PDF Summary:Always By Your Side, by Gaynor Carrillo

As a child, Gaynor Carrillo saw ghosts and visited the afterlife in dreams. In Always By Your Side, she recounts her journey exploring her psychic abilities—joining spiritual circles, experimenting with mediumship, and developing clairvoyance, clairsentience, and other senses to communicate with spirits.

Carrillo describes her beliefs about the afterlife as a dimension of boundless creativity and joy. She reflects on the responsibility of relaying messages from spirits to the living—messages of apology, guidance, healing, and enduring affection. Though challenging, serving as a conduit between realms proves transformative, offering wisdom about mortality and our shared human experience.

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• Carrillo's approach may resonate with modern spiritual movements that prioritize personal enlightenment and the idea that individuals are their own moral agents.
• This perspective can be seen as empowering, as it places the responsibility of moral and ethical understanding on the individual rather than an external authority.
• The process is also a part of spiritual growth, encouraging individuals to align more closely with their true nature and values.
• Reflecting on one's life can bring up a range of emotions, from joy to regret. This process can be therapeutic, helping individuals come to terms with their past and find peace.
• Recognizing interconnectedness can encourage more cooperative and altruistic behavior, as people become more aware of their role in the broader social fabric.

Belief in Relationships and Learning by Souls Beyond Death

Carrillo emphasizes that people's souls retain their personalities and emotional attachments after death. She describes how relationships continue to evolve after death, even those strained by conflict or suffering while living. The author provides specific examples from her sessions, demonstrating the continued love between spouses, the persistent bonds between parents and children, and the enduring strength of friendships beyond the physical realm. She highlights the otherworldly realm's capacity for growth and learning, suggesting that spiritual entities actively engage in activities that contribute both to their own evolution and to the advancement of the material world.

Practical Tips

• Engage in reflective meditation focused on the relationships and emotional attachments that are most important to you. During these sessions, visualize how you can strengthen these bonds and the legacy you want to leave behind. This mental exercise can help you live in a way that's consistent with the idea of an enduring soul, making choices and fostering relationships that reflect the lasting impact you want to have on those you care about.
• Write a narrative of your relationship from beginning to its current state, including your hopes for its future evolution. This can be a private journal entry or a creative piece like a story or poem. It's a way to actively engage with the ongoing nature of your relationship and can provide a sense of closure or ongoing connection.
• Record voice messages or videos expressing love and appreciation for each other on significant dates, such as anniversaries or birthdays, with the intention that they can be listened to or watched by the surviving spouse. This creates a personal and emotional repository of memories that can offer comfort and a sense of closeness after one's passing.
• Start a family tradition that can be passed down through generations. This could be an annual event, like a picnic or a storytelling night, where stories about past family members are shared. The tradition acts as a living legacy, reinforcing the enduring bond between you and your children, and between them and their future offspring.
• Start a tradition of writing annual letters to a friend who is no longer physically present. This practice allows you to articulate your ongoing thoughts, feelings, and life updates as if you were still in conversation with them. It's a way to maintain the friendship's narrative and acknowledge its continuing impact on your life.
• Engage in a 'random acts of kindness' challenge where you perform one unexpected, kind act per day. This could be as simple as paying for the person behind you in a coffee line or offering to assist someone with heavy bags. The key is to observe how these acts not only benefit others but also contribute to your own sense of purpose and interconnectedness.

Connecting With the Spiritual Realm and the Experience of Passing

Here, Carrillo explains how communication with the spirit world occurs, outlining different methods spirits use to connect with those in the physical realm. She discusses the primary psychic senses involved and provides numerous examples from her readings and personal life demonstrating how these senses work in practice.

Ways Spirits Interact With the Author and Others

Carrillo explains that communication with spirits happens primarily through a telepathic exchange where spirits transmit information that the author then has to decode and interpret. She emphasizes that this communication is not a simple dialogue but rather a complex process of deciphering symbols, images, feelings, and audio cues.

Spirits Using Clairsentience, Clairvoyance, and Clairaudience

Carrillo extensively discusses the different methods spirits utilize to interact with her, emphasizing that the process involves receiving and decoding information rather than direct conversation. She outlines the four main psychic senses—clairsentience (feeling), clairvoyance (seeing images), clairaudience (hearing), and clairalience (smelling)—and describes how spirits utilize these senses during readings. Carrillo provides specific examples of getting messages via each sense, such as feeling the physical pain a soul experienced at their time of death, seeing symbolic images like a yellow rose that holds personal significance to the client, hearing a soul's name whispered in her ear, or even smelling the distinct perfume associated with a deceased relative. She highlights the challenges of interpreting these communications accurately, as messages can be fragmented, symbolic, or misinterpreted based on personal biases or assumptions.

Other Perspectives

• Without a direct conversation, there is a higher risk of misinterpretation, as the context and intent behind the messages are not as clear as they would be in a direct exchange.
• The concept of psychic senses like clairsentience, clairvoyance, and clairaudience is not recognized by the scientific community as verifiable phenomena, and there is a lack of empirical evidence supporting their existence or functionality.
• Without empirical evidence or a mechanism to objectively test these claims, they remain anecdotal and cannot be substantiated within the framework of scientific understanding.
• It could be proposed that the use of additional context, such as information from the client or other known facts about the deceased, could significantly aid in reducing the ambiguity of these messages and lead to more precise interpretations.
• If the messages are symbolic and require interpretation, it could be argued that the symbols are universal and not as subject to personal biases or assumptions as the idea suggests.

How Spirits Communicate Through Signs, Synchronicities, and More to Reach Loved Ones

Carrillo further explains how spirits communicate directly with the living people they loved, not just through mediums. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing signs and synchronicities as potential messages from spirits. She provides numerous personal examples, such as specific songs that are heard at crucial moments, feathers appearing in unexpected places, and chance encounters with unfamiliar people who deliver meaningful messages. Carrillo encourages readers to be mindful of these occurrences, suggesting they hold deeper meaning and may indicate spirits attempting to communicate. Additionally, the author discusses the role of dreams in spirit communication, highlighting how vivid and memorable dreams can often be a means for spirits to connect with loved ones. She suggests recording dreams in a journal to better understand and interpret these messages.

Other Perspectives

• Coincidences are a natural part of probability and chance, and the human tendency to assign meaning to them does not necessarily imply the presence of spirits or an afterlife.
• Cultural and personal bias: The interpretation of signs and synchronicities is highly subjective and can be influenced by cultural background and personal beliefs, which means different people might interpret the same event in vastly different ways.
• The Role of Emotion: Emotional states can greatly influence one's interpretation of events. Grief or longing for a lost loved one might heighten the tendency to see signs where there are none.
• Recording and interpreting dreams in a journal, while potentially beneficial for self-reflection, does not provide verifiable proof of communication with spirits.
• Psychological studies suggest that dreams are complex and influenced by a variety of factors, including stress, life events, and mental health, which may have nothing to do with spirits.

Spirits Reassuring, Guiding, and Making Contact

This section delves into the nature of the communications spirits deliver. Carrillo emphasizes that communication serves several purposes, including offering comfort and reassurance to people, validating their identities and choices, passing on advice or guidance, and even predicting future events.

Spirits Apologizing, Expressing Affection, and Validating Identity

Carrillo analyzes her interactions with entities from the Other Side, highlighting how they often seek to mend past hurts, express love for those they've left behind, validate their loved one's identities and choices, or simply offer reassurance and comfort. She provides several examples: a spirit mother expressing remorse to her daughter for past mistreatment, a deceased husband promising his wife that he'll wait for her "forever," a young man reminding his friend they are still connected despite his death, and even a spirit son validating a personal choice his mother made after his death. Carrillo emphasizes that these messages offer profound healing and closure for those still alive, allowing them to process grief and move forward with their lives.

Context

• For many, these apologies serve as validation of their experiences and feelings, affirming that their past grievances were real and acknowledged.
• When spirits validate choices, it can help the living find closure, especially if there were unresolved issues or conflicts before the loved one’s passing, aiding in the acceptance of their loss.
• Sharing these experiences within a community can foster support and understanding, as others may have similar experiences or beliefs, creating a sense of belonging.
• This promise can symbolize eternal love and commitment, reflecting the enduring nature of relationships even after physical separation.
• People may experience signs or symbols they interpret as messages from deceased loved ones, such as dreams, finding meaningful objects, or experiencing unexplained phenomena, reinforcing the sense of connection.

