I was having a conversation with a friend recently and she told me her boss wasn’t feeling well. I said, "Oh, she is pregnant." This friend knows of my psychic abilities and responded that, of course, I would know that. I corrected her, noting that she had shared her thoughts on this subject the week before. I had simply put two and two together.

But it made me wonder: How much of my psychic abilities do I use on a day-to-day basis, and if I thought back to my childhood, could I remember times that I might have been using psychic abilities?

I remember the words "little miss know-it-all" or the saying "you think you know everything." As a young child, I would look up to these adults and wonder why they were being so hurtful with their words. Because to the best of my knowledge, I was usually right. I knew when someone was lying to me. I knew what someone was trying to say and also what they were trying not to say. I had dreams that came true and a closeness with my Creator that wasn’t from anything I was exposed to.

I remember at the age of 2, riding in the car with my family one night and looking out the window and knowing there was a higher power – knowing that I was safe and loved.

Yes, we are all born with psychic abilities. How we use them, trust them and further develop them depends on many things. We need families to be open and accepting. We need to be free from the fear that some try to instill in us. We need to recognize the inner knowing that teaches us what feels right and what doesn’t.

One of the most important occurrences in my life as a psychic is when I experience an open connection with my Creator, Angels and Spirit Guides. I work with them and give them many thanks. I have had the honor of being able to travel within the universe and experience all of their unconditional love.

Do we need to read books? Do we need to take classes? If yes, what books and classes do we need to take? First you must open up and allow your highest power to guide you in a direction that feels right. Feels good. You might be content with how you use your psychic gifts in your everyday life. You may only need to have a little more information on how to better use your psychic gifts in your day-to-day life.

I am one of five members belonging to The Circle MPLS. We have had workshops called Conversations with Psychics in the Cities. We cover many areas including psychic abilities in a question-and-answer setting. For those who like to read, I suggest books. I’ve read dozens of books written by John Edwards, James Van Praagh, George Anderson, Sylvia Browne, Doreen Virtue and Echo Bodine to name a few. If you feel that part of your life path is to use your gift to help others, then I would suggest a class. I went to a psychic development class taught by Echo Bodine at her Center in Minneapolis. I am sure there are others, but I loved Echo’s books and was so excited to learn that she lived in Minneapolis and taught classes here.

I also feel it is important to know that not all of us were meant to be the psychic in the booth. When I connect with my Creator, Angels and Guides, I am given visions. I am able to hear and see those who have crossed over, and I feel the needs of those who I am reading. In this lifetime I am aware that these gifts are a part of me – a part of me to share and a part of me to help and teach others. More important than being psychic is to open up others to the knowledge that they may have forgotten: The knowledge of our own power. This includes our innate psychic abilities.

Using our psychic abilities needs to be for the highest good of ourselves and others. If we abuse this given gift, then we will not succeed or benefit in the use of them.

As one of the five members of The Circle MPLS, LLC, I am able to further my psychic abilities. We gather together for galleries, expos, private parties and events. We use our given psychic gifts to guide people on their highest spiritual path. This I have chosen. This is my path. What is yours?

For 26 years I have watched patients come through my office with a variety of health concerns. With few exceptions, all had some knowledge of what was really going on and what really needed to be done.

Take the gentleman who came in with chronic depression, secondary to a sub-optimally functioning liver. Although he had no idea that his liver was the major cause of his debility, he stated that for the first time in his life he had purchased beets at the grocery store the previous day and he had no idea why. He had never eaten beets and did not even know how to prepare them. He offered this information to me after I had recommended to him that he eat beets daily as part of his program for healing his liver.

Or take the woman who brought in her mother who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was due for surgery in one week. They came to me for advice on what they could do to help the body heal itself. Our consultation was brief, maybe 40 minutes all told. During this time it became obvious that the mother and daughter had a very strong sense and faith in the universal power that pervades all of us and its ability to heal. It was this faith that caused that tumor to dissolve over the next few days so that at the time of surgery it could not be found.

