Psychic Ability: Claiming and Applying a Gift of Psychic Awareness

A women’s journey to embracing and applying the power — and gift — of psychic abilities

—

From the time I was about four or five, I remember feeling as if I wasn’t alone. Sometimes, I would see a vision, seemingly in the corner of my eye, but when I would look around, there was nothing there.

At other times, the sensations were stranger. I remember being alone once in a forest. Mom and Dad had planned a family picnic and I strolled a few meters ahead to sit beneath a gigantic tree. It was around 6pm and the sun was setting. The sky was a bright orange and before my eyes, I could see beautiful light displays and floating objects. By then I was about eight and I knew not to mention it to my parents, as they often said I was imaginative or fanciful. I came to almost believe them.

A Secret for One

By the time I reached adolescence, I learned to hide sensations I knew nobody else around me was encountering. At times, it was hard to battle the signs that something about me was different. Light, for instance, seemed to follow me, at times dancing before my eyes or flashing and flickering (as light bulbs often did at home and at school) or forming an aura above the head of my friends and classmates. I knew that if I told them the things I saw, they would make fun of me, and I was scared of losing them. I made a big effort to fight these sensations. When they felt particularly strong, I would try to find a quiet corner and shut my eyes. I would breathe deeply and try to concentrate on one particular image to shut the voices, lights and images away.

Changing My Vision

It was not until I was 19 that I began seeing what had occurred to me in my childhood as a gift. That was the age I was when my father passed away. He had grown ill suddenly, and in less than a year, he went from being the energetic and fun-loving rock in my life to being a shadow of his former self, frail and weak.

The Truth is Revealed

One week before Dad passed away, during one of the few last lucid moments he had, he did the last thing I expected: He apologized to me, saying that he knew I had a gift; that all that I had told him about the lights, images, and voices were signs of a genuine ability to connect with the supernatural.

He said that his mother (my grandmother) had had the gift of connecting with loved ones, both those who had gone and those who were living. She had been able to predict, he said, the death of her husband in the Vietnam War, and frequently saw him in her dreams after he passed away. My grandmother suffered from depression in her later years, since in addition to losing her husband, her youngest son died when he was just seven from pneumonia. My father told me that he had always been worried that my ability would lead me to suffer the way my grandmother did, or to have a life that seemed to be destined for great loss. 

Making Amends

Dad said that he had always felt guilty about his and Mom’s decision to try to bury my gift; he said that in the end, there was no telling what I could do to help others receive important messages from loved ones, feel calmer about vicissitudes in their lives, or even guide them towards an enlightened path.

Dad passed away — and then came the onslaught of visions. I dreamed about him every day; when I woke up, the dreams were fresh so I began writing them down. Many of them contained messages for Mom; that he was happy, that he was in a park, there were beautiful flowers, he was with my ‘heart dog’ Lily, who had passed away a year before he had. He described a part of her I had always silently admired: a tiny heart on the side of her mouth; pink and perfectly shaped, symbolic of what a special, loyal dog she was.

A Gift that Remains

Dad’s death unleashed all the signs I had buried for so long. Today, I work in psychology, but I feel that connecting with people on a deeper level, noticing their aura and how it affects their mood, or helping them avoid risky situations because I can sense that certain actions may be detrimental to them, is a gift that I would never chose to live without. In the end, that is what my gift is about: Trying to help people lead happier lives and enlightening them on the important connection between mind, body, and spirit.

---

You may also enjoy reading Mindful of the Dead | Lessons From a Reluctant Psychic by Perdita Finn