Spirits Predicting Future Events or Offering Guidance

Carrillo suggests that entities sometimes offer guidance or even predictions about future events. She provides specific examples, such as an apparition revealing a forthcoming family reunion, a deceased friend warning the author against a business deal, a deceased son urging his mother to conceive another child, and a deceased husband advising his wife to go see her sister, who then experiences a sudden crisis. The author emphasizes that these messages often serve to guide loved ones towards positive outcomes, avert potential danger, or assist them in making important life decisions.

Other Perspectives

• The idea of entities predicting future events may conflict with certain philosophical or religious views on free will and predestination.
• The apparition's revelation might be a product of the subconscious mind, reflecting the individual's own thoughts, desires, or expectations rather than an external entity providing information.
• The experience could be a psychological phenomenon such as a grief-induced hallucination or wishful thinking.
• The notion of a deceased son communicating the urge to conceive another child could be a projection of the mother's own desires or grief, rather than an actual message from beyond.
• Confirmation of existing plans: The wife may have already been considering a visit, and the perceived advice from her deceased husband simply reinforced her existing intention.
• If spirits were able to consistently provide beneficial guidance, we would expect to see more concrete and widespread evidence of their influence on positive outcomes.

Spirits Communicating to Assist the Living and Deliver Messages

This final section of the book explores the impact of communication with spirits on the author personally as well as on the recipients of these messages. Carrillo reflects on being an intermediary, highlighting the responsibility and challenges inherent in facilitating these connections. She further examines the transformative nature of these experiences, emphasizing how they offer valuable insights into mortality and foster healing, understanding, and personal growth.

Spirits Using Author to Relay Messages

Carrillo reiterates how she sees herself as a conduit, allowing spirits to communicate with their family members. She emphasizes the importance of trusting her intuition and faithfully relaying messages received, even when they seem confusing or uncomfortable.

Spirits Mending Relationships and Providing Closure Through Reading

Carrillo recounts several occasions where spirits used her to mediate mending broken relationships or providing closure to unfinished business. She describes powerful encounters where spirits apologized for past actions, expressed regret for lost time, or simply reassured loved ones of their enduring love. Carrillo shares examples of a spirit ally seeking reconciliation with a former best friend, a deceased father apologizing for his shortcomings as a parent, and even a young man offering guidance to his friend who was experiencing domestic abuse. These readings highlight the transformative potential of communication with spirits in facilitating healing and forgiveness, even beyond the physical realm.

Context

• Carrillo acts as a medium, a person believed to have the ability to communicate with spirits, facilitating messages between the living and the deceased.
• Mediums like Carrillo may face ethical considerations, such as ensuring that the messages conveyed are respectful and do not exploit the emotions of those seeking closure.
• Such spiritual communications can have a profound impact on the relationships of the living, sometimes leading to reconciliation or a deeper understanding of past conflicts.
• For those who believe in spirit communication, receiving messages of regret can have a significant psychological impact, offering relief from guilt or unresolved feelings and helping individuals move forward in their lives.
• The idea of enduring love from spirits suggests that emotional bonds persist beyond death, offering reassurance to the living that their loved ones continue to care for them.
• The process can be therapeutic, offering emotional healing to those who are grieving or struggling with unresolved feelings towards the deceased.
• The concept of communicating with the dead has historical roots, with practices dating back to ancient civilizations, where it was often part of religious or spiritual rituals.
• Domestic abuse can have severe psychological and physical effects on victims, making support and guidance crucial for their well-being and safety.
• Mediums are individuals who claim to have the ability to communicate with spirits. They often conduct readings or sessions where they relay messages from the deceased to the living, aiming to provide comfort, guidance, or closure.

Spirits Using the Author to Help People Alive

Carrillo provides examples of souls utilizing her as an intermediary to offer direct assistance in the lives of their loved ones. She recounts instances in which spirits provided guidance for important decisions, alerted individuals to potential danger, or simply offered comfort and reassurance during challenging times. These examples demonstrate the compassionate nature of spirits and their desire to support those still navigating life's challenges.

