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Answers: Does Anyone Have a Clue?

Answers. Isn’t that what this is all about? People want answers.

People always ask me how I work, how I get the information. It’s a little hard to explain because so many things happen at once, but I’ll try to describe it.

The first thing that happens is I think about the person’s name. I either get a feel for it or I don’t. If I don’t, I concentrate a little harder. If nothing comes to mind and I don’t get any kind of feeling, I let it go. Based on past experiences, I see that as a sign that I’m not supposed to do a reading for them.

This doesn’t mean something bad is about to happen or the person is blocking me. It means for whatever reason that person doesn’t need a reading from me.

If I do get a feeling about somebody, it’s like an excited feeling, like I hooked up to the internet and I can feel more stuff is coming.

Then I start to get pictures and images, examples of what that person is like. For instance, I might get a picture of someone sad or excited. Someone about to have a good experience or someone who has got the world on their shoulders. These images come quick and it’s about getting a general picture of the person.

What I find interesting in doing readings is that as I’m getting information and I’m describing what I’m getting, words just start coming into my head.

Some of those words I’m aware of because I’m using them to describe what I’m getting, but other words don’t always make sense to me. And the more I trust myself, the more I allow the words to flow.

Another thing that happens to me is that I become that person. Not literally, but I start to see experiences they’ve gone through and I can also see the outcome of what they’re about to do. It’s like watching a movie and being in the movie at the same time. Again, all of this comes really quickly. Most times I write down the main points of what I’m seeing, so I can go back and explain it to them in a way that will make sense

Sometimes it’s not just for the deep stuff. Sometimes people want to know what’s wrong with their lawn mower or what they should get their wife for their anniversary. Maybe they lost their cat, or are tired all the time, or depressed.

For me, when it’s simple things, I’ll just get the simple answer. I’ll get a picture, like where their cat is or what their wife wants. If people want deeper things I’ll go there, but you can get answers anywhere. Church, friends, a lot of people go to therapy, some just travel.

And now, more and more people are going to psychics for answers. You know why?

Because where else can you ask somebody what’s wrong with your lawn mower, find out where your cat is, and figure out why you’re so depressed, all in one sitting? Nowhere.

You can ask a therapist why you’re so depressed, but try asking them where your keys are, or ask your mechanic why you can’t sleep.

Psychics answer questions; that’s what we do.

And it’s been that way since I was a kid. If you were looking for answers, the house I grew up in was the place to go.

Psychics of all shapes and sizes were there to answer any and all questions you might have. Little questions, big questions, it didn’t matter. Was your cat depressed? They’d find out. Was your girlfriend pregnant? They’d know. Were the hometown boys going to win the big game? They’d find that out too. From “What’s the key to the universe?” to “What’s this thing on my lip?” they would answer any and all questions. And if one person didn’t know the answer, the person next to them did. If that person drew blanks, they consulted the stars. Anything they thought might help bring them answers, they would use.

I came in one time to see a guy wearing a pyramid on his head, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” When I asked my mother what the guy was doing, she looked at me incredulously and said, “Answering a question, honey, what do you think?”

Of course he was, because that’s what we do. We answer questions. Doesn’t matter what it is. We’ll take a stab at it.

We’re like the psychological and spiritual Walmart. And we don’t care what you wear when you come see us either.

We’re not doctors, psychiatrists, or therapists. We can just answer more stuff than they do. We aren’t confined to one way of thinking, like your average educated professional. We’re psychics! It’s the one good thing about not being taken seriously: we can say whatever we want.

But for those of you who take your psychic with a dash of seriousness, we can offer hope that life has meaning, hope that answers will come, hope that we’re not all alone in this world.

Here’s the rub: Answers will come to you whether you see a psychic or not. It’s just the way it works. Psychics can help you see the possibility that the answers are coming, but we don’t order them for you.

