Do you question if psychic abilities are real, and truly exist? You may even doubt the validity of intuition. But, chances are, you actually do know, even if it's buried deep down, that psychic abilities are indeed real and you've probably even had some of your own psychic experiences. Let's celebrate your gifts and revel in the fact they can be developed.

Recognition to Development
Not recognizing your psychic abilities is quite often the only barrier between your beliefs and your gifts. Unfortunately, this can sometimes be difficult, especially if you are naturally skeptical of all things metaphysical. Often, it's even simpler than that. Not knowing that you may already be using your intuition might be the only thing holding you back. Discovering that you're actually having psychic episodes or interactions can create the motivation you need to begin developing your skills.

So, how do you recognize psychic flashes so that you can develop them? Easy! Pay attention. That's right. The most effortless way to proceed is to begin noticing when something sparks your intuitive interest. When you experience something in the metaphysical realm you will, usually, feel a bit different. You might have a thought similar to, "Hmmm, what was that?" It may also feel like whatever occurred happened in a way that didn't quite seem normal for you. This is the beginning of your awareness. Below are three activities meant to help you recognize and develop your psychic abilities.

Clairsentience and Clairempathy: Feel Your Way
Most people experience some type of psychic impressions during their lifetime. There are a variety of psychic senses, and therefore a multitude of ways you can recognize your psychic gifts. Having a gut instinct is very common. We psychically feel things because of specific metaphysical senses. Clairsentience means, "clear feeling," clair being the French word "clear" and sentient meaning to feel or be aware of. Clairempathy is another form of clear feeling where you assume someone else's emotions or physical sensations.

Looking back, you may realize you've already experienced this form of psychic sensing. Think of a time you've walked into a room and felt the energy of the room. For no particular reason, you either felt very comfortable or you immediately wanted to leave. If the room was filled with people, it had nothing to do with whether or nort you were good friends with the people there. It doesn't necessarily even have to do with the people; the room could have been empty. It's the energy in the room. Your soul can sense the energy present and your clairsentience translates that into whether it feels pure or corrupted. Now that you've recognized this as your psychic clairsentient sense, you are ready to develop it further!

Practice It!
Enlist the help of a friend for this exercise. They are going to drive you to three different places while you are blindfolded and have earplugs in to keep out sound. Feel free to wear sun glasses over the blindfold to hide what you are doing. They can take you to the mall, a restaurant, a park, a school, a cemetery, someone's home, or wherever else they can think of. Be sure to ask your driver to wait until you are sensory deprived before driving. Also, tell them to bring you to three distinct places (for example, don't go to three stores or three parks).

When you arrive at a destination, have your friend slowly lead you to the heart of the location. Allow yourself to take in the energy all around you. Notice what you feel. Pay attention to how your body is reacting. Do you feel relaxed? On edge? Does it feel like you want to stay or need to leave? Do you have goosebumps or feel excited? Do you feel the energy of other people? If so, do you like their energy? Do you feel attracted or repelled by them? Can you feel anything in your body that wasn't there before? Do you feel really heavy or as though you could float? Finally, does it feel good to be standing where you are?

After you've addressed each of these questions, giving yourself enough time to truly tune in, tell your friend how the energy feels to you overall. Then, take out your earplugs and remove your blindfold. Do you know where you are? Did you know before you removed the sensory deprivation items? Does the way you felt psychically make sense with how you feel now that you can see and hear where you are? Or was it a surprise? Did you enjoy the energy? How about the exercise in general? Was it stressful or did you have fun doing it?

Congratulations! You just tuned into two of your psychic abilities: clairsentience and clairempathy!

Clairempathy: Feeling Your Friends
Clairempathy can be used as a tool in ascertaining someone's ailments. This psychic skill can even be used to search for disease or injury in a person's body. When I have clients who are having medical issues, I scan their physical bodies psychically. I use my clairsentience and clairempathy to feel where something may be wrong. I, personally, have what I refer to as an "alert" when I hit on a source of discomfort within someone else's body. I receive a quick jolt of pain in my first chakra area, the root chakra. This is confirmation for me that my client is suffering in the area I'm scanning or with a specific malady.

Finding out how the issues of others affect you allows your psychic gifts to become stronger. However, it's a double-edged sword. You also have to protect yourself from taking on the other person's energy so you don't absorb or acquire their ills. This is a relatively simple process, but an important one if you are developing your psychic abilities.

Practice It!
Find a comfortable spot and take a few deep breaths. Once you are relaxed, imagine a big bubble of white shiny light forming around you. As you continue to breathe, imagine you are inhaling positive energy, filling up the bubble. With each exhale, feel any negativity released, out of the bubble. Allow this bubble to keep out all negative energy, pain and discomfort. Keep this bubble of protection around you for the next part of this exercise.

Get together with a couple of friends. Ask them to each write down five ailments; these can be real issues they have or they can be disorders they pretend they have. Make sure they record at least one that is true. As they write them down, tell them to imagine where they would present in their bodies. You are almost ready to start. Before you begin, imagine that bubble surrounding you, keeping you safe.

