In March 2010, I got to be one of the first students in Erin Pavlina’s Professional Intuitive Training Program in Las Vegas. You probably know Erin as a psychic/intuitive, a medium and a blogger (she’s got hundreds of free articles on her website, enough to fill entire books). But this year, she’s branched out by selling her own meditation CD, and even put on a live workshop on intuition in Las Vegas. In the future, she’ll likely be running her intuitive training program again – and I hope that this review will help you decide if it’s something you’d like to do yourself.

How did I end up in Las Vegas as Erin Pavlina’s student? Actually, Erin would describe me as her Padawan – if you need to ask what that means, consult the Star Wars wiki . I’ve wanted to develop my intuition/sixth sense/psychic abilities for quite some time. I’ve had readings with Erin in the past, and I was impressed with how quickly and accurately she’s able to pick up information about me and my life purpose. I wanted to learn how to do what she does.

I was at Steve Pavlina’s Conscious Growth Workshop in January 2010 – Erin was also there, as she was helping Steve (her ex-husband) with the organization of the event. A fellow attendee, a guy named Bron who had a major spiritual awakening at the workshop, approached Erin and asked if he could train with her. When I later heard about this, I dropped Erin a line asking if I could join in on the training, if there was going to be one. Erin was warm to the idea – and the rest is history. Bron and I would be Erin’s first ever live students

Bron, Erin and Alex taking a break during training

For extra fun, instead of flying to Vegas, I decided to hop in my car and drive there all the way from Canada. You can read more about that story on my road trip blog.

Okay, enough background. What did I think of the training? The short version: the training was an amazing experience. Erin covered a lot of material. I got lots of practice doing readings during the training. And Erin is a great teacher. She helped me gain the confidence I needed to set out on my own as an intuitive.

Want the long version? Read on!

What’s unique about Erin Pavlina’s training program?

There’s lots of psychic/intuitive development stuff on the market. But here’s what makes Erin Pavlina’s program different:

Comprehensiveness – Erin covers everything from chakras, to ethics, to the business aspects of being a professional intuitive. Because of the very small group size (2-4 people per training), you get a lot of face time with Erin to ask her questions.

Live Practice Readings – Erin will watch each student do several in-person and phone readings, while providing guidance and feedback along the way. When one student is doing the reading, all other students will tune into the practice client’s energy and compare notes about what they’re picking up. This live, hands-on experience helps to build your confidence and put your learning to practice right on the spot. I’ve spent a lot of money on different psychic development programs: books, audio programs and even phone coaching. What Erin offers is unique among all the programs I’ve tried.

Who is the training for?

While the program is ideal for aspiring professional intuitives, even those with more experience under their belt could benefit. It might also be helpful for people in a related profession, such as coaching or counseling. I say this because being able to accurately and quickly tune into the energy of your client can help you get to the root of their problems much faster.

You may wonder why intuitives need training in the first place. It’s not absolutely necessary to be trained. But Erin’s program could help you shave a lot of time off your learning curve:

• You learn a fast, reliable method of tuning into your client’s chakras, allowing you to decode their life situation and issues they’re dealing with
• You get to have Erin Pavlina herself watch you do several readings from start to finish while providing feedback and coaching along the way
• Erin teaches from her years of experience, telling your stories and sharing lessons she’s learned

How do you know you’re intuitive?

Maybe you have an interest in being a professional intuitive, but you’re wondering – how do you know you’re intuitive in the first place?

Society, friends, family, co-workers, etc. have all done a great job convincing us that either intuition doesn’t exist or that it’s unreliable. But the truth is, almost everyone is intuitive to a degree, but not everyone chooses to consciously develop and use their intuition.

Some people will have sharper intuitive senses than others, just as some people have better vision or hearing. Everyone is capable of developing their intuition further, and with time, training and practice, many people are capable of developing to the point that they can do intuitive readings for others.

Your intuition can speak to you in the following ways:

• You get feelings about people and situations that often turn out to be correct
• You easily pick up on and absorb the feelings, emotions and struggles of other people
• You have dreams that predict the future or reveal previously unknown aspects of situations in your life
• You think about a person you haven’t talked to in a while, and not long after, you receive a letter, email or phone call from them

Just because you don’t see spirits, angels or sudden visual flashes doesn’t mean you’re not intuitive! And the more you practice, the more intuitive you get.

My own intuition has sharpened to the point where I feel confident and comfortable when I perform readings – I didn’t feel this way even three months ago.

Your motivations for becoming an intuitive

In my experience, a good portion of a reading is spent in counseling and coaching; a good reading uplifts, motivates and empowers your client. The same message delivered by two different intuitives will be perceived in different ways by the same client. I’ll touch on an example of this later.

