The Spirit World is in the Zoom Room Waiting for You

So many people avoid sitting with a medium because they're afraid of what they might experience— and it's typically the opposite of what they expect.

In just the last couple of weeks, I’ve talked to three people who told me they were interested in the spirit world, that they believed in it, but they were afraid of getting a session with a medium like me on Zoom or in person.

At a recent party, one woman told me that her daughter passed away a couple of years ago, but she was wary of a reading because maybe “other stuff” or negative entities might come through.

In the numerous years of years of doing readings, I’ve never experienced that. It’s all about connecting through the power of love, so you’re only getting whatever you need to hear that is in your best interest. It’s all love and light and all the good stuff, and the spirit world wants to share this with you.

I had another friend tell me she was afraid of getting a reading because she didn’t want to have anything to do with any family members who had passed down so much intergenerational trauma to her.

That is, of course, her choice and completely understandable. But most mediums I know would probably bet that her ancestors want to take responsibility for any crap they gave her, taking it off her shoulders, and they’d let her know that she had nothing but their loving support. This may sound dismissive of her experience, but truly, I’ve only known spirit people to come through the power of love for healing.

And then another person who read my first Substack confided that she learned secrets about her dad after he died and she wonders now if that’s something he would address or want to discuss. She has some strong feelings around some of this.

I have witnessed something called divine orchestration at play. You’re going to feel nudged to get a reading because the spirit world has a message for you, and it’s up to you whether you follow that nudge or not.

My experience, as with other mediums I know, is that those readings tend to deliver whatever is in your highest good, and the spirit world knows what you need better than we do. And it’s usually not about dishing out dirt or sharing buried secrets that hurt.

Another medium friend told me that she’s heard from people who simply worry that their loved one won’t show up in a reading. My understanding is that if that happens, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not there; it might mean that it’s not the right time or their loved one wants them to go within and build their own private relationship with them—without the help of a medium. (More on how to do that in future posts)

Think of it like a waterfall.

And lastly, another medium told me that people say they don’t want to “drudge up” difficult emotions with a reading. I know the word healing is overused, but most of us walk around with unresolved stuff brewing beneath the surface, things that work in our subconscious, that keep us from feeling whole. These sessions can be a release valve for all of it—anger, abandonment, lack of love, guilt, shame or pain. Sometimes it’s just nice to know our loved ones aren’t really gone, that they’re at peace and that they are with us.

I was talking about this topic with Sally Hawk, a medium and founder of VerySoul.com, a global platform that develops and qualifies mediums. She was trying to adequately describe what a reading feels like.

“It’s euphoric,” she says. “It’s like getting to the top of a mountain and the view is magnificent. Or like standing in front of a waterfall and you feel the energy of it. That’s what they’re going to get.”

People change when they die.

Still, no doubt, a session with a medium can sometimes be emotional.

For me, there was only one time when a woman was angry after a reading. She said she was pissed that her dad was still depressed in the spirit world. But this was simply a misunderstanding.

Folks on the other side will come through with evidence of who they were when they were alive—and that could have been anything from depressed, addicted and anxious to happy-go-lucky, a jokester or serious. But this is to show you that it’s really them, so you recognize them. But if they had it rough here on earth, they are clearly different on the other side. They say they’re at peace, and they see their lives and you in 360-degrees with deeper understanding, love and compassion. They often take responsibility for how they were in this life and offer just the kind of messages that free us.

I had one session with a woman whose mom came through who had been abusive to her when she was alive. I recognized this, and I asked her if she wanted to hear from her or not. The woman said yes-and-no. She allowed her mom to come through with evidence of their turbulent story together, and her mom acknowledged that she treated her daughter horribly and took responsibility for it. The daughter also felt this new love from her mom that she never before felt. She later told me she felt lighter somehow, and that she’d waited her entire life to get that message.

Dead people see things from a difference perspective now.

