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Becky Walsh started life as a naturally gifted medium and undertook training at both the Arthur Findlay College and London’s College of Psychic Studies. She went on to teach and give private sittings at the latter for a number of years.
These days, Becky describes herself as an “intuitive catalyst” and has branched out in new directions. She’s totally passionate about the positive benefits of acting on intuition, saying quite simply – “I believe it will change the world.” Her new book, entitled You do know – Learning to act on intuition instantly, published this year by Hay House, is currently flying off the shelves and it’s not hard to see why.
‘Self-help’ books have become very big business during the past couple of decades, and the prospect of developing the kind of intuition that could help us navigate more smoothly through the ups and downs of life will sound attractive to many. But what does it involve in practice? Defining the difference between intuition and psychic (as opposed to mediumistic) ability seems like a good place to start.
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Author Becky Walsh
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Living in freedom
“I would say they’re actually one and the same,” says Becky. “But I don’t believe that psychic ability is anything paranormal. Not to put too fine a point on it,” she adds, “to live intuitively is to live in freedom. When you know how to trust your intuition, you have much more control over your ego, over your fear, and can learn to live in happy abundance.”
Factors that can muddy
intuitive waters
I don’t know about you, but for many of us intuition can sometimes be clouded by our personal ‘baggage’. Becky tackles this early on in her book, and uses fear as one example.
“Being scared of not being able to do the job can cause ‘I have a bad feeling about taking this job’.” Past experience is another potential problem. “Having a bad feeling about someone because he or she reminds you of someone who hurt you before means that we can project our past experiences on to them.”
Four types of intuition
Becky divides intuition into four types: mental, somatic, emotional and spiritual. A mental intuitive, she says, “will receive ‘downloads’ of information into the creative part of their mind,” while a somatic intuitive “feels intuition physically, meaning that their body is a receiver of information”. Emotional intuitives pick up things empathically, whereas a spiritual intuitive “has a sensitive awareness of the energy system around his or her body – their ‘aura’.”
One-to-one intuitive sittings
These private sessions form a significant part of Becky’s work. Knowing little of what takes place during an intuitive sitting, I admit my ignorance.
“It’s about blocks,” she explains, “removing blocks. A block is simply a holding point while you are waiting for more information, and I provide that missing information. It’s a bit like an aeroplane waiting for information from the control tower that will allow it to land. I go backwards to the point where the client made a decision, which now stops them moving forward. The tools I use are psychology, coaching, spirituality and sense of humour.”
I hazard a guess that if a person comes for an intuitive session because they’re feeling blocked, they’re not necessarily going to be able to explain the exact nature of their problem.
“Absolutely,” says Becky. “People often come to me and say ‘I don’t completely know why I’m here, but something is wrong’.”
I ask Becky if mediumship plays a role in these sittings, and I’m surprised to hear her groan.
“I have a reluctant problem with it now,” she says. “It’s really tricky to explain because I had this strange thing happen. Because I’d been in that level of vibration, where all the perceptions of separateness dissolve and disappear, I realised that we’re all part of one big consciousness of ‘soup’.
“So I felt all I had been doing was pulling books out of a record library and telling people things. I asked myself what the heck I was actually doing. When I entered into that enquiry I felt the spirit went from being a person, to being consciousness, to being God, even though I still believe that consciousness will probably meet you when you die, but it will be like a projection rather than the real thing.”
I’m confused. Like some kind of spiritual hologram? I ask.
“That’s a perfect way of putting it,” she says. “So, even though in consultations I sometimes end up going into mediumship, it’s because if someone is stuck because there’s a piece of information missing from their lives when someone has died, it’s actually a really useful way to unblock them and cure ancestral problems. But I can’t say I’m talking to your Dad, because your Dad no longer exists in the form you knew.”
I scratch my head about this. Who or what is Becky connecting with, if not the consciousness of a ‘dead’ person? I ask if she now subscribes to what psychical researchers refer to as the super-esp hypothesis – a kind of undefined reservoir of all information, past, present and future, that can be accessed by those with the ability to ‘tune in’ to it. “I would say so, yes,” she answers.
Intuition, business-style
Another avenue for Becky is using her intuitive ability to help businesses.
“When you’re working in the Mind, Body, Spirit field you’re kind of preaching to the converted, so this is something different. Business is going through a massive transformation at the moment, and it has to transform in order to survive. Once upon a time, if you had the information, you had the money. Nowadays, most of the information is with the people, so companies are having to become transparent. But most companies don’t understand what their mission is – their higher purpose. It’s always been their intention to create a company that makes money, but that isn’t working any more. With today’s social media the company has to have a vision, and people attach more to the vision than the product. Steve Jobs, and what he did with Apple, would be a great example.”
Perhaps I’m a bit of an idealistic ‘lefty’, but I’m left wondering if a higher purpose is really at the forefront of the collective business community’s mind. Could this conceivably have anything to do with clever marketing strategy?
“No,” says Becky, firmly. “Because what’s actually happening now is that people see their business as a community, having to get to the core of its purpose, rather than the purpose being to sell things and make money. ”
So what exactly is Becky’s role in this? Where does her intuition come in?
“Mostly it’s getting to grips with the purpose behind the company, what they’re wanting to create,” she explains. “Then they can make sure that every single individual works in the company for the same passionate reason. It’s about looking at what the values are behind the company, instead of what the sales policy is.”
She adds ruefully that she wishes she could “get into politics to be able to help politicians, because it would be so much better if they understood what their values were.” And on that, we’re all agreed!
The stand-up intuitive
In recent years Becky has taken her passion for all things intuitive out on the road, in the form of comedy shows with a difference.
“I used to share a flat with a couple of stand-up comedians and that’s when I developed a love of comedy. I wasn’t very good at it if I’m honest, but then I realised I could actually mix comedy and live readings. And what got me excited about it in the first place was that, since guys aren’t normally interested in spirituality and intuition, girls could bring their boyfriends and the boyfriends would feel empowered because they could just say ‘Oh, it’s a comedy thing, so I’m going to go and take the mickey.’ So they would come along and suddenly they would be the ones having the big ‘Ah-ha!’ moment, because the girls were already on that track. So, really it’s a mix of intuitive insights which I give the audience, and improvised comedy based on life observation.”
And how does Becky pick the audience member she’s going to approach? It’s not as if there’s a message from the spirit world to guide her to a specific recipient.
“It’s simple,” she says. “They choose. I’ll tell them what we’re going to do, for instance that I need someone to rip up an egg box and throw it on the floor, and they decide whether they want to come up or not. I use comedy in the beginning to make everybody comfortable, to let them know they’re not going to be ridiculed. By then, they’re kind of excited and they’re up for it. Usually, for something that involves coming on stage, it will be a guy who volunteers, which is very interesting.
“And that’s great because I’ll be saying stuff about the guy and he’s standing there with his arms folded, face deadpan, trying not to show any emotion. But his girlfriend is killing herself laughing, saying ‘Oh my God! He does that – that’s brilliant!’ So, she gives the game away and it usually makes the evening really funny.”
Getting the word out
Determined to demystify the whole psychic/intuitive thing, she says: “I think it ‘s so valuable to get the word out that there are just people who think differently. Don’t give your power away to them but listen to what they have to say, because they do have insight .But you’ve got to listen to that insight with your own common sense and intuition, which lots of people who go to psychics don’t, and that’s what worries me.”
• For your chance to win one of five copies of Becky’s new book, You Do Know, see the competition on the back cover of this issue. For further details about Becky’s work vists: www.beckywalsh.com
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