Intuitive Channeling Unveiled: Stephanie Banks' Journey through Psychic Connection, Dementia and Death

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Grief 2 Growth. If you're joining us for the first time, let me let you know who I am. I'm Brian D Smith. I'm your host. And on this podcast, we explore topics to help us grow through grief. We talk to experts, authors, and individuals who offer a different perspective on life, death, and the afterlife. And we aim to provide a safe space for you to navigate your own journey. Whether you're grappling with grief from a job loss, a divorce, an illness, or the passing of a loved one, this is a place for you. Today we have a really extraordinary guest. Her name is Stephanie Banks. Banks. Stephanie is an intuitive channel. She's a mentor, and she's a guide who bridges the gap between our physical world in the spiritual realm. She doesn't just channel messages from humans, but also connects with the energies of trees, animals, and even our very own planet Gaia. She's the author of the best-selling book Joining Joni: Staying Connected to Your Loved Ones Through Dementia and Beyond. And she's hard at work on her second book chronicling her spiritual journey. If you've ever questioned the power of intuitive gifts, you might have seen her TED Talk, I Am an Intuitive Channel, which I watched recently. And we were just laughing about how it's been flagged by the TEDx people, because it's from the materialist mindset, but it's a great talk. And today we're going to dive deeper into the fascinating world of intuitive channeling. We'll explore how it can be a vital tool for soul-level connection and for healing. So Stephanie, welcome to the Grief to Growth podcast.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to see where our conversation goes.

Yeah, I'm really excited about having you. This is actually very personal for me. My wife's parents have gone through dementia. Her father passed from dementia. I think it was 12 years ago now. We're going through it currently with her, with her mother, who's in the kind of the later stages of it. So it's, I know what it can feel like to feel like you're losing someone. So start by telling us about Joni and your relationship with her.

Hmm, my mama Joni, we had a great relationship and also not without its own complexities. So as you know, the parent-child relationship has many layers to it. And growing up, when I was younger, my mother struggled a lot with mental illness. So I have that to thank actually for my ability to be really attuned to energy, because in order to live in a family when someone is struggling with mental state and mental illness, sometimes people develop very well-honed intuitive skills to be able to understand what they're walking into when they come home from school, or when they wake up in the morning in order to prepare and predict and manage harmony. So, so I had that in the background with my mom. And then she developed a form of dementia that affects younger people. It's called frontotemporal dementia. It's not Alzheimer's, so it's not as well known. But she started developing symptoms of it when she was in her 50s. And it wasn't for quite a few years that they even accurately diagnosed it. So for a long time, we thought it was just more of her depression or anxiety that was surfacing. And so wasn't getting any proper interventions to help it. At the time, there weren't great interventions anyways, but at least knowing what she had would have been very helpful. And even though I was trained as a speech-language pathologist and I had a lot of clinical experience working with people with cognitive disorders, um, it was really hard for me to apply that with my mom. Because it's a different relationship and there's emotional components to it. So I was finding that our interactions and our conversations were incredibly frustrating for both of us, and we were really disconnected. I needed to find a way to stay connected to her that transcended verbal communication, since that was becoming less and less of an option for her. And that's when I learned to connect through the soul.

Yeah, so you met someone, it was Jennifer, I believe, right, that led you to connecting through the soul. So tell me about that.

Yeah, Jennifer was, is my best friend. She's on the other side now, but she helps me very much with my channeling work. And she's the first person that showed me that it was possible to transcend the three-dimensional connections and go to the soul and the heart of things. And I met her because we just had children in the same preschool class, and we instantaneously fell in love with each other in terms of friendship, of course, and we had a lot in common. And she was a channel, and I asked her after seeing her channel for so many different friends and souls, I said, could you please help me with my mom? I don't know what she needs from me. I don't know how to be a good daughter in this stage of her life. And right now, it's not only dissatisfying, but it's deeply sad. And she channeled my mom for me, and I got to understand that, what her soul needed, why it was in this part of her journey, what she was gaining from it, and how I could join her.

Wow. So let's— for people that might not know, because the word channel carries a lot of misunderstanding and sometimes some negative connotations. So what does channeling mean to you?

To me, it simply means connecting to divine energy. And we are divine energy. So a lot of people think you have to go outside of yourself in order to make those types of connections in the spiritual world or with your divinity. But no, it's, it's within us. So what's required to channel clearly and well is to keep yourself— to take really good care of yourself, basically, your, your self-care is absolutely foundational. And that's what allowed me to tap into what my soul, what my mom's soul wanted to communicate to me so that I could help pave her path of greater ease during the last years of her life.

Yeah, and we hear about channeling, and we hear about connecting with souls that are on the other side. We don't often hear about connecting with someone who's still in the physical. So when did you realize that was even possible?

When I met Jennifer, she's the first— yeah, she's the first person that showed me there are no limits here. You know, mediumship is what it's called when you connect to people, you know, souls on the other side. And channeling is what it's called when you're connecting at the soul level, and it can be any soul anywhere. And so, and that's now my, my jam, my zone of genius, I suppose, is connecting to the souls that are here on the planet. There's so much that we could be understanding that would make all of our lives and relationships so much smoother, so much more deeply loving, if we peel away those layers of what we do in personality and go right to the spirit. Wow.

I heard you say that, you know, with— because your mother's mental illness when you were younger, it seemed to help you develop this intuitive side. I heard that from— I've heard that from a lot of people who are mediums, they end up being professional mediums. It's like, this part of us is almost forced to develop, I think, when we're living with that, that uncertainty. Is that been your experience as well?

