Creating Space for Your Development
Podcast
Episode:
Creating Space for Your Development
by Danielle Searancke
I felt that creating space for development would be a fun topic to cover on the podcast. In my free Spirit School community, I posted the question, “For those that are focusing on development while parenting children and/or in full-time careers, what do you do to carve out time and space to commit to your development?” The responses were overwhelming. Over 40 people shared their experiences and advice. I love how engaged this community is already after 6 weeks!
Of course, like any other topic, I will share my own experiences with carving out time for development in this episode. If you would like to get in on the conversation, you are welcome to join the community! If you are interested in making time for mediumship development, registration is now open for The Initiation, my Mediumship Foundations Experience!
We have 8 billion people on this planet and every single one of them can benefit from mediumship, because every single person on this planet will lose someone someday. Mediumship is just one of those things that is for everybody, and everyone resonates with very different things. So, the world of spirit needs us all to be very different. I need you to be okay with how your soul is calling you to develop. And whether you get an hour a day or a minute a day, it will all unfold as it should. And you will end up exactly where you are meant to be. It's all just about what stories you have to share when you get there.
Episode:
Creating Space for Your Development
Spirit School Podcast
SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE INCLUDE:
My first teacher didn’t talk about Sitting in the Power and I didn’t develop through Spiritualism.
I have a busy mind, so the dedicated practices that are taught in mediumship didn’t work for me.
My teacher was clairvoyant, so I was really trying to develop my own clairvoyance.
Showing up on social media started my personal development around being seen.
I went full-time in March 2020 with in-person clients booked and was in lockdown with my kids.
Online influencers talked about consistent routines that were not accessible to me at all.
I want to be a teacher that shows you can thrive doing things differently.
TIPS ON CREATING SPACE FOR YOUR DEVELOPMENT FROM SPIRIT SCHOOL MEMBERS:
Develop after kids go to bed, or during nap time.
Block time into your calendar or schedule.
Include children in spiritual practices.
If you wake up often in the night, meditate in that brain state.
Ask your partner to give you time in the evening to connect.
Take a few minutes here and there to connect or meditate.
Turn your career into spiritual development.
Know: I'm okay that I can't be consistent, and I know that spirit doesn't judge me.
LINKS
Join us on the new FREE Spirit School platform for Sitting in the Power (of You!) week: https://myspiritschoolcollective.com/plans/
Join the Spirit School Collective: https://www.squamishmedium.com/spiritschoolcollective
Enjoy the Show?
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Spiritual Development in the Spirit School Community Online
Hello, Spirit School listeners. Welcome back to another episode where I talk about how we carve time out of our busy lives for spiritual development. I use spiritual development to encompass personal development, mediumship development, psychic development, animal communication development. It all fits here. But this is something I get asked about a lot and it's really incredible conversation we have been having in the Spirit School community, the free community for my podcast listeners, which has been, at the point I record this, open for six weeks. And we have almost 600 people who have decided to join. We've already done a whole week of classes for connecting with your spirit guide. And by the time that this airs we will have just done are Sitting in the Power week. I'm really excited about that.
Creating Time for your Spiritual Development
So, it's a really engaged community. And just a couple days ago, literally two days ago, I asked this question on the community. For those that are focusing on development while parenting children and/or in full-time careers, what do you do to carve out time and space to commit to your development? The responses were overwhelming. In less than two days, we have over 40 people who have shared their experiences and their advice. And holy, what an inspirational thread. I'm gonna be sharing a few of their examples later on in the podcast episode. But I thought that this would be a really fun topic to jam on here for Spirit School today.
Starting Mediumship Development and Maternity Leave in Canada
So, of course, if you know me at all, you know I'm gonna be starting by sharing my own personal lived experience on this topic, and why I feel it's a really valuable conversation to have in this space. When I first started developing, when I first became aware of my mediumship abilities, my daughter was only a few weeks old, my first child. In Canada, we get a year maternity leave, paid. Some of us get a portion of our pay. Some of us get all of our pay. That depends on the company we work for. I was blessed to work for a company that gave us a hundred percent of our pay and take a whole year off. And now that's actually 18 months, by the way, in Canada. The second, of course, I come back after my second mat leave, they extend it even longer. But I was very blessed. So, I wanna honor and recognize the privilege that I had within my first year of mediumship development, that I had a lot of space. And I had a really good sleeping baby. She is still to this day. She's almost nine years old. And she is an incredible sleeper.
Spiritual Development while the Baby is Napping
In those really early days of development, I would squeeze in my development practices, which I'll explain in one second what that looked like, during her naps, when she was sleeping while my husband was at work. Because if you've been listening long enough, you know that my husband has not always been supportive of me on the development journey, only because he doesn't understand it. Still to this day, nine years in, he doesn't really understand it, but he loves it all the same.
