BONUS: What’s It Like to Be a “Psychologist Medium?” with Guest  Dr. Amy Robbins

What if your therapist was also an intuitive or a medium? Well, today we get to explore the overlap of surrender, psychology, death and mediumship in this special interview with the life.

Death and the spaces in between.

Podcast host and clinical psychologist Dr. Amy Robbins. We're going to dig deep into how mediumship and intuition influences people's decisions and the strange, potent beauty that comes from integrating these into a therapeutic setting. Amy and I discuss how intuitive insights can boost your ability to grow and.

Heal, as well as how one key.

Feeling surrender is essential to both easing our fear of death as well as allowing our own inner intuitive potential to bloom. It's a good interview, folks. Stay with me. Flow Dreaming Still Kinda Woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap.

Of problem solving and pattern busting, and.

A giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion.

Purpose, self love and confidence in you.

That you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Still kinda woo woo.

Dr. Robbins, or Amy, as I think I'll call you for the rest of this interview. Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me.

I am intensely interested in what you do because it is a perfect intersection of, you know, the road not taken for me, being that you're a psychologist, with the road I ended up on rather reluctantly as an intuitive and medium and you're both and somehow you have fused them together and you talk to people embodied and disembodied, so what a wild and fabulous world. I feel like I met a soul sister.

Yes, yes, it is definitely an interesting space to be in. Sort of the space between, as I kind of lovingly refer to it as.

Yes, your podcast, of course. Life, death and the space between. Excellent. Let's start with this question then. The majority of people that you work with, do they come to you as a psychologist or a medium, or do you discover that things get very tangled up and you end up going everywhere with them?

Yeah. So most of the people I see all of the people I see come to me for therapy, typically referred by a physician, which was really interesting to have to approach those physicians and say, hey, just want to let you know, I'm. When I launched my podcast five years ago, hey, just want to let you know I'm going to be putting this out there, so my identity will probably shift and change a little. And if you have people who you refer to me and then they look at my website, they're going to see something a little different than a traditional psychologist. But, excuse me, typically in my practice, everybody I see comes to me for therapy. Now, how we use intuition and also my mediumship, which I tend to not use as much. I think I'm probably much more intuitive in my work at this point. But I will use mediumship if it comes in, if it's appropriate, and if I know that the person that I'm sitting with is open to that information. I would never. I have plenty of patients who know I have a podcast that's all about kind of what happens after we die. And my beliefs around that whole. Who don't wanna know anything about that and are there for straight therapy, or they come to me for grief and loss and their belief system is not that. And I do not impose that on anybody I work with. That being said, if someone comes in and they're talking about it and they've lost a loved one over the course of our treatment, maybe they might say something to me, like, if my loved one ever comes through, would you share that information with me? And I do. I've had that happen people periodically. But early on, when I was receiving this information and no one knew that I could receive this information, I did not share it in that way. It just didn't feel right to bring that to someone without them necessarily knowing that that could happen. Cause I think that can be really unsettling for people if they're not seeking it out, to thrust that upon them.

Yes, I agree. I agree. I'll just tell you a little personal story here. I was with my mom about a week ago for a cardiac event, and we were having. As you sit in the ER for five hours, six hours, eight hours, we're having that conversation where, you know, she has been an intuitive and medium for many years, as have I, and she said, you know, do you ever just wonder, even though you've seen it and felt it so much, if it's really there, if what we're seeing is really true or what we're seeing is really what we're seeing? And I said, yeah, I wonder that all the time. In the face of all the evidence of what I do and what I've experienced, my hands on experience, that uncertainty still comes up. And that's something that you, I know, look into and speak into a lot. The uncertainty that we carry with us, you know, as we age, as we get older, what happens? How do I live knowing that this will happen? You know, is there really something there? Is that. Is that a. Can you just go into that a little bit, how that impacts us?

Sure. Are you talking about the uncertainty around mediumship? Like, and what happens after we die?

What happened? Yep. If that. Yes, that. That's one layer of it. And then the other one would be the uncertainty of how should I be living and, and knowing that I'm going to die and I'm going to lose a lot of people as I get older, that fear of loss that comes in. So there's both layers.

