Sitting with Spirit & a Guided Visualization
Podcast
Episode:
Spirit Messages: December 2022
by Danielle Searancke
This week, I am discussing “sitting with spirit” as part of my personal development practice. I talked about this in the episode about making time for your development, but this episode will be more in-depth. I am going to lead you through a guided visualization experience as an example of one way I sit with spirit. Even though I was aware of mediumship for most of my life, my development path didn’t start until my first mediumship connection. Sitting in the power is a foundational part of the Spiritualist tradition and teachings, but as I’ve mentioned before, it wasn’t sustainable for me. I need more flexibility in my practice, which is how I started sitting with spirit.
This is also why I teach The Initiation, my 8-Week Mediumship Foundations Experience, the way that I do. I provide a variety of learning formats, such as live classes, self-paced lessons, Q+A opportunities, community and practice readings. I want this path to be accessible to as many people as possible! Many alumni from this experience go on to join my monthly membership, the Spirit School Collective, so I have a special deal for 2023. For the first time, I will be offering an annual membership for $1111 USD and it will include The Initiation (a $888 USD value) for FREE! The cart for this will be open until we start on January 31st, so there is time to decide if this feels aligned for you.
I hope that what I share in this episode helps you to find a spiritual practice that fits your needs so that you can continue to expand on your path.
Episode:
Sitting with Spirit & a Guided Visualization
Spirit School Podcast
In this episode:
A sitting in the power practice will improve your mediumship and connection with yourself
Meditation and slowing down can be hard for some people
It can feel unsafe and cause discomfort to be present in the body
Spirit School is all about development that honours your humanity
I dedicated 30 minutes a day to my spiritual growth and sitting with spirit
I chose between meditation, oracle cards, and tuning into clients for upcoming sessions
I had a profound experience with Skylar that introduced me to connecting through pendulums
I would sometimes use my sitting with spirit time to listen to mediumship lectures
One of my claircognizant exercises is to journal things that can be validated tomorrow
I keep all of my development journals and can see the accuracy of the lists increasing
No matter which practice I chose, I always dedicated 30 minutes a day to sitting with spirit
When you care about it, you will make space for development
My goal is to make spiritual development accessible, so choose what resonates with you
It is a great act of self love to have space to tune into yourself, even for 30 minutes
Your sensitivity and connection to yourself and your intuition will increase
The world of spirit watches us and helps align things that match our intentions and actions
Wild spiritual experiences have followed after dedicated to sitting with spirit
Even when things get busy, I yearn for that connection and spend time sitting with spirit
This helps us to open our awareness back up to spirit when it feels like it’s closed up
Music can help busy minds to stay present when sitting in the power
Sitting with Spirit Visualization with music
LINKS
Initiation Waitlist: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/636318632d6246fc1453ca16
Join us on the new FREE Spirit School platform: https://myspiritschoolcollective.com/plans/
Join the Spirit School Collective: https://www.squamishmedium.com/spiritschoolcollective
Visit Spirit School at https://www.squamishmedium.com/ for all courses and upcoming programs
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Sitting with Spirit (with Visualization)
Hello everyone and welcome back to Spirit School. Happy to be here with another episode for you all. And on this one, I am going to talk about sitting with spirit. Now, I did do a podcast episode a few months ago. It was a co collab with the people who are in the Spirit School space. You're welcome to join the Free Spirit School Space. It's off social media. Link below. But I posed a question around, how do busy parents who have competing priorities, only a few generations of us have tried this whole have a career and raise a family and live in one of the most expensive times in our lives. How do we make it all fit? And like, how do we work it all? How do we follow our passions? And how do we, you know, fit it all in? How do prioritize it all? And I talked about, in that episode, how for me, one of the ways I was able to fit it all in was to carve out a little bit of time and space for myself to be able to do what I call sit with spirit.
Now, I will be doing at the end of this. So if you're driving or if you're somebody who listens on the go, I'll give you fair warning, I don't typically do this but I will be doing a guided visualization at the end, which is maybe, and I'm putting in air quotes, a traditional sitting in the power visualization and exercise. So we will be doing that at the end because when I talk about sitting with spirit, that is one of the things that I would do when I would be sitting with Spirit. But when I wanna talk about it, you know, from the lens of, for December, we really talked about a returning to love.
