Deb Sheppard’s Story-Turning Setbacks into Triumphs

Deb Sheppard (6s):
Welcome to spirited straight talk the ultimate podcast for anyone who is ready to live a life with intention and help from spirit. I am your host Deb Sheppard, spiritual teacher, medium and author. I also love the outdoors. I love her for babies. I’m a wine enthusiast for sure. And a mom to three kids and two wonderful grandchildren. I also love to demystify the spiritual world and help you think outside of the box, helping you open up to the whole enchilada or as we like to say The Soul Enchilada, so you can truly make your soul rise. So let’s go!

Dana (49s):
So excited to be here for our first podcast.

Deb Sheppard (52s):
So excited to be here for our first podcast. It has been in the making for some time. We’ve had to push this out for technical difficulties and figuring this out. And I have so much respect for those that have their own podcasts, because this is our third practice and our trial for our first podcast. And we are sitting basically in our walk-in closet cause it has the best acoustics for us to record. So it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? Well, we will we figure out our studio as we go here. The other person you’re hearing is Dana, my partner in crime and I’m Deb Sheppard.

Deb Sheppard (1m 35s):
As you know, I’ve done radio for years since the very beginning of my career. Radio looked really easy I just had to just show up and be the guest on the show. So now I get to be the host and we’re really excited about having some guests on and really talking authentically about the spiritual realm. Having people come in, to talk about their lives very transparently. And to start I’m going to talk about my life and how we got here and I’m excited to share because I think people have heard bits and pieces. If you’ve read my book Grieving to Believing, I talk a little bit about my journey to becoming a medium but I’m excited to share more because this is reaching people that I haven’t reached before.

Deb Sheppard (2m 28s):
I

Deb and Dana (2m 29s):
Its like sharing Deb Sheppard with the world! You’ve been around for quite some time, 20 years. Yeah. And so there’s a long story. How I got here, how you got here. And people always, I get asked a lot, like, how did I get into this? Was I, did I see these things or feel these things as a child? And there were some instances where I, I felt things or saw things, but not to the degree I’m in now. Or do I have any questions about it earlier in my life? Well, you should share some of that. I am going to share. And I really like, I spoke with your mom a few months ago about something that happened when you were two, right. Which I think is very telling. And I know you kind of go back and forth with how you feel about what happened when you were two, but you were found face down in water in a Lake, you were not breathing and you had to be resuscitated.

Deb and Dana (3m 23s):
And so you probably touched the other side at two years old. And I think you may have brought some of that back with you. Probably did. And you know, when you’re two, you’re not for me and you, I don’t remember it. We were camping and my parents didn’t see that they got away. My dad was water and actually saw me upside down. I’m sure one of the waves caught me as a two year old and my went face down one of the waves and you swam to get me and thank goodness, no, otherwise the little different story will be a different story. So here to say this, but we’re going to kind of go back to, we thought beginning of my life and now I got there. Cause there’s some things that are unusual, but I think we all have a story before I started doing this.

Deb and Dana (4m 3s):
I felt that my story has so much more of an impact that I realize that we all have a story from where we came from and our experiences and perceptions have actually defined where we go in life. And yeah. So what happened to you when you were young that were some of those aha things that you had happened or you, because you did see things and feel things and dream about things that actually happened and took place, you just didn’t realize it at the time. Right? One thing was that my mom used to say, why do you always diminish everyone’s sentences? You still do this. And I have to be prepared to really pay attention and listen, because I’m already kind of there. And it’s great to be telepathic with your partner or your children or the people in your life.

Deb and Dana (4m 48s):
But you’re also having to make sure that you don’t, you know, step those boundaries. But I also had a dream about Elvis Presley dying. And I remember waking up in the morning and my mom was fixing breakfast and I said, Hey mom, I just had a dream that Elvis died in the bathroom. And she goes, okay, that’s interesting. She goes, you want syrup or Pedic sugar on your French toast. So she didn’t really know. And then my first born child, my daughter was born on his birthday. So, and then my son was born close to the day of his passing. So just kind of those kind of interesting things, how, yeah, I mean, that seems like it’s all tied together, but how long after you had that dream did Elvis, you have to look it up, but it was not very, very long afterwards.

Deb and Dana (5m 32s):
No. And so, you know, even at the time that it happened, I was like, well, that’s weird, you know? And we don’t say weird in our family anymore because what’s weird to most people is every natural process for you and I, the things that happened with, we know it’s really weird. I’m like, yeah, that kind of happens on a daily, but I was never afraid. And people have asked over time, like, are you ever afraid? And you know, my answer, my response is I’m more afraid of living in the deceased So there was never a sense that this was odd or uncomfortable or scary. I was just curious. Very people are very comfortable with there’s certain types of people that are, do race cars. I can never go on a race car or they fly a plane or they do different things that we as surgeons.

