by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.
Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.
In today’s episode of Creative Status, I go deep into INTUITION with Spiritual Medium and Psychic Medium Mentor Brandi Van.
Intuition is something that comes up a lot on the podcast because we can’t truly create anything REAL without tapping into the deeper parts of who we are (and what life is!) in order to keep making the unconscious conscious and to keep evolving with life.
Brandi takes some of the lessons she’s learned as a medium and applies them to creativity and intuition with a powerful four-step process that will help you get better results from your own intuition as well as simply being more open to it in the first place.
Another major theme of this conversation is learning to TRUST the process and going with it so that we can transcend our egos and grow more REAL in the process.
If you want to be more intuitive and creative, then check out this episode and see where it take you!
Listen using the player above or go to any podcast player!
Thanks a bunch,
Oli
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Leave a voice message to share your thoughts and to be (maybe) featured on future episodes of the podcast: anchor.fm/creativestatus
Episode Links:
Brandi’s Website: https://www.brandivan.com/
Brandi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandivanmedium
Brandi’s FaceBook Page: https://www.facebook.com/brandivanmedium
Creative Status Links:
The Creative Performance Transformation Lab: olianderson.co.uk/creativeperformance
Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/olijanderson
My YouTube channel: youtube.com/olianderson
Get my books on Amazon: amazon.com/author/oli
7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose: olianderson.co.uk/systemshock
Free one hour creative workshop to take your creative brand or project to the next level: olianderson.co.uk/creativeworkshop
Free 90-Day Journal Challenge: olianderson.co.uk/journal
The Law of Attraction for Realness (mini-course): olianderson.co.uk/lawofattraction
Show Transcript: Deep Intuition & Realness
Intro
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. It’s a podcast about improving your life through creativity so you can grow more real. If you don’t know, I’m a creative performance coach. I help people to bring more realness into their lives and businesses.
That just means that they unblock, themselves from whatever is causing them to distort or resist their relationship with the truth so that they can get better results and start moving forward in a way that is more aligned with their true values and intentions. This podcast explores how creativity is a vehicle for doing that, because creativity can help us to make the unconscious conscious, so we can stop hiding from ourselves, distorting our view of life, or resisting our relationship with it. Every episode, I like to interview somebody who is creative and interesting and has something stimulating to say about all this kind of stuff.
Today, I’m talking to Brandi Van, who is an expert in intuition and psychic abilities. Actually, you can check out her website to learn more about that. this conversation focuses on the intuition stuff. Brandy has a really interesting, powerful four step process for tuning into your intuition and getting the most out of it, so that you can get better results in life and do the things that you need to do. we talk about that process in this conversation that’s about to come up. So if you want to learn how to do that, then keep on listening.
Brandy, thank you so much for your time. Everyone else, thanks for listening. If you get some value from this podcast, please leave a review wherever you’re listening to it so that other people can find it. But other than that, hope this is, going to give you some value. Here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.
Interview:
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Brandy. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. This is going to be a conversation about intuition and various topics related to that.
You have some amazing, practical steps that people can take in order to be more intuitive in general. So before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, how you ended up doing what you do and what you want to get out of this conversation as well?
Brandi Van: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Again, my name is Brandi Van, and I am a psychic medium. you know, don’t get scared by those words, psychic medium – it just means that I have the extra sensory perception that ESP to really be able to hone in on my five senses and work that with my intuition.
So, that’s what I mainly teach. I have a mentorship program on how to develop your intuition and how to develop your psychic abilities. And so I take people through the processes that they really need to know to enhance their intuition. And what I hope to get from this episode today is just to educate your audience as much as possible so that I can try to help them out. if they have any questions on their intuition, I’m hoping to answer anything they might have.
Oli: That’s awesome. So let’s start right at the beginning. What is intuition, according to you? How do you see it? What is it? Do we all have it? Why do some people have more of it, apparently, seemingly, than others? What are the basics of intuition that we need to understand to be able to go deeper into it, if that makes sense?
Brandi: Yeah. So intuition is really like that gut feeling that you have – it’s not really a thought, it’s a feeling. So it might be in your stomach or your gut. It might be in your heart or you might just feel it in your body. So it’s really like bypassing your rational mind or your ego. It’s really just bypassing your thoughts and just tuning into your body to see what the answer might be and where your intuition is leading you. And I actually always describe it as the opposite.
So how many times have you been like, I knew I shouldn’t have done that? That was your intuition talking to you and you unfortunately didn’t listen to it. That’s what we’re trying to avoid because your intuition always leads you to the right path. So it always knows what’s best for you.
So it’s almost like having this little mentor right inside of you to ask questions and get you to your right destination. But if you don’t know how to listen to it or if you ignore it, then you’re not heeding its advice. And I think that some people just they might be more scientific, they might be more rational or logical.
