Theresa Caputo Quotes

you get nothing else from this book, know this: your deceased loved ones are loving, guiding, and protecting you from the Other Side.

Let your intuition guide you, but also use your head and take responsibility for the free will choices you make

Even if you are not actively mourning a loved one right now, you bought my book for a reason, and I don’t think there are many accidents in our world. Maybe you were meant to read this today, come back to it another time, or earmark it for a friend. No matter what, I’ll bet it’s just what Spirit ordered.

their souls never leave you. You may feel like your relationship is over, but you actually have a new kind of relationship with your loved one, thanks to an ongoing bond that will never end. It isn’t a physical relationship anymore, but a spiritual and soul bond relationship that lasts forever.

You know how Kelly Clarkson sings, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? I’ll do you one better. What doesn’t kill you makes your soul wiser. You learn from hard situations and use them to inform future ones. On the Other Side, Spirit says it’s mostly rainbows and Skittles, so your soul can’t learn things with the same impact that it does here.

You might be like, Once you apologize, then I’ll forgive you. But that’s no good, because you remain bound to the person who harmed you and give them the power until they say, “I’m sorry.

When anger gnaws at your soul, you become less of the loving person that you and Spirit know you to be. And if you don’t manage your resentments and embrace life, you’ll compromise your happiness and lose your way on your path.

If you’re one of those really busy or active people whose coffee mug says, “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” I’ve got news for you--the afterlife is not one long nap. You may rest for a bit, but you’ve got places to go, Spirit to see.

Despair and isolation dominate your thoughts. You don’t know how to talk about your feelings, yet you feel disconnected from anyone who tries to ask. You wonder if this is bad behavior, but you’re secretly too exhausted to care. You don’t recognize your life or any of the relationships in it. You feel utterly alone, confused, and lost at sea.

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.

I particularly love when Spirit sends signs that make us laugh. I know a woman who lost her husband to cancer at a young age. A year later, she was in Miami with her friends during a much-needed girls’ weekend. They were lying on the beach, when she began talking about her mother-in-law. She was saying that it had been a hard relationship to negotiate without her spouse, since each woman dealt with losing the son/husband differently. Well, right in the middle of this, a seagull pooped on the wife’s arm. I have a hunch it was her husband’s soul telling her, Stop gossiping about my mom, already!

Energy is a science-y term that psychics like to use a lot, though I’m not sure many of us would say we missed our calling as professors or technology gurus. I’ve met my share of mediums, and I’ve never heard any of them confide, “Gosh, I really wanted to be a physicist, but I knew talking to dead people would make me more popular at parties.” Are you out of your mind? If you handed me a radiometer, I’d probably use it as a paperweight. Even when the kids needed help with their science fair projects growing up, it was a group effort at our house—me, Larry, my parents, we’d all pitch in. And believe me when I say that I was rarely the one steering the rocket ship.

When I deliver Spirit’s messages, I have no filter—zero, zip, none. I picture my cranium like spaghetti in a colander. My brain’s the pasta, the water is the information pouring over and through it, and then the messages come right out of the holes that are my voice, expression, and mannerisms. I should learn to watch my mouth, though. A lot of times there’s no proper way to say the stuff Spirit tells me, so I just blurt it out. I was doing a restaurant venue of eighty people, and there was a girl there who lost her brother. I turned to her and said, “Your brother wants you to get rid of your boyfriend. He’s no good.” But get this—the boyfriend was sitting right next to her! So I announced that if I had four slashed tires at the end of the group, we’d all know who did it. The girl broke up with the guy four months later, but that’s beside the point. Or is it?

Whenever Spirit used to show me a horse, it usually meant that someone liked horses, was an equestrian, or bet the horses. But one day, I went through all the meanings with a client, and when he didn’t connect with any of them, Spirit showed me the strangest thing—an outline of New Jersey. So just like that, horses also began to symbolize the Garden State. Why? Beats me, but if it works for Spirit, it works for me. I went through the same process with oatmeal. It was always a symbol that meant someone liked to eat the gloppy cereal—obvious enough. But then once when I said that in a session, the client said no, so Spirit then made me feel like I was pacing up and down a driveway every day. I asked the woman if the deceased was very regimented, and when she said yes, Spirit established that oatmeal would now mean that the person really liked oatmeal and/or that the person liked a routine. Seems random to us, but listen, maybe Spirit thinks it takes a lot of discipline to eat a bowl of Quaker Oats!

