Ann Van Orsdel is the 8th inspiring interview in our Grief and Rebirth Podcast’s Rebirth series. She is an intuitive life coach and psychic medium who has been able to connect with spirit since childhood, but she suppressed her abilities due to religious beliefs and self-doubt. Throughout her teens and early 20’s, she eagerly sought answers to questions about death and the afterlife. After more than 20 years in the corporate world as a marketing and advertising executive, Ann felt a strong pull to follow her soul passion which led her to transformation and rebirth.
—
Listen to the podcast here
Rebirth Series: Ann Van Orsdel – Her Personal Rebirth Led To Helping Her Clients Create Important Transformational Change In Their Lives With The Highest Standards And Ethics.
I hope this finds each of you so very well. I’m delighted to welcome intuitive life coach and psychic medium Ann Van Orsdel, who will be speaking to us from the Greater Phoenix, Arizona area. She and her husband split their time between Arizona and their lake home in Iowa, and they have two adult sons. Ann has been able to connect with spirits since childhood, but she suppressed her abilities due to religious beliefs and self-doubt. Throughout her teens and early twenties, she eagerly sought answers to questions about death and the afterlife. After more than twenty years in the corporate world as a marketing and advertising executive, she felt a strong pull to follow her sole passion.
I’m looking forward to chatting with Ann about séances and her personal experience with fully materialized spirit, her personal rebirth, and her work as a professional intuitive coach and mentor, how she combines her skills to benefit others seeking to transform their lives, and what it means when she says that she helps her clients create transformational change in their lives with the highest standards and ethics in every way. I can tell you all how important that is for me to be transmitting that information to all of you. This is surely going to be a meaningful and special interview with a special lady for all of us. Ann, a warm and heartfelt welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It’s such a pleasure to be here.
It’s so wonderful and fun to get to know you and to do this. Let’s start by having everybody know this. You have these gifts and you had a childhood and things happen that sewed a lot of self-doubt and held you back a little bit. Could you tell us about your childhood, your ability to connect with spirits since you were very young, and your need to suppress your abilities due to religious beliefs and self-doubt?
I say to people I believe now that I have had this ability since I was very young. Maybe born with it. I don’t truly know, but I remember being a young child. I had a recurring dream where I felt almost smothered by visitors coming around my bed. I can only describe it as a smothering feeling. At the time, when you are 6, 7, or 8 years old, it’s quite scary. I would end up in my parents’ bed and I would tell them about these dreams. Now looking back, I’m certain that it had to have been spirit trying to get my attention. They were there to guide and look out for me, but to me it was overwhelming. When we talk about my religious upbringing, I was raised Catholic.
Catholics don’t believe in spirituality, do they?
It’s interesting to me. I am certainly not an expert. Having gone to Catholic grade school and growing up in that environment, I didn’t feel comfortable talking about it. I felt like I needed to refer to the Bible or other things that it was the all-knowing truth. I suppressed it. I had an experience when I was in my late teens, where a neighbor who was very involved in the Catholic Church. Her daughter had an experience with automatic writing, and she was writing words from the Virgin Mary. It was incredible.
I was privy to this because my mother and her mother were friends, and so I would hear second and third-hand what was happening. At the time, it was pretty hush-hush because we were all part of the Catholic Church. One thing that happened was she was tested. I understand she went to the Vatican to validate her experiences and things that were happening, but in the end, it was very much orchestrated by the Catholic Church, and for some reason, that rubbed me the wrong way.
I thought that everyone should know about this. It was kept very quiet, kept within our parish. Since then, they released some of these writings. I have read some of them. They are all very loving and beautiful, the messages are from Virgin Mary and Jesus. It’s all about loving one another. That’s the ultimate message which, at the end of the day, that’s what mediumship is about.
It's all about loving each other. That's the ultimate message, which, at the end of the day, is what mediumship is about. Click To Tweet
I struggled with that and thought, “How can this not be what the mediumship that I was feeling pulled to, but that her automatic writing was okay?” I struggled with that a bit. As I got older, I was in college and things of that nature. I start to come away from the Catholic Church as a structured religion for me. I still like to visit the churches. I love the actual buildings themselves, the cathedrals, and all of that I love, but I didn’t find the teachings or even the Sunday masses. Something that was fulfilling for me. I stepped back from that a little bit and I sought my own religion. Now I say that I am spiritual. I’m not a spiritualist, but I’m spiritual and my religion is love. That’s what I say.
I’m Jewish and I had the similar experience. When I came out with my book, I literally went to a rabbi and I said, “There are references to my having a past life in Ancient Israel and all.” He said, “I can’t talk to you about that. You are a woman. You can only discuss it if you are a man and you are over 40 years old.” This very old-fashioned thing. I also had the same experience. I love my religion. I love attending services and all, but I stepped away from some of the teachings and all because I feel they are rather controlling and seemed to have a little bit of a different agenda. He didn’t even want to look at it. It helps so many people.
Same with me. Anything that’s fear-based, I stay away from because, to me, I have no fear working with spirit. It’s pure love.
Were your parents encouraging of it or were they more in religious vein saying, “Don’t do that?”
I kept it fairly quiet. After I had my second son, my second child, this was when, John Edward had his TV show Crossing Over, and James Van Praagh was on television. It started to become mainstream, and I was pulled in. I was wondering what this is all about. I would go to my local metaphysical bookstore and had a few readings for the first time. I was in my early thirties, and I thought, “What is this?” I was fascinated. I came at it from a very scientific angle. I wanted proof. I wanted to understand how could they possibly do this, where was this gift coming from, and how could I discover it?
