"So let me get this straight," I began, "This psychic is going to channel a cosmic angel who will tell me what the next steps are to take in my career?"

"Exactly," affirmed my mom.

“Alright, perfect.”

I definitely believe in a lot of woowoo stuff. Longer explanations aside, I think that crystals, channeling, healing, reiki, alternative forms of meditation, Whole Foods products, you name it -- all of that has the potential to be real. Meditation is a great example of something that, not too long ago, was seen as a bizarre ancient practice and now has all kinds of scientifically proven benefits. I'm of the belief that there is a lot that is real on the woowoo spectrum and that we don't necessarily need to wait for the permission slip of proven science to enjoy those benefits. (As a side note, there's a great book on suggestibility I suggest (hah) on how placebo can, in fact, be even more real than a so-called “real” treatment. I highly recommend it; it’s called Suggestible You )

Anyway, back to the psychic. Why was I even considering this?

When I was in management consulting, I didn't put as much conscious time into deciding "what was next" for me in my career. Consulting is a demanding job with a crazy lifestyle, and as a firm, Deloitte also has a lot of opportunities for contributing to the company outside of client work. Given that I was actively involved in these extracurriculars on top of normal client obligations, I was pretty busy. So when it came to thinking about "what was next" for me, most of my ideas regarding career came up during my limited free time. This included during frantic brainstorming sessions with friends, intermittently cold and warm messaging people on LinkedIn to ask what their jobs were like, and applying for jobs when I officially decided that I wanted to move to San Francisco and join a tech company.

Ever since I left Deloitte and finally settled into the Bay Area, I've been carving out more time and energy to flex those “who do I want to be” muscles. (Sidenote: I’m an ENFP myers briggs and if I don’t carve out this time, it just won’t happen.) And so, over the past two months, I started to ask myself more questions about what skills come most naturally to me, what activities make me the most happy, and what my short and long terms goals are. I was generating a lot of questions and causing myself a lot of stress on the weekends as I thought through my life and reflected. I did most of my reflecting in nice coffee shops, which offset the pent up anxiety caused by years of just “putting my head down to get work done” releasing all at once. I wanted all of the answers, and I wanted them fast.

And who better to give it to you quickly than a psychic!?

Colleen is 96, lives in Texas, and when I called her to make the appointment, she sounded so much younger. She was taking care of her grandkids and asked me if we could do an over-the-phone session in the morning since that was when her “sources” were strongest. Of course. Awesome, done.

"Veronica, you’re going to love Colleen; she's a timeless human being," explained my mom excitedly, "and the entirety of Bergen County is talking to her and getting answers!" (Apparently my mom had referred everyone and THEIR mothers to her.)

I was getting excited – I’d even get a recording of the session! Maybe by some miracle I'd download every single one of all of the answers I'd need and be on my way!

Before the session, I had to compose a list of 20 questions to ask during my session. That was easy enough – I had TONS of those. I put together my 20 questions, organized them in an order that made the most sense from a storytelling perspective (thanks consulting), and put them away until the next week when I picked up the phone and gave Colleen a call (in the morning, of course).

Within the first five minutes, Colleen called upon an angel to channel.

“Hello Veronica. I am Melinda, I am an angel who used to be your sister in a past life. We lived in a town outside of Dublin together in the early 1800s when there was a lot of dissention and fear of losing life because of the violence at the time. You have lived many past lives. What questions do you have for this life?”

The Irish countryside, apparently where I had one of my past lives. This is what came up when I searched for "Ireland" on a stock photo site.

Sweet. I got started with my questions which ranged from ideas I had about applying my hobbies, the ways in which I wanted to grow in the coming years, and of course more specific questions like whether I should ever go to business school or move to Asia. But as we continued along in our session, I began to feel somewhat disappointed – the answers I was getting were rather general, which should come as no surprise to people who are suspicious of psychics and believe that they make everything up. The jury’s still out on that for me, but here are some highlights and my reactions from my conversation with “Melinda”:

• “Your life and your career are all about timing from now through the decades to come” --> NAW REALLY!?
• “You have to start off by writing down the things you love to do, things that don’t feel like work. List them out first, then analyze and call upon the universe to bring a full multi-decade career like that to you.” --> Thank you very much for rehashing the advice of every career adviser ever
• “Your mantra must be to always respond in a way that serves you” --> Tell me something I don’t know
• “You should exercise more because you’re stressed these days” --> I’m probably exercising too much, actually, but nice try
• “If you moved to China, it would be very lucrative, and India would have some interesting opportunities for you” --> Cool.
• “2017 was your year of breakthrough to set the stage for 2018, a year of mastery.” --> Alright, that’s actually pretty cool, I can get behind that.
• “Your boyfriend has been a soldier in many past lives and various situations retrigger his body to go into battle mode and achieve great things” --> Absolutely the most specific and accurate thing she said during this session

When I hung up, I sighed and checked my notes to see if there was something I had missed.

“How did it go!?” asked my mom excitedly.

I let my mom know how it went. It was very general and I didn’t REALLY get the answers I was hoping for.

“Oh,” she frowned, “Whenever I’ve called Colleen, the angels have been sooo helpful! You must have gotten a crappy angel.”

YES! Let’s not blame ourselves or the psychic – let’s blame the angel! I like that.

Thick headed angel.

About ten minutes later, I received the recording of our session in my inbox. I thought I’d want to listen to it again, but instead, for the rest of that weekend, I felt like returning to the session notes and my notebook pages of ideas, reflections, and chronicled examples of the ways I’ve driven impact over the course of my few years as a real adult with a career.

There’s a temptation to believe that someone else out there has all of the answers for you, fully baked and ready to go. That belief gets strengthened because there are so many folks – including psychics, coaches, co-workers, mentors, friends, and of course family – who claim that they can give you THE answers. There are even particular careers that appear to be certain, and these are equally tempting to cling to because they come set as secure paths with the answers baked right in.

When those answers come from an authority or loved one, they just feel more certain than the swirl of emotions you might experience when it comes to something as ambiguous as crafting a modern day career where there are no right answers. That certainty – any certainty – is all an illusion.

After talking to the psychic, I wasn’t any closer to “all of the answers”, but strangely, I felt a little bit more in touch with what the right answers might have been. Maybe this lady was really channeling the spirit of my sister from a past life in war-torn Ireland. Perhaps this spirit had some level of knowing that I already knew what I had to do next and that general advice would be helpful enough. There's always a way to explain where supposedly psychic premonitions are actually coming from.

Other than learning that I'm not going to get super specific career advice from a psychic, or an angel, or a psychic channeling an angel, writing out those twenty questions gave me a much more concrete place to start when it came to getting advice from myself. And when I got to ask the psychic those questions and hear her answers, I had the opportunity to evaluate how each answer sat with me. It was almost as if she were testing broad hypotheses with me and something in my gut would say "absolutely!" or "yeahhhh no." The idea of 2018 becoming a year of mastery, for example, did resonate with me even if a wishy washy answer on starting my own business one day did not. And of course, the idea of my boyfriend being a soldier in past lives DEFINITELY resonated.

Having that space to go spiritual, feel a little bigger, and give myself permission to keep up my curiosity rather than just putting my head down was refreshing. Having an open conversation with a psychic isn't for everyone when it comes to career-stuff. But if you're looking for ideas, having a conversation that takes on a similarly open, curious tone is probably one of the best ways to go about finding some answers. The best part? Those answers are in yourself.

Oh, and by the way, the angel told me that I probably shouldn’t go to business school. We’ll see about that one.

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