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Surviving the Holidays as an Empath Part 1

Do you struggle with emotional and energetic boundaries around friends and family? 

I have been DOING SOME WORK on this in 2019. It’s been a critical part of my intuitive journey to set good boundaries to protect my energy and that starts with some practical everyday things that we all can do.

Today I offer some advice on surviving the holidays as an Empath.  No, not just surviving, THRIVING!!  

Last week we discussed what makes you an empath so if you missed that blog, you can catch up here. 

Now that you know that you struggle with taking on other people’s energy, what do you do about it?

The holidays bring the added challenge of inundating us with a lot of events, a lot of people, and a lot of dysfunctional family patterns.  The challenge is being present while not burning yourself out.

So let’s talk about some strategies.

I like to start with my favorite strategy which is saying “no” to things or events that you just know are going to be too much.  Now, I know that this can be a particularly big challenge but maybe you could just challenge yourself to say “no” to one thing. Just to try it.  Test how it feels. You might feel some guilt but notice what is right behind that. If you are in a relationship, you can also make your partner the one that responds to events if you struggle with it.

There is also the time-limiting strategy.  If saying no is impossible or produces too much guilt, you can also set a time-boundary.  This is a great approach when you are just starting out. If you reflect on the past few years you might start to notice a pattern of when you start to feel overwhelmed. Maybe it’s after two hours, maybe longer.  Either way, if you can make the plan that you will arrive a little later than usual and leave a little earlier, you might find that you have much less anxiety going into the event.

Another great tactic is to prepare yourself ahead of time by scheduling breaks.  This can be as simple as giving yourself an hour to step away from everything and read your book.  It could be five minutes where you step into the other room and do some deep breathing. You could also choose to schedule a massage or energy work the day after you have a party.

You can also schedule some recovery time.  After any major events, you can schedule a day where you or you and your family are at home for the day.  You might be thinking, no i don’t have time I’m too busy. But this is where we come back to that saying “no” to things.  It will be okay if you don’t do every single holiday event. You will survive and so will your loved ones. Give yourself permission to schedule these breaks.  They will benefit all of you.

Finally we come to the reward/incentive strategy.  I fully admit this is a form of self-bribery and I approve of it 100%.  It acts as a reward and a light at the end of the tunnel. Schedule a massage, or a yoga workshop, or energy work before the season even starts.

The reason why I love this approach so much is threefold.  First, you have to calendar it so it’s already built into your schedule and if you want to cancel you will be met with the same resistance that you get when saying no to anything else so you’re more likely to keep the appointment. 

Finally, It can also help clear anything out of your system that you picked up in your time.  Massage can release tension from the muscles and promote relaxation. Energy work, like Reiki or acupuncture, can help you release any energy you picked up from friends or family during your interactions.  It can help to balance your own system and establish your own energetic boundaries.

To plan ahead for this, I have opened up my New Year Release and Initiation Reiki and Tarot combo.  I’m so excited to be doing this work as a combination. 

I always channel my offerings so that they are directed by spirit. As soon as I settled into meditation to plan my new year tarot offering, I kept hearing the message that I needed to include Reiki with this offering. The purpose of this is to help clear about any heaviness from 2019 and to provide direction for 2020.  The Reiki helps to move out any energy that is stagnant or out of balance. It allows the client to release anything stagnant that they are holding onto from the past year and bring in new creative, inspiring energy.  

This offering consists of both Reiki energy work, past life release, and a year ahead tarot spread.  This spread is very complex (20 cards!!) and it will give insights into the next year as well as the energy you will be working with throughout the new decade.  

These sessions span approximately two hours and it is the ultimate in self-care.  It’s so easy to get sucked into the holidays and the hype of the new year without ever making time for you. 

I totally get it.  Before you know it, it will be the end of January and you haven’t even thought about what you want from the year.  The benefit of this type of reading is that it will help you play to your strengths and give you momentum going into the new year (and decade).

I’m so incredibly excited as always to work with all of you.  Bookings are open now but spots are very limited. I’m only offering these sessions a couple times a week and I know that people have limited time over the holidays.  So if this offering speaks to you, please sign up early to save a spot. They will only be available through the end of January.

Link to schedule is below:


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How to tell if you are an Empath, Intuitive or both?

I wanted to take some time to talk about being intuitive versus being an empath. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about it between workshops and my “Ask me October” Series (which you can see over on my instagram page – link is at the bottom of my site or here).  It was something I struggled to understand in the beginning because everything was so overwhelming and mixed up for me.

An empath is someone who absorbs or picks up energy from other people.  They are aware of others feelings and can start to feel their emotions right along with them.  There is a difference between being empathic and being an empath. Empathic people offer condolences or grieve with their friends.  They offer help and support.

