Before you read this article, please remember to be discerning about what you accept as your truth, and what you do not.  You do this by always being aware of how you are feeling as you read..if you are nodding your head in agreement, or if what I am saying resonates within you..then it is right and good for you.  If, however, it is not resonating..if you are feeling nothing..or if you are feeling a tightness, or knots in your solar plexus..stop reading.  This information is false (for you) or not good for you..Leave it..and move on..grateful that you are able to consciously tune in to your own Higher Self.  This is a Good thing…so think “YES!”…and try not to judge me because my truth is not yours…Truth is relative…but that is for another article…Namaste, Rosemary

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Based solely on my personal experience as a professional psychic, (in my opinion) the only way to develop psychic abilities is to master the ego.

One technique that works is The Process of Self-Understanding.  This is a three-step process: 1st Step:  Awareness that you have a problem, indicating that your ego is in control. (Only the ego gives us problems.)

The 2nd Step is to ‘Let it Be O.K.’ that you have the problem, even though your inner dialogue will be screaming that this is definitely ‘not O.K.’.  Still, before you can take the third and most important step, you must ‘let it be o.k.’ for at least one second.  In that one second of non-judgment, you can take the Third Step.

The 3rd Step is to Seek to Understand Why you have the problem.   This step requires lots and lots of persistence, patience, self-discipline, and a strong commitment to your desire to develop your psychic abilities.  Like everything else in life, that which is worthwhile requires time and effort..often what seems like an interminable amount of each.

Working these three steps each time you become aware that you have a problem is the prerequisite to development of your psychic abilities, because it is a ‘gift’ that is only granted to those who prove they are ready, willing and able to master their own egos.  It is your Spirit Guides and your own Higher Self that control access to them, which is the ability to communicate consciously with them whenever you wish.  Again, it is THEY who have the Key that unlocks this door, not us.  And it is they who determine when and how they make contact with us.  And it is they who have informed me that we must have begun the work of mastering our egos if we are to be able to Trust what they communicate to us.

While we are learning how to discern the difference between our ego’s thoughts and those from The Other Side, our ego always distorts the truth, making it much  more difficult for us to trust and believe that there really ‘is’ an invisible world where ‘we’ go when we die, and that we truly do ‘live’ there as we do here……Developing our psychic abilities gives us this proof that life truly is eternal…that we truly DO continue to live after ‘death of the physical body’, and that it is ONLY the physical body that is buried.  It requires more esoteric knowledge to understand why this is true, but for now, it is enough to understand that much of the desire to develop your psychic abilities lies in the hope that to do so will give you more peace about death and the validity of life (as we know it) after death.
These two articles written about this subject may also prove helpful:

 THE EGO AND HOW IT CAME INTO BEING,

AS I UNDERSTAND IT TODAY

                                                           June 20, 2006

The ego, as I am using the term, today, represents our little or lower self, that aspect of us that was first formed as a very young child, probably about the age of 2 or so, when our parent, or parental role model, first said “No” to something we desired.  Heretofore, everything we had asked for, had been filled, or at least if it wasn’t we weren’t aware of it, weren’t aware that we had been “denied” a wish.  But, by the age of two, or so, we are beginning to develop a sense of our selves, as individuals, and we are beginning to realize that we have individual wants and needs, wants and needs which we learn to just “reach out and grab for”, to fulfill our need for instant gratification.

Until two, or so, we don’t’ ask for, or want things we cannot have.  We are too small or too young, or too unaware, to seek out that which adults would want to restrict, such as sugar, or things that can harm us, or things that don’t belong to us.  We are protected, or most of us, are, until that age from pain from our adult role models, or our parents.

But, at two, we are at that developmental stage where we feel as if we must Push for what we want, must exert our own individual wants and desires, and so we don’t just meekly give in to a restriction, we arty to push through it, to insist on our own way.  We do so because we have not , as yet, felt the sting of reprisal, the sting of the “No” energy, or perhaps even the physical sting of a slap.   When we do, for the first time, we go into shock….”What is this, we ask ourselves?  Ouch!  We think!  That hurt!  And look who did it to us..that person who has NEVER hurt us..NEVER!   Why has this happened?  What did I do to deserve this?”

