Joie’s Psychic Centers Always Started Opening at the Strangest Times

Damn, Joie felt it again, a nervous and uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her attention was drifting while Sandy chatted on and on about mindless rubbish. Then Joie thought she heard Sandy say the word “beaner.”

Joie was present now. She pardoned herself and asked Sandy to repeat what she’d just said. Sandy has said “beaner” again, but that wasn’t what triggered Joie’s feeling. Her feeling was about something she recognized within herself. Something she’d struggled to hide since moving to California.

She’d met Sandy on Tuesday at an early morning meeting. That morning, the sun wasn’t even up yet as Joie drove to a business networking breakfast.

 

She felt obligated to go. Everyone seemed to agree that networking was essential for growing a business. No one mentioned ever getting business directly from networking, but that didn’t seem to matter, she should go.

As the morning sky began to brighten, Joie remembered her sunset dilemma.

It had been a few weeks since she decided to stay with Samuel. After all, it was her lying to herself that was making her unhappy. Nothing Samuel was doing bothered her.

She wanted to experience what being with Samuel was like when she wasn’t making him into the bad guy and villain of her life. Anyway, she filled that role quite admirably herself.

As the morning broke, she started getting nervous. Google maps said she would arrive with time to spare. She should be able to squeeze in a five-minute meditation. Hopefully, meditating would get these butterflies flying in formation.

The networking meeting went fine. The food was cold, and the coffee terrible, but Joie collected 26 business cards from the group so it must have been a success.

She did a decent job hiding her nervousness

Even though her self-introduction was rough, she did a decent job hiding her nervousness.

As she walked out of the restaurant, the club’s VP invited her to lunch. She accepted, and they got it calendared for that Friday.

On her way to the office, she tried to jot herself a reminder note to thank Jenn for the invite.

Jenn was a friend from her spiritual development classes and had invited her to the meeting. The club’s real estate agent position was open, and Jenn thought it would be an excellent opportunity for Joie to grow her business.

She thought the meeting was ungodly early but agreed to go. Showing up is 80% of the battle, so they say. Right?

That morning, six real estate agents and brokers showed up for the one position. Joie figured connecting with the VP for lunch might give her an edge over the competition.

Everything woo-woo

Sandy, the VP, was a bookkeeper and entirely into everything woo-woo. “Everything” meaning anything spiritual but in the most annoying way possible. Jenn told Sandy she knew Joie from their spirituality classes and Sandy couldn’t wait to pick Joie’s brain.

While booking the lunch, she couldn’t help notice an uneasy feeling about Sandy.

Sandy picked Panera, so Joie’s low carb plans would have to wait until Monday.

Joie asked in her class about the “uneasy feeling.” The instructor said she had sensed something in Sandy’s vibration that made her uncomfortable. She was instructed to make notes about what she “felt” and to see what unfolded.

She asked the instructor about how “sensing” something like this was possible.

When psychic centers begin to open

He answered, “When our psychic centers begin to open, in addition to our five physical senses, we start perceiving information from our psychic senses. As our mind becomes more quiet and receptive, we sense things like other’s vibrations or intentions and can use that information to avoid distractions and bring harmony into our lives.

He also gave a warning that sometimes that uneasy feeling might just be a bad burrito and by journaling our experiences and later reconciling them with what happens in the real world, we can learn to spot the difference.

After paying $25 for that crappy breakfast, it may well have been the breakfast burrito. Hey wait, how the hell did he know she’d had a burrito?

Hmmm. So much to experience and understand.

She arrived for lunch early. Sandy was late. Perhaps her lateness was what her awareness had picked up. Joie hated tardiness and hate was probably too mild of a word. She updated her notes about the “Sandy” feelings.

Fortunately, the wifi was fast, and Joie got her emails processed while she waited. Two referrals came in which alleviated some of her annoyance about Sandy being late.

She wondered how long it would take before meditation helped her not judge tardiness so harshly. When Sandy finally arrived, Joie joined her in line to order.

Awareness sometimes feels like an uneasiness

Bam, the uneasiness was there again. Joie couldn’t put her finger on what made her feel so uneasy. She sent herself a cryptic email saying it wasn’t just the delay and then reconnected with Sandy who was chattering about something.

Sandy was still chatting about some mindless rubbish when Joie thought she heard the word “beaner.” Her full attention came back to this moment, and she felt like the bottom fell out of her stomach. She pardoned herself asking Sandy to repeat what she’d just said.

Sandy repeated, “look at the cute ass on that tall beaner by the soda machine.” Yep, she heard correctly.