Yeah, I think that for me, I really needed harmony. And when there's dissonance and disconnection and unpredictability that can come from mood disorders and any other type of mental illness, really, a child will do what they need to do to take care of, of themselves. And I really needed to feel, of course, loved, and to have harmony in the home. So I learned to predict by reading the this very subtle changes in energy from my mom, because everybody kind of calibrated to her. Everybody in the family calibrated to what was going on for her. And so if I could figure out how to do that, or how to make her laugh to bring her out of a funk, to help things, you know, help bring levity to situations, I learned to do that really well, too. So it might have been steer clear, or it might have been move in and bring some humor to the situation. There's lots of options. But yeah, I definitely feel like it was born out of necessity to protect my, my own emotional state and space. And I'm using it really well now as an adult.

Yeah. So do you— I have to ask you, when it comes to that, do you believe that this is like your soul path? Or was this something that was planned for you to go through these experiences?

I definitely believe it's my soul path because it's what I'm walking. But I don't know that I totally believe in this predestiny, you know, idea. I think that we have free will, and we apply it in all areas of our lives. And that can really change the trajectory of everything. So we do have a lot of agency, I believe, over the direction our lives take and the people we're in relationship with. I also believe, though, that I chose my parents on some level, and, and, and the gifts that I've received from being their daughter and being in that family dynamic are assets to my soul.

When it comes to, um, dementia, I, I think, as I was telling you, I've been through it a couple times with, with my in-laws, and one of the questions I think a lot families have is like, what happened to my loved one? Are they still there? Are they still in there somewhere? What is going on? So what's your, what's your impression of what's going on? And maybe what's the relationship between the brain and the soul or the spirit or whatever we call that, that other part of ourselves?

Hmm, it's such a good question. And we can't really say for sure. But what I believe is that even though the clinical aspect of dementia shows that the pathways in the brain are disconnecting, breaking apart. There's not that ease of synapses and connections that we are— that we rely on. Even though that's going on, that person's spirit is still very much present and available, and their heart and their ability to love and feel love. And so we, we do tend to feel— those of us who are on the outside of it, observing tend to feel that we're losing our loved ones, because what we've come to understand of their personalities and their preferences, and really all aspects of them up until that point has been in a certain way, and now it's very different. And personality changes are common. And so too are, you know, anger, and sometimes rage and mood. And seemingly, it can look like the person is spacing out, you know, like they're not there. But I do fully believe that they are there. They're just not engaged in the same way, but that doesn't mean they're disengaged. I found with my mom that even when she couldn't communicate clearly, we could still laugh about things, and we could still have a deep connection. I could squeeze her hand and communicate so much in that touch that transcended the need to say, I really love you, Mom, and I'm here for you, and I'm going to help you and support you. So it changes for sure. But it's not I don't want anyone to think that their loved one isn't there. Because what happens then is we start to disconnect as a self-protective mechanism. And that's so painful. And it's unnecessary.

Yeah, that, that's a really good point. I like to explore that a little bit more. Because there, there is that time. And I was just thinking that the heartbreaking time it comes to when they don't recognize us anymore. When they don't, they can't call our name, they don't know who we are. So I know you went through that with your mother, with Joni. How did that feel to you?

Hmm, I'll never forget that moment. We were driving home from an appointment. And she turned to me, I was driving, she turned to me in the car. And she said, why do people keep referring to you as my daughter? And I had been mentally preparing for that moment, because everybody knows that's a component of dementia is the person not recognizing your role with them, your relationship to them. And I had this split-second moment where I had just a few options. I could reorient her and tell her, I am your daughter. And if I did that, I would have risked our connection, because she would have felt likely embarrassed, humiliated, confused, perhaps scared. I also had the option to start crying, which is essentially what I wanted to do. And that also would have been very confusing for her. And I was driving, so not such a safe option. But what I opted to do, the third option I can think of at the moment, was I took a breath and I said to her, what does our relationship feel like to you? Because if I could get at who I feel, who I am in her feelings, then I'm happy to take on whatever she says that relationship was. And thankfully, she said to me, well, you're my best friend. That's how you feel to me. And I thought, I just got a promotion. Yeah, that's amazing, right? I went from daughter with all of its stickiness to best friend. With all of its like wonderful aspects. And I went with it. And that's my whole point when I teach people how to interact with their loved ones with dementia. Wherever you can find to join them, do. It's worth it. You don't— you know what's the reality for you, but you don't always have to correct them or to, or to re, you know, reconnect them to, to the factual things. They're one, just going to forget it again. And two, it can be very disconcerting to to hear that when you're in a different space. And my mom thought I was her best friend, and I'm fine with that.

Yeah, I think that's such a, a beautiful story, and there's so much, so much in there for, for us, because a lot of times, again, we're trying to always reorient them— no, this is the fact, this is the fact— and as you said, that can be confusing and scary and actually fracture that relationship. And just to interject something personally, the same similar thing happened with my father-in-law and my wife. You know, she was there one time, and he's like, I don't know who you are, but you look like a friend. And I thought that was— and she took it as a really beautiful moment too, because, you know, he knew the connection. He just didn't know the relationship.

Yes. And that's a beautiful moment. Yeah.

So when, when Jennifer started channeling your mother, and telling you what was, what was your mother's soul saying to you? What were some of the messages that she was giving you?