Empaths absorb the grief and feel it deeply as if it were their own. They live the same experience without having the same connection to the event or circumstance.

How do you know you’re an empath?

Do you find yourself crying right along with a friend who is upset or getting off a phone call with a distraught friend and feeling like you can’t shake the grief even though?

Do you notice sudden strong feelings come over you when you are out in a crowd?

Are you the person your friend turn to whenever they need advice or need to vent?

Do strangers start talking to you about deeply personal things after just meeting you?

Do you regularly find yourself crying with sappy commercials?

Do you pick up physical pain from someone you love when you are around them (like they have a headache and when you leave them you have a headache)?

Do you get overwhelmed easily in your intimate relationships?

You don’t understand how someone could not put other people before themselves?

Are you easily able to tell if someone isn’t being honest?

You have a strong desire to help everyone that you see is in pain?

If you answered yes to a few of those you are probably and empath.

So how does that differ from being intuitive?

Intuitive people are connected to a different energy.  They will get direct information or have a sense of knowing about a situation.  Without explanation or even needing to be around someone they will just know things about them. They can often hear, see, or sense energy or have a connection to a higher sense of just knowing.

Maybe you notice things about someone that they haven’t told you?  

Have you found yourself knowing what someone does for a living without them ever telling you?

Do you get a feeling about what will happen if you take one way home from work vs another?

Do you ever see a little movie daydream play out in your head and then later see those exact events play out in real life?

Maybe you meet a friend’s significant other and immediately know what issues will come up in their relationship without knowing anything about them?

To me it feels a little bit like tapping into stuff that is in the back of my mind. I’m not always aware that I know it until I check in and look for it. Kind of like having access to a catalog of information.

It is possible to be both intuitive and an empath.

So how does that work?

When I sit down to do a reading with someone and I open up to their energy I might start feeling some of the stuff that they have been feeling.  I usually put a little bit of a boundary up there. Then I tune into the energy around them, which is a different frequency than their emotions. This is where I get most of the information about what is going on with them. I will start to hear short messages or sometimes even full sentences of what would help them. 

Over the next couple weeks we will be talking about navigating the holidays as an empath.  We will discuss how to put up boundaries and how to manage your own energy through the hectic holiday season.

Hopefully just reading this lets you know that you are not alone.

Tune in Mondays through the end of the year for a new blog post every week, with helpful tips and tricks for all my woo-woo friends.

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The Star and and the Path to Healing

Have you ever found yourself triggered by something you thought you were over?  

I’ve experienced this myself recently.

As humans we tend to have the idea that once we work through something, we are done.  More and more I think that is not the case. I think it’s really about a lifelong journey or orbiting the same issues and getting to work through them in different dynamics and different places.

This is part of the reason why The Star has always been my favorite tarot card.  Before I even knew the meaning of the card, I loved it. The Smith-Waite version of the card shows a naked woman with one foot in the water, one foot on the shore, pouring water onto the shore and back into the sea.  

Three depictions of the Star from The Smith-Waite, The Starchild Tarot, and The Wild Unknown Tarot

I love this card because it represents our ability to call our own natural and inherent ability to heal.  We spend so much of our lives searching for answers or validation outside of ourselves. We go to therapy, we talk to friends, we read self-help books but when it comes down to it we are responsible for our own healing.  No one can do it do us.

Healing from trauma is hard work.  It requires a level of observation and compassion for yourself that is challenging on a good day and almost impossible on a bad day.

I have been on my own journey to move through this over the past fifteen years and I am really excited to share what I’ve learned about it with my students this month and next in my Star Embodiment Tarot workshop.

I don’t like to play favorites but it is probably the workshop I have been most excited for.  This Class, Tramuting Trauma with the Star, is a great way to learn about how you can participate in your healing outside therapy, and self-help books.  This class is all about how to embody this power to transmute our trauma into something that serves us instead of something that defines us. (Links to sign up are here.)

On a more personal note, I can’t believe how fast time has flown by. I feel like I blinked and it’s been six months since I made the full time leap.  A lot had changed.

October was my busiest month with events so far.  My residency at Chaddsford Winery was a huge success and a huge lesson to me in just asking for what I want. I was so afraid to ask them if I could read at their Adult Trick or Treat events because I thought I needed to know someone or have a person connection. They could not have been more gracious or excited to have me and I was so happy to be there.

I also did more parties than I ever as well as one expo and I had a real trial by fire in learning how manage my energy.

In the midst of all of this chaos I took my first business trip as a new business owner.  I was more relaxed while traveling for that trip than I have ever been. I suppose that’s a good indication that I am on the right track.

