There's More to Life Than This: Healing Messages, Remarkable Stories, and Insight About the Other Side from the Long Island Medium

by Caputo, Theresa

  Of course, not every message linked to lessons learned from a life review is heavy. I once channeled a woman’s mom who was the first one to step forward during a good-sized group reading. The soul was so proud and said, “I pushed through all those other souls to be heard!” This surprised the daughter, since she said her mom was always the politest wallflower. Looks like she’s learning how to be assertive in Heaven!

  God’s Lesson Plans

  I’m under the impression that you have one main lesson to learn in each lifetime, with many smaller teachings tucked into that journey. They include compassion, patience, friendship, selflessness, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, and unconditional love. For each lifetime you experience, you choose, and then review with God and your primary guide, what you hope to accomplish and what challenges you’ll run into as you go. You also choose your family and body, both of which can be related to your lesson. You do this knowing it’ll help you get to a new level of spiritual growth.

  After your life review, you continue to learn lessons on the Other Side, and at some point, you can do one of two things. Your first option is to stay in Heaven and learn lessons for a while, where teacher-like souls monitor your progress. One reason a soul might choose to hang back is if a previous lifetime felt too hard, and it isn’t ready or anxious to return right away. The alternative is to choose a body and return to this world to learn your new lessons at a faster rate, which advances your soul more quickly than if you do this in Heaven. It’s like in college, when you can opt to travel abroad or do an internship for a semester versus taking classes; the “real world” experience teaches you things you could never learn in a classroom. Your soul can appreciate fresh perspectives by experiencing different religions, ethnicities, jobs, and family dynamics that cause you to gain greater appreciation and compassion for others. The good news is, I don’t think there’s a ticking clock that limits the time you have to learn your lessons—you can come back as many times as you need to try again.

  The main way you learn lessons in this world is through events that force you to use the traits you’re meant to acquire. For example, having a certain disease might teach you about priorities, being in a challenging marriage may require patience and self-reflection, or being bullied as a child could help you learn sympathy toward others. I believe people are placed in our lives to help us to grow and learn as well. Your lessons and purpose may also relate to advancing society in some way—say, through humanitarian, artistic, or scientific efforts. Or it may have to do with a spiritual mission related to self-sacrifice or spreading ideas. No matter what, we’re all here to learn how to be better people, and souls, for others. Just as we need their divine guidance, inspiration, and intervention, Spirit needs our capable and eager bodies to act on their behalf.

  Since we choose our bodies and the lessons that come with living that life, those with crippling imperfections—a physical handicap, maybe, or a psychiatric struggle related to depression or OCD—have done so to grow their souls in some way. I wish my body were a lot of things it’s not—relaxed instead of anxious, five foot seven and a hundred twenty pounds instead of five foot one and . . . never mind. But this package has helped me learn to be grateful and make the most of what I’ve been given, and it’s taught me self-control around my mom’s delicious Mickey Mouse–shaped pancakes. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m diminishing serious conditions that people struggle with. I’ve read for a number of families with kids who are paralyzed, or died from a disease at a young age, and they’ve all said to me, “No child would choose to come here under those circumstances, Theresa.” But they do, and you do—your lesson just might not be clear until you’re in Heaven. You choose to return to this life when you are in your soul state, so the choice is made not as an emotional human, but as a soul wanting to move closer to God. Also, because your soul chooses your journey for a reason, I smile when people who feel they’ve been dealt a bad hand ask, “Why would God do this to me?” Neither God nor your soul chose your lesson with naïveté or vindictiveness—again, it’s all part of your lesson. On the Other Side, there’s no meanness, resentment, or fury. There’s only love, because that’s what God is.

