How to Unlock the Secret Language of the Universe

A lot of meditation teachers talk about quieting the monkey mind. After practicing for decades, I seem to know where the switch is. For me, it’s a mental shift—upward and over—and I click into this receptive state. It took me a long time to learn how to do that fluidly. Most people are stuck in the frontal lobe of their brain all through the waking hours. When I worked with scientists and they did electroencephalogram tests to track the electrical activity in my brain, they said that when I switch into psychic and mediumship mode, it looks like I’m unconscious—like in a deep, deep meditative state, with my frontal lobe shut off. Most people don’t know how to shut off their frontal lobe when they’re awake, but it’s quite easy. If you want to start accessing your connections to the other side and your intuition to receive what I call downloads of information (which is really just communication through claircognizance or “clear-knowing”): Focus on the breath. Breathwork can be extraordinary to shift your energy and get you ready to move out of your frontal lobe. Breathe in through your nose really deeply and fully and slowly and out through your mouth as slowly and fully as you can, with your eyes closed. Do this three times. That alone will shift your energy into a meditative state, ready to receive messages.

There are many ways you can shift into that connective state. I have also found that it’s common for people to get signs while they’re taking a shower or driving. In both instances, you’re kind of on autopilot, so you’re giving the monkey mind part of your brain a task to do. This could in part be why you might be more receptive to seeing signs.

Signs can come in myriad forms. When we talk about signs, we also have to acknowledge the core psychic tools that we have at all times, which are the “clairs.”

• There’s clairvoyance, which is clear-seeing or psychic vision. For example, when you do that quiet breathing and you close your eyes, you might see that there’s a screen before your eyes. Some people call it their inner eye or their inner vision, where they see something appear or they see an image flash image.

• There’s clairaudience, which is clear-hearing or hearing a thought that’s not yours. When we connect with loved ones or spirit guides from the other side, a lot of times it is like a quiet voice inside.

• There’s claircognizance, an absolute knowing in your bones and you can’t explain how you know it. The claircognizant signs just might be your guides, your loved ones, or god sending you energy that you need to do something. And a lot of times that will be counterintuitive. It wouldn’t make sense for you to do a certain project from a business standpoint, but you know you need to do it. Because maybe it’s going to connect you with certain people or maybe it’s going to put you on a really important path. It might be that you’re living in an apartment and you just absolutely have the sense that you need to move in a few months. Where are you getting it from? You can’t explain it, it’s just a knowing that you have. When we honor those claircognizant messages, it leads us down the right path.

• And then there’s clairsentience, which is clear-feeling, and that’s when we intuitively feel out someone else’s energy. The clairsentient signs feel like a gut or intuitive pull. It might be information for you on your life path or a reaction you have when you meet somebody new. You might feel really drawn to that person’s energy, or you might have what I call an allergic reaction to that person’s energy. Those are clairsentient signs that are guiding you, and they’re being sent by spirit guides, from god energy, from loved ones on the other side.

There are more tangible signs, outside psychic senses. There’s a myriad of what I call default signs, like electrical disturbances. They love messing with our cell phones and flickering lights. They can send birds, butterflies, deer. They can send coins onto our path.

But the most wonderful experience you can have is to ask for a very specific sign from the other side. These are the ones that I love. We’re always looking for some kind of proof that loved ones are around and listening. That your spirit guides really exist and are with you. That god is a force of love. I tell people to ask for their own version of proof through signs and messages.

All you really need to do is direct your thoughts. In the end, we are all conscious and we are all aware.

You can just say, “I really need you to send me this specific thing.” You might get it almost immediately, or later, when you’re thinking of that loved on the other side, a sign that you’ve already established might appear for you. It could be something that crosses your path, like an actual sign on the side of the road you pass when you’re driving. It could be a picture in a magazine. It could be something that comes up in the news. It could be a phrase that somebody around you says, either to you or to someone else. It could be a number on the clock like 11:11 or 5:55. It can be really anything you want.

I encourage people to write down their signs—on paper or in the notes section of their phones—once they establish them. And I think it’s a beautiful experience, once you do get it, to write down the date and what happened. And then share that story with someone. Because that’s the greatest way to honor our connections and be in this beautiful, collaborative language with the other side.

You can have as many as you can create. Think about learning a new language. I speak English, but let’s say I wanted to communicate with somebody who speaks only Italian and I know only a few words of Italian. The more words I learn, the more ways we’ll have to connect. Similarly, the more signs you establish, the more opportunities you create to allow those on the other side to show you they are around. So you can always add to your list of signs. It’s an ongoing creation of language.

They can’t pick up the phone and call us. They can’t put their arms around us and hug us. But they can find ways to do the symbolic equivalent of those things and let us know that they are with us. And when you have that experience, when you get that sign, it becomes a truth to you and it changes the way you’re living: You know that death does not exist except for the physical and that you have a team of light rooting for you, supporting you, and guiding you at all times.

Sometimes, we miss the signs when they come. I’ve done this. But I think there’s a constant knowing. We all get in wrestling matches with that monkey mind because that part of our brain is always on and it’s in charge of analytical thinking and critical thinking. It is very fact-based.

When you ask for a sign and get it back, it changes the way you believe the world works. How can this be happening? My answer is: Life after death is real. And we are all more loved than we could possibly imagine.

But the logical part of our brain has a really hard time accepting that. “Am I sure that was really a sign?” And most of us—if we don’t actively open our minds and our hearts and we don’t really embrace them—have been getting signs all our lives. But we dismiss them. We sweep them to the side. We don’t tell anybody.

People come up to me at events to share their stories of connection. And it’s the same phrase every time: “I’ve never told this to anybody, but…” And then they’ll tell me the most magical stories about the communications that they’ve had. Often I think they’ve been afraid of being laughed at. Or they’re afraid to even embrace it themselves because they don’t want to feel foolish for having believed in something so magical.

But here’s the thing: Just because it’s magical doesn’t mean it’s not real. We are all watched over. Our connections, through love, are everlasting. I think it is really important for us to acknowledge that there will be a little wrestling when we do get those signs but to trust in them anyway—and share them.