Sometimes people confuse me with Santa Claus or Google. They think since I can see, talk to, and smell Spirit, I have an “in” with them. I don’t. In fact, most guides just tolerate me. If they had retinas, most of them would probably dislocate them from rolling their eyes when they meet me. They are much closer to the people they work with and listen far more intently to them than they do a smart-ass psychic like myself.

I’ve gotten a lot of readings over the years, from a bunch of different psychics. Some were amazing in their accuracies and encouraging manner. And some were your basic fortune cookie psychics. But no matter how good they were, or how bad, it always boiled down to me, my choices, and my actions. I still had to participate. You can’t just sit back, look at your door, and hope the answers show up. You have to have some movement, some intent.

If you’re working on a puzzle and you’re struggling, you try everything, but sometimes you still just can’t see it. You try looking at it different ways, maybe you even try forcing a piece in, but that turns out worse, so now you’re really frustrated. You ask someone to help, a puzzle person. And sure enough, they see what you can’t. It’s right there, you just didn’t see it. You feel relieved. You think you got it figured out. It feels easy, especially the way they did it. You feel better because you feel like you’re on track.

You go back and start doing the puzzle again, but crap, you get stuck again. No worries, you can just call up your buddy and have them show you what they did last time. You call up that person who helped you before and ask them to help again. They come over and again they see the problem; they move this piece here, move that piece there, and pow, you’re back on track. They leave.

You start to do the puzzle again, but you’re not as committed. Even though it’s your puzzle, it doesn’t feel like it’s all really yours anymore, because you’ve gotten so much help with it.

Now it becomes more about just getting it done, rather than doing it yourself. So, at the first sign of trouble you figure, screw it, I’ll have my friend do it.

That’s what happens with psychics: The more correct information you give someone, the more some of those people want you to make all the decisions for them. They figure if we know the answers, why don’t we just tell them and save them the trouble of figuring it out? Well, for the exception of some actors, most politicians, hr supervisors, and this girl I dated in high school, people are not robots. It’s not about being told what to do and doing it.

When you do that, it is no longer about their life. It’s about getting through life as easy and with as much help as they can.

A side note to the divas out there: This is why all psychics—no matter how wonderful they are, no matter if they’ve been voted “best psychic of blah blah”—are going to suck once in a while.

Doesn’t mean you’re a bad psychic or your gifts have been taken away. We are not here to make people dependent on us and if we don’t recognize when someone is, “they”—Spirit—help us with it.

We pick up wrong information and we don’t get clarity: things that give the reader pause. It’s important because it gives the power back to the person and hopefully they start to trust themselves more.

Here’s an analogy to make this all more clear.

You’re running late and you have four minutes to get to a destination twenty minutes away. People are waiting. You’re making okay time, but suddenly, at the longest stop light in North America, an SUV, just slightly smaller than an actual school bus, turns into your lane in front of you as the light finally turns green. You proceed forward, hoping that at the very least this person is in the same hurry as you are, but judging by how quickly you catch up to this airport on wheels, you’re not even sure if the person is alive.

You look at the time. It’s official: You’re late and your sense of urgency has just been bumped up a notch. You can’t go another way because the place you’re going is on the same road and you can’t go around because this behemoth is so big there’s no room for error. You tap your feet, you slap your hands on the steering wheel, you stare at the ceiling hoping that whatever might be up there sees your frustration and takes pity on you, but apparently it goes unnoticed because now the monster truck is braking.

Surely nobody can be in front of this person. They’re going too slow. You know the speed limit hasn’t gone down, because you just saw the sign, and you didn’t see any construction zone signs, so why on earth would they slow down?

Obviously, they must be on their phone; or worse, they’re texting. Man, you hate people who text and drive. Of course, you text your friend about this, you’ve got places to be. You make the decision to go around, knowing you’re going to have to take a risk and floor it. You’re late, you’re pissed, and it’s time.