Before you set about this type of work, ask yourself why you’re doing it. What’s motivating you? Hopefully, you’re in this profession because you enjoy helping people with personal issues. You strive to bring out the best in others and gain satisfaction from giving others the tools and motivation to succeed. And you care enough to present the information in a sensitive, but empowering way.

What are your dominant Intuitive Senses?

One of the hurdles I ran into with Erin’s training is the way I naturally receive intuitive information vs. the way Erin teaches. We have five physical senses, but we also have five different intuitive senses. You’ve probably heard of them already as the five “clairs”, but I’ll review them here briefly:

Clairvoyance – being able to see images, scenes or beings in your mind. You may also be able to see beings or spirits outside of your mind, for example, deceased spirits.

Clairaudience – being able to hear audible messages from non-physical sources.

Clairsentience – receiving psychic information in the form of feelings and emotions

Claircognizance – the ability to know something without knowing why you know it

Clairailience (Clairgustance) – the ability to receive intuitive information through smell (taste).

My strongest intuitive sense is clairsentience; receiving intuitive information in the form feelings and emotions. I can “step” into another person’s shoes and feel their dominant emotions. I also have claircognizant moments, where insights in the form of thoughts pop into my mind unexpectedly.

Erin teaches you to tune into your clients using primarily clairvoyance, especially at the beginning of the reading. If you’re like me, it may take you some time to develop and get comfortable using your clairvoyant sense. At first, you might find it frustrating and want to revert to using your other intuitive senses where you’re stronger – in my case, clairsentience.

Erin’s clairvoyant tuning-in process has a lot of advantages – if you perform it successfully, you can see the size, shape and colors of your client’s chakras as well as a visual metaphor from your client’s guides about their life situation. This information is comprehensive, covering a wide variety of issues: finances, passion, relationships, self-confidence, spirituality, etc.

Before training with Erin, I did all my readings relying almost entirely on clairsentient (feelings and emotions) information. While such information can lead to accurate and very deep insights, it’s more difficult to interpret than if I received a clear visual picture from the start. A picture is worth a thousand words. A feeling can be any number of possibilities.

I now tune into all readings clairvoyantly, but later in the reading when my connection with my client is firmly established, I answer most of my clients’ specific questions with information from my clairsentience or claircognizance (a sudden knowing).

I find that practicing your visualization skills can be helpful in developing clairvoyance – on my Recommended Psychic Development Products page, both the William Hewitt book and the John Edward audio program have visualization exercises.

Outline of the Training

Here’s a brief outline of the major themes during each day of the training.

Day 1 – Chakras, Meditation, Spirit Guides, White Room

• Interview by Erin
• Overview of Chakras
• Raising Your Vibration
• Meditation to meet your spirit guides and higher self
• Meditation to meet your conduit guide and establish your White Room

Day 2 - The mechanics of giving a reading

• Tuning in to a client’s vibration
• Scanning the client’s chakras
• Asking guides for messages and a metaphor
• Answering clients’ questions
• How to present sensitive information
• Communicating with deceased people (mediumship)

Days 3 and 4 – Live Practice Readings
You will practice in-person and phone readings while Erin watches and provides guidance.

Day 5 - The Business of Being a Professional Intuitive

• Ethics and responsibility
• Pricing, refund requests
• Handling tough, emotionally troubled and suicidal clients
• Scheduling techniques
• Creating a website
• Marketing and Promotion

Additional material that was covered in a “bonus” day during my training but will likely be integrated into one of the five days in future trainings:

• Psychic Self Defense
• Shielding Techniques
• Raising Your Vibration

Day by Day Review

Day 1

Interview by Erin

Erin interviewed each of us about the psychic experiences we’ve already had, our dominant intuitive senses, and our reasons for pursuing intuitive development.

Overview of Chakras
We did a complete overview of the seven main chakras, their colors and their functions. This information is available on her website and from other sources, but you have to know the chakras, their colors and functions by heart in order to do a reading Erin-style, so it’s helpful that Erin covered this.

Erin explained that the process of doing a reading involves opening your chakras, getting your ego out of the way, and raising your vibration. When you’re doing a reading, you’re acting as a vessel to pass information on from your client’s spirit guides, while you translate and interpret the information you receive. She emphasizes that the reading isn’t about you and what you want; your job is to be that vessel.

Erin then led us through a long meditation that would set the foundation of the remainder of the training. First, I cleared my chakras, and ascended the celestial staircase leading to a door. Through this door, I entered a large, sacred garden where I invited my spirit guides to appear and communicate with me.

