Deb Levine is an authentic and highly gifted Medium, Intuitive and Certified Sound Healer who is originally from Philadelphia and currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. She received her Bachelor of Arts in advertising from Penn State University, followed by a 10-month stint at the Art Institute of Phoenix, where she received a diploma in baking and pastry arts. Even though Deb experienced a spiritual calling during her childhood, she stifled it to pursue a career in radio advertising sales and raise her 2 children. In this interview, Deb talks about her journey to allowing her intuitive abilities to blossom, the development of her mediumship, her Soul Wisdom services that support both healing and empowerment and more.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- How Deb’s grandmother’s death brought Deb into alignment with who she truly is and her life purpose.
- The true essence of mediumship is to guide a person to the essence of who that person is.
- Why a “soul excavation” is a catalyst for growth.
- How Deb has embraced and accepted all that makes her whole — both the shadow and the light.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS DEB:
- What is it like when you “hold up a mirror” to a person’s soul?
- How do you sense the deceased?
- Why do you say that healing does not have a formal beginning and an “end?”
YOUTUBE INTERVIEW:
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Deb Levine: Embracing And Accepting All That Makes You Whole, Both The Shadow And The Light
I’m speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey. I’m truly delighted to have this opportunity to interview the authentic, gifted, and loving medium, intuitive, and Certified Sound Healer, Deb Levine. Deb, who will be speaking to us from Scottsdale, Arizona is originally from Philadelphia. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Advertising from Penn State University followed by a 10-month stint at the Art Institute of Phoenix, where she received a Diploma in Baking and Pastry Arts. Even though Deb experienced a spiritual calling during her childhood, she stifled it to pursue a career in radio advertising sales and raise her two children.
I’m looking forward to asking Deb about her journey to allowing her intuitive abilities to blossom, the development of her mediumship, her soul wisdom services that support both healing and empowerment, and surely more for what is going to be an interesting, uplifting, and enlightening interview. Deb, a warm, heartfelt welcome to the show.
Irene, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
It’s truly my pleasure. Let’s start with this question. In what ways did you get glimpses of your connection to spirit and your intuitive abilities when you were a child?
I was for sure always considered a sensitive child. I felt like I would pick up on the energies of other people. I wouldn’t have known to call it that at that time. If I was in a room with other peers and kids were upset, I would feel that. I would think that I had a bad day but I realized later on that I was taking on the energies of those around me. It was when I was thirteen that I first heard from a spirit and it freaked me out. I remember it exactly.
Can you describe that to us?
It was a Memorial Day weekend. I had come back from a barbecue with my family. I shared one little bathroom with my older sister. I had to go in and wash my face. I was thirteen so I lean into the mirror to go pop a pimple and I literally hear. This is not hearing an objective voice in my head. It’s hearing almost in my mind’s ear, is how I say it, like you’d see something in your mind’s eye.
I heard a voice that was British, an older British woman. I’m thirteen. It freaked me the heck out. I know I have a subconscious. Even at thirteen, that was a big idea at that time. I figured my subconscious would not have a British accent. I’m a girl from Philadelphia. That’s not an accent that I would hear someone talking. I couldn’t even tell you what she said. She was an older woman. I literally recoiled like someone had just thrown hot water on my face. I actually went, “Go away.” I suck my fingers in my ears. That was the last I had heard from spirit for several years, but that was my first experience of the spirit world.
How did your path to mediumship and intuitive work open to you then? How was your grandmother’s death a catalyst to rebuilding your life to be more in alignment with who you truly are and your life purpose? What happened?
That’s a whole other episode. There’s that term used, the Dark Night of the Soul, which sounds very dramatic. For a lot of us, we experience it for different reasons. For me, I would say it was definitely midlife, I don’t want to call it a crisis, but it was of sorts. I was diagnosed with ADHD. I had been a very anxious child. If you find, I’m sure you interview a lot of mediums and intuitives. What’s very fascinating is that a lot of us on this path of mediumship have had anxiety at one point in our life. I’ve had it since I was a kid. It’s chronic anxiety.
Why do you think that is?
From my own perspective, I feel very certain. Some of the people I know have been hearing from spirit or actually seeing spirit since they were two years old. It’s frightening when you’re a child when you don’t have an understanding of it. Now, I didn’t see spirit objectively in my life, but it wasn’t coming to me like that. Feeling all the energy of people in the living and then feeling it from people that were no longer in their physical bodies causes a lot of anxiety. I didn’t have social anxiety. I was an extrovert and very outgoing. The anxiousness was debilitating at times. What my therapist came to find out was that my anxiety was masking the ADHD, which is often, for your audience so they know. I’m not saying that we all have ADHD.
A lot of times for women in their mid 40’s, it goes undiagnosed because it’s seen as hormones. If we’re in perimenopause, it can be hormones. That’s why you’re forgetting things or you’re all over the place. ADHD is actually what causes anxiety, typically, if it’s untreated. That was the catalyst. There were a lot of other things in my personal life that were happening at that time. This happened at the same time that I lost my grandmother. I have to wish her a happy birthday wherever she is right now. I know she’s right here.
She’s right around us, for sure.
She’s not smiling down at me because she hated my hair down. She said, “Debbie, get your hair off your face. It looks horrible.” She told me to pull it up. I said, “I’m going to go as me now. Gram is going to have to deal with my hair.” When she died years ago at 102, she was my very best friend, I felt her at her funeral. I had to speak in front of probably 450 people. I was a nervous wreck. My mom asked me to read a letter I had written to her when she was 90. That was her birthday gift. What do you get from a woman that has everything? I wrote her a love letter of sorts telling her how I felt about her. All I had to do was read the letter. I don’t mind speaking in front of groups. I’m quite comfortable, but I was emotional. I thought I was just going to break down.