Yeah, yeah. So I think about it in various capacities and like you said, various layers. So with regards to living, I actually think death can be a great motivator for living. And I think that, yes, a lot of people fear death because it's this unknown. So they're fearing this unknown, this uncertainty. And there has been a lot of scientific research around consciousness and people's abilities to connect to loved ones on the other side. And so does that give us proof that there is something? I think so, but I think what that something is is very hard for us conceptually to understand because we try to grasp things within the realm of the possibility of the human mind, which feels, it oftentimes can feel a bit constrained. And so until we can expand the consciousness outside of that space of, you know, well, when we die, does that just mean we go to another place as a physical body? Like, I think people have a hard time kind of wrestling with what that actually looks like because you're looking through the lens of a human, not of a soul. So those two things, I think can contribute to a lot of uncertainty. And there has to be some kind of surrender to that. Like, how can we open up our consciousness and maybe think outside of that, of the way we normally think about what it means to be alive or what it means to be still here. That being said, I look at how death can really motivate us to live more fully now also from the perspective of, yes, when you die, your physical body dies, but your soul goes on. And over the course of lifetimes, our soul is here, I believe, to achieve certain things, to grow, to Continue to evolve.

But.

And so then how do you use that to inform how you live? What does that look like? What are the values that you're espousing to in this lifetime, but also across lifetimes? So your soul continue to grow, can continue to grow. So I often think about things like peace, love, calm, joy, connection. Like those are the ones that ease, like having a life of ease, like not resisting so much. People would say that's like a higher vibrational state. Right. I mean, from. So, so this is how like I sort of start to bridge both the psychology and the spirituality. I don't see them as separate at all. I actually see them as one and as sort of not even parallel, but kind of intertwining concepts. Because you can't be. I think the most spiritual thing you can do is to know yourself, to know the inner workings of yourself. So you can really start to tap into these other states of being that are more spiritual.

Yeah.

And death is a great way to propel you to do that. Because we are all gonna, we are all going to die in this physical. We aren't going to continue to reside in this physical body. Eventually that's going to.

Leave.

Like our physical body can't withstand time. So at some point we're going to die, but our soul isn't. Our soul is eternal. So then what do you want your soul to look like as it continues to grow over time?

100% agree with that question. I ask myself every day. What am I adding into myself? Because I'm taking it with me. It's the only thing I get to take with me is what I've developed and, and become. Everything else goes away.

Right.

You, you use the word surrender a couple of times there. And I wonder if I know as an intuitive, like when we're feeling intuitive, it's. It's almost a surrender. I have to just allow, I have to risk, I have to possibly be wrong. I have to hope, have faith. Death being a surrender, the ultimate surrender into again, the unknown. How, how do you use surrender? I mean, when you're in, just in your life, your, your day to day.

That's such a good question. And it's actually something interestingly, probably intuitively I've been. That you picked up on. It's something that I've really on more because I think that in life so often when we resist, it just things just feel more difficult. So I've been really trying to just lean into whatever it is that I'm experiencing, which I think in therapy is so important. Is that when I think about people in the therapeutic space, how are you as a client, as a patient, leaning into your experience versus resisting it. Right. Some people would call this acceptance, surrender. Like you. I did an interview with someone with Kris Carr. I don't know if people know her, but she said, her therapist said to her, and I love this. It is what it is, and you don't have to like it. Like, you can't change what is. You don't have to like it. But if you resist it, if you can't surrender and let go a little bit, it's going to be that much more difficult to work through, to move through, to process.

Yeah.

So there has to be that surrender. And I'm not saying that's always easy. It's a simple concept. It's not necessarily easy to do and to incorporate in your life.

