Coming Out of the Closet

Recently Portia de Rossi and Ricky Martin have shared their stories of pain and shame about living as homosexuals who had been deep in the closet. Both spoke about the anguish of being made to feel like something was innately wrong with them for being gay.  Both spoke of longing to feel normal and how living in shame for the way they were created impacted their lives.

Boy can I relate.

It may be surprising to learn how deeply in the closet I too have lived as an intuitive being.  Even as a professional intuitive medium I have still been living in the shadow of fear and shame and not fully "coming out!"

I recognize that my comparisons will stir up questions and perhaps even criticism by describing my self within this same context as issues of sexuality.  But hiding in shame and living in the closet is an experience to which many can relate. And being a psychic kept me hidden deep in the closet for most of my life.

With psychic and mediumship abilities, I learned very early to refrain from openly expressing my authentic self to avoid the harsh judgments and minimization that were freely offered to my face  Just the other night I listened to a news piece on CBS as Katie Couric interviewed a scientist researching life after death.  Her bias rolled off her tongue as she questioned: "Aren't you concerned that this research sounds like 'new age' mumbo-jumbo?"  I noticed not one medium had been consulted for the piece.

I do not necessarily relate to the label "new age" but I am wired as a psychic medium and this usually equates with being "new age".  Other common reference are:  'woo woo'; "airy fairy";  "cultish" or some other term that minimizes and further marginalizes intuitive beings.

Many times when I have stepped out of the closet to share my intuitive experiencing of life, myriad judgments were offered. Some told me that intuitive knowing was folly; unprovable nonsense.  Some declared that it was an abomination and using these innate talents to speak with spirit was going against the God's decrees. One of my neighbors told me she was offended by me claiming this ability and that she would "pray for me" to stop.  I had a similar encounter at my husband's high school reunion.  Others have suggested my communication with spirits could be a sign of mental illness.  Still others have told me that if it were real, I should be able to prove it.  Don't you think I wish I could?  Some have judged me for using my abilities professionally, saying this is a gift from God and therefore I should not be remunerated for its use.  Though all other God's gifts are perfectly acceptable forms of professional fulfillment and service. 

When my daughter told her bunk mates at camp last summer that I was able to communicate with spirits, her friends mocked her claiming: "That is ridiculous.  There is no such thing."  My mother stated "you should not speak of it with your daughter.  Its not fair".

Like those born gay or even heterosexual, I too cannot change how I am wired.  I did not choose to experience life through psychic senses. It chose me.

Being adopted as a fair-haired, freckle-faced child within a dark skinned Jewish family led me to crave fitting in. I wanted to be normal.  Add childhood abuse, narcissistic parenting, sexual traumas and a schizophrenic brother into the mix of my early life experiences and being intuitively gifted made me feel even more marginalized. Like all the other variables that contributed to my shame,  I tucked my intuitive life deep inside me.

As a child I was able to see alternative dimensions with ease and can still access spirit at will. For as long as I can remember, I had past life recall. I knew my prior life existences.  I had an uncanny empathic skill which meant when I touched anyone, I would know their essence and feel their emotional status immediately.   I have always been able to feel another person's pain as though it were cutting through my own heart like a knife.  All I have ever wanted to do was ease their suffering.  Sometimes I would see the energy flowing from my heart to the other, as we spoke.  I have seen colors, energy patterns and most importantly, the helping spirits of individuals around me.  And, I have always known when I meet members of my soul group.

Consider the above paragraph.  Imagine having these experiences as a young child and telling your parents, your teachers, your peers or your religious leader?  Would you be readily believed? Understood? Accepted? Supported and nurtured through your intuitive maturation?

I often also had prophetic dreams. Once I told a casual acquaintance in high school about a vision I'd had regarding her father.  The next day she pulled me aside and begged me to tell her how I knew. That was the trouble.  I didn't know how I knew; I just knew.

And I had big message dreams, where guardian spirits would relay important guidance for my life.  Native American spirits often visited me and told me that I was a "shaman".  Did they know that I lived in middle-America suburbia as a Jewish kid?  I did not understand and had no one to help me gain meaning from my intuitive experiences.

