The focus of this episode is the exploration of spirituality and the practices embraced by the millennial generation through my discussion with Carolyn Ulrich, a practitioner who engages with various spiritual modalities. We delve into her personal journey toward mediumship, examining the formative experiences that ignited her passion for tarot, astrology, and energy work. Throughout our discussion, we reflect on the generational differences in attitudes toward spirituality, particularly how Carolyn’s upbringing differs from my own experiences as a member of Generation X. The conversation further uncovers the profound emotional connections that arise during mediumship, particularly in the context of grief and the healing process. As we navigate these intricate themes, we invite our listeners to contemplate their own spiritual paths and the transformative power of connecting with the other side.

Welcome to the Dead Life.

Here's world renowned medium Alison Dubois.

Today I welcome Carolyn Ulrich to the show.

She practices spirituality in many forms.

So today we'll hear her story and see how the millennial generation envisions their craft.

If you want to watch past and present episodes of the Dead Life, you can follow me on YouTube.

Please like and subscribe.

Well, Carolyn, welcome to the show.

Hi.

Thanks for having me.

Well, just I met you, I did my research on tarot readers specifically because I was having an event and I wanted somebody that was great at their craft.

And you're, you're actually the person that stood at the top of all of the suggestions that were sent to me.

And so I asked you to come be a part of the event that we had this last week.

And, and I just, I really like your energy.

You're very grounding in energy and so I just wanted to give you that feedback.

And you also seem very open but not a doormat.

And I like that energy in a person compliment.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm so sad I didn't get a taste any of the, the vodka though, so that it will come.

I have a feeling that we'll get together again and you will taste that vodka.

So, so tell us when, when drawn to.

And I know there's, you're sort of a jack of all trades.

You do a lot under the umbrella of the ethereal mediumship, astrology, tarot.

Is that right?

Am I correct in that?

Yeah.

And I do, I don't really share energy work, but I still teach energy work.

Okay, so when, how old were you when you were first drawn to either the other side or you wanted your first deck of cards or got the scrolls and the little astrology vending machines as a kid to read your own astrology.

Like, how did it unfold for you?

You know, I still can't walk by one of those machines with a guy where you put the dollar in and get the little.

I have them in my wallet.

I can't.

It's like a compulsion.

I'm like, I have to get one.

I actually still have crystals that I got when I was a little girl that I remember getting when I was, you know, second, third grade.

Crystal.

I got my first tarot deck when I was in high school.

At 16, I went to my first psychic fair.

I remember I was 14.

I was a freshman in high school, and an older gentleman just took my palm as I walked by him and started telling me my fortune.

And he told me one day I wouldn't be there.

And I was like, I'm so freaked out because I was 14, you know?

Yeah.

And, of course, I was the middle school girl who did the lightest of feathers, stiff as a board.

The craft came out when I was in, like, fifth grade.

So, yeah, I mean, I probably started collecting crystals and rocks, like, in first and second grade.

But my first, like, actual divination was in high school, about 16.

That's when I got my first tarot deck.

Okay, so that's about right.

Hormones start kicking in, your abilities get sent up through the roof.

I had.

Was it Rachel on from the Craft?

Joe.

She.

She has a tarot deck.

Yeah, I had her on the show as well.

She's very cool.

So.

And that.

That was a cult for many and especially your generation, I would say.

Oh, I remember the day I got to watch it.

You're like, I really do.

So how did your family feel about you being into sort of the occult or the other side?

You know, I was just telling a friend the other day that I was raised going to church every Sunday, and I was forced to go to confirmation for two years in middle school, but we never talked about God or Jesus or anybody in our house.

We didn't talk about religion at all.

It was just, like, presented on a platter, and we were not told what to do with it.

And, of course, I rebelled and was kicked out of Sunday school and midweek school and all of the things.

My mom still has nightmares about getting pulled out of adult studies to come get me.

So I don't really remember as a judgment around me, like, being different or anything like that.

As a kid, I got in a lot of trouble at school just from the way that I spoke to adults and being wise beyond my years.

My parents actually always did a really good job at knowing that I did better with positive reinforcement, and they never made me feel bad or different.

I did when I started teaching.

I remember telling my mom when my dad passed, I was watching old videos from my childhood, and I'm clearly, like, in the corner of the video talking to animals or talking to trees, and I Told my mom, I said, man, as an educator, if I would have had me as a student, I would have thought I was very special.