I’m also frequently asked if I’ve used my abilities for gambling or the lottery. Get your minds out of the gutter. What I do is for the highest good of all concerned, so I’d never do that intentionally! And let’s face it, even if I did try, I’m way too scattered to recognize what I’m being told. My aunt and I went to Belmont Park Race Track for her birthday one year, and I remember hearing “six ten” when I walked in--which is my birthday, June 10. How nice, I thought. Spirit’s acknowledging my birthday too. My uncle asked me what colors I liked best so he could bet on a horse wearing that color, and all the colors I said were losing. It wasn’t until after we left that I realized all the horses that won were a combination of the numbers six and ten! And then there was the time I went to a spa with my sister-in-law Corrinda. We went to Mohegan Sun one night, which was the first time I’d ever been to a casino, and decided to play roulette. Wouldn’t you know, every number we played on the wheel was a loser?

Their presence means that your thoughts are heard, prayers are being answered, and that miracles can unfold. I have a lot of respect for Abe Lincoln, and I’ve always liked when he said, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” I can only hope that my gift will continue to help you fill your years with faith, happiness, laughter, and an abundance of love.

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

As I’ve said, I feel there is only one God, no matter what your faith is. And though God and religion are typically seen as being intertwined, they really aren’t the same thing. God is a positive, pure, and good entity, and religion is a set of beliefs and practices created to serve and worship God. You can use religion to follow God’s ways, but I don’t feel that God aligns Himself with one faith over another. I love that many religions provide important ethical and spiritual guidance to their communities and encourage charity to those who need it. What I’m not crazy about is how some people think God prefers one religion over another, which, to an extreme degree, has triggered violence, hate, and condemnation between those who claim to be “right” about whose God is The God. It’s our egos that cause us to believe our group or values are the only acceptable ones out there, and that’s not the case. Bloated self-worth doesn’t just shape some religions either; it affects the way we talk about politics, race, and even our favorite sports teams.

Most visitations require little, if any, interpretation, but there are exceptions to this rule. One last point: if you’re grieving a loss or feeling guilt connected to a death, your negative feelings may lead you to believe that a visitation is heavier than it’s meant to be. Say you dream of a loved one standing still for a split second, and the person doesn’t say anything. You might even call out to him, but the image fades away. This is a typical visitation, but if you’re carrying negative emotions related to the death, you may interpret it to mean that the person’s soul is mad at you or didn’t want to talk to you, and chose not to stick around for long. But that’s never Spirit’s aim at all! As you’ve just learned, visitations are special, well-intentioned, and yet another sign that a soul is at peace. Intuition,

Doctors have always said that our bodies are built to adapt; if a feeling or experience goes on for long enough, the brain learns to disregard it, work around it, or just treat it as normal.

And though there’s a lot to be happy about in Heaven, people who were crabby or bossy here don’t seem to become unusually chipper. I’ll never forget when I channeled a woman’s parents, and I got a grumpy vibe from them. I asked the daughter, “Were your parents cranky?” And at the same time that the woman said, “No, my parents were wonderful,” her husband mouthed, “Hell yeah, they were cranky!” Grief can cause us to romanticize the deceased, so I took the husband’s word on this one. In a three-thousand-person venue, Spirit also had me point directly to one guy and say, “You, your father wants you to get up. Is that your mom? He wants her up too. He says you’re a frigging idiot for what you did to the lawn.” Turns out the man had just bought a new ride-on tractor and destroyed an acre of his land because he didn’t know how to work it. Then he told his wife to stop knocking on her son’s door and bothering him so much. Though Dad was doing his thing in Heaven, he still thought of himself as the man of the house.

