I Think I Like You Better...Dead

BY TIM MIEJAN

CATHRYN TAYLOR IS KNOWN for many things, but being a medium is not one of them. Until now.

A pioneering therapist in the Twin Cities known for her work with the inner child — and author of the seminal Inner Child Workbook — she is a certified Emotional Freedom Techniques and Trauma Release Exercises practitioner who also utilizes the Akashic Records in consultation with clients. She helps people grow stronger by merging psychological, addictive and spiritual perspectives, and assists the general public through her growing library of YouTube educational videos and podcasts on BlogTalkRadio.

And in the midst of all of her work to support others, she suddenly was faced with her own crisis: the aneurysms that led to the death of her younger brother John, a soul with whom she had perhaps the closest relationship in this lifetime.

Despite signs that John was recovering from the first aneurysm, he suffered a second one that left him weak and at times unresponsive in the hospital. At his bedside, Cathryn said, “John, are you there? Blink if you can hear me. Blink if you want me to continue to connect with you — Soul to Soul, on that higher plane.” John began blinking incessantly.

Her brother made another valiant recovery — and then months later he fell down while trying to stand on his own. John did not recover. His passing naturally led Cathryn to experience much grieving, but somewhere deep, she knew her relationship with her brother would not end.

In a recent interview with The Edge, Cathryn shared about the book she wrote in tandem with her brother — I Think I Like You Better…Dead, which will be released as a Kindle and on-demand book early next month — and revealed how the two of them plan to continue working together, she in this physical plane and John from the Other Side, to better support her clients.

Cathryn Taylor: Well, it became a little obvious that there would probably be a chance of that, but it didn’t really formulate

in my mind until a couple months after John was gone. I just felt such a presence with him the last few months before he died — and then the last week for sure. By the third month (after his passing) I was sure not only was I supposed to write this, but that we had, in fact, a contract to write this.

The first 53 pages of the book outline both the closeness that we felt in early childhood and then the dissonance that came when he sent me a letter at age 30 saying he couldn’t be close to me anymore, because his wife at that time was uncomfortable with our relationship and how tight it was. All those reasons are explained. He became a source of criticism and judgment until the last couple years of his life — and then we had a re-convergence.

What is interesting about this story is there were always signs of a really deep soul connection between us. Even now after his death, he admits he turned away from me and how those issues are resolved now that he is on the Other Side.

He was a man’s man. He loved football. He loved to have a brew. He had a great personality. If I had to choose anybody to play him in a movie it would be Tom Hanks.

He had a delightful side of him, but there was also what I call that Taylor edge, that ability to just cut you down. We all kind of grew up with that. He was somebody that most people who would meet him would really like. There was a really adorable side to him. He was an insurance salesman and was in sales, and he was really good at that.

He did. He could make anybody feel comfortable. But, I wouldn’t say he was spiritually in tune, so the more spiritually inclined I got, the more distance there was between us.

I tell the story about being at his memorial and in talking with one of his best friends, I shared the spiritual exchange I had with John. And his friends looked at me and said, “Well, I got to tell you, Cath, most of the time John thought you were a real kook.” And, that was true.

But in the work we did the last year — and even the last weekend — of his life, it got confirmed that that was not true. Over the course of the last two years the exchanges we had reconnected us soul to soul. So the title of the book comes in the prologue, and it actually was given to us as we were celebrating the completion of the book. It really captures the reverent and irreverent quality of what we’re presenting. The book is fun. The book is exploratory. The book is adventurous, and we are having a good time now that he is on the Other Side — and that Other Side and meeting at the veil is so real.

It’s real for both of us. It’s like we’re being able to connect on a level that the human form disallows.

I’ve got to plug the teachings of Abraham here, because I’m not sure I would have ever pursued it to this degree had I not been studying the teachings of Abraham. I had gone to see Abraham during John’s illness, and one of the statements that was made that stuck with me was, “We don’t continue to have relationships with those on the Other Side because we don’t expect to.”

John and I talked about that. We had conversations in that last year about our commitment to staying connected and our beliefs in the possibility of that, so that door opened for a continued connection before he actually died.

The interaction that happened was shortly after he had his first aneurysm, when I

visited him. We’re walking around the hospital corridor and we take a seat and he looks at me. John had had a lot of death in his life, of friends, and he kind of jokes with me and says, “You know, I’ve got to tell you, Cath, most of my conversations are with people that are dead.”