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One of the things she was saying was I should really stop taking myself so seriously and stop trying to manage everything for her, which gave me a lot of breathing space because I had been heavily managing. I was very involved with recruiting caregivers for her, and that's that's a journey in and of itself when you're interviewing people and, you know, some are a great fit and others you just think maybe find a different job because this is not your calling. So, and also it's scary to think about leaving a loved one with another adult when your loved one can't clearly communicate. It's kind of like finding a babysitter when your children are very young and can't tell you when something's wrong or something's happened. So I really wanted to make sure that everything about my mom's experience was loving and safe and positive. And her messages to me were, you know, let, let go a little bit here. Thanks for what you're doing. Keep, you know, keep doing some of it. She let me know my dad did in fact need my support. So what I was doing was very helpful. But that she was okay in her journey. She, she on some level was fully engaged in the in-between, I call it. Not totally here in this 3D reality as we know it, and not totally gone because she's still embodied, but like traveling, I would describe it, being in other states, other realms, other presence. And that that was something she was benefiting from and even enjoying, which was another signal to me not to keep reeling her back in. So when she would space out or look, you know, like she was completely on another planet, instead of bringing her back after hearing from her soul, like, to let her travel, I would just join her in silence. And sometimes I would ask, hey, what's— what are you seeing right now? Or what are you— what's on your heart right now? Or what, what's on your mind? And sometimes she could share it and sometimes she couldn't. But that's— I got a lot of messages about letting up a bit and letting her be fully engaged in her journey while sharing love, but not tasking myself so heavily with all the details I had been.

Yeah, I think that's really also important because we tend to think of them as, like, again, they're going away, we need to keep bringing them back. But, and this is what I've learned from people, from mediums that have sat with people who are terminally ill, their souls are starting to come and go. And I truly believe that when people are getting to these latter stages of dementia, it's not that they're nowhere, they're somewhere else, they just happen to be somewhere else, their minds on something else, they're they're preparing for that, for that trip, and they're going back and forth. And as you said, they may be even be enjoying it, even though from our perspective, you know, it's like they're just sitting there.

That's right. What if they're enjoying it and we are disrupting them? It's kind of like watching a good movie and someone's like, hey, hey, you okay? Do you— are you all right? What, what do you need? Do you know what day it is? We're so guilty of doing that. As a clinician, that's how I learned, like, keep reorienting and reorienting and drilling certain things. It's not useful when you want to stay connected to somebody.

Yeah, I've talked to some clinicians that, you know, actually similar, same profession as, you know, speech therapists and stuff. And they're trying to be helpful, like, like you said, reorient them, bring them back. And I'm kind of like, no, maybe it's time to start letting them do what they, what they want to do, because their soul knows.

Yes. Yes. Well said.

So I heard you in your, in your TED Talk, and I love the way you described it. It's a lot easier said than done. It was kind of like you talked about Jill Bolte Taylor's thing about the left brain and the right brain. And I guess for you, at least, it's kind of like, let go of the left brain, the thinking brain and all that and get more to the right brain. How did that process work for you in terms of learning how to do that more?

Hmm. Wow. Channeling is all right brain. So, you know, we use the right side of our brain as the creative, receptive, intuitive side. And I cannot channel if I'm in my left logical, linear side. So the more I practiced channeling, and there are strategies and techniques that you use to practice this, developing this skill, the more I enhance the capacity of my right hemisphere. And it's like anything else. If you have an area of weakness or less development in the body, then you exercise that. And it's the same with the brain. This is why we can learn new tasks. We have this plasticity in the brain that lets us learn new things, create new pathways all the time. Even older adults still have this, maybe less than younger years, but still, it's still present. So I just kept showing up to the practice of channeling. There's, there are tools that I use when I was learning to channel. A pendulum was one example. Meditation is a great way to be in the receptive right brain. And so is chanting and mantras. Think, if you give the left side of your brain something to do, and it loves to repeat things, things, as you probably noticed, that you have the same thoughts today that you had yesterday, every other day. So if you give it a mantra or a word, or you're chanting something and the left can repeat it, it leaves the right more open to receive. So that's a little trick and tool that I have used as a professional channel to bring in messages and clarity and connection with regards to that. But we have, we have a society that really places an enormous value on the left hemisphere, right? We like facts, figures, data, cognition, thinking, sort of figuring things out. And then the right hemisphere, which is really what I believe is going to save humanity and our planet, goes underutilized and underdeveloped. But we can change that instantly.

Yeah. Thank you for explaining that. And as you mentioned, as you were talking about our obsession with the left side of the brain, as I was looking up your TEDx talk, I saw the disclaimer on it's like, well, we haven't proven any of this stuff is real. So we don't take responsibility for it. Even though I talk to people every day who do this and prove that it's real. But again, we think, well, it's not, it's not possible, therefore it can't be real. Because it's, it's, you know, we think the mind is the brain, and the brain is the mind. And you're proving, you've proved, you've shown that that's not true.

You know, what's great is that I understand why TED flagged my talk because anything that deals with supernatural or paranormal, they are going to shy away from, at least back when they flagged it. They are— I think they pretty much do the same now. But there is research on channeling. There is science, there's data. There's an entire institute that is dedicated to this. It's called the Institute of Noetic Sciences. And their researchers are exclusively studying channeling and the potential, the human potential. So actually, my classes, my class participants get to be part of a long-term study being done at the Institute of Noetic Sciences that will prove, finally, that channeling is a thing that we're all— it's our birthright. We are all able to connect in this way. But the data is there. It's just we do need more research. And it takes us so long to get up to speed because humans are slow in that way to change our beliefs, our minds. You know, there's sometimes religious beliefs that prevent us from connecting in this way or feeling safe connecting in this way. There's, there's a lot of reasons why people would have fear around it. But it's beautiful. It's It's love, it's divinity.

