From Survival To Service: The Connection Between Trauma and Mediumship

Hypervigilance and dissociation—often developed as survival responses to childhood trauma—can be transformed into powerful tools for mediumship and spiritual service when approached with proper training and psychological support. 

Drawing on Jungian psychology, contemporary neuroscience, and anthropological research, this exploration reveals how trauma-based perceptual abilities have measurable neurological foundations. Studies from the Windbridge Research Center, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's trauma research, and anthropologist Rebecca Seligman's work on Brazilian spirit possession demonstrate that what Western medicine may pathologize can become a source of healing and meaningful service within supportive frameworks. 

The key is conscious development: combining trauma therapy, somatic practices, boundary work, and grounding techniques to transform automatic survival responses into intentional spiritual abilities. This isn't spiritual bypassing—it's the integration of deep healing with conscious perceptual development, turning our deepest wounds into our greatest sources of strength.

https://www.bloomingwand.com
https://www.youtube.com/@bloomingwand_emilyoneal

Transcript

Setting The Lens: Trauma And Gifts

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Blooming Wand, your home for grounded spiritual content. I'm Emily O'Neill, Evidential Psychic Medium, Intuitive Healer, and Coach. And on today's episode, we're going to talk about the connection between trauma and spiritual abilities, the science behind mediumship and healing. My therapist once told me that I was hypervigilant, a term that initially felt like another label for something that was wrong with me. And what I've come to understand through years of training and therapy and research is that hypervigilance and dissociation, because my therapist told me I had a tendency to dissociate as well, while often are born from trauma, can become profound tools for healing when approached with intention and proper support. Like many of my clients and mentees, I learned early to scan environments for safety, to sense what others couldn't see, and to retreat into imaginative realms when reality became overwhelming. These weren't character flaws, they were sophisticated neurological adaptations that helped me survive difficult circumstances. Carl Jung recognized this phenomena as differentiated perception, a rare psychological ability to perceive unconscious patterns and hidden emotions that most people miss. And Jung observed that individuals with this capacity can sense lies, feel the underlying atmosphere of a room, and detect psychological dynamics that others remain unaware of. However, Jung also noticed the double-edged nature of this gift or skill. Those with differentiated perception often experience psychological distress, social isolation, and may feel like scapegoats because their insights can make others feel uncomfortable or feel exposed. And Jung proposed that this ability could either destroy a person or lead to transformation through the individuation process. So learning to distinguish one's own psychology from absorbed content and integrating one's shadow aspects become really important here. When I learned about differentiated perception, which was kind of by accident, I hadn't thought about it in a long time, probably since college when I took psychology classes, but I really related to it. I remember being a little person and picking up on lots of things. And I remember adults saying, How does she know that? Or Emily seems to be picking up on a lot, but they just left it at that. And I know that as I kind of got older, particularly in my teen years, I remember knowing things that people didn't tell me. And then I would say something not realizing I knew it without them telling me. And it made people really uncomfortable. And the other thing I think that sticks out to me when I reflect, at least on my experience, was the lying. If if anybody lies to me, I know. I can feel it in my bones. I'm just like, mm-hmm, that's not the truth. And as a younger person, I might have just said that out loud, like, well, I don't think that's true, but now I know that that's not always an appropriate thing to do. So I think I probably made people uncomfortable when I was a younger person. And I probably do it sometimes now, but I try to be a little bit more aware of when I'm picking up on things and what I do with that information. And a lot of times I have to tell myself this just because I know something doesn't mean I need to say something or do something with that information. I can know it, acknowledge it, and just move on with my day. One of the interesting things that I did just mention was we absorb content and we need to understand boundaries around that, what we whether we need to do something about that information or not. Of course, when we're little, we're absorbing it and we don't know what those boundaries are. I didn't anyway. But he mentions integrating one's shadow aspects. So if we're a little person who's constantly scanning our environment to make sure that we're safe, we're going to grow up doing that. And that could be rooted in fear, it could be rooted in a need to control, it could be rooted in any anything. And sometimes we don't know what's motivating our behavior or our mechanisms of behavior, and those are kind of our shadow aspects. Sometimes engaging our shadow aspects or parts of ourself that make us feel uncomfortable is hard and challenging because it's can be emotional. And a lot of times, at least for me, when I was diving into that, there was a lot of grief that came up for me around little Emily. And so I just want to throw that out there that when you kind of start