I flew out to Seattle and met up with my old friend, Tanya.  We have known each other since high school but it’s been a while since we have hung out.  It was so nice to see her again and catch up and meet her little family. She invited me to speak about my experience as a medium and intuitive to a group of writers through the Eastside RWA. 

The Eastside RWA is a group that holds meetings and events for local professional authors to inspire and help them develop professionally.  I had a great time speaking to them for an hour about my experience as a medium, how intuition can work for you, and how to call on it when you need it.

They were an amazing audience.  They were so engaged and asked questions for another forty-five minutes so it was the most I have spoken in front of an audience in about ten years.

I really enjoyed the whole trip and I’m happy I took the leap.  I learn to trust myself a little more each day and I have my slip-ups.

I’ve learned that it’s not really about being fearless as much as it’s about being scared, and doing it anyway.

I have a lot of really exciting things coming in terms of offerings to prepare for the new year and some other cool workshops brewing. Keep an eye out for those in the next week or so.

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Friday the 13th – Fear vs Intuition

Happy harvest full moon! And on Friday the thirteenth, no less.  Despite what pop-culture will tell us about Friday the 13th, this full moon is actually considered a lucky full moon that will bring a lot of abundance.  If you like doing full moon rituals, I know a lot of sites and a lot of my instagram friends post about fun things to do. If you are into tarot, my teacher Lindsay Mack has a beautiful podcast about this full moon energy that she released today (listen here)

The date and the full moon have me thinking about horror movies. I grew up loving horror movies (a trait I like to think I passed down to my baby sister. You’re welcome, Bear!)  I would always imagine what I would do if faced with certain adversaries. Many of us have sat screaming at the tv “no, don’t run upstairs, you idiot!” We all think that we would be rational in the face of fear.

The reality is that when faced with fear or even just the voice of fear in our heads we often shut down.  We run away from the problem instead of tackling it head on. We give in to base instincts.

Hearing the voice of fear and ego in our heads in every day life is much the same. When that voice starts going we completely ignore our intuition.

This past weekend I did my first Embody the Tarot on Accessing your Intuition with the high priestess class at Nectar Yoga Studio up in Phoenixville. I was really excited for the event and also very nervous.

Saturday morning when I woke up and was getting myself ready and putting all my materials together for the workshop all I could hear was the voice of my inner critic.  It’s funny because in this class is all about getting beyond the fear voice in your head and listening to the much quieter voice of intuition. 

That voice was screaming at me “You don’t know enough” “You haven’t been doing this long enough” “other people are doing it better”.  I hear all of the things that we all hear when we are doing something new and scary. In this workshop, we discuss the ego’s job of protecting us from scary things like failure or embarrassment.  The ego wants us to stay where it’s safe. In our comfort zone.

So far my comfort zone has been working with people one on one. So teaching to a group was a pretty big step.

So I practiced what I preach in the class.  I sat down and asked myself what is fear and what is true. I said to that fear voice “Okay I hear you. Thank you for trying to keep me safe, but I’m going to do this anyway.”

When I got to the studio I had more people than I expected in class which made that voice pop right back up again.  So as I was setting up the room, I acknowledged that fear voice and again said I was going to do it anyway.

It was such good practice for me.  The class went really well and I got some great feedback.  

I’m looking forward to doing it again at Rebel Yoga Studio in Chestnut Hill on 9/22 and at Jolly Llama Yoga on 10/5. If you are interested in signing up for either of those you can find the sign up links on my event page here.

This week has brought about a lot of transition for me.  This time of year always brings the back to school transition and a more structured energy after the freedom of summer.  This year it’s been a lot of reorganizing going on around me. I’ve watched a lot of things shift in terms of where I’m being pushed to release what isn’t working for me anymore.  With so much going on in the fall I’ve had to prioritize more.  

I’ve also been trying to focus on not just what I feel obligated to do because I can, but what I find most exciting and gratifying in the moment.  I’ve been a little sad to say that it’s been a shift away from teaching yoga as much in terms of public classes. The past few weeks have brought about a lot of disappointment for me in the community.  I know it will shift again in a little while but at the moment I am happy with how much I am teaching and where and I don’t feel the need to keep pushing so hard like I have in the past.

I’m also excited to watch this teaching shift as I assist in my first teacher training.  I am so excited to work with students as they deepen their practice and go deep into self-exploration.  The journey through yoga teacher training is not for the faint of heart. You really have to honor your experience as you go and own up to things you might not love looking at and I am so excited to be there for the exploration.

I was speaking to a dear friend today who has many of the same gifts I do.  She has been keeping it a secret from her family and partner for a long time now.  She’s an incredibly gifted intuitive and medium and listening to her talk about how nervous she is about opening up about everything but how ready she is to do it brought me back to my own “coming out of the spiritual closet”.  I actually did it right here on this very blog.

