Sonia Choquette is celebrated worldwide as an author, spiritual teacher, six-sensory consultant, and transformational visionary guide. An enchanting storyteller, Sonia is known for her delightful humor and adept skill in quickly shifting people out of psychological and spiritual difficulties, and into a healthier energy flow. She is the author of 24 internationally best-selling books about intuitive awakening, personal and creative growth, and the transformational leadership capabilities that reside within, most notably with the New York Times best-seller The Answer is Simple.
Sonia is inspiring a global consciousness movement around her belief that, as human beings, “We are divine beings endowed with six senses to guide us through life.” Sonia insists that we all must rely on our innate sixth senses in order to make the most authentic, well-informed, healthful, and soul-satisfying decisions possible. www.soniachoquette.com
Kimberly Maska: I’m Kimberly Maska for the Spiritual Biz Magazine and for this month’s cover, we are so blessed to have with us Sonia Choquette. She is an amazing spiritual teacher and she is here to show us how to tap into our sixth sense so that we can work through this consciousness shift, be present, be who we are, and let our divine selves shine through. Sonia, thank you so much for joining us today.
Sonia Choquette: I’m delighted. This is my mission, my love. I’m really happy to be with you.
Kimberly Maska: I’m super excited. I always liked to start with, for the readers who aren’t familiar with you, although I don’t know how that could be possible, but just in case they don’t, I would love to hear your story about how you became a sixth sensory consultant. You’re out there showing people how to tap into that divine place. How did you end up here?
Sonia Choquette: That’s an interesting question. I have been raised in a family where there were not five senses, there were six. In my home growing up, the sixth sense was considered the most important. It was a very intuitive-centered culture in my family and I was one of seven kids and figured out pretty young that the best way to get my parents’ attention was to be really good at using my sixth sense. It became our game. It was our way of life. It was our way of measuring and evaluating life at a real accurate level.
By the time I was 12, I was publicly reading for other people, coaching, guiding adults, and, interestingly, in subjects that I often didn’t really understand as a 12-year-old, but I could still see the relationships, describe people, see the connection. I became a little bit of a phenomena. By the time I was 15, I felt the pressure of so many people wanting me to give them direction that I changed my own direction and decided that I wanted to teach people how to get back to their intuition because, in my estimation, we have it naturally … it wasn’t like I had something other people didn’t. It was more that I had a connection that other people forgot about.
I, very boldly, when I was 15 years old, started teaching classes in my kitchen and I have been pretty much teaching them ever since. I have gone from the kitchen to around the world. I’ve written 26 books now. They’re in 37 languages. I have traveled the world and so I can say, without any hesitation, we all absolutely not only have a sixth sense, we need it if we’re really going to achieve the kind of success we aspire to and feel that is possible, that we yearn for, it’s a non-negotiable sense and especially in the world today.
Kimberly Maska: Yeah, it’s so needed. We are stuck in this interesting shift happening and it seems people are far left in being angry and upset or then there are the ones that are awakening. I think they really need you, which is beautiful.
Sonia Choquette: What is that we’re in the crystalist. We’re not caterpillars/ we’re not quite yet butterflies, we’re in the muck. But it’s a dynamic muck. Something really good in all of this confusion is maturing, and evolving, and happening.
Kimberly Maska: Beautiful. One thing I love about your story is that there was never a question of “Is this what I should be doing?” It was handed to you and you just ran with it and that’s amazing.
Sonia Choquette: Well, you know the interesting thing, Kimberly, is having been an intuitive guide for people essentially all my life, I believe that our intuition is always with all of us handing us direction. And the real goal is are we going to run with it or not? Are we going to learn to identify those intuitive signs and signatures? This is a whole energetic language, a whole energetic informing, but it’s always there. It’s simply a matter of consciously learning to interpret and run with it. I did because it never occurred to me not to. I never had any model to say don’t. I never had any obstruction. So that’s why I ran with it. But in teaching as long as I have, helping people double back and starting to see these signals and feel them so they’re not just in their heads about it but they actually feel those internal anchors or inner compass, it’s a natural thing to start running with it for everybody.
Kimberly Maska: Which I think more of us definitely need to do. What would you recommend, when people know they have a gift and they are stuck on the question “Can I actually do this as a business? Do I have enough talent?” How do you handle that with your students when they’re thinking about stepping out with their gift and getting over their fear?
Sonia Choquette: First of all, I let people know that like musicians, or artists, or singers, we have this innate ability but we need to work it, strengthen it and refine it if we’re going to take it to business practice. There are four stages, student, apprentice, journeyman, and master.
A student is when you’re just waking up and you’re starting to recognize that maybe what I’m feeling isn’t so bizarre. Maybe I have a real ability here I’m going to learn about. What we’re really doing here is just looking for affirmation. We’re looking for some kind of mirroring or recognition so we can feel more confident.