Just when your foot goes to accelerate, something very loud in your head says “no!” It’s so loud, in fact, that it makes you pause. And as you pause, you notice, to your right, a state trooper sitting on the side of the road with his speed gun pointed at all oncoming traffic. As you check your speed, a slight shockwave runs through your body and you think to yourself, phew.

You take back all the things you said about the person in front of you and you look up and thank whatever it was that warned you. Somebody’s watching over you, and for that brief second, you remember that.

Or maybe it’s late and you’re shopping. You love to grocery shop at night because it’s quiet and unhurried. The only people in the store are also night owls and the shared secret eye contact bonds you with your fellow shoppers. The music’s better at night. You can buy tampons and Preparation H and who cares?

On this particular night you’re taking your time; you’re squeezing the Charmin and smelling the candles, when something in your head tells you to go check out.

You think to yourself, “Why?” You have no commitments, nothing’s really on TV, and besides, you like the soft feeling of well-packed bathroom tissue. You dismiss this voice and finish up your shopping. You round the corner to the checkout area and there stands the only other person in the store, just starting to check out. And it appears she’s preparing for the end of days. Her cart is filled, top to bottom, and even the bored cashier seems overwhelmed by the task. As you get closer, your eyes roll and your shoulders drop when you spy her “ask me about my grandchild” purse, which is bursting with coupons.

If you had listened to that voice two minutes ago, you’d be in your car and on your way back home. Now you’re worried the milk you just got will expire before you even make it to your car.

Listening to that voice takes practice and trust, and if you’re like me and you’re really bad at both, it takes hard lessons to learn.

When I was sixteen, I quit high school and took my GED. We were dirt poor and I needed a job. I knew I could always get work at a restaurant because everybody needed to eat, so I decided to go to chef school. Because we were so poor, the state stepped in and paid for me to go to school. It was a godsend. So, for two years I went to chef school and worked as a cook in a couple different restaurants.

I was also in recovery; I sobered up when I was fourteen, but at the time, people my age in recovery were rare. In fact, only one other person my age was sober back then, so meetings were all full of people twice my age. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that more and more people my age started going to treatment. This meant more people my age attending meetings, which meant I wasn’t so alone in my recovery.

By the time I was in my late teens, the community was jumping with sober kids. I went to three meetings a week, went to chef school, and worked as a cook. That was my life for the latter part of my teens.

After two years, I graduated from chef school. But by then I was sick to death of cooking. Maybe if I had a little balance in my life vocation wise, I would have lasted longer. But the long hours, the crabby customers, and the diva chefs all took their toll on me. And the thought of cooking a hot dog seemed too much to bear. In that field you have to have passion, otherwise you burn out. I lacked that passion.

But I did have a passion for counseling. I loved going to meetings. I found I had a natural ability to talk to people. With my psychic abilities kicking in I could spot issues in a person a mile away. I was patient, I was strong, and I was gathering experience. I decided I wanted to work with adolescents in recovery.

With the influx of teens in recovery, more and more jobs were opening up for people my age with experience. Back then you didn’t need a degree, you just needed a connection and some know-how. Some of my friends in AA had gotten jobs as counselors and they didn’t have half the skills I thought I had. The money was better, you got to sit when you worked, and you didn’t smell like grease at the end of the day.

But finding a job was hard. Everywhere I looked, I seemed to run into a roadblock. Meanwhile, my friends who sucked at counseling were doing amazing. They were buying new cars, wearing new clothes, and saving the world.

The owners of the restaurant I was working at decided to sell to a nail salon. I had a choice: go find another chef job or look full time for a counseling job. I knew I was supposed to be a counselor, so all my effort went into pursuing that.

Three months later I was out of money, I lost my apartment and my car, and I had to ask my mom if I could come live with her. She was overjoyed … not.

She said I could only do it if I was out within a month. At the time, I felt I was so close to finding a counselor job that I knew I’d be fine, but a month came and went and there I was, still unemployed and sleeping on the couch.

