Unearthing Intuition Following Loss: Sarina Baptista's Path to Mediumship

Hi everybody. This is Brian, back with another episode of Grief to Growth, and today I've got with me Serena Baptista. She's an award-winning author. She's an international speaker, a spiritual teacher and she's an evidential psychic medium. Her latest book is called my View from Heaven. It's a 2019 COVR Visionary Awards Bronze Recipient in the Iconic Book category and the 2021 Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award winner in three categories, so it's a highly claimed book.

She's a speaker feature for the Life, Death and Beyond International Conference in Greece and she teaches classes and she's a visiting medium at Lillydale, New York, during their summer program. She's a presenter at ION's conferences. She and I have been on a panel together and she's created many training programs, including spiritual mentoring, non-Dexence training, workshops and retreats. She discovered her gifts through her own tragedy the passing of her seven-year-old son, JT, in March of 2007. And she learned that her son didn't really die, but he was still very close, and that led her to incredible gifts. So Serena says it's her mission to help you find purpose and connection to your highest divine self, to create the bridge for conversations with loved ones who have passed and to mentor psychics, and also to mentor psychics and mediums to be master messengers. So with that I want to welcome the Grief to Growth, Serena Baptista.

Hello. Thank you so much, Brian. It is so wonderful to be here on your program. You and I have a similar history in how we found ourselves.

Yeah, absolutely, and I want to talk about JT and first of all tell me about JT.

Oh my gosh. He was such a beautiful, beautiful soul here, and he obviously is a beautiful soul where he is now. He left at seven and what a young age. It was not, of course, anything, as you know not anything that any parent ever expects to experience and just sent our whole family into this pit, you know, into a pit of grief, and we just didn't really know who we were anymore. But throughout the entire process, I could feel him. I knew he was close. I didn't even know what that meant, though, and I kept looking for him. I kept saying where are you? I know you're out there somewhere, where are you? And he would drop these little breadcrumbs for me to search for him and to find him.

It was really ingenious what he was doing, and you know we think of them. As you know, I thought of him as a little seven-year-old, but he really wasn't at that point. He was this master soul, is a master soul, and he, his purpose, was to guide me to who I am, which is a psychic medium, and I'm here to help others. He is a he's now my master guide and is just an incredible, incredible force. He comes to all of my students, and if you do read the book my View from Heaven that was written by him, and if you do read that, then he will also visit you as well, if you are open to that, which I think is so cool, and I get stories all the time about him. I was reading your book and, and JT was right there and he showed me he was there by doing this, that and the other, so he's he's definitely a force on the other side, for sure.

So, if you don't mind, tell me how he passed at seven years old, that's, I know.

yes both yes, he and my daughter, who was five at the time. They both caught the flu and I had no idea that his was going to be deadly. I didn't have any idea. You think, oh, kids get the flu right. And his sister actually had a very high fever. I was more. She was throwing up, I was more concerned about her. He was just uncomfortable. He was very uncomfortable and so I would monitor him, monitor her. But then what happened?

On that Thursday evening, before he passed, I got food poisoning because I was thinking about taking him to the hospital. It just wasn't getting better. And I was thinking about it and I got food poisoning and I was laid out. I had a fever, I was convulsing. I mean, it was one of those things that the universe really made sure I did not go anywhere. And all of that broke at about 11 pm on that Thursday night and so I immediately went in, checked on my daughter. She was sleeping.

Jt was restless, he wasn't sleeping. So I just hung out with him and we even went for a car ride at 2 am just to try to calm him down, chill him out. Nothing was really working. He was very restless and it was about 3 am. When we were both in his room and he said to me I was laying in the bed next to him because his brother and he shared a room, but his brother was downstairs. I didn't want him to get exposed to any of this. And he said to me go to your room, mom. And I said oh, you want to come to the big bed, let's see if we can get you comfortable. He says no, you go, I want to watch TV. He knew I couldn't sleep when the TV was on and that was definitely the cue from somebody. Somebody gave him that to get me out of the room, otherwise I never would have left. That was my baby. He was my firstborn, but definitely a mama's boy, and he would never have sent me out of the room. He wanted me to be close to him all the time. So I, after having food poisoning all day and being very, very tired, I said OK, I'm going to go. I'll go to my room. I'll check on you in just a little bit. I went to my room and went to sleep for just two hours. That was it, just two hours. I woke up and went to.

I was walking across my room and I just had this thought what if I go in there and he's not alive? Now, where does this come from? Because I, up until this point, it was this is just a standard flu. We just have to get him through it. He's just uncomfortable. The flu doesn't kill kids, right, he's a strong kid. And so the thought just of that startled me, shocked me. I said, no, I'm not, I'm not going there. I went to his doorway and he was very peaceful, but he was also hanging partially off the bed and I thought, well, that's odd. And then I saw his chest wasn't moving and at that point I realized that what I had thought before was probably what had happened Screamed for my husband.

He came up. Jt was a big boy, for being seven, he was a pretty big kid. So my husband got him on the ground, I started CPR and my husband called 911. And as I was doing CPR I could sense that JT wasn't there anymore, and again I had no idea how I knew this.

I continued until the police came. They took over doing the CPR, then EMS came, the fire trucks came, and this was all at six in the morning, and so they worked on him for 45 minutes here and tried to get him back. And then they took him to the hospital and worked on him for another hour trying to get him back and at that point, obviously, he had decided not to come back as much as I pleaded and screamed at him driving to the hospital. I screamed to get back and come back to me, and I was sure that he would do that. I mean, this doesn't happen, right, this doesn't happen. We were in this alternate reality where this happened. You just never think. You just never think in your wildest dreams that this would happen. But it did, yes.

It sounds almost exactly like our story. Wow, yeah, with Shayna. Well, it wasn't flu, she just didn't wake up one morning. But you know I went for a walk that morning and I came back and I was in my office working and my wife had been trying to reach her by text because Shayna was supposed to work. We have a business in the home and Shayna was supposed to come down to work and it was kidney prayer late and Twana thought she's just sleeping in and we went in and you know she wasn't responding.