And I feel like this episode's really on theme with that. So, when I first started developing as a medium, I was very green to the development path of a medium. I was very aware of mediumship. I've been aware of mediumship almost my whole life. You know, I didn't realize growing up that my grandfather would attend Spiritualist churches. He was from Glasgow, he was from Scotland, so it was definitely, you know, part of his vibe without a doubt. I didn't find that till after he passed, but I wondered why I got gifted a book at my grandma's funeral from James from Prague called Talking to Heaven, which was a book by a medium. And I believe that was my first exposure. And then of course, you've heard many times in this podcast, John Edwards, like Sylvia Brown. Growing up I was obsessed with them. Most Haunted, Psychic Kids, Paranormal State. I was a paranormal investigator for years. I used to travel to the UK every year just to go ghost hunting.
Anything spiritual, I was all in. But I was very green about the dedication and devotion to the pathway of a developing medium or somebody who was interested in mediumship development. And of course, the teachers, and you know, when we look at modern mediumship from like a spiritualist lens, sitting in the power is probably one of the most foundational things that you could do for yourself in mediumship development. And I do agree with that. I think it's something that will definitely help you progress. And if at any time you're feeling lost on your development journey, if you just simply pick up a dedicated sitting in the power practice, you will probably see improvements. Not just improvements in your mediumship, but your confidence in yourself and the connection with yourself.
So there is absolutely a priority that people should consider when making a dedicated practice around sitting in the power. But if you're anything like me, you know, and you're somebody who struggles with doing what people tell you to do, of course I had to try to create it my own way and it worked really well for me. So that's how come I wanna share it more deeply within this podcast episode where some teachers were saying to me like, sit in the power every day. Sit in the power every day. But before I was fully aware of how my brain worked and didn't work, because of just the way our brains work, meditating for some of us, and even that sitting in the power, which is very akin and adjacent to traditional meditation, can be really hard for some people. Who, one don't know how to slow down. For two, for good reason, are not connected to their bodies. Because when you do things like sitting in the power and you sit in that presence, we're asked to sit in bodies that we may have been avoiding or have felt major discomfort around. And that doesn't always feel incredibly safe either. A lot of us operate at almost like a chaotic, highly functioning place as a trauma response, right?
So, I actually didn't realize how much healing was gonna be asked of me, or required of me, for things like sitting in the power because I didn't realize like why my body hurts every time I slow down. Like, why is my body screaming at me? Like, why does my back hurt? And why do I feel anxiety as like I feel my body? Because I hadn't worked through a lot of what I experienced with my body through my whole life. I think that I didn't get taught that and that was never, you know, expressed to me or acknowledged to me through any teachers that I've had. But it's something that I experienced, and I didn't understand it back then. But in hindsight, of course, the blessing of hindsight, 2020, I understand it a little bit better now, why I struggled focusing my mind, giving my mind something else to do, and being able to sit in the discomfort of my physical body and experience because I hadn't healed my relationship with it and what had happened to it.
So I want to be real about that because I do feel there's at least a dozen of you that will really resonate with that. Hopefully that helps, me being open about that. Because I found sitting in the power in a traditional way to be very uncomfortable for myself until I was really ready to sit in it, I carved out 30 minutes a day for what I called sitting with spirit. And I also think too, I am the type of person that can get bored quite easy, so doing something super repetitively when I'm kind of over it, it feels very forced and it feels like, I don't like doing things I don't wanna do. How about that? Is that self-indulgent? Probably. But I struggled with it.
So I had to find a way to do mediumship development in a way that honored my humanity as well. Right? So that's what we're talking about here. Development while honoring your humanity, and that's what Spirit School's all about. I'm just gonna plug here, The Initiation is starting January 31st. This will be my eighth round. I have a deal happening until January 31st that if you purchase a year long membership in the Spirit School Collective, you get The Initiation for free. Overall, it works out to be half off. It's over a thousand dollars savings. An annual membership is $1111, as angel numbers do. And the cost of The Initiation is $888. So not only do you save, I think it's works out to be like two months for free in the Collective, but you also get The Initiation for free. And if by some chance you want the deal and you can't make the January Initiation, you're welcome to take the fall one. I'm gonna be running it twice next year. So I just kind of wanted to say that because these are the kind of things that we go a lot deeper into, those type of programs.