I got up there and I stood at the podium. I had the strangest calm come over me. I literally hear my grandmother say, “You’re going to read that letter, dear, every word. Let them hear everything.” I thought, “Oh my God,” because Gram would not want anyone to miss out on one darn word said about her. I can assure you. The best way to say it is I felt her. Her presence was everywhere. My grandmother at 4’10” had such a huge presence. She’d waggled her little finger at you, but she was such a huge presence and energy when she was living. I could feel that presence even after she had died. At the same time that my life broke down with this ADHD diagnosis and this severe anxiety, it was the perfect storm. That’s how it all began to validate your question.
You have a wonderful story about the Bridging Heaven and Earth Seminar in Scottsdale, Arizona and how life-changing that was for you. That was the beginning of your path now, right?
It was the beginning of my official path in terms of working with a mentor. Although this was my second mentor. My first mentor, which many of your guests may know, is the lovely Suzanne Giesemann. I have so much to be grateful for her. Suzanne Giesemann is the one who felt guided to direct me to the amazing Susanne Wilson, also known as the Carefree Medium here in Carefree, Arizona.
It’s crazy how I had a friend in New Jersey of all places who received an email. I don’t like to say crazy. I like to say synchronous and amazing. She’s not on any of this. She has no idea who Susanne Wilson is. She gets an email with a flyer about this Bridging Heaven and Earth weekend. She emails me and says, “Deb, I have no idea how I would even receive this. I just feel nudged to send this email to you. I don’t know anything about Susanne.”
In that same week, Suzanne Giesemann we’re emailing about something. She says, “Deb, I feel guided to tell you Susanne Wilson is going to be having a small group mentorship. It was a six-month program. I need to tell you to sign up for that.” She was just starting. Susanne Wilson was accumulating students and she was only taking maybe eight students. Site unseen, I went to her website meaning I knew nothing about her. I went to her website, clicked on the link, and signed up for the course, knowing nothing about her. That was one of the most spontaneous things I’d ever done.
When my friend tells me there was this, I asked Suzanne Giesemann. I said, “I get an email from a friend announcing this Bridging Heaven and Earth. Do you think it would be worthwhile to go?” She says, “Absolutely. You’ll see her live.” It was a weekend-long event. Part of the event was she was doing a platform mediumship demonstration with the other medium that was there from Tucson, Tina Powers.
This is the second day. It’s in the morning. I’m driving there. I say in my mind to all of my loved ones in spirit, “I don’t need to receive any messages at this event.” There were people here that were literally fresh in grief. There were a lot of folks that had lost children. A lot of people from the Helping Parents Heal community. I know there was a woman in the row next to me. Her husband had passed five days before. Now I’m one of the lucky ones. I have grandparents in the spirit world and that was it.
I said, “I do not need to hear from anybody. Please allow these people to get messages. I will bear witness.” We’re in this. Susanne Wilson starts. She’s got her head microphone on. She’s on the little platform. They tell us it’s being recorded. If you can take the spirit contact, please raise your hand and stand up. Susanne starts walking back and forth. Right away, she says, “I have a woman here and she has a huge personality. She’s saying the name Reba. I hear Reba McIntyre.”
I’m sitting here going, “Please let someone raise their hand.” She says, “I’m sorry. I’m supposed to tell you it’s not the country music singer, Reba McIntyre. It’s the name Reba.” It’s on a megaphone. “Does anyone take the name Reba?” Reba is my grandmother’s name. It’s not the most common name. Her given name is Rebecca. She was only referred to as Reba. I’m looking around going, “Someone else must be raising their hand.”
I go like this and I hear someone say, “Put your hand up higher.” They come running over to me. They put a microphone in my hand. They tell me to stand up. I’m thinking, “What’s happening here?” Susanne Wilson proceeds to give me a contact from my grandmother. There is no way on this Earth she could have known the things that she was giving me the information on because something had happened in meditation for me that week. The words that Susanne repeated from my grandmother were words that I had heard and been guided in meditation that week. No one could have known that. In addition to other things, there is something about my son then my grandfather was there with her. My knees were knocking together. People around me are crying. I’m crying.
Now, I’m a medium at this point. I wasn’t a professional medium, but I had been doing readings for people literally in my closet. I knew what this experience was like from the medium’s side. To be in the other shoes and to experience the love of the spirit world, I have the chills now, as I say it, I could feel my grandmother’s presence coming through Susanne in a way that was so powerful. It was nothing I could even describe in words.
Typical for your grandmother. She didn’t listen to you when you said, “I don’t even.” She was like, “No. Are you kidding?”
Reba got to the front of the line. In fact, the way Suzanne said it. She was starting to explain how it was going to work. She’s like, “Excuse me. I’m sorry. I have a woman here that’s very insistent.” She got to the front of the line. The irony and the humor of that did not hit me until after she brought my grandmother through. Even in the way she came through Susanne brought her through was so my grandmother. The essence, the personality, in addition to the evidential information she gave me.
I was able to get a taste of how powerful mediumship is when it’s done well and ethically and when it’s done with love. It was life-altering. I’ll tell you why. Now I had said, “Please, I don’t need messages. Give it to the folks that need it.” I didn’t realize how badly I needed it. I was in this dark night of the soul. I was at a crossroads. I didn’t know where I was going. Was I supposed to embark on this path of mediumship and healing for others? I didn’t know what to do.
My grandmother’s validation was literally life-changing. Yet, she couldn’t give it to me because she wasn’t here physically, but she could still give it to me. I have chills as I say that because that tells us that our loved ones can very much be there to validate, encourage, and offer us that support. I felt it. I’m a medium. You don’t have to be a medium to feel that, but it shows you we’re all human beings. I got to experience that love of the spirit world and it was life-changing for me.
That’s a wonderful story. It is true when people come through, they keep their personalities. I always know because my husband had an amazing personality. When he comes through, he comes through with a sense of humor and I know. Please tell us about the first time you began to trust yourself in your mediumship via the most spontaneous thing or that was the most spontaneous thing you’d ever done.
Before that, the reason I met Suzanne Giesemann was I was guided. I didn’t know anything about Suzanne Giesemann. She was demonstrating in Fruitland Lakes, Florida. I’d never even heard of Fruitland Lakes, Florida. Here I am in Phoenix, Arizona. I know someone else that says, “Deb, I don’t know.” I have a friend in the Helping Parents Heal organization and she knew Suzanne Giesemann and Mavis Pittilla, who Suzanne was going to be demonstrating with. She emails me this flyer about this two-hour demo in Florida on a Sunday.
You’re living in Arizona at that time?
I’m living in Arizona. My children are young. My husband then was traveling all around. We don’t have family in Arizona, so I needed to figure out what to do with my kids. I heard and was nudged, “You need to get on that plane. You’re going to book a flight and you’re going to go see Suzanne and Mavis speak.” I thought, “I felt not,” because there was something about Mavis that actually reminded me of my Gram. She would hold this tissue. My gram used to tuck a tissue in her watch and the way Mavis painted her nails. My grandmother always had these dark-colored nails. Something about her vibe just reminded me of Gram.
I’m on the plane on the five-hour flight from Phoenix to Florida and I hear, “You’re not going to see Mavis. You’re going to see Suzanne.” As I looked up Suzanne’s website, she was so official and accomplished. I thought, “She’s not woo-woo enough for me.” I like a little bit more woo-woo. Not totally, but she seems so bright, scientific, and factual. I don’t know if I gel with her. She’s also the warmest, loveliest person as if you’ve experienced her. She’s wonderful. I hear, “What does that mean? She’s going to be a teacher and know that you’re there.”
I don’t know how to explain it. I flew and was in Florida for not even 24 hours there and back. I stood in line outside, even though I had a ticket. The ticket was $30. The plane ticket was a lot more. I didn’t care. I knew I had to be there. I waited in line at the end for her to sign the book I’d had of hers that I bought before I went and we connected. We talked for maybe four minutes and there was something there. She said, “You should come to my seminar.” She was holding a Mediumship One seminar. The first one I went to was in San Diego. The next one was in San Jose. I said, “I have two young kids.” She’s like, “You’ll find a way to get there.”
Three weeks later after the seminar in Fruitland Lakes I then announced that I’m going to leave my family for the weekend and fly to San Diego, which from Phoenix is not that far. I was not the mom that ever went away from my kids. I was always at home. I didn’t do the girls’ trips. For me to go anywhere away from my young children was a big deal. For me to go anywhere based on what I called then was on a hunch, it was a nudge. I called them spirit nudges. That was my intuition and soul wisdom saying, “You got to get on that plane and go.” I listened. That’s when I knew I trusted myself.
That’s fabulous. You talk about, as a medium and an intuitive, that your intention is that a session with you serves as a gentle soul excavation and catalyst for growth. Could you explain that to us, please, Deb?
I realize when I wrote it, it sounds a little dramatic. What is a soul excavation? I say it and I say gently because if you think of excavating at a construction site, you think of a big claw that goes in and through the dirt. What I like to think of a mediumship session, and I call mine sessions and not readings, is it’s intentional. It’s not to diminish when a medium would call it a reading because I understand why. We’re reading the soul of a loved one and spirit. I’m reading the energy of my client in front of me in the physical. Within a session, there’s a lot that goes on. I’m not just reading the soul of a loved one.
A soul excavation is by doing the intuitive work, connecting with my client, and having that ability to talk back as far as childhood and maybe some inner child stuff comes up, that’s the place that we have to go. I always refer to it as getting into the muck. We have to gently get through that muck of either what’s happened in our childhood or on our journey.
Getting through that muck is not to bring up wounds. I’d say it’s almost like pulling up the gems. What can you find when you excavate? There are a lot of beautiful things that you can find. Some of those things are wounds in there. Until we go through, we gently excavate. We’re living up here where everything may not be okay but that’s not where the real meat of it is. The meat of it is getting into that soul and gently excavating.
Soul Excavation: The meat of Soul Excavation is getting into that soul and gently excavating.
Do you pull out energetically? Do you pull out some of the blockages?
No, it’s not that I’m pulling that out in that way. I’m unearthing them.
You’re revealing them.
What I say is my client knows themselves better than I do because they are in their own skin. However, sometimes we need that gentle reminder because we’re not willing to look there. It’s too painful or we need someone to help facilitate that. That’s why I look at myself as a facilitator in that process. That’s why I also say, when a client comes to me, “Come as open as you can if you really want to be able to get into the work.” I’ll have someone say to me, “No, I’m not hurting. I’m fine.” You can say that and I see you smile, but I am intuitive so I feel that pain.
As an ethical intuitive, my job is also to know when can I go in and excavate because not everybody’s ready. I’m not the medium who’s going to say, “I don’t care if you’re ready. I’m going to bring my bulldozer in anyway.” That’s not what it’s about. I can feel whether or not someone is ready. It’s gently going through.
My client, 9 times out of 10, may not have it in their conscious mind, but in the subconscious, they’re aware of it. They just haven’t excavated. They haven’t brought it up so I go in and bring it up. I then say, “What do we do with that?” That’s not for me. That’s why I’m not healing them. They then get to take that and decide, “What do I want to do with that?” That’s where the spirit world comes into play. That’s why I called a session because it’s a mix of the messages, guidance, and support or validation from their loved ones that have passed that will help whatever that excavation has brought up. What then do they want to do with that? That’s where that excavation comes into play.
That’s really interesting because there are so many mediums. I’ve interviewed so many amazing mediums who mostly come from the experiential side. You give them this extra other perk. Not only do you do the experiential, but you can actually help them with their issues and different things that are going on and bring them to the service. That’s wonderful.
I say this on my website and I always tell clients, “Clearly, I’m not a therapist. I’m not a grief counselor.” What I’m doing is almost like I’m holding space.
You identify it. They can go take it and then decide what they’re going to do with it.
They can leave and say, “Thank you. This was helpful.” I may never see them again but I tend to have a lot of repeat clients. It is the most joyful for me. I had this not long ago. When I’ve seen someone four times within a year, I can literally feel their energy change. I love this with women. Not that I tend to have for some reason more female clients than male for whatever reason. When I see them come on screen and they’re so much more standing in their power and layers have been shed, that’s the work that they’ve done. In certain jobs, you get a bonus. That’s my bonus. If I see that from someone and I see that light shining from their eyes and that knowing, I’m like, “I did this for me.” That’s the best thing ever. They’re on their own path.
That’s wonderful, Deb. Tell us how you see and sense the deceased. Some people use all five clairs. Some people use three clairs. How’s it happened to you?
It’s all of the above. It’s very hard to articulate. I am clairvoyant. I do have clair seeing. Subjective, not objective. I will not see your husband physically next to you. I see it in my mind’s eye. I explained to people, “If I told you to remember your favorite scene from a movie. You could do that right now. You could picture the actors and what they’re saying, but you’re not actually seeing it play out in front of you.”
I do have clairaudience, which is clair hearing. I have claircognizance, which is that clair knowing. Clairsentience, that clair feeling, and then clairalience I have used a handful of times where I’ve smelled a barbecue grill. I knew this man was like a barbecue master because I could smell it. I smelled the smell of a cigar. I’ve smelled perfume. I smell my grandmother’s perfume all the time. I’ll get in my car and I’m like, “Gram, what are you doing here?” I have all those clairs but the best way to describe it is this is just me because we all work differently and there is no better or no worse. There is room for all of us. I hate the fact that it feels like this.
We all work differently and there is no better or no worse. Click To Tweet
I so agree with you. I want to make that statement because here I am on the show and there are other people who have podcasts and all. I don’t do it as a competition. We’re all contributing to the collective and getting the word out. I applaud everyone who’s doing this because maybe someone is more pulled towards one person than another. I’m grateful for the ones who are coming here who we’re helping. That’s how I see it.
I say there’s a medium for every person and a person for every medium. I may not be the medium for some of your audience and that’s okay. If someone comes to me and I don’t feel worth it, I will refer them to three ethical, beautifully intended mediums that I feel could help them. There is space for everybody. I want people to know this is my experience and perspective, and the way it happens for me. I don’t experience things now separate from me.
Let’s say your mom is in the spirit world and I’m bringing your mom through. I don’t see her separately like, “I see your mom and I can describe how she’s dressed.” It’s happening. It’s this knowing. It’s this sensing. The essence of your mom is somehow coming through me. I’ll have clients say, “That was so weird, Deb. You didn’t look like you.” Now, I don’t suddenly look like your mother, but my mannerisms.
I had a reading and I’m like, “I want to sit back and chain smoke. I wanted to tap the table.” She would’ve played blackjack or poker. I don’t play cards because I didn’t know. My client starts crying and laughing. She’s like, “My grandmother was this fierce chain smoker and she was a hardcore blackjack player.”
I wasn’t describing it as something I was seeing. It was happening. I was feeling the essence or the energy so close to their loved one and spirit. That’s how it comes for me. It’s not even something that when it’s happening, I can separate because it’s all happening quickly. At the same time, the knowing. How do I know? I just know and it all comes from trust. Trusting the self and trusting the spirit world. Those two things have to be aligned. If not, then it won’t work for me.
I love how also you say that if it doesn’t work for you, you find other people who have integrity because that’s a big deal. Unfortunately, some people give this a bad name. It’s so important for us on both levels and in my world too to find people who have integrity and that people can discern who’s real and who has other motivations or whatever.
Everyone stylistically is going to be different from me because they’re not me. I can’t be like them because I’m not them. It doesn’t mean because someone’s mediumship style is different that they’re not ethical or legitimate. It’s the intention to serve the spirit world and our clients, not the ego. When I am in a session with a client, I’m not worried about, “I hope I look good to them. I hope I can pull all the evidence out of the air so that they think.” It’s not about me. I say, “I don’t leave the building. I’m here. I’m a passive participant in the experience.” This experience is for my client and their loved ones in the spirit world. It’s not about me and how I killed that session. That’s ego and there is no place for ego.
I encourage your audience that whatever medium intuitive they seek out, so long as they resonate with that person and the way in which they do it and so long as the client feels like it was truly for them, it doesn’t matter what the style is. It’s the style that works for your client. Again, I’m not going to be everybody’s cup of tea. The woman down the street isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea either. People are going to gravitate to us. Just like in life. If you go into a group of people and you walk in, you’re going to gravitate toward them. You connect with certain people personality-wise. That’s what it’s about.
Here’s a little bit of a complex question because I think I put three questions in one paragraph. You say that the true purpose of your mediumship is to guide a person to the true essence of who that person is on a soul level. What do you mean by true essence? How do you help a person discover his or her soul’s wisdom and what you call divine magic?
Let’s see if I can break that up.
We have to break that down.
I tend to feel a lot of us and I include myself in this before I did a lot of work in therapy and self-development work in mediumship. A lot of us live out here. Meaning we live and have a persona that we show to the world. If I were going to a PTA meeting, I’m Deb Levine, the PTA Vice President. I’m my kid’s mom and I show up this way, but maybe at home, I show up a different way. I don’t even remember now the first question you asked, I think I’m answering that.
What do you mean by the true essence?
