Unlike angels, most guides have lived in the physical world. They can appear as any age, and come from any culture, era, or geographical location. I don’t think our souls have an assigned sex until they enter our bodies (though we may feel more comfortable with one gender over another), so our guides can appear as a man, woman, or animal, as Native Americans believe. Spirit also tells me that a guide can be a loved one reassigned to you or that passed before you were born. There are psychics whose main gift is to channel guides, and they say that if a person loves and feels close to angels and other religious figures, then they, Jesus, the Blessed Mother, or other highly ascended religious figures can act as guides too.
Though there may be more, Spirit’s told me about two types of guides—primary guides, or what some call “master guides,” and then other Spirit guides. Everyone has this first type of main guide who’s with you from when your soul enters your body until the end of your life in the physical world. These guides teach and manage you in a way that supports your soul. Primary guides also choose an identity that will best accomplish what you’re here to do, or that you can most relate to. They aren’t judgmental, but like any good teacher, they will motivate you and understand where you’re coming from without going too easy on you. They choose you to work with because you’ve shared similar purposes and goals in your lives. They work with many people at once. You also have a bunch of other guides with specific skills. As your circumstances change and/or your soul evolves, one guide may exit your life as another takes you on the next leg of your journey. New guides, with special abilities appropriate for these new stages, help you reach certain goals and overcome challenges. For the most part, they stay in the background until you need them, and they may be guiding others at the same time.
All guides help you by communicating with signs, symbols, and feelings. They’re not always consistent in how they choose to help, since this may be part of the plan. Guides can stick around for a short or long time, depending on how long you need them. They’re often the source of ideas that bring us focus and self-satisfaction—what a lot of people call “inspiration.” And because you learn various lessons and have many needs at once, you can have many guides at the same time. You may have different guides for your career, family, ability to care for a sick friend, etc. Pat has one guide for teaching and a different one for healing, but because she does both at the same time, they’re both available.
Okay, so I have two current guides that I’m aware of. One is a Native American whom I recognize when he shows me his sign, which is a headdress. I call him “Chief.” He also acts as a mentor and source of companionship and reassurance to me; I know that when he comes to me a lot, it means that I’m about to move forward in my gift. As a medium, I’m never done learning, and when I feel Chief’s company, I know I’m getting ready for an energy shift and will begin channeling a little differently. My guardian angel Solerna, whom I talked about earlier, also does double duty as my guide. I’m not sure how this works, but I believe she’s an angel and my guide because when I call on my guides, she and Chief step forward. Could they have more specific names or even more jobs that I’m not aware of? Sure. But what matters most to me is that they give me divine direction when I desire and require it, and if they’re helping out from the Other Side, that’s more important to me than knowing exactly what they’re called and when.
Chief and Solerna excel at different things. Chief is really good at showing me other people’s guides, especially if they’re Native American or if the person I’m reading is drawn to that culture in his or her own life. Chief’s messages are mostly serious, disciplined, and structured—a little like Sitting Bull. I’m not sure why my guide is Native American, but I’m intrigued by that heritage. Pat thinks he may also be a male protector for me, which makes sense since I feel that lately, he’s spent a lot of time making sure that people aren’t taking advantage of my spirituality and draining all my energy. I also love owls, which symbolize wisdom and sacred knowledge in Native American culture. Do I look like someone who’s very earthy? No way. But apparently my soul is. As for Solerna, she addresses more divine topics for me. On the show, I did a reading for a wonderful man who had cancer. It was Solerna who stepped forward to tell me that it was okay to talk about death with him, even though it’s not something I usually discuss. Most people see me to find comfort from losing a loved one, but this man, because of his health, wanted to know what happens when we pass. Solerna told me it was okay to answer his questions as best I could, because he wasn’t dying anytime soon.
