Linda grew up being afraid of the dark. She recalls that when she went to bed at night and her mother turned the lights out, there was no ambient street lamp to take the edge of the inky blackness of her room. Though she was afraid, she didn’t want to tell her mother about her fears, times were tough for her family financially and electricity was something of a luxury. When she was about 8 years old she started to notice sparkling lights dance across her pillow at night. Sometimes the lights would gather together to form fairy-like wings that would bounce around her head on the pillow. They soothed her fears and would send her happily off to sleep. When she mentioned this to her mother, she was immediately sent off to have her eyes tested, but the tests all came back normal so Linda decided not to mention the lights to anyone else again.
As a teenager, Linda really started to really flex her psychic muscle giving her friends ‘readings’ using just normal playing cards and interpreting them in her own way. At 21 she bought her first pack of tarot cards using them privately, giving readings to her friends at the bank where she worked. Tales of her uncanny accuracy swept the bank, with staff swapping shifts so that they would be working at the same time as her, so that they might be able to get her to do a reading for them. She rapidly ascended the career ladder where she used her skills in the way she employed her staff and selected her teams. Her intuition was always spot on, hiring her teams unconventionally but always having successful, trustworthy and driven staff. Eventually, she decided that she would take the plunge and become a professional reader, something she has done ever since. We asked Linda a few questions to learn more about her work.
Q. Why do you think that most people come to you?
A. People are often at a crossroads in their lives. They are stuck and don’t know which way to turn. A lot of people come, particularly professional people, who don’t feel that they have the right person to speak to or they are overburdening their friends with their issues or simply can’t tell them. They like the idea of having a neutral, confidential person to turn to and I think that is why it works.
Q. How do the things you tell your clients ‘come’ to you during a reading?
A. I work with my own angel guides, angel cards and my own intuition. In practice, I pick up on the person’s energy, so what I say comes from what I see within their energy path. The cards generally confirm what I am feeling and act as visual cues and signs for both myself and the client. It’s like I know the person, right from the word go and so the sentences just flow. I don’t tend to remember a lot of what I have said to someone after I have seen them, they often remind me, but I can’t possibly take it all in and remember it all!
Q. What is the main thing that you hope that your clients will get from your readings with them?
A. I’m here to empower you, to look at yourself and your life in a way that you might not have looked at it before. I can then offer advice in a ‘safe space’ and can guide and encourage you to take the path that is right for you. We all have bills to pay so I am mindful of being realistic and practical but I often find that I encourage people to make quite a bold change in their life so that they don’t stay stuck in a situation that isn’t serving them and often the people closest to them. People are often held negatively in abject fear of how they perceive to the outside world so I try to help them to move away from that fear and from what is holding them back and go towards what or who they really love and achieve real happiness in their life.
Q. How do people react to hearing what you do for a living and how do you deal with the doubters?
A. The majority of people I meet are fascinated with my work and tend to immediately say that they would like a reading. It’s rare that I get people who are afraid. I have found, particularly in the past few years, this sort of work has become much more ‘acceptable’. I now work with all sorts of people with very conventional jobs like Lawyers, Policemen and Doctors and I would say that my client base is pretty evenly split between the sexes. I think people are in general really open to this sort of thing and the fact that I combine my work with very practical life coaching methods, makes my approach very accessible for most people. Of course everyone has the right to their opinion and that is fine. But to be honest, I am not actively going out trying to find customers. They come to me and so the ‘doubters’ are not an issue.
Q. Can you tell us any stories of how you have worked with people and what has happened?
A. There are really so many! For instance I worked with one man who was a lawyer but I could see so clearly that he was unhappy in that world. He now works as a Reiki healer. He totally gave up his former life to enter the holistic world, and he is so much happier now as a result. Another guy, one of my best students, followed my advice so diligently that every single thing that I predicted for him, happened. He had even changed his diet to explore veganism as I had thought it would be beneficial to him, and just at the time when I had said he would, he met the love of his life, a vegan!
Q. Do you have a way that you deal with a stressful reading? Are the readings ever uncomfortable for you?
A. I work really hard to make the reading as good as I possibly can and if the reading is hard it’s generally because the person has a lot of issues or is putting up barriers. This often means that I end up working harder to try to help them. I am not one to walk away without feeling that I have given them the best counsel that I can. Ultimately, people relax and start to trust in me and we always have a happy outcome.
Q. What is the most rewarding part of your job?
A. I really love helping people jump to the next step in their lives with practical advice. It is really great to feel that you are encouraging them to stop buying into their own fears, giving them the courage to be truthful and authentic in various different areas of their lives. A lot of people are crippled by the fact they spend their lives doing what is expected of them but it doesn’t really work for them as an individual. I try to show people ways that demonstrate clearly that acting in self-interest is not always selfish! It is often actually enabling you to find the right path and this always ends up being the best possible outcome for yourself and everyone who surrounds you even if it’s a bit painful at times. I believe that if you do the work to fill yourself up with ‘you’, you will have more of you left over, to spill into helping others, it’s like the old adage about putting the oxygen mask on yourself before you try to help someone else with theirs! Allowing yourself that time and the self-care generally ends in a very selfless result. The real beauty of what I do is that I find that it really helps me too, so I hope that every session with a client is a win-win.
I know this for sure, Life is pretty incredible and I believe you can do what you like with it, you just have to want to and not buy into what anyone else wants for you.
Q. Do you still see the lights?
A. Yes… I’m no longer afraid of the dark so they are different now, but they are still there, even in the daytime!
Contact Linda at www.prestigepsychichealers.co.uk