Finally, she said I had to find another place to live; she was dating a guy and my being there was putting a damper on her love life. Plus I was almost twenty. I needed to go.

The only option I could think of was to live in a halfway house for sober youth. It was a long shot because I had been sober for a long time and generally they only let in people who were fresh out of treatment. Still, it was the only thing I could think to do.

Here’s where that little voice came in; it screamed at me to be patient, to wait, just hang in a little longer. I was sure I would get a job, but time was running out, so I set up an interview at the halfway house.

When I got there I recognized some of the people from a meeting I regularly attended. It was humiliating because I was one of the few people my age with long sobriety. To make matters worse, the person running the place was none other than my old counselor, Betty.

For those who didn’t read my first book, Betty is a no-nonsense, strong, powerful woman who can rip you to shreds with a look. She doesn’t mince words, she doesn’t fuck around, and she eats vulnerability with a spoon. You don’t con Betty. As soon as I saw her, I knew I was screwed.

I walked into the interview and sat down. Beside Betty were four other people all in a circle, waiting to interview me. I looked around at the group and then at Betty, who was standing. She looked amazed.

“Michael,” she said, “what the fuck are you doing here?” And just like the old days, I felt the blood rush to my head. I had rehearsed my monologue for a week. I worked on the right inflections and the proper pauses, but looking at Betty the only thing that came out was “aaaahhh well.”

Mercifully, Betty let me off the hook. She dismissed the four interviewers, and when they shut the door she said, “Michael, you can’t live here. Come on, you know that. You’re embarrassing yourself.” She then looked at me with a sick “I feel sorry for you” look and opened the door.

“Michael,” she said, “get your shit together, will you?” and escorted me out the door.

You know when you don’t think you can feel worse about something and then magically you find you can? That’s how that day went.

The next two months were a struggle; I did a reading here and there, I worked part-time at a bakery, and I kept my eyes open for a possible counseling job. My mom eased up when she saw I was trying, but neither one of us wanted me there.

Finally, I caught a break. A dream job working with adolescents had opened up not far from my mom’s. I fit the requirements, I had the experience, the money was amazing, and the hours were perfect. If I got the job, I’d be out of my mom’s in no time, and there was no one with better experience. That job was mine.

But there was a drawback: it was for the same halfway house I had tried to become a resident at two months earlier. I had to convince Betty that I did what she told me to do: I had to come in looking like my shit was together, and that’s exactly what I did. I borrowed a great suit from my buddy, I got new shoes, I fixed my hair—I was styling. This time when I walked in there, I walked with confidence, thinking “I’m a success story.”

I walked in and the first thing Betty said was, “Michael, what the fuck are you doing here?” And again, my face felt flushed. In the two minutes it took Betty to explain how there was no way in hell she could hire me because just two months ago I was looking for a place to live, even my suit wanted to run away.

She added that if I hadn’t come in two months ago and asked her if I could live there, she would have hired me on the spot. It felt like Jesus himself had kicked me in the balls.

I regretted not listening to that voice in my head for years because of that.

This story does have a good ending. I was so distraught that I started facilitating a group of teens at a treatment center for free. The head lady liked my style so much that they offered me a job at a detox center, which turned out to be one of my favorite jobs of all time. I moved out of my mom’s and got a car.

So you would think after all of that I would always listen to that voice in my head and make my life easier, right? Well, you’d be wrong.

Not long after the Betty thing, a group of friends wanted to swim at this little island on the Mississippi River. The plan was to hang out all day, be by our lonesome, and jump off this big tire swing a friend of ours had put up a few days earlier.

Summer days in Minnesota can get hot and steamy, so anything concerning water, we liked.

The problem was getting there. The Mississippi River in Minneapolis can have strong currents, I think more so as it goes farther south, but sometimes the northern part of the city, where we were, isn’t as turbulent. It can still be bad, people have died there. But for the most part it seems safer than it does in say, downtown or lower. When our buddy put up the tire swing, the current was calm; he said they found a sandbar and basically walked over to the island from the shore and put it up.