There are countless cases of children healing themselves. Small children have not yet lost their intuitive/psychic ability to know what is good for them. The common craving for sour foods for example demonstrates a child’s need for foods that would stimulate healthy functioning of the liver and gallbladder, as sour is a flavor that helps these organs.

Unfortunately, for many children this beautiful intuitive impulse is satisfied with non-food sour candies. If your child craves sour, please provide it in a healthy, organic, whole foods form. Offer organic lemons – rind and all – or apple cider vinegar water (mix to child’s taste about 1 teaspoon per 6 ounces of water, and a little honey if necessary) or sauerkraut (the real kind e.g. Power Kraut, Veggie Delight). Children will eat as much as they need and then quit. Forcing them to eat more is counterproductive.

The craving is correct – "I want sour…!" – and as parents we should heed that craving and provide a real food source. Sour optimizes the liver and gallbladder, which work hard in growing children, providing mental sharpness and calmness, healthy ligaments and tendons, a robust immunity, a happy stomach and gut, and normal hormonal levels among many other functions. A child’s intuitive attraction to good and healing foods can be adversely affected by parents, other children and the media.

Adults, of course, still have these intuitive abilities, too. Our problem, of course, is our heads. They get in the way. That pesky left analytical mind tends to override our intuitive abilities. The gentleman mentioned in the first example bought those beets on that particular day because he – like many other patients – relaxed his worrying left brain, allowing his intuitive mind to guide him. He did this on that day because he knew he was going to see somebody tomorrow who was going to take over the responsibility of making decisions for him.

Maybe we need to institute a Headstop program for adults. Headstart is great for helping little ones get ready for our left-brained world, but at some point a balance must be made. For those adept at psychic ability, you know the importance of relaxation, emptying the mind and allowing our innate intuitive/psychic powers to work.

Whether it’s rubbing a spot on the body that "feels" like it needs a rub (probably a reflex point asking for some activation to support an organ that needs help) or eating a food that you suddenly crave (always consider the flavor or feeling and a healthy source for it) remember that your body is always trying to lead you to that which is healthy and good for you. You need only to get out of its way, get your thinking, analytical mind out of the picture and surround yourself with that which is healthy and natural and you will do the right thing.

The mother who was told that there was no more that could be medically done for her child gathered up the child in her arms and took her home to die. Holding, rocking and loving that child 24 hours a day, she loved it back to health and a full life. Always follow your heart. It will never fail you, and it is a direct line to your psychic abilities.

But hey, you’ve got to relax to hear what it says.

I’m frequently asked how I do my version of psychic astrology, in which I combine the language of the stars with past-life information and input from Spirit Guides, spirits of the deceased and Ascended Masters and Teachers. A few years ago I began practicing astrology without any psychic input. I was doing good work, but it was all from my brain, which couldn’t possibly reflect all of me. When my psychic opening began, shortly after opening my practice, everything changed, and I set about learning to develop that side of myself.

Uncovering my abilities had much to do with sorting out the various sources of information to which I always had access. I learned to operate what I think of as my "inner sound board," a contraption full of knobs, dials and switches used to figure out what inner voices were saying what. Whether inner children with unprocessed emotional junk, the voices of my parents or other authority figures that I’d internalized somewhere along the way, Spirit Guides or the spirits of dead people, or my intuitive and psychic sense, the first step was sorting them out.

Each of us has intuition and psychic abilities. The route to developing them will differ for each of us, but follows a generalized script that includes learning to tell apart the various voices we carry in us all the time. Below are some thoughts on each and tips to learn to tell them apart.

Inner Children. Each time something frightening, unpleasant or traumatic happened to you when you were a child, you were imprinted by your strong desire to avoid repeating a similar situation in the future. Now, you’re likely carrying a host of these little inner kids who frequently advise you about how to avoid the kind of pain and unhappiness you experienced long ago. Each of those now helping you run your life needs to be heard, and you must take care of the need they had at the unhappy times when you were younger which, no matter what they say, always boils down to some combination of acceptance, love and safety. Offer them this now and they’ll be happy, and will begin to work with you instead of feeding you fear.