I was very fortunate to not have lost anyone close to me at the time. It was truly coming from a place of curiosity if nothing else. I had a few readings that were interesting, but no one ever came through for me because I didn’t have anyone on the other side except my grandparents who I wasn’t that close to in life.
Didn’t you have a divinely inspired connection with your deceased grandmother?
I did. That happened next. I had a couple of these readings. One of them was a gentleman at the bookstore, and he said, “You are going on a trip.” I said, “I am overseas.” He says, “You are going to have quite the experience there and breathe through it.” I thought, “What’s going to happen? Is the plane going to go down? What is happening?”
Sure enough, I did. I had an experience while go through Hampton Court, which is Henry VIII’s castle, and it was so overwhelming. I have always been claustrophobic. I’m curious if other mediums are claustrophobic, because I can’t go in small spaces. It was not a small space. It was in this massive area within the castle, and I knew I had been there before, and it was so overwhelming. I thought I was going to faint. I had to run out of the building during a tour, which was quite embarrassing, but I ran out of the building and I had visions at that time.
What he said was going to happen to me had never happened before. I went back and I talked to him and I said, “What is this? What’s going on?” He said, “This is part of your awakening.” I would count that as absolutely the first memorable, measurable event in my own awakening that happened. A few years after that, and you are right. I didn’t know my maternal grandmother in life.
I was three when she passed. I have pictures. We lived in Denver, Colorado at the time. I was driving to work and heard a woman’s voice in the car with me. I heard her say, “Call me Lizzy.” I knew my grandmother as Betty. Everyone called her Grandma Betty. I knew that her name was Elizabeth because that’s my middle name, but that’s about all I knew. I heard, “Call me Lizzy.” “Who is this?” I got to my office, called my mom, and said, “Did anyone ever call grandma Lizzy?”
She paused and said, “No. Only her best friends.” That is very much my mother. I said, “I think I’m one of her best friends. This is incredible.” I felt like my grandmother was around me. Within a week after that, I’d signed up for a class. I had taken a class with a wonderful medium. Her name is Rebecca Rosen. She’s in Denver, Colorado. Before she was on the Oprah Show, or before she had any of the fame that she does now, she did classes. I was sitting front and center. I wanted to learn how not so much to connect with the afterlife. That wasn’t my ultimate goal. I wanted to find out how it worked. I wanted to understand the mechanics of it.
After the class, she came up to me. Everyone was leaving, and she said, “Can I have a minute with you?” I said, “Sure.” She said, “You have a grandmother here. She’s telling me that you are going to be doing this work. I see you standing up in front of a group of people and you are going to be a healer.” I said, “No. I’m not interested. Thanks for that, but that’s not me. I’m here because I’m fascinated by the science of it.”
“She said her name is Elizabeth and so is yours.” I said, “Now you have got my attention.” She told me at the time that I would be doing this work and that my grandmother would be a part of it. Fast forward, now I have got this Lizzy connection, and a medium that I trust is telling me that this is something that I’m going to be called to do more of. I was very curious.
I started to talk to my grandmother. I started to meditate. I started to ask her to bring me signs if this was something that I was supposed to be doing. I’d always heard her voice in my ear. I’m still working on my clear hearing that’s something that’s opened up for me. At the time, I was hearing it as if it was my own voice in my head, and that’s how I heard Lizzy. She went so far as to say, “I need you to have my locket.” I said, “A locket. There’s a locket. Someone has a locket.” I went to my sisters’. There are four of us girls in the family, and I said, “Does someone have a locket from grandma, and she’s telling me it has the name Lizzy inscribed on the back?”
“I hadn’t seen that.” My mom says, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t recall that.” My other sister walks in the room, we are all home for a holiday or something, and she walks in the room, she says, “I know exactly the locket you are talking about.” I went in, got it out of her jewelry box, and brought it to me. I said, “I’m supposed to have this.” I took it. I still have it with me. I carry it with me everywhere I go. I keep it in my purse. Sometimes I hold it for readings, but I felt like that was something she wanted me to have in my possession as part of her and to work with her.
She was adding her vibes to yours and helping you.
She’s led me to things like that. I have had unique experiences when I talk with her and when she validates things like that. It is such a beautiful relationship now. I’m closer to her than I was in life, but I feel closer to her than to my own family sometimes.
That’s wonderful because people don’t realize that even though you are only three, she’s totally around you, and she is in touch with everything that was going on with you. She’s not very excited on the other side that she could help you to help the young people.
I believe that. She probably had either at least an interest in the afterlife in this world. She has since brought through information, never anything that’s a warning or anything like that, but things that my mom can validate, and it’s beautiful. You had asked me earlier if my parents were supportive, and having that experience with my mom’s mom helped her.
She kept saying, “I don’t know how you know these things.” There’s no explanation for it. I didn’t hear it from her. She wasn’t aware of the locket at the time. She had never referred to her mother as Lizzy. Not ever, not once. There were things that she said you can’t deny. I remember she had this experience with a neighbor’s daughter who did the automatic writing. She believes now she’s so supportive of my work. My dad was probably less supportive, but I have a beautiful story about how before he passed, he came in believing fully in this work. If you’d like me to share that. I’m happy to.
Please do. I need to tell you before you tell your dad’s story. From my own life, when all of this started happening to me, I started telling my own mother about it. My mother passed, and it made such a difference. I exposed her like she was in a gallery and things. She had readings. Different people came through. Let’s put it this way. She was a believer and she hoped I was right. My mother, when she was passing, I said to her, “You are only leaving your human body suit over here. You are going to go to the other side.”