So going back, I had to look at, okay, Danielle, how are you going to focus and prioritize your development in a way that feels genuine for you, but that also helps you progress along? So I created this thing just called sitting with spirit instead of sitting in the power. And I would dedicate 30 minutes a day to myself. And I know for so many of us, that's really hard to do. But you have to understand that this path, if it's your hobby, or if it's something that you're committed to, well, you gotta be committed to it. And I absolutely was. And I made a declaration to the world of spirit after my first mediumship connection, which my development journey did not start until after that mediumship connection, I made a declaration to the world of spirit, I am on this path and I am never leaving it again. And that devotion and that dedication has never wavered. And that was 10 years ago now. Okay?
So I started doing what I call sitting with spirit, and I would dedicate 30 minutes a day to my spiritual growth. And I would allow myself to feel into what I felt like doing that day for my spiritual growth because I had a whole toolbox available to me. And yeah, one of the things was sitting in the power. Now before I learned to guide myself through sitting in the power, I would listen to my teacher's sitting in the power of visualization. And then once I realized that I wasn't very clairvoyant, because she was a clairvoyant, I was like, why isn't this working for me? It wasn't until I understood the feeling of being in the power that I was able to lead myself through a sentient experience with it, which made it more accessible for me. So when I'm gonna guide you through a sitting in the power at the end of this episode, I want you to keep that in mind. The way that I'll be describing it is trying to be accessible to people who may have a harder time visualizing. Every time I run The Initiation, I can't name the condition, but there is a condition where people cannot visualize. And so I try to also focus on that very sentient experience as well.
So sometimes I would just pop on my teacher sitting in the power recording and I would do that because that was 30 minutes long. Sometimes I would just pull out my oracle cards. And I would give myself a little reading and ask some questions. Or I would play a little bit of a clairvoyant game that's in The Initiation. And one of the pre-work, for clairvoyance, I talk about, like, I would have the cards down and I would have two down. I would put my hands on them and I would try to like sense or visualize what was on the other side of those cards. And that for me was actually humbling because I was only about 50% because I really didn't understand the discernment then about spirit's vision versus my own inner world vision, right? Like my own third eye versus like a spiritual impression. It took me years to learn to discern the difference between my impressions and spirit's impressions. For me, clairvoyance took the longest and I'm happy to say now it's like, it's on. It's on. It's open. It works. But I'm 10 years in.
And sometimes I knew I would be doing a practice reading the next day. I used to squeeze them in at work and I would try to convince a colleague to like sit for me, and it was usually one colleague. So I would use the opportunity to just pull a few cards, like, can I get some inspiration? I'm gonna be talking to this person tomorrow and I'm hoping to get some inspiration on what might, you know, transpire. And I would do things like that. And I remember one time I was doing a sitting in the power and I heard Skyler, in his voice, like, Skyler has a very distinct voice in my head. That sounds so crazy. All skeptics out there like, are you nuts? But Skylar had a very prominent voice in my experience and I heard him say one time, take off your necklace and hold it up. and I was wearing this beautiful necklace that had blue tourmaline on it. I've talked about it on the podcast before. It's called the medium stone, and it's a very hard to find true, genuine blue tourmaline. It's very expensive.
But I had this beautiful necklace and I held it up in front of me, and this thing just started spinning, like just started spinning around and around and around. And the feeling that I got while this necklace was spinning was a spiritual experience in itself. And I realized I was like communicating with Skylar through it, like I was asking questions and it was moving and it was like spinning so hard that it was like literally almost like a propeller on a helicopter.
And that to me was probably one of my first incredibly mind blowing, brought me to my knees spiritual experiences. And not just because the necklace was spinning, but also because of the feeling, the sensation that I got, the overwhelming sense of love that enveloped me while I was having this experience and realizing like, wow, we don't just have to talk in our minds. Like you actually talk to me in other ways. And so of course after that experience I was hitting up Google as one does. And I'm like, what does it mean when your necklace is spinning? You know, trying to Google what had happened for me. That's when my awareness around pendulums started coming up and I went on a whole journey about pendulums and that came part of my sitting with spirit too. It became an option for me.
