What If Mediumship Isn’t Something We Have to Force?
Reflections on trust, surrender and the natural flow of mediumship after my conversation with medium and teacher Rev. Colin Bates
Something has changed in my mediumship recently.
Not because I have discovered a new technique. Not because I have learned another method or finally found the perfect way to connect with the spirit world.
If anything, the opposite has happened.
I have been doing less.
Over the last few months, my life has changed significantly. I stepped away from a business that had occupied an enormous amount of my mental and emotional energy for many years. And as that noise has begun to quieten, I have noticed something unexpected.
My mediumship has started to feel different.
Lighter. More spontaneous. More natural.
There have been occasions when I have simply been standing with somebody and suddenly become aware of a spirit person around them, without consciously trying to make a connection at all.
That would once have terrified me.
Even during readings, I could sometimes question what I was receiving. So the idea of suddenly becoming aware of spirit in an ordinary everyday situation, without having prepared myself or deliberately opened up, would previously have caused my analytical mind to jump straight in.
But recently, something has shifted.
And it has left me wondering whether one of the biggest lessons in mediumship is not learning how to do more.
Perhaps it is learning how to get out of the way.
When the mind becomes quieter
This was something I explored recently on the Soul Sync podcast with international medium and teacher Colin Bates.
During our conversation, I spoke about how much lighter I had begun to feel since making changes in my life, and how much more naturally my sensitivity seemed to be flowing as a result.
Colin talked about how easily the physical mind can dominate our awareness.
When life is busy, when we are stressed, analysing, concentrating or constantly thinking about what comes next, the quieter aspects of our sensitivity can become difficult to notice.
He described how the subtler realms of psyche and spirit can almost become muted when the physical mind is completely occupied. Conversely, when there is more peace and freedom within the mind, sensitivity can begin to heighten naturally.
It resonated with me enormously.
Because how many of us say that we are present when, in reality, our minds are somewhere else entirely?
We may be sitting in meditation while simultaneously thinking about tomorrow's appointments.
We may be trying to connect with spirit while wondering whether what we just received was right.
We may be asking for information while already analysing the information that arrived three seconds earlier.
And the paradox is that the harder we try to catch something subtle, the easier it can become to miss it.
Mediumship is a natural process
One sentence from Colin stayed with me.
He described mediumship as a natural process.
That sounds simple, but I think it changes everything.
Many people begin developing their mediumship believing there is something they need to manufacture.
They need to push their energy out.
They need to see something.
They need to hear something.
They need to find a name, relationship, memory, address, birthday or perfectly identifiable piece of evidence.
I know that feeling because I have done it.
There were times earlier in my own development when mediumship felt almost sticky.
I would receive one piece of information, stop, analyse it, try to place it, then reach around mentally looking for the next thing.
And each time I did that, I was effectively stepping away from the experience in order to think about the experience.
There is a huge difference between those two states.
One is experiencing.
The other is analysing.
And somewhere along the way, I have begun to understand that mediumship seems to flow far more naturally when I stay with the experience.
Are we learning mediumship backwards?
One of my favourite moments in the conversation came when Colin described the way mediumship was taught when he was younger.
Before people began trying to communicate with the spirit world, they would sit in what was known as an awareness circle.
For a long period, the focus was not on finding someone's grandmother, identifying a spirit person or producing evidence.
It was about discovering the presence of the power within yourself.
Learning yourself.
Learning your sensitivity.
Learning the difference between your ordinary thoughts and those quieter impressions that arise through awareness.
Colin made the observation that today we can sometimes do this completely backwards.
People want to learn how to communicate with Granny before they have learned how to communicate with themselves.
I love that.
Because developing mediumship has probably taught me more about myself than almost anything else I have ever done.
You begin noticing how your mind works.
You notice your fears.
Your need to be right.
Your desire for validation.
Your imagination.
Your intuition.
Your emotional responses.
You slowly begin discovering the unique language through which information seems to arrive for you.
And that language will not necessarily look like somebody else's.
Your mediumship does not need to look like anyone else's
I often become aware of a face when a spirit person first draws close.
For a while I worried about that.
Why am I seeing a face again?
Should I be getting something different?
Am I limiting myself?
But what I am increasingly learning is that our natural ways of perceiving are not necessarily limitations.
They may simply be our vocabulary.
During our conversation, Colin explained that his own communication often begins through feeling and emotion.
He may first experience love, sadness, regret, humour or another emotional quality.
That feeling begins to lead him towards the presence and personality of the spirit communicator.
Rather than immediately trying to describe somebody, he stays with what he is experiencing and allows the story to unfold.
That distinction feels incredibly important to me.
Because mediumship is not really about collecting disconnected facts.
It is about a person.
From evidence to the story of a life
This is perhaps the biggest change I have noticed in my own readings recently.
Earlier in development, mediumship can sound something like:
“I've got a red car.”
“I'm seeing a beach.”
“I'm being shown a balloon.”
And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. We all have to learn how our perception works.
But something begins to change as trust develops.
Recently I have found myself working very differently.
Instead of merely reporting a piece of information, I am increasingly allowing the spirit person to become present within the language of the reading.
“Your mum is telling me about the red car.”
“She is showing me what happened when you went there together.”
“She is making me feel how funny she found this.”
“She wants you to remember this particular moment.”
The information has not necessarily changed.
But the relationship to it has.
During my conversation with Colin, I described the medium as becoming almost a composer of energy.
