Psychic's journey

Few people find the courage to throw it all in for a career change, but Helen Thomas may have had the advantage of hindsight at the outset.

Helen's decision to forfeit the security of a fortnightly pay cheque in order to pursue a career - an unconventional one at that - was not without turmoil.

The former public relations consultant has abandoned the stress of the morning commute, queuing for cappuccinos and corporate wear for a career as a psychic.

In a simple blue dress with her hair tied neatly off her face, Helen does not represent a stereotypical new-age fortune teller, although her calm demeanour and deep blue eyes suggests she possesses a "knowing".

Helen is neither a ghost whisperer nor a clairvoyant, but has had strange and chillingly accurate premonitions for most of her life.

She says she has only recently been able to accept her ability to communicate with the dead.

The first significant experience of mediumship came when Helen was just 20 and dreamed about her aunt on the night she died.

"It was September 1, 2008. I will never forget the morning," she said.

The sensations she felt over her own body as she was lying in bed were the same as those experienced by her aunt in her final moment, she said.

"It completely threw me. It's not something normal. It's not something that happens in every day life. It's not something that you can really come and talk to people about, well I didn't think at the time.

"I later went and told the messages (my aunt) had given me to two of her children and I said that had asked me to tell them that she loved them.

"And they had gone to bed the night before thinking, 'If only mum could tell us one last time that she loved us'.

"It took me a long time to come to terms with it all and what had happened. And if I really ever wanted it to happen again."

An intense period followed, complicated by feelings of grief for her aunt and fear of her apparent gift.

"There was this fear for me that I wouldn't be able to control it. I was worried about the isolation it might bring and what would people think."

It would be five years before Helen revisited her other side. Hers came to be a long journey of self-discovery - freeing herself of the conservative values instilled in her during years of Catholic schooling in Brisbane - as much as a career change.

When curiosity took hold two years ago Helen visited a psychic.

"In talking with her and having that reading she opened me up to how I could control it and not be scared of it," she said.

"She invited me to a workshop. I was tempted not to go in. I was the youngest person there.

"It was in this workshop that I had my second big moment...when I was asked to take a piece of jewellery out of a box and just sit there and hold it and say what came to my mind.

"As I spoke, I noticed a woman across the room crying and she said, 'You've just given me information from my grandmother - that used to be her necklace'. That's when I realised there was something I could obviously tap into."

Practice on friends and family followed. Then extended family and their friends. Now the messages come thick and fast.

"I am very fortunate because my mum is open to this sort of thing," she said.

"In fact mum and her sister (Helen's aunt who passed away) used to find it quite funny to joke about these sorts of things.

"They would go an see psychics and view them with a healthy skepticism and come home and compare notes and laugh about what the future had in store for them."

Her father is supportive but wishes his eldest daughter could predict the lotto numbers.

"You end up letting go of a different way of life," she said.

"My friends have known me as a very hard-working, goal-orientated person. All of a sudden I have decided to leave my job and go out and do something so completely unconventional.

"I have let go of the fear of what people might think of me. I know that there are people who won't get it and I know that there are people who will always be skeptics.

"I have spent the last 18 months trying to live in the confines of normal life, but I need to do what makes me feel happy in my heart and not following my head."

Only recently has Helen been able to connect with her guides.

"I have read an awful lot and basically taught myself, because I don't really buy into all the new-age stuff that comes with this profession."

Occasionally the messages would come at the most inopportune times.

"Sometimes I would stand up at my desk at work and say, 'Right, who's got the aunt with the long hair and the brother that passed away'."

Thankfully her work colleagues were happy to engage in Helen's impromptu medium readings free-of-charge.

"There are two sides to what I do - the psychic side is where my guides give me information about the different situations that a person might have their life and how they might want to handle them.

"I am also a direct channel, because I am a medium, for people who have passed away. It's not actually me giving the information.

"I am just a telephone and I let the information through. At the end I hang up the phone and people can do with that information what they will."

Helen uses angel cards to gain an overall insight into a person's life. She has also honed her ability to glean messages and visions from pieces of jewellery in the practice of psychometry.

"I'm not going to get my crystals out," she says.

"I believe there is a rational explanation for most happenings. But if messages can be passed to me, I've got to believe in that.

"For whatever reason I can do this, and I don't know why."