Discover Your Inner Wisdom: Using Intuition, Logic, and Common Sense to Make Your Best Choices

Introduction

My dream vacation to Capri, Italy, was over. I sat on the ferryboat idly watching reruns of Jake and the Fatman in Italian, not understanding a word. From Naples I would catch a flight to Milan and then to Munich, Germany, where I would stay overnight and then board a plane for the United States. I was anxious to get home to America and share with my family and friends my adventures in Europe, which had included an appearance on a German talk show. As a spiritual intuitive and teacher of intuition, I also had a full schedule of readings, media appearances, and seminars waiting for me at home.

When I arrived at the airport in Munich, I found that one of my bags was lost. I said to the airport attendant (who spoke perfect English), No problem—just send the bag on to the United States, as I’ll be leaving Europe tomorrow.

She shook her head. Impossible, she said.

Maybe she didn’t understand me, I thought. I don’t speak German, so I made my request in English again, trying to enunciate and explain my situation to her clearly.

She interrupted me. Didn’t you hear? The World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked.

What? I said, not registering her words at first. You mean in New York and in Washington?

Yes, the woman answered. The towers were hit by two jetliners. The World Trade Center is gone. All air travel to and from the United States is canceled until further notice.

I left the terminal in shock. Because I have been working as a psychic intuitive for almost thirty years, I realize that no psychic receives warnings about every major event, but I couldn’t believe such a thing could occur to my country without my tuning in to it in advance. Then I remembered a premonition I had had a year earlier about my good friends and clients, Mike and Chris Blackman. Mike had worked for a very successful New York firm and was in charge of opening their new offices in the World Trade Center. In 2000 during a psychic reading I had told Mike and Chris, If you’re thinking of leaving New York, you should do it soon. I feel strongly that there will be a terrorist attack in the near future. They had followed my advice and relocated to San Diego, California. Mike told me later that there was a very good chance that he would have been in the World Trade Center that day if he still worked in New York. I’m convinced that your suggestion saved my life, he said.

Looking at the horrific photos of the collapsing towers in a German newspaper on September 12, I thought, Why didn’t I predict this? Why didn’t I sense this was going to happen while I was in Italy? Then suddenly I remembered. In 1999 I had hosted a television special in the United States and I was asked if I had any predictions for the new millennium. The one thing I always worry about is chemical warfare, biological warfare, and terrorism in our country, I said. I also sense that the airports will be involved in this problem; the governments should look to securing our airports better. Of course, in 1999 no one in the United States was thinking seriously about terrorism, much less terrorism by airplane. But in 2001 things would be very different. It wasn’t until two weeks after September 11 that I was finally able to fly back to my country, which would never be the same.

Where do such intuitive messages come from? And why do I get them? As to why me? I have no idea. From an early age I was able to pick up on other people’s energy. When I was four years old I came back from the grocery store and announced, Mommy, the lady cheated us! It turned out the cashier had shortchanged my father. I saw my first spirit at age eight, and by my teenage years I was advising my friends about their relationships.

In my early twenties, I began to study intuition and how to develop my psychic abilities. I decided that I wasn’t going to be like psychics who gave very general information; I was going to be specific. I developed a method of tuning in to the initials and names of those on the other side. At the time, this approach was very unusual; in fact, author and radio personality Sally Jessy Raphael called me the alphabet soup psychic because nobody else was doing what I did.

For more than thirty years I have been giving readings to people all over the world and teaching others to access their own sixth sense. I wrote my first book, Questions from Earth, Answers from Heaven, to share with everyone my method for developing and accessing our innate, God-given gift of intuition. As a spiritual intuitive, I do my best to help people prevent problems and attain goals in their lives. I feel and read the energy that comes from people, the planet, and the universe. I also communicate with the spirit world. I’m known for my ability to reach across the barrier that separates this world from the next and put people in touch with loved ones who have crossed over. These spirits give me names and information that I could never get otherwise, proving to those who are still on earth that love never dies and love serves as the bridge between us and the world beyond. I am continually humbled by and grateful for the privilege of helping others connect with the people they love most.

I love doing readings for people and bringing them advice and consolation, but I’ve come to believe that my true mission on earth is to awaken people to their own inborn, intuitive power. You see, most of us are ignoring one of the senses that God gave us: our sixth sense, or intuition. Like our other senses, intuition is essential to our making our way successfully in the world. If you’ve ever felt afraid for no reason when walking down a deserted street, or found yourself thinking of someone you haven’t heard from for a long time only to get an e-mail or an unexpected phone call from that person, or followed a hunch to play a particular number in a game of chance and had it win, or suddenly worried about your child and later discovered he hurt himself at school that day, then you have experienced the power of your intuition.

