Empower Your Soul

Mediumship 101: Back to the Basics

• Medium Nicole • Season 1 • Episode 107

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Have you ever wondered what really happens during a mediumship reading? The veil between what most people think mediumship is and what it actually entails is thicker than you might imagine. Even within spiritual communities, confusion abounds.

Mediumship isn't simply "talking to dead people" or a catch-all term for spiritual communication. It's specifically connecting with those who have crossed over—your departed loved ones—to provide evidence of their continued existence and deliver messages of love and healing. Unlike psychic readings where practitioners read your energy field or aura, true mediumship positions the medium as merely a translator receiving direct communication from the other side.

This episode peels back common misconceptions while offering a practical exploration of what makes mediumship unique among spiritual practices. You'll discover the difference between practical evidence (the "obituary checklist" as my team calls it) and essence evidence (the personality traits and private memories that truly validate a connection). I share why many skeptics focus on the wrong types of evidence, and how to recognize truly meaningful connections that go beyond what can be Googled.

Whether you're considering your first reading or you've had several, understanding how to approach a session with an open heart makes all the difference. Learn why the best responses are simple yes, no, or maybe answers, why you should never "feed" your medium additional information, and why even the most gifted practitioners aren't 100% accurate.

From one soul to another, this episode invites you to explore the beautiful gateway that mediumship offers into the greater spiritual reality that surrounds us all. Let me know if this Mediumship 101 approach resonates with you—I'd love to create more foundational content in the future.

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Speaker 1:

Hello everybody, welcome back to Empower your Soul. I thought I would do an episode on Mediumship 101 and talk about it because there's so much information I want to share about mediumship and I know that many of you who are listening are very well versed in mediumship and I tend to skip over the basics and, just like I was talking about in the previous episode, I need to, like, revisit the purpose, the foundation of all of my modalities right now, and I do it. I'm doing it in a lovely, fun, exploratory way that allows me to really think and uncover a lot more than people I think are supposed to know or like know already. I don't know, because, like, at the surface level, mediumship is really basic, right, let's talk to dead people, right, but there's so many misconceptions about what mediumship is and what mediumship isn't, and like, even in the metaphysical space. I have seen other professionals use the term mediumship very loosely and when I say, like, I have seen other professionals talking that mediumship is spiritual communication period, and to me that's not true, because to me the big bucket is spirit communication, and then mediumship is a modality within there, just like Akashic Records is a modality within there, and guides are modality within there, and so for me, if we double click on mediumship, it's so lovely. That's why I'm here, everybody. Mediumship is why I'm talking to you, it is the gateway spiritual drug, in my opinion, and it is the beginning of the tipping point for a lot of people, I think, to waken up to the reality that there's a whole spiritual world you can't see, because if you come to me for a mediumship reading and I recommend you do if you have never had one we uncover proof, evidence, validation that your loved ones are still with you. Now.

Speaker 1:

That's not to say that every medium is great. Okay, I'm not saying I'm, I'm the best. I will never say that, because I think there's always areas for improvement. But a lot of people who are less versed in what mediumship is, is and what to look like, what it looks like, it can be very confusing. And so if I talk about what mediumship isn't and I can go down this rabbit hole for a minute with all of you, I'm going to go down the rabbit hole, the ding happened.

Speaker 1:

Mediumship can be confused with psychic readings and as I think about this and this is where my guides are starting to step in energetically and may be able to feel them is that I think that there's not a lot of education outside of the metaphysical space about the differences of all these modalities and honestly, like chat, gpt is not great. Ai can be very misleading because it's only as good as the data that you give it. Right, and on the surface level, a lot of these readings look exactly the same if you are receiving them, because it looks like you sitting in front of me and I'm telling you information. It looks like a meeting, right, not a reading. And so if you're not versed in these modalities and you can't really tell the difference on what to expect and what psychic feels like, what mediumship feels like, what kind of information is coming from, what type of reading, no wonder there's so many misconceptions of what mediumship is. So I guess I'm going to sprinkle in some tips and tricks that my guides are kind of pointing out to me for anyone that's doing this work, whether you're brand new or whether you're advanced, but it's really important for all of us as a collective of readers to educate our sitters on what is this reading style, and it's okay if you mix it. That's fine If you want to do mediumship with guides or mediumship with psychic, it's totally fine if you mix it up, but still there's a due diligence that we have as metaphysical practitioners, to be high integrity and explain what the difference is.