Practical Tips

• Engage in a creative activity like painting or music improvisation with the intention of connecting to spiritual guidance. Before starting, set the intention to receive guidance for a decision you're contemplating. As you create, pay attention to any intuitive nudges or themes that emerge, which might influence your decision-making process.
• Create a personal 'danger scale' to quantify and respond to spiritual alerts. Assign levels of perceived danger (e.g., 1-5) to different types of alerts you feel. Decide in advance what actions to take at each level, such as seeking more information at level 2 or immediately removing yourself from a situation at level 5. This can help you react appropriately and consistently to your intuitive feelings.
• Create a spirit comfort journal where you document moments when you feel a sense of reassurance or comfort, possibly from an unknown source, during tough times. This can help you identify patterns or triggers for these feelings and reinforce the idea that you're not alone. For example, if you notice a sense of calm during a walk or when a certain song plays, jot it down.
• Start a "Kindness Chain" with friends or family where each person commits to one compassionate act per week, then passes on a token or message to the next person to do the same. This creates a tangible representation of the ripple effect of compassion and encourages a community of like-minded individuals. You might use a small object like a stone or a piece of jewelry that symbolizes the spirit of compassion to pass along.
• Volunteer for a cause that resonates with you, with the intention of being a physical manifestation of the support you believe spirits provide. By actively helping others, you're embodying the very principle you're interested in, which can deepen your personal connection to the idea.

Effect of Spirit Communication on Author and Recipients

Carrillo reflects on the profound impact spirit communication has had on her personally and on the lives of those she reads for, emphasizing the healing, comfort, and growth facilitated by these experiences.

How Connecting With Spirits Heals and Comforts, Offering Life and Death Insights

Carrillo speaks candidly about the emotional toll her role as a spirit communicator takes, describing the personal grief and exhaustion she experiences in holding space for others' pain. However, she also emphasizes the immense joy and fulfillment she derives from facilitating these connections and witnessing the transformative influence of communication with spirits. The author shares personal examples of how souls have comforted her during challenging times, such as her deceased father conveying reassurance through her son that she was never truly alone. Carrillo emphasizes how communication with spirits offers profound insights into life and death, fostering a deeper understanding of human interconnectedness and encouraging compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude.

Context

• Balancing personal life with the demands of being a spirit communicator can be challenging, leading to potential burnout if self-care is not prioritized.
• Mediums often become part of supportive communities where they share experiences and techniques, helping each other manage the emotional demands of their work.
• Various cultural traditions, such as Día de los Muertos in Mexico or the Chinese Qingming Festival, involve rituals to honor and communicate with deceased loved ones, emphasizing the comfort and continuity of familial bonds.
• While many find comfort in spirit communication, skeptics argue that such experiences can often be attributed to psychological phenomena like the subconscious mind or confirmation bias.
• Philosophies such as animism and certain Eastern religions propose that all entities, living or non-living, possess a spiritual essence, suggesting a universal interconnectedness that transcends physical boundaries.

Author's Role as a Facilitator of Connections Through Mediumship

Carrillo reflects on her role in her profession, highlighting the importance of responsibility and ethical conduct. She advocates for charging for her time and services, explaining that dedicating oneself to mediumship requires commitment and financial sustainability. The author emphasizes the challenges of interpreting spirit communications accurately and the importance of conveying messages truthfully and with sensitivity. Carrillo encourages readers to approach mediumship with openness and to recognize that some sessions may not provide a profound experience. She suggests that while specific details like names and dates may not always come through, the most valuable messages often lie in the subtle, personal details and the enduring love spirits express for their loved ones.

Context

• Ethical conduct includes ongoing education and self-reflection to improve skills and understanding of the spiritual realm.
• By charging for services, mediums can maintain their practice over the long term, allowing them to continue helping others without financial strain.
• Clients may have specific expectations or desires for the session, which can pressure the medium and affect the interpretation process.
• In some regions, there are legal and ethical standards governing spiritual practices. Adhering to these by conveying messages truthfully and sensitively helps mediums operate within the law and ethical guidelines.
• Openness can also mean being emotionally prepared to receive messages that might be unexpected or challenging, fostering a more meaningful connection with the messages received.
• Sometimes, the timing might not be right for a profound message to come through. Spiritual readiness involves both the client and the spirit being prepared for communication, which may not always align.
• Different mediums have varying abilities and methods of receiving information. Some may be more adept at picking up emotional or symbolic messages rather than concrete details.
• Subtle details can trigger emotional recognition in the recipient, providing comfort and validation that the spirit is indeed someone they knew.