Ins and Outs of the 9 to 5

As you can imagine, there isn't an owners manual on using your medium abilities in this world. Navigating this career has cast a spotlight on my flaws and my talents all at the same time.

Lately, I've had a hard time dealing with the reality that this stuff is just crazy to most people. Most people have never met a medium, talked with a medium, or gotten a reading. I do my best to anticipate common questions and concerns on my website, and I always ask first if they have any questions about my process or how I work. But each day is a battle against phantom ideas of what a psychic is or isn't.

Mostly, my gripe is just that I am guilty until proven innocent. I'm considered a fake, a phony, and people talk to me with a wary voice and a squinted eye until I've given them some sign that I'm "the real thing." There is a permeating belief that these abilities are just not possible for humans. So giving as little information as possible and with a guarded nature, people ask fuzzy and vague questions followed by a pregnant pause.

Imagine if every day that you went to work, your boss, co-workers, and clients didn't believe that you could actually do what you say you can do. Picture an architect after 2 years on the job reporting for duty with a "test."

"Hey Jake, I know you've been doing this for a few years, but just prove it to me. Sketch me a super great building that demonstrates that you can actually do what you say you can do. Right now."

Or a surgeon at a hospital.

"Dr. Smith, I know you've completed hundred of operations at this point in your career, but I'm not sure that I trust you. Walk me through a knee replacement surgery, be detailed, and don't skip any steps. I want to make sure you're the real McCoy and not some phony doctor."

After a while, you'd probably be a little miffed. All of this proving, all of the non-believing. It gets kind of old. It's kind of like being treated like it's your first day on the job every day. I still have friends and family members who look at me like I have three heads. I was a nice, respectable girl with my teaching job until I jumped on the deep end with this "talking to dead people" mumbo jumbo.

And of course there's not really a union or support group. I always wonder if other psychics have the same problems. Does John Edwards get this stuff? Would I have it easier if I had a ghost-hunting TV show or if I worked for a police station?

Probably not.

But at the end of the day, I have to remind myself that this isn't about me. This is about their issues. If a stranger walks up to me, completely suspicious that I "claim" to be a medium, how can that be my fault? Of course it's based on their own past observations and experiences that they approach me with distrust. How could I have done anything to someone I haven't even met?

But when those feelings of being attacked wash over me, I picture Buddha laughing at me. At our ability to always make it about us. Of course their eagerness for witch-hunt has nothing to do with me! Once again, we make our world into this big reflection ball where we see ourselves in everyone and everything as if we are the center of the universe.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine seemed to be in a pretty bad mood. She was irritable and not really making eye contact, so I thought I would be brave and finally said, "Did I do something to offend you? Are you mad at me?"

She hastily replied that her bad mood actually had to do with her job. We've all been there. Making it about us when it has nothing to do with us at all.

I know that the suspicions directed towards me are from hundreds of years of phonies and cheesy Hollywood movies, and I will just have to keep knocking down walls that I never built.

But can I have a pity party complete with a hot fudge sundae please? Just every once in a while?

On to the next caller.