the journey of maybe realizing if if your journey is similar to mine, wow, this hypervigilance is a mechanism of protection. It's a behavior that has kept me safe, but could it transform into something else? And that's what this episode is really about. Now, this Jungian understanding of differentiated perception provides crucial context for the trauma mediumship connection. What begins as hypervigilant scanning for survival can evolve into sophisticated perceptual abilities that, with proper development, become tools for conscious service. Now let's dive into what science tells us about mediumship and perception. Recent research from multiple disciplines is revealing that mediumship abilities may have measurable biological foundations rooted in neurological adaptations to early experiences. The Windbridge Research Center's rigorous scientific protocols have found that mediumship creates distinct brain states. I think a lot of people know this. Using EEG technology, researchers did discover that when mediums communicate with deceased persons, their brain activity differs measurably from ordinary thinking, imagination, or memory recall. And the brain shows simultaneous activation in some areas and decreased activity in regions associated with, you guessed it, analytical thinking, consistent with dissociative states where survival systems remain alert while cognitive filtering decreases. Fascinating. Another Windbridge study examining the health correlates of mediumship found that the mediumship process itself does not cause the health issues sometimes seen in medium populations. Instead, researchers proposed an alternative model addressing the relationship between childhood trauma and physical illness, suggesting that early trauma, not mediumship practice, no, not practicing as a medium, underlies these health patterns. So under quintuple blind conditions, rather, where neither mediums, researchers, nor clients know details about the deceased persons, trained mediums have demonstrated statistically significant accuracy in providing specific information about people that they've never met. So there all of that to say is that some people noticed that when they were looking at medium populations, they had certain health issues, and they were wondering, does the practice of mediumship cause those health issues or not? And I think more than likely, and this is what they're studying more about, is mediums come into practicing mediumship maybe because of their early childhood experience and because they've got this extra sensory ability from scanning their environments for safety that they can transform into mediumship and that the work itself doesn't make anybody sick. And I know that people have often asked me if my work drains me or is hard on me physically, and my answer to that is no, but life does, like regular life does that to me. But usually my work is leaves me feeling uplifted, connected, supported, and loved. Now moving on, contemporary neuroscience reveals that early trauma creates lasting changes in brain structures and function. And the National Institute of Mental Health's research on developmental trauma shows that childhood adversity alters neural pathways related to threat detection, emotional regulation, and sensory processing. And these adaptations, while protective in dangerous environments, can become assets when consciously developed. So cool. Now, Dr. Bessel Vanderkoek's work on trauma and the body demonstrates how hypervigilance and dissociation develop as sophisticated survival mechanisms. And his research shows that individuals with trauma histories often develop enhanced abilities to read environmental cues, detect subtle emotional changes in others, and access non-ordinary states of consciousness. So Bessel Vanderkook wrote, The Body Keeps the Score. I personally found that book difficult. I have not gotten through it. I don't know if I want to. And I I really connected with those works. So I'm kind of offering them up because I know Bessel Vanderkoel gets a lot of attention these days, and that's great, but there are other resources out there too. I swear every time I look at the New York Times book review, the Body Keeps the Score is always on the bestseller list, or very, very often is. That's a little side note. My favorite thing to read is the New York Times book review because that's how I learn about new books. Anyway, moving on to a kind of another person who studied this is Dr. Elaine Aaron's research on sensory processing sensitivity reveals that approximately 20% of the population possesses heightened sensitivity to environmental stimuli. And she calls this HSP. So highly sensitive people show increased activity in brain regions associated with awareness and empathy and processing subtle information. And many mediums and intuitives test as HSPs, suggesting a neurological basis for enhanced perceptual abilities. Now, research in consciousness studies shows that dissociation exists on a spectrum from pathological fragmentation to adaptive controlled states. And studies published in the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation demonstrate that individuals can learn to consciously access dissociative states for therapeutic and spiritual purposes when proper training and integration occur. And Dr. Colin Ross's research distinguishes between pathological dissociation, so fragmented and distressing states, and healthy dissociation, integrated and purposeful states. So I think that's really cool. I haven't, I didn't do a deep dive into Dr. Colin's work yet. I've read it at a very high level, but it sounds really interesting. And this aligns with like meditation research that shows advanced practitioners can intentionally alter consciousness states for specific outcomes. Obviously, I can I this also makes me think