Discovering My Intuitive Gifts

Childhood

I had a special connection with my childhood cat, Mr. Bailey. He was an outdoor cat, and every time he would meow at the door to come inside, I would go let him inside. Only this was through the psychic sense of Clairaudience (clear hearing, inner ear). I would be upstairs in my room, on the other side of the house, and hear Mr. Bailey clear as day as if he were in the room, let out a single meow. I would go down the stairs, to the sliding glass door, and he would purr a thank you on his way in.

In my young years, magical occurrences weren’t something I’d ever second guessed. I was attuned with animals and nature herself. I would sit outside in the sun on my swing set, singing songs about the season and the beauty around me. I now see this as being an intuitive offering to Gaia. I made spells and came up with my own personal forms of divination. I did not have spiritual guidance growing up, but I was a quiet, reflective kid with too much time to think.

It’s hard to pinpoint a time I “discovered” that I’m psychic. It’s always been a part of me that I kept close and private. I feel like this is the case for most sensitive individuals. When the spiritual or psychic thing happens, it feels familiar. It’s our Soul remembering. Some individuals are more inclined to these intuitive senses, while others have to work at developing them.

 

     There were times in childhood, before I knew how to do energetic protection, where I was seriously spooked. At a very young age (like in the above photo) I would have ghostly visitors come to my room at night. I would do my best to hide out under my blankets and stuffed animals, but sometimes I would still receive visions. I didn’t know what to do, nor did I understand what was happening. I was terrified. Where I am now in my journey, I would tell my younger self not to fear, that she has all the power in the situation. It would take some time to get there.

Mimi: My Angel & Spirit Guide

     My maternal grandmother, who everyone in the family calls Mimi, passed when I was young. Despite this distance, I always felt connected to her. A few years after her passing, I saw her ghostly aura appear to me as golden yellow in my parent’s bedroom. Soon after this, my mother came to me to admit she saw a psychic medium about Mimi. The medium told my mom that I experience and have spoken to Mimi. This stuck out to me because for the most part, my mom seemed to me not to be spiritual or believe much in going to a psychic. I started to allow myself to have faith in the spiritual feelings and connection I discovered on my own. This faith allowed it to expand.

Me sandwiched between my older cousin and Mimi before a dance recital 

 

 

Late Teens & Early 20's

Forgetting and Remembering

     Growing up in a science based home, I looked for evidence, for proof. However, the very nature of a spiritual or psychic experience is so personal that it cannot be translated or proven. I carried a lot of shame about my intuitive feelings, because there was no evidence I could present to someone. Though deep down, I always believed in psychics and spirits, I did not believe that I could experience these things for myself. There have certainly been moments on this journey that I have paused to ask myself if I was going crazy. The few times I brought it up to my family, I have still been teased by for (by them) as an adult. 

The information I got as a teen about spirit encounters was through television shows like Ghost Hunters. I perpetuated fear out of ignorance. My friends and I also dabbled in our own ghost hunting, which absolutely only made the spookiness increase in my life. (I now know much better). I feel like part of my mission in this work is to educate others on how to navigate the paranormal and the spiritual in an empowered way, to understand that we do not need to fear it.

At certain points through the years of 18 to 22, I became completely detached from the magical part of myself. Any time I brought up a paranormal experience I had to my mom, she would tell me it wasn’t real, and that I needed to “stop scaring myself”, even if I hadn’t presented it in a “scary” way. I know that people thought the things I took interest in were weird. This only fed into the insecurity, self doubt, and shame over what I felt, sensed, and experienced. 

On top of this, for years, I had gone through heavy experiences that I didn’t know what to do with. There came a time, right before my big spiritual and psychic awakening, where I blocked out my intuition and spirituality-- along with my authenticity. My psychic abilities never really went away, I just learned to ignore them, only to land myself in disastrous situations. Though I still took the intuitive experiences as very normal for me, I worried that if I talked to someone about them, I would be perceived as crazy or lying, or even both. I worried that if I followed my intuition, it would confirm the crazy. 

I had a lot of healing to do in those years, which have served to open more intuitive channels and pathways. For this reason, I can say that my intuitive and spiritual gifts saved my life. 

 

A Witness to the Paranormal

     One night, still living at my parent’s house with my then-partner, I was awoken in the late night/early morning. I had that feeling that something was there. I felt alert, a bit afraid, and grateful not to be alone, so I woke him up. Now for context on this next part, just outside my bedroom door is the ladder to get into the attic. For anyone to be up there, we would have been woken up much sooner by the loud sound of it being pulled down. So, no, there wasn’t anybody in the attic at 3 in the morning. As we are laying in the dark, above us, furniture starts dragging across the floor. I knew that above me was an old, super heavy bureau. I suddenly wasn’t afraid because finally, someone was there to witness with me, and I’m not crazy! He got totally freaked out, but that night shifted something in me, where my fear transformed into curiosity. The  confirmation was everything.

