It all begins here

I feel it most fitting to start this blog kick off by talking about what it is that led me to build By Breath & Bone. I was born naturally connecting with what I call Spirit. I believe we all have our own unique way of connecting with Spirit, and each of us - our own individual abilities. Spirit flows through each of us in my personal biased opinion if you choose to subscribe.

But for me, my life has always been deeply connected to it. This invisible, unseen thread. A thread that can’t be ignored and leaves a glow over everything. The most unconditional love I have ever felt. It’s innate to nature; it’s in the warm sunlight, the sunbeams cascading through the tree’s leaves, the babbling brook, it’s in the snow dust covering the ground, the bird singing, the dog snoring… everything is touched by this golden glow that emanates so easily.

I do not have many memories of being little. The few I do have, I’m connecting to the other side. Whether I was seeing someone, hearing someone, knowing something … It is such a beautiful connection, seeing life and people through a lens with as much unconditional love as a human can. It was a tough road - I trusted everyone. I assumed everyone else moved through this same energy that I did. It took the majority of my life, thus far, to learn I needed to protect both myself and my energy.

I also carried a wound of visibility. This gift, if you will, was not something I received love for. My Mother - although wonderful and I wouldn’t have chosen another - was terrified of it. She didn’t know how to connect with me over it. She saw a little girl having existential dread, speaking on topics way beyond her years, connecting with energy that wasn’t visible, with a knowing to things that I had no way of “knowing”. I can understand how this may be disconcerting for a parent who, they themselves, isn’t tapped in to “Spirit”. I also really struck a chord with her fears of death, and her conditioning with her strict faith. As a little girl, I wasn’t trying to make her question her faith - I was just expressing my reality. I was never told that I was crazy. I was told I had an over active imagination. I was not allowed to talk about what I was experiencing. I was not allowed to research what I was experiencing. I was asked to be silent. I don’t think my Mother had malicious intention with this. I think it was in part protection - she didn’t want people to think I was crazy. I think it was in part conditioning. And I think it was in part fear. But I do believe it all came from her understanding of love.

All this really did was bring me further away from myself. My reality didn’t just turn itself off. It kept happening. And I had no control over it. I ended up creating a fear based reaction towards it. I thought when I saw someone in our house - that somebody had broken in. I can’t tell you how many nights I was visited by a Spirit - who looked as if they were in a physical body. Even if I shut my eyes and reopened them, pinched my cheeks, or turned the light on, they would still be there. I would jump out of my bed and sprint downstairs crying. Just to be sent back up to my room where the Spirit was. I always knew I was supposed to be communicating with them - I just didn’t understand how. And the more I rejected my nature, the more I lost the understanding of communication and natural connection that flowed through me. But it never stopped the visits. It just made me more terrified each time. I used to pray to God that nothing would visit me before I went to bed each night. Oh how I would like to go back in time and hold that younger version of me. The little girl who so badly needed someone to see her.

I got so good at masking this part of my life. Even my friends had no idea this version of me existed.

There were certain times in my life where there was an uptick in activity. Middle school was a big one. Around 16, I would guesstimate, also had a big uptick. And then when I was 23 and moved away from home. I was living on my own with my dog, and we rented an old horse showing room, that had been renovated into an apartment, in a barn. The land had a lot of history. Weekly I was having experiences. It was the second place I rented in this area, an in-law section of a main home, where nightly things were occurring. I was visibly seeing an elderly woman regularly. I was seeing a lot of shadow people. That is mainly what I saw in this space - shadow people. Every night, my bed would be surrounded by them. I became so afraid of these people, that I would wake up and throw my nightstand at them. Because they didn’t disappear when my eyes opened.

Time continued on, and my experiences continued happening. Throughout my life - the common theme was that I thought I genuinely needed help. I thought - I must be crazy. No one else around me is experiencing these things. But as much as I questioned my sanity - which I sincerely did, and still sometimes do if I’m being honest - I also knew a greater part of me was aware that I was supposed to communicate with them. I knew I was supposed to act as a bridge of sorts.

It was when my Mom died everything started to shift for me. I started to physically see her, too, and at all times of day and night. I audibly heard her. She was in my dreams constantly as well, talking to me about her life. I told my Father in the kitchen one night all about my experiences with my Mom. I told him I was either grief stricken or that I genuinely have a “gift”. He told me that he believed I saw into a world that others aren’t fully attuned to yet. He told me that if I was crazy - he wouldn’t hold back from telling me so. His advice was that I meet with someone who could help me. My response to him was that I didn’t want to meet with someone, just for them to tell me what they think I want to hear. I said - if I’m crazy, at least I’m a gentle crazy. That I thought a stranger on the street should be able to tell me “hey, did you know you possess xyz ability”.