Instinctively, she looked toward the soda machine where a tall, slim Hispanic man stood wearing leggings, running shoes, and a tank top. Sandy proceeded to explain in vivid detail how much she enjoyed herself some brown sugar and latin lovers.

Speechless, Joie looked closely at Sandy’s face trying to figure out how old she was. She wasn’t much older than Joie. Her words were those of someone much older and a complete racist.

Her “something wrong here” radar short-circuited

Joie’s “there’s something wrong here” radar short-circuited from disbelief, and she struggled to decide what to do.

She took a deep breath, ignoring the comment. In her experience, calling someone to the carpet for racist comments would not change anything and would make the lunch even more awkward.

Joie didn’t see the lie she just told herself nor the anger she was experiencing.

Joie smiled at Sandy and ordered chili in a sourdough bread bowl. She preferred saying “boule” in honor of her mom’s love for everything French, but no one ever knew what that meant. They filled their drinks and returned to the table.

They settled in, and Sandy began asking an incessant series of questions about the spiritual classes Joie was taking. As students of spiritualism, they were supposed to answer the knock of curious people, but for Christ’s sake did this chick ever breathe?

Sandy kept glancing over Joie’s shoulder at the Hispanic runner. She had hunger in her eyes and chit-chatted continuously. Sandy seemed most interested in spiritual healing. She asked, “Is it like Reiki? Can you heal menopause? Do you do battery healings? Can you do remote healings? Blah, blah blah, blah blah, and blah?”

All at once, Sandy was quiet, deafeningly so.

Joie watched as her face reddened while she stared as a woman joined the Hispanic gentleman, kissing him passionately then sitting very close to him.

Sandy immediately started strategizing “Plan B.” She said how she knew from personal experience that “beaners” were never faithful, so she still had a chance to see what he was packing under those leggings.

Sandy’s curiosity came as a complete surprise because, from Joie’s point of view, there was nothing left to the imagination about what this gentleman was packing.

More about spiritual healing

Sandy was quiet, as Joie continued sharing what she was learning about spiritual healing.

After getting the necessary disclosures out of the way (real estate was all about “disclosures”), I’m just a student and just getting started, etc. Joie heard herself saying the words “unconditional love,” and the reason she’d not said anything to Sandy about using the word “beaner” became evident.

Joie grew up where everyone indiscriminately used the “n” word, and no one ever seemed to mind. The rule was it’s okay to use that word if there were no blacks around.

Joie became aware, possibly for the first time, how the fingerprints of her upbringing left permanent marks on her soul.

Joie’s stomach sank. She did it again, a lie of omission about what mattered to her. Mid-sentence, Joie stopped talking about healing and looked Sandy in the eyes and forced herself to tell her it wasn’t okay to use words like “beaner” in her company.

Sandy almost choked on the chip she’d just put into her mouth, and she looked like she had just witnessed the table levitate 3 feet into the air.

Her face went from ghostly white to beet red

Her face went white as a sheet. Joie worried Sandy might faint. Then white turned to a beet red, and Sandy said she didn’t know what the hell Joie was talking about as she stuffed more chips into her mouth.

Awkward couldn’t come close to describing the rest of lunch. Joie realized as they left Panera, more than just the meal was over.

Sandy never replied to Joie’s email thanking her for lunch (a simple courtesy but her gratitude was very much a lie). Joie struggled to decide whether to return to the next breakfast meeting.

The simple fact was Sandy had been in the club over five years. The group knew she was racist. Joie decided not to go back and felt a massive sense of relief, but she also felt like a quitter at the same time.

She thanked Jenn again for the invite saying it wasn’t a good fit and she’d decided not to pursue joining the club.

Over the next month or so, Joie noticed her awareness showing up more often. She also journaled more and more incidents where she recalled silently condoning racism and other’s bad behaviors.

Her feelings of guilt were getting stronger and more distracting, not better. It seemed the more she dug into it, the more there was to uncover.

Meditation is supposed to make you feel better

Meditation and spiritual practices were supposed to make you feel better, more loving, not worse.

On a Monday evening when Samuel was out, she was meditating and felt like she was going to explode. She couldn’t breathe. What new kind of hell was this?

When they taught her how to meditate, no one ever mentioned feeling like you were going to die in a full-blown panic attack!

Joie felt stuck between terror and curiosity. In the pit of her stomach was a tightly wound ball of fear and anxiety. It seemed to have a mind of its own and didn’t want to be disturbed.

The last thing she remembered thinking was, “is this a psychic center opening or the gateway to hell?”

We’ll find out next week which it is…

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