Having gone through this myself just a couple months before I totally understood her hesitation.  It is comforting to know that even those of us who are highly intuitive and have an easier time hearing the voice of intuition, struggle to hear it over the voice of fear.  Like a muscle intuition gets stronger the more we use it. We get used to what it sounds like and what it feels like in the body to be in our intuition instead of in our fear.

As I gear up for a very busy fall, I know I will be relying on my intuition more and more to make the best decisions for my business and my piece of mind.

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On my 34th Birthday…

Today is my 34th birthday.  Always a day of reflection for me and a day of trying to organize my thoughts and intentions for the next year. I’ve been thinking about faith and what it looks like in practice.

When I was in high school, the first leading role I was ever cast was the role of Doris in Miracle on 34th street.  The mantra of that show and one of the most famous lines in it is “Faith is believing in things when commons sense tells you not to.”

It sounds a bit trite but my whole life has become a living breathing expression of that one line over the past two years.

I’ve needed so much faith in myself and in God, the universe, source…whatever you prefer to call it.  Trust is hard for me like it is for a lot of people.

So often for me that lack of faith is just a lack of belief in my own ability and worth and it’s a sentiment I hear echoed by almost every client I have.

I am a planner and I like to plan everything out.  Jumping into this business was taking a true Fool-card like leap of faith.  

It’s an important lesson for all of us that control is just an illusion.  None of us can plan so well that we can control the outcome of any situation.  When I did event planning I saw it all the time. No matter how much you plan there will always be something you could never anticipate in a million years.  An award presenter gets too drunk to present. A sponsor brings 30 extra people with them. A wedding officiant doesn’t show.

The fact remains.  Sometimes you have to just jump before you can see where you will land. Sometimes you just have to have the faith that you can do it.

This month I did my first ever spiritual expo.  I was very nervous about putting myself out there with so many experienced readers but as the event founder, Theresa says, God brings us to these things for a reason.  It was also my first time speaking in front of people about my story.  

It went very well.  I had to have a lot of faith to do both things.  While I am very comfortable with public speaking (thank you theater experience).  I still get pretty nervous opening up about my own life.

Overall I was very busy and very happy with the event and all the ticket proceeds were donated to Philadelphia area food banks.  I honestly saw the whole event as a win/win.

I’m happy I did it and I’m looking forward to doing it again in October.

As I move into the fall season, which is my favorite, I have so many new things coming in for me.  My faith has opened me up to so many new and exciting experiences.

I am co-teaching a yoga teacher training for the first time ever.  It’s something that I’ve considered helping with for a long time but always talked myself out of.  Quitting my corporate job and really evaluating what I wanted to do has opened me up to some of these ideas that seemed so impossible before.

I’m also doing a whole series of classes and several local studios talking about the archetypes of the tarot and how we can use them to inspire growth and change in our lives.  These will be a launch point for a lot of future work for me. I can feel the ideas expanding even as I finalize my plans for these current workshops.

For right now I am so excited to facilitate these groups and to introduce people to some of the more practical ways to embody tarot archetypes in everyday life. You can find all the current fall events here.  They will be updated as the booking links go live for each event.

On a more personal level, it has been an incredible year for travel.  I’ve gone to Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Italy, Germany, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Colorado. 

On top of all of that, Mike and I just returned from a trip to Ireland.  I still have a lot of family there and it always feels like a homecoming to me so it was wonderful to be back again.  We would both like to make those trips more regular but it was a beautiful time and we had a lot of fun.

Despite spraining my ankle on the first day of our trip, we did a lot of hiking, and adventuring all over the country from Northern Ireland, all the way down to Kerry in the south. We saw concerts, ate oysters, and hiked both urban and rural settings. It was a beautiful trip.

Here we are outside of Kenmare in County Kerry.

To assist me in maintaining my energy, I have also finally purchased booking software so people can take care of making their own appointments and I can let go of some of the administrative work I didn’t enjoy.  You can now book and appointment here.

You can also find up to date posts on events and random musings on my instagram including a birthday tarot reading I did for myself here.

Overall I am so incredibly excited for the fall.  I hope to see some familiar faces at some of my upcoming workshops.

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Tuning in and Tuning out – The Dance with Intuition

It’s hard to believe it’s been two months since took the leap to go full time with my business.  June was an absolute blur.  I was so busy with reiki session, tarot parties, and new mediumship readings, all while trying to get my business legs under me.


It was stressful but also incredibly energizing.  Learning how to manage my energy and listen to my body has been really important for me.  Towards the end of my time at my corporate job I spent so much time tuning out.  I honestly couldn’t really be tuned it because I knew I was so out of alignment with what I wanted to be doing and I was waiting for the right time to make my move.


This is actually one of my favorite topics to talk about.  Tuning in and tuning out of intuition.