Spirits that piggyback may not have been connected here in the physical world, but because they are connected to you, they’re connected on the Other Side when preparing for a group reading. I don’t believe a message has to be from just one soul, especially since they’ve shown me that they work really well as a cluster. Spirit can also come forward, recede, and play off each other’s energy. They channel together like old pros. In my largest venue readings, it’s amazing how organized your family’s souls have been! I also believe Spirit will help orchestrate who comes to the readings and sometimes where they sit. You can’t miss how certain types of deaths—which is how I initially validate your loved ones to you—are seated together, which makes piggybacking easier. In one section of a theater, there will be multiple women who’ve lost children, families whose loved ones had Alzheimer’s, or even friends who’ve died from similar freak accidents like a falling object. It sounds wild, because it is. And Spirit’s behind all of it. What I love most about group readings is that you get to hear so many incredible, compelling messages that you can’t help but feel touched by all of it. I also find that Spirit is a little more fun during group readings, especially during the private, smaller groups. In a room of ten to fifteen people, I can channel anywhere between twenty to forty souls in a two-hour period. But there are so many different, lively, and dynamic personalities around that souls with stronger energy can help those with less to communicate better by letting them use their energy. Sometimes I have souls that channel for an entire hour, and nobody else comes through; other times, a soul might stay for a short time, go away, and then come back and talk a mile a minute! It’s like the soul recharged its batteries. When a reading is over, I can hardly remember what I’ve said, seen, or felt for too long after, because again, they’re not my feelings, thoughts, or emotions. Unless the message is part of a really mind-blowing or emotionally gripping session, whatever information Spirit sends me isn’t something that’s stuck in my head forever. Know too that you take your dead friends and family with you when you leave a session, show, or my house. For some reason, it’s always the husbands who remind me to take all the Spirits with me, and I’m always like, “Listen, pal, they’re not my Spirits. They’re your dead relatives. They’re staying with you. I got my own problems.

Angels are active and involved in our lives on a regular basis and in amazing ways. They “work” directly for God as messengers, protectors, rescuers, and interceders. There are many types of angels, though none have ever lived on earth the way our guides have (more on them later). They’re Spirit, not physical beings, so they don’t have bodies like we do. I’m told they can take on the appearance of animals or people. There’s an order, or ranking, to the population of angels that include archangels, guardian angels, cherubim, seraphim, basic angels, and others (that’s not the ranking, that’s just a list of angels). I know there are high-ranking angels, or archangels, who have various jobs and missions, and they are above other angels that inspire and intercede for us as well. Pat has regular experiences with Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Michael, for example, is a protector and adept at performing acts of justice and power. She calls on him for assistance when she has difficult clients or people with something very dark attached to them, like when she worked with a young woman who played with a Ouija board. Pat also tells clients who are fearful to call on Michael when they’re nervous or anxious about something. Gabriel is connected to kindness. Raphael is in charge of healing, so Pat calls on him for her clients since she’s a healer. Spirit tells me that angels are powerful and seriously busy. They offer protection, guidance, deliver messages, encourage us, strengthen us, and help to answer our prayers.

But angels aren’t just around us when we need them; they’re with us all the time. I’ve also never seen angels use wings to fly to a person’s rescue, or for any other reason; this doesn’t mean that it can’t happen, I’ve just never witnessed it myself. I’ve only seen angels drift through a space as energy, like clouds moving across the sky. Archangels, however, have shown themselves with wings. I’m told there are also guardian angels assigned to every soul and they are with you throughout your many lifetimes. Even though I’m told that guides have walked in this world and angels haven’t, I’ve often wondered if guardian angels and guides are the same thing, since not all angels have wings and guardian angels sound like a religious interpretation of the same role that guides play in generally spiritual beliefs. I’m not too sure, to be honest. What I do know is that they love being acknowledged as part of your life. Guardian angels are always trying to help you out and guide you on your spiritual path with great love. They also provide protection by prompting your intuition, creating coincidences, and intervening in your world in times of need or danger.

When a child says, “I see dead people,” and he or she isn’t quoting from the Bruce Willis movie, hear the kid out. Ditto if the child claims to see a monster, shadow, imaginary friend, or ghost. If they say they’re seeing Spirit or a loved one who’s passed, the best advice is to be open to what they have to say. Don’t make a big deal about it, and ask your questions with subtlety. Don’t cross-examine the poor dears, but let them tell you what’s going on. You want to make sure that what the child’s seeing is real, so you don’t want to lead them on at all. In my family, nobody made a fuss about me talking to Spirit, and that implied support was invaluable. Another big point is to pay attention to your child’s level of fear. Always let sensitive kids know that there’s nothing to be afraid of, and if they’re scared, make it clear that they have the power to tell Spirit to leave.

One time, though, I did see a man peeking in my kitchen window, which really scared me since I usually see Spirit as mists and silhouettes. I knew it wasn’t a human person, but he sure looked like one. He was wearing a flannel shirt and looked like the Brawny paper towel guy. I told my first client about him, and she said he fit the description of her brother who had passed. I was like, “Well, your brother just freaked me out, peeping in my window like that!

