I wrote a friend who had asked for some advice on how to begin his profession as a psychic and to attend the expos, etc. He emailed me: “Wow. I hope this is a chapter in your wonderfully successful book, HORIZONS, CONFESSIONS OF AN OPTIMISTIC PSYCHIC. You know, the one that begins, “Be of good cheer. When a psychic is also an optimist, the future is bright. Who knows which comes first, the perception or the so-called reality? All I can tell you is that I’ve been there, and things are looking terrific.”
Cute, well you’ve hard the phrase “you’ll see it when you believe it?” hehehe I’d rather write in my own magazine every month than write a couple of books and have to spend the rest of my life promoting and hawking them.
As my typically Jewish concerns* reveal something about me to you, so this letter (in addition to being brilliant, incisive, generous and a course of study) shows more of the You beneath the surface. I view this letter from you, along with the exchange that prompted it, as a windfall. Thank you.
Thanks for the kind words. Well I guess that’s why they pay me the big bucks, huh? As I was writing the email, I could hear in my mind’s ear the voice of a Jewish friend who always relates everything back to ‘another holocaust could happen’ and to ‘always be on guard’ for that. I won’t dishonor what another generation or culture deems important and essential to remember, but that’s a heavy load to carry into the present, into the Now. It can’t not affect every other thought that goes through that mind. A big yoga indeed.
It’s a very rich time, even in the face of some career challenges, and I’m receiving abundantly from good friends and a Universe kicking my butt happy and saying, “Get goin’ awreddy!”
Career challenges? Did I miss something? So what are you going to actually be when you grow up? Any ideas? hehehe
I want to reply to a couple of points here, but if I waited, the replies could change. This is really something I want to allow myself time to absorb. So just for now, just for today:
I don’t expect the expo to be cancelled. It’s more a matter of whom to deal with. Even if my intentions are of the highest, and my expectations pure, do I ignore that I’m contracting with someone who’d create such an unbalanced set of mutual understandings? (He thought the expo contract was burdensome and one-sided.)
Ah, so your perception of the other party is that they’ve created an unbalanced set of understandings? That’s one way to look at it. I just look at it as the symbol of the other’s fears and insecurity – and if it’s so important to him to word something that strongly, I can either walk away or sign it if I want to do business with him, and let God guide my feet where he’ll have me go next. What do I have to lose? A $275 booth fee?
But if the point is not wanting to sign something you perceive as unbalanced, if you have to feel that everything is balanced mutually or it’s not fair, and you won’t do business where it’s not fair, well, walk away. People who feel they have limited resources will always try to take advantage of those who don’t hold that against them.
The risks you mention above are those assumed by the promoter. They’re part of the course of doing business for someone in that line of work. As you point out, it hardly ever happens. But if it does, the promoter takes his lumps and goes on to make tens of thousands at the next show, and the next, and the next. When you sell something to a customer, do you expect him or her to assume your risks of doing business? Well, in a way. You build the risk factor into your costs. It’s not like they’re charging forty dollars for a booth. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who do other kinds of fairs (fiber art, etc.) and they thought the booth fee was outlandishly high for this kind of venue, with its likely attendance.
Spend the day there when it comes to Orlando in June and do a count of the readers and their clients. I’d ask your friends for a list of other more reasonable venues with attendance, I’d be interested. I’m not giving you a hard time, just I know the genre and their fees are reasonable, their fairs have steady attendance and their website is well visited.
If 150,000 people are showing up, it’s different. But they’re charging very healthy booth fees and giving away not a whole lot (undraped table?? Readers can’t sell products??). On top of that, they expect me to underwrite their losses? It’s a bad deal, and I betcha Esther and Jerry (who also know how to charge ;-)) would agree.
Will briefly discuss my relationship with Law of Attraction below, with the understanding that it’s changing as we speak.
Do you believe that people attacked by sharks or dinosaurs expected it?
No and I don’t believe that is how it works. Resistance is resistance and if I’m in a habitual bad line of thought, I’m going to attract more to complain about. That can come in many forms.
Every account I’ve ever heard says that it came out of nowhere and was the last thing on their minds. In fact, those who have been gnawed on by a gnarly, and survived, went back in the water with great trepidation, and few were ever hit again (so far). Further, those who recognized the possibility took precautions. It doesn’t hurt. I’ve never gotten any form of illness I expected to get. I don’t know anyone who has, seriously.
