This week, Mystic Mag had the opportunity to interview Chanda Parkinson, Psychic Intuitive, Mentor, and Author. We discussed how her career evolved, what services she offers, and what she loves most about her profession.
When did you first know that being a psychic intuitive was your calling and how did it come about?
Most psychics and healers have interesting origin stories, and mine is no exception. I was going to a graduate school in Boston in the late nineties when I lost 4 family members within months. Being a broke graduate student, I couldn’t come back to mourn with my family, so I decided to try to learn what happens to our souls when they leave our physical bodies. I was in my early twenties and I didn’t have a very strong sense of what that was, nor a sense of life that comes after this life. To my delight, I found a medium who connected with one of my family members, and the thought that a soul can live after this life excited me. Up to that point, that idea seemed somewhat dangerous and foreign. That’s why the experience was eye-opening and it felt like home.
When I really let it in, it was like taking a breath of fresh air. That made me want to achieve an out-of-body experience and I spent endless hours on meditation with the goal of seeing what it would be like for the soul or the spirit to leave the body. I was very naive and it was at the very beginning of my spiritual awakening. Through meditation, I also discovered my psychic abilities. I was seeing beings in my inner vision, hearing voices and guidance, and having experiences that were very spiritual. I didn’t understand everything at the time, but a little bit later I started asking questions and doing research, and I realized that I have actually tapped into my psychic abilities.
Then it just didn’t stop following me around. I dove in, head-first, into this passion and was exploring all the things psychic and spiritual. I was really set on my career path and I didn’t really intend on doing any of this for a living. However, interesting experiences kept happening and people who I bonded and connected with were crossing my path. Suddenly, I was doing Terrell readings, and I was invited into a chiropractic office on Tuesday afternoons to do readings, really low-key at first.
However, it spread by word of mouth, as can happen with a lot of psychics and intuitives. It was a process of around 6 years until I decided to declare myself an actual psychic and a few more years until I started doing this professionally in 2006, even though I was heavily exploring since the late nineties.
What services do you offer?
I offer a variety of services. The most popular one would be psychic reading where I tap into channeled guidance, answer questions, and check, connect to, and clear a person’s energy field. Sometimes loved ones come forward, as well.
I’m also an astrologist. In the late nineties, I had my first astrology reading with a wonderful astrologer. I was pretty blown away by the things that she told me and she became my mentor. She passed on in 2005 and left me her astrology library, which I’m so grateful for. I dove head-first into studying astrology.
I’ve been studying ever since and I started offering the service to others. I explore people’s spiritual gifts, as well as the soul’s path through the astrology chart and from its past lives to the present one. Evolution of the soul is one of my strengths when it comes to astrology, but I also look at the astrology chart from the ancestral perspective, finding patterns of ancestral trauma living through your chart and what’s the evidence of those, as well as what are you spiritual or psychic abilities.
Those are the 3 kinds of astrology readings that I do, but my focus is on the soul’s journey, the spiritual path, and healing trauma through the astrology chart. Having that in mind, most of the folks who come to me have concerns related to getting to the root cause of what’s going on with them, what are the obstacles they are facing, and how to overcome them, so you can say that there’s a lot of spiritual, psychic, metaphysical and astrological council that comes through the work that I do with others.
Additionally, I work quite extensively individually with people through the psychic boot camp program where they get a chance to hear about their gifts based on their astrological charts and then I guide them through a series of exercises and openings to explore their own psychic abilities. Some of them go on to do readings for others, while some just want the satisfaction of knowing what their gifts are and to get some direct mentoring and guidance.
Are some types of psychic readings more demanding or difficult than others?
Astrological readings require a little bit of time to prepare, so they require a bit more of my time and mental energy, but when I’m in the flow and channeling through guidance, it’s incredibly energizing. I don’t do strictly mediumship readings, where you can connect with your loved ones.
That’s because I find that, because I’m super compassionate and emphatic, during a moment of grief for somebody else, it drains my own emotional energy. It’s not that I don’t love to connect people with their loved ones, because I really do, but I just find that if there’s anything that is more challenging, it’s feeling somebody’s tender heart and grief during a moment where they’re reconnecting with a loved one.
I really try to pace those, even though loved ones sometimes come through really super spontaneously through regular psychic readings and I definitely go with it. The word is definitely “challenging”, not “demanding” or “difficult”, as I have the most wonderful clients and it’s been an absolute joy to be able to do this for so many years.
What is the most important detail in maintaining a relationship of mutual trust with clients?
For me, it’s being willing to be human and vulnerable myself. There are times in readings when I’m building relationships with my clients when it becomes clear that we’re sharing a similar experience without divulging a ton. However, sometimes breaking down the wall of professional boundaries might include sharing a story with them so that they know that they are not alone. I understand the zone they’re in and the emotions they’re feeling.
I think that it’s really important that as practitioners we aren’t afraid of sharing with others, as well, and that we bend down some difficult roads ourselves. I feel that the spiritual circle sometimes sends the message that we’re immune or that we’ve somehow perfected the art of being spiritual beings in human bodies.
That’s why I really insist on embracing both our light and our shadow selves and on finding ways to work with those different aspects of ourselves and our lives. I would say that the number one thing for me in building trust is establishing very sound trues that we are all living a human experience, we are all trying to listen hard to our soul’s path and calling and to understand and connect with our spiritual selves, as well as that we’re all experiencing pain, strife, struggle, and trauma.
What do you love most about your profession?
How do I even begin to pick one? It’s the joy of seeing others embrace more of who they are. That may sound like a cliche and generic, but it’s true. Whether it’s their spiritual gifts, psychic abilities, or acceptance of who they are, both as a soul and as a human being, on this path of life’s ups and downs, seeing them get it and find ways to utilize their natural given gifts, it brings magic, both to their lives and to me.
I love seeing people shift when they find some deeper love and acceptance for themselves. It is one of the most joyful things. I have been offered other positions and I have had other opportunities come my way, but I know that I’m for the rest of my life going to help people in this capacity. It’s definitely my calling and passion.
