Dear Julia:

I seem to get signs from somewhere on a daily basis that remind me of a man I was involved with a few years ago. He is a widower, and I met him not long after his wife passed on. We had a relationship, but he felt guilty about it. We saw each other on and off for two years. I believe his deceased wife sends me signs. I think she is trying to tell me something. I haven't talked to this man since last July, but I feel him around me alot, and I dream of him from time to time. However, I also see things every day that I connect with him and his life, such as his birth date, numbers that relate to him and me, songs centering on his wife's name. I also actually have people call me by her name by accident. I can't seem to stop seeing these signs. He once told me that he felt his wife sent me to him, but then why are we not together? Thanks! I do believe in the hereafter and spirits, and believe we get signs from people we were close to after they pass on. I've even heard voices of relatives I loved very much, and still do.
- Debbie

Dear Debbie:

Before I can explain what I feel is happening here, I have to try to explain "love" from the perspective of Spirit, at least to the best of my understanding. While we humans have all these rules and limits about how we can love, whom we can love, when we can love, etc., nothing that "limits" love in any way carries over into the non-physical.

I have long believed that the ability to see through mankind's fabricated mores is a sign of spiritual development, for as we evolve spiritually, we identify more and more with spiritual reality, so we conform less and less to culturally driven social rules. This may sound radical, but many good-hearted people who are ostracized by society are highly spiritually evolved. These people are often "artistic" in some way, for an artist is someone who sees the same thing everyone else sees, but in a unique way. They may be free spirits/hippies, psychics/healers, wanderers, gay or bisexual.

As we shed our physical bodies, we become the "essence" of who we really are. Some men have more feminine energy than many women do; some women have more masculine energy than many men do. When we are no longer categorized by our physical bodies, heterosexuality becomes a non-issue. We simply love others based on their essence, for sexual attraction develops when another's energy complements and balances our own. As love is not something that can be possessed, limited, restricted, controlled or contained, monogamy is also a non-issue in the non-physical. This is why a departed spouse would not be jealous or adverse to matching their widow or widower up with a wonderful new partner.

So while a departed spouse or lover will very much want us to be happy, we may still be thinking in terms of physical limitations and cultural mores. It's hard enough to move on when a partner dies, but when we sense the presence of a spouse in Spirit surrounding the situation, we often just feel all the more guilty.

While loving spouses in Spirit play matchmaker all the time, your situation is extra complicated because you are a very gifted natural medium. Many mediums experience endless attempts at communication from a certain spirit. This may be one of your first of many such encounters, though most won't be so intense, since you won't have an intimate connection to the "survivor."

Try for a moment to step into her perspective. Imagine that in passing on, you've simply moved from one level of existence to a "higher level," one with a glass floor. You can look down and see your husband and other loved ones grieving, but they can't see you. Even when they do look up, it's like there's a two-way mirror on their side, and they can't see you. You try and try to get their attention, but no matter how much jumping up and down and waving you do, they don't notice you. You may shout and yell (emotionally), and they may actually stop and think they heard something. This is basically what happens when spirits draw close and reach out to us, and we "sense" something but then shrug it off.

Now imagine that you start waving, and one person on that other side stops and looks up, and your eyes lock. This is the medium. You go crazy with excitement! While the medium can't hear you very well, she can see you, so you start to communicate with signs. You try to point her toward your grieving husband, and if she doesn't know him or understand what you're trying to do, this becomes tricky. At the same time, you're thinking this person is a perfect match for him, and you so just want him to be happy. So the medium and your hubby connect, and then because he feels guilty, they separate - before you even get a chance to communicate with him through her. Now you have to find a way to get them reconnected. Of course, the medium can't be looking up at you all the time either; she has to make her way through her own reality, and it's a big strain on her neck to be looking up all the time. In this scenario, you are the medium, Debbie.

When my spirit communication abilities were first blossoming, I used to get "random" spirits hanging around, trying to put me in the path of a loved one so I could communicate for them. If I was too shy to say anything to their loved one, they would hang out and keep trying to get me to do so. They might show up intermittently for a week or more until I gave in. (While I am always happy to facilitate communication like this, it can be nerve wracking to "come out" to some people about being a medium. Think of your children's teachers, your medical doctor, the imposing man interviewing you for a job, etc.!)

Soon I learned how to modulate my energy so that I was no longer hounded like this, though it still happens if I do public work like message services because this involves opening up to any well-intentioned spirit, as opposed to only those connected with a specific client. I would also have spirits show up for readings BEFORE their loved ones had contacted me to request a reading, and I came to understand that the spirits were the ones putting the "idea" in the minds of their loved ones to get a reading with me.

This is what I feel is happening with you. His wife is determined to get through to you and to him, and she is not going to stop until you communicate to him all you've been experiencing. She is trying to get your attention in all these various ways you've listed, and she is most encouraged because you have recognized that she is behind them all. Her presence around you is so thick that other people are picking up on it subconsciously and calling you by her name! She may even be sparking them to do this as a further sign to you by planting the name in their minds just as they go to speak to you.

Debbie, I believe that you are a gifted medium, and that you have only to meditate on this situation consciously to perceive just what it is she wants you to know. Then you will also know what to do. When I summon the courage to relay messages from determined spirits to their loved ones here on earth, they are at peace and they stop hounding me. Meditate with love on this situation, ask her what she is trying to communicate, and then try to find the courage to share this whole experience with him. If he can't get past his sense of guilt, then at least you've facilitated a loving connection between their souls. If he CAN, however, then your own future happiness in love may blossom. Either way, you will be blessed for finding the courage to honor the truth of this experience.

May you be so blessed that you also decide to honor your natural gift as a medium so that those in need can find healing and comfort in your work.

- Julia