Meditation Practices and the first Four Years of Mediumship Development
So, what that looked like for me is, you know, I was developing mediumship. My teacher didn't talk really about sitting in the power because she was a student of Yogananda's. She had her own meditation practice that was very sacred to her, so we weren't really told how to develop on our own. We attended a class once a month, got a lot of exercise. So, I developed very differently than some people out there. I developed outside of Spiritualism, by choice. My guides definitely guided me to take this development path the way that I did. But what I would do, because I didn't really have a framework or a structure that was gifted to me as part of my first four years of mediumship development, because I studied under one teacher for four years, I just chose to call it sitting with Spirit. I would sit with spirit for 30 minutes a day. And I would sit on my bed, because I didn't have a big place and my spare room was my baby's room. And I would just tune into how I felt that day. I would just be like, what do I feel like doing today?
Guided Visualizations from Tony Stockwell’s CDs
And it might be like, Tony Stockwell. I used to have all his CDs. So, it might be listening to a Tony Stockwell guided visualization. I love his trans mediumship album, which you can actually get for free on YouTube now. Though, I do always recommend that you support these creators. So, if you can buy it off Tony, I think that's good energy. I think that's really abundant, but it is available on YouTube as well for people who that might not be so accessible for. But I would just simply sit. And sometimes I would close my eyes and I would just tune into the energy around me.
The Spirit Led Start to Working with a Pendulum
Sometimes I would pull out a pendulum, which actually happened during one of my bed sitting experiences. I sat there and I just focused on my breath and I placed some thoughts to my spirit guides. And one day I heard, take off your necklace and hold it up. And so I took off my necklace and I held it up and this thing started spinning out of control. Now, at this time I'd never heard of a pendulum. So, I started my big search and realized like, oh my God, spirit just showed me how to use a pendulum. And that was done without any intention to receive that wisdom or knowledge. It was just because once a day for 30 minutes, I would sit on my bed and I would either close my eyes and just focus on my breath, or I would do a guided visualization, or I'd pull out my oracle cards. Or I would journal. I would just spend 30 minutes dedicated to spending time with spirit, and that looked different every day.
Mediumship Development Practice can look Different for Everyone
So, some mediums and some teachers will say you need to have a dedicated practice that looks and feels the same. That does work for some people. Absolutely. It didn't really work for me. Much later on in my development journey, I realized that I have a really mind and the busyness of my mind is not comparable to that of an average person, so of course it makes sense that a lot of the techniques that were very commonplace in mediumship didn't necessarily resonate with me, and didn't really work for me. I kind of gave myself a permission slip to just play, to just sit and see what happens.
Asking my Guide for a Sign
So here's a couple things I used to do. I gave you a couple examples. Another one I used to do because I would be working with Skylar, trying to build my confidence in his presence in my life. And it would be, can you show me a sign of your presence? And for two years I would sit with that intention. Not every day, of course, but every once in a while, I would feel that pulling to do that. And I would simply say, can you show me a sign of your presence? And I worked with Skylar during these times to figure out what that was, and it took a little bit of time. Other times I would say to Skylar, can you show me things that can be validated tomorrow? And I would be really focusing on clairvoyance because my teacher was a clairvoyant and that's how they taught. I was really trying to force myself to be able to see like she saw. Still to this day, I'm not the most clairvoyant person.
Building Confidence Communicating with Spirit
I think that clairvoyance has been really cracking open in the past year and a half since I had a new guide, Joseph join my team, or at least my awareness of Joseph on my team in the past, probably about 15, 16 months. It has definitely strengthened, but back then, I would just be more relying on the thoughts that were coming in. And I would write down the thoughts. And then sure enough, the next day, when I sat for the 30 minutes, I would pull out my journal and I would start ticking things off that I could validate that I was shown the day before. Eventually two check marks turned into eight check marks, turned into 10 check marks. And the accuracy continued to improve over the years that I would do this, because I'd be working with spirit directly on building my confidence around how they communicate with me.
30 Minutes per day for Spiritual Development
So it was very simple for me in the sense where I just sat for 30 minutes and I just tuned in. I committed to that 30 minutes and I just checked in with myself on what I felt like doing that day. And I gave myself that permission to just follow my intuition and I had some incredible experiences doing that. And still to this day, I wish I kept up with the consistency of that, because I would say that most of the incredibly profound experiences I'd had with spirit and in meditation happened in those first two years on my bed, 30 minutes a day. That's it. No expectations, just playing, a very playful heart with it.