In writing my upcoming book, Tapped In: Spiritual Insights from the Lives of Mediums, Healers and Near-Death Experiencers, I learned that many people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs) have what’s called a life review when they die. They literally go back to every single moment of their life, which apparently is possible because of that weird spatial dimension of time; time doesn’t exist. They even go back and even feel what other people around them felt in those same moments.

Scientific research on NDEs by Bruce Grayson, a skeptical psychiatrist out of the University of Virginia, found seven hundred cases of these kinds of life reviews out of thousands of NDEs he studied. Those people often talk about the life review happening all at once.

It’s hard to wrap your head around.

Here’s another comforting thing I learned when I interviewed a woman who had a near-death experience after a toxic reaction to a medication. She said that she learned that on the other side, all of the darkness in the world is burnt away by this intense white light. A number of other NDErs I interviewed said similar things.

Go on a spiritual journey.

As for uncovering things about yourself that you don’t want to see —whether in meditation or medium sessions or any other kind of “woo-woo” activity— that’s just part of the spiritual journey.

Andy Byng, a well-known medium I interviewed for Tapped In, said it’s about peeling back the layers of who you are. It can be difficult at times, but it’s always better on the other side.

“If you want an easy life,” he says, “spirituality is not the thing to be involved in. But if you want a rich life, then you have to go on a spiritual journey.”

P.S. If you’re inclined, you can message me for a free private reading or you can use my promo code TAPPED In for a free reading with another verified medium on www.VerySoul.com.

Have you experienced a session with a medium? What was it like? Are you a medium too? Tell us more.

I never thought I’d be here.

We don’t always know where we are going until we get there. I learned this in a really big way as I followed the breadcrumbs that the universe tossed in my path and found myself here: as a journalist, fiction author, non-fiction author, reiki master and evidential medium. The journalist part was easy. I knew that I wanted to pursue that career back when I was sixteen.

And for the most part, I stayed on track. For decades, I pushed down my own intuition and operated firmly in the real world, furiously tapping out business stories for national newspapers and magazines like Fortune and the New York Times—and later, while writing several young adult novels. I was fascinated by mediums, but I always thought they were “special” people who were simply born that way.

Five years ago, I discovered I was wrong.

Rewind further to a decade ago, and that’s when the journey really began. I was struggling with motherhood, confidence, anxiety, and limiting beliefs, when a neighbor told me she was training to be an energy worker. She asked me if I wanted a free session as she practiced.

I thought what she was doing was very weird at the time, so I politely said, “no thank you.”

She then asked if she could do a remote session instead. Again. Weird. I rolled my eyes to myself and shrugged and said “sure.”

A day or two later, I felt this serious shift in how I felt about a couple of people with whom I was clashing. I remember standing in the shower and feeling no animosity or irritation towards them. It blew me away. My husband even commented that I seemed different.

I thought, “What on earth kind of voodoo did that woman do?”

I went down the street to find out, and she seemed to have these psychic knowings about me. I thought she was magic. I kept going to her for about a year, desperately seeking help for my inner chaos.

Then I had a realization: I was outsourcing my own intuition. I needed to go inside my heart, heal myself, follow my own intuition. I began meditating and doing deep contemplation.

Later, when the pandemic struck, I was searching for help for my son, and I discovered Reiki, the ancient Japanese healing modality. Again, mind blowing stuff. Curiosity eventually led me to become a Reiki master, allowing me to do these healings and teach others.I had no idea why I was doing any of it; I just kept following the nudges. Over time, I could feel myself changing.

My Big Aha Moment…

In 2022, just before I drifted off to sleep, I felt the presence of my husband’s stepmother who had passed away the year prior. I had a conversation with her in my head and received a message for her daughter —that she would be in spirit at the wedding of her granddaughter. Oddly, I didn’t question any of it.

Then she told me to “ask about the dogs.” I was baffled by this comment, and I thought it must’ve been my imagination.

Still, the next day I texted the loving message to her daughter, Mary.