So they go off of their thoughts more than their feelings or their emotions. And so that’s when someone might have a little bit of a harder time, really tuning into their intuition and, not saying that your thoughts are going to take you to the wrong place or thinking about something.
But if you want to live authentically, it’s really a matter of what you feel in your body and let that lead you, because your thoughts can change every minute. So you might ask yourself a question right now and in five minutes get a different answer because you might start overanalysing it. So, your intuition in your body is really telling you what you need, more than a thought.
Oli: That’s awesome. So this is a major theme that comes up on the podcast all the time. The idea that our thoughts and the ego or ah, sense of identity that we build around those thoughts is often something that is totally unreal in the sense that it may have had some survival value or whatever in the past.
But right now, in the present moment, there’s a very high chance that those thoughts are out of date and they’re going to act as a filter between us and reality that is going to stop us seeing clearly and prevent us from moving forward in the way that we actually need to, to be real or authentic or whatever. And so, the way that it often shows up in these conversations is that we need to get out of our head, into our bodies, and then we can basically just be in the present moment and make truly rational or truth aligned decisions that are going to allow us to make better choices for our life and all that kind of stuff.
So it seems like what you’re saying is very similar to that. We need to understand that our thoughts are limited. We need to tap into the wisdom of our body and then we’re going to be able to kind of get these answers that were there all along, but which we may have been blocking out with our thoughts and conditioning and all that kind of stuff.
One question I’ve got, though, is thoughts like you said, they are like temporary; they keep changing from the past and all this kind of stuff. The body is in the present moment. But do you think there’s a danger sometimes that, if we just follow our feelings all the time, that can lead us into being inauthentic or unreal as well, if that makes sense.
So I guess what I’m saying is feelings are temporary as well. And, the real stuff, I often think, is not temporary. It’s something that lasts. So is there something there? Like sometimes with the feelings we can get a bit lost and confused as well, as well as the thoughts?
Brandi: I mean, sure, I really don’t think so because when you’re living in that moment and your body is telling you what to do, like I said, it’s always going to take you to your right path. So as long as it’s not like a fearful motive, your intuition is taking you somewhere; I really, truly believe that that’s going to take you to your right place.
And, again, not saying that your thoughts won’t either – because the way I’m talking about intuition, I know I’m saying the word feeling or emotion. But whenever you think of feelings and emotions, you think of, you know, sad, angry, you know, like those type of feelings. But this is a feeling that’s really coming from your inside, from your inner body. And it might not even be something that you are emotionally attached to right now.
So I might be in a bad mood right now. Let’s say I’m angry but then ask my intuition a question. It’s not acting out of that anger. So really your intuition doesn’t work out of emotion. If you’re having feelings of, fear, anger, shame, guilt, resentment, bitterness, that’s not your intuition. Those are your everyday feelings. This is actually a different type of feeling. This is your body telling you something.
So it’s not those emotional types of feelings. Your intuition actually works out of no emotion. So when you feel an answer coming from a very calm, cantered place, that’s how you know it’s your intuition. It actually doesn’t have an emotion attached to it.
Oli: Yeah, okay, that’s kind of what I was getting at, I guess. So, the way that I look at everything, right, is we’re either moving towards wholeness, which is real, or we’re holding back. And hesitating because of fragmentation, which is unreal. It’s the illusion that everything is separate, that we’re disconnected from truth and all that kind of stuff. And I think that intuition is exactly what you just said. It’s a connection to the whole.
Like, ultimately, we can get out of our own way by clearing our thoughts out of the way, clearing all those negative and, to some extent, positive emotions out of the way. And getting into this kind of zero point, I guess, where we’re just in the present moment of wholeness itself. And, I think there’s something here around what you just said.
The language people use around feelings, it confuses people and it holds them back from tuning into this very real kind of intuition you’re talking about, which is almost the absence of emotion. Because I think emotion is just another form of fragmentation. Like, our thoughts are they’re things that are temporary that filter out experience of reality in the moment or of wholeness in the moment and stop us from truly connecting to it.
And so there’s a lot of people out there, they’re following their feelings in the sense of emotions. And it actually has a kind, of backwards effect in the sense that it stops them from really tuning into their intuition, which is what they think they’re doing by following their feelings. So is that something that you’ve, I don’t know, seen with your clients or experienced, that their emotional stuff ends up being something that they’re chasing instead of kind of dissolving with this kind of intuitive process you’re talking about?
Brandi: Yeah, absolutely. So that’s why it’s really important to realize that you need to become grounded and cantered and really, like you said, live in the moment, become mindful of what you’re feeling in the moment so that you can act on that. And so that’s actually more rational than if you were to act on an emotion or a feeling that you’re having right now. So you really need to become, a very balanced person to listen to your intuition.