Asking Spirit for Evidence
And I remember one time I was going to take my baby to Costco, which is a big deal. It's a long drive and I was meeting a friend. And I remember, because I knew the day was gonna get busy, that I dedicated, kind of tricking my daughter and cuz she's such a good sleeper, I would just put her down a bit early. I knew that would kind of screw me for the car ride, but I was like, I'm gonna sit now. I'm gonna use my 30 minutes now. I remember tuning in and telling the world the spirit, I'm gonna be meeting my friend. Is there anything that you can give me that can be validated through her? And I remember connecting in with this spirit named Eddie. I don't get names now, as much as I used to back then. Long story, which is worth a totally different podcast episode, but I used to get names all the time.
Building Confidence with Spirit through Validating Messages
And I remember meeting her at Costco, and giving her a piece of information that came up earlier because she was one of the very few people who knew I was developing. And her family was actually the first family to ever sit with me for group reading on my second year of development. And, she said, no, I don't know what that is. And I said, well, who's Eddie. And she's like, that's my uncle, who is missing. And it was an incredibly profound experience. I know it seems quite minor, in hindsight, like when I'm telling it. But it's still, to this day, one of those times where I was like, wow, I just sat on my bed. I just told spirit I'm gonna meet her. Is there anything that you can give me for her? And of course they knew I was building my own confidence back then. Her mom and her family came and saw me and I was able to connect in with the spirit communicator a couple months later and just a lot of incredible experiences sitting on my bed for 30 minutes.
Keeping a Consistent Spiritual Development Schedule, Despite being Busy
So, as my year wrapped up and I went back to work, I went from being at home with a little baby, trying to figure out mommying because I had zero experience with babies, to being a full-time worker bee at a company I loved, doing work I loved. But it was two hours of commuting a day, plus eight hours at my desk. And I will say that I definitely hit a struggle with keeping up with that consistency, but I did carve out those 30 minutes a day for my first year back. I remember coming home and then putting my baby down at like seven or eight, and keep in mind I'm really tired. And I would tell my husband, I'm just gonna go to my room. Please don't bother me. Because we lived in a very small apartment back then and he would just kind of like roll his eyes.
Spiritual Development and Shifting Relationships
And this was a huge shift in our relationship as well, because we used to work together and we would spend every waking moment together. And then all of a sudden I became a mother. All of a sudden I became a medium. And then all of a sudden I preferred to spend time alone. And this is one of the things that has kept our marriage strong because even though we do not share interests anymore, even though we have values that are the same, we definitely see the world very differently. I'm the one that changed. He isn't. I stopped, a long time ago, expecting him to get on board with the personal and spiritual growth that I was interested in, and it works for us.
Alignment in Relationships and Spiritual Development
I think this is really important to say. I see it all the time online, not so much anymore, cause I don't spend as much time online and I've really cut back the noise in my life, in the online space, but I see it often where people are like, you know, I've been growing, I've been developing and my husband just isn't interested in developing with me. And a lot of people see that as a sign of being out of alignment with one another. I just saw it very differently. I just saw, I fell in love with this man for this reason. He's still that man. I'm the one who's changed. So, it was almost like me having to give him a little bit more space and grace to learn how to accept the new me. And learn that, yes, I have changed, but I'm still the same person, and I'm still the woman you married. I just have a very different set of interests and different priorities now.
The Benefits of Dedicating Regular Time to Spiritual Development
So, I think that that's important to say along this vein of talking about this, but I did still have a very dedicated experience where I would spend that 30 minutes on my bed. Now it was easy to prioritize those 30 minutes because they were so magical to me. They really were. I can't run through all the experiences I was gifted, but some of them were so profound, I can still recall them at this moment, like they happened yesterday. So, it's easier to stick to something that you really see the benefits of, and I saw a huge benefit to that.
Mediumship Development in Person, Mediumship Development Online
I was still developing as a medium and what that looked like for me back then, because I had no awareness of the online space, or it was even possible to be online doing this, but I had a teacher that was a four hour commute away and we would go to her studio once a month for five hours. So, my mediumship development was really contained to five hours a month and we weren't really gifted anything outside of those five hours on how to really develop on your own. In my community, in my membership. though I'm working with all light workers, every week, there's an opportunity to sign up for practice sessions and stuff like that, because that's what I wish I had had. It took me four years of mediumship development and practice to be able to feel confident enough to step into the public space.