She was grateful and touched. I decided to be brave and then sent another text asking how her dogs were doing. Mary replied: “They are in the emergency vet. How did you know?”

I thought, “Uh… your mom told me.”

I needed to know how that happened. I reached out to another friend and neighbor who is a gifted medium and began to study evidential mediumship in a Zoom class with her and a group of people who would go on to be my friends.

We learned the art of connecting with loved ones on the other side and bringing through evidence of their life so that a person knows without a doubt their loved one is really there and a message from them. We learned that we all could connect to each other’s souls, bringing through information about each other’s hearts psychically.

I swear every week I was running to my husband to share the next all the profound. thing that happened or the uncanny information that came through about people who had crossed over. It was tapping into another world, into another part of myself.

More to come about those stories.

It was truly unbelievable to the old me.

Over the past several years I’ve served as a medium on VerySoul.com, and the experiences have been life-changing, bringing me closer to myself and to spirit. It’s changed how I view myself, other people, this life, this world and the afterlife. And it’s been an absolute honor to share these messages and celebrate the lives of those who crossed over—but who aren’t truly gone.

I learned so many things, but here is a biggie: That kind of profound connection to spirit and spiritual journeys is available to everyone. We are all able to connect. Every single one of us. This outside the bounds of dogma or religion.

What You’ll Find Here

• Posts on writing, journalism, fiction, spiritual connection and aha moments

• Conversations with writers, healers, mediums, near-death experiencers—ordinary people who have had extraordinary experiences.

  So now, I want to hear from you.

  What are you doing to find peace in this messy world? What kinds of books do you like to read? Non-fiction and fiction?

  I look forward to our conversation and exploring this path together!

Corporate exec, Navy commander, police officer—people from all walks are finding connection to the Spirit world

I’m not your typical woo-woo type. I didn’t see ghosts as a kid, and I don’t wear gauzy skirts or feathers in my hair. I was always sensitive I suppose, and some people told me I was too sensitive. (Read my first Substack post about my general story here.)

Most of the people I’ve interviewed for my newest book, Tapped In: Spiritual Insights from the Lives of Mediums, Healers and Near-Death Experiencers are the same as me in that respect. They came from everyday backgrounds, which shows us that spiritual awakenings are happening for people just like you and me.

Medium Sally Hawk is one of 40 people I interviewed for Tapped In. She spent decades as a corporate warrior leading big companies like GE and Bank of America. One day, while flying on a private jet from a business meeting, something inside her told her to just quit her job. Just like that.

Without hesitation and at the peak of her career, she listened to that voice, knowing something else was in store. She followed a similar path to mine and stumbled upon mediumship. She ended up using her business expertise to start Very Soul, a global platform that develops and qualifies mediums. Three years in, the community includes 23,000 users and 2,600 mediums from 50 countries who have performed over 100,000 readings.

(Use the promo code TAPPED IN on VerySoul.com to get a free evidential reading.

It’s a great way to try it out if you’ve never experienced mediumship, or the practice of sensing, communicating with, or conveying messages from people who have passed away—or, more broadly, from the “spirit world.”

Stay tuned: I will be exploring the fear that some people have with consulting a medium or connecting more deeply to themselves.

I also interviewed Rich Braconi, who worked as a narcotics detective in New Jersey before he had a spiritual awakening that shifted everything in his life. He now teaches mediumship and spirituality at Lily Dale Assembly in upstate New York.

I chatted with David Williamson, an IT manager who lived with deep-seated anger for decades because of the racial discrimination he experienced in the South. He had a near-death experience at age 40 that flipped his belief system, allowing him to find compassion for people he used to hate. Now he can see why and how we stay divided as a culture, by creating false and limiting narratives about each other. (More to come on his story.)

Then there is Suzanne Giesemann, a well-known medium who has been named one of the world’s most spiritually connected people. She used to be a U.S. Navy commander and aide to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Her story and most recent revelations are in my book.

