I have been doing quite a few mediumship readings lately, and have also gotten a few questions from clients about the other side. I don't pretend to know everything about the other side, as I think there's quite a bit that's just incomprehensible about it for us living humans, but I have learned quite a bit from talking to spirit and my guides.

My understanding is that we are all, both living and passed, just energy, and we are all One (and together we make up part of the Divine). We who are living just have bodies in addition to our spirit, and when we pass, we are just our spirit again and therefore less bound to ideas of space/time.

Psychics and Mediums know in a sense that space and time are an illusion, and we can therefore more readily connect our awareness to the energy of things far away, or to spirits on the other side. We are essentially less caught up in the illusion that we are all separate and that there are physical boundaries between us, because we know our spirits are without boundaries. When I am connecting to spirit, the main thing I am doing is directing my awareness to the other side and opening up to them, to connect spirit-to-spirit with them (or energy-to-energy).

On the other side, our loved ones are all energy, and more aware of their oneness and divinity, but they still have individual consciousnesses and personalities (though much more expansive than what they had in life) and memories of the things they experienced in life and in their other lives. Because thoughts are just energy, they can feel or know when someone who is still living is thinking about them, and they draw closer. They can also "hear" your thoughts when they are near and connecting, which means that if you want to tell your deceased loved one something, all you have to do is think about them and mentally tell them. 

The other side also seems to be completely intertwined with the physical world, and they are always surrounding us in a sense, but as if in a different dimension. They are not above us, or below us. They are all around us.

There seems to be quite a few things spirits do on the other side, though I am sure I have no clue what most of that is. It seems that they in some part watch over and help their loved ones who are still living. I also know some spirits continue to learn and grow and develop. I also know that they decide on whether or not they would like to reincarnate, and what particular lessons and experiences they would like to learn or have.

Some loved ones also take on the role of spirit guide for a loved one that's still living, usually helping with things that they knew well in life (for example, a grandfather who was a banker helping his loved one with finances). I have a great grandmother who used to read coffee grinds for people when she was alive, who also helps me with my work now from the other side.

Then we also have spirit guides who are not related to us, but they are also usually spirits of people who have lived before, that then help us for a time with something they were good at. These spirit guides might come and go, only staying for a little while. Then we have some spirit guides who stay with us throughout life, guiding us and helping us learn and grow.

If you were also wondering if a passed loved one might reincarnate again in your lifetime, I am not sure. It seems that most of the time, people who have passed wait around for their group of family/friends to pass over too before they reincarnate again in the future (if they choose to do so).

Sometimes animal companions choose to reincarnate again soon after they've passed (though that's definitely not true for all animals). From my experience, it seems that deceased animal companions are in the same "place" as humans who have passed. They are not in a separate "animal heaven".

In fact, a lot of my sessions lately have been around connecting to animals who have passed. They often will point to the other animals and humans that are with them on the other side.

Do keep in mind though, that my understanding of the other side is just that: my understanding of it, seen through my personal lens of interpretation. I might well gain additional insight later that changes my thoughts on it all. In any case, I am excited to learn more from my work and from spirit, as I find it endlessly fascinating. To me it is mind-blowing how immense their love and intelligence is, and the things they are capable of doing from the other side to let us know that they are still with us, just in a different form.

I hope you all have a lovely week.

Mediumship and psychic work is always a work in progress. No psychic or medium is completely and fully developed when they step out into the world to do readings for others. Even famous mediums who have been doing this for years will still continue to shift, change, and grow as mediums, improving their work as they go.

Spirit often sends me the situations I need to grow when I am struggling through something that isn't serving my highest good. For example, any time my boundaries begin to slip and I begin to give too much of myself without being compensated (like going way over on time in my readings), the universe will send me a bunch of random strangers asking for free readings. This never fails. The universe is reflecting back at me the things I need to work on again (valuing myself and my energy).

The latest lesson I've had to learn is to become more assertive and stubborn in my readings. I have a bad habit, in my personal life and in my work, of deferring to other people, especially when they come off as more confident than me. For me it's a habit of assuming that others know better than I do.