And my mom looked me dead in the eyes and said, oh, we knew that you were very special.

So I think that they were very gentle.

I had two very wonderful parents.

Even the more as I got into adulthood, my mom, I think that she really just saw that I was happy and what.

That.

What I was doing, and the more that I was able to build a career around it.

She was just.

She never really thought it was possible to make money doing something that you love and that you felt passionate about.

And I remember her at Thanksgiving one year, like, speaking that praise, how she was so happy that I could do that.

And slowly I've kind of drug her into this side, if you will.

And now she participates and asks me questions and things like that.

My dad passed right around the beginning of me really doing it for a living.

So other than him being a very positive guy to me on the other side, never got anything from him.

You know, I'm a very tall, very loud, outspoken person, so not a lot of people like to go against what I say, even if they don't believe it.

So most of it said behind my back.

If anything, you know, you're like, I hear you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did.

I know that my grandma didn't necessarily feel the best about it, and she kind of spoke over my mom, but because I also am in education and I'm very educated in the academia side, she just focused on that.

So she was like, we'll just ignore the other stuff because, you know, she teaches college.

You're a really good example of a child who's raised with parents who let you be you and are more open to you expressing yourself in the way that you feel and what you know to be true.

As opposed to my generation, when I was a child, it was something where they didn't want you to talk about it because they didn't want you to be judged.

You know, this, that, and the other.

I, too, was not great in church.

I would tap into the person sitting in front of me and start telling my mom about the other woman I saw him with, which would end up being that man's mistress.

So that ended up being a problem.

So then I had to be in more of the daycare area throughout during church so that I wasn't letting my mind wander and probing people's energy that were around me in the pews.

So for me, growing up, being shut down and told to sort of Keep it to yourself or, you know, it's not something that you share.

Affected me in that I thought it was a bad thing that I was doing, but I was such a rebel, I did it anyways, you know what I'm saying?

So for someone else, they probably would have really.

It would have shut them down and they'd stop doing it.

But it almost made me want to do it more.

And as I got older and then raised my own children, they were raised with my friend Tom, who's a professional astrologer, and Jaina, who did tarot.

So they grew up around it and they're very open to it and they actually really enjoy it.

Intuitive intuitives themselves.

But it's just an interesting contrast for me to see a Gen Xer like me and Millennial generation you where you were probably raised by Gen X.

Did your.

Were your parents Gen X or did they fall in boomer category?

You know, they're both born in the 50s.

Okay.

Boomer category.

Okay.

But they were open, which is fantastic.

So our parents were the same generation and just different upbringings.

And I think because my mom experienced the kind of upbringing that you did, she didn't want to be like that to me, but she didn't know what to do, so she just chose not to do anything.

So it was like a free for all for me.

And my dad just wanted me to be happy, so he just was like whatever.

A lot of guidance, but better than restriction.

Back then they didn't have the information access that we have now.

They couldn't Google information on the other side.

And spirits, it was something you went to a library to check out a book if you could find it.

So it was just very different.

And we, you know, have to.

That's an ingredient in how we turn out as to what time we're brought up and by which generation.

All of that factors I found my dad passed around the time I started doing this professionally as well.

I see him as a catalyst to me and my connection with the other side and understanding my clients pain and their grief.

Did your dad passing help you to understand your clients better as well as to the depths of pain?

Yeah, you just articulated my experience to the T.

To the T.

I fully believe that that is what pushed me into the mediumship aspect was seeking the healing for myself.

And I tell that to a lot of people all the time.

It's not that you have to experience that kind of grief to get there, but I think that that's what opened up that door for me.

And because I was Able to find such healing.

And I still, on a daily basis, find healing through what I do in that connection to spirit.

I just want so badly to give other people that experience.

I also think that's why I'm very hard on myself and critical on myself on when and how and where I do readings like that, because I just know how much it can make or break people.

And it's.

It's.

I consider that.

That I don't.

I don't like, you know, saying psychic skills or anything like that are like gifts, but because to me, it's a gift that I give other people.

And I feel like that kind of sounds cheesy, but I battle with that ego part and taking the ego out and knowing, you know, that's.

I mean, the ego is a whole nother conversation to have around that, but absolutely.

You know, my dad came to me in an attunement I was getting, and I said, go away.

I don't want to cry.

And he said, I'm never leaving you.

And it was.

That was the beginning for me, channeling him, channeling my guides.

Then I moved on to other people's guides.