Mediumship Development in the Public Eye
My hope is I can create something a little bit different for people so they can expedite the timelines to what I had. I would hope that people, maybe within a year of development, feel confident enough to put themselves out there a little bit. We do represent the spirit world and we need to take our development seriously, and there are definitely a group of people who will just take one class and like set up a business. There's a lot of criticism against that, but I almost applaud that, because one thing I look back at, that I wish I did differently, I wish I was vulnerable enough to develop in the public eye. I admired so many people who were coming up with me, who really put themselves out there and they weren't afraid of not being seen as like one of the best. They just wanted to rock their abilities. And I always really admired that about people. And I think that you can develop publicly as well. And I think it's a blessing to have people come up with you and be able to see your growth and see you through the different phases of your evolvement, of your spiritual development. There's something magical to that as well. So there's a couple different thoughts on that as well.
Putting Spiritual Development on Pause during a Difficult Pregnancy
Things really shifted for me when I got pregnant with my second child. Things really started to shift for me. I was still in the closet, spiritually, and not out publicly. And the truth is I thought going into my second pregnancy that I would be closer connected to the divine, but that was the furthest thing from the case. I had to put almost my development on pause during that pregnancy, because I was so sick. Not only did I have some of the worst morning sickness I could have even predicted for myself, but I had incredible heartburn. I had severe migraines and I ended up in critical care. I thought I was actually gonna die, and I did have a near death experience during that pregnancy, when I was in intensive care. They didn't know what was wrong with me, if it was neurological or if it was hormonal. And they argued about it for days while I was on a respirator, while I had gone four days without sleep, while I had a migraine that was so bad, I didn't really wanna live anymore. It was the darkest I'd ever been to, and this was three years into my development.
Staying Committed to Spiritual Development Despite a Change in Consistency
Any kind of consistency that I had created for myself stopped during that pregnancy. I still did attend a Mavis Pitilla retreat, and I still did attend a Tony Stockwell retreat. I was still very committed to the development path. I still showed up for the classes every single month. I never took a pause or a break on any of that. But what I had personally experienced and the magic that I experienced in those first three years was gone I felt closer to mama earth than I did to the divine during that pregnancy. But I will say that my life changed after that experience of almost dying. They thought I had bacterial meningitis. They thought a lot of things were wrong with me and they still never found out what was wrong with me, to be honest with you. But I did spend, I think, about a week and a half in hospital, and recovering, and I never really fully recovered in that pregnancy. I ended up with gestational diabetes, insulin dependent. I mean, everything that happened could have happened. He was a preemie, but he was like a 10 pound preemie. It was wild. It was wild.
Deciding to Start a Mediumship Business
When I had him, my son, Nicholas, my little love, my whole life changed because I was faced with another year off, paid. And I knew what happened in that first year off. And I didn't take it for granted. And I said, I am not waiting anymore. I don't care. What's happened in the last eight months of this pregnancy. I'm not wasting any more time. I am a medium. I have been developing. I have done hundreds of practice readings and I'm not waiting anymore. And I decided to start my business January that year. I had my son in October, so I had to recover from my C-section and figure all that out. And I ended up finding another mom in town who would watch my baby son while I opened up my practice to the public. I would do readings four days a month, playing with my schedule. That's how I really started developing. I started developing through doing my public readings. I personally think that advancing mediumship, is actually doing the work. It's actually doing it.
Talking to the World of Spirit
I don't remember during that time having a set spiritual practice other than always talking to my guides. I just would always talk to the world of spirit. But I did have very limited time because I had a baby and a three year old and life was crazy. So, I chose to see my readings as my development. I was also really big into personal development at this time because that's when I started my Instagram. I attempted a YouTube channel many times. I just am not a YouTuber in any way. I did find myself really hard on myself around that time, about me showing up. And I always love to show people, in my business programs, the first ever appearance of Squamish Medium, and I love her. She is so freaking sweet. I had my son on my lap, no makeup, my hair a mess, in a t-shirt with no bra. She was just so pure and I'm so glad I chose to show up then, but I do remember having to start working through a lot of those fears of being seen.
Spiritual Development, Mediumship Development, Personal Development
So, my spiritual development that was mediumship development started to turn into personal development, and that became a real main focus for me. Back then, I was still not aware in any way, shape or form of anything happening in the online space. I never took any online courses. I had no awareness of that. I remember I used to live off of Hay House radio on my commute. I would listen to James Van Praagh and John Holland's show and Doug Fraser and Anita Moorjani, Radleigh Valentine. I loved Hay House radio. And so that's how I would spiritually develop was immersing myself in inspirational spiritual content.
Mediumship Readings as Spiritual Development
Doing my readings was the main part of my development, but I didn't really have a dedicated meditation practice, because if you know what it's like to have two children under three, you're just on all the time. My heart goes out to all the mamas out there. When I posted that question in the Spirit School community, it was mostly moms, and people who are looking to have children, who are looking for ideas and inspiration on how to make it work. And I'll be honest with you, when I was in it, I wasn't hard on myself. I wasn't even aware that not doing something every day would've impeded me in any way, shape or form, and therefore it didn't. I did what I could, when I could. And that's kind of what this podcast episode is about, is sharing what I did and sharing some of the ideas that came through my community, which is you guys, the podcast community, Spirit School. You guys can be inspired yourself on how you want to fit this in, if this is a priority for you.