Deb Sheppard (6m 12s):
These are so random to me, but what I do feel like it is aligned with who I am. So, yeah. Interesting.

Dana (6m 21s):
So lets talk about your journey, where you were born and what happened?

Deb Sheppard (6m 28s):
Okay. So,there are some unusual things about my, my life. My parents were very young when they got married at 16 and 19 and it wasn’t long after they got pregnant with me and my dad got a job working in the railroad for Southern Pacific. He became a welder. And what was interesting about that story is we ended up living on a train and we were connected with neighbors. So it sort of on the tracks versus what side of the tracks. hahahaAnd I lived in that home for two years in my life, we moved to 22 cities in two years and the bolts on the walls where they would tie up the furniture and drive to the next city where my dad would work. It had a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, and those kinds of things.

Deb Sheppard (7m 8s):
So, and you were on tracks with all the trains that would whistle by. So I’ve had people ask me, was I in the circus story? But now I’m probably in the circus, but no, it was how my parents lived, you know, at that time. And eventually they moved to California and Northern California and my father continued working for the railroad. And when I was about nine, my parents became Jehovah’s witnesses. And that was the religion that I was raised with or into my twenties. That was a community they needed at the time and they still practice.

Dana (7m 44s):
So, somebody showed up at the, showed up at the door and your mom said, this makes sense.

Deb and Dana (7m 49s):
This makes sense. Yeah. And she continued studying with what they call sisters and brothers and they, my dad became an elder.

Dana (7m 56s):
Yeah, and you preached.

Deb Sheppard (7m 57s):
Yes I preached, I was on the pulpit. I went door to door. So those people that knock at your door, that was me and viewer really taught like a lot of phase, you get married and have children. And that was the story.

Dana (8m 10s):
Except you have chaperones?

Deb Sheppard (8m 11s):
And so it was, it was very interesting. The timeline of getting married to my first husband,

Dana (8m 16s):
Your brother had to ride in the car everyday.

Deb Sheppard (8m 20s):
yes…hahaha. Now he says “yeah, I would tease you. I’m so sorry.” My first husban you know, he was my brother’s age one brother’s eight years younger. One’s 20 years younger, same parents all planned. And so my brother Darold was definitely the one that was my chaperone and we have funny stories about it now. So he’d sit in the backseat and say things like, “you want to get closer dont you” . He’d do funny stuff. So anyway, what a strict, very strict upbringing, but you know, when you are in it and you don’t know anything different- that’s what your family believes, that’s your community. That’s what your relatives are part of and so you become part of it without knowing or researching other things. So I got married and I remember walking down the aisle. I was a mature 19 year old, married at 19 at 19.

Deb Sheppard (9m 2s):
I think that happens with a lot of people that are in a strong faith. I think it’s different now than it used to be. But I still think that that’s sort of where it’s all about family and community and that’s what they did. So yeah. I don’t think- I’m still not mature at 60. I can’t imagine what I was thinking then, but with that said I got married, but I remember, I think I’ve told you, I walked down the aisle thinking I could run. There was a cars. And even when I’m getting my vows, I still thought I shouldn’t be doing it, but I did. You want it to be a runaway bride, shouldn’t be a runaway bride. But there was, you know, a full house of people. It was all planned. We had a honeymoon, we had a place to live in apartment. So I think you don’t always trust your gut, which is now what I teach, trust your gut.

Deb Sheppard (9m 45s):
And the marriage obviously didn’t work. It lasted less than a year. And I remember being very angry with him and I had to really work on that, that I didn’t listen to my intuition, but married anyway. But in that relationship was a lot of sexual abuse as we’ve talked about Dana, and we’ll talk more about it, but I ended up having an affair because the abuse, you know, I really didn’t understand intimacy and sexuality and those things. And I had an affair, which is obviously wrong, but I realized there was nothing wrong with me. Right. And they said, it was like, this doesn’t seem right. Something’s wrong. And of course you have to remember, we didn’t have the internet.

Deb Sheppard (10m 26s):
You don’t talk to your doctors about it. There weren’t places to go to talk about it. So yeah, I can’t wait that much time has gone by, but you kind of don’t at the time, I didn’t have the capacity. I think, to delve into what this is really about. And anyway, the elders in the organization found out and I was disfellowshiped or shunned. Eveyone I knew had to shun me for and this was all I knew from age eight or nine to my 20s it was all I knew. And everyone had to abandon me unless I would change, I guess, ask for forgiveness.