The best way to connect with your guides is through meditation, prayer, or just sitting quietly and listening to the response of your inner voice, or as I like to say, your Jiminy Cricket. You can also contact your guides through hypnosis by a trained facilitator or a psychic whose gift is to specifically channel these entities. When you’re in a relaxed but focused headspace, you’ll frequently hear your inner Jiminy Cricket giving you advice or prompting what’s right for you. These feelings aren’t just a hunch. More often than not, they’re the words of your wise guides, responding to your call. You can ask them for specific help, guidance, and reassurance as often as you want.
Always Within Reach: Your Loved Ones
If you get nothing else from this book, know this: your deceased loved ones are loving, guiding, and protecting you from the Other Side. I say this a lot, but you can’t hear it enough. Here’s another thing I find comforting: Spirit says that we will see our family and friends when we cross over and be together during future lives on earth. I hope you like your sister, because she’s sticking around for eternity, in one way or another!
Though I’ve talked about big-name figures like the Blessed Mother or Jesus making cameos during a session, the majority of the souls I channel for my clients are those of their deceased loved ones. Sometimes when you’re watching the show, you’ll notice repeat themes or commonalities between the messages they pass on. There was nothing you could do to help. He was with you when you got married. She wants you to embrace life without the burden of fear or guilt. He no longer has health issues . . . and so on. I’m not doling out the same condolences to everyone with a dead friend or family member, hoping to hit the bull’s-eye eventually. No, no, no. Spirit has me deliver healing messages based on what the person is holding on to and needs to hear from their loved ones. So it’s not that the message is generic or recycled, but that humanity shares similar struggles. It’s a little like when you cry after hearing a popular song on the radio; you’re not the only one who relates to the lyrics, but that doesn’t make your reaction any less real. What’s more, the stuff I mentioned above isn’t how everyone responds to a death. Like for me, none of the things I said apply to the way I felt when my grandmothers passed. If anything, I wondered if they liked the dresses we buried them in, and now, I wonder what they think of our new bathroom and if they feel I’m working too hard!
And again, the souls that I channel are safe and at peace. A lot of movies, books, and TV shows talk about souls that are trapped between our world and the Other Side. I know there are mediums that work with, and help transition, these “stuck souls” into the light, but this isn’t what I’ve felt called to do, so this isn’t who I feel I’m connecting with. Mediums can communicate with the dead differently, and I prefer to channel souls that are already in Heaven. So if one were stuck, I wouldn’t be the best person to tell!
Young and Well-Connected: Children and Babies
I hear from the souls of young people so often that I want to talk about them separately for a minute. The families that loved and cherished them feel unthinkable sorrow for their loss, but I’m not here to tell you that God never gives you more than you can handle blah blah blah. I want you to know that when I channel the souls of children and babies, they tell me they’re in a good place and always with you. You’ll also see them again; I guarantee it.
In the last chapter, I talked about what souls looked lik
e—that the way Spirit presents themselves to me is either how we remember them or how they would like us to remember them. With kids, sometimes they’ll come forward and say, “Tell my mom I’m on a swing set, wearing my favorite pink dress!” which causes the parent to say, “Oh my God, that’s one of my favorite memories!” I’m not sure if the child literally plays on swings all day in a dress, or if this is a message the soul tells me to validate a special memory and bring her parents peace. Then again, I feel Heaven is a breathtaking place where anything is possible. People who’ve had near-death experiences report seeing lush, technicolor fields and sparkling pools of water; it’s a place where souls sing and dance, and animals play. So who’s to say there isn’t the craziest jungle gym you’ve ever seen right in the middle of it. Maybe you get dibs on the slide if you wear a dress!
