What does it mean to be a mentor but not a therapist? A teacher but not a guru? A healer but not a savior? A guide but not a buddy? A carrot but not a stick?
As we approach the 10th birthday of Seven Sisters Mystery School on Sept 14 (with a celebration on that day to be announced!), I wanted to reflect a bit on my role as a spiritual mentor over the past decade, a personal 1:1 consultant for others. I’m thinking on the rewards, the challenges, the discoveries, the pioneering, and the falling flat on my face as I’ve learned how best to support people, hold good boundaries, and serve with what I aim to be high ethics. I’m also looking at how I serve others now, and how my work these days is the culmination of thousands of hours of sitting privately with people and accessing information for them from the great library known as the Akashic Records.
When I started out as a “reader” for people, I was 50 years old, freshly trained as a psychic with the Foundation for Spiritual Development (FSD) in San Rafael, CA. I was also experienced in receiving direct downpours of information, owing to my years working ceremonially with cannabis.
For the first few years, I worked privately with clients almost exclusively by phone, with some in-person half-day services at my home in San Rafael (though now I work solely on Zoom). I was simultaneously teaching longer programs, shorter courses, and weekend workshops, sometimes traveling to Europe and Canada and offering live personal sessions at the end of a weekend.
Ethics of Being a Mentor
In the early days of my work with others, I was challenged in a medicine session as to whether I wanted to be a “guru,” and my definite answer was NO. My aim with people has always been not to attempt to solve their entire lives or to get them “addicted” to their sessions with me, but sometimes simply to help them get to their next step ~ whether our time together involves just one session or whether it continues over months or even years. Although clients may indeed come to me with big and systemic issues, I’ve found that the simple “next step” process is really the most helpful approach.
I feel blessed that I had good ethical training through FSD regarding how to avoid getting my own “stuff” caught up into a reading… or to recognize when I was and course correct. This had to do with somatic awareness at the lower chakras. I’d know I was going in the wrong direction if I’d feel a “pushing” in my stomach,” meaning I was getting into a power struggle with a person (which often meant I had karma with them).
I’ve also taken care to strictly adhere to the end-of-session protocol I have developed, based on my work at FSD, to “decord” and detach from the client, their space, their guides, and the reading as a whole. As a result, I’ve been able to come away clear and clean and not have after effects in my own life, or continue to influence the client in an unwanted way.
Yes, in the earlier years sometimes my big sister/Mama Bear/Mother Superior energy came through in my sessions with people. As I’d watch clients get ready to veer off track, I’d have to keep coming back to neutrality, to resist protective or critical stances and, instead, find out what that person really needed and present higher-level options. Ultimately, I learned, each person’s wisdom was always active, and all I needed to do was help them connect with it.
My bottom line: The client is always the boss of their own life.
I also have always had regular supervision with my own wonderful mentor, Patricia Anderson, a veteran from the Berkeley Psychic Institute. She has provided me with further tooling to develop confidence in my ability to receive information, and she has helped me sort out what’s happened in cases where I’ve felt like I’ve made an error in judgement.
Sometimes my mentoring takes the form of information from the “big picture” of Universal Wisdom, helping people see their situations with more clarity or spur creative ideas. Sometimes it involves a loving nudge that is really an affirmation of the client’s own knowing. I’ve learned that a well-expressed challenge can be felt as a blessed revelation.
Sometimes the best readings simply provide compassionate witnessing. And sometimes they involve an infusion of healing vibrations in the form of Golden Light or the heart math of the Masters.
The areas I continue to support people in have grown over the years. While I started out primarily helping people cultivate their own sacred careers, I’ve expanded into a host of areas, including helping people heal from abuse and neglect, clear karmic memories from witch burnings and other atrocities, achieve womb clearing, find or cultivate romantic relationships, and more.
In the past five years, I’ve moved into working with people who are on deep esoteric paths, who are uncovering information about reality that runs counter to the prevailing views. Supporting people in their awakenings in this regard has always been the most fun and rewarding ~ both for me and my clients. When people come to me with their own information or memories about things like divine birth, the Faery realms, the Underworld, interdimensional journeying, and more, the work is particularly thrilling and it’s a true mutual experience of discovery and joy.
I love when sessions become basically co-oracle opportunities together, where the client is so high-level that we are receiving tremendous downpours of new information. Often, I have shared this information publicly in the form of blog posts. Sometimes I’ve even asked my clients permission to use audio excerpts of our sessions, and I’ve also offered those on my blog over the years. This is about co-creating reality at new octaves.
Mary as (My) Mentor
I now frequently call on the energetic intelligence of Mother Mary in my work with people. I love bringing the Blessed Mother in, because she does the heavy lifting.
What I’ve learned through my own research is that Mary is the mentor par excellence. In her final lifetime on earth, she taught Jesus in the womb, continued to instruct him throughout his life, and mentored Mary Magdalene and the other Apostles as they took the message of Divine Love throughout the known world.
It’s always so much easier to help people when Mother Mary is present. Her wisdom is always high-level, and her love is always supreme. She teaches me that offering a loving vibration is probably the most essential ingredient to mentoring, and this is something I have cultivated more and more deeply as I’ve progressed along this path.
The Blessed Mother is our primary guide in the new Mary’s Womb Mysteries INTENSIVE mentoring program that I’m offering. She is the expert on all things related to the womb, the heart, and wisdom. This program is thus the culmination of my experience giving readings and teaching about important esoteric topics. I look forward to seeing how this mentoring work develops with the wonderful clients who continue to explore these areas for themselves.
We’re in thrilling times, challenging times, and it is my great honor to support the spiritual journeyers of the world on their path of healing, awakening, and expansion. Let’s see what the next 10 years bring with all of us in co-creative partnership!