To me, the best part about opening yourself up to hearing from Spirit is that you can do it just by being yourself. You don’t need tarot cards or crystals. You don’t even need to hold or wear an object with your family member’s energy, like a lot of people think. When I mention a necklace or ring during a session that you’ve brought with you, it’s not because I’m drawn to that energy like a magnet. It’s because Spirit tells me to reference it. In fact, I once did a phone reading for a woman who had a lot of female energy around her that had passed on, including a mom, grandmother, aunt, and cousin. She also had a grandfather and father on the Other Side. Anyway, Spirit showed me a picture I have of Victoria, wearing the most random clothes—a baseball cap, sunglasses, Rug Rat pajamas, holding the pet parakeet that Gram got her, and Mardi Gras beads. So I said, “This is going to sound bizarre, but I feel like you’re wearing a strange mix of items: pajamas, a silk scarf, a man’s hat, gloves, rosary beads, and jewelry that doesn’t match. Are you wearing an article from every dead person you want to hear from?” There was total silence on the phone. I think she was a little embarrassed, but I have to admit that I was actually relieved she didn’t dress like that all the time!

God has also come through for my clients directly—though one time, He made Himself known in a way that I couldn’t understand at first. I didn’t know anything about the woman I was reading, and she had a quiet demeanor so we didn’t really talk much before. One of the first things I said to her was, “There’s a husband energy here. Did you lose your spouse?” She told me she never married, so I moved on, but this husband figure wouldn’t leave me alone—he even kept showing me a plain, gold wedding band. I passed, and we moved on to other messages, including how she has a spiritual gift like mine. Then during the last fifteen minutes of her reading, I felt a tremendous sense of peace and saw the overwhelming white light with golden edges that always bowls me over. “Call me crazy, but I feel God is present,” I said. I felt different from when I channel a normal husband energy; it felt higher than your loved ones, higher than a guide or angel. God said to tell her, “Thank you for doing my work.” The woman thanked me for the reading, and I didn’t think about it too much after that. Cut to a few months later, and I was about to read another client when she said, “I heard you gave Sister Mary Catherine the most amazing reading.” I was like, Sister Mary who? Apparently, the first woman was a nun—with psychic abilities, no less—but more than anything, the husband energy now made sense! At first, it didn’t feel like God because Spirit makes me feel the bond that the person shares with the soul, but nuns believe they are married to Christ. Plus, He showed me the wedding band. But when we didn’t connect with that, God made Himself a lot more obvious! Sheesh, talk about a blond moment on my part.

#2 Don’t doubt when your loved ones are trying to connect. Everyone connects to their loves ones differently, and you don’t have to be a medium to know that some signs like flickering lights or apparitions in your bedroom are easier to recognize than others. But as you know, seeing a soul in a dream can be a means of connecting that you’re not so sure about the next day. Is it your dead sister’s soul if she was dressed as Cleopatra? Did your son’s spirit visit you in a dream, even if he was babbling about the Red Sox and not giving you a heartfelt message? The whole debate reminds me of that old saying: If a soul appears in a dream, and there’s no medium around to validate it, did it really happen? But I did the best reading where Spirit told me that random dream appearances can be a way of connecting, and the soul is with you at that moment.

Mantra: I may be facing a loss, but I’m gaining wisdom and growing every day.

People think the opposite of love is hate, but I think it can be fear. Fear of abandonment, impermanence, or indifference will keep you from love. Love is grounding and makes you feel safe, and if you don’t feel secure or felt threatened

If you have even the slightest bit of faith, then you have hope, and if you have hope, you have love.

Your beliefs become your thoughts Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions Your actions become your habits Your habits become your values Your values become your destiny.

Remember too that when it comes to death, this is an agreed-upon choice between your soul, your guides, and God; it’s not entirely God’s call, as so many of my clients assume. The end of your life usually occurs when that soul, not the human, chooses to leave within a window of time called destiny. I’m told that this is also the case with children who get sick or die young. Their souls agreed to take on an illness for their growth or that of the loved ones connected to them. A lot of times when I sit with a client, they’ll say, “I asked God not to take my mom/brother/child yet, and He did!” But God isn’t kicking back in Heaven like, I’ll take . . . that one! Now this one! He’s not calling back souls the way you pluck chocolates out of a box—this truffle first, then that caramel. In fact, God isn’t doing anything to us, but for us, and even then your soul is involved.