But the night before we came there was a huge thunderstorm and the river was definitely higher than it must have been for the tire guys. The current was visibly stronger, which meant the sandbar was probably underwater, so we were going to have to swim to the island.

None of this seemed dangerous in any way, because we were idiots. The thought of flying high on a tire swing clearly outweighed any possibilities of death or permanent injury; it was a beautiful day and nothing bad happens on beautiful days.

The island we wanted to get to was about a block downstream from where we were standing. In my mind I could jump in there and gently swim to the island, which seemed only about one hundred yards away. I wanted to go from there because I didn’t want to walk along the riverbank looking for a submerged sandbar, with rats and wood ticks and mutant beavers just waiting to attack. I hate wood ticks.

Another reason I wanted to go from there was because something told me not to. I had a bad feeling—a really bad feeling—but I purposely wanted to prove to myself that it was okay.

My buddies weren’t sure what to do. Bobo wanted to find the sandbar; he saw the current and thought the best thing to do was walk across, not swim. Steve was on the fence, and Bruno, a six-foot-tall, 250-pound rugby player, was ready to jump in with me. Bobo, who by this time was ten yards ahead, yelled that he thought he saw the sandbar. Hearing that, Bruno and Steve decided to follow Bobo. I told them I would see them in an hour when they got there and to watch out for river rats. Instantly Bruno started looking around like he saw something, and they disappeared through the long grass and shrubbery.

That weird “no” feeling was still with me when I jumped in and started swimming. Within the first ten seconds I knew I was in trouble. I looked up and I was twenty feet downriver from where I started, and only five feet from shore. I swam harder. As I neared the middle of the river I realized that something was also pulling me under; I was now fighting the current and whatever was pulling me down.

I swam as hard as I could, but the harder I swam, the more I was being pulled under. My arms were already tired, and as I felt this strong pull toward the bottom, down went. I opened my eyes to try to get my bearings, but I couldn’t even see my hands, all I saw was black. The water was becoming colder and colder the deeper I went down. I couldn’t fight it, I was running out of air, and this wave of sheer panic ran through me. I knew I was a goner.

It was at that point that I heard a familiar female voice calmly say “relax.” Nothing else, just a calm, clear voice: “relax.” It felt like death itself was asking me to submit, and with no choices, I did what she said. I stopped fighting it, I let go. I felt a calmness come over me, a surrender. But as soon as I let go, I started floating toward the surface. It was like the force that had me just let me go.

But now I wasn’t sure I would even make it to the surface. My lungs were burning and I had no fight left in me. And then I could feel the sun.

I took in the deepest breath I think I’d ever taken.
I coughed, I gasped, and once again I struggled to gain control. Once again I heard the word “relax.” I turned myself over and floated on my back. If the river took me to New Orleans, so be it. I could breathe, I was alive, and I could see the sky—that’s all that seemed to matter. I floated on my back and kicked my way to the other side, my arms like lead balloons. I barely grabbed onto a branch that was hanging over the river and pulled myself onto the island. I walked back to where the tire swing was, collapsed in the sun, and waited for my friends to show up.

I was in shock: It was ninety degrees and I was shaking head to toe. It felt like every ounce of energy was taken out of my body and the fear of how I was going to get back filled me. But I was glad I was alone. I didn’t want to talk about what happened, I didn’t want my friends to see me shaking, and I sure as hell didn’t want to use the damn tire swing.

Thirty minutes later when they finally came, I had stopped shaking and my body was warming up. Still, when I tried to move, my body felt heavy, sluggish. I laid there and pretended to be suntanning.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. After trying out the swing and realizing the current was too strong, the boys reluctantly agreed we’d walk back via the sandbar, which was a great relief for me.

Now the skeptic might say that since I was raised around psychics, of course I would hear a voice at that time; it’s what happens in my world. And an even more skeptical person might suggest that since I spent most of my early years on the water I might have been taught to relax in a situation like that and was just remembering. But that’s not true.

