Dear Julia:
How do outside things like people and places influence our spiritual and psychic development? For example, are there places where psychic development is easier? Does studying with a "guru" help just because you're around this person? Are there places and people that can prevent or impede psychic development? I used to be very psychic, and then I got involved in a bad relationship with a man for about three years, and I totally lost touch spiritually. It was like I was disconnected from my intuition. I sort of forgot all about spirituality, and then about six months ago when I broke up with him, my ability came right back again. Did he block my psychic ability? Thanks!
- Dawn
Dear Dawn:
Before I go into the general effects of outside influences on our psychic ability, it's important to note the main cause of what you personally experienced. Your ex didn't block your psychic ability; you blocked it yourself by ignoring your inner knowing because you were attached to the idea of being with him. To develop psychically, we have to honor and trust our intuition. In entering that unhealthy relationship, you chose to ignore your intuition, and then you had to keep ignoring it to stay with him for so long, which eventually disconnected you consciously from your psychic abilities. Your intuition was telling you that he was bad news all the while, but you didn't want to hear it.
When we ignore our inner guidance, it shuts down. The more we listen to and honor it, the stronger it gets. Things finally got so bad with him that you had to face facts, summon your strength and courage, and get out to save yourself. This powerful act of honoring your true needs reconnected you with your inner guidance. Your intuition was there all the time; you just couldn't connect with it consciously because part of you didn't WANT to.
Now let's talk about how outside influences like people, places and things affect us psychically. Everything is energy, and every interaction involves an exchange of energy. Everything we experience in the outer world impacts our inner worlds, so everything we encounter has potentially an encouraging or detrimental affect on our psychic development. For example, what we eat affects how we feel; how we feel affects our mental processes; all of this affects our overall vibration, which determines our ability to tune in psychically. The higher our vibration, the greater our psychic ability. Fortunately, getting this high vibration doesn't mean we have to make any trade-offs, for a high vibration also equates to a high degree of health, happiness, and mental clarity. So to encourage psychic development (along with a happy, healthy life), we have to consistently make choices in our outer experience that encourage a high vibration.
This principle applies to everything that is ingested, from food to ideas to other people's energy. Watching television shows about bad guys and their heinous crimes will lower our vibration, while reading uplifting, spiritual books will raise our vibration. Spending time with kind, positive, spiritual people will have a positive affect on our energy, while hanging out with people who are often negative, upset, angry, disempowered, etc. will lower our vibration. Living in a place that is peaceful, beautiful, prosperous and progressive will impact us positively, while living in a place that is loud, dirty, poor and repressive is bad for us on all levels.
There are places around the world that are known for their spiritual energy. Lily Dale, New York, comes to mind, as does Sedona, Arizona, but there are many more. Usually such places have been "sacred sites" or "sacred ground" for a long, long time, as our ancestors recognized their special energetic qualities. These famous places are at the high end of the range for vibration here on Earth, but there are many more places just below these ones in vibration that make wonderful homes for spiritually focused people.
If you think about it, you'll realize that different places have different "feelings" and personalities. This is because natural law causes like to attract like. The place itself has a vibration that draws people of a matching vibration to it, which builds that energy even further. If we try to force ourselves to live somewhere that doesn't feel right, it's sort of like trying to push the "wrong ends" of a magnet together: living there won't "click" for us. This is sort of like you forcing yourself to stay in that unhealthy relationship, even though you knew it was bad for you.
I feel very at home here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is known for its "tree-huggers." This term is applied to a wide variety of individuals, but on the whole, Ann Arbor has a lot of artistic, open-minded, spiritual, intellectual, progressive folks. Any town that has a lot of New Age stores, galleries, readers, healers, etc., would be a good place for psychic development, for it will have drawn all those people for a reason. If you move there, that energy and those people will affect your energy as well.
When we find the people, places and habits that are good for us, they just feel right, and things flow. This is of course an individual matter; what is good for me may not be good for someone else. Fortunately, we don't have to hire a psychic to tell us where we should live or who our friends should be. If your goal is psychic development, then you can start with the rudimentary psychic tool perfect for the job: dowsing.
You can use a pendulum or a dowsing rod, or try kinesiology (muscle) testing to determine if something is good for you. Through dowsing you can select the best foods for you to eat, plans to make, friends to let into your life, place to live, job offer to accept, books to read, supplements to take, etc. Anything and everything can be intuitively "weighed" in this way. Be creative. For example, to dowse where you should live, you can use a pendulum or a dowsing rod and a map. Here are some good websites for basic information on dowsing:
*Here's a column I wrote some time ago for Kajama on the basics of Working with a Pendulum.
*Here's an old article I wrote back in 1998 when Kajama was still called Psychic Journal (and my last name was still Jablonski.) The end of this article offers basic instructions on working with a pendulum: Using Your Psychic Ability in Everyday Life.
*You might check out the website of Sig Lonegren, a joyful, delightful teacher who taught me much of what I know about dowsing: Geomancy.org. (click on the dowsing link)
*Perelandra has a good article on Kinesiology Testing.
*If you're in a hurry, here's a good article that covers most of the basics on Self-Testing.
These are just good starting points. From there, you can use a search engine or surf your way to all the information you need to dowse the outer choices that will support your inner goals!
One more thing to keep in mind: while it's important to pay attention to what we "ingest" from outside ourselves, it's equally important to pay attention to what we are putting out into the world. Who we choose to be, what we do and say, the affect we have on others and the world around us will determine who we become more than anything else.
- Julia