I stepped out of the Woo closet a few months ago. And now I’m stepping out even further… deep breath, Leah, it’s gonna be ok.
I talk to Angels. And dead people. And other beings of light.
I’m not announcing this to invite judgment – good OR bad – I’m announcing it because doing so feels right at this juncture. Because I see other people struggling with the “Am I crazy?” and “I’m probably just imagining things…” and “This is so silly, this can’t be for real, what part of me is broken/delusional/needy enough to entertain this possibility?”
I’ve been there. Sometimes, even now, I still get to that space inside my head. I still take a deep breath and cringe inwardly before telling a client exactly where some of the information I’m sharing comes from. It’s not easy to go from being an atheist and a humanist to… whatever I am now. Me. Talkin’ to angels and whatnot. But I know more people “in the closet” around this than I do who fully embrace it. Maybe if I moved to California, things would be different. Here, we meet in small groups and divulge our love of the woowoo world, the new insights we receive, and then we go back to the “real” world and put on our “sane people” hats and, for the most part, keep pretty quiet about “that stuff”.
Channel. Medium. Lightworker. Humanist. There’s this part of me that still wants a nice, neat label. A category to put myself in, that easily sums up my worldview. A group I “belong” to with other people who think about and experience and question life just as I do. Am I still a humanist? Well… halfway? I do fully believe that we humans are responsible for ourselves, our lives here on earth, and that it is absolutely possible to be a compassionate, ethical citizen of the planet without any belief in anything external. (And from MY experience and understanding, nothing is truly external because the same energy that ignites me is “out there” and in others. There isn’t a *superior* deity. There are different frequencies, different vibrations of energy.) I question EVERYTHING, sometimes to my own detriment.
So I guess I’m still mostly humanist. Except for the talking to angels and dead people thing. Which is why I’ve been much more quiet about that part of my life and my work than about the Reiki. I value my intelligence and my rational brain. I also value the esteem of my like-minded peers, whom I respect and adore. And talking about this “other” part of my life is hard and scary and I’d really rather not.
Except it seems kinda backwards to have this amazing connection and resource and NOT share it openly. Especially when I see how much it benefits people when I do share. When I channel these wise and loving beings. When I let their energy and messages come through. When I help others connect with their guides and the other beings of light here to support them. You feel seen and acknowledged at a deep, core level. You feel uplifted, lighter, expansive, and more loving. You recognize, if only for a moment, your wholeness. The criticisms fall away. The mind voices are silenced. In the presence of these beings, of this energy, you get a glimpse of true freedom from whatever is holding you back, whatever is out of alignment, whatever is causing you worry or upset. You get a moment of space from all the external, all the outside stuff you carry around each day, and you get a chance to reconnect with the real you underneath the personalities you juggle, the expectations you strive to meet, the disappointments and to-do lists, the patterns of life we fall into, or are pushed and conditioned into accepting as our reality.
And then you have the opportunity to get to work. To make your outer match your inner. And you have this whole team cheering you on, rooting for you, offering you support – a turbo-boost of love, a bigger, brighter perspective, a creative impulse, or just a bit more energy and courage to DO what you really most want to be doing with your life. But the catch is, you’ve gotta ask for their help.
And that’s where we get stuck. It’s so very hard just to ask. Because it’s so very hard to believe, or even entertain the possibility, that something that isn’t proven might actually be there, and be communicating with us. And that’s ok.
I am not writing this to convince anyone to believe. I am not writing this to change anyone’s beliefs. This is for those of you who’ve felt a little tickle, or a little nudge… for those who have wondered “what if?” and felt a pull on their heart, for those who dabbled in some woowoo stuff, read some books, did some meditations, and then let the “real world” make them feel judged or silly or stupid for even considering that there might be angels or other conscious energies “out there” and we could communicate with them and they actually would help us in some way.
This is for those who are feeling, even more strongly, that there is something “more” – something beyond this reality that we can’t see (ok, most of us can’t!) or touch (again, most of us…), but that can be felt, heard, interacted with, and that doing so could be a benefit to living a fuller, more authentic life. This is for the other atheists, humanists, supremely secular and science-minded (and loving, compassionate, all-around amazing) folks out there who – whether via research, soul-searching, or just one too many inexplicable experiences – are wondering if it’s time to dig even deeper. To drop the labels. To stop demanding a double-blind, randomized controlled trial before entertaining the notion that their own, lived experience is valid and can be trusted, even when that experience is not fully understood or easily described.