Friction Around Scheduling Mediumship Readings
Now, there was never a time that I ever put my development on pause. I may have put my readings on pause because they take a whole different level of commitment out of my life. And that was a lot of the friction that happened in my family space was because I was working full time and commuting. The only time I would get to do readings, which was my development in advancing mediumship, and advanced mediumship is actually doing the work, I would have to do on evenings and weekends.
Creating a Schedule to do Mediumship Readings
That did cause a lot of friction and conflict in my marriage. And so how I managed that is I would tell my husband, I would look at a calendar with him and kind of, co-create a schedule, what makes sense. I develop on this Saturday. So, he knows I'm gone an entire Saturday dedicated to my mediumship development with that one mentor. And this was the last year I actually did that. And then I wanna do readings for a day or half a day. And so I would rent a little studio in town. It was called Pins and Peoples. It was a little group acupuncture studio. It was this really sweet lady who would rent it out for $20 an hour. And I was only charging $20 of reading, so I had never made any money off my sessions, because all that money went back into renting the space. And that was fine. I never have done this for money. I hope people know that about me and trust that about me. That's how I kind of managed squeezing it in.
Talking to Spirit by the River
And I would go to work a little bit early because work was on a river shore. And I remember just sitting at the river, talking to spirit for about 10 minutes before I would go into work. And those who have been following me on Instagram will remember those photos. I used to post on my stories, and even on my feed, about this little bench by the river. And I would just sit there and I would tell the world of spirit, I'm in your service today. How can I serve you? I'm gonna be sitting at a desk all day, plugging away to screen. And I know, I know I'm in for more. I can feel that within me. How can I serve you while I'm in this space? And I would leave that in Spirit's hands and I didn't do that every single day, but I do remember every time I would say that to spirit while I was on that bench, I would have an opportunity to be of service that day. I would have somebody approach me about something that I could help with, spiritually. I lived off that. I loved that. The truth is I never really contemplated leaving my career until much later, almost six years into my development, two years of having a mediumship practice on the side of my corporate career and parenting. And it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. I'm not telling you to hustle through it. Everything I did felt really flowy for me.
Balancing Family Life and Spiritual Development
The hard part was managing the family front and making sure everything in my marriage was fine. The thing about my marriage in this was my husband, bless his heart, didn't have his own hobby. And so he wasn't trying to create friction in our marriage because he didn't believe in what I did. I think there was a little bit of envy there with him. I've talked a lot about the difference between jealousy and envy. I think there was a lot of envy that he experienced in watching me really fall in love with something over the course of years. Like he saw me fall in love with mediumship. He saw me fall in love with development.
The Beautiful Unfolding of Spiritual Development and Family Life
And when we got to the root, years later, of what was what, that's what came. I just wish I had something similar. So we manage that in our marriage now where he actually spends two days, one full day and one evening, away where I am solo parenting, doing beach volleyball, because that's his passion. And I don't give him any gripes about it. And then now when I'm like, I'm gonna go meet a client in Malibu for a week, she's a client who's turned into a friend, we give each other that space now. And that has been really done through what we've had to walk through in my spiritual and mediumship development journey. It's been this beautiful unfolding. So, anyone out there who sees themselves of me years ago, this is where we're at now. And it's a really beautiful thing.
Deciding to go Full Time in my Mediumship Practice
So then 2020 happens, and I decide to go full time in my practice. And I truly believed God, this episode's making me so emotional going back, because I think it's really touching to see my own evolution, like speak to it again because man, you just, you just make it work. And I'm so happy with the way everything has been. I really, really am. So, when I thought I would open up my practice full time in March, 2020, three weeks before we went into lockdown. I did not see that coming by the way. I thought I would be doing in person readings, and that's what I had booked. I had pre-booked months of in person readings. And then we find ourselves in lockdown and I was locked down with two kids, a three year old and a six year old. Right. Those are not easy ages. Those are not, here's an iPad, go off with yourself, ages. Though those first few months were definitely the school of Roblox, definitely the school of YouTube, kids YouTube. because I went from full-time career in commuting to all of a sudden being a stay at home mom and homeschool teacher, to being a full-time entrepreneur.
