The tears filling my eyes are a surprise. I did not expect to cry while having my aura read for the first time, nor did I expect to feel... seen?

I’m not a complete stranger to spiritual assessments. In 2022, I connected virtually with Tyler Henry, a medium whose talents have spurred two television series. But during that reading, I could fact-check his premonitions. (He seemed to know a lot about my family, but not every instinct felt spot-on.) But how could I fact-check an interpretation of my aura, the most important of all color analyses?

Elizabeth April – pitched to me as a “spiritual wellness influencer, clairvoyant, intuitive psychic and bestselling author” – says she possesses “extra sensory abilities.” At 2, she says, her parents noticed her “seeing things. Probably energies and auras and spirits and ghosts.” I’m a Catholic. I believe in an afterlife, which I think includes ghosts. Auras, I’m less familiar with.

It's someone’s energy field, April says. Each color has an association, “typically different emotions or scenario situations." She also gathers intel from the size of someone’s aura.

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An editor encouraged me to “Just have fun with it,” before my reading. Cut to me crying. Here's what happened:

'What does the future hold?'

The first colors April sees in evaluating my aura are pink, orange and yellow, a color scheme that I think my nieces, 7 and 4, will approve of.

Pink represents my divine feminine energy and my levels of compassion and empathy, April says. Similarly orange touches on those qualities and points to my “observing, feeling” side. The yellow is my confidence.

“You're definitely someone who just knows what they want and goes after it,” April assesses. And then things begin to feel more specific.

Forest green indicates “this deep question in you of like, ‘What does the future hold? Where am I going?' ” April says. Bingo!

At the time of our reading, it’s 10 days before my birthday, an occasion that usually generates excitement. I’m not in a relationship so I’m not celebrating on Valentine’s Day or an anniversary. There’s no Aunt’s Day yet. So I get one day out of the year, and I typically savor it.

But this year, I’m in a panic. I’ll be 37, longing for a husband and kids, without even a prospect of a good date.

April asks about my relationship status.

“Single and looking, single and hopeful,” I tell her.

“Interesting,” April responds.

“Why? What do you what do you see?” I ask.

Do I have a 'past life'?

I have purple energy toward the back of my body signifying I have “past life stuff” to deal with, April says. It’s been blocking my romantic relationships. Well, at least there’s a diagnosis.

The pattern needing to be cleared is “not fully being seen within relationships,” April says. “You have a tendency to actually hide parts of yourself from men.”

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I’m worried that being a strong, ambitious woman will intimidate men, April says. She's right. I am.

“But as we know, it is usually men who are not confident and authentic and strong, who are intimidated by a woman like that, who is not the type of man that you want to be dating anyway,” she says.

In the past year, I’ve “done a lot of inner work,” April says, and now I’m comfortable “unapologetically being yourself.” That's also true. That’s the yellow, the confidence, she says.

By talking about this pattern, it’s being cleared, April says. She predicts my soulmate will enter my life in one to two years. Now we’re talking!

“That's your person for the rest of your life,” she says. It fills me with ease, a balm for the wound that hurts most. He’ll be an “old soul,” who is a good communicator and empathetic. “Therefore, he's not intimidated by you stepping up and taking charge either. So there's going to be a really good balance there, rather than (someone) who's narcissistic and really doesn't see who you are.”

For me, being seen is both the scariest prospect and the thing I yearn for most. Every time I struggle to make small talk while others converse fluidly or try to connect with my girlfriends unsuccessfully, I feel "weird," as a sixth grade classmate once put it − an insult that stung.

And if I were to show that weird self to a romantic interest, surely they wouldn’t stick around. Just like no one has in the years that I’ve been dating. So that’s why the tears fall from my eyes. Without even saying much, April has been able to recognize the parts of me that I’m proudest of and given me full permission to be my unique self.

“Ooh, I get chills,” April says. I have them too. “You have so much to say. You are such a force to be reckoned with, and I feel like you've been playing it small, both in romantic relationships and in career, and this is your time. This is your time to be seen.”

Through sniffles, I tell April about feeling at a loss because I don’t have a husband or kids.

“What you've always wanted is coming to you,” she says. “So don't worry about that. Everything's in due time.”

When I meet my soulmate, we’ll fit like puzzle pieces April says.

Do I have a Starburst-colored aura? Will I meet my “puzzle piece” husband by 2026? Will April's predictions for my life come true, or is it easy to know what a single woman in her late 30s crying about being lonely wants to hear? For me, the answer to those questions is not what I am thinking about after the reading. I'm left pondering how much brighter my future can be if I am brave enough to show the world who I am.