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Colleen Parsons

Mediumship • Spiritual Coaching • Empowerment

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Not a Word, Not a Sound

Beth said, “What are you talking about? What do you mean, ‘when they showed me how a person crosses over’?”

Beth and I had been meeting over the past couple of weeks, and she had just asked if I knew what it was like at the moment of death.

“Well,” I started, “that’s not exactly true. It was one of those dreams that wasn’t a dream. Where it all seemed so real while it was happening, but when I woke up, it must have been a dream.”

I was in Malibu, California, at a Richard Sutphen weeklong workshop learning past-life regression. It was back in the fall of 1988. I went alone. I look back at that 30-year-old who thought she was so smart in her little town. She was an introvert in a place totally foreign to her social class and could only improvise belonging.

The motel was the least expensive one I could find from the list the workshop coordinator sent. There was a heavy black rotary phone at the bedside. I lived mostly on peanut butter. You get the idea, so I’ll go into all of that another time, or not.

I had been wrestling with a burning question that I didn’t dare ask anyone, “How do souls leave the body and what does that look like?” I remember wondering if I could be shown this. Or if anyone knew. I hadn’t witnessed anyone die because this was before I worked in hospice. But here I was learning to take people into the space between lifetimes.

About three days into the workshop, I had the dream. It was the first of several I’ve had through the years. Like I said, it felt so real while I was having it. The first thing I remember seeing was a man who looked like Jackie Gleason, a big man with thinning hair and a pencil-thin mustache. I mean it looked just like him. He was pretty direct and asked me why I was there. I answered, “I don’t know where I am or why I’m here.”

Jackie looked at his paperwork and said, “Oh, you’re here to see how souls leave their bodies. You’re in luck because we have that happening right now. You’ll have to look through this, and you’ll have to be very quiet. Not a word, not a sound. Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you’re ready?”

Of course, I thought I was, so I nodded more curtly than I should have.

Jackie looked at me for a bit. I imagined he was assessing my readiness. Then he looked at the person behind me, the man who brought me—well, I assumed he was a man because I never saw him. Jackie shrugged and waved his right hand in the space between him and a long brass tube that looked a little like a telescope. “Come over here.”

I was standing next to the tube, which had openings at each end. There were no eyepieces. I couldn’t see any magnifying glassware and wasn’t sure what to do. Jackie took the tube and positioned it directly in front of me. The opening was about the size of my head and he instructed, “Put your face in that opening and watch what’s happening. But remember to be absolutely quiet.”

At first, I couldn’t see anything, just dark. Then there were two specks of light that looked like candle flames, as if the flames were very far away. There was a different voice to my right whispering, “Okay, it’s happening. Look closely and you will see the shape of a bed and as you look you can see the shape of a person lying on the bed. Do you see it?”

I nodded without moving my face from the tube or making a sound.

“Now watch the lights. Watch as the two lights move closer to the bed. Good. And now a new light is rising up from the body on the bed. The two lights are moving closer . . .”

At which point I realized what was happening. The person on the bed had just died and was now a light. The other two lights were joining it to bring it somewhere. I didn’t want the person to die. I didn’t want to watch it. It wasn’t too late. And I started yelling, shattering my promise to be quiet, “GO BACK! GO BACK! YOU CAN GO BACK!”

Then I heard that telephone ring. It yanked me out of my dream, but I didn’t know where I was. I reached for the phone. I looked at the alarm clock, which read 3:13 a.m. The phone buzzed with a dial tone. I tried to make sense of what was happening.

I thought, “Wait, wait a minute. Is my husband calling me? How long did the phone ring? It’s pushing 6:30 a.m. on the East Coast so he’s still home and is getting the kids up for school.” So, I called home, collect of course, and my husband said he didn’t call but needed to get the girls going, and we hung up.

I lay in the dark room for a couple of hours, and my throat was a little sore. I wondered if I’d been really yelling and not just dream yelling. My body vibrated in a way that made me nauseated each time I remembered the dream. I have the memory of that feeling even now, as I’m telling you about it. For me it was a wasted opportunity that turned into a nightmare. I never should have yelled “go back” like that. Gosh, I wish I had a do-over.

I was quiet for a moment. I don’t usually show it, but I do feel shame when I tell this story to someone. When I’m alone and think about it, I tear up.

I asked, “So, Beth, I think I remember that you told me you were sitting with your grandmother when she passed a few months ago. Is that right? I’m pretty sure you didn’t see candle flames, right? What did you notice?”

Beth was just staring at me and after a long moment she answered, “I don’t know. Grandma was there, then she reached out her right hand toward the ceiling. She was smiling. Then her hand sort of floated down and we noticed she wasn’t breathing anymore. She was here and gone. It was so strange to have her just gone. I mean, she just wasn’t there anymore. But I didn’t see any light or anything leave her body. Do you? Do you ever?”

“Sure, sometimes I can see the energy shift. Most of the time I don’t see much, I just notice a change. And honestly, there’s usually so much energy from the family, I’m preoccupied with that.” I sat thinking about the deaths I had witnessed, while Beth was staring into space. “But I almost always smell the shift. To me, it smells like lightning when the strike is very close. Like ozone. And it’s there, barely perceptible, unmistakable, and gone. I’ve never heard anyone else say they’ve smelled such a thing.”

Beth asked, “Do you think she’s okay? Grandma, I mean. Is she at peace?”

I looked. “Oh, yes. I know she is. She’s standing right there beside you, smiling. Would you like to take a few minutes and talk with her?”

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But I Can Do This Part

She had the wildly darting eyes of someone running from danger and looking for a safe place to hide. I was alarmed.

When someone looks at me this way, many, many thoughts race through my head in the same fraction of a moment, jumbled but separate. And because of my experience as a psychiatric nurse, I know to shut the door to all of those thoughts. I actually shut the door or close something, if I can. It helps.