So last week, Spirit sent me a client for a mediumship reading, and in the very beginning of the reading I got a couple pieces of information that the client said didn't make sense to her. These were so clear to me, yet she said she couldn't take it, so I moved ahead assuming she knew better than I, and that my abilities might just be a little off that day (these were her loved ones after all, not mine). So as I moved ahead with the reading, I kept assuming that my abilities were off, making me doubt or rethink everything coming through, or just not say certain things if they didn't come really strongly. It made for a very halting reading with lots of long pauses, and just not up to my usual speed and flow. The information coming through did make sense, but it wasn't full of "zingers". At the end of the reading she suddenly realized that the part she had said no to in the beginning actually was correct and very relevant. I was simultaneously relieved and frustrated at myself for not insisting on the info at the time when it came through.

Later that night, as I was getting into bed, I felt my client's loved one next to me. I normally have a very strict policy with spirits not to bother me at night time or while I am sleeping. This time however, I wasn't feeling all that satisfied with how the reading went, so I gave the spirit permission to give me more pieces of evidence about him in my dreams, if he wanted to.

And he did. In my dream, I was doing the reading again for my client, but it was slightly different and went much better (very therapeutic for me). Then after the reading I was surrounded by this spirit, and his friends and family, and they showed me three things that were special to the spirit when he was alive. After I woke up, I wrote to my client, including the extra pieces of evidence I received in the dream, and she confirmed that indeed those things were very relevant to the spirit.

I know it sounds idyllic in a way that I can get some work done while I am sleeping, but in reality I sleep horribly whenever a spirit connects with me. Their energy and presence keeps waking me up. Despite my lack of sleep, I was happy the spirit could come through in my dreams as well. What the reading had made clear to me though, is that I need to seriously work on my assertiveness in readings. This definitely wasn't the first time this has happened where a client says no to a piece of info that later turns out to be true, and though I have improved quite a bit in not letting this affect me, I clearly have more work to do on it.

A couple days later, I did another mediumship reading, this time with a married couple who wished me to connect to their dog that had just passed. During the reading, their dog showed me a reference to my client's having kids, and then he specified by showing me a boy. I asked my clients if they had kids, or a boy. They said no, they don't, so I moved on, but this time I didn't let it affect my reading, because I trusted that the client probably either  misunderstood something or was forgetting something. But then later on in the reading, the dog brought up the boy again, insisting he was right, so I said to my clients "I know you guys already said you don't have kids, but he really is insisting on this piece of information". That's when they said that well, the husband has a son from a previous marriage. They probably didn't think it was worth mentioning because the dog hadn't met him that many times when he was alive.

Like I said, this kind of thing happens all the time. Amnesia hits clients in readings because they are overwhelmed, or they are so focused on the information they want the spirit to mention that they forget everything else. Or there's just some miscommunication going on between everyone. That's quite understandable of course. A reading is always team work between the medium, the spirit, and the client. But a lot of the time the medium and spirit have to take the lead and let the client figure it out later.

It's such a big shift for me to stop assuming that a client is remembering correctly or knows what the spirit is referring to. I am committing again to deferring to my own abilities and to Spirit, instead of other people.

I hope you all continue to have a wonderful week. And may we all learn to stop deferring to other people, and trust our own abilities, whether or not you are a psychic medium.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of leading an animal communication practice circle at a friend's house, where a bunch of llamas and various types of exotic birds live (in addition to cats and a dog).

During a practice circle like this, I usually start off by guiding my participants through a meditation, and then I guide them through connecting with each animal, giving them prompts for what kinds of questions they can ask the animal. Afterwards, everyone shares what they received from the animal, and the owner of the animal gives feedback to the students about whether or not the information made sense for that animal. This way the students have the opportunity to get specific feedback about their connection, to see where their connection was right on, or where they may have misinterpreted something.

