Signs

by Laura Lynne Jackson

  BE RECEPTIVE

  I’ve written about how we can miss signs sent to us by the Other Side. If we’re not looking for them, we can pass them by. But I’ve also heard stories about people who asked for a specific and challenging sign, received the sign, and missed it anyway. I’ve seen it happen up close.

  Not long ago, my mother asked my father, who’d recently crossed, to send her a sign. She asked for something specific—a purple elephant. She told me that within one day of asking she got her sign in the form of a huge, purple blow-up elephant lawn decoration on a neighbor’s front lawn!

  A week later, my sister Christine came in from New Jersey. We had a difficult task to complete. We were going to the cemetery and then we were going to order a headstone. My mother drove us to the cemetery. Afterward, we went to get lunch in a nearby town. Later, we had to go back to the cemetery and retraced our route. I looked out the window and saw a huge sign above a new restaurant that I hadn’t noticed before:

  The Purple Elephant

  There was even an actual purple elephant with its trunk turned up to the sky in front of the restaurant! My father had truly outdone himself. He sent my mother exactly what she asked for, in a way she couldn’t miss. And yet we all missed it the first time around!

  “Mom, did you see that?” I cried out.

  “See what?”

  I made her turn the car around and drive right up to the restaurant so she could get a nice, long look.

  “Oh wow,” she said when she finally saw it. “How about that? Looks like a great place to have lunch, too.”

  The lesson here: We need not just to look, but to see.

  To do this, we don’t need to change anything about our lives except to slightly alter our method of perception.

  In the sport of golf, positive-thinking coaches tell golfers to walk down the fairway with their heads held high, fully absorbing the landscape around them, as opposed to hanging their heads and seeing only the grass in front of them. This is designed to get golfers more involved and alert and receptive, and better prepared for their next shot.

  We can do the same thing in our everyday lives—we can more fully absorb the landscape around us simply by looking up. It’s a small, subtle shift in our manner of focusing, a slight uptick in our level of attention. A commitment to being more mindful. If we make that commitment, we’ll be much better prepared when the next sign comes from the Other Side.

  SAY THANK YOU

  It’s important that when we do receive a sign, we take the time to express our gratitude. If we asked our grandmother to send us a monarch butterfly, we should say, “Thank you, Nana, for the beautiful butterfly.” We should acknowledge the sign and be grateful, either with a thought or with actual words.

  Why? Because thanking the Other Side for a sign is a way to honor the powerful connections that exist between us. It is also a way to make the occasion of seeing the sign a shared occasion—a moment of joyful communion between ourselves and our loved ones who have crossed. From what I’ve seen, our loved ones on the Other Side derive enormous joy from connecting with us. It lets them know their presence is still felt, and conveys that they are still acknowledged as part of the lives of their loved ones here on earth. Hearing “Thank you” is the ultimate validation of that.

  Perhaps most important, saying thank you for a sign makes us feel better, too. It makes us feel more connected and less alone. How can you be alone if you’re having a conversation with a loved one who just sent you a wonderful sign? Saying thank you honors the blessing of our interconnectedness, and creates a powerful spark of joy and well-being that travels across dimensions.

  SHARE YOUR SIGN

  I’ve spoken with so many people who have received incredible signs and yet not told another soul about it. Maybe they were afraid people wouldn’t believe them or would think they’d lost their mind. For whatever reason, they’ve filed away this amazing experience as their own private thing.

  You can do that, of course, and the sign will still be meaningful to you. But my advice is to share your story with the world. If you feel like you want to tell your friends about it, tell them! The phenomenon of signs is not just about us connecting to our loved ones on the Other Side. It’s also about us connecting to each other here on earth.

  If you believe that a sign is real, don’t worry about anyone disbelieving you or thinking you’re a little off. That’s going to happen anyway, with lots of different issues and topics of discussion. There will always be trolls and critics to pounce on any divergent opinion. But here’s the thing: If you share your story with someone, you’re just as likely to encounter complete acceptance of your experience. Sharing your story may even free someone to finally share theirs! And sharing any joy with someone only increases and spreads that joy. So be talkative. Tell your story. Share your signs.

  Most of all, be aware that our lives are not just about our own choices and paths. We influence the world around us and the people around us in very real and profound ways. We play major roles in other people’s journeys, which means that how we carry our energy through the world matters. What we choose to share with the world matters. Not sharing these conversations with one another about such meaningful moments in our lives is actually a disservice to our friends and loved ones. We are all on this wild and beautiful ride together. The truest joy of all existence is this very interconnectedness. And the more we honor it by sharing our stories and our energy and our light with the world, the more our existence is enriched.

  * * *

  —

  These are the basic elements that go into co-creating your own unique and special language with the Other Side—mindfulness, openness, stillness, gratitude, energy, communion. A willingness to ask for signs and a willingness to receive them. An appreciation of our interconnectedness and an inclination to share with others our experience of wonder and awe.