The true essence is who you truly are on the soul level. Meaning, when you are aligned with who you are or when you have aligned your shadow and your light, all the things that make me Deb. Not just the things I show to the world because this looks good out here. There’s plenty of stuff in here that’s good and there’s plenty of stuff that I need to work on as a human being. All of that encompasses my soul and who I am, the essence of me. I need to show up as that person.
Soul Excavation: The true essence is who you truly are on the soul level; it is when you have aligned your shadow and light.
It’s the complete picture that I’m giving to you right now, Irene, the complete picture that I’m going to show the guy in my office in an hour, and the complete picture I’m going to be when I’m on the phone with my parents later. I’m not going to sit here with you and go, “I’m a medium.” I’m me. I’m like this and I’m chatty and fast-talking. This is who I am, whether I’m here with you on Zoom or I’m with my best friend talking on the phone. That to me is the essence of me that I’m aligned with my true self. I’m not showing you one thing. I’m showing the world exactly what I show myself.
That’s why I call you authentic.
Living in your truth is to me what authenticity is. What was the second part?
How do you help a person discover his or her soul wisdom and what you call divine magic?
I say that I do have a lot of female clients. I have female clients that have a beautiful light within us. Sometimes, we need a battery recharge. The light has been there. We all start out as light if that’s how you want to look at it. Our circumstances, the story of who we are has affected us, whether we’ve experienced grief, we’ve been so hard on ourselves, or we’ve had people talk to us in a way in childhood that says, “You’re not good enough. You can’t be X, Y, or Z.” All of those things contribute to the dimming of our light. We can say that I wish someone would light me up. That is fleeting. When that light is coming from an external place, it can be extinguished very quickly.
When you know how to be your own battery charger, when you have that match and can reignite your own flame, that is when your divine magic can happen all the time. A lot of times, we forget our own magic. It does not mean that it’s not there. We all have it. I have to say in conjunction with this. People say, “It’s so amazing. You have this gift of mediumship and I don’t.” We all have gifts. My plumber has done things with my shower pressure. I have no idea my way around the workings of the pipes within my house. This man has that gift. That’s one of the things that’s magical for him. An artist, what they paint. I can’t even draw a stick figure.
When you can reignite your own flame, that is when your divine magic happens. Click To Tweet
This kills me. Before I worked outside the home, people would say, “What do you do?” It makes me cringe when I say this. I would say, “I’m just a mom.” I had a friend that pulled me aside. She said, “I need you to do me and yourself a favor.” She was a stay-at-home mom, too. “You have to take out that word just. You are a mom. You are emotionally supporting these young people who are going to grow up to be what the world is comprised of. That’s not just anything.”
A lot of us consider ourselves, “I’m just fill in the blank.” That’s not being aware of our own divine magic. If we combine all those three questions of what you asked, when we are reignited to our soul’s purpose, when we have someone bear witness to us, “I’m a reflection for someone. Maybe you’ve forgotten your own magic, but I’m here to tell you that it’s there.” In that soul excavation, going back to the other question, a lot of people think, “Soul excavation. You’re going to bring out the skeletons in my closet.”
These are amazing things that have been buried. You have a way of being present for people. I might say, “I feel like you have this connection to social work or psychology.” They might say, “What’s funny because I took a couple of classes in social work, but I never did anything with it.” People may forget what their own magic is, but we all have it. That’s the privilege of what I get to do. It is to be that mirror to reflect what someone’s magic is. Now, I can’t go out and work to make that magic happen for every client. That’s their work. I can’t do soul work for other people.
You identify it for them.
I’m identifying and when you have a witness, there is something so empowering. This is my perspective. All we want as human beings is for someone to really see us. To see us not this. To see us here on the soul level. That is so crucial because when we’re seen for all the parts, not just the parts that look bright and shiny and look great on Facebook and social media. For the parts where we’re having a hard time, our anxiety is acting up, or our depression is kicking in, that does not make us unlovable.
I feel like sometimes, I’m a stranger when someone comes into my office or when I work with them on Zoom. When my clients leave, we’re not strangers. When someone bears witness and validates who you are, that’s all we want as human beings. That sometimes is all it takes for that magic to be reignited within someone’s soul.
That’s beautiful and it’s so true. I feel like that happens with the show, also. A lot of people I interview come out and it’s wonderful. It helps many people. You talk a lot about the shadow and the light. In what ways have you learned to embrace and accept all that makes you whole, both the shadow and the light? How has this affected your mediumship and intuitive work?
That’s a huge question. I wrestled with a lot of things since I was ten with distorted body image. I was told by a pediatrician at the age of ten in front of my mother that I was overweight. You tell a girl at ten years old and even if my mom, thank God, had the wherewithal, she said, “Debbie, don’t listen to the doctor. Your body is growing and changing.”
Words don’t sing. They don’t last. Words can last more than anything. Maybe it wasn’t the doctor or someone heard that from a parent. Thankfully, I was blessed with loving and supportive parents. As I said, my mom had the wherewithal to say, “Don’t listen to him,” but those words already entered me. I wrestled a lot with body image and anxiety. There were so many ways in which I did not like myself. When I looked in the mirror, I was such a loud critic. I never gave myself compliments. I’m not talking about looks like, “You’re a good person. You’re a dear friend. You’re loyal. You’re honest. You’re caring.”
It was, “You’re too fat. You’re not smart enough. You have a pimple. You’re not as successful as all of your friends.” That voice, that’s what I called of all the shadow parts, was so deafening that it negated the light. On and off in therapy for years and doing all that work and anxiety was revolving around all of this stuff, too. When I finally accepted that in order to be truly aligned with myself and show up as I am, I have to be okay with both of those parts of me. I always was seeking validation and acceptance from everybody else.
I did a video of this on my Facebook page. I needed all of the experts. I call them experts in my life. That would be my parents, my best friends, and my older sister. I didn’t check in with myself. I needed to know what they thought. Was this a good move for my life? Am I okay? Am I enough? They all did because they loved me. “Yes, Deb,” but I never believed that. Those words never sunk in. That was the shadow and light.
