Gratefulness and Gratitude

Practice

The effort you put into learning and becoming skilled. It is a discipline or devotion you put the time into, to master.

Psychic

Someone who can divine knowledge and information that is unseen by using other than normal means. A person who is sensitive to stimuli beyond the natural range of perception and current natural or scientific knowledge. A psychic’s total mind and body can tune in to the subtle vibrational frequencies and decipher them for a practical purpose. A psychic can establish a neutral mind and hold an intense focus to enter an altered state of consciousness at will or as the need arises.

Psychic skills

The basic skills needed to achieve and develop a broad spectrum of psychic abilities. They are pause, sensing, scanning, imagination, meditation, and intuition.

Psychism

The study and practice of all things psychic. It includes all psychic skills and phenomena. Psychism is a lifelong practice and study. It is also an umbrella word used to include multiple psychic skills while in a conversation.

Scanning

To pause and investigate your mind and body to identify what you are feeling and why. You can also pause and cast your senses outward to sense and feel what is going on around you and with others.

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Spiritual evolution

The process a person goes through on their spiritual journey, one that begins with looking at your beliefs and social conditioning and ends with gratefulness and gratitude.

Trust

Means you believe the information you receive, without question. Trust is believing in your ability and knowledge without any doubt. It also has been called having faith.

Visualization

The ability to focus with the aid of the imagination until the desired object can be clearly seen in the inner mind, effectively creating an image in the inner mind.

Now that you have a description of the basic psychic skills, let’s explore them in more detail.

THE PAUSE SKILL

You may think pausing is no big deal, but in psychism it is essential. When psychics pause, it is to stop our thinking and our emotions, and to shut out the daily world around us. In this manner, we clear our minds so we can think. While in pause, you receive information from your consciousness and more. The pause skill is a tool used to stimulate your intuition and calm the emotions when needed and helps you gain access to the more advanced skills.

Pause Exercise

Find a quiet place where you know you will not be responsible for anything in the next few minutes. It can be the bathroom at work or home, a supply closet, just out the back door, or any-

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where. Close your eyes and just breathe until you feel yourself relaxing. Release the day and world from your thoughts; keep breathing gently, and do this for at least five minutes.

When you get to a place of calm within you will know it. When you reach that place, breathe gently a couple more times, gather your thoughts, and you are done. Carry the relaxation and calm with you when you leave.

I recommend practicing pause as many times a day as you can and to journal or note in some fashion what you experience while you pause.

The goal of becoming skilled with the pause is to be able to use it when you are in the middle of something. The pause is helpful when you have lost your train of thought and when you are overwhelmed or stressed. Once skilled, you can pause just by closing your eyes and breathing without needing the quiet space to help you focus.

I use pause all the time in my teaching and while doing public rituals. As I began my path, I was so anxious speaking in public that I would stutter. Now, when I have something public to do, I close my eyes and use the pause exercise. This allows me to listen to my inner confident self and hear my thoughts. I often find with my students that having your eyes open can enhance anxiety, and that anxiety calms when the eyes are closed.

For example, at the Sacramento Pagan Pride in 2019, I was asked to call the quarters at the closing ritual. At first, I was nervous and afraid of messing it up. The first few words came easily, then I started to stutter. Right in mid-sentence I closed my eyes and paused. This calmed the anxiety. When I paused, the crowd repeated what I had previously said, which prompted me to move along and got the crowd involved in the ritual. So it worked beautifully, and it looked like it was planned that way.

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