I know I already have an About Dayna page but there is a lot left out of that brief biography that I wanted to include. So, here are some of the details of my initial spiritual awakening I left out that some of you may be curious about.
Something was brought to my attention yesterday – how I actively listen to my inner dialogue and make conscious choices based upon both my observations and the insight and analysis of it. I realized that I never elaborated upon how I became conscious of this inner dialogue nor how I learned to distinguish between my voice and that of my Companion’s. This was one of the very first lessons I received after my initial spiritual awakening but a detail that I skipped in my summary of this super-accelerated time in my life.
First off, “inner dialogue” here means the conversations that go on between myself and my Companion or Self. This is the “self-talk” that all of us experience throughout life. That angel on our shoulder, “gut” feeling, intuition, inner voice, etc that guides us through life and helps us follow our intended path.
Backstory – At the time of my initial spiritual awakening, I was working full-time as a high school psychology teacher and feeling quite fulfilled. I became involved with a coworker who was into spiritual topics, specifically Sylvia Browne and her spiritual ability. This meeting was not intentional on my part, he just seemed to come into my life at the right moment and his interests and mine were similar. We explored spirituality together. He was the one who brought in the Ouija board and the one who gave me the book by Sylvia Browne in which I found the meditation that connected me to my father. He heard about my spiritual experiences first-hand and even witnessed some of them. In hindsight I realize his connection to me at that time was purposeful. He offered me support and encouragement; a partner when otherwise I would not have had one. Had he not given me that book to read, I am not sure how everything would have turned out.
Though meditation gave me contact with my guidance, communicating with them was not something I was use to, at least not consciously. I had quite a bit of Ego influence and struggled to differentiate between my own thoughts and their messages. In order to effectively receive their guidance outside of meditation I needed to learn how to tune into them while going about my day. This is not as easy as it seems, but thankfully I had a natural tendency toward it.
This is where the Ouija board came into play. Believe-it-or-not, the Ouija board was the tool I needed to help me recognize and tune into my guidance while fully awake and aware (not in a meditative state). How? Well, for me it worked like this. I had to use it alone. When I did, the planchette seemed to move on its own, surprising both myself and my then boyfriend. When I used the board I would hear my guidance, first in single words and then the more I practiced, in full sentences. The board would simply go to a letter and in my mind I would hear a word. Eventually the one letter initiated entire sentences in my mind. For example, if the planchette moved to “P”, I might hear, “Please listen. We have something to tell you.” It got so easy for me to hear my guidance this way that I even did readings for a family member using the board. This was my first-ever experience giving a psychic reading and my family member (my cousin’s then-wife) was blown away by my accuracy. So was I, actually.
To others it appeared like the planchette was just flying randomly around on the board in no particular or recognizable pattern. For me, though, the board was like a tuning fork or focal device. When I used it, I would enter into a focused state where information in the form of thoughts in my own mind would come in without interference from me. How this came about is still a mystery to me. It just seemed to be there, as did all the spiritual gifts I seemed to suddenly have. When I say that in one month I went from normal, ordinary me to psychic, medium, healer, and more, I am not kidding. It really was that fast.
For that first month I spent hours alone with the board fine tuning my ability to hear my guidance. I received detailed lessons via communications using the board. I was taught where to find my guidance in my mind. Their thoughts entered from one direction and one direction only – from above and to my left. If thoughts originated from another area they were to be disregarded for the time being. Later, thoughts coming from the upper right of my mind were from Spirit when I was passing on messages via mediumship.
When not using the board, my guidance was almost a constant thought-stream in the beginning. It got to the point that I got irritated by it. If I didn’t want to hear something and tried to block the communication then my guidance doubled their efforts. It was infuriating and I had many arguments with them until I finally gave in and listened. In the beginning they were working with me on various issues, acting like my own personal therapists. To this day this “therapist” relationship remains though with less resistance from me.
My first main guide was a female who I named, “Leslie” (they don’t care what you call them). She wore a cheerleading outfit and was very energetic and persistent. I now believe this was to keep my attention and encourage me to listen. Her personality was refreshing and upbeat, which I needed at the time. Leslie was my main contact until Steven presented himself to me formally in 2004. Steven was always there in the background but his masculine and very powerful energy intimidated me.
Often the communication with my guidance was heightened at odd times such as when taking a shower, using the bathroom or driving. Nighttime was just as busy, if not more. Where my dreams before were quickly forgotten upon waking, they began to stay in my mind upon waking along with communications with my guidance. This change stayed with me throughout and is still very much a part of my life. I didn’t start having OBEs until 2004, around the same time Steven became my primary focus.
Practice
Eventually, use of the Ouija board was discouraged by my guidance to the point that when I tried to use it they refused to communicate with me. Ultimately, I had to toss it and rely solely on what I had learned via the brief time I had used it (only about three weeks). For a long while, I saw in my mind the “Yes” and “No” of the board as well as the images of the letters. I think this was to help me transition. Thankfully, my attention was drawn to online communities that I sought out to help me better understand what was happening to me.
By the second month after my awakening, I was giving psychic and mediumship readings online. I would stay up late into the night giving free readings in a chatroom based in the UK. The UK was really the only place at that time that had chatrooms and forums for giving readings and practicing spiritual gifts. I would stay up until 3am most weeknights and then get up and go to work the next day. Then at work I would have Spirit visiting to pass on messages to my students even. It was an almost constant and it got to the point that by the end of the school year I felt I had to resign my position because you can imagine the ethical issues.
I can’t remember how I figured out I was a medium. I think I was practicing readings and someone in the chatroom mentioned I was a medium. Imagine my surprise. lol
In the meanwhile, I also revealed some of my experiences with my family. To my surprise, they didn’t outright reject them. My older sister was ecstatic and my maternal grandmother revealed that she had the gift, too, though hers was limited to unwanted visions and precognitive dreams. Unfortunately for her, she had a psychotic break in her 40s, was institutionalize briefly, and prescribed anti-psychotic medications she took until her passing in 2014.
Through all of this my guidance was a constant unless I was involved in a mundane activity that required mental focus. Even then, though, the information would somehow “leak” through. It took me a while to learn to control that. Now I rarely, if ever, have Spirit interruptions. However, my guidance will and does come through at any time.
Mediumship
After I left my job and focused on using my spiritual abilities full-time, I began to receive guide-led instruction on how to control my gifts. Specifically, mediumship was a challenge. The “instruction” I received came both via communication with my guides as well as being led to individuals and books that helped fill in the gaps.
Online readings were simple compared to the in-person ones. In-person was more energetically intense and challenging and this took some getting use to. Also, my Companion did not automatically fulfill his role as Gatekeeper. He would just step back and all in Spirit who wanted to come through, did. So many would come through that it was like several radio stations playing in my mind at the same time. It was overwhelming to me, my entire body would shake and I would not be able to focus. On top of all the “noise”, I often had random individuals in Spirit pushing the last moments of their lives on me, some without knowing it and others purposefully. I would end up with all kinds of symptoms – chest pains, loss of breath, suffocation, confusion, headache, feeling heavy or unable to move, lethargy, nausea, pain, etc. On top of that there were the emotions they would send me. The physical and emotional side-effects of mediumship are my least favorite (unless they are pleasant which is rare lol).
Eventually, I realized I had to instruct those in Spirit who wished to come through, so I tried it. It worked. I had to tell them specifically what I wanted. For example, I would say, “All family/friends who are here for (insert person’s name), come forward. Everyone else step back.” Then I would ask them to designate a spokesperson who would then line everyone up in order of importance. Those related to mother’s side would line up on the sitter’s left (my right) and those on the paternal side would line up on the sitter’s right (my left). I believe I got the idea of lining everyone up from John Edward. Eventually, I was talking to them (Spirit) as if they were still in bodies. Some of their personalities would come through and would clash with my own. I learned to play with this, though, and used it to pass on messages. It was and still is a lot of fun.
My methods worked brilliantly for me. I now realize had I not had the prior instruction from my guidance on how to differentiate between my thoughts, their thoughts and the thoughts of others in Spirit, I would not have done well at all.
Ego Influence
A friend once mentioned that my method of communicating with my guidance and Spirit was too risky because of the high likelihood for Ego interference. Honestly, I disagree. The Ego will come through no matter what. You can “turn off thought” and try and perceive information in images, feelings, sensations, etc, and the Ego will still do its thing. There is no avoiding it, there is only recognizing it, acknowledging it and keeping it in its place. I won’t say I didn’t struggle with Ego influence when I received communication – I did….still do. What I will say is that I have learned how to identify it and moderate its influence.
What I learned right away was that Spirit coming through via mediumship is not free of their human personality. Thus, they are not free of Ego either. I have passed on messages that were very obviously egocentric. However, those were the messages that most hit home with the sitter (person receiving the message). I remember one time a father-figure who had passed wanted to tell his daughter something. It included a cuss-word that I did not repeat but indicated was there. The sitter laughed out loud and said, “That’s my Daddy.” Just because someone passes away doesn’t mean they lose their human perspective or personality. Eventually that aspect will unite with the other aspects of Self, but this can take years sometimes depending on the individual. So, even if I successfully rid myself of Ego, the Ego of the Spirit coming through will likely show itself. So you can see how much of a losing battle it would be to attempt to eradicate Ego altogether. Not gonna happen.
One way that I avoided Ego influence was by choosing not to give readings, mediumship or otherwise, to close family and friends. Sometimes I would be pressured to do this, but most of the time it was respected. I found that with people I cared about it was very difficult to get accurate information. I often would receive for them biased information mixed in with unbiased information. Additionally, there came with family and friends a desire to be accepted and believed. This effectively blocked communication and information flow because of the ridge of expectation that was there.