Deb Sheppard (11m 8s):
However, when I told these elders about what he had done and let me say it on podcasts, that he, he, he was into beastiality let’s just put it that way, to say it in simple terms. I knew something wasn’t -what we’d say normal. And the brothers said, it didn’t matter what he did. It only mattered what I did. And that was the turning point that I knew that that wasn’t my place anymore. That was not the place for me to find my sanctuary, my healing, my support system.

Dana (11m 49s):
And I know your story, but everyone you knew had to, they were required To abandon you, your parents, your brothers, your friends, your family, cousins, everyone was to shut you out. That was required, right? So you were a hundred percent alone, a hundred percent.

Deb Sheppard (12m 12s):
Yeah, no home. Eventually. I think all of us at times we’ll have that person that walks into her life that we go, that’s that little earth angel that shows up. And I’ve had those, I’ve had those blessings in my life, including Dana. Yeah. Someone came along and we kind of made it through or I made it through and then

Dana (12m 36s):
A friend showed up and helped

Deb Sheppard (12m 38s):
You. And unfortunately she passed this year. I really grateful for her for reaching out and being there. And I restarted my life again. And you know, we started my career and got back on my feet as best as possible. And then that’s when I met my second husband, I think it was like eight years later.

Dana (12m 59s):
So for eight years you were, you used, you actually just to bring this up, you are still shunned by many family members. They, they cannot talk to you, look at you, be around you, your parents aren’t part of that. And neither are your siblings. But, but there are cousins and other family members that still have to shun you in order to be a part of their faith.

Deb Sheppard (13m 26s):
Know, you have to find humor in it too. I mean, like I always tell everybody that when they die, they’re gonna know I was right. That’s what I believe now and what I’ve experienced. But you know, everyone has their own steps to take their own paths, room journey, however you want to call it. And you know, I can’t judge those that have decided that that’s their path and has been hurtful. There’s still times that it comes up. You, I feel like Bambi gets ripped off again. So it doesn’t go away. It just that you learn to manage it better, I guess, over time. And I’m in a really good place now in my life. So that really helped us

Dana (14m 2s):
Well. So you found a way to be triumphant though through that because you, you were in this whirlwind and we’ll talk about the eye of the storm a few times, because you’ve had that several times, like it’s a humongous storm in your life where shit hits the fan Big time and, and you Always find a way to be triumphant in the end. But one of the things that, one of the, one of the things that I love about you and your family, especially your mom, is the kindness. Thank you. And so, you know, just to bring that up a little bit is, is your kindness.

Dana (14m 43s):
You can be triumphant, but it’s always with kindness. You’re welcome. You should tell that fun story about your mom.

Deb Sheppard (14m 51s):
I will. I was actually that. So it’s creeping telepathic partner. One of the things is that I’m a tourist and people think we’re stubborn. Basically we let things go for 50 times and then we’re done. And that’s basically where the is. I accept and accept in time, my quit pushing me, I’m seeing red and that’s where I can be in that place where I’m like, I’m just, I’m done with this. I’m done. And it does take me awhile. As Dana knows, it takes me a while to find a line in the sand, but I still feel like I give a lot of opportunities for people to truly be who they are in front of me. But as Dana was talking about my mom being very kind, she is, she’s this really kind soul.

Deb Sheppard (15m 33s):
My father and my mother grew up very poor with hardly anything, but they always appreciated what they had and took very good care of it. And they still do. My parents are both still with us and there would be what they called hobos at the time. Now we call them homeless, but they would come up to my mom’s door at the boxcar and they would ask for food. Well, I guess one day, and my mom was willing to feed. When you go over, she feeds to make . She just loves to do that. And we all appreciate it. So anyway, this, this homeless man came to the door and knocked on the door and asked for some foods that he’d been beat up.

Deb Sheppard (16m 14s):
And he hadn’t eaten in three days. My mom was not in one of those places, how we all get at times, but we’re just tired. She’s raising a child and my dad’s working and just they’re young. And she wouldn’t made him the worst. She said three bologna sandwiches she’d ever made. Maybe it was two. I don’t remember what was that. But she said the worst bologna sandwiches she’d ever made. And she handed to him and said, you people, that’s the word you, you, people might, hasn’t worked so hard and you people come here and beg. And that was basically what she said to him. She was really rude. Well, about a month later, I guess this man came back and he’s knocked on the door. And my mom’s thinking what?

