The first time I experienced leaving my physical body, I was relaxing on my balcony. The sunlight streaming through the glass behind me cast a vibrant rainbow ‘X’ on the floor, captivating my attention.

An irresistible urge compelled me to lie down, allowing the beam of light to settle on my chest. With no one else around, I succumbed to this impulse. As I lay there, a peculiar and intense energy began to build within me.

In an instant, I found myself standing apart from my body, observing it as it lay on the floor beneath me.

Moments later, I heard the front door open and, before I knew it, I stood in front of it. My flatmate entered and walked straight through me, reminiscent of a scene from a ghostly film. She nonchalantly picked up a hairbrush from her dressing table and began brushing her hair.

Later, I brought up the incident with her, describing exactly what I had seen. She confirmed her hair had indeed been bothering her all afternoon and she had been eager to get home to brush it. She was puzzled about how I could have known this, and I chose to keep the explanation to myself.

In reality, I had been trying to achieve what is commonly known as ‘astral projection,’ or an out-of-body experience, for several weeks. However, I was unsure how to effectively separate my conscious mind from my physical existence until that day.

The plan was certainly not to spy on my flatmate. I wanted to know how far I could go. And I wanted to fly.

As soon as I thought about it, it was happening. I was hovering outside my apartment, looking back at it from five storeys above street level. Up there, I thought about all the places I could visit and, as I did so, I shot up into the sky at lightning speed.

I arrived at my grandmother’s house in New Zealand. The roof was unmistakable from above. Then I found myself standing in her living room. It was that time of the evening when she would sit with a glass of wine and watch TV, which was exactly how I saw her.

What blew me away was discovering my grandfather, standing beside her. He had passed away many years earlier. I saw him in the same way I was seeing myself – we were translucent.

Sean Collyns says, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a spiritually ‘gifted’ person… abilities like astral projection, clairvoyance, telepathy and telekinesis are all within everyone’s potential

The first time he left his own body, Sean describes hovering outside his apartment, looking back at it from five storeys above street level

I could see my gran and her living room as though I was actually there, but, while I could see my grandfather’s face and his outline, I could see straight through him too. He was in an astral form, just as I was.

He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Sean, you are a medium. How many signs do we need to send for you to begin trusting yourself? Go and start learning.’

I’m not telling this story to make you think I’m special, but because I believe these are things you are capable of too. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a spiritually ‘gifted’ person. Abilities like spirit communication, manifestation, astral projection, clairvoyance, telepathy, remote viewing, energy healing and even telekinesis are all within everyone’s potential.

Learning to access those superpowers is a process of removing the layers and walls that are keeping you at a distance from what is at your core – infinite power.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family that was open to the spirit world and to mediums and psychics. Esoteric concepts were spoken about openly. A key childhood memory is of my father tying one of my grandfather’s old suit cufflinks to a piece of string and suspending it from his fingertips, to ask his spirit ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions.

When the answer was ‘yes’, it swung back and forth or in circles. When it was ‘no’, the pendulum hung still. As it responded, we all felt my grandfather’s spirit was there with us.

My father was very psychic and had a natural receptivity that I’m sure I picked up from him. Dad would randomly, and on a whim, predict celebrity deaths. In the mid-1970s, I remember he predicted the shocking and unexpected death of Elvis Presley, as well as Charlie Chaplin’s passing and that of other well-known individuals, quite precisely.

At 15, I had my first clairvoyant reading, with an incredible medium named Debbie Mewes. I had no idea what to expect, say or do. All I knew was my mum had been to see this woman and had decided every one of us needed to go too.

Asked to bring a personal object for the medium to hold on to, something that would assist her in connecting to my energy, I had no idea what to take. I got myself into a fluster trying to think of the perfect thing – and what I ended up deciding on was… my collection of baby teeth. Yes, that was a bit weird.