So I know that feeling CPR yelling at the top of my lungs, thinking maybe sometimes you hear me and come back yes, Going to the hospital and for me, you know, just like not accepting the fact that she wasn't coming back. It's like I, even though I should have known intellectually, because she hadn't been breathing for at that point Nobody knows how long, but they worked on her for quite a while. So, as you're telling that it for her parents who have gone through this, you know you understand what we're talking about. It's just, it's like surreal.

It is surreal, absolutely surreal. And I even asked the officer, because the ambulance left with JT. I didn't even know it, I wasn't even dressed yet. So I went up, threw on some clothes and came back down and I said what are his chances? And he hemmed, and hot, you know. He knew, but he didn't want to say it. So he said well, he was still a little warm, and so I held on to that. Yeah, and while they were working on him, I'm in my bedroom, I'm screaming at him, and I don't know if they, if they hear that, you know, I thought that they would think that I was not screaming at my child to get back into his body. But that's what I was doing at the time. Again, I wasn't a medium. Well, I surely was, but I didn't know. I was a medium, didn't know, I was psychic. I just was trying to pull out all the stops and get that kid back, and he had other plans, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. So what were your beliefs at that time? In terms of you weren't a medium yet, so what were your beliefs about what happens when we pass?

I do. I did believe that we had something after this. There was enough evidence. I had enough experiences in my life. My step brother passed when I was 17 and came to me in dreams and visions and all of that, and so I knew that there was something after and I knew it was beautiful. I didn't know what the extent was, I didn't know how they got there or anything like that, but you know as well as I do and other people who are listening who have lost children.

Once that happens, everything that you believed, everything that you thought was real and true, is demolished, it is leveled, and you have to rebuild that, and that's what I found myself doing. Well, what are my beliefs? Where is my son? How do I get back to him? How do I find him? And again, I knew that he was there. I could just sense that, but I didn't know how to find him. And again, thanks to his tenacity, he was very determined in getting me the books that I needed to read and the people who I needed to know and be introduced to, and all of that. It was a boom, boom, boom process and before I knew it, I had found him.

I had found him, so he brought books to people and things into your life. That happened first or did the mediumship happen first?

No, that happened first I don't know if I would have found the mediumship without that. The one book that really really opened my eyes was Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, phd. And I was reading that and decided that I needed to have one of those life-between-life aggressions. And to see, because everybody I had intuitive friends again I didn't think I was intuitive intuitive friends say oh, he's got big plans for you. You agreed to this and I really wanted to slap them. I don't know if people told you that, but I wanted to slap them because I'm like what do you mean? I agreed to this. I agreed to have my son die from the flu. What was I thinking if that was the case?

So he brought Journey of Souls to me and I read that and I said I have to have one of these life-between-life regressions. And so I contacted the LBL person that was in my area in Colorado at the time and on the phone message they said well, there's a six-month wait and all of that. And I thought, oh gosh, well, I'm just going to go ahead and leave my number anyway, because I have to get this done. Within two minutes they had called me back and said they had a cancellation for the following week and did. I want it, and at that point I'm saying, oh yeah, yes, yes, yes, I have to find these answers, I have to figure this out. And so I did. I went to the life-between-lives regression and it was an off the wall, off the charts experience. I found him again. I did see that. I agreed to it. In fact, he showed me this vision of us, the soul family, sitting around a table and me saying oh yeah, that sounds like a great idea, let's do it. I heard myself saying that, knowing that it was.

Was it your idea or his idea? I'm just going to have to ask.

It was his idea.

I think it was the same though I was just agreeing to it.

I was agreeing that, yes, this is a great idea, let's do this. And once I saw that in that life-between-lives regression, I thought, okay, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand contracts at the time or anything like that but I learned. I learned very quickly from that moment forward and I did more research. I'm an engineer. By previous life, I was a software engineer and so I have that mindset of research and analyze and all of that. So I went there in order to find the intuitive and open myself up. But that was really the beginning. Was that life-between-lives regression?

So then, what was your first experience with mediumship?

So then I had a. After that I was led to have a mediumship reading by someone. It was a phone reading. I had never met this person. They were in California, I was in Colorado, I was through a friend. I never recommend opening up the yellow pages and doing the psychic's RS. I wanted to understand that it was someone who they had previous experience with them. I was very skeptical. I really was.

So I had this session and the first thing she didn't even say anything about JT. She said I have your guides here and they say you have a contract that you're doing a contract. I said well, I'm not really. She says you're not signing for a house or anything like that. I said no, and she said oh, this is your contract. I had no idea what she was talking about. She says it has very thick ink on it. And then she said did you know you were a medium? You're just like me. You are the bridge between this world and the next. And I said I had no idea. What do you do? Do you just wake up and you can start talking to dead people? I mean, how does that work? And she says training, training, training. And so we talked for a bit.

I did get into training right away and my abilities flew in. It was so fast. I didn't even know what I was doing. It was one of those situations where kids started coming to me from the other side to get messages to their parents. I didn't know about boundaries, I didn't know about, I couldn't even hear clearly yet, and Claire audiences is one of my dominant Claire's and I really hadn't expanded that yet and so I was just flying blind. But I did it and I continued to do it and to get those messages. Edit yeah, that's so, did you just?

Yeah, that's so. Did you? Just you start taking training and then you opened up? Or when she told you were a medium, then that's when you opened up.

Well, that's a very good question.

You know, I do feel that once she told me I was a medium, I was open to it but it really wasn't until I went into the training that I could experience it, because we all have the Claire's. We all have hearing, feeling, seeing and knowing. And mine at the time was feeling I could feel everything and I could feel JT around. But there wasn't that communication, there wasn't that connection. And so it wasn't until I got into training, where I trained my other players to hear mainly, and and then that's when things really opened up and I could start hearing from the other side.