  In the next section, I’d like to share some stories about people who created and developed a deeply personal language to connect with loved ones on the Other Side, and who discovered that the profound moments of connection that followed helped them navigate serious life crises and make life-changing decisions.

  These moments of connection are available to us all. The secret language of the universe does not have to stay secret. The power of signs is unlimited and unrestricted. The password is whatever we want it to be.

  I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.

  —MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

  SIT WITH A PEN AND paper and plot out all the important moments in your life: your birth, your first date, your first job, career moves, weddings, kids. Draw a circle around each of them and lay them out chronologically in a sequence, from left to right. Then draw a line connecting all the circles. That through line is your path through life.

  But I want you to know that this is not the only path available to you.

  The universe teaches us that we all have several paths that can take us through life, including our very highest, most fulfilling, most authentic path. All the paths will get us from start to finish, but how we get there—how we make our way through life—depends on the path we choose.

  The universe sends us signs to steer us toward our highest paths.

  Now, jumping from one path to another isn’t always easy. Embracing change and confronting the fears that hold us back can be very difficult. Sometimes we refuse to leave the path we’re on. It’s like wearing a pair of shoes that’s a size too small. We can choose to keep walking in those shoes, and eventually we’ll get where we’re going, but that’s not the best choice.

  Signs shine a light on our fears so that we can navigate the dark and choose the higher, better path. The stories that follow are about people who heeded the signs that helped them make fateful life decisions—moments when they looked fear squarely in the eyes, then chose the
path of hope and love.

  22

  CAMOUFLAGE, A GUN, AND A NEW ASSIGNMENT

  SEVERAL years ago, I was participating in an event for the Forever Family Foundation on Long Island. It was an intimate gathering in a conference room, with the relatives of ten children who had crossed. When I entered the room, they turned to me all at once, looking at me with a mixture of hope and heaviness. You didn’t have to be a psychic medium to see the pain and longing on their faces.

  After a few introductory remarks, I briefly closed my eyes, opened myself to the Other Side, and waited to be pulled toward someone. The first one to come through was a boy who pulled me toward his mother and sister on the left side of the room. He had an amazing energy and he had many messages of comfort and solace for them. The reading was happy and hopeful and incredible, and the energy in the entire room shifted. But while I was reading for them, I couldn’t help but notice another parent sitting by himself across the room.

  He was a big, burly, mustached man in his fifties, wearing a black leather vest, blue jeans, and motorcycle boots. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was staring down at his feet. Once in a while he’d look up and kind of glare at me. His body language suggested he was closed off and defensive and angry, and, frankly, he kind of scared me, but I could also feel that his sharp exterior was a shield against a very deep pain. I knew I was there to try to help him with his pain, but still, part of me was worried about what would happen if I was pulled to him. How would he receive the message the Other Side was sending?

  And then, of course, the Other Side pulled me right to him.

  It was a very strong pull. I walked over and stood in front of him, but he kept his head down, glaring at the floor. There was so much anger and tension around him, so much negative emotion. I didn’t know how to get started.

  So I blurted out, “Hi!” in a ridiculously chirpy tone.

  He slowly looked up. His eyes met mine. I was taken aback. There was a softness in his eyes that was in stark contrast with his gruff exterior, and it was heartbreaking.

  A girl on the Other Side immediately came up on my screen. Older than a little girl—a teenager, or maybe early twenties. She was communicating very quickly, barraging me with words and symbols and images. And what she showed me was awful.

  “You have a daughter who crossed,” I said to him.

  His eyes began to water and he loudly cleared his throat.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And she crossed because…”

  I hesitated.

  “…she tells me she crossed because she was murdered.”

  The man looked down again and didn’t say a word.

  He didn’t have to. His daughter’s story poured out on my screen. She had been murdered, and in fact everyone knew who her murderer was—her ex-boyfriend—yet for some reason, he hadn’t been charged with the crime. And this, the girl showed me, was a source of agony for her father. The injustice of what had happened was unbearable.

  Then the girl showed me something that played across my screen like a film clip. This happens sometimes—a stream of images that is so clear and so vivid, it comes to me like a scene from a movie. The girl showed me her father, alone, in his house, dressed head-to-toe in black clothes and camouflage gear. She showed me several rifles laid out on his bed.

  “She is telling me that she tried to stop you all day,” I told him. “She was there the whole time and she was pleading with you not to do it—not to kill her ex-boyfriend. But you didn’t hear her. You had your guns and you loaded them in your car and you didn’t listen. She is showing me that you were determined to find your own justice. She says she was trying and trying all day to get through to you, but you just ignored her.”

  The man was staring at the floor. The room was silent.

  “You were going to kill him that night,” I said.

  He cleared his throat again and wiped away tears.