“Come in.” “Sit down.” She did, and I closed the door behind her. “Here.” I handed her the box of tissues and she took several. I moved the trash can next to her left side and placed the tissue box on the table to her right. She wiped her face and blew her nose a couple of times.

“Breathe.” I inhaled slowly through my nose then exhaled to the count of four, rhythmically, several times until she followed the pattern.

“Okay?” I asked. Joyce nodded. “I don’t need you to tell me the backstory. Not now. That will cement it into your brain. Just tell me what you’re thinking on loop. Tell me what your brain is telling you over and over.”

Joyce started sobbing again. “Breathe,” I directed. “And tell me what your brain is saying.”

Two breaths, three. “He’s going to die a long slow horrible death. And I can’t take care of him. I know I can’t.”

I waited a beat, thinking, and feeling my way through her panic that felt like a dark tunnel with roots of trees tangled through the mud on the ground. I could sense her nausea and dread. “Those are three sentences. Are they coming separately or all at once?”

She whispered, “They are coming from three different places and the third one, ‘I can’t,’ is echoing around.”

“Just stay with me, Joyce, as we work this through.” Her tears had stopped and her breathing was almost steady. “What is making you think that he’s dying?”

“The doctor said he has ALS, you’re a nurse, you know that’s the end for him. He’ll slowly . . .” I cut her off.

“Stay with me, one thing at a time, okay?” Our eyes met. “If I understand, you just got the results from the neurologist, and Frank was diagnosed with ALS. And you’ve seen movies about ALS and pieces of those are playing out in your head. Your brain is reacting to those movie scenes and telling you that you can’t handle this because you don’t know how. What parts of what I just said are true?”

Joyce was watching her hands shred a tissue. “All of it, I think.”

“Okay, I’m sure that the neurologist didn’t say that Frank was going to ‘die a long, slow, horrible death.’ And knowing how brains work, I’m guessing that you heard the diagnosis and your brain tried to picture the future with the only images it had available. Some of what your brain is telling you is true. Some of it probably isn’t. Most of it is in the land of the unknown. We only know that every case is slightly different.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what the doctor said. She said this was ‘early stages.’”

I asked, “Good. What exactly did she say?”

“She told us that because Frank came in with weakness in his left arm that was getting worse, I thought he’d had a stroke when he couldn’t hold his coffee mug with that hand anymore, that he was in the early stages and could have five to ten years, maybe, well, she said, ‘as much as,’ and it all depended on how his nerves reacted. She said that while there wasn’t a cure, there were some important pieces that would probably help slow things down. She is sending referrals for occupational therapy and physical therapy. Oh, and she wants us to see a nutritionist. Apparently, nutrition is very important.”

As Joyce was remembering what the neurologist told her, her expression was focused and her voice held. Then she looked at me. “And. And she said, when we need it, if we do, there’s hospice.”

I held the trash can up and Joyce deposited her shredded tissue, then I took her hand and said, “And here’s what I know. From the sounds of things, you won’t be doing any of this, not one single second, alone. You have family and friends and a medical community. Well, except for those private times. I look forward to hearing about some of your great adventures. Moments that you wouldn’t miss for anything. But, and this is a big but, you do need to stay in the present moment. You will need to stay with what you know for sure and not what you think might happen.”

I continued, “I’m not going to lie to you. There will likely be many times when that feeling of ‘I can’t’ echoes through your thoughts. The goal will be to acknowledge it, because it is a real worry.” I could feel her tense, and she pulled her hand away. “You may want to learn to respond to the echo rather than react to it. Reacting might feel like fear, or dread, or maybe even a fight or flight reaction like anger or wanting to run away. Catching that feeling and asking yourself what’s actually happening now is important. Then you can decide on a positive action to take. That’s a response. Some people find that a mantra or affirmation works.”

She dabbed her eyes with a fresh tissue. There was an edge to her voice when she said, “So what? I say, ‘I am strong. I can handle this.’”

Looking her in the eye, I said, with more authority than I intended, “Perhaps. If that works for you. It will sometimes. Other times it might not sound so convincing to your own ears. During those more challenging situations, what do you think might work?”

Joyce turned away from me and looked out the window for a long time as if she wasn’t even in the office. I pictured her imagining a scenario that she was sure she didn’t want to face and listening to the words ‘I can’t’ echo through her brain. Then she said, more to the window than to me, and so softly I could barely hear it, “But I can do this part.”

While Joyce continued to stare out the window, I opened that door again, the one I had closed when she walked in. I wondered what more she would need to help her with decisions that no wife should have to make for her husband. I thought about how a hospice physician once told me that some of his patients wanted a map of what things would be like and how others just wanted to fall asleep and not wake up. I thought about the other ALS patients I had cared for and sent a quick prayer in their direction. I thought about what my day would be like if I heard this news, let myself feel the weight of it, and promptly came back to the present moment with Joyce.

Then Joyce swung to face me, straightened in her chair, wiped her cheeks with her hand, and, said, “Thanks. I’ve got to get home now and see what Frank’s up to. I’m a little afraid he’s got the house up for sale so that we can take that six-month cruise down to Antarctica. Oh, God, I don’t know if I can do that!” She chuckled, smiled at me, and with a hand on the doorknob, said, “Thanks, I’ll make an appointment next week, once this all settles in. See you then.”

* * *

This peek into one client's crisis happens to be about a diagnosis, but the unexpected shows up in every shape and size, and each time it asks something different of us. There's research supporting positive affirmations, which are usually spoken in the present tense, like “I am lovable” or “I am capable.” But some research also suggests that if you don't believe the affirmation, repeating it can make you feel worse. If you don't feel lovable, saying it over and over may only remind you how unloved you feel. That's when bridge affirmations help. In Joyce’s situation, repeating “I am strong. I can handle this” didn’t feel true to her. “But I can do this part” reinforced that she could manage one thing at a time.

By: Colleen G. Parsons

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The Bear, the Fox, and the Pigeon

I had been talking with Sybil's spirit loved ones for a bit and asked, "Do you have any questions?"