So many people are opening up to this awareness that we are more than this physical body in this physical reality.

We are an increasingly large group of people with diverse backgrounds, geographies, belief systems who understand that we are all connected, that we all can heal from our experiences and baggage. That each of us can find peace inside.

So how can YOU find that connection?

Meditate.

Yeah, I know. It’s not groundbreaking advice. For years we’ve known about the direct benefits of meditation. A growing body of research shows it’s great for your nervous system, for focus, memory, anxiety, stress and more.

But meditation offers us much more than that. It greases the wheels for intuition, peace, connection and healing. In fact, most of the people I interviewed for this book say that it was pivotal to their experiences and it now makes up part of their daily routine.

“Meditation is so important because it’s hard for us to even think about these things in our normal waking consciousness,” Eben Alexander, near-death experiencers, neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven, told me in our book interview.

We widen our view in meditation. We discover that healing force of love. In fact, most near-death experiencers told me that, through meditation, they can go back to that amazing place of pure love that they experienced in their brief time on the other side.

There is no one way

If you’re like many people, you might say, “I can’t meditate. My brain is too busy.” Well of course that answer is a good reason why you should probably meditate. People think they have to shut off all thoughts. But instead, it’s simply about gently redirecting back to your breath or perhaps a peaceful image.

But if meditation is not for you, try mindfulness. Not long ago, I wrote a story for Yoga Journal about the many ways you can do this—ranging from eating slowly and noting the texture and taste of your food to walking quietly in nature with no distractions.

When I first started meditating, I used the meditation app Headspace. It simplified it with short sessions, cartoons and videos, and it worked. Other people like the variety of spiritual meditations on Insight Timer.

There are others tools:

• Suzanne Giesemann has a simple three-minute meditation called Sip of the Divine in which you quiet your mind and ask yourself what you need to know that day.

• Eben Alexander touts something called binaural beats as the best way to get to that theta brainwave state for deep spiritual meditation. Binaural beats are soundtracks of dual tones that coax the brain into the slow, dreamy rhythm of theta brainwaves, which appear in deep relaxation, meditation, early sleep, and creative thought. He now sells these recordings and meditation programs on his website Sacred Acoustics.

• My mentor, Becky Hesseltine, and many other mediums engage in meditations called Sitting in the Power, which take you to a beautiful place where you can connect with loved ones on the other side.

The experiences can be magical.

One of the first times I did a Sitting in the Power meditation, I connected with my deceased aunt. I saw a bright flashing light in the corner of my vision and could sense her more than really see her. But I knew it was her. I saw flashes of a car passenger seat and then glimpses of a car window. It almost looked like a reversed photographic image. Then I heard the words “hear Sarah sing” in my mind, repeated over and over. Finally, I saw a beautiful meadow of flowers outside the car window.

I had no idea what it meant, but I relayed the experience to my cousin. That’s when she told me that her daughter, Sarah, was driving cross-country right then, and she had turned up the radio and sang out loud to keep herself from falling asleep. Sarah had just sent her mom a photo of a meadow of colorful flowers she had driven past.

This told me that my aunt really was in my meditation. She was with her granddaughter Sarah, protecting her on her long journey. I’ve since found that real-time readings with people are even more powerful and feel more complete, but this glimpse into where meditation could take me was a key moment. I realized then that I was tuning into a higher dimension.

For medium Kay Reynolds, meditation took a lot of practice, but eventually during one of those sessions she met her spirit guide and she saw her own soul, she told me during an interview for Tapped In. She said it looked like a beautiful, moving, colorful energy.

This experience was emotional and transformative for Kay. It allowed her to truly understand that she is more than her body. That she is a soul, and everyone else is, too. Even if a person irritates or upsets her, she remembers that person is just like her beyond this physical body, this ego self.

My invitation to you: Give meditation a chance. Make it a practice if you can. See what happens. If you already meditate, share your experiences!