This is the mind of a two-year old trying to understand why it has been hurt,  but it believes it must have been the cause.  It never even considers that its parent or parental role model might have an agenda of his/her own, which is ALWAYS the reason.  So, instead, the 2-year-old child looks around its environment, and comes up with a reason..always a false one, as it is unable, incapable of understanding the “right” one at this age. So, just for an example, if the child is reaching for a piece of candy he/she sees in a bowl at grandma’s house, and grandma doesn’t know if “it is all right with mom”, she says, “NO.. And the child, who doesn’t even understand the meaning of this word, ignores her, and tries again.  And Grandma says “no, again”..and the child ignores her and tries again…This continues until Grandma stops the child.  At that time, the child will cry, and feels hurt because, let’s call her Lila to make this easier, she can’t have what she wants, but she doesn’t know why ..doesn’t understand.  All she feels is the hurt from the rejection of a desire, by someone who, until this moment, has always showed him/her love…

To understand, the child looks for a reason, and usually comes up with something associated with whatever she was doing at the time, such as reaching for a bowl, of if she falls down, then it will be associated with falling down, and every time the child does that same action again, she will expect to be hurt, either physically, as in a slap, or emotionally, depending on how grandma reacted to the desire for the candy that she could not give her.

This is a very simplistic way of explaining how our egos are born, and how they develop, over time, but it is how it works.  Each time the child is told “no”, it must figure out “why”, from its perspective, and from its limited (to age) knowledge.  The catch is, that until Lila goes back and retries the cause of her current beliefs about what is right and wrong, or about her own personal judgments about herself being either a good or bad person, and why she believes this, she will continue to believe, falsely, that she did something that made her bad, or she thought something that made her wrong.

As we age, what was begun as only feelings of guilt grows into fear.   Fear is a reaction of an expected “slap”, based on the first one, so it is based on past experiences relating to the present one.  For example, with the candy, every time that Lila sees a bowl of candy, she will remember being slapped for trying to take a piece, and this feeling will now be felt as fear…a fear that if she tries today, even though she still wants or desires that piece of candy, she is now afraid of being slapped if she takes it or if she tries to take it.  And, this will apply,  with her Grandma, but with the situation itself…with the bowl of candy.

Now, it will also apply with everything grandma says, from here on in.  She will now be afraid of Grandma, afraid that she will slap her again, and she doesn’t know when, or for what, because she didn’t understand why she was being slapped in the first place.

This is repeated hundreds, thousands, millions of times over the course of our childhoods, by those in Authority over us, whenever we are stopped, or not allowed to have something we want or desire.  And not until we are about 11-13 years old, are we cognitively old enough to grasp abstract concepts, such as Yes, or No, or Maybe, intellectually.  Until that time, we are controlled by external stimuli, such as our parents or parental role models, and our teachers.  And what they do to us, for good or bad, affect how we feel about ourselves for the rest of our lives.

To cope with these “bad” feelings about ourselves, our egos develop defense mechanisms, as best described by Freud.  They are ways we have of denying that we are bad, or wrong.  Our egos want us to believe we are good people, but it doesn’t know how to do this.  It was developed and created out of negative judgments that were made about us, and that we eventually internalized, and perpetuated about ourselves: we were wrong or bad.  It was only when we were acting badly or wrongly (according to those human beings in Authority over us) that we were hurt in some way, either physically, emotionally, intellectually or spiritually.  God, Spirit, the Heaven World does not exist for the ego, because the ego is a part of the mind, and it only knows about itself, the brain.  The mind’s purpose is to sort, classify and analyze incoming information, but it cannot feel, or intuit, because these sensations are “felt” below the neck, in the body itself.