100% agree with you. My background is engineering. So I'm about science and, you know, data and all that kind of stuff too. And when I talk to people who are skeptics, and I was just on a message board the other day, and someone said, there's no such thing as near-death experiences, you die, and then you die. And I'm like, okay, Julie Beischel's work, Gary Schwartz's work, Ken Ring's work, Bruce Greyson's work, you know, on and on and on, you know, there's all kinds of evidence out there, the Institute for Noetic Sciences, there's, there's a lot of information, a lot of data out there for people that want data. And it's, it can be really frustrating. You said humans, just recently, last couple of years, we've developed this mindset that says everything is material. It's a fairly recent thing that we fell into. And now we're just closed to anything else. But I see it starting to open up. And I'm glad that talks like yours are up and available. And while we're on the subject, just remind people the name of your talks. I want to encourage them to go look it up.

The TED Talk?

Yeah, the TED Talk.

It's called I Am an Intuitive Channel. And that, if I can share the quick little story of doing that TED Talk.

Oh, yeah, please.

I decided to do one because I wanted to be a presenter at something else. And the person who interviewed me said, well, most of our presenters have a TEDx talk. So I thought, Okay, I guess that's the next thing I'm going to do. So I found a local TEDx, and I was working with the curator, and I was trying desperately to not talk about channeling. I did not feel comfortable or safe. That was years ago. And in my journey at the time, while I was doing it professionally, I wasn't as confident as I sit today and being able— nor as well studied about it. So now I have the data and the science that I can refer people to if they're truly interested. But the curator would— she would say to me, okay, give me a sample, you know, write me a script of what you would want to talk about. And I covered every area except channeling. And she finally said to me, what is it that you do professionally? And I told her, well, this is what I do. But it's very hard to explain. I can probably just show you in a session. So she had a session with me. And at the end of the session, she said, You must speak of this in your TED Talk.

Awesome.

This belongs. The fact that you were able to connect with this loved one of mine, that loved one of mine, the messages, the way they resonated. These are the things I could hear them saying, you have to do to talk about this. So I did. And it was scary. And it's because I knew a TED Talk is out there forever. It's not like I can say I changed my mind. Can we pull that video, please? So it's really been a transformational process for me to have that out. And so many people resonate with the message, and it has given courage to others just because I was willing to step into that for myself.

Yeah, exactly. And it takes those first few people to step out there and to take that risk. So I appreciate you doing that and, you know, putting yourself out there. And again, I, you know, we have to educate people that there is data out there, that there is science on for people that want that. But the most important thing is people trusting their own experiences. You know, if you, if you go to a channel, and they actually channel someone for you, you're going to know whether it's real or not.

You're so right. And I encourage everybody, because there's all different types of psychics, mediums, channels. If it doesn't resonate with you as the customer or client, it's not for you, then it's okay. You do not have to believe something that someone else tells you that really doesn't feel right to you. And that's really important because we never want to give our power away like that.

Right? Right. So I'm curious, you know, again, you know, you're only one of a handful of people I've talked about channeling someone who has dementia, or someone who's in a coma, or someone even who's autistic, people who aren't able to communicate with us verbally the way they normally do. Do you get clients coming to you now asking you to channel people like that? Like, so I might Okay, yeah, definitely.

I work with a lot of parents who want to hear from the soul perspective of their children. Sometimes they will have developmental situations that make it hard to clearly communicate. Sometimes a child's very young and not as verbal. I've channeled a lot of autistic individuals from the soul perspective to help their loved ones to navigate what they need and stay connected to them. Absolutely. All, all different types of circumstances that render a person challenged with clear communication. And there's lots and lots of situations like that.

Yeah, I think that's, that's a whole area that we haven't really thought about, like people who are nonverbal for whatever reason. And the first time I heard of it, it was from a person who was a medium. And this family had a loved one who was at the end of life. And they were trying to decide whether they should, you know, do euthanasia or not, or, you know, let her— let the person go. And they came to this, this person said, can you read her? I don't know, I've never tried to read anybody in the body before. And to her surprise, she was able to.

Yes, yes. And I actually do that for people for their animal companions as well. When they get to a place where they want to do what's right for the animal, but they don't know if that animal is, is ready. So we can channel that as well.

So what's been your experience with that? Because I know a lot of people really struggle with that. When's the right time? And did I do it too soon? Or did I wait too late? What's been your experience with channeling animals when they're at that stage? What are— just give me some examples, or what, just general?