Pressure in Pivoting Lifestyle and Business
If you could imagine the compiling of that pressure. It was unbelievable. And not only that, but I had to go to almost 50 clients, 50 clients, and say I'm not doing anything in person because obviously we're in a pandemic. I don't even think we were allowed to talk to neighbors back then. We weren't even allowed to play at playgrounds, like the playgrounds are blocked off, you know. I was literally stuck at home, and I said, look, I don't know when we can meet in person again, I'm just gonna offer you a full refund or you can choose to stay on my list and get first dibs at sessions when they open. And I'm happy to say that out of like 50 people, only two people asked for a refund, which really helped me out as a new full-time business owner and mom who just left the golden handcuffs of biweekly six figure tax-free pay and go into this. And it really did help me, but then I started going in the online space.
The Start of Online Mediumship Readings and Mentoring
So, I started doing online readings and online mentorship at the nudgings of my client. I didn't even think I would go that way, but people kept asking me for it. And I was like, yeah, I'll try it online. Let's see what happens. And then when I ended up in the online entrepreneurship space and the online spiritual entrepreneurship space, which kind of encompasses like the mediums and the healers and the coaches and the spiritual influencers.
The Pressure from other Online Spiritual Entrepreneurs and Influencers
Whoa. There was a lot of pressure out there. I remember seeing things from like really popular influencers and like really successful spiritual entrepreneurs. And they're like, I wake up at 4:00 AM every day before the family wakes up and I journal for hours and I meditate and I answer my emails and I'm thinking of one person in particular, can't remember her name but it's like social curator. And then I would follow these business podcasts and these spiritual business podcasts. And it was like, yeah, I do two hours of my self development before I even hop into my day I remember feeling so outnumbered. I remember feeling in such a deficit because that was not accessible to me. That was not attainable to me, at all.
Prioritizing Sleep over Consistency
And I remember seeing that in a lot of the online space, this story around consistency and being consistent and just making space for it. But we also know how important sleep is. One of the most important resources we have in this embodiment is sleep. So, I would choose a sleep in, because I have babies, over waking up two hours earlier to journal. Though, that does come up in some of the advice through the community and that works for other people. But I remember feeling that chasing feeling happened right away where I was like, oh my God, I'm not doing enough. And I think that that is one of the downsides about being online is seeing and being so exposed to how other people do it and how other people teach other people to do it. And then realizing what is really not attainable or accessible to us.
Feelings of Deficit and Feedback from the Online Space in Spiritual Development
I'm here to tell you, and I'm gonna say this a lot in future episodes. You are a whole person. You are completely whole. There is nothing in deficit for you. Okay? I think that there's a lot of noise in the online space that makes us feel in lack and makes us feel in deficit. I wanna be talking a lot about this stuff in future podcast episodes, but if you need to hear it from me now in this moment, you are whole, always. There's always going to be healing to be done and work to be done because we are here to evolve continuously and we don't only evolve through pain, but that is one of the ways that we change. And that's one of the ways we make necessary growth in our experience, if we choose. So in some ways you are always going to be healing something and looking at something, but you are still whole, and I need you to know that, okay. Because I know how noisy it is out there. And I know I myself have fallen into a lot of those traps. And I've gone through a lot of work in my practice to eliminate some of the noise.
Life and Spiritual Development Looks Different to Everyone
And I'm here to tell you that however you choose to dedicate whatever time you have to your personal growth and spiritual development is enough. Life is going to continue to look different for you and continue to evolve. More space may open. I know for people in the pandemic, I thought I was hooped. I was like, oh my God, I just left my job. I hope they'll take me back. Who's gonna wanna work with me now that some people don't have jobs and stuff. What's gonna happen? But then I realized that people working at home, they had actually more space and time for themselves. So, it was actually, on paper, the best time to have an online business and go from offline to online. I couldn't even believe my luck in the end, in hindsight, because people would carve me into their calendars and into their lunch breaks, for different classes and teachings that I would have. And it was incredible. I couldn't even believe it.
Fitting Spiritual Development into a Daily Schedule while Working from Home
This came up in the conversation on Spirit School as well in the community, because some people were like, since the pandemic I've been working at home, so I'm actually able to fit a lot of my development and my practice into my calendar and into my lunch breaks and into my regular breaks. And so it's really neat to see how something that could be seen so negative to us can actually turn into a little bit of a positive.
The Evolution of Practice in Spiritual Development
That's been the evolution of my own way that I've carved out my spiritual practice. So, now of course, I'm full time in my spiritual practice and my lifestyle is spiritual development. I consider everything that I do as part of my spiritual development and this part of my commitment to my spirituality. I show up and do lives on Instagram all the time. I have this free podcast. I'm very committed to. It's one of my favorite things. My membership community, I show up and teach there. I've taught hundreds of classes in the past two years. We just celebrated two years on August 1st together as a membership. So, I do consider a lot of that to be my development and how I carve out time.
