when somebody can hear you. And I’m not… it doesn’t sound to me like there was ever a moment where this person could have could have heard you or could have been receptive to that message that there were too many other variables going on, there’s too much else going on, but I was thinking about how sometimes, and I hate to pick on my husband again, but I’m going to because he’s the only person I see anymore, in myy house.

Sheila M  53:58  

All of our examples are personal. Yeah.

Angie Flynn McIver  54:00  

I know. I know. But sometimes when I’m saying something to him, it’s like, the phrase that comes up for me is like, your head is full of bees. Like you can’t hear me. Like there’s no… this is not the right time. And it’s not… this is not a punishing thing. I’m not… you know, I’ve chosen a bad moment. You’re doing something else. You’re preoccupied. You are on your way out the door, like you can’t…you could even like stop what you’re doing and listen, but it won’t take any purchase. Right? I won’t gain anything here. So finding that moment, I think is such a big deal. Now that doesn’t, you know, actors who don’t take direction, they should just take direction. That’s a whole different ball of wax. 

Sheila M  54:44  

Yeah, no, it’s so true though. And you’re right, because I think that’s also something that is not traditionally talked about but is important. Like you can tell it like you’re saying head full of bees. You can tell if that person isn’t listening to you and my partner is a reporter and so sometimes I would say he’s still like… I can see the look on his face and he’s not trying to ignore me like you’re saying, like, he can look at me, and it looks like he’s paying attention, but I can see that like, fog of him still figuring out, like the last thing are still trying to put some sort of like, puzzle together in his brain of something. And I’m like, Okay, I’ll just talk about this later. And like you said, it’s not to be like, okay, you’re ignoring me, you know. It’s nice to be like dismissive. But that is part of communication is picking a time when that person can hear you. And if they’re super stressed, or they’re focused on something else, the message is not getting across, either. And that could have nothing to do with how you’re communicating it other than just it’s not the right time. So I’m glad you said that, too. Yeah.

Angie Flynn McIver  55:50  

Yeah. The other thing I was thinking about, as you were telling that story is a client who I worked with recently, who, similarly, she wasn’t asking for a raise, but she was trying to get resources redeployed more to her team, than to some other areas of her department, and she just could not get anywhere with her boss. And this was while I was actively coaching her, and so we were talking a lot about, and she’s a very, you know, she’s a team player, and she really, you know, she’s gonna make sure that the work gets done. And I was like, Okay, well, so part of what’s happening here is that she, being the boss, doesn’t feel like she’s between a rock and a hard place. she feels like she’s between a rock and a soft place. And you have to toughen up in the way that you communicate this need, in order for her to understand that she has to make a change. And that’s a really… it is a really technical… I mean, talking about taking things and making it super practical, so it’s about using words like I need, instead of, I think we might, right. It’s about saying, I can do this and I’m happy to help in this way, I can’t do this. It’s about shorter sentences. It’s about how you land your voice. It’s about, you know, a whole plethora of things, but, you know, communication is signaling. So part of this is about signaling I can’t continue with these resources, your job is to get this problem fixed, not to push it back down to me. And again, we only have control over what we have, right, but part of what we can control is, I have to make sure I’m turning up the dial on this need that I have in a way that this person can hear it, in a way that this person can escalate it, or can at least evaluate how important it is.

Sheila M  57:57  

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. You’re totally right. And yeah, I think that’s like one of the not so obvious things about communication, for sure. And so I do want to talk a little bit more about what you’re working on, but before I do, I want to talk about what I think it’s multiple cards that I really see you embodying in the Tarot, because I think with your work, it’s pretty interesting. So first of all, the first card that came up for me was the chariot. And I love this card for you because I feel like so much of what you do is teach people about how to, like, package this thing that they’re trying to get across, or how to, it’s kind of like the vehicle or the vessel that all of this really important stuff goes into it. So like you were talking about with your client, like recognizing the emotional experience of it, recognizing what’s going on behind the scenes. Oh, I don’t know if I want this promotion, so if I do well in this thing. You know, and some of the ways that people can self sabotage, and taking all of that and helping people kind of like push it out there and deliver it in a way that, you know, moves them towards where they really ultimately want to be because the chariot is very much about like, what avenue can I take to like get towards what I want and how can I show what’s kind of underneath this, like hard outer shells, like how can I bring forth all of the stuff that is behind that but in a way that is very concise and like communicated clearly and able to, like efficiently get me to the next place or get this point across which I think is really cool. And then I also think that one of the things… one of the cards that I see showing up for you as well is the page of swords, and I love the pages and with the pages swords, it’s funny because you know, swords are really about communication and like that air quality and also what’s going on in our mind that is needing to kind of come forth. And with the page of swords especially, it’s about approaching those ideas with like a curiosity and kind of nailing, like drilling down and asking those questions and going like a layer deeper and a layer deeper and a layer deeper and trying to uncover what is really trying to come out or what, you know, what really wants to be presented in the moment without a lot of judgment. And I feel like so much of your coaching work is really about doing that, and really drawing those things out of people. And so yeah, how does that strike you?

Angie Flynn McIver  1:00:51  

I love both of those. That is like, spot on. And I it’s funny when you talk about the chariot as being the vehicle or the vessel, because one thing that we’ve been talking about a lot since all communication has moved virtual, is that when we’re having a workshop or an event, or a meeting even, it needs a container. Like we used to have a container when we would go into a room and have our meeting or our workshop or event in a room, but now we don’t have a container. And so that that means a lot of things. And so figuring out like as you said the packaging, you know. How do we get from point A to point B? And, yeah, I really love that. Those are both great. 

Sheila M  1:01:36  

Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. So tell us like how we can work with you now? And people are listening to this and they’re like, Oh, my God, I really need… I really need help, you know, how can they work with you? And what do you have going on now?

Angie Flynn McIver  1:01:51  

Yeah, thank you, my company can be found at www.igniteCSP.com – that stands for coaching, speaking presenting -.com. We have individual clients. I have about nine coaches who work with me and they all take individual clients. Obviously, that’s all done virtually right now, but in the hopefully in the after times, we will travel again. We work with, as you said big companies. We do workshops, particularly with things like leadership development initiatives, where maybe some people who are getting ready for the next level at their companies are being trained in public speaking and presentation skills. We do a lot of that kind of work. But our big thing right now, our big focus that we’re very excited about is these small group cohorts that we call catalysts, that are coaching groups that meet for about five weeks, and you get one on one coaching and you get to meet your cohort and work with your cohort of peers. And then you get really robust coaching support from the Ignite CSP staff. And the one that we’re rolling out in January, and then again in March, is the public speaking catalyst specifically, and we’re dealing with a lot of virtual quote unquote, public speaking right now and how that looks different and how we have to show up differently in these virtual platforms.

Sheila M  1:03:24  

I love that so much. And what’s so funny about you explaining this too, and I know about what you do ahead of time, but I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this program is literally like the chariot too like, I think that’s so funny, because it’s like a little package that’s taking you from like, start to finish. Like, that’s so funny. I was like, sitting, I was like, Oh, my Gosh, that’s so crazy. And I love that you do it like that, too. And like you said, I think there’s really something to be said about the transition to virtual and how difficult it has been to people because anybody who has a theatre background knows how much you play off of your audience, whether that audience is an actual audience for a play, or whether it’s a team for your meeting. And it is just not the same online. And I know even just from teaching yoga and switching to teaching yoga online, it’s a huge transition. And you’re not getting the energy in the room anymore. I didn’t realize until we transitioned to teaching online how much I was reading the room when I walked like through the classroom and looked at people because I don’t teach from like my mat, I kind of move around the room and you know, maybe adjust people, maybe not I don’t really do a lot of hands on stuff because I don’t think that’s appropriate, but I really… I took it for granted, I think before going online. So I know there are so many people who could benefit from that right now. That’s awesome. 

Angie Flynn McIver  1:04:53  

Yeah. We worked with a bunch of teachers too, to that point. We did some work with teachers over the summer and that was a huge eye opener for me really of exactly that. You know, if a fourth grade teacher who usually, you know, walks around the tables can’t do that, you know, what are they doing instead? So that’s something that we’ve been doing a lot of work on. 

Sheila M  1:05:14  

Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to tell who’s falling behind. It’s hard to tell who’s keeping up. It’s hard to tell, like, if there’s a struggle, if somebody is really emotional, if you need to kind of like pull back a little bit. And I’m sure that’s true for all different types of teaching and like any type of speaking at all. It’s really hard to know how engaged people are online. So I think that’s super valuable. So I will put everything in the show notes so that people can get in touch with you and find you and get involved in those programs. But thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Angie Flynn McIver  1:05:44  

Thank you. I’m thrilled to have been here. This was wonderful. 

Sheila M  1:05:47  

Yeah, this is so great. So I will talk to you soon. 

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you loved today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episode show notes, you can head over to starsagespirit.com

It’s no secret that running a business is hard. But running a business during a global pandemic, a social justice uprising, and an election year is damn near impossible. In this episode I discuss My experience and some of the biggest learnings from working through 2020 as an entrepreneur. 

I talk about managing burnout and chronic health issues. I also share some larger takeaways about the importance of focusing on the work that you love and focusing your work in general. It’s never been more important to be strategic and intentional with the work that you’re doing and the more focused you can be, the better outcome you’re going to have.

 

I discuss how even as an intuitive person it can be hard to listen to intuition and to trust that the things that I want to do in my business will be the things that serve me best. I talk all about how I shifted my business to be more focused on business and career tarot reading and energy healing. I also speak to some of the fear that I had about letting go of long-term offerings and services that were popular but did not suit me this year.

I learned how to truly lean on my tarot and energy work practice as tools to keep me healthy and sane through the year.

I also discussed the importance of community and having an effective support system. You don’t want to wait until you’re in a crisis to find people that can help you stay grounded and healthy. Ultimately I’m a human before I am a business owner and taking care of my human needs has never been more important than it has been in this past year. I discuss some of the ways that I learned to take better care of myself and how you can too.

I hope this episode will serve as validation for your own feelings managing through this year and give you some insight into how to prioritize your own needs. self-care is a popular buzzword but it’s also an integral part of being a human being. You have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of other people and your ability to do that affects how you show up for the people you love.

I also wrote this blog post all about this topic here: https://www.starsagespirit.com/2020/12/29/lessons-from-2020/

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance energy healing session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium, and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the tarot along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition, and live intentionally with the tarot.

Welcome back to Living Tarot. I wanted to put an episode together for you today that’s a little different, a little more personal than some of the episodes that I do. Because I realized that with the year that we’ve had, there have been some things that I’ve realized about being intuitive and running a business that might help other people who are out there doing similar work. And so I wanted to kind of put together a roundup of what I’ve learned this year, and some of the lessons that I am hoping to carry into 2021 with me, and hopefully, implement for real and not just, you know, maybe this will serve as some sort of accountability to me to actually do those things that I say that I’m going to do. So first of all, it comes it’s an obvious thing to say that this year has been a really challenging year to run a business for everyone, any small business in your community, any entrepreneur, any solopreneur. It’s just been, it’s been a tough year to be a human being. And it’s been a tough year to try to run a business with a lot of moving parts and a lot of things changing on a regular basis and being under a tremendous amount of stress just from the outside world. So I think I want to start with the idea that no matter how spiritual you are, how intuitive you are, no matter how much you connect and really use your spirituality in your life, or in your work, you’re a human first. And I have been fighting against this all year. I know about self care. I know the importance of self care. I deal with some chronic health issues. So it’s a necessity in my life. And yet, I still want to fight against it, you know. I think there’s something to be said for my astrology in that. There’s something to be said for my general attitude towards life. And I’ve really learned a lot this year about how to treat myself like a human being, before I treat myself like an intuitive or a business owner because just with dealing with chronic health issues, and also dealing with an extremely, extremely traumatic and stressful year, I’ve been separated from my family for most of the year. I’ve seen them a couple times outside far away. My sister is a nurse and I have not given her a hug in nine months and she could probably really use one. And you know, we haven’t seen my boyfriend’s parents. I haven’t seen really good friends, like so many of us. And I’m also fortunate that I am in a situation and you know, privileged to be in the situation of being able to shift my business online, which a lot of people have not been able to do. But I found myself as a person who does a lot of caretaking for other people, and does a lot of healing work feeling like I needed to constantly do more. This feeling of helplessness that comes up you know, people respond to it in different ways and what I found myself doing, and what I often find myself doing in situations of helplessness is trying to find more things to do. Well, if I can just do this one thing, then I won’t feel so helpless or if I can just help with this one thing or if I can just create one more class or if I can just run one more workshop or if I can just add one more course. And I was basically trying to solve like all of the world’s problems personally myself with like one workshop, which is totally unreasonable and I don’t, you know, intellectually, I think I could tell myself Like, that doesn’t make any sense, but emotionally that’s how I was dealing with things. And I really threw myself into my work. And I, you know, I tried to do way too many things. And I ignored my own nervous system, I think initially, over the first two weeks of being in lockdown, and having things really be pretty scary where I live, outside Philadelphia. You know, I was kind of, you know, very emotional and falling apart a lot at the beginning. And then I was kind of like, Okay, I guess we’re just like living in this emergency state, you know, like so many of us. So now I just need to keep running my business. And I think if I could go back and remind myself at the beginning, that I’m a human being, and that maybe I need to slow down a little bit, maybe I need to take less clients on week to week, less commitments for myself, right now, I might have had a different experience, I’ve gotten to that place now. And if you’re a person who’s worked with me, for a long time, you will notice that I’ve set up parameters in my business to be seeing clients less often. So less days a week and less sessions per week. So people have to book out a little farther now, which, you know, I was afraid to do and, you know, I’ve changed some of the work that I’m doing as well to be the work that is most sustainable for me, and that I enjoy the most. So there are a lot of lessons in being human. I also found myself, you know, in the middle of this pandemic, having a… luckily, and very fortunately for me, minor COVID-unrelated health crisis, that really threw me for a loop, because I was not… you know, I was certainly not expecting it. And, you know, luckily, it is manageable and under control. But it was a very big surprise that I had to pretty much, you know, handle unexpectedly, and readjust, you know, my business, my teaching, and really caused me to have that moment to pause, you know, in the middle of all of this chaos and be like, Okay, what I’m doing is not going to continue to serve me. What I’ve done so far is not going to do it, for me moving forward. And it’s really hard to allow yourself to be human when you’ve got all these, you know, big dreams and big ideas. And I know that people can relate to this, because I’ve had these conversations with a lot of my friends this year, that both those who run businesses and those who are just in the business world, and also those who are parents and staying at home with their kids. God bless. I really… it’s a hard year for allowing yourself like time and space to just like, be present and feel how you’re feeling because we’ve kind of been moving from emergency to emergency and I feel like on a collective level, and even for me, personally this year, on a personal level. And so that was really hard I am very type A and very ambitious. And I always want to be, you know, going after that next thing. I have all these ideas, and I want to make all of them happen. So I do want to talk about that because I think if you are a person who this year has felt like you need to operate at the same level, and we’ve all seen the memes, we’ve all seen things about this, but if you are a person who feels like you need to always be operating at that level, and any drop off is like a… it’s a flaw in your character, just you know, maybe over the next month or so, like give yourself the opportunity to have some time where you’re not doing. You know I always go back to that phrase, you’re a human being not a human doing. And it is hard to be in that space, even as somebody who embraces spirituality and meditation and yoga and has worked for a long time on being more mindful, more present in my body. I mean, the nature of everything that’s happening this year is so traumatic that a lot of us don’t want to be in our bodies. And if you have a history of trauma, like myself, then you might be extra hyper vigilant right now and that might show up in all different ways. For some people, it’s dissociating. For some people, it’s abusing substances. For some people, it’s you know, throwing yourself into work and pretending that everything else isn’t happening and that you should be functioning at the same level. And like I said, I say this all without judgment, because this is entirely coming from my experience of trying to run this business this year, to the best of my ability, and also keeping it authentic, you know, keeping it real with people. I can have a really hard time as a healer and as somebody who is an authority on these things of being really open about the things that I’m struggling with, and like what’s going on with me personally, and not to say that I need to share stuff about my personal experience, or my personal life with my clients, but more that humanizing the experience of being a healer is really to everybody’s benefit, because I don’t actually see myself as in some way, like elevated over my clients. I believe very much that they are doing the healing, and I’m just providing the space and the conditions for them to be able to do it themselves. So it’s really not about me feeling like I need to be some elevated teacher in some way, but more that there’s a perfectionism in how I want to be perceived. And so if that is happening for you, as well, I will really say what helped me a lot is to slow down, like, slow down and focus and focus on one thing, which is…. I’ll kind of go right into that as as the next thing that I’ve learned, but less is more when it comes to what you’re doing and what you’re offering, especially if you are a person who is a solopreneur like myself, where you’re just you and your business, working for yourself. And as I’ve learned from being in business for myself, you know, I really have two jobs. I have the Sheila who’s showing up and facilitating healing and reading Tarot and doing all these things for clients. And then I have the business manager, Sheila. And those are, you know… both of those jobs take time. And I think when I was initially thinking about my work, I was only thinking about the hours that I was healing and working with clients. So it’s been an adjustment for me to focus a little bit more. So like I said, allowing myself to be human meant reducing the types of offers that I was doing, and reducing and just completely eliminating the offers that were too much work or that I found to be too draining, to successfully sustain throughout, basically a global state of emergency and a personal state of emergency, you know. So that was really important for me to realize, and if you’re like listening to this, and you are like hell no, like there is not a chance that I’m letting go of these things, I like all of these things. Listen, I am with you. I am a Sagittarius rising. I want to do everything. I want to learn about everything. I want to be an expert at everything. I want to deeply study everything. I have a million ideas and I want to do them all. And it’s been very, very difficult for me to do less, which sounds crazy, but it’s really, really true. It has been so hard for me to allow myself to be more focused on just one or two types of work. So if you have been following along, I reduced the types of readings that I was doing down to just career and business tarot readings. And I’m still doing energy work, as well. And I do want to say, you know, I was resistant to doing that, even though my favorite type of readings were working with people through career transitions and, you know, I had this experience of working with a client where we went from the time that she was laid off from her job, until she was job searching, until she was looking at these two specific offers, and then deciding how to approach those offers. It was such an amazing and clarifying experience for both of us because she got all this clarity about exactly what job she wanted, exactly how to negotiate a huge raise for herself and that was amazing, but for me, it really brought me face to face with the work that I love so much and that I really enjoy so much. And frankly, I was worried about letting go of the other things because you know, I do a lot of relationship readings historically, but I also find that, you know, nothing happens in a vacuum. So when we talk about our career, you can’t really talk about what’s going on in your career without also talking about what kind of support you have at home or what kind of support you have in your relationship or from your family or from your friends; like all of these different areas of our life interweave with what’s going on in our career and in our business and in the work that we’re doing. And so I really… I had this very clarifying moment with this client, where I realized that that would actually be a really good thing for me to do, because it’s what I enjoy. And when I lead the session, I feel really energized and really excited. And it’s not to say that I didn’t feel that way about the other work that I was doing, but that was the work that I really, really, like 100% wanted to dedicate myself to. And the more focused I have been on that, the better my business has been doing, and frankly, the better I feel. So I’ve noticed that it’s easier for me to sustain my energy level. It’s easier for me to not feel like I need to go, go, go all the time. And it really has set me free to be more creative about where I see my business going long term. So it’s really exciting for me, because just having that little bit of mental space has freed me up to be more creative, which is really what I wanted this year anyway. So it’s been a lesson for me. And if you’re listening to this, and you’re like I couldn’t possibly let go of these things. One of the things that really helped me was looking at it as temporary. I can always choose to add those things back in. And once life goes back to relative, relatively normal, I may do that. But for now, this has really helped me talk about the work that I’m doing. It’s helped me find the right clients. It’s helped me help the clients that I have been working with to my maximum ability. And it’s also kept me in kind of a similar headspace when I’m going into these readings, which has been just… it’s really been amazing. So what else have I learned? Okay, so walk your talk. This is really important because I see a lot of people who teach things and don’t do them. So let me be totally honest with you. I really use the stuff that I teach. Like everything that I teach in my Tarot course Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives, which by the way is going to be available, you know, evergreen next year. You’ll be able to access it whenever you would like. So I’m not going to be running like monthly or, you know, quarterly trainings. It’s just going to be available all the time. But in practical Tarot for everyday intuitive, the way that I teach Tarot, and the way that I teach intuitive spreads, and intuitive reading is literally the way that I use Tarot in my life. And I have relied on Tarot very heavily this year especially. I suffer from anxiety and, you know, historically have suffered from depression. Both of which before Coronavirus, were pretty well managed and maintained. Doesn’t mean that they weren’t there, or you know that I wasn’t still working with them, but they weren’t debilitating or like running my life. But throughout this year, with so many different things happening in the world, and being a person who is very empathic, and really takes on kind of the energy of whatever’s happening out there, I was struggling and so I used… I have a spread, called Tarot for Anxiety. I used that spread a lot. And I also used one of my favorite questions when I am having anxiety because sometimes even just doing a whole spread is too much and I just need to sit down with my deck and say what do I need right now. And even just asking that one question is enough to get me from that overthinking place more into my body, a more receptive place. And I’ll talk about that a little bit more in another episode that I’m going to do about using Tarot for anxiety. But I did want to talk about that because I really have needed to walk my talk in my business this year. I have needed to rest more. I have needed to do my own spreads more. I have needed to rely on Tarot to help me to make decisions in my business. I mean, these are things that I teach, but they are really things that I do in my business. And when I’m mulling something over, when I’m evaluating things, when I was thinking about I mean, the perfect example, when I was thinking about moving to just doing career and business work, I was really nervous about it. And my logical brain was like, Sheila, don’t say no to business. But I had to go, I had to sit down with my deck, and I had to kind of work through that anxiety by doing a spread and looking through some stuff and asking some intuitive questions because truly I have found it to be an invaluable tool at self reflection, like self reflecting in my business, and keeping me accountable to what I say I’m going to do because when I write things down, and I journal about these things, and then later on having anxiety and don’t want to do them, I can go back and read that book out what I was thinking and what I was processing in that moment, and then I have to do it. So that has been really helpful. And if you… I do Reiki on myself as well. If you are an energy healer, if you are a tarot reader, I highly encourage you to use your tools, because I think so often when we do them as a job, we only think about how they can help other people and forget to use them to help ourselves. So that’s definitely something that I have relied on so much. 

Hey there, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead, to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year, month by month, talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays. And I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode or check out my website at starsagespirit.com. And if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person, I’ve also created a DIY year ahead Tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients, and help you to define what you really want out of this year and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading, it is a very accessible price point, and you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year and it’s not even specific to this time of year. You can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday. The options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today. 

And then, really, you need to choose yourself first. Which can sound selfish and seem crazy. Especially like I said before, when you when you have that logical side of yourself that’s like you can’t say no to money, you run a small business. You really have to choose what you want, and not what you think other people expect. And the perfect example of this is at the beginning of quarantine, I happened to have a bunch of mediumship readings scheduled. And I had already been feeling like I wanted to move away from that work and not that I don’t want to do it, but I don’t really enjoy doing it in that type of setting. And so when things shut down for quarantine, it was kind of like a… it was almost like this, like boundary was set for me. And it’s not that I can’t do it over a distance, but I did find because it is already harder for me to like sit down in a session and pull in spirits for that person, rather than just the spirits who may come and talk to me on a regular basis. You know, there’s two different qualities to how much energy it takes to do those things. And because I was already finding that draining, and I had all of these sessions scheduled that I had to then postpone, it was an interesting experience because at first I postponed and then you know, I kind of said, I don’t see this happening in the foreseeable future. So I referred people to another reader that I know who is still working with people. And I basically… you know, it was really hard for me to let go of that. But when I did, I felt relieved. And to me that is always a sign that I’m doing the right thing and that I’m I’m making a good decision for myself, even though it’s hard. And I kept thinking about things, when I was thinking about what I wanted to offer in terms of like, what other people wanted me to do. And you know, obviously that needs to be consideration in your business, but I was only thinking about that. And that’s how I kind of got to this place of doing all of these different things. And I liked all of them, but I felt like I had to keep doing all of them, rather than refining things down and like, managing my energy better and feeling, you know, more aligned with the work that I was doing on a daily basis. And so I think that that’s really important to remember is that when you run your own business, and for me, you know, I worked in corporate America for 12 years… 13 years… 14… I don’t even know. It’s a time warp. But I spent all of these years doing that and I didn’t leave doing that, so that I could also like, work myself to death, and work crazy long hours and do stuff that I didn’t really love doing. It is hard work to run a business. It is really hard work, even though it’s just me. I’m not like running a team or anything. It is super hard work. I can’t stress this enough. And it is hard to shut down. It’s hard to take a break. It’s hard to give yourself that grace. So you need to really love what you’re doing. I mean, you need to really enjoy it, you need to feel revitalized by it. Doesn’t mean it isn’t hard work or that you won’t, you know, feel tired or whatever, but you don’t want to feel drained afterwards. And so I was really being drained by having too many different things going on. And when I focused on what I really wanted to do, and what I really, really am enjoying right now, it’s been a completely different experience for me working with people, and it’s been really wonderful. So that’s another idea, okay. And then I also have to say that one of the most important things for me this year, was finding community. And it can sound crazy, because we’re in the middle of a pandemic. You can’t really be near people, but I did a small group business training program with a group of really fabulous, intuitive, amazing people, and have kept in touch with all of them. And we all talk on an ongoing basis. Hi to all of you. They have all either been on or will be on in the new year on the podcast. And are just amazingly talented and wise human beings who have kept me accountable to my own boundaries, my own agreements. And really been a touch point for me at a time when it can feel especially isolating to be an entrepreneur. I’ve said it before quite a few times, but it can be a really isolating experience to work for yourself. You don’t really have any co workers. And as Davis Carr, who’s been on the podcast, said in our group chat the one day, I feel like this is like my business watercooler chat time because like we’ll talk about stuff that’s going on and we get to kind of catch up with each other and we aren’t alone and it does feel a little bit like having co workers. And sometimes we literally do have co working time where we’ll just hop on zoom, and we’ll work through issues that one of us is having, or we’ll check, you know, copy for each other or talk through issues or problems that are coming up or client problems. And it’s been just so amazing to have this sense of community. And the sense of people who understand exactly what I’m going through, even if their business is slightly different. And that has been so important for me. And there’s also a huge community of other people as well, who I follow and who give business advice and who are just like amazing, wonderful human beings who have so much wisdom and support. And having that sense of community for me this year has been so important, even if it is just my internet friends as I say. We’re all internet friends now, right? All of our friends are internet friends. But really finding that group of people who can validate your experience, talk through stuff with you, offer ideas and support, and really like that sense of encouragement and camaraderie of being in something together has been so powerful for me. And then finally, I want to talk about planning. So at the end of 2019, I did everything right. I had done everything right, according to how you’re supposed to run a business. I was in my first year of business. So I went full time in my job, May of 2019. And I actually did really well. May and June, I was super booked up. I was very, very busy. The summer was a little bit quieter, but I still had some like consistent business. And then in the fall, I was like, booming. I was doing great. So I invested in myself and I did a training on how to plan your year from a fabulous business and scalability coach, and really learned a lot also met two of my other very good business friends. And it was really just like a fabulous experience. I really learned a lot about planning. And I can get very far ahead of myself, as I discussed earlier. So I made a whole business plan for 2020. And you can probably guess where I’m going with this. A lot of it relied on being in person and doing in person events, which was kind of like my big plan for my focus for the year. So just a reminder that being intuitive doesn’t mean that you know, everything, okay? And it also doesn’t mean that it’s easy to listen in those moments when you have an impulse that that might not work because both of those things happened. But I had this whole plan and then when the pandemic really started raging around here, and we went into a lockdown, and everything was shut down, I had to completely pivot my business. I was already doing some stuff online, but I had to move clients who were used to having access to me in person online, which, you know, not everybody enjoys technology, and not everybody enjoys technology in their healing experiences, which I understand. But I think that that was one of the things that, you know, kind of caused me to be in this place of feeling like I was playing catch up all year. You know, I think a lot of us felt that way. But, you know, I had this whole plan, I had done everything right. So planning is great because I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew what I wanted to accomplish this year. And I had ideas and I already had the plan to do my course online. So I was fortunate that that was in my plans for the year. But as much as planning is important, you also need to leave the space for it to be dynamic. And this is both true, you know, on a large scale in terms of you know, shifting business to entirely online and it’s also true in the small scale. So I needed to find ways to use my time efficiently because I do have some chronic health issues and energy management issues. You know, I kind of have to have days where if I feel really good, and I’m really inspired, and I want to work like I got to be able to work that day, and I got to be able to, you know, maybe put in longer hours than I normally would. And on days when I don’t feel good, that means I need to rest, take the opportunity to slow down and to really take good care of myself and to allow my schedule to be a little bit more dynamic, which meant things like narrowing down the number of days per month that I was working with people. And really being intentional about the times that I chose to work with people and the time that I allowed to be either downtime or work on the business time. So that’s been one of the things that I think is really important. You know, it’s great to have plans, it’s important to plan ahead, but you also need to leave a little bit of flexibility in there and not have too much perfectionism because there comes a time when even the best plans are pretty much worthless. So I hope this has been helpful for you. It has obviously been a really challenging year, but I have learned a lot personally and I feel like I am a different business owner in the best way now and this isn’t to like sugarcoat what has really been a real shit sandwich of a year. And I’ve been fortunate to, you know, have the support of my partner, the support of my family, the support of friends through this whole time and also to have, you know, be financially in a place where things are tight, but I’m not like struggling right now. And so I think it’s really important to take stock for yourself and give yourself some credit for you know, where you were at the beginning of the year, where you are now, and how you’ve managed through what is really a pretty major crisis. And probably for most of us, hopefully the most difficult thing that we will go through in our businesses. So I hope that you will take the things that you’ve learned and really take stock of them. Let this be, you know, a guide for you to kind of assess for yourself, and also to really look at what you might want to change in order to feel differently at the end of next year. So like, if you could take everything you learned this year and distill it down into a couple important lessons, how will that affect the way you plan for this year? So I hope that helps. I will talk a little bit more about how to plan your year with Tarot over like the next couple episodes. We’ll talk a little bit about the year ahead and what to expect and how to really use Tarot as a tool for embodiment and staying in touch with yourself and really feeling that sense of like connection to your life and your purpose. Thank you so much for listening as always. And of course, if you are interested, my year ahead, Tarot DIY guide and guided meditation is still available. And it is a great time of year to purchase that, and can be a really excellent tool for helping you do an assessment of where you’ve been, there’s a very intentional way that I have set that guide up. It includes a PDF workbook, and also

some audio meditations for you to listen to, as you’re going through the exercises in that workbook. And I’ve set it up very intentionally, so that you’re doing an assessment of what you’ve learned where you’re coming from, and what you’re moving into, and how to work with that energy rather than working against it, which I think we try to like enforce our will on on the things that are happening around us. And doing this kind of spread can really help you be in more of a receptive and constructive place. So if you are interested, the link is in the show notes for today’s episode. And if you feel like you are at a point where you really need to assess your career or assess your business and get a little bit more clarity around what you want to do over the next year, if you’re feeling like you’re in a rut and you’re trying to break out of it, if something is missing, and you’re just feeling that sense of dissatisfaction and discontent, feel free to book a career tarot reading with me, or business tarot reading with me and we can talk through obstacles that are coming up for you. We can talk through where that dissatisfaction might be coming from, and how to move to more of a place of satisfaction and contentment, and what that looks like for you personally. So you can also sign up for one of those sessions in the link in the show notes today. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next week.