 

 

First Meeting with a Spirit Guide

     I have memories of being with Mother Mary very early in my life. I never thought twice about them until late in my teens, when I started to really wonder. That had felt more vivid and real than a dream, with a profound charge to it... but still, the memory was just beyond reach or comprehension. I thought deeply about it, often, for years.

During my spiritual awakening, it came back to me. My mother had to have me as an emergency c-section. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my throat, suffocating me. Was my memory perhaps a spiritual experience while still in the womb? My Soul remembered agreeing to stay for this lifetime. This experience further expanded my mind and perception to the grander possibilities.

 

 

Aura Reading Development

     Around the time I started my deep dive into auras and acknowledging my intuition for the first time, I had a telepathic experience with the cat my then-partner and I adopted, just as I had with Mr. Bailey.

During a thunderstorm, lightning struck close by and I heard a little boy’s voice, clear as day day, “What was that!?” I figured the cat was hiding, but when I turned around he was staring directly at me close by, with this expression as if waiting for an answer from me.

     I had strange paranormal dreams around that time too, at 20/21, which opened me back up to strange occurrences being more than just imaginings or dreams. I got really curious again, and felt my inner child welling up within me. I felt a sense of wonder and my faith started to return. I had glimpsed this feeling many times before. Now I wanted in!

All of this felt like confirmation of my abilities to sense and read auras.

 

Aura Reading is Valuable

     The first time I started to see the true value of an aura reading was also around this time. My awakening was sending ripple effects into other areas of my life. I was working at a pizza restaurant with my cousin, and we were talking about auras. A friend overheard and asked if I could read her aura. I trusted her and appreciated her curiosity, so I gave it a go.

I told her what I saw, and offered guidance along with it. I knew through her aura that she was moving through struggles familiar to me, but I didn’t feel like work was the time and place to really get into it. She later confirmed my suspicions.

All my life, I had always wanted to help people, and I felt like that moment was my realization that I would do so through aura reading and coaching others.

 

My Saturn Return

     Life’s difficulties snapped me back into my Soul’s purpose. Up to this point in my life, I felt like I was living for everyone else. I put everything into romantic relationships that turned out abusive. I put everything into jobs that would have easily replaced me despite my efforts. I relied on an eating disorder and substances to get me through each week, to cope with the struggles and traumas I had faced.

This brought me to reiki. I did not go seeking out a spiritual guru. I went to my primary care doctor, feeling lost and broken. After talking for a while, she suggested reiki, and asked if I would be open to trying it out. Up to now, I knew about reiki but not much, and I’m sorry to admit that I at that time thought it was play-pretend.

My doctor laid me up in the table and gave a brief explanation about what she was doing, then began. Honestly, at first I was giggling, I felt silly. But after only a few moments, I started to actually feel the energy. Waves of warmth and love took over, sending tingles up and down through my body. I saw colors and shapes, heard music, light flutes that I now associate with fairies. That doctor changed my life that day. The experience opened the door for me to explore other avenues of healing that helped me on my journey. Among them, traditional therapy, EMDR, chakra clearing, somatic techniques for trauma healing, art therapy, and sound healing.

 

Self Healing Journey in Parallel Places

     After moving through some shadow work and focusing on my healing, my clairvoyance returned stronger than ever. I consider this my major awakening in adulthood. I had incredibly vivid dreams, or astral projections. In them, I could see 360 degrees around me and above me. I always have a sense that where I am is adjacent to our dimension. It doesn’t feel like Earth, but it feels like home. I have made multiple paintings of the places and locations in these dreams. I hold the memory of these places close. They feel so safe.

My life partner and I had telepathic experiences at the very start of our friendship. I knew that we would always be in each other’s lives, in some way. So, it felt meaningful to have dreams that he was with me on this not-Earth world. The sky and ground glows with orange and pink light. Stars are always out. There may be a large moon in the sky, sometimes. I once saw it as a crescent sliver laying right on the horizon. The scenes do take your breath away. I have a hard to accepting just how difficult this scene really is to translate.

I feel like this place is where my Soul family meets. But I know that with my human knowing, I can only understand a fraction of what those dreams are.

     My favorite dream was on this beach, where the water was shallow, going on this way for the whole visible horizon. The sky was pink and that moon enormous behind me. I wanted to look under the surface of the water with goggles, but I felt so scared by what I might see! Something about it spooked me out. But I’m being encouraged by someone I love and trust to try it. They warn me, don’t get freaked out, it’s okay and nothing will hurt you. So, I suck it up, place the goggles onto my face, and dip down into the water to see for myself. There are millions of different starfish everywhere. They’re stunning! I couldn’t believe this galaxy of starfish was right here, hidden in plain sight. I could have stayed there forever just taking it in.

Now, I look back, and see the symbolism of this dream for my spiritual and personal healing journey. This was when my Spirit decided in this lifetime to open up and see, with trust. (Especially in a shadow work way).

