An old friend reached out a few weeks ago for a reading, and I am so glad she did. At that point, I had been traveling way more than normal, and mediumship had been forced to take a back seat. So, let’s just say, I wasn’t exactly giddy to make the appointment. I agreed to the reading, but set her up a few weeks down the line to make sure I had time to get my head on straight. And as you can tell by my description, “an old friend,” I also knew her… and in this particular case, I had even met the mother I knew she was hoping to connect with.

If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it now- knowing the client can make readings very difficult. I mean, you KNOW their stuff! This brings up two scenarios- How can the client trust that I am actually getting info from their loved one, and it wasn’t something I already knew? (The whole “well you could have found that on my facebook” scenario.) But also, how can *I* trust that the information I’m getting from Spirit is actually from Spirit, and not from a random memory I’d filed away?

The answer is, there is no definitive answer. But it helps that I’ve gotten better at not worrying about what the client may or may not trust. Its up to their loved ones that want to come through to bring up information or have me say things that they know will resonate. And I’ve applied that same theory for myself as well. It’s up to the Spirit team to give me information that I’ve never heard or had no way of knowing. It goes further than “they had a red car” or “she wore wire rimmed glasses.” It might be a shared memory, or even a specific phrase, which is exactly what happened with my “old friend.”

We shall now move on from “old friend” because she has an actual name- Cherie. Ha! Cherie and I don’t chat much outside of FB comments, so my knowledge of her life is fairly limited. Still, I knew the big stuff. She’s married with three kids, and I even already knew how her mom had passed. Anyway, Cherie and I met up on zoom yesterday at 3pm, and let me tell you, I was prepping this noggin at noon. Somehow I managed to pass three hours, alternatively quieting my mind and asking my Spirit crew for help, and it felt like minutes. Its not hard to concentrate, though, when I recognize the weight of the situation and my responsibility to it. Think about it- this woman has been patiently waiting for weeks for this appointment to TALK TO HER PARENTS… that are not alive anymore. I CANNOT f**k this up. You know? That’s HEAVY.

(Quick aside, I called Cherie today to confirm some details, and she told me, “I was a skeptic until now! My mom knew I didn’t really believe in this stuff!” And then I sighed a big sigh of relief and said, “I am SO glad I didn’t know that beforehand!”)

By the time we started the reading, I was actually excited. I felt like the one piece of the equation that could fail, ME, was in a good mental space and ready. BUT, there’s still that part of knowing too much, and so when I sensed her mom in my aura, I definitely took a few extra seconds to make sure. Luckily, I think my spirit team “gets” this, and will almost always bring in someone else I don’t know, to basically usher in the spirit I do know. It worked like this in Cherie’s case… I could feel her mother up and to my left (not that that matters- it’s just interesting) and then I could sense HER mother, up more towards the center. I knew then that I was going to connect with the grandmother first, but I could also sense grandmother’s husband as well as Cherie’s father. My highly professional illustration should really sort this out:

I turned my attention to Cherie’s grandmother, who gave a few bits of information about being stricter with her sons, and even mentioned one son in particular, that he would have been the “bad boy” of the group- gotten away with more, but was also the “favorite.” As grandma was blending with me, I could also feel mom blending as well. It was as if their Spirit lines were getting crossed. I now realize that the info I was getting at that point rang true for both of them: “multiple sons,” and then bringing up one son in particular. In grandmas situation, it was regarding her youngest son that had also passed away. In Mom’s messages, it was regarding Cherie’s middle son, one she was extremely close to. (These details may be confusing and probably unnecessary – but I want to point it out because it’s something I need to work on!)

After just a few minutes, Grandma stepped back to allow Mom to come in fully. I turned my attention to Mom, and could tell she was apprehensive. I could feel how big this moment was for her, so much so that I struggled to contain my own emotions. She had been waiting for this moment, but wanted to make sure it was right- as in, she also wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to f**k this up! When she finally blended with me fully, it was intense. I could feel how overcome she was to finally connect with her daughter.

Initially, Mom gave me the feeling of being shocked by her own death. She passed after complications from a heart transplant, which in hindsight we can agree is risky, but to her it was completely unexpected. She gave me the feeling that she was ready to live for 200 years! She told me that she was at first uneasy with passing because she was such a helper to everyone, but then she saw that everyone did manage without her, and she was very pleased.

I then kept hearing “Shaan Shaan Shaan,” which I already knew is Cherie’s child. Again, this is where it gets hard, because I already KNOW this information, so the name itself wasn’t evidence. But when I told Cherie what I was hearing, she said, “Oh my God” out loud. Mom said she was worried about him the most, and also brought up him playing a sport. I really struggled with this part of the message, as I could tell she was showing me something specific about Shaan and this sport – as if there was a moment she wanted to me to recognize. I never could quite put it together. It was only AFTER the reading, I found out that Shaan had begged Cherie to be there for it, but she has insisted he go to his lacrosse practice. So he was AT practice, and his grandmother was trying so hard to explain that to me. (Just shows me some of the info I can get better at clarifying. I still have lots of work to do!)