Start with the first person and look at their list. One by one, read aloud what they've recorded. Repeat it internally with your eyes closed. Note any changes in your physical body. Pay attention to whether you feel any differences; you might experience a sharp pain or a wishy-washy sensation somewhere. Discern, just as importantly, if you feel nothing. Mark down next to that complaint on their list as what you did experience.

After you've completed the entire list and recorded what you've felt, review where, if at all, you felt anything in your physical body. Were you able to distinguish between each ailment they recorded? Discuss what you perceived with the person who provided the list. Does it match up with their real issues? Were you able to intuit if the issues you felt were real? Or imagined? Did you feel your clairempathic abilities kick in? Do a quick clearing by releasing your bubble and exhaling out any ailments that don't belong to you. You don't want to hold on to anyone else's stuff—real or imagined!

Clairvoyance: Did You See That?
We use our psychic sight every day. This is called clairvoyance. Even though we use it, we may not recognize it. We are so busy living each day, trying to accomplish everything we should get done, that we don't always take note of the extraordinary ways we are using our intuition. We seldom take the time to comprehend what we are seeing psychically, let alone realize we are doing it. So, we are going to slow it down a bit and practice! When we receive a psychic message we often think it's our imagination. Rarely, though, do we jump to the correct conclusion—it is our clairvoyant abilities at work! You may be using your psychic vision without even realizing it if you are seeing images while imagining or if you like to see things drawn out to better understand them.

Clairaudience: What?
Clairaudience, or psychic hearing, is also pretty prevalent among both professionals and non-believers. Hearing songs or even words in your mind, while nothing is being played or said out loud, is a common form of psychic hearing. You might also notice you find yourself trying to listen intently to things on a regular basis, desiring to cut out the background noises so you can focus. This is indicative of someone who is clairaudient. If you think about someone and a song pops into your head that reminds you of them in some way, that is also a gift of psychic hearing, even though it just feels like your imagination. Hearing what is not being said aloud is a way we tune in, regardless of whether we acknowledge we are using our psychic abilities.

Do We Have to Keep It All Separated?
Allowing all of your psychic gifts to assist each other can strengthen your connection and all of your abilities. Defining each helps you to understand how they work, but it doesn't mean you have to keep them divided from each other. They actually tend to work better when used together. Think of them each as helpers working together to get a job done; each one plays a part doing a specific task but the end result turns out greater than each individual piece. Additionally, if you are trying to tune in using your intuition you may not receive all the psychic information you need using just one ability. A combination will provide better details, therefore giving you a better picture.

For example, during a reading I did I had a client ask me where I saw them living five years from then. I tuned into my intuition and immediately saw a spiral shape but couldn't make out what it was. I asked them if it meant anything to them, and they couldn't figure it out, either. Rather than imagine that I was out of my element, I tuned in again. This time I smelled salt, using my clairalience (or psychic smelling) ability. Again, I asked if that meant anything to her, and she replied, again, "No."

I thought, "What the heck?" to myself, and tuned in again. This time, I heard the "caw caw" of seagulls and the crashing of waves, so I asked if that meant anything.

"Oh, yes! We have been debating on whether to move to the beach! The spiral you spoke of are the shells, the salt is obviously the salt water, and, well, it all makes sense now!"

My client did move to a beach house, and as far as I know are living happily ever after. If I had given up after the spiral I never would have gotten the entire picture.

Practice It!
Now it's your turn! Take a deep breath and close your eyes and build the bubble around you, keeping you safe and protected from any negativity. As you breathe, inhale positive energy and exhale anything that no longer serves you as you imagine the beautiful white bubble forming. Continue doing this until you feel calm and filled with positive energy. When you are ready, take another deep breath and you can begin.

Think of something you'd like to know about your future. It can be about a relationship or your career or family. Begin imagining the current state of whichever you chose. Now, allow your psychic mind to reach out with your clairvoyance, five years down the road.

Using Relationship as a guide, tune in and answer the following:

• What do you see?
• Do you see another person?
• Tall, short, heavy, thin, muscular, chubby?
• Color hair? Long, short, curly, straight, bald?
• Glasses, no glasses?
• Clothing style?

Now, tune in using your clairaudience:

• Do you hear a name?
• Do you hear them talking?
• Are there any songs coming to mind?
• Are there any other sounds?
• Do you hear any descriptive words?
• Can you hear a date when this person or people are coming into your life, or do you hear they are already there?

Now, use your clairsentience:

• How does this person(s) feel to you?
• Warm, cold?
• Honest, angry?
• Happy, sad, excited, content?

Finally, notice anything else you pick up on using you clairalience, clairgustance (taste), or claircognizance (knowing). You can use this exercise to ask questions about your career and family and anything else you can imagine as well.

Now, put all of your psychic impressions together. What do you surmise? Was it better using one sense over the other? Did it feel comfortable using all of them? Did you receive more data when you combined them all? What did you discover?

Congratulations! You've uncovered some psychic gifts you may not have even known existed! You are on your way, now, armed with abilities that can help you in every area of your life. Don't give them away, use them to better direct yourself and others and to propel you further into the wisdom of the universe!