Another thing God tells my clients is that it’s OK to be angry or turn from Him, if that’s what you need for a time, but to know He’s not going anywhere. No matter how close or far you move from God, His love never changes, and He will always guide you when you’re ready. He also doesn’t want fury to obscure the fact that your loved ones’ souls are at peace. God says all this because He wants you to heal and move forward. He wants the well-being of your loved one’s soul to be your focus, because negativity holds you back from growth and serenity.

For most people I know and have worked with, there is no end point where you get to say, “All done! I’m better now!” You move two steps forward, three back, one more forward . . . and you carry on. As Claudine said, “We’ll never stop grieving, but we do try to put our grief in a box and take it out when we’ve set aside time for it, so it doesn’t rule our lives. Healing will be a process that continues until we cross over to see our dear, sweet daughter again.

If you unnecessarily blame yourself for an event, Spirit’s first priority is to name one or more specific grounds for why you shouldn’t carry this burden. They have me do this until I sense that your soul is calm enough to start healing. So Spirit might show me that a soul chose a death that would be quickest for you to heal from, ask me to insist that the soul’s destiny was set, tell me the person died a certain way to help you learn a lesson or help others—or any mix of these positive and encouraging efforts. These facts help clients in their own ways, but if you pull back from the individual stories, Spirit’s overarching lesson is that you can’t stop looking for reasons to heal. Also, these messages reinforce that some things are out of your hands once you’re in this world, because your soul chose your journey and knew your destiny all along. Everything is part of a purpose, path, and lessons. So the next time you’re tempted to take on blame, ask Spirit to help you figure out what you’re being taught. At the very least, it will refocus your thoughts and stop the loop of regret.

One of my favorite examples of how souls retain their personality quirks and charms happened when I did a group reading for a bunch of sisters and their mom after their father had died. His soul came through and said that when Mom goes on her cruise, he’ll be with her. He described how amazing it would be--the whole family would be on a large boat, and because it was a Disney cruise, Mickey Mouse and Cinderella would be there too. The woman was very confused, since she hadn’t planned a vacation for herself recently, much less such an indulgent one. “I don’t know what my husband’s talking about,” she said. “I can’t afford to go on a trip like that.” But her husband’s soul kept at it. He was insistent! After lots of sideways glances, the kids burst out laughing. “Okay, Dad, we’ll tell her!” they said. The girls had planned a surprise birthday cruise for the family for their mom’s seventieth birthday. “This is so typical,” the mom said. “He could never keep anything to himself!” Clearly, he’s still into blowing secrets from the Other Side.

Another time, the souls of a husband and wife came through to validate their presence to their daughter with a very specific shtick. The dad had me yell, “Bingo!” at which point Mom’s soul said, “They don’t have bingo on TV. It’s The Price Is Right!” The daughter laughed so hard and said that game show was her parents’ favorite. She used to call them when they were alive, and they’d say, “We need to call you back. The Big Deal is on right now!” When the daughter’s son was born, he came into the world right before the Big Deal aired, and the family joked that the baby was the Big Deal of the day. The mom’s soul also had me add that she likes Bob Barker better than Drew Carey as a host. Hey, that certainly wasn’t me talking! I think they’re both great. And though there’s a lot to be happy about in Heaven, people who were crabby or bossy here don’t seem to become unusually chipper. I’ll never forget when I channeled a woman’s parents, and I got a grumpy vibe from them. I asked the daughter, “Were your parents cranky?” And at the same time that the woman said, “No, my parents were wonderful,” her husband mouthed, “Hell yeah, they were cranky!” Grief can cause us to romanticize the deceased, so I took the husband’s word on this one.

When a reading is over, I can hardly remember what I’ve said, seen, or felt for too long after, because again, they’re not my feelings, thoughts, or emotions. Unless the message is part of a really mind-blowing or emotionally gripping session, whatever information Spirit sends me isn’t something that’s stuck in my head forever. Know too that you take your dead friends and family with you when you leave a session, show, or my house. For some reason, it’s always the husbands who remind me to take all the Spirits with me, and I’m always like, “Listen, pal, they’re not my Spirits. They’re your dead relatives. They’re staying with you. I got my own problems.

