Gail Withers: The heart and soul of living and dying

Gail Withers is a spiritual medium who can interpret and pass on messages from people who have passed away, a talent she embraced following the revealing death of her Dad. She complements that work with holistic counselling, reiki and spiritual development classes, which all makes for a busy, determined and sensitive woman. I went to one of her spiritual medium platform nights and was truly moved by the experience. Many people in the audience had the chance to hear messages that resonated deeply. Of course, Gail’s line of work invites scepticism, but it’s her personal mission to destigmatise the work of good-intentioned spiritual mediums, and to encourage people to embrace their own sensitivities and intuitions. I spoke with her on a bracing winter’s day in Bowral.

Jess: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Where you grew up, what kind of family you had, and what kind of ideas you had for yourself and your future?

Gail: I’m one of five kids and the fourth girl. We grew up in a tiny war service home as my Dad was a returned serviceman from World War Two. My Dad features strongly in what I’m doing now so I like to think of it as Dad giving me not only my physical life but also my spiritual life. We were a poor working-class family of the 1960s and 1970s. I was a very, very, very shy and sensitive little child. I used to cry over anything and everything and hide behind my Dad just because somebody said, “Hello”. I felt everything, I couldn’t watch anything scary or nasty, I would just cry and be terrified. Mum used to say I was very dramatic but really I was just so anxious and full of fears. It was a very tough upbringing with five kids and Dad working three jobs to support us, so Mum was short on time and patience.

It wasn’t an idyllic, sunshiny life but on reflection it could have been a lot worse. I remember that there was always something going on that was scary to me, because I could ‘feel’ and ‘see’ things that not everyone else could. I would be lying in bed and I could feel something/someone pressing on me, I could feel them in my ears, I could feel this energy around me making every hair on my body stand up and tingle. I could see faces and shapes and hear voices trying to talk to me. As a terrified child I thought it was the Devil or vampires or other ‘monsters’ because there was nobody talking about this kind of thing back in my younger years. There was no John Edwards or Alison DuBois on TV telling us that these happenings were normal when connecting with Spirit.

I used to take myself off to church, as that was the place where I felt safe. I thought that God would keep me safe from all the feelings and visions I kept having. When everything felt dark and scary, the church was pretty lights and glass, candles, ceremony, and security. I even entertained being a nun at one stage when I was young as I was so frightened of what was happening to me.

Jess: But you were raised Catholic?

Gail: Yes, I was christened Catholic but that was it. It wasn’t like we went to church every Sunday. But I would be taking myself off and it helped keep ‘things’ at bay. My Dad used to say, “You have such an imagination,” because I used to write really good stories and dreamt all sorts of things up. I always thought I would be a writer because of my stories. My Grandpa was a photojournalist and he was always going to get me a cadetship as a writer. I loved anything creative: music, writing, sewing, cooking. I guess I was always looking to express myself.

So even with my ‘feelings’ and ‘sensing’ and ‘seeing’ things I never acknowledged anything, I just thought it was creepy or I was weird. I even had a bad experience with a priest that put me off going to church at around age 13. During confession he was asking me if I’d had impure thoughts and I was like, “No!” So even Church no longer felt safe.

Jess: So you never talked to anyone about it? You never said to your Mum, “Look, sometimes I see funny things”?

Gail: There was never a channel open for that sort of communication at home. I probably would have gotten in trouble for being dramatic or making things up. I think I was always the odd one out at home. My Dad was very soft and gentle but he was always at work. So Mum was there with five kids under 10. I’m not going to say “I see dead people” or something like that, she would have said, “Don’t be stupid or ‘stop acting’”.

Jess: I imagine she was very stressed and had to run things like a military regime.

Gail: She was brought up in very tough times and did the best she could. Mum only recently came to have reiki with me and she was quite impressed. Before that she was a bit sceptical or not sure of what it was all about. I think I got my sensitivity from Dad because he was a very deep man, a man before his time. So I grew up never saying anything about it to anyone. I have always been good at keeping things to myself. I left school early and I got a job in the public service instead of journalism because my Grandpa died.