The whole point of being a hypochondriac is so you can die at 110 and have chiseled on your headstone, “See? Told you I was sick!” Hee hee. I’d love to know your thoughts on that. I do understand that the consequences of beliefs may not come at us all that literally, yet sometimes that’s what I hear you saying. Hey, I don’t wanna fight with this. I’d love to have your sense of safety and authority over my own experience.
I agree it’s not always literal. I am not negating your experience, just saying if it wasn’t a good experience, don’t use it as a future goal by constant focus that’s all. We’re not fighting!!
On Fairs:
All of this raises, or reinforces, an esthetic or feeling question: is this the way I want to go? Do healers go out and do the carnival thing? Not to be grandiose. It’s just a question of tone. Remember how Esther said her one prayer was, “Please bring to me the right people?” I feel that way. I don’t wanna be stodgy about this, Andrea, but though I am an empath I’m really not a dyed-in-the-wool woo-woo. There’s something about doing this for “entertainment purposes only” that feels somehow derogatory to the whole process.
So all of this may be my instinct operating that this isn’t the right kind of venue for me, and then the universe showing me that in a nice, unfair, inequitable contract. I have to think about this, because I’d like the challenge of throwing myself into the chaos and doing reading after reading after reading… just to do it! Just to see how the process would come through. I may still do it, not sure. All of the above is quite true, though I don’t see myself as a great booth designer. Readers’ booths may not sell products. Hm. Let’s make sure the needs of our customers are taken care of. Nope. If you wanna sell, spring for the 8×8 booth.
Wow, where did this pessimistic grouch come from and where’s the Jerome I know and love? I know what you mean about not wanting to go the gypsy carnival route. Imagine my dismay at first when I felt guided and compelled to do the fairs at the same time I was extraordinarily shy in real life? Boy, God got me through that decade I’ll tell you. I just knew I had to get out in front of a bunch of strangers and look in their eyes and touch their hands and pick something out of their heads and give it back to them. Now I’m glad to be able to be more behind the scenes doing mostly phone work. I like it back here behind the big curtain!
I could see you opening a school for psychics, instructing them as you’re doing here. Maybe it’s a second book.
You goofball! I am not good in the teacher role and I’m trying to get away from jobs that require my presence and my voice.
So you don’t believe the whole law of attraction thang: that your thoughts bring your experiences to you?
Where I am right now: I do believe that factors in, most certainly. And I add to that, the belief that my attitude, at the very least, governs how I perceive what comes to me, whether I “bring” it in or not. I don’t view faith as abandoning the practical, and neither do you, or you wouldn’t have a magazine out every month. “Trust in Allah but tie up your camel.”
No, I don’t believe in my thoughts as having the ultimate authority in attracting decisive experiences. May feel differently tomorrow. And of course, if Law of attraction is correct, I’d therefore bring in experiences that reinforce my belief. As in, “I don’t believe in astrology, but heck, all us Libras are skeptical.”
So which is it? Does the government and the media control whether I’m optimistic about my future possibilities? Or do I get my daily input from a higher source?
To me, that’s a brilliant question. Here’s the best answer I have – again, right now. I think this world is interactive. I think that it’s narcissism on my part to believe my thoughts and expectations alone control my experience. I’d say thought they control your vibration and your vibration controls your experience
I think it’s well worth the experience of a one-week news fast to try that out. I wouldn’t mind vibing higher, but I’d like to think it wsn’t based upon denial of the world I contracted to come into. Tricky, that.
Ah, and what exactly do you mean by the world you contracted to come into? Tricky that 🙂
Simply that I don’t believe in renunciation of the world as a path to enlightenment. If I accept the earth and its dualities, etc., as a learning experience, then I feel honor-bound not to retreat from it. Yet I understand the idea that allowing negativity in colors one’s thoughts. I think I still struggle with the borderline between selectivity and denial. We’re told we agreed to be here. All this sturm und drang is part of here.
I don’t believe in renunciation, per se, but I do believe in stepping back from particular people and activities to get perspective and to keep track of the broader picture. To make sure I’m making progress, if progress is important to me. To take note of who enhances my life and encourages progress, and who hinders and distracts.
If I am heavily involved in a garden project, I am probably spending less time with my bowling friends during that time, but I have not renounced them. I agree all the sturm and drang is part of “here” and that we should never deny what is in front of us. It is just my experience that I control how much strum and drang comes into my Now. It may take awhile for past momentum to catch up and old matters to resolve themselves, but that doesn’t take long and then it gets easier with time. Then you get excited about “instant karma” instead of dreading it.