The second stage is that we apprentice. We start looking at how other people are using it. Watch, and start getting some models, and seeing some ideas about how I can use my gifts.
The third stage then is called journeyman, which is you learn by doing. You have to begin at the beginning with intuition and the way you work with intuition. You have to go with it without being attached to the outcome. That is a big, scary thing for people. They want the guarantee. It’s like wanting the apple before you plant that apple seed. You want the guarantee before you invest in the work.
In any business that’s not going to fly, but if you trust that I will do my part, follow my clues, I will listen to my inner guidance, and show up every day to keep refining it, which leads to mastery. If you follow that line then it makes sense that your intuition can be a viable resource and can really start serving in any business. But you don’t go from “aha, I’m intuitive” to master. Wouldn’t that be nice? But it does progress pretty quickly once you start paying attention, it is natural.
Kimberly Maska: I love that differentiation because I know a lot of people that come into my Spiritual Biz Success Facebook group or are here in Spiritual Biz Magazine, they’re in that awakening process and wondering, “How do I create a business?” For me personally, I only work with experts, because if you’re not mastering what you’re doing, then it’s going to be very wobbly. I love that differentiation.
Sonia Choquette: We have to be really clear about our motivation. Intuition is a faculty of the heart and the higher conscious creator part of us. It can be self-supporting and it can help in your self-interest, but it can’t be selfish. Otherwise, you’re up in your ego. It’s okay to be self-interested. It’s okay to be in the flow of “my business will bring prosperity” if my motivation is of service to the world in some authentic and genuine way. There are some things that really will help you stay true to intuition versus getting stuck in your head.
Kimberly Maska: Great differentiation. One thing that I also love about you is that you have, built this incredibly successful business. I know one thing that spiritual entrepreneurs struggle with is the idea of financial abundance and receiving that energy exchange for their gifts. You’ve clearly done it in a beautiful way and serve at the highest level. Let’s talk about that. What’s your philosophy about abundance, the exchange of money for your gift?
Sonia Choquette: That’s an interesting thing because this whole idea that if it’s spiritual you shouldn’t attach money to it often is it comes from people who have followed spiritual vocations. Priests, nuns, monks. Their livelihoods are provided, so they actually are having a different kind of exchange. They are given their basic needs. They are given their security. They are given their support. That’s probably where that originated.
My philosophy is an exchange of fair energy. If I offer in-service to you and you don’t offer in-service to me, then energetically, I’m [cording 00:10:02] you. Energetically, you are obligated to me. I’m not honoring you as someone who can provide a fair exchange. I’m seeing me as one up or you one down and it’s not a conscious thing, but when we don’t let people honor us back, it’s a bit of a control and ego issue. To be the giver without being the neutral receiver in fair exchange is manipulating the energy exchange.
It’s natural in the universe. The way it goes out, the way it comes in. The sun rises, the sunsets. We breathe in, we breathe out. All of this idea that I should do this for free or I’m having a moral corruption going on is not relevant to today’s world. It’s not emotionally honest because we always will want something and if it’s not money, then we’ll want attention, we’ll want you to depend on me. We rely on people to make us feel better, all of which are not fair agreements. The fair agreement is out, [giving 00:11:20] my energy for this, you will then exchange the energy with your financial remuneration and we both walk away free and clear and blessing each other. I absolutely feel that it’s important to make that correction.
Kimberly Maska: Beautifully said and I think sometimes there’s resentment too if we’re not getting that energy exchanged. We’re resentful like, “Well, I did this for you but you didn’t do this for me.”
Sonia Choquette: That I call implied agreements. Implied agreements are I’m going to be really wonderful to you and you owe me. You don’t know what owe me and you will never necessarily pay me back in full. These are enmeshments energetically that are not fair. People are much more appreciative if they know the agreement, they know the boundary, they know exchange and then they get to decide if that works for them. When I work, I send my clients a letter that explains, an email, letter, what this reading is going to involve, what time it’s going to take, what they can expect, how to prepare, what the fee is, what I don’t do, what I do do. I make this clear as possible and then tell people, “Please know and understand that so you’re engaging with clarity and we have a wonderful exchange.”
I also think that’s important when it comes to spiritual work and agreements be clear and be boundaried so that expectations are understood and everyone’s not trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s very disturbing especially when people come to people like us. We are often the last resort. We are not the first resort. They’re already probably in a little bit of trauma, a lot of vulnerability, not maybe grounded. They need grounded clarity and council to understand this is what I need, this is what it cost and you exchange it. It supports everyone.
Kimberly Maska: That’s an amazing point and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that to have that … Basically, it’s a contract, the agreement, and what we’re going to do because it is so esoteric and who knows what people are expecting. Then I think if you don’t have it laid out becomes like a show. It’s not actually a business. It’s like you’re an anomaly.