We talked about death being the next big adventure. After his second aneurysm, I went to visit him, but he was completely unavailable. He was there, but vacant. He didn’t remember who his wife was. He didn’t remember who his children were. When I walked in the nurse said, “John, do you know who this is?” and he was able to say, “Yes, it’s my sister, Cathy.” But, that’s because the part of his brain that had the long-term memory had not been impacted.

But, he was not able to have a conversation. I tried to make some kind of telepathic connection with him, and at one point I said, the way we were getting him to communicate was to blink, so I said, “John, if you want me to continue to connect with you soul to soul like I have been, blink.” And it was so darn cute. He started blinking really fast, to the point where I didn’t even believe it. When I left, I had to call my friend, Darlene, and say, “This just happened!”

Did that really happen, or was I imagining it? All the way through this experience I kept consulting with my support group that does psychic readings and stuff, confirming, because as much as I professionally do that in my Akashic Records with people, doing it for myself personally is a completely different endeavor. Your ego wants it so badly, but you need that confirmation.

The project was writing our story from the perspective of the relationship and showing from both sides of the veil the adjustments that had to be made for us to continue the evolution of the relationship. There were steps I had to take, to be groomed for or to get ready for — the expansion of emotions and the expansion of spirituality. Because of my background in counseling, I had all the tools of grieving and all the tools of dealing with my doubt.

What I found fascinating — and what I think is part of the purpose of this book — is to show how those on the Other Side have to progress as well. It’s kind of assumed that once the spirit leaves the body, boom, they’re over there and they’re in a different dimension. John showed me the progression he had to go through —

including after the first two weeks of his death when he was going through his life review. I write about how I am going to target that in my dream state as a family therapist.

The purpose really is to tell an entertaining story to normalize the process and to give people a step-by-step idea of what they can expect if they’re able to get out of their own way and show up for it.

Another purpose is to inspire people to see that there are really three different kinds of relationships with someone on the Other Side. There’s the continued casual contact, “Hey, are you okay? Yes, I’m okay. You’re okay.” Those are the visitations that we read about. There also is the purposeful relationship where there is unfinished business and how that can be resolved. And the third relationship is contractual, like John and I have, where we pre-agreed to do work together. John and I are being trained to do multidimensional family work together.

We’ve got a purpose. John has assured me that he will be my ambassador now until I go to the Other Side. We’re in this for the long run. The book was just the first project.

We’ve already done some of the family work together. I have a person on this side that I’m working with and we set up a time where he connects with that person’s loved ones on the Other Side, and together we are conducting multidimensional family work. I’ve done that with a woman whose daughter committed suicide. I worked with her on this side and John connected with her daughter on the other, to bring some resolution for the woman.

One of the things that has been interesting to me is how we give so much credibility to the Other Side and what they have to tell us, but I have developed an appreciation for what we have to offer people on this side of the veil and how important we are as portals. One of the captions is, “You are my portal and I am your periscope.” Those on the Other Side are anxious for those of us on the physical realm to be receptive to them, because anything we can anchor in here is part of that creative force that Abraham talks about. It’s exciting to experience the cooperative and collaborative relationship that we can have once we, as humans, get over our grief. You can’t do that when you’re trying to hold on to those who have passed. I had to let go of John as my brother before I could connect with John soul to soul.

Those steps are what the book portrays.

I think that’s true, but what I’m being shown is that because of multidimensionality, John can be in relationship to me with our contract but it does not prohibit him from having other aspects of his soul continue. He’s already experiencing another lifetime that he’s started. So, I’m not holding John back from continuing, nor will our relationship on both sides have to end so his soul can progress. That was new to me.

I think that’s a dicey question, because we do need to let go of our attachment to them.

Exactly. We have to admit that they no longer are here. Throughout the book there are layers of every expansion John and I went through. I had to go through my personal grief, that he’s no longer here, that I can’t call him and ask him about this or that in the same way I used to. I had to learn a new vibrational signature for him.

Later in the book I went through a period where I let go of him as he shifted and became my ambassador, but the more I let go of him, the more his personality traits were able to emerge in a bigger way, because they were no longer a threat to me trying to hold on to him on this level.

In the book I make a huge point to explain that how my experiences with

John’s passing were different than those of my sister-in-law. I didn’t have to get used to him not being there every morning when I woke up like she did. If you’re still grieving and wanting your loved one to be there and you’re holding on to them for the wrong reasons, then vibrationally there can’t be a connection. I think the book does a really good job of taking the reader through those different variations of vibrations.

Right, and we lose contact and then we come back in and then I doubt if this is real or not. He told me, “it is real, get out of your own way, and just trust me and let go.”