For eons this is what it was like for intuitive women and men.  But women in particular.  Men were often called prophets or wise leaders.  Within a patriarchal culture, gifted shamanic souls - particularly women but eventually all intuitive humans - were made to hide their psychic or healing gifts from significant individuals.  Often they were shunned, hunted, tortured and burned for practicing intuitive processing.  Direct experience of the divine was considered evil, dangerous or occult. That legacy lives in our cultural biases today.

For years I feared my own abilities. I hid them so deeply inside myself, fearing they may mean I was evil, dangerous or dark.  The legacy of childhood abuse only added to the fears of discovering my abilities.  I just wanted to be normal.

When I was 17, I had been dancing in celebration of my impending graduation from high school with a group of friends. As the evening came to close, I crawled into my friend's car, placing myself in the center spot of her front bench seat.  As the girls were climbing into the vehicle, a  very loud male voice shouted in my ear: "Get out of the car!"  I turned to see what guy had entered our vehicle to harass me.  But no one but two girls were in the back seat.

"Who said that?" I asked.  The girls were so engaged in conversation they didn't even notice my question. Again the voice declared: "Get out of the car!"  I turned abruptly "come on" I said, "who's saying that!"  They looked perplexed, shrugged me off and continued talking.  As I moved to dismiss the voice yet again, I felt a sudden tug upon my being.  It was as though very strong hands had lifted me up over the girl to my right and pulled me out of the car.  I flew out of the vehicle and onto the parking lot pavement.  Startled and perplexed, I told my friends to leave without me and remained behind as they spun out of the parking lot.

I did not know how to explain what had just happened but was used to having inexplicable experiences.  I stayed and chatted with some friends who had not been ready to leave the event.  After speaking for another 30 minutes or so, we all headed for home. On our drive, we discovered the car that I had been "pulled from" as a ball of twisted metal on the side of the road.  The accident proved devastating for all concerned and included a fatality.  Surely I would have been one of the deceased had I remained in the center of a front bench seat, with no seat belt. For some reason, my spirit guide saved my life that night. 

Who would believe my story? Still, I was so shaken by the event that I told my father.  My dad was a engineer working as the CEO of his own company.  He gave no weight to anything "unprovable".  He was pragmatic and declared himself a Humanist.  Much like Portia De Rossi's mother telling her that she accepted her sexuality as she added, "but please keep it to yourself", my father suggested that I trust my inner voice from that point forward but also told me not mention it to anyone else.

The message was clear: keep your psychic life private.  Fit in.  Don't make waves. There was obviously something "shameful" about being intuitive. 

As an intuitive, I have had many encounters that amaze even me.  I have seen and spoken with benevolent helping spirits.  I have had a vortex of golden angels appear before me to assist me when I was in the depth of anguish. These angels revealed how to heal myself and led me into a path of recovery. I have had helping spirits navigate my way through large and small circumstances. I even had three angels come to me when I was pregnant with my daughter, showing me how she was cloaked in white light and was a beautiful spirit.  They told me her name and showed me a glimpse of her magnificent essence.

After the birth of my daughter, my intuition expanded even more greatly than before.  One day, while on the treadmill, I witnessed a magnificent angelic spirit touch my forehead.  I then knew about a young boy in spirit who longed to communicate with his mother.  The angel relayed details about this boy and though I did not know him or his mother I was shown how to reach her. When I communicated that boys messages to the grieving mother I experienced a depth of gratitude for divinity allowing me to serve in such a profound manner. 

But I did not feel worthy of such a gift.  After a lifetime of abuse and trauma, my self esteem, though significantly healed, was still too low.  I wanted to serve.  I wanted to help others.  But I wanted to do it through normal channels.  I felt ashamed of having something that set me so far apart from so many. 

