Many years ago in the mid-80s when I lived in Honolulu, I had a psychic reading with a gal named Alice Anne, who was well-known and very popular.

At the time, I had a fairly large house with a living room that had enough space to seat 20 or so people. I hosted classes and workshops for her and others who were channels, psychics and healers.

I’d been struggling to make a living as a sculptor. I had two fast-growing teen boys who ate the entire house down to the foundations every day, and I was hard-put to meet expenses. I asked for this reading to see if there was any input that would help.

I signed up for a reading with AA because she seemed to be the least influenced by her rational mind during her readings.

I had noticed that, many times readers will let their own opinions of life and ‘the way things are’ slip into their ‘unbiased’ communications. I didn’t want that - having witnessed her work, I knew AA would be bias-free.

When she came to the door on the big day, I opened it to find her smiling, holding out a card for me to read.

I took the card. It read, “I have laryngitis and can’t talk, not even whisper. I can reschedule you for another time, or I can come in and sit with you in meditation and we can see what comes of it.”

I knew she lived an hour out of Honolulu, and that she came to town to see us clients in batches. I was last for the day. I didn’t want to have her go home without at least trying something out.

So of course I invited her in! What a fun fascinating experiment! Her eyes twinkled in delight - she thought so, too. I got her some tea, and we sat together in silence, across from each other at a small table.

At first, I felt uncomfortable. I felt like she could see right through me, and probably had all kinds of negative ideas or thoughts about me. How pathetic I was that I couldn’t support my family, how bad an artist I must be, and so on. I felt like getting up and telling her to go home, it was useless.

I said all that out loud. She just laughed silently. Kindly. I could see in her eyes she was had no such thoughts, that she had no judgement about me.

Then I realized - how could she? She didn’t really know me at all! Sure, we’d held events at my house, and I had visited her place, but we were acquaintances, not BFFs who knew all the nitty-gritty good and bad stuff about each other. I relaxed.

Next came ideas for displaying and exhibiting my sculpture. I listed a few, and shot each one down with big self-doubt and disbelief that they would be successful, that anyone would care or come or buy, or that I’d be able to provide enough work for a show – even though I was wildly prolific and already had plenty of work I could show.

Again, she laughed, her shoulders bobbing up and down with mirth at my silliness. At first I fell into being insulted that she’d laugh at my thoughts. Then I saw that it wasn’t me she was finding amusing, but that my lack of belief in myself was so absurd she had to laugh. I really got that.

Of course my ideas would work! And when I put them into play later on, they did.

Our ‘reading’ went on like this for almost an hour.

At last, my mind shut the hell up, and I was quiet. I felt the loveliest sense of all-is-well bubble up from inside of my belly, and spread all throughout my body.

She got up, we hugged, she left.

I subsequently had a successful show at a popular downtown restaurant, and another as part of a group show at a show room in a big business building in downtown Honolulu that had regular art shows. And other cool things.

That reading was by far one of the best I’d ever had.

Until a few weeks ago, when I had two that topped it by leaps and bounds.

You have to know that I’m not usually into the get-a-reading mindset. I don’t go consult one reader or another every time I want to blink my eyes. It’s been more years than I can remember since I had the last one.

But I had this urge, and scheduled one with a gal who is a medical body-reader. I wanted to know what to do about this chronic pain I deal with, and thought she could help.

And she did. She asked me a few questions, and ‘read’ my body as I replied. She didn’t talk a lot – more like hardly at all.

But when she did, it was as if she had plunged down into the deepest parts of me and plucked out threads I’d never known were there.

She offered a coupe of ideas, and it was plain she was right.

She did her thing – whatever it is! – and we signed off our zoom meeting with me feeling more free, more vital, more KNOWing that things would be not only OK but more awesome than I had ever felt.

And it was true. Things I had spent years worrying about disappeared. Just *poof* – gone.

The pain relented a bit – not a lot, but a bit.

People showed up I haven’t seen in years. Events happened I never anticipated. It was miraculous.

It was like that for a few weeks. One day I found myself wondering when the next shoe would drop. And then I thought that was ridiculous. And then, was it weird I wasn’t worrying? I started worrying that I wasn’t worrying!

I knew I had to meet with her again. We set it up, and this time neither of us said much more than a few words. She’d ask a question, I’d reply, she’d look at me with her beautiful deep-seeing eyes, and we’d both be breathing together.

At the end of the session, I was brimming with peace.

It was unlike any feeling I’ve ever had in all of my life. Ever.

It started like a cloud inside and outside of me. It was just … there … here … in me out of me – there’s no way, really, to describe it.

We signed off. I went to bed. I got up a minute later, so full of life I couldn’t stay horizontal. I had so much energy!

And it wasn’t sizzling, fast, get-things-done-while-it-lasts energy. It was long-form joy-life-is-good-deep-peace energy.

It fills me, even now. Even in times the pain in my body is too much and I can’t walk, there is this amazing feeling of direct, core-deep, god-powerful, grounded peace.

If you have read any of my earlier life stories, you must know by now that I went through 35 years of suicidal thinking.

To have thoughts of ending your life – whether up front and in your face thoughts, or sneaky silently waiting thoughts in the background – to have them present in your mind is like having a huge black tar-covered soul-sucking monster in your kitchen, right there at the table, just waiting to stick its slimy tongue out, catch and swallow you on the spot.

You never get used to it, but you know how to side-step it, and constantly make revisions in your life to accommodate it.

I eliminated that in 2002, using EFT/tapping, resulting in a sense of genuine OK-to-be-me I’d never had before that.

But now – now! Right along with OK-to-be-me, there is this bigger-than-possible sense that all is well. That EVERYthing is OK.

No matter what.

No matter who.

No matter where.

It fills me up, right down into my smallest atoms, and goes all the way out to the end of the cosmos.

This amazing sense of peace.

Tonight I was wondering, how can I share this with people?

How can I spread this sense of awe, delight, love, beyond myself?

The answer came as soon as I asked: just be me, in peace.
Practice the peace.

Be In peace, enjoy it, intend it going out and out and out, ripple-effecting it out beyond myself.

So that’s what I shall do.

-=-=-=-=-=-

PRACTICING PEACE

Image: Pals © Angela Treat Lyon 2023
text © Angela Treat Lyon 2023

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