"Yes, can you tell me how my grandparents come to me?"

I winced. It probably showed on my face.

Questions like that are meant to "test the medium" as in, "if this is really true, she'll get the right answer." I don't like that game. In part because if I don't give the person the information exactly the way they need to hear it then they may consider that everything I've said is wrong. Hey, I'm only going to be correct 85% of the time on a good day. Maybe 90% on my very best days. My inside voice reminded me that I work for Spirit. Sybil is just renting my time.

Even though I knew what she was asking, I took a breath to steady my voice and asked, "What do you mean?"

She explained, "Like when they visit me, when they show up. How I know it's them."

"Because you asked, I can't really answer you. That's one of those questions where now I'll be trying to answer you instead of your grandma answering you. I can tell you what she's saying the signs aren't. Hold on a second." I was listening to Spirit. "Okay, your grandmother just said that they don't show up as cardinals, or butterflies, or feathers. She says that you think they are cardinals, right?"

Sybil nodded and she wasn't smiling.

I continued, "There's more to how our spirit people show up for us than as a red bird flying by our window. I don't know who started that, but not all cardinals are spirit people. I mean I get that they are bright birds and easily noticed, especially in winter, but that's not how it works. If a cardinal comes to you and sits on your windowsill and looks you in the eye, now that's likely a spiritual connection. If a butterfly comes and sits on your finger or lands on your shoulder, that's a message. If you find a feather in a unique way in an unexpected environment, that's special and that could mean something."

I said, "Your grandmother is feisty today. She wants me to tell you that if she was going to come to you as a bird it would be a pigeon."

Sybil looked at me with horror on her face as if I had just threatened her whole way of being. How, in heaven's name, was I going to make this better?

I asked, "What's the matter?"

"I'm terrified of pigeons," she said quietly. "When I was little, I was trying to feed them and a flock attacked me."

I tried to hide my need to burst into laughter. "Well, is it like your grandma to say something like that?"

"Oh, absolutely, she would." Sybil looked down at her hands and smiled.

"I don't know then. Maybe she doesn't want you to feel so scared of pigeons. But I do bet you'll never look at pigeons quite the same way as you have been."

"No. No I won't," Sybil chuckled.

And we went on with the reading.

A client once told me that her grandmother showed up as a fox in her backyard. "She was beautiful. I know it was Nana because she told me she would love to be a fox and nap in the sunbeams on the soft grass. And that's what this fox always did. She stretched right out in the sun. And when I looked out the window at her she would lift her head, look directly at me, then go back to sleep. She did that every day for a week, then she disappeared."

I've had lots of clients tell me stories about meaningful encounters with butterflies or birds. One told me about how a woodpecker came and pecked at her window for several hours a day for two weeks. She asked me, "Do you think that was my dad?" I answered, "I don't know. But why do you think Dad would come to you as a woodpecker?" She said, "Because he was a carpenter."

My cell phone rang. It was a friend. "I'm sending you pictures. I'm driving down the highway, well, not now, I pulled over, but I was driving down the highway with my sister and we were talking about our brother, the one on the other side, you know, and a bald eagle flew right over us, right over my car. It followed us for a little while then flew off and then I saw something drop from the sky. So, I pulled over and ran back to where it was. Good thing there wasn't any traffic. Anyway. Look at the picture. Look at it! It's an eagle feather!!" It was a beautiful primary wing feather. I did give her the warning about the legalities of keeping a raptor's feather, which I'm certain she ignored. I also wanted her to have an excuse, just in case, so I said, "Maybe it's a turkey feather."

I have personally had many connections with animals, but my favorite was the mama bear. Oh, I love black bears and where I live there are many, but I rarely get to see more than a glimpse as they run across the road.

A couple of springs ago a mama bear was sitting on her haunches by the side of the road wanting to cross. I couldn't believe it. I was on my way home from work while on the phone with my daughter. I pulled over to watch the bear. After a few minutes, one by one, little, tiny cubs showed up. There were four. They played and pawed at their mom as she was deciding whether or not it was safe to cross. It was as if I could feel her thirst as I watched her sniff the river. She looked miserable. Her hesitancy made me wonder if she knew it wasn't going to be safe enough. Not with four babies. After about 15 minutes, which seemed like two glorious hours, the babies ran back up the hill into the woods. Mama bear reluctantly rose, looked across the road for a long moment, then turned to find her noisy littles.

I sat in my car, so happy to have spent time with mama bear and her cubs. I felt blessed beyond reason. I never once thought about my mother who had four children of her own and was often frustrated with us. I didn't even think about how she had given me a black bear claw pendant as a gift many years before her death.

Maybe it's because I'm a medium and I interact with spirit people regularly. Or maybe it's because I love to be with wildlife on their own turf, in their own way, at a safe distance, by simply observing them. I have never wondered if an animal was sent to me by someone in spirit. Yet, I know that we are all spoken to by Spirit on the level where we will best receive what they want us to know. And secretly, I do hope Sybil's grandmother visits her often, as a pigeon.

by: Colleen G. Parsons

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  Tags spirit signs mediumship client stories wildlife

A Descision

A Decision

She called my cell and I almost didn't answer because I was enjoying my quiet morning with coffee and my words. We kept the conversation brief; she only wanted to see if I had time tomorrow because she needed to make a decision about a job change. "I think I know what I'm going to do, but I want to check in with my mom to see if she has anything to say about it."

As part of my usual morning ritual, I had opened the New York Times word puzzles. Wordle is my favorite after which I attack Spelling Bee. Spelling Bee is a seven-letter puzzle where you make as many words as possible using the letters as often as necessary to create a word, but with the caveat that the center letter must appear at least once in the word for it to count. I have loved challenges like this one since I was in second grade and was given a worksheet with the word TEACHER printed across the top. (Hint: there are well over 125 possible words.)

