When Michael Underwood came to Minnesota in 1990, he went through a dark night of the soul. Everything in his life had been taken away except for a good job. “When an experience like this hits you, you lose your hope, but you gain a thirst to search for answers,” says Michael.
For a period of about 7 years Michael took every spiritual and metaphysical class he could find, exploring, learning, and healing himself in the process. During this time Michael became more connected with his angels and guides, receiving guidance to fulfill his life path. Through this connection he discovered his teaching, counseling and psychic abilities. Now, 23 years later, Michael says, “I love Minnesota, I would never leave. The number one thing I love is the people -- they're so positively motivated towards improving their physical, mental, and spiritual health.”
From a young age, Michael has had a thirst to explore all religions, to go beyond the bounds of his traditional religious upbringing and beliefs. Over time Michael was guided to understand a more compassionate, non-judgmental God. “Now I see God as a higher level of love than what I was taught as a child. If we feel we have done something wrong in our life, we will be guided to learn the right in our life, no matter how many lessons it may take, no matter how many lifetimes God needs to bless us with. I believe this is a love that is greater than anything I could ever conceive of, a higher power that never condemns us and never gives up on us.”
Michael's life has led him on an interesting journey, from playing in a band that toured the United States and warmed up for the likes of Ted Nugent and the Allman Brothers Band, to working in the oil fields, to being a minister, to holding a high-level corporate position today. “My career path has always been divinely guided, in the music world, in the corporate world ,and in the spiritual world.”
In the music world, Michael followed the guidance of his angels and guides in deciding to leave his hometown of Chicago at the age of 19, despite his family’s disapproval of touring with a rock band. Recently he has felt led to build a complete professional digital recording studio in his home, where he records gifted musicians, bands, radio shows, and produces guided meditations and books on CD. “To me,” says Michael, “music is tool to help get your mind out of the way so you can tap into your intuitive creative flow. It's basically the same process with spiritual intuition – it's the letting go of your thinking, analytical mind that opens you up to creative intuition.”
In his corporate work Michael has been presented with many opportunities to use his spiritual guidance and intuitive gifts. Sometimes it's simply a matter of encouraging someone or knowing how to positively guide souls down their path. Sometimes people reach out to him. When 9-11 happened Michael was working at a Fortune 500 company here in Minnesota. His boss, a corporate vice president in Houston, called him up, saying “You're the only one that I feel can share this with, because I respect your work and intuition -- I had a dream last night that this would happen -- I saw the towers, I saw the whole thing in a dream.”
Michael has learned how to navigate the corporate world as a spiritual being, and be a blessing at the same time: “A lot of people criticize the corporate world and try to change it from the outside. If you really want to make a difference, change it from the inside. That is where you will gain respect and can use your intuitive gifts to make positive changes. Then, if you get a premonition or you talk about intuitive abilities, they're going to listen.”
In the spiritual world, Michael is an ordained minister, counselor, psychic, and spiritual teacher. Michael has taught a variety of spiritual classes through the past 20 years. Teaching people to connect with their angels and guides is one of his favorite classes, because he sees people regaining their hope in life, feeling like they've got a place to go for guidance concerning their life path. “When you learn how to connect with your angels and guides, you create a sense of confidence in yourself and your own life decisions. For me, it's all about helping souls get to the point of having enough confidence in themselves to make their own life and spiritual decisions, and feel good about it.”
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MICHAEL UNDERWOOD has been a featured speaker and has presented spiritual and positive motivational classes in the United States and Canada. He has also worked as a consultant to help create organizations that combine traditional and alternative healing professionals. Michael has helped to organize and produce several events and expositions for alternative healing, holistic health, and psychic development.
For more information visit www.meetup.com/SpiritUnlimited.
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Developing your Psychic Abilities
by Theresa Nygard
When
Michael Underwood was going through a difficult period of his life, he
went to a psychic, who told him, “Michael, you're a teacher, you're very
psychic, someday you'll be a minister, and your classes will become very
well known.” Michael was startled by this information: “I had never
taught a class in my life," he says, "I had never thought about being a minister.”
Nevertheless,
the seed was planted, and at that point he took some classes on
developing his abilities and began experimenting doing readings. “It's
like faith, you have to build it one small step at a time.” In the
beginning, he said, there was tendency to doubt himself. But as he would
receive validations from others on the information he was receiving, he
built his confidence.
Early
on in doing readings, two girls came to him, about 15 or 16 years old,
wanting to know if he could pick up any information about them. “All of
the sudden I could see and sense a third girl. I described what her
dress was like and the details of everything I saw. These girls said
that was a friend of theirs who had just died. I had never done that
before, I had never tried to, I was just telling them what I felt. It
was so intense I knew it was real. Those are the kind of things that
tell you it's not your imagination, that the information you are
receiving is accurate.”
Occasionally,
says Michael, he receives information that doesn't seem to fit at all.
Once he did a reading for a woman, who he saw with two dogs. She said,
“You're totally wrong because I hate dogs.” She came back a year later
just to tell Michael that she had two dogs and she loved them. Says
Michael, “Many times you just have to be honest about what you're
feeling, about what you're seeing, about the information you're
receiving, even though it may not seem to fit.”
Sometimes
information may seem like it's not coming through. In cases like that,
Michael says, “Maybe there's a reason it seems blocked, maybe there's a
reason you're not getting the answer you need. Maybe there's something
you should not tell this person. Let it be what it is.”
Early
on Michael experimented with a variety of ways to receive information,
and through this process discovered which ways work best for him to
receive information. He finds he tends to receive most information
through sensing or feeling. Sometimes during readings he will hold a
person's hands, and from that connection he will be able to receive
information about their past lives and things occurring in their current
life as well.
The
biggest hindrance to developing his abilities, Michael says, was simply
trying too hard. He found the best asset in developing his psychic
abilities was meditation – clearing his mind and asking himself, What do
I see? What do I hear? What do I feel? “Let your imagination go wild,
whether you believe it or not, just let it go. Don't try to analyze it,
don't try to figure out what it means. Then as time goes by you'll start
to see what it means. You eventually learn through the process, and by
seeing how the information you receive relates to people as you do
readings for them.”
Michael
believes the purpose of a psychic is to support and encourage people.
“If a psychic gives you discouraging information, they probably don't
have your best interests in mind,” he says. “As a psychic, you're here
to help people grow and get through their challenges. You get the
intuitive information as the first step. The second step is to ask
yourself, 'How do I present it to them in a way that helps them to
grow?' You have to take time and ask yourself where this person is at,
and how can you help them, because that's what it's all about.”
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