I’ve been reviewing some old posts on this blog and came across one I published in March 2012, over 10 years ago, that really got my attention.

I posted about a psychic reading I got from Joe Nicols, whom many consider the best psychic in Austin.

Reposting a shortened version below:

Today Joe Nicols, a long-time, well-known Austin palmist/psychic, read my hands in a 10-minute reading. I found what he had to say interesting and am considering going back to him for a full reading. [Note: I haven’t done that yet.]

He told me I’d been blind in a previous life, and that I’m very careful who I listen to. He said he was flattered that I was listening to him.

Joe told me that I’d been a healer for many, many lifetimes, doing healing of various types — as a doctor, midwife, and more. [That was surprising in 2012, but not now. I am a healer, and I needed to heal myself first. Not that it’s ever complete…]

He said I came into this lifetime ready to make a mark, but that factors in my early life dampened that.

True.

He said I have the mark of an athlete in my hands. That was surprising, but yep, if you consider yoga and dance athletic.

He also said that I could have done many things in this lifetime. He said I could have been an engineer, for instance. [I don’t see it. At all. It doesn’t interest me — and I’m glad others find it worthwhile. But humanitarian, anthropologist, researcher, writer, editor, teacher, trainer, coach, medical and alternative medical, artist, poet, musician, counselor, advisor, yes.]

Joe also said I’d been a writer in many, many lifetimes, and that I was once a man who wrote with a quill pen! [If so, I wonder what his name was and if I could read something “I” wrote. Whoa!]

You could say that by blogging about wellness and practicing massage, I’m continuing two karmic traditions. Joe did not know until later that that’s what I do.

Joe told me that I’m not materialistic and can’t be bought. Yep, I know that’s true. Money matters, but ethics matter more.

Joe also spoke to me about having an aversion to being trapped, because I wear no jewelry on my hands. (I said, “But I’m a massage therapist. I don’t wear rings or bracelets when I’m working, so it’s easier not to wear them at all.” He replied that my conscious mind may understand it that way, but it’s deeper than that.)

Go figure.

Yes, of course I have an aversion to being trapped! Who the heck wants to be trapped?

I asked him what was wrong with that, and he made it sound like it was necessary to allow oneself to be trapped to be in a relationship.

Hmm. I still don’t like it. Surely there’s got to be a happy place of being in a relationship and not feeling trapped. I just don’t want to give up my autonomy. I believe I can have both autonomy and intimacy in a committed relationship. It will just take the right person with a similar outlook.

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What’s crazy about this reading, from over 10 years ago, is this: I really don’t know about past lives and reincarnation. It’s a concept that’s huge in Hinduism and Buddhism, but not in Western culture.

And although I am drawn to the spirituality in Hinduism and Buddhism, I am a Westerner. I have no clear memories of any of my past lives and haven’t spent much time thinking about it.

That’s not to say it’s impossible.

I once had a spontaneous visualization that my young husband, Roger, who died a few years ago many years after we divorced, and I had danced together at a formal ball, and he was in a military uniform.

Since no one has formal balls with dancing in modern times, it must have been from a time when they were popular.

Was that my imagination, romanticizing our relationship?

I don’t know.

What seems more realistic to me is that talk about past lives is more related to traits in the current life.

Genetically, I have a slightly increased risk of macular degeneration. So does my daughter. So there’s an indication of blindness in my genes.

My mother’s father’s mother, Emily Ann Moore Frazier, became blind in her old age, and my mother read Shakespeare and the Bible aloud to her when she was a child — and later majored in English at UT/Austin.

Emily Ann very likely had macular degeneration. She is one of my ancestors whom I relate to.

I am very careful who I listen to. Insight and truth count for a lot.

I am very drawn to healing. Maybe I really was a healer for many, many lifetimes. I just don’t remember.

The interesting thing is that when I was in massage school the year before I got this reading, I was starting to study anatomy for the first time and felt a bit intimidated.

I told myself that I’d been a doctor in previous lives and that I knew anatomy so well that this new learning was really just review. I understood the role beliefs play and “created” this belief to help me learn.

That mindset worked! I had no issue with learning anatomy and indeed reveled in the Latin names, such as trapezius, levator scapula, and vomer. Also, I’d chosen to take Latin in high school. It helped.

I am now an anatomy geek.

Healing is what I do now and plan to do for the rest of my life, as long as circumstances permit. It feels like one of the highest purposes a human can aspire to, and I feel humble, privileged, and always open to learning more so I can continue to do it and be of service to relieve suffering in this world, while expanding my understanding about health and how to augment it.

So what about coming into this lifetime to make a mark but factors in my early life dampened that?

When I was 11, my 6-year-old sister was raped and murdered by a teenage neighbor boy. That is the kind of traumatic tragedy that a person doesn’t get over quickly. I had PTSD before PTSD was even recognized. I didn’t feel safe in this world where people went around raping and murdering little girls — it was a fact, from what I knew!

I wanted to hide. I didn’t feel safe. Not to mention, the grief. I lost my sister.

It really thwarted my development. I did go to therapy, but the therapists weren’t skilled enough then to help me. And in fairness, I could not have told anyone “what was wrong”. I didn’t know either. I was a child and had no perspective. My parents were grief-stricken and not available enough to notice my suffering through their own, and even if they had, the right kind of help simply hadn’t been developed yet.

I am so grateful for Peter Levine and Stephen Porges.

I finally found a good therapist in 2002 and spent two years focused on processing my trauma and really, recalibrating my identity. I didn’t know who I was. I do, now.

I don’t know that the trauma processing is complete, but I’m doing a whole lot better now. It’s sort of a background issue that only occasionally comes into consciousness.

I care deeply about my family.

And yes, I still want to make a mark in this lifetime, as a writer, teacher, and healer. I have more resources to manifest that now.

About being an athlete: I’m not competitive, but I have worked long and hard on my alignment issues and recovery from injuries to have flexibility, strength, and full range of motion and to be able to express myself through dance.

Music and dance are happy places for me. I am embodied.

Another hand reader, Bonnie at the Taos Farmers Market, saw something in my hand that indicated a great sense of rhythm: sports, riding horses, music, or drumming? Nope, it’s dance.

About being a writer…writing comes easily to me. I was an avid reader when young and absorbed much about the written word.

My mother was a teacher with an English degree who made me look words up in the dictionary. My father was a minister who later got a doctorate in linguistics. So…I come from a very language- and literacy-oriented family.

I didn’t have any problems writing essays and book reports in school. It came naturally. I worked at a daily newspaper in my 20s and wrote an article that won a statewide award — and I wasn’t even on the editorial staff.

I’ve journaled for decades. Writing was something that came easily to me.

Not materialistic? Yep. I live in a vintage trailer with limited space, which forces me to pare down on my belongings. I like having just what I need, just essentials. I am happy to not have to keep up with a lot of stuff. I have better things to do with my time.

Everything he said about relationship and fear of being trapped… I’m a high-autonomy person. I do understand that there are issues to work out in close relationships, and that’s worthwhile if the relationship is good enough. I stick it out unless there are issues make the relationship unsustainable.

I love intimacy. I just don’t want to feel stuck or trapped.

I still believe it’s possible to have a relationship that’s both intimate and high in autonomy for both people. Having a purpose and respecting and supporting each other’s purpose can make it work, in my estimation.