Today we’d like to introduce you to Kris Cahill.
Hi Kris, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born on the south side of Chicago and grew up in the Beverly neighborhood. I moved to the north side of Chicago as a young person, and started finding myself in various creative endeavors, starting with textile design, fashion, and costume design. I then became an abstract painter, which helped me find my way to a psychic school where I learned how to access and work with my own abilities.
I met my husband in Chicago, and we are about to celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary. Though we are both from Chicago, we’ve lived in Los Angeles, Portland OR, and now Decatur GA. My husband, Noel Olken, is an actor, and Atlanta has a vibrant film and TV industry, so it worked well for us to relocate here. I always prefer living near art museums and artists, and Atlanta and Decatur have both.
I’ve been a creative and an artist my whole life, and feel quite fortunate in my choice of parents, as they were both creative. My dad was an engineer and inventor, my mom an artist her whole life, and my siblings and I were encouraged to make things since we were very young. We did art and crafts at home, and learned how to make fun things together. As a young person I had art tools, classes and permission to explore, which helped me follow my creative interests. My grandma gave me a beginner’s sewing machine when I was 9, and I had sewing lessons that year too.
From the age of 5 I was interested in fashion and wanted to be a fashion designer, a dream I followed while a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I graduated with a BFA from SAIC in 1982, and immediately started making my own fashions, which were unique, hand painted and embellished, often one of a kind wearables. I went on to design and produce clothing and accessories under 3 labels I created: Konfettikids, Bourgeois Rags, and Lemmingwear. Two of these labels were repped in fashion showrooms coast to coast, and I became a wholesaler whose designs were seen in boutiques all over the USA. I prided myself on not having my clothing made by underpaid sweatshop garment workers, in this or any other country. This was very important to me. I worked with local sewing shops, owned and operated by individual people who set their own prices, and I hired individual sewists to work in my studio too.
In the years that I was designing and producing my fashions and accessories, I also designed costumes for modern dance, theater, and commercials. Later, I became a custom wear designer for weddings and individuals who wanted unique clothing. I worked in fashion and costume for about 15 years, and then I was ready for a change.
I really wanted to make paintings, ever since I was in art school, and I didn’t do it then. I didn’t have the space for it yet, but now it was time. What’s fun to write and remember is that once I started painting, in the early 1990’s, amazing and seemingly magical things started happening for me. My art led me to my psychic work.
I went back to SAIC to take painting classes, and a grant that partially covered my tuition showed up out of nowhere. I’d always been eligible for this particular grant but for some reason didn’t hear of it until my 2nd round of art school. My painting teachers were interesting, knowledgable, and generous with how they taught, and I loved my classes. Going back to school was crucial in how I started finding my unique painting style, and more importantly, helped me find permission to call myself a painter.
The way I found my psychic school was equally magical. I’ve always been sensitive to and interested in energy work, psychic things, and all the woo. I bought and read astrology magazines when I was 12, but didn’t know anyone in my Catholic neighborhood who knew how to do any of this stuff. As I moved into my 30’s, I was starting to realize that I didn’t like the way I felt around certain people, and was tired of losing my energy in different situations.
A psychic I went to at this time told me to learn how to ground myself, but couldn’t teach me how. The idea of learning how to do this stuck with me, and so when a woman called me to buy one of my paintings, and identified herself as a teacher at a psychic school in Chicago – wait, there was a psychic school?? – I jumped at the chance to meet her. I liked her, felt safe at this school, and I started taking psychic classes in January 1999. Within 18 months, I was on track to become a psychic teacher myself, I gave readings to clients, and I had a whole new picture of myself and what I was capable of having and creating.
Becoming a skilled clairvoyant has been one of the most creative things I’ve done for myself. Learning how to read energy as a clairvoyant enhanced my life and my art – I found the freedom to be the abstract painter I’d always wanted to become.
