Intuitive Lingo

“Stay back!” yelled the psychic. Her hand flew out as if to stop me from advancing.


I froze.

This being my first-ever psychic reading, my mind exploded with simultaneous visions of The Exorcist and Disney’s Haunted Mansion. We were still seated in our face-off positions, so I figured she’d seen stuff flyin’ in and … well …. begun to shoo it out. I nonchalantly glanced behind me just in case.


”You really need to ground,” she exclaimed wildly. “Your energy is all over the place, especially in my space!”

Me? She was talking about me! Instinctively, I pulled my shoulders back because sitting up straight means you know what people are talking about.

After some hand waving and a sip of cola, the psychic recovered enough to continue. My mind, however, had already fixated on the word “ground” and lurched itself back to the fancy mud-root bath I’d had the previous year. Eventually, it settled on reviewing dirt in general.

The reading itself was an eerily accurate account of why my life was such a blinkin’ mess. So, between that and words like “space” and “energy” and “ground” being used in an entirely new fashion, my curiosity was piqued (and confused) for months.

When I began offering my own intuitive readings years later, I saw how certain words could stall a session faster than I could say “disembodied soul.” Language tends to be pretty tricky all on its own… “give me a minute to check out this minute five-dollar fine which is not fine at all” …if you catch my drift.

Add to that the subtlety of intuitive translation along with the variety of people’s backgrounds and perspectives, and this conundrum gets catapulted to a whole other dimension (wink wink).

After a bit of trial, error, chocolate, more error, etc., I learned to slow down the intuitive reading when using words with multiple meanings. I’d offer a general explanation of what a concept meant and then intuitively apply it to the client’s specific situation. This made the concept more meaningful for the client and something they could readily incorporate into their life.

For example, in my world “grounding” means to bring your attention into the present moment and out of the past or future. There are many ways to achieve this, such as, energy-focused practices, nutritional considerations, self-care elements, and even physically putting your feet on the ground (or, yes, in mud).

To put it in context: I had a client “Sammy” who was brand new to all this energy-focused stuff and although quite curious, they were also a tad shy about learning more. Sammy came to me because they became overly anxious when making decisions and other methods hadn’t worked.

After intuitively reading Sammy’s situation, I sensed that grounding would be a likely first start. I explained the basic concept and tuned into what type of practice might directly resonate with Sammy. Visions of kitchens and flour popped into my awareness. Now, I get hives when walking into a kitchen, but Sammy looked happy as a swirl of strawberry icing on a chocolate cupcake. I further noticed that when baking bread in particular, they became rather calm, present, and alert.

Sammy confirmed a love of bread baking, noting how it often felt meditative. Together we developed a simple grounding practice of Sammy calling up a baking memory and tuning into their calm, alert presence.

When faced with a decision, Sammy could use this grounding practice to recall their personal sense of “being at one with bread dough” before pondering the options. The practice worked so well that Sammy began to embrace the energy/intuitive world bit by bit, eventually learning how to expand their abilities.

As you’re engaging with your clients, consider how their perspective might affect the understanding of various concepts and words you share. Additionally, inviting in a client’s own experience as an anchor for a new energy practice offers a more resonate and comprehensive shift in their life.

Of course, a mud-root bath might work sometime – you never know when you’ll break new ground.