Speaker 1:

And so when we're talking about psychic, again, I am connecting to your energy, I am reading things out of your energy, your aura, and so I'm not connecting to your spirit guides, I'm not connecting to your departed loved ones. I'm connecting to you and your energy and what is likely your path going forward, or and or. What are some of the information that you're going to? I don't know what are some of the things you might run into if you're going to make decision A versus decision B, path one versus path two, right, and so this is not grounded in guides or departed loved ones. It comes from me reading your energy and it's crazy, right. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole because I've already done it on a couple episodes, like my psychic.

Speaker 1:

Why does my ex keep coming up in psychic readings? I think that was. I don't remember the official name of it, but that's why there's so many really good looking mediums out there that are psychics is because I can just pick apart your energy and tell you what your mother looked like and tell you all the memories about your mother, right, but I'm not connected to her. And I think there is a really big distinction there, because when you're tapping in psychically, you are limited to the information that it's in front of you for your sitter. That's it Like. That's your limitation and you can read the possibilities and you're connecting to the higher self. Sometimes Not always, I know, I'm not always, I'm going to leave that there but you're not tapped into higher level information.

Speaker 1:

And so for me, psychic readings can be really cool and I love them and this is probably true with all readings. I kind of take a lot of them with a grain of salt because I'm still in my human, I still have free will, I still need to make the conscious decision of what my life is, what my path is, what decisions I need to make, and so psychic readings, again, are really cool and I think they're really good for giving you perspectives. But they're not mediumship, where I'm tapping into your mom and actually getting information from her. I'm not pulling anything, I'm receiving it from your mom and your mom's going to tell me exactly what she wants me to tell you.

Speaker 1:

And there is the big difference with mediumship, because I have no say. I am the translator, I am the conduit, full stop. I don't necessarily get a say in what comes through, how it's said, what order it comes through. I mean, there are aspects of it where I need to be open to receiving the information that mom wants to send through and I need to be strong enough to like, receive it, interpret it and relay it to you, hopefully minimizing the interpretations, by the way, because interpretations mean your brain is going to be biased and maybe change it a little bit. But I have no say in what comes through. And that is what true mediumship is is that you're opening up to the other side and receiving evidence, messages of love, feedback, validation, etc. From your departed loved ones. So again, it's not psychic, I'm not connecting to your energy, it's not necessarily predictions, because a lot of the times, mediumship, the whole purpose of it, tends to be to prove that life continues after physical death, like that, like there's other purposes as well, but that's really like the number one purpose is yeah, this shit is real, okay. The second purpose could be healing, helping people process grief right, helping people who need closure. I think those are all very, very valid reasons of mediumship.

Speaker 1:

Going to judge which one's better or worse or anything, but it's the continuation of the conversation. I guess it's proof that they exist in the continuation of the conversation. It does not mean I'm going to go tap into grandma and say, should you marry your fiance or not? Right, like I can get her opinion on it. I don't know where I'm going. I feel like I felt the energy weirdly shift. So I don't think I'm supposed to go down here. But it's not necessarily predictions unless they pony up that information. I'm not asking for it. It's not mind reading, obviously.

Speaker 1:

So I think that when we're having, when you're going to a mediumship reading, or if you're going to or if you are doing the mediumship reading, I think it's a really good conversation to say, like, what do you want out of this? What do you want out of this? Because a lot of people just aren't as versed into the other modalities to know that, number one, there's other modalities out there and number two, to know that there's different purposes for these modalities. Because for me, psychic is let's talk about what's going on with you, let's talk about potential futures. I think those do have predictions. What's the best path for you? What you know, what are your strengths and like for me, psychic really is oh, here we go, this is where they're coming in. It's like, almost like, let me help you tap into your unconscious a little bit, let me check in with you and your energy and see what's going on so I can help you.