Oli: Yeah, and I think there’s another element as well, where we have to balance, I guess, the left brain and the right brain, or the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. Because another myth that I’ve seen when people are talking about this stuff is they basically just try and abolish the influence of the left brain from their lives completely and then they become so open minded that their brains fall out.
So basically what I think we need, we need a combination of the two. Like, we use our conscious mind to kind of direct us towards our vision for our lives and growing more real and moving towards wholeness and all that kind of stuff. But there’s a kind of interplay between things coming up from the unconscious mind or from our intuition and then using the conscious mind or our conscious awareness to kind of refine and to respond to whatever that stuff is so that we can move off in the direction that we need to move off in. So is there something there as well?
Brandi: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So I’m not telling people to completely turn off their ego or their rational mind. You definitely still need that. But also, like how you said, remember, it’s trying to keep you, quote, safe and secure, and it’s trying to keep you in this comfort zone. So it doesn’t want you to take risks. It doesn’t want you to lean on your intuition. It wants to keep you in this safe place. It’s been in the driver’s seat this whole time, so it wants to stay there – but what I do tell people is recognize when maybe your feelings, again, your intuitive feeling doesn’t match with it.
And at that point, see your ego or your rational mind as a good friend, but they’re giving you bad advice. And so it’s like, okay, I hear you, but I’m not listening to you today, or I’m not going to listen to you on this subject. So it’s still there – you kind of have that as well, but you don’t always have to listen to it. And you can just kind of quiet it down and say, you know what, today I’m going to listen to my intuition instead.
Oli: Yeah, that’s amazing. I think that ego is unreal, but we kind of need it, even though we need it just so that we can transcend it, if that makes sense. We have to keep pushing what we think we know about ourselves so that we can allow more of that intuitive stuff to surface. And then we can basically integrate the shadow self because I think a lot of the time our intuition is calling us back to the parts of ourselves that we’ve already disowned.
So in your work, is there something around that? Like the shadow stuff re-emerging and then we become more complete and then maybe we can go on to the next level of getting intuition from something beyond the body, which I’m assuming is part of your work as a psychic and stuff, but there’s a kind of process we have to go through.
Brandi: Yeah. So, I have read that your intuition is like a little piece of your past lives that are still with you. So they could be reminding you like, hey, you’ve already gone through this, let’s not make that mistake again. And so that’s how it leads you to your right path. I’ve also read that your spirit guide is also basically like your little mentor inside your intuition.
So your spirit guide was assigned to you at birth, and they’re here to help you on this earth. So I feel like, again, you want to listen to it because it’s always going to lead you to that right destination, whether it’s coming from a past life or a spirit guide or from your present moment. as long as I said there’s not a fearful motive toward it, then you know that it’s leading you to the right place.
Oli: Yeah, that’s really interesting in relation to the main theme of this podcast, which is that, the creative process, whether it’s the creative process of creating a work of art or something, or even just creating ourselves and our lives, the creative process is ultimately about making the unconscious conscious. And so whatever creative impulses we get or goals that we feel like we have to chase in a very passionate way, whatever comes up from, our intuitive side is basically the unconscious trying to be made conscious again.
And I think, like you just said, it doesn’t matter if people think it’s like an angel or like a spirit guide or whatever it is, it’s all coming from the same place, which is the unconscious, ultimately, right? And if we can go with that, with kind of trust and not letting the ego get in the way of allowing that natural, unfolding towards wholeness to go where it needs to go, then we’re going to feel good, we’re going to flow with life instead of constantly stumbling over ourselves and all that kind of stuff.
So I’m starting to ramble a bit. One thing that you said that’s really interesting the last time we spoke is that you have a kind of process that you can take people through to help them to do exactly what I just said, I suppose, which is to allow to face their intuition, get answers from it, and then to act on it in a way that’s real and aligned with who they really are when the unconscious is conscious.
So can you do two things? One, can you basically let us know what you think about that, about the unconscious becoming conscious and if it makes sense in the context of everything you’ve seen working with people. But also, can you talk us through your process a little bit?
Brandi: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, the conscious with the unconscious totally makes sense, especially with creatives, because when you’re creative, you are creating something out of nothing, right? So if you draw a picture or you write a song, I mean, that’s something that was not there, that now is.
And that really does come from your intuition. Because whether it’s like you said, the spirit guide or your past life or whatever it is that’s giving you that creativity. If you didn’t listen to your intuition, your mind isn’t going to think of that. It doesn’t come from the mind; it comes from this external source.
So, yeah, I totally agree with that. I think a misconception is people hear the words listen to your intuition and it’s actually not listening, it’s feeling. I’ll go through that four step process right now. So to listen to your intuition, the first thing you need to do is ask it a question.