  “Yes,” he said. “I was.”

  “But…but you didn’t. You didn’t kill him.”

  He said nothing.

  “You heard her. Your daughter says you finally heard her. You were so angry, you were going to avenge her death, but then you finally felt her and heard her and you listened. You listened to her.”

  He began to cry.

  “She wants you to know that you are not meant to avenge her,” I went on. “That is not your job. Your job is to continue to love her and honor her life. And she wants you to live your life vibrantly and to be engaged and to choose paths of love that elevate your soul, not paths of anger and hate and darkness that would diminish your light. That wouldn’t be honoring her. She says that karma is real and every soul has to take responsibility for their actions. Whether it’s here on earth or when you cross, every soul will be held accountable. But that is not your job. And if you had chosen to do it, you would have chosen a path of darkness. You would have created more darkness, not light.

  “And now,” I went on, “your daughter wants to say thank you. Thank you for listening to her, and thank you for not going through with it. Thank you for loving her always. She is just so grateful and so happy that you listened.”

  * * *

  —

  My reading with this grieving father had a profound effect on everyone in the room, including me. When his daughter came through, she taught us all a very powerful lesson. A lesson about life paths.

  In our journey, we may at times get confused and instead of following the highest path, we choose a lower path, one that constricts us, slows us down, leads us to dead ends. A path that takes us away from love and into darkness. When this happens, we end up living what I call a shadow life—a life that is a mere shadow of what it can truly be. One that doesn’t reflect our true strengths and potential. One that doesn’t allow us to share our true light and love and energy with the world. A lesser life.

  I have read for people who are stuck in shadow lives, focusing on fear and anger. In many of these cases, I have seen how the Other Side never gives up, and always tries to steer us from the path of a shadow life to a higher path of love and light and meaning.

  Why does the Other Side do this? Because our Teams of Light—our loved ones and spirit guides and God energy—want nothing more than for us to be happy and fulfilled. They want us to lead lives that are based on love, not fear.

  How do our Teams of Light steer us?

  They do it with signs and messages that make their presence known.

  Some signs are meant to say hello, or to let us know our loved ones who have crossed are still with us, rooting us on. But other signs are meant to help us make the right choices in our lives. These signs appear when we reach a crossroads—and present a choice between a lesser path and a higher path. These are the moments when the Other Side practically screams at us to get our attention and influence our choice.

  Here is what happened to the man in camouflage. Consumed by grief and anger, he was on a path of hatred and pain. If he had followed through with his plan, his actions wouldn’t have changed the past, but they would have changed his future. He would have had blood on his hands and on his soul, and gone to jail, and seen his own life ruined.

  This is what his daughter was trying so hard to tell him—he was not meant to avenge her loss, because that is not our job here on earth. Our job is never, ever to follow a path of hate. Our highest and brightest life paths are always paths of love.

  His daughter understood that it was her job to steer him toward that higher life path. The sign she sent him was not a visual sign. It wasn’t a bird or a rainbow or a license plate. It was what I call a clairaudient and clairsentient sign. Clairaudience is when we hear something through means other than our worldly sense of hearing. For instance: A word or a phrase in our head that isn’t our own. A thought that isn’t our thought. A voice that isn’t our voice. Have you ever had somethin
g relevant and surprising just pop into your head—something that seemingly came out of nowhere?

  It didn’t come from nowhere; it came from the Other Side. Clairsentient signs might be a gut feeling we can’t shake off. We may have an ineffable sense that a loved one is present. We might clairaudiently “hear” our loved one’s voice in our thoughts.

  This man’s daughter reached out to him over and over again on that fateful day, when he was at a crossroads, but he either didn’t receive the messages or didn’t acknowledge them. Yet she persisted. Even after he’d loaded his rifles into his car, she kept sending him the same message over and over.

  Don’t do it. This is not how to show your love for me.

  And finally, finally, he heard her.

  As he explained to all of us in that room, “I heard her. I heard my daughter tell me not to do it. I felt her there with me, telling me not to do it.”

  He listened to his daughter! He opened to her message! He heard her just as if she’d been there with him—which, in a very real way, she was.

  And because he did, he wasn’t doomed to live a shadow life locked away in a jail cell with a mark on his soul. With his daughter’s help, he chose a higher life path—a path that gave him a chance to turn his terrible grief into something good.

  In fact, he was already doing just that by deciding to attend the meeting, and having his daughter come through and teach us this powerful lesson.

  Like the people in the incredible stories that follow, we all face choices that affect the trajectory of our lives and the lives of others, crossroads that suggest different life paths. What we need to understand, and what this man’s brave daughter teaches us, is that we are not alone at the crossroads. We do not have to make these hard decisions by ourselves. Our Team of Light tries so hard to get through to us in these difficult moments. They are determined to not let our fear or grief or uncertainty stand in the way of our highest life path.