Deb Sheppard (16m 54s):
And he goes, you know, you saved my life that day. And he had gotten a job and he handed my mom a half gallon of ice cream. And my mom said she felt two inches high. So embarrassed that here’s a person struggling for food. I mean, it brings tears to my eyes and that she said, you people, she was, I didn’t know his story. And she goes, I will never for the rest of my life, deny anyone for food. And that’s that’s her today. She’s still that way. And I think I got a lot of that from her to just be kind, you don’t know someone else’s story, you don’t know where they’ve been. You don’t know their perspective. And so, and that’s one of the things that’s one of the biggest things.

Deb Sheppard (17m 34s):
Things I’d like to share about you is you love asking everyone their story.

Dana (17m 42s):
And that’s how you’ve connected with so many people is you want to know their story. You do. And so, yes, you are seriously. You’re a medium, you are a medium and you connect with their loved ones. You can do so many. You have so many abilities, but I think, and this is what I observed just in our daily lives is you ask everyone this story study.

Deb Sheppard (18m 6s):
my mom taught me that you don’t meet a stranger, you know, and you ask questions. But I think her parents were that way as well. Like everyone comes with something of value, even if it’s a teaching, you know, value. And when I ask people questions, I know at first my kids and people would feel like Deb, you know, quit asking questions. But I’m really curious. And I don’t ask them anything embarrassing, but I want to know something about them. And they just start sharing information. It’s, you know, they walk away going, God, I never talk about that every time. And so it’s just a really cool thing about you. And I think you really take, you’re like I’m telling my stories and people are knowing where I come from and what my background is, but it’s really about that.

Deb Sheppard (18m 52s):
We all have something and there is something of value that we bring to everyone. Else’s life. We have such a judgment going on right now in our country where people just judge based on whatever you’re driving or wearing, or your skin color or your faith when inside of the Island. And it’s so much more than that, how did they get there and why? And I think that’s what we’re not doing these days is not really going deep into asking someone who they truly are. Right. I agree. Yeah. You know, when people ask me questions, I try to be as transparent as possible. I think over the years I hid my story. Not because I was ashamed that I don’t think it was more about my stories, not important yours is.

Deb Sheppard (19m 34s):
And I’ve had to learn that when you share your story, it helps people get more strength too, that they are allowed to tell their story without chain. And that you have been through maybe a battle or challenges or whatever it happens in your life. And you are standing to talk about, we’re standing here to talk about it. You are your story. Yes. Tragedy, triumph over tragedy. And that’s what we want to do is we want to find the triumph in it. And that being that vulnerable person does have value. So then you want to hear the next part of my life. I married a second time and he was actually my boss.

Deb Sheppard (20m 14s):
And we worked for I’d worked for years for insurance companies and he had to, and he was a child of who was an air force brat. His dad was retired general and they had lived in lots of different places. The company that he worked for, they were reorganizing. So he had to move to Indiana and then Ohio and I am not a Midwest girl. We’ve got married pretty quickly because he was like, you’ve been trans to have to be transferred. So we got to get married. And that was kind of why he wanted you to go with them. It wasn’t a gunshot wedding, but it was a quick wedding before we left. And matter of fact, we got, and then the movers came when we moved to Indiana. Wow. What a change of life from living in California to living in the Midwest.

Deb Sheppard (20m 57s):
And it’s not a judgment, it was just kind of a culture shock about getting used to the first of all the humidity and the, and the snow storm. So the ice storms, but just a different type of culture. Then we moved to Ohio, which is where I finally got pregnant. After five years of marriage, you were trying for five years and for five years. Yeah. Didn’t we moved here to Colorado and I’ve been here for 27 years, which is, I love it here. And through that journey, a short version of it is the company my husband was working for here with continental insurance. They had had, this is another eye of the storm that Dana was talking about.

Deb Sheppard (21m 37s):
There was some hurricanes in the Carolinas and in Hawaii and the company he worked for had the biggest book of business in those two locations. So if you know anything about insurance, you really want to diversify who you insure, because if something like that happens, it will affect how your company, you know, is able to stabilize. So they’re going to close the office here again and move us back to Indiana. And for me, moving back to the Midwest was something I did not want to do. And he didn’t either. We really fell in love with the state of Colorado. And you had, I had, I had a daughter and I was pregnant with the second. So you were pregnant at that time, right after that time, I think we got pregnant.

Deb Sheppard (22m 21s):
So with Jake was a little different. Now I got pregnant a little faster, more implant, but a blessing, but he could never recover and find the same type of income and the friend, the Earth’s angel that helped me the first time when I went through my divorce and all that stuff with the marriage, first marriage, she came out to visit me from California and started talking about song toy. My joke is having took it because I had never heard of it. And basically, if this is a new topic, it’s actually the place of energy. So it’s cheap. Where do you mean ancient has been around for thousands of years, philosophy about energy.