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you loved today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episodes show notes, you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On Episode 27 of Living Tarot, I interview my friend, Chauna Byrant.  Chauna is an energy worker, and movement guide. Originally from Southern California, Chauna now resides in Washington DC. Chauna leads breathwork meditation and teaches pilates full-time. Chauna believes in living life to the fullest and helps clients and groups alike discover their inner strength and feel more alive!  I have had the immense pleasure of participating in breathwork led by Chauna and have found it to be a powerfully moving experience.  Chauna is a master of holding space.

• Chauna discusses what led her to breathwork and how she began her journey of healing.
• She discusses some common misunderstandings and misconceptions about breathwork.
• We both share how our healing practices have changed and shifted since moving into the online space during the pandemic.
• Chauna also share about her experience of parting ways with the breathwork lineage of her breathwork teacher and the responsibility that we all have as healing facilitators and students to hold our teachers accountable.
• Chauna shares some of the bright points that she has had through a challenging year and we both discuss the importance of tending to your own healing as someone who holds space for others healing.

This is a very vulnerable episode where we discuss the importance of recognizing power dynamics in healing work and the responsibility that we have to call people in for equity and accountability.  Healing work extends beyond just the session to session work and expands out into other areas of our lives and as healing arts facilitators we have a responsibility to do bring that healing into our communities through our activism.

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance energy healing session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Connect with Chauna:

Find Chauna online at https://www.chaunabryant.com/

Or on Intagram https://www.instagram.com/chaunabryant

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium, and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week, on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the tarot along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition, and live intentionally with the tarot.

Welcome back to Living Tarot. In today’s episode, I wanted to dive deep on the idea of sitting with grief, of allowing it to visit, of recognizing its presence, in particular throughout the holiday season. 2020 has been a difficult year for most people in the world. And there are a lot of different types of grief that we’ve all been dealing with, whether it is the grief of a family member or loved one passing away, if it’s the grief of having to let go of something that you thought was going to be different, like a business or something like that, or just the disappointment of not being able to see friends and family in the same way that we normally do around the holidays. All of those are valid reasons to grieve or to feel grief. And I really wanted to acknowledge that in this episode and talk a little bit about what it means to sit with the energy of the five of cups. Now in the Tarot, the five of cups is in the minor arcana. It is a card that really represents acknowledging grief and taking a moment to really sit with that feeling, to allow it to exist without judgment or without having to cover it up or make it look pleasant for other people, or make it palatable. And I’ve worked with a lot of people who are grieving over the years, in particular with mediumship work, but in a lot of the other work I do as well. I do a lot of grief work in Reiki, and energy healing work that I do. And I also think that it’s present frequently in readings that I do as well with Tarot. So I really wanted to take some time to talk about some of the things that I’ve learned from doing mediumship. This year, I have not been doing this kind of work. It’s a challenging time in general for me to try to manage that energy. So I’ve been taking a little bit of a break from doing it. But I did want to take some time to talk about how the five of cups shows up in our real lives and how some of the themes that I’ve seen over the years through doing a lot of different mediumship readings, sometimes some of those ideas that I hear over and over, I think would be helpful for me to share with a wider audience. So that’s kind of what I want to do in this episode today. So starting off, when we talk about the five of cups in the Tarot, we’re really talking about acknowledging the reality of our disappointment and our grief, and not forcing it into something that is pretty or that is socially acceptable to talk about and to really like acknowledge the deep disappointment and the deep longing, the deep depression that can come along with that kind of grief. And this card is important because one of the things that I have seen a lot over the years of giving readings is that people feel like they need to achieve in grief, which might sound strange, but because in the United States in particular, we are very driven by accomplishment and by progress, people hear about things like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief, which are wonderful, but which most people take out of context because when Kubler-Ross wrote about grief, she was talking about the grief of people who are dying, not everybody who is left behind, so to speak. And so there is a definitive end to the dying, they know that they are going to die and so they have to move through those stages. For the rest of us who are left behind, so to speak, that is not the case. But what I hear repeatedly from clients is, I’m in this stage of grief, or I’m in this place, or I should be farther along, I should be over this by now, I should not be so emotional, I should be able to have these conversations, I should be able to talk about it without crying, or I should be able to clean up my mom’s house without getting super emotional. There are so many shoulds and have-to’s and a lot of expectations that I see people who are grieving set for themselves, that aren’t really realistic. When it comes to grief, we don’t need to achieve. We really need to grieve and sit with it, and allow it to be what it is in the moment and that is more of like a cycle or a spiral of grief. So at the center, we might have the actual event that happens and over time, you know, we kind of move farther and farther away from center, but we’re still orbiting that same pain and we will have days where we feel fine, and then days where we actually might find a little bit of joy and maybe there’s some guilt that comes in with that as well. All of that is normal. Maybe we have days where we just feel terrible and maybe it’s like a couple days or a week or two weeks, where we just feel awful again, and we thought that we were over it. But what I’ve heard kind of consistently over the years from my clients is that they feel like they should be in a different place than they are. And when we do that to ourselves, when we say I should be in this place with my grief, or I should be over this by now, we don’t take the time to actually acknowledge what is. So we just kind of shove down and ignore whatever grief that we’re feeling and that’s not healthy for anyone. It will come out in other ways, whether it’s, you know, anger, rage, frustration with the people around you. And as a general process of grief, that’s not a problem. But when it starts to affect other areas of your life, because you’re not taking the time to acknowledge what’s really going on, the grief that you’re truly feeling, and acknowledging that not just to yourself, but also to other people in your life and feeling like you can talk about those things when they come up instead of having to, you know, kind of moderate other people’s experience of your grief. So I think that’s important to talk about. Because there is a lot of expectations that we put on ourselves, in particular, when it comes to the holiday season, to show up joyfully, to show up in like a pretty package of grief. I’m sad, but also it’s okay to be happy around me, which I don’t think anybody that’s grieving thinks that it’s not okay for other people to be happy around them, but I think sometimes other people can feel guilt for, you know, celebrating when they know that somebody is having a hard time. So I do just want to acknowledge that. And when we bring that back to that sense of the five of cups, we really want to in those moments when we are feeling sad, to really acknowledge it to say, you know, I don’t want to bring the party down or, you know, I don’t want to change the mood too much, but I’ve been having a really hard time or I’ve really been missing this person or I’m really struggling this year, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a good time or that I can’t have a good time, but I’ve just been having a really hard time. And also setting yourself up to get the kind of support you need. So whether that means therapy, whether that means community, through religion, or friendships, or just having consistent time, and even though for many of us, that means not doing anything like that in person, I do think that it’s important to, you know, set up some sort of digital hangout so that you can get that kind of support that you need, maybe it’s a grief group or something like that. But five of cups is really about acknowledging what’s real and not feeling like you need to make it smaller or more socially acceptable. So that’s the first thing I wanted to say. I also wanted to say that having that more cyclic version of grief is also more of the reality of it. So you might have an extended period of time over the holidays where you feel fine and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you feel super angry, or super betrayed, or really, really sad or deeply depressed. And that’s really normal too. And I want to say that because there are so many different ways to express grief, and everybody’s experience is completely unique. So as much as we’d like to say that there’s rules to follow, or there’s a progress that’s natural, I don’t actually think that that’s true. And the more pressure you put on yourself to feel that way, the harder that it is for you to feel, what’s actually going on for you. So whatever emotions, feelings, ideas come up, that you’re feeling in that moment, just allow yourself to feel that, you know, you can take some time to write, you can give yourself a little bit of extra time, before or after family time, or, you know, it doesn’t have to be a huge event, you can just find small ways to allow yourself to feel that if you’re not comfortable totally sitting down and like sinking into it. And if you want to sit down and sink into it, that’s also okay. Consider this episode of living Tarot your permission to feel however you feel this holiday season. If you take anything out of this today, I hope that you will take that you can show up exactly as you are. And if there was ever a year to do that, it is this year. I also want to take a moment to talk about this year in relation to the five of cups. So there has been a lot of disappointment this year and a lot of grief this year. There has been racial violence and oppression that is gut wrenching and absolutely horrifying. And it is a deep wound that needs to be acknowledged by many people and has not been until this year, which is a travesty. There has also been widespread, at the time of recording this, I mean over 250,000 Americans have lost their lives to Coronavirus, so there has been widespread death. On top of that, we have also put a lot of pressure on health care providers, people who are working through this pandemic and dealing with unprecedented death, grief, helplessness that a lot of them have not experienced. And I do want to acknowledge that also because that is the kind of grief, even if it isn’t personal to all of us, it is a grief that exists out there right now. And is it is a whole entirely new thing to navigate.

Hey there, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year month by month talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays and I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode or check out my website at starsagespirit.com and if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person, I’ve also created a DIY year ahead Tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients and help you to define what you really want out of this year and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading, it is a very accessible price point, and you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year and it’s not even specific to this time of year. You can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday. The options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today. 

There’s been a lot of death and a lot of grief. There’s also been, you know, other grief, which is not getting to see family members that we love, not getting to spend the holidays as we normally do with the people that we care about, not having the opportunity to see our friends. Many people have had to really adapt huge life events. So, you know, I have friends who have had babies during quarantine that we haven’t gotten to meet yet. There are friends and family members who have gotten married during quarantine, a lot of disappointment of life’s rites of passage, and the community and celebration that goes on around them, not happening anymore. And so people have continued to do those things, but without the same sense of community and witnessing that we’ve experienced in the past and there is absolutely grief that comes in with that too. There are people who have experienced divorce and breakups, people who have lost jobs and careers that they love. And I wanted to take a moment to talk about these, you know, we might define them as lesser griefs. But I think it’s important because when we create this like hierarchy of grief, and it’s not to say that everything is on the same level, but when we create a hierarchy, we tell people that what they’re feeling isn’t valid. And that doesn’t serve anyone because then we create this, this process of feeling grief, but not feeling like we have a right to it and so we just suppress it and shove it down. And it comes out in all these other areas of our life, or it comes out in resentment and that’s not what we want. So I really want to take this time today and say, the five of cups is here for all of these different types of grief. It is here for like the heavy grief of loss of a loved one, a spouse, a child, a partner, a grandparent, a friend. It is also here for the loss of identity, of a job, of a relationship, of feeling like you are a completely different person and you don’t know who that is yet. So I think that’s really important to talk about because in our society, we have a tendency to think that grief is only for the big things. It’s only for death, but it’s really for all of these different things in our lives. And I talked about it a lot on my episode with my friend, Nora Belal, who is a death doula. And there’s no right way to grieve, which is the reality of the five of cups. It’s about honoring where you are, really giving yourself a pause and a moment to actually consider where you are with your grief, to not feel like it has to be pretty or it has to be, you know, always in in the sense of like constructive. So when people come in, and they say things like, oh, I’ve been struggling, but I’m feeling a little bit better now, or I’m going to this group and it’s making me feel better. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve noticed that people have a tendency to package their grief like that. Oh, you know, the breakups been really hard, but I’ve been trying all these new hobbies, and I feel better now, you know, best best month ever, I’m out on my own, again, new and improved self. That’s great and it’s perfect if that’s how you’re handling things, but I think that one of the things that I’ve seen with my clients is that they feel a need to show up and package that in a way that is acceptable to other people, rather than actually talking about how they feel. And it’s created this kind of surface level, acknowledgement of grief and the surface level acknowledgement of disappointment, and a very surface level support. And I experienced this, which I talked about recently on one of the episodes I can’t remember which one about talking to a couple friends of mine who have had losses this year or are in the process of dealing with some grief around family issues. And, you know, I pulled both of them aside separately at a outdoor socially distanced event and just kind of checked in to see how they were really doing because I saw some of that like packaging of grief, like, Oh, I’m really struggling, but you know, our new baby helps, you know, and it’s really joyful. And did really kind of pull them aside and say, you know, how are you really feeling, it’s okay to like tell me what you’re actually feeling like, I’m here for the heavy stuff and the life stuff and whatever you want to talk about. And I think that, you know, part of that I have a unique perspective and I think I deal in the world of grief a lot. So I have an easier time sitting with it than maybe some other people do. But both of the people that I had those conversations with recently, were like, thank you so much for asking, this is what’s going on and one of my friends who has a parent who has early Alzheimer’s, when I asked, told me that they’re happy to talk about it, but they feel like they can’t talk about it with other people, because they don’t want to make other people uncomfortable. And I hate the idea of people feeling that way, like they can’t share something that is going on with them, because they don’t want to make other people feel uncomfortable, or it’s not, like socially acceptable to talk about grief, or to talk about that disappointment and frustration and anxiety that can come up with dealing with a sick loved one, or someone who is on hospice care or someone who has just passed. So I do want to encourage you to really ask your friends and it’s not about prying. If they don’t want to talk about it, they don’t have to talk about it. But it’s about letting people know that you are there to embody that five of cups energy, and to sit with whatever grief they have to bring in. And to say, like, you know, I’m just here to listen, you know, I’m just here to listen to what’s going on, I won’t try to solve it for you, I won’t try to fix it or to you know, tie it up neatly, I’m just here to talk about it if you want to just talk about what’s going on. Because what I’ve heard over and over from people who are going through these periods of grief is that having that opportunity to just kind of air out what’s on their mind, to share what’s going on, and to not feel like the other person is trying to fix it or like they need to fix it, is a huge help. And it might not seem like you’re doing anything, but there’s something about bearing witness to grief that creates a sense of community and support without you really having to do more than just listen. So I hope that that helps. I will also say that, as we do this, boundaries are also important, which I just had two episodes where I talked about energetic boundaries and ethics with energetic boundaries. And I do want to talk about this here too. Because whether you are a person that’s grieving, or whether you are a person who is supporting someone who’s grieving boundaries are very important. And that means that you follow the lead of the person who is in that situation of sharing something vulnerable and sharing that grief. So that means you can ask questions, but don’t force the person to be where you want them to be and don’t force them to ask something that they aren’t comfortable with. And really, you know, let them talk about what they want to talk about. And if you are a person who is grieving, if there are people who are constantly bulldozing your grief or playing it down or just not giving you the opportunity to talk about it or trying to tie it up into a package for you, consider this your permission to separate yourself from that person. It’s particularly easy this year with Coronavirus to avoid contact with people. And if you have people in your life who are not providing the kind of support you need right now, it’s not that you need to permanently cut them out, but you don’t need to continue to participate in that kind of relationship where you’re having to constantly do a lot of extra work, to package everything, and to make your grief smaller and more socially acceptable in order to exist within that relationship. So consider this your permission to do what you like and to really honor yourself as you enter into that five of cups energy. So I hope that this will serve you all well going into this season and the end of the year. And I will see you all back here in a couple of weeks. Bye for now. 

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you love today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episodes show notes you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On episode 26 of Living Tarot, I talk about my experience working as a medium and sitting with people as they are moving through grief. There are so many types of grief that we have all experienced this year, and it isn’t all related to death or loss of a loved one.

• I explain the societal pressure of moving on and how it can invalidate feelings that people experience as they’re grieving.
• Grief is a spiral rather than a straight line, but our society often thinks of it in terms of making progress, and I talk the dissonance between that idea and how people feel.
• I talk about common phrases and expressions that I hear from people who are dealing with grief.
• I also discussed the ways in which we package our grief so that it’s socially acceptable and appropriate for other people.
• Finally, I talk about how embodying the five of cups can help us sit with the discomfort of grief without allowing it to consume us.

In this episode I also refer to episode 23 of Living Tarot with Nora Belal – in this episode we talk all about her work as a death midwife and navigating grief.  You can listen here.   https://www.starsagespirit.com/2020/12/02/death-midwifery-and-embodying-page-of-cups-page-of-pentacles-with-nora-belal/

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance Reiki session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium, and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week, on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the tarot along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition, and live intentionally with the tarot.

Welcome back to Living Tarot. In today’s episode, I wanted to dive deep on the idea of sitting with grief, of allowing it to visit, of recognizing its presence, in particular throughout the holiday season. 2020 has been a difficult year for most people in the world. And there are a lot of different types of grief that we’ve all been dealing with, whether it is the grief of a family member or loved one passing away, if it’s the grief of having to let go of something that you thought was going to be different, like a business or something like that, or just the disappointment of not being able to see friends and family in the same way that we normally do around the holidays. All of those are valid reasons to grieve or to feel grief. And I really wanted to acknowledge that in this episode and talk a little bit about what it means to sit with the energy of the five of cups. Now in the Tarot, the five of cups is in the minor arcana. It is a card that really represents acknowledging grief and taking a moment to really sit with that feeling, to allow it to exist without judgment or without having to cover it up or make it look pleasant for other people, or make it palatable. And I’ve worked with a lot of people who are grieving over the years, in particular with mediumship work, but in a lot of the other work I do as well. I do a lot of grief work in Reiki, and energy healing work that I do. And I also think that it’s present frequently in readings that I do as well with Tarot. So I really wanted to take some time to talk about some of the things that I’ve learned from doing mediumship. This year, I have not been doing this kind of work. It’s a challenging time in general for me to try to manage that energy. So I’ve been taking a little bit of a break from doing it. But I did want to take some time to talk about how the five of cups shows up in our real lives and how some of the themes that I’ve seen over the years through doing a lot of different mediumship readings, sometimes some of those ideas that I hear over and over, I think would be helpful for me to share with a wider audience. So that’s kind of what I want to do in this episode today. So starting off, when we talk about the five of cups in the Tarot, we’re really talking about acknowledging the reality of our disappointment and our grief, and not forcing it into something that is pretty or that is socially acceptable to talk about and to really like acknowledge the deep disappointment and the deep longing, the deep depression that can come along with that kind of grief. And this card is important because one of the things that I have seen a lot over the years of giving readings is that people feel like they need to achieve in grief, which might sound strange, but because in the United States in particular, we are very driven by accomplishment and by progress, people hear about things like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief, which are wonderful, but which most people take out of context because when Kubler-Ross wrote about grief, she was talking about the grief of people who are dying, not everybody who is left behind, so to speak. And so there is a definitive end to the dying, they know that they are going to die and so they have to move through those stages. For the rest of us who are left behind, so to speak, that is not the case. But what I hear repeatedly from clients is, I’m in this stage of grief, or I’m in this place, or I should be farther along, I should be over this by now, I should not be so emotional, I should be able to have these conversations, I should be able to talk about it without crying, or I should be able to clean up my mom’s house without getting super emotional. There are so many shoulds and have-to’s and a lot of expectations that I see people who are grieving set for themselves, that aren’t really realistic. When it comes to grief, we don’t need to achieve. We really need to grieve and sit with it, and allow it to be what it is in the moment and that is more of like a cycle or a spiral of grief. So at the center, we might have the actual event that happens and over time, you know, we kind of move farther and farther away from center, but we’re still orbiting that same pain and we will have days where we feel fine, and then days where we actually might find a little bit of joy and maybe there’s some guilt that comes in with that as well. All of that is normal. Maybe we have days where we just feel terrible and maybe it’s like a couple days or a week or two weeks, where we just feel awful again, and we thought that we were over it. But what I’ve heard kind of consistently over the years from my clients is that they feel like they should be in a different place than they are. And when we do that to ourselves, when we say I should be in this place with my grief, or I should be over this by now, we don’t take the time to actually acknowledge what is. So we just kind of shove down and ignore whatever grief that we’re feeling and that’s not healthy for anyone. It will come out in other ways, whether it’s, you know, anger, rage, frustration with the people around you. And as a general process of grief, that’s not a problem. But when it starts to affect other areas of your life, because you’re not taking the time to acknowledge what’s really going on, the grief that you’re truly feeling, and acknowledging that not just to yourself, but also to other people in your life and feeling like you can talk about those things when they come up instead of having to, you know, kind of moderate other people’s experience of your grief. So I think that’s important to talk about. Because there is a lot of expectations that we put on ourselves, in particular, when it comes to the holiday season, to show up joyfully, to show up in like a pretty package of grief. I’m sad, but also it’s okay to be happy around me, which I don’t think anybody that’s grieving thinks that it’s not okay for other people to be happy around them, but I think sometimes other people can feel guilt for, you know, celebrating when they know that somebody is having a hard time. So I do just want to acknowledge that. And when we bring that back to that sense of the five of cups, we really want to in those moments when we are feeling sad, to really acknowledge it to say, you know, I don’t want to bring the party down or, you know, I don’t want to change the mood too much, but I’ve been having a really hard time or I’ve really been missing this person or I’m really struggling this year, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a good time or that I can’t have a good time, but I’ve just been having a really hard time. And also setting yourself up to get the kind of support you need. So whether that means therapy, whether that means community, through religion, or friendships, or just having consistent time, and even though for many of us, that means not doing anything like that in person, I do think that it’s important to, you know, set up some sort of digital hangout so that you can get that kind of support that you need, maybe it’s a grief group or something like that. But five of cups is really about acknowledging what’s real and not feeling like you need to make it smaller or more socially acceptable. So that’s the first thing I wanted to say. I also wanted to say that having that more cyclic version of grief is also more of the reality of it. So you might have an extended period of time over the holidays where you feel fine and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you feel super angry, or super betrayed, or really, really sad or deeply depressed. And that’s really normal too. And I want to say that because there are so many different ways to express grief, and everybody’s experience is completely unique. So as much as we’d like to say that there’s rules to follow, or there’s a progress that’s natural, I don’t actually think that that’s true. And the more pressure you put on yourself to feel that way, the harder that it is for you to feel, what’s actually going on for you. So whatever emotions, feelings, ideas come up, that you’re feeling in that moment, just allow yourself to feel that, you know, you can take some time to write, you can give yourself a little bit of extra time, before or after family time, or, you know, it doesn’t have to be a huge event, you can just find small ways to allow yourself to feel that if you’re not comfortable totally sitting down and like sinking into it. And if you want to sit down and sink into it, that’s also okay. Consider this episode of living Tarot your permission to feel however you feel this holiday season. If you take anything out of this today, I hope that you will take that you can show up exactly as you are. And if there was ever a year to do that, it is this year. I also want to take a moment to talk about this year in relation to the five of cups. So there has been a lot of disappointment this year and a lot of grief this year. There has been racial violence and oppression that is gut wrenching and absolutely horrifying. And it is a deep wound that needs to be acknowledged by many people and has not been until this year, which is a travesty. There has also been widespread, at the time of recording this, I mean over 250,000 Americans have lost their lives to Coronavirus, so there has been widespread death. On top of that, we have also put a lot of pressure on health care providers, people who are working through this pandemic and dealing with unprecedented death, grief, helplessness that a lot of them have not experienced. And I do want to acknowledge that also because that is the kind of grief, even if it isn’t personal to all of us, it is a grief that exists out there right now. And is it is a whole entirely new thing to navigate.

Hey there, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year month by month talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays and I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode or check out my website at starsagespirit.com and if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person, I’ve also created a DIY year ahead Tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients and help you to define what you really want out of this year and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading, it is a very accessible price point, and you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year and it’s not even specific to this time of year. You can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday. The options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today. 

There’s been a lot of death and a lot of grief. There’s also been, you know, other grief, which is not getting to see family members that we love, not getting to spend the holidays as we normally do with the people that we care about, not having the opportunity to see our friends. Many people have had to really adapt huge life events. So, you know, I have friends who have had babies during quarantine that we haven’t gotten to meet yet. There are friends and family members who have gotten married during quarantine, a lot of disappointment of life’s rites of passage, and the community and celebration that goes on around them, not happening anymore. And so people have continued to do those things, but without the same sense of community and witnessing that we’ve experienced in the past and there is absolutely grief that comes in with that too. There are people who have experienced divorce and breakups, people who have lost jobs and careers that they love. And I wanted to take a moment to talk about these, you know, we might define them as lesser griefs. But I think it’s important because when we create this like hierarchy of grief, and it’s not to say that everything is on the same level, but when we create a hierarchy, we tell people that what they’re feeling isn’t valid. And that doesn’t serve anyone because then we create this, this process of feeling grief, but not feeling like we have a right to it and so we just suppress it and shove it down. And it comes out in all these other areas of our life, or it comes out in resentment and that’s not what we want. So I really want to take this time today and say, the five of cups is here for all of these different types of grief. It is here for like the heavy grief of loss of a loved one, a spouse, a child, a partner, a grandparent, a friend. It is also here for the loss of identity, of a job, of a relationship, of feeling like you are a completely different person and you don’t know who that is yet. So I think that’s really important to talk about because in our society, we have a tendency to think that grief is only for the big things. It’s only for death, but it’s really for all of these different things in our lives. And I talked about it a lot on my episode with my friend, Nora Belal, who is a death doula. And there’s no right way to grieve, which is the reality of the five of cups. It’s about honoring where you are, really giving yourself a pause and a moment to actually consider where you are with your grief, to not feel like it has to be pretty or it has to be, you know, always in in the sense of like constructive. So when people come in, and they say things like, oh, I’ve been struggling, but I’m feeling a little bit better now, or I’m going to this group and it’s making me feel better. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve noticed that people have a tendency to package their grief like that. Oh, you know, the breakups been really hard, but I’ve been trying all these new hobbies, and I feel better now, you know, best best month ever, I’m out on my own, again, new and improved self. That’s great and it’s perfect if that’s how you’re handling things, but I think that one of the things that I’ve seen with my clients is that they feel a need to show up and package that in a way that is acceptable to other people, rather than actually talking about how they feel. And it’s created this kind of surface level, acknowledgement of grief and the surface level acknowledgement of disappointment, and a very surface level support. And I experienced this, which I talked about recently on one of the episodes I can’t remember which one about talking to a couple friends of mine who have had losses this year or are in the process of dealing with some grief around family issues. And, you know, I pulled both of them aside separately at a outdoor socially distanced event and just kind of checked in to see how they were really doing because I saw some of that like packaging of grief, like, Oh, I’m really struggling, but you know, our new baby helps, you know, and it’s really joyful. And did really kind of pull them aside and say, you know, how are you really feeling, it’s okay to like tell me what you’re actually feeling like, I’m here for the heavy stuff and the life stuff and whatever you want to talk about. And I think that, you know, part of that I have a unique perspective and I think I deal in the world of grief a lot. So I have an easier time sitting with it than maybe some other people do. But both of the people that I had those conversations with recently, were like, thank you so much for asking, this is what’s going on and one of my friends who has a parent who has early Alzheimer’s, when I asked, told me that they’re happy to talk about it, but they feel like they can’t talk about it with other people, because they don’t want to make other people uncomfortable. And I hate the idea of people feeling that way, like they can’t share something that is going on with them, because they don’t want to make other people feel uncomfortable, or it’s not, like socially acceptable to talk about grief, or to talk about that disappointment and frustration and anxiety that can come up with dealing with a sick loved one, or someone who is on hospice care or someone who has just passed. So I do want to encourage you to really ask your friends and it’s not about prying. If they don’t want to talk about it, they don’t have to talk about it. But it’s about letting people know that you are there to embody that five of cups energy, and to sit with whatever grief they have to bring in. And to say, like, you know, I’m just here to listen, you know, I’m just here to listen to what’s going on, I won’t try to solve it for you, I won’t try to fix it or to you know, tie it up neatly, I’m just here to talk about it if you want to just talk about what’s going on. Because what I’ve heard over and over from people who are going through these periods of grief is that having that opportunity to just kind of air out what’s on their mind, to share what’s going on, and to not feel like the other person is trying to fix it or like they need to fix it, is a huge help. And it might not seem like you’re doing anything, but there’s something about bearing witness to grief that creates a sense of community and support without you really having to do more than just listen. So I hope that that helps. I will also say that, as we do this, boundaries are also important, which I just had two episodes where I talked about energetic boundaries and ethics with energetic boundaries. And I do want to talk about this here too. Because whether you are a person that’s grieving, or whether you are a person who is supporting someone who’s grieving boundaries are very important. And that means that you follow the lead of the person who is in that situation of sharing something vulnerable and sharing that grief. So that means you can ask questions, but don’t force the person to be where you want them to be and don’t force them to ask something that they aren’t comfortable with. And really, you know, let them talk about what they want to talk about. And if you are a person who is grieving, if there are people who are constantly bulldozing your grief or playing it down or just not giving you the opportunity to talk about it or trying to tie it up into a package for you, consider this your permission to separate yourself from that person. It’s particularly easy this year with Coronavirus to avoid contact with people. And if you have people in your life who are not providing the kind of support you need right now, it’s not that you need to permanently cut them out, but you don’t need to continue to participate in that kind of relationship where you’re having to constantly do a lot of extra work, to package everything, and to make your grief smaller and more socially acceptable in order to exist within that relationship. So consider this your permission to do what you like and to really honor yourself as you enter into that five of cups energy. So I hope that this will serve you all well going into this season and the end of the year. And I will see you all back here in a couple of weeks. Bye for now. 