Months before my mother passed, I made an appointment with a medium for fun. I didn’t know when my mother was going to pass. My mother passed about 4:00 in the afternoon. I happened to have a reading with this medium at 5:30 in the afternoon that day coincidentally, and we were supposed to talk at 10:30 in the morning. How coincidental that the medium suddenly said to me, “I can’t talk to you at 10:30. Is 5:30 okay? Something comes up.”
My mother came through like gangbusters an hour and a half after she passed, and what she said was, “I made it,” and it was so cute. There were all kinds of experiential evidence and all that and a description of my grandfather who go the other side and the whole thing. Now you can tell us your story about your dad. What I tell people all the time is this knowing makes it so much better when our loved ones transition because it’s not as final. I know I’m going to see my mother again. I know my mother is around me. When everybody was crying at her funeral, I had a sense of peace because I had already heard from her, and she was happy and fine.
Knowing makes it so much better when our loved ones transition because it's not as final. Click To Tweet
I feel the same way. Because I hadn’t lost someone close to me, how dare I be the messenger when I haven’t experienced this level of grief? The spirit kept saying to me, “This is your path. Just follow it. We are all here to help you.” With my dad. Years ago, I was fortunate to sit in a séance with David Thompson, one of the absolute most amazing physical mediums of our time.
It was amazing because I was there in Santa Fe, which is where he was doing this demonstration. Prior to going into the room where the demonstration where the séance was taking place, I had such a feeling of nausea. I thought I was going to pass out. I was so absolutely engulfed by this feeling. A fellow medium said to me, “Don’t worry. That’s a good sign. That’s the spirit world getting your attention.” I have since learned that is one of the things that happen, especially for me, when I’m sitting in the presence of physical mediums. There’s a physical reaction, and it’s a beautiful thing. I now know that something amazing is about to happen.
Even though you feel nauseous, there is something amazing.
It’s because they are impacting our energetic vibration. It could happen to non-mediums. I don’t know, but I do know for me. It can come on pretty strongly. I was seated. They tell you where to sit in the room for the séance. There’s music that raises the vibration. The spirit helpers of that physical medium will come and speak.
They will usually speak through a voice box that is created through ectoplasm. If you want to read up on that, it’s very interesting. It’s something that comes from the human body. It comes from the pancreas. The spirit world can manipulate this in those physical mediums I have studied in David Thompson’s case in every physical medium I know. They have sat for decades. This is something that takes a lifetime to develop, the same in David’s case.
It was such a beautiful experience. The spirit team member said, “I have a man here named Edmund. He’d like to come through and speak with his niece.” I thought to myself, “I have an uncle Ed.” We never called him Edmond, but we called him Ed or Eddie. I hesitated and waited for someone else in the group who had an uncle Ed, Edward, or Edmund. No one said anything. The spirit said it louder, “The niece is here in the room. Please speak up.” I said, “I have an uncle Ed.” They said, “Speak louder. Let him hear your voice,” and sure enough, it was my Uncle Ed. His voice came into the room very loudly. It moved from one side of the room, which would be near the medium to right in front of me.
I was sitting in the center of the room of the circle. The feeling of this spirit coming into our space was not a human feeling. It was so far beyond that, and it was so deeply felt by everyone in the room. That’s the theme of physical mediumship. Everyone in the space, in the séance room, hears, senses, and feels the same things because it’s happening very objectively. Right there in front of you. It was my uncle. He spoke about me and said, “I’m trying to get ahold of my brother Larry,” which is my dad, and I said, “What on earth are you trying to do?” He said, “I’m trying to get his attention, and he is not listening to me. I know you can help me.” That’s why he came and said, “I need to talk with my brother Larry.”
Personal Rebirth: The thing with physical mediumship is that everyone in the séance room hears, senses, and feels the same things. It’s happening very objectively, right there in front of you.
We said a few things. He reminded me of a funny story that happened when they were kids, and I had to validate that later with my mom, but sure enough, I was able to validate it. He reminded me of some things that we did with our families. He said, “Please give my love to everyone. You know who they are. I have to go. They are calling me back.” I was overcome. There’s so much emotion. I broke down in tears. In the spirit world, some people call David as main control or main guide, but they like to be called our spirit friends.
This friend said, “Are you okay?” I said, “Yes. These are happy tears. I was overwhelmed.” I knew that my uncle was trying to get my dad’s attention and that he was going to use me to do that. After the séance was over, there were other beautiful visitations. We call them fully materialized visitations because the spirit world is using that ectoplasm to, at times, create a physical presence.
For example, not my uncle, but another spirit came through and out of the ectoplasm created a human hand, touching the head of some people, and asking them to describe the hand. They all described the hand as being much larger than a human hand and warm. The spirit world does this. They experiment with us because they, too, want to prove the existence of life after life. It’s a beautiful gesture and compassionate love that’s shared between the two worlds.
Personal Rebirth: The spirit world experiments with us because they too want to prove the existence of life after death.
After the séance, I called my mother so excited, and I said, “You have got to tell dad.” She said, “I’m not going to tell him. You tell him.” Neither of us said much about it except I found out later that she said something very vague. She did not use the word séance but said something about how my uncle, his brother and best friend, were very close in life. He talked every day about how he came through and gave a message to me. Two weeks later, I got a phone call from my dad, which was unusual. My mother would call, and I would call them. My dad rarely picked up the phone and initiated the call.
Your mother was the conduit.
Yes. The phone rang, and it was my dad. He said, “I want to talk with you about that experience you had.” I said, “Yes. I’d love to talk about it.” He said, “I don’t believe in all this and everything, but I have had some experiences in my life that I have questioned, and now I want to understand.” He said it was a Sunday night, which it was. He said, “Your mom told me about this experience you had, and I had to then fess up,” because he described then that what had happened was every single night, starting with that night of the séance, which was a Sunday to the night that he called me, every single night in his dreams, his brother Ed came to visit.