My husband and I moved to Los Angeles in 2006, and I started a whole new level of being the psychic and artist. While still making and showing my art, I also started my psychic business in L.A. I learned how to operate as a psychic teacher on my own, and also how to collaborate and work with people who taught different kinds of modalities – yoga teachers, sound healers, and teachers of different forms. I took part in retreats, gave readings at large events, and worked with hundreds of students and clients in my years in L.A. I had a radio show, my first podcast, and started blogging too.
In 2010, I consciously decided to put my art making aside for a while so I could build my psychic business full time. This began a whole new level of creating as a psychic reader and teacher, and the 10 years that followed brought many new people, students, clients, opportunities, and colleagues into my life.
Besides creating and teaching classes and workshops on my own, I currently teach at the Art of the Seer Academy, which was created by a good friend, William Pacholski. William and I met while I was still living in L.A., all those many years ago. He seemed to show up out of the blue, wanted to start a psychic school, and asking if I was interested in participating? I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with people who’d studied and pursued the same clairvoyant information I love so much, and I said yes.
Suddenly I had clairvoyant friends and colleagues again, this time in a whole new way. I had people to work with who spoke my psychic language, and were committed to working together to build something new. We developed new ways of teaching people how to turn on their own psychic abilities safely. Together we had a clear desire to update old language and ideas in this form, bringing it into the 21st century. Some of the techniques and tools we’d all been taught went way back to the 1960’s and 70’s, and it was time to modernize it all.
It’s amazing to sit here and write out this history for myself, and to be able to share it. The desire to create has been with me my whole life. The ability to be sensitive to energy and spirit was always there too, just waiting for me to open it up for myself.
I never predict the future, I find that to be a pointless exercise that isn’t based on anything helpful, and can actually get in the way of the person one is making predictions for. If anyone had predicted some of these things for me all those years back, before I had done my own work and had the experiences and walked the path, I wouldn’t have believed them. And yet here I am, at the age of 66, feeling like I’m just now starting a whole new level of my life, again.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Sometimes I feel my road has been smoothed simply by my choice of attitude at whatever moment felt bumpy. At other times, I know I was helped by others believing in me, even when I didn’t yet know how to do this for myself.
Creativity itself has definitely paved the way, also growing up in a family with lots of permission to create and think creatively. I am saddened whenever I hear someone, especially a young person, declare themselves to be ‘uncreative’. My work as an artist and psychic has helped me see and deeply believe in the inherent creativity of the human spirit.
I appreciate that I have a lot of humor and amusement, and I know this has helped me get through the bumpy times along the way, because there have been plenty of bumpy roads indeed.
One thing I’ve learned is that if everything is consistently easy and there’s no need to stretch, I will be bored. But I have also finally figured out that this doesn’t mean it always has to be difficult!
Some of the struggles I’ve experienced have been financial, as I’ve mostly been the one paying for my own business expenses. Other challenges have been due to the fact that I am the one in charge of making this business run, and if I’m not able to bring my energy to it, it won’t.
Along the way to where I am now, I’ve had to step away from colleagues, students, and clients who weren’t a good fit for me. I learned from every single one of them, especially the ones who were looking for someone to be responsible for them, and would get angry or punishing when I told them that this isn’t how it works, or how I work.
Every challenging person I’ve run into has helped me become clear about who I do want to work with, which is the people who want to do their own work and grow. I have no interest in telling anyone what they should do, or assuring them that X or Y will happen exactly as they wish, because it’s not true or helpful. I have no desire to teach people how to control situations or other people. I have been asked to do all of these things from former clients and students who couldn’t get what they thought they wanted from me, and went to find it elsewhere. Or, I told them kindly that I wasn’t the right fit for them and we wouldn’t be working together.
I had one client who, halfway through her reading, got angry when I read for her that she had the ability to change a situation, and it would start from within herself. This person became angry because I was reading her power, but she wanted me to validate her as the victim, and I wouldn’t. I still remember that it was literally halfway through the reading when it happened. She demanded half of her money back afterwards. I of course offered to give all of it back, as I had no desire to ever see this person again, but she insisted on half, which I gladly sent her. A great lesson for me, I never attracted a client like that one again.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As a lifelong artist, learning how to work with my clairvoyance helped me include being psychic as one of my art forms. My psychic Substack, blog, and podcast are called ‘The Art of Being Psychic’.