Speaker 1:

Mediumship, obviously, connecting with departed loved ones, and then like Akashic Records, if you want to talk about the journey of your soul, either in this lifetime or many lifetimes, past lifetimes possible, let's do that. But there is a modality for everything, okay, and it's our jobs as the practitioners to use them appropriately, with high integrity, for our clients' best interest and to get what they want out of it. So I don't know how to like, where am I going after this team, this team, and it's okay, I think, to suggest a different type of reading if your client books it with you and you're like I hear and this happened the other day, because this happens to me all the time and I've had to update the verbiage on my website in terms of my readings, because I think people get really confused about what to book and I feel like I want to make a flowchart Maybe I will on what type of reading is best for you Because I have people that come to me that want answers to questions and they'll book an evidential mediumship reading. So I'm walking in because they booked a mediumship reading with the expectation that they want evidence, their loved ones around them, they want to make there's maybe some healing right. This is my human expectation, coming in about what I typically see in mediumship readings, and this actually happened with a client of mine. Now that I'm thinking about this, because what we practitioners expect in a reading might be very different than what the client expects. So that's why you have to have that conversation up front and case in point.

Speaker 1:

So the story of my client this was a while back but she had booked several sessions with several mediums and all of them jumped to you must be here for closure, you must be. And I believe this was her departed spouse, significant other. I can't remember the exact circumstances, but all of the other mediums had said hey, she's okay, she's on the other side, she's still with you, you know she loves you. Here's the healing messages, here's the love you know, here's the closure. And so they jumped to the fact that this person, her significant other, had passed. There must be healing. That needed to be done.

Speaker 1:

But this woman was very intuitive, I like she was very in tune with her significant other. And she said and I think at the end of the reading, my reading didn't go like that. My reading was a whole bunch of jokes, telling stories, reminiscing. There was no like healing. We were just there, chilling and talking and having a really good time. And she said that's exactly what I needed. I needed a reading where it felt like her. And she said I didn't need the healing, I didn't need closure. I already had that. I just wanted a medium who could connect with her and make me feel like she was still there, who could connect with her and make me feel like she was still there.

Speaker 1:

And so, like I'm not saying ask the medium at the beginning or hang on timeout, because the reality is that my sitter didn't need to tell me that at the beginning of the reading. I trusted that what spirit was going to bring through was what they needed to bring through to for my client to have the best session possible and I just went with it. I trusted that spirit knew better than I did what my client needed and so I'm not even going to say, like you don't need to ask, and if you're a sitter like you probably shouldn't lead the witness anyway, because now you're. But I'm just saying be open to the fact that many people might be coming to mediums for many different reasons and don't limit the message based on your past, what you know, etc. Wow, this is not where I thought this was going to go at all. So I'm going to leave that nugget there for the mediums as well. I guess that's nugget number two. Um, so I'm going to leave that nugget there for the mediums as well. I guess that's nugget number two. Um, the only other thing I'm going to say about who should get mediumship readings because it's in my little notes that I jotted down before this is that anyone who feels a nudge to get a mediumship reading and this is true with any reading go follow that nudge.

Speaker 1:

There's a reason we can't explain physics or energy or any of this stuff, but or intuition, but like, if you get that nudge, go get that reading. Okay. And then, in terms of maybe just to take a step backwards in what to expect in a mediumship reading, because I kind of started there and then I diverted down a different rabbit hole but what to expect in a mediumship reading in terms of the flow of the session is you know you should be sitting with the medium. The medium should be explaining in the very beginning of this like session what's going on, what to expect. This is how I connect. This is how the information comes through. They should be giving you a little bit of education at the beginning. Now they shouldn't be asking questions right, and that's kind of where I'm going to go next but they should be giving you the 411 on what to expect for the session that you paid for or donated to, or maybe it's a free practice session. That's two, but they should be still setting expectations about what's going on, what's going to happen. Why? Because it makes you feel comfortable. Because if you're comfortable and you're not nervous and that really is the intention behind let me give you this introduction is to calm your nerves, because I understand it can be very nerve wracking to talk to a medium.

Speaker 1:

We're just people, everybody. We're just people like you we are. We're like spiders, like we're more afraid of you than you are of us, because we don't want to get it wrong. We want to be able to represent your departed loved ones in the best way possible. And I'll tell you. What if you walk away telling me I was shit guaranteed? I've already said it 10 times in my head before you even thought at once because that's what we do. We beat ourselves up because we want to be the best mediums possible, the best channels for spirit. Like we don't get into this work because we want to be assholes and we want to do a shitty job. Like that's the scammers, right, we get into this work because we want to connect, we want to help you. So know that probably no matter what reading you had very few, I'm beating myself up, but I have a.

Speaker 1:

I personally, in addition, have a very hard time walking away from a reading saying I did a good job, right, like that's the reality of who we are as mediums. We're perfectionists. I'm working on it. It's part of my trauma. I'm trying to unseat right, so moving along. So part of the part of it is getting you comfortable. Part of you is making you not nervous about the session and hopefully what I just said helps you realize how not nervous you should be, because we are also just trying to do the do the right thing too.