An Example of Thriving and Succeeding while Doing Things Differently
Now I do still carve out sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes five days a week, sometimes seven, sometimes one, depending on how I feel, depending on what I feel spirit calling to me because I'm still the same person I was in 2013. I still sit with myself and ask myself one question, what do I desire in this moment? How do I desire to connect in with myself in this one moment? And I may choose to do a traditional sitting in the power. I may choose to sit in quiet and have a conversation with my guides. I may choose to do an energetic cleansing on myself. I may choose to smudge my home. It all counts. It all matters. It all adds up. And it all moves us towards where we want to go. I really wanna be a teacher that breaks away from systems and structures. I don't know if it's the Indigenous part of me that sees all the problems and the structures for people who carry a status card and stuff like that, where I don't know what it is about me. But I'm really committed to being an example of somebody who can really thrive and succeed, doing it a little bit differently. And so that's my invitation for you. That's my advice for you.
The Spirit School Online Community and The Initiation Mediumship Development Class
And so now I'm going to go into sharing, in sentence form, because I don't have direct permission to use people's names or their full paragraphs because they're very deep and personal experiences, but I have tried to summarize through certain sentences, some of the ways that the Spirit School listeners via the spirit school community, which hit the top link in the show notes if you want to join the community. It's perfectly free, no strings attached in Spirit School. It's an online platform that's off social media that houses my masterminds, my Initiation program, which the doors are officially open for The Initiation if you're interested in joining this eight week Mediumship Foundations Experience. It's done on that same platform. My membership is there. It's like a Spirit School house. It's incredible. I love it. And there's a lot of great content that you can already consume for free and engage in some of the conversations that have already been taking place. It's incredible.
Advice about Spiritual Practice from Spirit School Listeners
So, I'm going to summarize some of the advice and some of the things that our Spirit School listeners have tried to do to incorporate somewhat of a spiritual practice in their busy lives, too. Because for most of us who are not privileged and lucky enough to be doing this full time, and let me also say not everyone who develops, wants to do this full time either. And that is perfectly brilliant as well. It all works. And there's space for everything, but I really wanna pass on some of the things that our members and listeners have used to incorporate spirituality into their lives as well. So someone said:
they do everything after the kids' bedtime. That was me as well. Just nap times, bed times, carving it out.
One person said I carve out time and space through my calendar. I use block scheduling.
A couple people actually said, I include my children in my development practices. So some people use cards and singing bowls and they actually invite their children into their spiritual practices. I am gonna try this myself actually
One person wrote, I just naturally wake up between two and 4:00 AM. Maybe to go to the washroom, maybe to get a drink of water. And they'll just stop and sit for a time, while the monkey brain is asleep, and just choose to sit and meditate during that time. I am someone who wakes up like three or four times in the night. I don't know. I have the bladder the size of a hummingbird. So, I'm actually gonna try that myself. I do often have a hard time falling back asleep, so I might as well just try to sit and meditate during that time, and sit in the power.
Somebody says, I work from home, so I use my lunch breaks to meditate or do practice sessions. That was totally me as well.
Somebody said, I ask my partner for dedicated time each evening to connect. That was another thing that I shared through my experiences as well.
Somebody says, I gift myself just a few minutes here or there to meditate or chat with spirit. That is something that's new to me. If you listen to my spirit messages regularly, I actually participate in what spirit is bringing through in the spirit messages. And I actually have started. When I feel really busy and I feel overwhelmed. I can feel it. I feel like my energy's like 10 steps ahead of me, I will stop and I will take a breath and I will look up. And I will look beyond. And I'll be like, I am so grateful for my home right now. I am so grateful for all the windows that let all this beautiful light in. I am so grateful that I can see my children playing together from where I cook. And I just stop and gift myself like a minute or two to tune into my immediate surroundings and find joy within that one moment. And that has been really profound of an exercise for me. And I think that this is what this person is getting to as well.
Somebody else said, I turned my career into my spiritual development. Me too, me too.
Somebody else also mentioned, I'm okay that I can't be consistent, and I know that spirit doesn't judge me.
Getting Rid of Outdated Storylines in Mediumship Development
If there's a storyline that you are carrying, that your development has to look a very specific way, and that is making you feel like you're not enough, I'm here to say you should maybe question that pathway. That may not be a good fit for you. If we were even just to take mediumship development as an example, there are people who have successfully developed with no mentorship at all. There are people who are fantastic mediums who have never sat in the power. There are incredible mediums who have dedicated to a very structured path, through sitting in the power, demonstrating, in a very polished and structured duplicatable way as well. And there are people like me who have just kind of sat and waited to see what happens, and learned this language of spirit communication myself.
