Have you ever known something before you had any logical reason to know it?
Maybe you had a feeling about a person. A thought popped into your head that later proved important. You dreamed about something before it happened. Or you ignored that little voice inside you—only to look back later and think, I knew it.
According to psychic medium, healer and spiritual teacher Marianne DeMarco, those moments may be worth paying more attention to.
Marianne joined Maria Menounos to talk about developing our intuitive abilities, creating energetic boundaries and finding what she calls the “light within.” And one of her biggest messages was surprisingly simple:
We may be more intuitive than we realize. The problem is that we keep talking ourselves out of what we know.
Your “Loud Mind” Can Drown Out Your Intuition
Maria remembers being asked to read someone years ago and suddenly seeing an elephant in her mind.
It seemed ridiculous. Why an elephant?
But she said it anyway—and it meant something to the person she was reading.
That moment captures what Marianne says can be one of the biggest barriers to intuition: self-doubt.
Our intuition may give us an image, feeling or sense of knowing, and almost immediately our rational mind jumps in:
That doesn’t make sense.
I’m imagining it.
That’s just a coincidence.
Marianne calls this the “loud mind.”
The goal isn’t necessarily to make your mind silent. It’s to become better at recognizing the difference between the noise and that quieter inner knowing underneath it.
Stop Dabbling and Start Practicing
If you want to strengthen your intuition, Marianne says consistency matters.
She compares it to training for a marathon. You wouldn’t run for a few weeks, stop for three weeks and expect to perform at your best on race day.
Developing intuition, in her view, works much the same way.
That doesn’t mean you suddenly need to devote hours every day to meditation or spiritual work. Marianne says even if your practice is once a month, make that commitment and honor it.
The important thing is to stop constantly starting and stopping.
Maria recognized how easily we do this—not just spiritually, but everywhere in our lives. We start one book, jump to another, listen to ten minutes of a podcast, try a new practice and then move on to the next thing.
Eventually we’re doing a little bit of everything but going deeply into nothing.
The takeaway?
Pick something. Give it your attention. Put in the hours. Let yourself get good at it.
Set Boundaries Around What You Allow In
One of Marianne’s most interesting lessons is that becoming more intuitive doesn’t mean opening yourself up to everything.
You can have boundaries.
Marianne says that when she was younger, she could smell illness on someone. When she later began seriously developing her abilities, she decided she didn’t want that to be part of her practice.
So she set a boundary.
Maria had her own version. There was a period when she says she would dream about world events and then see similar events on the news the following day.
Eventually, she decided: I don’t want this.
Marianne says she did something similar after having a disturbing dream she later connected with 9/11. She decided she didn’t want information about terrible events she couldn’t do anything to change.
The larger lesson goes beyond psychic ability:
You get to decide what you allow into your emotional and energetic space.
Your Energy Is Your Responsibility
Those boundaries can apply to people, too.
Marianne believes we can pay attention to what happens to our own energy around certain people and situations rather than spending all our time trying to control what someone else does.
As she puts it, “Our energy is our own, and we’re responsible for it.”
Maria remembered preparing to face someone she expected to be nasty toward her. Before the encounter, she meditated and got clear about what she would—and wouldn’t—accept.
She would be kind.
The other person would be kind.
She would not accept disrespect.
Then she walked into the situation—and says the interaction went completely differently than she’d expected.
Maria joked that she’d “Mr. Miyagi’d” the person.
But there’s a practical takeaway here whether or not you view the experience spiritually:
Don’t wait until you’re in a difficult situation to decide how you want to show up in it.
Set your intention first.
Try Marianne’s White-Light Practice
Marianne also shared a simple visualization she practices every morning.
Imagine a large beam of light entering through the top of your head. Visualize it moving through your face, neck and shoulders, down your arms and through your fingertips.
Let it move throughout your body, through your chakras and organs, while releasing anything that no longer serves you.
Then imagine yourself surrounded by white light.
Finally, visualize yourself grounding into the earth, with light extending downward through your feet.
And then?
Get on with your day.
Marianne’s point is that spirituality doesn’t have to become another complicated thing you’re trying to do perfectly.
In fact, she encourages people to make their practice personal.