One of the first readings I gave was to my cousin’s then-wife. It was extremely accurate and I predicted the birth of two of their children to the month of conception and gender and also foresaw their divorce and the “other woman” who I described as blonde and blue-eyed (ha! my sister but I didn’t know that then). Because of this, my cousin, who is now my brother-in-law, continues to bring up my past predictions for his ex in order to try and get me to give him information. I try to explain to him that I did not have a connection to his ex-wife which is why I could get information for her, but it is clear he doesn’t completely believe me. My other cousin is the same. But I stick to my rules.
What is it Like?
I’ve been asked countless times about my experiences communicating with my guidance and Spirit. What is it like? Do you hear them audibly, from outside your head? Or is it all internal? Do you sense/feel them or get visions?
Yes to all of the above. 🙂 And “it’s complicated”. lol
If there is a way to hear Spirit or someone who is not in a body at whatever vibration they are at, I think I’ve experience it.
Primarily, 90% of the time, I hear them in my mind. In complete sentences or concepts. For example, I will hear one or two words as if my own thought from a particular space in my mind and the entire sentence fills in and is instantly Known. Yet this thought is not mine and I recognize it is not. This is from the “training” I had early on (mentioned above). Still, to this day, the messages if coming from my Companion or guidance come from above and to my left. Only rarely does this change and usually only if some other form of guidance is stepping in or if my Companion is allowing Spirit to come through. I can sense the energy shift when this happens, too. How? I have no clue. lol
The other 10% of the time I will received communication via audible voice from outside my mind (this scares me, though) or via an altered state (not drug-induced) such as meditation, OBEs, lucid dreams or deep trance (the in-between).
Most of the time the communication includes some kind of sensation and/or visual phenomenon. The most common are seeing photographs in my mind like a slide-show, but I will also get tastes, smells, touches, feel movement, and sometimes see a complete moving picture like a movie that fast-forwards through time to show me specifics. Often in the case of the movie I will feel transported into the scene and experience it from the perspective of whoever is communicating it. These visuals and sensations are most common via Spirit during mediumship or during altered states when coming from my guidance.
The audible communication while fully awake and aware has come in two forms (yeah there’s more than one!). The first is very similar to someone in a body talking to me except there is no body. I hear them like anyone and usually very loudly. This has happened enough that I have lost count. I never like it. It freaks me out because they are usually too loud and all of them have been male voices. In one instance the individual who was talking to me even moved my blinds when I asked him to and more than once. Nope. Not my kind of fun. I told him to either talk to me in my head or leave. lol
The other audible communication only occurred once and was beyond amazing to me. I was sitting in my bed preparing for sleep, so relaxed with eyes open. Out of the blue I felt this strange sensation in my crown and inside my head. It felt tingly and sporadic, like I had energy bees buzzing around inside my head. It didn’t hurt, it felt spectacular actually and my memory of it is of golden fireflies with light trailing behind them. Then I heard both externally and internally at the same time a voice that sounded very much like music and moved with a fluid quality. It seemed to descend down through my crown into the center of my head, yet I heard it outside of and inside my mind but not via my ears. The voice was very high pitched, like super high speed (Alvin and the Chipmunks comes to mind) and it spoke in a foreign language. I could tell it was a male voice and I knew it was my Companion. I was thrilled for the experience but I ruined it because the high pitched sound was so squeaky and hilarious that I burst into giggles and couldn’t stop laughing. Despite my laughing it went on for a bit and then stopped. When it stopped, the “light” in the center of my head went off and everything was back to normal like nothing happened. Afterwards I asked my Companion what he said. He told me he introduced himself and said he loved me. I think I teased him for a long time after. I have asked and asked for it to happen again and he said it is difficult for him to do. He also says, “You can hear me just fine like this”, meaning like I always hear him.
The funny thing about this one-time, chipmunk-voice communication, is that Sylvia Browne says this is how she hears her guide when he speaks to her. How she doesn’t bust out in laughter every time, I don’t know. Thinking helium balloons over here now and getting a good laugh as I type this. LOL
My Normal
Since 2003 my inner-dialogue has been a conscious one between myself and my guidance and Companion Traveler. There has not been even one day that we didn’t communicate in some way. Even during my seven year “break” there was communication. It is my “normal”.
In an average day in my life I will wake up communicating with my guidance and fall asleep communicating with them. Intermixed throughout my day my thoughts are often interrupted with questions or observations from my Companion. It is not a constant dialogue by any means but it is so familiar, so comfortable to me, that when it goes “quiet” for long periods of time, I initiate the connection to “check-in”.
Interestingly, I have remembered times from my childhood when I communicated with my Companion just like I do now. I remember being told to do things and I would comply. It was not an order by any means, it was always a suggestion, but I did it because when I did it proved helpful. For example, I use to have horrible IBS as a child. I remember being told to “be still” when it got really painful. So I complied and after a few moments the pain went away. From that point on I was “still” when it hurt and the pain would pass. Another time I was walking with my sister on the road going home and a man pulled up and offered us a ride. I got a really bad feeling and heard, “No”. I kept my sister from getting in the car and we ran home. When I was 17, I heard, “hold on” during an auto accident when I rolled my car. You bet I did it, too! lol So it’s always been there. It’s just a part of life for me.
Living Life in Between 