I get the most information from Spirit when I’m in the shower and when I blow-dry my hair--and I don’t think it’s because Spirit likes the scent of my shampoo and styling cream (though it does smell like chai tea). I am, however, starting to think it’s true when they say, “The higher the hair, the closer to God!” Other people I know are most receptive to Spirit when they’re doing a boring chore like vacuuming or washing the dishes. These are the moments when your mind’s not cluttered with a to-do list of activities and is naturally open to hear from Spirit. And yes, they can talk over the roar of your Hoover!

Since Spirit’s around me so much, I’m not gonna lie--a few times I’ve used it to my advantage. Oh, come on, wouldn’t you? As a mom, being a medium always worked well with keeping my kids in line. I never really knew what was going on with them, but I’d tell them that I’d send my guides with them when they went out so they’d stay out of trouble! Victoria and my son, Larry, never thought about doing anything bad because they probably thought Spirit would rat them out. I even called them up a few times to find out if they were okay, and said my Spirit guides told me to. But I was just being a nervous mom--Spirit hadn’t told me anything! Now that they’re older, I don’t do this. I don’t even think Spirit would help me spy on Victoria at school, or on my son when he’s at a bar with his friends. Spirit probably thinks there’s a lot that I’m better off not knowing. I’ve also asked my angels to help me find a parking spot at the mall or items I’ve lost around the house. I spend most of my day searching for stuff I’ve misplaced because I’m such a space cadet, so if I didn’t ask for Spirit’s help with this, I’d get nothing done. To enlist their aid, I calmly sit down, relax, and pray to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost articles, that he guide me to where I put the item. You can try this, too. My husband, Larry, always says I can talk to souls across many dimensions, but I can’t find the keys in my own damn pocketbook.

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.

Because of my Catholic upbringing, it took a minute for me to accept that we used to have past lives. I just thought we died, went to Heaven, and that was it. And whenever I heard about regressions from others who’d done them, I wondered why they always sounded almost too dramatic or fascinating to be true. You were Amelia Earhart in a past life? A Trojan warrior, really? But if you think about it, we all have a story. It’s funny to consider your life now, or even a friend’s, and how it would sound as a past-life regression narrative. You married a soldier who was the love of your life, but he died young. Or, your father was a wealthy businessman but you never knew your mother. You later had three kids, and one passed in a car accident. Or, you never had children but married a celebrity and had many loving pets, and this fulfilled you in every way. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such a leap of faith, right?

Some people can have out-of-body experiences without severe harm to their health. This happened to Gram a few times, though she never made it all the way to Heaven. When Gram was pregnant with my mom, she remembered fainting from anemia and seeing her grandmother who’d died. She was about to go to her, but she heard her mom calling her name and said to her grandma, “I gotta go! My mom’s calling!”--and she came to. Many years later, Gram was lying on the sofa and felt her soul rise out of her body. When she told my mom about it, Mom said she could have had an out-of-body experience like astral projection, where the soul separates from the physical body and travels around. Shortly after, Gram was napping and felt like she was coming out of her body, this time from her back, and recognized what was happening. “Whoa, where do you think you’re going?” she said to herself. With that, everything went back to normal.

During one trip, Brian’s soul took Bill’s to Heaven. Here’s how Bill described it: We walked through an enormous building similar to the Greek Parthenon. We passed angels that had radiant, golden auras who seemed to be filling out records. We then went out the back and there were children playing by a stream and waterfall. Everything was crystals and gems. The water was so clear, it seemed as if it wasn’t even there. There was also the most beautiful singing, and it wasn’t outside of me so that I was “listening” to it, but it was inside me and around me at the same time. I could not tell you a direction it was coming from, but it made me feel totally safe and at peace. Brian went on to show Bill that there are different levels in Heaven, and said that the purpose of our existence on earth is to try to live a life that brings us closer to the next level and God, who is at the highest. Brian has also explained that he was an old soul that had lived in the physical world many times and reached a very high level. It’s at these higher levels that you can interact more easily with earth, which is why Bill thinks Brian can take him on these journeys at all. I see Bill and Regina for yearly sessions, and Brian has told me that he recently went to Jesus and asked if he could have a new responsibility--to help some children cross over, rather than having God send an angel. He said that the angels were so big and the children so small that the kids were sometimes frightened of the angels. Spirit told me that Jesus laughed and gave Brian the job. Okay, so I totally realize that last part doesn’t have anything to do with what God or Heaven looks like, but I wanted to share it with you anyway, because I thought it was really neat.