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you love today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episodes show notes you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On episode 25 of Living Tarot, I interview Summer Burnley. Summer is a business strategist, attorney, and owner of Burnley Law PLLC, a virtual boutique law firm specializing in business and trademark law. Her law firm is a progressive law practice that has abandoned the traditional ways of doing law. She has purposely chosen to forego a brick and mortar, she has ditched the billable hour, and has said bye-bye to the ultra-conservative legal uniform. She is humbled to be part of the elite group of less than 1.7% of black attorneys who practice Intellectual Property law. Her background is in managing and strategizing high-end multi 6 & 7 figure businesses for growth. This expertise and skillset lend her to be a vital and integral member of her client’s businesses. Whether it be legally or operationally, Summer enjoys making sure her clients have a foundationally sound business that is set up to scale. Summer is on a mission to see more women of color entrepreneurs boldly protecting and owning their brands so that they can operate businesses that bring them more freedom.

• Summer shares her unique story of knowing what she wanted to be when she grew up since the time she was in 7th grade.
• We discuss How intuition speaks to summer through her work and how important intuition is for lawyers
• We discuss the importance of believing in your vision for your business over anybody else’s and how to know the difference
• Summer also talks about a time when she ignored her intuition and what she learned from that experience
• Summer explains how she has sustained a connection to her intuition and used it as an inner guidance system in her career to sustain her motivation and push her out of her comfort zone.
• We share some of the similarities between our two businesses and how often clients come in looking for an answer but are really handed more questions to ponder for themselves.

Summer is an excellent example of somebody who uses intuition to guide every move she makes in her business and how that has led her to being a success both professionally.

 

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance energy healing session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Connect with Summer:

You can find Summer online at https://www.burnleylaw.com/

You can get Summers complimentary Launch Your Business and Secure Your Brand Like a Boss Webinar here: https://burnleylaw.ck.page/603e8c4648

And you can keep up with her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/burnleylaw/

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure and embodied the tarot along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition, and live intentionally with the tarot.

Welcome back to Living Tarot. On today’s episode, I interview my awesome friend Summer Burnley. Summer Burnley is a business strategist, attorney and owner of Burnley Law PLLC, a virtual boutique law firm specializing in business and trademark law. Her law firm is a progressive law practice that has abandoned the traditional ways of doing law. She has purposely chosen to forego a brick and mortar and has ditched the billable hour model and has said bye bye to the ultra conservative legal uniform. She is humbled to be part of an elite group of less than 1.7% of black attorneys who practice intellectual property law. Her background is managing and strategizing high end six and seven figure business growth. This expertise and skill set lend her to be a vital and integral member of her clients businesses. Whether it be legally or operationally, Summer enjoys making sure her clients have a foundationally sound business that’s set up to scale. Summer is on a mission to see more women of color entrepreneurs boldly protecting and owning their brands. So they can operate businesses that bring them more freedom. Summer and I have a really, really amazing conversation about how intuition shows up in a law practice and how it’s really been the guiding force that has guided her through her career from the time that she was in seventh grade. Summer’s story is really unbelievable at points and so, so much about how different intuitive understanding can be from person to person and I really want it to have Summer on because I know how much intuition shows up in untraditional places in business and she is a perfect example and embodiment of that. We also talk about how she in her work is an embodiment of the queen of swords. And on a personal level is an embodiment of the Emperor card. I am so excited to be putting out another episode with somebody who is not in a traditional witchy career because I do really think this is the perfect example of how when we really tune into what we want, we can be a success outside of kind of a traditionally intuitive career, because so much of what summer does has really been led by her own guidance system and kind of an untraditional path to end up exactly where she is today. So without further ado, let’s dive right in. 

Alright, so welcome to the podcast, Summer Burnley, can you tell me in your own words what you do in the world? 

Summer Burnley  3:45  

Yes, so I help amazing and ambitious entrepreneurs launch their businesses and protect and own their brand assets.

Sheila M  3:57  

I love so much about what you sent me as your bio and the conversations that we’ve had about your work. And I’m really excited to have somebody who’s not in like a traditionally witchy type of job on the podcast because I truly believe that there are a lot of different types of intuition, first of all, and that we all have kind of a different level or different sections of the gift that really informs the type of work that we do. So I’m super excited for this conversation today. So let’s look back way way up. If we were going to talk about your origin story of how you ended up in the law, what kind of drew you into that work.

Summer Burnley  4:46  

So honestly, this goes like way, way, way back for me. Like, I’ve known since I was in the seventh grade that I was going to be an attorney and I was in a Mr hills history class. Brookhaven Middle School. Shout out to Brookhaven.

Sheila M  5:03  

Yeah, I love it.

Summer Burnley  5:05  

And I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I’ve always been a very inquisitive and analytical child. So this is nothing new for me in my adulthood. And he kind of got tired of me asking questions and basically was like, you know, well, if you want to change that you have to be a lawyer. And I was like, Well, I guess I will then.

Sheila M  5:28  

Okay, I love this so much. Because I’ve heard these stories from people who are like, Okay, then I will, like, from the time that they’re really young, and I’m like, Oh, my gosh, I love that like sense of purpose that goes back that far. That’s so funny. 

Summer Burnley  5:44  

Yeah. And you know, what’s even crazier? Okay, so I didn’t know this at the time. But of course, like, literally, my mom and my father were telling me the story about how, when I was born, my great grandfather, so my grandfather’s father looked at me when I was born on his first time meeting me and said, this is going to be the attorney in our family. How crazy is that?

Sheila M  6:12  

That is so wild. I mean, yeah, talk about like, some intuitive stuff. Holy smokes.

Unknown Speaker  6:19  

No, no idea. And like they had never told me that. Nobody fed me that. Yeah, it was just like, so crazy. And so yeah, ever since you know, that seventh grade moment, I was going to be an attorney and that’s what I set out to do. And I mean, I didn’t even know I had to go to undergrad first. I was just like, Get out of here, leave middle school, high school, be a lawyer.

Sheila M  6:43  

I mean, you definitely, I think had more realistic dreams than I did at that age. Like, I still thought I was going to be like, a ballerina or something like that, you know what I mean? I feel like that’s very together for somebody who is just in seventh grade. I love it. 

Summer Burnley  7:01  

Which is, you know, probably very accurate of me and my personality. Now, it’s probably not surprising to those who know me.

Sheila M  7:13  

Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. So was the idea that you had when you were young, like, did it, when you actually went into law school, and we’re learning about the law and learning to change all of these things, did that drastically change your experience of wanting to practice law or were you like, yeah, like, this is what I like, this is what I’m here for? Or was it different than you expected?

Summer Burnley  7:39  

Oh, it was. The only thing that was different than expected was the interaction with other people. Like, I’d done, of course, in my true inquisitive nature, like I’d done a lot of research, I made every single decision, you know, from that moment, seriously thinking, Okay, what do I want to do and moving forward as to how do I structure my life to become an attorney. And so, I wasn’t necessarily surprised, per se, but the one thing that was interesting is, you know, you get there on your first day, and you’re separated into these groups. And so your first year, you go to every single class with your group. So, like, you know, Group A take class with all a group A, and I don’t remember what my group number was or letter was, but you know, those become like your people for that, that first year. And what was interesting, it was like, everybody’s like, Oh, yeah, you know, I’m the best because I’m in law school. And it’s like, okay, but we’re all in law school.

Sheila M  8:44  

Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, this is very funny to me, because I actually, I went to theater school. And there’s a similar experience because I came from they’re very, like, being a big fish in a very small pond to get a bunch of big fish in a big giant ocean and everybody had that same attitude of like, I’m the shit like everybody knows who I am. Which is like, it’s so funny now, looking back, because I’m like, Oh my gosh, I was like, so intimidated by all these people, because I was the one coming in being like, Oh, this is gonna be like, a whole different experience, you know? 

Summer Burnley  9:19  

Yeah. Yeah. I like really went in with the idea of this was the next step. Right? So it very much was okay, I’m here. Now I have to do the work. Now I have to graduate because this is like the one of the last two things like in my way between becoming an attorney. The next one would have been passing the bar. And so I was friendly with people. I associated with people but like I did not go into law school or interact necessarily with the intention of, I’m here to make friends. And so I was involved, and I came up with some really great friends from law school, who I’m still really close with to this day, but like I didn’t care about, you know, being in who’s ever pod or like study group. I’m like, I can study by myself. Like, you know what I mean? So, and I actually studied better that way. And some people did not take lightly, you know, did not like that, because it was like, Oh, do you think you’re better than this? Why can’t you study with us? And, you know, and it’s like, does it matter?

Sheila M  10:29  

Yeah. And I think like, everybody has such a different style, to the way that they learn and the way that they study. I’m like, I have some things where I’ve needed, like, I’ve needed accountability of other people to keep me on track or like, I just don’t understand it well enough, or I understand it better through discussion. But for most things I like, learn on my own, like, I just prefer it that way. So I totally get what you’re saying, yeah.

Summer Burnley  10:55  

Yeah, it ended up being like the silliest argument. So one of my first friends that I made in law school, who she’s very extroverted, and very much a people person. She was in every single thing you could think of. Everybody loved her. And I remember she was like, Well, why aren’t you like an our group, you know. And I’m like, I don’t do study groups, I don’t need to do a study group, like, I’m cool on a study group. And me and one of my other really good friends, we would, like sit next to each other in the library and both study. And I remember she was like, my first friend was like, I saw you studying, like, for the past week with so and so; I thought you said you don’t do study groups. And I’m like, No, I’m studying one thing, she’s studying another thing. We are not in a study group. We are not collaborating. She’s there and I’m like, checking on her like, Hey, are you still alive? Are you still breathing? Have you eaten like in the past four hours? Like, yeah, I’m good. And then that’s it. Like, we are not in a study group. It’s like, that is okay. You know, but yeah,

Sheila M  11:58  

Yeah. And so when you graduated from law school, and wanted to get out into the working world, did you work for a firm or did you immediately start working for yourself?

Unknown Speaker  12:11  

Neither actually. I took a very strategic and purposeful approach to doing all pro bono legal work. So I was on the board of a nonprofit here, where we help domestic violence victims get divorced. And I did some other pro bono stuff, too, but I’d been working with them while I was in law school, a family lawsuit while I was in law school, and I did our clinic while I was there. And so naturally, I wanted to continue work with them, because it was very good work. I loved what I was doing. But because of the type of person that I am, I knew that I could not sustain being in family law, because these situations were horrific. And you know, in all honesty, Shelia, it would be like, so draining, because I’m like, Oh my gosh, I want to give them food. I want to give them money, I want to like go buy their kids stuff. You know what I mean? And it’s like, you can’t do that, like, ethically.

Sheila M  13:05  

And you can’t not care about your work, too. You know what I mean? Like you’re bringing passion into it. And I think when it’s something like that, where there are these people that really need your help you just like want to give, you know.

Unknown Speaker  13:18  

Yes, yes. And so I continued working with them once I graduated and passed the bar, I was actually an attorney. I could be on the actual board of the nonprofit organization and they welcomed me with open arms, and I was the volunteer attorney, lead attorney for them. And it was amazing. But as far as like what I was doing to actually make money I sought out like newer entrepreneurs, who were launching businesses in the area that I was in, because I knew I wanted to start my own law firm, and it’s very looked down upon to, like, graduate and then go hang your own shingle. Right? So I purposefully did that. And found an amazing man and his wife. I started with them with their company, I was their third employee they hired. By the time I left, I had spent the last four, I had been with them five years, I spent the last four years managing and growing their multi high end six figure and seven figure businesses. We had seven physical locations in two different states. We had several micro locations as well. So that for me was very purposeful and saying, okay, I want to get the business aspect and and honestly, part of it was I was like, I don’t think Sallie Mae is going to give me any more money to go get like an MBA. So I have to be strategic about how I’m going to get this, you know, education. So it was very much like paid education and the owner of our business, he was awesome. At the time, he saw things in me that I didn’t even realize I had or that were skill sets, to be honest. I thought, you know, this is just my work ethic all people are like this. And it’s like you quickly realize, no people are not. So that was an amazing, amazing experience, and largely I attribute it to the success in my law firm now like within the first year. And you know,  we talk about, like, intuition and stuff. And I didn’t know that I was, I didn’t know why I was called to do the work with him. I didn’t know why. And I started from the bottom, like, let’s be clear. Like, started from the bottom. From the bottom, like, I was making a decent wage, but when that first year, most of my attorney friends were making more than I was, by that time, that second year came around, and like, I kept getting promoted, all of my friends were like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? And I’m like, first of all, I’m happier than you more satisfied than you and since we’re talking about money, I make way more than you. So, you know, there’s that. But yeah, it was very strategic, you know, like, and how I did it. And it’s like, I didn’t know why, but from the very beginning, he was just like, I have very big plans for you. And it’s like, I heard him talking, but it’s like, it was not him who was talking to me; it’s as if, God was speaking through him, like trust me, this is where you need to go, this is what you need to do. And I just didn’t..I mean this man didn’t know me from, you know, Eve, like, you know, and yeah, just trusted it and went with it. And it worked out very, very well.

Sheila M  16:47  

I think it’s so there’s so many things that you’re saying that I so resonate with. And I think it’s really interesting, because I’ve experienced that so many times where it’s like, for whatever reason, like the voice, like you’re saying, like the voice of God is like coming out of someone else. And it’s exactly what you needed to hear in that moment. And it doesn’t, it doesn’t rationally make any sense, like what you did does not it’s not like the traditional path out of law school like at all, and you were just like, no, I feel like this is the right thing to do and you listened to that. And I think it’s so interesting, because like you said, you found someone who not only was speaking a language that resonated with you, but then also saw things in you that you didn’t see, because when we’re good at things, or like when something comes naturally. Like, for me, I didn’t know that I was hearing energy until I was 30 years old, which sounds crazy, but like I had no other context, because that’s what I’ve always done. So like, as soon as somebody was like, Oh, no, that’s not normal. I was like, oh, like, truly and it’s like a similar thing because if it was always natural to you to pick up on these things, then you’re not going to think that it’s anything special. But other people look at it. And they’re like, this is unbelievable. Like, she’s so good at this. 

Summer Burnley  18:07  

You know, okay, you know what’s so funny is, I didn’t realize that my skill set was actually a skill set until I launched my law firm. So what happened was, I started, like a coaching program through the firm, where I helped entrepreneurs go from like ideation to launch. And so we covered a course like all the legal stuff, but one of the things that I quickly noticed while working with entrepreneurs is like, they’re good at whatever their thing is, but they have no idea how to run a business. And so I, you know, like, did this three month program, and most of my clients were like, Hey, can we continue to, like, keep this up, like, I want to continue working with you, you know. And so I ended up like, coaching them through like business, their business stuff, you know, and like doing a lot of consulting and coaching. And it wasn’t until that first client was like, No, we need to, like, keep this going, like, this is so valuable to me, like, I’m learning so much stuff and being able to see them take action, and it actually improved their business, that I was like, Okay, this is like what he saw, like, I have this innate ability to be able to look at things generally, but specifically in a business sense from a long scope, a short scope, but then also to tell you within that short and long scope, what those issues or problems, or hindrances are going to be for you trying to get to that goal. And then also saying, Hey, here’s a solution to help that, but then also saying, Hey, here’s how you implement that solution.

Sheila M  19:43  

Yeah, yes. Yeah. And that’s the thing. It’s like, there’s this intuitive ability to kind of see a pattern and one of the hard things that I learned in my first year in business was that I was really taking on two jobs which was like the job of the person that was like facilitating healing and doing readings for people and then also the job of being like a business manager, which is I had the skills for because I have like 12 years of project management experience, but I was like, This is what I was trying to get out of and no here I am doing it for myself. 

Summer Burnley  20:20  

Now we delegate. We hire and delegate.

Sheila M  20:24  

Yeah. So, so I love your like description of that and everything, too. And so a lot of people, like I said, at the beginning might feel like, being a lawyer is not an intuitive profession. But I suspect that you would disagree and that you have to rely on that a lot in your work. Can you talk about how that comes up for you? Other than like what you already said about like, your career journey and everything, which is like pretty like, astonishing.

Summer Burnley  20:56  

Oh, yeah, definitely. So a lot of what I do with my clients now, so most of my practice is trademark registration, but I also do entity formation, we do contract drafting review, like all the business planning type stuff that you need to do for the business. And a lot of what I end up working with my clients on like, some of them, it depends, like some clients I do every week, some clients are doing bi weekly, and some are like, No, I just mean, like once a month session, but we’re doing a lot of strategy. And what I have noticed is because I’m very attuned to what that intuition is combined with my skill set, it allows me to pinpoint those things and be able to guide them in their business to be able to make decisions for the goals that they have in mind. And, again, you know, I told you, it’s interesting, because I just thought that’s just that’s just me, that’s just who I was. And it’s a very valuable tool for other people. 

Sheila M  21:56  

Yeah, yeah. I love that. I think that’s so cool. And so how do these things come across for you when they, like when you’re working with a client do you get like, a physical sensation? Do you feel like you’re hearing something? I always like to talk about this part. And some people like it’s a combination of like, a lot of different things, but I always like to just check in, because sometimes my guests have like, really unique things that they experience or that they feel when they’re working with someone.

Summer Burnley  22:33  

So, it doesn’t necessarily; it’s not like a; sometimes it’s a feeling, kind of like the we always talk about like women’s intuition, like that feeling like yes, sometimes I get that as well. But a lot of like, a lot of times it’s, I don’t even realizing I’m doing it like it’s also very intuitive for me, like it just happens kind of naturally. And the more I’m able to pay attention to it, and like realize it’s happening when it’s happening. Sometimes it’s an energy shift, right. That’s the easiest way that I can think about it, and say, like you, once you say, like, Oh, this just does not feel right. Right? Or it feels great. And so we need to move in this direction. And a lot of times, because like, for some things, I make the decisions for my clients. For some things, I have to talk them through the decision. And so I then use like this little practice where I help guide them to say, Okay, what feels good to you. Right? And then kind of, like, go through that so that they get used to easily making some of these decisions on their own. Yeah, I hope they keep me, you know, for lifetime as part of their team, but the whole purpose of you being CEO is so that you can get more comfortable, you know, in your business and actually managing and running your business in the way that you want. Otherwise, somebody is just telling you what to do.

Sheila M  24:07  

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I experienced that, too. So I think this is so interesting, because I’m seeing some parallels between what you do and what I do, even though they’re very, very different. And one of the things that happens a lot, and less so now because I’ve been more intentional in how I talk about what I do. But in the beginning, I would have a lot of people that came in and like wanted me to give them the answer. And I’m sure that that happens for you, too, where people are like, just tell me what to do. And you’re like, well, it kind of depends on

Summer Burnley  24:39  

what you want to do. 

Sheila M  24:42  

Exactly. And so it’s very similar in that like you are, you have the knowledge and you can give them the tools that they need in order to build the business in the way that they want, but they have to have some kind of input. And that’s the same thing I experience with people who come in for a session, because sometimes people are like, they want to be like dazzled by somebody intuitive, which I’m like, that’s cool and all and like, I can do that. But like, I could either spend my effort doing that for the session, when you’ve already decided to pay for it, so you’ve already decided that you believe in enough to pay for it. You’re wasting your time and money if you’re coming in, like waiting for me to prove it, like, just sit down, tell me what we’re like looking at and then we’ll like do a reading on it. And I think it’s so interesting, because a lot of the same stuff is obviously coming up for you as well. Which is like, you can give general business advice, but it really depends on the person and their business.

Summer Burnley  25:39  

Yeah, you know what, I find this a lot with, ideal clients, services, and processes is where it seems to come up the most, you know, and a question I find asking almost every single person that I end up working with, okay, is, like you said, What do you want to do? Like, this is your business, you get now to choose. So you get to choose what you want to do, you don’t have to be should-ed to death. Right? And so I want you to really think about what it is that you want, how do you want to show up? How do you want to provide your services? How do you want this system to look, what do you want your client experience or your client journey to look like? You know, even when we’re talking about brand protection, you know, you may have five different things you come to me that you want to protect and you’re like, oh, but I can’t protect all five, okay, I can give you a suggested order, but what do you want to protect? What you know, what’s most coveted to you? So I think and that’s, you know, a whole other conversation about, you know, feeling secure in your business as an entrepreneur to be able to make those decisions. But I feel like it’s a learning process. And then when you’re, when you have this, like intuitive nature that you’re using to help other people as well, they link on to that intuitive nature. And they’re like, Oh, that was a good decision, let me see what other kinds of decisions you can make. You know? It’s like, no, sis, you make the decisions. You tell me what kind of decisions you want to make. 

Sheila M  27:14  

Exactly. And one of the things that I think is so funny is, it’s really often that people will come in, they’ll kind of tell me what’s going on, I’ll do a reading, and I’ll see something and they’ll be like, I knew it. Like, they’re like, I knew that was the thing, I just didn’t trust it. And I’ve experienced, especially since I’ve made the shift over to focusing on people and their careers and their businesses, is that over time, they like start to build that confidence from working with me. So like, the next time they come in, they’re like, I think it’s this, let’s like, look at this thing. This is what I’m hung up on or concerned about right now, like, can we look at that. But they’re like starting to direct it a little bit more as they come back, which is so cool to see, do you experience that in your work as well?

Summer Burnley  28:00  

Yeah, so I typically, you know, have people who will, they have 1,000,001 questions, right? And they want you to answer all million and one of them. Right. And just to be clear, these are not about like, the legal stuff like that I would have, that this is like the stuff they need to make the decisions on like in their business. Right? Like operationally. And so after we start to work together, you can see where, because people get more secure in their own decisions, which is why I think it’s really important that if you are working with people in that capacity, you have to be able to teach them and encourage them and support them to make those decisions for themselves. Right? That’s not only beneficial to you, but to them in their business, as well. But they get more secure in being able to make those decisions or they kind of see a pattern, right. Like I have one client, I love her to death, but she’s like, I always make the wrong decisions, I make the crappiest decisions. And she’s like, so usually when I’m debating between three things, whichever one I’m going to go with, I’ve learned to pick the opposite, because that’s the one summer is gonna tell me to probably pick because that’s the one that’s got to be the right one. And I’m like, hey, at least you got a system.

Sheila M  29:15  

Seriously. I know. And that’s the thing. I do think it’s like really funny, because so often, especially when it comes to business, I think we can make decisions out of fear, which is like, yeah, a lot of people are asking me to do this thing. And so I feel like I have to do this thing, even though I don’t love it or like, I feel exhausted from doing it or like I always feel tired afterwards or like it’s just like an unpleasant experience to do it. But I feel like if I stopped doing it, then people will be like disappointed in me and I won’t make any money.

Summer Burnley  29:47  

Yeah. Which is a whole other conversation. I mean, you and I have had this conversation before, but you know, I am not a person who operates from a scarcity type mindset. I 100% operate from abundance in any and every single thing that I do, including my business. So not only did I get here untraditionally, but even when I started, I started untraditionally. So yeah, I turned down people. Yes, if you were not a good fit, I did not work with you. So I was not scrimping and scraping, trying to accept every single person that came to me just because, you know, I needed money, or I wanted to take them so that, you know, I could have something coming in, I don’t operate in that way. And so, for me, it’s very important that not only in my own business do things align, but when I’m working with somebody, because yes, I basically become like, a team member for my clients. Right. So we have to work good together, like because if we don’t, this is not gonna work out. You know, like you are not going to do well. And a lot of times it does, again, it doesn’t necessarily come down to someone being a bad person. Sometimes it’s just energy, like you say. Sometimes it’s just, you know, like, the vibe with a person, vibe with people. And I almost got into a situation where I had a client who was needing several services, so it was going to be a fairly large ticket, and it happened to be a male client. And the way that everything just transpired was very off putting, and it was just, like, really weird. And I remember having a conversation with my husband, like, I don’t think I’m gonna take this client, you know, and I remember him being like, but isn’t this person gonna pay you X amount of money? And I’m like, yeah, but that’s, I feel like it’s gonna cost me way, much more than that. This is going to be like an extremely high maintenance client, you know what I mean? Like you just know that the energy part, you know, is, is really not there. And I prayed on it, prayed on it, prayed on it, prayed on it. And finally, about a week later, it was like, you need to go ahead and send this client email saying that you will not be engaging them in services. Right. And I did. It was like the most freeing feeling ever. Right. But at the same time, I knew I’d made other decisions. And for me, my business had gotten to a point where it was starting to do very, very well. And I felt like I was being tested, like, okay, are you now going to become that person who’s just going to start taking people, even though you know, you shouldn’t take them just because money’s in your face or are you going to continue to stay true to yourself and your business and who you are and whose you are and continue to operate from that place of abundance. And within a week, I had three more clients who tripled what that client would have been. And I was like, these are the lessons. It was like he was saying, okay, you passed, congratulations, here you go, you know.

Sheila M  33:14  

Hey there, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead, to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year, month by month, talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays and I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode or check out my website at starsagespirit.com. And if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person, I’ve also created a DIY year ahead tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients and help you to define what you really want out of this year and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading, it is a very accessible price point, and you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year and it’s not even specific to this time of year. You can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday. The options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. Yeah, I know exactly what you need when something, you’re like, Oh, I’m really like battling over this and then and then it just becomes so clear after you make the decision and I know what you mean, too, about being like, relieved. So kind of along that line have you had times where you’ve ignored your intuition on that kind of stuff and done something that you are later like, why did I do that, like, this is so stupid?

Summer Burnley  35:33  

In my business, no. When I work for somebody else,yes. And that’s what led me to actually leave. So, and it’s twofold. Right. It was the intuition that was telling me it was time for me to leave, and I was ignoring it. I claimed 2020 for me as the year of obedience, because all 2019, I was completely disobedient, knowing that I was supposed to leave that job. And it got to a point where things became not necessarily difficult. But you could just tell like, there was this struggle, this pull, and it had really nothing to do with the people that I was working with. It was just like, inside of me, you know. And so like, things would start to happen. And the only way that I could explain was none of this was personal. God was gonna make it so that he was just how he puts you in a position to thrive. I was not listening. I was being disobedient. I was not moving. When he told me to move. I didn’t exit when he told me to exit. So he was going to do everything in His power to make it so that I couldn’t stay. It was like, Okay, I’m gonna give you time to do this yourself, sweet one, okay, little one, I’m gonna give you time to do this. You’re like, No, I’m fine, right here, I’m just gonna stay rooted. And it’s like, oh really, well, let me give you this and see how you handle it. And then of course, I handle it well, and it’s like, Okay, well, let me throw this at you, you know. It started for me last, was it last year or the year before, but I ended up in the hospital. And this was after, so I told you I had offices in two different states. And one of them was Milwaukee. And so funny story, my husband and I closed on our house on a Friday. That Monday, the owner of the company that I work for called me and was like, Oh, hey, by the way, I’m sending you to the Milwaukee, I don’t know when you’re going to come back. And it was like, okay. I ended up being gone that time for six months. Came back for a couple of months, and was gone for like another three months. So I basically spent all of 2018 living it up in a hotel, ubering around Milwaukee. And when I got back the last time, that November. Mind you I left in January. So the last time I got back in November, I ended up in the hospital for three or four days. And it was very, it was just odd. I can’t remember what it was called. But they kept saying, you know, like when people binge drink, and the thing that happens to your liver, I forgot what they call it. But my numbers were so high, they suspected that’s what I’m doing. And I am not a drinker like I may have one glass of wine every quarter, right? Like, I’m not really a drinker. Yeah. And I will never forget, I was in so much pain. They ran the test. They were like, Oh, this is why. They came to ask me and my husband about four different times and like, different ways. Have you been drinking? Maybe just had one drink? Did you go on a binge? I’m like, we’re like, NO. So I basically had to stay in the hospital until those levels came down, which was like four days later. Yeah, so complete situation where He was like, Look, you need to sit, you’re behind down and if you’re not gonna do it, I’m gonna make you do it. Right? That’s what it was. He’s like, oh, if you’re not gonna listen to me, I’m gonna force you to listen to me. And I knew at that time that I needed to start planning my exit. But did I? No.

Sheila M  39:25  

I only laugh because I’ve like been through it myself. Yeah.

Summer Burnley  39:29  

You know, it’s like, you think that would be enough? You know? And yeah, it’s like, all these little things tend to happen. And I kid you not one day, I started to pay more attention to it. Because I would ask for signs, Sheila, and would be like, Oh, is this a sign I’m supposed to leave. And it’s like, you know, the sign would come and it’s like, I would dodge it or block it and be like, oh, that wasn’t for me, that was like for the person behind me like, that was completely not for me. 

Sheila M  39:53  

Yeah. Oh the next one. 