We realize now, as adults, that the ego manifests as fear, doubt, guilt and shame.  It is only these four emotions that the ego feels…and the ego is a part of our minds, what has been given many labels – called “The Pain Body, by author, Eckhart Tolle, or our Desire Self,  or the Little Self,  or the Lower Self.

It is your ego that says, “I want, what I want, and I want it now!!!”  The ego exists in either the past or the future, but has no power over the present moment.

What you need to know about it, is that it can only give you False Beliefs, because its knowledge is based only on what it takes in from its environment..from the five senses (taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight).  So, it does not know that God, or the Invisible World, or the Heaven World, or The World of Spirit exists.  This forces it to know very little, and yet, most people use it as if it were their God.  They falsely believe that is knows as much as God does, that they can trust what their minds tell them, and then, they get themselves into situations or relationships where the ego doesn’t understand, and they feel wrong or bad themselves.  They feel like victims, and also feel helpless and powerless.  This is because the ego does not KNOW everything, although it wishes it did, because it needs to feel it can keep you safe, but it cannot.  IT is NOT however, either wrong or bad.  It is just limited to experiences, and other people’s opinions about how the World should be, and how you and I should fit into it, and this is not so.  It does not, cannot tell you the Truth, because it is NOT connected to The Universe, or the Universal Flow.

When we are feeling confused, it is a sign that we are learning new material, which can often be painful as it is unsettling.  We don’t know where we are going, or if we will survive.  It makes us feel insecure, and unsure of ourselves, but we are safe, just the same. Your soul is in your physical body to gain experience. You must experience, possibly through pain, or fear, or making a mistake, for through experience you receive into your soul an increase of light, a deeper wisdom, a greater strength, and inner peace.

God, as we understand Him, or It, speaks to us, with or without our conscious awareness of Him, regardless of what we think of Him, whether or not we believe He is real or not, through our solar plexuses, in our bodies.  He will not, nor will our Spirit Guides, or our Higher Selves, have any dialogue with our egos.  They know that our egos will find fault with whatever they say, because the ego has to believe it is our source of power, and that it can make the right decisions for us.  It wants to be our God, our Higher Self, our Spirit Guide….and it causes us all of our unnecessary pain and suffering whenever we allow it to be our Source, our Guide, our Higher Self.  And it is a mistake.

Our intuition is our connection to the Universe, whatever this means to us. It is the way , or the channel that can be opened by us, to contact ANYONE who resides in the Universe: the angels, the fairies, the Elemental Kingdom, God, our Spirit Guides, our Higher Self, or those we love who have passed on.  They, too, can reach us, if we ask for their help, for their advice, for their recommendations.

If we can make all decisions based on our intuition, or our gut feelings, found in our solar plexus, we will stop suffering.  Any suffering we do feel, we will know is for our highest good, and something we volunteered for…we will no longer feel like victims; we will know we are not.  We will feel peaceful no matter how painful or difficult a situation we find ourselves in, and we will never again feel alone.  We will know we have inner guidance, and an inner truth filter, which we can use, or refer to whenever we wish, as it is built-in, within us, and not from an external source.  The ego uses external sources whenever it is unsure of what to do, itself.  This makes it dependent on others, and on their opinions, which may be right for them, but often is not also right for us.

It is our solar plexus, or our gut feeling, that lets us know what is true or right for us, and what is not.  Often our egos/heads try to override what our solar plexus is suggesting, because it wants what it wants, and it wants it now!   The ego hates to wait.  But by waiting, and learning to trust and follow our intuition instead, we save ourselves from unnecessary pain.

