For those who have talked to me about the nature of giving readings, or otherwise asked me questions about my work as a medium, oftentimes you’ve heard me say “It’s always about the client.” Indeed, it should never be about me, the medium, for the message is always for the person receiving it. Plus, they are the ones who have come with a host of vested interests in seeking answers, while my position is simply to be a conduit without any preconceived notions or expectations as to the outcome – though I hope whatever comes through satisfies the sitter’s needs.
However, recently, I have come to realize, there’s more to a sitting than just this. In fact, it’s one of those “Duh! Why didn’t you consider that before, numbskull!” Well, maybe because I’ve always focused on the client, and in doing so inadvertently blocked out the other side (no pun intended) of the equation.
What am I talking about?
I had a private reading earlier in the week where my client’s deceased sister came through. During the reading, it felt like the sister hadn’t tried to make contact with people back on earth since her passing, several years earlier. My client agreed that there had been no unusual events or coincidences which sometimes happens after a death that makes the living wonder “Is so-and-so trying to send me a message?” This particular reading occurred on a Thursday evening. During the weekend after the sitting, my client had a conversation with a high school friend of her sister’s who had come searching for her a few months earlier, unaware that she had passed away. My client told the friend about our reading and that her sister came through. The friend then revealed she had a very vivid dream about meeting the deceased in the environment of a class reunion party – the date of the dream was Thursday night, the day of the sitting.
When my client revealed this to me, I was stunned. It pointed to another potential aspect regarding the outcome of a reading: the affect on the spirit.
As I mentioned earlier, the deceased sister made me feel like she had never attempted to communicate to anyone back on earth since her passing; yet she made the effort when I sat down with my client, and then suddenly, a friend from high school has a reunion dream with her that same night. Could the process of the sitting given this spirit the courage and desire to attempt connection on her own, whereas before the possibility may never had been considered? We may never know, but it definitely raises the possibility that the process of mediumship may not only be beneficial to the living, but also to the dead.
Hypothetically … If someone who is deceased never gave themselves the possibility of meaningful communication back to the living, then engaged in an experiment (more or less) with trying to transmit information through a professed medium – and it appeared the experiment worked – is it not conceivable the success might spur the spirit into making other attempts at communication with friends and loved ones?
I think the answer could be “yes.” And if that is the case, I must acknowledge a certain sense of just how important my role in this back-and-forth exchange between my client and the deceased is. The process may not simply affect the client, it could also affect the spirit – more so than just simply passing information such as “I’m okay, I still love you.” It may actually inspire the deceased beyond a mere instance of fashioning dialogue to becoming a greater force for communication on their own. I find that notion to be incredibly humbling.
And it may still go deeper than that. We have all been witness to people who have been to a medium and the information coming through is so moving (or striking so deeply) that it brings tears to the client’s eyes. It is a moment of intense emotion because the client truly feels the connection is being made to someone they have lost.
But have we ever considered the same emotion might be occurring within the deceased that’s making the communication? I think too often we feel that since they are on the other side, their perception about the nature of life and relationships takes on a different view and may not be as emotional during these times of apparent communication. Indeed, the perception might be different from where they stand. But even they, the deceased, recognize the separation that exists between here and there and the difficulty of passing information, so the impact of a reading may be equally as emotional for them as for us. There have been many times after a reading has closed and the sitter has left (or I’m driving home), where the deceased who came through during the sitting pops into my consciousness for a brief moment and says “Thank you.” I don’t necessarily feel tears on their behalf, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t being shed. I certainly feel a lot of loving emotion, which could very well be accompanied by tears my psychic eye simply doesn’t see.
I guess the crux of this blog is simply this: As a medium, the sitting isn’t just about the client and his/her questions and emotions, it’s also about those on the other side. (Insert “Duh” here). Both can be affected by this process. This makes the role and gravity of the medium even more important. In today’s society, when viewing a reading we are witness to only a filtered view of this situation, and since we can’t “see” the deceased and can only infer their presence by the nature of the information coming through, we may be missing the emotional impact on those we’ve lost and what’s going on with them at that moment of connection.
Too often, mediums (myself definitely included), as well as skeptics, sitters, or other audience members (if it’s a group) wonder why more information doesn’t come through, or why complex concepts don’t make it through easily.
The answer may simply be this: the emotional outburst of communication – the sheer joy of talking again to the living - is so exciting as well as energetically taxing that only small amounts or certain kinds of information can make it through the ether. Think about it: If you’re caught up or close to being overwhelmed with emotion, how clear are you in expressing yourself? How well are you able to focus your thoughts and feelings when you are incredibly excited? How excited would you be if you could send a message to a living relative you loved, if the living felt you had been lost and without the ability to be reached?
Perhaps it’s not just the living that cries at the feeling of direct contact, but so, too, the dead.
The space a medium provides goes both ways, hence a new perspective on the term “medium.” He/she is between both the dead and the living, and the impact of the reading – though the focus may be on information transfer during the actual sitting – also results in emotional transfer, not just for the sitter, but also the spirit.
At the beginning, I said the focus is always the client. I will amend that: It’s for the clients (plural), for it is not simply the person coming to connect with the dead, it’s also the dead coming to connect with the living. They’re both clients. Because of this realization, the medium needs to remain “mediumistic,” being cognizant of both the living and the deceased during the sitting, and not just the desire to transfer information from one side of the veil to the other.
It’s a much greater process with much greater ramifications. We are all thinking and feeling entities. None of that changes when we cross, and the nature of a reading definitely goes both ways. It’s emotional for them, as well as it is for us.
Until next time,
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