I prayed for guidance about how to proceed after that first intuitive reading.  My helping spirits urged me to serve through providing readings. And once I said yes to the guidance, people began to call.  I did not advertise.  I did no promotional work.  Just like in the movie "Field of Dreams" people just started to show up. This brought me to my knees in prayerful gratitude daily!

Soon thereafter I hired a puppeteer for my daughters birthday party.  She came to my home and the moment I shook her hand, I knew she was in great distress.  As had happened many times in my life, she sat down and openly shared her life story. She spent hours in my living room as I held her heart.  At the end of our conversation, I told her about the angelic guides and loved ones who were helping her through her grief.  She asked me how I knew and told her that I could see them and connect to them through my intuition.  She was thrilled.  She asked me if I would offer her a reading rather than paying for her puppet show.  I agreed and we signed her business contract accordingly.

Two days before my daughter's birthday party, she left a message on my voice mail stating "I am canceling my part in your daughter's birthday party.  My church has told me you have cast a spell on me, that you are witch and that I must stay away from you because you are evil.  Since we signed the contract with an evil, unchristian agreement, it is null and void. I am not to go anywhere near you, your child or your home.  You are evil. Do not contact me again.  My church and I will pray for you".

That was not the first time I'd been told I was evil for being intuitive.  Nor was it the last.

As my mediumship abilities grew into a new found psychic ability, I entered graduate school.  Once again I was confronted by the biases toward being so overtly intuitive.  I was urged to keep my abilities hidden from clients, fellow students and supervisors. I was told that I could never combine my psychic mediumship skills into a professional practice as a psychologist. My supervisor insisted I never let anyone know about what I could see or feel through my intuition.  "It is unprofessional" she insisted, "keep it all to yourself.  Its only for your benefit.  Use it to serve".

At first I complied.  But the dichotomy burned harshly in my belly. How could I ever support my clients in living an authentic life, if I was so deeply in the closet as an intuitive?  I was told that I had to choose between being an intuitive medium or being a psychologist.  But I am not either one or the other:  I am both.  And I could never authentically support anyone in their healing journey if I did not fully claim my abilities and openly use them in service of others when truly guided to do so.

No one can live a fully peaceful and healthy life when they are hiding something so significant about themselves.  As the 12-Step Program states "we are only as sick as our secrets".   The other day, when I dropped my 11 year old off at her new friend's house for the first time, the mother asked me "what do you do for a living?" I hesitated and felt my internalized struggle with self acceptance matching forces with her subtle bias.  The words "intuitive medium" would not flow off my tongue and I tried to rationalize this as "protecting my daughter." I walked away wondering, "how many ways can I deny who I am?"

Portia De Rossi had to confront her sexuality and fully claim herself to heal from her eating disorder.  Ricky Martin had to embrace his sexuality openly to thrive inwardly and serve the healthy rearing of his beautiful children.  For any youth to feel safe to come out of the closet, all homosexuals need to feel that can safely emerge within our culture. 

But this is true for all of us who live as marginalized beings within a system intolerant of authentic differences. I too have to step boldly out of the closet and hide for no one ever again.  I am an intuitive medium: I am a shamanic soul. 


I want my daughter to embrace herself wholly.  I want her to know that she does not have to compartmentalize any aspect of herself to live in this world.  For the system to change, I have to take the first steps.  I have to own myself without hesitation.  It is my responsibility to openly model self acceptance as an intuitive medium and shamanic soul to serve my own integrated living and hers. 

I am confronting the biases of our culture openly now. No Divine Source of Life would create so many of us intuitively gifted souls only to tell us to hold these gifts at bay.  Like all gifts, they are to be used responsibly and ethically.  But this cannot be fully accomplished when so many of us are not valued as providing authentically helpful services.

Where are you hiding? I invite you to search fearlessly for where you hold back small truths about who you are.  I invite you to explore this question and the places where you might deny or minimize who you are.  I invite you to bring all aspects of you out into the light of day.  We heal ourselves and our world as we stop being complicate with a dysfunctional system that keeps women and men from living their true essence fully.  Today I step boldly out of the darkness, into the light of day and ask all of you who are willing, to join me.