Addendum:  This is a great example of how false beliefs get created as children, but, as adults, we continue to make decisions based on these long-forgotten beliefs, until we consciously do as I have here, and seek to unearth them. They are probably stored in my subconscious mind, and until I go ‘looking’ I’m unaware the information is available to me now.As a child, I believed my parents didn’t love me, but I didn’t want to believe it. Every time I’d think this, based on how they treated me, I’d work at denying it, at finding some justification for their harsh treatment of me, that helped me lie to myself that they really did love me.  I made myself ‘wrong’ to protect myself from what I believed was the truth, because I couldn’t live with it; nor, could I stay with the feeling long enough to try to find a way to let it be O.K.  So, instead, I worked to deny it. I decided I never wanted to know the truth; that I’d rather ‘not know’.  As long as I ‘didn’t know’ I could make myself believe that maybe they did.  O.K.

Why was this important? Because I believed I was unlovable.  I reasoned that if my parents didn’t love me, nobody could. O.K.

Why? I believed parents loved their children.  This was based on my comparison with how my friends’ parents treated them, versus how my parents treated me, as a child.

I know now that I felt unloved because of the circumstances under which I became their child, because of the agreement made between us before we incarnated.

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How and Why My Psychic Abilities Developed

I was born with the gift, but I still had to learn how to use it appropriately, and I had to understand what it was.  As a young person, in fact, until the age of 32, I didn’t even know I was psychic; I was taught that it was a mental illness, and to control it, or better still, stop doing it, but I couldn’t. It was a part of me, a part I believed over which I had no control, because I never knew when I was going to blurt out something about another person.  And I was always so surprised when they would ask me how I knew, because I always believed I’d been told, but, of course, I hadn’t.  Then, I’d feel guilty for knowing this secret information, and yet, I’d not done anything ‘wrong’.  To move beyond it, I lied, saying whatever I felt would get me the acceptance I sought, and I’d always vow to not do it again, but, of course, I had no control over it, so it would happen whenever it wanted to, much to my embarrassment.

Reflecting back on it now, I’d have to say this was karmic for me, because when I was in my early thirties, I was set up to meet other psychics who recognized my gift immediately.  This validated my reality for the first time, and helped immeasurably with my low self-esteem, because I slowly began to trust that I was not mentally ill, just different, and in a good way, rather than in a bad way, as I had always believed.  But, still, I have had to do a great deal of work to deepen my understanding of The Other Side, of how to use this gift appropriately and effectively for me, learning how to incorporate it into my daily life, and yet, not be judged by others as weird, or worse, working for Satan or the Devil.  It has been a challenge.

But, when I began to seek to understand just exactly how my psychic abilities had developed, I realized that it was because of deep, and utter, despair.  My psychic abilities developed when I sought God’s help for the first time, not knowing if He was ‘real’ or just a figment of religions’ imaginations.  My first question to Him was, “Are You real and if so, can You prove it to me, because if You can’t, then I’m doomed, because I have no one else to whom I can turn for help, and I can’t continue to live like this.”

I had ‘met’ God as an 11-year-old child after my father raped me, and for the next 5 years my life was the best it had ever been, because I fully and completely believed that God had come to me that night as a Deep Male Authoritarian Voice.  Then, at the age of 16, when I told my mother about my ‘new’ authority, and that I had been following His advice and taking all of His suggestions for the past five years, she convinced me that I was crazy, saying that God could not have come ‘just to me’.  It was then she told me I had a mental illness, and sadly, I believed her, so I stopped listening to God’s voice and instead depended on Man for support, advice, counsel, and help.  And, my life became unmanageable.  But, it wasn’t until I was 29 years old that I realized it, and knew what I had to do to get back on my path.  Then, it took another 3 years or so of pain and suffering before I was desperate enough to turn to God for help.  The first time, He came to me; this time I had to seek Him out.  I didn’t realize this was something that had to be earned through lots of pain and s
Why? Because I didn’t understand that I sought to know God, because I was so tortured by my own ego’s negative judgments, and that it was through this process that my psychic skills evolved….developed….as an aside to learning how to surrender my personal will to God’s.

