E 254: Mediumship and Grief Healing with Barbara Banner

Good morning, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction.

Today we have with us a very special guest.

We have Barbara Banner.

She's a medium, and she is full of a wealth of information and has been through the gamut of helping people that have gone through trauma, understanding why, learning about them, helping police, helping all kinds of different people.

So I'm going to let her jump right in and introduce herself, and we're going to have a very engaging conversation.

Can't wait.

Thank you.

Yes, I am Barbara Banner.

I'm a certified psychic evidential and trance medium.

I'm certified with the Helping Parents Heal organization and with Mark Ireland's Find a Certified Medium.

This came to mediumship, came to me very late in life.

Paranormal stuff was happening and.

And I just said, okay, spirits wants to talk to me, I better do something about it.

I have a long history of.

I've always wanted to do volunteer projects that I could roll my sleeve up instead of write a check.

So I spent 14 years on a woman's crisis hotline, and we had extensive training before they would let us on.

And I'm still at Cedars Sinai Hospital Emergency Room.

It's been about 12 years there.

And that's always.

You never know what you're going to have to deal with there.

And then the most interesting volunteer was for Los Angeles Crisis Response Team.

They would send out a team of counselors like me and other people to a scene where there was a dead body on the scene and the police were there and the coroner was on the way, but the family had arrived on scene and someone had to take care of them or a witness.

You never know what falls from the sky on your windshield where you are absolutely traumatized.

So that's.

That's what I did.

And people would say, why are you doing that?

Because that sounds really intense.

I said, because I can.

So.

And I had amazing training all those years, so that's what I do.

And now I do, you know, I do a lot of readings every day and help people and try to get down to what kind of trauma or what kind of things led their loved ones to behave in a certain way or interesting.

So I'm gonna actually back you up even more because for the listeners here, we cover.

I don't know if you've, you know, how many episodes you've listened to, if any.

We cover so many different topics, and the idea of a medium in general is foreign to some people.

Can you explain exactly what is a medium?

And I know you said the paranoia came.

Paranoia Came no paranormal, sorry, came flying at you and you learned to deal with that.

But talk about what a medium is and how that really manifests.

Sure.

A medium connects with spirit, with the energy of a, of a person, of a loved one.

We don't take our bodies with us.

We unzip our bodies and leave all the, the aches and pains and, and problems here and just our purest sense of our soul moves on and we can, we can communicate with that energy.

And so people come to us because so many reasons.

Their loved one could die before they had a chance to have, you know, finish some business they were doing or say things that they didn't get a chance to say or, or apologize or, or anything that they want to talk about or just because they miss them so much.

Especially when you have a child that passes, you just, it's, it just tears you apart and you just want to connect and know that they're still around.

Edgar Cayce says they're not gone, they just went a little ahead of you.

We're all gonna meet up at the same party.

So, you know, if you, it's how you look at things and if you can learn to pivot to not thinking about the sadness and the loss, but to dwell on how much love you feel and how much happiness they gave you and the gratitude to bring you up.

So I connect that way with evidential mediumship.

Giving them evidence that their loved one is still alive.

Telling them what they would say or something they did, or a facial expression or anything that, that can help them realize, wow, I should, you know, this is really, this is really healing to, to get this information and to know that they're fine.

I can give you one of my best examples of, of a, a parent who lost a six year old son.

And in my readings, I like to do a, I like to do a question and answer.

And the first, the first question I say, I don't want to know what the question is because I don't want my head involved.

I want everything to come through spirit.

So I said, ask your son a question and then I'll show you what he's showing me.

And that should be the answer.

So she said, okay, I've asked him.

And I say, your son is showing me he is riding on a giant butterfly in heaven.

Okay?

Just having the best time, dive bombing, laughing, he's incredibly happy.

I said, does that have anything to do with your question?

And she starts crying and says, absolutely.

I said, so what was the question?

She said, what is my son doing in Heaven right now.

And she said when he passed, I needed a way to tell his younger sister and, and give it to her in a way that she could understand it.

So I bought a book on, you know, telling your, your child.

And in the book was a page that said your loved one, your brother or sister could be doing something like this.

And it showed a little boy riding on the back of a butterfly.

So you can imagine how I have a picture of it too that she had sent me.

I, I can't.