about shamans, drumming, trance states, and how for a long time in human history humans have used altered states for spiritual practices, for communication with the dead, to receive information. And they don't necessarily always have to use any kind of substance to enter into that altered state. We can do it, well, I do it all the time when I'm giving readings. I drop myself into this state that's kind of liminal. It's not awake, it's not asleep, and I'm talking and I'm communicating, but I'm also processing and giving information. So we can we can train ourselves to do this. I think that's kind of one of the things that's clicking for me. The next thing I want to talk about is an anthropologist's work. And this was something that I found very fascinating, kind of touches on something that I just said. So anthropologist Rebecca Seligman's groundbreaking field work in Salvador, Brazil, studying spirit possession in the Afro-Brazilian religion condomble, and that C-A-N-D-O-M-B-L-E provides a cultural framework for understanding how trauma-based dissociative abilities can become sources of healing rather than distress. And her research shows that within supportive religious or spiritual communities, individuals interpret their internal distress and dissociative experiences as a spiritual calling. And through kind of self-transformation, what Western medicine might pathologize becomes a pathway to meaningful service as a religious authority or spiritual authority. And this healing occurs not just mentally, but through embodied ritual practices that create new ways of experiencing the body and the self. And Seligman's work demonstrates that cultural context is so crucial and that what is considered pathological in one culture can be a source of healing and positive transformation in another. And this makes me think about my people and my ancestors and where they came from. I currently live on Turtle Island, on land that is of the Cowlitz people. My people are not from the Americas. My people are from the United Kingdom, Western Europe, some areas of Eastern Europe, and Scandinavian countries, frankly. And through the process of colonization and my people coming here, I've been completely separated from the old ways of the ones of my ancestors. And I so I don't have this like cultural context for developing the skill set that somehow I think that I came into the world with and developed it at a young age. I also wonder if I inherited it a little bit through intergenerational family trauma. So I think the phrases epigenetics that we inherit, we inherit more than just like blue eyes, but we can inherit pain and memories through our ancestral line. It's very, very fascinating stuff. But I didn't have any support for any of it. It was sort of just like Emily's kind of weird, or people just didn't talk about it. And it wasn't until, gosh, I I must have been in my late 30s, and I'm thinking I'm 44 now, that I started to make this connection that my hypervigilance and my dissociative ability or practically dissociating wasn't just this like bad thing, that it was connect it made me actually able to help people and that I could apply it in useful ways for not just myself and my community. And it was from my own doing therapy and internal family systems work with practitioners and different kinds of engaging teachers and mentors that I was able to not let these behaviors be burdens, but be tools for self-evolution and also tools that I could offer to the community in a meaningful way. And I that's part of the reason I wanted to do this episode was to talk about this in a different way. I think New Age spirituality has an interesting way of positioning mediumship and psychism and some of these more things, and it it does lean into the mystical and the spiritual, but I want to talk about the science and the history and the anthropology and all of these other things too, because I think it's worth it. And I wish more people who are writing books and creating content would dive into this stuff. It's a lot of information, but we don't have to digest it all at once. We can do it in pieces and over time. I mean, it took me a long time to write this out and like bring this all together in a way that I could share it with you. And if I'm being honest, I'm still processing it. And maybe we can do some of that together. So I wanted to talk about my journey from kind of survival skills to creating a conscious practice and and offering my skills to the world and to my community. When I began training at the Oak Bridge Institute, I discovered that my hypervigilance and my capacity to dissociate were skills that I developed to navigate childhood trauma, could be transformed into tools for serving others. But that transformation required a lot of intentional work. And I have to say that there's some privilege around my ability to be able to do that work. Things have changed in my life. And like I said, I don't think it was till my late 30s that the opportunity even presented itself to me because I had to get through life and survive and find resources and tools and then commit time and money to be able to get the support that I needed to do this. And on that note, it's why I try to provide lots of free tools to all of you and open discussion through the YouTube channel and the podcast, because I kind of want to share some of what I've learned and maybe decrease barriers to access to some of these tools and information. So I just want to say that really quick. But over three years of intensive training, combined with two years of therapy and internal family systems therapy, I learned to work with these abilities from a place of healing rather than reactivity. And the hypervigilance that once kept me constantly scanning for danger now helps me attune to subtle energetic information. And the