I thought I'd share a story or two about the beginning days of all the woo woo stuff.  My senses were going crazy, and not the ones I expected.

Before I get down to the nitty gritty, I want to emphasize I am just a regular person: multifacited, stubborn, addicted to chocolate and fried pickles, believes in science, feels like a parenting failure at times, and loves animals and children. Channeling spirit is only part of who I am but it does play a significant role in my life for my own healing and for others. As with most things in life, my imposed introduction to it started small and seemingly insignificant. I soon realized the trick was recognizing it and not sweeping it under the rug like I had done for so long. 

Back in 2009, I started to see movement out of the corner of my eyes. I dismissed it for a long time—thought maybe I was just tired. Little did I know, it was the start of me recognizing my connection to spirit. Shadows soon morphed into full-on visions of spirit walking around my house a few months later but before that, I was actually more sensitive to scent than anything I could see with my eyes. 

I remember being at my computer in my kitchen in Burbank and the heavy scent of cigarette smoke filled the room.  Naturally, I looked for open windows.  It had to be coming from outside but it wasn't.  It was hanging only in the kitchen area. I later channeled and did some non-woo woo investigative research to get to the bottom of the mystery.  It turns out the couple who lived in the home in the 1950s smoked cigarettes and the now-enclosed laundry room (attached to the kitchen) used to be the back porch where they would enjoy of their Marlboro Reds. I was happy to know I wasn't losing my mind but also a little perplexed as to why I was suddenly starting to smell things that weren't there. Smoke.  Perfume. Food. 

Do you notice odd smells or sound or see things out of the corner of your eyes? Tell me what you've noticed! 

Finding a psychologist/therapist when you're a medium is a bit of a mine field. I've been lucky to have been guided a few years ago to a wonderful therapist here in Flagstaff who ended up being part of The Little Light Project.  

But recently, I felt I needed to go deeper—finally start to address my inner child. All signs pointed to finding a new therapist.

My dear friend and ex-colleague suggested a psychologist here in town so I reached out for an appointment and was able to get in to see her last Friday.  Normally, I research the hell out of who I'm seeing but this time, I just went with the recommendation and was assured by my friend she would be "cool" with my intuitive side.  

Typically, the moment I start to explain how children in spirit come to me and have led me to pass messages to families and law enforcement, I know whether the therapist is about to go all "traditional diagnosis, like schizophrenia" on me. Or suggest another psychologist.  I felt the opposite of that on Friday.  

One of the things I've come to learn about my intution is when a child in spirit is near and hasn't crossed into the light yet, or my inner child wants to speak up, I will get this weird pulsating/buzzing energy on my right hip.  It's very specific.  I felt that very sensation all day on Friday leading up to the session.  I felt it through the session, as well.  It only stopped when I left.  

My new psychologist didn't look at me like I had three heads when I talked about why I was there.  In fact, when I mentioned I was guided to buy a book at the local bookstore that wasn't even housed in the "woo woo" section of the store but was a book about shamanism, she said, "I have that book. It's wonderful."   The book is old as the hills and most people aren't looking to read a book about shamanic soul retreival practices.  At least most psychologists I know. 

I talked a mile a minute about everything that's happened in my life over the past four years and  my desire to try to connect with my inner child more. Integrate her more.  She said, "well, all of these kids in spirit have been coming to you for years, and now she's coming to you because you're ready."  Little did I know her speciality is helping people heal their inner child. 

I feel, through EMDR therapy and some soul retrieval work, I'll be able to finally integrate Little Kiers. Because I was raped as a young child, Little Kiers feels very separate from me and equates abuse with love.  It's a very strange feeling because that doesn't jive at all with my adult self. 

As we were wrapping up the session, she looked at me and said, "I'm excited to see what we work on in the future together."  I had also channeled that our meeting was bigger than helping me heal my inner child.  She told me she has helped children who have been abused for over 15 years. I told her about my plans to speak internationally on the subject of childhood abuse/represssion and intuitive healing.  

It's amazing to see how the puzzle pieces of life fit together if I'm paying attention.  And it's also such a gift to find a professional who not only doesn't think I'm crazy, but admittedly uses her intuitive gifts in every facet of her life.  

I've had this book sitting on my shelf for years. I've always wanted to read it but life just kept getting in the way.  I'm grateful it was made into a movie that I watched this weekend. 

As a woman who channels spirit, it really resonated with me.  The themes of judgement and punishment expecially hit home.  Now, if you haven't seen the movie and want to, let me stop you right here.  SPOILER ALERT: I will touch on a few things that could ruin the movie/book for you. 