I don't know.

If you could see it now, I'd have to.

I can see it.

So the people, for the people that are just listening, it's a picture of a little boy riding, riding on the.

Back of a butterfly.

So, you know, you have to say, you can't make this stuff up.

This is, this was proof to her that her son still lives on, that he was there at that moment to tell me to tell her, put things in her head of what to ask.

And, and he was there when she read the book to him.

And they're always around us.

So I think that's an easy way to, to show it.

That is a very perfect example.

So how old were you?

I'm gonna.

When you realized you had, I mean, is this a gift?

Does everybody have this or how Everybody has the ability.

Okay.

And everyone, everyone can do it.

But it's like people have, on the other side have told me, I've been doing this a thousand years.

So it came to me late.

But I started, you know, running, the, running on the ground.

I didn't really get the whole mediumship thing or the paranormal thing coming at me saying, you better get in touch with one of us.

Until my 60s.

Okay.

And then it was within seven months of training and everything.

I was, I was doing readings for people and donating readings.

It, it just came so fast.

So yeah, it was, it was quick.

So let me just give you an example.

Everybody has the ability to do it.

Just like a little boy who, who sits down at a piano, a little four year old has never played the piano before and someone's humming a tune and all of a sudden he plays that tune.

It's just innate.

And so everybody can, everybody can learn to do it, but not everybody is going to be a Mozart.

Okay.

How much time and energy and patience you have.

And I would say that most people who go into a class with a medium have lost somebody and, and just want to learn how to connect on their own.

And I do, I do try to get people to do it on their own as well.

Give them exercises to do.

So I want them too.

I don't think they should have to go to a medium to get that.

They should be able to work on it so that they can feel the energy.

I was gonna, I was gonna ask that if it was just something that it's kind of like Reiki.

Like I do Reiki, but I don't do Reiki on clients.

I do Reiki on myself because it's just something that I wanted to do to be able to bring my pain level down.

So.

Right is.

So it's that intuit intuitive intuition part of it that I think people are afraid of.

You have to learn to trust your intuition.

Spirit wants to want you to know.

They give us signs.

They give you signs even right away after someone's passed.

But if you're not aware of it, if you don't, if you don't.

It's not like seeing is.

Some people are seeing is believing.

Right.

You're not going to get much.

It's believing is seeing.

You have to be open to it.

You have to do some.

Read some books about near death experiences or, you know, there's so much out there that you can learn about it.

And so when something happens, when you walk out the door and a feather lands on your nose and you'll know it's grandpa saying, how do you do?

Okay.

Or you'll, you'll say maybe that's grandpa, you know what I mean?

Or when your loved one's favorite song comes on the radio, you'll say, oh my gosh, that and go and look up the lyrics because there's a message in there for you.

Right.

So it's, it's learning how to grab that message.

Yeah.

Just be aware.

I think that's everything too.

Just opening, being open to.

We're getting signs, we're getting messages and they, we have so much innately that we don't trust.

Absolutely.

And until you trust, it's, you're not, it's not going to happen for you in the way that you want.

Oh my goodness.

So you do readings for anybody or is it specifically.

Do you do anybody?

I book.

They book an hour session and, and I do readings and answer questions and some of my readings have a, a trance message at the end where I like get into an altered state and, and just give them a message from their loved one, which is everyone's favorite part.

So is it all, is it all about.

Is everything you do about like talking to a loved one or is it just Also, just if.

Can someone come to you with just a general question about their life or, you know, why they do.

They do.

Most people.

Well, I feel like it's better to get the answer about your life or your, you know, direction from your mother.

Okay.

She knows everything about you.

So I always like to get somebody that they trust that can give them messages.

They.

Some.

Some of my readings end up being like a therapy session.

I had one client say, can you be my therapist?

I said, no, I cannot.

But because I like to get into it really does many times turn into something much deeper because there's so much pain with.

With the client, you know, that.

That they've never heard their mother say, I love you.

And we get into that.

Their mother never said she loved you.

And, you know, she modeled her parenting.

Bless you.

She modeled her parenting after her mother who never said I love you.

And it trickles down, and they're just hoping for someone to stand up and say, the buck stops here.

My kid's gonna, like, gonna be bruised from.

From hugs, and I'm gonna tell them I love them every day.