Your Spiritual Practice Should Look Like You
This may be one of the most freeing ideas from the entire conversation.
Stop worrying about whether you’re “doing spirituality right.”
Maria realized she already had her own version of Marianne’s light practice. When she prays at night, she visualizes God and light moving through her body while making the sign of the cross.
It’s her practice.
Yours might be prayer. Meditation. Journaling. Walking. Music. Art. Sitting quietly outside. Lighting a candle. Holding something that belonged to someone you loved.
Marianne’s advice is not to make your spiritual life look like someone else’s simply because that’s what you’ve seen online.
“Don’t let it look like anybody else’s practice,” she says. “Let it look like yours.”
Learn to Recognize How Your Intuition Speaks
Marianne also explains what are commonly called the “clairs”—different ways people may experience intuitive information.
Clairvoyance refers to seeing. Clairaudience involves hearing. Clairsentience involves physical feelings or sensations. Other experiences can involve smell or taste.
But Marianne believes one of the most natural is claircognizance—simply knowing.
And you may already recognize it.
Think about how often you’ve said:
I knew that was going to happen.
I knew something was wrong.
I knew I shouldn’t do that.
I knew I should call that person.
Instead of dismissing those moments, Marianne suggests looking backward and noticing them.
They may help you understand how your own intuition tends to communicate.
Meditation Doesn’t Have to Mean Sitting Still
If traditional meditation isn’t your thing, Marianne says that’s okay too.
Walking can become meditative. So can listening to music, creating art or doing something else that quiets your mind and feeds your soul.
When Marianne deliberately wants to connect with loved ones who have died, however, she uses a visualization she calls “meeting hours in heaven.”
She imagines returning to a familiar place she shared with them—often her grandmother’s or great-grandmother’s home.
She builds the scene in detail: the furniture, the plastic on the couches, the colors, the smell of cigar smoke, the family playing cards around the table.
Then she imagines being with them.
The idea immediately resonated with Maria.
After losing her mother, Maria described feeling like “a lost soul in space.” People would tell her that her mother was still with her, but after having such a close relationship in life, Maria struggled with how to actually experience that connection.
Creating an intentional place to remember and connect gave her a different way to approach it.
Change the Picture You’re Carrying Through Grief
Marianne also offered an interesting practice for people struggling with grief.
When someone has experienced a difficult illness or death, those final images can become incredibly powerful. They can begin replacing all the other memories we have of that person.
Before bed, Marianne suggests intentionally changing that frame of reference.
Look at a photograph from a happy time.
Remember their laugh.
Play a song you shared.
Picture them healthy, vibrant and fully themselves.
Rather than allowing the final chapter to become the entire story, deliberately reconnect with the person you knew throughout their life.
Start Connecting the Dots
Maria shared a recent experience that reminded her how much she’s learned to trust those little moments.
While getting a massage at home, the air conditioner suddenly began making bizarre gurgling noises. Her longtime massage therapist mentioned that the exact same thing had happened the last time she’d massaged Maria’s mother in that room.
Then Maria suddenly remembered the dream she’d had the night before.
It involved giving Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson a massage—which certainly made the dream memorable—but her mother had been sitting beside him.
Now Maria was getting a massage.
In the same room.
The air conditioner was making the same strange noises it had made when her mother was there.
And suddenly the dream came back to her.
Maria connected the dots and interpreted the experience as her mother’s way of saying hello.
Instead of immediately dismissing it as coincidence, she allowed herself to experience the moment.
That may be the biggest theme running through Marianne and Maria’s entire conversation:
Pay attention before you explain everything away.
You don’t have to force an answer. You don’t have to make every coincidence mean something. But you also don’t have to automatically dismiss the things you feel simply because you can’t immediately explain them.
The HealSquad Takeaway
Developing your intuition doesn’t have to begin with trying to become psychic.
It can begin much more simply.
Notice what you feel. Pay attention to those I knew it moments. Create boundaries around what drains you. Find a practice that quiets your loud mind. Make that practice your own—and then actually stick with it.
Because whether you call it intuition, inner knowing, spiritual guidance or simply learning to listen more closely to yourself, the first step may be the same:
Stop dabbling. Start paying attention. And trust yourself enough to listen.
