Referred to as the “Emeril of Enlightenment”, Sue Frederick has been an intuitive since childhood and authored several books on everything from finding your soul mate to fulfilling your life’s potential.
She’s trained more than 500 intuitive coaches from around the world and has been featured in the New York Times and on CNN. I caught up with Sue for some Q&A centered around the launch of her new book, Bridges to Heaven: True Stories of Loved Ones on the Other Side.
Conscious Connection: What is your background and where did the inspiration come from to write these books?
Sue Frederick: I grew up intuitive. As a kid, I would announce to my friends that something was going to happen and then it would happen. I had dreams that came true down to the last detail, and I could hear other people’s thoughts. As you can imagine, this didn’t make me very popular growing up in the 50’s in the South.
I was raised Catholic and as I outgrew religion, I became obsessed with studying spirituality – who we are, why we’re here, and how this divine universe works. As soon as I went away to college to study psychology, I began exploring every spiritual tradition I could find – from Theosophy to Hinduism to Course in Miracles. I left no stone unturned in my desire to understand my intuitive gifts and their purpose.
I also worked my way through college at the career-counseling center at the University of Missouri helping other students choose their majors. My intuition was kicking in loud and clear as I did that work in my early 20’s. I could see what someone should become as soon as they began speaking to me.
Later in my 20’s, I guided students through the Rocky Mountains as an Outward Bound Mountaineering instructor. I was empowering people to move through their fears and trust their inner voice. I met and married my soul mate, Paul Frederick, at that time. He was another mountaineer and we were planning our beautiful future together when he was diagnosed with colon cancer and died in my arms one year after we were married. That was a huge spiritual awakening for me. It was the beginning of the journey that brought me here to do this work 30 years later.
I’m now married to my beloved soul mate, Gene, and we’re raising our two amazing children. But it was quite a journey to arrive here and not at all what I was expecting to happen when I started out in my 20’s to find true love and meaningful work.
Conscious Connection: Why is it important we pursue the right careers and mates?
Sue Frederick: We’ve all come here on purpose with a great mission inside of us. But along the way we get talked out of that great mission and instead make choices based on being practical and on financial survival.
When we make our career choices based on practicality and fear, we never get where we wanted to go. Our lives begin to crumble eventually. We become unhappy, broke and often sick – all from doing the wrong work instead of our true work, the work we came here to do. This unhappiness destroys relationships and prevents true love from happening in our lives.
If we each could remember our great mission and line our careers up with that purpose – we would all be doing our meaningful work, feeling fulfilled, and creating financial abundance. That’s what we all come here to do. Our intuition is always nudging us to go in the right direction. But we dismiss it in favor of our fear-based monkey mind that make us doubt who we really are.
Our true soul mate, our greatest love, is waiting in the wings for us to become who we really are. Once we’re living true to our highest self and doing our great work, we’re sending out a beacon of light that allows our soul mate to find us.
Our great work always makes us happy and abundant. Our true soul mate always loves us for the unique soul that we are – nurtures our gifts and talents and joins us in fulfilling our spiritual purpose here. If we’re not ready to do that for ourselves, we aren’t ready for our soul mate to find us.
Conscious Connection: Why is it that some jobs and relationships don’t work out?
Sue Frederick: Heartbreak and job loss happens because we’re not on our true path and not being our true selves. We’re not living in alignment with our soul’s great mission so we get a painful nudge from the universe. Our broken hearts and disappointments are meant to wake us up to our great potential and help us reinvent and go in a new direction – the right direction. The more off-path we are, the greater the nudges will be.
When someone is a very old soul who came in to do great work and help raise consciousness, they’ll get big wake up calls (job loss, divorce, bankruptcy, illness) until they stop hiding and start living true to their highest self. When they’re ready to listen, their intuition will guide them flawlessly in the right direction. Once they head in the right direction, their soul mate will always find them.