So there's a lot of going back and.

And.

And spirit will tell them, you know, I.

And they'll show me that she was.

The mother was abused in her lifetime or with the husband.

And pieces start falling into place for the client, like, oh, that's what.

Yeah, she used to say that to me, and I didn't.

Never really understood it.

And spirit is not trying to get out of it and making excuses.

They're just trying to let you know it wasn't you.

Right?

You were perfect.

It wasn't you.

And that gives clients so much peace, and it really helps, second of all, that people are surprised at that.

When we come down here, we have a soul contract.

Okay?

We're not just jumping in someone's womb and saying, all right, let's give it a shot.

The guides and the others on your team work out a soul plan that will teach you things that you need to know, that your soul needs to know to expand and to.

And to progress.

So you may say, I. I need a really mean mom so I can learn to stand up for myself for this.

So you gotta.

You get a.

Another partner, and they're going to do it together.

We are playing a role.

When we are down here, we're playing a role.

And as horrible as we are, that doesn't mean when they finally pass that that's the way they are.

They just are playing.

We're playing a role to help you and to Help themselves, work off a little karma, learn some lessons they didn't learn in several different lifetimes.

So it's all planned.

Wow, that's a different perspective than a lot of people probably think.

You know, it's that it's all pre.

And I believe that, that it's all pre planned.

It's, it's you pick your parents and people will say how could a God take away a six year old child?

Right.

And we don't know until we get over there.

And I always say there's a big whiteboard when you get there, loss of a child.

And then it's going to tell you what you learned from that, how strong you were, you know, how much good it did helping other.

Whatever it is, there's a reason.

And there you go with trust again.

If you trust it, it also could, can help with the grief to know that, okay, can I be patient and wait and find out how it helped me?

But it does.

That's what I can guarantee that it's meant to help you.

It's not done to you, it's done for you.

I was.

That just gives me goosebumps because I literally was just gonna say that was one of the biggest things and number when I do speak, you know, talks on five ways to really flip your whole mindset.

That's one of the very first things I talk about is looking at life as being done for you, not to you.

Perfect.

Perfect.

I mean that's literally.

It gave me goosebumps when you said that because I was just going to interject with that because it is true.

But.

And it's so hard though when you're in that grieving process or when you're that child growing up and you don't understand, you know, this was not her fault and it was not her mother's fault and it was not her grandmother's fault.

Like it just was.

They could change it.

There's always somebody I usually get at my point, somebody who says, I told myself I would never treat my child that way.

That's what the ancestors are looking for.

Someone who says the buck stops here.

This generational trauma is going to stop and this, my granddaughter is gonna, gonna grow up in love and comfort and support and they're so happy that you can do it.

So we do have an opportunity to, to make that change.

Oh absolutely.

And that hits so home with some of the, most of the people probably listening to this podcast because like that's why there's people on here like me doing podcasts because like I'm that cycle breaker.

Like, it doesn't matter why or it doesn't matter how.

All it matters is that the buck stops here.

Right.

So I get a lot of symbolism as well.

And so a lot of times I'll get somebody who, who just, like, opens their, Their, their shirt and there's scars everywhere.

I said, your mother was so scarred from an alcoholic father who, you know, she was lived in fear.

You know, I, I get like a sign like that for protection.

They needed protection.

I'm getting goosebumps already.

So they show me different ways that they were affected.

And it always affects.

If you have parents like that who are abusive in any way, it affects your.

Your confidence.

And you'll find those people more shy and, and always the back of the crowd, as opposed to the front.

Everything, every action causes a reaction.

It's like the Rube Goldberg thing.

Dominoes down, some pops up, something goes over there.

It all makes you up, and it's meant to.

And we just have to try to get through the hard times as quickly as possible, because I was told that we're all going to have big challenges.

So you can either just say, okay, I'm just going to go with this, and we're going to get over it as soon as possible.

And, or.

And then it's gone.

You know, you work on it, it's gone.

But some people want to stretch it out.

They want to fight it, they're resisting it, and then it could go on so long.

So it's the unit.

You, you signed up for this.

The universe is giving you a lesson to learn right now.

Just accept it.

Because if you don't learn it in this lifetime, you have to come back and take the class over.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

Yeah, I was, I was gonna ask you that.

So is it.