Speaker 1:

But but mediumship sessions should look and feel like unconditional love. It should be loving messages. It should be kind, it should be apologies where apologies are needed. It should be I love yous, I'm proud of yous. Here's this memory right. And it should also be a combination of evidence with those loving messages. It should be some sort of here is a little bit of validation for what, for who this is that's coming through on the other side. Now that evidence is where you're going to see a lot of variation in terms of mediums, because there are literal institutions and when I say institutions, it's like the spiritualist church and other places that I've seen where they really focus on practical black and white evidence and my team likes to call this the obituary checklist.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so if you are looking for, sometimes, names again, I continue to beat myself up on that but like age when they died, how they died, and you're really looking for like check, check, check, check, check. I want to know their career, I want to know their family, I want to know how many family members they had. I want to know their pets, I want to know where they lived, I want to know the medals that they had in the war, like if you are looking for. So every medium should be able to get some of that stuff. But if you are truly just looking for the black and white I want the evidence that my loved one is around and I do not want any personality, I don't want to like feel like it's them then you need to find a medium that fits that criteria for you, and most likely that is somebody who has trained under, like the spiritualist churches, because that is their modality. That is how they do this right. But again, I taught this in my mediumship mastermind this week.

Speaker 1:

Have you heard of Spokio? Anybody? Has anyone heard of Spokio? Are you on a sales team? And I'm sure there's other tools out there, since I've worked with a sales team but a lot of the stuff that is more practical black and white evidence tend to be things that I can Google about you right, and so pluses and minuses to the types of evidence you're going to get. So that's why I don't recommend necessarily just going after this black and white evidence, which I think a lot of skeptics really want to hear, because I don't think they know what data exists out there on the interwebs, how much information is out there.

Speaker 1:

Like, if I put your name into Spokio which, by the way, I can you can just pay a little bit of a monthly fee and have access to everybody's everything. Spoiler alert it's freaking crazy scary, but you can look. Um it's. It's like you know how you have to go and and like apply for credit cards or like go on experience and like prove yourself to check your credit score. It's shit like that. That's on spokio, so I don't know how anyone doesn't like have all of us probably probably have had credit card fraud at some point. But it's like that like they tell you where you lived, your age, who you're married to, your, your, your name, your kids names, your kids ages, your kids birthdays, where were you born? Like where did you work? What were? Like like they probably have what dorm room I was in in college. Like I'm not even kidding, so that information is out there for people to purchase and so it's cool in mediumship and that's why it's. It's really neat when you get that evidence.

Speaker 1:

But I really focus myself, my energy, on the stuff you can't Google, such as mannerisms, sayings, personality, you know, like milestone things, like did you lose a tooth because somebody hit you with a baseball bat when you were little? Like stuff like that. Like stuff you can't Google, stuff that's not going to show up in the obituary, and that is the essence evidence that comes through. So so just be aware, if you are looking for more of that black and white stuff, there are mediums that do that. If you're looking for the essence stuff, there are mediums that do that too. How do you know? Let me know, I can point you in either direction. I know that are that rock in both of those worlds and most of the mediums I know do a combination of the two.

Speaker 1:

So you should be getting some sort of practical and essence evidence in your readings and again, you're going to get the evidence, likely up front, followed by the message. Sometimes spirit likes to go backwards, whatever, but essentially as soon as you are in the session with the medium, after they give you the information, they should be connecting to your departed loved one, pulling in that evidence and message, maybe at the same time, at the end of the reading, again to kind of close out the conversation about what to expect in a reading, they should be kind of thanking you, thanking the spirit, for coming through and asking if you're okay and answering any questions that you might have. That being said, I'm just going to go down in this rabbit hole for one second before I kind of close out with this last topic before my kids get off the bus for the day. But before questions, questions, questions, questions. Some mediums will do it, some won't, that's okay. If you don't get the chance, you can always ask. Some mediums are like heck, no, I'm not answering questions, that's totally fine. Other mediums will try and they might not get it. Other mediums you can have a conversation because they're clear audience and they can hear everything. So again, ask if you, if you have a question you can ask. Just don't be upset if they turn you down.

