I Was Told I Would Marry A Doctor: The Truth About Psychic Predictions And Free Will

A psychic once told me I was going to marry a doctor. 

My husband is in construction.

And that story turned into this entire episode.

This week we're getting into one of the most misunderstood topics in this space: why predictions don't always come true, what free will actually does to a reading, and the real difference between mediumship and psychic work. Because they are not the same thing. And mixing them up has left a lot of people holding onto something they were told years ago, wondering what they did wrong.

If you've ever left a reading holding a prediction like a destination you were supposed to arrive at, this one is for you.

Resources:
Free guided meditation: jennyshanks.com/discover
Awakening Your Path: jennyshanks.com/ayp
 

Have a topic you want me to cover? Drop me a text or voice note using the link in the show notes.

Free Resource

Want to start developing your own connection with Spirit but not sure where to begin?

Jenny put together a free guide outlining five ways to develop your intuition. Because the stronger your intuition the clearer the line to Spirit becomes.

Grab it at jennyshanks.com/five

Learn to Connect with Spirit 

Ready to go deeper and build your own connection with Spirit? Awakening Your Path is a self paced program designed specifically to help you develop your own language with Spirit and start receiving clearly on your own.

www.jennyshanks.com/ayp

Connect With Jenny

Website: jennyshanks.com 

Instagram: @spiritual_medium_jenny 

Book a Reading: jennyshanks.com/services

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Seriously Dead. I'm Jenny Shanks, a spiritual medium, and I talk to dead people for a living. This podcast is your beyond the grave look at what your loved ones in spirit actually want you to know. And spoiler alert, after 10 years of doing this work, here's the truth. Your spirit family wants you to know they're okay and you are too. How do I know? Because the dead are a lot of things, but one thing they're not is quiet. So get comfortable before you press play because we're getting seriously dead with your loved ones in spirit right now. A listener sent me a message recently that I've not been able to stop thinking about. She asked me something with genuine curiosity. Why do some readings people have had over the years, things they were told with certainty, not always come true? I want to answer that today, and I'm also going to share something with you that maybe makes you laugh. A psychic once told me that I was going to marry a doctor. My husband's in construction, definitely not a doctor. Well, I mean, maybe a doctor of building, right? But here's the thing: that story is actually the perfect entry point into everything I want to talk about today. Predictions, free will, the difference between mediumship and psychic work, and why spirit is not in the business of handing out yes or no answers to your questions about your future. Before anything else, I want to clear something up. Something that I think maybe causes a lot of confusion and a lot of disappointment for people who come for readings with certain expectations. Mediumship and psychic work are not the same thing. They live under the same general umbrella in most people's minds, but they are two very different practices with two very different purposes. Psychic work is about reading energy, the energy of the person's current path, their current trajectory, the direction their life appears to be heading based on where they are right now. A psychic can pick up on possibilities, probabilities, patterns that suggest a certain outcome if certain things stay the same or happen in a certain way. Mediumship, on the other hand, is something entirely different. Mediumship is direct communication with spirit, with the people who have passed, and spirit does not operate the way a psychic reading operates. Spirit does not give predictions. Spirit does not hand out yeses or no's to your questions. Spirit does not sit on the other side with a calendar and a timeline and a list of things that are definitely going to happen on specific dates. What spirit does though is they keep you on the right path. I like to think about it as bumpers at a bowling alley. You know, when you're a child and you're learning to bowl and they put those bumpers up on each side of the lane so that the ball cannot go into the gutter. That's what spirit does. Spirit's not rolling the ball for you. Spirit's not telling you which pin to aim for or guaranteeing that you're going to get a strike. Spirit's keeping the bumpers up so that no matter how the ball rolls, it stays in the lane. That's the role of spirit in your life. Not prediction, not certainty, but guidance and direction and a gentle nudge back towards the path when life starts to pull us towards the gutters. Now let me come back to my doctor here. A psychic told me years ago that I was going to marry a doctor. And at the time, I took that in a way that most people take predictions. I filed it away and held on to it. Some part of me was probably looking for it. I mean, quite honestly, I spent nearly 20 years in the medical field. So single doctor came by. Hmm, is this the doctor? But my life shifted and changed. And I'm now married to an incredible man who's in construction. He's wonderful. He's exactly the person for my life. And he is as far from a doctor as you can even imagine. Well, that's unless you want to like consider fixing things a doctor. I mean, maybe he's qualified to be a doctor, doctor of building buildings. But here's what I want you to understand about that prediction. The psychic was not lying. The psychic was not making it up. That psychic that day was reading the energy of a possibility based on the path that I was on at the time of my life, in that moment. And somewhere in that energy was something that looked like a doctor to her. Maybe it was the care. Maybe it was the way my husband shows up for people. Maybe it was the passion that he has for his profession. Maybe it was something entirely different. But through the lens of that psychic, that's what she saw. But between that reading and the moment that I actually met my husband, my path changed. My life detoured. I became someone different from the person that was sitting in that psychic's chairs all those years ago. And the person I became attracted a completely different future than the one that was visible on that day. That's free will. That is life in motion. And that is why holding on to a prediction with a closed fist instead of an open heart is one of the most limiting