And that's one thing that the medium said in that very first Session that we had together. She said oh, your guides tell me you can hear them Started laughing. I said I can't hear them. What do you mean I can hear them. And at that moment, in a strong male voice in my head I heard yes, you can hear us. And it was a little freaky at the time because I had just discovered who I was. But at that point I said, okay, I guess I can hear. And that became again my dominant Claire. But I had to train it. I did not just, I didn't just open, I needed to open it. And that's probably because you know, as a child we have to block those things. I feel we all come in with our abilities but we have to block them because of parental things and societal things and all of that.

So it took me a little bit of time to pry that open. But once it opened and once that switch was flipped, it was so clear I could hear JT and I could hear others, just like they were in front of me or beside me.

So have you identified guides besides JT?

Oh, yes, definitely, and the team that I have it changes Definitely depending upon what I need at the time. And so now I just say, okay, whatever guide can help me in this moment, please come and help me, and they're right there and they talk with me. I've had different teams come in and out During my training, during my learning, and now I have teams that come in for how I train others, because I do the mediumship training and also a lot of other training at Kasha, records and things like that, and that's all done by them. I never say that that I am the, I am the one doing it. I say I'm the facilitator and they are the ones the master teachers on the other side, they're the ones that are actually doing the doing, the teaching and the training. So it's.

It's a wonderful, wonderful connection, wonderful process that they have, that they use with me, and I just love it.

So at what point did you get the idea for the book? Did that come from JT?

That came from JT. I had written two books prior to that and After, right after that, second one was published. Jt said okay, now it's my turn, now it's my book. I want a book, I want you to write a book. And I thought, well, I just got this one out. Can we just, can we just take a moment? Can we just take a step back for a second? He said nope, I've got to get this out. And I said okay, how is this gonna look? You say you're gonna write this. How does that look?

He says well, you know how to talk to me, you know how to channel that information. And so what I would do is I would have a microphone set up, word document up, the voice to text set up on the computer, and then I would just speak, I would meditate and I would say okay, jt, what do you want to talk about? And I would just speak it into the microphone and Obviously, and then it would go on to the word document and have to go back in and make some edits, of course, and say, okay, jt, did you really mean to say this? And the concepts that he was talking about, they were pretty wild. I mean, they were things that you don't ordinarily hear about in mainstream Books and things like that. You do hear about them in, you know, spirituality books and and all of that. You know the mind-body spirit stuff.

But at the time I mean, this was, you know, a while back now, and at the time it was very new information to me. So he would give me something he would, I would speak it on to the paper and then I would say you know what? But I've got to take a break here. I need to let this assimilate because this is really blowing my mind, and so I'd have to stop, go like out in the garden or something along those lines and get my feet in, you know, grounded on To the grass and and I say, okay, what does this all mean? What does this mean? Again, some of these things about you know where he is and how we come here and when we come from originally and all of that, that it just, yeah, it was, it was a lot.

Yeah now I understand it. You know, after all these years, it's it. Now I understand it, and a lot of people are saying the same things as he said back then.

So yeah, I get it so tell me about some of the concepts that surprised you, as JT was telling them to you.

Well, part of it. You know the whole bit about where we are from. You know that we're not really from here, we're from elsewhere and we come here to help the earth, to assist in, you know, raising frequency and getting and getting people back to who they truly are and Instead of instead of just the physicalness of people, really bringing back that spiritual piece for people. And you know it seems like a simple thing, right that? Well, sure, where you know we, we had to originate somewhere, but it really did take me a bit to understand. I did believe in, again, past lives and and that in between state, but I didn't have a concept of what came before that, and so he assisted me in understanding that you know that we do come from other places and that we've all come together here now in a very special time, in a very special time to assist the planet and To again get people to understand that they are so much more than just their incarnations. That one was a big one.

Now the question that a lot of us have, especially when we lose children young, it's like what are they doing? What's a? What's it like for them? And and my daughter was 15, so she was Teenager she's that in between times she's not quite an adult, she's still not quite a child, but a seven-year-old still a child. So I'm sure you were concerned, like where is it he's taking care of him.

Yes, yes. Well, you know the crazy things that go through your mind. You know I was in Colorado at the time and we had buried him and it snowed and I was Concerned he was cold. You know those crazy things that parents think of. And and I know I'm not the only and you know I had to shake myself out of that, going, no, he's okay, he's okay, he's not cold, and, yeah, trying to find him again or trying to understand, yeah, what he's doing and all of that. He had some great stories, though Once I did connect with him and could hear him, we could have a conversation.

I would say what are you doing now? And he would show me in his hands this ball of fire and he says I'm creating. And I I would say what do you mean You're creating? How are you doing this? And he says we can do this. Whatever we think of becomes reality. It's. It's just you think of it and it and it exists. And so I am creating now and I've got this, I've got this ball of fire that I'm creating from, and and.

That again kind of blew me away, because you think of the standard thing and when my dad left and all of that, oh, he's, you know, he's in heaven, he's, he's in this very special place and he's doing the same things that he was doing here. And and I do believe that for a time period we do have that, we have that Ability to stay in that frequency and to create. I, like my dad did, my dad created a house for himself and he was very attached to physical and he left very young he was only 56 when he laughed and he really felt cheated that he had to leave so early. So he did stay in that frequency of where you're like you create your own, your own earth-like things. And after JT left and I did get connection with both of them, jt lived with him for a bit and so they would come together and it would be both JT and my dad.

And then one day JT came without my father and I said where's grandpa? And he says, oh, I don't live with him anymore. And I said, well, why not? And he says I don't need that anymore and so, but my dad did, his grandfather did need that Now since then that was obviously years ago. Since then my father has racist frequency and not required that now, but he did for a very, very long time. He required that idea of the physicalness. But we can do that.

Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting concept, serena, that I like to talk about, because there's confusion about what's the like of the afterlife. Some people say it's kind of earth-like and we can do the things that we do here. Other people say, well, we immediately become these balls of energy and, you know, we merge into the one. So I kind of hear you saying it sounds like your father was in that physical state for a while, as long as he wanted it or needed it, and then maybe he wanted to help with something else.

Yes, exactly, and that's how JT explains it to me is that everybody is okay, you know, everybody can be where they're at. There's no rush to go through these transitions, no rush to get to that higher frequency. A lot of people like JT, very high energy master soul. He did spend some time with my dad. I think it was more for me, honestly.

I don't think he needed to be there. I think that he did that so I could warm up to the idea of these layers and that's how he explains it to me these different layers. He talks about that in the book. You know these different layers of consciousness and that one was a really interesting concept for me too, very interesting to try and figure that out, to try and figure out the different. You know what does that mean? You know different layers of consciousness for someone. But my dad, again, was a perfect example that he needed to be in that Earth-like frequency, stayed there. He was what they call crossover there are those, of course, who choose to stay in our frequency, and you know that and not kind of crossover into the higher frequencies. He had but was still wanting that house, was wanting the physical pleasures of the Earth. You know that he didn't have anymore, whereas JT was like, yeah, I'm done with that. I just did that for you, mom.

Yeah, well, you know that brings up a concept that you know we hear about the astral plane and I kind of think that the astral plane and I know people say that's kind of a reflection of Earth. The Earth is a reflection of that, however you want to view it Right. And again, I don't think there's any judgment for people that say I do physical stuff right, I enjoy, I want to have a nice house or a car, maybe things that we were in there, earthly incarnation.

Exactly Right, and that's exactly where my dad was. Again, he was very touched to physical when he was here and leaving so early. You know 56. He had just retired. It was really it was, and he had a very uncomfortable passing too.

It was liver cancer and it was very uncomfortable. So I can totally understand why he would want to stay in that frequency. But again, he is now, you know, higher frequency with. You know, with JT moving on up, you know, moving on up, that I don't really want to call it a ladder, but because there's no, you know, there's not really a hierarchy, but it is a, it's an intenseness of energy, is what I look, is how I look at it.

I'm excited to announce I have a great new resource. It's called GEMS Four Steps to Move from Grief to Joy. And what it is. It's four things that I've found that I do on a daily basis to help me to navigate my grief, and I'm offering it to you free of charge. It's a free download. Just go to my website, wwwgrieftogrowthcom. Slash gems G, e, m, s and grab it there for free. I hope you enjoy it. Yeah, I also kind of pushed back against the layers, as if one is better than the other or higher than the other. I think they're different. Yes, and again, I think it's what we want and we feel comfortable with. Yes, one concern again that parents have, especially when a child passes, is you know, were they scared? Did they suffer? Were they alone? What impressions do you have of that from JT and from other children that have come to you?

First, they're never alone, ever, ever, ever. They are always accompanied by someone. For JT, it was actually this energy named Hope, and it was. I had no idea at the time that he was a twin, and I would say I don't want to say a physical twin, I want to say an energetic twin. They were both in the womb, but she never materialized.

He did, but he knew he was coming in and not sticking around and needed kind of a little bit more assistance in acclimating, and so she stayed with him in the womb for a good amount of time and then left, and he tells me that it was her that came to him the night that he was, the night before he was leaving, to get me out of the room and to say it's okay, we're going to take care of this, you're going to.

You know this is what's happening, but you know how to do this, and I'm sure this was all on a subconscious level. It was so interesting, though, that week prior prior to him getting sick he got sick on a Monday and then passed on Friday. Prior to that, though, like maybe the two weeks prior, he suddenly grew up. You know, he became serious. He was a seven-year-old, and he became serious and I thought this is odd. This is odd for him to be so serious and I really do feel they were prepping him as time was going on and I, even about a week before he left, I had a dream about a death, but I thought it was mine.

I thought that I was the one that was going to leave and I immediately said oh heck, no, this is not going to happen. I've got these three little babies who need me, but I had no idea that they were prepping me in that dream for him leaving too. So they're never alone, absolutely not, do they? You know? Are they afraid? Usually not, because, again, someone like JT, seven years old, who knows he's not going to be transitioning because he's not alone and because of the immense feelings of love and comfort and all of that from the universe supporting that energy, no matter how old they are, but especially the kids, then you know he was not scared. He didn't want to leave me. You know, that was the big thing that he said. I did not want to leave you, but I had to go.

Yeah, you made the comment earlier. You said that when you were calling out for him he had decided that he wasn't coming back. So you know. Again, a question I get from a lot of parents is wasn't their decision to go? Because we hear some near-death experiences say that I had a choice. And then parents will sometimes be upset and they will say well, my daughter would have never chosen to leave, she wouldn't leave me, which we don't know. That because I think my daughter would have left me because she liked having a good time.

I think if someone showed Shayna a good time, she'd be like okay, I'm going.

I'm going to go. Yes, well, it was very interesting. Just a few days after he left I was sitting at my desk and I was pondering why? Why did this happen? I knew that there was a reason because, again, my daughter was also ill. She also had a higher fever, but she was fine at that point she recovered, she bounced back, she was fine. And so I thought I know, somebody knows. I know somebody knows why.

And I looked down at my desk and there was a phone number list and I had printed out friends and family, because we had a whole bunch of people descend on the house and I just turned the list over to somebody. There was no way I was going to call these people and tell them that my son had just died. I just couldn't do it. There were very few people that I could do that with. And so there was a list printed out and I said somebody on this list knows. And I ran my finger down Again. I had no idea why I would even think of this. I ran my finger down and I stopped on a number and I said she knows, and it was the mother of a friend of mine, the friends in California, moms in California. I had only met her maybe once or twice. I think she met JT once. That was it. So it wasn't somebody I was super close to.