I felt broken mentally and emotionally, desiring respite from my misery, contemplating how to get it.  Suicide I knew, from having tried it in past lives, was not an option; so this time I considered institutionalization because I believed I would be taken care of and that if someone else were to accept responsibility for my actions, make my decisions for me, I could begin to heal.  I didn’t realize that it was my own ego, and its negative judgments, that was creating my misery, and that only by putting in the necessary time and effort to stop judging myself and others would I heal, and eventually feel better about myself.  And I learned that I only got back what I put in.

 

It took me going to God four times, over a period of about seven years, in utter despair, utter helplessness, truly and genuinely requesting His help to comprehend the meaning of His single word reply:  EGO.  That’s all I’d receive – just this one word – and nothing else.  After the word was spoken, there’d be a void that I could feel, and I’d know that whoever had said it had pulled their energy back, because I could no longer feel any connection to anyone or anything, whereas when I was begging God, or Spirit..ANYONE from The Other Side to come to my aid, I would feel connected to Something Greater Than Me.

And yet, each time I heard ‘ego’ as the cause of my despair, I also ‘knew beyond any shadow of a doubt’ that it was true.  But, I had no idea what the word meant.  I’d only heard of it in connection with Sigmund Freud and his work, but I’d never personally studied the ego itself.  I didn’t even know where to find information about it that I would understand.  This was pre-Internet, so all I had available were books that had to be purchased at bookstores.  Even then, it still took me two or three books and about four to seven years of ‘one step forward – two steps back’,  and many discussions with my husband about the ego and its manifestations before I had acquired enough knowledge about it to even begin to know how to correct my thinking..And then, it required all of my own will power to accomplish it.  The process was slow. It took about two-three more years, practicing non-judgment, asking my husband to let me know each time he heard me judging, before I saw any noticeable changes in my life, based on judging myself, others and this world, less.

Now more than 30 years have elapsed, since my first contact with my personal God, and I still must continuously practice perseverance, discipline, strength, and courage as I seek to increase my faith and reduce my ego’s fears, doubts, guilt and shame.  This has been and continues to be an on-going process – one thought at a time.

At some point in my journey, I realized that it was my ego, and its negative judgments that blocked my psychic abilities, because the ego/mind is much stronger than the Voice of Spirit in my head; and if Spirit is trying to communicate to me through one of the other senses, such as through a feeling, or a smell, it requires even more awareness from me.  And to be aware I have to open minded, ready, willing and able to receive information that my ego might not like, or desire, or want to hear.  And, because the ego is very, very strong, and extremely good at getting what it wants, developing psychic ability is challenging.  Information coming from The Other Side, for me, is always vague, nebulous, ever so softly spoken.  Sometimes it feels like a gentle breeze, or a feather moving along my body, if it is a feeling, and at best, it is a very, very softly heard voice in my head.

And it’s almost impossible to prove to a skeptic, because as soon as proof is required, the ego has the ability to create enough doubt in me so that I, too, begin to doubt that I am psychic.  One ego triggers another.

Once you’re able to ‘hear’ Spirit’s voice, the second phase is to find the courage to act on the information you have received, or believed you have received, psychically.  This requires you to ‘go out on a limb’ as Shirley MacLaine said in her book by this title.  And this requires a LOT of Courage because you must be willing to face criticism from others.  If there are no negative repercussions, or better still, if ‘it actually works out and improves your situation, then your confidence in both yourself and in Spirit is achieved, and you’re less fearful of trying again…although fear is still my constant companion, as is doubt, ready to take over as soon as I make a negative judgment about the incoming information.

And yet, I would never want to go back to living without my psychic gifts…never. Night after night I’d go to God to complain about how difficult it was…and all I could say was “Thank You for this opportunity to develop this incredible, wonderful, powerful and supportive gift.  I will do whatever it takes to master my ego, so that I can improve my contact with You and Your Messengers in the Heaven World.”  This is still my nightly prayer before I fall asleep, no matter how painful my day has been because my ego won another round….or several….Still, I feel blessed to have had to surrender my ego so that I could ease my pain and suffering, and in so doing, become the spiritual teacher I am because of it.     Namaste, Rosemary Harrington