Summer Burnley  39:57  

Yeah. Make it more bold, you know. So I remember sitting on the couch. And this was like the end of June, I remember sitting on the couch. And I remember just like praying. So I’m like, man, I don’t know what’s going on, like, the energy’s just off with what I’m doing. Like, if this is not what I’m supposed to be doing, Lord, like just let me know, you know. And I remember and I think I told you this. It was like, He screamed at me, and was like, LEAVE THAT JOB. And I was like, first of all, Is he mad at me? Like, God had never yelled at me before. It was like, Whoa, okay, you know. Literally, I stopped, pulled out my computer and started typing up. I did a six week resignation. But I started like, typing up my six weeks notice. And that Monday, contacted my boss, like, hey, I need to talk to you, which at this time was different, I had to do that because for the two years that I’ve been running this business, the last two years, he left. And while he was still around, he was running, he was starting other businesses. He’s a serial entrepreneur. So like, part of the whole MO is like, how most people really should do it, is you start the thing, let other people run it and then you start the next thing, let other people run it, you start the next thing, you know. So you tell, they get a lot of this reoccurring revenue, right. Not reocurring revenue, but you know what I mean? And so, he was like, Oh, you know, I’m flying in tomorrow, let’s meet, yada yada, yada. And the day he got in, he called me was like, Oh, yeah, you know, I’m gonna come pick you up from the office, dodged me. Did not hear from this joker for like the whole day. And I was like, You know what, I am not gonna delay this. I was like, I’m trying not to because, you know, I’ve worked with this man for like, five years now, like hand in hand. Right? And was like, Okay, I don’t want to have to email this, but I will.

Sheila M  42:12  

Yeah, oh, my gosh, it’s so funny. Because when I was leaving my last job before, like, I started my business full time I literally had the same experience with my boss, because I was working like I’ve been working from home for like years before this. So I would only see her every now and then. And so I for like a week and a half was like trying to get on her calendar. And she was like, Oh, I have this, this, and this. So I literally had to look at her calendar. And I was like, I’ve been here for seven years, I don’t want to do this, like over the phone or email. So I literally saw that she had a 15 minute time slot open. And I called her and I was like, hey, it’s really important. And she was literally like driving home from a meeting. And I told her and she was like, speechless. I mean, just like, speechless, like so shocked. She should not have been like, I was like, like, I felt like a little guilty afterwards. And then I was like, Wait a second, I’ve been very clear, like, what my expectations are and what I think should happen for years. And nothing has happened in four years, like this should not be a surprise at all. \

Summer Burnley  43:18  

Right, right, yeah. It was, like, similar to the way he was. It’s funny, so he finally met up with me that Wednesday, and we went to like Starbucks or something. And he’s like, I knew this is what this was, this is why I didn’t meet with you yesterday. And I was like, you were avoiding me. And he’s like, Well, you know, I just got busy. He was like, I just had a long day. I just couldn’t take any of it. And it was but he was like, extremely, like happy for me. He’s like, I knew this day would come, I didn’t think it would like come now, you know, when I was like, well, I told you five years. And it’s and let me tell you what’s funny, is, when I say it was over, like all these companies, like I was legit over all these business, like, he was the only person above me and I was doing everything because like I said he was off doing like, all the other stuff. So, from managing all the departments to overseeing all of hiring, firing, managing everything, like that was me. And I remember going back to like, look at my file, and in my interview paperwork, it was like, you know, what’s your goal and it was like to raise enough money and to get enough experience so I can open up my own law firm in five years.

Sheila M  44:38  

I love it. You’re such like, your whole story. I feel like you’re such like a visionary and like so able to like see down the road for yourself, which I think is so cool.

Summer Burnley  44:51  

But you know what’s so funny is if you look at my Gallup results, it would tell you otherwise.

Sheila M  45:02  

Here’s the thing though, I think there’s a difference between being able to, like, objectively like, see an answer and being able to see into your personal future. You know what I mean. But I think it’s so interesting, like the amount of certainty that you’ve had at all of these different junctures in your life from the time you were in seventh grade, like I was certain of nothing in seventh grade. Like, that shocks me.

Summer Burnley  45:28  

Like, I was a different kind of child. I really was. I really was like, nerdiest of the nerds. Just like complete. Yeah. Like, it’s funny because my husband is almost the exact opposite. Not that he’s unsure. But he’s very much like, I don’t want to say a people pleaser, but he’s he puts pleasing other people before pleasing himself. You know? And I’m always like the opposite. You know, I’m like, if I’m not happy, I don’t care that it makes you happy or not. I’m not for it. I’m not with it. Like, I don’t want to do it. And he always talks about how he commends me of like, he’s like, I wish I could make decisions like you made decisions. I’m like, Well, you could you just have to look at point A and point B. He’s like, I don’t have time for all that.

It’s not. I know, and that’s another one of those things that I think I’ve learned, like, I tend to be very decisive, and my partner tends, he is much more like, always, like evaluating and evaluating and evaluating and like weighing different things. And I’m just kind of like, let’s do this. And he’s always like startled.

Sheila M  46:27  

Wait, I haven’t thought about it. Yeah

We haven’t accurately analyzed every single option yet. And I’m like, I’m not here for this. I have no patience for that.

Summer Burnley  46:55  

See, and see, that’s me. It’s like, I can be decisive after I’ve evaluated the decisions, but like, Don’t force me or rush me into like, making a decision, not one that’s gonna have like lasting impact. You know, like, anyway, like, I’m not one of those people who’s like, you know, you’re gonna… What are those things called, like, you know, if you go to like Vegas or somewhere and they want you to go to those talks where they show you the, the rooms and stuff, and want to get you to like, buy into charity. 

Sheila M  47:26  

Time share things

Summer Burnley  47:26  

Yes. And I’m like, Yeah, no, like, I remember that happened to us one time and my husband would have been totally swindled, he would have been like, here’s the card, where do I sign. And I’m like, thank God, I was here. They brought out like three people. And I’m like, Look, you can bring out the owner of this Hilton, if you want to, I’m not signing any papers, you can either give us our free shit so we can know or we can sit here and play this game a little longer. It’s up to you.

Sheila M  47:51  

Oh, my God, I love it so much. I really do though. I love that. Okay, so I actually, I’m wondering, with the work that you’re doing now, and that you enjoy so much, how do you balance because so much of it is analytical and everything? How do you balance like, your head and your heart in your work, like when you’re going in and meeting with clients? Like how do you find that joy for like, both, you know?

Summer Burnley  48:22  

So part of it is because that is what brings me joy. You know, I enjoy doing this type of work. I truly love being, like helping people navigate through their business and make decisions and protect their stuff and, you know, be able to, it’s like watching, you know, like a butterfly being born, like coming out of the cocoon. You know, it’s like, I absolutely love that. I love feeling like I’m part of the team. And you know, I would say I am very unselfish in nature. But you know, everybody has some selfish tendency. And I think mine would be that I want to be the person to help you get there. Like, I want to be the person to help you succeed. Like, that’s my selfish nature. And so, I think because I’m doing what I love to do, and not only something that I love to do, but that I’m actually good at, right. Like, I like baking, but I’m not necessarily the best at it. I think because they align, my heart and my mind typically align, like majority of the time when I’m going into meet with clients. And then I also like to you know, morally and ethically, like outside of the standards for being an attorney, just my personal morals and values. I always lead with those as well and so it also makes it, you know, easy for me to be authentic and honest with people, you know about who I am, what I expect, what I do, how I can help, or how I can’t know. You know?

Sheila M  50:11  

I love that. So I wanted to give you the opportunity, because just like reading your bio and your background and everything, and because you are a woman of color in a place where there are not a lot of women of color. What advice would you pass down to, like younger women of color who want to follow and similar footsteps? Like, what do you think? What do you wish somebody had told you when you were young?

Summer Burnley  50:40  

Oh…

Sheila M  50:41  

No pressure. 

Summer Burnley  50:43  

So, again, this is going to be more, I guess what I would say is, instead of what I wish somebody would told would have told me is I’ll tell you what I was told. Because like I say, I’ve really always been this way. My mom and my dad were a really big support system. But my mom always told me, one, whatever it is that I wanted to do, didn’t matter, you know, didn’t matter that I was a little black girl, didn’t matter that I was going into an industry where I was an additional minority, where a lot of people did not look like me. I could succeed. I could be successful. I needed to put the work in and I needed to be true. And I needed to be authentic to myself in doing that. I also needed to always remember who’s I am. And by that being, you know, a child of God, you know, and knowing that His promises are true, His promises are real. Not that I won’t struggle. Not that I won’t have a trial or tribulation. Not that I won’t suffer. However, I will always be cared for. I will always be protected. And whatever I’m going through, there’s always a lesson on the other side of that, and I need to focus on what that is, instead of focusing on, you know, my woe at hand. And that honestly got me through a lot of my life, because as you can imagine, being somebody who’s always been very sure of themselves and also being more mature, that was odd. Like I was different. You know, it was like, why are you so weird? Why do you know what you want to do? Why? Why are you focused on this? Why are you doing? You know. And not being… I was blessed to have a good support system, a great support system, where even going through like those emotional things at a young age when you’re not rationally able to really like discern some of the stuff where you’re going through, I had a great system that was supporting me and reaffirming me. And those are the kind of lessons and things that I took on that just formed you know, who I am today. So staying true to who you are, doing what you want to do not feeling like you have to conform. Representation does matter, but there are more of us out here, and we will welcome you and there is space for you. 

Sheila M  53:11  

Yeah. I love that. I’m love that too and I feel like just saying something as like simple as there is space for you is so important because I think so often when you can’t see the example of it, it feels intimidating to be like the first one in or like, you’re like everybody’s already doing that, or like this already exists, like so much in the entrepreneurship world in general. But I think that’s really beautiful. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that.

Summer Burnley  53:40  

Yeah. No, thank you for asking. 

Sheila M  53:42  

Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about what cards I really see you embodying with your work, because I do this with every guest that I have on I really talk about, like, where I see them kind of showing up in their business. So it’s interesting because this doesn’t always happen. But usually I get like a couple cards that kind of come up as I’m talking to people. So…

Summer Burnley  54:03  

Should I be taking notes? 

Sheila M  54:04  

Oh, no, you don’t have to.

Summer Burnley  54:08  

The nerd in me. Should I be writing this down?

Sheila M  54:09  

There’s no quiz at the end of this. So first of all, with the work that you do, I was thinking of like the queen of swords because so much about this type of like business and trademark law is about protecting what’s yours. And the queen of swords has this kind of wisdom of, okay, like, it came up specifically when you were saying like, Okay, what do you want to protect first, I can tell you what order I would go in, but like it’s ultimately about what you really feel a need to protect. And so there’s so much about balancing both like the intellectual and the emotional that comes in with the queen of swords. So I’m like, this is so much like the work that you’re doing, which I think is like so cool because I love that card. And also, it’s about, you know, marrying up the head in the heart and then protecting the boundaries all around that. So it’s just like, it’s so perfect for the work that you do and it makes like so much sense to me. I really kind of see that in your work. But with you and kind of how you show up for your work, I thought of the Emperor card, which is all about building, like, a stable foundation for like the rest of your work. And I feel like for you, like you’ve always been, you’ve always had that certainty. And like the Emperor comes with, like so much certainty, like, this is how it is like, this is how I am, this is how I’m going to show up, even if people tease me because I’m a seventh grader that knows exactly what I want to do with my life. 

Summer Burnley  54:09  

Right.

Sheila M  54:13  

And I would say, quite frankly, as someone who even like is older than that and knows what you want to do. Even being an adult and knowing what you want to do, you know. I think sometimes that can be like intimidating to people. But the Emperor is all about like showing up in a way that’s not like aggressive, but it’s just like, No, I’m here and like I’m taking up space and I’m an example of how to do that in a way that’s like stable and structured and has longevity. Because there’s something about the Emperor that’s so much about having strong roots that you can grow from and that you can build on top of over time.

Summer Burnley  56:25  

Yeah, I love that. I love both of those. 

Sheila M  56:28  

Yeah, I do too and I was like, This is so cool, because I haven’t had anybody who’s been like these cards yet, either. And I really like to talk about tarot in this way because I think sometimes it can become this kind of like, vague idea and when you see somebody who’s really like, embodying the qualities of those archetypes, it’s so cool to see it in action.

Summer Burnley  56:50  

That is so awesome. Thank you for doing that for me. That was like, Oh, it’s like, I want to go find like a large, like queen of swords and emperor like card picture so that I can like frame it now and put it in my office. 

Sheila M  57:06  

Seriously, because I feel like it’s like, it’s such like an embodiment of the work that you do. And it is so like, in so many ways, like that is really inspirational because I think a lot of people in particular with like that queen of swords, like really struggle with that type of energy, like how do I balance these two things. And then also, how do I protect that balance over time? Like because there’s always gonna be people sending you their opinions that aren’t requested and, quite frankly, don’t belong on you, you know. So I think that’s so cool. So I know that you do so many different things in terms of kind of helping people build their businesses. So, how can people work with you?

Summer Burnley  57:49  

Oh, yeah, please like I have my website www.burnleylaw.com. That’s B-U-R-N-L-E-Y, you can check out my website. There there’s also a contact me button. So if you’d like to schedule a consultation to talk about protecting and owning your brand through trademark registration or business planning, or if you just want to shout me and say hello, you can contact me there. You can also email me directly if you needed to or just had a quick question or maybe well, now you guys know that I’m doing coaching because I am saying it on the podcast. If that’s something you might be interested in summer@burnleylaw.com, and I’m also on Instagram @Burnleylaw.

Sheila M  58:35  

And then I know that you.. I’ll put all of that in the show notes too, in case people are like I didn’t write it down fast enough. It’s also in the show notes for this episode. But I also wanted to talk about, I know you have your How to Launch and Secure Your Brand Like a Boss complimentary webinar. And I’ll include the link to that as well, but can you tell us a little bit about that webinar and what it can do for people?

Summer Burnley  59:06  

Oh my goodness, yes. So this was really put together because a lot of the common questions that I was getting was surrounded around, Okay, what type of entity structure should I start with? Do I need an LLC? Should I do a corporation? Should I stay a sole proprietor? What kind of contracts do I need? What exactly is this trademark or copyright thing? Are they different? And a lot of those things are essential to the foundations of your business. So I go through each of those entity formations, contracts and intellectual property for your business and break them all down each of those topics, one by one for you and even go into specifics. So I will talk specifically about LLC, specifically about corporations, what those differences are, specifically, you know about client service agreements and privacy policies, and specific about copyrights and trademarks and patents, so that you will have a solid foundational knowledge to know what you should be looking to protect in your business. 

Sheila M  1:00:11  

Okay, okay, I love that so much. I’m like, Oh my gosh, I need to watch this. 

Summer Burnley  1:00:15  

Yeah, please do. Give me your feedback. I love it.

Sheila M  1:00:17  

Yeah, yeah, that’s so cool. Um, well, I mean, thank you so much for being here. Do you have any last like pearls of wisdom or anything that you want to share? One of the things that I’ve been thinking about, especially kind of as this year is coming to a close, since you’re one of my last guests for 2020, any wisdom that you’d like to share that you’ve learned from this year?

Summer Burnley  1:00:44  

So I will reiterate what I said earlier, and this is just generally speaking to everyone, when I say there is space for you and your thing out there in the world, I mean it. You know, I think if this year has shown us anything, it’s showing us a lot of things, but from a business perspective, go ahead and launch it. And it doesn’t have to be perfect. It can be messy, we can figure out a lot of the you know, a lot of the nitty gritty and the other stuff, but don’t wait. So if there’s something you’ve been sitting on something that, you know, your intuition has been telling you to put out into the world, listen to it, take the leap, do it. If it works out, great. And if it doesn’t, guess what, that’s okay. You can do something else if you want, or you can decide this is not for you. Right? But do it and do it authentically. Do it purposefully. And do it with giving yourself the grace to learn along the way.

Sheila M  1:01:46  

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. I feel like there’s so much in that too, and like you said, with with failure, like you’re just getting more information. You haven’t really failed. Like you’re basically doing research on what works. 

Summer Burnley  1:02:01  

Correct. 

Sheila M  1:02:02  

Yeah, so, I love that. And it can feel really personal. Like it is, and especially when it’s something you love, it can feel really personal. But I love that you said that because it’s really true. And you might just be like, a couple degrees off where it needs to be, you know? 

Summer Burnley  1:02:16  

Oh, definitely, definitely. You know, when we’re talking about, like, previously on my podcast, you know, one thing we talked about is there’s no such thing as like an overnight success in entrepreneurship, or business period, right? It doesn’t, it just does not happen overnight. Like you don’t get to a six figure launch, you’d like the first time, the second time, or typically the third time, right. So work out all of your kinks, you know, seek out people to help you and to assist you. And find like your group of people, whoever that is, whatever that looks like, because I think community, especially at a time now where everyone is inside. We are still going through the pandemic. You can’t really get out and socialize like you want to. Having that community, especially if you’re doing something online is going to be very helpful and very beneficial to not only your growth in business, but your growth as a business owner and entrepreneur as well. 

Sheila M  1:03:13  

Yeah, yeah. I love that so much. Thank you so much for sharing everything today. I know that it’s going to speak to people and especially to listeners who are like not in a traditionally intuitive job, but are very intuitive. And so thank you so much for sharing that, Summer. I so appreciate it. 

Summer Burnley  1:03:31  

No, thank you so much for having me. This was so fun. I completely enjoyed it. I always have fun talking to you, Sheila. So thank you so very much for having me on the podcast. It was a complete honor.

Sheila M  1:03:45  

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you love today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses or book a reading with me or for full episode show notes you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On episode 24 of Living Tarot, I talk about how to plan your year with the tarot. Tarot is an excellent tool for planning out your energy for the year and how to resource yourself for and challenges that might come your way.

• I speak to some common misconceptions about what you can do with a year ahead tarot spread.
• I break down the fool card and why it is an excellent card to embody moving into a new year.
• I discussed the many areas of life that a year ahead tarot spread can help with.
• New Year’s Resolutions can be helpful but planning with the Tarot can be so much more intentional and powerful and personal.

There is so much planning that we do around the new year but often our energy and spiritual lives are neglected. 

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance Reiki session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M 0:05
Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium, and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the tarot along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition and live intentionally with the tarot.

Welcome back to Living Tarot. In today’s episode, I’m going to talk all about how to do an effective year ahead Tarot spread. And what it really means to surrender to the full card energy that a new year brings. So, when we talk about yearr ahead Tarot spreads, I do get a lot of questions from people. And I had a friend the other day asked me the question, since you don’t consider what you do to be fortune telling, how do you approach a year ahead spread and what can people really gain from it? And this is actually really good question because I do stress all the time, I don’t consider what I do to be fortune telling. I don’t really believe in true, you know, historical fortune telling because I believe that we all have free will. And our fortune, so to speak, will shift and change as we shift and change our minds. So with that in mind, I want to talk about what you can really learn from doing a year ahead spread for yourself, or doing a year ahead tarot reading with me. So it’s not just about fortune telling, it’s really about planning your energy for the year. So many of us, especially if we own a business, if we have a career, if we have a family life, if we have a relationship, we do a ton of planning when it comes to the new year. We plan ahead for vacations, maybe not so much right now, but in general; we plan ahead for financial things; we plan ahead for changes and shifts that are coming down the road in our career or new offerings or new types of business that we’re going to be bringing in. And this type of reading is no different because we’re really looking about energetically prepping ourselves for the new year. And so that means paying attention to the kind of challenges that are coming up, and the kind of energy we bring in to meet those challenges. So it’s really kind of like an audit. It’s like an opportunity to check in personally on our strengths and weaknesses. It’s an opportunity to check in on the strengths and weaknesses of our relationships. It’s an opportunity to, without our emotional buy-in; one of the things I say about tarot all the time, is that it has no bias, it has no buy in, the cards are going to show you what they’re going to show you whether you think you deserve to see it or you think you don’t. So it is a super effective tool in getting an unbiased view of our strengths and weaknesses, and the ways that we’re really showing up in different areas of our lives. So that’s what I have to say about that. But whenever we talk about the new year, we really can’t talk about new beginnings without talking about the fool. And the fool in the tarot is really just a beautiful opportunity to surrender to what is. When we’re new at something, if we’re new at a job, if we’re new at offering a certain type of business, we know that when we go in there is going to be a certain something or a large number of something’s that we don’t know because we’re new. We are a brand new beginner. We are learning as we go. And the fool card is really about leaning into, you know, our intuitive impulses, our ideas, the exciting, thrilling, creative things that come up in our minds. It’s really about leaning into opportunity and doing that without allowing too much anxiety or too much stress to really cloud your vision for what you want moving forward. So there’s nothing wrong with kind of that inherent anxiety coming up, but what we don’t want is for it to suppress the things that we really want about the year. And when we take that kind of full leap where we just kind of jump into something without knowing the exact prescribed way that it’s going to work out, we get a different opportunity to experience things. And so, you know, we might have our planning, and we have some idea of what we’re doing, but we don’t have everything figured out. And it’s kind of that, you know, leap, and then figure out where you’re landing while you’re kind of descending. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with approaching your year in that way. Some people really like to be spontaneous; some people really struggle to be spontaneous. But when we’re standing on the precipice of a new year, we are always really embracing that fool energy. We’re trying to let go of anything that might have served as a bias or a filter through which we were seeing the past year, and really allow ourselves to dive in without any preconceived notions of what’s going to happen, what should happen, and really open ourselves up to the possibility of what could be and asking ourselves questions. You know, this is why this time of year, we find everybody making their new year’s resolutions, and trying to hold to those resolutions. And I don’t particularly love resolutions, because I think that often, they are largely created by society rather than personal. But I do think it’s an interesting time of year to really do this type of audit with the Tarot. When you’re looking at, where you’re coming from, where you see yourself going over the next year, and what kind of energy you’re going to be working within because when you do that, you have the opportunity to set yourself up for better self care, better success. You have the opportunity to see what kind of support system you might need going forward. And it’s not just about seeing you know, what’s going to happen, or planning for this thing to happen to you; it’s really about being open to what would really serve you in this moment. Maybe in the past, all of your resolutions have been about, you know, health or fitness, but this year, you need to take into account, you know, mental health. 2020 has been a really tough year, really, really tough year for most of the world. It’s been isolating; it’s been different. And a lot of people have been struggling with mental health. And maybe that’s something that you want to prioritize this year instead of the external things that we can kind of get rewarded and patted on the back by society for; really taking the opportunity to think about what you personally want. And there’s never been a better opportunity for that than right now because so many of us are isolated and we don’t have kind of the outside influence of what everybody else is thinking and saying in front of us all the time. So that’s my little bit for resolutions, but I do want to talk about doing your year ahead reading and what that really means. So when we talk about planning for the energy of the year, we’re talking about planning as a whole for what we’re moving into. So I’ll talk about it a little bit more in the new year, but 2021 is a hierophant year, which is a different kind of energy. So you can think about how you approach the type of energy of the hierophant. You can also think about, you know, if you draw a card that represents the energy of the year, how do you approach that card? What is your relationship with that card? What is your relationship with showing up in your career that way? Or how do you feel about showing up in your interpersonal relationships that way? And so when we start to see like an overview, we have kind of a filter that we can put all of our learning, and all of our ideas and thoughts for the year through. So for example, if you were looking at the hierophant year, you would say, Wow, yeah, I’m really gonna have to step up in a big way as my own teacher for this year. And that might be in my career, it might also be in my romantic relationship. You’re gonna have to kind of see how it plays out. And like I said, I’ll talk about that more specifically in the new year. And and what that really means. But when we’re talking about doing our own planning for the year and doing our own year ahead, spread, we really want to look at each month, what kind of energy we’re going to be dealing with and again, we’re not looking at that to say, oh, gosh, in February, the tower card is coming up so everything’s gonna fall apart. That’s not what we’re saying. Again, we’re talking about that kind of energy and often, when we approach that type of spread in this way, one of the things that happens is we find that it’s not necessarily an external experience. So for example, if we pull the tower card for February 2021 and then in terms of how to approach that energy, we pull the eight of pentacles, we would say, Okay, I’m going to be going through some sort of tower type experience. Often, because when we’re doing a personal spread like this, it’s about our own personal experience, it’s maybe more likely to be a crisis of confidence, or a struggle with identity, which could have something to do with the outside world, absolutely, you know, could have to do with a relationship ending, it could have to do with some sort of career change, and it could have to do with us having our baseline of who we think we are shook. And so it’s not that that’s not a big deal, but it’s not always this, you know, catastrophic I’ve lost my house, I’ve lost my relationship, I’ve lost my job. It’s not always that. It’s usually a more internal process and more about something that’s going on for you personally.

Hey, there, I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead, to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year, month by month, talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays. And I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode or check out my website at starsagespirit.com. And if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person. I’ve also created a DIY year ahead Tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients, and help you to define what you really want out of this year and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading, it is a very accessible price point, and you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year. And it’s not even specific to this time of year, you can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday, the options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today.

And when we pull the card to handle how to approach that energy, so for looking at the tower, and we pull the eight of pentacles, for how to approach that energy, it’s even more subtle, because we’re seeing that with the eight of pentacles. The approach to dealing with that is really to kind of put our nose down and just keep working on what we’re doing. So it might seem like a generally disruptive card, but the medicine as my teacher, Lindsey Mac likes to say, is to show up in a way where you’re just kind of approaching the mundane, everyday tasks that you need to get done. And you’re not allowing yourself to get pulled off track by that tower energy. And then you know, you could also pull other cards as an approach, maybe you pull five of pentacles as an approach and that’s saying, you know, find some support, maybe you need some financial support, maybe you just need some friends to show up for you and give you an ear to speak into and really give you a sounding board, when you feel like you’re struggling about you know your own identity. But it’s not really about saying like, I’m doomed to the tower card, because I pulled it for February. It’s really about seeing energetically what’s going on with you and how to handle some of the ups and downs of the year and how to kind of energetically support yourself. So if you see, you know, for example, I struggle with patience, this is not a mystery. I’ve talked about it often on this podcast. So if I had say, maybe all spring I have, you know, the hanged one, a temperance card, and the eight of wands reversed. I might be like, Well, shit, I am going to be dealing with some delays, I’m going to be dealing with having to deal with patience and cultivate patience and how can I do that? So every month I would be looking at the approach that okay, maybe I need somebody else to come on board as like an assistant in my business to keep me on track, when I start getting wacky, and like, way out ahead of myself, maybe I need to hire someone who’s going to be like, slow down, like it is time for you to slow down and somebody who’s going to be supportive of me, as I enter into an energy that I find particularly hard to be within. Does that mean that it is objectively hard for everyone? No, I just know that it’s not my strength. So I might resource myself by saying, Hey, you know what, my friend, you know, Carol is super, super patient, and she teaches me so much about being patient. I’m going to make sure that I talked to her once a week in February, or I’m going to make sure I talked to her once a week in May. And really giving yourself the opportunity to learn from the people in your community, who maybe have strengths where you don’t, and to give yourself, you know, maybe you say, no, forget it, I’m just going to make sure that I have weekly therapy set up all spring, and I’m just going to deal with it that way. And I just need to kind of vent things out. Or maybe it’s, you know, I need to up my exercise routine, so that I can get that frustration out somehow, you know, it really depends on what support card you’re pulling up there. And so I think that that’s one of the best ways to approach things, is really to imagine yourself planning your approach to each energy. And it also has the added benefit of keeping us from playing small, because often, when we’re approaching a new year, we kind of especially after the year that we’ve had this year, we might want to kind of keep things as stable as possible and not change too much and be you know, maybe a little bit rigid in what we’re expecting. But what’s interesting about seeing these cards laid out in front of you, is that it really forces you to be accountable to what showing up there. So if you’re feeling like you want to be in…I’m trying to think of a good example. If you’re feeling like you want to be in the ace of cups or the ace of cups reversed and the approach that you’re getting is to be in like the 10 of cups, then you’re going to know that you have to get a little bit outside of your comfort zone. And maybe you can find some sort of community or some sort of coach or some sort of advisor or partner, even, who can really push you into a place of feeling like you can share more emotionally. And that’s really important because it keeps us in authenticity. So it keeps us from getting too far into the what society expects us to do in the year, and what our resolutions are expected to be, and really keeps us accountable to what we really need, rather than what we think we should do. So it keeps us from should-ing on top of ourselves. And if you are a business, for example, and I do a ton of business career ahead readings this time of year, it also helps you plan for how you are going to energetically be feeling throughout the year. And I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Because when you run a business, or when you’re inside of your career, you’re very forward focused and you’re thinking about the next thing all the time. And you might be chasing shiny object after shiny object. But what’s really important is to stay authentic and true to yourself. So if you see a couple challenging, you know, quote, unquote, challenging cards coming up for yourself over the spring or through the winter, you can say, Okay, I’m going to focus on the things that I’m already offering and pushing those out as much as I possibly can to try to get more clients for my current offers, rather than trying to use all of my energy to create something new. So it also helps you be more efficient in your business, which if you run a small business, you know how important that is. I know how important that is. And trust me, I have tried to fight back against, you know, the energetic feelings of the year. I don’t like to be told what to do. You know, I think I can control everything and I’ve always found myself in a losing battle and it’s in those moments where I can actually focus on my approach card to each energy that I find myself feeling like I have some semblance of control back and I can start to integrate a little bit better. So it keeps us in that energy of being curious, of embracing that fool card energy and it allows us to surrender without the fear that we won’t be able to handle whatever comes our way. And as you go through the year, one of the coolest things about doing a year ahead spread is that life informs divination. So as you live out these cards in your daily life, it will bring a fuller and deeper understanding of how cards show up for you in your spreads. So you’ll get quicker in your tarot spreads, you’ll have a deeper understanding of different situations, and you will have a very embodied feeling of each card, and what the experience is for you, personally, of being in that card. So that when you do future spreads for yourself, you recognize that energy right away. And on top of that, you know, how you’ve best dealt with it, or you know, what your tendency is when that energy comes up. So I know when I’m going into temperance, that I’m going to fight against it with every fiber of my being I do not enjoy that feeling and I find it difficult to surrender within that. But I also know that I have friends who are very good at being in that energy and friends who I can be like, okay, just literally tell me what to do right now because I’m being crazy and I’m doing this, this and this. And I can get the support that I need to be within that energy. And as you go through the year, it builds that fuller sense of understanding. So when you do your spread, I also encourage you to keep notes as you go through each month. So when you feel like you’re in that tower card energy, you’re writing in your journal about it, you’re saying, hey, this, this and this are how it showed up, and then maybe the next time that card comes up, you’re like, Oh, I recognize that tower, I’m going to be having a little bit of an existential identity crisis, so I know I can call on this person, this person and this person to set me back on track. So that’s one of the things that really adds to the fullness of doing that type of spread. And it is one of the parts of doing that type of spread that I think often gets forgotten. But it’s really important to come back to because that is where you will see the greatest benefit over time, especially if you’re still in the experience of learning the tarot or if you’re just like getting back to the tarot, and you’re wanting to kind of kick things up a notch, or you’re wanting to bring a deeper understanding of your deck and how it shows up in life. It’s a really wonderful way to do that. So if you are interested in getting a career ahead tarot reading with me, you can check the show notes for today’s episode, or head over to my website, starsagespirit.com and book a reading there. Or I set up a very special DIY, do it yourself year ahead tarot guide, which is on sale right now and will be probably into like the first week of the new year. This guide is, I’m biased, but I think it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever made. And it was, like so many things I do, partially channeled by spirit, partially me. And it is a guided meditation and PDF that will take you through doing a full year ahead spread. And the meditations work along with this four part spread. And what’s really, really cool and the part I’m most excited about which is like super corny, but I’m still really pumped about it, is that I created a Tarot Wheel of the Year. And it’s basically just a little wheel, that it’s a little arts and crafts moment. So you can cut it out, you can fill in the cards that you got in your reading for each month and then you can place it on your board, a bulletin board in your office or by your bed. And each month you turn the wheels so that the card that you’re on is up at the top. And what’s super cool about it is that then you have it in a place of prominence. You’re referring back to it regularly and you do have more of an honest conversation with yourself about how you are living within that card in that moment. So I know I’m biased. I think it’s super cool. I’m really really proud of it. I think it’s like the coolest thing I’ve ever made. And it’s available for purchase right now, either in the show notes of today’s episode, or you can head over to my website, starsagespirit.com, and you’ll be able to find the link to buy it over there as well. So that’s all I have for you today. I will see you all back here next week.

