Talk to Me (21 page)

It's easy to pontificate to others about what's right and wrong. It's much harder to open yourself up to listening and taking in what people are trying to share with you. We should all learn from one another. Balance is the key in life. Find your balance—what you do for others unselfishly should at least equal the gifts we gratefully receive from the universe . . . and we receive plenty.

CHILDREN HAVE A LOT TO TEACH US

I think we should all learn something from both the parents and children in these powerful stories of love and connection. Just because someone doesn't live a long life, doesn't render them any less powerful. Their souls are constructed of great emotion, and they crave to remain present in their family picture.

Children are so strong both in life and the afterlife because they aren't jaded, and they don't overintellectualise—then miss the point—like we adults often do.

Earlier in the book I shared some powerful and touching stories of children coming through from the afterlife. Now I want to share my experience as a mother of three gifted daughters bringing through their own family members. From time to time I teach my girls my methods in readings, and I look at their individual personalities and how that coincides with their abilities.

One of my girlfriends was in town, and her father had recently passed away. I sat my girls down at the patio table on our back porch. I placed a blank piece of paper in front of each of the three girls. I told them the first name of the man who had passed and nothing more, then had them write his name at the top of their paper.

My daughters told me they were nervous because they didn't want to disappoint me if they weren't good at it. I assured them that I love them, and their ability level would never change my love for them, and to just give it a try. I let them know that it didn't matter if they got it wrong, because it's all part of learning how to trust your instincts. Some information can be hard to put into words, and it takes practice. Other information is highly unusual, and you have to ‘stick to your guns' and not override your inner voice with your mind, just because what you're getting is unfamiliar. Often, it's the obscure information that means the most.

I have to tell you that I went into this experience expecting just about anything from them, ranging from not being good at automatic writing, to being great but not interested.

I sat back with my friend and watched my girls begin writing down their impressions connected to the deceased as they drew them in. After a few minutes, I asked them to share some of what they wrote down with me.

Our oldest daughter, Aurora, surprised herself with the accuracy of her information, and blew my friend away. Fallon kept naming songs connected to the deceased. She listens to music all the time, so she's particularly good at playing ‘Name That Tune' with the afterlife. (This is what I mentioned earlier about how our personality shapes our style of reading.)

Sophia, our youngest, said, ‘He says he's connected to Canada and New York. They're important to him.'

She sounded like me when I read—I was so proud! My friend confirmed that her dad went to college in Canada, and they took a very meaningful trip there together. My friend smiled at Sophia and told her how significant her information was. Sophia was beaming! Then she told my daughter that her dad had been born in New York, and her reading made a lot of sense. My girl gets locations—yes! Not bad for an eleven-year-old. Some mediums are average or not so good at locations, so this was cool to me, since it's one of my own strong points as well. They were the only locations Sophia named, and both were pivotal in the quality of the reading.

On another occasion, the girls brought through Joe's dad, whom unfortunately they had not met, since he passed away before they were born. Joe was a good lesson for them. I know he won't take offence at this, but he was not a very good sitter. He'll get more aware with practice and greatly improve!

Aurora kept hearing her granddad talk about the ‘red T-shirt'.

Joe was like, ‘No, that doesn't ring a bell with me.'

I stepped in and bridged the gap between the girls and Joe during the reading. I turned to him and said, ‘Joe, don't you have your dad's red T-shirt balled up at the top of our closet? I remember seeing it years ago.'

Joe looked at me, and it was like a light bulb went on in his head. ‘Oh yeah, the one that says “I Pay The Bills” in white lettering.'

This is a great example of how it can be helpful when another family member is present, because they're not as invested in the reading as the person being read, and usually are better with recall.

The girls all gave great details connected to Joe's dad, and we were both impressed and so very proud of them.

But what I found really extraordinary was that when I lined their papers up side by side, their information was in triplicate. Joe and I had sat right across from them at the table so we knew there had been no peeking going on; they just all received overlapping information. Out of approximately 25 pieces of information, twenty parts of each of our three girls' readings were identical. Pretty cool! It demonstrates that Joe's dad had specific things he needed heard by Joe, and all three granddaughters were simply listening to their granddad and ‘taking notes'.

TIPS FOR PARENTS

Some of my best tips for parents with gifted children are quite simple. Letting your child know that they can tell you
anything
is key. Remember, kids can feel it if you don't believe them, so being sincerely supportive is necessary. For parents without abilities, be prepared to hear things that may seem ‘out there' to you. Your child might see angels that they will describe as tall and sombre-looking. Angels have very positive energy, but they're also warriors, so they can appear to be intimidating in size and demeanour. They act as protection, especially to children.

Another strange sighting can be what I call ‘mischievous' energies, and, as far as I can tell, they were living pranksters that still like stirring up trouble. I saw one of these once. It was a cloudy white colour and would wrap its head around the corner and peek at me, and then faster than humanly possible pull its head back, so I couldn't see it anymore. It just kept repeating this over and over. My mantra to deal with these entities involves asking the other side to ‘block any negative or mischievous entities from me and my family, not allowing them to be around us or come in contact with us'. This has always worked for me, and I highly recommend it.

A child is never too young to see something supernatural. My kids were two or three years old when they started communicating to Joe and me that they were seeing spirits. Kids at that age are already hesitant to tell people what they observe, because they're not really sure what they're seeing, so it's hard for them to articulate what they've witnessed. So, if you have a really young child telling you that they see a person in their room, believe them.

