Lessons from a Psychic
We all get the signals for change; we just don’t always know how to act on them. Let's change that in 2025.
Years ago, I lost a close friend to suicide. I was in my 20s, living alone and didn’t have a religious or spiritual background to draw from for comfort; and yet I wanted answers. I wanted a sense of control over what I simply had no control over.
I sought anything that could give me insights into meaning, reading books about the afterlife, performing spiritual clarity rituals, even seeking advice of divination experts who, I hoped, could give me insight. I’d had lucid dreams about my friend and was convinced I was supposed to be interpreting something from his death. I clung to a group of friends who supported me through that time of questioning and grief.
After months of spiritual cocooning I finally felt a flicker of my former self emerge, more grateful than I had ever been for my tribe. I decided to throw them a gratitude party, where I would offer them a glimpse of the wisdom and care they had shown me. As part of the festivities I hired a well-recommended psychic, known for sharing candid but inspiring readings for groups.
The psychic sent me specific preparation instructions for his arrival. I was still relatively new to San Francisco and still relatively broke: My one-bedroom railroad apartment was sparsely furnished with a bed, a couch, a small TV, a patio table and two chairs I’d scavenged from a friend’s dumpster pile, an antique floor lamp, and a ton of throw pillows. My friends arrived bearing wine and additional snacks.
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I felt strangely nervous. I’d been told the psychic held powerful, uplifting sessions, but I wondered if my friends would appreciate his divinations or think my grief had tossed me off the deep end of reality. I had set up the prescribed environment as instructed but was concerned that something was off: too much overhead lighting? Too much skepticism in the room?
The doorbell rang. I remember very little about the psychic’s appearance other than it was unexpectedly mundane. And I felt an immediate chill: There was no friendly preamble or chit chat; he was ready to get to business.
I ushered him into my living room, where my friends were gathered, five of them squeezed hip-to-hip on my single couch and the rest were scattered among the floor pillows of my Berber-carpeted floor. I don’t recall him greeting anyone, just eyeing the patio table and chairs and the single candle I’d placed on it, as per his instructions. He was visibly agitated.
I apologized for the overhead lighting and promised I’d turn it off once I lit the candle, but he waved me off.
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
And just as quickly as he’d entered, he walked out of my apartment.
A few days later I received a check in the mail for a full refund of my money and a short note of apology, but no other explanation other than the situation just wasn’t right.
My friends shrugged it off:
"What a primadona,” one joked with feigned exasperation.
Some refilled their plastic cups of wine and offered to give each other readings. Perhaps sensing my humiliation, they converted my failed gratitude party into a laughter-filled get-together with girlfriends.
But I was devastated. What did the psychic’s desertion mean? Was it possible he saw a tragedy befalling me or my friends and opted not to share it? Did he look at my sparse set-up and my well-meaning friends as too unserious for the insights he was about to impart? Did I screw up the mood lighting? I blamed myself for the entire fiasco.
Today I see the episode differently. Whatever it was that triggered the psychic, he—an expert intuiter—knew that the situation he found himself in was simply wrong. Too wrong to just grin and bear it. And so wrong that he would rather risk coming off as weird and unprofessional than compromise his integrity.
He was a master practitioner of the art of Gut-Following.
In my rush to tie up the loose ends of 2024, I’ve swatted away any entreaties to reflect on my plans for 2025, reasoning that I was still processing the current year.
But the past few weeks have provided breadcrumb indicators, some of which I dropped myself, and others were dropped by our contributors. I learned these lessons in 2024:
Walking one’s talk is hard.
I’ve come to the disorienting conclusion that, for all the fanfare I gave to embracing an optionality-driven life and defining my career/life portfolio, I have also held onto habits from previous lives that have constrained me from truly embracing its benefits: Overcommitting myself; using tech in ways that overcomplicated rather than facilitated my life; and judging myself for my choices.