But I called the number. Her husband answered and I said it's Serena. He said hold on, he knew exactly that I was calling for his wife. She gets on the phone and I said I didn't even say hello, I just said why. And she said well, go get a paper and pen because JT visited me last night and he has a message for you, and that I get chills when I think about it now that that was huge.

So I did, I got a piece of paper, got a pen, and the things that he said were that again that he didn't want to go, he didn't want to leave me. He tried twice before to go. He couldn't go those times, but this time he had to go and at the time I didn't understand it. There were a couple other messages about how he loves me and that I did everything perfectly, which I needed to hear, because not getting him to the hospital was gnawing at me, that guilt. If I had gotten him to the hospital, would he still be here? And he tells me of course now, no, because it was done and he wanted to leave from the house. He didn't want to leave in the hospital. Not to say that other kids, I certainly don't want to say that if you do take your child to the hospital, that that's a bad thing.

No way.

It's just, this is how he chose to go, and I mean it was a choice that whole food poisoning, so I couldn't get him there and I was exhausted and all of that.

That was all a plan because he did not want to go. But what he said, when he said, you know, this was the third time that I had to go I asked him later because at the time, of course, it was just a few days after he had left didn't know, I was a medium. And so, finally, when I did get connection with him, I said what did you mean by this? What did you mean by this was that you tried twice before and this was your last time and you had to go. They said, well, I had three exits. I chose not to go on those other two, but that was my final exit. And so, at seven years old, that was his final exit. For each of us it's different right For our kids, the kids that leave early that you can assume that it was an exit or a final exit, because nobody leaves unless it's their exit.

Yeah, that you know. As you were saying that, it reminded me of Shayna. She had a heart condition known as Wolf Parkinson's white, which is a oh, wow.

And not a really serious condition for most people. Most people live for with it for a very long time. And she had actually very mild form of it and that had a couple surgeries and they said it was, it was fine, it was gonna be okay. But when she first told us about, she talked about having an experience where she everything turned gray and started swimming and stuff. And you know I am wondering out that was, you know, maybe one of her exit points that she decided not to go, that was a couple of years, probably before, when she did finally leave.

Wow. But there's a lot of important things about what you said. You know we think of exit points and we think they're all later in life, but for some of us they are earlier Right, and a lot of parents have guilt around their child's passing and it doesn't matter how they passed right. Talk to enough parents. It can be cancer, it can be suicide, it could be drug overdose, it could be an accident. Somehow, as parents, we always find a way to take responsibility.

Of course.

It is our fault. I'm just kidding.

It's not our fault, but that's certainly where we go with this right, but that understanding that they have their own life plan.

I mean it's parents, yes, feel and we're not. We know we're not supposed to like we own our children, but we do. We feel like we're responsible for their.

Their hours.

They belong to us exactly and we don't, when we forget sometimes they have their own soul plans and they they have their own exit points and they have their own things that they're here to learn and their own things that they're here to teach.

Yes, and one thing that I did learn in all of the People with whom I speak now, who are on the other side, of course, I talked to a lot of kids, because that's where my foundation is is to help parents right, and those kids, all of them, not, not one single one said oh yeah, this could have been prevented. Not one single one said that. They all said, no, it was my time, it was my time to go. Even the suicides, like you say, those who take their own life, there still is a plan. There's still a plan, whether or not they would have left then or a week from then. Right, there's still the exit, because we also know of all of those what we call failed suicides, where they weren't successful. Those are truly the times where they were not supposed to go and they were supposed to stay here, very, very clearly.

So those who do leave by that, by that method, that's their time too, and I know that's a really tough concept, especially for parents and they're holding on to it or they're blaming. You know they might be blaming Somebody else for it, like overdoses, things like that, blaming the dealers or blaming the friends who provided the drugs and Honestly and I know that it's not a cop out at all, but honestly, from all of those kids and JT and the higher souls that I talked to there's, there was always that plan in place. Now it doesn't mean that we all leave by. You know that we say, oh, I'm gonna die by getting hit by a bus. You know if there are some leeway there, there's some options there. So even if they say I'm going to leave by illness this time around, they can come into this incarnation and change it up if they want, you know, with their higher selves, with their higher, higher souls, and and shift it a little bit. But the time frames are going to be the same.

I Thank you for saying that because I, even though my child didn't pass by suicide, it's one of my passions that there's so much guilt and there's so much shame around suicide, for for the person who Took their own life and for the family left behind. And I've even heard some mediums say well, everything is planned in life except suicides. Suicides are never planned and and just carving that exception because it's got such a stigma. And I know people. We don't want to encourage anyone to take their life and I understand that. That the mentality. But I just want to help the parents that are saying, well, why is my kid the exception?

Why do they have to be the one that wasn't planned or that means I could have prevented it and I know there's nothing else you could have no, and and I think my sense of what they mean by suicides aren't planned is that maybe they were supposed to be taken out by you know what a pharmaceutical overdose or something like that, but instead they choose to leave a little bit earlier, and I don't mean a lot earlier, because, again, if they are, if they're supposed to Stay, they're going to be staying regardless. So Maybe it's that, you know, maybe the suicide piece it isn't planned, but it's certainly not a it's. It doesn't change the timeline.

Yeah, they would have gone. I don't think I think we focus too much on the way someone died. You know, I really hesitate to ask you about how JT Crossed over, because for me it doesn't matter by know a lot of people listening. It doesn't matter and people asking about Shayna and what happened with her and all that. But it doesn't matter. You know, we right, we all come in, we all go out how we go, and I think on the other side they're not going. Oh, I'm a suicide, I'm a drug overdose.

I got hit by a bus. It's like how did you look up?

from a dream. Does it matter?

Right, and then, what a great analogy. How did you wake up from a dream? Because that's really what's happening. This is just a small little blip in our you know, in the energy of who we are, and and it is like a dream and we wake up and then you know we're in a different, a different frame of energy. So that's, that was a great, yeah, a great analogy that you had there.

