As a medium I'm used to feeling nervous before every platform demo. There is no way you can rehearse your lines or prepare in anyway other than meditation and trust. For those of you who would like to know how it's done, it's very simple; stand on stage in front of a room full of people looking at you, who are desperate for a message from a loved one on the other side. Then open your mind up to receive information from your spirit guide that is getting information from someone in the spirit world who has a message for a loved one in the audience. The information can come as, just knowing, images and words. I trust that spirit will always be there to get me the information I need to pass on. I find that my trust in spirit helps me overcome that fear. However, that fear was pushed to the limit when I agreed to a mediumship demo in Hong Kong.
A client put me in touch with a shop in Hong Kong called 'Reflections'. Ruby, the lady who owns the shop, ran workshops and has had people come from all over the world to do readings and talks. She was very interested in a Mediumship workshop, as they had never had a medium visit, either to teach or do a platform demo before.
My first evening in Hong Kong I did a talk about what Mediumship is, and an example of the two workshops I would be running later in the week and finished with a reading for someone in the group. When we came to conduct a small experiment for psychic ability, it became clear that my normal style of teaching would have to change. Psychic Development is very personal, I discovered that it wasn't enough giving the tools for their own exploration; I would also have to be their tour guide. I did a meditation on the reason for this. We learn English by breaking up the word into it's component sounds. When you come to a word you have never seen before, you can work out what the word is by sounding out the letters. In Chinese, each word is like a picture and you must be told what each word means as there is no way of working it out for yourself.
The evening for the platform demo was moving closer. I realized how heavily I rely on my sense of humour when in an audience situation. From the introduction evening, I realized that I simply wasn't getting my humour across. My deepest fear realized: I was simply was not funny!
I had done private readings which were going really well without too much communication problem. But I couldn't get over the fear of the platform demo. I really wondered if spirit wanted me to do this. But every time I thought about canceling I felt the presence of spirit.
As I rely on physical description, such as colour of hair or eyes, I anticipated having difficulty with a Chinese audience. Also I feared bringing through names would be near impossible. I work well with telepathy, which isn't in the form of words, so I wasn't worried about a language barrier from spirit, but I knew that many of my links would need to be very clear in order to be understood. To cap it all, I also had really bad-jet lag and kept falling asleep in my mediation before the platform. The heat and humidity of Hong Kong were not helping either.
I have never felt so naked and vulnerable before working. Stripped of my ability to use humour and feeling much unprepared I summoned what was left of my nerve and I did the demo. The group was small so I went to each person in turn and spent about 15 mins each giving forward messages with great ease. There was one person who had just lost her mother for whom, on some level, I feel the whole trip was made.
Coming back to the UK, my next platform demo was in Stoke-on-Trent at Kendra Whitty's wonderful Phoenix Centre. I was feeling much more confident about this platform event. After Hong Kong this would be a breeze. 150 people, so great energy and four mediums. I was the last one to go on; people had been sitting a long time so I made a few jokes to bring the energy back into the room. The jokes fell flat! "Now I'm not funny in The UK as well as in Hong Kong," I thought. So I went to my next comfort zone, self-deprecation! I said something about not being very good with names from spirit as I get most of my information from non-speech based telepathy. But I think it just sounded like I said to the audience 'I'm not very good!' The first message was received and understood, but I knew it wasn't one of my best. The second half of the night and again my turn came to give a message. Loud and clear, as if someone shouted in my ear, I heard the name Burt. Burt isn't really a very common name nowadays so it was picked up straight away and I passed on a very clear message. At the end of the event, a girl of about twelve came up to me with a photo in her hand. She held the photo out to me and said "this is my granddad Burt". It's moments like that that make all the nerves in the world worth it.
I know I should always trust spirit. But I have never done it with out feeling I could trust myself. In this circumstance I couldn't make jokes until I had the connection, or chat on whilst I waited for a stronger link. It was the purest form of communication I have experienced. Because the need to perform didn't get in the way of the message.
Copyright © 2004 Becky Walsh