Twenty-five years ago, I did a reading for a beautiful Thai lady. During the sitting I told her, full of confidence: "I can see you going back to Thailand."

She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked: "That's my dream. But I'm a single mother with seven children, living on social welfare. How is that even possible for me?"

I have never felt so stupid in my entire life.

What actually happened in that reading

I wasn't reading the spirit world in that moment. I was reading her — her hopes, her longing for her family, her dream of going home. It was written all over her energy field, and I picked it up and handed it back to her as if it were her future.

Because here's the uncomfortable truth about this work: what you desperately want is the easiest thing in the world for a reader to pick up. Your hopes live right at the surface of your aura. I can't not see them. The skill — the honesty — is in knowing the difference between what you dream and what is.

The hopes-mirror, everywhere

Once you know this pattern, you see it everywhere. You want to be on the platform? A reader will see you on a stage. You're terrified of platform work? Another will gently tell you it's not your path. You dream of abundance? Abundance is coming. The reading follows the desire — and the person leaves with their own wishes wearing the costume of a prediction.

The damage isn't abstract. Tell a woman a specific man is coming, and she may spend years measuring everyone she meets against a man you invented from her longing. That's why, on life-changing questions, I'd rather say less than more.

What an honest medium does instead

That Thai lady changed how I work forever. Today, when I see a possible future, I frame it the only fair way there is:

"This is what I can see. This is the potential I'm picking up. What you do with it is up to you."

I take my hands off your hopes and your decisions — because they were never mine to steer. And after thirty-plus years, I'll still tell you plainly: I make mistakes. I still sometimes catch a wish and have to check myself. Never trust a medium who claims they have all the answers, who's never wrong — or who can't admit they sometimes read your hopes instead of your reality.

How to protect yourself as a sitter

A few honest checks. Did the reading only flatter and promise? Real life has texture; a grounded reading sees your present — your struggles and strengths — not just a shining future. Were you handed certainty about choices that are yours to make? That's a red flag; here's what a reading can and can't tell you. And whatever you were told — don't reorganise your life around a single prediction. If it only fed your dream back to you, it told you what you want. You already knew that part.

None of this means readings have no value — the right kind, at the right time, can be genuinely healing. Here's how to choose. It just means the best ones leave your life in your hands.

A reading should show you where you stand — not just where you wish you were going.