Sonia Choquette: You know, to me that is a perversion of our gifts and that is just a way to bring the attention back to making yourself special instead of being in service. To say, “Look, I can pull a rabbit out of my head or I can do this or that.” When I teach my students because I’ve been teaching for many, many years, I teach that to come to us is like someone coming to the emergency room and you have to operate with the utmost respect in service to them and not look at me, look at me, look at me. You wouldn’t be doing CPR in someone saying, “Do you like me? Are you impressed? Are you impressed,” while you’re doing the CPR. You have to keep your ego out of it.
We may be entertaining but we’re not entertainers, generally, and it’s important to understand our role. It’s important to understand what we can and can’t do and to help people understand that. Then the agreement, everyone feels grounded. Everyone feels safe. Everyone is at ease. Your client is comfortable. They’re not going to project on you to be in possession of miraculous abilities you don’t have. You can become supportive and facilitating without creating dependencies that are not correct and don’t give them their freedom to direct their lives with their own choices. Contracts, agreements, and payments make really clear, safe circumstances in what otherwise has a pretty bad reputation. The world has got a lot of … We have to fight that negative reputation by creating this nice, clear understandings.
Kimberly Maska: That’s such a great distinction and I hope everyone takes note of that because I think that’s a big difference and being at that level of service. I always say how do we show up and be at the highest level of service? I think that’s a fantastic way to do it in this genre. With the financial abundance that comes in, then there’s also this negative connotation of how do we keep an alignment with the financial abundance coming in? With the exchange of energy coming in, some people feel like they’re going to get out of alignment. How do you keep in alignment and what recommendation would you have for those in your field as well?
Sonia Choquette: I think it’s very important to remember that one of our primary roles as intuitive guides is to be teachers. Provide insight, direction, and guidance to give people more options for their choices. Real teachers set a student free. We don’t ever want to create dependencies. Then we are not being true teachers. If there’s going to be a long-term relationship, then you call it a mentoring. You call it a long-term relationship. It’s not just let me read for you, let me read for you, let me read for you. That is not an educational process. That is a dependency. Just be clear about what your own intentions are.
Be clear if you are being motivated by service and faith that your work will provide and I can assure you if you operate at clear energy, and clear heart, and clear boundaries, then there will always be energy coming back. It’s just the money will keep coming. If you get scared and think well, or flattered, that’s another one of the red flags. If you get flattered and you think, “Well, they need me. I’m so great for them,” which is different than having a feel-good moment that I did a good job, really the idea that if it worked for me, that person’s experience wouldn’t be going well, that’s ego. The minute you slide into that me first and without me, you’re not going to be okay, then you’re going to run into some manipulations. Your compass is going to go off-center and then the whole energy is going to start to [inflow 00:18:05].
Work from the place of service and you honor … What I’m doing is really something important, and valuable, and really saves people time, and stress, and confusion. It gives the options they wouldn’t otherwise know about. It can be grounding. It can be healing. It can be incredibly useful by helping them become more aware. Of course, I should be remunerated for that and of course, if that experience is positive they will not only come back perhaps again in the future, they’ll tell others. They’ll send other people because of their positive experience. If you just keep that clear compass on what my values are, what my role is, what intentions are, and that I’m always setting a student free. I’m always empowering, uplifting, and liberating. That’s the goal and prosperity will be guaranteed.
Kimberly Maska: Love it. I have not heard of it that way and that’s fantastic. It’s always being in alignment in service, right? It boils it down.
Sonia Choquette: It’s not servant, that’s why we have to be careful. You don’t have to be a servant, which means I give more than I get, but of service, which is I uplift. I uplift and if we are here to uplift, your work will get better too because the higher your own energy and your own vibration, it’s more clear the channel you become. Then of course to me, if you’re a clear channel, nothing’s more valuable than that. That is a really powerful ally to have in your court so that’s why people will come. I have clients from every single genre of business, heads of companies, heads of countries, I have some … Because they want clear, they want clarity. They want a clear channel and so in that regard, if you are a clear channel, you are invaluable.
Kimberly Maska: I love that. It’s true. I think that’s everyone’s goal. I know that’s my goal as we all work on meditation and everything to be open to receiving that information. Amazing.
Sonia Choquette: There’s just one more thing I just want to interject here. In that regard, we have to remember that our work is hard. It can be very draining in a very different way and so we need to balance by taking good care of ourselves, not depending on the feel-good of just our clients and doing service, but to go have fun, do things that are not on that channel, get grounded, go play, dancing, watch sitcoms for balance so that we can unplug and rejuvenate. That’s another important thing if we become dependent on the client for our feel-good energy and that’s something to watch as well.
