Just when she thought her day couldn’t get any better, Emma was delighted to chat with her good friend Stella Phillips. She’s a psychic warrior, healer, tarot card reader and the brains behind Essex’s Stella’s Holistic Services.

24 fingers: Okay, so number one. What is your favourite word?

Stella: Goddess.

24 fingers: What gets you up in the morning?

Stella: Determination, mostly.

24 fingers: Ooh, we love that!

Stella: Yeah, knowing that I’m gonna make one of my little healthy drinks that I make in the morning, yeah.

24 fingers: What is this healthy drink got in it?

Stella: Oh, we’d be here all day. I have actually done a Facebook Live the other day on my page with all the ingredients. But the basis of it is cocoa, which is raw chocolate, it’s got nut milk in, it’s got ginger, turmeric, which is really anti-inflammatory, and lots of other things. I can always share it.

24 fingers: So what do you honestly think of social media?

Stella: For me, it’s bittersweet. Predominantly, I love it. I think it’s amazing, especially now it’s really showing its worth. But I also am aware that especially, I’m allowed to name names, aren’t I?

24 fingers: Yeah, do it.

Stella: With Instagram, it can be kind of very focused on the outside of people. You know, on beauty. And I think as well that’s leading to a lot of women especially, and men, having low self-esteem, comparing their lives and things like that. But I think the messages that we can all bring, and obviously for things like we’re doing now, absolutely amazing and I love it.

24 fingers: Brilliant. I think I know the answer to this, but Kindles or books?

Stella: Books. And also, audible books as well. I can’t stand Kindles. There’s no connection for me there with what I’m reading.

24 fingers: So Stella, you’re in the holistic wellness industry. What do you think the biggest challenge is to your industry right now? ‘Cause I know personally there’s a lot of ‘gurus’ out there that say they can do anything, heal anything. Do you come up against that? What’s the biggest challenge for you?

Stella: The biggest challenge for me is reaching people, so reaching my one-to-one’s, for tai chi and massage. So reaching those clients, finding ways that I can bring relief and comfort to those clients. With my psychic work, it’s obviously finding a platform that really works well, some people like face-to-face, some people like phones. I think the massage side of it is going to be the biggest challenge going forward.

24 fingers: I know I’ve spoken to a lot of people and they’ve said “actually when lockdown lifts, I don’t know whether I’m going to rush to do all the same things that I’ve done before”, so I think, you know, we’re coming to a brave new world. And I know personally for me, I’m really designing what my new work looks like because it isn’t gonna be the same, things have dramatically changed. So now I think this has been an opportunity. You know what, that has caused me loads and loads of stress and I don’t want that in my life going forward. So there are opportunities aren’t there?

Stella, what did you wanna be when you were growing up?

Stella: A dancer, and also a detective. I used to love Sherlock Holmes and things like that.

24 fingers: And what led you to your current career?

Stella: Losing my mum. My mum passed away to cancer when she was only 43. And during her lifetime, she had quite a lot of her own personal struggles emotionally with anxiety and things like that. That was kind of the basis of wanting to help people I guess, that’s that wounded healer you know, where I wanted to help my mum and I felt helpless because I couldn’t. But I could also say the gaps in orthodox medicine, and things that my mum was the support that she didn’t get, that I know that I can offer people alongside orthodox treatment as well.

And obviously being psychic, that side of me I hated for a lot of years, that side of me I say was a curse rather than a gift. And when I started out, when I left school I was actually a hairdresser. I had done hairdressing for many years. But people used to say to me, “I get so much more than a haircut from you” and it was the healing from my hands. Even as a junior, I was very popular for washing people’s hair. I kind of thought I’d figure it out cause they’re getting healing.

And the other thing was I would be giving my clients predictions. So, you know they were coming back to me and saying, “well you said this last week, and that happened”. It led me into actually doing more of the psychic-holistic side of my work then feeling more excited about that than I was hairdressing.

24 fingers: Just on that, I am so desperate for a haircut and I cannot wait to meet my hairdresser. I love you to bits Sarah, and I can’t wait to come and see you again. Your favourite word was goddess, can you use it in a sentence?

Stella: Am I allowed to look at my notes?

24 fingers: No.

Stella: Okay, so how about being a princess. Oh, no that was the rhyme. Sorry, hang on.

24 fingers: Oh, look at your notes, I’ll let you.

Stella: Okay: we all come from the goddess.

24 fingers: Now can you make it rhyme?

Stella: Let’s be a goddess instead of a princess.

24 fingers: Very good. So, what would you say to your younger self, young Stella?

Stella: You are good enough, you’re good enough.

24 fingers: You know a lot of people said that. Myra, another fantastic therapist and I was talking about it the other day but that concept of actually truly believing no matter who you are, what you look like, what you’ve got, what you haven’t got, you are enough and yeah, hugely important.

So, what’s the best thing anyone’s done for you?

Stella: Well, this got me into quite a bit of turmoil because I feel so blessed. I’ve had so many lovely people in my life and some many gifts on my way in different ways in my life that I’ve gone with the first thing that came into my mind, which was many moons ago I helped a gentleman who had diabetes and I helped him to be able to reverse his diabetes. And at the time he was a neighbour where I’d recently moved to and at the time I said to him I don’t want money for it because I only recently qualified as a nutritionist so this must be about 16 or 17 years ago.