There’s No One Way or Better Way to Develop Mediumship
There's no one way that's better than the other. I think often we could get down on ourselves because we see other people do it so well, that developed a different way. I know that for me, that has been something that has come up. I'm like, oh my God. Some of these Spiritualist mediums are so mind blowing, like I wish I developed in that way. But the truth is, I'm a great medium too. And the way that I offer my mediumship, and the way that my sessions unfold, are exactly how the world of spirit wants me to show up and unfold and serve.
Looking at the Magic You Have in Spiritual Development
So, it's not looking around and seeing how other people do it and like, wish you had it. It's looking at the magic you do have, and that you do bring. And know that the world of spirit needs us all to be differently. We do all need to be different, and speak differently, and use different words, and tune into different aspects of people's lives and different messages that the world of spirit brings through. And some of us are not gonna be all love and light either. And some of us will be. And the reason for that is because we have 8 billion people on this planet and every single one of them can benefit from mediumship, because every single person on this planet will lose someone someday. Mediumship is just one of those things that is for everybody. Everybody could benefit from it. And everyone is so vastly different. And everyone resonates with very different things.
The World of Spirit Needs us All to be Very Different
The world of spirit needs us all to be very different. So I need you to be okay with how your soul is calling you to develop. And whether you get an hour a day or a minute, a day, it will all unfold as it should. And you will end up exactly where you are meant to be. And it's all just about what stories you have to share when you get there.
The Initiation Class: Mediumship Foundations
Now, if you are interested in mediumship development, I do run The Initiation only twice a year, and we are starting again in September. The way that I teach mediumship. Is interesting. I love the way I teach it. And I have seen hundreds of people find success through the way that I've structured The Initiation. I'm very aware of how everyone learned differently, because I was in adult learning. I do study how to support people through different neurodivergency, ADHD, understanding that there are some people who actually can't visualize and there are some people who only like to visualize. I understand that we all learn very differently. So. The way that I structure The Initiation is there is a self-study proponent, which is in your own time, through audio and video. And then there are five classes that we sit in together, that I custom create based off of the needs of the community that chooses to join, the needs of the cohort. And that's based off of the questions that you're asking. That's based off the conversations that I'm witnessing. And I custom create these classes to meet the need of the people who are in that space live.
Practice Sessions in our Mediumship Development
And then there's an opportunity to practice. Every single week, you are paired with two different people so that you can meet on Zoom, and that you can just practice what you have learned in a no pressure, no expectation way. I will tell you, it doesn't matter how many books you read, how many podcasts you listen to, how many classes you take, none of it will make sense, and none of it will integrate, until you do the act of mediumship, doing the work. And I have thrown people into readings who have been like, uh, I was so scared and I thought you were nuts, but I got something. I felt something. I saw something. And someone is able to validate it. So, there is method to my madness. This will be my seventh time running it, and I'm obsessed with it. I think that it is such a fun experience.
Further Details on The Initiation: Mediumship Foundations Class
I'm always messing around with the format. So, this format is going to be eight weeks. It's gonna be two weeks on one week off, one week on one week off, two weeks on. I know you might not remember that. And you're gonna have dripped content, so it's not overwhelming for you. Live calls, partner practice sessions And then, every Friday I'm gonna go live in the community to do a 30 minute Q+A. So you're fully supported through this experience. And it is truly something that you can take with you. Meaning the community will never close. That content will never be lost. So, you can actually not fall behind either. I try to be as trauma aware, and try to be as considerate and kind, in the way that I structure my things. I don't want anyone to feel like. Rushed through. Like I have to get through everything in these eight weeks. No, it's still gonna be here for you. The community will not be closing down. I used to give people a couple weeks after classes and archive communities when it was on Facebook. We're off social media now. You are in the house of Spirit School when you sign up for my programs. So that community will stay open for my lifetime, I suppose or the platform's lifetime. It's a nice way to learn. It's how I wish I was taught.
Sign Up for The Initiation, or Join the Waitlist for the Next Session
So, if you're interested in following spiritual curiosities and seeing if mediumship is something that is accessible for you, and I'm here to tell you, of course it is, come join The Initiation. I have not increased the price, and I have actually offered a few different pricing payment plans that are no penalty. So it's $888 for the experience, and you can split it into two or three payments that have no penalty attached to them. No financial penalty. So, I'm trying to do business in a very different way. I'm trying to do business in a very kind way. This is an experiment for me in the way that I launched The Initiation this time. I'm excited for this new cohort. I have, I think, 60 people already signed up for the wait list on this. And of course, if you're in my membership, you get the deepest discount. So that's all available there as well, but we're running it in September. It's gonna be eight weeks. I can't wait to see you there. And I will see you on the next episode of Spirit School.