As a person who spent a lot of her life tuning out, it’s really been a journey for me to learn when to listen and how to listen.


When I was young I used a crutch that many of us use – busy-ness. I was always active playing for multiple softball teams, singing in every choir possible, participating in hours of rehearsals for plays.  All of that was stuff i enjoyed doing yes but I had a relentless need to keep my mind busy or I would get too focused on all the things I was hearing or picking up from people.


I can remember coming home from grade school (I went to Catholic grade school so I’m talking Kindergarten through 8th grade) every day with a headache.  As a kid I was very empathic and intuitive and I spent all day picking up things about other students and my teachers.  I spent a lot of energy trying to block things out.


As an adult, and especially now that I have embraced some of these skills I still notice that I go through periods of needing to tune out.


I put a lot of pressure on myself not to do that but I am only human. I notice a lot of my intuitive friends do the same things.
So how does it look to tune out as an adult?


Well for me sometimes it looks like drinking more often. This isn’t a matter of getting drunk to forget but just consistently having a glass of wine during that quiet after dinner time.  
It also looks like constantly having some sort of noise going, could be mindlessly watching something on netflix or streaming podcast after podcast.bits the mindless noise that we busy our minds with.


I had to stop and sit and be honest with myself this week and realize how I started to tune out a bit again.  This happens for me sometimes when there’s some new sort of gift or skill coming in.  
Like everyone else I get anxious about change.  Being intuitive doesn’t mean being fearless.  This past week I had to really sit with myself and listen.  I went back to yoga.  I did my best to not busy myself every hour of the day so I wouldn’t have to think.


I even started a new tradition of sitting or laying in bed in the morning for an extra 30 minutes or so to give myself some time to think, meditate and listen.  Slowly everything starts to balance back out when I do this.  


Actually opening up to intituion is not nearly as scary as the anxiety of blocking it will lead you to believe.  Whatever it is that I’m avoiding will always come through either in my allowing it to or by force.


It’s like the expression goes “Jump, or be thrown in”.


Before I quit my corporate job I was getting so many signs that it was time.  Beyond my deep dread of feeling the rut I was in, I was getting very specific signs.  In one week three different people told me “I guess it’s time to hang your shingle”. The exact same phrase over and over from three different people in totally different areas of my life using the same old timey phrase about being public about my business.


Messages were coming through stronger, new reiki abilities started coming.  I was totally overwhelmed by the obvious but i couldn’t not look at it.
One of my teachers was listening to me describe how I knew it was coming I was just trying to logically figure out how to make it happen.  


He looked at me dead in the face and said “I think you’re going to have to jump before you can see where you’re going to land.”


And I did the thing I always do when someone or my intuition tells me that.  I moaned and groaned and asked “why” and avoided tuning in.


I busied myself as much as possible so I wouldn’t have to deal with it until I absolutely couldn’t take it any more.
So many people recently have made comments to me about how if they could just see what’s coming they would have a much easier time.  As someone who does see it, I can tell you it’s not true.  It can be hard to look at.  It is hard to know especially when other people aren’t ready to know.


There’s also this idea that because I can see things or because I’m more connected I am good at this stuff. The truth is that I am a normal person and I struggle with most of the same things everyone else does.  


The fact is that no one can be tuned in 100% all the time. It would be so exhausting and overwhelming and we are here to enjoy the human experience.  


So often I find that the community of intuitives and Yogi’s want to smash the ego. But my experience is that the ego is a major part of keeping us present in the more human parts of our experience in this lifetime. Being too connected and out of the body isn’t good all of the time.
This fall I have a series of workshops planned combining my love of talking about intuition with yoga and the archetypes of the tarot.  I am so excited to share my experience and learn from others.  


So far I have sign ups for one course up live at Nectar Yoga Studio owned by the lovely and talented, Kate Goodyear (link to sign up) but I will have several others popping up over the next few weeks.  I will be sure to share the the details as I have them.


Thank you for keeping up with my journey.

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June Business and Talking Tarot

I can’t believe it’s already June.  The month of May was a complete blur trying to get myself set up and figure out my flow. I said it before but I have to say it again. I’ve been blown away by the love and support I’ve received from my community.  

I’ve received so many personal recommendations and I’m really honored by people’s trust.

This past weekend I read cards at the Trubarre Anniversary Party in Lafayette Hill.  It was such a great group of women. There were so many tarot newbies. I had so many questions about how tarot works and so many nervous ladies with big questions.

People see tarot represented in movies or on tv shows as this big scary fortune telling thing.  They see the death card and shudder or say “Oh no! That’s bad, right?”