Well, as the tides of fate would have it, in 2019, it was a stranger, a hairdresser, not even in my own State, who did just that. I went in for a hair trim that my sister booked for me online. I sat in her chair and as conversation flowed, she said everything you see, feel, hear, sense, and know, you’re not crazy - you have a gift. I was shocked. I left that salon and my life has never been the same.

It wasn’t easy stepping into something that I always knew I was and that I always wanted to be. Ironic. I would have assumed it would feel effortless becoming the one thing I always desired. But it came with fear that I didn’t foresee and growing pains I couldn’t have expected. Being a psychic medium is something I’ve always held in very deep esteem. Growing up, I thought it was the coolest thing, and I so badly wanted to be one. Because my Soul knew. My conscious mind just hadn’t caught up yet. Conditioning and trauma were heavy armor that I carried around. The horse blinders I created in childhood were harder to remove than I anticipated.

Here I was now - stepping into practicing mediumship. As the world would have it, my mentor naturally flowed into my life. I mentee’d from 2019 to 2024. I attended Arthur Finlay College (AFC) in 2024 and took a course in advanced mediumship. When applying for the course and prior to leaving, I was severely doubting my abilities and questioned if I was worthy of even going. It was my mentor who encouraged me to go. She strongly pushed me to go, in only the best of ways. She was my cheerleader - this safe place where I was loved exactly as I am. And she is a person who celebrated my achievements and asked me to reach higher. She said I belonged in that advanced mediumship course, and that she wouldn’t be emboldening me to go if she didn’t believe and know that this is where I belong. She flew over to England with me, and we both attended the college and immersed ourselves in Spirit learning and practice. Leaving that course - I was empowered and entirely a different person than the woman who entered it. I left that course knowing - I am a psychic medium, I am meant to do this, and this is real.

I began doing readings for family, friends, and referred clients. And even with all of this - all of the things I so desperately wanted, I was still so afraid of letting people see me. I didn’t know if I would be lovable if I allowed people to see me fully.

During this time - previous my attendance of AFC - a person very dear to me was extremely triggered by me stepping into mediumship. Even if we differed in beliefs, they just couldn’t support my choice to step into this. And to this day, they still do not talk to me. It is a heavy sadness I carry, but also a heavy sadness I have come to terms with and accepted.

No matter what they were upset over, it always stripped back to the same issue, every single time - it always came back to them mimicking me, “Oh I’m Andie and I speak to Spirit”. Telling me that they were following in the footsteps of my Mother - and that if she didn’t allow this, they wouldn’t either. That was the root of why I bothered them. No matter what upset them. It always landed back on Mediumship. The thing that I felt made me the most beautiful, was the thing someone else struggled loving me for.

I do believe, this was also medicine. It made me have to step into who I am. It made me extremely empowered. It made me even more understanding. It made me even more gentle. And I choose to believe, if you subscribe, that before we came to Earth - we made a contract where they would help push me into standing firm in who I am. They provided the opposition required for such personal growth. I think even the pain, for my specific story and with no intention of projecting, was divine and all a part of the greater plan.

I am not here to be performative. I am not here to prove myself. Whether I am meeting with a friend/family member, or working with a client; I am here looking to genuinely connect with people and create real grounded healing. Where I meet you where you are. Sitting with you, both in connection and in space. I know loss and I know pain. And I also know strength and beauty. And I see my shadow, I sit with it and I befriend it and I integrate it - over and over again. Because of this, I always see hope and I always see the light. And the more I step into myself, the more I allow others to see me without apology, the more this wound of visibility fades. The more I choose peace, the more I choose me, the less I care if others don’t. The people who see my value always will. “The Light in me, see’s the Light in you.”

And so - my Spirit knows the path. It knows what I’m here to do. And that road may ebb and flow as life moves between currents and seasons, but it starts with By Breath & Bone. As I can’t help but to connect with Spirit, Breath, in this very human life I am having, “Bone”, and channel that in and through the body. It all begins here.

Thank you for being here. And if you have ever struggled with feeling unloveable, for whatever that story is for you, just know you are not alone. And know that you are lovable just the way you are. I am here to remind you of your power.