I also would listen to lectures. You know, when you have like a newborn baby and you have a husband that's like, like really your best friend, especially back then we were in very similar careers working with race cars, and a passion for motor sports, there wasn't a whole lot of like time to talk about spiritual things or absorb spiritual things outside of my sitting with spirit sessions. And so I would take this opportunity to just like lay my head on the pillow and put on like a Gordon Higginson lecture, who was like a phenomenal spiritualist teacher at the college, the AFC, arthur Finley College. He was a very prominent teacher there, and as was his mom, I believe as well. And I just loved listening to his lectures and Gordon Smith lectures. The, they were the two main mediums that I listened to, um, in my early years of developing. So my sitting with spirit, I might just put one of those on and just like listen to mediumship content. Right?
I would journal. One of my favorite development exercises, which is actually in the claircognizance lesson in The Initiation, it's one of the exercises in that module. I remember sitting with Spirit. No one told me how to do this. I just kind of did it because I was so skeptical and I was trying so hard to understand how Spirit was communicating with me. I would just simply say, you know, can you show me some things? And keep in mind, my teacher was clairvoyant. So back then everything was see, see, see, see I wanna see, see, see. And I couldn't see very much and it wasn't very accurate for me. But I would sit there and I would say, can you show me things that can be validated tomorrow? And I would make a big old random list. And it was a very random list. And then the next day I would look at my journal and I would tick or X things that were validated or not. And I did this very regularly, multiple times a week, for at least three years.
And the funny thing is, going back through some of those old journals, because I still have every development journal I've ever written in. I keep every single one of 'em. I don't know why, but I love going back to them. But as I was reflecting and looking back on them, it's crazy how the accuracy increases. Like at the beginning, only one or two things on my list of 10 to 20 things I would be able to place. But then as I started wrapping up my journey with that way of developing, it was like, you know, almost everything would be checked off. And it was actually a really good way for me to gauge my progress and kind of celebrate my progress as I went along. I would just do like different clairvoyant exercises.
So, I would do these sessions sitting with spirit. So again, just running through the list in quick form, I would just allow myself to feel into what I felt like doing. That would either be playing with Oracle cards, sitting in the power in the traditional sense, guided meditations, pendulums, listening to lectures, journaling, validation exercises, right, that journal exercise, clairvoyant exercises. And I would always dedicate that 30 minutes a day. That was an unbreakable deal for me. And I think that, you know, I really accredit a lot of the development I had to that dedication and devotion I had for myself, right? I know it's hard because even now it's like, when do you fit in 30 minutes? I get it. But it's just something that, when you care a lot about it, and it really is part of your path, you will make space for it. Okay.
Now some of the benefits of sitting with spirit or doing something like this. And again, if you're sitting with spirit is just purely sitting in the power, perfect. That, you do you, right. You do what works for you. That's what this episode's about. It's like the development path is one. You can hear a bunch of different teachings and philosophies, but you have to discern for yourself what resonates with you and what is accessible to you. And that's what I'm hoping to create within this episode is accessibility around mediumship and spiritual development. So, some benefits from giving yourself space to do this is, you know, self-love. It's a great act of self-love. To be able to give yourself the space to tune into self. And even just giving yourself 30 minutes is an act of self-love. And trust me when I say that there's a lot that can happen when you give yourself the same or similar love and generosity that you give other people.
It helps you build a connection to yourself and your intuition. Your sensitivities will increase. No matter how you sit with spirit, your sensitivities will increase. I also believe that the world of Spirit watches us. I do believe that they, because we have so much free will here, I do believe that they watch us and they see our intentions, and they help align experiences for us that are in alignment with our intentions and actions. And so I can say that anytime I've really dedicated to sitting with Spirit, what follows the weeks, months after is like this almost like steamrolling of wild spiritual experiences that I love.