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you love today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe. So that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episode show notes, you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On this episode 23 of Living Tarot, I speak with Death Doula and Midwife, Nora Belal. As a teacher, writer, and guide Nora is dedicated to helping people make plans for end of life, engage with their mortality, and explore what that means on a practical and philosophical level. Nora’s deathwork encourages critical thinking, analysis, and action so we can shift the paradigm of grief, impermanence, and uncertainty in a constantly changing world.

•  Nora discusses a lot of the misconceptions that people have about the work of a death doula and death midwife. 
• We discuss the complexities of grief especially in a year like 2020 with massive death due to the coronavirus pandemic. 
• Nora explains her philosophy of being a life coach, just through the lens of death. 
• We discuss how people have a tendency to limit and compartmentalize their grief because of the way that it’s handled in society. 
• We also talk about strategies for having conversations with loved ones about such a serious and heavy topic. 

2020 has been a really challenging year for a lot of people And for anybody who is dealing with the loss of a loved one around the holiday season, this is a great episode to find validation and support for your grief.

Connect with Sheila:

To get your Career Ahead Tarot Guide click here – https://starsagespirit.ck.page/products/diyyear-ahead-tarot-guide

To book a career tarot reading or distance Reiki session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Connect with Nora:

Find Nora online and get signed up for her Death Practice Journal now: deathpracticejournal.com

Find Nora on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nora.e.belal

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, and energy healer and medium and creator of practical Tarot for everyday intuitives. Each week on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure and embodied the tarot along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing. Empower yourself through intuition and live intentionally with the Tarot. Welcome back to living Tarot. On today’s episode, I’m very excited to be interviewing my friend Nora Belal. Nora is a death midwife and doula. As a teacher, writer and guide, Nora is dedicated to helping people make plans for end of life, engage with their mortality, and explore what that means on a practical and philosophical level. Nora’s death work encourages critical thinking, analysis and action so that we can shift the paradigm of grief, impermanence and the uncertainty in a constantly changing world. Nora and I had a really beautiful conversation about how grief is perceived and in experienced in America. And this is a particularly potent conversation going into the holiday season, especially in a year, when as a country, we have experienced a great deal of death. We talk a lot about how Nora was drawn to this work, what it’s been like to do this work, especially this year, and how Nora’s really an embodiment of the page of cups, and the page of pentacles, bringing together a feeling of really supporting people to explore on an emotionall level, excuse me, and also on a practical level on how to think about end of life care for not just ourselves, but for the people around us, and how to really facilitate those conversations. So I’m absolutely pumped for you guys to get to hear this episode. Let’s dive right in. One more quick note on this episode. We realized after we recorded that we never really defined the difference between a death doula and a death midwife. So I asked Nora to share a little bit about her thoughts on the two different terms. So I’m going to read what she wrote from her perspective. I’ve been trying to find a gender neutral term for the work I do. I like death worker, but it doesn’t always flow nicely. I prefer the term midwife over doula because doula implies support for the emotional aspects, but my job requires a lot of practical logistical knowledge. I’m present for much of the process after death. With the active dying process looks like on a psychological level, how to procure permits to transport a body, who is allowed to care for the dead, how long the body can be kept on vigil, and how to do that. Of course, this all overlaps all the time. The first training I attended use the term midwife. So I want to honor that too. I’ve done training as a death midwife and a death doula. Both courses covered the same material. For me, the term midwife is just a more accurate significator of the role. I used to solely refer to myself as a deaf midwife, though at this point, I use them pretty interchangeably and I’m fine with both. I think the differences will come down to preference rather than semantics eventually, I’m at a point now where I see my role as that of a guide and educator. I’m a life coach more than anything because everything I do is in service of how we live better now. I just happened to use death as my lens for doing that. And now without further ado, my interview with Nora Belal.

Okay, so, welcome to Living Taro, Nora. Can you tell me a little bit about what it is that you do?

Nora Belal  4:42  

Sure, I am primarily a teacher, but I’m a deaf midwife that kind of was a teacher before so that was the thing that like, pulled me into it, but I help people make plans for end of life and I make sure you know, people are actually looking at what death means to them, and engaging with their mortality and like how that affects them on a kind of philosophical, but also practical level. So my main goal was with working with people, and what I really try and have at the core of my practice is like getting people to consider what their relationship with death is. And then how, how that affects their life and kind of how they can like reverse engineer their life, once they’ve kind of realized that it’s finite.

Sheila M  5:38  

Right, right. Yeah. I love this particular area of work. When we met online. My friends from the internet, and I had recently taken a class on becoming a death doula. And it was really interesting to me, because I’ve seen for years, and especially in what I do, how people have kind of a strange relationship with death, especially in the United States. And kind of what has caused that throughout history, which I thought was really fascinating. Um, but it’s been interesting to see your work and the way that you are trying to normalize having these conversations that we like to pretend aren’t necessary, but are like, truly, really important so that there’s not this like chaos after somebody passes away.

Nora Belal  6:36  

Yeah, and I think that something you said that stands out to me too, is that, you know, these are conversations that we don’t necessarily want to have. But I’d add to that, like, when we do have them, we think that it’s just like, Alright, I made my will, I know I want to be cremated and like we’re good to go. And when I did my death, midwife training and death doula training, like, one of the things that I kind of like thought about all the time was that these conversations need to be had, and like, this mentality needs to be developed, like far before, you’re kind of approaching death or far before you’re helping someone else go through their own death. Because I think that, you know, what’s most likely for for the majority of people is that, like, they will kind of accompany someone on their path to the end of their life. And then they’re gonna have to, like, deal with their own but because those situations are obviously like, they feel so urgent, that trying to process it all and trying to get everything done, and also like, be present is almost impossible. So getting the idea of like, your mortality, and like, what that means for, you know, plans, but also just your mind. how you function in the world is like, I want to have those conversations with you now, you know, like, I’m 35. And hopefully, I have many more years. But if I don’t, like I’ve done a lot of… I don’t want to say over the work, but like the, the concept is not new to me. And that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to struggle with a death ever again, or that it’s going to be like, “Oh, it’s fine. It’s natural,” when like, my mother dies, but like I I just like to think that I do have some sort of framework with which she like function within if that were to happen.

Sheila M  8:35  

Right, right. And I think that’s so important, because especially when we do have these kind of catastrophic, emotional moments, I think we underestimate the importance of having that support system already set up, or like having a plan already set up, because we don’t always have a lot of emotional bandwidth to try to figure it out in the moment.

Nora Belal  9:02  

Right. And I mean, it doesn’t have to be just for a death, like you can kind of use the tools in any, any sort of upheaval or change. Because I mean, that’s one of the things I think about a lot too is that like, death is just kind of a different version of change, or like an extreme change, obviously, but like we, on a day to day basis are kind of functioning within like, the main pillars of what a death is, which is like a huge change, uncertainty, like the ways that we approach death or also like how we’re kind of forced to like, live our lives what we don’t make that connection again.

Sheila M  9:40  

yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do think it’s interesting because there are so many examples of like thousands of small deaths that we experience throughout our lives, whether it’s, you know, letting go of a relationship or letting go of a career or just adapting to the day to day this year in particular, feels a little bit like a lot of small deaths and a lot of rebirth, but a lot of shifting and changing. So I think it’s such an interesting field of work. And I know a lot of people are curious about it. What led you to this interest in death work to begin with?

Nora Belal  10:23  

I don’t have a very concise answer for that. Because I think that once I.. I’ll kind of work backwards, I guess. But once I decided to become a death midwife, and like, have that be my primary focus, I realized suddenly, like everything I had been doing prior to that, like, was very significant and very useful. And it felt like I just had a moment or everything just kind of slid into place, like when you’re watching a movie, where they’re like, breaking into like, an underground tomb, or whatever. And like, all of these different things, like roll and hit the other thing, and then suddenly, it like, opens and everything’s fine. But I think that when my grandfather died, and just seeing how horribly that went, and really observing, I think. I’m a middle child. So like, my first instinct is often to kind of like, step back and observe a situation and like, feel out what everyone else is doing. And so being audience to his death, but also like participating, it’s my family, like, I’m, it’s not like, I’m just like sitting in the hospital room corner, like, seeing what everyone else is going through. But like, there was very much this place where I felt like I was like, in it, and then stepping back and then in it and stepping back. And just seeing like, how poorly everyone was dealing with and like, the hospital and doctors, like nurses were amazing, like people were, it’s not like no one was helping us. But it was just so clear to me that he was dying, and that he was not going to wake up again. He was never going to be who he was. And that was obviously difficult, but like also fine. He was 80, and I knew that if he did wake up and was alive, that he would not be the version of himself that like he would have wanted to be. And he had taken all the steps, like he had a DNR, he had his will, like all these things, and it still was just a mess. And so after that, I think just realizing like, okay, you have this checklist of things that should be done, and then it still leaves a huge amount of space for what, what should be. I don’t want to say should be as in like, you know, my way is the best way, but like, there’s, there’s shoulds for everyone, and you need to figure out what those are. But, yeah, just the idea of like, the things that we do that we think we’re preparing for, we’re not actually prepared for at all. So how do we prepare for this kind of nebulous, but also like, very definitive moment? And what is that? What does that mean? And how do I do that? So I would say that, like, I had a lot of different avenues that I kind of walked down that led me to that path. But then after that, I think that was the first death where I’d like seen both sides of it, like I had as a kid, and prior to that experienced a lot of deaths where I was like going to funerals or going to wakes or like suddenly someone wasn’t there anymore. And so that affected me, obviously, but like, my grandfather was the first one where I kind of like had a 360 view of how how things were going.

Sheila M  14:08  

Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s so interesting, because I agree with you, I feel like even with some of the work that I do, I see how much even when the quote unquote steps to prepare logically or even emotionally even people having conversations. When my grandmother passed away, she had a very, she was very old, so she was 95. And she lived a very long life and, and I’m very grateful that she also had a very, like strong mind. Like, I mean, she she had a better memory when she passed away than I do now. Truly. And could, I mean just an unbelievable memory. And she was very clear about what she wanted. And she communicated all of that stuff. And she had conversations with people. And she tried to have other people be prepared. But it was really interesting to me because even with all of that, and even with knowing logically that she’s 95 years old and having other steps in place, it was still, like, really, there was still a lot that felt unsettled or, you know, people still felt like unprepared in a way that I think it was clear that there’s something missing in our process. Do you know what I mean? And so, I do think that’s really interesting, what you’re saying. So from that, what do you think are? I mean, this is probably a bigger question. But what do you think are some of the some of the conversations that people again, we won’t say, should but could have that they’re not having? Or what pieces do you think you see, most commonly, that people could benefit from thinking about before? You know, it’s definite, you know, what I mean?

Nora Belal  16:13  

Right? Um, that is a really big question, because to paraphrase, you know, but I think that, um, I think that having a conversation about your things, is, is really important, not because, you know, your things are worth anything monetarily, or like that they’re super value in that way. But I think that looking at the items that we’ve decided to surround ourselves with, is one kind of like, a stepping stone into, like, I don’t need to look at this straight on right now. I can tell you a story about this thing and why it’s important. And then I can ask you, like, would you like it or like, this is what I want to happen to it. And I know, that seems like, it could like devolve, but I often see with people that like the most, you know, worthless item is the thing that everyone wants, or is like, most attached to, and no one knows it until everyone wants it or, you know what I mean. And so I think that in some ways, like having those conversations now opens a portal to like, conversations about what’s important to you, and then the people that are with you. But also kind of gives you just a little step away from what you’re actually talking about, which I truly believe like being direct about the fact that you’re going to die is something we need to like hone in on a little bit more. But I also recognize that like, there are steps to that. And I think that, you know, just gradually having conversations about like, you know, why? Why is this thing important to me, can give us enough of a lens to like, have conversations that we need to have without, like, really diving deep into it, when we might not be prepared to do that. I also think that when we experience stuff, even if it’s someone not in our family, or even friends circle, like I see a lot of people like wondering why they feel so affected by like a celebrity death. When like, you don’t know this person, blah, blah, blah, like, why would you care. But I think that it’s because it does kind of like shake something foundational in us that like we know that we’re going to die, we don’t know how it’s going to happen, we don’t know when it’s going to happen generally, and so when someone around you dies, or when you like experience a death, whether that’s directly or indirectly, like having conversations about like how they were celebrated or memorialized, or like something that you would definitely want but, um, you know, you didn’t see happen for them or just like having very general conversations about like, you know, that was really beautiful. If that was my funeral, you know, like, I just I think that it’s very easy again, to have that like, just a little step away from what it is that you’re really talking about, which is your own death. But being able to have like, just enough space around it that you can kind of breathe and not freak out. And that’s something actually I talk to a lot, like one of the questions I get most often from people is not necessarily, you know, I’m dying. What do I do? It’s younger people that are concerned because they know that they’re going to be the primary caretaker for their their parent or their their elder, and they’re just like, I cannot get them to open up about this, like, they told me it’s all taken care of. I know it’s not. What do I do? Yeah. And I think that making your own plans again, like when you’re younger is also you get the benefit of like, having it be slightly hypothetical for a while.  And then being able to say like, “Hey, you know, these are my plans like, What do you want?”

Sheila M  20:32  

Yeah, well, I think that’s so interesting and what you were saying even about looking at things are happening at funerals, and then like having that conversation. I think it’s so funny, because I’ve seen people do it, like, all the time about weddings, do you?

Nora Belal  20:51  

Yes!

Sheila M  20:53  

They’ll be like, “Oh, when we get married, it’s going to be like this.” And even you know, like those conversations have gone on, like, amongst my friends, circles and stuff that I’ve never heard somebody do it about a funeral. And I think that there’s like this strange like, morbidity that like hangs over anybody having conversations about this. But what I’ve experienced from people who I’ve worked with, in sessions, who are working on, like, healing grief and stuff, and also from talking to, like spirits, it’s, a lot of what happens is, the person who is experiencing, it doesn’t feel like they can talk about it for some reason, because they feel like they need to show up in a certain way for people or everybody else hasn’t had the opportunity to process it in the same way that maybe they have. Or, you know, even people who come in and are grieving feel like they should be at a certain place. I know, like, endlessly I hear, “I know, I shouldn’t still be sad about this. I know I should be over this, I know I should…” Like all of these ideas about what it is to grieve and to lose someone and what is normal, so to speak. And I think it’s really interesting, because if we could just have, if we could normalize having these conversations that are kind of morbid, and like, might feel a little awkward or a little weird to have, I think that I’ve heard with almost every single client I’ve had, how powerful it would be to be able to just have that conversation with someone, because quite frankly, they’re coming in and having that conversation with a complete stranger. I mean, these people could really use I think, like the facilitation of that conversation in their lives. 

Nora Belal  22:51  

Right. A couple of things. I love thinking about, like, what I’m gonna wear when I’m dead. Like what my last outfit is gonna be. Like, I was thinking about this the other day where I and I’m married, and like, we got married in a courthouse, and like, my friend sent me a dress and was like, do you like this? And I was like, yep, getting it. Like, I did not think about it at all. And I’m very happy in my marriage. Like, it’s not like something I was like, whatever, I don’t care. But like just the idea of like, someone digging me up and being like, Who was this bitch because she’s like, surrounded by all of it. Like, I really want to just like fill my grave with like weird things. And I want to wear like a crazy embroidered dress and like no shoes and just have people, one have fun. Like when you know, they’re at my ceremony of like putting me in the ground. Like, I want that to be memorable and weird for them. Because I think that one of the mistakes we make when we’re when we’re doing death, I guess and like planning funerals is that like, they’re all the same. They’re always weird. They almost never, like reflect who that person was. And I would like it to be like you were saying like, a wedding is a thing that people are, you know, excited about, but also like maybe a little judgmental, where they’re like, “Oh, flowers, huh.” And just giving the same, I guess respect or like attention to it and not making it like… I’m not saying that death isn’t serious, obviously. Like, I think that it’s important to like take it to heart and like think about it and grieve and not think that you’re not grieving long enough or too long or whatever. Like there’s so much that is very serious about it. But death is also like strange and we don’t know what happens after we’re dead. And like, I know that many belief systems like kind of have ideas, and people have many beliefs, which is great. I love that. But like, we, as humans, like, don’t know exactly. And what we do know is that like, whatever body we’re in now, whoever you are now, like, that’s not who we are after. If you believe in some sort of continuation, like this thing, moving my hands, you can’t see me but like this doesn’t continue, you know. Yeah, like, events are fun. Like, I used to work in production and I used to photograph weddings and work in restaurants. And like, all of these things, like I was saying earlier, kind of made me very equipped to, like, do the work that I do now. And part of that work is to like see the importance of ceremony, but also like making events important because of the effort that you put into them to make it special to make it memorable. And not again, like, not everyone needs to like, spend a billion dollars on their wedding to have a beautiful wedding ceremony, like I’m not encouraging everyone to like, blow their savings on their funeral, or their wedding. But just the idea that like, this is the last chance you have to kind of like, make an impact, you know what I mean. You’re not gonna be there. But like, make it cool. Or make it like, you know, make it reflect who you were and make it something that people can feel okay laughing at and feel okay crying at and feel okay like sharing who you were, and not just like, romanticizing everything about you. And then like everyone goes home, and they’re like, “What? What just happened?” Yeah. I feel that a lot like was with many of the ceremonies I’ve been to and funerals that I’ve been to, it’s kind of like stopped me from being able to grieve a little bit because I’m like, so unmoored by what happened? Where I’m like, “Is that what they wanted? I don’t think that’s how they would have done that,” you know, but everyone’s kind of doing the best that they can and we have kind of a formula for what a funeral looks like. And that’s what people will do.

Sheila M  27:35  

Yeah, I think that’s so important, too, because I think there’s so much. There is so much humor that feels like we’ve been made to feel like it’s inappropriate. But one of the things that I’ve noticed that happens in almost every reading I do, and almost every, like, grief healing session I do is that there is always some element of humor, like, and I think it’s really important, again, like to grieve and to feel that, but I think that it’s much more complex than just feeling sad. And I feel like in, in America, in particular, everything has been stripped down to like, just sad. You should just be grieving, you should just be sad. And I think that people process everything so differently and especially what I’ve seen as kind of some of the most potent healing that people have done, either at funerals, or afterwards, are like having these conversations that are really funny, or things that they didn’t realize the person did until after the fact that they’re like laughing about where they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this person was doing this this whole time. And I didn’t even realize.” You know.

Nora Belal  28:53  

Yeah. 

Sheila M  28:54  

Hey there. I wanted to let you know that I’m currently accepting bookings for my career ahead tarot readings. These readings are designed to help you see the energy of the year ahead, to close out anything that’s been holding you back in the present year, and help you expand into your highest level in your career or business. Each reading happens to go through the year, month by month, talk about what you’ll be dealing with and how to best approach any challenges or hiccups that might come up in the year ahead. I have very limited bookings around the holidays. And I’m starting to get booked up into the new year as well. So if you are interested, please head on over to the show notes for this episode. Or check out my website at starsagespirit.com and if you’re more of a do it yourself kind of person. I’ve also created a DIY year ahead Tarot guide that will lead you through a very similar spread to what I do with my clients and help you to define what you really want out of this year and see any challenges and how to approach them through the year. It is an entirely personal reading, it is a very accessible price point, and you can use it over and over. So it’s not specific to next year and it’s not even specific to this time of year. You can use it for your relationship around your anniversary, you can use it on your business anniversary, or your birthday. The options are really endless. So if you are interested in purchasing your own DIY year ahead, guide, you can do that by heading over to the show notes today.

Nora Belal  30:38  

Yeah, absolutely. And something you said was just really important to where it’s like, people think that grief is just being sad. And I don’t think that grief is the same kind of emotion as like, I’m sad, I’m happy, I’m scared, I’m angry, you know, like grief itself, I think is just an acknowledgment of like, something you’ve had to let go or you’re acknowledging something you’ve had to let go, whether that’s a job, or a relationship, or a house or a person, you know. And so grief itself isn’t the emotion, it’s like the container for all of it, where you’re like, when you say ‘I’m grieving’, that doesn’t have to mean I’m sad. And it is messed up because like, I think that people struggle with how they think that they’re supposed to be grieving, rather than just grieving. And I think if we can redefine grief and death in that way, where it’s like, that’s not the emotion necessarily, like that’s just the umbrella for everything that’s happening right now. And that like, there’s not a timeline for it. And it’s frustrating, too, because people often will say, like, “I know, I shouldn’t be sad anymore.” And it’s like, why not? Like this is a monumental occasion, this is someone that you loved, that you cared about, that you saw every day, or not, you know. Whatever the relationship is, like, why shouldn’t you be sad, you can be sad, and you can be sad forever, like, being sad or grieving too also doesn’t mean that you’re, like, completely non functional. And I think part of it is, I think sometimes if you’re like, I need to break down and like scream and cry for the next four days, like, do that. Don’t take that away from yourself, but also don’t think that like, at the end of those four days, you’re like, “Well, okay, grieving times over,” you know, like, I had a phone call with someone, very randomly. I was calling a car insurance company. And this was right when COVID was starting and the person that I usually talked to wasn’t there or answering and like, their voicemail was kind of like, someone else will get back to you. And I was like, man, I hope that they didn’t get laid off because of COVID and like, all of these things happening. And then they ultimately called me back and very casually was like, “Yeah, you know, sorry. My mom died two days ago.” You know, and I just was like, ‘What the fuck are you doing at work?’ You know. I know that a lot of people might want to kind of, like, get back into the routine and that can be helpful. But also, like, I do think that we don’t give ourselves space to grieve, and that we don’t give ourselves like, the amount of time or like the style of our grief that we should kind of figure out you know. The thing that you need is not what everyone tells you you need, it’s not like what you look up on the internet, like the internet can be very helpful, but it doesn’t tell you how you need to feel and what you need to like, fully process. And I think that in itself, like takes time to figure out so like, when she said, my mom died two days ago, I was like, Oh, wait, you don’t know. This go home. And that’s not a possibility for a lot of people to just like, financially and privilege wise and just like it’s, there’s so many different expectations coming from like so many different systems of society and like, oppression that we live in to where it’s like you don’t get to feel that because you’re XYZ.

Sheila M  34:38  

Exactly, yeah. And I think that’s a really interesting point, too, because like I said, in learning about like the history of grief and mourning in America was very interesting to me because what ultimately drove what we all think of now as like the normal timeline for grief which is  like you’re saying like a couple days, unless it’s like your spouse, was really driven by the fact that we were in wartime and needed people to keep functioning, basically. But then we never went back to, oh, no, like that needs to be processed and that became like the new normal. And so I think it’s so interesting because it is treated like a one size fits all kind of thing. Oh, well, when my mother died, you know, I only took this much time off, or I was over it in a couple of weeks, or, you know, I dealt with it. My favorite response that I ever got was, I dealt with it on the weekend.

Nora Belal  35:39  

Right? So I took care of that I had on my to do list. I’m fine now. 

Sheila M  35:43  

Exactly. And it’s like, it becomes this, like checking off boxes and this again, like another thing that is driven by I think, like white supremacy and the patriarchy is like, okay, let me let me see how I can be more productive and like, check off boxes of my grief. Which is crazy? That is just not how it works. And I know exactly what you’re talking about, because not everybody does have that privilege. But I think it’s more normalizing the fact that you might be feeling that, like, you might have to work, but he might be feeling bad for months, or a year or two years. And to like, really normalize the fact that, you know, you might not, you might not even begin processing it for like, a couple weeks or a couple months, and it might come around in cycles. And that that’s okay. Like, it doesn’t it’s not a judgment on you, or how well or how poorly you’re handling it. And, like normalizing the conversations around it. And just saying like, ‘Oh, you know, I was just having like, kind of a tough weekend, or I was having a tough couple days there. You know, thanks for asking,’ you know, and giving people the opportunity to actually have the space to feel what they’re feeling.

Nora Belal  37:07  

Yeah, and let it go in cycles. Like you think about every other aspect of our lives and how we’re allowed to like progress through a thing, where, you know, you learn a new skill or whatever, and it’s like, I’m a beginner, I have no idea what I’m doing. And then like, four years down the road, you’re like, I’m, I’m pretty good at this now. And I think that that could be a useful way to think about grief too, where it’s like, I don’t know what’s going on. I know, I’m grieving. I don’t know how that’s gonna show up in my life. I don’t know how that’s gonna manifest in like, three years or three weeks. But like, I’m figuring this out. And it’s not an event. And it’s not a thing that you can check off over the weekend. And maybe like, making lists and organizing the shit out of everything you own is like part of your grief process. But like, it’s not a like, you didn’t just deal with it and now you move on. Like we have to, we do have to keep moving through our lives, but the way that we move through our lives is now very different. And the grief is part of that and a loss is part of that. So yeah, I just, it’s so weird, because it’s like death is this very sure thing, like everyone’s going to die, everyone’s going to experience a death. Like, it is a universal like, that is a thread that ties us all together. But then we also have like, acted like it’s this individual thing that when it happens, it’s like oh, so and so’s Baba Bill died. And then it’s like this thing that happened that no one talks about and it’s just like, okay, let’s like wrap that up and move on. It’s like, why? Why!? And I do think that’s changing a little bit, like there’s so many cool like, death focused organizations and like conferences and more death midwives and death workers in general. And like, it is starting to kind of like slowly percolate through everything else which it needs to. But yeah, there is this weird, I don’t know, tendency to say like, okay, that’s like, that lives here now, and I don’t talk about it, and I don’t like visit it ever again and moving on.

Sheila M  39:28  

Yeah, yeah. I love the way you said that too. What do you think are, kind of going along with that, what do you think are some of the misconceptions that people have about what death work is and like, what exactly you’re doing and when you do this work?

Nora Belal  39:48  

I think some of the misconceptions are that you only do this like when someone is about to die. And like I said earlier, I think that’s kind of, I mean, it happens, people happen to realize they’re dying as they’re dying. But like, I think the biggest misconception is that it’s work that can wait. And I was at the hospital with my husband, he was getting a hand surgery and the anesthesiologist was asking me what I did. And I told him that I was a death midwife, and he was kind of like, what’s that? And then the nurse, he was like, they’re angels. Cuz he, I guess, as a nurse, like, you’re around patients in the hospital, like much more often than anyone else. And so he pretty much was the only person in the room that like, knew what a death doula was or a death midwife. I use those terms interchangeably. We can like talk about the actual differences. I just, it always kind of like depends on the audience. But, as, and this is only funny because like, my husband’s like, wearing his little like cap and gown, and like his hands all like, taped up and ready to go. And he’s like, getting wheeled away and the anesthesiologist, like, turns over his shoulder and like yells and is like, talk to you in 30 years. Like, okay…that’s…I don’t have time for that conversation right now. But nope. Be better if you called me a little sooner. 

Sheila M  41:32  

Oh, my God. 

Nora Belal  41:34  

Yeah, I mean, I think that is definitely the biggest misconception is that you can’t plan for it earlier. You can address it earlier. And then the other one, I think, is that it’s, it’s like, going to be painful or going to be really difficult. And I’m not saying that it’s not difficult, but I don’t think it has to be painful. And I think I’ve kind of insinuated, like, the inevitability of this is like, the one sure thing that’s going to happen. So planning ahead, like, it can be uncomfortable, but like, you’re not going to have to suffer through it. Whereas if you are waiting to make your end of life plans, and waiting to address it, because you don’t want to think about the fact that like, everyone you know is going to die, that like you will suffer through that at the end. And being able to, like, manage discomfort or manage the pain of like having to have that realization rather than like suffering through it. Do you get the difference I’m saying like, between like, pain and suffering, where like, I think that pain is inevitable part of the process, but like, you don’t have to necessarily, like suffer through your pain.

Sheila M  42:53  

Yeah, it’s the holding on piece of it. That is like really where the struggle comes from. And when you try to force something to be in a way that it is not naturally, you know, like, it’s gonna hurt whether you have all the plans made or not.