He said, “Ann, I didn’t say anything to anybody because they think I was crazy. It was real. We talked. We drove in the car,” which is what they always did. “I could touch him. He could touch me. He was as physical as I am here.” He said it was real and said, “I believe in what you do. I think that what you do is helping people. I want to tell you that I believe that you are helping people.” I started to cry. That was what I needed from my dad. I needed his acceptance. Not only was that a beautiful gift from my father to hear from his brother, but it was also a spirit’s way of giving back to me.
They were validating you. Between your grandmother and now your uncle. How powerful. I’m trying to get your timing because you were in the corporate world as a marketing and advertising executive for many years, and then you felt pulled to follow this passion. Could you tell us all about that and how this began your transformation and rebirth?
I have been in advertising my entire career. I started out in broadcast television as a producer and then went into digital media. I would say that I was very determined. I was very fortunate. I was at an executive level as a Senior Vice President. I had a big responsibility. Over the years, I have worked my way up to Director, Vice President, and Senior Vice President. I would say that my career defined me.
I put way too much emphasis on my career. I was very focused on it. Spirit kept finding ways to pull me back in. I say to people all the time that I have tried to walk away from mediumship and spirit work for probably fifteen years, but they keep pulling me back in. I believe that it’s because there’s a higher purpose happening here. I’m following a sole passion that has to be.
You set this up somehow.
Sure, I did. A few years ago, I was in Holland and I was studying there. Probably my type A personality in my corporate world, I go in 100% in everything I do. A big part of my personal journey is investing in my own education. I was attending The Arthur Findlay College on a regular basis, which is in England. I have attended very wonderful classes there by various mediums from mental mediumship, to trance mediumship, and to trance healing. I was now in Holland studying trance mediumship, which is a new passion of mine. Trance mediumship is a form of mental mediumship. What I was talking about before is physical. I am not a physical medium. I’m a mental medium. I love to sit with those in the presence of physical mediumship because it’s absolute proof of the afterlife.
The presence of physical mediumship is absolute proof of the afterlife. Click To Tweet
Mental mediumship still uses the awareness and the frame of reference of the medium. When the spirit is communicating with us, it still goes through what I call our filter. For example, if they give me something that’s highly related to football, I can tell you now I’m not going to get it because I don’t know anything about football. They will find something else or they will find a workaround. Mental mediumship, it’s what many of us see demonstrated in gallery readings, or sometimes I call them platform readings. Another form of that or the next extension of that is what we call trance mediumship.
Trance is another word for allowing the spirit world to step into our vibration or our org field. They do not take over our bodies. That doesn’t happen. It is them relying on us as a vessel to get across information. Trance mediums will speak the word of their spirit communicator. The spirit communicator can’t speak through them. They can speak in either the medium’s voice or in the spirit communicator’s voice, and we see that often. From there, it branches out. There are direct and indirect voices. There are people like Leslie Flint, who’s one of the most famous pioneers of direct voice and indirect voice in our history. For those of your members that want to listen and hear about him, Leslie Flint, and the stories of what happened in his home circles and his demonstrations are truly remarkable, and trance is a part of that.
I had been pulled to study more trance mediumship. I was in Holland and I was going to quit. I was going to walk away from mediumship altogether because my corporate world or my big curl job was too demanding and too stressful. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it all. Even though I was maybe only doing 1 or 2 readings a week at times, I had to stop and not do any over the course of a year. I asked a spirit. I was working through another medium. I was speaking directly to spirit, and it was truly fascinating. The medium that was giving me the message was from Italy, but this particular voice that came through was a British man. It was lovely to hear the difference.
He was able to tell me, “You are not ready yet. You won’t be leaving your current job yet, but in 2 to 3 years’ time, you will be pulled to do this work full-time.” I knew. All came ahead, and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I felt that if I didn’t make a change and didn’t honor myself and my own happiness, I was going to get sick. I was going to manifest an illness or something because it was too demanding what I was trying to do. Spirit said, “It’s time.” I literally got the message when it was time, and it was so wonderful too. Your readers I’m sure can relate to this. Not only did I hear the message, it was over the course of a couple of weeks. It took me a while to resign from my boss.
Did you tell them, “I’m resigning because I’m going to let spirit come through me,” or did you make up some excuse?
I said, “I’m going to follow my soul’s passion and I’m going to help people.” When I’m ready, I will share more about what that is. I said, “I can’t take this any longer. I’m being pulled elsewhere.” They tried to get me to stay. “Couldn’t you take a few months off?” I said, “No. It doesn’t work that way. I need to cut the cord.” That’s what I did last October.
October when?
This was October of ‘21. I should back up a little bit because we had COVID and everybody’s lives have been affected by this. Mine had been gravely affected. My father passed of COVID in November of 2020. A lot of life changes happened that year. To back it up a little bit, I was so grateful that my uncle came through and made that connection for my dad years ago because, at the time, I thought he must be preparing my dad for his transition.
It was like, “What a coincidence.”
It was years later, but it still was him preparing. That happened. 2021 was a big year on so many levels. I walked away from that. I literally threw my hands in the air and said, “Spirit, show me where to go. Show me what I’m supposed to do.” I heard baby steps and take the time to sit, reflect, and put the time into meditation and sitting in a circle and sitting for trance and all of the things that I didn’t have time for before. I have been doing that. Now, I’m making the time to do that.
You are not trance channeling yet, are you?
I am doing some trance speaking. It’s interesting that you call it channeling. My first course at The Arthur Findlay College was in 2017 or 2018 when I took a trance class. I raised my hand and I was the only US student there that particular week. I said, “How is this different from channeling?” I asked the same question.
They all looked puzzled. The teachers looked at each other and said, “We don’t use that word.” It’s because trance is considered an altered state of consciousness. Trance is the short-term phrase that we use, but it’s an altered state. It’s reaching altered states of awareness and consciousness to be able to bring forward the messages and/or healing. There is trance speaking that is taught, and that is a practice, and then there is trance healing. As a trance medium, you can do both if you choose. Both are equally fascinating.
Do you have to do this in person with people around you, or can you do this from a distance also?
It can be done from a distance. I have been studying from a distance with people from all over the world online on Zoom. I then went to Holland to study in person. I love the feeling of doing it in person. It can be done online like a mediumship reading can be, but the trance work as well. There’s a different energy in person and especially for trance.
If someone wants to contact you and say, “Could my father come through and do this by trance, can you?” as opposed as providing experiential information?
It doesn’t work quite that way. It could, but with trance mediumship, it is your spirit team on the other side that works with you over a lot of time. Like physical mediumship that takes decades to develop, trance mediumship takes years. I heard someone say on average it takes between 5 and 10 years to get to the point where you can be comfortable in doing the trance speaking.
When I speak with spirit that comes through me and speaks, it is a guide for me, a spirit friend who has built trust over time. The reason it’s that particular individual is because our human energy, and even as a medium, takes a lot of surrender in getting out of the way to allow another entity to get into our space and energy and make that connection.
I don’t do this publicly, I’m still training, but what I work on now along with other students is we work on being aware of who that spirit helper is, understanding their vibration, and then allowing them to speak through us. In most every instance, it is a message of love and compassion. Most often it’s philosophy, something of a higher or greater good for the masses of people.
It is typically not individual messages like you would do a reading, but anything is possible. I’m telling you what the message I received while I was in Holland from the spirit world, which was from a wonderful guide who’s been in the spirit world for over 100 years, came through and spoke through his medium and said, “Expect the unexpected,” and it is so true.
He came through and offered to speak through a few of the people in our class. He’s a Native American with a very powerful and loving spirit. I was literally in tears because he did not choose to speak through me on that particular day. I was so emotional about it because I wanted that presence. I wanted to experience that vibration myself. The others that did, it was so beautiful to hear that. I asked the teacher. I said, “Why didn’t he speak through me?” She said, “He has other plans for you.”
At the time, I thought, “I want this so bad.” It just so happened that a week later we had a private one-on-one session scheduled for me and my tutor. She said he’s going to come through at that time. He did and he allowed me to feel his energy, and it was nothing I have ever experienced before. It was all in good time.
In the meantime, someone wants to come to you and work with you as a professional intuitive coach and mentor. You can do that. How do you do that? What are your gifts, and how do you, “Ann, I’m screwed up with my career or I have got a problem with my husband. I lost someone.” How do you work with them that way?
I have all of those scenarios that you talked about happen. I like to say intuitive coach because of my years in the corporate world. I get it. I understand those people that are wanting to maybe take that leap of faith and start their own business. I have owned my own business twice now. I have been in their shoes.
I know what it feels like to wake up at 2:00 in the morning and figure out how you are going to make payroll. I know what that’s like. I have always been told by spirit that I’m going to combine my corporate executive work with my spiritual work to help others. When I left my previous job, I said, “I know there are people that have an interest. They have reached out to me and expressed an interest in learning how to live more intuitively.” I always say intuition is our greatest superpower, but most people don’t know how to tap into it. They don’t know how to listen to the signs. They don’t know how to feel the shift, and so I do have a few regular clients that I work with and coaching clients now. I teach them.
You coach them on how to do this, so you teach them how to tune into their intuition also.
I do. For example, I have two women now that I work with that are both attorneys. They are very analytical-minded. It’s very black and white, but neither of them is fulfilled, and they are trying to figure out the next phase in their corporate life of what they are going to do. One wants to be a chef. Maybe ultimately another wants to do something completely different.
We are working through various exercises and tapping into spirit to find that guidance for them. It is so beautiful to see when they have an epiphany or when they have that spark go off. They don’t have an interest in speaking with spirit from the afterlife. Their interest isn’t purely, “What am I going to do with this life?” Spirit can help with that. That’s tapping into your intuition and your spirit team to make those decisions and it’s beautiful to see. That’s the intuitive coaching side of it.
I also coach those that I want to get started on their own, mediumship or psychic ability path. I use the words intuitive and psychic interchangeably, because when I go psychically to someone. If I were reading you and I would go psychically, that’s more of a heart-to-heart connection or I’m reading your energy. Even in my mediumship readings, sometimes spirit will shift and they will give me something psychically.
I always try to say that’s one of the very important aspects of how I work authentically is if I’m getting something psychically. I always tell my clients that and I will say, “Spirit is not particularly giving me this message at this moment.” What I’m getting for you psychically in reading your energy is X, Y, or Z, and then I share the message.
Then I will feel that shift in awareness and I’m right back into connecting the spirit. For most mediums that I know, all mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums. The one thing that was very important in my training was how to go from that psychic ability shifting to mediumistic in one session because it’s a very different vibration.
Personal Rebirth: All mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums.
You have got a couple of actual stories helping people to heal and transform from your over fifteen years of facilitating and changing people. Would you like to share a few with us?
Sure. I would say that the first time that I came home and said to my husband this is real. The story is, I was with a group of friends. I used to ride horses competitively.
You rode horses competitively. That’s a whole other interview.