Children are very appealing to spirits, because they are the brightest of energies, and the deceased love to be around them. Especially infants; they like to make funny faces at them and make them laugh. I think babies are the closest in energy to spirits because they have no chip on their shoulder or issues. Once a child is old enough to draw, you can ask them to draw a picture of the person they see and the images that the spirit shows your child. It's like ‘kindergarten automatic writing with crayons'—I love it!

As gifted children get older, let them practise on you and pull impressions off you. This is okay as long as it's only with family or friends. I tell our kids not to talk at school about what we do because not everybody can see what we see. For little kids, just tell them they have ‘special eyes' that see what some people can't. Most importantly, let them know that what they can do is a good thing; it's not bad or strange, but very normal among feeling beings. Animals can sense the other side because they use their instincts all the time, so sensing spirits is second nature to them. Kids also have heightened energy because they are emotionally based, like spirits. As they get older, it's important to make sure they continue to trust their instincts. One day it may save their life.

An exercise that I do with our kids is I tell them the name of a relative who died long ago, and I have them write it at the top of a piece of paper. I let them practise pulling impressions off the name, and tell them how proud I am of them. Sometimes you have to fact-check their information with an older generation, and sometimes you won't be able to verify what they got, but that doesn't mean they're wrong, either. And, as I mentioned previously, sometimes the details will seem obscure, but often those are the most special pieces of the puzzle. When treated as a game, it's actually fun to do. Our kids are always amazed at how accurate and straightforward their information is. So am I, and a proud Mumma Bear.

The information they get should be mostly positive, but if their information is mostly dark and negative, then you have to look at other possibilities rather than psychic/ mediumship tendencies. A child's personality is going to factor into how they process the information they receive, as well as how they interact with spirits. This is the same for grown mediums, too. If you have a funny, light-hearted child, they will pull positive, fun family members from the other side. Even the deceased who were grumpy in life are able to share their lighter energy with an upbeat kid.

A child who has temper issues or regularly acts out negatively will draw dark energy to them, because like attracts like. In essence, they speak the same language. So, kids who talk about mostly the dark stuff may have some underlying personal problems that are going to be made worse by their gift acting as a portal to negative entities. Addressing behavioural problems or depression in a child will hopefully help them to heal and shift their energy, which will give them focus, allowing their abilities to act as a gift—not a curse. The healthier and happier the child, the greater their potential will be to become a phenomenal psychic/medium in adulthood.

Parents, when you're working with your kids, keep in mind that by being open to their abilities, you will begin to see more of your own. So play the games with them, and work on not dismissing it when you're right about an impression, or more likely when you ‘get' the same impression as your child at exactly the same time.

With little girls, or even little boys, you can use something as simple as a doll to teach them. Tell your child to close their eyes. Then pick an outfit for the doll and hide it behind your back. Ask them to visualise what colour outfit you chose. If it's too hard for them, just have them tell you if the colour feels warm or cold. This can help them learn red (warm) or blue (cold). It really does help them determine colours, and that is very important in readings. It's how we know the colour of the deceased's clothing, their hair, etc. They don't always show us their image; sometimes they have to convey colour through feeling. For me, black comes through as a ‘hard' feeling, like a tarred road; white comes through as a ‘soft' feeling, like a cloud.

Keep in mind that everyone has their own style, but that's how it works for me. It's also fun to play the game with food. If they can tell you the colour of the treat that's covered in the bowl, they can have it. Use several treats, because we don't want children going hungry! It can be as simple as a grape or strawberry for this game.

Helping your kids to realise their talents is one of the most loving gestures that you can make as a parent. Love your children unconditionally, and tell them often that they are special and you're so glad that they are yours.

8
Walking through time

WHEN THE PAST COMES CALLING

A
s the fingers of the past strummed the strings of my life, I realised Tombstone had to be hit head-on. Not for ratings or another's gratification, but for me, because Tombstone, Arizona, is where I believe I may have been before. I've always felt connected to Tombstone. It's always felt familiar to me and I've always felt living energy around me while in that town. It was like there was dust on my feet, guilt on my mind, and unfinished business in my heart. So, I figured, why not? Why not go there and see what happens? Me, a medium, in Tombstone . . . what would it bring? An answer? A conf lict? Would I be personally disappointed? None of us know for sure why we relate to another time and place, but don't we owe it to ourselves to find out? There was only one way for me to learn exactly why I felt pulled there. So it was settled, a Tombstone adventure was on the horizon.

I have been asked by many ghost-hunting teams to accompany them to haunted locations, and I have always respectfully declined. The reason is that I don't want cameras stuck in my face distracting me from the personal experience that I so crave in historical places. If I'm going out to communicate with historical ghosts, I'm doing it on my terms, nobody else's.

Back in 2005, I heard from a ghost-hunter named Terry Fisk and his partner Chad Lewis, who are paranormal investigators for Unexplained Research LLC. They were both nice guys trying to understand the paranormal without a political agenda or a need to ‘cash in' like other scientists I have met (who must really love me because they're still obsessing over me). God bless! No, Terry and Chad simply wanted me to look at their book on haunted locations and see what I thought. I was happy to do so and, by the way, it was a wonderful guide to haunted locations. For all those amateur ghost-hunters out there, the book includes some very ‘active' destinations.

Anyway, I decided to call Terry and Chad and invite them to meet me in Tombstone. Terry was committed to the ‘haunted vacation', and would bring his dad, Larry. I would bring my good friend Jaena Moynihan, who's also a medium. Jaena and I were psyched about taking a girls' road trip, so I packed my Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers and Bob Seger CDs and we hit the road ready for whoever and whatever awaited us—living or otherwise.