When it comes to intuition and the paranormal, there is a kind of “frightful saying” that once you go down that terrible terrible road, you can’t go back:
“once you open the door [to all kinds of spiritual gifts and phenomena] you can no longer close it!”
or
“once you open that door, you can no longer go back!”
OOOOOOHHHHHH
AAAAAAHHHHHHH
OH NO!
Except, is it true?
Can the paranormal door – once opened – no longer be closed?
First off, the people who like to share this kind of “wisdom” are themselves usually neck deep in all kinds of psychic issues already. And the people they like to say these kinds of things to are usually already knee deep in all kinds of psychic issues too.
So, even if it were true, it’s all a little late to say the least.
If there is something as concrete as a door that can be opened, at all, then let’s just say most people tend to open it without knowing it’s a door, or what it’s for or what it’s about.
Then once they’ve opened the door and stepped through it, there are all kinds of shady figures trying to look semi-wise by saying: “oooohh, aaaaah, once you open THAT door, you can’t close it again!”
As if you have any kind of choice to “unopen” the door at that point.
So my point is, most people trying to scare you about doors that should be left unopened have already opened the door themselves. Then, I highly suspect they made a mess of their own path and thus try to pretend it was “inevitable”.
You opened the intuitive door – now what?
Look, again let’s pretend there is an actual door. On one side of the door you have ZERO spiritual, intuitive, psychic, paranormal abilities. But on the other side of the door, oh my! It’s lions and tigers and bears!
And yet, Dorothy had a choice about where to go exactly, didn’t she? She could have walked any road she wanted. Sure, she was sucked up by a storm into some kind of other worldly portal… but once she landed, she wasn’t forced to go anywhere in particular.
So again, IF there is a magical ‘dangerous’ door, then on the other side of it, you still get to chose where you go from there.
Usually, the problem isn’t the door, the problem is the path people take once they walk through the door. Then, when they make really bad choices and go straight to the wicked witch in the middle of the creepy forest for life advice… they turn around and blame it on the door: “well, once you open that door, you can’t go back!”.
As if it’s all inevitably downhill from there. As if the door itself is cursed (it’s not). As if the only path is the one leading to the wicked witch. As if – standing outside her creepy feeling house – you couldn’t possibly turn around and run away… (no, because that would be rude?)
The “spiritual world” is much like the physical world. You can make good choices and you can make bad choices. You can join a healthy organization or you can join the mob. You can act stupid and lazy and get scammed looking for free money, or you can put in the work.
Can you get in way over your head?
Of course!
I recently read something in the newspaper about two travelers who got stuck on a freezing mountain in sweats and sneakers. They were purposely “hiking”.
Then they needed to be rescued by helicopter. There was a lot of commentary from readers along the lines of: “darn, that was stupid! I hope they’re made to pay for the rescue costs because this is just crazy!”
Exactly. It was foolish. Most people would not expect something like this to go well in the first place.
It’s exactly the same in the world of energy and paranormal phenomena. Just because you can sense it’s there, doesn’t mean you should randomly start exploring it on sneakers!
Also, in what world is there a guy standing at the bottom of the mountain saying in an ominous voice: “once you go up the snowy path, you can no longer go back!”???
(Spoiler alert: that guy doesn’t exist. Not at the bottom of the mountain, and also not at the top of the mountain. A guy at the bottom making scary claims would be bad enough but now imagine he’s at the top of the mountain telling you: “well, now that you made it all the way up here, you can’t go back down! Those are just the rules of the universe!” )
Chances are, those hikers had lots and lots of opportunities to turn around and go back down. There might have been some Hiker Ego getting in the way though: “we’ve come this far in our sneakers, we can’t go back now!”
The reality is that many people who walk through the “spiritual door” need to come back. They get way too excited about “special abilities” that they’re not equipped to handle.
Equipped: like having proper shoes to hike up a snowy mountain.
The Equipment you need, when you go through the psychic door
In the world of energy and paranormal phenomena your equipment is:
- honesty and humility (no amount of high-tech gear can save anyone if they have a massive ego and are semi-delusional about life)
- an understanding of basic energy principles
- tools to discern what is what and what belongs to whom (“Is that you grandma?” “Yes, sweetie” the wolf said…)
- being clear and practical about why you’re there. (no trekking around mountains in sneakers just because you were bored please)
- knowing when to ask for help (cue helicopter)
So, is there a paranormal door or not?
The idea that there is a doorway you should be avoiding is much too simplistic.
Are there areas in the spiritual world that you should avoid? Yes. In shamanism, this is the “middle world”. When you go on a shamanic journey, you go to the upper world or the lower world, never the middle world (unless you are highly trained and need to go there for a very specific reason, like soul retrieval)
However, many energetic and spiritual phenomena are simply here. If you have the senses to notice it, you don’t need to step through any specific door at all.