The call was stealing my attention while I tried to find the words for Spelling Bee. Wondering about my client's question for tomorrow, I kept choosing words that weren't options for the game. I found myself caught up in thinking about the choices I have made for my life, and those I haven't. The outcomes for some were immediately easy to see. Others may have far-reaching complications.

What if I had gone to the hospital-based nursing program near my home rather than opting for a two-year college with an associate degree? I certainly would not have met my husband. We met on the third day of our freshman year 50 years ago. My children wouldn't be my children, I mean these children. Would I have had horses? Or the farm?

Such a simple decision that my high school guidance counselor helped me make was life-altering. But what happened to my other options? Is there a me in some other time continuum that decided to go to a different program? Is there a me who had a traumatic brain injury, like my friend Jim, and never went to college? Is there a me who had three or four kids rather than two? Or a me who was pregnant at 16? If those lives exist, like some people contend they do, what are those lives like?

When I look at my life, I know I've been lucky. I think I'm satisfied. But I don't know for sure. I mean really, for sure. What if I missed something? Like, well. Should I have gone to med school?

What if there are coexisting realities happening in the same space and time as this life, but on slightly different "frequencies" or energy levels? Is it like hearing one radio station at a time, even knowing there are hundreds of others? Some you can tune into and most that you cannot? Can you visit those other realities and check in with your other selves? Does that happen during dream time?

I absolutely believe in free will. And I believe in destiny. But do we have options? Are our destinies fated or more of a strong suggestion? And what happens if we make mistakes because we get confused and make choices based on personal gain?

I wasn't even certain about my questions, let alone the possibility of answers. I walked away from my word game for another cup of coffee and stared out the window over my kitchen sink at the abandoned house ten feet or so from my back door.

Was becoming a nurse my destiny with many ways to get there? Or was becoming a nurse a choice, or could I have chosen almost anything else? Was becoming a mother a certainty? What about becoming a medium? Were any of those options fated destinations? And was free will about how to get there?

In the "olden days" when we decided to drive across the country, we took out a big paper road map and looked at all of our options. We could choose from any of the roads or highways to get us there. Getting lost was part of the frustration and fun. Refolding the map was art. GPS systems don't allow for as much daring.

Huh. Is that what my client was doing? Is checking in with her mom code for checking the GPS for her career options?

Years ago, when "The Secret" was a hot commodity in every spiritual or metaphysical conversation and the art of manifestation was summed up as "think it into reality," I disagreed. I, too, made vision boards, engaged in classes and workshops, and did rituals to make my dreams come true. What I learned was that creating something for myself that wasn't in alignment with my true self would not be authentic. I wasn't going to become a multi-millionaire if that wasn't one of my destiny choices for this lifetime. The secret to success was trusting what my soul wanted to create in this life, because money wasn't it. What I wanted to learn was how to empower people to heal, not only themselves but their whole family lines.

The next day, during my video appointment with Abby, she said, "I am feeling stressed. I received a generous offer for a job I didn't apply for. Where I'd be working is a client of the company I work for now. It's more money, better benefits, and a great promotion from what I'm doing now. I wasn't going to take the interview, but my husband talked me into it. So, my choices are: should I take it, stay where I am, or actually begin looking for something new? I want to know what my mom has to say."

While I was willing to connect with her mother, I had to help Abby clarify a few things first. It sounded to me like this wasn't the real question that she wanted to ask. I could hear something more like yearning in her voice. I said, "Before we connect with mom, I want you to know that this sounds more like a free will question to me. Do you want to take this job?"

"I don't know. I love where I work now. I love the people and what I do. I'm not interested in moving. And I'm afraid that this new job would require more time away from my family. I don't want that. But my husband thinks I should."

I asked, "Then how is this a 'mom question'?"

"Because I want her to be proud of me. This is the kind of job that she always wanted me to have. It's a job with a reliable company, a great title, and good money."

And that's when the spirit of her mother showed up to tell Abby, "I'm always proud of you. You need to do what you think is right for you. You will make sure your family never suffers for your decisions, so make sure you don't suffer either. You are a better mother than I was. I made decisions because I thought that's what other people wanted me to do. I felt like a puppet. You're learning to live your life for your own reasons and you're doing just fine."

Abby reached for a tissue.

I took a sip of my coffee and waited for her.

by Colleen G. Parsons

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It Happened for a Reason

"It Happened for a Reason"

My daughter, Meghan, and I were walking through the large somewhat empty parking lot as we headed into our local mall. It was July maybe 20 years ago and quite warm, but windy. The wind was whipping our clothes and hair around and we were laughing about it. When you live in upstate NY, a hot wind is a foreign feeling. A blue pickup truck with those extra high wheels stopped in front of us and a woman in her 30s rolled down the driver's side window to ask, "Have you seen Santa?"

That question was totally incongruent with everything Meghan and I were experiencing in the moment. I could only respond with, "What do you mean?"

"Do you know where he's supposed to land?" She was asking in all seriousness, though it felt like a joke, and I quickly looked around to see if someone was filming us. Clearly Meghan and I both looked puzzled and she continued, "Santa was supposed to be here by noon today. The news said he was coming in by helicopter and was supposed to land at that mall. But I don't see anything."

I looked at my daughter and back at the woman. I tried to sneak a peek but couldn't tell whether or not she was alone. Meghan said, with a straight face, "No, we haven't seen Santa. Or any helicopters. Sorry."

"Thanks anyway," the woman said rolling up the window and hitting the accelerator simultaneously, a bit harder than I hoped she intended.

We stared after the big blue truck then looked at each other a little stunned at what had just happened. Then we burst into hysterical laughter. I couldn't walk. Once in control, we continued into the mall rehashing the event and then went about our errands. After we made it back into our car Meghan asked, "What do you think that was all about? There must be a reason, though I can't imagine what."

I've come to despise that platitude.

