Aja – an Intuitive Reader & Guide from Milwaukee, WI!
Meet Aja (pronounced Asia)! She’s not a fan of labels, considering herself part of the multi-passionate, multi-hyphenate, jack-of-all-trades crew. She is an Intuitive Reader & Guide, Idea Doula (or the less exciting Creative Consultant), and Model. Aja’s roots are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but she’s been soaking in the LA scene for almost ten years. An interesting tidbit? She’s a dance enthusiast—her fastest route to God/The Universe and a surefire way to feel the most connected to herself and my spirit. Nearly every problem in my life can be solved (or, at the very least, soothed) by dancing.
1. As an Intuitive Energy Reader, where does your spiritual journey begin? How did you first discover your ability to read energy intuitively? Can you explain what following one’s intuition means to you, and how this has impacted your own personal journey?
I wasn’t raised religiously (my parents both were, and they wanted me to be able to choose for myself, I love them extra for that), but I remember my mom getting into spirituality when I was around 7 or 8 years old. In my tweens and early teens, I started to explore Wicca and became obsessed with all things witchy, and luckily, my mom let me explore that without fear or judgment (for which I will always be grateful; thanks for buying my little witchling heart To Ride A Silver Broomstick, mom).
Around the time I was heading into high school, I started to read about different religions, trying to figure out where (or if, I guess) I fit in and what (if anything) made sense to me, which resulted in a long period of agnosticism. I always felt like this, as in the human experience, couldn’t be it, but also…what did I know? What did anyone know? I ended up circling back to spirituality (and diving into personal development, which isn’t the same but seems to run parallel in my life) in my early to mid-20s, when I started meeting more witchy/spiritual friends, getting into crystals, and reading tarot, which paved the way for who, how, and where I am now.
As far as my ability to read energy goes, it’s been a lifelong thing. I was a highly perceptive child who could easily gauge the moods and feelings of people around me, sense when something was up, and “sniff things out” (for anyone else in Human Design, my strongest sense is smell, which can be translated to discernment). If I’m being honest, I don’t think this is necessarily a special or unique quality; everything is energy (including us), and energy can be felt. This is why we can walk into a room and feel like the “vibe is off,” tell when people are lying, or generally sense that a person or a place has “good (or “bad”) energy.”
What’s important is learning to trust what you’re feeling, and to discern what those feelings are trying to communicate with you. Once you’re in tune with your own inner compass, life gets a lot easier to navigate and you begin to build implicit trust with yourself.
This is what following intuition means to me; tuning into the innate GPS we all have and trusting that it’s leading me in the “right” (for lack of a better word) direction. We’re all capable of experiencing divine timing (aka being in the right place at the right time and “what’s meant for us not missing us”), but we’re never going to get there from a place of logic and the mind, which is the crux of intuition: it rarely, if ever, feels very logical, and many of us are raised to “use our heads” and “make the smart choice” regardless of the insightful information we’re picking up on in our bodies.
Learning to tune in, listen to, and follow the insights of my intuition has quite literally changed my life in so many ways, but this is long enough already, so I won’t regale you with every account of that (perhaps I’ll write a book one day).
2. Were there any significant moments in your spiritual journey that you recall as a turning point or game changer – whether it be a 3D or 5D experience, mindset shift, or lesson learned? What advice do you have for taking pivotal moments in your life and turning them into moments of transformative change?
Not to be cliche, but my Saturn return was one of the most eye-opening and profound periods of my entire life (so far). To make a long story as short as possible, when I was 29 I broke up with the love of my life, whom I had moved across the country with, and in trusting the very irrational and nonsensical information I was receiving from my intuition, I ended up moving to Australia (a country I had never once visited, where I loosely knew one person) — to this day, it was the single best decision I have ever made. I learned that sometimes we have to be willing to “lose it all” (is it really even a loss if it isn’t actually meant for us?) in order to truly find ourselves.
I won’t pretend it was an easy experience, but I guess the reminder here is that the light can’t exist without the dark, and every season of ebbing helps us appreciate the times in life when we are flowing that much more. It also feels worth mentioning that you don’t always need to be looking for “the lesson” in the moment, it’s hard to see then anyway, and many of us inadvertently use this to bypass actually sitting with and feeling our feelings. I don’t know that I can definitively say there’s a silver lining in every shit-ass situation we experience, but often there is, and it becomes a lot clearer the further we get from it.
3. One of our primary goals is to shift the mindsets of minorities, guiding them from a mindset of scarcity towards one of abundance. This involves fostering a broader and boundless perspective on life. How has your background and/or family history influenced your spiritual journey? Did it nurture your growth, or were there generational beliefs that you found necessary to unlearn?
I kind of already shed light on my upbringing as it relates to my spirituality, and the support I received in that regard, but if we’re going to continue to dive in, obviously generational thoughts, habits, patterns, and beliefs run deep for us all, and as an adult, I see the ways in which those things have shaped and influenced my internal landscape and day to day life.
As the eldest daughter, I often feel like the “curse breaker” of the family; it has always been clear to me that I am here to do things differently than I have seen them done before, which is an interesting path to navigate. What happens when there’s no roadmap for where you’re trying to go, especially when you know that’s uncharted territory? My willingness to forge my path and break away from familial stories, regardless of the discomfort that arises, has helped me broaden my perspective of what’s possible for me, but consciously knowing a thing and feeling/experiencing it on a cellular level are totally different.
All that said, I still struggle with scarcity and lack of mentality at times. I am still unlearning a lot, but I often use my own life and what I have accomplished so far as “proof’ of abundance (which, ps, is not synonymous with money; there are so many facets of abundance available to us in any given moment) and possibility, which helps me see just how limitless and expansive our brains, lives, and the Universe really are. Honestly, it’s all a practice; life is a practice.
4. One thing that has always stuck out in following your social media journey is your tarot and oracle decks – they look like they’ve lived a life of their own, which we love! Can you share the story of your first tarot deck and the significance it holds for you? How do you go about choosing tarot decks or oracle decks that are right for you?
The first tarot deck I ever owned was gifted to me by a friend, but I had developed a relationship with it long before I came to own a copy of my own. The Wild Unknown Tarot by Kim Krans struck a major chord with me from the moment I saw it; I loved the artistry and how it felt on an energetic level. Before I moved out to Los Angeles I had moved in with a friend to save money, and she had a TWU deck; we used to pull a card of the day together over coffee almost daily, which is how I came to know and love it. Actually, I pulled the Ace of Wands card from that deck so much during that time (a card signifying new opportunities, possibilities, and growth in its upright position) that I got it tattooed on my forearm (many of my tattoos are mementos from different periods of my life).
As far as choosing decks go, the artwork is huge for me — if I’m not into the artwork, it feels hard for me to connect to a deck on a deeper level. That said, I never really know if or how I’ll connect with a deck until I actually start to use it, and there have been instances where I’ve gotten a deck I felt really drawn to that just didn’t feel right (for me) when I started to use it, like I just couldn’t intuit anything. When this happens, it always feels like a clear sign that ultimately, the deck isn’t for me, in which case I gift it to its rightful owner (usually a reader friend who just feels better suited to it).
