Bath Time

July 10, 2015 / thedrunkenmedium / 4 Comments

As I sit behind my Dell computer to type this blog, Rascal Flats lyrics suddenly flood my mind, “God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you.” Just as quickly as the lyrics appear in the back of my mind, I innately take it as a sign to share the proceeding blog dedicated to my beautiful wife, Andrea. Thank you for eleven years of marriage. Thank you for my beautiful family. Thank you for sharing this journey called life with me.

Soap suds cover Gabriel’s tiny body. “Wow, Gabriel is only two and is completely in love with his mother,” I remember thinking as Gabriel shares giggles with his mother. It is bath time. As most parents know, bath time can either be a stressful situation filled with screams and tears, or on occasion, a pleasurable experience between parent and child. This summer night though, God graced me with a tender moment. Lavender suds, squeaky ducks and trucks, rubber letters and numbers cover the bath tub as Gabriel stretches out for his mother. Gabriel grins. His smile is accentuated by an impeccably placed dimple. His honey-colored eyes radiate the subtle combination of innocence, vulnerability and love that only a child can exude. At this precise moment it all makes sense to me. Time stands still. This moment is a picture. My soul wonders off to the past and ruminates. It hits me. A lightbulb goes off. My son looks up to his mother with the same reverence and love as I have toward my own mother. This indelible moment leaves me humbled as I hold back the tears and shake off goose bumps (read Grounded).

At this precise moment I recall the many fights, tears, nightmares, moments of hiding below beds to avoid my drunken father, and endless prayers to God for a perfect family. My childhood was far from picture perfect. I witnessed my mother beaten against a tree, kicked and punched, choked and strangled, bruised and bloody by the hands of men. Despite the shitty men in our lives my mother remained selflessly committed to giving her children only the best. I revisit the dark valleys of childhood that extended to my teenage years. My years in middle and high school were scared by depraved acts by the hands of a man. As I learned from my mother as a child, I learned to cleverly mask behind my smile. The love my mother gave me, the guidance He provided, this broken road led me straight to Andrea.

At this precise moment I remember the summer of July 1999. After I graduated high school I was committed to leave my hometown, finish my job at HEB, and start my college life with no ties. God had a different plan. That summer of 1999 God ushered Andrea into my life. I was thrown off course; however, for the first time in my life I was excited. Something inside me changed. Admittedly I did not recognize it at the time, but I know now, my soul had met his mate. Just like an Angel tasked to provide guidance, Andrea was there as I professionally and spiritually resolved my inner demons throughout college, marriage, fatherhood and even a vital played a role in reacquainting me with God and Spirit.

At this precise moment bath time becomes a divine classroom. My son’s eyes evoke a beautiful journey of darkness and light. The Master Author can only script such juxtaposition of present and past, of love and fear, of wife and mother and son and deliver it in a way that I process the lesson in a matter of seconds. The soap suds that cover his chin, the lavender smell that conceals the pesty mold on the hard-to-reach corners, and the humidity that suffocates my nostrils form a divine backdrop as I learned His lesson, “Andrea is my mother to my son. Love your wife as you love your mother. You are in the perfect family you yearned and prayed for as a child. Just as you remember how your father treated your mother, your son will recall how you treat his mother.” Time resumes. I quietly turn away as to not interrupt this awesome, innocent mother-son bath time. At this precise moment I.LOVE.BATH.TIME and I am #BeyondThankful

It is all about changing perspective. It is all about being grateful for those little golden treasures that get lost in chaos .It is all about surrendering and releasing your fears to Him.

When Angels Speak, Listen

May 18, 2015 / thedrunkenmedium / 1 Comment

I give my kids and wife a kiss goodbye for the day as I walk out of the house. The morning sun shines through the rainy clouds on this Wednesday workday. Car keys in hand and a gym bag on my shoulders; I take a deep breath and drown my lungs in the fresh-rain smell. I get in my car and back out of the driveway. Kidd Kraddick’ Beat the Bank is on. “Your back pack, get your backpack,” I hear. By now, I should know better. When Spirit speaks, I normally listen; however, as a husband and father, selective listening often trumps. I shake off the message. Twenty minutes later, I exit Hulen Street when I hear my Angels say, “Your backpack, get your backpack.” This time, I see my Eddie Bauer, red and black backpack in my mind’s eye. “There is no way I forgot my backpack this time,” I reassure myself. A month ago, I forgot my backpack that stores my work laptop. I made what I thought were idiot-proof steps to prevent forgetting my work laptop again. I arrive at work, open the truck, only to realize my backpack is missing. “Damn it!” I cowardly admit my mistake and send a text to my boss, “I am here at the parking lot. I just noticed I left my laptop at home. I will be an hour late,” I type. I apologize not only to my boss, but to Spirit. I was most bothered that I did not listen. When Spirit was speaking, I did not listen. I permitted logic to override my inner guidance. All too often, I encounter similar stories. As a medium, I merely validate the awesomeness of Spirit to friends and clients.

A friend recently shared a new article she stumbled across. Inquisitr.com reports that on April 23, 2015, a wife in Utah was overwhelmed by a “funny feeling”. The reporter chronicles Nicole Mayhew’s story (see story). After a couple of hours of subsiding her intuition, she surrendered to her guidance, took off work, only to find her husband trapped under their SUV. Nicole’s husband had been trapped under their SUV for an hour and half and suffered six broken ribs. She tells reporters, “I just believe a spirit told me.” “I believe that there’s angels around us. My Heavenly Father was with him.”

Similarly, about two months ago, my brother shared a story that left my sister-in-law, my wife, and me completely amazed by God and His guardian angels. My brother and his crew were working overnight. After a long night, they headed back to their hotel. According to my brother, he usually sits in the front passenger seat and seldom wears his helmet while in the truck. This specific night, something told him to crawl in the back seat, behind the driver, and put on his helmet. He recalls, “Something just told me to take the back seat.” Minutes after he closed his eyes, he woke up to the sound of glass shattering. Heavy railroad equipment had penetrated the front window of the truck and utterly dismantled the passenger side. Had my brother been in the front passenger seat as he was accustomed, he is absolutely confident that he would have died. My brother, a chronic skeptic, this time innately surrendered to his intuition. “It was abuela,” I told him, our grandmother. She was with him that night.

When I work with clients and friends, passed-love ones often validate the nudges, or signs they give to help intervene. “Yes, what you felt/what you saw was real,” I enthusiastically confirm. “Yes, the number 444 or 44 is a sign of her communicating with you,” I recently shared with a friend. “The number 444 or 44 means Guardian Angels are with you.” On a separate occasion, I shared with a client that I heard R. Kelly’s “I believe I can fly”. At the time of the reading, my client could not make a connection. A few weeks after, she confirmed she randomly heard it. At the moment she heard the song, the situation around her suddenly made sense. Her passed-loved one validated that precise moment. Last week while sharing drinks with a buddy, I said, “Yes, that feeling you have regarding organizing a hunting trip with your cousins is real. Your grandfather keeps showing me this very specific hunting gun. Your grandfather is giving you that nudge to organize the hunting trip. He completely supports the idea.”

In both Nicole Mayhew’s and my brother’s case, Spirit, inner guidance, inner voice, or Guardian Angels (whatever your preference may be), triumphed. When I am channeling a passed-love one, I simply validate that funny feeling you may have, those subtle divine nudges, or oddly recurring “signs” you are seeing. Trust your intuition. Trust your inner compass. Trust in Spirt. Trust in Him. You may not pay attention the first time, or you may ignore it altogether; however, when spirit speaks, take it from me, and listen.

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How a Bar Converstation Changed My Life

April 18, 2015May 28, 2015 / thedrunkenmedium / 8 Comments

A guy walks into Applebee’s and finds a spot near me. I was by myself, not because I’m an alcoholic, but because I was on a business trip. The bartender has all ESPN stations, in English and Spanish, playing on each forty-eight inch flat-screen TV. The 2014 World Cup dominated news coverage; however, June 26, 2014, was an especially slow day at the bar in San Antonio, Texas. After one 20oz Shiner Bock down, I ordered a Crown and Coke. A week away from home and a busy work week, I was ready to responsibly relax and walk upstairs to my hotel room. I noticed the gentleman beside me. We each made a polite head gesture to acknowledge one another’s presence and set our territories. By doing so, instinctively we mutually set our boundaries to the bar stool that separated us. In that brief interaction, I noticed his business attire, his exhausted demeanor, and I quietly commiserated on our hectic, work-week away from home. Since I was a child, I just knew things without really knowing why I knew them. Minutes passed, I lost track of time. I texted my wife good night, reviewed my Facebook page, and read work emails. “One last double-shot of Crown and Coke? Sure, why not,” I thought. Suddenly, I felt my chest tighten. “Is it the caffeine? Am I having a stroke,” I questioned. The same guy, one bar stool away, asked me a question. Little did I know at that moment how life-altering our conversation would be; how this bar conversation would change my life.

