Because a lot happened and was learned, it'll take me a while to journal it. Here are the first instalments:

Psychic workshop 7.2.15
Part 1:
This was my fourth workshop with Christine and my fifth overall. We began, as usual, with some information about sensing psychically and mediumistically and how the latter is harder to maintain. I learnt that reading auras (sensing psychically) tended to be energy depleting while mediumship was energizing due to help from the other side. Christine also mentioned how mediums who were less developed tended to dip down into aura reading due to inability to maintain link to spirit, something I have witnessed myself. She suggested that a 45-minute reading would be the outer limits for a beginning medium and also advocated that we not rush to become mediums; that we work at the psychic level often and not see it as an inferior skill but more as foundational.


A Name on a Piece of Paper:
This activity was more about psychic reading. Christine gave each of us a piece of paper to write a person’s name on and two issues around that person for the psychic to explore. There was to be no predicting the future (which Christine treats with derision), just picking up information. Then the names were put in a plastic bag and we each took a sheet.


The sheet I received read:
Helen H-----
- recent bereavement
- ongoing “caring”-exhausted


- So, I tuned into Helen and immediately felt an intense heaviness of heart. I wrote that down but later felt that I had to come back to that because there was meant to be a physical warning here, not just me experiencing her emotions empathically.
- Then I got the feeling that I must mention her Dad in particular. So I wrote that down.
- Next I wrote “Black dog,” which I thought was simply a metaphor for depression, however, something insisted that I write down the particular black dog I was seeing from the children’s illustrated book Hairy Maclary. I wondered if there was going to something about the surname Maclary perhaps.
- I got a distinct impression that Helen is trapped in a particular way of thinking and the feeling that she is trying too hard to be perfect in her life, even though she is kind and devoted.
- I kept seeing a stop sign and felt the need to write, “She needs to stop and breathe now.”
- The next image was her empty, unmade bed. It was daylight and I got the distinct feeling that while she could grab some sleep, she couldn’t stay asleep, such was her depression but I also missed a possibility here, as you’ll see later.
- Then a really gloomy feeling overcame me and I felt her sense of being futureless.
- There was a sense of a kindly neighbor who would show some kind of regard or concern for her or who had done her a good turn or two.
- The next image was quite strange. It was a hard spectacles case that was being pulled open but was glued and so was resisting opening. I took this to mean that something was opening up in her that would ultimately give her access to a clearer vision but she had been resisting it.
- I felt a small shadow child lurking in her presence but had a distinct feeling that it wasn’t her child and not an actual child as much as a memory or thought form.

Next, each person announced whom they had gotten and we paired up either with someone who had done the reading or someone we had done it for. I found Rain, a professional psychic, had gotten my sheet of paper on which I had written my sister’s name. She appears to have done a good job (though there was a bit of prediction there too, now I think of it )


Then Diane and I found each other. Helen H is a friend that Diane has known since school. We were told to give feedback but not too much information so we could come back and do another exercise (which never eventuated). Diane was very impressed and I was keen to know why she had reacted as she had. What she did immediately verify was that her friend was (predictably) suffering depression but also that while she had been “pleasantly plump” she had become anorexic. I trusted this evaluation coming from Diane who works as a school psychologist (a Catholic school as it turns out). So, this unfortunately increases the possibility of a threat to Helen’s physical heart. Diane felt that Helen was on a negative trajectory and really did need to stop, that she was caught in a cycle of limited thinking. The good neighbor comment was unverifiable at the time but Diane told me that Helen was indeed getting up very early, unable to spend a full night in sleep.


When we went back to our seats, Christine said to rate ourselves based on the “jewel” bits of information rather than more generic stuff. I thought my reading was pretty generic but Diane kept mouthing “Nine out of ten” across the room to me. It wasn’t until lunchtime that I understood what had impressed her.


Part 2:
Diane’s Feedback:
By lunchtime it was clear that we weren’t going to do any further activity regarding the name on the paper so I asked Diane to tell me the other things about my reading that had impressed her. She told me that Helen had first nursed her sick dad. He was one of two people in the world that has a condition that would cause veins at the back of his neck to “explode” and had had a stroke that left Helen caring for him followed by a stroke that had taken his life. Then her mother became ill and Helen nursed her until she died. Then Helen’s husband followed. This is where I thought I might have missed some of the symbolism of the empty bed in a sunlit room. The thought form child was because Helen’s husband had never wanted children and she went along with this but regretfully.
The Hairy Maclary reference was for Diane herself. She had used her own dog as a therapy dog in her work. One of her clients had insisted that the dog looked like the dog in Hairy Maclary and when she said she wasn’t familiar with the children’s book, the client bought her a copy, which she keeps on her desk at work.