You said, “How did that accept my mediumship?” When I finally learned that that duality is what makes me the imperfectly perfect human I am. I’m like, “This stuff is crappy.” Now does that mean I say, “I’m aware of it so I don’t have to do anything about it?” No. My work is never done. All of our work continues if we want to grow or evolve.
Souls can evolve in my mind on the other side, but we can certainly do our part to evolve here. I’m always working on myself having that awareness. Now I’m able to step outside of myself and say, “Ooh.” That reaction, why did I react that way? That was a little extreme. What was it that triggered me? I’m able to go through all of that. Why that was so important and critical for my mediumship? If I do not accept that duality, that is me, that shadow and the light of myself. How can I accept? The shadow and the light I consider to be the truth of myself. If I can’t accept the truth of myself, how will I be able to accept the truth of your loved ones in the spirit world?
If we do not accept the duality, our shadow and light, how will we learn? Click To Tweet
How will I be able to tackle the truth of you, my client? I can’t. That’s why no matter who your people tuning into this go out and find as a medium, make sure it’s someone that has not just, “I did my work.” My clients know that I’m not done with my work. I am a perfectly imperfect human being. I’m not the divine. I come from the divine like we all do, but I’m a human being just like you. I get road rage if I’m driving sometimes and I wake up in a crappy mood. I tell people I am not to be put on a pedestal. I have self-awareness and accepted both parts of me. I have accepted the truth of who I am. I have done the work and I am willing and have been willing to go there in that muck and excavate all that stuff in my own soul.
That allowed me to hear, see, feel, and sense the truth of the spirit world. That was when my mediumship opened up in a way that I could never have imagined. I got so much deeper into sessions with clients because I went deeper into myself. In my mind, for me and my mediumship, that was the only way that that could happen.
When you talk about that, it also keeps you from being judgmental of other people. People can come to you with anything that they have to say or anything that’s going on because you see your own shadow. How can you judge someone else’s?
Irene, that’s such a fabulous point. No one else has raised it. I’m glad you said that because it is critical as a medium. I say this in my little five-minute spiel I do before I get started with a client. “This is a judge-free Zoom room or a judge-free space. I will not judge you.” I ask my clients, “Please leave judgment of yourself out the door. There is no room for judgment.” I have had loved ones that have been abused my client. The loved ones that have passed. I have had all sorts of things.
There is no judgment on my end because we are all here to do our work and everyone’s work is different. If I’m judging, “You did that?” that loved one and spirit are not going to come through me. Would you want to play whisper down the lane with someone that was judgy and negative? No, I don’t want to deal with that in the physical. I certainly don’t want to deal with that if I’m a spirit person either.
Here’s a question that’s not on my list and I want to ask you about this. If someone comes through from the other side and they were abusive or malevolent to someone, usually they’re coming through to apologize because they’ve gotten a life review and they saw what happened. What is the effect of that? Is that supposed to get the sitter to go for healing or to understand? How does that work?
This is my perspective and the experience I had.
I’ve witnessed this happening once. I was in a gallery when a man came through. He had died and said horribly abusive things to his child. She was there crying hysterically because her father said these awful things and she said awful things back to him the night before he died. There was such a healing that went on. How do you feel about that? What happens if the guy was terrible?
He was terrible. Sometimes you have to be careful. The loved ones that have come through with me that have been physically abusive to my adult clients don’t expect forgiveness. What they’re doing is they’re taking ownership. When someone that has been abusive to a client takes ownership, it’s up to my client to decide whether or not they choose to forgive. When you hear someone admit, this is where huge healing takes place. You were not the problem. This wasn’t about you. I’ll have clients that say, “I was never like this.” These are clients that as adults, they’re perfectionists. They’re so hard on themselves. They never think they’re good enough because they had a parent that said, “You’re never going to amount to anything. You’re stupid. You’re horrible.”
Soul Excavation: When you hear someone admit and take ownership, huge healing takes place.
Emotional abuse tends to be some of the worst that I’ve had. My adult client sees themselves through their deceased parents’ lens that spewed these horrible things. When ownership is taken or when the deceased loved one says, “This wasn’t okay. I’m aware that it wasn’t okay, but I want you to understand this is how I was raised. This is what happened to me.” Maybe my adult client didn’t know what their parents’ childhood was like. There is an ability then to let go. I never say automatically the spirit person is like, “I need you to forgive me,” because the soul does like forgiveness at times, depending on who it is. That’s up to the client here in the physical to say, “I’m not ready to offer forgiveness, but what a relief to have him say it wasn’t you.”
This happened not long ago. This was a mom who was unkind to her daughter and very critical. The daughter never thought she could do anything good enough. She said, “I was lucky to have you as my child. Only I didn’t realize how lucky I was then because I was narcissistic to see it.” I could energetically feel this. It was almost like her shoulders started like this. I could feel the release and she was emotionally released.
Does that mean she walks out like, “I’m healed?” It means that the healing process can take place. If she hadn’t met with a medium and wasn’t able to connect herself, which some people can that aren’t mediums, now she received that validation like, “I am okay. I was good enough. I was a great daughter. My mom was lucky to have me.” It was her issues. She was the trigger. Her child triggered her mother. That wasn’t the child’s fault. That’s where so much healing can take place.
This is also part of the healing for the person on the other side. They’re involved in healing and may have gotten the picture of what happened.
As I said, my job is to not only serve my clients. It is to serve the spirit world. We can grow and evolve. It’s not done. This is Earth’s school. When Earth school ends and our physical body stops working, the soul is still evolving.
Even when our physical body stops working, the soul is still evolving. Click To Tweet
Let me ask you this. Tell us about how you became a certified sound healer. What is sound healing and how do you use sound healing to help people heal? I see your gong there.