And still to this day, life gets really busy because I have hundreds of clients now and my programs are quite, quite big. And you know, things have really taken off and life gets busy and sometimes the business kind of takes over a little bit. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm just yearning to like connect with spirit, and feel them and hear from them and get their signs from them. And I know that all I need to do is just even for a week or two, just dedicate to sitting with spirit. And sure enough, every time, within a couple weeks, I have a couple weeks of profound spiritual experiences and they let me know that they're listening. We see your intention. We see the work that you're doing, and here we are. You can sense us now. Because I also don't believe that the world of spirit necessarily like comes and goes, like in the sense where I think that they're always accessible to us, but I think that it's not so much spirit stepping back as it is our awareness closing up, right?
So doing things like sitting in the spirit helps open up your awareness. And with the opening of that awareness, you get to sense what's around you, which is your spirit team. So that's a benefit of dedicating to a sitting with spirit session, right? And mind blowing spiritual experiences. So it is worth it, and I will say that I'm very happy every time I dedicate that time to sitting with spirit. Okay, so now I'm going to guide you through a bit of a visualization. So if you're in the car or you're walking, just pause here and come back to it, if you feel called to sit in the presence of spirit, in the presence of your own spirit. I think for people with busy minds, sometimes doing sitting in the power with a little bit of subtle background music can be helpful to stay present and connected into. So you're welcome to do a visualization. I will say that in The Initiation I have this visualization or one similar to it with and without music, because that's totally personal preference. But for today, we are going to be using some beautiful music to be able to expand.
So, I'm just gonna ask you to find yourself comfy sitting up in a chair or a meditation chair, but you'll definitely wanna sit up for this type of visualization. And I'm gonna ask you to slowly tune into your breath. Become aware of the breath. Become aware of the inhale and exhale.
And with every exhale, I want you to surrender deeper into your seat, releasing any tension in the body. You get to do your breaths at your own pace.
And with the next deep breath in, I invite you to gather up any ruminating thoughts in your mind, any busyness of the brain, and just gather it up with the breath. And on your next exhale, you release it out into the space around you. Just be absorbed by the light that surrounds us all.
And with this last deep breath in, I want you to gather up any remaining tension in your body. And with a dramatic exhale, you drop your shoulders, you loosen your hands and your feet. And you just find comfort in the surrender of being in your seat.
I'm gonna act you to activate a smile on your face and think of something you're incredibly grateful for in this moment. This is one of the quickest ways to lift your spirit and awaken the spirit is to sense that gratitude, and put a smile on our face. And as you did that, you likely felt your heart already expand, the seat of our soul.
So we're gonna tune into the heart space and that natural expansion that occurs as we tune into gratitude.
And I just want you to focus all your breath on breathing in and out of the heart space. Though you've already felt a shift energetically around this space, if it's accessible to you, I invite you to visualize a beautiful light that resides in the heart space. Whatever color light you see is a gift from your soul.
Don't overthink it, but what we're going to do is really connect and tune in with the space of our body, and the energy that surrounds it, and we're gonna work on expanding it. So if you're sensing things, you're gonna work on expanding, the expansion of the heart and the energy that comes from it, to move all around your body.
And if you're seeing this expansion as a light, you're watching as this light moves around every inch of your body, covering your shoulders and your neck and your head. Your arms and your forearms, and your hips. Your feet, your ankles, your shins, your calves, your knees, your thighs, your seat, your sacral.
I'm going to give you an extra second here so that you can make sure that every piece of your body is just wrapped in this energy and this light.
And when you feel that connection, and you feel like you are surrounded by your own light, we're gonna focus on moving this light out, and this energy out, in all directions.
So with every exhale, we are pushing this light out in all directions, expanding like a sun.
And I'm gonna leave you here for about 30 or 40 breaths to expand your light, expand your energy.
Some things you may experience as you're expanding are tingles, maybe a little bit of a cobweb feeling somewhere on your body, potentially a heart quickening, and excitement.
And if at any time your mind wanders, I invite you to tune in back to the breath, back into the light. And inch by inch, with every exhale, we move our energy, we move our light in all directions until it expands far beyond the four walls in which we sit.
Now, at this point in time, you are in full expansion. And what I invite you to do is simply sit in this energy that you have just created. Just be one with this power, with this light, with this expanded energy. And a gentle reminder, if at any time your mind wanders, you simply return to the light in the heart, and lose yourself in this light, and become one with it. And I'm gonna leave you to sit in the power for a few moments here.