I rode hunter jumpers and I had two horses, and my son at one point had a pony. We were fortunate to do that together. It was beautiful. We had a very close tight-knit group of friends at the stable. The owner of the stable would often have people over to our house, and it was potluck people would come over. Early on in my development, they were so intrigued and they would say, “Practice on us.” It was a fun thing to do. It was a social thing. It felt safe because of people I knew pretty well. I didn’t know anything about them personally. That allowed me to practice on them because outside of what their horse’s name was and what type of accomplished equestrian they were, I didn’t know anything else.
One particular evening, a gentleman came over to the group. I understood at that time that he was new and he was hired on to work at the stable. We’d all walked outside to sit. It was a beautiful summer night, and we were sitting outside by her outdoor fire pit. She had an overhead fan going and there was a light in the fan, and out of nowhere, the light burst.
No one was around it at the time. No one was hurt. Now I know it was spirit getting her attention, but it was strong. At the time I thought this is unusual, and then someone made a joke. “Ann is here. A spirit must be here.” This particular man, Mike is his name. He said, “Let me fix it.” He quickly fixed it and got the fan turned off and everyone was comfortable again, but I was immediately drawn to his energy.
Everyone started to settle and get comfortable, and then the questions start to come, “Tell me about your mediumship and how does this work? Is there anyone here?” Sure enough, I was very drawn to Mike, and immediately I knew that he had a very close friend in spirit. I knew that this friend had died from a gunshot to the head. I knew that it was a drug deal gone bad. I knew these things. I thought that I don’t know this man. He’s never been here before. He is brand-new to this group of friends, but he said, “I’d love to hear what you know.”
For the next hour or so, I started talking and sharing with him what I was getting, and he was in tears. Everyone was in tears. It was so powerful and so emotional down to I remember saying to him, “I’m being shown an image of a small lamb and a field. A beautiful lamb.” He started to cry and said, “That’s my nickname, Lamie.” I said, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
I’m looking at a big strong man and his nickname was Lamie. I could have never expected that. Detail after detail followed, and he was so touched by it. I went home that night and I said to my husband, “This is real. I don’t know how it’s real, but this is real and I better pay attention.” The next morning, I went for my lesson at this stable, and he was there. He came up to me with tears in his eyes and he said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
We went to the office. It’s going to be hard not to be emotional about this, but he essentially told me that he had come to that group last night, but that he fully intended to take his own life shortly after. As his friend knew this in spirit, broke the light, got our attention, made sure I gave him these messages, and he’s doing great. He’s doing phenomenal. Life changing and I’m sure you have saved many lives by hearing these similar stories. That was very impactful for me.
I have been told that 21 people have decided not to commit suicide from reading this show, which I am so humbled by it and so grateful to be able to bring all of you so that people get the truth about their lives and this is school. You are here to learn lessons and about going on and all of that. I’m so grateful. Do you have another story or should we move on? This, to me, is so incredible.
You say that you help clients create important transformational change in their lives with the highest standards and ethics. I got so excited when I heard this because truly, people don’t trust this world because, like in every world, there are people who are charlatans, phony, and fake. I was like, “Let’s talk about that.” What do you consider the highest standards and ethics, which inform what you do, we won’t name names, but as opposed to what other people do that are more ego-driven? Let’s put it that way, money-driven or whatever. Let’s talk about that. What does it mean to have the highest standards and ethics in this business?
I’m so glad you brought that up because it’s incredibly important. There’s already so much that we are already putting ourselves in such a vulnerable position doing this work. Let me start with that. I wish that everyone would understand that as a medium, every time we speak, every time we do a session with a client, every time we teach, we open ourselves up to spirit, we open ourselves up for scrutiny. Everyone that does this work understands that.
Everybody would understand that as a medium, every time we speak, do a session with a client, or teach, we open ourselves up to spirit and to scrutiny. Click To Tweet
It’s not the same in every profession. I would have never been questioned about my abilities to represent digital media services for Fortune 100 brands. No one would ever question that in my previous career. As this is something that is misunderstood oftentimes or people are scared of it for whatever variety of reasons. All of the reasons that there is uncertainty around it and there is scrutiny are valid. Everyone has their own personal reasons.
I believe that coming at this work with authenticity and integrity is of utmost importance. How I do that is I make sure that every time I’m giving a reading to someone, I know that I’m linking with the spirit world. If I’m not, if I don’t feel that shift, if I don’t feel the spirit world presence, I tell my clients and I will be wrong.
No. You don’t make up a story to keep it going. You will say, “I’m not feeling it.”
First of all, I don’t know how you could make it up. I come at it from that angle, which a skeptic might say, “You could make up any story. Everyone has a grandmother or a grandfather in spirit.” Especially if you are on Zoom and you can see someone above a certain age, they probably have a grandmother or a grandfather in spirit.
I will give you that, but what you can’t make up for is their relationship. That energetic footprint that spirit has and is bringing into the session. I say to my clients, “I want you to feel your loved ones.” Having someone speak to you for 30 minutes or 60 minutes about, who might be coming in, is that the experience you want to have? It isn’t for me.
Those that choose me as their medium, they should come knowing that I want to feel like we are sitting down and having a conversation with a good friend or a loved one. I want it to feel organic that way and my spirit team knows that. They try to bring in that energy. I am not one of those mediums, even though I have been trained to some extent this way, especially in England through the tutors there and whatnot. As to the various guidelines and rules that they have in different countries where, if you do not make a link or a connection within ten minutes in the UK, you must refund that client’s money. It’s more structured there. I have been taught with that type of integrity.
If you don’t make a connection within ten minutes when you are doing a reading, you will refund that person’s money.
There are times when I have done an entire hour, but I don’t feel that it was up to my standards. When if I ask them and they say, “I didn’t feel that,” I will say, “I don’t feel I’m making a connection with you. It never gets to be the full hour.” You know within a few minutes. I can count them on one hand, the time over the years when I have not been able to make a link with the spirit world for that particular individual, and it can be for any variety of reasons. It can be because that person is in such heavy grief. They are blocking the flow of energy.