After allowing some time to chat with my guides, Erin instructed us to ask to be assigned a conduit guide. A conduit guide is a special type of spirit guide whose sole purpose is to help you perform intuitive readings. They act like a liaison between you and your client’s spirit guides.

My conduit guide appeared to me as a tall, beautiful woman dressed like a princess from a fairy tale. I named her Tiana (they don’t really care what you call them, so long as you’re consistent).

Tiana led me up a second celestial staircase leading to a special space called the White Room. This is the space that you go to in your mind’s eye in order to conduct intuitive readings. Once you’ve established your White Room, your conduit guide will greet you here every time you arrive in the future. Tiana usually greets me with a hug, freshens up my hair, and sometimes offers me a warm snack to calm my nerves

The meditation lasted about an hour. When it was over, we discussed what we saw during our meditations, and Erin answered any questions we had. Soon after, we were done for Day 1.

My comments about Day 1:

I’ve done many guided meditations trying to meet my spirit guides in the past, but it’s a totally different experience when you do it in person. I was fully present during these meditations with Erin – and had quite a nice chat with my spirit guides Quite often when I do meditations at home with recorded audio programs, I drift off in thought or the narrator talks too fast for me to complete each step. Erin was tuned into how we were handling the meditation, and adjusted her pace as necessary. She guided us patiently and lovingly.

Alex Wu and Bron Johnson tuning in before an intuitive reading

Day 2

Day 2 was focused on teaching us the mechanics of doing a reading. Now that we were assigned conduit guides and established our White Rooms, we were ready to learn how to do readings.

This is the basic process:

• Open and clear your chakras
• Climb your celestial staircase, enter the White Room, greet your conduit guide and get settled in
• Your conduit guide helps you scan the chakras of your client
• Then, connect to the spirit guides of your client and ask them for the most important message your client needs to know – this often takes the form of a visual metaphor
• Now, you’re ready to address your client’s questions

The size of a chakra is an indication of the client’s life situation in the area covered by that chakra. For example, if your client’s root chakra looks a small pin prick, that’s a sign they may be depressed and suicidal – the root chakra covers stability, security and financial abundance. If instead you see a large, flat disc, this is an indication that your client is well-off financially, with stability and abundance in their life.

When you’re done tuning into your client’s chakras, it’s time to ask their guides for the most important messages you need to pass on. Their guides will usually also provide a visual metaphor with an important message about your client’s life situation.

Once you’ve reviewed your client’s chakras with them and passed on the metaphor from their guides, you’re ready to answer your client’s questions.

Erin explained that the most common questions from clients relate to their career, life purpose, and relationships. This has turned out to be true in my own experience too.

Sometimes it’s easy to describe a client’s life purpose in detail, but a lot of the time it’s not that straightforward. What do you do then?

Erin described a couple of processes you can use to get a rough idea of your client’s life purpose in cases where it’s not obvious. These processes have been really helpful to me – most of the time my clients really resonate with the information I receive using these processes, and in our discussion we can usually flesh it out further. Some of your clients will come to you feeling really lost or stuck, and these processes have been great at providing them with tangible clues as to which way to go.

The remaining topics covered on day 2 were:

• How to move a reading along
• How to end a reading on time
• How to present sensitive information, particularly on matters of health and death
• Differences between phone and in-person readings
• How to recognize, contact and connect with deceased people

Throughout the day, Erin shared many of her own personal experiences doing readings, and how she dealt with a variety of situations. For example, she stressed that it’s often not a good idea to read for a couple, especially if they’re sitting in on each other’s readings – it makes it difficult to be forthcoming with your clients, especially in the area of relationships I probably learned as much from Erin’s stories as I did from the formal material.

Erin covered the process by which you can connect and communicate with the deceased – during the practice readings on Days 3 and 4 I was able to detect the presence of spirits using her process, but not communicate with them. It may take additional training and/or practice to become skilled in this area.

My comments about Day 2:

The process that Erin teaches you works. It’s reliable, it’s accurate, and you can tune into your client with as little as 5 minutes of preparation. It takes practice to learn to trust the information you’re receiving because it feels like it’s your imagination. It wasn’t until the following day during the practice readings, when I picked up accurate information about a client that would have been impossible to detect through visual cues that I believed in the process.

Throughout the training, I much enjoyed Erin’s calm, confident style of teaching and her openness to addressing questions as they come up. She was tuned into how well Bron and I were grasping the material, and rephrased concepts we didn’t understand, sometimes more than once

Days 3 and 4 – Practice Readings

You’re in the driver’s seat – Erin hands you the keys!