Yeah. That's a question that I always ask myself when I'm facing something that I really don't want, which unfortunately comes up more often than we want to have happen. But, you know, we typically say, what. What should I do about it? Or how can I get past it? Or how can I fix it? Or how can I? I've started to shift that over the years and ask the question, how do I want to be in this? How do I want to be in this experience? And whenever I pull back to that, it gives me that same sense of, well, if I embrace it, then I'm being in it, and if I embrace it, it's. It tends to just flow so much easier and faster through my life than if I'm punching and pushing. Right. It's like slowing something down when we do that, versus just surrendering and becoming into it. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It's like. It's like when we. I mean, think of. I don't know why. What came to my mind when you were talking was almost like a. Like a pipe of some sort and like trying to, like, shove, shove, shove down what you're experiencing. It's gonna clog the pipe.

Right.

It's going to get stuck. But if you can just like, allow it to flow rather than pushing, it will move through. And so there's that with our emotions, with our experiences, that we want to resist what is uncomfortable. And it's understandable to your. To what you were talking about earlier about death. You know, people, I think they fear death and they fear losing loved ones because of the feelings that those experiences bring up. So those feelings can be very, very intense. And people don't want to feel that. They don't want to feel the intensity of really challenging feelings that as a culture, we've sort of dichotomized as bad and good. There are bad feelings, and there are good feelings. And the bad feelings, like grief and loss and anger and fear and anxiety and sadness and, you know, the list goes on and on, are not bad. They're not as comfortable, but they're not bad. They're just feelings in a range of feelings.

When you're working with somebody and you're helping, because I'm sure they come to you, because, again, they're having these feelings. Anxiety and stress or grief, etc. How do you integrate. And this is, like, personal. Because I want to know how you do it as an intuitive. How do you integrate your intuitive knowing with what you're helping them navigate? Like, is there a vibe or a feeling to it?

So when you're. Can you define intuitive knowing in the way that you're asking it? Cause I want to. How you think about it might be different than how I integrate it into my work. So I want to make sure that I'm clear on that.

For me, intuitive knowing is having a kind of expanded sense about things. For me, it's. Personally, I just suddenly know something to be true or. Right. Empathic intuition, for instance, is my experience.

So. Right. Okay, so are you talking about, like, when I'm working with someone, am I able to sort of see what's coming, like, in that, and how do I manage that?

Yeah. Or just sort of know where the stuff is that needs to be drawn from knowing, from not just your intellectual mind. Like, well, we should probably talk about this, but sometimes there are things that come to us that don't make logical sense on what we would be trained to do on paper.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. And I have to say that I think over the course of time, it's. It's harder for me to separate what is just lots of experience and then intuition combined with that, which I actually think is kind of the best combination. And so if I have an intuitive hit around something that feels like I know, and sometimes I'll have it in the first session where I'm like, gosh, I know how this is gonna end, not because of the story, but just I have a sense of like, oh, boy. You know, and it's still. Some people might go to a psychic, and that psychic says, like, you need to get out of that relationship right now, or you're in a relationship that's not healthy for you. And that very much might be true. And how do you get the person there? So if I know in the beginning of working with someone that they're in a relationship that's not healthy for them, I have to get them to see that for themselves. Even if I see it for them already, they have to see it for themselves. Because my sense. And usually people know what's right and not right for them. They just don't trust their own gut to follow that. And so I can know that and hold that for them until they can know it for themselves and until they can see it for themselves. I think it's oftentimes people just want the answer, but they don't want to do the work to get the result that they need to get. So both things have to work together. And I think that that can be why using a psychic or a medium can help you if maybe you can't see some of those things, but it isn't the answer that's going to get you where you need to go. I mean, I don't know if people just go to a psychic and the psychic says, you know, you need to leave your job and you need to do this and you need to do that, and suddenly they're able to do it. Oftentimes people know that's what they need to do, but they're stuck around why they can do it. So a psychic or medium can validate for you that that's what you need to do, but then what are you going to do to make that happen? Yeah, and that's sort of where I see my role is helping people recognize and trust what they actually already know in terms of what's good for them and what's not good for them.

Right. Yeah.

And maybe they need to be in that relationship that's really bad for them from a soul perspective to figure things out, and they have to sort through that. So I'm very careful in terms of how I also say things and what I impose on people. Because a therapist's job isn't to impose what I hear, see, think, feel onto them. It's to help use that thread to guide them towards their own truth.