We should all be thanking the bosses who fire us and the lovers who break our hearts. These are our greatest teachers. They agreed before this lifetime began to help us remember who we are. The pain they cause in our lives forces us to ask the good questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I go when I die? Did I come here to do great work? How can I navigate differently now to find my true purpose and my true love?
Until we ask these questions, we can’t find our way. Sometimes it takes great pain to wake us up to our purpose here – though it doesn’t have to. But pain seems to be what gets our attention most easily.
Conscious Connection: How can we learn to make better choices?
Sue Frederick: First we have to quiet the fear-based monkey mind and quit making choices from that mind – also known as our left-brain. The most powerful way to quiet the monkey mind and access our intuition (our flawless inner guidance) is through 20 minutes of daily meditation.
Everyone can find 20 minutes to sit and close their eyes and repeat either a mantra (sacred sound) or a prayer. The purpose is not to think, not to visualize, and not to say affirmations. Instead we are lulling the monkey mind to sleep by giving it the mantra, or sacred words, to repeat.
During meditation, our thoughts will come bursting through the mantra. We can notice them but gently bring our focus back to the mantra. At the end of 20 minutes of redirecting our attention this way, we begin to sink into our “knowingness” – which goes beyond the mental chatter of the fear-based mind. That’s the opening of the door to the higher self and our inner guidance. That’s the voice you need to listen to when making your life and love choices.
You can also understand your soul’s mission very clearly when you understand your birth path – as Pythagoras taught it in 580 BC. I’ve explained how to do this in my books I See Your Dream Job & I See Your Soul Mate. It’s very simple and will give you so much insight into what you came here to do and who you came here to love.
Conscious Connection: What can we learn from our dreams?
Sue Frederick: When we dream, we often travel to the higher realms for guidance and healing – especially from our departed loved ones. But the moment we wake up, we begin dismissing or forgetting these dreams. When we’re looking for love, we will meet our soul mate in our dreams first – before we meet them in the physical world. The trick is remembering these dreams.
Before you go to sleep, sit up in bed and meditate for ten minutes. Then ask directly for divine dream guidance and for the ability to remember it when you wake up. As soon as you awaken, write down all the impressions, feelings and ideas that come to you. You’ll begin to see how powerfully your dreams can guide you.
When you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, your departed will ALWAYS try to communicate with you in dreams to show you they’re okay and to help you heal and move forward. I write about this in my newest book coming out in September called Bridges to Heaven: True Stories of Loved Ones on the Other Side.
Conscious Connection: How can we accomplish what we are meant to do?
Sue Frederick: By learning to navigate with intuition rather than the monkey mind, and by understanding our soul’s unique mission. I teach exactly how to do this in my books and in my intuitive coach training webinars.
And remember, it takes baby steps to climb any mountain. We may see what we came here to do and the greatness of it may overwhelm us. We need to focus on what’s right in front of us today and ask, “What is one small step I can take today that will begin to turn my life in this new direction?”
If we ask that everyday and keep moving forward with little steps, we will always arrive where we’re meant to be – doing our great work and experiencing our greatest love.
Conscious Connection: Tell me about identifying qualities to ensure we are on the right path in life.
Sue Frederick: If today you feel joyful about your career, are creating abundance, and have a great love in your life – you’re on path. However in a few years, changes may be required. We all have many reinvention points in our lives that are designed to nudge us forward and help us kick it up to the next level.
Growth and change ARE required here. They’re part of our shared human experience. If you embrace these changes, trust your intuition rather than your monkey mind, and gracefully step up to the next level, your life just gets better and better.
Conscious Connection: How will you know if you’ve found your soul mate?
Sue Frederick: Your true soul mate loves the “you” that exists beyond the surface of how you present yourself to the world – also called your higher self or your divine self. If your partner embraces your unique view of the world, believes in your gifts, is hungry to explore spirituality with you, and is always encouraging you to own your greatness, then you’ve found your soul mate.
If love has let your down and you want to remember who you truly are and find the soul mate you agreed to love before this lifetime began, I invite you to connect with me at www.SueFrederick.com.