Because if you don’t get in the pattern of asking it a question, then you won’t be able to hear or listen to its answers. so, yeah, first, even if it’s an everyday thing, when you wake up in the morning, what do I need to learn for today? Or it could be something as simple as should I eat a burger or a salad for dinner later?
Whatever it is, big or small; you have to get into the habit of asking it a question. Then once you ask the question, you need to listen to it. And again, it’s not actually listening, it’s feeling. So you want to feel the answer. Feel it in your gut, in your stomach, and it’s actually instantaneous. So your rational mind starts working in 5 seconds. So you only have 4 seconds to listen to your intuition. As soon as your thoughts start coming in, you’ve already missed the intuition boat. So you have 4 seconds to feel the answer.
That’s how quickly it comes. And again, it’s coming from a place of no emotion, no, fears. It’s just coming from a very grounded place and it’s just something you feel without even knowing how you feel it. The next step in the process is to trust it because again, it’s always going to take you to that right place. So you need to trust that your intuition is going to take you to that right place. And then the last step is to act on it. Because if you don’t act on it, you might as well not done any of the other three steps. And if you miss any of those steps, you’re not actively developing your intuition.
Oli: That’s an amazing process because ultimately it’s all encompassing. With this process, we’re not just waiting for intuition to arise. So it’s not a passive thing. You’re taking control of the intuition while still trusting it to take you out of your comfort zone, if that makes sense.
So let’s break these down a little bit, if that’s all right. So with the ask thing, it sounds like ultimately we can ask you anything. So the theme there, ultimately, I guess, is that our, intuition can play a role in our lives, whether it’s a big thing or a small thing or anything in between. What are some common mistakes, I guess, that you’ve seen people make with the asking phase?
Brandi: If there are any so I can’t really think of there are any mistakes that you can really make. I mean, of course I would always say because I’m a spiritual person to meditate on it. So you might want to do it in a meditative state, but you don’t necessarily need to. But yeah, I guess the mistake would be to ask it a really complex question, right.
Instead of saying, “Should I move to a different location?” – which is a pretty easy one – If you start getting into details of like “Should I move? When should I move? What house should I move into?” And you’re asking all of these things all at once, your intuition is going to get overwhelmed and you’re probably not going to get the answer that you want or it’s not even going to be able to answer you. So you want to make it a pretty specific question. You don’t want it to be like this huge overwhelming question. So that would probably be the biggest one that I can think of.
Oli: Yeah, that makes so much sense because if you think about it, the ego loves complexity and so if you add all of these extra levels to the question like what kind of a house should it be and should it have a thatched roof or should it be an apartment? Whatever it is, that is ultimately an example of the ego trying to control the answer that it’s going to get, maybe. And so, it just makes so much sense.
Like if you keep it simple, you’re ah, removing the chances of the ego kind of intercepting without you realizing and affecting the answer that you’re going to get or just preventing the answer from popping up in any way, shape or form.
So the other thing that you said then about the asking stage I guess, sorry, the listening feeling stage is that you have to basically get the answer within 4 seconds. That’s really, really interesting because again, I think if you wait longer than that, the ego is going to get involved and it’s going to kind of distort your ability to receive, I guess, or listen to the intuition in the first place. So what do you think is going on there? Like if you could break that down, why are those 4 seconds so important?
Brandi: Yeah, and actually I just want to go back to the first part too. And I do recommend, like I said, doing it in the morning. Because if you were thinking of the question all day that you’re going to ask your intuition, your mind’s going to get involved. So at least in the morning, maybe you thought of the question the night before, I don’t know.
But you really want to do it instantaneously. You don’t want to be thinking about it and then be asking it. So in the morning you’re kind of groggy. So you don’t know what your mind is going to think about it yet. So that’s why I just wanted to reiterate that the morning is a really good time.
Oli: Yeah, that’s great advice. It reminds me of that, the morning pages thing – basically it’s like a creative journaling exercise. But the idea is you just wake up in the morning and first thing you just write three or four pages. Like stream of consciousness, whatever comes out. But the reason they say to do it in the morning is because you’re still kind of in a dreamy, sleepy state. And so your conscious mind is going to put less barriers between you and whatever you write. And you’ll just see what you actually think. And it’s the same kind of thing, I think, with what you said. So that just awesome. It makes sense.
So back to the 4 seconds then. Why do we have to act quick?
Brandi: Yeah, you have to act quick because as soon as your mind gets involved, you’re just going to, like you said, control the answer. And that’s not what you want to do. That’s not getting us to the right place. So that 4 seconds. Your intuition is just, gets you to self-trust, right? So you need to trust yourself and to trust your body, to trust your intuition.