She astounded me with her connection. It was undeniable, she knew things that I hadn’t told anyone. But I was certain she was wrong on one count: ‘I know you are young to be told this… but you are a medium.’

Still, that day sparked a curiosity within me. I spent my earnings from my weekend job on my first deck of tarot cards. I bought my first pendulum and a few crystals. You know – the usual woo-woo awakening starter pack.

Some out-of-the-ordinary occurrences began happening. In old houses or historic places, I would see things that ‘weren’t there’, but there was a part of me that believed I was just making it all up. Or that perhaps it was happening, but it wasn’t strong or profound enough to make me a medium.

Often, it isn’t until we reawaken our dormant abilities that we remember mystical experiences which happened naturally in childhood. As I started accessing my abilities in my teens, I began seeing orbs floating above my bed. I witnessed a spirit visiting me at night, as a neon-blue energy in the shape of a person, and I woke bolt upright in bed mid-conversation with two people who also ‘weren’t there’.

If you can’t imagine a guide speaking to you, you’ll never be able to hear one. If you can’t imagine a spirit beside you, you won’t feel one when it’s there, says Sean

When we smother our feelings, our energy stagnates. It can’t flow the way it’s meant to, he adds

But what really took me aback was the realisation that I had frequently experienced those things as a small boy too. These abilities were always within me, but they had simply gone unused for a long time – stored in the back of my brain and labelled ‘childhood nonsense’.

The most powerful way for any of us to reopen communication with the unseen realms is through imagination. It’s ironic, isn’t it? Imagination, the very thing we were conditioned as children to suppress. ‘It’s just your imagination,’ we were told.

But imagination isn’t separate from intuition. And when you reactivate it, your openness to the unseen and intangible comes back too, along with one of the most important tools for psychic perception: inner imagery.

If you can’t imagine a guide speaking to you, you’ll never be able to hear one. If you can’t imagine a spirit beside you, you won’t feel one when it’s there. If you can’t imagine yourself as a powerful spiritual being, you won’t recognise that you already are one.

One other very personal lesson came in my teens, one that changed everything forever. I hadn’t grasped that to access our spiritual abilities, we must completely be who we really are. I wasn’t doing that… until I stopped hiding the truth about my sexuality.

As a boy obsessed with Kylie Minogue, who preferred playing with dolls to toy cars, you might suppose I was never ‘in the closet’. But I spent years constructing a wall around myself, trying to deny to myself and everyone else that I was gay.

At the same time, I was pushing hard for spiritual growth, foot flat on the accelerator and wondering why I wasn’t getting anywhere, not realising the handbrake was still on. And I was the one holding it there.

When we smother our feelings, our energy stagnates. It can’t flow the way it’s meant to. The moment I released that burden and let go of shame, guilt and self-rejection, something incredible happened: my spiritual abilities surged.

Connecting with your loved ones

The biggest thing that stops most people from connecting with the spirit world is the expectation of how clear the interaction should be. When people begin trying to access their spiritual abilities, they unconsciously chase a certain kind of experience – something loud, dramatic or impossible to miss.

That expectation is what blocks them from sensing what’s already there. If you take one thing away right now, let it be this: You must release the need for certainty and develop trust in the subtle. And hear me when I say this: the ability to communicate with ’spirit’ isn’t something you inherit or are specially selected for.

The ability to perceive energy or be psychic is not something that ‘special’ people are gifted with. These are things that your soul has always inherently known and been capable of. You’ve simply forgotten. This journey is about remembering.

Step 1: Choose a space where you won’t be interrupted. Sit in a comfortable position and relax your body.

Sean Collyns’ book Your Soul Is The Source Of Your Power

Step 2: Turn your awareness to your soul’s energy. Allow your inner light to rise up and fill the space within you, then shine out around you, expanding softly and steadily.

Step 3: Visualise your shining energy like a bubble opening outward. This creates the potential for your loved ones in spirit to step forward and meet you there.

Step 4: Bring to mind a loved one in the spirit world whom you’d like to communicate with. Picture them coming and sitting beside you.