In fact, I can say with 100 percent certainty that at no time did someone ever say to me, “Okay Michael, if you’re in a river and the current pulls you down like the hands of death itself, just give up. Stop trying to swim and you’ll be right as rain.”

I didn’t talk about that incident with anybody for a long time, not even my mom. Maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself just how close I came to dying that day or maybe it felt self-inflicted and I didn’t want to get yelled at. I knew I wasn’t supposed to jump in when I did, I just didn’t want to listen. Whatever the reason, I only told a couple of people in my life what happened. This is the first time I’m actually describing how it felt.

What if I told you a story about someone who listened to that voice and it saved her life?

One of my best buddies in the world recently started dating a girl he met online. We’ll call her Jane. He was smitten. She’s smart, attractive, and friendly, but has a story that I was surprised belonged to such a well-adjusted and normal person.

Jane said that when she was in her twenties she was walking to a friend’s house one night when she noticed a man coming toward her on the same side of the street. She said she had a weird feeling when she looked at him, like she should cross the street and avoid him at all costs. But just like me when I was told not to jump in, she ignored that voice. She was half a block away from her friend’s house and to go all the way around seemed stupid, so she kept on walking. When he passed her, she said she got this chill throughout her body, like he walked right through her. When she turned around to check on him, he was on her.

He grabbed her and wrestled her into the bushes off the street; they fought and tumbled. He hit her with a hammer and stabbed her in her side with a knife. She said she didn’t even know she was bleeding because it had rained and they were both full of mud and water. She said he kept screaming at her to tell him her name.

During all of this she said she stayed calm, like she knew it was going to be okay. Jane kept hearing the name Therese in her head, so when he asked again, she told him her name was Therese. When she did, he stopped beating her.

“That’s my sister’s name,” he said.

“My name is Therese,” she said again, “just like your sister.”

The beatings stopped, but the attack wasn’t over. He raped her. But even during that, she said it was like she left her body and went and watched her mother and friend play cards. Later, when she was telling her mother about the ordeal, she described in detail what they were both wearing, the room they were in, and the details of the game.

This is not someone I would describe as a psychic. She’s a woman who had a horrible experience and somehow trusted that voice, which, like me, saved her life.

The man would go on to assault another woman, but she wouldn’t survive. He was eventually caught and went to prison. And it was Jane’s contention that the gods chose her to be his victim that night, because anybody else he would have killed. She credits Spirit for telling her the name of her assailant’s sister. She says that’s what saved her life.

When she was a child, Jane used to practice leaving her body to visit her friends and family. When she looks back on that terrible night, she thinks to herself that it was as though she had been prepared, because she was able to detach herself from the emotional pain of what was happening to her. Because of that, she feels like more of a survivor, as opposed to a victim.

So, You Hear Voices. What Does
That Have to Do with Answers?

It’s the voice that helps us make decisions. Everyone has it. But so many of us block it out because we decide it’s better to be logical than to trust it. We don’t want to seem weak or stupid.

Psychics don’t have to worry about looking stupid, because we’re psychics! Some people already think we are stupid. But that helps us see what normal people don’t always see.

You show me an X-ray and it just looks like a bunch of cloudy weirdness with bones here and there. Somebody who’s trained to understand them sees everything. When they point to the issue, maybe you see it, maybe you don’t, but if they’re schooled, stuff just pops out for them and you trust their opinion. It’s the same with psychics. We see the opportunities and the answers all the time. You might look at the same thing we see and not get it, but we do.

Some of us just smell like patchouli when we do it.

We get these little tools, instincts, intuition, gut feelings, whatever you want to call them, and they’re supposed to help us figure stuff out.

And if we don’t trust ourselves, we reach outside ourselves—to God, to the universe, whatever name you want to call it—and we beg and plead for answers. And when our questions seem to go unanswered, we blame God or feel unworthy or go to psychics.