But anyhow long story short he one day knocked on my door because I didn’t have a car my car had gone wrong and he said do you want a car and I said yeah, yeah I still need a car and he said well do you want to buy my son’s car because his son had been drink driving unfortunately and I said Yeah, yeah how much do you want for it? He said we’ll sort that out later but he came over with all the documents and he said “a pound please”. It was a really nice car and I actually had that car for about eight years and at the time I didn’t have much money, you know, lots of things were going on in my life and it was just such a beautiful thoughtful thing.

24 fingers: I love that. Brilliant, go go that man. Tell us, what’s been your career defining moment so far? You might not have had it, yet, it might still be to come.

Stella: My career-defining moment, again, I feel this was to go fully self employed. Taking that leap of faith and just trusting in myself and doing, you know, carving my way forward for my business. So, yeah, going self-employed for me.

24 fingers: Brilliant. If you won a big award of some kind, who would you thank?

Stella: It would be my family. So, my daughters, I’ve got two daughters 28 and 24, and two grandchildren as well and son-in-law and the support that they offer me, it’s amazing so I think that’s really important. It would be them and then myself, as well. I’m doing such a good job.

24 fingers: Yeah, go on pat yourself on the back. So, Stella, can you give us a time saver of the day?

Stella: There are a few different things but I actually thought I’m going to go with this one and it is don’t bother peeling all your veg. So many people spend so much time peeling vegetables that pretty much all of your veg you don’t have to peel. Just cut the potatoes up, throw ’em in the pan. People get used to it with little bits of skin in it. It’s actually quite nice.

24 fingers: She’s a brilliant cook so I’ll take that, too. Where do you see your industry in 24 months?

Stella: I feel that for me I’m going transition, well, I know I am because of the thing I’ve got going on, to be more online. I want to have courses out there, you know. So really getting more online for me.

24 fingers: Where were you 24 months ago? Did we meet 24 months ago, roughly?

Stella: Yes, it was before that. So, 24 months ago I was working part-time in a local golf club behind the bar and working part-time running my business. And I was not very happy at all because you know where I was working it just – it wasn’t me. So, I thank that job actually and I thank the people there, because it made me make that leap of faith, you know to be fully filled with joy.

24 fingers: Very good. What’s a new fact about your company?

Stella: Although I do psychic readings I actually do them via the phone, as well. I think a lot of people think it won’t work over the phone but actually we are human beings having a spiritual experience. That’s my own personal view, and our consciousness is something that science hasn’t even defined, yet. I can connect with people all over the world and I have done readings for people in America, Australia Ireland, Scotland, all over the place. So, yeah, I think it’s that fact that I can do that just on a phone call.

24 fingers: She’s amazing honestly. Talking from personal experience, she’s amazing. If you could have a 24-minute Skype chat with anyone, who would it be?

Stella: Carl Jung for sure. I would be so interested to see what he feels about the world right now. Social media, whether he would like or whether he would loathe it and just any advice he’s got.

24 fingers: What’s one word you’d like people to describe you with?

Stella: Thoughtful.

24 fingers: You are very thoughtful. The next one is do you mind taking a selfie for us? Smile – I’m gonna take a screenshot – brilliant. Okay, what’s your favourite Twitter handle on social media? Is there anyone you recommend we all follow? Anything – the world is your lobster.

Stella: Steve Lily photography on Instagram. I absolutely love his feed. It cheers me up and he’s done a photo shoot with myself. He’s out helping empower women. He’s amazing, and on Facebook there’s Katie Holland doing the 21-day awakened belly dance. It’s totally free. I’m doing that myself, I love it. It’s amazing.

24 fingers: Great recommendations, thank you and I’ll put those client links in the comments. What’s one quote that defines your work ethic?

Stella: Holistic.

24 fingers: What’s been the best part of your day?

Stella: So, I’ve had some really good news earlier. I can’t say what it is at the moment but it just showed me I’ve been chanting and I’ve been manifesting a particular something and it just out of the air this morning it’s all aligned so yeah really exciting. It’s to do with the goddess work that I do but I can’t share what it is at the moment.

24 fingers: Can’t do the big reveal yet but she will. Thank you very much for sharing. Finally, anything to plug, Stella?

Stella: At the moment if anybody within the next two weeks I’m doing reduced price readings by anyone’s that’s been affected by this pandemic that we’ve got at the moment but also for any key workers, front-line workers so where it’s usually £40 for a 30-minute reading you can have that for £25.

24 fingers: So if anybody tags this with any key workers that they know they think that actually might benefit from a healing session they can get in touch with you, yeah?

Stella: I can do healing meditation or a psychic reading. Or of all three – 10 minutes on each.

24 fingers: Love it. Stella, thank you so much. How can people find you to get in touch with you?

Stella: So, Stella’s Holistic Services across all platforms or I’ve also got a psychic warrior page on Facebook, as well.

24 fingers: I’m sure that you gonna get loads of people who are interested to see what their future holds cause right now people have been feeling a bit uncertain of what’s gonna happen so I’m sure people really would benefit from your insight and clarity.

Stella: Thank you.

24 fingers: Brilliant. So, thank you very much everybody. I’ve got some great guests lining up for this week. And if anyone wants to appear on 24 questions give me a shout, it would be a pleasure to have you. Stay safe everyone and we’ll see you again soon.