It's 2 a.m. A mother wakes from a dead sleep in the middle of a snowstorm. No panic, no racing heart. Just a quiet, unshakeable knowing that one of her six children is in trouble. She gets in her car and starts driving. Twenty minutes later, she finds her kid pulled over with a broken-down car on the side of the road.
Calm the entire time.
That story stopped us cold when Lisa Campion shared it on a recent episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians. Because here's the thing...we expected to talk about psychic abilities and spiritual awakening in the abstract. We didn't expect to leave that conversation thinking we'd fundamentally misunderstood what intuition actually is, or how many times we'd overridden it in the name of being reasonable.
Lisa Campion is a Reiki master teacher, psychic counselor, author, and podcast host with more than 30 years of experience working with empaths, healers, and people who are wide open spiritually but have no idea what to do about it. She's the kind of guest who says something completely wild and then backs it up so thoroughly that you forget you were ever skeptical. And she handed us a toolkit we didn't know we needed.
The Energy Vampire Problem (Yes, It's a Real Thing)
Let's start with the concept that made Karen and Will look at each other knowingly for approximately four solid minutes during the interview: energy vampires.
Not a myth. Not a metaphor, at least not entirely. Lisa describes them as people who don't know how to source their own energy and unconsciously pull it from the people around them. You know the feeling. Someone leaves the room and you're inexplicably exhausted. Or you pick up the phone and immediately feel your energy drop three floors.
Lisa breaks them into two distinct types. The predatory variety, which psychology increasingly maps onto narcissistic and psychopathic personality traits, and the "victim vampire," someone who gets their needs met through helplessness, complaining, and never quite taking your advice. Both drain you. Neither is usually doing it on purpose.
The interesting twist? On the empathic spectrum, empaths sit at one end while narcissists and those with "empath-deficient disorders" sit at the other. Which means the very people most likely to be targeted by energy vampires are the ones least equipped to defend against them. The dance between the two, as Lisa puts it, is almost inevitable. unless you learn some "spiritual kung fu."
Listen to the full episode to hear Lisa break down the specific defense strategies she teaches, including what she calls "psychic self-defense" and why boundaries are the first and most non-negotiable tool in your arsenal.
Are You an Empath, or Do You Just Care a Lot?
This is where the conversation got personal for us. And probably for you too.
Lisa's definition of an empath goes well beyond being sensitive or compassionate. Empaths can sense subtle energy and actually absorb it from other people and environments into their own bodies, often experiencing others' feelings and physical sensations as if they were their own. Think about that. Not noticing that someone is in pain. Feeling their pain. As yours.
Research has found that people with high empathy are more likely to experience distress in the form of anxiety or depression. That's not a character flaw. That's a nervous system doing exactly what it was built to do, just without any training or protection.
Studies suggest that approximately 15 to 20 percent of the population are Highly Sensitive Persons, with more active brain circuitry in areas related to emotional processing and empathy. Lisa's position, and we find this genuinely reassuring, is that this sensitivity is a gift. It's just a gift that came without an instruction manual.
The Intuition vs. Anxiety Problem (This One Hit Differently)
Of everything Lisa shared, this may be the most immediately useful thing we've ever heard on this show.
We went in thinking intuition and anxiety were cousins. Turns out they're nearly identical twins. and most of us have been listening to the wrong one our entire lives.
Lisa's distinction is neurological as much as spiritual. Anxiety lives in your nervous system's threat-response mode. Intuition, she explains, comes through when the nervous system is calm. specifically when you're in what neuroscientists call the alpha brainwave state.
Here's what the science says about that: the relaxed yet aware mental state associated with a dominant alpha rhythm creates a fertile ground for creative thinking, intuition, and the sudden emergence of novel insights. Research has found that higher alpha brain wave activity correlates with the ability to make more unexpected, creative connections. In other words, your best gut feelings don't arrive when you're stressed. They arrive in the shower. On a quiet walk. Washing the dishes.
That mother who drove through the snowstorm? She wasn't anxious. She was calm. That was the tell.
How to Actually Develop Your Intuition (Starting Today)
Lisa gave us a practical framework we've been thinking about all week. Here's the condensed version:
Step 1. Start a psychic journal. Write down every dream, every gut feeling, every time you look at the clock and it says 11:11, every first impression about someone. Don't filter. Just record. Lisa promises you'll be amazed within weeks at how often you were already right.
Step 2. Build in 20 minutes of real quiet. Not a guided meditation. Not a podcast (yes, including this one). Actual silence, or lo-fi ambient music if silence feels like torture. This is how you train your brain to drop into the alpha state where intuition can actually surface.
Step 3. Use a question-and-activity practice. Write a question in your journal. Then do something repetitive and familiar. drive a known route, mow the lawn, take a shower. with no audio input. Notice what arises. Write down the answer when you get out.
Step 4. Consider movement-based practices. For people with busy minds, Lisa specifically recommends Tai Chi, yoga, walking meditation, or mantra-based approaches. Your intuition doesn't require you to be good at stillness. It requires you to stop drowning it out.
The Bigger Picture: What an Army of Healers Actually Looks Like
We asked Lisa what the world looks like if the empaths, the sensitives, and the healers actually show up healthy and protected. Her answer was quiet and specific. A world full of people who are living their actual life purpose. Following their own soul's calling instead of being drained by everyone else's needs.
That's not a utopian fantasy. That's the practical result of learning to manage your energy before it manages you.
With the right support, empaths can learn to honor their sensitivity without becoming overwhelmed, developing healthier boundaries and emotional balance. Lisa has spent 30 years proving that this is teachable. You don't have to have been born knowing how to do it.
Your Next Step
If you've ever felt like you were "too much," dismissed your gut as just anxiety, or quietly wondered whether the exhaustion you feel around certain people means something, this episode is for you.
🎧 Listen to our full conversation with Lisa Campion now at skepticmetaphysician.com. She goes deep on psychic self-defense techniques, the two types of energy vampires, and the specific practices that have helped thousands of her students live more protected, more intuitive, and more purposeful lives.
And if this one hit close to home, share it with someone who needed to hear it. You probably already know exactly who that is. That's your intuition. It's working already.
📩 Subscribe to The Skeptic Metaphysicians so you never miss a conversation like this one. New episodes drop weekly, and we promise to keep asking the questions your therapist is too licensed to touch.
Lisa's free 5-video course, Energy Management for Empaths, is available at lisacampion.com. Psychic self-defense, boundary-setting, energy hygiene. all in one place. And yes, it's free.
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