The participants did exceptionally well, as they got lots of accurate specific information from the animals. The llamas were all full of personality and it was fun to see them interact with us during the conversations. They explained their individual personalities, their quirks and habits, their role within the herd, which other llamas they are closer to, their health and age, and the things they like to get up to. One of them explained that she likes to break out of the enclosure to come up to the house and why (basically, for fun, variety, and to get closer to the house =) )

This orange cat above (named Fish =) ) came over on his own to interrupt us in our conversations with the llamas, letting us know he was ready to talk too. The participants also talked to a cockatoo, a parrot, and a dog. I decided to offer all the proceeds from the practice circle to the animals and their human companion, for their upkeep. I  think it's nice to give something back to the animals that are helping teach and improve animal communicators. I would love to do more of these practice circles, in particular with non-profits or rescues, and donate the proceeds to the non-profit. If you know of any in the Oregon/Washington area that might be open to this, let me know!

I have had a few more experiences this week that I want to write about, but I think it will be too long to add here, so I will leave this one as it is, and instead write a new one again soon. It will most likely be about boundaries, growth, and assertiveness in mediumship.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

I am finally back from a month's blogging-break. I had a very busy month with my mother who came to visit from Norway, in addition to doing quite a few readings. My mom came with me to one of my psychic workshops, and she did really well for her first time. Something she mentioned though, is that she felt surprisingly vulnerable when doing a reading. I hear this all the time from students who have just begun practicing doing readings for others. It is frankly terrifying for most  to do readings for others.

I sometimes joke with my clients when they come to me for a reading, that if THEY feel nervous, just know that I feel doubly nervous because not only am I terrified that I might mess up the reading somehow, but I can also feel their nervousness quite viscerally.

There are several reasons we psychics or mediums might feel nervous before a reading:

• That we won't be able to connect, for some reason
• That we will grossly misinterpret the information coming through
• That we will be completely off throughout the whole reading
• That we will be off on anything in the reading
• That our client turns out to be difficult
• That we're not wearing the same socks that we wore last time we did a successful reading. (It's so easy to become superstitious about our abilities.)

I think most of us are afraid that any or all of the information coming through will be wrong or off. It can be hard to trust the information coming through because it can feel remarkably similar to your brain making things up. The hard evidence for us is in the feedback we get from clients, about whether or not it was spot on. But that means we have to get over the hurdle of actually telling our client what we are getting. And that's when we feel most vulnerable, because we don't know yet if what we are getting is correct.

Our logical brains never know what a reading is going to be like beforehand, which is why it freaks out. It has no idea what to expect or how to prepare. You can't practice a specific reading beforehand. You can practice doing readings for many different people, but you can't practice one specific reading beforehand.  Every reading is different. It comes spontaneously in the moment.

The only thing I can liken it to is as if I, as the psychic medium, am a musician. With each reading it is as if I have to improvise a duet with a different musician (the clients' spirit guides or loved ones) every time. Every reading is wildly different, a lot because every spirit is wildly different. Some spirits are great communicators, and some not so much. Some spirits I have a lot in common with and we get along great and the information flows effortlessly. With other spirits, the communication is halting, difficult, and slow. There's no way to prepare for these things other than practicing doing readings for many different people. 

Students sometimes ask me if it gets any easier to trust what is coming through. Yes, it does get easier. But you are always jumping in the deep end with every reading. That is just a fact of doing readings. But you do get more used to jumping in the deep end. From practice, you build confidence, and you get used to the feeling of not knowing what's going to happen. You get used to that discomfort and learn to embrace it. And you also learn to set your nervousness to the side, while you just go ahead with the reading.

This reminds me of July of last year, when I felt like I was going to vomit or pass out (or both) for a full two weeks. This was leading up to my first ever large audience reading. I had done several small group readings before, but never for audiences of 30+ people. It turned out to be a great experience, and since then we have been doing audience readings once a month. We did one again just last Sunday, and I was reflecting on how much more relaxed I am before the events. I am still a little nervous, naturally, but nothing in comparison to those first few times. I got used to it, and now I simply trust Spirit to show up like they always do, and I trust Spirit to guide the readings.

I think it is amazing of my students to come to my classes and keep at this, because it does take a lot of courage to do this work. Hats off to those who push themselves to develop even when they're feeling vulnerable and insecure.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.