Well, my experience from the channeling aspect of it is pure love comes through, and that being does communicate what they need or are they're preparing their human for. And we're always going to question this. I mean, as an animal lover and one who has had to support some of my own animals in their transition, even knowing what I know and being assured in the moment that I'm making the right choice, I am still, you know, left brain, still going to go back and wonder, was that the right timing? Was this a sign? Was it— this is just normal. We're going to question ourselves. It's heartbreaking. Grief is complicated. Complicated. And questioning ourselves is a very natural part of the process. But what I— in the channeling, I don't tell people, yes, this is what you should do now. I let that soul communicate what— how they would like to experience the time that they are in the body, what they need from their environment, from their human. Sometimes from the medical community. I'm not a medical medium, and I'm not giving medical advice. But sometimes pain relief is an issue, right? So that's something that can come through to give them some comfort. So there are a lot of different pieces of information that can be really helpful. And when my clients, almost all of them for whom I've channeled their animal companions' end-of-life issues, have come back and said was, thank you so much, that was really helpful. It let me trust myself, and my knowing of my companion. Because we really doubt ourselves under that kind of stress and pressure.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I— this has just been my, my feeling or impression is that animals don't fear death the way that we do. And people say, well, that's because their, their skill, their cognitive skills aren't high enough to fear death. They don't understand it. I don't think that's true at all. I think they understand it's just a transition. I think that's why they don't fear it.

That's right. And you could argue that our cognitive skills are overdeveloped. So that's all we fear as we walk around, you know, it's a cultural thing, though, because you can find other cultures in which there is no fear of death. It's celebrated, honored, it's sacred. And it's, it's here, Western tends to be from the time we're very young, this is what is taught to us, be afraid. It's, it's something to avoid at all costs. This is just our cultural conditioning.

I truly believe that's why I was saying earlier, I think it's only been the last couple hundred years that we've come to this, this, this Western mindset, this materialistic mindset, this side. So there's still people around the world, lots of people around the world that understand who we are, where we come from, where we're going. And they don't fear death. And we fear what we don't understand, which is natural. And we've put death— like, let's just put it out of our minds. Let's not think about it. We're— I'm never going to die. No one's ever going to die. And that's kind of the way we go through life with our eyes closed.

Yeah, it's sad. It's because, because death can be beautiful. I know with my mom's passing, it did not look like she was going to be able to transition peacefully. But she did. And I'm so grateful. And I was right there. I didn't even notice that she left. It was that peaceful. And after so much tumult and so much chaos and strife, the fact that she was able to let go with my father and I present with her and a very loving hospice nurse who gave our family our space to be in circle with her, it was beautiful. It was exquisite. And she deserved that.

Yeah. And you had— not to give away everything that you talked about in the talk, but you had a little bit of a surprise when you channeled your mother at first about her transition being sooner than you thought it was going to be.

I'm trying to remember what you're—

well, you were saying that, you know, you're like getting ready for hospice when she was still— her body was still healthy.

Yes. I'm sorry. Thank you for the cue. Yeah, there were a lot of surprises in that journey with my mom at the end, some of which were really horrendous. But that one, I started to have a sense that my mom was ready for hospice before any signals of her physical body would suggest that she didn't have organ failure. She was still eating. She was still moving around independently, walking. So I I couldn't figure out why am I getting so much attention of my attention directed to end of life, end of life. So I ended up calling the hospice facility to get a little more information, like how does this work? Hospice usually, at least from what I understand in present, is it's about 6 months. If you're, you know, if they feel like you are likely to transition within 6 months, then you can be a hospice patient, I would never have said that my mom only had 6 months at that point. But I didn't, I didn't know what the parameters were. So I spoke with someone on the phone, and she said, well, how long has your mom had dementia? And I said, it's been more than 15 years. I think she dropped the phone, because that's a very long time, typically. And so she said, we're, we're going to come over and evaluate. And once they laid eyes on my mom, and they saw how agitated she was and how ill at ease, and she wasn't able to communicate pain, but it certainly seemed like she was in some sort of generalized pain. They felt she would be a good hospice patient, and they brought her into the facility. They stabilized her with medications, helped, helped her get some rest, which she hadn't slept in weeks and weeks, and it was really horrible. And then we were able to bring her home where she could transition peacefully with her family, and that was what she wished.

Yeah, that Hospice, I think the, the definition has expanded in more recent years. So I think it's— and I don't want to get this wrong, but like people are in pain, a lot of pain, they'll help with pain management. If you have a condition where you're not expected to get better, sometimes you can get in a hospice. So it's not always that 6-month window that I think we often think about. And hospice, hospice can be very beneficial for people who are still continuing to live. And I've seen other examples besides your mother, where they— because they know how to do that kind of stuff. And they can make that. So I encourage people, if you're thinking about hospice, at least give them a call and see if your, if your loved one qualifies, because I've heard nothing but good things about it.

Absolutely. So forget what I said earlier about the 6-month thing, because I don't want to misspeak. They were brilliant in terms of comfort. And that's what hospice is there for. We, as a culture, tend to think of hospice as giving up on the person. No. It is giving them the quality of life and time with their loved ones in the best possible way.

Yeah, exactly. I think that's, that's a great endorsement for hospice. You mentioned, and I was looking at your introduction, you mentioned channeling trees, you mentioned channeling the planet. What is, what is that experience like? What's it like to Gaia, the Earth? What is that experience like to channel that?

Oh, you can imagine, it's amazing. It's delightful. We are the Earth, we are of the Earth, we're not separated from her. And so the messages that I get from Gaia always bring me back to the center of, of the, our essential self. And we're here to be in harmony with this planet, and with all life upon it, really. And we've gotten very far from that humanity has, we're exploitative, you know, and destructive behaviors have led to the destruction and situation on the planet right now that all, all, all of us are questioning, are we going to make it? Are we going to be able to, to redirect ourselves and heal and regenerate? So that remains to be seen. We do not know that yet. But she is always loving and always calling us back to the this simplicity of the natural world. Everything in the natural world, when left to its own devices, works perfectly. It's in harmony, it is in reciprocity and right exchange. And we can learn a lot because that's actually our foundation, but we have come away from it. We can return to it, and the Earth is a beautiful way to return to it. Getting outside in the natural world, observing the creatures, all of them, the big ones, the small ones, the worm that's flopping around on the sidewalk and needs a little lift to the soil. I do that all the time. And the bumblebees, you know, just everything that we can notice in life, it brings us back to the truth and the essence and the beauty of us.

Yeah, I, you know, I hear this concept that Gaia is an organism, that Gaia has a soul, has a spirit, and You know, it makes you kind of wonder, like, okay, what is, what is the Earth thinking about what we're doing to it? Because we are, it's almost like we're deliberately trying to destroy the Earth.

It's very, I experience in the channeling with her that she experiences pain. It's like watching your children self-destruct. Yeah.

Yeah. So, and you also mentioned trees. So we don't think of trees as having souls or spirits. So what are, what are trees saying to us?

It depends. Talk to them yourself and find out. They say something different to each one of us. But they, you know, they're a lot of my trees that I'm very familiar with. Like, there's some in Ohio in particular that I talk to whenever I'm there. I think of them as my secret keepers.. So I can share what's on my heart, what I'm struggling with, just, just as a place to let it land. And I feel like the tree energy, they hold it, they're grounded, they are rooted, they are steady, and they're generous, right? You think about all the shelter we get from trees and all of the many animals they host in their branches and the food that they produce for us. So trees are a wonderful energy to tune into if you are needing grounding and centering and connection to the earth. They are a very steady, stable presence.

Yeah, I love, I love the vision that you're giving here. And again, I think it goes back to more the way mankind's been for most of our existence, where we, we looked at rocks and trees and etc., as having spirits and being interactive and living. And we looked at the earth, you know, as our mother. And again, as we've moved farther away from that and forgotten who we are, I think we've become a lot more impoverished because of it. Because we don't, we don't know who we are. And this is why, again, why we fear death, because we don't understand who even we are. And again, that mind-body connection, there's definitely a connection. There's a— I look at the brain as more of a transceiver, receives consciousness, and it also transmits the consciousness. And sometimes that transceiver gets broken, but it doesn't mean that person's mind has been destroyed. So that's what I take from your, your lessons with Joni.

Hmm, thank you. That's very well said. I appreciate it.

So I have to ask you about the fear that comes around channeling. Again, there's, there's, there's some fear about channeling, mediumship, you know, to use that word. You know, it's of the devil. There are negative entities out there. If you open yourself up, I'll never forget when I first started doing yoga, One of my evangelical, evangelical friends was like, oh, if you open yourself up, bad things are going to come in. Any concerns with negative entities? Any experience with that at all?

I don't have any concerns about it. But I know that that is a very common fear. Often I find that it does come from religious teachings. And if you really dig into religious history and how things and why things were interpreted in certain ways, you can kind of understand a little bit more about about the intent, then I'm not going to get into it because it's not the nature of our conversation. But educate yourself around, you know, keep your religion if it brings you peace and joy and, and love. And also dig in a little bit and find out what, what are you believing? Is it— where did it come from? Who's the one that interpreted it? And decide for yourself. When I channel, I am only attuning to what is known as fifth dimensional consciousness. That is Unity Consciousness. That's pure love. So there isn't any room or space for that which is heavy or low vibration or darker to come through. I'm not attuning there. I have a guidance system. I call them my guides. We all have spirit guides. And they're my gatekeepers. And we have a very good agreement with one another, which is that they will bounce off anything that doesn't belong in my sphere, so that I am able to trust and lean into and receive the messages that are the highest loving vibrational frequency. And I do the work, the inner work necessary to maintain myself in that frequency. So if I'm feeling grumpy and irritable and fearful myself, I'm not going to do a channeling session. That's, you know, I'm going to attract in whatever I'm a match to. That's just universal law. I didn't come up with it. So that's, that's how I think of it. There are so many things that we are trained to fear. And again, it has led us to this place of self that is really disconnected from our true place in the universe, which is as a part, a point of light of many points of light that are meant to be interconnected. We're meant to be in interbeing with each other, not in opposition or fear of one another.

Yeah, thank you for answering that. I hate to even ask— have to ask the question, but I have to reinforce over and over again, you know, as I have people on their channels, or mediums, or anybody that's, quote, opening themselves up, because for some people, the first question they ask, what if something bad comes in? And it's funny, because my response to my friend that time was like, what if something good comes in? What if I open myself up? And you know, you believe in the Holy Spirit? What if I open myself up to the Holy Spirit? Why do you— why do we always have to go to the negative, to the fear? And I've, I've talked to so many people who are channels, mediums, whatever word we want to use, and I see the healing that comes from it. And what you're doing is opening up not even just the people who are on the other side, but now we're talking about our animals and our loved ones who may be non-communicative. It could really help us to understand each other, you know, so much better, better. And even understand end of life, you know, what's, what's going on there.

Yes, yes, exactly. And I do understand where the fear mostly comes from. I have a very dear friend, just like your friend, who is really worried for me. I can't— I don't share my work with her. She, she can't. She prays for me. Yeah, she prays for my safety, and that my openness will not bring in devil energy. And so I'm thankful for the prayers. And I I don't need them. I'm, you know, I feel very confident and comfortable with how I do this work. But she— I know it's coming from learned behavior, learned fear. And I know that she loves me too. So, and your friend does as well. And yeah, we need more love. And so I'm going to keep channeling love, and so are you. And eventually that will be the go-to.