It’s time to practice and apply everything you learned in the first two days – preparing for a reading, clearing your chakras, connecting to your conduit guide, scanning your client’s chakras, passing on a metaphor from your client’s guides, and answering questions.

Over the course of Days 3 and 4, Erin scheduled a total of eight practice readings – four in-person, four over the phone. They were spaced out so that we’d have time to discuss each reading as a group and to prepare for the next reading. Bron and I tackled the readings individually – each of us would do four of the eight readings – but whenever one of us was doing a reading, the other was encouraged to tune in the client as though they were doing the reading, and to compare notes with the group afterwards. We were also allowed to jump in during the other person’s reading if there was additional information we could contribute.

I was both excited and nervous at the same time. After two days of mainly theory and classroom-style learning, I felt ready for action – but I was afraid that when I tuned in I wouldn’t get anything, or worse, pick up totally inaccurate information.

It was my turn to read for a practice client. Like a dancer who’s keenly memorized a dance sequence, I took care to execute every step of the tuning-in process in order. Tiana greeted me in the White Room as expected. She showed me my client’s chakras on a large flat screen TV when asked. The visual metaphors came to me when I expected them to. The metaphor meant very little to me – I found it confusing – but it made a lot of sense to my client. Everything was going well – my practice clients validated the information I was providing to them. Erin was nodding her head in approval.

Then my client started asking me questions – I was doing okay with answering them until some of the questions got into sensitive areas. I was glad Erin was standing by, ready to help me phrase my answers so that they were sensitive, honest and empowering for my client. If you’ve had a reading with Erin before, you’ve probably noticed that she’s a gifted counselor. She has a knack for helping people see truth and hope in challenging situations.

For the privacy of those involved, I don’t want to go into details of questions from any particular practice client. But here’s a representative example of a difficult question I was posed with, and how Erin would helped me answer it:

Client: Should I marry my fiancé?

I ask my client to stand by while I consult her guides – and it turns out, her guides don’t like her fiancé – they’re showing me that he’s going to cheat on her, leaving her very upset.

Of course the answer is no in this case, right? But I can see that this is a very emotional question for my client. She’s thought long and hard about it many times through. I want to show her sensitivity and empathy.

I consult with Erin about how to present the information. She suggests that instead of staying “He’s going to cheat on you and you’re going to be heartbroken”, to phrase it this way:

“If you decide to stay with your fiancé, here’s what you need to know: he may not be ready to settle down with one person.”

My client nods. She was able to accept the information and her responsibility to make her own decision. But had I told that her fiancé would cheat on her and leave her heartbroken, she probably would have reacted differently! One of the biggest takeaways here was the importance of developing my counseling skills. Hopefully some of Erin’s rubbed off on me.

I felt safe and comfortable doing the readings in Erin’s presence. She was calm and supportive, trusting me to do most of the work, but she stepped in when needed.

After two days of practice readings, I was exposed to a wide variety of situations – career, relationships, and even deceased relatives came through. I learned a lot from my own readings but also from watching Bron’s readings. I can’t say I felt ready to expertly handle anything that comes along – that can only come from experience. But I was much more confident in my abilities, especially when it comes to receiving clairvoyant (visual) information. And I had a better understanding of the importance of saying things tactfully.

Day 5

The final day of training was devoted to covering the business aspects of being an intuitive, ethics, and handling challenging situations.

• Ethics
• Responsibility and Power
• Scheduling Techniques
• Pricing
• Refund Requests
• Tough Clients
• Emotionally Troubled clients
• Psychic Junkies
• Suicidal Clients

My comments:

On the morning of Day 5, I couldn’t believe that our training was almost over. There were so many questions still on my mind. And the day ahead was jam-packed with material.

Erin emphasized that as intuitives, we’re not fortune tellers, we don’t fix people, and we don’t have all the answers. A lot is up to the client’s free will to make their own choices. It was helpful to hear this, because it takes some of the pressure off my shoulders – it’s my duty to communicate the truth to the best of my ability – but it’s not up to me to make decisions for them or take their power away.

In my opinion, the subject of dealing with emotionally troubled or suicidal clients is under-emphasized in the books and other psychic development programs that I’ve used. As an intuitive, these kinds of people are attracted to you. Because of your sensitivity, these types of clients can be emotionally taxing. As intuitives, we care deeply about others and want to help them. Erin shared a lot of her experiences in this area, and how she dealt with them. I’ve since had several such experiences of my own, and I’ve found Erin’s advice to be extremely helpful.