That incident was the beginning of me wondering: does everything have to mean something? Someone just wrote me today with that cliché, "everything happens for a reason." I texted back with a smiley face emoji while my inside voice asked, "but does it?" I don't believe that's true. Those words manufacture a reason. They deny a person's right to their own knowing. I contend that people need to ascribe meanings to situations they don't understand. We will make stuff up and give it a spiritual meaning so that we can, what, behave like we have some elitist spiritual understanding?

I remember asking one of my mentors, Ruth, about how to interpret symbols for dreams or during a reading. She said, "It's similar, but different. When you dream a symbol you must always interpret it based on yourself. If you're working with someone else, the interpretation is up to them and what they think the symbol means. That's similar when you are offering a symbol within a reading. Take spider as an example. What does a spider mean to you?"

I replied, "I like spiders. They are amazing little creatures."

Ruth said, "Then spider for you means that something creative is happening. But what if you were afraid of spiders?"

I chuckled. Ruth continued, "We must always come from the perspective of the person receiving the symbol. It's theirs, not yours. So, what happens to the message if you were to tell the receiver you see a spider, and it's crawling onto their hand? What's their possible reaction? Don't be so 'all knowing' that you tell your clients what and how to feel or experience life in any way. Our work isn't meant to tell people what's happened to them. Our mission is to invite people into their own understanding."

Grief feels this way, too. I've learned that grief is different for each of us and different depending on who or what we've lost. Maddy lost her dad in a horrible accident. During our spiritual coaching session, she wanted to know if I could tell her why her father was killed. "People kept telling me that 'God wanted him' and that 'this happened for a reason.' When I asked them what the reason was, they just patted my arm and walked off. So, what was the reason?"

She stopped to blow her nose and wipe her face. I hated this for her. I took a breath to soften myself and replied, "Maddy, I don't know. Your father died and people don't know what to say. They want desperately for you to feel better, so they said what they've heard other people say. But this statement, 'it must have happened for a reason' sounds to me like it may have bypassed or in some way invalidated your grief."

"Yes," she said. "Yes, it did. Like my dad's death was some mission and that I'm supposed to be proud that he died this way because his death is important to the world in some way. I feel nothing like that. I feel robbed of my dad and I want him back." Her pain was so raw and real, any attempt to soothe it was going to make it unbearable. So, we sat for several minutes soaking in the bird songs outside the window.

"Maddy," I started, "the truth of your father's death is that it was a horrible accident. He was not at fault. No one was. I guess you could say it was the tree's fault. But the tree is a tree and not a murderer. Your dad was simply standing there when it was the tree's time to fall. Could your dad have survived the accident? Maybe. Would he have wanted to?"

I let that question sit there waiting and she eventually said, "No. No, there would have been too much."

"Too much to come back from?" I asked.

"Yes. That's what the doctor said."

"You know, I think the hardest part of grief, at least from what I've witnessed, is that most people don't want to experience it with you. We say things to avoid a scene or to make the grief seem lighter in some way. Your grief will certainly lighten, but not today. Not for a while. Let it take its time."

Maddy left and I was stewing in my own resentment of what these people said to a 22-year-old who just wanted her dad.

What happens when a self-proclaimed spiritual leader demonstrates their condescension with a dismissive pat on the arm? Is this the message that they were intending to offer? Early on I made that embarrassingly horrible mistake a time or two and I hope never to again. I understand that people didn't know what to say to Maddy and wanted to ease her grief. Death is hard and most of us are never taught what to say to a friend when someone they love dies.

Like Maddy, I want to ask why these spiritual elitists think the way they do. What was their reason? Maybe I will.

by: Colleen G. Parsons

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Some Things Just Are

Some Things Just Are

My Zoom link connected and I was looking at the smiling but clearly nervous face of my next client for a mediumship consultation. I noted that my calendar said we had 60 minutes and I felt my senses begin to relax into the energy.

I don't remember the woman saying hello. She started right in with, "Full disclosure, I want you to know that an acquaintance of mine gave me your contact information and I made the appointment immediately. Well, she's a friend, actually more of a friend of a friend, I mean I know her but not well. She's in one of my classes, classes that I teach." I smiled as I listened as her nervousness burst into my headset and thought that this was going to be a challenge. This woman wanted something very specific and I wasn't at all sure that she was going to get what she hoped.

Phyllis wasn't done with her introduction. "You gave a reading to a group the other day or week and asked, 'Who's Rick? I have a Richard and I also have an Alan. And the person who had abdominal surgery?' My friend, well, acquaintance said that no one raised their hand so then she thought maybe it was for me because my husband died a few weeks ago and his name was Richard. But this woman, the friend of a friend, didn't know that his father's name was Alan and Rick's mother had a colostomy. All three of them are deceased."

She took a breath and continued, "This woman, the one that was in your group, told my friend who told me. See, I wrote it all down here. I live on the west coast, and they were up from Florida and had this group thing with you in New York. I don't know how this works or even if you would see me, but I had to try. Do you think my husband will come through? It's okay if he doesn't, but I really hope he will."

Phyllis stopped talking and looked at me wide-eyed.

I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. What group did I give readings to? When was this?

Phyllis explained and the mediumship consultation went along as most do, with her validating much of the information given from her spirit people. To me, it was the same kind of mediumship reading I always do where loved ones and others describe events and themselves while also offering insight and considerations for the person receiving the information. To her, it was more than ordinary as she said, "This is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me."

I, however, have spent the next week or so wondering how it happened. Did Spirit plan that? Did the Universe somehow create the connections between her and me? Was it a coincidence? Was this something like asking the Universe for a parking place that I can easily pull into because I hate to parallel park? Or could this have been a simple case of mistaken information that the woman in my group attributed to Phyllis? Or maybe some other weird synchronicity?