I think for most people, it does come from a good place. It comes from a real sense of concern and, and I appreciate that. But it's interesting, because they'll say, well, I'm going to pray for you. Well, now you're opening yourself up to spirit. You know, and I've realized as I've gotten older and start learning, it's like, we use different words for the same thing. You know, Christians will say, I'm going to pray for you. Someone else might say, I'm going to, I'm going to meditate, I'm going to open myself up to spirit. And I remember when I was back, I was going to this, this evangelical church, and we have this kind of a ceremony where you would choose a neighbor that you wanted to get saved in the next year, and you write their name on a piece of paper, and then burn the paper. And I'm like, if, if a pagan did this, we'd call it witchcraft and say it was the devil. But that was perfectly fine, because we were in a church. Wow.

That's why I'm really encouraging people to explore what they have come to just accept in their religious teachings or upbringings, not for the purpose of upending your life, just, you are, you know, your own agent here, you have the ability to really feel into, does this still resonate with me? Does this feel right, aligned? Is this how I want to be or feel? Because we get to choose different thoughts and beliefs if we want to, right?

And just, you know, just imagine the healing that you're holding yourself back from, you know, again, going back to the Christian thing, we would do laying on of hands, hands. You know, for example, the Bible teaches the laying on of hands. Then I talk to people who are Reiki healers or other energy healers, you know, the practice healing touch. It's this— it's the same thing. But if we call it one thing, then it's bad. If we call it another thing, then it's good. And if you've got a loved one that again is not communicative, and they're coming to the end of life, imagine the healing and the peace you could get if you could somehow somehow communicate with that person. Amen. So tell me about— I know you're, you're working on a second book. So first, tell me about your first book and what people can find there. And then maybe give us a little sneak peek into your second book.

Yeah, the first book really wrote itself. Honestly, it just, it was about my walk with my mother through her dementia. So it's a very practical book. To do, not to do, my, my experiences. And I think it's going to save a lot of people unnecessary making of mistakes because I've made them already. So now you can read about them and make different ones. So that's it. It's called Joining Joni. And the book I'm writing right now is really going to teach people how to channel for themselves. So it's going to include parts of my journey that have been very pivotal for me, as a channel. Because I'm actually not that unique. Like, I'm just like anyone else. You don't have to be born a certain way to be able to connect to spirit and to channel. So I'm sharing all the techniques and tools that I teach in my courses, that I teach my participants, that I allow— that, that have helped me to be the clearest, highest vibrational channel I am.

Yeah, I think, well, both books are— sound very valuable. And with dementia, you know, on the rise as, as population is aging, and people my age dealing with parents that are going through that, that's a very powerful resource to have to, to know, kind of like you said, some of the mistakes that people make and to start to maybe look at things a little differently. I remember when my, my father-in-law was going through dementia, this was again probably 15 years ago or so before I knew nearly what I know now. And thinking, okay, well, he's delusional. He's talking about people that, that are, that aren't here anymore. And then it wasn't only till years later, I realized, every time he was talking about people he had seen that weren't, that, you know, we thought were pretend, they were all people that had been in his past, and they were all on the other side. So he was seeing people who had crossed over. And that's the perspective I have now. And so all these years later, with my mother-in-law going through through similar things. Not quite as bad with the delusions as he was. But, you know, again, it's like we see it— my wife and I both see it differently, you know, having gone through that with him, and having learned all the things we've learned about the spirit and the soul. And it's a much more peaceful for us thing, you know, watching her make that transition and, and understanding, you know, she's not gone. She's at this point, she's going back and forth. You know, it's kind of like, like when we sleep at night, we go back and forth in our sleep. And as our brain starts to shut down and tune out of this world, it just starts to focus more on the other world.

That's right. And you know, if you have a loved one who has dementia, and they are talking about seeing their loved ones who have crossed over, you can join them and ask them, so who's here with to you? Are they saying anything? You know, what do you feel in their presence? How is this, you know, how are you connecting? You can— there are some ways you can seek if you wish to, to be part of that experience, because they have access to something that we don't, because we're talking ourselves out of it.

Right, exactly. And that can also help with our own fear of our deaths, as we all inevitably approach that point. If we can understand, you know, what it is that they're going through and seeing that it's not the end for them. And it's, I think it's really interesting, the language they'll use, like, they told me to get ready, they told me to pack my bags, you know, they'll start to ask, where's my passport, you know, these traveling metaphors that they use. So it helps you not to see the death as not the end.

That's right. It's a beautiful thing, really.

It is, it is. So tell people, like, I know you offer services, you do readings, and you also teach. So tell people what you offer?

Yep, I do. The majority of my work is private sessions where I work one-on-one with clients, and I channel whatever they tell me to channel. So you can really ask any question that's on your heart. You can tune into any soul on the planet, on the other side, your cat Fluffy, wherever you want to go. I am at your service. I will channel what's there for you. And then I also teach workshops and masterclasses. It's my greatest joy to watch people be astonished by their own ability to tune in and channel. So I love that I'm teaching a masterclass right now. And last class, we were using a pendulum and just watching the faces of the participants as their pendulum was like moving and giving them answers, yes and no. They, they were just so excited. And I remember what that felt like years ago when I started that work. So that's what I do. And my website is soulinsight.com. Come.