Deb Sheppard (23m 3s):
And I’m like, okay. And when you get desperate where nothing is happening and we’re filing bankruptcy, you know, deciding between diapers and milk and he still was not working and all those kind of refuse to work, I refuse nothing underneath them. So I even talked to him about like working for Starbucks, at least we have insurance. Then if he refused, he was in a master’s degree and he just couldn’t see him doing that. So he was, he was the center of your storm. And at the time he was in the end, he wouldn’t see how to get out of it. And it’s sort of one of those times that I wish I would have used my voice more. But as the tourists, cause what we do, we don’t say things for a long time until you told me when we were talking about your story.

Deb Sheppard (23m 43s):
One time that when he shared with you that he wasn’t going to work, he had a job, but he wasn’t going to do it as it was beneath him. Correct. You just, you didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything and hearing him pregnant. And I, again, that’s that personality where sometimes I just shut down versus saying what the, you know what, and I, and I didn’t say anything and I do have regrets that way anymore. I’m getting better at 60. I’m getting better at using my voice. But yeah, I just kind of sat back thinking I had trusted him for so many years to make the right decision. Then I turned it over. I turned over my power. So when people say, you know, they took advantage, I’m like light turned over my power.

Deb Sheppard (24m 24s):
I allowed it. It was, it was hard. It was really, really hard. But when I started learning the funkshway, I started realizing I could feel energy. And I started feeling people who had crossed over just randomly. All of a sudden the door opened. There’s a dead person behind you. And the first one was, was my friend. That was a neighbor, Susie.

Dana (24m 46s):
And that didn’t freak you out.

Deb Sheppard (24m 48s):
Never. I was just like, Oh, and I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know it was called mediumship. I just didn’t know. I just felt the spirit.

Dana (24m 57s):
You just felt the spirit. And they started talking to you a hundred percent. So you had to have always had this ability. I agree. You just didn’t. I didn’t know the label, you know,

Deb Sheppard (25m 8s):
I didn’t know the label and I’ve had people die in my life at a very young age. I’ve had lots of people pass and I grieved them, but it wasn’t. Now I understand that that probably had a knowing of some sort, even though I was taught differently that there is no afterlife, but I now believe there is an afterlife. Yeah. Well, cause in that religion, it’s all about resurrection versus an afterlife. So that was kind of my, I don’t know if that helped me and I think actually having the religion, I look back now and think I’m so glad I understand the Bible because there are a lot of people that come to me about their faith in the Bible. So, you know, knowing that I’ve read the Bible multiple times and I understand it helps me to help answer questions about faith a lot.

Deb Sheppard (25m 53s):
So I called my friend. I was actually doing childcare at the time and because I was done with corporate life and I couldn’t go back to corporate life in sales. So I called her up and I said, Hey, Susie, I think your father has been visiting me. And I go on for like 20 minutes. And I’m telling her what her dad was saying. And I hang up the phone about three or four hours later. I’m like, what the heck just happened? Cause it was like, I finally hit me that I told her some things about her dad and both her parents had passed. I’d never met them. And she was just like, I’m crying. And she goes, but this is so helpful. Her dad was a, a business owner and had never taught.

Deb Sheppard (26m 33s):
I think he was a masonary if I recall he had taught the boys, he was a Mason, He does masonry. So I call her up and I’m telling her the story. And she said, well, I am not surprised. And she was very open-minded. She had taught some meditation classes at her little spa salon that, you know, so I, I knew she’d be open to it. And she says, my dad had taught my brothers all about business. And I now have this business and he never taught me because it was supposed to be about the boys.

Deb Sheppard (27m 15s):
And she says, now, if he was alive, now I’m asking him a lot of questions to help me. Cause I’m in this kind of crossroads. And that was the time from then on when it did not stop, it just gets slow. And I went to the library because we didn’t have Google. And I started picking up all kinds of books on mediumship, spirituality, the afterlife. I didn’t read each book. I read parts of each book to get what I needed. And that’s where I was able to put a title.

Dana (27m 43s):
You studied, like intuitively went to what you needed to understand what, what was happening,

Deb Sheppard (27m 49s):
Right. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, okay. Now what do I do with it now? Okay. What does that mean, now I have these abilities. So what does that mean? I always tell the story that without understanding it and not creating the boundaries, I would go invited to like a Bunco party here in the neighborhood and then have a glass or two or wine probably more. I don’t know. I would say your dad’s here or whatever. I think people kinda got freaked out. I think I stopped being invited to these events, which was fine, but I had to learn from that, how to manage it and understand the value and be able to do it at the right time and the right place. Those came later, which came later and still we’re all still learning, but yes, it came later.