Souls do tell me that it’s really important for us to know that your children’s souls grow and evolve on the Other Side. I suspect this is what babies and kids are referring to when they show themselves to me as a small soul, and then as they approach me, they get bigger. I don’t usually talk about soul development in a reading, because it’s a bit long and involved, so I just tell the parents that they’ve “grown.” Time is different in Heaven, and as I’ve said, I don’t think souls age the way we do here because they don’t have a physical body. So when they show themselves as a shadow but with gorgeous, wavy hair or sparkly blue eyes, I can’t be certain but I imagine they’re pointing these traits out for their loved ones’ benefit because that’s how they want to be, or are, remembered. Souls may also get to pick their age—one they feel the most comfortable being. And as I often say, the way Spirit shows itself also has to do with the message that will bring the person the most healing at that moment. So the same soul may appear one way to a skeptic who wants validation, another way to a return client who wants to connect, and still a third way to someone who is seeing me for the first time and is grieving. I’ve found that those who are the most anguished are the ones who want to know how old their child is or what it’s doing in Heaven. They’re the ones whose souls most commonly tell them about growth and swing sets.
Realize this too: children’s souls know when, and are so grateful for how, you memorialize them. A woman came to me once because her daughter died at birth. I told her that her child’s soul was telling me that her mom had her actual footprints tattooed on her, and that there was also something about butterflies . . . ? Turns out, the woman did have her daughter’s little feet inked on the bottom of her leg, but as the body of a butterfly. Spirit said she did this in memory of her daughter, because the child’s footprints were the only thing she had of hers. Rest assured that as often as your child is on your mind, you’re in their thoughts too. You’re connected by love. In fact, Spirit likes to show me a soul sitting in a chair, watching a parent from Heaven. Sometimes right after a little one dies, its soul will sit with a loved one’s physical body for a bit.
I also channel a lot of miscarried, stillborn, and terminated souls. Miscarried souls are quick to appear at the start of a session, and stillborns channel phenomenally well. In fact, stillborn babies often describe how it felt if their mothers held them, how parents dressed them in certain articles of clothing, or if a mom wrapped her child’s hand around her finger and studied every inch of her body. At a really large venue I announced that someone in the room had the actual footprints of a boy and girl with her who’d passed. A woman stood up and said she brought the prayer card for two of her children who’d died—she gave birth to triplets, and while her son survived, the two other babies didn’t. One was a son, and the other was a daughter. There are also parents who don’t get to hold their child after it passes, but these souls insist that they are still with their parents the whole time. I’m not sure if stillborn baby souls remember this stuff from their life here or are seeing it from the Other Side, or maybe a little of both. Like miscarried and stillborn souls, terminated souls haven’t fulfilled their journeys, but they’ll show me that they frequently reenter other bodies right away. They’ll also tell me if the termination was part of a bigger lesson for someone still here in the physical world.
When we think about a child’s life, many of us believe it begins at some point at, or after, conception. But a person’s soul exists long before their body does. That’s why Spirit can tell me so much about an impending pregnancy: the soul’s been around and waiting to incarnate for a while. If you’re pregnant, Spirit can tell me if the baby will be a girl or boy—a pink blanket is my sign for a female; a blue one for a male. If I see a flash of these signs, it usually means Spirit won’t report the sex because the person might not want to know. If a woman doesn’t know she’s pregnant, I might feel like my stomach is expanding. Finally, if a family is adopting a baby, I can also tell that. If you’re going to be a parent, to me, you’re expecting. It doesn’t matter how the child comes into your life.
A lot of times, a deceased loved one acknowledges that it held the soul of a baby before it came to the physical world. Spirit will validate this with something specific about the child at its birth, whether it’s a crooked pinky, turned foot, dimple, or a birthmark or distinct marking on the back of its neck, arm, face, leg, or under its hair. This is Spirit’s way of saying, I know your baby so well that I can identify its most intimate details. It’s like the kiss of being.
It’s also no secret that children are naturally more intuitive than most adults, and I think it helps that they are much closer to their soul’s time in Heaven. I’ll get into children’s encounters with Spirit later, but I want to touch on this here because once in a while, kids who’ve crossed over see Spirit before they pass. It’s as if they’re still acutely aware of the continuum that travels from the Other Side, to this world, and back. One of the most touching examples of this is about a boy named Julien, who was diagnosed with AML leukemia at three and a half years old. He was just over eight when he died.