I took an extended leave from my job to build a business as an intuitive – so naturally, I was keen to hear what Erin had to say about marketing and promotion. I was hoping to get a series of concrete steps, perhaps even a general business plan, to help me get going. Erin was able to provide some tips and ideas for marketing and promotion, but I didn’t feel she was as confident in this area as she was on all the other topics up till now. A lot of her web traffic can be attributed to direct links from Steve Pavlina – but that’s not something the rest of us can easily replicate.

This was the only area of the training that left me a little disappointed – but I’m now learning about marketing from other friends in the psychic/intuitive profession, as well as from networking with internet marketers. Erin has also told me that she’s looking to improve this section in future trainings.

I’ve heard conflicting advice on pricing of my readings. Erin recommended that I start on the low side in the beginning, whereas other friends suggested I charge a higher price. I’m still experimenting in this area, but I’ve found that people expect a good reading from you no matter what price they pay, and if you charge too low a price, potential clients will wonder about the quality of your readings.

Before I knew it, Day 5 was over – and we were heading out to the Red Velvet Café, a restaurant in Las Vegas known for its vegan faux meats, to celebrate our graduation.

Erin Pavlina and her students Alex Wu and Bron Johnson celebrate graduation from Professional Intuitive Training at the Red Velvet Cafe in Las Vegas

Bonus Day

A couple days after our graduation, Bron and I were hiking in nearby Arizona when Erin called to tell us that there were a few additional topics she wanted to cover. We reconvened the next day to cover the following topics:

• Psychic Self Defense
• Shielding Techniques
• Raising Your Vibration

Psychic self-defense and shielding refer to protecting yourself from unwanted psychic information as well as communication and interference by negative entities. By opening yourself up to communication with deceased entities and other spirits, you also open yourself up to negative entities.

Erin has a LOT of experience in psychic defense from her own spiritual explorations – she talks about some of these in her blog. These topics lend themselves to lots of discussion, so it was both and interesting and educational day.

I would imagine that in the future, these topics will be integrated into the main part of the training and won’t necessitate an additional day.

The Skinny

Strengths

• Detailed, comprehensive coverage of the intuitive/psychic profession
• A reliable process for tuning into your client’s energy that’s quite simple once you get the hang of it
• Erin’s shares a wealth of practical advice from her own experience
• You perform several complete practice readings while Erin watches and provides guidance
• A focus on counseling, providing guidance, and empowering your client to make their own decisions

Weaknesses

• Information on marketing and promotion not as thorough or concrete as I had hoped
• If your interest is primarily in mediumship (communication with the deceased), this program is probably not detailed enough for you

Who I recommend this for

• Aspiring Professional Intuitives
• Counselors
• Life Coaches (and variations of this profession)

Is it a good value?

Erin’s program is definitely not the cheapest way to develop your intuitive skills. But Erin’s training program will provide you with skills and a credential that you can immediately put to use. The live practice readings and the personal experiences and lessons that Erin shares can’t be found just anywhere.

Consider that college tuition these days can run over $20,000 per year, with no guarantee of a job afterwards. With Erin’s program, some practice and a bit of savvy marketing, in just a few weeks you can be well on your way earning enough income to cover the tuition.

Final Thoughts

I think you can guess what my conclusion is – if you’re interested in developing your intuitive skills and have the time and the money for Erin’s training, go for it!

I felt sad when the training was over. It felt like it went by too quickly, and there was still so much more to learn. Looking back, I learned a lot, but it was just the beginning.

Before the training, I struggled with self-confidence when I did readings. After doing practice readings with Erin, I had no doubt about my intuitive abilities, but I knew I still needed a lot of practice to refine and improve my skills. My confidence and skills continue to improve – and I expect that will be the case for some time. If you’re expecting to be a Jedi Knight right out of training, you may be expecting too much. Erin will help you build a solid foundation of basic skills, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be a professional overnight.

Taking this training doesn’t mean you have to become a carbon copy of Erin – I find myself slightly modifying the tuning-in process for each reading based on the needs of my clients. You can also take your new skills and use them in a different format – you don’t have to do the same kind of readings as everyone else. At some point in the future, I may gear my readings more towards career, life purpose and finances, and add a coaching element.

My intuition is getting sharper as I become more experienced, and I’m even picking up information about strangers as I go about my day-to-day life. Sometimes I start conversations with strangers because of something I’ve picked up about them. I’m becoming more empathetic and increasingly fascinated by the lives and struggles of other people.

One of the ways I hope to market my business in the future is blogging – on a variety of spiritual and personal development topics, including experience getting established as a self-employed intuitive

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