08 January 2010

What are they thinking?

Sometimes all you can do is plant a seed and hope for the best.

Today I'm writing about what it's like to DO tarot readings instead of a particular tarot card. Yeah, it's another ethical psychic kind of rant.

I understand the attraction - I really do. It is easy to see the pull, the seductive side of "predictions" and "100% accurate love readings" and the other commercial, superficial psychic work that is its own parody anymore.

Love and romance breaks hearts. When people come to a psychic with relationship problems, loneliness, breakups or what have you...they are in real emotional pain. The natural impulse is to want to help. But at the same time, there is a real ego-centric motivation. It is an ego-boost to think you can fix pain like that.

Psychics can't.

Not and still work honestly. If we think we can 'fix' pain like that we are deluding ourselves. Even if CAN...does that mean that we SHOULD??

What if the upset emotions are neede to learn something important...something about themselves. What if that experience is the only way they can discover inner strengths? If we alleviate the pain, then don't we leave them exposed to greater pain later until the needed lesson is learned?

More to the point, what about simple respect. Doing readings for others is a privilege. They open their emotions and choices to us. Words can hurt, words can heal. Psychic readings can impact others in real ways...it is unimaginable to me to treat that with anything less than absolute respect.

Easy enough so far, right? The real wrench in the works comes when someone wants to know about a love interest in a reading instead of focusing on themselves.

It happens all the time...no matter what I say before the reading begins about not making predictions or not 'reading minds' it never fails. Invariably they want to know "does he/she love me?" "Are they seeing someone else"? "will they come back to me"?

It is hard to put the truth in terms that won't hurt a vulnerable person even more.

The truth is I don't know and even if I did I wouldn't necessarily discuss it"

I try to put it in terms of empathy and privacy.

Working with someone's energy is a privilege and I would never presume to just take that privilege without permission. Who am I to look at that other person's energy without permission. So I usually put it in terms of "would you want someone asking a psychic to read your mind behind your back and without your permission?" Which is what this all boils down to, in my opinion. Agree or not, that's how I work. I see it as a matter of ethics and respect.

On some occasions, if I get a sense on a deep etheric level that it is ok with that other person, and get a soul-level permission, then yes of course, I will give some sense of what they are permitting. It really doesn't seem to happen that way very often.

Even it a bald-faced answer were possible, it still might not be what they want to hear...they are still going to be upset. So why dance around the situation. If it is an upset time, why not just approach it from a position of honesty, and respect, rather than give an answer that may or may not be true, that may or may not be received well?

It's harder that way. It would be a buzz to give specific answers that are welcomed by the hearer. It is fun to be the hero and make it all better.

But stop and think...why are we in this business? To inflate our egos and be a hero at another person's expense? Are we in this to make a quick buck? Even if it is for that motive, shouldn't we offer a genuine, quality service instead of a self-serving one? Why not make your profit selling a legit rollex instead of shilling knock-offs on a street corner. Doing a sincere, best-effort reading costs no more to do than a drama-ridden ego-stroking one. It isn't a failure if we can't do the perfect reading for everyone. Different people and different situations need different psychics and different styles. Mis-match isn't failure. Would the cardiologist be a failure if he sent someone with a toothache to a dentist instead of filling it themselves? No, of course not. Same for intuitives. We can't always help every single person in every single situation. Honesty with the client trumps our need to feel competent. That is a difficult thing, when psychic are so suspected and disregarded by so many in our culture. It is hard to have that level of self-confidence. It's easy to give in to knowing-all and telling-all rather than a path of honesty, ethics and self-knowing.

If you go to get a reading, I challenge you to release your need to know about that other person, and look at what you and you alone need to learn from the reading.

If you are a psychic doing readings, I challenge you to be honest with yourself and with your clients about your skills, limits, beliefs and attitudes.

May we all travel well together on the hard but high road.

Baihu
www.modern-oracle-tarot.com

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