You gotta take it over, learn it.

You absolutely could come back five lifetimes and, and have an abusive father, alcoholic father, if you don't learn the lesson.

And something else people have to learn is forgiveness, or they're going to be back a lot.

Yeah.

Because if you understand, your father's playing a part.

He got the script.

He's.

He's a.

An alcoholic, you know, abuser.

That's his part.

He's doing that to help everyone involved.

So if you can look at it like, like that, I think it can lessen how much you take, how much you feel about it and say, okay, I'll.

For.

I'll forgive him.

I mean, there's nothing to forgive.

That's what we both decided on.

And I'm sure he'll forgive me because I was very sassy and I swore at him, like, every day.

So we both will forgive each other.

We were just playing a part.

I love that.

I love that.

Absolutely.

So for somebody out there listening, if you're thinking, I mean, I can only imagine it's kind of like when I learned the science behind alcoholism, that it took a lot of that pressure off of me.

I was like, oh, my brain's the way it is because of, like, because of this.

It was scientific and it was right.

I feel like going to a medium would be almost not the scientific part, but, yeah, it's.

It's something tangible.

It's something that you can hear.

Hold on.

And yes, yes.

Now I want to say that laughter is science.

That laughter has the.

That kind of vibration.

Laughter.

15 minutes of laughter equals 2 hours of restorative sleep.

It lowers blood pressure.

It can stave off depression.

And it.

It just.

It.

It's good in every way.

So I always tell people, you go watch.

Go watch a funny movie.

Your husband loved that.

You guys did just go.

Go sit on the couch.

I promise you he's going to be sitting there with you laughing his ass off.

Okay?

So do that and you will feel lifted.

You will.

I'm trying to lift everyone's spirit in my.

In my sessions.

That's awesome.

I saved, like, some of the funniest videos.

Like, my daughter, when she got her wisdom teeth out, she's trying to talk to me and didn't know she was being video recorded.

And she's, oh, right.

It's so fun.

And I literally.

And there's a couple other ones.

I have my dog doing stupid.

But literally, it's like when I feel I need that pick me up.

That's the first thing I do, because it doesn't matter how many times I've seen it thousands of times.

I laugh every time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I tell people.

I say, right now, your grief is so heavy, and you have to go through the stages.

So a picture that you look at with your son doing a goofy face and your husband doing something silly, that makes you laugh.

I mean, makes you cry now, makes you cry that he's not there.

I promise you there will be a day where you use that picture to make you laugh, because that little smile was just the best.

And to have gratitude for all the moments you had with them as opposed to the loss.

It's easier said than done.

But it's our job when someone passes.

Our job is to learn to have joy and laughter again.

That's our job.

And to help others to have a life of service, that is really important.

Boy, that's.

You get a lot of points for that.

And if you don't do that, you're going to be coming back from here till kingdom come.

You need to give to others.

Absolutely.

And like you said, just putting that energy into the world, like putting it out there.

Absolutely.

So important.

So if people want to have a.

It just is a.

An hour.

Is it.

What does it look like to come to a reading?

Well, yeah.

Okay.

Unless you live in Los Angeles, we do it over zoom or, you know, FaceTime or whatever.

And I asked them, you know, I give a little intro and then I ask them who is the person they most want to see?

Okay.

Most of the mediums from just.

They say, well, let's just see who comes.

Well, a lot of times somebody comes that they really hardly knew.

And I feel like that's sort of a waste if that's not.

So I just say, who do you want to come first?

And, and what's their relationship to you?

I like, I'm a cut to the chase kind of girl.

So.

And most people say, my husband, my child, you know, my mother, whatever.

And there's, there's time usually for a couple of other, I call them drive bys.

If we really take a lot time on this one person because that's what they want.

And then I can say, well, there's a woman here with orange hair and buck teeth.

She goes, oh, that's Aunt Lucy.

Okay.

So I just let them know who else is around.

And then I just, I just bring spirit.

Usually just comes right there and, and starts to give me their essence.

They usually start with giving me their essence so that the, the client knows who it is.

And I also say what, what they look like so that they know they have them.

And then they just give me evidence.

They throw out different memories.

They have.

A lot of times the memories they throw out.

There's a picture I had, I had a client, I said, there's a man coming out and he's got marachas and he's the music.