Step 5: Remember what it feels like to be around them – their laugh, the sound of their voice, their charm, the way their love feels. Sense their humour, their mannerisms, their energy.

Step 6: Notice how the atmosphere around you shifts. You might feel them beside you, behind you, or their hand on your shoulder. Let the love develop in this space. Let yourself sit with it without allowing yourself to get upset.

Step 7: Without asking questions or needing answers, stay in the love. In this space, you may become aware of something they want to share with you. There may be thoughts, memories, emotions or insights. Just let what wants to rise come gently into your mind.

Step 8: Ask them to give you a symbol of your connection. Trust the first thing that drops into your awareness. Whether it’s an image, a word, a memory or a feeling, trust it without question. Later, watch for this symbol to appear around you in the outside world.

Step 9: Thank your loved one for coming forward. Feel that gratitude from your heart.

So, live authentically and stop adjusting yourself for the comfort of others. That’s when your energy field transforms. You glow. Your eyes shine more brightly. There’s a spark in you that others can’t help but notice.

For me, this revelation brought new understanding in all sorts of ways. One came with a vision that was also a memory – but not a memory from my own life.

I saw myself as a baby, lying in a cot. A figure moved toward me, and I recognised my grandmother. But she was much younger than I’d ever known her, a woman still in her 20s. And as she bent over me, I realised she was not just my grandmother. She was also actually my mother.

Because I wasn’t ‘me’ – this baby was someone else, my grandmother’s child.

Before I could fully take this in, I was no longer in a cot, and no longer on Earth. I was in the spirit world. Watching from above, I could see the grief and heartbreak I’d left behind.

In this moment of soul recall, I remembered how I had made a decision to return to the world, to go back to the same family… one generation on.

What I had been born to do had not yet been completed. As my grandmother’s baby, I died in infancy. And that was much too soon.

This remembrance came with such clarity and such certainty, that it left no room for doubt. When I reflected on my own life and that of the baby my grandmother had lost, I realised there were many parallels. One in particular stood out: my name and his differed by just one letter. I’m Sean, and his name was Dean.

The nature of incarnation became clear in a way I’d never quite grasped before. And the revelation was both simple and revolutionary: You only live once. But your consciousness lives many times.

A soul isn’t a single identity. It is part of a vast, multifaceted consciousness that expresses itself through many names, faces, and lifetimes. Each of those lives, each spirit, exists as an individual. And together, they form a whole.

Most people miss all the magic that is possible in this world – they’ve accepted the reality that they’ve been given and believe there can’t be anything else.

Don’t fall for this illusion. Try to move through this world every day as if it were your first day. The more you begin to see the magic of the world around you, the more that magic inside of you rises to the surface.

Before bed, dim the lights, place your hand over your heart, and think of three things that brought you joy or beauty that day. Thank your soul for living this day with you.

Spiritual power responds to who you’re being right now. That’s why you can’t wait until things go well before allowing yourself to feel good. You must feel good precisely so that things can go well.

Studies and scans have shown that the same areas of the brain are activated whether a person is imagining something or actually experiencing it. This means your brain doesn’t entirely differentiate between what is real and what it’s told is real.

As the director of your own energetic field, you can use that to your advantage to create whatever reality you choose. When you try to visualise your desires – whether that’s love and romance, children, health or a connection to a loved one who has passed on – the universe responds to the feeling. This is why people with a generally positive outlook tend to move through life with more ease and grace – what others call luck.

Material things, however much you desire them, don’t last forever. The only things you leave this world with are your memories, the lessons you learned and the love that you shared.

Those are the only things that truly hold any importance for your eternal self. Nothing else matters.

Adapted from Your Soul Is the Source of Your Power by Sean Collyns (Hay House UK, £14.99), to be published 17 March. © Sean Collyns 2026. To order a copy for £13.49 (Offer valid to 28/03/26; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.