Speaker 1:

And then, in terms of how to be a really good sitter, again, the person receiving the reading. So the best way to approach a mediumship reading is with an open heart and probably a box of tissues if you're me, the less expectations you have about the session the better, because expectations builds up an energetic wall. It makes it more difficult for the medium to read the departed loved ones without their brain getting in the way. So I would say the more open you can be about it, the better. It really helps the medium's connection quite a bit. The best thing again you need to do as a sitter is don't feed the medium, and that essentially means your best responses are yes, no, I don't know, and maybe and I need to say this more in my introductions but you can, I don't it's your session. In terms of me, like I know, there's purists about the yes, no, I don't know, maybe For me it's your session.

Speaker 1:

If you want to talk and reminisce, like this is your time to talk and reminisce. Know that it takes time away from being reading the departed loved ones, but that's your session. That's up to you. Never, ever, ever, give me more than I gave you.

Speaker 1:

If I tell you your grandfather was in the Navy, and they say, yes, you can go into a little bit about the Navy if you feel like explain, you don't have to explain anything. I don't need to know the details. But don't go off and tell me like, oh yeah, he was in there for six years. He ended up like getting discharged with a purple hot. Like don't go off and tell me like, oh yeah, he was in there for six years. Um, he ended up like getting discharged with a purple hot. Like don't go into stuff I haven't said yet. Don't talk about his navy buddies. Don't talk about how he met his wife in the navy.

Speaker 1:

Like, don't go down that rabbit hole, because what you're doing is feeding the medium and you're creating. You're telling me things about the departed loved one that I haven't uncovered myself yet and my brain will automatically jump to that next. And or, like, start going in that direction. Right, so like, just trust that what's going to come through is going to come through. And if you want to explain it at the end, but I just say don't, don't give me more than I've given you you can say, yes, give me a little bit of validation if you feel like you want to talk about it and give validation. But normally that's just you trying to be polite and we don't need that as mediums where we can just keep going. Yeah, you can understand that. Cool, let's keep going.

Speaker 1:

And the last thing I guess I would say, as somebody who is receiving a reading just know that mediumship is definitely an art and not a science. We will get it wrong. The best mediums are 85, 90, 95% accurate, like they're up there, they're good. But very, very few mediums are 100% accurate and certainly everything you see on TV is scrubbed 100%. They take out all the nose, all the things that don't make sense, which is why it's so refreshing to watch Tyler Henry's lives. Say what you will about him, but I love that they can't scrub the nose, which is fantastic, because now you're getting a real picture of mediumship. It's messy, okay, it's not right all the time, and that's okay. So don't feel bad for saying no. Don't feel bad. It is kind of like this energetic experiment. It is going to be different every single time, but don't feel bad for saying no.

Speaker 1:

And also, don't get hung up on the stuff the medium didn't get right. Don't get hung up on it, because that just means we probably misinterpreted it. So I would honestly and it's I don't know if I like saying this, but this is what I generally recommend is like don't throw, just throw out the stuff that was wrong. Throw it out, because that usually is just me misinterpreting the information. There might have been something that I was there, that I was trying to say that I didn't actually get to. Like, that's okay if you want to kind of go into that rabbit hole, but don't bother, don't, don't waste your time, because I've had clients come to me and being like oh well, they they said the name Barbara in the meeting, so I couldn't figure out who that was. So I think it's like my, my best friend's aunt's best friend, you know like oh, I feel like Barbara was coming through and they get really stuck on the evidence that can't get.

Speaker 1:

Don't do that, don't just just it, let's. Let's call a spade a spade and say the medium fucked it up. All right, don't get stuck there, it's not worth your energy. Whatever hit was supposed to hit, whatever didn't was supposed to not land. So there is like your mediumship 101 today everybody a little little bit about the psychic, a little bit about you know who should get readings, a little bit about what to expect, how to be a good sitter lots of rabbit holes in this one.

Speaker 1:

Let me know if you liked this, because I'd love to do more of this mediumship 101. And I'm sorry, some somebody is, I feel like somebody. What is happening in my mouth right now is that and this is like the fun part of spirit is I feel like my mouth is numb. I feel like I just went to the dentist. So I don't know which one of you just went to the dentist and you have like your tongue numb or like the back of your throat numb. You're welcome. This was for you Ding, the weird things that come through at the end of the reading, because it feels like I'm at the dentist right now. All right, I'm going to leave it there. I hope you all have a wonderful day and, from my soul to yours, take care.

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