This may come as a shock to some of you, but we are not the most evolved species in the universe. Personally, I think if there was a stupid planet, we’d be it. In so many readings I’ve done, I’ve come across souls who just hate it here. The way we treat each other, the drama, the backstabbing, the evil. It’s a tough place to be.

We try so hard not to look stupid or be taken advantage of that we actually end up doing just that, because we don’t trust ourselves. We want messiahs, teachers who know, people to follow.

But in every single reading I’ve ever done, each one of us has guides. And each and every time, those guides love the person they’re around so deeply and believe in them so strongly. It’s almost as though they see us as the person to follow.

And yes, they do try to show us answers, they try all the time. But we are friggin’ mental. We go back and forth, we can’t make decisions. How many times do you go to the McDonald’s drive-through and have to sit and wait for the nimrod in front of you to decide what they want?

The menu hasn’t changed in years! And there’s a McDonald’s every ten blocks. It’s like people are looking at the menu for the very first time.

Can you imagine how frustrated your guides must be?

If you want answers, be clear on what you want. Don’t just say “I want another job.” What the hell other kind of job do you want?

You know what psychics hate the most? When people come in and say, “Oh, just tell me what you pick up on me.” We pick up on everything. Should we start with your birth? Ask a specific question. Don’t give details, just ask a direct question. Does Gertrude love me? Will I get the job? Will my pickle farming stock go up? Be clear on what you want.

And that is doubled when you ask your guides for help. Be clear, be specific. They want to help you, but how can they do that if you don’t tell them what you want?

So many times, people come to me and say they keep asking and asking but nothing ever comes. They’re mad because they feel forsaken. Alone in their quest for happiness. But when I ask them what they are looking for, they don’t even know, they just want it to be better. How can your guides help you find your answers if you don’t know the question?

I do readings for this lady in her mid-thirties who’s an accountant. She hates her job. She hates the people she works with, she hates the office, she hates the hours. The girl is not happy.

She was making just good enough money to stop her from quitting. She had just bought a car so she needed to keep up with the payments, her condo wasn’t exactly paid for, and she was single, feeling trapped and stuck. So day after day she went to work and day after day she was miserable.

As a last resort, she came to me. I don’t get a lot of accountants; they tend to be logical types and psychics don’t add up in their books. But this lady was so desperate she had to try something.

I tend to be direct in my readings. I’ve beaten around too many bushes in my time, so I figure, screw it.

“You’re supposed to write children’s books,” I said, because that’s all her guides would tell me. Oh, they told me about her life and who she was and all that crap, but as far as her future, that’s all they wanted to say.

And they said it in a way that made me think they had told her before, like they were tired of telling her. They did say it was important that she at least follow that path. And they were going to try to show her how important it was. They said her current job was really stupid, and that she knew that but she lacked the trust to do what she really wanted to do.

When I was finished talking, she looked at me in amazement. She said she had always wanted to write children’s books but had no idea how to go about it. And now she was stuck in her career. How could she possibly start doing that? I told her I’m sure she didn’t know how to be an accountant in the beginning, but somehow she figured that out. Maybe she could at least try to figure out how to go about it.

My suggestion only seemed to upset her, being the practical accountant that she was. She couldn’t figure out how she was going to manage it all. Personally, it seemed pretty obvious to me: write a book, scribble a sentence, do something, but don’t just sit there and look lost.

Two weeks after she left, I got a text. She had been let go from her job and she was panicked. What in the world was she going to do now?

I replied: Write a book. She never responded.

A year later I got a package. Inside was a purple children’s book by an author I didn’t recognize and a note: “Please thank my dead friends for me, and thank you for the reading.” She signed her real name.

Her little voice had told her to write a book, her guides just helped give her the time to do it. That happens all the time.

If you want answers you need to have an idea of what you really want. Don’t wait for a sign that it’s the right decision. If you really want something, start the process. I promise they will help.