Julien’s contact with Heaven reads like a who’s who of Spirit. A month after his fourth birthday and first bone marrow transplant, Julien’s family and doctors thought he was out of the woods, though he was about to relapse. This is when Julien began getting messages from God, through a female Spirit he later identified in a book as the Blessed Mother. There are two messages that Julien’s mom knows of. The first occurred shortly after Julien’s transplant, when he said, “Maman, I have something to tell you, but I’m afraid it will make you sad. God came to me in a dream and said I had to come back soon. He said my leukemia has returned and my time here is over.” This was surprising news, since Julien’s mom thought his transplant would help him recover. Not long after this dream, Julien heard from the Blessed Mother again, but this time, she was crying. She told him that when he died, his mom would be very sad but eventually be okay.
Two days later, Julien’s doctor found abnormal cells from a bone marrow aspiration. Sure enough, the boy’s dreams were prophetic. Julien’s mom was devastated and prayed for a miracle. She took him to the shrine of St. Padre Pio in Pennsylvania. When she saw Julien holding the hand of, and whispering to, a Padre Pio statue in the gift shop, she bought it for him and put it in the backyard (Julien and his statue were the same height). Two months after their trip, Julien dreamed of a two-year-old boy who came to play with him and tell him about a conversation that God had with Padre Pio about Julien’s future. Julien then asked the boy if he should follow him to Heaven, and at the time, the boy said that Julien was not ready. Julien’s mom now believes the boy was actually an angel sent to bridge our world and Heaven for her son, when it was his time to go.
Julien’s encounters with Spirit weren’t limited to highly evolved souls. Every time he was in severely critical condition, he asked his mom if she could see “them” and looked toward the ceiling; he whispered to the sky a lot. When his mom worked up the nerve to ask who “they” were, he said one of the beings was his mom’s friend Jackie, who died on 9/11. When she asked where Jackie was, h
e answered as if it were obvious: “Mommy, she is right there next to you.” Jackie died before Julien was born; he’d never met her.
Julien and his mother did not discuss angels or God again, until the weeks before he died. At that point, he told his mom he was scared to leave her, but she “had his heart,” and he was going to “a beautiful place.” Julien told her all the time that he chose her to be his mom, and that God pointed her out and said that if he selected her, she’d take care of him. He talked a lot about “one God for everyone.” Julien’s mom believes that her son was a gift, sent to help her and others believe in God and the afterlife. In the middle of the night recently, her niece awoke to a sparkling light in her room and an image of Julien’s face, smiling, just inches from her own. He was with his mom’s friend Jackie.
When I channeled Julien, he told me that his mom never treated him like he was sick and always made sure he was happy. She let him leave when it was time, and he said he had a beautiful passing. He could feel his mother’s heart beating when his stopped.
Best Friends Forever: Animals
I don’t know about you, but I’m crying over here. So after such a sad story, I want to end this chapter on a happier note. And what makes us smile more than our beloved animals?
People love their pets, and I’ve channeled cats, dogs, horses, birds, and even a fish (that last one didn’t have much to say). I even channeled a man’s deceased mom and their pet squirrel. Of course, when the mother brought the animal forward, I didn’t think it was a squirrel, because who keeps that as a pet? Aren’t they filthy and rabid? So I asked the son if they had a ferret, and he said no. Then the mother’s soul says to me, “Tell my son I have Stevie with me.” I passed it on, and the guy just about falls off his chair. Not only did they have a pet squirrel named Stevie growing up, but his cremations were on his sister’s mantel next to his mother’s! He also had a picture of his mom sitting on the sofa, feeding the little squirrel. The mom cooked for the rodent and everything.
There's More to Life Than This: Healing Messages, Remarkable Stories, and Insight About the Other Side from the Long Island Medium Page 7