I had the experience recently of going through security at the airport and my bag was flagged.  (For whatever reason my cards seem to always set it off). When the agent pulled the cards out she saw the death card and audibly gasped.  I assured her that it was a good card to get and that it represented transformation and rebirth but she did not look like she believed me.

I could go into a whole post about how tarot and other new age items are misrepresented constantly in film and movies because they are tools that empower marginalized groups but that is a post for another time.  

What I will say is that it is popular to make things like tarot scary and that there are thousands of misrepresentations in pop culture.

I view tarot as a tool for reflection and coaching with clients.  More like a weather forecast of what sort of storms you may deal with over the coming months

It gives an overview of the kind of energy you will be working with in a given moment.  My clients can attest to the fact that I am more intuitive coach than fortune teller.

To show you what I mean I have written up a reading that I did for myself today.

Here’s a photo of the three card pull that I did:


As I mentioned above I have been extremely busy since going full-time with my work but I’ve been a bit anxious about what kind of business vacation season will bring.  Today I did a reading about what I need to know about my business in the month of July.

This very beautiful deck is the Starchild Tarot created by Danielle Noel who is an incredible artist – as you can see on these cards.  It’s the deck I use most often.

My first question was “What might I experience financially in the month of July?” .   My first card is the 5 of crystals reversed (crystals represent the classic pentacles suit in this deck) represents some internalized fear about my finances.  

How I read this for myself would be that the fear about my ability to make money is speaking much louder than any actual lack of clients.  My intuition tells me that July will be a bit quieter than the past few months but that I will still be seeing consistent business.

This card speaks very loudly of my fear of having to rely on people around me financially.  Financial independence is a a big source of pride for me. Moving into this new world of working for myself has triggered so much fear for me in being able to not just make ends meet but thrive the way I did at my corporate job.

The idea was not to quit my corporate job working so many hours every week but to actually allow myself more freedom in my time every week.  I’m not trying to exchange 40-50 hour work weeks for more 40-50 hour work weeks.

The second question was “What needs my focus as I move into July?”.  The King of Crystals tells me that I really need to focus on finding some stability.  Immediately this is a reminder to set my schedule.

So far I have been fitting appointments in all over the place and making myself as available as possible to clients. This isn’t a bad thing but I have been feeling strongly like I need to work out my hours with a bit more consistency.  

I also get the intuitive impression as I look at this card that setting those boundaries around my time will allow me to have more financial security rather than less, which is what I’ve been afraid of.  One of the reasons I’ve been saying yes to everything is because of that general financial fear I have. This card is a reminder that setting good boundaries around my time will allow me to fit in more clients during prime times for my own energy.  I know that this will keep me focused during those times and also keep me from feeling burned out.

The final question was “What might help me feel more confident in my finances moving forward?”.  For this I pulled the Hierophant. This card is really about setting your own standards and being your own expert.  

The message in this card is really about trusting myself.  This is an uncharted and non traditional career path that I’m on.  There’s no clear worn in path forward and it’s very much about me deciding for myself how to structure my time and how much, or how little to work.

I also see this as a need to focus on value rather than just finances.  It’s a great reminder of some of the intangibles of working for myself like getting to sleep in, or having time to go to a yoga class at lunchtime.  I also have a lot less daily stress on me at the moment. I feel a generalized stress about making enough money and booking clients out for the next month but I don’t have pressing daily stress on me the way i did at my last job.

All together this reading tells me that some of the more common fears that I have about my financial security are coming up in July.  I might notice myself being more obsessive about checking my bank account or worrying about scheduling enough sessions with so many people traveling.

That said, I do have the ability in the King of Crystals to have more abundance by setting good boundaries around the hours I want to work and what I want to do during those hours.  I was happy to see this come up because it’s something that has been popping into my head a lot over the past week or two.

Finally with the Hierophant, I really see that there is no “right way” to do things.  I have been reading so many books on business and listening to podcasts and asking friends and what I keep coming back to is there is no straight-line, obvious way to be successful.  Different things work for different people. This card is a great reminder that while I can look at all the expert advice I want, I am ultimately going to be the best person to decide what works best for me.

Now all of this might seem super obvious and easy to to say for an outsider but when we are in the midst of these emotional and stressful moments it is hard to get clarity on what we need to see the most.  That is where tarot comes in for me and my clients.

So often I feel like I am confirming something that my client already knows but is doubting.  Tarot provides the mirror to confront them with those things and teach them to trust their own intuition.

This represents a very short reading that I did for myself.  When I work with clients one on one we typically get a lot more in depth based on what they need to know most in a given moment.  

I frequently coach people as they are going through transitions in life: marriage, divorce, new career, motherhood, birthdays, etc.   I also work parties where I do mini readings which are great for bachelorette parties, birthday parties, or even holiday parties. I have only a few party dates left in July.