It’s like the clouds, or the rain.
People who don’t see the clouds might imagine that they are behind a special door but the reality is: the clouds are already here, even if not everyone can see them.
So, sure, there are scenarios in which you need to be told: don’t go there, it’s dangerous. However, this doesn’t apply to spirituality and the paranormal as a whole.
Most people struggling with something paranormal did not mess around with an ouija board. They’re not trying to find ghosts to talk to. The ghosts are just there, and they can sense them. Then they want to know what to do now. And then some person comes along whining about doors that can’t be unopened. None of that is helpful.
The reality is, much of our world already is paranormal. The paranormal is everywhere. It’s just that most people don’t notice it. Either their body may notice something, and their mind will dismiss it. Or, they don’t notice it at all because it’s too subtle and they’re not wired that way.
This means that for many sensitive people, no doors need to be opened at all for them to be able to notice something unusual.
Lastly, on closing psychic doors
Some years ago, there were many people coming my way who wanted to know more about “opening” their spiritual gifts. In true seeker fashion, they were seeking for the sake of seeking. If I asked them why they wanted to open up their spiritual abilities, they had no answer other than that they just wanted to or it seemed cool or something.
Most interestingly, they seemed surprised that I asked for a reason at all.
Surely, we’re all supposed to open as many of our spiritual gifts as possible, right? Isn’t that called purpose? Or Xmas?
Telling them that I specialize in helping people “close” their spiritual abilities was often not received too well. As if I was making it my job to make people “uncool”.
Yet the reality of spiritual gifts is that many are an energy extension of co-dependence tendencies.
Many people with “open” abilities are overwhelmed because they receive far too much information about things that are none of their business and that they can do nothing about anyway.
Imagine receiving 20 newspapers on your porch everyday and believing that you need to read all of them!
That’s the level of overwhelm I’m talking about.
Now imagine that you need to track down all the families from the obituaries to go and “help” them. Or that you need to solve all the problems mentioned in the paper.
Are you getting the picture?
This is what “opening gifts” often turns into. Why? Because opening your spiritual gifts in and of itself is not useful. It’s like subscribing to 200 newsletters (I know some of you do) and then feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with your inbox.
It’s much better to have a clear sense of what you are interested in and why you truly need that information, and then see if you have any spiritual gifts that you can finetune to help with that.
If you want to help the police find missing children, then yes, any and all spiritual gifts that might help do that are useful. But that also means that you can tune out all the info that isn’t about those kids. You have a focus. You’re not opening your gifts for the heck of it, just to overwhelm yourself with random spiritual information.
Knowing for the sake of knowing is just overwhelming
In my own life, I actively ignore intuitive info about others, unless:
- I am being called to help animals, plants/trees, geographical areas or babies with a paranormal issue (this doesn’t happen that often, so it’s doable)
- I am picking up on something about a friend or acquaintance and this is a warning about where my relationship with them can or can’t go (I don’t go and tell them about it, I just use this to make my own decisions)
- I get information for or about a client (usually about something they need to address, the root of an issue they are struggling with or something that would be helpful for them)
- I am getting information that is relevant to my own safety or direction in life.
In all other cases, I butt out. It’s none of my business and I don’t need to know.
Knowing things for the sake of knowing them is just overwhelming. This is why, when clients come to me telling me about intuitive input that they don’t know what to do with, I assess with them:
- when and how often do you get this kind of information?
- is the information practically useful?
- do you feel this info is in line with the kinds of things you want to do in life? (aka is it joyful? Or a burden?)
If it’s a lot, it’s not practically useful, and it’s not about something a client even wants to be in the know about, then I help them “turn off” that sensitivity to that particular information stream.
In other words: we close that door.
Because yes, doors can be opened, but they can also be closed.
Closing doors in a healthy way takes some work, but it can be done, often quite quickly too. In the end, intuitive information and contact with the paranormal is – in most cases – not inevitable and not an obligation.
The False Obligation of Spiritual Gifts
We all have abilities we choose not to use. If you were good at art and math and singing and looking after children and gardening and making clothes and being a leader and organizing trips… would you feel obligated to make all of these things into a purposeful job? Or would you decide which to focus on and which to leave by the wayside?
Spiritual abilities often come with a lot of “purpose” baggage for people. That just because it’s something paranormal, you have an obligation to “make the most of your gift”.
And yet, do we feel that way about accountancy, horse rearing or people who are good at designing stamps? Is it their obligation to society to develop those abilities (even if it overwhelms them?)?
Or could they perhaps make choices – like everyone else – about what they’d like to do as a career and how they’d like to spend their free time?
I believe in the latter.
Open some doors, close others.
Are you overwhelmed by spiritual gifts or “you’re not sure what it is but other people don’t seem to notice it” things? Set up a time to talk with me here and get some clarity.
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