  I know what you’re thinking—so what happens to free will? Based on what Spirit says, I believe that the predetermined things in your life that help you learn your lessons are set, and you fill in the rest with your choices. You’d think that fated turns might include taking a first job, meeting your spouse, having a child, or other things you’d consider a milestone here—but they don’t have to be. If running your first company isn’t part of the lesson you were meant to learn, then it is simply a choice. Similarly, people always ask me who they’re destined to marry. Spirit may tell me it’s in the cards for you to get married, but they rarely say who you’re going to be with, or at least that’s not what Spirit does with me. I also think you can choose not to make certain decisions, even if they’re tied to a lesson, but they’ll send you down a new path, and you’ll have to learn your lessons in other ways. (Your “instincts” may let you know if you’re about to make a funky turn. What we consider the path of least resistance may simply be, in spiritual terms, the better path.) But if everything were predetermined, there’d be no point to coming here, since your lessons often come from the decisions you make. So you can’t change your destiny, but you can tweak how you get there. The good news is that God, your guides, angels, and loved ones will always help you, if you choose to let them. If you don’t ask for help, they will not interfere with your freewill choice.

  God has given you free will to make your life your own, but when you’re on a good path, you’ll know it in your soul. When I became an adult, I filled my life with a lot of love and laughter—I married a wonderful man, had beautiful kids, spent time with friends and family, and got a good job that paid the bills. These are all the things you think, and are told, will fulfill you. And don’t get me wrong, they mean a lot. But it wasn’t until I accepted my gift that my soul felt complete. I was finally on the right path. God had given me the canvas, but it was up to me to paint a beautiful picture, and there was something missing in the landscape until I did the work that satisfied my soul. It’s like I’d painted the trees, hills, and sky, but left out the focal point. God’s given you a canvas too, and like me, you need to find what makes your picture a masterpiece.

  Now, to make sure you don’t spin entirely off course and paint an ugly baboon in the middle of a scenic French countryside, Spirit’s told me that your guides show you predetermined “road signs” throughout your life. These are meant to steer you in a new direction, one that’s connected to a lesson or person you’re meant to meet. For example, you may see a person wearing a sparkly necklace, notice the way a stranger touches his hair, smell a sharp fragrance—and in your soul’s memory, a flag will go up to remind you that you’re meant to know each other and learn a significant lesson. Your souls will recognize and be drawn to each other on a deep level.

  For everyday choices, your deceased loved ones can also intervene, especially when you notice that someone’s put in your path for a reason. This comes up a lot when people start dating after losing their spouses. I once read a woman whose mother came through and said, “I placed that man in your path for you to love”—and when I passed this on, the woman said, “Oh my God, I knew it was my mom!” I also know a man who began dating six months after his wife died from a painful brain tumor. His friends and family were upset, but the woman fit into his life so easily that it had to be kismet. She too had lost her spouse around the same time, they lived in the same community, they both loved to play golf, and they even had vacation homes on the same island without knowing it. I would bet money that the man’s deceased wife played matchmaker from Heaven. Souls don’t get jealous—they want you to move on in a healthy way.

  I’ll bet all you overachieving readers are wondering if it’s possible to identify your lesson or purpose now, so you can
make the most of your time here. In the school of life, you want to take extra classes so you can graduate with honors? Okay, sure, you can try to do that. It is called soul searching, and you can do it through guided meditation. You may even get some help from Spirit. You can also soul search during yoga, prayer, or anytime you have focused intentions or a clear and relaxed mind. Think about what makes you happy, what you can do better, and what you’ve done to make others happy, and your lesson might bubble up. And while you’ve got Spirit’s attention, you should also think about how the people in your life relate to your lesson. You may think of them in a whole new light and decide to approach them in a way that benefits your souls.

  Going Up?

  Spirit shows me that you enter the afterlife at a certain “level,” or point of spiritual growth, and that your life assessment is based on that level’s criteria. Think of a level like a grade in school—the lower it is, the more lessons the soul has to learn. As a soul advances, it moves up to new levels. It happens gradually, and you must complete one level before moving higher or deeper into the next. I don’t know how many levels there are on the Other Side, but if I’m correctly interpreting what Spirit’s told me, I believe there are also many levels within a dimension. So if you’ve finished a series of lessons in one dimension, you can move to a new dimension where there are new lessons to learn. You can also ascend in Heaven to become a guide, teacher, or hold another title (I’m sure there are more responsibilities than I know about). It sounds similar to how we earn different degrees in this world—from a basic high school diploma to more advanced degrees and letters after our names—to help prepare us for different types of jobs.