And he's looking behind him and there's a conga line behind him.

She goes, oh, that's my dad.

I have a picture of that on a cruche with vacation we went to.

Okay.

Getting goosebumps as well.

So it's.

And those things they add up to, gosh, that is my father.

I am.

I didn't know that about him or I can't believe that he's really here.

Because I always tell them, they're always around you.

They, you know, they can split up into many, many places many, many times.

So there's.

They're always around you.

They want to help you.

They can put things into your head, and you just have to believe, and you just have to believe.

And then we go through, and I let them ask questions, and I do my question and answer where I don't know the question, and then they can say it out loud.

It takes too long the other way, and.

And then, you know, more information or more people who.

They want to just know that they're all right or what are they doing on the other side.

So I said, well, your husband just said, he's.

He's really.

His swing got much better.

And she's laughing.

She goes, he was the worst golfer.

He was so bad.

I'm glad, glad he's golfing and doing well.

And I said, who's Ed?

Ed is his father and Ed is his grandfather.

I said, well, they're all playing together.

So those things, they just.

They get them.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Do you ever have an experience and this is just from someone?

Like, if someone is hesitant to come in, maybe they don't want to know what you're going to say, or do you, like, filter that out for them so that it's.

No, I don't.

I don't.

Well, if it's something.

If it's something.

I mean, I do go over usually how they passed, because that's another way to validate that we have the right person and that.

And that they're there.

I try to be sensitive.

Let's just put it that way.

Okay.

If the person, you know, used a gun and it was a mess, I'm not going to really say, you know, describe the crime scene, but I'll.

I'll go around it.

You know, we learned to be sensitive, so.

And that wasn't my best.

I didn't get the best grade on that because I'm sort of tell it like it is.

I know.

And it's me, too, because I sometimes, like, I'll even finish something, I'll be like, oh, maybe I should have been a little more empathetic.

But I mean, at the same time, like, sometimes, I mean, we're here, like you said, to learn something.

And sometimes hearing the hard things is what you need.

Like, I wish people had told me the hard things decades ago.

Right.

A lot of people want to know if the drug overdose was suicide or just they Were so stoned, they just kept taking more.

So I.

What I usually say is, is that your.

Your daughter takes responsibility for her passing.

Right?

And then they'll go, yes.

Yeah, she did.

So I. Yeah, I. I had a lady on that does Akashic records, and it was kind of the same thing.

Like, she said, yeah, somebody like, I know five decades or five generations ago, you were literally decapitated.

Like, I'm not gonna.

Like, I have to be sensitive about.

This, but she probably still has neck pain to that day and wonders why she has.

Why she has, you know, a.

A sore neck.

Probably.

I mean, seriously, probably.

I was thinking more like, let's say hypoth.

I'm just trying to think of an example, and then I'll.

I'll let you wrap this up.

I don't know.

I. I'm.

I'm drawing a blank here.

I guess I'm thinking like, more like you didn't have, you know, like, the relationship or whatever, like, bad news coming in, like, with that.

Like, you know, you're not always gonna see that they're happily in.

I mean, you might always see that they're happily in heaven, but if they start talking about, like, past things that could.

That.

Well, spirit usually doesn't talk about past lives.

Okay.

Okay.

There's people who take you back into past lives.

I just took one person back.

I didn't know I could do it, but I did it.

And, well, I always say some of the DNA always drips down.

So if you get somebody who had mental health problems, if your mother was schizophrenic, you know, you might have some of that stuff that, you know, rears its ugly head at some point, but we.

We have.

We still have free will.

We have free will.

And even though that DNA is trying to come out and making you say mean things like your mother did, you have free will to say, forget that.

That's gone.

That is not going to happen again.

Right.

So we have to.

We have to use our.

Our.

Our.

Just trust and use your intuition, because spirit puts things in our head.

And I can show you.

I can give you an idea at the end of a reading.

I try to give them an exercise so that they'll.

They can.

They'll know that they can.

They can contact their loved one on their own.

So I tell them, I'm going to count to three and.

And you're going to tell me the very first item or thing that comes into your head.

So I go, 1, 2, 3.

What is it?

And a woman said, an elephant and she goes, an elephant.

How am I going to find, see an elephant in the next week?

It has to be the first thing or it isn't going to work.

Because spirit put it in there.

Your, your husband put it in there because he knew where and when you were going to be.

They know the future and he wanted you to understand he's with you and he can talk to you and give you ideas.

So this woman called me back, got in touch with me and said two days later, after our session, I took my son mini golfing at a new place.

And look what one of the.

Hold on.

I got to get the.

I can remove that.

No, I can't right now.

I don't know.

You have to put it right in front of your face for us to see elephant.

It's a giant elephant.

A giant elephant.

You have to hit the ball through his legs.

Who can make this stuff up?

Where was she gonna see a big elephant, right?

And that makes people so excited that they really believe it.

They understand that they're not gone, they're just in another form.

And you can do that on your own every week.

You want to feel connected, you should talk to them.

You always have to ask them for things.

They can't just come in and redecorate.

Okay.

You got to say, help me feng shui Ma.

Okay?

Just tell me where to move things in your head.

They have to be asked.

So this is, this is interesting.

This is really fun.

Now I'm gonna have to go read about something else and learn more about something else.

If you could give somebody some tips or just, you know, some suggestions on how to open up that intuitive a little bit more.

I mean, that's one good practical try.

So.

Well, knowledge is, is key.

There's a website called soulproof S O-U L P R-O-O-F.com put together by one of the pioneers in spirituality.

And it's like a decades of, of articles and information and radio recordings and ebooks that are.

Everything is free.

So if you want to know about life after death or you know, what angels do, or can you eat on the other side or anything you want, anything you want to know or about near death experiences, anything.

It's all, it's a one stop resource.

And all he wants to do is give people information.

And he also has a free class that he does, you know, a zoom class that.

So knowledge is going to get you all jacked up.

Okay.

To understand.

And the more, the more you know, the more open you'll get and look for signs.

They'll also.

He also has articles on what signs they do.

Like a butterfly, you know, or.

Or a feather, you know, or finding coins.

I told a woman, I see silver coins.

She said, I get.

I find.

I find quarters everywhere.

I'm always finding quarters.

I said, well, that's your father.

And I said, have you been looking at the dates?

She said, no.

I said, next quarter, you find.

Look at the date.

It might be an important date.

So she said, I said, you're going to find another quarter.

So she, she got back to me and said, I found a quarter where I never expected it, you know, it could have been like in a shoe or something.

Something crazy.

She said, and I remember Barbara said, look at the date.

It was the year my dad died.

So they.

And now she says, I'm going to go through all the quarters that I kept.

Okay, forget the washing machine.

I'm going to find the good ones.

So, yeah, there's always.

There's always something.

So that's a great way to just open up and podcasts, you know, there's a million podcasts about spirituality and I love it.

Open up and, you know, like, build.

Build the, the baseball field and build it.

And they will come.

Build it and they will come.

Absolutely.

Well, this has been really fun.

Thank you so much, Barbara, for coming on.

Pleasure, Absolute pleasure.

I love it.

And for the people listening, she's going to give us one last.

Now just sum it up for us.

If you had to give one piece of advice or words of wisdom, I'd like people to kind of wrap it all up at the end.

What would it be for our listeners?

If you want to connect, you have to trust.

It's not seeing is believing, it's believing is seeing.

And as long as you have a negative or show me kind of thing, it's really a low vibration and spirit is in a very high vibration.

So you can imagine how hard it is.

So remember, just if you're really down, go do something that makes you laugh and brings you joy.

That's what they want for you.

And, and just bring more joy to your life if you can.

You will be able to.

It just takes time.

Absolutely.

And if people want to reach out with you, how do they reach out?

It is so easy.

Okay.

Bannermedium.com b a n n e r m e dash dash I u m dot com that's it.

That's my website.

And you can find out about me, read testimonials, book a session, and look at some of my little video clips.

I'm also on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook with little clips as well that show what kind of crazy things can happen in a reading.

And boy, are there some crazy things.

I can't wait to.

I can't wait to check it out.

So thank you again, so much.

I appreciate you coming on.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And for everybody else out there, you heard her, go to banner medium.com, check it all out, and I'm sure she has some fascinating stories.

And go book a session.

You never know what you don't know.

And like she said, it will make you feel better and you will find more joy in your.

So we will talk to you next week.

Bye.