We’ve been taught to use our common sense to evaluate the choices we’re offered, and to apply logic to help us weigh the pros and cons. But seldom do we tap into the power that I believe is equally important in helping us make the wisest choice in any moment—intuition.

My students and clients say that they make better choices when they use their intuition. Intuition can take you places logic and common sense never will. And when you combine logic, common sense, and intuition, you’ll make even wiser choices.

I believe that we discount our intuition at our peril. How many of us have ignored our inner warnings about a relationship, a job, an individual, or a situation, only to find to our sorrow that our intuition was right on? How many people who died in the World Trade Center that September day had a feeling not to go into work but decided to disregard such foolishness? On the other hand, there were people at the World Trade Center who were told to go back into the second building for their own safety, but they refused because they felt it was too dangerous. They went against the authorities who were running the scene and they survived while thousands died. Was this just common sense? Maybe. But as my mother used to say, common sense isn’t all that common. More important, these people listened to their instincts and lived to talk about it.

Intuition works in other ways, too. When we set our minds and hearts on something we want to manifest, we attune ourselves to its presence and begin to subconsciously—intuitively—welcome it into our reality. Intuition tunes us in to the currents of the universal energy, helping us to tap into a power greater than ourselves to create what we want and prevent potential problems. Intuition is a powerful tool for manifesting the good and the bad, for avoiding danger and protecting ourselves. By discovering your inner wisdom, your inner intuition, you will learn how to use this powerful force to attract what you desire, repel what you do not, and have the wisdom to know the difference.

What Is Intuition?

As one scientist defined it, intuition is the process of reaching accurate conclusions based on inadequate information. Intuition can transcend time and space. It’s capable of telling you which is the right or wrong decision at the split second you have to make it. It’s the power that says, Go talk to that person, who later turns out to have just the right information for your success, or becomes a good friend or a trusted colleague. Intuition is like a golden pillar that lies at the core of our being. It holds everything together and supports us in making the best decisions for our lives. Like many golden treasures, it’s hidden; it must be discovered and actively used for it to make a difference in our everyday lives.

There’s a difference between intuition at random and intuition on demand. Intuition at random is when the universe gives you the little nudging thoughts in the course of your everyday life that lead you in a certain direction. Maybe you get home and put the groceries on the kitchen table and something tells you to go look for your insurance folder. You do so and find out your insurance payment is due the next day and somehow you mislaid this month’s bill. Random intuition occurs when, for whatever reason, we dip into that universal energy and receive a message pointing us in the right direction or warning us of danger.

When the universe is giving you a message, your responsibility is to be aware of it, listen to what it says, and then follow through. But it’s also possible to ask questions and get answers, accessing that universal energy through your intuition. That’s a big part of the intuition you can use to manifest what you want in your life.

Recently the book and the movie The Secret have been very popular because they teach people to tap into the energy of the universe to help them attain their desires. But I also believe that we need to be sensitive to the bigger picture of how our desires fit into the universe’s wishes for us. If you’ve ever worked incredibly hard at manifesting something with no results, you may be like a cosmic salmon trying to swim upstream against the current of universal energy. Sometimes no matter how much we work to manifest our desires, we don’t get the Cadillac or the perfect house or the perfect relationship. While we have free choice and not everything is predestined, there are certain events in store for us that we either will experience or, perhaps, use our intuition to avoid. Intuition can help us ask for what we want, check to see if our desires are attuned with universal energy, and then point our efforts in the right direction to take advantage of the powerful current.

However, if you want to be intuitive, you have to suspend your disbelief. That is, you must believe it is possible to hear the whispers of your inner voice. Intuition is like a phone call with you on one end of the phone and the universe on the other. The universe can keep calling and calling and calling, but you have to answer the phone! When you take the first step of believing in your own inner wisdom, you will find a universe eager to open its vast storehouse of knowledge to you.

The first four chapters describe how to develop your intuitive asking skills, so you can tap into this powerful source of information to make your life better. In chapters 5 through 10, I show you how to use your intuition to read the universal energy signals in several important areas of your life: relationships, sex, health, work, finances, and children. Some of what you read in these pages will challenge the way you think, because it’s a challenge to think outside the box. But if I can prove to you that the box is a lot bigger than you thought, the opportunities available to you become a lot larger, too.

Intuition won’t take away all your problems; there are some things we have to face for our own growth. Life is a school and we’re all here to learn important lessons before we can graduate to a higher level. But once you learn to use it, intuition can and will show you what the universe has in store for you and help you make the best decisions in the moment. The real secret lies within your ability to listen to your intuition to make good choices about what you do and don’t wish to attract.