  Levels aren’t just “grades” of learning; they also refer to the energy’s frequency. So when a soul grows, it also raises its level or wavelength. On the lowest level of the Other Side are the souls of people who learned very few lessons and did real damage in our world, like some criminals and abusers. They won’t stay on this level forever, and they have a lot of learning to do over there; but eventually, they’ll grow their souls and raise their levels. At the highest level of Heaven is God. When I channel, I enter at a higher (but realistic) level and have all the souls meet me there. Spirit can come down a level, but it can’t go up unless it’s earned this. For instance, I once read a woman who’d lost both of her parents. Mom was amazing, but dad was an alcoholic, abusive pain in the tush. Mom’s soul brought the father’s soul forward, but she had to lower her vibration to do it because they were at different levels.

  You’ve probably noticed that I use the terms “Heaven” and “The Other Side” interchangeably, and I think Spirit lets me do this so that I am comfortable meshing my faith with other aspects of the spiritual world. To me, Heaven is the Other Side and nearly all of us go there. I also think of the afterlife this way because I believe that God is in Heaven, and He is the source of unconditional love, overwhelming peace, brilliant light, and all of creation. But because there’s good in the universe, I know there also has to be bad, so if I say there’s a Heaven, you’d assume there must also be a Hell. This is where my own interpretations of the Other Side come in, based on what Spirit has shown me and what I’ve experienced during readings. Take it for what you wish!

  Though Spirit might reference low levels on the Other Side when I channel, they’ve never used the word “Hell” with me. This may be a place where pure evil resides, or may be how lower levels were interpreted in the Bible, because like I said, low levels are where troubled souls enter the afterlife, so these parallels could make sense. The term “underworld” even is often used interchangeably with “Hell,” which also fits into what Spirit tells me because if you think of “Hell” relative to the more righteous, higher levels above it, I could see how people would say Hell is under Heaven, because low levels are under higher ones. If Hell is anything more than this, then I’m not sure what or who is there, because I don’t deal with negative Spirits like poltergeists, and I only read lower-level souls if higher-level souls bring them forward. Regardless, I want you to know that souls that enter at low levels do not get a free ride, and their like-minded company isn’t much fun to hang out with, to say the least. These souls have to put in their time and work to do better. They also keep at it on the Other Side or by reincarnating, until they get their lessons right, since I can’t imagine that most souls would want to be at a level filled with other, lesser souls for eternity. People don’t want to live in bad neighborhoods here, and I’ll bet it’s the same for souls in the afterlife. But I believe you can do your learning with a peaceful spirit and with a loving, forgiving God. This isn’t my religious belief; it’s just what Spirit’s told me. Why should a soul have to learn lessons in a torturous place?

  This isn’t easy for everyone to hear. A few years ago, I channeled a girl who was murdered by her best friend’s ex-boyfriend. He killed her and then killed himself. The mom, dad, and two brothers were all there. When the girl’s soul came through, she said, “Theresa, my brothers aren’t going to like this, but I’m going to bring forward the soul of the boy who killed me.” So she did, and he apologized to her mom for his crime. The man’s soul said, “I am sorry for taking your most precious gift.” The brothers were freaking-out furious about this. “Why is she with him?” they wanted to know. But she wasn’t with him. She lowered her vibration to his level to bring the soul forward and give her mom healing. Not only was the mother grieving her daughter’s death, but she’d made herself sick wondering if the man felt remorse for what he did. His soul went on to say that not only does it have to account for his grave deed, but he must endure the family’s heartache over the life he took. The message also validated that the girl’s soul hears her mom’s thoughts. She didn’t bring the guy’s soul forward for the fun of it.