And, yes, I understand, I understand totally that you know, society really does put this, the stigma on, you know, on on parents whose kids leave by their own hand. And for the kids who leave by their own hand I have talked to so so many, so many. They're all okay, they're all all, they're all okay, they yes, they had a little bit, a little bit more of a review, life review. Well, we could have done that a little differently maybe, but that's, that's really the essence of it. You know, once we leave our energy form of the body, then then we remember, we remember who we are, we go back into that energetic space and we don't judge ourselves and we don't judge each other.

Yeah, I think I just want to. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's something I want to say about that, because there's something in between saying, oh, it's okay to just take your own life if you get tired of being here. You know, and Judging people like you did a really bad thing, and I like what I heard someone say and I know it upset some people, but they said there was a teenager and I won't reveal any names or anything but he had taken his own life and we got the other side. He went to like a boot camp. So it was kind of like okay, there's gonna be, like you said, a little extra review here. We're gonna give you a little extra love. It's not like everything is just like okay, this is really cool that you did that. It's like let's let's think about maybe, maybe we don't want to do that next time.

You know, the other thing that I hear from those who did take their lives, it's that they most of them are now helping people here who are Contemplating that and they're trying to help shift them from that. Not because of the way that that's the terrible way to go, I mean, it is for us, but it's because of the parents, because of the family, because of the added energy that is around it, because of the way that somebody chooses to go. So so many of those who do take their own lives are really trying to help others in, to make different choices and to allow Whatever it is that was in their contract to kind of flow through, instead of leaving that in that manner. Again, not a judgment by any means, but Certainly it's. It's really hard on those of us who are left here when that happens.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's okay to acknowledge that, because it is so. I want to talk about your, your training that you do for people, you help train people in mediumships, and tell me about that.

Yes, and that was a shock Training people. It was about only a year after I began training and I had a teaching team, the master souls on the other side who were helping me with my own Abilities, and they came into one of my Meditations and they said okay, now it's time to start training others. And I said what are you guys talking about? Because there, I am nowhere near being able to train anybody. I'm still learning this myself. I don't have a grasp on this. And they say, oh, you misunderstand, serena, you will not be doing the training, we will. We're going to be doing the training, you are going to just be Facilitating. And that's why I said I call myself a facilitator, they're doing the training. And so I began at one-on-one training first and Just working with people, a mentorship program For anyone who had an inkling that they wanted to connect, and especially for those parents I I've had, you know, connecting classes for parents to connect with their kids.

Really, anybody who wants to connect with the other side. Because I am a firm believer that we can all do this. I always say I again, I was a software engineer. If I can do this, anybody can do this. If I can learn to shut off those voices in my head that told me I was crazy for doing this and Really focus in on my soul and my spirit. Then I know that other people can do that too. And so it began as a one-on-one mentorship program and my team is just phenomenal they would. It was an individualized program. It still is. It's an individualized program where it focuses on the persons, their Claire's, what is, what is their dominant Claire? And we work on it, we give exercises, we, we expand it, we really dive deep into it to hone that gift, to hone it and which is amazing and, I think, very unique.

And Then that kind of morphed into people wanting to become mediums, because in the beginning it was just about connecting, just about getting you connected to your loved ones. But then there's so you know, people who want to be psychic mediums, and so I developed a certification program. Okay, I'm being corrected, I didn't develop it. My master teachers developed a psychic mediumship certification program and so then they go through an entire year of training with me and with the master teachers and with a curriculum, and it's really again a very solid, a solid system. We've been doing that for maybe six or seven years and and that now morphed into an advanced psychic mediumship certification program for those who want to take it to the next level.

And then the other thing that was introduced to me which really, really changed my world, was the Akashic Records, and so JT taught me how to Access the Akashic Records and how to teach others to access it, which was in a much more simplified form, because when I was reading books and things like that, it felt very complicated. I'm a very simple person. I want the easiest way to do something Simplest way, not easiest, simplest way and so he instructed me on that, and so now we have Akashic Records, facilitator programs and teacher programs too.

So tell me what the Akashic Records are to you, because everybody's a little bit different.

I know, right, yeah, and I find that interesting because it should be just a general thing, right? So for me, the Akashic Records are the records of all my lives here and elsewhere. There's Akashic Records for me on other planets and things like that, and what we can do with that is we can look at patterns. What are the patterns that we brought into this incarnation? What did our souls say we wanted to work on again? What are the things that we continue to work on over and over, over again? Where we aren't really getting it or we're not really understanding it, there's blocks in our waves or whatever. And so we look at that, we look at the Akashic Records, we go to the record keepers who are these beautiful, beautiful energies and they're part of our Council, and the council is that body of energy that helped us pick this incarnation, so they know what our contracts are, what our plan is. You know what we really want to get done here.

And so we go to that body of energy and we say, okay, why did this happen this way? Why is this happening this way? Why does this person give up their power to everybody and not have power of their own? Or why does this person constantly choose a person to be in their life that is detrimental to them, and Usually, I mean, it is wrapped around childhood and things like that, for sure, but a lot of times it's from patterns from other lifetimes as well, and so we take a look at that and we say, okay, what do we need to do here to To finish this? What do we need to do to finish this lesson and to just move on? And the record keepers are just amazing and the council is amazing, because that's really what we're. What we're trying to do here is get, get that junk done, and so we can learn something new, so we can do something new. Our souls are always looking for the next thing to Expand and to develop.

So that's that's my definition of the Akashic records, and in working with it, for me, it helps me so much to understand what the origin of an issue is, because then I can go, oh okay, I get it, I get now why I do this, and I say, okay, well, how do I heal this now?

How do I heal this?

and do it.

I get the feeling it's kind of similar to like past lives, only it's actually more general.

and looking at patterns and recognizing patterns, yes, recognizing patterns and then figuring out what needs to happen, what needs to heal, so that you can move away from the pattern and really bring into your life the things that you want to have, really start manifesting and and being a truer to who you are.