So, for instance, let’s say you’d like to meet Mr. Right. Your prayer wouldn’t sound like, “Dear God, please send me a husband,” or “Hey, God, can you send me a good man?” Instead you’d say, “Dear God, I want to thank you for my family, my work, my dog…I also want to thank you for introducing me to a man who’s tall, dark, handsome, has no facial hair, is financially stable, loves and respects me…”--and so on. It’s okay to yap God’s ear off. He’s a good listener!

Albert Einstein was a man of big ideas, and like me, even bigger hair

Albert Einstein was a man of big ideas, and like me, even bigger hair.

A tank of gas has a certain potential energy that is converted to kinetic energy by the engine; when the potential is used up, you’re out of fuel (and luck, if you’re not near a gas station)!

You know how Kelly Clarkson sings, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? I’ll do you one better. What doesn’t kill you makes your soul wiser.

If I had a dime for every time I said, “Why is this happening?” after a loved one got sick or passed away, Gram would never have to send me those silver coins again. I think that one of the hardest things to accept when you’re in any tough, life-changing situation, particularly related to mortality, is that there aren’t explanations to every question you have. I don’t even know all the answers, and I’ve got a direct line to Heaven!

The most poignant time this happened was when I read a woman whose parents lived together in an assisted living facility. They were very ill for years, and the father took care of the mother, who had very bad dementia or Alzheimer’s--ironically, I can’t remember which. As these situations often go, it was the caretaker, the father, who died first, and the ill mother was still alive but unable to communicate very well. During the reading, I channeled the father, who said to his daughter, “I’ve been sitting at the end of your mother’s bed, calling her for weeks. But she doesn’t come. She’s so stubborn!” And then I heard the mother’s soul chime in, “I’m not stubborn! I’m just not ready to go!” The two went back and forth like this for a while, even though the mom wasn’t dead. But as they carried on, I could feel that the mother was growing increasingly at peace with the idea of crossing over. “Don’t worry,” the father’s soul finally assured his daughter. “When Mom passes, my soul will be there to greet her.” Do you know, four hours later, the mom died? Incredible.

If a soul appears in a dream, and there’s no medium around to validate it, did it really happen?

Afterword And in the middle of winter, a big, fat, hairy fly buzzed around my TV room, which I immediately assumed was Nanny. Scott tried to kill it with a magazine, but I refused to let him. After he swore that I’d officially lost my mind, he tucked me into bed, and when he went back in to watch TV, the fly was dead on his side of the sofa. It’s like Nanny was saying, “Okay, my work here is done. I’m out.

Believe me, I’m well aware that the information I’m spewing can be fast, emotional, surprising, choppy, confusing, and piecing it all together can feel overwhelming. You may also doubt it at the time or not recognize how it fits into your life. That’s why I tape all of my sessions, so that you can go over the messages at your own pace. A man once left the funniest voice mail on my answering machine: “I came to you four years ago for a reading, and you were talking about a bunch of shit that made no sense to me at the time, but it’s all happening now!” Everything Spirit says is for a reason; it may just take a few days or years for you to realize it.

with your thoughts and the feelings you project, and they’ll hear you. In fact, it’s your loved ones’ job in the afterlife to watch over, guide, and protect those they love on earth. True, Spirit

This is one of the reasons Spirit asks you to keep up traditions and routines like baking holiday biscotti or sleeping in their concert tees—their souls are present when you do something that remembers, honors, or simply includes them.

You can write one sentence or fill an entire page, but the more specifically you remember these special times, the more cathartic it will be. Souls can sense your feelings and musings, so know that your loved one is with you as you do this activity. “You will not forget me,” Spirit often says. “And when you think of me, I am with you.” Let

But for as long as I’ve done this, there are still times I’m blown away when souls drop in for a visit. I’ll never forget when, during a group reading, I saw a man sitting at the end of the dining room table. He wanted me to tell the host that he knew she was concerned about her best friend’s husband. Then he looked at me and said, “I’m going to be with my father now.” I told this story to the group in real time, and the host, overwhelmed with emotion, excused herself and left the room upset. When she came back, she said that just forty minutes before the session began, her best friend called to say that her husband died and his last words in private were, “I’m going to be with my father now.” Are you kidding me with this? If that’s a parlor trick, I’m one hell of a magician.