Nora Belal  43:08  

Yeah, and I mean, that’s also something I really want to, I guess, draw attention to is that like, my work is not you teaching you to, like not care about death, or like, have it not affect you. It’s always going to affect you. It’s always going to fucking like, rock your world when it happens. And like, it might not be in the kind of like, earth shattering like I don’t know what just happened way, but like, it’s always going to change you like it’s just it’s certain that like experiencing death and like going through grief and figuring out how you grieve is normal and like, inevitable, and natural and normal, but like, doesn’t mean that you..I don’t know..doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect you. Sorry, that was like a really bad way to put all of that together. But no, it’s true.

Sheila M  44:08  

And I do think that I do think that differentiation is really important for people to understand. And it’s so funny because like it, it goes along with a lot of like, like yogic theory and stuff, which I follow and yogic philosophy about the more you try to hold on and control, the more suffering you’ll experience and the more that you can just kind of like, you know, surrender to the process. It doesn’t mean that it’s not going to hurt but it’s just, it’s the kind of follows along with that same path. And I do think that’s really important to differentiate for people because they, it is subtle, but it’s true. Yeah. So how do you think because this is an intuition podcast, how do you think what you do kind of intertwines with intuition? I mean, obviously, I can see some of the ways from what you’ve talked about already, but what do you find either personally, or working with clients is kind of driven by intuition and kind of connecting with your own personal sense of agency?

Nora Belal  45:22  

I think that historically, my relationship with intuition has been very complex and like, complex in the way that I didn’t realize that I didn’t trust it, that I didn’t really know what it was, that I didn’t listen to it. And then, and realizing that, like, what I thought was intuition was often fear or like trauma, you know, where, and that’s, I think, also, like, shows up with, with people how they deal with death, and like, the expectation again, of like, how you should be grieving, or like, what you should be feeling is often overshadowed, but because we’re, like, Oh, my gut’s saying this, and it’s like, is it? Or are you nervous? You know what I mean? So, for a long time, I think I was like, misled by what I thought was my intuition. And now having actively, like, worked with it, and like, try to cultivate it, because that’s also something that, you know, intuition is this, like, innate ability you have, but it also doesn’t mean that you don’t have to, like, cultivate it and work out. Figure out what it is when it’s happening. And I think for me, that’s been like, the biggest realization of like, my intuition isn’t just the first thought that pops in my head. And it’s something that I need to like, actively, I always imagined like knots in like jewelry, you know what I mean? Where you have to kind of like, roll it between your fingers and like, pull it slowly and be like, Oh, that’s not it, you know? And then and then you kind of find it, and you’re like, Okay, that’s actually what my intuition is saying. And I think for a long time, it made me feel weird about what intuition was, or I like, brushed it off, because I did have this sense that like, intuition is just your gut telling you what’s wrong and what’s right. And like, that’s not true for a lot of people because of like what they’ve experienced in it. You know sometimes your safety has to override what your intuition is saying or like, just again, like systems of oppression and like expectations societally, where it’s like, you might know what your intuition is telling you, but like you are forced into this other direction. So I don’t know if that’s exactly answering your question. But like, I’ve had kind of a tumultuous relationship with intuition and feel like I’m just now and part of that was like, starting to do my own death work and like becoming involved in this thing that, you know, everyone has very strong opinions about, but also like, usually the very surface level. So having to kind of like, navigate my way through that. And then, like, realizing one of the tools that I have at my disposal that I’ve always had just like never really known how to wield was my intuition. And I also see it a lot with with people that are dealing with death, where they, and this is kind of like a specific type of death that people experience where it’s like you’re in the hospital and you’re being kept alive and like the family or the friends or, you know, the people your circle around you, like, they kind of intuitively know like, everyone’s saying, Oh, they wouldn’t want this or I don’t know that we should try that. But then everyone kind of goes along with keeping someone alive for as long as possible, whatever it means to be alive you know. Like, there’s just a lot of, I see you can like see it on people’s faces, like struggling with like, I don’t think this is what should happen, but I also don’t want to be the person that says like, this person just should die or like we’ve done all that we can and like, let’s move on, because it’s not, you know, like, we were talking about grief. It’s not just like, let’s move on, saying someone like reached the end of their natural life and like natural life is another like, weird concept when you’re in a hospital. And I’m not against dying in the hospital or like, I think that like doctors and nurses do the best they can and sometimes, like the type of care, sorry, this is a tangent, but like, the type of care you can get in the hospital is often like, not what can be replicated at home. Like people have a very strong aversion to dying in the hospital and I think there are ways to kind of like work around that if you are going to have to bring a loved one or you know, if you’re dealing with it yourself if you know you’re gonna die in the hospital like you can make that a more homelike setting and like, there are doctors and nurses, nurses especially like, that are willing to work with you on making that happen. But yeah, just this idea that, like, everyone in the room kind of like knows what’s happening, but no one wants to say it and like, everyone’s like, intuition, I guess is like, shouting and no one’s heeding it, you know? But yeah, I just, I guess, going back to the idea that, like, our intuition is something that we don’t often listen to, even if we can hear it. And then oftentimes, like, what we hear is not our actual intuition.

Sheila M  50:42  

Yeah. I literally, I just did an episode because that’s one of the that’s one of the biggest questions that I get when I work with people and like developing intuition and everything is, how do I tell the difference between intuition and anxiety, and I literally did an episode just recently called intuition versus anxiety. And it’s so common, especially for people who do have a background with trauma, or people of color, who have a completely different life experience. Access to intuition is something that everybody can develop, but our experiences of getting in touch with it are different like and it can take a lot of, I loved your analogy of like untangling a piece of jewelry, because I do think that’s perfect, because if you can start to notice what like the first responses, like you said, it’s not always correct, like the first thing that comes up and like people saying, like, Go with your gut is not always the truth. Like that’s not always the, the most grounded, based in reality reaction to the situation because often we are having like a trauma response or an emotional response. And so I love that you, I love that you called that out as well, because I do think that’s really important for people to recognize, but it’s usually like, what happens when you get like, a little bit like, still for a moment. So like, that’s going to be there and it might be like squawking at you, and it might be like, don’t do this thing. And then right behind that is kind of this quieter, like stillness that’s like, no, this is what to do. You know, and I think it really does take a while to hone in on it. And usually we’re more aware of it when we’ve like, ignored it or somehow, like, you know, barked in the face of it, and then later been like, why didn’t I just do that thing. Like, I knew, like you said, in the hospital room when everybody’s standing around, they’re like, I don’t think this is what grandma wanted, you know, and they all know it like in that kind of like physical knowing. But nobody can like speak it because we’re so we do get very used to like ignoring it and pretending it’s not happening, because we don’t know how to deal with it basically.

Nora Belal  52:59  

Right? Yeah, it’s very easy to discount yourself when you don’t have what the other end of that would be, which is like, you know what the answer to that is, you know what I mean, and I think that there’s a huge benefit in saying like, I know, it’s not this, but like, I don’t know, what the other option is right now, you know. Like, you can have plenty of time, like, again with grief, like you can have all the time in the world to like, figure out how you grieve or like what grief means to you, but just because, you know you’re supposed to be grieving or just because like, you know, you think you’re supposed to be having a certain experience like, doesn’t mean that that’s the experience you’re going to have or doesn’t mean that there’s like other options. You know, that there are other options available to you, if you can just kind of like get beyond that box of like, what you think you should do or what people have told you you should do.

Sheila M  53:58  

Right. Absolutely. So I do want to give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about how people can work with you and what your work looks like but before I do that, I did want to talk a little bit about what card I really see you embodying in the Tarot, which I think is interesting, because I’m sure that some people were listening to this and thinking it must be the death card. And I think that there are some subtle and not so subtle ways that you do embody that card, because it’s very much about that death, life, death cycle that kind of weaves through all of our lives, not just that permanent death, and also this sense of like reinvention, and kind of composting something and growing something new. So I do think there is a lot of elements of that in your work. That’s why it’s called the death card after all, but I think that there’s a little more to what you do, right now, which is kind of seen in the page of pentacles, and the page of cups, and I feel like you kind of marry them both up because the page of pentacles is kind of the exploration and kind of initiation into this practical side of things, which is like, we’re all going to die. We all know this, we all know that most people are not getting either the end of life care or the funeral or, you know, that dying process that they really want. And then the page of cups, which is kind of the more emotional curiosity, which is like, how does it feel to you to talk about this? How do you show up in these conversations? How can you be vulnerable and as comfortable, comfortable is probably not the right word, but as compassionate with yourself when you’re having these difficult conversations? And what does it look like for you to get curious about these things that maybe you were avoiding? And to have the conversation kind of, like you said, especially for younger people, where you can kind of view it from from afar at first, and really be like, Oh, yes, that’s the thing that we’re going to have to deal with, but like, here’s kind of a gentle entry point into this thing, that we all have to deal with, at some point, whether it’s well, obviously, for ourselves, but also for someone around us as well.

Nora Belal  56:33  

I’d love that.

Sheila M  56:36  

But I do think it’s really interesting, because I, you know, I usually pull out like a few cards, because so far I’ve known all my guests, so it’s easy to do. And then as we go, I kind of narrow it down. So I really do think with everything that you do, and that we talked about today, those are two like really good ones. I love the pages.

Nora Belal  56:57  

Yeah, I mean, that was like, just spot on to like, the framework that I have, like for my work is that.

Sheila M  57:08  

Yeah, yeah. I love that. Oh, perfect transition. From that, I know that in January, you are reopening your death perception course. And can you talk a little bit about that and how people can work with you?

Nora Belal  57:28  

Yeah, definitely. So death perception is a course that I created that I basically, like took all of my experience and kind of like belief systems and not like spiritual or like, you know, dogmatic belief systems, but like, what I think is kind of the framework that is most helpful to do your own death work, and then also be able to, like, kind of make that knowledge then part of like, just how you show up in your community. So it kind of starts out like very, you know, examining your own thoughts, your own beliefs, like lots of exercises, and we like do death meditation. And, you know, again, that like, philosophical kind of like emotional side of what death is, how it shows up what the different definitions are. And then once we have that foundation, we kind of move through making your own plans, like, what are the things that no one talks about that we should like what does it mean to have complete plans, like how do we make them, do I need a lawyer, can I do this online; like, all of the like, just little nitty gritty things that make a difference in how death will be approached in your community, or as an individual, or, you know, however, you’re kind of choosing to, like, use that information. And then it just kind of, really, I think, is like, a platform or a foundation for like, how then do you want to live your life. So it’s a lot of things like at its core it’s kind of like a practical guide, and like, you have access to me and access to other students. So it’s like, how do I do this, like ABC, but then it also becomes like a larger framework for like, Okay, well, if this is what I want for my death or my end of life care, like, what does that mean for how I show up now. So it’s four weeks, and it’s all delivered through like either reading material, but then I also record everything. So you can just listen to the whole course if you want to, which I really love and I was planning on doing this before COVID happened, but like, I don’t want to spend more time than I have to on zoom meetings. And so like this is basically delivered as a podcast, if you choose to, like, only interact with it that way, you’ll still like get a lot out of it and get all the information that you need, but then there’s also like fun workbooks and writing exercises and all that stuff. And then prior to the death perception course starting, I offer a free course called redefine death, which just talks about a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about where like death is not just this one thing. It is this, you know, definitive event that will happen, but it’s also like change, and uncertainty, and like how we navigate that just in our day to day lives, which I just think is very important. Now, more than ever.

Sheila M  1:00:49  

Yeah, it’s so beautiful, how you said that too, because so much of these decisions, where you are going deeper, and you’re having these conversations, and you’re really thinking critically about something that we don’t often do, does then start to be kind of the lens that you’re seeing life through. So I think that’s so beautiful, how you described that. And really important for people to because it’s not just like, make the most out of every day, like you said, it’s about your ability to navigate uncertainty, which if there have ever been uncertain times, it is right now. So couldn’t be a more appropriate time for people to be coming face to face with that and gaining more tools to navigate that ambiguity, for sure.

Nora Belal  1:01:39  

Yeah. And also, just like side note, my death perception course is like the only thing that you pay for, but if you like, follow me on Instagram, or get on my email list, like I am releasing a guide on like, navigating grief during weird holiday time, where you might be like separated from all the people you love, and so like, I do have some other smaller things in the pipeline, but the best way to kind of get access to that is either like, follow me on social media or just get on my email list. And I highly recommend the email list because I feel like everyone is kind of at their capacity for Instagram right now, where it’s like, how much content can I really consume. So I just feel like having an email where you’re like, I know that’s there. I’m gonna listen to it. I’m going to read it. I don’t need to scroll.

Sheila M  1:02:30  

Yeah. Exactly. So where can people find you online, so on Instagram or your website, and I’ll share them in the show notes also, but just in case, people want to write it down real quick?

Nora Belal  1:02:43  

Yeah. So my Instagram is nora.e.belal so it’s just my full name. And then my website is deathpracticejournal.com. And you can also email me at deathpracticejournal.com or @gmail. So basically, if you search death practice journal, I’ll pop up. Or you can find me on Instagram at nora.e.belal

Sheila M  1:03:12  

This is so great.

Nora Belal  1:03:17  

 Yeah. This was fun. Thank you.

Sheila M  1:03:18  

Thank you so much for taking the time because this was just such an easy conversation to have and I think especially with the holidays coming, it’s a particularly challenging time for a lot of people who are managing grief and anxiety and anxiety going into family situations where there has been grief involved in especially in a year with COVID-19 where there’s been maybe a lot of unexpected deaths as well. So I know people will benefit so much from looking that up. And I appreciate you so much for being a friend and also for being on today. So thank you so much.

Nora Belal  1:03:52  

I appreciate you. Thank you.

Sheila M  1:03:56  

Thank you so much for listening to living Tarot. If you loved today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @starsagespirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episodes show notes you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On episode 22 of Living Tarot,  I talk all about energetic boundaries and managing your energy over the holiday season. It’s no secret that it can be a challenge to manage our expectations and the energetic exchanges that we experience with our families. In this episode I give some helpful tips for maintaining healthy boundaries and keeping yourself as grounded and peaceful as possible through this holiday season.

• I discuss the ways in which family patterns of behavior can lead to energetic patterns of behavior.
• I explain how to tell if you are taking on energy from the people around you.
• I discuss some steps you can take to help you protect your energy throughout the holiday season.
• I talk about my empaths sorting meditation that can help you sort out your feelings from your loved ones this holiday season.

Get a copy of my Empath’s Sorting Meditation here : https://exciting-composer-1319.ck.page/0884ee399e

To book a career tarot reading or distance Reiki session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium, and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition, and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the taro along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing. Empower yourself through intuition and live intentionally with the Tarot.

Hey there a tarot friend, I wanted to ask you for a quick favor. I’ve been working very hard behind the scenes to get Living Tarot out there in front of as many people as possible, but I can’t do it without your help. So for the month of November 2020, I am running a special contest. And the prize will be a career ahead tarot reading, which is a reading of the full view of the year ahead in your business or career. So if you would like to enter, head on over to Apple podcasts, and review Living Tarot, preferably with a five star review, and leave a comment about what you learned from the podcast, your favorite episode, or even questions that you might have, that you’d like me to answer on upcoming episodes, and then share a screenshot of that review over on Instagram and tag me @StarSageSpirit. And if you don’t have Instagram, you can always send a screenshot to my email. I’ll include more info about how to enter this contest over on Instagram, and in the show notes for today’s episode. 

Hello fellow seekers. Welcome back to Living Tarot. On today’s episode, I really want it to take some time to talk about energetic boundaries, interacting with our families and how to manage your energy over the holidays. This is really important. We’re a few days from Thanksgiving, I think when this episode is going to come out. So I’ve been talking about boundaries over the past couple weeks with some of my guests and in my solo episode. But I want to talk about this in particular as we head into the holiday season with thanksgiving in the United States, and then also Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years kind of a lot of people experiencing a lot of family time. And while it might be a little bit different this year because of COVID. The energetics of what’s going on with the holidays might not be so let’s kind of dive right in here. building off of our last episode, we talked a little bit about how we can kind of get into some of these energetic patterns and exchanges with the people who are closest to us in our lives. And this might be our family of origin, it might be a chosen family, it may be a not chosen family you’re in laws or something like that. But we do with the people that we are closest to in our lives tend to have some sort of energetic exchange. And especially if we’re talking about family of origin, there can be a lot of dynamics in play, that are complicated to navigate, very old, maybe uncomfortable, and also a bit habitual, which can be even more difficult to overcome. 

So first, I want to say to you, just because you’ve always had a certain energetic pattern with your family, doesn’t mean that you need to continue it. I I’m gonna repeat that because it’s very important. Just because you have always had a certain energetic pattern with your family doesn’t mean that you need to continue it. If it does not work for you, you can change it and you are responsible to do so. You might be saying to yourself, if they do this, then I will finally do this. If they would just stop doing this then I could do that. I know that feels true. But it’s not true. And sometimes even if even if we’re talking about our parents, sometimes we have to take back the control. Sometimes we have to be the adult in it. In the relationship, you can’t expect anyone else to do it for you. And if other people don’t respect the boundaries that you’re setting that is about them, and not about you. And that may come up, as we talk about some of the things that we’re going to talk about today in terms of setting these boundaries, they will likely have a reaction to you setting those energetic boundaries, it is unlikely that they won’t have some kind of reaction, especially if they’re old patterns that have existed over a long period of time, those can be very hard, not just for you to break, but for other people to break as well.

Hold fast to those things, though, and don’t try to make them feel better, or try to create a new energetic pattern, let them tend to their own reaction and don’t take responsibility for it. So we’ll talk a little bit more about about that now. So if you have an energetic exchange with your parents, for example, and I’m just going to use this as an example, I’m not saying it’s your situation or my situation, it’s just an example. But if you have a situation with your parents, where perhaps you expect that they will, you expect that they will act like parents, and they will just tell you what they need from you, and ask you for what they need. And that is your expectation. And perhaps that is how you meet them in the relationship. You are very direct, you say what you need, but perhaps the behavior that you’re receiving from them, is that passive aggressive, or, you know, with like, these snide little comments that are thrown in, but or maybe it’s sarcasm, you know, maybe you hear sarcasm over and over. And it’s just like too much for it to just be like a joke, it’s clearly a feeling that they don’t want to have to take responsibility for expressing in a non sarcastic way. And so maybe you’re going into situations, and they are making some passive aggressive comments about your lifestyle, or the choices that you make, or the way you spend money or the way you do your job or your relationship. You know, there’s there’s thousands of things that come up with parents. And maybe every single time you go into a situation with them, you are expecting them for some reason to, you know, act differently. But you’re not telling them that you would prefer that they act differently. You’re not holding them accountable when they act in a way that you feel uncomfortable with. Can you really expect anything to change if you don’t change? If every time you just kind of like, let it go, and you’re like, Okay, they’re being passive aggressive again, and it’s really making me mad, but, but I can’t do anything about it. And I’m not talking about having some like big blow up confrontation. But it might be something like saying, Hey, I understand that you feel that way. But I’d prefer if you didn’t make, you know, snide comments, or sarcastic comments about my relationship, or about my work, I know that you don’t understand, and that’s okay. But I feel like we’ve covered that ground already. And we don’t need to do that anymore. And perhaps you’ll get a reaction that’s like, Oh, I was just kidding. You know, I know. It’s like, Yes, I understand that you think that you are just kidding, but do you realize you’ve brought it up the past, you know, 10 times that we’ve spent time together. And I’m just, you know, I don’t need to hear it anymore. I know, that’s how you feel. And that’s great for you. It’s not how I feel. So sometimes something like that will happen.

 I will say that sometimes we go into the holidays, in particular, expecting a certain scenario to play out. So perhaps that has been your experience in the past. And so both of you go into that situation, expecting everything to be that way. So there’s no real opportunity to have a new experience because you are going in expecting your parents to make some sarcastic comments. And your parents are going in expecting to be able to make those comments. So if nobody upsets the ecosystem in which you’re exchanging energy that way, you will feel that same kind of tension going into the situation they will probably feel it too and you will go into what you are used to because when we are nervous or anxious, we go into patterns of behavior that we are used to because that feels comfortable. So notice what patterns you might be expecting, when you’re going into these type of social situations. Notice, you know, what they might be expecting. And also, if you do make a change to the way that you’re responding, or maybe you just all together, and and that’s an option, also, you don’t always have to confront everything, perhaps you just choose to say, you know, when they make some sort of, like, sarcastic comment, for example, you know, what I know, that’s just about them, and the way they feel, I’m just going to let it roll right off of me, like no big deal.

And notice, you know, if you make some sort of adjustment, notice what happens as well. Because, like we talked about, at the end of, at the end of our, my last solo episode, when we do have those energetic exchanges with people, and especially old exchanges that people are used to experiencing, it can sometimes be hard to break, and people will often have a strong reaction to it. So perhaps, you know, you’re you ignoring that behavior results in them escalating. So maybe they talk about it even more, maybe they make even more comments, and you’re just getting, you know, at first, it was easy to kind of let it roll off of you. And then you’re getting like really mad because they’re going too far. That’s okay. And I’m not saying that you have to be okay with it. But you know, maybe you say, Okay, you know what, I’m only going to stay for two hours, or I’m going to do something like that. Or, hey, you know, maybe you turn turn to your partner or your friend or whoever’s with you and say, you know, what, I think we’re going to need to leave earlier than I thought initially, you know, and, and if you have an ally, going into these situations, if you have a spouse, if you have a sibling, somebody who can help you, you know, let them know that you’re trying to do something like that, because sometimes it can be very helpful to feel like you have a team. And and you know, with siblings, you know, maybe your sister can come in and say, Hey, you know what, I noticed you guys make a lot of sarcastic comments about this, and it makes me uncomfortable. I imagined that it makes, you know, my sister feel uncomfortable also, but I just wanted to say it makes me feel uncomfortable, you know, and sometimes something like that can kind of put it to bed, just because you change your behavior doesn’t mean that they will automatically and often they will have some sort of reaction. Maybe they soak a little bit, you know, maybe they’re angry and silky. That doesn’t mean you have to comfort them, that’s their responsibility, they need to soothe themselves. And what you don’t want to do is create a new energetic exchange, that is also bad. So then maybe they learn that, oh, when I do this silky behavior, then I get this response from them. So it’s not, it’s not the same exchange that we were having before. But it’s still an exchange that provides you to be outside of your comfort zone and to be in like a caretaking type of position. 

Hey there, I wanted to remind you that this is a great time of year to get a career ahead tarot reading. This reading will give you a full view of the year ahead in your business or career. It’ll enlighten you as to the stories that you’re telling yourself about your work in business. It’s a full look at what feels true, what is true and how to work through doubt and imposter syndrome. We’ll talk about what obstacles you may be coming up against so that you can be prepared to meet them, and how to play to your strengths and where to focus your energy. Your session will be fully collaborative and offer you the opportunity to weigh your options and evaluate different career paths and offers. This reading is designed to empower you to make career choices that offer you the greatest opportunity for growth and expansion. And to consider things you might not have. clients who’ve had one of these sessions with me have been able to analyze job offers aligned new services and products with their value, and things like the timing to roll them out and felt empowered to negotiate five figure salary increases. This is the perfect time of year for this type of reading. And I don’t have a ton of availability around the holidays. So if you are interested, make sure you head on over to the show notes and look into booking a session today.

So that is just an example. I’m not saying that that’s happening to you. But you might start to notice some of those patterns of behavior. And the way that you start to kind of exchange energy or pick up energy from people often happens to where, you know, perhaps we have a particularly anxious parent and they end up kind of like dumping a lot of stuff on us or a lot of responsibility on us just because they are anxious to does not mean that you have to take that on, it’s really up to you to set the standard. And they may again, push back on that and still try to get you to do things in the way that you always have. That’s okay, that they will probably have a reaction to you changing things. And that’s okay. But ultimately, if you allow that behavior to continue, you’re doing both of you a disservice, because they’re not taking responsibility, and you’re not taking responsibility, and you’re staying kind of in this energetic rut. So if you are really struggling with that, again, I will encourage you to clear yourself going, you know, you can pull your aura of way in, like we talked about in in the last solo Episode Two weeks ago, pull your aura way in, so that you’re not holding that space for them. And so that you’re not picking up on on all of their emotional stuff. You can also, you know, clear yourself before and after visits with family. And I also have a meditation recording that you can get for free. That’s called the empaths sorting meditation. And it is entirely set up, I literally created it before the holidays last year, because it is a particularly hard time for people in terms of, you know, picking up energy from other people and dealing with a lot of stuff. And so this meditation will literally walk you through how to clear any excess anything that belongs to somebody else out of your energy field. So you can kind of come back to yourself, and it’s only 15 minutes long. I use it all the time. As much as I do not like I know I, I run a podcast, but I do not like listening to my own voice. But this meditation in particular is really excellent. If you do find yourself going into those situations. And it’s not just family, you know, it might be maybe not this year, but you know, any other kind of holiday party where you feel like something similar goes on, it can be with friends, too. To really kind of clear that out afterwards. And I, I promise you, you will start to feel less exhausted. If you do that, if you’re maintaining your energy, the same way you would, you know, the same way you would physically like we have to sleep to recharge, it is the same kind of thing as just good maintenance, good hygiene, we shower to keep our bodies clean. These are the kind of things that you need to think about doing with your energy field as well. Even if you’re not super conscious of it, or even if you’re like Sheila, you’re crazy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just try it. And notice if you start to feel better over time. One of my other recommendations, if you’ve listened to this podcast at all, you know, I am a huge proponent of therapy. I recommend pre scheduling therapy over the holidays, not just because your therapists might be taking vacation, but also because we have a tendency to, you know, be reactionary, when it comes to taking care of ourselves. Many people, many of my clients, many of the people who listen to this podcast, many healers have a tendency to always be like reactive in the support that they’re seeking. And then they’re kind of like in in crisis, they’re kind of in the middle of an energetic emergency or an emotional emergency before they really reach out for something. So pre scheduled therapy, pre scheduled Healing Sessions, yoga, whatever it is that you feel like you need to do to keep your energy moving and comfortable to stay in your body to connect with your spirit, really making sure that you’re prioritizing that. And one of the best, best ways to do it, is to go out there and make sure that you’re scheduling it ahead of time so that you don’t let it kind of get ahead of you. Um, and then finally, I want to talk about grief a little bit, which is going to be part of the theme for next month in December. But I want to talk about it in terms of boundaries. And there’s a few reasons, one of which is because it has been a very challenging year.

With COVID-19 there have been a lot of deaths, a lot of disturbance. There has been a great outrage in America in particular too around white supremacy, systemic racism, the leadership or lack of leadership from our president and his administration. there there’s a lot of deep grief that is existing, and in particular, if you have lost someone this year, whether it is To COVID or not, it’s important to let people know how to approach it. And this comes to our boundaries as well. So one of the things I’ve noticed, because I do a lot of grief work, and I do a lot of death work, is that people want to talk about their grief. But when we know someone is grieving, we have a tendency to think that they don’t want to talk about it. And we’re afraid to bring it up where we’re afraid to acknowledge it. It’s kind of like the elephant that’s in every room with us. And so if you are grieving, please let the people that you love and this doesn’t mean everybody in your life, but the people that you love, and the people that you trust, know how you would like to approach that. So if you would like to talk about it, say, Hey, I would still like to talk about this person, I know that it will probably make me emotional, it might make you emotional, we might all feel emotional. But it’s really important to me to have the opportunity to talk about that with you, because I trust you. And because it’s part of my grieving process to talk about this. And they will be grateful, they will be grateful to know the way in which he would like to talk about it. And I would say to go as far as to say, you know, you don’t, you don’t even have to say anything back, I realized you don’t know the right thing to say there’s no right thing to say, first of all, I can tell you that there is no right thing to say it doesn’t exist. You You might think that you should have some like perfect thing to say there’s wrong things to say absolutely. But there’s no perfect thing to say that will soothe grief. And often, it’s just the acknowledgement, just the ability to be able to talk about it without judgment that people are looking for. So if you are grieving, you can say, Hey, I just want to be able to talk about this, you don’t have to say anything back, you know, you can just kind of Listen to me to hold space for me to have this experience. Like, I would really appreciate that. Or you can say, Hey, you know, I would love to share funny stories about this person, this time of year is really hard. And you know, bringing that sense of humor, or that sense of levity, I think would be really helpful. So when you do that, you are again, kind of setting the energy of those exchanges, and you’re improving your experience of the situation and other people’s because often when someone is grieving people have a tendency to kind of walk on eggshells around them and be afraid to mention something, you know, like, it’s not, it’s not healthy. And the way that we approach grief in this country, in general is a problem. But I’ll give you an example. From my personal life, and there are many different types of grief, it’s not just death, sometimes people have relationships that have ended or a lot of people this year have lost careers or or job prospects. That is also a kind of grief, if somebody in the family is sick, that can be a kind of grief. And it’s okay to talk about that fear. It’s okay to talk about that challenge. And how hard that is. So I’ll give an example. From my life, I saw a friend recently, who I hadn’t seen in a while, and I know that her father has Alzheimer’s. And we were, we were out with other friends. And so I didn’t want to say anything, you know, in front of everybody. But I was off to the side with her afterwards. And I said, you know, how, how are you doing? Like, how are you really doing? And I said, You know, I know, everything’s been really hard with your dad. And I know how hard that can be. We had somebody in my family who had a similar experience, and it was very challenging. You know, how are you managing? And she said to me, she said, thank you so much for asking. She said, you know, I’m really comfortable talking about it, but most other people are not. And so I don’t really bring it up, and I don’t really get the opportunity to talk about it. But you know, she said it’s really it’s really hard. And it’s, it’s hard to watch, it’s hard to experience.