It can be because for whatever reason, the timing isn’t right for the spirit world to come through. I always say I dial the dead. I open up and allow who is meant to come through or come forward, and that’s how I work. Now that doesn’t mean occasionally, especially if we are maybe doing a gallery or something has to happen quickly and we are trying to get to a lot of people. I might say, “Who is it you are wanting to connect with and go that route?” If I don’t feel a connection, I don’t feel a connection, and I’m always honest about that.
Did they sometimes come back to you and you pick a connection for another time? They trust you that you are real and then they will take another chance of you again seeing it for whatever reason.
The times that it’s happened, usually they will say to me, “You are not the first medium who’s told me that. It’s happened before.” They will come back and they will say, “When I had that appointment scheduled with you the last time, I was so sick.” Literally, their vibration was in a very dense place because maybe they had a bad sinus infection or they had stomach flu or something like that, but they didn’t want to cancel the session because they were so excited, but spirit knows and wouldn’t allow it at that time. I also say spirit chooses its mediums. If something feels a bit too forced or someone’s maybe given you a gift with a specific medium, maybe that’s not necessarily because you didn’t choose that medium. Maybe that’s not necessarily the right energetic partnership at that time. It does happen.
I wish more mediums would talk about the misses, would talk about the times when it doesn’t flow because we all have them. We all have them. We are human. For me to sit here and say, “Every reading I do is 100% accurate and it’s so meaningful and wonderful,” that’s my ego talking. I don’t control it. I both have had these experiences where blow us away the amount of evidence the feeling we get from the spirit is so incredible, and the next day it’s ho-hum. It’s okay. We had the connection, we got the validations and evidence we wanted, but I didn’t feel it a certain way.
I am going to chalk that up too. It’s because we are human and it’s because there are so many other factors that have to come into alignment for reading to truly come from a place of perfect harmony. That’s the word the spirit world uses with me. Unless there’s that perfect harmonic blend, we will have misses. We will. I ask people to be open to that. When I was testing for helping parents heal, for example, I’m a medium with that organization and some others. They do a wonderful, beautiful testing protocol for their mediums. At the time they said that on average, a medium that’s 80% accurate is an excellent reading. I want people to think about that. I would say it’s 60% to 80%. We all strive for 100%, but that’s again, our ego talking. When people work with me, I like them to share their energy. If you have come to me and you have got your arms crossed and you are ready to test me.
What about the skeptics?
Skeptics are fine. I have no problem with skeptics but engage because you are talking to your loved one. If you are here to connect with your son or daughter in spirit, are you going to sit in the corner and not have a conversation back with them? You wouldn’t do that in person. That’s extremely rude, so why would you do it with them in the spirit world?
Sometimes spirit doesn’t have any patience for it. I will tell you. They will say, “We will come back another time.” I say to my clients, “You can talk with me. We can have a dialogue. You don’t need to give me any information that I should be giving you as evidence, but there are a number of things we can talk about, including the weather, to get the energy flowing. I say to people, “I’m not one of those mediums that want to hear yes, no, or I don’t know.
That’s cool by itself. I have been in sessions where people say, “Don’t give me any information other than yes, no, or I don’t know when I say something.” Tell us about the difference with that.
The difference for me is if I’m giving you a beautiful message from your husband, for example, and he’s very aware of what you are doing in your life and he wants to talk about an upcoming anniversary. He wants to talk about this, that, or the other. It’s beautiful evidence. Coming from me, through him, or from him, and all I’m allowing you to say is yes, I don’t know, or no. How enjoyable is that for you as a sitter? I don’t think it’s very enjoyable.
I understand that we need to have a level of realism in the readings. We have to deliver authentic messages. I believe we can still do that by engaging in conversation as well. You are paying for the session even if you are not paying, even if it’s a free session in a group for example, I would walk away from that knowing that I wanted to express my gratitude to my spirit friends, but all I was allowed to do was say yes, no, or I don’t know.
If that’s not my style. If that’s what people are looking for, then I’m not the medium for them and I’m okay with that. I am right for those people who want to feel the presence of their loved ones. I had an amazing reading where a wife came through right away. It was a man that came up on the Zoom and I was so flooded with emotion from this woman in spirit. I thought I was going to faint.
I had to say to him I need a moment because I have a woman here who is giving you so much love. It’s almost too much, and I said, “This has to be your wife.” He said, “Yes, my wife is a spirit.” I knew without a doubt who I had right away because the energy was so strong, and there were a few things that I said that I wasn’t sure how they fit for him, but I still was the one providing the evidence, and the way spirit gave it to me was so unique. For example, I kept hearing about the law and thought she or he is a lawyer. The husband said she was in law enforcement. Do you see how I still gave the evidence?
Yes, no, or maybe he was able to give you a little more detail so you could even get better information because now you know where it was coming from.
I was able to and I was able to get better information because the spirit world heard his response. The spirit world heard and felt his vibration of correcting that. The spirit world knew when they were giving it to me clearly, I kept hearing law. He validated that it was law enforcement. Spirit world went, “Yes. This is working. I’m so excited.” His wife got even more excited. It raised the vibration. The rest of the hour was incredible. He came prepared to say yes, no, or I don’t know, but had a better experience.
He had a great time. Now hearing all of this and everyone wants to get ahold of you, could you tell them all the ways to get ahold of you? I know you are also starting to do some in-person events and sessions in Phoenix. Would you like to share some information about what’s going to be starting?
I’m going to have a studio space that’s opening up. I’m going to be offering group meditations, group readings, classes, and one-on-one in-person sessions, which so many people are eager to do that one-on-one.
