Survival is such an interesting word. It means the state of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal or difficult circumstances. It’s also a word used a lot in Spiritualism.
In fact mediumship is said to be all about providing evidence of survival. The links a medium makes with Spirit Beings are intended to connect those in the Spirit World with all of us who have been left behind. When I work I always ask the communicators to tell me about themselves. As I understand where they fit around the person here I also ask for evidence that the Spirit person knows the person they want to talk to. I believe it’s important to make sure that I’m connecting people who really are related to one another in some significant way. It will make the message more meaningful. And, hopefully, help the people left down here think more about an afterlife.
So providing evidence of their survival is a key part of my work. Of course not everything that I have to say may seem significant. It’s an easy mistake to make. To dismiss something as rather meaningless. I remember when I first started going to a Spiritualist church. I though it was a bit ridiculous for the mediums to be talking about the colour of curtains or that someone had a new carpet. You see, I wasn’t the one getting the message. I had no idea how much meaning that might have had to the person getting the message. Small details, insignificant details are there to show the person here that their loved one is still taking an interest in what’s happening.
When I realised that these details mattered I was busy developing my own mediumship. I decided that I would work hard to make my connections evidence based. That I would pass on whatever was coming in because it was all about the survival of loved ones.
Today I was also reminded about another kind of survival. I started my journey into mediumship when I began working as a person-centred counsellor. Working with people who had been involved in all sorts of life events made me think about how we survive those things. What is it that has got me through the tough times? How have I held the bits of me together so that my life can continue? It’s certainly something I hadn’t thought about before. There is something courageous within all of us. Call it a survival instinct. Or an ability to keep hope alive. Talking to my counselling clients today then doing readings this evening I felt inspired once more.
My life for the last eighteen years has been about helping people to find the hope inside them. Sometimes I’ve failed. Most of the time I’ve had the evidence that people have been able to hold themselves together. Pulling the bits into place until they have healed themselves. Like the Spirit people my job has been to say I’m here for you and I’m interested in you. I’ve also been here to remind them that they are survivors. I know from my own life that it is sometimes easier to feel or think I’m the victim of life events. That I don’t have to take any responsibility for what is happening. And that I can collapse in a heap waiting for someone to rescue me. Yet the evidence shows that I have turned victimhood into surviving instead.
I can offer that evidence to the people I work with. I can remind them that they are still standing. Wobbly perhaps. But alive and moving forward.
That is a powerful confirmation. Because if I, or they, can live through anything then it’s easier to believe that life continues. That brings me back around to the afterlife. Death isn’t the final chapter. Instead it’s a new beginning. Just as we survive life events we will survive death too. Surviving is actually what we do best.
Day 355 of my blogging challenge.