ANEW: Lighten Up!
It’s our own seriousness, self-editing, habits, or grief that block us
My friend sent me a message last spring that said, “Lighten up! You need to laugh more.” She wasn’t wrong. She told me she’d been trying to get this message through to me for some time, but I wasn’t listening. Of course, she wasn’t wrong. None of this, in fact, is out of the ordinary. The only thing is — the friend who told me to “lighten up” has been dead for seven years.
Yes, you read that right. Like you, I was pretty skeptical at first. But the more I ignored her entreaties, the more insistent she became, pushing her way back into my consciousness. Normally, I’m private about this kind of thing. But once again, she’s nudging me to share—her story, my story, our story.
Kimberly Oliver passed away on February 14, 2017, but to me, she is very much alive. Kim grew up in Warner Robins, Georgia. We weren’t just casual friends; we were partners. I never quite knew what to call her. Girlfriend? Significant other? Partners seemed like the best fit at the time. Like a law firm, I guess. Toward the end of our “formal partnership,” around 1996, we started calling what we had “relationship boot camp.” We both knew we were preparing ourselves for the next big relationships in our lives. For me, it was marriage and family: one wife, two kids.
Kim was the one who went to see another psychic—a good moment to mention that Kim herself was a psychic—who told her about a soul “waiting to enter this world” as my child—but not from her. I know this because Kim recorded the reading, part of which involved the dissolution of our relationship. Though it had been coming for some time, we ended things so we could both be free to start families of our own. Hence the “boot camp.”
If all this sounds a bit wild or obtuse, it’s because it is. The spirit world doesn’t follow the tidy logic of our physical world—or religious texts, for that matter—so I’ve been told. Visions, mediums, and messages from beyond are often about helping us get unstuck. They remind us to stop grieving and start living, to “be happy,” to follow the life we’re meant to lead. For me, that means lightening up and not taking myself so seriously.
And so, this post is both a message and a nudge—for you, for me, for all of us: lighten up.
What holds me back most is that deep, gnawing despair—the fear of not living up to my highest calling. Kim knew this about me. She always had a way of getting right to the heart of things. Even now, she’s still exploring, still helping me to do the same.
A medium I know told me that after I casually mentioned Kim and where she was from (which, coincidentally, was near the medium’s own birthplace), Kim wouldn’t leave her alone. Again, I had no idea about any of this when I met this person. “Oh, by the way,” the medium said, “did I mention I can talk to the dead?”
Classic Kim. She was famous for her psychic abilities and relentless curiosity. She was an explorer in life and, apparently, in death too. The medium shared insights that only Kim could have known, convincing me that she was truly in touch.
When those urgent tugs at your consciousness come—the ones that make you sit up and pay attention—you know they’re important. That’s what Kim’s message feels like. I don’t have the gift of speaking with the dead, though I talk to them all the time. I even wander through graveyards, reading names and listening for stories.
Right now, as I clear out my mother’s home, I think of Kim often. My mother, now in a memory care unit near Chicago, struggles with recognition. Yet, in rare moments, she recalls her childhood home at 5311 S. Prairie with stunning clarity. She describes the rooms, the furniture, the colors. “I visited,” she insists. And I believe her. It feels connected somehow to what Kim was trying to teach me: that the past, the present, the spirit world—they’re all intertwined.
So here’s the message I’m passing on to you: Don’t be afraid. Not of death, not of the unknown. There are souls—both here and beyond—who want nothing but the best for us. They’re cheering us on, urging us to live fully and with joy—in this life. Sometimes, it’s our own seriousness, self-editing, habits, or grief that block us from hearing them and from doing just that.
Take it from my friend Kim, who detests being called a “dead friend” but would want you to know this:
Lighten up.
Curated Listening:
Kimberly and I bonded over David Wilcox. This may have been the first song that we heard together when he was in concert in Hermosa Beach, CA. Listen to Eye of the Hurricane HERE. Yep, it’s about death and not about death. Right leg chills!
My favorite yet. Should be required reading.