Then the mediumship came, and people that have never met my dad, been gone almost 13 years, and I talk about him like they.

It's weird that people don't know him.

I forget that these people in my life now never knew him, because to me, he's right here all the time.

I love that we have that in common, that we're perfectionists.

First of all, in our readings, we drive ourselves hard because we know that's the shot to help that person.

And if they walk away without hearing what they needed, that they may not get the healing that they require in order to rejoin the living, if you will.

Yeah, but I felt that losing my dad and I think you losing yours.

You don't know how a person feels unless you've lost somebody of that family member.

I think people who've lost children can understand other people who've lost children.

And we can try, but until you lose a child of your own, you don't truly understand the depths of the pain that one experiences.

Our dad's passing hit home for us in a place that we didn't even know existed inside of us.

An emptiness, a.

A need for their presence.

So my dad now helps me, and he has been for years, with readings.

I'll say, dad, can you focus her energy and turn up her volume?

And he adjusts her energy for me, the person I'm bringing through.

And it really helps I'm sure your dad could be very helpful in that capacity as well.

I'm like, dad, are you listening?

Do you hear what her dad does?

Step up your game.

Take your daddy to work day.

That's my every.

You know, one of my favorite things, though, is I receive a lot of readings for other people.

People that want to do my events have to give me readings.

And I just love.

I just love getting readings from people.

I think it's fascinating.

I like it from a research standpoint.

Yeah.

And I couldn't tell you how many people will tell me, you know, I'm not a medium, and I don't do that.

But I really feel like I have this dad figure.

And then they'll give me, like, a really big piece of evidence about him.

And I just tell them, like, it's because he's one of my guides.

And I'm like, you're connecting with him as a guide.

Energy.

Right.

And they get fascinated and weir it out.

It's pretty.

He was also a giant, tall Leo with a mustache and a huge personality.

So he shows up that way in spirit.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

It's funny when people give information that they pick up intuitively, and then we'll say, I'm not like you.

I'm not a psychic.

I'm not a medium.

When in fact, they're just not comfortable with labels.

But what we're doing is not any different.

And I try to explain that to them that that's what it is.

Because it took me a long time to figure out that other people didn't do and didn't see the other side the way I saw the other side and didn't do things the way I do them.

I assumed everybody was a wink and a nod.

You know, nobody talked about it, but of course, everybody could see the other side.

Everybody saw the dead.

Everybody communicated with them.

Because it's my only perspective that I have is my own.

And I find that interesting that other people just be when they know who's at the other end of the phone when it rings, because their face pops in their head the moment it rings.

That's psychic.

So whether or not you want to put a label to it, it's what you are, and it's about owning who you are.

So I just.

I find it so fascinating to see how people try and justify their own abilities and put it in a category that they're comfortable with somewhere over in the corner when it's such a big part of you that you just need to own and grow and honor.

But it takes time for some people.

I remember even putting medium in my bio on social media just because I don't want to deal with people's judgment and the way the things that I don't make time for that if people want to.

I just, I don't really.

People that want to have conversations about what I do being fake or any of that.

I don't just don't really give my energy to it.

It's still there.

You know, I get a whole lot of, oh, you're just a tarot reader.

Oh, you're just a this.

And I actually took college professor out of my bio because I'm trying to lean more into what you're talking about.

Like, I've never really liked the word psychic and I don't like to refer to myself as that just because the stigma around it, even though that's very much what I do and that's the actual future predictions.

That's something that's really started to grow for me lately too.

But yeah, it's hard.

Especially like you and I, I, we don't, I feel like we don't even like, look like what people traditionally would think are like, woo, woo, spiritual women.

Right Then.

No, we don't fit that bill.

So that's also interesting.

You know, people assume that you're going to, I don't know, like, what did you think I was going to look like?

Well, they think you're going to have, they think you're going to have like 16 cats and a bunch of scarves around your head.

And I do listen to Fluid Mac though, but in a crystal ball.

Like they have this idea of what we should be and when we step outside of that box, they're not really comfortable with it.

But I don't really care about those people because I've dealt with skeptics and cynics for the last 25 years.

And I know social media is hard.

People that shouldn't have a voice because their own families don't want to hear what they have to say.

All of a sudden we have to hear their thoughts.

And it makes it terribly intrusive and uncomfortable to have to have somebody else's family member that they don't want to hear it from unload on us because they're angry.

And so I found it's a certain kind of person I too.

Went to college and I graduated.

I got my degree.

I took my LSATs.

I was interning to be a prosecutor in homicide.

And that's how the first medium of episode, the episode of medium starts.

Because that's the background I had.

I'm married to a rocket scientist, which is another level of academia to deal with.

I understand what you're saying as far as almost wanting to compartmentalize your life of who you are, because it's all part of you, but you don't want one overshadowing or somehow minimizing the other part of you.

You can be an academic and be a spirit spiritualist, which is why I had a Catholic priest on my podcast.

And as he's also in my book, Father Nathan's and We Are Their Heaven, I wanted him to respond to things people would say about psychics and mediums from a religious perspective of why they say the things that they do about us as though we're Satan, and obviously we're not.

Because as I wore the T shirt in the late 70s in kindergarten, God doesn't make junk.

What happened to that?

What happened to people feeling everybody was special and, oh, just be yourself, and then you're yourself, and they're like, I don't like that version of you.

So we live in a very strange world right now where everybody says, be yourself, but then doesn't accept who you are, and you just have to find that comfortable place that is yours, like, carve out your own space.

But I understand what you're saying, and that's why with social media, if I find somebody very offensive, I'll block and delete.

I don't even skip a beat.

I don't care.

I don't want to hear their thoughts.

I don't have to because I grew up in a generation that didn't have to.

And so I stick with that energy because it works for me and keeping what's around me positive.

And we don't need more negativity in our field.

We deal with enough.

We deal with the dead, which is actually a lot to live with.

All of the readings that we do.

Have you experienced some traumatic readings where you were reading for people, for, you know, murder, suicide, something of a darker nature?

Or do you draw in the grandmas that have passed?

Well, it's.

I always joke that old men love me.

So lots of times, grandpas, they bring other people in.

Yeah.

But when you were talking about, you know, the death of different people and how we understand that connection so we can express it, you know, And I always tell people, too, like, I've never been married and I've never had children, so I can't speak to that.

I mean, I've read research on it.

Right.

But it's not the same thing.

But it was actually making me think of a story, of a reading I did.

And, you know, I feel a lot.

That's one of my greatest gifts, is they make me feel, and that's how I understand.

And I had a gentleman who.

It wasn't just the typical.

Like, I feel like he took his own life.

He actually.

I actually felt how he felt.

I actually felt how he felt in that grief and sadness.

And I was doing it with another person, a big gallery, and I had to.

I give him a look.

Can I take a step back?

And I said to Spirit afterwards, I don't ever want to feel that again.

I don't ever need to feel that again.

I understand.

And at that moment, I also realized that I had never been suicidal in my life because I had never felt like that before.

The depths of despair, right?

Yeah.

And I thought I.

I mean, I thought I had gotten close, but that was the different.

And then I've had some stuff like that with, like, military, where I have felt.

And I have experienced a lot of grief of.

I get a lot of rainbow babies.

So I was at a reading once, and my friend was in the room, and I had no idea that she actually had.

Had, like, three or four miscarriages.

And so I could.

And I could feel her grief.

So sometimes I've gotten a lot better at being like, let me just feel it for a second and let it go.

I can't hold onto that feeling because I know that's such a great gift, and that's how I can connect with people.

I did another one for a friend who'd lost a dad, and that was.

Almost took me out.

And I'll never forget, she stared at me without a tear in her face, and I was hysterical.

And then two days later, she messaged me and she said, carolyn, I feel like I have been lifted, like, all this weight.

Like, I feel like you transmuted my grief for me.

Yeah.

You took her pain.

You took the pain.

I was like, let's not do that again, though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was a lot.

Yeah.

It's something that people don't realize that mediums do.

Like, we feel like hell after a reading often because we took on the pain of the person so they could feel better, so they can start healing, so they could be in a better place.

And then you have to get rid of that energy, which is one of the things I teach my students is to take a shower down the drain away from me three times.

You know, it's a bit of a little incantation, but it works.

And just letting everything that you visualize, the disease, the suicide, the pain connected to you that's now trying to become part of you, that you cast it out and let it go.

And it's so helpful for anyone, whether they're psychic or just a sensitive.

They absorb too much energy out there.

And you have to learn how to not just let go of it, but cast it out and develop borders and boundaries with the dead and the living.

Because people are like, what do you mean by borders and boundaries?

I'm like, you gotta draw a line.

As you did with your readings when you said, I don't ever want to feel that again.

You told the other side what your borders and boundaries were in that moment.

