How I Got Upsold a Past Life Regression

Hello earth angels and happy Friday. We made it through another week. Today I'm sharing a piece I've been sitting on for a while - an anecdote about how I got upsold a past life regression. I would love to connect if you've had a similar experience.

A few other fun Friday links for you ...

• A little guide to glimmers (loved this)

• A poem that got me through this really intense week

• Cup of Jo's Ballet Core roundup has me inspired about a spring wardrobe refresh

• A scent I'm obsessed with right now

• My latest & greatest playlist - great for crushing, daydreaming, etc. (also this, which is my Spring 2023 Rollerblading playlist)

And two shameless plugs:

I'm launching my Brightsiding workshops for corporate teams navigating difficult moments. If you team or someone you know could benefit from this, or you're connected to Learning & Development or Culture leads in your org - please keep me in mind! I'd love to talk more about my offering and how I can help your team.

Lastly! If this newsletter brings you joy, please consider sharing with a friend. Building a following can be hard and slow, and I so appreciate any word-of-mouth connections!

Now onto the fun stuff ... buckle up...

How I Got Upsold a Past Life Regression

When I was 26, I went to a psychic in the West Village. It was January of 2021 and I originally made the trek to Manhattan from Jersey City to hunt down a copy of Italian Vogue with Justin & Hailey Bieber on the cover, but after finding my treasure at SoHo International news, I passed a corner shop with “Clairvoyant” painted in beautiful gold lettering on the window. Always down for a mystical experience and eternally drawn to luxe storefronts, I buzzed in and asked for a reading.
The woman introduced herself to me as Sonjia. She handed me a huge, thick deck of tarot cards that looked as if it’d been used for generations. She instructed me to shuffle the deck and I obliged, weirdly nervous to perform the simple task. I cut the deck into three piles and stacked them back together, handing them back to begin the reading.

She spread the cards out into an elaborate matrix and told me about myself. I was creative, I had an old soul, I’d had a disruption in my family life. I nodded as she pointed to various cards, explaining their suits and how they interacted with the surrounding spread. I blushed as she emphasized how special I was. But, there was a karmic block hanging around from a past life that was prohibiting me from reaching my true potential. Naturally, I’d only be able to move forward if I spent time (and more importantly, money) working with her on a “past life regression”.

Impressionable 26 year old me was like SIGN ME UP. One thing about being 26? You think you know shit. And sure, you’re a little wiser than you were at 22, but not by much. And at 26, I had only the vaguest inkling of who I was and what I wanted, which I mistook as a problem instead of a natural side effect of being in your mid-twenties. I thought being restless at my cushy corporate job was a bad thing - a reflection on me. I thought the doubts that trickled in about my relationship were because I was doing something wrong.

So when a glamorous psychic in the West Village told me she could wave away my feelings of insecurity and set me on my highest path, of course I believed her.

And this is how I got upsold a past life regression.

After that first reading, she handed me a small multi-colored crystal, which she instructed me to keep under my pillow for the next seven nights. I did as I was told and returned to her shop a week later, the crystal in hand. She put her palm over small stone and nodded with authority - ah yes, this confirms everything I saw - and went on to tell me about the past life that was fucking up my current one.

According to her, I'd been a highly sought after healer in ancient Egypt, but of course that life ended tragically. I’d chased status over love and ended up betraying my village… or something like that. As she spoke, I thought about how drawn I was to books about the pyramids and Cleopatra as a kid, taking it as confirmation that I’d secretly always had a connection to this past life. I spun up a daydream in the style of the animated movie Prince of Egypt, watching my past life flash before my eyes and cringing at how that first version of me could have been so naive.

This was serious, she mused - more serious than she thought - and it was going to take more than just that conversation to lift the karmic block that was holding me back. We had more work to do.

At this point, I was in deep. I was convinced the work we were doing would truly make my life better. Over the course of the next month or so, I did ridiculous things like sleep with a red string in my hand, wrote down a list of wishes for my life, and continued to meet with her in her shop. Sometimes she’d call me from an unknown number, giving me “updates on where we were at” like a a fucking project manager. If I was picking up on anything suspect, I was burying that shit deep down. I wanted this to be real so badly.

For the final portion of our work together, I had to pay her a final sum of money, which she allegedly “burned as an offering to God”. I didn’t see it happen, but took her word for it.

Maybe in my next lifetime, I’ll have to do a past life regression to heal the skepticism I harbor in this one about what actually happened to that money.

A few days later, she called me for the final time and congratulated me on finishing this process. She told me the next three years would be the building blocks of my life, securing a steady foundation as I moved into my thirties. And oh, I could keep the crystal.

In the few months that followed my past life regression, I worked with the glow of someone who felt different - like I had a cosmic gold star and nothing could slow me down. I walked around like I was born-again, blessed and anointed by Sonjia the West Village psychic. Spring of 2021 was a prolific season for The Brightside and I was giddy about the trajectory I’d unlocked.

But before long, that momentum started to dwindle. I thought, it’s ok - I’m special. I can take a break. I did the work - someone will surely discover my talent and then I’ll get back into writing, creating, “achieving my destiny”. Right?

Wrong.

Summer of 2021 rolled around and I got distracted by the drama of ending a relationship, moving back to my mom’s house, moving back to New York, etc. I’d never felt more lost or scared. With Sonjia, I’d wished for a bright future for the relationship that I left - had I ruined my destiny? Had I put a curse back on myself? These thoughts kept me up at night, and writing felt impossible.

Luckily, in time, I came-to and remembered myself. I started writing again, I picked coaching back up. I got serious about a meditation practice to ground me in my own power, and found strength in my ability to change my mind. It took time, but eventually I rediscovered the things that brought me alive.

This whole experience was essentially one expensive lesson: a psychic telling you you’re special is not enough. You can be the most special person in the world, but if you don’t apply yourself, nothing is gonna happen. By the end of 2021, it was like I intentionally put myself on a shelf, a doll waiting to be played with. I figured someone would walk by and do a double take, thinking that girl looks special, let me take a chance on her.

What I got wrong after all of those expensive sessions with the psychic was thinking that someone else was going to discover my gifts and do the work to pull the potential out of me.
The thing I’ve come to realize about potential is that people can help you - push you, elevate you even - but no one can do the work for you. What makes someone special is that they see it for themselves - whatever it is - and they choose to bring the gifts alive. ESPECIALLY when shit gets hard and you "don't feel like it".

It’s not that I regret my time with the West Village psychic. I have so much love and compassion for my 26 year old self who just wanted to feel okay. In fact, it makes sense how easily I got upsold a past life regression- it was the middle of the pandemic, I was in a relationship that wasn’t right for me, I was just starting out with The Brightside … I felt lost. Of course I sought comfort in the validation and mystique of it all.

Now I’m 28 and it feels like I’ve lived a decade in the past two years. I do feel older and wiser than my 26 year old self, and I’m 100% positive someday I’ll look back at this moment with similar chagrin. I think that’s a natural and healthy part of aging.

What I’d tell myself at 26 is that it’s okay to not know, and it’s good to understand what feelings of discontentment might be signaling. Sure, maybe a past life regression is something to have fun with, but more likely what you need is a good therapist, some guided meditations, journal prompts, and a little patience.

If I leave you with anything, let me leave you with this: we’ve all got something special to share. But it’s up to us to pull that out of ourselves - and if we wait around to be chosen, we’ll never know that the magic lies in choosing ourselves.

Sending everyone love heading into the weekend.