When I took Psychology 101, I remember learning that synchronicity was "a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved," as coined and explained by Carl Jung. Okay, yes, that fits what Phyllis was experiencing. Maybe. My gut told me that it wasn't just a coincidence or pattern recognition. It wasn't that simple. Maybe spiritual synchronization? I had never had anything quite like this happen to me before. Yes, lots of weird things, but not like this. Not with all of these people involved. And not with three pieces of information that matched for someone not even in the same part of the country as I was.

I started to explore the idea of spiritual synchronization. Is it possible that spirit people (loved ones on the other side) actually went to all of the trouble to connect Phyllis with me? I had a strange ache in my insides with wanting to know. What would they have to do to pull that off? Or maybe stuff like that is super easy over there. Then I found myself thinking, "I'm spending a lot of time on this for something that doesn't really matter. Phyllis was happy with her reading and now she also has a great story to tell. What do I care?"

A few days later I had coffee with a wonderful friend, a nurse, who is also a long-time medium. I love her, in part because we speak the same language when it comes to science and spirituality. As we chatted, she told me about a friend of hers who kept a sticky note on her driver's side visor with a reminder to ask the Universe for a parking place. That reminded me to tell her my "Phyllis story" and that I was stuck wondering about how Spirit made the connections. She sipped her coffee, then said, "This matters to you because you want to know how all of this works, this talking to dead people stuff. You don't want to accept mediumship on faith. You want to know that it's all real and that there is proof. I don't know how you're going to get it, proof that is, but I see that you want it."

I answered, "Yes. Yes, I do. I want to know that we—that I'm—not making it up."

"Are you? Did you make it up?" There was a bit of an accusation in her tone. Then my friend looked intently at me for a moment and said, "So my science friend, you can accept as fact that a little wiggly sperm cell can connect with an egg cell to create a living, breathing, thinking being, but you're finding this hard?"

Her sharp directness caught me off guard. Her question didn't match up with what we were talking about. Was she upset with me? Was she having a stroke? What was going on?

My eyes darted to the window. Videos of fertilization replayed in my brain. Most of them were cartoon-like. I looked back at my friend who was still staring at me. My brow furrowed as I searched her face for understanding.

I felt a trickle of foolishness run up the back of my neck and suddenly I burst out with a single, "HA!" Then, "Yeah, yeah. I get it."

Her eyes twinkled as the tension broke, and we both were laughing, quite loudly. The idea of proof sounded ridiculous because this was proof. I said, "Some things just are."

It's been days since that coffee, and as I'm writing this, I'm still chuckling when I think of it. It's a bit absurd to want to know more and think that I could understand it even if the answer was handed to me wrapped up with a bow. Perhaps it is true; some questions are not meant to be answered.

by Colleen G. Parsons, MSN, RN

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What I Should Have Told Ricki

by: Colleen G. Parsons

“What’s this awareness you’re always talking about? I mean I understand the word, and I think I know what you mean, but I am not grasping why it’s the be all to spiritual advancement.”

Ricki and I had just finished eating our breakfast and catching up after not having seen each other for several months. She asked such a good question, and I truly fumbled the answer. I’ll try again.

Awareness sounds passive, like something that just happens. Or maybe it should require a little effort, like turning on a light switch or opening a closet door.

I have very few memories of kindergarten. One of them is sitting at the table by myself and seeing the other children sitting on the story rug. The paper in front of me was filled with black scribbles. The center was pretty well covered. Mrs. Gartner leaned down to my level and pointed to a mostly clear spot and said, “We don’t just scribble on the paper. You need to draw a picture. As soon as you draw a real picture you can come and sit on the rug with the other children and hear the story.”

She sat down in a chair in front of my classmates and opened a book. In my memory I was mad at her, I was mad at my paper, and maybe I was just having a mad day. Now, interestingly, I could hear her read the story from where I sat. I distinctly remember looking down at my paper and trying to make a decision based on what I was feeling. I had been raised to be a “good girl” and I could draw a house right there in the spot my teacher had pointed to on my paper. I could draw a house. I knew how to draw a house, and a tree. I remember looking at the story rug with all of the kids listening to the story. I remember looking out the big windows, I remember picking up my crayon and thinking that I didn’t want to draw a house because I liked my black scribbles. And then I remember, whether the teacher said it or I knew it from previous experiences, that I wasn’t going to be allowed to do anything else until I drew that house. Of course I drew a red house, a green tree, and something else that I don’t remember.

I don’t remember what happened next, however, that scene and the details around it have stayed with me for over 60 years. It has evolved into a time of critical understanding about awareness.

I have learned that there is a distinct difference between deciding and making a choice. Awareness is about understanding that I have a choice and then taking action based on my choice.

In that scenario I had a decision to make. Was I going to do what was expected of me—what I was told—or was I going to rebel? If I didn’t want uncomfortable consequences I must make a drawing. I decided to do what was expected. Decisions are based on comparing the list of pros and cons. They are logical, consequential, and finite.

Choices are different. Choices open doors to options, availability, freedom. Once I made the decision to comply my choices became: what would I draw, what colors would I use, where would I place my drawings, would I keep it simple or add detail? Was I going to choose to let my anger subside and join story time? Was I going to tell my mother what happened?

In my five-year-old mind, I could not articulate the difference between choices and decisions, though I was aware of it. I remember the feeling when I made the decision to draw something and that I had agency over what, how, where that drawing would happen. I think that I knew then that as long as I drew something there was going to be a win-win outcome. That was my earliest recollection of general awareness. 

Spiritual awareness goes further and builds over time as it gently coaxes you into love, peace, harmony, and joy. One of my first recollections of spiritual awareness happened when I was in my late twenties. It was back in the days of corded phones that plugged into the wall. I was running a little bit late to work when the kitchen phone rang. I answered it without thinking and it was my mother. I have no memory of what that conversation was about, but she had me in tears, big tears, within five minutes. She could always make that happen. Somehow, I got off the phone and ran for the car grabbing a bunch of tissues on the way. I pulled out of my driveway as tears continued to blur my vision. I remember thinking, “How am I going to make it through this day? I have a full schedule. Everyone is going to know I was crying. I hate it when she does this to me! This is going to be a terrible day.”