I didn’t adopt habits that reflected my values — a distinction I made after chatting with Conversationality guest and habit whisperer Connie Kwan. Her workshop on effective Habit Change (available to Optionality members) will be an exciting opportunity for me to finally close all of my browser windows and do so, not because having 80 windows open is annoying AF, but because with all those windows open I am not demonstrating my values around work completion, boundary setting, and daily learning.
I didn’t play to win, but rather played to not lose.
Laura Berman Fortgang’s recent essay for Optionality struck a chord with me. For many years I’ve considered my multiple irons in the fire as a de-risking strategy for a portfolio career, but are all of those irons worth it? Or are some just distractions to justify a merely OK situation? Or could I up the risk a notch and enjoy a clean transfer to a more-perfect personal product-market fit of needs, obligations, and fulfillment. (Say THAT quickly three times!)
As
said to me this year, “When a door closes a window always opens for you.” The part she didn’t say: "So close the damn door already!"
I’m not alone; and I don’t have to do it alone.
Some of the most fulfilling moments of the year have been in conversations with friends both live and in the Optionality Slack channel who are asking similar questions; feeling similar pulls for change. It’s moments like these when I feel incredibly grateful for the people in my life, and for their deep hearts and intelligence (and no, I’m not referring to chat bots, though some have certainly contributed to my understanding of AI.
There are signs; you are just ignoring them.
Recently I attended a dinner with many powerhouse women. Some were still in executive roles; some were running their own businesses; all craved transition. Listening to their stories, there seemed to be a forcing function: an illness, a job loss, or, as one woman I met who has been in a leadership role at a single organization for many years described it, a feeling of exhaustion causing her to wonder, “what else could I be doing?"
All of it made me wonder about my forcing function. Have I slept through any cosmic wake-up calls, to the point where divine intervention provided a much needed shock? And then I remembered a recent event, when I literally fell on my face on the way to a client offsite. I had been managing some intense personal pressures and not managing my workload to account for those pressures. Hell, I had spent my weekend preparing for the offsite, keeping me from addressing these pressures. I don’t know what I tripped on, or even if I had tripped. I only recall hitting my head on a concrete divider and gashing my eye.
A woman ran out of her car and gave me a tissue to sop up the blood. My husband, whom I called in a daze, implored me to not get on the train and go straight to the emergency room. But that would have indicated something was wrong. So I went to the offsite, eye swelling larger by the minute. And I went back the next day, and the next, while my eye transitioned from raw bloody gash, to purple shiner.
Nothing to see here, folks. Just a cosmic ass-kicking.
The universe was saying to me, “Really? We needed to make you literally fall on your face to tell you this wasn’t working, and you failed to get the hint?
I’d make a shitty psychic.
Get ready for change in 2025: Join Connie Kwan’s Habit Formation Workshop. A special offer for Optionality members: As we discussed in a recent Conversationality, Connie leverages both the science and the importance of the stories we tell ourselves to create a process for setting and achieving habits. She’s launching a new program and community to help others change and maintain their habits, in a community that delivers healthy accountability.
Learn more about the workshop and the special offer for Optionality members through 2025!
So now that I’ve acknowledged that I have a gut, how do I intend to follow it in the coming year?
Recognize that Optionality is about curation.
Life is not a carry-on bag that you stuff until it explodes. You must choose what to pack, even if all the options seem like must-haves, there’s only so much space. With gratitude, walk away from situations that no longer serve you. Make room for RIGHT.
Demand from others what you demand of yourself.
Or if that’s too hard, demand less of yourself. You’ll be exponentially more bearable to be around.
Follow what feels good; resist the urge to do things because they are difficult.
If AI has taught me anything, it’s to forgive myself for taking the easier road. The hard road is for chumps! The hard road keeps you from doing what you can do uniquely with ease! (Hat tip to Greg Mckeown, whose book, Effortless, I actually read twice because for some of us, hard is all we know.)
Life is not a carry-on bag that you stuff until it explodes. You must choose what to pack, even if all the options seem like must-haves, there’s only so much space. With gratitude, walk away from situations that no longer serve you. Make room for RIGHT. I am making that my mantra!