It’s as simple as sending a letter.

First, you get clear on who you want the letter to go to. Then you write it. That takes action on your part, “they” need action. The only way they can help you is when you do some action.

Then you address the letter. That means you’re clear on what you want. You can’t just send a letter without an address, you have to know where you want it to go. That means you need intent.

Now you bring the letter to the mailbox. That means action: you take action, you have intent. Now Spirit really can help.

The last and hardest thing you do is you let go of the letter and put it into the box. This step is the most important. You don’t hold on to the letter, you don’t squeeze it and hope somehow it gets delivered, you let it go and you know it will get delivered.

Most people won’t do the last step. They try to control the letter. They can’t trust and let go. When you know the letter will get delivered, it changes things.

Spirit will help you as much as they can during this process, but when they really shine is when you trust in your heart and let that letter go.

Action and intent: listening to that voice and knowing it will happen. Not hoping, knowing.

It starts with that voice. If you do hear that voice, just listen, even if you’re tired, even if you’re beat, even if you’ve had a long day and you just want to hang out at home, watch a mindless show, and not think.

Listen to that voice telling you to go see your mom. You love your mom and you wouldn’t mind seeing her because it’s been forever since you have, and you probably should. But it’s twenty miles away, traffic at this time is a bitch, and honestly, the old folks home gives you the creeps.

You say this to yourself as you put your coat on and look for your keys. You know that voice, you know the difference between “be a good son” voice and “do what I say” voice. There’s a difference in tone, in weight. So you pay attention and you go.

And when you finally get there you’re glad you came. You go to the McDonald’s across the street and get her favorite, chicken nuggets and orange pop. You make your way past the walking zombies, who are now awakened by the smell of food, and you find refuge in the slowest elevator this side of the Mississippi.

When you get to her door, you knock, but you let yourself in because you know it would literally kill her to come to the door herself. You walk in, say hello, and there on the couch sits this tiny sweet woman you know as your mother, with an ear-to-ear grin, so happy to see you. Now you are very glad you came.

Like a little girl at Christmas, her eyes get big when you show her the food you brought her. She asks you what it is, and when you tell her, she seems shocked you knew exactly what to get her, even though you get her the same thing every time you visit.

You settle in and watch her favorite shows, you barely talk.

You look over at her from time to time and you catch her just staring at you, so you go sit next to her and put her little head on your shoulder. That seems better. And the night goes by slowly. Maybe you tell her you love her and she squeezes your hand. You might even say you’re going to miss her when she goes, but you don’t really want to go there because you didn’t come there to say goodbye. Instead you say something like “Boy, we went through a lot together didn’t we?”

And she looks up at you and says, “Yes we did, but we had each other.” And for a second you feel that sadness well up in you, but when you look in her eyes, you see a thousand layers of love, so you put her head back on your shoulder and smile instead of cry.

It’s late and it’s time to go; you don’t want to leave, but you can’t really stay. She’s tired, and you know this by her immediate response when you suggest you should probably go. “Okay honey,” she says before you can finish your last word, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You stand to go, but just as you do, she seems to wake up. She has a list of instructions she must tell you before she forgets. She starts to tell you who, what, and where, but then relaxes when she sees you looking at her with a smile. “It’s okay, Mom,” you tell her, “I’ll see you in the next couple of days.”

You hug her gently, you tell her you love her, and you go.

When you close the door, you look back and see her smiling at you and you wonder, like you always do, if this is the last time you’ll see her.

Two days later, on a Friday, you get a call from your oldest sister in a voice you’ve never heard from her, saying, “She’s gone, Michael, Mom passed.” And even though you knew this day would come and maybe a small part of you is relieved, you feel shocked that it’s actually real.

As you pull yourself together and get ready to go see her again for truly the last time, you think back to that voice and you think how lucky you are to have it, and how glad you are that you listened. Because knowing you had that one last night together will make the days and weeks to come more bearable.

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