things that you can do for yourself. Now let me answer the listener's question directly because she deserves this real answer. Why do things people were told with certainty in a reading not always come true? There's a few reasons here. The first is free will. You are not a fixed point. You are a human being in constant motion, making choices every single day. The same is true for future information and predictions. Something that was shown in a reading two years ago might still be coming in. It just hasn't arrived yet because you are still learning what you need to learn in order to be ready for it. The third is the lesson. Sometimes the path takes longer because something still needs to happen first. A relationship that needs to end, a version of yourself that needs to be built, a lesson that needs to be lived before the thing that was predicted can actually land in your life the way that it serves you at the highest good. And the fourth is translation. A psychic is a human being interpreting energy through their own experience, their own symbols, their own understanding. Sometimes the translation is slightly off. Not because the energy was wrong, but because the language used to describe it did not quite capture what was actually there. My husband is not a doctor, but the energy that surrounded him, the care, the reliability, the way he shows up, maybe that's what it looked like as a doctor to this psychic. The translation was imperfect. The underlying truth was not. Here is something I want to be honest about for my own practice. I don't like to predict. I don't enjoy it. It's one of the reasons why I call myself a spiritual medium and not a psychic medium. It's not because I can't pick up on future energy, because I don't think it serves a client to hand them a prediction and send them out into the world, holding it like a destination they are supposed to arrive at. But I was deep in my corporate life, jet setting between cities, completely unable to imagine what that would even look like. The prediction was accurate. I do, in fact, now own my own business. But if I had spent those years fixated on what was going to happen, when it was going to happen, instead of living my life that was in front of me, I would have missed everything I needed in order to make this happen. The corporate career taught me things I didn't know I needed to learn. The spiritual awakening that showed me what business was actually supposed to be, the version of myself I had to become before I was ready to build it. Spirit knew. Spirit kept the bumpers up. And my life got there on its own timeline. What I do in a reading is share what I experience, what spirit brings through. And I share it gently, not as certainty, but as possibility, as information a client can hold loosely and pay attention to without letting it become the thing that they are waiting for instead of actually living their life. Because a client who comes to a reading looking for predictions is not fully in their own light yet. A client like that is looking outside of themselves for answers that are actually already inside of them. And my job is not to hand them a prediction. My job is to help them trust themselves enough to follow their own path without needing someone else to tell them where it ends. So, what do you do if you're that person who had a reading years ago and something you were told with certainty never happened? First, give yourself permission to let it go. A prediction that did not come true is not proof that the reading was fake or that the medium or psychic was lying, or that spirit doesn't exist, or that you did something wrong. It is proof that you are a human being with free will, living a life in motion. Your path changed, your choices changed. The version of you that sat in that chair is not the same version of you that exists today. And the future that was visible on that day might not be the future that is available for you now, which might actually be a better thing than you even realize. Second, consider the detour. Where did your path go between that reading and today? What choices did you make? What unexpected things happened? What did you learn? Who did you become? Because very often the detour is not a mistake. The detour is the actual path. The thing that was predicted was just one possible version of a destination. And the life you actually lived got you somewhere real. And third, stop waiting. This is the one I want to say most directly to the person who sent me this message. Stop holding on to predictions as something that is supposed to happen to you and start paying attention to the life that's already happening around you. The signs, the nudges, the quiet knowing that's already inside of you trying to get your attention. Because your loved one in spirit is not handing you a roadmap. Spirit is walking next to you, keeping those bumpers up, sending signs, and nudging you back towards the lane when life pulls you to the gutter. That is the relationship. And that is so much better than a prediction. If you walk away from this episode with one thing, let it be this: you have free will. Your life is in motion, and a prediction is not a destination you are supposed to arrive at. It is a possibility that existed on day one based on one path. Your path has changed since then. And the life you are living right now is not a detour from the plan. It is the plan. Spirit is not trying to hand you certainty. Spirit is trying to keep you in the lane. And the more you learn to trust yourself, to pay attention to the signs, to follow your intuition instead of waiting for someone else to tell you what comes next, the more clearly you will be able to hear what spirit is actually saying. And for the record, my husband may not be a doctor, but he is exactly right for my life. Sometimes spirit knows better than a prediction. Now, if this one landed for you, don't keep it in the spirit vault. Share it with someone who's been holding on to a prediction that maybe never came true. And I'd love to hear from you. If you have ideas for future podcast topics, head over to the show notes and drop me a text or a voice note. If you're ready to start trusting yourself and building your own connection with spirit, you can grab my free guided meditation that's linked in the show notes. This meditation guides you to understand the difference between your intuition and your ego, because your intuition is a portal that spirit uses to communicate. I'll be back next week with another episode of Seriously Dead. And until then, stay open, stay curious, and remember, the dead are not quiet. You just have to learn to listen to the 2020.