Gifts
At least once a week, someone asks me, “How did you know you were a medium?” The truth is, I didn’t.
When you are a child and notice things others don’t seem to notice, you don’t realize it’s unusual. I remember seeing spirit and angels around the age of five. I may have seen them even earlier, but that is my earliest memory. I thought everyone saw what I saw. A few times, I became frightened when I realized I was the only one who could see the shadow-like figure standing in the doorway.
I was considered the weird kid with a wild imagination, someone who marched to the beat of her own drum.
It wasn’t until my 30s that I began to understand what was happening. I started searching for information that might explain why I heard voices and saw images and scenes in my mind. I truly believed I was going insane. For more than 20 years, I suffered from terrible migraines that doctors could never explain.
Then one day, I read an article about mediumship.
For the first time, I had a name for the visions and voices. Even then, I still didn’t fully understand the difference between being psychic and being a medium. I had always known things I shouldn’t have known. I knew conversations happening in a room down the hall that I couldn't have known without being in that closed room.
But none of that explained the faces I saw whenever I closed my eyes. Every time I tried to sleep, faces and full images of people would walk toward me. They knew my name, but I didn’t know theirs. Rarely did I recognize anyone I had known in life.
As I got older and started seeing people I personally knew who had passed away, I brushed it off as coincidence. I assumed I must have thought about them earlier in the day. But that wasn’t the case.
I didn’t talk about what I was experiencing, even when family members walked into a room while I was having a conversation with an empty chair. But it wasn’t empty to me. I was simply the only one who could see the person sitting there.
It happened in my car. It happened at work.
Coworkers would walk into my office and find me smiling and looking toward the wall, startled when they entered because I had been talking to someone they couldn’t see. I laughed it off and pretended I was talking to myself or practicing a sales pitch.
I was already the butt of jokes for being odd. I worked hard to fit in and appear “normal” because I knew if my secret got out, I could lose my job.
Eventually, I began telling a few people I trusted: my mother, a sister, and my three closest friends.
One friend cut me out of her life because she believed my gifts were evil. Another friend passed away but came to me shortly afterward in spirit and he has remained a constant presence ever since. The third may not fully understand it, but he has always stood by me.
After all these years, my husband still doesn’t completely understand how it works. But he thinks it’s cool — and he thinks I’m cool. He knows how important my work with spirit is to me, and he embraces all of it without hesitation, including my quirks that come with it.
When I started reading publicly in 2010, I had no formal training. I simply jumped in and did my best. My readings were a combination of psychic insight and mediumship.
I loved helping people, especially those who were grieving. Parents began reaching out to me because their children were seeing spirits and shadow people, and were terrified to sleep alone. The parents didn’t know how to help them.
I was also asked to do ghost hunting several times, but that was never truly the direction I wanted to take with my gifts. I did it, but I didn't like it.
A few years ago, I was speaking with a medium I had known for many years. She asked whether I planned to return to reading publicly. I explained that I had stepped away for several years to be a caregiver and felt rusty. I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back to it. She told me that my loved ones in spirit were pushing me to read again.
She told me she had begun mentoring mediums of all experience levels to help them strengthen and fine-tune their gifts. She also understood how private I am and knew I had no desire to advertise or draw attention to myself.
More importantly, she understood how lonely it can be to live as a medium in communities that do not always accept our abilities. She encouraged me to join her group so I could connect with others like me.
One of the most valuable things I learned from her was how to set boundaries with spirit.
Before that, I was always “on.” I constantly heard and saw spirit day and night, making restful sleep almost impossible. Now, I have boundaries that spirit generally respects.
Since learning to protect my space, my migraines have disappeared. Occasionally, a spirit still works persistently to get my attention, but usually it’s because there is something important I need to know.
I have remained part of that medium community because I have formed deep friendships there. We share experiences, support one another, and laugh at how many similarities we all share.
Being a medium can be a lonely life. To most people, we seem strange. Having others who truly understand us is a gift in itself.
I have worked with many gifted mediums who live in rural areas or deeply religious communities where opportunities to read publicly are limited. Some simply do not have the exposure needed to build a mediumship business.
Because of this, I created a new Facebook group called Readings and Rocks to help give these mediums a place to connect with the public and offer readings.
We are currently offering free 20-minute readings to members of the group and currently have eight experienced mediums approved as readers. As the group continues to grow, more mediums will begin offering readings as well.
The group is private, so membership approval is required, and all members must agree to the group privacy rules.
The group also serves as a referral service for mediums and a place to learn about crystals, their metaphysical properties, and where to purchase them through my store.
Crystals have long been used for healing, meditation, and spiritual connection. Many people find them calming and beneficial, especially for meditation and restful sleep.
You can learn more about crystals at www.claritystones.com.