How to Talk About Your Psychic Ability

how to talk about your psychic ability

Guest posts are fun and today we have an awesome one from professional animal communicator and counselor, Crystal Hope Reed. I know you are going to LOVE this!  It’s jam packed with super helpful info. Enjoy!

It can sometimes feel awkward to talk to people about your developing psychic gifts, especially until you’ve really embraced the idea that you’re worthy of being called “a psychic.” Here are some guidelines to help you master this situation so you can just focus your energy on the really important stuff: Building your skills!

#1 How to deal with skeptics

Short answer: Don’t!

OK, so you probably can’t avoid all conversations with people who are going to doubt, belittle, or discredit your efforts and progress, but the truth is that there’s nothing you can say or do that will change their minds so don’t waste time trying.

The best thing you can do when confronted by a person like that is to disengage gracefully by saying something like, “I know it’s hard to accept some things until you experience them yourself so I get why you don’t just believe me. That’s OK. I hope that someday you can experience this, too, because it’s really amazing.” End of conversation.

No need to get defensive or sucked into debate about anything. Maintain your self-confidence but come from a place of acceptance of their experience and point of view, too. We’re not all at the same point on this path, are we?

#2 Figure out what people want to hear

Before you get upset, no, I am not suggesting you just tell people what they want to hear! I am, however, suggesting that you learn to gauge what kind of information people are seeking when they ask questions.

As developing psychics, we sometimes overwhelm listeners with a bunch of disjointed details. This is pretty exciting stuff—life changing—so we get going and we’re all over the place!

And while some people we talk to might be immersed in this lifestyle themselves and want to hear the long and deep version, others are not at all ready to have their worldview shattered by what we might tell them.

We have to be ready to talk to people at all points on the spiritual awakening spectrum.

Avoid oversharing

Many family members and acquaintances just want to know we’re OK. They don’t want the full spiel about our new obsession with the esoteric (or yoga, veganism, homeschooling, or selling Tupperware).

In many cases they don’t want any specifics at all—they just want to know that we’re happy and not losing touch with what they consider reality.

For those people, have a positive, reassuring message prepared. You’ll find they’re satisfied and will redirect quickly to mundane topics of conversation that they’re more comfortable with. Let them change the subject. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

But the majority of people we encounter will actually want to hear a little or a lot about what we’ve been up to. The trick is knowing how much to say to whom.

#3 Crafting the message

The logical and useful approach is to start with the basics and add layers of complexity as people seem willing and able to digest what you’re telling them. We can take a cue from marketing in building our message with this strategy.

The Elevator Pitch

You know the term “elevator pitch”?

In a general sense it means having 5- and 20-second versions of what you want to share so when someone asks you in passing, you’ve practiced distilling the most important details into just a couple sentences.

This technique is used mostly for professional networking but it works perfectly well in our situation, too.

So say you meet up with someone and they initiate the usual small talk. You can respond with, “I am (or am training to be) a medium/clairvoyant/healer/animal communicator.”

If they change the subject, you know they fall into the “not ready to hear it” category.

But if they ask what you mean specifically, give them the rest of your elevator pitch.

In my case, I often say something like, “I can talk to animals telepathically. Animals use telepathy with each other all the time anyway so we can learn to tap into that to talk to them, too.”

Yours might be, “I’m learning how to harness the life-force energy of the Universe to help people’s bodies heal themselves.” Whatever fits in your situation.

If they don’t need you to explain but instead start spilling the beans about all the cool psychic stuff that they’re working on, then all restraints are off! Have a great time learning from each other and basking in the elevated energy.

Common questions

Most people fall somewhere in the middle, though. They’ve heard the terminology you’re using but only have a cursory understanding. They can ask some relevant questions. They’re genuinely curious but it all still feels foreign to them at this point.

Here are the four most typical questions you’ll get from people in this mid-range group. I suggest preparing your answers to these ahead of time, in addition to your nailing down your elevator pitch.

  • “How do you know what you know?” I find what they often mean is, “How are you getting your information, in terms of sensory input?” Do you hear things, and if so, does it sound like it’s in your head or external? In your own voice or somebody else’s? People who ask this question are usually very interested in psychic phenomena so they’re trying to understand how it works for others in an attempt to develop their own skills.
  • “When/how did it start?” If people are bothering to ask, they don’t just want to hear “last June.” They want the story. Again, they’re showing real interest in the development of psychic ability and for all you know, you’re validating their experience that maybe they’re too scared to share with anyone yet. Note that when discussing your “origin story,” be sure to consider whether there’s anything you want to leave out. It’s important to craft your answers to these questions ahead of time so you don’t accidentally tell people things you meant to keep private for the time being.
  • “How do you know it’s not just your imagination/you’re not crazy?” Some people will be asking because they’re trying to debunk your experience. If you pick up on that, move on to the disengagement process. But many people are sincere in wanting to know—again, often because they’re trying to figure it out themselves! Of course the most convincing evidence is corroboration. Someone else confirming that they saw or experienced the same thing as you carries the most weight, objectively. But that’s often not possible and that’s OK. We have to stand strong in our own conviction and we have to tolerate when people don’t necessarily believe us. Seeming crazy to some people because they don’t yet know what we know is part of the growth process we signed up for. But try to give people as tangible and relatable data points as possible to help them understand.
  • “Will you do a reading/healing for me (usually, for free)?” The only right answer to this is whatever’s right for you! But it helps to create some response phrases ahead of time so you don’t get pressured into something you don’t want to do because you’re caught off guard.

Write down these common questions and brainstorm some ideas. Taking a few minutes to create and mentally rehearse your elevator pitch and extended answers will undoubtedly make many future encounters more comfortable for you, and you’ll come off looking like a pro instead of a dilettante.

Bio:
Crystal Hope Reed is the author of How to Live with a Psychic. Though she is now also a professional animal communicator, the majority of her career life has been spent counseling individuals, families, and children in the Los Angeles area.

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