It’s it’s a lot of my family. And and it was just it was a very interesting conversation because she said she feels like everybody is so delicate about it, and so like afraid to bring it up, but it’s her experience every day. So she said just because they’re not talking about it doesn’t mean that I’m not living it every day. And that she very much felt like it made other people uncomfortable. And so she didn’t really want to bring it up, but she was happy to talk about it. And so I want you to really think about that. Again. Again, it’s not about forcing people not to talk about stuff that is private or Personal, but I always try to approach it as saying, you know, I just want you to know that, that, you know, I’m here for the good parts of this and, and the bad parts of it, like whatever it is that you want to talk about, if you’re pissed, if you’re, you know, if you’re really mad, if you’re really, really sad, whatever it is that you just want to kind of put out there, please feel free to put it out there, you know, um, and so I try to give people that opportunity, because I do think it’s one of my gifts is I can kind of hear that stuff. And it doesn’t bother me, because I have a different perspective on on grief in general. So I do want you to think about that. Also, whether you are the person grieving, or you are the person who has somebody in your life who is grieving. And then finally, I just want to say, you know, this time of year can be really hard. And to honor yourself, honor your boundaries, whatever that looks like. So I also want to give you the permission that if you have a family situation, or a in law situation, or a friend situation that is not supportive of you, your well being your mental health, give yourself the permission to not participate in that. And to really set a boundary around what you will and What you won’t do. And I realized that sometimes that is challenging. And I’m not saying this just gives you the ability to opt out of anything you don’t want to do. That’s not what I’m saying. But if there is something that is damaging to you, that is you know, if there is an abusive relationship or a relationship where for a long time, the dynamics have been out of balance, and you’ve tried to correct them. And the person just is not. It’s not appreciating boundaries is not participating in their own well being or their own healing. I want to permission you to not participate in that and to not be involved in that situation. It can be hard, that is also a hard thing. But do what you need to do this year, especially to take care of yourself, because nobody else is going to do a better job of taking care of you than you. That is just the truth, the deepest truth. You know what you need in every situation, and you need to trust, that implicit wisdom that exists within your body, within your mind within your spirit. And to not doubt it because somebody else has made you doubt it. But to truly trust yourself and to trust that you know what’s best. And you will feel it you know, you’ll feel it in your body. You’ll feel it in how you feel after exchanges with that person. Or when you enter into that type of dynamic. You will feel it in your energy. Are you leaving these situations feeling exhausted? Are you leaving feeling energized? That’s great, you know, more of that less of the feeling drained. And we can’t always avoid all of it. But I am going to ask you to challenge yourself. If you are feeling an obligation somewhere. Is that a true obligation? Or is that just the way that it’s always been done, and so you can envision anything else. So I hope that that is helpful for you. As we head into the end of the year and the holiday season. I will have the link in the show notes to that empaths sorting meditation again, a great exercise if you are experiencing kind of picking up on other people’s energy, and just really needing a quick check in with yourself to clear your energy to clear anything that you might have picked up from other people. And I hope that this helps all of you. If you’re in the United States, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. And I will be back here next week with a brand new episode.

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you love today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me at @StarSageSpirit and let me know what you learned, what surprised you, and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me or for full episode show notes you can head over to starsagespirit.com

On episode 21 of Living Tarot, I interview Eliza Swann. Eliza Swann is an interdisciplinary artist, intuitive, writer, educator, and community organizer based in Los Angeles and New York. Eliza received a BA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA from Central St. Martins in London. She has trained in hypnotherapy at the Isis Centre in England. Additionally, she has trained with a number of teachers in energy healing, Western Mystery traditions, Vedic cosmology and ancestral healing. Eliza has guest lectured at UCLA, the Hammer Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, Central St Martins, Cal Arts, the Dia Museum, the New School and many more venues and is currently a Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute. Her book “The Anatomy of the Aura” was released by St. Martin’s Press in April 2020. Eliza is the founder of The Golden Dome School, a curatorial and educational platform that studies intersections of art, metaphysics and ecology. 

• We had a great discussion about what it’s really like to see auras and read them in daily life.
• Eliza talked about the ethics involved in aura reading and how boundaries play an important part not just in managing your energy as a practitioner but in protecting your client from trauma or embarrassment.
• We discuss the importance of good energy hygiene in your own energy field and your home.
• We also talk about how you can change your aura based on what you need on a particular day or what kind of energy you would like to approach your day with.
• Finally we talk about the different ways that intuition shows up and how people can become more aware of their aura and the auras the feel and energy they exchange with the people around them.

Connect with Sheila:

To book a tarot reading, virtual tarot party, or distance Reiki session with Sheila click here – https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18090641

 To read more about Sheila’s offerings click here – https://www.starsagespirit.com/services/

Or on Instagram www.instagram.com/starsagespirit

Connect with Eliza:

Book a reading with Eliza at https://elizaswann.as.me/schedule.php or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thecircularserpent/

Learn more about Golden Dome School or take classes with Eliza here – https://golden-dome.org/

Check out this episode!

Transcript:

Sheila M  0:05  

Welcome to Living Tarot. I’m your host Sheila Masterson. I’m a tarot reader and teacher, an energy healer and medium and creator of Practical Tarot for Everyday Intuitives. Each week on this podcast, I’ll share my own experience of embracing and growing intuition, and interview guests about how they heard the call of intuition, embraced the adventure, and embodied the taro along the way. Join us and learn how you can stop second guessing, empower yourself through intuition, and live intentionally with the Tarot. 

Welcome back to Living Tarot. On today’s episode I speak with Eliza Swann. Eliza is an interdisciplinary artist, intuitive, writer, educator, and community organizer based in Los Angeles and New York. Eliza received a BA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA from Central Saint Martin’s in London, and has also trained in hypnotherapy at the ice center in England. Additionally, she’s trained with a number of teachers in energy healing, Western mystery traditions, vedic cosmology and ancestral healing. Eliza has guest lectured at UCLA, the hammer Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, Central Saint Martin’s, Cal art, the DM Museum, the new school and many more venues and is currently a visiting professor at Pratt Institute. Her book Anatomy of the Aura was released by St. Martin’s Press in April 2020. And Eliza is the founder of the Golden Dome School, a curatorial and educational platform that studies intersections of art, metaphysics and ecology. Eliza and I had such a beautiful conversation about all about auras really and about the ways in which people read energy without realizing the ways that it’s important to clear yourself your own energy field, clear your home, and how important it is to practice ethics and boundaries when it comes to intuitive arts. Because it’s ultimately what keeps you safe and from being invasive in other people’s lives. This conversation was really eye opening to me as I was reading Eliza’s book, Auras and Anatomy of the Aura, which I read earlier this year while I was in quarantine, and really, really enjoyed. So we talk all about that and we also talk about how Eliza embodies the Hierophant in the Tarot, and what that means to her, as well as what it means to me since she also reads Tarot. So without further ado, let’s dive right in. 

Okay, so welcome to Living Tarot, Eliza Swann is my guest today. I’m Eliza, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do in the world?

Eliza Swann  3:26  

Yeah, so my name is Eliza Swann. And I’m a visual artist, and educator, and intuitive and the director of the Golden Dome School, which is a mystery school that was founded primarily to serve artists in working with divinatory and sacred arts, and through the Golden Dome Scool I organized performances and publications and classes year round. And they also just had a book out this year called The Anatomy of the Aura. So that’s me in a nutshell.

Sheila M  4:01  

Yeah, so not too busy at all. I think I find that about so many of the people that I’ve interviewed on the podcast is that so many of us who are intuitive are also very, like multi passionate, and can feel a little bit like pulled all over the place sometimes, because there’s so much going on and so much coming through all the time. And I’d love to start by talking about your book, which I read and have all kinds of notes and stuff in and we’d be embarrassed to lend anybody. There’s so much stuff I wrote down in it. And I wish that you had written it like four years ago because four years ago Sheila could have really used to this.

Eliza Swann  4:45  

Yeah. 

Sheila M  4:46  

I wanted to start by talking about how, how long you have had this kind of gift of clairvoyance where you really see energy and energy fields and the aura From the introduction, I understand that like, basically, since you were a child, so what? What was that experience like for you when you were young?

Eliza Swann  5:09  

Yeah, I was able to see energy around people around plants around buildings around objects. And it was all visual for me. It’s I could see it. And I think everyone has this, but usually it’s a felt sensation. So most of us have gut responses to people, places, things and objects. Before we can even articulate what it is we feel we get a strong gut sense of, yes, no, weird, uncomfortable, wonderful, lovely. So we all need energy, I think it’s a biological defense strategy, really to be able to pick energy up quite quickly. But I was able to see it from childhood. And also, I could see the dead and also see their energy. And I was lucky in a sense that my parents split up when I was one, one and a half. That was difficult, but because of it, my mom, my brother and I went to live with my aunt, who was a Reiki Master, and a yogini, and an herbalist and a witch back in the 80s. And so she thought it was totally normal and cool that I was talking to people and things that no one else could see in the room. And she thought it was absolutely wonderful to see auras to work with auras. So before that, she would do this ceremony with me where she would rub her hands together asked me which color bubble I wanted to sleep in. And she talked to me about working with auras and colors and what that can do for you just as like a daily kind of practice. So almost like before bed, I would get dressed in a certain aura color. And then she would encourage me to when I got up, pick out which bubble auracolor was gonna wear for the day. 

Sheila M  7:11  

I love that so much. That is so cool. And I I love, I loved that part of the book where you talked about, like picking your aura for the day and how much attention you pay as somebody who is very intuitive of like, oh, today I’m doing a speaking engagement. So I’m going to push my auraway out so that I feel confident and like I’m in control of the space. And then like, I know, I’m going to be in this huge crowd at this concert, I’m going to pull my aura away. And so I’m not picking up on everybody stuff. And I thought it was so interesting, because I think that when you are intuitive, and some of these things come so naturally to you. You can miss out on some of the magic of calling that in and treating it like a ritual and like a part of your intuitive life every day. That’s not just like, Oh, yeah, like, this is what my aura looks like today. Like I can have some buy in to what’s going on, which I think is so powerful. 

Eliza Swann  8:11  

Yeah, I’ve been talking with friends at length, because so many of my friends are in the healing arts influence with midwives and Tarot readers, massage therapists, and all kinds of caregivers are in my circle. And we’ve all been talking about how it’s really difficult for us to remember to take care of ourselves and to implement that into our daily strategy. And what intense burnout we’re all feeling this year in particular, because things have been so hard for so many people. Our workload has doubled and tripled. So yeah, I resonate with that I am guilty of forgetting to take care of my energy.

Sheila M  8:52  

Yeah. And I think I think it’s interesting too, because I think a lot of the stuff that’s out there around auras it’s almost like, well, it’s this color, or it’s like these couple of colors. And that it doesn’t like change at all or that like you’re always like that, that color, which I think is so interesting. And and kind of going along with that. How, you know, how does it show up for you? I guess the good question that I have that I think is one that is similar to what I get about my particular gifts, is do you walk around every day and you’re kind of seeing things around people just kind of vaguely because when you when you do have that type of gift. It’s always kind of there, like you’re saying and especially I guess with something that is very visual, it would be harder I think to ignore because as humans we kind of live with our eyes most of us. And so I can imagine that it could possibly be distracting, but you also talk a lot in the book about boundaries. So how does that show up in daily life? And when you’re interacting with people? And I guess, kind of as a second part of that question with people that you have, like a close personal relationship with vs like a stranger? 

Eliza Swann  10:15  

Yeah, that’s such a good question. And I have so many things I want to say in response to it. The first thing is that I wrote the book because most of the literature that I could find, and most of the teachings that I was given about auras and energy healing and energy reading, relied on claryoyance, so it was all about being able to see energy. And most people are not especially clairvoyant, but they read energy anyway, and they do it all the time. So I wanted to write something where people could recognize what in themselves was sensitive to energy, and auras, and how they perceived and read about auras. They’re not just colors and aura is actually waves of energy surrounding a being. And so that’s often felt right away, it’s absorbed, it’s transmitted before we even have a second to think about it. And I always use the example of riding on an elevator with somebody, without turning to look at them don’t need to be clarvoyant you feel innately whether or not the person next to you angry or agitated, or whether or not, you can kind of turn and give them a smile. And it happens so quickly that you don’t think about it. So I wanted to talk about auras as these living organisms around our body of energy, about how they interrelate about how we transmit energy. And then of course, the flip side of that is that many of the sensitive people who would be drawn to reading a book about auras reading in the first place, are probably people who tend to notice that they absorb energy, notice that they have difficulty with boundaries. And it’s not because in my purview, it’s not because they’re especially absorbent. It’s because they’re noticing that they’re especially absorbent. So any of us that scroll on the internet, or look at the news or talk about the debates are absorbing a type of collective energy, for better for worse, any of us that come into contact with people, even if it’s just via zoom, which is most of us these days, we absorb energy. And so those of you that notice that in yourselves, I congratulate you, because that’s the beginning of recognizing, where you begin and collective energies and ideas begin and where the energies of people close to you begin. So that’s, I think, the first part of my answer. And then I heavily emphasize and focus on ethics and boundaries in the book. Because I was taught from a teenager, I was a member of all these industries, schools, I went to meditation retreats, I had magic teachers, I had Reiki teachers, all kinds of teachers. And none of them taught me about boundaries. And ethics is very weird. So I emphasize that in the book, because I think a lot of people are taught how to kind of open these spaces of connectivity in themselves or honor these spaces of connectivity within themselves. But they’re not taught how to close these spaces. So in my own personal waking, walking around life, and absolutely sensitive to everything, but I decide at the end of the day to clear myself with energy. I decide my walk around how much I want to engage in things. Oftentimes, I have to physically remove myself from situations because there just isn’t an adequate boundary for me. So yes, I emphasize boundaries and disentanglement as what I call it a lot. So disentangle your energy from people project situations, in as much as you can. I mean, we’re all innately enmeshed and interconnected, thankfully, but you can disentangle to a large degree with a lot of intention and very simple practices.

The other thing I wanted to say was that it is not ethical, in my opinion, to as much as you get a sense from people or places or projects or things or situations. It’s not ethical to read the energy of a person, place project or situation and then tell people about it that are not asking you for that information. This is a strong boundary that I emphasize with people. I’ve had my life disrupted many times by psychics, whether they were good or accurate or well meaning or not running up to me, and giving me unsolicited advice or information about myself. It’s really disorienting, and disorienting and destabilizing. So I think, in addition to boundaries, I also think boundaries are part and parcel of ethics. And I think getting consent, when we do intuitive work, or when we look into intuitive work is super important in establishing boundaries. 

Sheila M  15:35  

Yeah, that’s one of the things that I really, really liked about your book, because at every stage, you’re talking about it not just from, from you personally, and your energetic perspective, and the things that you’re taking on or getting attached to, or people who are, like, unintentionally, kind of sucking the life out of you, so to speak. But also, because there is an ethical boundary, that you really shouldn’t be just walking up to somebody, and giving them a reading, because that’s their personal business. And it’s none of yours. And so I think it’s really interesting, because there seems to be this thing that happens that I notice, with friends and stuff of mine, where I kind of think of it as like the, like Long Island Medium effect, which is people see this TV show, and they think that she’s literally just walking up to people in the grocery store and giving them a reading. And really, what’s happening in the background is somebody is like going in saying this thing is happening, can we try this, getting permission doing all these things, and then she’s getting the reading, but it’s edited to look as though it’s just happening. And so people think that we walk around with like, everything on 100% of the time, and that we’re just like, reading everything that’s going on with our friends. And so I’ve had people say to me, like, Oh, I was nervous to be around you, because I was afraid of like what you were gonna say, and I’m like, first of all, it is exhausting. When you are saying like, it’s exhausting to pick up on things in general, and especially like less so now because I’m not out in public as much anymore. But in a different way, with everything online. And with so much happening in the outside world. I don’t want to I don’t want to know people’s business, like I just, I want to I want to be separated from it. And I was taught, luckily, by somebody who was very ethical, and really reiterated how important boundaries are and how it is not just appropriate to go, like, dig around in somebody’s aura, so to speak, you know, and, and to really be picking up on stuff in that way. Because it’s just, it’s private. And and I think like, you know, you can notice something. And I think there are ways where if it’s something that’s like really negative, or that they might be like really depressed or something like that, you can offer the opportunity, but you can’t like force people to share with you. It’s like not right.

Eliza Swann  18:06  

Yes, I agree. I absolutely agree. And I agree to the extent that even when someone pays me for an intuitive session, we outline our intentions, and specifically what we’re going to talk about. And then if I’m seeing or sensing or feeling information that falls outside of the parameters of our agreement, I have to ask if it’s okay to talk to you about this particular thing. Because you’re right, I love that phrase, but the Long Island Medium effect, they think people assume when they get a reading, that it’s just gonna be like a fire hose in your face of all of the information that we’re seeing. If we did things like that, I think we could run the risk of burnout for ourselves, but also the risk of re traumatizing or injuring somebody, we’re bringing things up that we don’t have the capacity to hold space for.

Sheila M  19:00  

Yeah, yeah. And one of the rules that I set really early on, um, because, you know, in the beginning, I didn’t, you know, I had no idea. That’s why I was saying, I wish that this book had existed when I was going through all of this, because I just, I didn’t realize that I could turn things on and off or turn things down, I guess is a better way to describe it. And that I could set boundaries around what I am willing to know and what I’m not willing to know. And that like one of the boundaries that I set early on, that has served me very well is to say that I never want to know something that the person who is sitting with me isn’t comfortable with me knowing so I will know that there’s something there. And even if I’m doing like a mediumship type of reading where I’m talking to a deceased spirit, there may be something private there that I will say they’re telling me that there is something private it’s not for me to know and you are not comfortable with me knowing and that’s okay. But they want to say that they acknowledge like their part in it. Like you don’t, I don’t need to know in order to give a good reading and in order to do that, and I think I think so many people need to hear that because like you’ve said, I’ve had people like volunteer stuff to me that I’m like excuse me, Please mind your own energy. Thank you, you know? Yeah,

Eliza Swann  20:20  

yeah. Yeah, it’s an interesting time because we have so much mediation and information. And it’s so easy to just dm somebody or grab somebody and we forget that there’s real human beings on the other end of our apparatuses. People throw all kinds of things at me where I’m just like, oh, wow, I’m actually not okay, for an hour after reading this thing from a stranger. Yeah, I think boundaries and ethics and an energetic consent and verbal consent has to be reconsidered. All over the place, not just in the healing arts. Yeah. Yeah.

Sheila M  21:04  

I love that. Um, I’m just trying to find this one thing that I thought was so interesting. So one of the things that I thought was really fascinating was you talk about the importance of like, verbally starting and ending sessions and kind of having this kind of programming, to, to turn on and to turn off, which I think is really valuable for a lot of people to know. And even reading it. And even though I knew it was, like, helpful for me to have reiterated and say like, okay, like, remember to come back to this thing each time because you can take for granted and forget or just get busy or, you know, something happens at the last minute, and especially now with technology. Giving Everybody readings like through the internet, it is a completely different experience than having somebody in my like in person space.

Eliza Swann  21:57  

Yeah. And it can be strangely fatiguing, because you think, Oh, I just close my laptop, I’m done. But in fact, you’re still all energetically hooked into that person. So yeah, I have a really specific scripts that I use to open sessions and I do them aloud with my client so that they understand what energy boundaries and parameters and setting. And then at the end of the session, I also do it, I’ll allow my client instruct them to take their energy back to themselves. I take my energy back to myself, I dissolve the space that we created between us, so that when you hang up or you conclude with an intuitive session, you’re not accidentally carrying someone’s, you know, sorrows or joys in your pocket that just aren’t for you. So yeah, I’ve got scripts from everything.

Sheila M  22:49  

Yeah, and it can really creep up I think, too, if you’re not being very intentional in in setting the space, taking it down, putting it back up. So yes, I loved I loved reading about that as well. Um, I also love I just love your phrase. May May I admire you today, like your  introduction to Can I can I read what’s going on here? Which I thought was like, I just love that phrase. Yeah. Um, one of the things that I thought was so interesting is you have a ton of exercises in this book, which I thought were like so helpful. And some of them I’ve done similar things before and some of them were new to me. But one of the things that was very interesting to me is I I am not terribly clairvoyant myself. What’s interesting is, in the moment, I won’t see anything but then when I remember I will so like memory I am but not necessarily in the moment. And I had the experience of working with my teacher. And we came in for classes the one day and she was like, oh, we’re gonna read auras today. And I was like, geez, I was like, This is not, this is not gonna go Well, like I already know. I’m not gonna see anything. She’s like, no, we’re gonna see auras today, it’s gonna be great. And we’re like, yeah, okay, you know, cuz nobody one person in the group that I was in was like, pretty clairvoyant. But everybody else was more either auditory or feeling and, and so we were all kind of like, okay, and I nobody was more shocked than I was when I sat down and could do it and I thought it was so interesting. Because one of the things that she kind of encouraged us to do was in your automatic speaking exercise where you just have to kind of she kind of set the time and said, okay, like, go through this, just say whatever is coming up and and try not to stop talking until like, until I say, and I was like, Oh my god, and it’s so it can be so hard to remove your ego from the process sometimes, and just say, Okay, I’m just I’m gonna be wrong, you know, whatever. And and I think that because I felt like in that moment, it wasn’t going to work. I was more like relaxed about it than other things that I know I can do, where I’ll get like my head will get involved. And then I have a very hard time shutting it down and being like, no just received to see what happens, you know. So I thought that was so interesting. 

Eliza Swann  25:20  

Yeah, I got the line May I admire you today from Pretty in Pink. It’s something that Ducky Dale says to Andy, in the hallway. And when I’m instructing people in intuitive development, I always have them set the intention to just admire the person’s energy. That way, the person getting their energy read is free from receiving unsolicited advice or having flaws pointed out. And then the person offering the reading is free from having to dispense with advice. Or if they see anything troubling in their reading, they just bypass it because it doesn’t fit with the intention. So just a really easy way to learn to give readings because just admiring someone’s energy, you’re not really going to run the risk of accidentally trampling on them or bringing something up that you don’t have the capacity to hold with them. So may I admire you today is a great way if you’re learning Tarot, or aura reading or any kind of even mediumship, you just want to admire what’s going on, or what is interesting or unique about that person. And then your tongue loosens up. And I often encourage people doing intuitive development with me to do that automatic speaking thing where I set a timer, and you just have to talk because it bypasses that thing that you’re describing, where you want to get it right. And you’re not sure and it happens to me still, I’ve been doing this work professionally for 20 years, something like that. But I taught a class the other day and aura reading class. And I did a demo, and I was reading someone’s energy and I saw a graduation cap. And my mind was like, Don’t say that, of course you’re seeing that you’re she’s in the class with you. And you saw a graduation cap last week, like you’re just regurgitating this couldn’t be right. But I just said it anyway. And at the end of the demo, she said that she was going back to college after having taken a long break, and that it meant a lot to her to see the cap because it encouraged her to feel like she could finish this time. So you just never know,

Sheila M  27:30  

it is it’s so funny. And I’ve seen stuff that I’m like I don’t like it’s the hardest thing to suspend that I think because we’re all when we’re in school, I remember growing up inside of our society, we are all treated as if our value is contingent on how well we can do how well we can be smart and how well we can be good at things and how much you can achieve. And so I think there comes this time where you’re trying to achieve at something that you can’t achieve at but you’re like, you just you just have to surrender at some point and just like give up the control because the more you try to be good at it, the worse you’re going to be. And in those moments where you can kind of surrender a little bit that anything is even coming through before that. It’s just like, anxiety thoughts, you know? 

Eliza Swann  28:24  

Yes, yes. I it’s the it’s the strange paradox of intuitive work that you have to be absolutely soft and receptive and wiggly and attentive enough to name what is happening. And I’m not athletic, even remotely. But I’ve heard this from athletes too, that to really perform. They have to not try they have to be in this strange state of readiness without effort. Yeah,

Sheila M  28:55  

yeah. And that’s been for me when readings have come through the most. And I struggled in the beginning with feeling very much like my ego was getting involved not in a way where I was like, I want to be, because I think when when we traditionally think of ego, we think of like, Oh, I want to be like the guru. I want to be the healer. I want to be the person that’s like fixing everyone. But it wasn’t really about that piece. It was more of that I felt such a responsibility to the work that I felt like I had to fix everything or like I had to, I can fix it. Like if I can’t fix this and they haven’t gotten their money where money’s worth, or if I haven’t given them the message that they were expecting to hear from their grandmother or from their mother or from their father, that I’m not doing enough. And I think it’s still when I think about that sometimes like brings up anxiety for me. But once I removed that, from what I was doing, everything was so much easier. Like it just was so much easier. To go in, and it’s not about not caring about about your work or not bringing like your full self there. But it’s about taking that need to control the outcome out of it and to take that like responsibility off of you, which I think is so important.

Eliza Swann  30:14  

Yeah, I love what you just said. And I still go through this agony. But when I transition to having a fixed rate, I used to be a donation based side gig and I switched to being a fixed rate side gig. And I think that intuitives deserve to be paid adequately for that work. It was just a transition that I decided to make, because this work became my full time work. And I had to set a fee. And once I set the fee, I was in agony every time I sat to give a reading, because people would come to me and say, is this person cheating, and I would sit there, and that was not the information I was getting, I was getting information about career, or people would come to me and ask about buying a piece of property. And my intuition just wasn’t getting anything about that. However, there was this whole other discourse that was opening up. And so I really worried all the time that people weren’t getting what they paid for. And it’s just a muscle with practice, you just learned to trust that you’re conveying what needs to be said to the best of your ability and in accordance with your agreement with that person.

Sheila M  31:30  

Yeah. And it is so interesting, because I was having I was having this conversation. So when everything first started happening for me, I went to see a therapist first because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy. And I basically spent, you know, I did what everybody does, where I spent like the first like 45 minutes talking about, like, my relationship and like, bitching about that. And then in the last, like, 10 minutes, I was like, and also this and basically, like dumped everything that was happening, and God bless her, she was like, okay, you know, she was very, like, very understanding and kind of took it all in stride. And I’ve worked with her since but one of the things that she said to me when I was having like a similar conversation like this, the one day is, she was like, you know, I don’t vary my session price based on if somebody has a breakthrough in our session. She’s like, this is also healing work and, and work that really like empowers people, but I’m not, you know, I’m not being like, oh, it wasn’t worth it today, because like they didn’t have this huge breakthrough that they had last week. So let me charge less like the work is it worth less because people she’s like, and I’m certainly not getting paid to tell people what they want to hear, like, that’s not the job at all. And I was like, and not to say that this is the same as therapy. But it was an interesting perspective adjustment for me, because there are so many other service based professions. If you went in to see a lawyer and you got legal advice that you didn’t like, like you would still have to pay for it. If you’re paying for a service, that’s service based business, but it’s there is like this weird thing that I’ve experienced, and like you’re talking about, and so many of my friends in this in this area, talk about where it is like such a challenge to work with that. And there’s such a sense of, like responsibility that we all seem to have where we’re like, I have to do this well, like I have to do a good job.

Eliza Swann  33:29  

Yeah, I was chatting with one of my closest friends who’s a midwife about how our labor is treated. It’s so interesting, because intuition and nurturance and care are not female attributes, but they’ve been feminized. In our culture, they’ve been lumped into being something that women are adept at more than other genders, although we know that’s not true. But she was saying it’s amazing. And midwifery is kind of this feminized profession, and an OB GYN was a typically male profession post capitalistic seizure of the medical industry. Yeah, in the 15th century, another story for another day. But she was like, Wow, my clients come and ask me if I’ve delivered children before, because they want to feel like they have access to me and they would never ask their ob gyn if they had had a child before. He would never ask your dentist if they’d had a root canal before. There are very clear boundaries with people that are perceived to be in these professions that are more masculine. And I have noticed that as well like as a reader, not only are these expectations kind of high that we set on ourselves to be accurate or to deliver some specific end result. But there’s also I find like a lack of boundary that can make this work difficult where you have to hold build the professional life. Right, you certainly wouldn’t demand a refund from your dentist, if you didn’t like what you heard, you certainly wouldn’t assume that you had some friendship or some closeness with your therapist, because there are kind of formalized boundaries there. So we work in this really unique field that has long been feminized, and is in this kind of wild west terrain of labor and labor practices. Where we do have to do a lot of work to kind of mitigate our expectations of ourselves and our clients and what we feel like our relationships are with these people and what we feel we owe them. It’s something I work on every day. 

Sheila M  35:45  

yeah, it is. It’s, it’s really important. One of my actually, one of my favorite quotes from, from your book is in the section about ethics for auras readers. Um, and you say, “make sure you use language that supports people in their process, be aware of using language that would make someone feel broken or damaged. Each person is fully capable of healing themselves, an energy healer or a reader is there to witness assist, and amplify a person’s innate healing, genius and special abilities.” And I love that so much. Because I’ve always felt that way. Like, when I’m talking to people, I never want them to feel like there’s something wrong with them. And I do think that so much of other healing is focused on the problem and what’s wrong with you. So like, in traditional Western medicine, we’re always looking for like, the problem, what’s the problem? What can we fix? What can we fix? And I think with this type of work, there’s so much importance in just acknowledging what is like what is there and offering to them if they would like to participate, if it’s something that, you know, they’re aware of, and just providing that space for them to safely experience? what it is that they really have going on, and to kind of hold a mirror up for, for what that experience has been so that they can see it a little bit more clearly.

Eliza Swann  37:18  

Yeah, I trust implicitly in the healing arts genius of every single client that I work with. It’s in their hands, what happens, what comes through what breakthroughs happen? Yeah, I had, I was going through some relationship difficulty. And a friend of mine said, resist the urge to feel that you are bad at relationships, you’re just having a hard time and this particular one right at this moment, and I thought, Oh, my gosh, she’s right. I was beating myself up and thinking I was just bad at, you know, being romantic with somebody when in fact, no, it was very situation specific. And I recognize that in everyone that I serve, that we’re hardwired to really aggress towards ourselves and to blame ourselves. And to try to find fault with ourselves, I try to mitigate that damage in sessions where I reiterate over and over that you have the capacity to change yourself and these situations.