I’m a clairvoyant reader, psychic medium, and psychic teacher. I’m also an abstract painter. These two paths have supported each other in many ways over the years, and are consistently the ways I grow, evolve, express myself, and heal. I’m grateful to have them both in my life, and appreciate that they coexist peacefully and joyfully.
Currently I give readings, teach psychic classes on my own and also through the Art of the Seer Academy online, lead meditation drop-ins, write and publish two Substacks, paint and find ways to create my art. Friday is art making day with a couple of friends, fellow painters, and I pack up my supplies and go to my friend’s house to paint together. It’s one of the best things I’ve given myself as an artist, because making art can be such a solitary existence. It’s nice to have art making friends!
In a typical work day, I might work with a client or student or both, write and publish one of my Substack newsletters, update a curriculum for a class I’m teaching, meet with a colleague, or take time to read and study. Some days are geared more toward painting, some toward psychic work, some include both. I don’t try to do all of these things every day, but I love how my work varies.
As a clairvoyant, I am known by my clients and students as someone who brings a positive creative energy to every meeting and session. Without telling someone what they ‘should’ do, I help them find their own answers about their life. Sometimes this means helping someone find the space to simply be who and where they are, sometimes I help them release energies they’re done with in a clairvoyant or mediumship healing. I do this with gentle kindness, amusement, and lightness. Sometimes the answer in a particular session is to create space for the client to release unwanted energies so they can take their next step. At other times, the answer is to kindly challenge someone to take a step, so that they can grow in the way they choose.
As a psychic teacher, my goal is to help my students find their own style as sensitives, psychics, and clairvoyants. Every single one of us has a sensitivity to energy, it’s part of being human. I teach grounded tools that help people have their own energy working for them, which can include releasing energies safely, seeing themselves clearly and with kindness, and let go of where they get stuck in their lives.
I’m most proud of how passionate I am about my work, and also how willing I am to be flexible and change when needed. I trust that I can and find my own answers about creativity, healing, and taking steps I’m ready to take.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Every time I was ready to take a step forward in my life, and wanted to make a change, my next teacher or teachers showed up. It’s funny how that works!
The way it’s worked for me is that I would take a small step forward, ask someone else what they did, do my own searching, or say that I want to learn x or y. I’d ask people I knew for advice or a recommendation for someone or something that could help me. Being honest with myself about what I did and didn’t want was very helpful.
Being conscious about what you really do want is powerful. I think for me the key was to say I wanted a particular thing, sometimes that could just be saying to myself, ‘I want to learn how to ground myself’. I did this for about a year before my first psychic teacher showed up one day, seemingly out of the blue. My first class with her featured grounding, and I learned exactly what I’d been asking about all that time.
I would also recommend being patient with yourself, your process, and your body. Sometimes we ‘think’ we are ready for a step, but there might be several other things to get through and learn about first before we are actually ready for that thing.
Pricing:
- 100.00 – 30 minute Clairvoyant Reading or Healing
- 195.00 – 60 minute Clairvoyant Reading or Healing
- 450.00 – Foundation Meditation Class – 4 Week private class
- 1250.00 – Clairvoyance Mastery Class – 10 Week private class
- 22.00 – Meditation Drop-In Class
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kriscahill.com/
- Instagram: @psychiceveryday
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kris.cahill.14/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KrisCahill
- Other: https://kriscahill.substack.com/
Image Credits
-Kris Cahill’s headshots (two images) are by Darrell Snedeger at CE Images, Atlanta GA, May 2025
-Photo of Kris Cahill, William Pacholski, and Ryan Fukuda by William Pacholski, Chicago Oct. 2024, Art of the Seer Academy Chicago Retreat
– Self Love & Affinity Meditation, art by Kris Cahill, designed by Kris Cahill
Original art by Kris Cahill (4 paintings):
– Center of My Universe
– Magic In the Air
– Into the Mystic
– A Million Candles Burning
– Have Your Space Meditation, cover designed by Kris Cahill