I have my crystal bowl at home. I don’t leave that in my office because it’s one of the only precious things I own so I keep it locked up. I utilize sound healing as an emotional release for myself when I was in the crux of my dark night of the soul. I went weekly to a Kundalini studio that unfortunately had to close down after COVID in North Scottsdale. I faithfully went on Sundays to what was called a sound bath or a sound journey.
If your clients haven’t done it, if nothing else, it’s the most relaxing hour you’ll ever have. Maybe I was just escaping the noise of young kids at that time. You essentially lay on a yoga mat in a darkened room with a blanket over you because the body temperature often drops. It gets a little chilly so we always have a blanket. There are instruments of healing. I have a gong. I have right here. I’m going to show you this. This is my ocean drum. It sounds like the ocean. I was a girl that grew up going down the shore to the Jersey shore so I love it.
I have a rain stick. There are a lot of instruments. Sound affects us vibrationally. I’ve watched YouTube videos on this and it’s incredible how sound can alter things on the cellular level. It’s not that you actually necessarily walk out of sound healing with no physical ailments, but it does the most for stress and emotional healing. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it. It can trigger almost like an emotional opening or a release. Sound is frequency. That frequency, you can feel it in your body.
If I were to use my mouth and hit that gong, even when the actual sound stops, I can still feel the waves and vibration through my body cellularly and it was so profound. I would have these downloads. I was a medium then. I would finish the sound bath, go into my car, and wasn’t able to drive home. I don’t take hallucinogenic drugs, but it’s what I imagine them to be like. It’s like taking a hallucinogenic drug without and I would sit in my car and have to ground. I would keep a notebook and take notes.
For me, it was an opening to greater consciousness. I would leave feeling so relaxed and at peace. When I found that my yoga studio was offering a certification workshop weekend, this happened to be so we got so lucky. It was literally two weeks before life here closed down for COVID. I didn’t know why. A dear friend who’s a reiki master encouraged me to go with her. I thought, “I don’t need to teach it.” I didn’t know. Again, this was a nudge. I felt like I needed to do it. I like to learn things from the opposite end.
Here I was reaping the benefits of it. I was more curious about how it worked and served as such a meditative experience. I got certified in it. What was so cool was I bought my gong right before COVID and I gifted friends and family. I would gift people that I knew and I’d say, “If you have someone that you feel could use,” there was a lot of tension and stress during COVID, “do reach out to me and I’d love to do it for them.”
You do this online also if a person would like to do that?
I do it online, but I will say is much better experienced when it’s live in person. It is a very small element of what I do. Maybe once, God willing, COVID is behind us, I can do it outside. It’s the kind of thing that can be done safely like a yoga class would be on the graph, but the acoustics matter with sound.
Speaking of what you do online, tell us about your soul wisdom services that support healing and empowerment.
Essentially, I offer sessions and it’s a 45-minute session. As I call them soul excavations, I want people to know. I like no information, by the way. There’s this myth that mediums do cold readings. You look us up and you find everything out about us. You’re going to hear it from me straight and hopefully, you’ll see that I’m about as blunt and honest as one can be.
It is so much harder to know information about clients. I don’t even want to know someone’s last name because then we start using the mind. My conscious mind has no business in a session. If you go into a coffee shop and I tell you to look at that guy over there sitting with the tank top, chains, and tattoos, you’re going to assume all these things about this guy, “Maybe he’s a biker.” He might own up a corporate law firm. Just because he has tattoos doesn’t mean that he can’t be a lawyer.
We use our conscious mind. When someone reaches out to me and says, “Deb, I’d like to book a session with you. I lost my father a year ago, so I’d like you to make contact with him.” What I want people to understand, there are mediums that will do made-to-order. If you want to hear from your husband, I will bring him through.
That is not how I work because what I want for my clients or what my intention is, is that every person that meets with me receives what they need for their best and highest good. I can’t know that because I’ve never met you before. Your loved ones in the spirit world sure do know that. Let’s say you come in and say, “I want to hear from Saul. I feel like I would love to hear from him.”
If he’s the loved one in spirit that the spirit world feels that you need, need not want, to hear from for your best and highest good, then that’s who’s going to come through. Maybe you’re in need of some extra support right now for whatever reason. Your grandmother was the person you would go to when she was here in the living. She was the one that would always support you in all of your endeavors then it might be Gram that comes through.
I don’t have control of that, nor do I try to control that. It’s always about the intention that you receive. A session that has to be helpful, hopeful, and/or healing. There’s no dark energy or this or we’re going to extract that. It’s not about that at all. The idea is that you leave feeling peaceful in some way. Again, I can’t make this happen. I’m a facilitator of this. So long as someone comes open, it’s a 45-minute session. I work with people all across the world, so we can do it on Zoom. It’s not better to meet me in person as it is on Zoom. I’ve had equally amazing sessions with someone that’s in Florida and I’m in Phoenix, Arizona than it is when someone comes into my office.
Now that people want to see you and get a session, how do they get ahold of you?
My website is probably the easiest way. If you go on to TheSoulWisdom.com, there is a place there where you can email me. My email is TheSoulWisdom@Gmail.com. That’s already on my website. If you hit my website, there’s a phone number. I will not talk to people on the phone though. People might think this is strange. I’ve had people leave messages and I text back because I can pick up too much energy even from hearing someone’s voice. There are mediums that do this. I don’t do pre-readings. I’m not going to get information ahead of time and spit it back to you when I’m in a session with you. Everything is going to happen live. I do not tap in ahead of time. I like people to know that, too.
Deb, do you go by Deb Levine or Deb Brazer?
I go by Deb Levine.
If they go onto Deb Levine medium, that will come up on Google and all that jazz?