Yeah, I actually had something with someone about Kashik Records and it's coming back to me now that you're mentioning it because she was helping like release, because I guess a lot of times we have old junk left over and bonds, maybe even from other lives. That yes we're not aware of and so releasing some of that stuff. So you do that as well.

Yes, yes I do yes, yeah, it's fascinating work and it's fascinating even more to talk with these people after these sessions. After we release it, after we and I have so much help in doing that, there's so many energies in the universe that want to assist us. I work with a lot of multi-dimensional energies and they are the ones they make it so easy for us to release these things and and to move on. You have to want to, you have to want to release it, want to get it, get it out of this incarnation and the pattern done. But aside from that, it's it really is a beautiful process and hearing the feedback from those people that they that it really, it really made a difference for them and they didn't have to. They didn't feel like they had to continue in the old pattern again.

I want to talk to you about about guides, and I know I asked you for some questions before we get started. One of the questions was like, how did we contact our guides? But I work with a lot of people who feel like they're alone. It's it's, it's what the universe has brought to me. I was working with someone earlier today, even who's like you know, my mother's gone, my father's gone, my friends are gone, and I have a lot of those people that I work with. So when people say, and I tell people, you're never alone, they're you always have a guide?

How do we reach our guides? How do we get confidence that I actually have them and they're not just imaginary figures?

Guides will show up in so many different ways, especially if we're not able to connect with them. In you know, number sequences is huge, bumper stickers I remember mine communicating with me in words and bumper stickers and things like that. They'll bring people, people. They'll do like I wouldn't want to say a takeover, but you know, you hear about those angels in bodies, right where they come and they say something to you and it's something that you really needed to hear that is so important to change your life, and so they will come as that as well. But to really connect with them, it was actually a lot simpler than I thought.

When I was starting this process. I thought, oh, there's no way I can shut my mind up and focus enough to hear something that I can't see right. So the first thing is meditation, and I know that it's really hard for some people to meditate, and so what I suggest is a guided meditation and something where your brain has something to do, and that's why I say guided, because as you're doing a guided meditation, your brain is occupied, your mind is occupied listening to the words following along, and as that's occurring, then your spirit and your soul are able to fly and are able to really get into the energy of that higher frequency. So meditation always raises your frequency and that's what it's about. When you're connecting with anything in that other realm is getting to higher frequency. So things like grounding and walking in the grass, taking nature walks, doing meditative things, like some people love gardening that is a meditation that raises your frequency.

Anything where you can shut your mind off and allow your spirit to take that trip, and so definitely meditation. And then I would also say a willingness and a verbal asking for the help. We live on a planet where we have free will and I didn't understand that. I mean, I understood the idea of free will, but I didn't understand that I needed to ask for help. Why aren't they just helping?

me, why aren't they just here?

You're supposed to be helping me, why aren't you doing that? And so I learned that we need to ask, we need to set intention around it, and so I have my students say I'm a clear receiver. I receive clearly from my guides. Only high frequency is allowed to come talk with me right now or communicate with me, because I feel the other thing that people have a fear around is what am I connecting to? What's out there and so I always say just say high frequency only, and that takes away all of the other choices.

So asking for that, you said something there I haven't heard before number sequences, bumper stickers, things that we would normally call signs. Right, right, that could be your guide is what I heard.

Yes, absolutely. If they need to get us a message and we're not paying attention, they will do whatever they need to do to get us that message. Dreams. I used to have crazy dreams and in a particular point in my life where I really needed to make a change and I was being very stubborn about it and didn't realize I needed to make that change, I would have these dreams of crazy stuff where it's showing me I needed to change and I finally got it. But they'll use that, They'll use whatever they can to help us in moving, in moving into different energy.

Because I think a lot of times we think about guides. It's like, okay, I expect them to like walk up to me introduce themselves. You know because and I hear a lot of people and sometimes we take other people's experience and sets expectations Sure, my guide is Red Wolf. He is an American Indian. He's six feet tall. He has a feather in his hair. I mean, I'm just about saying people use this as an example.

Okay, that's right. Yes, yes.

And then people say well, I don't know my guide like that.

I don't have, that, I don't have that and I've had different experiences.

You know, the first guide that I heard about was through a medium. She told me about my guide and she gave me her name and she described her. The second one, I believe, was my guide. I had a dream and it was years ago but I can still remember it like it was yesterday and I saw this guy was standing in my kitchen and I'm like there was something about him that really struck me and so I'm thinking I think that was maybe one of my guides. And then the third one was like in meditation. So I think my experience has been and this has been over the course of years. It didn't all happen in one day. This is a course over like seven years. I feel like I have an idea of who three of my guides are.

Right and they do change. They do come in and out. We have a main guide that really sticks with us and mine is JT now and others you know. For others it could be. It's usually not a relative that has passed. Jt is a little bit of the exception. I would say kids are the exception too, kids on the other side. Usually you know they can come and they can be guides for us, because of that connection because they are.

They're very high-frequency souls. They wouldn't have come and left as a child if they weren't a high-frequency soul. So they're in a position to help guide us. But others, you know, other times again, it kind of depends on what you need, what you know, what the focus is for your life. We have, you know, purpose guides. We've got joy guides. I've got parking guides. I love my parking guides and I love that they are there. I ask for help, you know. I ask. I say, okay, whoever can help me, whoever can help me, please come help me right now. And I don't need to know their name. I used to have to know their name. You know in the beginning you're like, okay, who is this? Give me your name. I need to know who you are. You know where you're from.

Right right right and I gave that up because there were just so many coming in and out and I think that's and from what I've understood that's, that's an expectation that we'd be better served to let go of.

And I for a lot of times the guides will be like okay, well, if you want to have a name, you can call me. You know X. We as humans are hung up on names and I'm kind of like I'm not looking for that. You know anymore either. And speaking of dreams, is I had a really strange dream last night, it was. It was one of those dreams, you know. They'd seem to go on forever and then you think you woke up and you're still in it. Oh my gosh.