I asked the gentleman to repeat the question. I was struggling to diagnose the pain in my chest. “Yes, there is a good chance that US will beat Belgium.” He continued to talk about soccer and sports, while I pretended to listen. “Who are you? What is happening,” I asked myself. I felt someone, something near me. I knew it someone trying to connect. At last, my drink arrived. Drink and flight was the response I immediately sought, but for some reason I was compelled to ask him questions. It was time for me to turn my passive listening to active talking.

Instead of asking his name or what he did for a living, I asked him what any normal person would ask, his age. Well, to be more precise, I asked him to confirm his age. I inquired, “Are you 52?” For whatever reason, I was not surprised to hear him confirm his age. Before he could finish processing why I was asking something so personal, I quickly followed up with, “Are you a banker?” Again, he confirmed he was a banker. “Cool,” I said while I paused and took another gulp of my drink. “Are you also known as Miguelito?” At this time, his sun-bathed faced turned pale. He was perplexed beyond description. His face showed deductive reasoning in process. He stammered, “Do we have mutual friends?” I debunked his deduction with a polite, “No.”

I apologized. Although I had enjoyed one too many drinks, I had the foresight to know how bizarre this conversation was going. I sounded crazy. I was merely repeating what I was seeing, feeling, and hearing. I gave Miguel the opportunity to decline, to turn around, and walk away from the schizophrenic, random dude at the bar. I asked three or four times if he was sure he wanted to hear what I was seeing, feeling, and hearing. Secretly, I wanted to stop, but he insisted. He wanted me to continue. I knew I felt a male energy trying to come through. The male energy was painting a picture. I discerned a farm, with a cactus, a little boy with overalls, running, and a green, old truck. He instantly made a connection. He affirmed he had fond memories growing up on his uncle’s farm. Then, the uncle shows me a body outline of an Operations game board (remember the old game?). Everything was blacked out except for the heart. The heart was red, but broken. I asked him, “Did your uncle pass from a heart attack or heart condition”? He quickly finished his beer. I saw sweat beads form just above his eye brow.

Imagine, here I am giving personal details to a random guy at a bar. I had no fears. At no time, did I think Miguel was going to pull out a gun and shoot me or throw me across the bar. I was guided to deliver this message.

Before I continued, I remember saying, “I know, this is totally crazy, I can stop whenever you want me to.” He was adamant. He wanted me to proceed.

Intuitively, I felt bad energy surrounding the farm, and I knew it was connected to a boy. I told him exactly what I felt. At first he did not make a connection. I felt profound regret; a big secret. I repeated what I felt. To my surprise, Miguel divulged that his uncle had two separate families. Just recently, he had met his male cousin. Miguel further added that he did not really intend to start a relationship with his cousin. The uncle made me aware that he wanted his family to accept his other son. I felt how much the uncle wanted a unified family. As I said those words, I saw tears form; I made a grown, random man cry. Never have I ever made a man cry. To undo the tears that I caused, I reassured him everything was going to be OK and summarized the point of his uncle’s message: to embrace his cousin. As soon as I completed that sentence, my chest pain completely dissipated. The energy I felt, the energy that was concentrated on my chest, left. Message delivered.

I got up from the bar; I saw a WF and an 89. I told him what I saw although, it did not make sense. I thought I was finished. I thought the uncle had left. Miguel did not make any immediate connections. What started off as a relaxing night at a bar completely turned my world upside down. The bar conversation altered my course in life. My eyes were unveiled to a world that includes Angels, Spirit Guides, & Mediumship. This blog is intended to share my journey, the books, articles, courses, and resources I researched to understand and grow as an intuitive medium. As for the bar tab, I turned to Miguel and told him my charge for the reading was my bar tab. I shook his hand and walked away thinking, “What the hell? Am I Theresa Caputo?”