Not to be too philosophical, but I don’t always feel I choose my thoughts. They seem, at times, to come up from a well of darkness whose true source i’m not seeing. I can, to the best of my ability, choose my RESPONSE to my thoughts, guide them and direct them once they’re here. Just sayin’ …
I know what you are saying. I have found that it takes discipline and re-programming my self talk and doing it long enough that it takes over my consciousness. THEN the thoughts don’t come willy nilly. Kind of like doing the Om Namah Shivaya mantra at Shiva Raatri. After you’ve done it several hours, you can stop doing it consciously and it still keeps going on by itself.
I feel I’m successful in my meditation practice when I catch myself during the day in idle thought and my mantra is going thru my head like a ticker tape underlying everything. For ME, that’s one reason I keep the tv and movies and popular music to a minimum. I know the less I fill my thoughts with what I call non essential info (and not all entertainment is non essential info), the more I can stay attuned to the other world, the nonphysical world, where that greater part of me resides.
For me, it’s always a question of “how deep do I want to go? From what level do I want to work?” If I am hanging out with friends and watching movies, that’s fine and fun but often ultimately less rewarding and fulfilling that other work I would prefer to do. Like at the well, do I want the surface water warmed by the sun that might have a leaf or two in it, or do I want a drink from deeper down where it’s ice cold and fresh from the spring? Both will quench my thirst but one has more life in it for me.
Phooey, I’ve had so much fun emailing with you it’s now 8:30am and broad daylight and I need a nap! I’ve never had a man keep me out of bed so much, that’s a switch!
What sort of article may I submit?
I like articles that give concrete examples of something to do that enriches someone’s life, steps that can be taken to accomplish a personal goal, things that can be done differently to have a better outcome than before. That’s what I like.
I am NOT commenting on fairs, their value, etc. Only to say that it seems a little carnival to me, which isn’t what I feel right about.
I used to judge that also in the beginning, too. It totally went contrary to the spiritual tradition I was following: yoga which says to avoid the psychic sidetrack. It took me a long while to really grok that you go where the people are who are looking for that kind of thing. And along the way, here are some lessons in ego discipline to boot: knowing that you are one of very few doing serious work in a conscious way, sometimes in the midst of others who horrify you with their snake oil antics and obvious charlatanisms. The discipline part comes in not letting yourself be affected by “what others may think”. You’re not there for anyone who wants to judge. You’re there for the maybe one person you get to see for maybe five minutes and their life is changed forever and they go on to accomplish great things, empowering empowers others and enhancing our world. That’s who you’re there for. Pay no mind to what anyone else is doing, just show up and breathe, that’s your job. Spirit will do the rest. Just get your body to the venue and be awake and God will bring them to you and let you know what to do with them.
I remember you once making a comment about not wanting to mix your karma with someone. I was in the process of securing booth #1 for the Orlando show, until I read the contract! I don’t know the last time I saw such a one-sided arrangement.
Oh I see one-sided contracts all the time, written by people who depend on man’s law to save and protect them when they aren’t confident in their ability to control their own vibratory stance. Contracts crack me up.
But the final blow was this: should the show be cancelled by weather, Act of God, work stoppage etc., the EXHIBITOR (that’s yours truly) is taking the risk!
I know what you’re saying. I have never known BMSE to ever cancel a show but for your own peace of mind, now that you won’t be involved, you might write and ask them how many times that has happened in their history. I don’t even think any of their shows were affected by the 2004 hurricanes.
I’m sure the contracts they enter into with their venues and suppliers have the same clauses. The fairgrounds don’t return their money if a hurricane cancels the show. The insurance and licenses still had to be bought ahead of time. The truck drivers who hauled the equipment and employees who travelled to do set up, etc. all still need to be paid, as well as gas and lodging etc and meals, etc.
God doesn’t choose who to leave in the lurch; we choose for ourselves by virtue of the thoughts we choose to think in every moment. I feel pretty lucky. I feel something always arrives in the nick of time. I feel I somehow will never be “without.” I feel I will always find a way; that I will always be guided to solutions, ideas and inspiration for an ever increasing good life, however I define a good life. You might Google around the web and see if there are any negative comments about BMSE. Just to see what experience others have attracted with them.