Your inner wisdom is an immense power—it gives you access to all the power and goodness and love of the entire universe. It also makes you aware of the negative energies (yes, they exist) that wish to trick you. The key to using your intuition is to be aware of its power, respect it, and learn to use it with good intentions for yourself and others. With some preparation, intention, and above all, a desire to align with the goodness, love, and wisdom of the universe, your inner wisdom can guide you and give you the abundant, loving, and joyous life you desire.

1

The Magic Within and Around You

I have the best job on earth—I help people speak with their loved ones on the other side, and I also teach people to use their gift of intuition. Daily I have the opportunity to hear the joy and relief when a person’s departed loved one speaks through me, communicating the most powerful message of all: love never dies. And almost as often I have the opportunity to watch as people tap into their own inner wisdom—the ultimate guide that can show us how to experience more love, happiness, health, and success.

Whenever I give readings, people ask me where I get my information. How can you walk down the street, pick out perfect strangers, and tell them exactly what’s going on in their lives? they say. How can you not only tell them about their deceased relatives but also give them solid, concrete advice about their love lives or finances or health? How can you be so accurate? The answer is simple: I can see and feel the different kinds of energy around a person. We each have our own energy thumbprint that identifies us as who we are in this lifetime. How we live our lives, the choices we make, and how we act and react shape that energy thumbprint. When you can read an energy thumbprint like I can, it’s pretty easy to know what’s going on with people. I know whether they’re happy in love or successful in their careers. I can feel the energy of spirits and angels from the other side who are with them. I can sense when danger is coming, when someone has unseen health challenges, and whether or not someone is good at attracting and keeping money. This ability to sense unseen energy is what intuition is all about. It works by putting us in touch with the life force that unites us all.

Intuition works by tapping into the energy of the universe. Everything—every being, plant, stone, body of water, star, even the air we breathe—has a power, an energy, contained within it. We are all connected at the deepest level because we are all part of the same stuff. This energetic life force can be you, me, the floor, the air, your unborn child, and your long-dead grandmother—it’s all part of the same energy. This unifying energy is being investigated by experiments in quantum physics, which is some of the most complicated and intriguing science being done today. I don’t even pretend to understand what these scientists are up to, but certain experiments have shown that every atom and molecule in the universe is connected. And human beings are as much a part of this energy as everything else.

The human body and psyche can sense the powerful forces of energy that compose the universe because the same energy flows through us; it is part of our connection to the world and beyond. Traditional Chinese medicine tells us this energy, or qi, runs through our bodies via channels called meridians. When we reach puberty we feel this energy in terms of sexual attraction. We pick up on the energy of a particular place and decide if this is somewhere we wish to settle. Tuning in to the energy around us is hardwired into the nervous system of every animal, including us. Why do you think pets can seem to read our emotions, especially when we’re upset or depressed? Why are animals the first to warn us when there’s an earthquake or other natural disaster? I was fascinated to learn that when the tsunami devastated the coastlines of many countries along the Indian Ocean in December 2004, rescuers went into a wild animal park in Sri Lanka expecting to find a high death toll among the animals. Instead, almost no animals were killed by the tsunami. The elephants, tigers, monkeys, and many other species had sensed the tsunami long enough before it struck to make it to higher ground. How did the animals escape while so many human beings died? Had the animals felt the vibrations of an earthquake over a thousand miles distant? Had the energy of the water rushing toward the land thrummed through the seabed to the island of Sri Lanka? We will never know—but the animals did.

As human beings with thinking brains, most of us discount our own innate animal ability to sense the energy in ourselves, in others, and in our environment. But more and more of us are coming to believe in and use this natural sixth sense. We are recognizing the value of intuition and how it puts us in touch with forces far beyond what we can perceive with our conscious minds.

Intuition Equals Reading Energy

Intuition lets us tune in to the little energy signals we get from the universe. For instance, you’re thinking of a deceased loved one and the lights flicker. Or you have a psychic or intuitive hit that you should apply for another job even though you like where you are, and the next week your boss leaves and his replacement is a real jerk. Or you feel there’s a change coming, and a woman knocks on your door and says, Do you want to sell your house? There’s no For Sale sign and you haven’t listed your house with anyone, but the woman offers you such a good deal that you take it immediately. Or maybe a friend invites you to a party. Normally you hate parties where you don’t know anyone, but for some reason this time you feel it’s important to go. You walk into the party and within five minutes you meet the person you end up marrying.

We’ve all seen individuals who seem to be able to connect with different aspects of the universal life force. I believe that these lucky individuals are better at reading and connecting with the life force that exists in each of us and in everything in the universe. But all human beings have been given a tremendous gift by our Creator: we can use our intuition to make