This is how I used to think: “I believe THIS because of X and X is valid, real, tangible, and proven, and you are silly if you believe this because of Y, Z, or the color blue… and you are even sillier if you believe THAT, especially if you believe that because you and you alone experienced that… it’s entirely too subjective!.” I would never say this to anyone, mind you. I was always “respectful” of other people and their beliefs. But inwardly, I felt a twinge of intellectual superiority because I did my research. I did MORE research than that person and I knew better. Hmph. Sweet smile. (*cringe cringe cringe* goes myself now)
And now… well… now I’ve had some pretty wild experiences. Stuff that has shaken me to my core and shattered my worldview. Does that mean I am the supreme authority on all things energetic? Heck, no!! Is it possible I’m delusional? Well, yeah, we could all be delusional! Last I read, the universe was a hologram! Soooo… where does that leave us?
Oh right, Angels. I was gonna tell you more about angels. I was not opposed to the idea of them, I just relegated them to the part of my brain that stored stuff on Christianity and Renaissance Art. But I was so resistant to angels being real and not these winged, Christian messengers that I made it very difficult for myself to connect with them. And they are awesome!! They are just very loving beings of light who really want to work with us (us meaning humans). But I had a big wall up, so much so that I was channeling an archangel before ever realizing that’s who/what he was. A few months later, when I found out “Hey! You’re an archangel! Why didn’t you tell me?” he was all like,”Yeah, if I had shown up for you like that, you would have turned out the lights and closed up shop early.” And he was right, I would have. If I had seen wings and a blaze of light, I would have shut down the connection and not gotten to know him. If he had introduced himself as “I am Archangel Azrael” in a deep, booming voice with a choir singing – that would probably have been the end of my channeling. Now I’m REALLY in CrazyTown, I would have thought. It was hard enough to sit with the fact that I was channeling in the first place. Actual, vocal channeling. Add archangels to the mix, and we’ll just call it a day. Forever. Hellooo padded room!
And then on top of the angels, the dead people came to hang out. I don’t channel dead people, FYI. I just talk to them. Well, they usually talk to me first. Or just hang out long enough that I feel rude ignoring them and finally ask them what’s up. I’ve had deceased loved ones show up during reiki sessions in the past, but it was few and far between. I’ve been doing reiki for 13 years now, and only had 4 or 5 show up during sessions over the years… and I always managed to convince myself I probably made it up. Darn, that overactive imagination coupled with a great ability to “read” people’s unspoken needs and wants, struggles and hopes, and basic body language. It was so easy to dismiss what was happening. Even with clients crying and validating everything I was sharing… I still thought “Maybe I’m just really good at telling people what they want to hear.” That was easier to believe, easier to swallow than to entertain the thought that I really was communicating with a deceased mom/uncle/friend/grandfather.
But now it happens often. Sometimes they just pop in to say hello and that they are ok. Sometimes they silently offer support or encouragement. Sometimes they have requests. Sometimes they have more specific messages to convey. Whatever their reasons, dead people have been hanging out often enough now that I just … accept it. Honestly, a part of me STILL doesn’t believe. Even with a dozen people confirming that what I’m sensing is accurate, that I am picking up on things I really couldn’t “know”, that I am providing them with a connection to someone they love and miss and that this connection is helpful and uplifting… even with all of that support, validation, and positive feedback, I still question this. But now, even if I doubt myself, I speak up. I still share. And every time, I’m glad I made that choice. I’m glad I pushed past my comfort zone, and swallowed my own pride and love of rationality and all things tangible and proven and universally experienced, and shared my own, unique experience. Shared what my own senses were telling me. Because in that sharing, people find healing. They find connection. They find release.
This work I’m doing… it’s not about me. And it’s certainly not about what anyone might be thinking about me. I go into each session with clear boundaries – only what is in my client’s highest healing and good may come through. To do this work with the utmost integrity and love, knowing I have clear energetic boundaries in place and that I am, in fact, of sound mind and body, all that remains is to trust. To trust what comes through, even if it boggles my mind and causes me to question what I *thought* was real and true about the world, the universe – to share the messages I receive to the very best of my ability, guided by love and grace and compassion. And perhaps I don’t have a steadfast and unwavering faith that all of this real, but I do – at this point in my journey – have enough trust to share, as honestly as possible, what I am experiencing. Because at the end of the day, I answer to me. Am I being authentic? And, as uncomfortable as it may be to state this publicly, my authentic life experiences include talking to angels and dead people.
So at the end of the day, I’m in that gray area – not fully, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt believing these experiences I keep having. But I’m much closer to believing than I was a year ago. How many times does one experience gravity before accepting it? “Ohhh, that apple will keep hitting the ground. Over and over and over. Something’s gotta be there pulling it down.” Of course, gravity is universally experienced here on earth. Talking to angels and dead people isn’t. So perhaps I’m crazy and just really good at telling people things that make them feel good. But once again, I turn to my authentic experience, and my experience says – angels and dead people are real and awesome. They have interesting insights to share. They have a whole lotta love to beam our way. They shift the energy of the spaces they are in. And, gosh darnit, it’s really fun and amazing to connect with them!
So… hi, I’m Leah. The somewhat-humanist high-vibrational-being and dead people communicator. Wanna be friends?