JUDGEMENT
As I mentioned in my story, I predominantly channel children in spirit. As I watched the father struggle with the unbearable pain of losing his daughter who was abducted and murdered by a mysterious man, I was overcome with empathy for the father character, as I am when I speak with parents of children who have passed on.  To carry the pain of losing a child and still find joy in life is a remarkable feat.  The father, who was not finding joy in the beginning of the movie, was not only dealing with the loss of his daughter, he was grappling with his own past. He endured a physically and emotionally abusive father and struggled with choices he made to help free himself and his mother from his abusive father's attacks. He carried the pain of his childhood, as one would, and it became the foundation for his judgmental outlook on life. 

In the story, it took a near death experience and encounter with God (in a number of forms) for him to realize that he had to find a way to let go of the pain that was consuming him.  To understand his father was also abused as a child, and likely his father before him.  It was a cycle of abuse spanning decades and it shaped how he judged others and their actions. Not necessarily seeing his father as a small child who was also abused.  I have found in my work that we are being guided to release the pain we accumulate and carry and in the process, live more from our hearts than our heads. I can attest to this having gone through letting go of the anger I had towards my relative who raped me when I was a child. I now see that he was abused, and his father before him, and so on and so on.  Living in a state of pain and judgement is literally robbing yourself of your own joy.  Don't get me wrong, it's a hard process with many ups and downs but one that is oh-so-worth-it in the end. 

PUNISHMENT
In the movie, the father questions if his daughter's abduction and murder were in essence "karma" for what he did to hurt and kill his father as a child.  The movie does a great job of explaining that life doesn't work that way, a message I've received over and over again as a medium.  With that said, there is no promise of a life without pain.  We are, afterall, literally learning to love and grow here in Earth School, so pain is a natural part of our evolution.  The point God makes in the movie is that she cannot stop things like that from happening because they aren't of God or of the light.  They are born from evil and darkness and not one of us is immune to evil energy.  I believe this to be true, as well. 

In my work as a medium, I have encountered energies that are so dark I was literally quaking in my boots.  Energies that attach themselves to people who are open to letting them in.  This doesn't mean the people who are letting them in are BAD people.  They could be so severely wounded from trauma in life that they don't realize they are literally hosting these energies. 

We live in a dual reality--good and evil, light and dark. It's just they way it is.  And we all have a dark side which is part of being human. It takes great courage and a lot of faith in the energy of love to forgive and understand those who are operating primarily from a place of dark and maybe they do not even realize it. For those on the receiving end of the darkness, this is where intuition and faith come in. This is where each one of us has the choice to see the bigger picture. To trust the quiet voice inside. To understand why we are even here in the first place—to learn to love ourselves unconditionally. 

I highly recommend the movie and/or the book!  I believe we each have our own "Shack" moments in life where we have a choice to move forward operating from a place of love...or not. I hope as we evolve as a society, we continue to choose love more often. 

The thing about repression is it is a blessing and then a blessed curse later in life.  

I was chatting with a friend today and thinking about how different my life was before I found out that I was sexually abused as a child.  I felt very grounded, secure, and proud of who I had grown to be (thanks to amazing parents!) Thankfully, my brain helped protect me from the abuse until I was ready to deal with it.  It's pretty common for this type of thing to surface around age 40.  And that's exactly when it happened to me. 

What I wasn't prepared for was just how little I knew about what I was carrying all these years.  Let's take shame, for instance.  You find out you endured what you did.  Your adult self says, "Ok, I've got this.  Let me think my way through this healing. First stop, therapy. That's what you're supposed to do, right?"  

Talk therapy has never touched my shame.  People in my life who behaved a certain way, did.  Their actions triggered a response in me I would never have expected.  

For example, one time I was being my open, smiley self in a very congenial, innocent way with a man I was not involved with romantically and was told in a disapproving way by a loved one, "Way to make him feel good, Kiersten."  It was as if a knife was thrown at my heart and unbeknownst to me, my shame.  Upon hearing those words, I began to shake uncontrollably all over and cried so hard for hours. Why was I reacting so violently to that statement?  Ahhhhh, because I carry shame—inner child shame—that went to the core of me.  It wasn't something I ever thought I carried.  Of course, that's because for 40 years, I didn't even know it happened to me. 

These moments are torturous gifts.  Your rational adult brain KNOWS you did nothing wrong as a child.  You were the one who was abused by a sick individual.  But your inner child still feels responsible.  

I've told friends and family it's like wearing 20 blinders at one time.  One by one, they come off.  Circumstances, scenarios, and specific people in your life serve to show you what you're really dealing with and show you where healing is needed.  And sometimes it hurts more than you can ever imagine.  

I'm still learning what I'm carrying and how to truly heal the little girl in me.  It's a daily process.  Some days are good, some are really bad, and more often than not, many are WAIT??? WHAT? kinda days where a blinder will fall off.  And while it may be painful, I'm glad to finally be able to truly see.  One blinder at a time.