Sheila M  38:25  

Yeah, I love that. I I really appreciate. Like I said, I really appreciate this book. And I wish that I’d had it when I when I was young, definitely. But also, when I was kind of going through my later life, awakening of everything. And really getting that sense of like authority around boundaries, and also around that ability to change something. So to kind of bring that sense of like embodiment, okay, today, I really want to really want to bring in this like green energy, I feel like I really need to stay like in my heart center. And I need to, I have a tendency to run away from that. And I really need that today. So I really appreciate it. There’s a lot of wisdom in here. I highly recommend this book.

Eliza Swann  39:19  

Yeah, but I really appreciate that. And I I think even for people who are seasoned healers, and I’ve done this work for a long time, even though it’s kind of a start here guide for beginners to auras you know, as it says on the cover, I do think that it’s always good for all of us, even those of us who are experienced to approach things sometimes with a beginner’s mind, because you can get a little disconnected from the client experience as well. And this can remind you a little bit of that and it can also direct your own practice as well. 

Yeah. I also wanted to make sure what the book it was interesting as the publisher approached me and asked me if I had ideas for a book and all the ones I had were kind of weird, you know, nothing was landing right with the editor. And then I gave them a copy of a bunch of ziens. I made, I always handed out scenes when I teach classes, so people have with a written takeaway. And she seized on this theme that I wrote called the anatomy of the order that was about accessing intuition on your own terms, it was about being all body loving, it was about embracing whatever intuitive skills you have not assuming that you should have clairvoyant skills, or else you’re not psychic. And I also really wanted to emphasize that there is no dictionary for symbols or colors that you can use, because colors are actual vibrations that each one of us as an instrument picks up differently. And symbols are alive, they have their own psyche, they have their own awareness, they have something they can tell you directly with regard to what they are and what they represent. So I also wanted to talk about colors and interpretation and symbols in a way that puts that back in people’s hands and doesn’t assume that there’s any dictionary format symbol decoder that’s really going to be of use and so I wanted to emphasize, trust yourself, trust your clients, trust yourself, trust your client, over and over and over again.

Sheila M  41:40  

Hey, there, did you know that I offer virtual tarot readings over zoom? Tarot is for you. If you’re at a crossroads and want to see your current challenge clearly, navigate complex decisions, and plan how to move forward with competence. Sometimes our emotions can get in the way of us seeing a clear path forward. And tarot acts as a neutral bystander that provides information and insight into our blind spots. I work with so many clients on business readings, decision making, in business, and in career working towards promotions, getting insight on how to make the best moves. I also work with a lot of people on relationship readings, getting insight into both interpersonal relationships, and professional relationships. And I do year ahead readings as well. So you can celebrate your business’s birthday by getting some insight on the energy of the year ahead. What projects to focus on what to put on the backburner. These can be really potent and powerful offerings that provide you with a lot of insight to focus your energy for the year ahead. And right now I’m also offering Virtual Tarot parties. We have all experienced zoom fatigue, we’re tired of staring at each other and having drinks over zoom. But tarot parties are a great option to celebrate life’s rites of passage while staying safe and socially distant. If you’re interested, check out the link in the show notes today, or head over to starsagespirit.com. 

Yeah, that’s a big thing that I talk about on the podcast too. And part of the reason why I do interviews with other people is because I don’t want everything to be just from my perspective, you know, I wanted to offer something out there because I did feel very isolated and lonely. And I was very private about everything that was going on for a long time. And I really wanted to create something that other people could have and hear and be like, Oh, yeah, that’s how it works for me, because it’s slightly different. And then not just my perspective, but also all of these different guests who do all different things. And some who are traditionally witchier and some who are more entrepreneurs or business people who talk about how intuition shows up for them. Because I think the other thing is, it’s not just like you were saying, it’s not just I’m a witch. And so I can do this thing, or I’m psychic, and I can do this thing. Like we all have access to intuition. And I wanted people to hear a variety of experiences, so that they would not feel isolated. And they would not feel weird about all of these things that were going on. So I love that you. You give that back because it is so personal. And I had that experience of wanting an instruction guide. Like I was like, Can this come with a manual please? Which I think is how a lot of people feel but it is so personal that all you can really do is give somebody the guideposts and help them try to pull things in a little bit and get a little bit more structure around it. But ultimately, they’re really the ones that have to do the work to figure that out.

Eliza Swann  44:57  

Yeah, it’s I’m thinking about Tarot because that’s, I think what you primarily focus Yeah. And I often struggle with that. I teach critical studies and colleges, I have this sort of nerdy side. And so when I look at the strength card in the Tarot, I can see that it’s representative of the goddess Seville, who would have been well known to the people of the 16th and 15th centuries. But now when we look at a woman opening a lion’s mouth, we don’t see Sabel we see some some representation of strength or force, or some people interpret that as being about the laws of nature. And so when I would teach Tarot, I would always toggle between, well, here’s the actual historic basis for this car. But what do you see and feel in it? What how can we make this new? How is this alive for you right now. And so sometimes I have to actually resist the urge to be the know it  all, or the researcher, and really just honestly, flex the muscle of trust. It’s not taught to us to do that. It’s up to us to present as the authority so yes, and

Sheila M  46:18  

Especially when you’re in a teaching role as well, which I think is so interesting, and I do, I do Tarot, I also do Reiki and energy work and mediumship. But you know how it is everything kind of blends together a little bit sometimes, depending what we’re doing, um, and again, with boundaries. But one of the things that I think is so interesting is, I teach tarot and I have a course where I teach Taro. And so we go through everything. And, you know, I talk about what the cards mean to me. But I had this realization when I was teaching it for the first time, where people don’t feel like they have the authority to create their own definition for the card. So they’ll hear what I say. But to them, it does not look like that it looks like this other thing, like you’re saying, and to give enough of a parameter for them to say, Okay, this is my starting point. But every time this card comes up, it’s in this type of situation. So I think to me, it means this. And I’ve seen where people feel the impulse, like, Oh, no, like, if you read for another reader, they’ll say, Oh, no, that card is like this to me. And I’m like, Yes, but I’m the reader. And I’m doing the reading. So like, right, that if you want, but you’re really selling yourself short, because if the card is showing up this way, for me, that is a reading for me to give you it’s not a reading for you to interpret, because the same message is going to come through differently to you. Because it is intuitive. 

Eliza Swann  47:54  

Absolutely. Yeah. I really encourage everybody to come up with their own working, changing, evolving living organism have a simple dictionary, no matter what kind of work you do.

Sheila M  48:07  

Yes, yeah. And that was one of the things that was happening for me early on, because I I wasn’t initially drawn to Tarot. And I have always been able to read people since I was young. And a different than you because I couldn’t. I wasn’t getting a lot of visual things. But I hear a lot. And so when I was young, I would say, you’ll love this too, because you’ll know what I mean. But I would say that I was laying in bed at night, and I was listening to the sound of the air to hear who was going to come upstairs next. And I wasn’t actually listening to sound I was listening to energy. But even when I was that young, I was so aware of it. And I could tell who it was. Or I could walk into the house and tell somebody else was there because I could just like hear it. It’s an even in how I teach and how I described things people are like, we hear because like I primarily Hear, hear see things which is hard to describe to people unless they experience it. And I didn’t even realize even though I would say I was listening to the air. I didn’t even realize that that was weird or not weird. It’s not the right word, but not typical, I guess, until I was thirty So I was like, you know, 30 years of my life where I thought everything I was hearing was normal. And I’m like, Oh no, it is really loud sometimes and I can turn that down.

Eliza Swann  49:30  

Yeah, that’s so cool. Yeah, ears. The inner ear is such a special and strange sense to describe. And I think it arrives for each of us differently because I also hear things but it’s not like hearing it’s almost like like a voice coming out of the bottom of the well inside of the center of my skull. It’s like not even. It’s not like the listening Exactly. Aristotle more than 2000 years ago, wrote a book book where he describes human beings as having five senses connected to the five sensory organs that he understood or could see. So it’s the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, tongue, and the skin for feeling. And we now know that we have many more than five senses even. But for whatever reason, I was taught that we had five as a child. And even when you describe intuitive senses, like the inner ear, or the inner eye, or a gut sense, or a feelings, and we just don’t have very good language for the five senses, let alone the subtle aspects of the five senses, let alone the senses that stray outside of those five categories. We have so many we have kinesthetic senses, we have temperature senses, we have orientation senses that we’re not even taught how to describe.

Sheila M  50:52  

Yeah, and I think that was one of the things that I struggled with so much, because I was like, it is like I’m hearing. I loved your description that was so perfect. But it it comes into my brain as if I’m hearing it, but I’m not actually hearing something, you know, sometimes I’ll get a little like ring in the ear, which is like my like, Hello, you know, like, pay attention. Or I think a lot of the time, I know that there’s a spirit around or there’s something going on, because there is like a lack of sound in one place is how I would describe it. It’s almost like I’m not hearing here. And so therefore, like, I know that somebody is there, but like, it’s come across to me, the more that because I was really taught to develop all of these skills. And like I said, I, I’ve noticed now how they show up in different ways. And because of that, like I would say that that happens. And it’s happened at like such like random times. Like I always say there’s always funny stories for people who are very intuitive about when certain spirits and stuff will show up. And so the first time that I ever had like a very like clairvoyant experience, I was coming home from dinner with my partner. And we were in a fight about something. And and so we were kind of like, like at each other a little bit. And we come into the apartment, and I turn on the lights in the living room, and I walk in and I was like, something is here, and I can see it sort of it was almost like, have you seen Harry Potter? 

Eliza Swann  52:31  

Yes. I have.

Sheila M  52:32  

When you put on the invisibility cloak and Harry Potter, and you’re like, I can’t see anything, but something is not right about the way that right there looks, you know, like it was a very, like, humany type of shape. And I was like, for God’s sake. Not right now. Like, times, like, times, I’ll be like sitting in meditation or like doing something where I’m like, actually ready to listen. And then it’s always like, at like, a random time that they’re like, Oh, just one second,

Eliza Swann  53:02  

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So think about like not exerting effort when your senses kind of barely open. But I also found that I will be obsessing about a topic or a subject or reading about it. And then a spirit vision that’s kind of connected to that shows up. So I find that these things communicate with us a little bit on a delay, like we’re picking up that energy, and we’re recognizing that it’s there. And as we walked towards it, it somehow makes itself apparent to us with our physical senses in some way. But I when I was hearing that story, it’s almost wondering if you weren’t agitated anticipating that that spirit was in your home and if it wasn’t contributing to, you know, some, some bickering because that happens to me a lot.

Sheila M  53:54  

Yeah. And I was like, cuz I think I am more aware, like you said, I feel like I’m more aware if I’m like, in danger, which I think is like I’m saying in danger kind of broadly, but like if it is something that is not in a safe or a friendly vibration, I guess is the best way to say it, and be more aware of it. So like people say all the time, so I I’ve gone with a lot of friends when they’re looking at houses. Because they’ll be like, you know, what do you think and I can usually like again, because I walk in and I can kind of like hear everything at once. I can usually kind of tell what’s going on so they’ll be like, you know how it’s okay. And also like you would probably sense it like if something really bad was there you would have a feeling for it like everybody does. They just write it off. And the same like you described if the energy in a room shifts like I always describe it as a woman as when you can see That the ratio in the room has shifted to mostly men or all men, most women are like on like a heightened, and they don’t even realize but they’re like not safe, like something that’s not safe right now and they don’t, again, it will take like a second to realize why they’re agitated. And then they’ll be like, okay, but that’s interesting that you’re saying that because like I said, I hardly ever see see things.

Eliza Swann  55:24  

On this note, I’m so glad you’re bringing this up, folks to really put a lot of effort on clearing their spaces. Yes. Energetically, ritually with the words however you want to do it. There’s a I have techniques in the book about clearing your house. There’s also a book by Khi Armand called clearing spaces. Please, everyone clear your space, it’s been amazing to even going to work with people on zoom, and look at their room through the zoom and just think, oh, my goodness, you’ve all got stagnant energy, this clumped in your living space, because you’re not leaving it as much as you usually do. Or there’s a lot of emotion concentrated in it, because things are so intense right now. Yes.

Sheila M  56:16  

Yeah, I know. And, and that’s one of the things that I do say to people, too, is what I am much more likely to find when I walk around the house is that there is some stagnant other people’s energy. So when we say whenever you go into a space, you should really like you’re moving, you should really come in and clear the space and set it for you. However you like to do that, whether you like to burn something or spray something, or use energy work or intention, or poetry or bells, whatever it is, you have to be really specific about clearing that out, because you want it to be yours. And you will start to notice things like I had a friend and and when I went to her house, I went into the one closet, and I was like, Oh, it’s just gotten like a little bit of a headache. I was like, there’s just like some conflict. Like it’s it’s people conflict, it’s not a spirit, it’s nothing like that. It’s just like some, like some sort of fight or something happened here. And it’s still like kind of hanging there. So like, I think people don’t realize how much they can kind of pollute up the space and stuff. And I, my, my partner is very, very good natured about when I’m when I’m doing it and kind of walking through the house and doing different things. But I will like try to clear out after like, if we’ve had an argument or something like that. And I try to clear that out too. Because I think it’s just good energy maintenance for everybody, you know, you don’t have to be witchy, to think about clearing your space, because the more that you can make it your own personal, the better your work is going to be, the more clear you’re going to feel, the less you’re going to be influenced by old fights and Old Energy and stuff that’s kind of stuck in your space, because then you’re just kind of sitting in a soup of that all the time.

Eliza Swann  58:06  

Yeah. And as you say, it doesn’t have to be necessarily witchy or mysterious. All of our great great, great great grand relatives and sisters would use cleaning as an opportunity to get stuck and stagnant energy out of the house, you just sweep in a circle, and then sweep out the front door when you’re done so that not only does the debris move out, but any energy they don’t want in there can move. If you clean and just kind of set intentions as you’re cleaning or straightening your space to kind of clear the energy and reset the energy. We can we use a chime or a bell or a sound or a fragrance of spritz of spray. It can be very, very simple. But please clean out your living spaces.

Sheila M  58:56  

Yes, it is really interesting. It’s such a it’s such a good reminder to people, especially right now I think it’s really important. Mm hmm. Um, so I did want to talk a little bit about everything that is going on in your life today. So obviously, you have this whole experience you wrote this book? What does your kind of intuitive life look like today? Or how do you use it? How do you use your intuition in your daily life? And which rituals? Do you kind of go back to over and over? 

Eliza Swann  59:30  

Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I find myself um, my intuitive practice. I see clients one on one. And I offer readings and then I also see clients one on one to offer teaching. And I also run the Golden Dome School could teach intuitive development with that platform. And then I’m also teaching critical studies which requires quite a bit of intuition actually to figure out how to do Teach literature you have to be a medium of sorts, I think, although I can’t say that out loud in an academic space. But yeah, my days are filled to the brim with client work and teaching work. With very, very little time off right now it’s a particularly busy time. So one thing that super significant for me in terms of retaining balance, and energetic clarity is total silence in the morning. So no scrolling, no phone, no talking to my partner, no talking to make cat, no talking to my plants, I just go out front, I’m lucky enough to have a little outdoor space, I go up front, and I sit in this space, and everyone in my household knows you don’t go over there when I’m sitting in this space. And I just sit in silence for many, many, many moments at the beginning of the day, to reset myself because there’s so many voices coming in. Even for those of us without these kind of busy speaking, involved practices. Scrolling is inviting a bunch of voices into your head. And so I think it’s really special and important and simple just to start the day with 10 minutes of silence, if it’s possible for you. You can also end the day like that if that’s an easier thing to accomplish. And then, at the end of the day, in terms of ritual maintenance, showering is a big deal for me, I do it at the end of most days, especially if I’m doing client work. And you salt these Lemon I use rosemary, I make my own scrubs. This to me scrubs off a lot of unwanted energy. I do a lot of intention, saying but allowing the water to rain, anything off that I carry with me into bed. Nature is a biggie. So as often as I can I get out to nature. And I actually prefer to do that alone, because so much of my work is communal and collaborative. I like to balance that equally, if possible. With alone time. That’s a way that I can reset myself. But these days are busy days in terms of working that psychic muscle.

Sheila M  1:02:18  

Yeah, that’s so beautiful. I think silence is important and hard to find. And in this lifetime, anyway. Yeah.

Eliza Swann  1:02:29  

Yeah, I think people aren’t recognizing nearly enough how stressful it is to have other people’s thoughts, voices, emotions, experiences and expectations running through your head. And how many more of those you have if you are a social media person or an internet person? It’s just it’s a huge influx of input from other people. That can be really decentering. 

Sheila M  1:02:58  

Yes, yeah. Oh, my gosh, I loved what you said, I want to go back to that to what you said about doing your like academic teaching work. And I do think that often when people think about intuition, they just kind of think about that, like clairaudience, clairvoyance that like kind of witchy spiritual stuff. But there are so many people, great inventors, and scientists who absolutely have used intuition to invent things and create these things. Because again, you’re pulling something down from nowhere, somehow that idea is coming in. And you’re saying, Hey, I think you know, I was reading about the discovery of electromagnetic fields. They’re invisible, like, there was no way to prove them until there was you know, and everybody thought that he was crazy when he was trying to prove this thing because it was weird to them. And also, like, that’s how all of these things are created is, is through this intuition. And I think it’s so interesting, because I am the oldest of four siblings, and we all have something a little bit different. And I would say nobody is exactly like me for sure. But like, my youngest sister is like a brilliant mathematician. She majored in math, like just, I mean, it just is so easy and and she can see it the way that I can see these other things, you know, and, and I look at it and I’m like, Well, I mean, I was never bad at math, but I’m definitely not good at math like that, you know, um, and I do think it’s very interesting. I think even among families how you can see it sort it’s sort of play out like that, which is fascinating. 

Eliza Swann  1:04:48  

Yeah, I it’s an interesting role to hold to teach, researched based critical theory in academic institution where everything has to be proven and cited and peer reviewed. And I think these are really important skills. And I think that we should have these research capacities and these capacities to use the intellect. But in that space, absolutely a no-no, to talk about intuition, I’m teaching a class next semester about alchemy at an institution. And the teacher is kept joking and being like, don’t start a cult, you know, don’t make this, witchy and I  was like, Whoa, okay. But, so much of our science, so much of what we assume is empirical, actually came to us from deep, mystic contemplation. There’s a mystic by the name of Giordano Bruno. And in his era, which would have been a 15th century, they didn’t distinguish between mysticism and science, they were the same. It was if you had a question about the real works, or the mechanics of the universe, you also had spiritual questions, they weren’t considered different. And he was mystic. And he looked up at the stars one night, and he thought, Oh, my gosh, the sun in the sky during the day is a star, which we now take for granted. And you can see that he was speaking directly to the stars or had an experience of connection to the sky that gave him this flash of insight. And of course, he was burned at the stake for even daring to suggest the sun would be a star. Because if they’re if the stars are other suns, and that means there are other worlds and the earth isn’t at the center of everything. And it was just too disruptive to how people wanted to see things. But the foundation of what we understand in terms of philosophy and mathematics and science came from alchemists spiritual people.

Sheila M  1:06:51  

Yeah. And I think I think it’s so fascinating, because people are quick to write some of it off now as silly or, you know, astrology or whatever, like and make jokes about it. But I think, take for granted how much that work has given us the world that we have today with, with science and with, especially now, you know, with the medical community and needing to, and there’s something to that to my, my middle sister is a nurse. And they they have a sense that, you know, something isn’t right. And they there’s nothing statistically wrong, nothing coming up as wrong, but they will know that something is up and in particular, with Coronavirus and some of the things that were going on, you know, they were saying from the beginning, like something is different. It’s not just the respiratory thing, like the way that the people are crashing, all of a sudden, it’s not, this is not normal, like something is going on. And they had a sense of it. And people were like, No, no, no, no, no. And then as time has gone on, they’ve been like, hmm, yes, that does seem to be happening. And I do think it’s very interesting, because everything starts from this place of Oh, no, that’s silly. You know, and I think more and more of these things are, I think, going to be accepted in some of these traditional academic places. Because I also think that they run off of patriarchal and white supremacist ideas that are now shifting as a society. And I think, I think it’s going to be interesting to see what the next couple years are like because of that, because there are more fringe type of classes that universities and stuff now I have a friend who is a death doula and teaches a class on death and dying at a local state school, you know, and, and all of her colleagues were like, that’s so weird. You’re not going to get anyone to sign up for that. And sure enough, it’s full every semester, she has to add people like, yeah, it’s always packed. And I think there’s such a desire for another level of understanding. So I love that you’re providing that in a lot of different settings and even into academia a little bit.

Eliza Swann  1:09:12  

Yeah, I think that we’re going to see much greater progress as a species when we begin to become friends with the intellect and intuition and see them as two tools that are equally useful. And obviously, once we stop making everything, with a profit in mind, I think we’ll go very far in terms of what both energetic and intuitive healing arts can offer to empirical medical science and vice versa. I think it’s long past due for us to be friends. 

Sheila M  1:09:52  

Yeah, absolutely. So I do want to talk about what tarot card I really see you bodying. And it was funny because I kind of felt this way after reading the book. And then after our conversation even more so. So I actually picked the Hierophant

Eliza Swann  1:10:09  

Oh,

Sheila M  1:10:10  

such a good card. I love this card so much. And I think it gets a bad rap. But what I think is so interesting is I see this so much in all of my friends and people I interview, who talk about providing information and education, but giving it to the people. So giving it back to the student, to create their own wisdom, and to really like turn inward with that understanding and with healthy boundaries and with you know, less fear around it. But to really bring those lessons and make them personal and discover their own practice and their own sense of things.

Eliza Swann  1:10:53  

Yes, oh my gosh, I love this card. I’m blown away that you chose it. In fact, a friend is designing a deck and asked me to contribute to a card and asked me to pick and I was like, please let me do The Hierophant. And it’s it’s a really misunderstood card, for good reason. Classically, it has the pope on it. But a friend of mine who’s a medieval historian said that the pope being included in the deck was actually kind of a joke. It was hubris, because most of the imagery in the deck comes from pagan symbolism. And so adding the pope in was kind of like a ribbing of the Pope and his authority in the Pope’s authorities so different from what a real mystic would be like, right? the Pope’s authority is absolute, it’s enforced by violence. It’s church, state, profit, money, real estate and connection to God belongs just to me. And I think the reclamation of that of that person or that archetype, or that energy has been so significant for us in the last few years and I love what the Hierophant especially being number five, if he subscribed to the Tarot having numerological significance, some people don’t. But number five is revolutionary. It’s the bridge between zero creation, one creation and 10 ending. It’s the bridge between heaven and earth. It’s the bridge between chaos and order. It’s the bridge between polarities. And in that sense, it’s a radical, revolutionary, non binary, churning, breaking things open radical rebellious is card if you let it be. And I think it was designed to be actually Yeah,

Sheila M  1:12:54  

I love that I’ve never heard back description of like, the historical significance, which I think so interesting. But whenever I read kind of like the book definition of the card, I was like, that’s not it, you know? Like, that’s not right. Um, and I think, to me, that makes so much more sense. And that’s how I really, you either you either think that you’re the Hierophant or you are the Hierophant you know, or you think that you’re the wise leader who’s teaching everybody or you think that you are not, and therefore you are the servant leader, who is kind of guiding and and walking beside your students and saying, this has been my experience, what is your experience, like, and really offering them the ability to participate in their own education, and to see themselves as the teacher ultimately, 

Eliza Swann  1:13:44  

Yeah, I love this card so much, I could talk about it for so long. Um, I mean, the Hierophant came from being a 19th century scholar who renamed the pope because he didn’t want it to be called the Pope. He wanted to come liberate that symbol or that person, and he named it the Hierophant, which is a Greek word, because he was imagining that the eleusinian mysteries were somehow part of this card, he misunderstood the history of Tarot. But eleusinian and mysteries are all about diammonium losing your mind, hallucinatory naked dancing with wine. And so this figure is at the center of that kind of unraveling, or this rebellion or this chaos is ecstasy. That’s just about untameable. So I love it.

Sheila M  1:14:39  

Yeah. Yeah. And I just think it’s such a beautiful, it’s such a beautiful card to embody with teaching as well, even as the teacher in quotes, because I feel like I’ve learned so much more about my Tarot practice. I also teach yoga and I teach yoga teachers. And I’ve learned so much more about, about yoga and about the practice from teaching teachers and from listening to them. Because when you have that kind of experience, you get to see what you’re saying reflected back and you’re like, oh, wait a second. You’re right. You know, like, I’m learning this lesson from you as well, which I think is, at times even more valuable. You know, I think like, one of the things I like about yoga is like, the essence of always being a student, like you’re, you’re always a student, and you’re always in practice, you know, you’re never in this perfect, you know, cover of yoga journal. Like, you’re always, there’s always something for you to work on, and to continue to evolve. And to, you know, when it’s not your body, it’s your mind, you know, and your breath and all of that. And I think it’s so interesting, because with this card, there’s so much wisdom in listening to the students and in, in hearing what feedback is coming in as well.

Eliza Swann  1:16:03  

Yeah, I had this really eccentric teacher for about 10 years. I got a reading from her when I was in. I don’t even know if I was 20 yet. And she looked at me and was like, Oh, my God, do you need training? This is you’re a mess I was I was a mess, I was like, overwhelmed as having lots of visions as big trouble. Just kind of remaining in balance as a human being. And she would have me meet her at Starbucks, I grew up in Manhattan, I needed the Starbucks in the middle of  Manhattan to change smoke cigarettes. And the first thing she would say to me, was, well, chain smoking outside of Starbucks and look at me, in for 10-15 minutes refused to say anything that showed me nuts as a young person who’s coming to this person for teaching, to be asked to take up the space or to take charge of the space. And it was many years later that I realized what she was doing. She was making me put my voice in the space she was making me own The space and declare this base and not wait for her to do that every time. So yeah, I think about her I think about the Hierophant to just like the strange, chain smoking intense woman just watching me and waiting for me to declare myself and refusing to do it herself. Which is cool. So cool teaching.

Sheila M  1:17:29  

Yeah. And I I had like a similar experience with so what really kind of reloc everything and my life was when I went through Reiki to training. And I was going back and talking to my teacher. And I was like, Oh, this, this and this are happening. And he knew from the beginning what was going on, but he wasn’t going to like, solve it for me. And quite frankly, if he had just been like, Oh, you have some mediumship abilities, and like this might happen, I probably be like, No, thank you.That’s  Ridiculous, how dare you, you know, I would not have been ready to hear it. And then like after two months of going back and forth with him, and you know, he was still guiding me and like offering, you know, listening to what I had to say, and then offering some ideas. But I finally came back like two months later. And I was like, I think I’m a medium. And I think this is what’s happening. And I think I need to learn this. And he was like, Yeah, I think so too. And I was like, why don’t you just tell me? He was like well,  I don’t really think you were ready to hear it yet. And I was like, and at the time, I was like annoyed. Although, upon reflection, I realized how much like, I couldn’t have had somebody sit down and say to me, Hey, listen, what you just described is this. And now you have to like and, and he the whole time very much left it open and said, you know, ultimately, what you decide to do is up to you. You don’t have to accept this, it doesn’t just because you have this doesn’t mean you have to use it. And you can you can permission yourself to do whatever you want. I think that it may keep presenting itself. So you know, just something to be prepared for. Um, and also, you know, you can say No, thank you. Like, it’s totally up to you. And I was in a completely different headspace when I came back to that experience. You know,

Eliza Swann  1:19:30  

yeah, what a great teacher and that is so Hierophant as well to let people kind of mill through their process and arrive at things to a degree in in a way that’s comfortable for them. 

Sheila M  1:19:43  

Yeah, yeah. So, um, I will share everything in the show notes for this episode in terms of how to get in touch with you, but how can people work with you now? What’s the best way to get in touch With you, how can they follow what you’re working on? 

Eliza Swann  1:20:02  

Yeah, thank you for asking. People can book readings with me. And that can be found at Elizaswann.asme link to that. That’s my scheduling app. And through there, you can read about the different services that I offer. And we can also do one on one intuitive development. If people want to join classes that I teach, and colleagues of mine teach, they can visit Golden-dome.org. And that’ll have art exhibitions and classes and intensives that are happening through the Golden Dome School, which I direct and do a lot of the teaching through. And then best way to contact me is Elizaswann@gmail.com. 

Sheila M  1:20:50  

And obviously also, you can find Eliza’s book Anatomy of the Aura, which is super helpful in terms of boundaries, clearing your space, clearing yourself, I think, for everyone, not just people who would identify as traditionally intuitive but really important work. And I highly recommend it was very easy to read. So I think it’s not always the case with some of these books where like, it can be very heavy and, like academic sometimes where I’m like, oh, gosh, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to understand all of this. But it’s very easy to understand and very practical in the exercises that you describe and the uses for it. So I highly recommend that as well. And I will link everything up in the show notes. Um, but thank you so much for taking this time. 

Eliza Swann  1:21:49  

This was such a wonderful experience. I so appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Sheila M  1:21:54  

Yeah, maybe we’ll have you back when you’re working on your next book or your next project. 

Eliza Swann  1:21:59  

Yes, I am working on a project about the dead. So we’ll talk about medium ships.

Sheila M  1:22:06  

Absolutely. That sounds like I have to have you back then that would be great. All right. Thank you, Eliza.

Thank you so much for listening to Living Tarot. If you love today’s episode, please leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. This helps us reach even more budding intuitives. Feel free to share on Instagram and tag me @StarSagespirit and let me know what you learned,  what surprised you and what you’d like to hear even more of. As always, if you want to hear more about my courses, or book a reading with me, or for full episode show notes, you can head over to starSagespirit.com