It really is an instantaneous, very quick answer – and like I said, if you go onto that 5th, 2nd, your mind is going to start having fears. It’s going to start thinking of limiting beliefs. It’s going to say there’s no way that your intuition knows what it’s talking about. Listen to me instead. So yeah, it’s really important to just whatever you feel. And that’s why you’re acting on that feeling of very balanced, very grounded, cantered place to give you that answer so that your mind isn’t going to start giving you like, you can’t do this. Makes you doubt yourself. That’s what we don’t want.
Oli: Yeah. I’ve actually seen how effective this is in my own life. Sometimes if I feel like I want to do something but I kind of feel like I don’t want to do it, I do this thing where I say, right, I’m going to count down in my head from three and then I’m just going to do it. I don’t know where I got this technique from. I can’t remember.
Like I heard it years and years ago, but it really works. So in my head I just go, three, two, one. And then I get up and I do it and that’s it. But if I don’t get up once I’ve got to one, then whatever it is probably won’t happen. And it’s the same principle. I think there’s something about the way human beings are just wired where it’s exactly what you said. Like if we don’t act in the moment when the impulse arrives or the intuitive prompt, then we’ll just start talking ourselves out of it and go back to the old habits and patterns and routines that come with the ego stuff. And so, it’s just a great way to circumvent all of that old conditioning, basically. Okay, so far, this technique, these techniques, this process that you’re sharing is super useful.
Now we’re getting on to the third step, which is one of my favourite words and something that just pops up in every single episode, it seems, of this podcast, which is trust. And I’m so happy you’ve used that word because you can’t really follow your intuition or any creative impulse or anything that’s going to lead you to deeper truth and wholeness without trust.
Because when you’re on that path, you have to step away from the ego. And the ego ultimately is the thing that stops you from trusting life. And it’s fragmented. It’s not whole, all the stuff I was saying. And so without trust, you’re never, ever going to get where you want to be. So can you just crack this open a little bit and tell us, I suppose, what have you learned about trust by walking people through this process and kind of implementing it in your own life?
Brandi: Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Oli: Sorry, I was just going to say that’s a massive question, so sorry if it’s too broad, but yeah, it sounds like you were going to run with it anyway.
Brandi: Yeah, no problem. So, yeah, your ego is just full of fears and it doesn’t want you to take risks. So if you listen to your ego, you will never get out of your comfort zone and your life will just be very mundane. It will never get you to try new things, whether it’s food or experiences or relationships or whatever it might be. So it just wants you to kind of stay in your comfort zone and never leave it.
But when you can trust yourself, your whole life can change. I mean, when you don’t have self-doubt and you can just trust yourself, it just is a whole new way of living. And you almost have like a reality shift whenever you start listening to your intuition because your mind has taken you this far and your rational mind is keeping you safe. But then when you go on to trusting your intuition and you’re living really in a new way, you’re now listening to your body, to your heart and what you really want in life. And it really kind of shifts your reality into thinking like, I trusted my mind this whole time and now I’m trusting this other thing. And then you’ll start to see that it is leading to your right destination. So you do kind of have a time period of what is going on, what is true here, if I listen to my mind this whole time and now I’m noticing that my feeling is actually the one I should be trusting. But, yeah, when you can, trust yourself, so much changes.
You just believe that you can do things, you’re not as fearful to take those risks. M you realize even that challenges that come into your life, you start to change your perspective. Instead of why is this happening to me? Like your ego would say, you can change that to what is this teaching me?
What am I going to learn from this? What can I learn so that I don’t make this mistake again? And then you also can look at your past and be like, you know what? I’ve gone through difficult situations before. I trusted myself. I have that strength. And it can get you through anything that comes up in the future. So you really start to feel like more confident and that can really help you grow in so many different ways in your life.
Oli: Yeah, so one thing that I’ve found around the trust thing is ultimately you have no choice. This is the thing with trust. When you look at life, you can’t explain why necessarily, but when you boil it down to the basics, the only thing you can do is trust in yourself and in life. That’s how I see it.
Brandi: Right?
Oli: And you can only do that by letting go of the ego stuff. The ego, really, and our, need to cling to it and hold onto it, is a lack of trust. And ironically, even though we think the ego is going to keep us safe and help us to survive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, when we attach to it in that way, with this lack of trust, we end up being exactly like you said. We won’t take risks. We’re in our comfort zone.
We try and force life in order to maintain the illusion of the ego. And when we let go of it, if we can, everything shifts. So instead of trying to control things, we can flow with life. Instead of having a lack of confidence, we paradoxically have more confidence. Because we realize that we’re not just our ideas of ourselves, we’re an experience of life itself. Which is it goes back to what you were saying about this kind of zero point where we’re tuned into our intuition and we just feel completely whole and completely connected. But the reason I say we have no choice is because you can’t really talk yourself into trusting. Do you know what I mean?