May COVID go away.
Make it go away. Once that’s all finalized, that will be available on my website, AnnVanOrsdel.com. I’m also on Facebook under Medium Ann Van Orsdel, and I’m on Instagram with the same @MediumAnnVanOrsdel. I also have a private group on Facebook called Serving Spirit: Exploring Mediumship. There are about 1,000 members in the group.
We talk about all things mediumistic. We talk about signs and symbols. We do free readings. I try to go on at least once a week and I will allow spirit to bring through whoever is in the group and wants to talk. I’m giving my time both on Instagram and Facebook. I will do free sessions like that and I will do them whenever spirit calls me to do so.
Serving spirits is another way that folks can engage and follow along because I believe that we are all students of spirit until the day we cross over. I invest a lot of time and energy and finances in studying. I study abroad every year, sometimes more than once a year because I believe that there’s so much to learn from others. It’s a big part of my interest and my furthering work.
You are not a know-it-all. You are constantly learning, which is wonderful.
It’s important for people to understand that in this work, spirit is teaching us. It’s a little bit like charades. They are having to use our frame of reference for everything. It used to be that sometimes I would hear Florida or I would see the state of Florida in my mind’s eye. Now sometimes they will give me an alligator and I know I have to talk about Florida.
They change things up in how they can give it to us. A good reading flows with that information, and people say, “How can you be talking to my loved one when they are not even giving you enough time to hear the words and then repeat it back?” My response to that is a great mediumship reading and linking with the spirit world. Spirit is using all of our clairs at once, our clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, and sometimes our clairgustance, which is clear tasting. I get that a lot. It’s all coming into my awareness at the same time. I’m able to give the messages as if I am that person speaking them knowing the information. That’s how they do it. They tap into every aspect of our awareness to get their message across.
Personal Rebirth: A great mediumship reading links with the spirit world. The Spirit is using all of our clairs at once – our clairvoyance, our clairaudience, our clairsentience, and sometimes our clairgustance.
What is your message about the importance of healing and rebirth since you had your own rebirth that you would like to share with all of us?
I have had a couple of different rebirths but I would say that the one message that keeps coming through for me that I want to share with others is to live a life of gratitude. I start every day with a gratitude prayer. I end every day with a gratitude prayer, and it can be something as simple as saying, “Thank you for allowing me to be present, to be with my family, to accept where I may be wrong, and to accept my shortcomings.” We have to accept the good with the bad. To me, it’s all about gratitude. That’s a big part of how I live my life now. I didn’t always, but I certainly do now.
Would you say gratitude is the way you find joy in life? Is that the way it works for you?
It does work for me that way, but I will tell you one thing that spirits impression on me, especially after my dad passed. Maybe this will help your readers. I find joy now in my relationship with my father and those friends. I have had some friends pass as well in the last few years. I find joy in knowing that I’m embarking on a new journey where they are in spirit and I am in the physical.
Every morning I wake up and say, “Dad, what are we going to do? What’s new out there? What am I going to discover? What is it you are going to show me and have me experience?” I say that not to my father, but to my entire spirit team. I think that if we can all look at this as an opportunity to have a new, fresh, beautiful, wonderful relationship with the soul of those that we love, instead of what they might have been in the physical, to me I look at that as a new opportunity, a fresh start.
They expand. Once they get to the other side, they cross over with what they have learned while in the physical body, but then their viewpoint expands. Not that they become gurus or anything, but they have a different take on things.
They are able to see some of those shortcomings now. They are able to see it without that egoic self-present. My father gave a message through my tutor. We were having a one-on-one Zoom call to focus on my trance work. She said, “Who’s Larry?” I said, “Larry is my dad.” She said, “He’s here and he gave a bunch of messages that were very personal to me.”
I was so touched by them because he wasn’t a great communicator in life. He had four daughters. Like we always joke and say, “Which one of us was the son he always wanted?” He didn’t say I love you all the time. He wasn’t always warm and fuzzy, but we knew we were loved. I had a great childhood. I had a great upbringing and support from my parents, but there were certain things that he was able to say to her that were very subtle and I knew that was him. I was so happy that he was able to see how now we could have a very different relationship, a soul-to-soul connection because he was out of his physical body. He couldn’t do it while he was here. It’s a beautiful thing.
This is a perfect way to segue into thanking you for sharing. First of all, you shared your own remarkable and uplifting story of transformation and rebirth with us, which I’m so grateful for. Thank you. As an evidential, medium healer, and educator, you are an educator. You continue to help your clients create transformational change in their lives, and you do so with the highest standards and integrity in every way. That is vitally important because truth and trust is so important. I thank you for bringing your admirable integrity, your wise guidance, and your needed peace of mind to so many. Thank you from my heart for this wonderful meaningful interview.
It’s been my pleasure.
My pleasure. Make sure to follow us and like us on social at @IreneSWeinberg, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and especially on YouTube. Like, subscribe, and hit notify to make sure that you will get inspiring new interviews like this one coming your way again and again. It’s so wonderful. Thank you so much. If you’d like to be part of this series, please send me an email at Hello@IreneWeinberg.com. As I like to say, to be continued. Many blessings and bye for now.
Guest Links:
- Ann Van Orsdel
- Connect with Ann Van Orsdel on Facebook
- Ann Van Orsdel’s Facebook group: Serving Spirit: Exploring Mediumship
Host Links:
- Irene Weinberg on Instagram
- Irene Weinberg on Facebook
- Irene Weinberg on Twitter
- Irene Weinberg – Grief, Rebirth + Healing Podcast on YouTube
- Hello@IreneWeinberg.com
