The Reluctant Medium

Another insightful article by Melissa Van Rossum

Although I didn't realize it at the time, when I was five, my favorite playmate was a ghost. She was in her 40s and a mother of three and she stayed with me for several years before finally finding her way home.

I've interacted with ghosts all of my life and as an adult I began doing psychic and mediumship readings for clients.

One of the questions I'm often asked is if our personalities are the same in the afterlife as they were in life.

The answer is yes, mostly.

It depends which afterlife reality you're living.

We can stay earthbound and become a ghost, which is a person who has left their body but has not yet crossed over to the Other Side for various reasons. But this is not a wise choice.

Or we can cross over to the Other Side. Which is what most of us do. And this is the best choice.

In both cases certain parts of our personalities stay the same and certain elements change.

In the situation where someone stays earthbound, their personalities tend to become one dimensional and limited in expression. They become single-minded about their fears.

Those who choose to stay earthbound tend to do so out of dread or anxiety. Most often they're afraid of what they think will be an angry and judgmental God and they're afraid of some type of punishment or rejection.

The longer they stay here, the more afraid they usually become.

Once someone crosses over though, they have a very different experience from someone who is earthbound.

Jennifer, a client of mine who is intuitive, lost her aunt recently to an illness. Elizabeth was a terribly negative person. When she was alive it was challenging to maintain any kind of a relationship with her since she took every chance to deflate the people around her.

After she died, though, Jennifer began regularly hearing from her aunt. Immediately Jennifer noticed that her aunt had lost her negative disposition.

Even more interesting, Elizabeth apologized for her attitude and how she had treated those she loved. She told Jennifer she realized now that she didn't have to act the way she had.

Jennifer was amazed. Her aunt's personality was still basically the same, but the hurtful negativity was completely gone. And Elizabeth was apologetic and insightful about her limiting beliefs and behaviors. Jennifer mentioned to me that Elizabeth was never insightful or self-aware when she had a body.

It was very comforting and healing for Jennifer to see her aunt growing and changing in such positive ways that she would not have while she was here.

Those that cross over receive immediate insight and healing that those who remain on the earthplane do not. That insight and healing helps people to release the more limiting parts of their personalities, allowing them to love and care for us in the ways that they could not when they were here.