If you try and talk yourself into it, that ends up being ego. And so something needs to happen in our lives where we kind of just wake up to the fact that this is just how it is. All I can do now is trust, get out of my head, know that I want to move in a certain direction and take the steps as they appear.
So I guess my question for you is if somebody hasn’t reached that stage yet, if they are lacking confidence, they’re scared to take risks, they’re in an ego with self pity. And all those kind of things that come with it. How do we get to that point where we realize, okay, I just have to trust? I don’t know if that’s a weird question, but we have to trust ourselves to be able to handle whatever happens by taking risks and stepping beyond the ego, blah, blah, blah. But also, we have to trust life to take us where we need to go.
And when we can get there and do trust in that way, and we make the unconscious conscious and we connect life to life on a deeper level, that’s when things work out. And in my life, that’s exactly how it’s played out. When I was in a more egotistical place, I was trying to force everything, and I was just taking action for the sake of it.
Instead of doing this work, you’re talking about, like, the inner work of seeing what I really want and learning to transcend my ideas about myself. When I was forcing life like that, nothing ever worked out because it was all my assumptions based on my limited understanding. But when I was able to let go and to trust, things just got better and better and better.
So two things there that was a ramble again, sorry. Like, one, if we can’t trust, but we know that we kind of need to start doing so, how do we do it? And then two, along with trusting ourselves, which is really important, what else do we put our, trust in, if anything?
Brandi: Sure. So I think the first question you had there is the answer to me would be to practice. So just like anything else, to listen to your intuition and to do that four step process. The more you do it, the more confidence you’ll get, because you’ll start to see this pattern of maybe you did say, should I have a burger or a salad later?
And your intuition said, Salad, and you listen to it and you have that salad, maybe you start to get more energy, maybe you lose a couple of pounds. So you’ll start to see the difference in your life. And when you can look back at I asked it this question, I did that four step process, and this is the outcome. The more that that happens and the better the pattern gets, you’ll start to realize, okay, this is working. I’m going to trust my intuition.
Oli: Yeah.
Brandi: oppositely, you could make a list so you could practice it and write down the outcome. And then you could also look back when you listen to your ego and start to see a pattern of maybe it didn’t work out. So that, you can start to compare, okay, I listened to my intuition, and it got me to this amazing place. But when I listened to my ego in the past, this is where it got me. And this was not an amazing place. You can actually do it in two different ways practice and then also make like a two sided list and see which is getting you to the better place. So that’s like a really good way to do it.
Oli: That’s awesome. And the way that you described it is such a good way to do it. Because if somebody is in those earlier stages where they struggling to trust life and struggling to trust themselves, it kind of takes a leap of faith to just say, oh, I’m just going to try it. I’m going to practice. I’m going to experiment.
But when they do, because that, trusting way of living is more aligned with reality, they’ll start getting results and they’ll start getting evidence. And when they get the kind of evidence that you’re talking about that it works, it’s not about faith anymore. It’s about actual trust. Because I think trust, you have to have evidence to be able to trust life. And so, what you just said is a great way to do that. Like, if you experiment, then there’s no pressure to try and force things so that they work because of anything we’re doing. But then when you start getting the evidence, you can start building momentum and it’ll just work out. So that helps us to trust ourselves, I guess. Is there a deeper level, do you think, where when you start trusting life, it’s almost like life trusts you more as well, if that makes sense. So, for example, I found, like, the more I trust, I’ll get more synchronicities and weird little experiences or things just happen in the right way.
And you could use the irrational left brain to say, well, because I’m trusting, then obviously I’m just more responsive to these good opportunities that are out there, whatever it is. But there does seem to be a kind of deeper level where I suppose we’re getting into the realm of the collective unconscious or something like that.
There’s an interplay between me and life that can only exist when I’m trusting life, if that makes sense. And if I don’t trust and I’m not listening to my intuition and all that stuff, then that whole sense of interplay is just cut off because I’m in the ego state. I’m seeing myself as being independent and separate from everything. But when I’m open to trusting that I am part of the whole and part of everything else, then it responds to me better. do you know what I mean?
Brandi: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that kind of boils down to the law of attraction. So if you’re putting that trust out there, you’re going to get trust in return. Just like if you put negative attitude out there, then you’re going to receive negative attitude. So it really is this mirror of reflection.
So whatever you’re going to put out, you’re going to get back at you. And that’s basically how the collective consciousness works. and then also, because we’re all working toward a goal. When you’re working towards something and you can feel that connection to other people, that also helps your trust level as well. I do think that the other thing is shoot, I lost my train of thought, law of Attraction, and I’m sorry, can you edit this part?
