As I practised Reiki on friends and family, I noticed my intuition was becoming stronger and more signs and synchronicities started showing up in my life. I would see repeating numbers, run into people I had just been thinking about, and was starting to experience frequent ringing in my ears and tingles on the crown of my head when certain things happened to draw my attention to them.

Then the topic of mediumship started coming into my awareness over and over. A mediumship book would come through my feed, a podcast would be recommended by a friend, and I kept meeting mediums in social settings (like a wild number of people!). Given that I knew my dad was terminal, I was naturally curious about the afterlife and went deep down the rabbit hole of learning more.

Little did I know, these small signs were only the beginning. They set me on a path I never could have anticipated—toward mediumship, where I would soon discover my deeper connection to the spirit world.

My First Experience with Mediumship: When My Grandma Crashed Date Night

When the topic of mediumship started popping up, I was open to the idea of it because of an experience I had about eleven years earlier that I’d never forgotten.

My husband and I were enjoying a quiet date night at our favourite Italian restaurant. It felt like there was something in the air that night that is hard to explain, but I remember feeling a sense of peace in the warm and cozy restaurant on a cold winter night.

A woman tapped me on the shoulder and apologized for interrupting us. She went on to explain that she wasn’t a crazy person, but that she was a medium.

She shared that my mother’s mother (my Grandma Grace who I never met but have always felt a connection to because my middle name is Grace) was very insistent on her sharing a message with me. I remember at first feeling so confused by what she was saying but open to listening because I was intrigued.

She told me to call my mom when I got home after dinner. I immediately panicked as my dad had been admitted to the hospital that day for chest pains after he'd been trying to cut a tree down with his neighbour.

They had ruled out a heart attack and thought he was fine, but he was being kept overnight for observation. She assured me that nothing was wrong, but that my mom just needed to hear the comfort of my voice that night.

She went on to share that she felt we were going to have another child. I laughed and told her that we were done having children. I pointed to my husband and said that he had a vasectomy after our second child was born so that ship had sailed!

She reminded us that children can come to us in a variety of ways and in a variety of forms and that we just had to open our hearts to sharing our love.

Several months later when the kids started asking for a dog (and I had no interest in getting a dog), I understood the message clearly and opened my heart to welcome Remy, a Maltese puppy into our home. He most definitely feels like my third child.

Being Led to the Next Piece of the Puzzle: Are You a Spiritualist?

Over the winter and spring of 2023, I practised Reiki with several friends and family members who needed support. My friend asked me if I would share Reiki during a restorative yoga class at her studio. It was a beautiful experience.

After class, one of the students shared how much she loved the experience and asked me if I was a Spiritualist. I told her that I considered myself a spiritual person, but didn’t know what a Spiritualist was. At the same time, I felt like she was asking me for a reason as I got the head tingles.

That evening, I googled Spiritualism and learned that it is a religion that is based on the belief that departed souls can interact with the living and that mediumship is used during services to demonstrate the continuation of life after death.

I also learned that one of the very few Spiritualist Churches in Ontario is located 10 minutes from my house and the next night they were hosting a demonstration of mediumship. Given that mediumship was showing up yet again, I followed the breadcrumb and signed up to attend.

During the event, I witnessed a medium connect with several spirits and deliver beautiful messages. I could immediately see the emotion it created in the recipients and the deep comfort and healing these people experienced. I was further intrigued and wanted to learn more.

Taking the Leap: My First Mediumship Reading and How It Surprised Me

One of the podcasts I had been binging was called The Intuitive Rising Podcast with medium Amy Brookes. I felt a connection to her story of how her abilities had opened after the passing of her father and I loved her down-to-earth style.

I decided to book a reading to have a first-hand experience of mediumship. The reading was re-scheduled a couple of times and the date that it finally happened turned out to be a few weeks before my dad passed.