Parental/Authority Voices. We all internalize the ideas, opinions, strategies and fears of our parents and other authority figures. Whether we embrace or reject them, they’re a part of the foundation we carry into our later life. They’re gifts from those people (even if we don’t like them!), tools they thought would best serve us in our own lives. Our judgments about the right kinds of work, relationships and life path often stem from what we learned from our parents about the right ways to live and reasons for living. We need to decide if we want to hold onto and perpetuate them, or let them go.

Spirit Guides. Each of us has Spirit Guides available to support us in making choices that serve our highest good. What they offer is loving support for your ongoing development. If a voice you identify is judgmental or fearful, or in some other way not loving, it’s not from your Spirit Guides!

Deceased People. Those who are psychically open may attract the spirits of deceased persons. Their agendas differ. Some are entirely kind, some are not, and some are simply afraid of what’s happened to them (not all know they’re dead). If you experience this, you may have feelings, thoughts and fears you’re very sure do not belong to you. Say "All energies that do not belong to me I send back to Source!" and say "No, thank you!" to any energy that makes you uncomfortable in any way.

Intuition/Psychic Sense. We each have an inner knowing that can come through once we learn to sort out all the other kinds of voices. It’s just there, waiting for us. Learning to differentiate between all of these others leaves you better able to focus on and amplify your natural intuitive and psychic senses. Without the static and white noise of what isn’t really you, you’ll see that all the information you need is available to you at all times.

Each one of us is born with an innate psychic ability. It is our birthright as children of God. Psychic ability can manifest in many ways. It can come as prophetic dreams, clairaudience (hearing), clairvoyance (seeing), healing, empathy (feeling) or just "hunches." Some people seem to have an unmistakable ability from birth and others don’t think they have any at all. But we all have the possibility to explore and expand our natural abilities.

If you want to be able to hear the subtle whispers of spirit, silence is one important quality to nurture in your life. If you cannot quiet all the chatter in your outward life or the inner chatter of your own brain, you will have a hard time discerning the voice of your intuition.

Spending time every day, if possible, or at least a few times a week, in meditation will help you be able to sort out what are just random thoughts and what may be the voices of your spirit guides or higher self. Meditation does not have to be just sitting and trying to clear your mind while listening to your breath. It can be anything that stills the constant banter going on in your brain. You can get CDs with guided meditations, you can do a mindful activity such as gardening, exercising or dancing or you can listen to music and see where your imagination will take you.

Imagination is very closely linked to psychic ability, but it does take practice to be able to tell the difference between daydreaming and receiving psychic information. One way to do that is to write down whatever comes to you during your meditation time. Keep a journal with all the little things that you see, hear or feel. Then review it on a regular basis to see what came of it all.

Eventually, you will be able to tell and feel the difference between your daily thoughts and wishes and the ideas that come to you from spirit that are there to guide you in your life. If you find the messages aren’t making much sense or seem garbled, it’s OK to ask for clarification. Sometimes it is like tuning in a radio station. You have to fiddle with the knobs a bit to get the right frequency.

Another key component is trust. You must not only trust that you can develop this ability, but you must trust it when it happens and act accordingly. For instance, if you get a hunch that you should call a friend because they may be in need, call them! It may turn out to be nothing, but then again, you may just brighten the day of someone who was silently crying out for some love.

You should also be willing to trust your intuition even if you never know if it was accurate, such as feeling strongly that you should take a different route home from work. You may never know the reason why you felt the need to do that, but you need to trust that it was worth the trouble. I found that the more I listened to my little "hunches" and acted on them, the stronger they became. You also need to stop writing them off as coincidence. I’m sure you have heard many people say there is no such thing as coincidence. I agree. I think coincidence and serendipity are just different words for divine intervention. Spirit is talking to us all the time just waiting for us to really listen.

Finally, it is always good to be thankful for all our abilities, especially ones we want to develop. When you find you were right on about something, pause and say a little "Thank You" to the universe for the gift you have received. Or I should say, for the gift you have just noticed, because it is something we all have and sometimes we just need to acknowledge it to help it grow.