How I Found My Way to My First Intuitive Reading
In June of 1996 I graduated college and signed a sponsorship deal to compete as a professional track and field athlete. Over the course of the next few years I was making steady improvements in my race performances and was on track towards my goal of becoming an Olympian. In the winter of 1999 I hit a roadblock and I began having problems with an ab muscle on my right side. It would become extremely irritated and spasm towards the latter part of races. When it did happen it would often cause me to slow down so much that I would lose several places to my competitors. It didn’t happen in every race or hard practice session so it was appearing to be impossible to predict when it might occur. With the Olympic Trials looming the following year it began to weigh on my mind a lot. I was even including working through what I called the “stitch” in my daily visualization exercises of my upcoming races as the last thing I wanted was for it to happen at the Olympic Trials - the most important race of my career at the time.
I initially thought that this ab issue wouldn’t be all that difficult to treat, but apparently it was. My massage therapist at the time worked on the problem area repeatedly but wasn’t able to resolve the issue. I then located a Rolfer in our area so I gave that a try, (if you’re not familiar with Rolfing it’s meant to be a form of bodywork that focuses on manipulating the body's fascia to improve alignment and relieve tension), however this practitioner was quite aggressive and during the session it felt like my abs were being ripped apart. Needless to say that didn’t work either. I tried a few other normal sports therapy modalities, but I still got no relief from the stitch and it continued to show itself during hard training efforts. I then went to an orthopedic doctor who did an exam and ordered an MRI, but of course it didn’t show any sort of tear or adhesions in the tissue. Additionally, although completely unrelated to my problem this doctor was unrelenting in trying to convince me that I would have major problems later in life due to a neural injury I incurred as a child. This only added to my frustration with the medical paradigm at the time, and 25 years on all is still good on that front. Regardless, the underlying stress about my “side stitch” continued to build and I wasn’t quite sure where to go from there.
That next spring my husband, Terrence Mahon, decided to see an intuitive healer that was recommended by one of our runner friends. He had been dealing with a hip injury that he just couldn’t seem to figure out and was also at his wits end with trying to get it to calm down. He was ready to try anything at that point to find some relief. At the time we were living just outside Philadelphia so he took the train up to NYC to go out on a limb and see this intuitive named Peter Roth.
Peter is the founder of The Heart River Center for Intuitive Healing and has been working as an intuitive healer for over 30 years. Peter was also a runner himself and has a long history with the New York Road Runners. Both of these things made it a bit easier for Terrence to take this leap of faith into the world of alternative healing. While I was hopeful that his session with Peter would put him on the right track in getting his hip better, I was also quite skeptical when he relayed the details of the session to me. Terrence not only told me things about what Peter had spoken to him about relating to his problems, but he also revealed what Peter had said about me. Prior to Terrence’s first intuitive session neither he nor I have ever even heard of Peter, let alone had met him in any sort of social capacity. So when Terrence started telling me all these quite specific things that Peter mentioned about both of us it immediately put my guard up. My left brain was quite adamant that Peter was in the running world so of course he would know or could infer many of the details that related to both Terrence and myself. I just wasn’t ready to handle that someone could know so much about me without ever even meeting me in person.
So what was one of the things that Peter said? As Terrence then described it… “seemingly out of the blue during my session Peter says ‘Your wife needs to stop drinking coffee.’” Despite the rants from my rational mind, as I loved my pre-workout Americano, as soon as this was relayed to me I literally stopped drinking coffee that same day. On some level I knew that this was important, but I couldn’t explain why. After a few weeks without coffee the debilitating stitch no longer surfaced during hard efforts in training, and once the spring track season began I never thought of it again during the latter stages of races and it never came back. While I don’t know for sure the why about it all, I do believe that at the time the acidity of the coffee was most likely causing my problem. What did I care as a few months later I went on to make the 2000 Olympic Team and achieved one of my life long goals. Sorting this all out was a huge relief for me as it removed the stress of wondering if the stitch would reoccur. Focusing on getting the job done and making that Olympic team was certainly hard enough in itself without an added concern of whether my body would hold up to the task!
You may wonder why I didn’t consider my diet as being a possible cause of the ab issue? It seems like a logical question now, over 25 years later, with all the knowledge and life experience that I have gained, but back then I wouldn’t have ever connected the dots. It took me a while to understand that when we see an intuitive practitioner, whose intention is solely focused on helping us, that they will see and say what is most relatable to us in that moment whether it seems to make any logical sense or not. At the time that Terrence saw Peter what I needed to hear was- “stop drinking coffee.” It was most likely the easiest thing to relay to me that would have the most impact. Peter also didn’t say that it was in regard to the “stitch,” but I just knew. Later in life I changed my eating habits and eliminated nearly all dairy products from my diet and I was able to start drinking coffee again with no problems whatsoever. So why wasn’t I told to change may diet back then? Who knows? Maybe consuming less caffeine during all those years of hard training was easier on my adrenal glands, the list of possibilities is endless. What’s most important is that what I most needed to hear was shared with me at the right time from the help of an intuitive practitioner and from that time forward I have never looked back.
Not long after Terrence’s appointment I then had my own session with Peter for the first time. I was amazed at the insights that he was able to present to me in that session. It wasn’t just in the physical sense, but also on a more emotional and spiritual level. I began to see how these things were all connected and interrelated. It was so profound that I continued to consult with Peter throughout my athletic career and still do so today. Working with an intuitive became my go to when I was dealing with a stubborn physical issue or a mental or emotional block that I couldn’t sort out myself. More than anything what they brought to my awareness was to have more trust in myself and that oftentimes all I needed was the message to get out of my own way.
This blog would be way too long if I described my experiences with every healer that I have worked with over the past 25 years, but I truly appreciate them all. The lessons learned and dots connected along the way are priceless. I wouldn’t have found this path without them and what I have learned from each one has truly shaped how I see the world today. It is my hope that in this next phase of my life I will be able to help others on their paths just as these gifted and caring people were able to help me. All it takes is a leap of faith.