Then I stopped at the red light. It was a beautiful spring day. The leaves had popped and the birds were singing. I rolled down my car windows to let the beauty in. I took a quick inventory of how I was really feeling and was surprised to find that I wasn’t sad. Maybe a bit angry, but not much. Wait. I was feeling pretty darn good. I was happy and I was actually looking forward to my scheduled day.

I heard myself saying out loud, “Wait a minute. She hasn’t ruined my day. My tears are a conditioned response, they aren’t real. I feel good. I feel happy. I’m free to feel that way.” I remember taking a deep breath and letting go of a big sigh. With that sigh everything changed, and in that instant so did the light. It was green. I burst out laughing as I proceeded on my way.

 

Maybe this is what I should have told Ricki. Awareness isn't passive and it isn't a light switch. Spiritual awareness is not only recognizing what’s happening to you but knowing that Spirit is recognizing it, too, and when you get it, will laugh right along with you.

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What If Anger Isn’t the Enemy?

by: Colleen Parsons

“I’m so angry I don’t know what to do with myself. I hate this feeling.”

“What’s it feel like?”

“Like I’m out of control!”

“You don’t look out of control.”

“Well, like I’m losing control. I hate what’s happening. And I hate myself for letting myself get into this position. This place.”

“I need a bit more. What are you trying to control?”

Kate sat down and put her hands on her face. I could tell that she was crying, but more than that, I could tell that she didn’t have the words to express how she was feeling. There were no words. I resisted the desire to soothe her and sat quietly holding space, for a long while.

Eventually her breath slowed, the hot redness left her face, and she reached for a tissue. Then another. She blew her nose, glanced at me, then back to her tissues.

“What? What did you ask me?”

I repeated my question and Kate turned to look out of the window.

Kate and I had met for several previous coaching sessions, but this was new. She explained this situation involved a breach of confidentiality by a coworker that could affect her career. Then added, “Everything feels so out of control. I don’t know what to do. My husband’s trying to help with the kids and my mom, but all I do is snap at him. He doesn’t deserve that.” She paused, sighed, looked directly at me and asked, “What do you think?”

That sigh was a biophysical and emotional “reset”. Good, I knew she was ready and could hear what I was about to say.

“I think you’re doing a great job of controlling what you can. You’re controlling your anger, your reactions, your desire for retaliation.  You touched on your kids, your partner, your mother, so I hear that you’re looking at what else is behind your feelings of anger and loss of control besides this one work situation.”

“But I should have known what was going on at work.”

I asked, “How?”

Kate listed how the coworker had been behaving differently, more aloof, not responsive to texts or calls, and seemed sneaky.

I said, “Yes, that’s your brain telling you that it’s taking in clues recognized only in hindsight and storing the information for future situations. It will try to protect you the next time. But that has little to do with this time, except to make you feel like you failed. The facts are that you had no reason to suspect this was happening, but more importantly, you had no reason to believe it would. Are you following me?”

She nodded.

“This is pretty serious, and you are going to have to carefully decide how you respond. How you respond is the only thing you can control. What’s your plan?”

Kate straightened in her chair, “Well, first I need to investigate and find out more.” I nodded. Then she spent the next several minutes developing alternative plans based on what she might discover.

Our time was almost up. “Kate, you really worked hard today. You have a lot to be proud of. Before you scoot out of here, what’s your takeaway from this time together?”

Kate thought a second and answered, “I have a few workable plans to deal with this situation.”

I replied, “Good. Though I also want you to realize how hard you worked to get to that place. The anger you brought in here didn’t begin here. This anger has been building for days or maybe weeks. You’ve been under considerable stress lately, those teenagers of yours, your mom’s cancer, the loss of your dad, and your day-to-day job tasks.

“Then you find out that you’ve been violated at work with this breach of confidentiality. I imagine that you felt threatened--hijacked. I’m sure that when you discovered the breach all kinds of alarms went off in your brain and you couldn’t reason your way out. It’s as if the thinking part of your brain got locked in a closet. I’m guessing that you were functioning automatically, maybe even just going through the motions for days before now. And that’s the anger you brought in here.”

I paused. Kate nodded in agreement. Then I continued. “That’s a lot to be proud of right there. You didn’t cancel your appointment. You came in and you allowed yourself to feel safe and to be vulnerable and share your pain. You didn’t just tell me about your pain, you shared it with yourself.

“And when you were about to really feel it, you took a deep breath and let your thinking brain out of that locked closet. Do you see?”

Kate nodded again, with tears brimming her eyes. “I do see.”

I smiled and continued, “The release of your anger gave you a healthy shot of dopamine, which also helped you feel calmer. Like the air feels clear after a thunderstorm.

“It took a minute, but then you squared yourself up in your chair, do you remember that? What did that feel like to you?”

Kate said, “Like I was back in control. I could think. I could make a plan. It felt like I was me again.”

“That’s right,” I said, “You began to solve your own dilemma. It was powerful to witness. You did a very good job. And now, I’m going to ask you again, what’s your takeaway?”

Kate smiled, “I need to call a family meeting and tell my kids some of what’s been going on at work. I need to ask for their help at home. I also need to let my mother in on what’s happening so that she doesn’t feel that this has anything to do with her. And honestly, I need to sleep. I haven’t slept in days.”

Then she said, “My takeaway is that I’m not in this all alone.”

-------------

This is a picture of what anger feels like. Here is what is actually happening. No teacher directly taught me how to work with anger; my patients and clients did. I've helped hundreds move through that energy. Kate was lucky enough to move through her feelings in one session. For some it takes much longer because their anger may have been building for years, and those people are very afraid that their anger might kill them.

Anger creates a cascade of hormone reactions that we’ve all experienced. It affects every aspect of our body and mind. The goal is to recognize the buildup of energy, experience the surge, feel the shift, and then, as the energy wanes, use it all as a tool.