Cherie’s mom then showed me a watch on her wrist, and I knew that her being in the hospital was a significant piece of the information related to this. I kept trying to get more (again, I’ll get better!) but all I could get was that she was in the hospital with this watch, and was taking it off and giving it to Cherie. Thinking this was pretty generic, I told Cherie sort of with a shrug in my shoulders. ‘She’s showing me this watch. She in the hospital with it and she’s taking it off to give to you.” Cherie then said, “well she did have a watch, and I have it, not my sister.” Later she clarified with a text, “This is the watch on my bathroom vanity I see everyday. The transplant team gave it to my mom after her heart transplant. She told me to take it.”

Some of the other things Mom was telling me also seemed of the generic fare, so I wasn’t going back to Cherie often and asking for clarity or acknowledgement. For example, Mom went on to thank Cherie’s husband- described him as a totem pole of strength for the family to lean on after her passing. She then also showed me a visiual of Cherie seated and leaning over, immersed in a moment of remembrance and sorrow. Mom showed me that at those moments, she is kneeling down in front of Cherie holding her hands, looking right up at her. Now, this is one of those times that the info can seem generic, but Spirit manages to slip some real evidence in. I could tell Mom wanted me to delve into this further. So instead of just moving on to the next bit of info, Spirit gives you this cue that “you’re not there yet.” So I knew there was more to this. I then felt Mom was frustrated because Cherie’s mind had been too “busy” for Mom to get through. I could tell Mom was trying, but Cherie wasn’t recognizing it. And this is where it becomes evidential for me- because 9 times out of 10, my client will say, “oh i feel them around me all the time! I know they’re here!”- but I knew this was not the case for Cherie.

I asked and she confirmed, “No I never feel like that!” So what her mom was doing was not giving me a memory of Cherie, but handing out instructions on HOW to feel her, how to connect. (This is good info for all of us! Are you ready? Take notes if you must!) If you want to feel your loved ones from the other side, take the time to sit and THINK of them! Get yourself away from distractions and remember! (Heck, Cherie’s mom was encouraging Cherie to go into the bathroom and close the door so she could have that time!) Let yourself be taken over by the emotions. We try so hard to pack it away sometimes so we don’t feel the sadness, but we NEED to FEEL. And it is in those moments where they are closest to us. And- and this is a big one for me– give yourself permission to believe. It doesn’t have to be that the lights flicker on and off, or a plate flies across the room… give yourself permission to believe that the subtle shift of energy you might feel, or even just that knowing in your gut, means they are with you right then.

One of the final pieces of evidence Cherie’s mom gave, again, didn’t seem like evidence at all at first. Mom showed me a bird of prey, almost like a falcon face, and compared herself to this bird…How she felt so able bodied and strong now. She had me repeat to Cherie, “I am not meek. I am in charge. You’d be proud of me. I’m being very proactive, not reactive.” I was merrily repeating these “generic” words when Mom stopped. I waited for more but she made me feel that she wasn’t moving on until I went and confirmed this with Cherie. So I did- “Cherie, do you understand that? That she’s being proactive now and not reactive? She’s not moving on until I acknowledge this with you…”

Cherie’s eyes were wide and she laughed and said, “I used to get so mad at her and tell her, ‘You need to be more proactive and not reactive!’ I would use those EXACT words!”

(And that, my friend, is the kind of stuff I haven’t seen on FB or stored in the recesses of my brain. Thank you, Spirit!)

We were finishing up the reading, and in a moment of being distracted, I decided the candle I was burning needed to get put out. So I blew it out and as I did I heard “red.” I stayed staring at the candle for a second, trying to get more, when my attention was pulled to the corner of my computer screen. Cherie was wearing a red shirt. “Well that’s CERTAINLY not evidence” I thought to myself – but at the same time, I knew “red” didn’t come from my own mind. “I know you’re wearing a red sweater, but I just got the word red, and I don’t know what that means,” I told her. Cherie then explained that her mother used to tell her that red was a bad color for Cherie (or anyone!) to wear, that it would bring her bad luck. And here she was wearing it on the day of the reading! Haha! Mom clearly couldn’t let that one slide…

As Cherie and I finally wrapped things up, she told me something that was extremely touching, and I will never forget the pride I felt for what I am able to do. Cherie said that before her moms surgery that they had spoken about the possibility that things could go wrong. And Cherie told her mom about what I do, and that someday when she does go, whenever that is, that Cherie is going to “reach out to Holly and see if it works” and that meant Mom had to “find Holly somehow.”

Well, she found me.

And it worked. ❤️