  As a medium, I’ve discovered more than I ever thought I’d know about life and death. But struggling clients like this family, and truly remorseful souls, have taught me so much about forgiveness and how essential it is to heal our pain. I used to be a very cut-and-dried person—if you did something to me, I was done with you. But I’ve gotten better. I think it’s hard to dig deep, figure out what’s wrong, and fix it. But that’s what our souls, and the people in our life, need us to do. Learning forgiveness is like taking out the trash. If you don’t deal with it right away, the garbage will pile up, begin to smell like chocolate-covered onions, and you’ll have to do an even bigger cleanup later.

  When It’s Your Time, It’s Your Time

  Spirit says that the time you’re destined to die is generally set, but how we reach that point is up to the choices we make. I’ve never heard of there being a specific date that you’re due to check out; it’s more like a window of time. Is it years, weeks, days? I don’t know. But when you hear about freak accidents, or unfair twists of fate, like a guy who misses his flight, the plane crashes without him on it, and a week later he dies in a car accident—that’s what I’m talking about here. And remember that story about journalist Jessica Ghawi, who escaped death by a gunman in a Toronto mall and blogged, “I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we’ll take our last breath”? A month later in Aurora, Colorado, she was shot during that horrible, horrible midnight screening of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises. Hello, destiny. On the flip side, there’s truth to the old saying “It wasn’t his time to go,” which is what I thought about when I met a man who’d tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out a window but lived fifteen more years in a wheelchair.

  I guess Spirit isn’t more specific about how we’ll pass because we do have free will, but that’s yet another reason to live each day in a way that we want to be remembered. I recall channeling a young boy who died in Florida while horsing around with his friends in a car. He was in one vehicle and he mooned his friends in another; when he lost his balance, he fell into the driver, who crashed the car. Though the kid who was joking around died, mooning was not specific
ally written into his life plan. God wasn’t like, Okay, so here’s how it all ends. You’re going to pull down your pants, cause a lot of commotion, and then your life’s kaput. I believe the boy was destined to die within a certain block of time, and he made a choice that determined mooning would be his exit.

  I do, however, think that our souls may know when we’re close to death, and the memo can slip through the conscious mind. My cousin Al suffered from liver disease, and while he was undergoing treatment, I ran into him at a party. He told me the doctors gave him a clean bill of health, but I sensed otherwise. A few days later, he showed up at my house unannounced to fix my toilet, although I’d been bugging him about this for weeks. Two days later, he died. I felt like his soul was tying up loose ends, and that included my plumbing. I also know a woman whose father took care of his sick wife for many difficult years. One night, the dad called his daughter up and said, “Can you please come over and sit with your mom? She’s in a lot of pain.” The woman was making dinner for her kids and preparing for a meeting at work the next day. She always rushed to her parents’ side, but for the first time in years, asked for a pass. “I’ll come by tomorrow and call in twenty minutes.” When she did, her dad said Mom was better, but before hanging up, he added, “Do you think there’s a place for me in Heaven?” “Of course,” she said. “Don’t talk like that.” That night, her father died in his sleep. I believe his soul knew that it would soon be leaving this world, even if his brain didn’t.

  Now, if our destiny is set, does that leave room for miracles? Absolutely! But I actually think miracles just change the way we reach our destiny; they don’t change the ending itself. So while we usually think of a miracle as something outside of what is meant to happen, I think that the miracle is part of your journey. Spirit tells me that rarely do miracles happen and then the people who experienced them go back to a hum-da-dum life. They usually teach others what they’ve learned, or pay it forward, and try to do or be more than before. So God knows that at some point in your time here, you’ll survive the impossible—a drowning, a fire, a terminal medical diagnosis—and people will call it a miracle, but it was really part of a bigger plan for you to talk about it, write about it, change lives, and spread the word about what you’ve learned.