My favorite change in Larry, though, is that my tough, tattooed, motorcycle man has become more emotionally sensitive to everything for some reason. The Color Purple makes him cry and don’t get him started on how much he loves our family. The guy’s a sap.
The Start of Something Good
Though I’ve finally embraced my gift, I’m far from perfect. I have fewer panic attacks, and I’m much more independent. But I still don’t like elevators or enclosed spaces, and I’m deathly afraid of the dark (no pun intended). I sleep with a nightlight and TV on, and I keep all the doors open except the closet. I also don’t go into a deep sleep at night. I toss, I turn, I hear things, I feel things. And if I dream, I don’t remember it. Larry says when my alarm goes off at six a.m., I get right up—no stretching, no snoozing. It’s as if I’m happy that I don’t have to be in that bed a minute longer. I try to be the best Theresa Caputo I can be, but there are plenty of days I come up short. I’m a medium, not a saint!
As someone who doesn’t exactly hide her big personality, I’ve found it fun and interesting to channel souls that have distinct characters and stories. I love meeting new people, and being a medium can make me feel like the hostess at a really important gathering. Children’s souls, especially, have told me, “My parents have been to mediums, but I like channeling through you because you let my parents see me.” People can feel their loved ones and how they acted or spoke when they were at their best. I’m not saying this is because I’m better than other mediums—no no no no no. I feel that all mediums channel and connect with Spirit differently; one isn’t more skilled or better than another.
I realize that I have a lot to be grateful for. I’m glad that I can share this gift with other people, though my family likes to joke that I don’t give them much of a choice when I stop them in the gym, dentist, or at the mall! I’m glad that Spirit continues to keep me on my toes, and with every single reading, they teach me something new. I also feel thankful that I have such an easygoing personality, or else it might be harder for me to accept my unusual abilities. As a rule, I don’t question or overanalyze anything—I let life be simple. If you handed me a bottle of hair spray and asked how it worked, I’d say, “Listen, I don’t care how. Does it work? Yes? Great.” I don’t need to know how, when, why. It is what it is, and that’s it. I treat Spirit communication the same way.
But, enough about me. Let’s get down to Spirit!
2
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
So how do I communicate with Spirit, including your loved ones? People ask me this all the time, and it can be hard to put into words since channeling is an ability that comes naturally to me. It’s like how my daughter, Victoria, is a competitive gymnast. She can do high-flying dismounts, crazy back handsprings, and flip through the air. Yeah, she practices twenty-five hours a week and does a bunch of exercises to help her improve on her raw talent, but she started with an innate skill that made her un-freaking-believable at swinging and tumbling. And if you ask her how she does it, she’ll say, “I don’t know. I can just do it.” Her gift is part of her. It works the same for me, talking to dead people.
Before I get into specifics about what it’s like for me and my clients when I channel, I’d like to explain how the process works. During a private or group reading, Spirit—mostly your loved ones who have died, but also my guides and other divine souls on the Other Side—makes me sense, see, hear, feel, and know things in ways that most people don’t, so that I can deliver their messages to you. Usually more than one soul channels in a session, and I have no control over who steps forward. I might talk a mile a minute, but the reading isn’t about me. It’s about what Spirit wants you to know. I’m just the physical body that a soul uses to let its voice be heard. I ask only that Spirit communicate with personality, for the highest good of all concerned, and that they tell me the messages that will bring you the most peace at that moment in your life.
My job, then, is to explain what Spirit shows and tells me. Souls do this through my frame of reference, which means that all of the messages I get are filtered through my personal experiences (I always say that when I channel, everyone sounds Italian and Catholic!). If I’ve never heard a term, phrase, name, or come across the kind of situation that Spirit’s describing to me, it may take a minute for me to communicate the message in a way that you can connect with and then interpret. If I’m describing something to my clients that they don’t understand, I ask them to tell me. It doesn’t make me right and them wrong, or them right and me wrong. Spirit is never wrong, first of all, in what they try to communicate to you. What could be incorrect is how I’ve “translated” the signs or feelings they use to get their points across. When a detail seems fuzzy or unclear, I’m the first to say, “I don’t know what this is about, but here’s what they’re showing me!” If we’re still drawing a blank, Spirit has me come at the topic another way. I leave it to you to make sense of the overarching messages, though, because only you know how they fit into your life. I might suggest a few meanings, but I’m never the last word on any of them.