If you are interested in booking a reading or a tarot party for yourself you can find info on booking here or send me an email sheila at starsagespirit.com.

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So what exactly is Reiki?

I had such an overwhelming and positive reaction to my first blog. A big thank you to everyone who spoke up, made a comment, or sent me a text about my big secret.  It went much better than I expected and it was a huge weight off my shoulders.

I am now officially out of my corporate job and I’m now working for myself full time.  

It feels good but in true Sheila fashion I haven’t given myself much downtime.  I’m working on that now. Trying to build some time into my schedule for myself.

Today I wanted to take some time to talk about a question I get often: What is Reiki?

The actual word Reiki  translates as “rei” which means “God’s Wisdom” or “Higher Power” and “ki” which means “life force energy”.  So together it translates to “spiritually guided life force energy”.

Reiki activates the natural healing process of the patient’s body and promotes relaxation and well-being.  It involves laying hands on a patient (or in cases of trauma skipping hands on touch) to help move life force energy through the body.

My experience with Reiki was one that was very unexpected. As I explained in my last blog I was always able to feel and hear people’s energy. I just didn’t realize that until I had been through several levels of reiki training.  

I use two different types of Reiki: Usui Reiki and Kundalini Reiki.  

Usui Reiki is used to treat physical and emotional issues that are coming up for clients at the present moment.

Kundalini Reiki is used to heal more karmic issues.  These issues can be related to past life trauma or karmic ties to certain people and behaviors.  I’ve seen many skeptical clients have dramatic reactions to this treatment including physical changes in the body and posture to sudden emotional release.

I use these two modalities together to provide a healing session that is as complete as possible.

It’s exciting for me because anything can come up.  I usually get an idea of what I want to do from sitting with the client and going over their goals for the treatment.  Often when I get started I am guided by my intuition to go deeper or get more specific with my treatments. I will sense things about their energy with my hands and i will also sometimes hear or see certain things around their body. For example, rather than something like “let’s send some healing to this clients relationship with food and nourishment” to “let’s send healing to the competitive relationship she has with her mom and sister to help facilitate a healthier relationship with food and nourishing her body”.

In my experience receiving reiki I have noticed a reduction in anxiety and also some relief from PTSD and for the hypervigilance that comes with it.  I experienced some relief from issues I had with my SI joint and my left leg. I also experienced stress reduction while I was going through my initial mediumship experience.

My patients have reported better sleep, less, anxiety, and increased mental focus and overall clarity.  I’ve worked with patients who have a wide variety of issues from autoimmune diseases, to insomnia, fertility issues, and depression.  Each patient’s experience is different.

I’ve found that treatment can be particularly effective during times of transition.  I work with many clients as they are transitioning into new jobs, becoming parents for the first time, as well as clients who are going through separation and divorce.  They report that reiki helps them deal with grief, stress, and sleep disruption.

I’ve also found that treatment can be effective during autoimmune flare ups.  When a client is in a flare I suggest they come in once a week until the flare reseeds. They report shorter flare up time frames as well as increased energy and better sleep.

Another frequent question I receive is how often clients should come in for treatment.  This depends on what they have going on but for the majority of people, once a month is a good frequency.

I’m running a grand opening special if you come in for a Reiki session in May or June, you will receive a free three card tarot pull.  I love combining these two modalities as it offers some additional guidance after our session for the client to take with them.

If you would like to schedule a session send me an email.  I would love to work with you.

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The Reluctant Medium

I’ve been keeping a secret.

Two years ago, I realized I was a medium. I could communicate with the spirits of people who’ve passed.

Out of nowhere, I could feel my deceased friend’s presence and hear him talking to me in my head. It was as if he was sharing his thinking and I was hearing it instead of mine.

He showed me the circumstances surrounding his death and then gave me messages for his family. He answered some of my questions. Then, just like that, he was gone.

Nothing about this experience was scary. It was surprising — and enlightening.

All my life, I’ve had instant and strong feelings about people, sometimes even before they ever said anything to me.  My mom would say that I was always a good judge of character.

I would meet people and instantly know things about them that I couldn’t possibly know. I could “hear” if what they were saying and what they were feeling were the same, and I would say extremely specific things about the person that I hadn’t personally experienced, but that I knew were true.

Of course, I thought all of this was normal and that everyone else could do that too.

I grew up in a conservative, Catholic family. From a young age, I was told that contacting spirits was wrong.

That stuck with me into adulthood. Even as I got into yoga and reiki, I didn’t believe in mediums. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to talk to the dead.

Then I heard from my friend.

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Two years ago, I took my first reiki training.

As a long-time yogi, I’d been aware of reiki as a form of energy healing, but I considered it a bit too “woo-woo” for me.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the class and stunned when I realized I actually felt something.