The show producer claims no responsibility. In simpler language, if I pay for my booth and they can’t produce a show, they keep my money? Ya don’t have to be psychic to see a rotten, me-first-screw-you business attitude. How likely is a show cancellation to happen? Not likely at all. How much do I want to do business with someone who’d set up a deal like that? Not much at all. Or as you might say, the number of one-sided opportunistic people masquerading as New Agers I need in my life is mostly none 😉
hehe I like that line. If my thoughts on the topic were what yours are, I know from that place of resonance I would not likely attract a good experience. It’s like me swimming in the ocean: I am so afraid of what might happen every moment I’m in it, that I rarely can relax out there and enjoy what others are enjoying in it. Every moment is spent peering under the surface, thinking the most awful “what if’s”. From that vibratory stance, it’s impossible for me to attract a good experience out there.
So you and thoughts/resonance/attraction relative to the fair is the same, I’d say. Granted I’ve never been bitten by a shark or had a dinosaur or submarine come up under me (hey, most of my fears are irrational) but I think that’s only because I’ve got such good momentum going otherwise in my thoughts/expectation/beliefs/life.
I liked doing fairs early on because it was a guaranteed steady flow of people all day long for every reader. It was a quick crash course to get known by people who I wanted to read for. Heck, for me, the $275 fee would be worth it merely for the placement on the website with a link to my website, along with a pic of me and a few words about me. So if a natural disaster happened and the event didn’t take place, I’ve already gotten my money’s worth.
If you make the decision as if the money didn’t matter, would you sign up for it? I’ve learned to try to make decisions that way. Of course you would, just for the fun and experience of it you’d do it. You’d be excited designing your sign and your banner and your table setup. Of course you’d have spent twice that getting everything together but you know it’s a good investment because doing fairs is also an excellent time to express the creative, performer part of you, setting the stage for presentation, the whole nine yards.
And if ultimately the first fair doesn’t pay you back for your initial outlay, well you know that phrase about casting out your bread; and you’re not always fed in return by those you feed. I always get that mixed, but to me I know it’s true that as long as I pour it out and know it will return to me multiplefold, it matters not who I get what specifically from.
So if the dollar return isn’t from BMSE, then maybe it will be from an unexpected rebate from your mortgage company or some silly such. Maybe a new client. Maybe an unexpected inheritance. Unless I have already self talked myself on that topic and convinced myself that will never happen to me 🙂
Then you can also organize your own fair and contact your own readers and vendors and heck maybe include an art show – or – better yet – have the fair at an art gallery owned by a friend, instant venue. Hmmm except you’d lose the vendor income, which is your money maker for a fair… Oh wait, you could just ask several friends with galleries or stores if you can put up an elegant little sign (on a tall cute easel) and offer readings from noon to 2pm several days a week. If it’s a bookstore they likely want a 40/60 cut: them 40, you 60, which is fair.
I’ll just be getting the word out some other way. I do have some ideas I’d be happy to share with you if you wish, and I trust that repeated exposure in Horizons will have ’em busting my door down. I’m currently trying to set up a speaking engagement-cum-readings at a spiritual center in NC.
Do that here in Florida also, video the first talk you do, or stage one and video yourself, just so you can send a dvd to potential speaking venues, like the churches or whoever. You can also schedule speaking events at stores that have seating room. That’s the perfect way to do it, have a short talk then readings afterwards, unless you can cold read the audience as a group.
Other efforts will follow. Thanks so much for throwing the Fair idea my way, though. If it hadn’t been for that “contract” (also known as a screwdriver), I’d have given it a shot, although I’m not convinced it’s quite the direction for me.
I find it kind almost outrageously amusing to see this side of you, and to hear your automatic reactions on this topic. Because your comments express your beliefs about business and your belief about how income (or anything else) comes to you. So you don’t believe the whole law of attraction thang: that your thoughts bring your experiences to you?
Or maybe you just haven’t given it much thought relative to how much power the government or the economy or the IRS has over you, as opposed to how much power you have when you are joined in the mind of God/the Universe. Which you can only experience if you turn your focus off the news in the media, and stop vibing there. If you’re vibing there, you can’t vibe any higher; and if you don”t vibe any higher, you’ll never transcend where you are now. I don’t know what the Dow is at or what the economy has been doing, all I know is my investments continue to grow throughout the years. I don’t know about market trends and I don’t have a sales team, all I know is I haven’t had a slow month in a decade and enough ads always come in.
So which is it? Does the government and the media control whether I’m optimistic about my future possibilities? Or do I get my daily input from a higher source?