And this, this being just kept changing form, and I'm like did you drug me, because you keep changing?

And I woke up this morning.

I literally asked the being. I said did you drug me? And? And so I think that might have been one of my guides trying to tell me something.

Right, yes, well, and it feels like you know that they're, that it's a change for you, that you know that constantly changing thing is about your energy and it's about where you are and what you're, where you're going you know, and wanting, wanting you to see more sides of it. But, boy, that sounds like a, like a vivid one, that's for sure.

Yeah, so I I put that out there for people, because when people ask me about signs and synchronicities and all this stuff, a lot of times people like you're, you're an engineer, I'm an engineer. We're like, okay, how does this supposed to work? Let me write this down and I want this to come in this order, in this way, and the longer I've been doing this, this work in the you know, seven, eight years in Shayna Pass and four years doing this formerly I'm realizing be open to anything, be open to whether it's a dream, whether it's whether it's a synchronicity, you know, whatever it is, be open to all of it because it's all, it's all guided.

Right, and I do feel you have a really, really good point there. I have so many people come into my office who are expecting connection to be a certain way for them. I'm not getting any signs from my kid or something along those lines, and then I'll talk to the kid and they'll say I've been giving them signs, I've been talking to them and so you know, that's the biggest one is that the hearing. They hear their child's voice in their head and they blow it off and they don't think that it's them. They hear mom, mom. They think they're going crazy. That's their kid. That's the kid saying hey, you can hear me, I'm right here. But for them they expect, like you said, for them to walk up like in Ghost Whisperer.

You know this person that you can't tell whether they're an energy or a person, and for me it doesn't work like that. For me it's very different. There are mediums out there. Who that is, it is how they see it, but I can see the person. It just is, again an energy. I can see the energy of them, I can see what they look like. But, yes, yeah, for parents the biggest thing is letting go of the ideas or the preconceived information that they might have heard from somebody else. Oh, in my reading, I you know blah, blah, blah, blah. And it just doesn't happen that way for everybody. And so, yes, to be open, to be open to how your child or how your loved one is communicating with you, is a huge, huge factor in this.

We all get signs. There's not one time where I can think of and I've been doing this for almost 16 years that somebody on the other side said oh no, I didn't give them any signs, I just moved on. Their job is to make sure we're okay. Their job is to help us through the grief and to help us find the joy again, and to help us maneuver through or to find purpose. Like me, my job was to find purpose. Jt's job was to help me find that.

But for other people, it could be that they just they need to get back into life. They need to really experience life instead of allowing the loss to consume them. Because, I'll tell you, our loved ones don't want us consumed by that grief. Now we do have to walk through the grief, as you know. There's no way around it. You can't wish it away or drug it away or anything like that. You have to do the process.

But I remember early on when I started connecting with parents who'd lost children and they said, oh, it's forever, you're forever in this terrible, terrible place and you're forever going to feel this way. And I said I don't think so. I don't think that's the way I need to do it. I think I can do it a different way and I don't think that JT wants me to be there and do it that way. So I was very deliberate with my process, very deliberate with my grief, and did a lot of the work. I mean and it's work, as you know, it's work, but it is required. It's required. And again, I found who I was, or I found JT just four months after he left and then found who I was six months after. So I was still in the in the throes of grief when I was trying to connect with him and work with him. And that did I don't want to say it delayed it, but I really had to do my grief process in order to be able to get rid of the block of grief.

And I just want to interject there for everybody. It's a different timeline for me. I told someone the other day that I started the blog like a week after Shayna passed, and they're like oh, you got clarity a week after Shayna, pat, no, no it was about four years after Shayna passed, before I decided I was going to do this work as a as like a full time thing.

So you know, people I love what you said are there's like grief is a process, grief is work. We have to walk through it. You can't look at someone like myself or like you, right, many years out, and go, ok, I'm supposed to be there and it's been three months, you know it's like no, it's. It takes. It takes time to get there. It takes time for a flower to grow you know flowers don't go from a seed to a flower overnight. It takes. It takes time to get there.

Absolutely.

And we're we're actually running a little bit short on time. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I'd like for you to tell people what services you offer, because I know you teach mediumship. Do you still give medium readings? Yes, tell me about all the different services you offer.

Yes, I still offer readings, you know. Mediumship, especially because I want people to know their, their loved ones, are OK. And psychic readings, akashic record readings, all of that I also do pet mediumship and pet psychic Pekka Pekka, akashic records Our pets have Akashic records too, and so definitely offer all one on one services, usually via Zoom, because you know we, we are in an a zoom world now. It's just really nice. And then and then, of course, you know the. The training that I have is all on my training website as well, which is dragonflypsychiccentercom. And to get to the readings, if you want a session with me, it's serena-baptisacom or bridge to healingcom. Both will take you to that and all of the information is there.

Again, I offer a very wide variety of different things for for people, because I find that not everybody might want this aspect of it or that aspect of it, so we can tailor it and we can do more than just one thing during a session. The guides and your loved ones are so excited when, when we are able to talk to them, and that really is, you know, is a huge, huge piece of this is they want that connection. Loved ones want the connection, they want to continue the relationship. Yeah, it looks different, as you know, very different than when they were here, and our guides too. We are in a very, very interesting time on our planet and many people are finding themselves a little bit lost, and so connecting with the guides, connecting with who you are and your purpose is, is a huge, huge aspect of what I do as well.

Absolutely, and I can remind people of the name of your book.

Oh, the book is my View from Heaven, which was written by JT, and there is another book coming out at the end of August that I have collaborated with three others. Three of us have lost children, one lost her husband, and that one is called Finding Love and Purpose, and so that again kind of takes the message that we were talking about and talks about our four stories.

That was great. Well, all the links will be in the show notes. Serena. Thanks so much for your time this afternoon.

Brian, thank you so much for talking with me today. It has just been such a pleasure. I always look forward to talking with you.

Absolutely. Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you so much, you too.