Oli: No lol.
Brandi: There was another part I was going with that that I completely it’s all right.
Oli: It’ll come back to you. But don’t worry. You got it. Okay, brilliant.
Brandi: The other part of it with the trust is to realize that the universe is abundant. So if you’re thinking in terms of lack of I wish I had this, I wish I had that, you’re comparing yourself with other people, and you feel like they have more than you. When you look at lack, you’re going to receive lack. So you’re not going to get everything that you need in life. But if you can see the universe and, the divine as something that’s very abundant, and you’re putting that out there, you’re going to get abundance in return, which then continues that process of trust.
Oli: Yeah, that is so true. Like, the ego, ultimately, is the illusion of separation and disconnection. And when you’re coming from that place and filtering everything through it, that’s when you end up with a scarcity mindset. But when you have tasted that zero state that you were talking about, where you’re totally grounded, you’re in a grounded place, you connected to wholeness, you realize ultimately that the truth is abundant with anything that’s real.
Basically, anything real is abundant because it’s going to last. So we’re talking about opportunities, love, blah, blah, blah, all of these things that are just never going to expire. And so, because we’ve tasted that place within ourselves, we can put that out into the world. And then with this boomerang effect you were talking about where what you put out there comes back to you, we are more likely to receive abundance and all this kind of stuff.
So this is kind of a good segue into the last stage of your four step process, which is to act. So, the question I guess I have around action is, again, it always comes back to the same thing. We’re either acting from an ego driven place or, from something that’s more real. And I think when we’re acting from this ego driven place, that’s when we just end up taking action for the sake of it.
Or we take action to try and fill some kind of a void within ourselves that is there because we haven’t been listening to our intuition, basically. And we haven’t tasted that grounded feeling of wholeness. And so when we’re acting from a, disconnection to that, that’s when we just chase things that we don’t even really want. Like, we chase material goods for the sake of it. We chase empty relationships.
We can chase anything, basically, because we give it meaning. it doesn’t have because we’re trying to use it as a substitute for that feeling that’s inside us that we’re currently disconnected from, if that makes sense. But when we have done this work that you’re talking about, the inner work, which for me goes awareness, acceptance, and then action. For you, it’s going ask, feel, trust, and then act. It’s the same thing.
Ultimately. You dive inside yourself, you see what’s there, and then you can take action that’s actually going to get you somewhere.
So the question is sorry, another ramble. I told you I had too much coffee before we started talking. But anyway, what is the difference between, I guess, acting from this ego driven place where we’re acting without listening to our intuition versus listening to the intuition and then acting? If that’s a good way to take it, yeah.
Brandi: So an example of acting on your ego, would be like, society tells me that I need to get married and have children. So that’s what you do, even though maybe authentically, you really don’t want to get married and have children, but you’re listening to what society has said, to do and what is considered to be safe and the right path that you’re supposed to be taking. But if you listen to your intuition, like, me, I don’t have children, and everyone in my family does. And they’re always like, why aren’t you having kids?
And I’m like, because I know deep down that I don’t want them. So it’s like, if I were to have them, I would be living my life for someone else. And that’s when anxiety and depression can come on board. And you don’t want those type of feelings. You want to live authentically, to be happier, to have more pleasure in life. So you really have to do what you want because this life is for you, it’s not for someone else. And so when you can live authentically for yourself, it’s just such a better way to live. Yeah. It just makes you so much happier. You don’t want to be living. They have their journey, and you have your journey, and you have to live the way you want to.
Oli: Yeah. Do you think there’s an element where sometimes we think we want something, but as we start moving towards it, we realize that we only wanted it because we were out of touch with ourselves, because we were trying to hide from ourselves, if that makes sense. So basically what I’m saying is, a lot of the time when I’m coaching people, I find, like, at the start of the journey, the coaching relationship, they think they want something because it’s going to solve all of the problems in their life, basically. But the only reason they have 90% of the problems that they think they have is because at that point in the journey, they disconnected from this real feeling you keep talking about.
The groundedness that we all need to feel real. And so before they have that feeling, they end up setting all of these big goals and things like that that they’re not really interested in. But it’s exactly what you said. Those specific goals, whatever they might be, they think are going to give them some kind of status or some kind of social bullshit thing that is going to make them feel like they finally made it, they finally fit in.
And sometimes, I guess you meet people at the start of coaching, relationship, they’ve already got all that stuff because they’ve been living like that. But then they realize how empty it is because the only thing that can fill us is this real feeling of intuition that you’re talking about. And when we do get that, all of those unreal goals kind of fade away and we just end up being led by life, I guess, if that makes sense.