He responded by describing the medium as a storyteller of life.
And I think that is beautiful.
Because there is a profound difference between somebody sitting opposite you saying:
“Yes, that sounds like my mum.”
And suddenly feeling:
“Oh my God. That is my mum.”
That difference comes when evidence begins to carry personality, emotion, relationship and life with it.
For me, that is where mediumship becomes something much deeper than simply producing facts.
The evidence matters enormously.
But the evidence is there to reveal a person.
Less description. More experience.
Another thing Colin spoke about was staying with the feeling rather than immediately jumping into description.
That has challenged me.
Because the mind loves information.
Give it an image and it immediately wants to label it.
What does that mean?
Who does it belong to?
Is it symbolic?
Is it literal?
Is that father?
Grandfather?
Brother?
Uncle?
But families are complicated.
Relationships are complicated.
People are complicated.
And the moment we become obsessed with fitting everything neatly into a box, we risk losing the person who is actually trying to communicate.
Sometimes the most important question is not:
What category does this information belong in?
It is:
What is this experience trying to show me?
That small shift has helped my mediumship enormously.
The hardest part may be surrender
Of course, saying “just allow it” is incredibly easy.
Actually doing it is something else entirely.
For years I thought I understood surrender.
I could sit there saying internally:
I'm not trying.
I'm allowing.
I'm open.
I'm letting go.
While simultaneously trying extremely hard to make sure I was successfully not trying.
That is the wonderful contradiction of the human mind.
Real surrender seems to arrive less through instruction and more through experience.
You begin receiving information.
You trust it.
You discover that it was meaningful.
You trust a little more next time.
Slowly, the grip loosens.
Colin made an interesting distinction later in our conversation.
Perhaps “surrender” is sometimes too big a word.
Maybe we begin simply by cooperating with the experience.
We notice the first impression.
We embrace it.
We allow it to influence the next moment.
And then the next.
That feels much more achievable.
What does this mean when you come for a reading?
I think these ideas matter beyond mediumship development.
People come for readings for many different reasons.
Sometimes somebody deeply hopes to feel the presence of someone they love in the spirit world.
Sometimes there are questions about life.
Sometimes there is change, uncertainty or a crossroads.
And sometimes a person simply feels drawn to have a reading without completely understanding why.
Colin spoke during our conversation about what he calls the energy of need.
One person may need understanding about their life.
Another may need communication from the spirit world.
Sometimes both seem to exist together.
That idea reflects how I increasingly approach my own readings.
I do not want to force an experience into a predetermined shape.
Of course, if you book a mediumship reading, the intention is to work with the spirit world.
If you book a psychic tarot reading, the focus is more directly upon you, your life and the energy surrounding your circumstances.
And a psychic and mediumship reading allows space for both.
But within any genuine intuitive experience, I believe there also has to be room for something unexpected to unfold.
Sometimes the thing we think we need at the beginning is not necessarily the thing that becomes most meaningful by the end.
Mediumship is about life
There was another moment in the conversation that made me stop.
Colin said that mediumship is not about death.
It is about life.
That instantly resonated with me.
Because although people often describe mediumship as communicating with those who have “passed away”, that has never quite captured what the experience means to me.
Mediumship, at its heart, points towards the continuation of life.
The personality.
The relationship.
The humour.
The memories.
The love.
The person.
Colin spoke about sensitivity being used not simply for spirit communication but through healing, compassion and the way we live our lives.
And perhaps that is another reason mediumship can become such a profound journey.
You begin wanting to understand the spirit world.
Then somewhere along the way, you start understanding yourself.
Never limit the limitless
The title of my Soul Sync conversation with Colin was Never Limit the Limitless: The Extraordinary Power of Spirit.
That phrase came from a moment when we were discussing the extraordinary mediumship demonstrated by some of the pioneers of the past.
I suggested that perhaps we would never see mediumship expressed in quite the same way again.
Colin immediately challenged me.
Why impose that limitation?
Why decide in advance what is or is not possible?
His point was not that everybody should attempt to recreate the mediumship of the past.
It was that we should be careful about placing boundaries around something before we have fully explored it.
And I think that applies far beyond mediumship.
How often do we limit ourselves before life has even had the opportunity to show us what might happen?
I can't do that.
I'm not intuitive.
I'm not sensitive.
I'm imagining it.
I'm not good enough.
I'm getting this wrong.
Perhaps the biggest limitation is sometimes the story we have already decided to believe.
My own mediumship seems to be teaching me something very simple at the moment.
Less reaching.
Less forcing.
Less proving.
Less analysing.
More noticing.
More trusting.
More feeling.
More allowing.
Maybe mediumship is not always something we need to chase.
Perhaps sometimes it is already there, quietly waiting for us to become still enough to notice it.
Listen to the conversation
This reflection was inspired by my Soul Sync conversation with international medium and teacher Colin Bates, Never Limit the Limitless: The Extraordinary Power of Spirit.
In the full episode, we explore trust, surrender, the power of the medium, developing sensitivity, evidential mediumship and what may become possible when we stop imposing limitations upon ourselves.
[Listen to the full Soul Sync episode here]
Curious about having a reading?
If you feel drawn to experience a reading for yourself, I offer mediumship readings, psychic tarot readings and combined psychic & mediumship readings, online and from Bristol.
Every reading is different. My intention is to create a grounded, compassionate space in which we can explore whatever unfolds naturally.