My partner for the class was already a reiki master but was taking the introductory class because she wanted to learn more by adopting a beginners’ mindset.

After working together for the first time, she sat back and said: “You’ve been a healer in many, many lifetimes.  When it’s the right time, you will hear, and you will see.”

I stared at her thinking, “OK, lady. This is the exact reason why I avoided this woo-woo nonsense.”

After taking the level two a month later, I got really sick for about three weeks — maybe the flu, or something.

I was congested and coughing. My ears were blocked. My stomach was upset. My skin broke out like I was back in middle school.

My acupuncturist had a different idea.

This wasn’t the flu, he said, but a full-body detox. I’d gone through a reiki attunement and this was a top side effect.

When I came out on the other side, everything started getting strange. I got ringing in my ears I thought was tinnitus. I had strange pains — in my right shoulder, the outside of my shoulder joint, my bicep connection or deep inside my collarbone. 

I couldn’t replicate the pain by lifting weights or doing yoga. It would come at random times and then pass just as quickly. I went to the chiropractor and acupuncturist, but neither could find a physical reason for the pain and neither could resolve it.

After about a month, I had a breakthrough.

I had a dream about a friend who had passed a year and half earlier. In the dream, he was trying to talk to me. I could see his mouth moving but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. In the dream, I was having the shoulder pain. When I woke up, I had the sharpest pain to date. I was so confused.

I explained what happened to my acupuncturist. He thought the pain was because fear was making me block a message. I was ready to try anything at that point to make the pain go away, so I obliged him. He put a couple of needles in me. I laid there and waited for something to happen. To my genuine surprise, after about five minutes, it did.

That’s when I felt my friend’s presence.

My acupuncturist came back and took the needles out and I basically ran home without telling anyone what had happened.


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Over the next few weeks, I debated if what I had experienced was real. Was I losing my mind? Did I imagine it?  Would anyone even believe me if I told them what happened?

The pain in my shoulder persisted. Finally, I went to see my reiki teacher. On the drive to the appointment, I was talking out loud to my friend’s spirit. I was in the bargaining stage. I said that if my teacher confirmed what my friend had told me, I would talk to his family like he had asked.

I told my teacher about the shoulder pain and asked him to see what he could pick up on. He gave me a more general but still accurate description of what was going on: a male spirit that was connected to me — more as a friend than a romantic interest — was trying to get a message across, and he was being so persistent because he was concerned about someone in the living world.

This was exactly what I needed to hear, and exactly what I didn’t want to hear. I knew I had to talk to my friend’s parents.

I was so nervous walking in. My palms were sweaty. I didn’t know where to start. I told them what had happened and what my friend has said. They were floored. We were all in disbelief.

Yet, it was what I needed to see.

That experience showed me how much closure these experiences can bring, and it opened my eyes to how healing this work can be.

After that, the floodgates opened. I was getting contacted by spirits left and right. I could feel them trying to talk to me while I was driving and teaching and at work meetings.

I didn’t know how to control it. I was overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted. What had started as a gift turned into a bit of an overwhelming mess.

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I needed help.

I learned a lot: how to control my abilities, how to tune in and tune out, and how to set strong boundaries. 

That was critical. It calmed me down and helped me feel more like I was running the show, rather than spirits inundating me.

Over time, and with a lot of practice, I learned how to better communicate and how to sit and read someone.

I’ve also taken reiki level three, Kundalini reiki certification, and reiki four. My gifts, suppressed for far too long, have only grown with practice and additional trainings.

With reiki, I’ve been able to zero in on specific issues I see in people’s energy. I’m not just seeing that a person has grief in her abdomen, but that she has a complicated relationship with food stemming from comments her mother made when she was a kid.

My mediumship has also come into play. I often feel spirits come in with my clients. Inevitably, I find that whatever a client is struggling with is tied to his or her relationship or perceived responsibility to the spirit that came in with them.

Doing mediumship readings is the scariest thing I’ve done.

I feel open and vulnerable. I get a ton of information and have no context or knowledge to know if what I’m saying makes any sense. It takes a lot of trust and ability to let go of the need to be right.

I would always feel a moment of pure panic before I started and then as soon as I settled in, I would see, or more likely hear, that it was connecting for the person. 

The past two years have been a wild ride, and I’ve been navigating all of it while working a full-time corporate job, part-time yoga-teaching jobs, and living with a boyfriend for the first time ever. So much change in such a short period of time.

So why am finally going public now?

Because I’m finally making the leap. After two years of doing energy healing and intuitive coaching on the side, I’ve decided to make it my full-time gig.

In future posts, I’ll answer some common questions people have about reiki, mediumship and tarot.  I’ll be using this blog as a way to catalogue my experience and make some of these complex, abstract ideas more understandable.