Yeah, I very much agree. When I am talking with someone, I recognize that if I say something and they're trusting me and believing me, that thing has now become true for them in their life. They expect it, and they will start making decisions and changes toward that. So I'm very cautious because it's not my role to tell another person, this is how you need to. This is what you are and how you need to be and what's going to happen. Because then they're not the ones choosing it themselves. They're trusting a direction that I basically handed them, and I may or may not be right. So it's always like a very delicate bridge to walk, like, to share something like this is a possibility or a potential. What are you going to do with this?

Right, right. Like, when I've had the experiences, like, sometimes I'll see past lives of patients. What I think. I'm going to couch it in that what I think is a past life of a patient. And so if I see them in a certain setting, I won't necessarily say, like, I think you lived a past life as a, you know, I said queen. I'll go with queen again. Because earlier, like, a queen or whatever, I'll use the information to interpret what that might mean. Like, you know, you were in a. Perhaps this is a familiar feeling for you, being in a place of feeling really like, espoused and desired, but you felt disconnected from yourself, for example, or something like that. So I'm not saying, like, you were. That you lived a past life as someone who was worshiped as a queen. But, you know, maybe there's another way of phrasing it, and it's sort of like testing it out. It's an intervention that then becomes, oh, wait, that does resonate with me. And then I'm like, validation for me. I didn't need to tell them I saw them in a past life doing X, Y and Z. But I can use it because it speaks to their soul and their soul knows that to be true. And then they can either hang onto it, they can let go of it, they can use it to better understand themselves. But that's how I can use my intuitive senses. Not to say again, specifically like, oh, your dead grandma just came in and she wants you to know this, but rather, this is kind of the feeling around it. And this is. Does this resonate with you?

Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot, a lot of sense. I'm going to shift gears a little bit because I really want to hear the story before we end our time together. Like me, you have. You have said that you were kind of reluctantly brought into this world of spirituality and intuition and mediumship, and I share a similar background. Can you tell me what your moment where you had to just go, okay, guys, fine. I accept. I. Stop resisting this. All right, already. What was that for you?

So I think it was. It was not one thing, but I think the moment when it was like, I need to get control over the situation, it was. I had a patient's loved one come to me, and then I had some electrical stuff in my house that was happening that was very intense where the entire house would, like, the electrical would like, judge on and off, and things were just going haywire. And it was like. It felt like it was like, are you gonna listen? Like, how much do we need to kind of beat you over the head with this for you to listen? I'd be in yoga class and I'd hear the name of someone and I hear like, back corner. Like, you know, the name of whomever their. Who I think was their loved one. Like, it just felt. Started to feel really intrusive to me. And that's when I was like, okay, I need to get ahold of this situation. So I worked with a medium I was in. I was done with grad school. I was actually in a private practice. All of this started to open up for me while I was in grad school after the visit of. Of my aunt who had passed away. But I started to work with the medium for a couple of years just to start to understand the skill, the symbols, what information was coming in, what that information meant, how to use that information. And then kind of always had this push pull where I'd back in, pull away, back in, you know, step in, pull away. And then I just decided that I was going to do what I called a medium internship. So I just sent an email out to a bunch of friends and sent them to step, ask them to send it to their friends. And then I would do readings for them and I would just see how it went. And so I did that for. It was supposed to be a month. It ended up being three, and just didn't. It didn't resonate with me in the way that the psychological work resonated with me because I like to do really deep work with people. And it felt a little bit more surface to me just to have someone come in and do a reading and then send them on their way. It was more like, okay, what are you going to do? You had this reading and now what? Yeah, and I'm the now what person. Like, I'm the, what are you going to do with your life now that whatever it is, now that you've had a crisis, now that you lost a loved one, now that you got divorced, now that you're having a transition in your life, now what? And so I really. I like, went back to therapy, but I could not let go of this nagging sense of like, you have to do something with this. You have. You hold both these pieces. It's such value to people to think about it differently. And so that's when I started the podcast, which was a huge risk for me as a therapist because I didn't want people to think, oh my gosh, who is this, you know, woohoo lady who's saying she can talk to dead people? And actually it happens on the heels of I was with girlfriends. I remember this so clearly now that I'm talking about this. I was with girlfriends from high school, and we were. We just like, hadn't seen each other probably in like 20 years. And we decided that we were going to go away for a weekend and my friends were kind of egging me on and they were like, show us that you can do this and like, tell us about this. Because we hadn't really been in contact for quite some time, but they had heard bits and pieces. And so I shared with them. We. They were like, do a reading. I had like a couple margaritas in, which I don't recommend, But I was definitely less in anxious about being wrong like you were talking about earlier. And so I was more willing just to be like, all right, this is what I'm seeing. And immediately my friend's grandfather dropped in and gave some very, very evidential pieces for her that I didn't know. Even though she had been my friend growing up, I had no idea. And so at that point, they were all like, oh my God, like, you really can do this. And that's when I decided that I was going to do the podcast, because I love talking about it and I feel like I can explain it for people in a way that doesn't feel completely out there, but that feels maybe more grounded for them. And I think that people are looking for that often, like, they're not sure they're a believer. They might be, but they really want to believe, but they don't know if they believe. And so my job is not like, once I could really talk about this, so surrender to needing to convince people that this was right, then I could move forward and do this podcast. Because the podcast is not about convincing people. It's just allowing people to be curious alongside of me of what's possible. I'm not. You don't have to believe it. Believe whatever you want. This is just another way of thinking about things. And I hope that people can be curious with me because I believe that this enriches life and makes life so much more Delicious and interesting and awe inspiring. If you can open up to the magic of it all. Not necessarily just dead loved ones on the other side, but energy and universal energy and the connection that we all have and how interconnected we are and how the universe can work with you and moving things forward.