It's awesome. Yeah, well, you're essentially— you talk about the pendulum, because I know my wife started messing around with the pendulum for a while. And but you also alluded to a little bit earlier, you said the pendulum was like a tool that you use when you first got started. And it's not necessary for you anymore. It sounds like.

That's right. I— one of my mentors used it as a way to probably, I think, weed out those that were committed to the work and those that weren't. Because using a pendulum requires such an inordinate amount of attention and concentration that it's not— not everybody is devoted to that. So if you, if you can, and you're willing to, and you really want to hone this, this is a great tool for it. I don't use it really anymore. I used to use it to create charts of soul aspects of different clients, but I don't do that anymore. Now, the channeling that comes through is just a stream of words, and I see images and videos almost. So, but I like to teach it because you can have great success with it. It's a fun tool. They can be very pretty. Yeah. So why not?

So I, one of the last questions I want to ask you is, you, I know you started channeling Joni before she transitioned. And I assume you're still in contact with her. What is she telling you about what it's like where she is now?

Oh, it's, it's beautiful where she is now. And I, I know that from all the channelings that I've done of souls that have crossed over that report back through the channeling. My mom's presence for me takes the form in nature. She sends birds to me. In fact, she used to love cardinals. She loved brightly colored birds. And there is— I'm not exaggerating— she died like a over 9 years ago. There's a red male cardinal that harasses us in my house. He's not in my house, he's outside. He comes to the window every day, constantly. I don't think it's the same one because their lifespan isn't that long. But however she's doing that, she's magical at sending this bird because it looks in the window, it pecks at things, my dogs go crazy, it wakes up my son at all hours of the morning, and it's our little joke. And That started the day she passed. That bird started to come then. So I feel her with me. We laugh together. You know, I— my connection with my mom is as beautiful as it's ever been. And I also at this time have so many other ancestors on the other side who offer me different support, like Jennifer. She's always with me in my channeling sessions, and she's helping me get the highest clarity. And I have an aunt who I adore and miss deeply, who same thing. I can hear her and feel her. And she's— we're sharing experiences together. It's just a lovely aspect of being here in the body and also being connected to my loved ones that are not in the body anymore.

Yeah, I think— thanks for saying that. Because, you know, I know a lot of times as, as our life progresses, and we end up with more and more people on the other side, some people can get depressed about that. Because I've heard people say, Oh, all my people are on the other side, but they're still with us. And I can see the joy in your face when you talk about your mother and you talk about Joni, you talk about your ancestors, because we can, we can still have that connection with them. And channeling sounds— is a very formal sounding word. And we're not, we're not all going to be professional channels or professional mediums. But learning to trust our own intuition, learning to shut down that left brain at least a little bit, you know, through meditation and stuff, can start to open you up to the world that's always around us.

That's right. And if you don't feel the presence of your loved one, because I do have a lot of clients that will say, I just don't feel them around me, trust that they are around you. It takes— there's a learning curve here. I believe our job as those in the body is to find a closer frequency match to the subtle realm, which is a much higher frequency and obviously much more subtle. And we tend to be dense here. And so, you know, again, left brain focused and distracted, that all these ways that our loved ones are trying to get our attention and stay in contact with us, we are just not paying attention to, we're just distracted from. So don't blame yourself for that. Just acknowledge, probably they've been working on connecting with you for a while. And you can do the work necessary to align your energy closer to theirs. So you can have that communication more easily.

Yeah, that's, that was well said. Because I get a lot of people tell me the same thing. It's like, I don't, I'm not getting anything from them. Then we start to talk and they're like, well, yeah, I do have dreams about them. Or, yeah, there is this cardinal that comes to my window every day. Or I do see the number 1111 all the time. And so it's like, yeah, there it is. But it's, it's not that we look at those 5 physical senses. And it's like, you know, we don't, I don't hear them in my ear, right. But, you know, and so I guess maybe the last question I'm going to ask about, about that, because I've done a little bit of studying of channeling and mediumship. And what's it like when you're— how do you differentiate your thought from your loved one speaking to you? Right? I'm going to try to channel my loved one, and I hear Shayna say this, and I'm like, is that me? Or is that her?

Yeah. And then I would say, does it matter? Because that question will block your access. Because what it inherently suggests is that there's a wrong and a right. And if it's coming from your self, even your greater, grander, higher self, or your heart or your imagination, then that would be wrong. So we have to make sure it's coming from Shayna. And how will you. You know, there's no way that I know of, having looked at research, to differentiate this. So I say, let's not. If you feel like you're making this up, celebrate it. Everything in existence on this planet, not created by Creator but created by humans, was first made up, was first imagined. Use your imagination. If it feels like it's something that you just assume, you know, that your loved one would you're probably right on, then why would you think they'd say something so wildly different when you knew them so beautifully in the body? So that's where I feel like we really need to start to give ourselves the freedom to connect, celebrate whatever comes through. And when you ask, am I just making this up? Say, oh, that's good. I'm making it up. I'm in the imagination. I'm in the receptivity of it. And that will continue the relationship. Relationship.

Awesome, thank you. Anything that you wish I asked you that I didn't? Anything you want to leave as a final word for the people that are listening?

No, I think you were pretty comprehensive, Brian D Smith. Thanks.

All right, well, thanks so much for being here, uh, for doing this. Thank you for stepping out and doing the TEDx talk and putting that out there, because we need more people doing that. We need more people spreading this message and letting people know that we're all still connected and this stuff is real. So thanks, Stephanie.

Thank you too.

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