Kimberly Maska: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So often we do forget to take care of ourselves first whether we’re taking care of family, or clients, or business, whatever it is. Then we’re sick and then we’re of no service at all. Good reminder. With the creation that you’ve made so far, it’s creation of the business that’s a beautiful thing all around the world. What recommendations or advice would you have for someone that loves what you do and is looking and following in your footsteps or creating something different but we’re really stepping out in a major way? What have you learned and what would you give as advice for that?
Sonia Choquette: I’ve learned a couple of things. I’d say first, know who you are and know what a wonderful gift you have. Recognize and really honor your gift, and honor the value that you bring to others, and know that in your own heart and spirit so that you’re not questioning or depending on other people to validate you. That’s huge. To recognize your gift and to recognize that it comes from love, and creativity, and hard work, and discipline, and meditation, and lifetimes of focus, relax, and don’t feel the need to defend your experience.
Don’t feel the need that I have to brace myself against the world and convince people. Instead, go the other way and just say, “I know who I am. I have a wonderful, wonderful gift that makes an enormous difference,” and if someone says, “I don’t believe in that,” say, “Well, then I guess I’m not for you,” and it’s okay because if you don’t get into that dynamic and you hold your value, then it’s the process of attraction, not of trying to coerce or convince. Those of us who are comfortable in who we are, attract our business with our confidence, with our clarity, with our self-esteem, with our recognition of our own gifts.
My experience is a lot of my students are afraid to tell the world like we have to keep it a secret. As if there’s something illegitimate about us and I’d say go the other way. I am who I am. I have a wonderful gift. I’m secure. Whether you agree or not, I know who I am. That is like a magnet for clients because if they don’t feel they have to reassure you, then they can trust you. If you’re secure in who you are, they will then feel like, “Okay, this person knows really who they are, so I’m going to invest my energy. That’s key. That’s the foundation for building the platform.
Kimberly Maska: That’s beautiful because even I see a lot too but they’re even afraid to tell their family because the family thing is like … I’ve recently had a personal experience where someone’s like, “That’s just insane and that’s blasphemy,” and I’m like, “Really?”
Sonia Choquette: Right. My response to that, and I teach my students, is just simply, “Well, I guess I’m not for you then.” End of it. No more. Don’t ever try to convince anybody. Say, “Well, that’s not my experience, but okay. Guess I’m not for you,” because if you don’t engage in that having to legitimize yourself, that’s a statement of I know who I am. I know my value. I am comfortable in my skill, and my ability, and my consciousness, and I’m okay with that and I’m okay if you’re not. I’m completely okay if you’re not. That liberates you from the need to hide. We’re not going to prosper and grow if we’re hiding. Those are colliding energies. Be clear, be comfortable.
My other piece of advice is don’t offer advice unsolicited. If people come to you and say, “What do you see,” or whatever, say, “Here’s my card. Make an appointment. This is not a casual conversation. This is something that we need to do professionally.” Again, it’s really about those clear boundaries and that clear understanding that we’re not entertainers. A lot of my students are tempted to prove themselves by doing the reading here or there and I teach my students to never do that. You cheapen yourself. You devalue your gift. You just say, “Well, I’d be happy to work with you. Here is my card, carry them, and I work by appointment and I can give you my full attention.” Boom! Then if you’re uncomfortable, book online so you don’t have to do the phone thing. Eliminate the steps, but that’s a way to go.
Kimberly Maska: That is amazing advice and I think that’s going to be a huge shift for a lot of people watching this because that I an incredibly valuable piece of information. Fantastic. You’ve been amazing and I thank you so much for sharing space and energy. How can people reach you? As I said, I’m sure they all know who you are, but just in case, how do they find you?
Sonia Choquette: Well, my website which, by the way, I just started a brand new website and I’m so proud of my brand new website is my name, soniachoquette.com or soniachoquette.net. You can see my books on there. I have courses on there and workshops, especially for people who want to develop these skills at a professional level. It’s all there and I’d love to welcome you. Lots of many courses that will just [come 00:26:47] and get you going, so please come and visit me on my website.
Kimberly Maska: The website is beautiful. I was poking around in there. It’s lovely. I love all the pictures of you in Paris. You’re just so [inaudible 00:26:57]. It just warmed my heart.
Sonia Choquette: You know, I just want to say right now for anyone watching this or listening, if you feel you have the gift and calling, the world needs you right now. We are the needed. Our time is now. Our time has come. We are the bringers of light and clarity, and direction confusing times and I just want to encourage you to trust that and not be cowed into the closet. This is a time to shine brightly and people will really be helped by that courage and that conviction, so I just really want to say and go for it.
Kimberly Maska: Perfect. Thank you again so much for sharing space and energy, Sonia. It’s been beautiful.
Sonia Choquette: Thank you, Kimberly. Bye.