Dana (28m 33s):
So when did you actually start doing this, start using your abilities.

Deb Sheppard (28m 39s):
The way was kind of at the beginning kind of underground, people would kind of whisper that Deb Sheppard can do this. And so they would come to my home, you know, kind of like underground to have a little session, that got me the confidence and a bit more of the understanding. and this was when John Edward was on TV with a show called Crossing over, he had a big following and I remember watching that show back then. He came into town and people were telling me about him. And I thought, you know what? I need, my gut said, I needed to go, well, you know, we had no money. And my husband went there at the time and started working for a mortgage company. I called him and said,lets go what do you think?

Deb Sheppard (29m 19s):
I think I really need to go and watch this for some reason. And you had already told him about me back to that story a little bit. Huh? So yeah. I don’t wanna forget this part cause it’s, it’s got a big part to it. My I’m feeling this, Hey, I had not really told my husband about it yet, but I sat him down and we had a bottle of wine and I said, I think I can feel dead people around. And he says, so you’re not pregnant because we’re too old to have any more kids. Like no. So he was extremely supportive and he said, you know, you’ve always been intuitive. I’m not surprised. Let’s figure this out. So I was really fortunate with my past where people were supportive, that I had the support system from him and his parents were big cheerleaders.

Deb Sheppard (30m 3s):
So I was, I was really blessed to have that support. So when I called him about John Edward, he was still once again, he was like, yeah, okay. Let’s, let’s go do this. A bunch of my friends at the same time were buying tickets, but I only I’m the only one that got tickets. And there was probably over 2000 people at this event. So that kind of felt like I’m supposed to be here to figure out when I get there and the room was packed. And of course, as you know, the air conditioner wasn’t working, which happens to some of us mediums and large venues, I’m sitting that he, why am I here? What’s the purpose? Why do I have to spend this kind of money to come to this event? My first thought then was, well, maybe I need to realize how many people need to hear from their loved ones. And maybe I can be of help like John was done, he went to the back of the room and I was tempted to go back and talk to him.

Deb Sheppard (30m 49s):
I thought, Oh my God, that’s just so weird. So I didn’t during the break, cause there’s always a break with these events. And my husband went out to the car and turn the station to an am station to watch or hear, excuse me, the Rockies game, which is our baseball team here in Denver, Colorado. And he comes back in, we watched the rest of the event and then we leave. And as we’re leaving, he says to me, what did you think? And I go, I don’t know why I needed to be here. This doesn’t make any sense other than people are in need of hearing from their loved ones. But I didn’t come here for a reading and I’ve had lots of losses for me at that time was a lot of money because we were financially very strapped and I just couldn’t understand.

Deb Sheppard (31m 34s):
So we get in the car and I don’t get in the car at nighttime very often. And there was a station that was playing called cozy one-on-one with Roski. And she had said the psychic on will come to find out a year later, my husband never changed the radio station. He went from an am station to an FM station with a psychic on that was my sign. Cause I would’ve never heard, I didn’t, I didn’t listen to night radio. I was not something I would have been drawn to. So the next day I called the radio station and the, they sent me to the manager, which is not normal whatsoever. It was Rick martini. And what was interesting about Rick is that he used from the East and he had supported other people in my line of work.

Deb Sheppard (32m 19s):
So this wasn’t something new and he was supposed to be at this event and couldn’t make it, or one of the events that was in Denver. And what I said to him is, listen, I don’t have a practice, but I, when I got there, I realized how many people need to have a message from their loved ones. And he said he I agreed with me, so he introduced me to our friend Rashke and she’d been around psychics, her whole life. I think it was her great aunt, her aunt, that was a psychic. She said they were at night smoking her cigarettes, you know, doing readings on the phone. Didn’t she, she lived, she also lived in an ashram. She lived in an ashram, Yeah. So she was very spiritual, but she’s very psychic also.

Deb Sheppard (33m 1s):
So she had heard a lot of us and was not always very impressed. She was very well-versed in the world of psychics and she wasn’t a skeptic. she just felt what do you have to offer that I haven’t already seen? So she was, she was not being mean or she just was like, how can you impress me more than I’ve already seen? So I give her a reading. She comes over when my kids are down for daycare. So they’re all sleeping and I’m bringing through her aunt and other people. And she keeps saying, no, no, no. And then I said something about her car. So you have a problem on the right-hand side of your car with the, with the car was a convertible. She says no it’s a brand new car. No, no. Well, about a couple weeks later, there was some problems with her car.