Jess: So your Grandpa dying meant no more cadetship?

Gail: Yeah, he wasn’t there so I let the dream go. And then came the teenage years, and the trials and tribulations that go with those years, I really did struggle when I was a young woman. I can really see how there is a fine line between having this link with Spirit and mental illness. When you’re that sensitive and when your heart leads you all the time, it doesn’t always lead you in the right direction. I have often marvelled that I never dabbled with serious drugs to escape the feelings. I could have but something always stopped me, probably the thought of my Dad and his disapproval. He was so against drugs, really drilled it into us. I could see how the escapism of addiction could have appealed to me during those trying times… thankfully I never went down that path.

Jess: You mentioned that you’re a Pisces [before we started recording]. Well, that’s classic Pisces behaviour. You either go psychic, addicted or performer.

Anxiety for most people is caused by their over sensitivity. Most anxious people I know are really lovely people; they just have a really hard time dealing with all of these feelings…

Gail: Exactly, that addictive, dreamy thing. Being off with the pixies, so to speak. I obviously have a lot of other astrological attributes, as I’m also very fiery. So when I was younger this connection was very, very hard. I see a lot of clients, both young and old, really struggling when they’re very sensitive. I strongly believe that anxiety for most people is caused by their over sensitivity. Most anxious people I know are really lovely people; they just have a really hard time dealing with all of these feelings and don’t learn to trust themselves because of the overload of input they continually receive and try to interpret.

Jess: I know what you mean! [Laughs.]

Gail: Yes, because gentleness is not a virtue that is admired or encouraged in the world. We are all told you’ve got to be tough, you’ve got to get to the top, and you’ve got to beat everyone else. So generally most people I see with anxiety are really gentle people just trying to live in a not so gentle world. That’s why I tell everyone try to make anxiety your friend instead of looking at it as the enemy, which is what I feel I’ve done for myself with this work. I have taken my particular sensitivities and put them into the positive. You need to feel that you can control how you process the input, otherwise it does tend to overtake your life. Anxiety has become almost an industry in itself, and generally leads to depression. I think it’s Lao Tzu who said, “Depression is living in the past, and anxiety is worrying about the future, calm is in the present.” So most anxious people are looking for that comfort zone, because when you’re feeling things as they do it’s so exaggerated. Most people can measure their comfort or discomfort zone on a scale of one to ten, but for anxious people it’s somewhere around 50+. There’s a whole mass of anxious people suffering, often in silence, that have this ability to link with Spirit. They should all come together and make a group or club, take comfort from the fact that they are not alone in this and that what they feel or see or know is not weird, they are just tuned at a different frequency to a lot of other people.

Jess: They can all get together and feel affirmed.

Gail: Yes! My spiritual development class is a bit like that. It’s a class where everyone can just be relaxed, talk about things that are happening to or through them, all the things considered outside the norm. Everyone says, “I know that this is going to sound weird,” but it’s not weird, it’s just their experiences and sometimes those experiences can be outside physical realms. Having that platform, that safety zone to talk about these experiences and to develop it further if they wish, is just wonderful. To me spiritual development is really self-development as we’re all trying to find out who we are and what is our purpose.

Jess: I can imagine that that would feel really liberating to people. They have lived their lives with all of these hunches and feelings and then being able to talk about it…

Gail: Yes, especially people of my generation. Everyone is aware of the indigo and crystal children now. Kids are so much more open about it than I ever was able to be. And if my children say something about it I can say, “That’s fine,” or “What do you think?” and we can discuss it without fear or judgement, so to me that’s enlightenment. I was only saying to someone yesterday, I’ve come to realise that my generation and those before were like pioneers that went and blazed the trails for the indigo and crystal children to come and hopefully they won’t have to deal with the stigma and judgement that often follows this work or ability.

Jess: They won’t meet the same kind of resistance and scepticism.

Gail: No, not nearly to the same degree. I was talking to a woman yesterday whose family was connected to the first spiritual church in Enmore, which went from World War One. She said it was illegal, it was like prohibition was with alcohol, these people had to do it underground in secret. It was against the law to get together for these kinds of practices … unbelievable!

Jess: People were very closed-minded.

Gail: It still exists now though thankfully not nearly as much as only a couple of decades ago… Even back in the 1980s I might have literally been carted off to a mental institution! It’s funny to think that all I am trying to do with my work is what was considered normal thousands of years ago when kings and queens held seers and healers in high regard. Then the Dark Ages and religion came along and so belief and abilities went underground and stayed there for quite a long time. I feel like the wheels are starting to turn back a little and we are finally going back to where we started. Hopefully people will regard this work with Spirit and energy as a valid and worthwhile modality. This work can and does support your regular visits to your doctor, your dentist, your gynaecologist, and your beautician. I love to envision that you would have a wellness practitioner that would include metaphysics as much as naturopathy, massage and any other complementary therapy.

Jess: You’ve got to deal with all of the elements, don’t you, of body, mind and spirit?

Gail: Absolutely. My dream is that people will go, “Oh yes, I’ve made an appointment with the dentist, and I better go and see my holistic practitioner for a chakra balance, recharge, etc.” That would be fabulous.

Jess: You’ve got to get a tune up.

A reading should never tell you how to live your life, it should confirm what you already know or what you intuit yourself. So it’s really a confirmation, not a set of instructions.

Gail: Yes, just like you do with any area of your life that needs some support. I see many people a few times a year. They come in and say, “I just need a boost, a bit of reading, a bit of a tweak on the chakras,” and off they go. It’s not my dream or vision to have people dependent on me for their every move. I tell everyone that a reading should never tell you how to live your life, it should confirm what you already know or what you intuit yourself. So it’s really a confirmation, not a set of instructions. I saw a client yesterday – when she rang up she was sussing me out like she was conducting a job interview. It turns out that she’d been to see a clairvoyant and she was getting quite accurate information, and that was fine, but from that moment on she had been bombarded with emails and texts, “I keep getting these flashes of your life, I’ve read the cards and I keep getting the Devil card.” She was going to the dark side of that because the Devil card doesn’t even mean the devil. I don’t do cards in my readings, but I know that death doesn’t mean physical death but the end of a situation or phase. She said, “She was literally trying to scare me into coming back.” And I said to her, “That’s what I’m trying to change.” To break down the barriers and misinformation about this work. Mind you there are lots of unprofessional and unethical people in every field of work: police, church, teaching, medicine, law, retail, etc. But in this particular industry you are under that much more scrutiny.

Jess: There’s stigma to break through.

Gail: Yes, there’s a lot of it. And this is only a recent thing and that’s what makes it really hard for people like me. There are a lot of genuine people trying to do what I call “light work”. Working with the light or energy, as basically we’re all, in essence, light. Medical doctors work with your blood and bones; I work with your light.

Jess: You said that when you were a child you were hypersensitive. When I met with you recently you talked about working in administration for a little while. Could you tell me a little bit about the transition from being a young woman unsure of what is going on around you to your adult years and where you are now?

Gail: I was always attracted to the esoteric world… if there were psychic fairs, I would go along and get a reading. I love astrology, numerology, colour therapy, anything metaphysical, love it all. I would love to have the time to learn all of it. As I said, I left school and joined the public service and that pretty much set me up for the next 20-odd years of working in offices. I didn’t do my HSC, which always bugged me because I was a really good student. It was the only time when I thought Dad was a bit disappointed in me. He never said anything but I could tell. So I was a good student but I was also an emotional Piscean, which made for a tough start in life with heart versus head all the time. So I went back and did my HSC when I was 22 at TAFE. I did well there. It was important to me that I finished and got my HSC, Dad always told me knowledge is never a burden so I took that on board and continue to do so. This HSC took me out of office and clerical jobs without much future, and got me into payroll. That work was much better paid and more of a challenge… Ever tried working out manufacturing bundy cards manually? Very challenging! In hindsight it was so at odds with how I thought I would be making my money because I was always creative. But I was very good at it, and I liked the people side of it.

But then I started getting bored. I always thought, “This is not what I want to do with my life.” I remember thinking quite often that I was supposed to be doing something different and I’m not doing it. I used to think I’m meant to be doing something really amazing but thought I was only daydreaming as nothing changed. Then when I had kids I thought maybe I got it wrong and they’re going to do something amazing, because I just had this feeling that something really amazing was supposed to be happening. Payroll made a good living and I met many lovely people who are still good friends, but it wasn’t interesting to me at all. Although I did meet my lovely husband through payroll so that more than makes up for it.

Jess: Well, there you go, that’s the reason for it.

Gail: That’s right, exactly. When I think about it, payroll has been really helpful for business now. Having all of that office admin and numeracy knowledge has been great. So I use a lot of those skills even though at the time I thought it was so boring and I hated it. And then you have kids and you think you’re stuck with your lot. In hindsight, I became quite unhappy in myself. I had a wonderful loving husband and two beautiful kids but I was never really very happy. I was probably a really uptight mum when they were little, so busy working full-time and carting the kids to Nana’s and day-care, and then everything else that every working mother around the world will totally understand and relate to. I just felt, “Is this it?” And you feel really bad for feeling like that as you are very lucky on so many levels.

Over the years, I had all of these experiences. I would have dreams and wake up and tell my husband, “It was really weird but so-and-so was talking to me.” Once I woke up and I heard a voice saying, “If you don’t stop smoking, you’ll die.” It was so loud and clear and I thought, “Who said that?” I was really scared because I was starting to get wheezy in my breathing; I had been smoking for a really long time. I’d been trying for ages to stop. Some people can smoke until they are 110, but I knew it was bad for me. So I did stop. So I had all of these experiences going on and I would forget about them or brush them off with the thought, “Doesn’t everybody have things like that happen?”

So, fast-forward… In 2007 my Dad got really sick after his second stroke. He was an elderly man of 83 and he smoked for a long time. He was terrified of dying. He used to tell my siblings and me, “You’re my mortality, and I’ll never die with you here.” He was terrified, I think because of the war… or maybe he was just scared of the unknown. I was terrified of death as well. I’m not sure why, I just couldn’t bear thinking about it. I hated going to funerals because they used to scare me so much.

So there’s my Dad lying in the bed literally dying before me, and there was all the family standing around him. We had all said our heart piece with him, and spent time with him and cried. We were all sitting around him in a horseshoe shape around the bed. My sister was rubbing his hand and Mum was there, and I remember putting my head down, I remember this so clearly, and I felt everything go really slow and quiet. I felt like all of the energy was pulling into me. Then I had this picture of Dad as this young, handsome man with dark hair. He had these long pants on that I’d never seen. They weren’t shorts and they weren’t pants. And he was waving at me saying, “I’m here.” And he was handsome and wonderful, and in my head I’m thinking, “Dad looks great.” I could see the palm trees and it was a beautiful, warm day. I remember looking up and, as I did, Dad’s eyes had opened and he was gone. And at that moment I knew Dad had shown me his heaven. Dad had gone straight to his heaven and his heaven would be a beach, because he grew up in Bondi. It was very surreal.

Later that night we were sitting around talking and crying and I said to Mum, “It’s really strange but this happened,” and I told her what had happened and that he had these pants on. She said, “I made him throw them out when we got married, I hated those pants.” But I’d never seen them so everything I was saying to her was confirmation of Dad’s existence after life… life after life.

Once the numbness had worn off I knew Dad had shown me that he was okay, even though I missed him I felt such peace and wanted everyone to have that sense of peace when they lose someone they love. So literally two weeks after that I started doing development circles, I started doing courses and my fear was well and truly gone. Dad took my fear and replaced it with love, hope and peace. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no hurry to get ‘there’ [death]. I feel like I’ve got a lot of work to do. I always say to Spirit, “Do I have to be this age, couldn’t I have been younger?” But I know I wouldn’t have been ready. You have to deal with your own stuff before you can serve other people. You don’t want to bring that to the table because then you’re making it worse, and you’re using somebody else’s time and space for yourself.

Jess: For your own purposes.

Gail: Yes, and that’s not what it’s about. So doing this and doing the counselling course has been very cathartic. I’ve done a lot of work, which has led to a lot of changes for me, even though I thought I’d already worked on so much there is always more to re-examine. There’s still learning and learning and then more learning to be done.

When I’m working with spirits I just ask for the love and light and that’s it, I’m good to go.

People talk a lot about protection in this work and they burn a lot of sage and do these rituals, but I just ask for the light. I’m not curious. You know in those movies when they say “Don’t open the door, don’t open the door,” and they open the door? I would never open the door. Curiosity will never kill this particular cat. I don’t want to see what’s behind that door. So when I’m working with spirits I just ask for the love and light and that’s it, I’m good to go. That is all I get because I’m not even minutely interested in anything else. There are many who do really good work with the more negative spiritual realms but that doesn’t interest me so I leave it to those who choose it.

Jess: When Spirit talks to you, do they sometimes indicate that somebody is going to die? You mention ill-health and things like that [at the spiritual platform night], but do you see flashes of the death or…

Gail: Again I’m very strict in my boundaries in what I will and won’t bring through. I won’t and I never have asked when someone is going to pass. Even if someone asks me I would say, “Even if I got it, I wouldn’t tell you, what if I get it wrong and plant that idea?” I don’t feel that’s enlightening, only frightening. If someone were terminally ill, or their partner or somebody they loved was terminal and they already knew that they’re not going to recover, then I would encourage them to spend as much time as they could with them and to find their peace. But that’s a counselling technique not a psychic thing, I go between the two. I’m a holistic counsellor and I am fortunate to have this other ability or link. So I always come at a session from a counselling point of view of what’s appropriate to bring through. When I’m doing a reading I ask Spirit to give me something that will help give the client an insight or clarity. Don’t come to me if you want to know the Lotto numbers, or to ask me if you should leave your husband. If you have to ask me that question I think you have answered your own question. I’m not going to tell anyone that. I’m not going to tell anyone how to live his or her life. I can only tell you what Spirit is telling me to the best of my ability and with the idea of bringing you clarity or confirmation of your own intuition and self-knowledge. So if they don’t tell me, I’m not going to be able to tell you. So I’m not going to tell you to leave your partner but I will tell you what your grandmother thinks of them. And I say to people, “If your grandmother was here telling you this, would you listen to her?” Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t, because it’s your journey.

My idea of Spirit is that they can definitely have a good bird’s eye view of your life and want the best for you, if that is your choice. I don’t think it’s empowering to make decisions for people. At the end of the day I’m interpreting what they’re telling me as best as I can in the hope that the client will have their own moment/s of clarity and connection. Sometimes the client just needs to know that their loved ones are still around them, sending them love, encouragement and hope.

Jess: Do you find that when you’re doing a reading with a person that there are several spirits? And I imagine that just like sitting in a room with a group of people that each spirit would have a different perspective on the same issue for you. Is that something that goes on? Or is there generally a consensus?

Gail: I haven’t had them argue the point in my head. I have had Spirit come and push Spirit out of the way and say, “Right, I want to talk.” That’s been quite funny. I’ve had grandmothers go, “She needs to hear from me,” and she will literally come running through my head. Generally, even though they have different relationships to each other and to the person, they all want the best. Generally they will all come together for the highest and best for that person. Some of them like to take the credit. It’s quite funny, like a grandmother will say, “She gets that from me.” I haven’t had one saying, “Leave him,” and the other one saying, “No, stay.” I’ve had parents come through admitting that their kids have been pretty crap with the way they were going on about things, and it’s hard for me to do that because they love their child. But you have such a different and clear perspective on things in Spirit that you didn’t see in life, even if it pains you to admit it. People generally stay the way they were otherwise no one would recognise you. Like if the cranky old grandmother was suddenly sweet and nice and the person is saying, “Oh, that’s odd as she was always a real cow.” So they keep their true essence as far as I’m able to interpret it, so for me to understand and relay a message it has to be at a level that the person will understand. They have to come through as they were known.

Jess: It’s not the same energy.

Gail: I have the best laugh sometimes; I meet the best people, here [in life] and there [in Spirit]. And you can have a laugh with the person even though you respect that there is grief. And sometimes they’re crying and laughing.

Jess: So what does it feel like for you? When I saw you the other night there was a combination of talking and also an embodied experience as well.

Gail: They’re all the ‘clairs’. So you’ve got you’re clairvoyants, which is the clear sight, clairaudience, which is the clear hearing, and clairsentience, which is clear feeling. I get a lot of information through clairsentience but I generally get the sight and hearing during a reading too, it just the degree that changes with each experience. It’s always different, because every spirit communicates differently and they use the best way they can to speak with me. They have their own strengths; some are better at it, like people in life can be. Basically I have to go with what I get. That’s why I said I made friends with my sensitivity because it works for me now and it’s been fabulous.

Jess: Watching you, it all happens very quickly. That could be a skill in itself, to be able to register and then report so instantaneously.

Gail: Well, the more you do the quicker you get at it. I always tell everyone, “Do you go to the gym once and then become Arnold Schwarzenegger?” No, you’ve got to practice and work at it. I can tell you how I’m doing it and how I’m feeling it, but that’s not how you’re going to experience it. You’re going to have to work out your own signs, your own language. Like a symbol in my head for plants might be different for yours. So we work on creating little libraries for ourselves. So I see my work as a medium as translating.

Jess: So how does it work? For example, my grandfather was Italian and he had broken English, and my grandmother was German and had very good English. Do they talk in English for you?

Gail: Good question… I had a lady in here yesterday who bought her mother who was visiting from India and her Mother in Spirit came through who has never ever once spoken a word of English. I could understand her because we were talking mind to mind; it is not like talking a language. There’s another clair, claircognisance, which is clear knowing where you simply just know things. I can and have communicated with horses, dogs, cats, and birds, even a tree… Do I speak horse or tree? No! Because we’re not talking language, we’re talking mind to mind.

Jess: You talked earlier about being a very sensitive little girl and now you’re doing this work. Can you explain to me more precisely what the process was?

Gail: As I said, Dad was the catalyst and once I lost my fear it all happened very quickly and rather easily. Fear is really the enemy for everything but especially if you want to do this kind of work. You also have to ask why are you doing this work. While it is certainly wonderful to be able to do this work it is also a huge responsibility as you are often dealing with vulnerable, lost, sad and lonely people. I’m certainly not some pious and all-knowing spiritual guru to say you shouldn’t do it this work one way or the other. People can do what they feel is right for them. It is their business but I really hope that, when someone is interpreting Spirit or giving a healing, they are coming from a place of peace within themselves. First and foremost you’ve got to recognise that you are a human being and that you’ve got to be very grounded because we’re in a physical world. I have built trust in myself, in the spirit world, and in my intentions. I’m also very straightforward, I don’t believe in all of the theatre and drama of this kind of work, which makes it seem like it belongs in a carnival show or on the stage. This is the stereotype I am trying to dispel.

As I’ve been doing the work with Spirit, I’ve been more drawn to the healing side of things. I have practiced and studied many different modes of metaphysics and some are more comfortable for me than others, so it’s also about learning to trust where you align yourself and what you see yourself doing in the service of Spirit because I really see this as a service. It’s also important to not be afraid of not being successful in a reading every now and again. On a couple of occasions I have had to say, “Sorry, I’m not going to be able to continue this session.” This is usually because the person is not willing or able to take on board or acknowledge the information that Spirit is giving. I would rather stop than continue to try and convince a person who may not be ready to deal with what has arisen. Maybe they never will be and that is fine that is their choice. I think people recognise the honesty.

Jess: You’re human and therefore there are feelings of darkness there sometimes. Do you sometimes get darkness coming in?

Gail: I’ve had information on murders and less than pleasant things come through, and I just shut it down. Some psychics are really good at dealing with that but I just don’t want it. After my Dad died, the doors flew open and it was like Pitt Street with Spirit coming and going at all hours. People were walking in and out of every door in my home and I said, “No, take it away, I don’t want it.” So I decided that if I was going to do this work I would be very structured about it. Spirit doesn’t have to come along and interrupt your meal or your life. And if they do you say, “Go away please, I’m not working now. I’m on between 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.” It sounds funny but that’s what you have to do. You have to be very clear because they’re so excited and want to get their message across to their loved one. There is no midnight to them so you have to be very structured, put your boundaries up, and say what you will and won’t do. So I don’t get the dark stuff because I’ve been really strict on that because I need to feel comfortable in what I do.

Jess: Can you tell me about a day in the life of Gail?

Gail: I am just like everyone else. I’ve got two kids, I’ve got a husband, I’ve got two dogs a house and family to run. I’ve got teenagers and that’s very testing, but I am lucky as they’re really good and kind people. So I am busy doing all the usual things so I can’t be tuned in to Spirit all the time, I can’t be on all the time because I would burnout. Generally people come here to see me when there is grief and loss and challenges, so I need to be clear and focused. So I have my boundaries about switching on and off. Any counsellor and therapist will tell you that you need to do that. So I get up, get ready, and go to work and my day begins. When I go to work I am ‘on’ and when I finish for the day I switch it ‘off’ and get on with the tasks of everyday life and family.

Jess: The Soul Spectrum is looking at different people’s understanding of soul. We’ve been using the word ‘spirit’ a lot. Is there any difference between soul and spirit, for you?

When I see you as the beam of light that you are, you are perfect. Absolute perfection. Each and every soul is perfection.

Gail: I see it all as one source. I’m starting to understand that idea, when they talk about unity and being one. I’m starting to see it through the work that I’m doing. I have glimpses of great illumination and then I get back to being just silly old me again. But I have those snatches of moments where I see stillness, that beautiful place. Then I feel my whole being in those moments being just huge, it’s amazing. When I’m talking about Spirit I’m talking about anybody that comes to talk to me from the other side. When I work with someone, when I’m doing the healing, quite often I see his or her soul. I see the colours of their soul; I feel the state of their soul, because that’s where I’m working, in their energy or soul. And that’s a totally different connotation to the word spirit. As a medium I’m bringing through and interpreting another energy. When I’m working with a person one-on-one I am in the space of his or her own energy, if that makes sense, and it’s wonderful. I’ve seen some amazing things. Sometimes I see their soul connecting with their loved ones that have passed. And it’s a beautiful, joyous reunion. That can really bring some healing to the person. This is all going on while they’re lying on the therapy table; it’s going on energetically in and around them.

And I always tell clients that when I see you as the beam of light that you are, you are perfect. Absolute perfection. Each and every soul is perfection. And that’s wonderful. But how are you going to experience everything if you’re perfect? If you’re perfection, what can you experience other than perfection? So to experience the good, the bad, the ugly, you had to come down to earth. You’ve got to don the heavy coats of humanity. But you also get some wonderful sensations in the physical life. That’s why I think people keep coming back to having these many lives time and again for centuries, for eternity. Because it’s not all bad. Think delicious food, warm sun, newborn babies, a long relaxing massage, incredible animals and breathtaking beauty of humans performing and producing amazing music, sport or art, so many wonders to behold. The only way you can know perfection is to learn through the imperfectness of being a human being.

Jess: Perfect! Thanks so much, Gail.

 

* For more information about Gail Withers and her business Heart and Soul Healing, please visit http://heartandsoulhealing.com.au

* For more information about Hamish Ta-mé, please visit www.shotbyhamish.com

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