During the reading, my dad’s parents (Oma and Opa) came through, my mother’s mother (Grandma Grace) and the spirit of a miscarried child of my mother’s that I learned would have been my brother. Amy brought through tons of evidence and beautiful messages, and I was blown away.

One of the funny messages from my Grandma Grace was her showing Amy a little white dog that was male and had a short, two syllable name. I wasn't aware of whether she had a dog or not. Then she was laughing and saying, “I told you.” It took me a few minutes to connect the dots and then I realized she was referring to Remy, my third child that she had predicted so many years before.

I shared the experience with my parents, unsure of how they’d react to something I was quite certain my dad would dismiss as 'woo-woo. They listened quietly as I went through all my notes. My mom was amazed and validated several things I was not aware of about her mother who had died when my mom was 19.

When I finished talking, my dad looked at me and said, “Why would you do this?” I told him that I was curious about the afterlife and wanted to have an experience myself to know that we might be able to communicate with him through a medium or receive signs from him after he passed.

In his stubborn German manner, he said, “Well, I’m not going to be able to do that.” My response was, “Well, I guess we’ll see!”

Spirit Signs Ramping Up: Messages from My Dad

My dad slowly declined after his diagnosis and the rounds of chemo and radiation treatments. One morning at the end of June my mom couldn’t wake him up and we were told that we were entering the palliative stage where they would keep him comfortable at home for his final days.

Over the next few days, my dad was in and out of consciousness as his body was preparing to make its transition. My mom, my sister, my husband and I were all by his bedside supporting him and I didn’t want to leave the house and risk not being there for his passing.

After being inside for four days, I decided to go for a walk as I needed some fresh air and a break from the heaviness. When I was on that walk, I received several signs that made me believe with certainty that my dad had passed. To share a few of the many…

I returned home, certain I’d hear that he had passed while I was out, but he hadn’t. Knowing what I know now, I believe he was already slipping in and out of the spirit world, communicating with me for the first time.

My dad died peacefully at home on July 2, 2023, with his family by his side. Soon after he passed, we started receiving undeniable signs from him.

The most memorable sign happened on the day of his visitation. We came back to my parents’ house in between the visitations to have some dinner. My sister went to pour a glass of wine and noticed that the wine was pouring out the side of the glass. She had put an ice cube in the glass before pouring the wine and it had cracked a hole in the glass, but not just a hole, a hole in the shape of a heart.

My dad has always been a sappy soul, so a heart seemed like an appropriate sign to receive from him. Since then, we’ve received so many hearts in incredible ways.

Testing the Mediumship Waters: My Secret Practice Sessions

My interest deepened as I received more and more signs from my dad, and I started to recognize the different ways he would communicate with me.

A few weeks after dad passed, I saw an ad for an on-line mediumship workshop being taught by a UK medium. Through my research I had learned that many mediums come from the UK because there is a school in the UK called The Arthur Findlay School. It’s like the Hogwarts School in Harry Potter for developing mediums.

I signed up for the workshop with the intention of learning more about mediumship. When I logged on, I was surprised to find out that there was a lecture and then a practice component where all participants were paired up in ZOOM rooms to practice their mediumship!

I almost left the call when it came time to practice because there was no way that I thought I was a medium. I decided to play along to see what happened. When I closed my eyes and tried to tune in (having no idea how to even do that), some words started to come into my mind that felt like my own thoughts, but of random things I wouldn’t have been thinking about like roller skating. To my surprise, my partner could validate them. I was floored!

I signed up for a few more similar workshops that had practice components over the next few months and continued to have experiences where enough bits of information were coming through that I was starting to speculate that maybe I did in fact have some sort of mediumship abilities.

I kept my experiences mostly to myself, afraid of what others might think. I was too scared to ask friends to practise with me, worried I’d disappoint them or look foolish if it didn’t work, or that they would think I was crazy to believe that any of this was even possible.

Check out the Opening of My Mediumship Abilities post to learn what happened next.