Deb Sheppard (33m 44s):
I think that the whole, it was the, you said that there I’ve heard, Rashkey tell the story, but you told her that there was a problem with the top of her car. She had a convertible, we’ll have to bring her on to tell the story. And she was like, no, I don’t have a problem. Well, it actually happened where the top like blew open or off or some kind of slight slid down the top later. And then she went, Oh my God. Yeah. And the aunt was bringing through, yes. Now she remembered. So we ended up hanging out off and on.

Deb Sheppard (34m 26s):
It became more like a friendship. and then she went to Italy, while she was there 9/11 happened. And of course our entire country and the world was devastated. And we all stunned. She was stuck in Italy. She gets back and calls me and says, are you ready to be on the radio Friday night? I want to let you know, I had no practice. I was still doing childcare. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. You were new as new, I hadn’t been on a radio station. So I thought, yeah, let’s either 15 minutes of fame or 15 minutes that no one’s going to remember me.

Deb Sheppard (35m 10s):
So not a big deal. So I get on there and she says to me, monkey, see monkey do. And that was how, when she put her headphones on, that’s what I do. She, she told me what to say in the sense of short to the point and how to educate the people that were calling in. And they had an intern there that was helping take kind of scan the call, it’s reading the calls or taking count. And I had done 52 readings in five hours on, off the air. Wow. And she looked at me and she said, this is your opportunity. This, this will change your life. If you decide to take the steps into this, and really it’s just using your abilities to help people, you started along that path for that reason.

Deb Sheppard (35m 53s):
So I drove home called my husband and said, I’m quitting daycare. And I’m going to do this for a living. I haven’t looked back business grew. I got on many different radio stations going on some TV. I’m always honored and blessed to be a messenger. And to hear the stories of courage from other people. But sometimes we get very focused on where we should be or what it should look like. And I remember going to a psychic, going to a psychic pair actually. And one of my friends where you were in of the storm and I was in the eye of the storm, this was before I really realized what I could do my abilities. I said, do you see my husband getting a job? Like he has had before as an executive?

Deb Sheppard (36m 33s):
And she said to me, no, but why aren’t you behind here doing readings? And I thought she was crazy. I realized she wasn’t looking at you. So I learned through this that sometimes we need to take a different path because somewhere else not to get stuck on what we think it should look like.

Deb and Dana (36m 49s):
I’m just very honored to be able to do this work. And I’m humbled, trusted that it was going to be okay. And when you hit that eye of the storm, when you get to the middle of the, the hardest part of your life, when you’re trying to figure out how to move around it, you can’t do the same thing. You have to find another answer. And there was a lot of fear to do that. And for me, I felt like what’s my choices. I can stay where I am, or I can take this risk. People get stuck in fear a lot.

Dana (37m 21s):
How do you, how do, how did you, where did you dig from to not let yourself fall into the fear versus having faith that it was going to be okay.

Deb and Dana (37m 30s):
I think for most of us, as we age, we look back in our experiences of what we’ve been through. Like when I think about the religion or, you know, the stories in my life that you, you just have to say, you know, I’ve got to take this risk because what I’m doing is not working. There’s always going to be fear because it’s unknown. But when you’re in it, this is interesting when you’re in the middle of it and you’re going through it, what you do know it’s not working. So is the fear keeping what’s not working or is the fear trying something new? I’ve had good support systems off and on throughout my life for people that have shown up that gave me that piece of hope. And I think that’s what I’ve cleaned too, because you know what, let’s do this.

Dana (38m 9s):
so sometimes when you talk you say we a lot. ,

Deb Sheppard (38m 22s):
So years ago I was Interviewed on TV. I didn’t realize I say this. I said we, and they asked “who’s the we?”, because I’m the only one sitting in the room with them. Right. Well, it’s my guides. I have a spiritual, spiritual realm that helps me. This doesn’t come from just me. I have that spirit world that comes through. So when I include them, we, I can’t get this stuff. They’re the ones who have helped me get it. And so I’ve been so used to all these years saying we, that people look at like, okay, I’m leaving my invisible friends. It’s my invisible friends, but you trust them. And one of the stories that I tell that I only get what they’re allowing me to get.

Deb Sheppard (39m 3s):
So like you never see psychics winning the lottery is I’ve always said, I’ve never been able to really do well as it’s just a wild guess on some of that’s pregnant, the sex of the child.