This is the trust thing again, but ultimately, this is how it’s been in my life as well. Right. I thought I wanted certain things and, part of it was the social conditioning. Like, definitely the world is not reality. That’s what I’m always saying. And we internalize it and it dictates our goals for us and all that stuff.
But then we also hypnotize ourselves with an unreal path of action because we’re disconnected from who we are. And so when we taste our intuition truly, a lot of our goals kind of fade away and we just I don’t know, we find what we’re really supposed to do, like our real purpose or something like that. And I think when we get to that stage, the action is inspired action, basically.
Not just acting for the sake of itself. Is there something there that you’ve experienced or that you’ve seen with your clients as well?
Brandi: Yeah, it’s that same thing, that ego that wants them to have that status. And they think that that’s what’s going to make them happy. Or they’re comparing themselves with others and think, oh, if I had what they had, I’ll be happier. So, yeah, if you’re totally disconnected, you’re never going to find happiness. So you really need to look inward. I think those people are looking externally to find what they want. And they’re going to find out that that’s not what they want.
You really need to go on an internal journey, find out what you really want in life and go after those dreams. Not what you think will make you happy, but we’ll know because you go on that internal journey. So yeah, I think that’s really looking at external, gratification versus internal.
Oli: Yeah, I think what I’m asking you as well, when I think about it, is when people go through your process. So, ask, listen, feel trust, and then act. Ah. Do you think sometimes people, they find goals by going through that process that kind of scare them or kind of shock them or are just totally surprising.
Like, I found a few times when coaching people, they go through the process and then something just becomes obvious that they should have been acting on because it’s real, not because society says they should. And, because their ego has basically been trying to explain it away, it’s kind of surprising. And acting on it is kind of scary, even though they know it’s real.
And I suppose it goes back to what we’re saying about the shadow self. Like, for whatever reason, a lot of people have goals that are hidden in the shadows or in our intuition, whatever. And they’re always there, but we’re just masking them or, hiding them behind the ego. And when all the ego stuff gets stripped away, they just realize that they have no choice but to do certain things. I don’t know if I’m being too vague, but does that resonate with what you’ve seen?
Brandi: Yeah, sometimes people actually will get anxiety from it. I just asked my intuition something. I was not expecting this answer, and they just completely get shocked or surprised – and so for those people, I always give them breath work techniques to calm them down. I tell them, ask it again, make sure it’s not your anxiety. Make sure it’s definitely not your ego getting in the way but I think that that shock also becomes an AHA moment.
It’s that moment of, you know what, I didn’t think I could do this, but my intuition is telling me and really the breakthrough, right? I’m going to do this, I’m going to believe in it. I’m going to trust myself and do it. And then this is how people’s lives change and for the better. So I almost feel like it’s a good thing if that happens, because you are truly stepping out of the ego if you have that experience. Yeah.
Oli: I think that’s the best thing that can happen, actually, ultimately. I think what I’ve learned from this conversation, your intuition, if you follow it in a structured way, like you are talking about, then it’s going to return you back to the real path that you would have been on if the world didn’t creep in anyway and kind of distract you from what you were supposed to be doing.
And so when people have these experiences, we’re talking about where something pops up and it kind of scares them a little bit. It scares them because it’s a threat to the ego and the old way of being. But if they can trust and they can act on it, then life will be much more real, much more authentic. And they’re going to feel amazing. Because reality is, I think, the only thing we need to feel really good.
So that’s been awesome – we’ve been talking a while. How would you sum all this up? If you had any final words of wisdom, what would they be? And also, can you let people know where they can find you and take your courses and all that kind of thing?
Brandi: Yeah, the biggest thing I can tell someone is to step outside of their fear. The fear is going to be the thing that gets in the way, because, like I said, you’re having a new reality. You aren’t trusting yourself this whole time. So just try to get out of that fear, because once you can get through it, it’s so much brighter on the other side. You just have to face it. Like, see it as a storm. And on the other side is going to be the sunshine. And so just face that storm, and you’re going to come out better on the other side.
Oli: Wow.
Brandi: So how people can reach me is they can go to my website. It’s just brandyvan.com. That’s brandy with an I. And I know it’s a little off topic, but I do have a free PDF – people don’t realize that they are having psychic experiences. They might think they’re just having, like, everyday human ones and so I have a PDF that can show them that we all have psychic abilities. And one of those abilities is, of course, an intuitive. So they can find out right on that PDF if they are naturally intuitive. And this is the way they should be living life anyway, if they are naturally like that. and then I’m also on Facebook and Instagram, and my handle is Brandi Van Medium.
Oli: That’s awesome. So I’ll share all those links in the show notes. But Brandy, thank you so much for this. It’s been really, stimulating and interesting, and I just appreciate your time and energy. So thanks again. It’s been good.
Brandi: Yes, thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.
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