Yes, it should. On Facebook, I am Deb Levine. In a Soul Wisdom page, it’s Soul Wisdom AZ
Soul Wisdom will get them there.
On Facebook, I’m Deb Levine and on Instagram, I’m simply @SoulWisdomAZ. They can find me that way.
What would you like to tell our audience about the importance of healing including why you say that healing does not have a formal beginning and an end, which I understand what you’re trying to say? Please explain that to everybody.
I did a video once on this because I had someone ask me. We were talking about healing versus being cured of something. When we think of a cure, we think of curing a physical ailment. Cure in my mind means to put a stop or an end to something. We want to cure world hunger. We want to cure cancer. Can I be cured of what emotionally ail me? Can I be cured of my anxiety? Could someone be cured of their depression?
We say, “I’m healing from.” I’m healing from my anxiety. To me, healing is a lifelong process. It’s a process. It’s a journey. It does not have a period at the end. It’s of a sentence. It is open-ended. When I say that, it’s because there are times in all of our healing journeys when we might be triggered by something and have this little flashback. Cats happen to me all the time. I regress. I exhibit behavior that was maybe in my pre-healing or pre-self-development work phases. The difference is I now have the self-awareness to say, “I reacted that way. Let me take a step back and feel into why.” Whereas before, I would’ve gone down that rabbit hole and I would’ve been feeling like, “I’m flailing around. I have such anxiety.”
Healing is a lifelong process. It's a journey. It does not have a period at the end of a sentence. Click To Tweet
It does not negate the work that you have done on your healing journey if you have some regression. That is the process of healing. It’s like you take 5 steps forward and sometimes we take 2 steps back. I believe it’s the same way with grief. I can’t speak from experience, but I know from clients that tell me. It’s not linear. It’s not like, “Why aren’t I over it?” That to me is the most insulting thing. No one gets over a loved one that they’ve lost. It doesn’t happen, but can we move forward? Can we take the necessary steps like with our own emotional angst? Can we step forward If someone has been abused or someone has gone through a trauma of some type and it’s not grief? It’s a different kind of trauma.
Healing is a process. It’s a journey and it is a lifelong event. It’s something to be proud of because taking that step in healing is showing up for yourself. It’s being so courageous. It’s having the guts, as I say, to jump into that muck and be willing to get uncomfortable. No one likes to be uncomfortable. As human beings, we want to do everything to avoid it. That’s where the crux of the work lies when you’re willing to get in there and get uncomfortable. That’s how it starts.
I always say the most courageous people in the world are those who are willing to face their stuff and heal.
The most courageous people in the world are those who are willing to face their stuff and heal. Click To Tweet
I 1,000% agree with that statement.
You hide from your stuff and run across it your whole life. It’s like you’re carrying it like a huge backpack on your back.
The sad thing is it’s that word. I feel that people hide it from other people because they worry so much about what everyone thinks. If we can get rid of that, if there were no judgment, maybe we’d take the time to go inward and realize, “People aren’t worried about you so much. They’re dealing with their own stuff.” Even if you think, “That person is the perfect fill-in-the-blank job, marriage, wardrobe, or whatever it is,” it’s all external. It’s all the stuff and the stuff in my eyes doesn’t matter because that’s the stuff that goes away.
As I know from experience, the soul part of us does not go away when the physical body dies. I say this to you as we get ready to wrap up here. I remember sitting at my grandmother’s funeral thinking not one person in her 102 years got up and spoke about her and said, “When Reba was 52, she wore a size 4 skinny jeans. When she was 60, she was up a little bit into a size 6.” Nobody talked about what my grandmother looked like, what she ate, what size jeans she couldn’t do, or how much money she made. They all talked about how my grandmother left them feeling and was such a presence for them.
I realized then that was all that mattered to me and that I wanted to live my life in such a way. When you talk about leaving a legacy, what is that? Is it leaving money? Is it leaving your things? No, it’s the feeling that you leave people. I guarantee you now. I’m going to go on my Facebook page and people have written things about my Gram. She died a few years ago. She left a mark on people because of how she made people feel. She left a mark on me and that’s what’s all about.
What is the Deb Levine tip for finding joy in life?
That’s my big thing and my key word there is finding. I stopped trying to find joy. I used to try so hard to find joy. I would want to find it in other people. I’d want to find it in baking and eating because I felt I could stuff it all down. Now what I realize is when I accept myself or I’m aligned and in the truth of who I am, which I know sounds like spiritual BS, but it’s what I believe, I’m being joy because I am so aligned. I show up as myself. No one can disrupt that. Being joy means being at peace with who I am. When I’m at peace with who I am, I can find joy anywhere because I am the joy then. I don’t need to be around a person to give that to me. I don’t need to be on a vacation. That joy is within me.
Soul Excavation: When I accept myself, when I am aligned and in the truth of who I am, I am being joy.
I totally agree with that. That’s beautiful. Thank you, Deb.
Thank you.
When you stop trying to be all the things you thought you should be, you came to appreciate and accept who you truly are. You’re I am. Your joy lies in the opportunity. Your mediumship allows you to also guide others onto this path. I love that you approach your quality to mediumship with such humility, gratitude, and awe. That is really special. I’m sure many in our audience now want to check out your Soul Wisdom services and they surely join me in thanking you for this heartwarming, wise, and uplifting interview.
Thank you.
Thank you. Make sure to follow us and like us on social at @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. As I like to say, to be continued. Many blessings and bye for now.
Guest Links:
- Deb Levine’s Website
- Helping Parents Heal is referenced in this episode
- Deb’s email: TheSoulWisdom@Gmail.com
- Connect with Deb on Facebook and Instagram
Host Links:
- @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram
- Irene Weinberg on Facebook
- Irene Weinberg on Twitter
- Irene Weinberg – Grief, Rebirth + Healing Podcast on YouTube