Yeah, yeah, that word again. Surrender you do. You have to surrender a bit of your identity and change how you let the world perceive you and how you're perceiving yourself and risk people thinking you're crazy or thinking you're amazing. And it seems to come in equal measure, right?

Well, yeah. And I mean this was six years ago but like we were joking today. I have a school board meeting today and I was like laughing that here I go people, I'm going to put this out there and everybody on the blacktop at my kids school is going to start like looking at me like, oh my God, would you put out there like I got mom.

I get that experience all the time. I'll walk in a room and I'm just like, oh, here's what that person's thinking and here's what they're thinking. And it's, it's not just the, the non verbal cues and the, and the side eye, it's like, oh, you can hear it like on multiple, multiple levels. Like an echo chamber of reinforcement. Which can be really disconcerting until you, you know, kind of rise up inside and be like, okay, well you know, you have to have a certain, I don't know, strength I guess to I think carry this amount of information or be or receive this amount of information.

Right. And for me, I think so much of it is I feel what other people feel really intensely. Part of it is probably because what I do, some people would say it's an empath, fine. But I think people sometimes use that word as like a way to excuse responsibility. I just have become really, really conscious about when I step into a space, what my role is in that space. So like you probably get, and sometimes like this has happened to me very rarely, but it has happened where people have found out that I'm, that this is my experience. And they'll say so one of two things when I met. They'll either say, oh, you're analyzing me. And my response is, you're not paying me enough to do that right now.

Oh, so that's the ultimate psychologist put down, oh, you're analyzing me. It's like, right, right, you need it buddy.

Or there's that Or I'm off. Like I don't, I really, you know, but. But I've also had the experience at parties where people are like, oh, can you. Can you tap in right now? And one time I was talking to someone and it was so loud that I couldn't resist. Like, I couldn't even have a conversation because what was coming through. And this doesn't happen to me very often, but for whatever reason, this was someone's baby that they had lost. I believe it was like a late term miscarriage or a late term loss came through very clearly. And so I just shared it. But then it was like, it was just very difficult the rest of the evening to kind of navigate because it was like, oh, my God, I want more, I want more, I want more. And I get that, like, people want that connection so deeply. So, yeah, it's. It's a lot of hats to be wearing, I think.

Agreed. Now, you. You work with people other than just coming into your office, right? You have courses, you've got other things. Your podcast, of course, yes.