If there's any tension in your body, I invite you to drop your shoulders and surrender into your seat again. Connect in with the heart space. Be aware of the power that surrounds you, and is you. And enjoy being with this energy.
I am gonna ask that this time, as you've been able to sit in the power for a few moments here, I invite you to start paying attention to the in breath, the inhale, and just allowing this power that we have created together to fill us with every in breath. Fill us with light. Fill us with love. Fill us with Divine Connection, as we start to bring our auras back in through the in breath.
So, much like when we expanded with every in breath inch by inch, we are calling our aura back. We are calling our power back. We are filling our physical experience with this power.
For those of you who are visualizing, you can watch as this light starts to come back within the heart space. If you're working more sentiently at this moment, I just want you to feel how it feels as you call back this energy.
And just feel if you're sitting up taller, if you feel like your nervous system is calmed, all the beautiful benefits that we get when we sit in the power.
And at this time, I want you to visualize and be aware of this light just being a few feet out from your physical body and watch as you draw this light back in, bringing the power back within through every in breath. You might notice the light has changed color, or maybe for you it's been the same.
There's definitely a message there within the color that appeared to you, that I invite you to maybe journal on.
And I want you to choose how expanded you leave today. You have an opportunity to bring your aura in tight if you are going to be having a busy day interacting with people and just visualize it being expanded around your body. Or if you're going to continue to do some spirit work today, I invite you to leave it out a bit further. It's up to you.
And as you take your last few breaths, calling your power back and drawing that light back within, much like how we started, I ask you to activate another smile on your face, thinking of maybe just the few minutes that you just gifted yourself, and what a privilege and honor that is to give yourself these minutes. Tune in to a higher quality breath, to start to awaken your body and bring yourself fully back into your space.
And at your own pace, taking five high quality, deep breaths in. And as you exhale, you start to move in your seat, awakening the body, maybe rubbing your hands on your thighs. Another deep breath in. Maybe moving your neck and shifting in your seat.
And with your next breath or two, I ask you to bring in all this energy and move it through your body and through the bottom of your feet, connecting you into the space, into Mother Earth.
And as you start to slowly open your eyes, before you look at anything else, I ask you to look to your left, scanning what is around you to your left. And slowly moving your head to the right, taking in your surroundings, doing that a couple times. Moving your head to the left, scanning your room, taking it all in. Looking to the right.
And that completes our sitting today. That was only about a 15 minute sitting in the power sitting, so very quick. I hope that you feel a little bit more peaceful, after you conclude this. I hope that you are able to experience something, whether it was a cobwebby feeling, that's what I always experience as I tune into my spirit and let it soar. I hope that you're able to see how sovereign this activity is and how sitting in the power and learning how to expand your aura and bring it back in will teach you on energetic sovereignty and how in control of your energetic experience you actually are. And just know that using a very similar technique of expanding my aura and bringing it back in is exactly how I move through my life. I get to choose how expanded I am or if I wanna bring it back in to preserve a little bit more. And to me, this is one of the biggest gifts of sitting in the power, is that sense of energetic sovereignty.
So, if you enjoyed this, this is just a little bit of what we do in The Initiation Eight Week Mediumship Foundations Experience. I will say too, that if you have already taken it, I do offer alumnis to rejoin The Initiation for $222. I usually have a few alumni come back because it's quite an experience. There is a self-study portion to The Initiation, which is like a 40 video module that gets released every week. You get four or five videos every week of the experience. We also do five live classes, which is more responsive classes based off of what the participants are currently experiencing in their sessions. So those are custom created classes every single round, which is why a lot of alumnis come in because they get to learn different things. And of course, as I move through mediumship, I learn different things. So every round I'm talking about different things. And then of course, there's the practicality of two practice partner pairings a week, because that's where your biggest growth is going to be, is going to be in session doing the work. And so I provide a safe playground for people to play in when it comes to figuring out their own connection with spirit, their own language with the divine, and their own mediumistic abilities within.
So I've really enjoyed sharing the content within this episode. I've hope you've enjoyed listening to it. Do let me know via Instagram or come into Spirit School and let me know, and I wish you the best. Have a good day.