dissociation that once took me off into magical realms for escape now allows me to access non-ordinary states of consciousness for spiritual communication. And the key difference is consciousness and integration. Rather than these abilities operating automatically from unhealed places, I now engage them intentionally from a foundation of self-awareness and emotional regulation. And in my mentoring program, I work with many individuals who, like me, have discovered that their hypervigilance and dissociative capacities can become gifts when properly developed. And the process involves several crucial elements supported by current psychological research. Following Vander Koelk's research on trauma in the body, I emphasize that spiritual bypassing, so using spiritual practices to avoid dealing with our psychological wounds, can be harmful to both practitioners and their clients. And before developing mediumship abilities, individuals need to understand their own trauma responses and develop healthy coping mechanisms. And the HSP research, so the highly sensitive person research, shows that many people with mediumistic tendencies are already processing more environmental information than the average person. And without proper boundaries and self-regulation skills, this can lead to overwhelm rather than conscious ability. Following Rebecca Seligman's Seligman's anthropological research, I found that supportive community is essential for healthy transformation. Seligman's work shows that within accepting cultural flameworks, individuals can reinterpret their initial distress and dissociative experiences as spiritual gifts rather than a pathology. And this self-transformation process occurs through community support, meaningful frameworks, and specific practices that help individuals embody new ways of being. And in my mentoring work, I create similar containers where people can safely explore and develop their abilities. The skills I teach directly address Young's individuation process, distinguishing self from other by learning to recognize when you're feeling your own emotions versus absorbing others' feelings, which is essential for both our mental health and accurate spiritual work. Shadow integration by working with the wounded parts of the self that develop to hypervigilant and dissociative responses, conscious perception by transforming automatic trauma responses into intentional, differentiated perception, and embodied presence by moving from dissociation as escape to conscious states of expanded awareness. And I want to say that current neuroscience shows that focused practice can rewire our trauma responses. The training includes somatic practices for learning to inhabit the body consciously rather than automatically dissociating boundary work. You guys know I love boundary work for developing energetic and emotional boundaries while maintaining openness to spiritual information, and grounding techniques for staying present and regulated while accessing expanded states of consciousness and integration practices for processing spiritual experiencing experiences through psychological frameworks. And I think what we've talked about today is both, you know, what's emerged is from both the scientific research and lived experience is a nuanced understanding that mediumship abilities often develop from neurological adaptations to trauma, but they can become tools for profound healing when approached consciously and ethically. And the Brazilian mediumship research found that experienced practitioners and supportive communities show better mental health outcomes than control groups. And this suggests that when trauma-based abilities are transformed through proper training and community support, they can contribute to the well-being of not just the individual, but to the community rather than distress. And I want to close with saying if you recognize yourself in any of this, if you've always been hyper-vigilant, if you found refuge in dissociation, if you sense things that others don't, know that these aren't pathologies to be cured, but potential gifts to be consciously developed in ways that feel good and right to you. And the path forward from survival to service requires dedication, proper training, and ongoing self-work. But as both research and experience demonstrates, it's possible to transform our deepest wounds into our greatest sources of strength, not through spiritual bypassing, but through the integration and healing and conscious development. I wonder how this is connecting with all of you who are watching or who are listening. Do share, you know. I love to hear from you. Drop a comment, shoot me an email at emily at bloomingwand.com. And remember, I do have not just the podcast and the YouTube channel to support you, but I have freebies on my website, some worksheets around boundaries, discovering what's essential, understanding your limiting beliefs. There is a blog that pairs with all of the worksheets. So if you're gonna do this stuff on your own time and in your own way, you can refer to those at any time. And they're all free. And it's important to me that if I'm gonna share this information, that we can pair it with some practical tools that maybe you can try on and see if they work for you. And you know what I say? Journaling can never hurt. If you're feeling like, wow, I see myself, I feel myself in the this episode. I I know that experience, I've I've experienced it, I felt it. Get your journal out and write about that. There's probably some pain or grief that comes around not being understood or seen. And you can show up for yourself through a consistent journaling practice. I always tell people don't ever underestimate the power of pen to paper. So, in the meantime, take good care of yourselves, get those journals out, and I'll see you soon.