Have you ever seen a dog or horse shake off energy? It sort of looks like they are shaking off water, but they aren't wet. People don't usually shake off energy in that way, but they do shift. They sit up in their chairs, or they stop and stare into space. They are able to think again. Why? Because their cortisol decreases, because the adrenaline stops surging, because the person let the anger run its course.

Intention makes the difference. Kate found a safe place to let her anger go. Adrenaline begs the body to fight. We’ve all felt this happen. Adrenaline makes us feel that we have to fight or die. Survival feels urgent. If no one fights back or tries to make us better but instead holds space for us, we can move through the anger as it completes its cycle. Then, with someone to help us process the feelings we experienced without inflicting shame or guilt, we can move back into thinking mode, and forward into production.

I wasn’t sitting passively with Kate; I was refusing to be the fight her body was looking for.

Let’s not meet the fight with a fight. The Prayer of St. Francis says this best: "Where there is hatred, let me sow love".

by: Colleen Parsons

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No Time for the Present

by: Colleen G. Parsons

I needed to hear myself talk, out loud, to someone who didn't know my story and who wouldn't judge me. I needed to be totally honest about my anxiety of seeing my estranged daughter of five years.

I'd been caught in the crossfire between what happened in our past and what could happen in the future. What did I want? How could I remain in the present when I saw her? My mind was jumping from scenario to scenario with possible outcomes. I couldn't stop asking myself questions about the upcoming meeting, and my anticipation was creating increased anxiety, insomnia, and snippiness. I needed a good coach to ask me the key questions so that I could hear my own answers.

My goal was to respond to my daughter and who she was now rather than react to her as the person I had a challenging history with. She was my daughter and I loved her. The mom in me needed her to love me back. I was afraid that if I demanded her to love me back, I would push her further away. What if it was too soon and I goofed this whole thing up?

I met with the coach several times before the meeting with my kid. I heard myself say things like, "I don't need her to say she loves me. Her talking to me face-to-face is enough." And "If I can just stay in the present moment without making this about the past or future, then I think we have something we can build on."

I developed a plan to take all my cues from my daughter. My mind had me rehearsing scenarios of subtly inviting a hug but not rushing it. I would say "I've missed you" without any need to hear anything back. I was determined to keep our conversation light and superficial, and friendly. I would monitor my breathing, my facial expressions, and my tone of voice. I would stay relaxed.

 

It would take some effort on my part because so much of our history had been built on the land mines we subconsciously laid for one another. What did Leonard Cohen write? "But all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you." I didn't want that anymore. I had left all my weapons at home.

Smiling, she hugged me back. A real hug. She was light, airy, non-threatening. I played into her mood. We chatted about superficial things the way you talk to co-workers or casual friends. I asked her questions about her life and she answered without hesitation. She asked me nothing. I volunteered nothing. I reminded myself several times that this is how she needed this conversation to go. Ram Dass didn't write “Be Here Now” for mothers trying to hold themselves together in a parking lot. But I used that mantra anyway, and I used it many times. I was hoping for a connection with my kid. "Just be here now. It's all okay. Look at how beautiful she is. This moment is such a gift."

___ 

 

Was I giving in? Giving up? Pretending to be something I wasn't? No. None of that.

None of that happened by accident. In the weeks before the meeting, I had to learn something about how my own brain worked. I had to remember that part of my brain, the amygdala, was always on guard, looking for land mines from the past. Every time I thought about the meeting, my amygdala was sure an ugly confrontation was about to ignite. Meanwhile my prefrontal cortex, my thinking brain, was busy dreaming up a grand loving reunion. The two were fighting a duel I couldn't referee. So many options played out in my imagination that I was growing more frantic by the day. I thought about canceling the meeting. I needed to make myself stop thinking about the possible outcomes. But how?

What I needed was a way to explain to myself what was actually happening inside my head, and once I understood it, a way to interrupt it.

I came to think of my amygdala as my brain's Secret Service bodyguard and my prefrontal cortex as the rational, intelligent CEO the bodyguard was assigned to protect. When a bodyguard senses trouble, it moves into survival mode. With enough perceived threat, it’s designed to push the CEO into the safe room and take over. That's when logical thinking gets severed. There is no longer access to reasoned responses, only reactions pulled from threatening situations in the past. This emergency floods the brain and body with cortisol, the hormone that gives a person the energy to run from bigfoot or stand and fight it off. You are no longer choosing your actions. You are just trying to survive the moment. With the reasonable CEO locked out, I might say and do stupid things.

 

My situation became more complicated as my brain pulled in past battles with my daughter while simultaneously scanning possible future outcomes. The two conflicting signals short-circuited my ability to think clearly. My brain overheated, and I found myself on a hamster wheel, trapped between "This happened before" and "That might happen next." As a result, I was fighting with everyone and everything.  

The only way to get the CEO out of the safe room was the password: BE HERE NOW. With practice, that mantra triggered something physical. Five long, slow breaths. The bodyguard stood down. Click. The safe room door unlocked and I could think again. One more breath and I could respond rather than react.

I could calm my body. What I hadn't yet figured out was how to quiet the part of me that still wanted to win. It demanded respect and turned into a bully when it didn't get any. So I made it a deal. When I felt that twinge of needing to be heard, I quietly told my ego, "I'll make time for you later. Right now is the time to listen." When my trigger finger twitched, I breathed. When I sensed land mines, I tiptoed. And I was able to respond.

I told her how beautiful she was without commenting further. I never lied nor was I ingratiating. I simply stayed away from details. I didn't over-explain. I wasn't needy. Neither was she. There were no land mines. We laughed. We touched. We hugged goodbye and whispered "I love yous."

Later she texted, "Thanks for the nice visit. I had a good time."

The visit was a success. I was the real me, without my amygdala shouting false alarms. I could, indeed, learn not to react but rather to respond.

And I realized that I wanted to love more than be loved.

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