So my podcast, Life, Death and the Space Between. And then I am hopefully launching a course early next year. I feel like I've been saying this for a long time, but this time, actually I just finished the beta of it, so. So I know kind of a lot of it is done. I just need to, like, rerecord the modules, but it is done. Excuse me. It is done. And if people are interested, they can go on my website and get on the wait list. It's called Live youe Life Backwards. So it's really using a lot of what we've talked about, this perspective of death, as a way to inform your life. How we view our soul, how we view our personality, what are the things we need to let go of in order to heal, in order to step into kind of this, more of a soul, what I call soul's essence, not necessarily purpose, but that when you're in alignment with the essence of your soul, then everything else unfolds quite easily for you. And it's been really, really fun to teach on a very small scale. I did it for free for any of my Patreon members who have been donators of the podcast for a long time. And the changes that I've seen people make in their life has been, like, remarkable. Like, not even what I expected they would do, and they did it. So it's a way for me to help more people, which was ultimately what I wanted to do when I started the podcast was just be outside of my little tiny office space a little bit more and take What I've Learned over almost 20 years of doing therapy to help people continue to grow and expand.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds fascinating. I kind of want to jump in and do it. So let me know.

I have to get on your mail.

Oh, I have to get on your Patreon. Right. Or mailing list.

No, no, no. This. The next round will just be anybody who's on the wait list can get into the course. I'm not sure how many spots I'm going to open up because I like the intimate ability to work. And I did the recordings live before and now I'm going to do the recordings pre recorded so there can be an opportunity for group work because I think there's so much power in that and power in people seeing how all of this kind of. Oops, excuse me. How this all kind of works out and works together.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for spending this half an hour with us. And literally I have a dozen more questions I want to dig into, but I'm going to have to wait on it. Maybe we will do a round two at some point.

I would love to do a round two. I love, love chatting about all of this. So I'm happy to come back whenever you'd like.

Whenever I get someone where I can just start kind of going back and forth, like, do you feel like this? Do you get that? Like, what does that mean to you? What does that. You know, I would. I call it the two Mediums Walk into a Bar conversation.

Yeah. And it's fun. I think for a really long time I didn't have people to talk to about it, so I couldn't ask those questions. And part of me didn't want to ask those questions because I felt like if I'm putting myself out there as a medium, then I should know this or what is the experience like? But I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand it can be very subtle and you have to be. That's why I'm like a terrible self promoter. But in the program, a lot of what I do is help people clear out the stuff that gets in the way of them being able to tap into their own intuition. And it's clearing out a lot of the psychological baggage that can, what you could say, lower your vibration in a way. And I'm not about just like, let's just feel happy all the time and positive. And I think that can be a bunch of nonsense. But that there is a way to clear out that energy that tends to be a little heavier, that prevents us from Being able to access kind of these larger, more intuitive parts of ourselves.

Yeah, I agree. Again, patterns, blocks, Bring them on. I want to see them lack, thinking, scarcity, catastrophic. Bring it on. Because it's all getting in your way.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, that is definitely round two. Okay, I am so delighted you're here and I'll remind everybody to listen to your podcasts, Life, Death and the Space Between. Also to visit your website and doctoramyrobbins.com that's Amy A M y. But you can also find it in the notes about the show. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And that, that, my friends, wraps things up.

But it's so true, I'm. I'm tempted to start a new podcast called Two Mediums Walk into a Bar. Meaning every time it's true, I get.

To kind of explore the mind, the.

Experience of someone else. Especially when they've inte these skills into their own life. And that life encompasses maybe a scientific bent or a place or way where that intuition is not, I don't want to say not meant to be thriving but not accepted as thriving. Oh, it's just the best conversation ever. So I'm pretty excited about this. You can also find me on Dr. Amy Robbins podcast, Life, Death and the Space in Between. And hopefully, you know, she's gonna pepper me with a bunch of cool questions about my experience. So I will see you all again next time. Thank you so much for joining me. My love to you all and I'll see you for another episode of Flow Dreaming. Still kinda. Woo woo.

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