Deb and Dana (39m 12s):
And you know, you’ve heard this and I’m wrong. So many times I’ve tried so many games like, okay, I’m feeling as the boy just sees the girl, you know, and I’m, I always verbally say, it’s wrong. So one time I asked my guys, I said, so what’s, what is this? Why can’t I get this? Why can’t I get the sex of the baby? Something so simple. And they said, we’re letting you know, what we give you is keeping you humble that you don’t have all the answers. And I don’t think any of us with these abilities has all the answers and we’re not supposed to the fact that I can get messages from a deceased, loved one. You know, the baby thing that guests have a baby is not really, to me is spiritual or needed, its our guides.

Deb and Dana (39m 53s):
They give me what you need.

Dana (39m 56s):
Well,all i can say is I’ve talked to so many people when they call to book with you that have, you know, booked with you many times in the past, I hear some of their stories and they often say “Oh my God,I have to share this with you she predicted this would happen and it did” . And you won’t remember any of that. That’s that’s, which I can’t imagine that you would, you’ve done over 50,000 readings. I can’t imagine that you would remember, you know, 99.9% of them, but people will share with me some of the stuff that, that you predicted and you don’t say you’re, you will predict things. This is what I’m get. But, and it’s really cool to, to hear the stories from that.

Deb Sheppard (40m 38s):
And I don’t want to remember, but I think for the sanity reasons is you’re giving so much information that you’re channeling. So you want to be detached. It’s about them. It’s not about me. And some of the things I do remember, some of them are very tragic. You remember certain things in order to help my skill for me to be able to be a better reader. However, it’s not my journey. It’s theirs, you know, you’re just repeating things, some things I’m like, wow. And then other times, like you said, I’m not going to remember them.

Dana (41m 9s):
So lots of people want to connect with their guides. Do you have a quick little exercise?

Deb Sheppard (41m 14s):
Yeah. That the listeners can do to kind of visualize your, you know, and, and we’ll, we’ll go in more depth, but the bottom line is, is you feel like you’re making it up. And that’s the hardest thing for people to trust their intuition is it comes from your right brain, the creative side, your right side, and people really, especially if you’re really analytical and you’re a scientist, or you’re a numbers person, you really have to go to your right brain. And it’s like, when the kids, when they’re little and they have their invisible friends, that is really their guide that they’re not told, it’s not real. What I learned in the very beginning as I was very attached to who that guide looked like and how they behaved. And when I didn’t feel that guide anymore, it was, I was really grieving.

Deb Sheppard (41m 56s):
But then I got the feeling that I’m going to have different guides along the way, depending on where I am spiritually and what work I’m doing. And it helped me to unleash that control of what I had to have versus just trusting how they’re coming through. So just start off, just even do some automatic writing, which means that you put the paper down, you use a pen or whatever you want to use as a utensil and write without stopping or without punctuation, or just feel what’s feeling to you and ask, you know, are you male or female, or you’re older, young, what is your name? Why are you here for and write whatever comes to you, trust me, you feel like you’re making it up.

Deb and Dana (42m 38s):
It will be right on target. They want you to connect with them. Don’t make it harder for them. Trust, make it simple. You know, me kiss, keep it simple, sweetie. And that’s it. I think a lot of people that go down this journey of spirituality can make it really challenging and it’s not, they want to make it easy. And I’m looking forward to telling more stories about this and about my journey to here, to this podcast and my book and you and all these other things. So yeah, the next one’s going to be fun. It’s about soul contracts, contracts. Yes. And you know, we’re here to really kind of make it more fun. Cause spirituality like any kind of faith can be very serious.

Deb Sheppard (43m 20s):
And that’s not me nor how I teach. I love to bring humor in. I love to bring in making it easy and light as well as like even connecting with your guides. Don’t make this so difficult. I call it the constipation reading. Don’t make it difficult, more difficult than it is. Make it easy, make it fun. We say,

Dana (43m 36s):
that’s why we like to say you demystify the spiritual world and to make it easy for everyone. So I look forward to our next podcast, right. And our walk-in closet. So thank you for joining us this evening and look forward to hearing or seeing you or hearing from you again. You’re hearing us

Deb Sheppard (43m 59s):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of spirited. Straight talk. If you enjoy the show, make sure you subscribe so that you get notified of new shows. We’d also love it. If you’d leave us a review and let’s connect, visit Debsheppard.com for more insights, support workshops, and to book a session with Deb plus enter to get a free reading with Deb. All you have to do is sign up for the email list and you’ll automatically be entered. Just go Deb Sheppard.com. That’s Deb S H E P P a R d.com.