Why I Decided to Ditch My Fears and Embrace Being a Medium

Or, why embracing our gifts leads to the best and happiest version of ourselves.

One of the ways I help people find their path and work through their grief is through readings and mediumship. I have been an intuitive and medium since I was a child, but honestly, I thought everyone was.

{a clarification: I continue to do seminars and teach classes on resilience and grief that are not based on my mediumship work. I am adding readings to my offerings.}

I have never been afraid of being judged for doing something that others couldn’t - seeing spirits, connecting with the deceased, having vivid dreams.

Instead, I have always been afraid of offering my medium services to people because I don’t EVER want someone who is grieving to feel taken advantage of. I went through tragic losses, I know how it feels to desperately want to talk to someone who is gone.

Apparently, I needed to get out of my own way.

A little back story, I have connected with spirits for my whole life. I kind of assumed everyone did it until I became an adult and realized that most people shut it off. And then I moved to Bayfield, WI on Lake Superior.

Living in Bayfield, WI being married to an Ojibwe, sensing spirits and seeing things was an everyday occurence by pretty much everyone in the area. I would leave town, start to talk about these things and people would look at me like I had grown horns. I had to remember who my audience was when I was talking about these things.

After my late husband passed away in 2013, Jim started showing up to other people in their dreams, and I felt so abandoned. Why wasn’t he showing up to me?!

Turns out this is completely normal! After years of doing seminars on grief and loss, I talked to many others who also had friends who saw their loved ones in dreams, but not in their own dreams for many months or years. If they did connect with their loved ones in this period of times, the person they miss is usually yelling at them or even far off in the distance. PLEASE understand this is your subconcious. Your loved one is NOT mad at you in the afterlife.

The week before Jim’s funeral I went to see Fr. Kevin Gordon, who was the first person to really encourage me to embrace my gifts. I sat down and told him that lightbulbs were exploding all around me, and that must be going crazy. Instead, he said that his job as a Roman Catholic priest was to investigate the paranormal and help spirits pass on. Fr. Gordon told me that of course lightbulbs were exploding from all of my energy, that my gift was God given, and that I needed to use my gifts accordingly.

That was *not* the response I was expecting to hear from my priest.

After that my “spidey sense” , as I like to call it, shut off completely for almost a year. I had relied heavily on it to make decisions, and wow, did I miss it! I felt so empty. It did eventually return with force.

I spent the next 8 years with my friends being fully aware that I did readings and saw things, but I never did it for strangers. I was thoroughly enjoying helping my friends out! Oh - and it was hilarious to know that my exes were going to have a kid before they did. Ha!

When I “suddenly” up and moved to Fargo in 2020, it was a move based on intuition and a gut feeling. I got here and within 6 months I had met my now husband, found an incredible doctor, and discovered a breast cancer tumor that had stayed hidden for awhile.

Thank the LORD I had followed my gut, because I would not be here today. I truly believe that!

The past two years I have been recovering from health battles & cancer, building up my speaking business, starting my Thanatology master’s program, and slowlllllly doing readings for strangers in public.

Sam has encouraged me fully, and actually he’s the one that insisted that I tell a couple we ran into (and didn’t know) that I had been in contact with their mom (the husband’s mom). I told them - including a few specifics that no one else would have known - and THEY DID’T LAUGH AT ME or yell at me or freak out. Instead, they were so happy to hear from her!

It was at that moment that I knew I needed to start offering readings - in person AND via Zoom.

I connect people with the spirits around them. It could be friend, relatives, an animal, or a random lady whose brooch you bought at a thrift store (that actually happened last week. Weird).

Important:

I do not tell the future. I do not give medical, financial, or legal advice. At all. Don’t even ask. I also don’t use tarot cards, or a crystal ball, or runes. I also do not do any medium type work during facilitated grief groups.

Do I wish I knew lottery numbers? Definitely 😂

I am having SO MUCH FUN doing readings. It’s incredible. The joy and fun and laughter that has been a part of my life in the past almost month is something I cannot explain. Yes, laughter - and some tears.

Getting a reading is not scary, and I am not going to tell you something bad. No one who is deceased is mad at you or disappointed. They have 100% forgiven you.

I did get a panicked phone call from someone who thought I was ruining my reputation by embracing this part of me, and that it was taking away from my grief work.

News flash! This IS grief work. Whether one is a believer or not, our continuing and evolving bonds with the deceased are vital to moving forward from loss in a very healthy way. More about that in later writings.

The intersection between Thanatology and mediumship is natural, and it is the subject of a growing body of peer reviewed research.

I am truly excited to be both a part of that growing body of research as a researcher, and a person who can help others know they are not alone.

Be yourself and embrace your gifts, because you were given them to be of service to others.

Interested in learning more about readings: