Do Dead People Walk Their Dogs? (17 page)

More often than
we would like, one partner in a marriage will cross a significant length of time before the other. A lot of people think that they are morally bound to remain alone after that, lest it appear that they didn’t really love the person who has passed on. This really is foolishness from the perspective of the Other Side, and so often this is a message that I’m asked to deliver. This side of the veil—the physical side—is the difficult side, the lonely side. We need all the help and love and companion-ship we can get. Our loved ones who have crossed want us to be happy. This doesn’t mean that everyone who loses a spouse will remarry, but many will and that’s really what our deceased loved ones want for us. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been doing a reading and the spirit of a spouse will come through and beg me to tell their wife or their husband to try to find happiness again. Many times they even tell me that they’ve tried to set something up that their living spouse has sabotaged! When we are happy, we make our deceased loved ones happy, so by all means, if you have lost someone you cared for deeply, do try to stay open to finding happiness again. It’s really what they want for you.

This does not apply only to couples, partners in marriage. One of my clients, for example, told me that after her mother crossed over, she would frequently see her. In a way this made her happy, but more often she felt sad. She missed her mother and all she could think about was that she wanted to be with her. The last time she saw her mother, she was on a cruise, lying on a lounge chair, and she saw her mother pass right in front of her. She jumped up and tried to follow her mother, but her mother disappeared, and she has not seen her since. She said to me, “Why is it that my mother has stopped visiting me?” I told her it’s because she isn’t supposed to want to follow her mother; that’s not what her mother wants for her. By discontinuing her visits (or rather, by not allowing herself to be seen) her mother was literally cutting the cord between this side and that. Now my client has a new boyfriend—they met on a blind date—and what’s weird is that her boyfriend will sometimes see her mother when, while she was still living, her mother never met her boyfriend. My client said, “Why is that—that my boyfriend, who never even knew my mother, will see her and I can’t?” My strong sense is that there is a karmic connection between her boyfriend and her mother. It’s most likely that her mother even set up the meeting between her and her boyfriend. It wasn’t a coincidence. And he can see her mother because in spite of the connection he has with her mother, he isn’t wishing himself to be on the Other Side. They want us to be happy
here
.

I am asked
this question very often:
I’m so sad, I’m so depressed. Why won’t my loved one come to me?
There is no one way that everyone gets through the pain of a significant loss. We’re all different and all relationships are different, even if we are all human and so share most of the same feelings. Some people just seem to have a huge amount of inner strength. I can tell you that even if you have the genuine belief that our souls still live on on the Other Side, you can still feel tremendous sadness when someone you love deeply makes that crossing before you. We’re so used to being able to see them, feel their presence, pick up the phone and talk with them. It’s just not the same anymore. But some people are able to console themselves or find new meaning in their loss and go forward with strength and even joy. Not everybody is like that. Many people find it difficult to get past their loss, but nevertheless, everyone must.

The first thing
to remember is that if you are thinking, “It’s too hard,” you need to change your thoughts. When we tell ourselves that something is hard, the words take on power and reinforce this belief, which only holds us back from living in the present. The idea that we are stuck in our grief becomes a habit, like brushing our teeth—something we are used to doing and so do it every day. You can’t let grief become a habit. There is no miracle cure; you need to work on it. You can’t have that person back. You need to continue to find happiness in this world until you can join your loved one in the next.

Try to focus on the simple things each day. Don’t try to do too much at first, but be sure you do something—get out of your bed or off the sofa if you’ve fallen into the habit of giving in to grief to such an extent that you don’t even want to get up. Give yourself permission to laugh—at yourself, with others—this truly will lighten your load. And remember the power of your words. If you tell yourself you can’t, why then of course this is true. You won’t be able to. You need to tell yourself, you can, you will. Then that will be true: you can, you will.

Most of us have a very incomplete sense of what we are here to do, but I promise you that wallowing in extended and debilitating grief is not it, and until we pull ourselves out of that place we can’t put our feet forward on the road to the rest of our exciting life’s journey.

You need to recognize that in everything you have free will. If you continue to grieve, that is a choice you are making. We might have a “reason” for the choice we are making—for instance, we might think that if we allow ourselves to find peace or joy we are sending a message to our deceased loved ones that we don’t care about them, or to make it even worse, that maybe we never cared about them. We guilt ourselves. Believe me, on the Other Side, they know it all. They know you care about them; they know in your heart you will never stop loving them. But your focus is intended to be on this side so long as we are here, not on the Other Side. It’s never intended that we get habitual about our grief, comfortable in our sorrow. We need to
choose
to remember our loved ones with a smile in our heart and on our face. Take it in steps. If you don’t believe that you can get over your grief, at least make the choice not to moan and complain, bringing others down around you. Make the choice not to feel guilty if you smile. You’ll be surprised where those little steps will take you over time.

The answer, to
be honest, is that so long as you are so deeply unhappy, they will deliberately create a separation between you here, and them there. They can’t come when we are sad because they know how easy it is for us to wish ourselves there when we are still supposed to be here. They don’t want to encourage this—it goes against the plans that are still in place for us, the soul agreement we made before coming here. Look at Anna Nicole Smith—she kept saying, “I want to be with Daniel.” She missed her son so desperately, she literally willed herself to the Other Side. I say this without judgment because it isn’t my place to judge and I’m not walking in her shoes, but leaving like that is like giving up without finishing what you came to do. Her son never intended that. He had his karma; she had her own.

Our loved ones who have crossed do want to be with us (and in reality they
are
with us, always), but they are finished with their own lessons this time. We still have ours; they can’t do it all for us. If we want to reestablish a joyful connection with them, we need to make the effort.

When someone chooses
suicide, it’s almost like the question isn’t, did they end their life in vain, but, did they
live
their life in vain? I honestly can’t think of a time when suicide is the right answer. That said, I received this question from a reader whose teenage friend wanted to be with his deceased mother and so had shot himself. Yes, I do believe that person did get to see his mother. God is so great and good. Even though that action would certainly go against any agreement that individual made for what he was to try to achieve in that lifetime, even though ending his physical life was like throwing the most precious gift back in God’s face, God is forgiving. It’s that person himself who will have to learn how to forgive himself for destroying the gift he’d been given. It’s really not easy. In our pain and loneliness we sometimes do terrible things that we think will bring us relief. We have free will, even in this. But the story doesn’t end there. There’s healing that has to be done, and karma that has to be balanced.

Sometimes people have
the mistaken impression that if they are grieving I can fix them. Honestly, that is not my job. This may not be the best example, but I could say it’s like a divorce attorney. Some who come to see him need counseling, but his job is only to divide the property, not heal the divorcing parties. I’m not a therapist. My heart wants to help, but it’s simply not my talent. Any counseling I do is the kind you’d get from a friend, based upon my own personal life experiences or things I’ve been told by the Other Side. Other than that, I’m just “reporting,” really, just bringing messages from folks who have passed on.

Very often people who come to see me are in need of healing. They will get only momentary relief from hearing a message from their loved one. They immediately want to make another appointment—no matter how far in the future—and will call and call to see if there is another opening. They want to keep going back to the well, but there’s only one thing in the well—the truth that their loved one is still with them. For most, knowing this is enough, but some have been so shaken by their loved one’s death that they just can’t get over it; they are making their pain a career, ruining all their relationships because of their inability to get past their sadness. A reading is not going to fix those folks. They need someone other than me.

I don’t want to be confused about what my job is and run the risk of bringing counterfeit information. If people heal after they see me, it’s because they have heard the truth. It’s the truth that sets them free—I’m just the conduit. That said, there is a recommendation I can make, which I think is very powerful and has worked for me. Try to visualize yourself with the person you have lost sitting next to you, walking with you, always beside you. Visualize that the person is still there, encouraging you to complete your mission here in the flesh. Picture them as an additional guardian angel
helping
you to complete your mission. After all, this really is the absolute truth of the situation.

I do believe,
in fact, I know, that evil is real. People always find it surprising that an all-loving God would even allow evil to exist; it just doesn’t make sense to them. However, as horrible as evil is—and there really is nothing worse in the world; how could there be? It’s the essence of everything hurtful and abhorrent—evil does serve a purpose. Without evil, we would never be challenged, and without challenges, we would never struggle, learn, grow, and evolve. It’s the function of evil to confuse your mind and your heart, to make you believe you are weak or limited. This is the opposite of the truth, but this is for us to learn and overcome by our experiences.

I’m always saying, stupid people don’t know that they are stupid. The difference between stupid people and evil people is that evil people don’t
care
that they are evil. Not caring who they hurt is the very definition of evil.

I have a favorite medal that was given to me by friends in Mexico. It’s fourteen-carat gold and has Pope Paul on one side, Saint Juan Diego on the other. It’s on a gold chain with a very secure lobster-claw clasp. I’ve worn it for four or five years, any time I travel, as a symbol of protection. John and I love to travel, and one of my favorite things is to visit historic sites because I will hear stories from spirits who are hanging around these places for whatever their individual reasons may be. It’s really fascinating—I make a point of learning the official history, but I also get a bit of “insider” history that others miss. It’s not always pretty, for sure, but I want to know. Last year, John and I made a trip to Germany and we decided to visit Dachau. I’d had mixed feelings about it because I believe that in a past life I died in one of these camps, but as soon as we got out of the car my feelings got a lot less mixed. I was trembling and I just couldn’t stop. John said, “You know, we don’t have to go in.” But we were already there and I felt like I had to, so John walked alongside me—I was so panicked. Just when we got right to the door of the place, I felt my necklace slip off my neck and drop to the floor and I heard a voice say to me, “Pick it up and hold it in your hand, Concetta. You are entering a place of evil.” I must tell you, the energy in that place was just about unbearable. You can literally feel the evil trapped within the walls. I want to be clear that the spirits there are not those of the victims. They have moved on and are in a better place, but the murderers are still trapped there.

It is up to each of us to expel evil from our lives by our commitment to its opposite: love.