I loved the dreams so much that I did my best to paint them.

Ancestral Support

      What followed this was a series of visitations and dreams from my grandmother. I was guided through some incredible healing experiences. She provided me with courage— and even evidence.

There are old tales of ancestral spirits taking things from the kitchen to say they’ve been there. I only learned of this after my giant sriracha bottle went missing from my fairly empty fridge, then reappeared later that day in the spot I thought it had been, but wasn’t in. I was home alone all day, in a small apartment. No one could have done this. I still get a brain cramp trying to explain how that happened!

Without at first noticing, this took place on the anniversary of my grandmother’s passing. When this realization came to me, she started to come to my dreams, and I took it seriously, listening to the symbols for what she wanted to say. She showed me things about my family and traumatic experiences in adulthood which allowed for me to find peace and healing for myself. She showed me that my gifts are meant to be shared. 

 

 

Developing the Skills

     I grew into a true, deep faith for my intuitive and spiritual experiences. They kept increasing and becoming more vivid. I started seeking out books and resources online to better understand what was going on with me. I learned that I am clairvoyant (clear seeing, mind’s eye) and claircognizant (clear knowing, psychic knowing), and use painting as my way to channel. I am also clairaudient, though I tend to use this ability far less, but my connection to music keeps it active.

I took my time uncovering my Soul’s memories and wisdom. When Covid hit in 2020, I left my bakery job to focus 100% on healing and discovering my purpose in this life. I didn’t realize how much this chapter by myself would awaken my gifts. I spent most of my time painting, reading, and meditating. Dreams and spiritual encounters increased. I turned to tarot and oracle cards for clarity and insight through the new journey I had entered.

I never stopped thinking about how impactful my reiki session with my doctor had been at the time. I wanted to learn more, so I took a few courses of Usui reiki, and received my attunements. I explored other modalities as well, really enjoying what Antojai (quantum) reiki added to my toolkit. The most recent reiki attunements I received are in Holy Fire, which is what I now use for myself and my clients. 

     After constantly feeling like I didn’t belong through so much of my life, stepping into my role as a psychic medium, a healer, a way shower, made me feel completely at home within myself again. Completing a reading for a client or tapping into my channel brings back those feelings of magic and wonder that I had as a child when I thought of mystics, witches, and psychics. My inner child is so proud of me for taking the leap in believing in my own magic. Now I show up for the ones like me who doubt their gifts and magic. I hope to show as many individuals I can in this lifetime that there’s a balance of it woven throughout the mundane.

 

 

Auras by Deerborn

My longest standing offering and project to date, I started offering aura paintings on Etsy as snail mail readings. For my aura readings, I always channel the colors through painting, in a similar fashion as automatic writing. I might see, hear, or feel the colors and energies within an aura. 

From the get go, I didn’t think much about the interpretation, it always just flowed out of me into the keyboard. I felt confident in my knowing that came through when I would paint. I had lots of practice with this through celestial artworks which brought in channelings from higher planes. 

Person after person raved about the accuracy of my words and told me how they got what they needed to hear most from their aura reading. I am still in touch with most of my first ever clients from that chapter! My heart is so full when I think of the support and love that Auras by Deerborn has received.

This was the first time I really showed up, authentically and without shame, and the way I was received, and am still received, brings tears of gratitude.

How my aura paintings originally looked, 2015-2022

Now

I feel like the remembering of my Soul isn’t finished, and that I will continue to uncover intuitive and spiritual gifts to share with the world into old age. My reading style is always developing and shifting. In the last year and a half, my aura paintings started channeling through ancestors and spirits, which were confirmed by my client. Perhaps developing my mediumship is next on the agenda?

For now, I find deep satisfaction in flowing with the process and uncovering new elements of my work and psychic skills as my life shifts. I enjoy painting and tracking my aura, watching as Guides come in or new colors appear. The connection to myself and personal value I find in aura painting is why I continue to offer it to my community.

Final Words

I was recently watching a science show about quantum physics particles (I will always have that scientific bone in my body). The woman being interviewed, in awe, said, “I put together these experiments and know the reasons it should work, yet I don’t understand how it works!”

I completely relate to the sentiment. Even though I have faith and trust, even though it’s confirmed to me time and time again, I think I will never lose that feeling of awe and wonder when we connect with a higher force. I have even said myself, that “I don’t know how it works; but it does!” I love this about my work; it makes me feel like magic is real. So much more is possible, if we are just willing to slow down and tune into it with trust and love.

Thank you so much for reading! For anyone that may be wondering if they, too, have intuitive or spiritual gifts, but experience doubts, I’m here as proof that you can overcome these blocks and unhelpful feelings to step into your magic. I firmly believe that we are all capable of intuitive and spiritual connection. Lean into the curious mysteries around you to see for yourself!

Seeking guidance or support? Check out my offerings or find me at an event around Maine and New Hampshire!

Courtney Deerborn