Then at one point he introduced me to Alicia Power (founder of Soul Mentoring, www.soulmentoring.com) and her work, which is amazing, and then we started to work with that. That’s when the true readjustment of our vibrational frequencies began to be worked with. Alicia is out of Australia. She is a master intuitive who for the last 40 years has worked with the higher echelon of spiritual tutors and creative beings. She is a step beyond Abraham, because she is really working with the Other Side to help us in this physical form heal on all sorts of levels.

John introduced me to her and then he and I began to work together with her. His higher team and her higher team connected. I’m just sitting here one day and boom I see an email for a summit, boom, I sign up for the summit, boom I see Alicia. Within five minutes I had signed up for her event and then he and I were off on the next part of our journey.

That was when he fully became the ambassador. I had gotten over my ego enough to allow him. I was the older sister. I led him for his full life. So, giving him power was a little disconcerting. I was talking to him like this: “I hope the people you’re hanging out with up there are a little different than the ones you were hanging out with here, because they’re not going to even appreciate this book.”

He said, “That’s not your audience. You tell them that you’re talking to your dead brother and they’re going to laugh.”

And I said, “Well, truth be known, you were one of those.”

He said, “Yeah, yeah, I know.” You know? There was a lot of humor between the two of us regarding who was going to lead the other! It’s really a cute book.

It was two or three months before we could show up and do the work. About a month after he died I did a session with a medium and John just confirmed he was okay. It was an easy transition for him, but I need some time to acclimate and time to grieve. Then three months later he came to me in a dream and said, “I’m back.”

Yes. My response was, “Well, I’m not ready yet. I need a couple more weeks, and then we were off and running.” So, yes, he needed that time and I needed that time, and then progressively there were times when we had to separate from each other and re-acclimate, and then we would come back.

That’s what I found so interesting: the progression and the adjustment. It was not just a straight line where, “Okay, I’m ready to start doing this work.” At each juncture we had to recalibrate and then expand, and we kept being shown the tools to do that together.

The validation that he’s there. The evidence-based sign like signaling the story about Harvey the rabbit, which he played in his high school play. The life review that I was part of to the point where I was waking my husband up at night, because I was having conversations while I was asleep. Just the beauty of the veil being so thin.

I think it’s timely because there’s so much more to the multiple dimensions that we all exist in. It has even given my inner child work so much more credibility, because they aren’t images, and they aren’t memories. Those inner child meditations are really going back to the vibrational frequency of who we were then, and that was a validation beyond measure.

But, one thing I have to say, though, is that I was gifted with the expansion of John, and the security of my relationship with my husband on this side kept me grounded with someone I could share it with.

The transmissions are more about our relationship. I asked John that. I said, “You’re not going to be telling me anything new here. What’s going to be new about this book?” And, he started to laugh and said, “What’s new is that we’re continuing to have this kind of relationship and that we are really challenging the idea that there is such a separation between who we are.”

That’s what he’s starting to show me now. He said, “God, wait until you see everything that we’ve been and everything we’re going to be!” That’s what he promised after the book was done.

The book is just us getting it out to the world, but the true excitement of our relationship happens after the book. That’s when we get to hang out with each other and do our multidimensional work on this side and that side, where he’s going to be able to take me to other universes! That will be our story, and everybody else will have their own story. We just want people to realize that it’s possible. What they do with their loved ones is going to be unique to their own experience, and we really want to validate the reality that their story won’t necessarily be the same as ours, but this will give them a starting point.

The willingness to open up to a continued relationship, and the desire to work through your own attachments to the limitations of this reality. Most likely you have been many things with those that are on the Other Side that are going to call for this kind of relationship. There is such a history of our souls, so we hope to inspire that exploration and to take away some of the myths.

I would actually say in a more relaxed way. I’m getting to the point now where the way that John communicates to me is just understood. It’s like when I developed the book cover. It was almost like I was a robot and they were just working through me. I’m not a graphic artist! My husband came home and said, “God! I didn’t think you’d be able to pull this off!” And I said, “I don’t think I did!”

That cooperative collaborative relationship between us and the Other Side happens, and I’m hearing other stories about that — musicians and artists who have contracts and are connecting with people from the Other Side. I think we’re going to start hearing more and more stories about these cooperative relationships. a

TIM MIEJAN is editor & co-publisher of The Edge magazine. Contact him at 651.578.8969 or editor@edgemagazine.net. Visit The Edge online at www.edgemagazine.net.