And they'll abide by it.

For me, because I was being primed really from childhood to go into homicide and to work murders.

I willingly took it on because that's what I'm here for, it's what I'm made of.

And so all the other stuff out there, all the white noise, doesn't bother me because I've dealt with things that are so incredibly traumatic.

Nine, 11 families, you know, right after 9 11, and bringing them through, the person who died, their.

Their family member, their loved one, and feeling the crushing of cement on me, or the inability to breathe, or looking at a picture in my wallet right before I die, you know, things like that.

And so that's what I do.

Not just willingly, but I feel like I'm designed for it.

And I think that mediums of all walks of life have a niche that they.

That they vibe with a kind of reading, a type of reading, and that they should stick with that arena that they're really comfortable with.

Because if you stay in the field of mediumship and you read people that are highly traumatized, and it's not something that you can handle naturally as a person.

And I'm not saying for you, but I'm just saying in general, it will destroy you because you don't know how to process that kind of trauma out.

I worked in homicide.

I went through crime scene photos, autopsy photos, details of kidnappings, rapes, murders.

I treaded in the dark in that world.

And so I already had the borders and boundaries to protect my mind, to protect my energy, and to be able to function in that capacity, to help in the way that I could.

And I think it's good advice for other spiritualists or sensitives out there.

Don't go into a field just to challenge yourself, to see if you can handle it.

If it's something that, as an individual you don't feel like you can handle, you don't have to, because there's many of us out there.

I also feel like everybody who doesn't have mediumship and their tool belt wants it.

And then lots of times when you get it, you're like, do I really want that?

And then, like, I used to see people, and then I was like, yeah, we don't want to do that anymore.

And then recently, I started seeing people again, and I was like, do I want to call this back in?

You know, I.

I was told once that spirit respected my boundaries more than humans did.

And that always really stuck with me.

And I feel like energetically, I.

I understand that better.

Even, like, every once in a while.

I don't know if you experience where, like, you didn't necessarily cut the tie or they kind of pop back in.

You'll just kind of hear them, and I'll be like, you know, no, thank you.

Like, sometimes, especially when they're very charming and you.

But I feel like they'll leave when I say that.

My problem more is energetically with humans and the constant.

Connect their throat.

You know, when you have recordings of yourself out there like this, people are connecting to your energy over and over again.

And that was.

That was something I didn't understand as a child is, you know, nobody.

You know, they say most.

It's like 70% or something higher than that of little kids that are experiencing bellyaches when they say their stomach hurts.

It's really anxiety.

Yeah.

And I was just so sensitive as a kid.

I felt everybody's anxiety and everybody's feelings all the time as a child.

And I just.

I was nauseous every day of my life until I was probably 30 years old, really, before it started, I started to understand it.

And those energetic boundaries are.

You know, the people around me, though, that I struggle with more than with spirit.

Spirit is like, we respect you, and it's a.

It's a deal we have.

Right.

Like, you respect me.

That feels too strong.

I don't want to.

I can't give your message if I feel like I'm gonna black out.

Right.

So then they loot.

They lighten up.

Humans, they don't respect, you know, for.

Some reason, honestly, the dead is Miss Congeniality next to the living.

The Dead are so easy to vibe with.

And, like, you're so correct.

And the living sometimes don't.

They don't recognize your boundaries because they have none of their own.

And.

And it's so intrusive into our energy.

And I think it's why mediums have few friends.

We have few friends because we have to be able to handle the energy around us without it taking from us.

And there's very few people you can surround yourself with that won't take from you or won't suck the energy from you.

And so I actually count myself very fortunate in this group of mediums that prefers it that way.

The smaller circle.

I also like laying in bed too long in the dark with the air conditioning on.

I'm like, oh, it's like, calm, you know, there's no energy around me.

Even the event we just had at Handlebar J's, it was.

Everybody was around me.

Everybody needed something, and it becomes overwhelming.

And I had never made the connection before because I've never had another medium say this, but I had what they called a nervous stomach in the 80s when I was a kid, and they'd give me this lemon cream Maalox crap to drink that I thought tasted like hell, so I threw it in the garbage.

But I always had a nervous stomach.

And it is the anxiety.

And kids are sensitives by nature until they become jaded or callous in life, and it dulls their sensitivities, which is.

It's a shame that we have to live that way.

Go to Japan.

It's a different energy.

The people are all open, respectful of your space.

It's a completely different vibe.

And you come back here to the US and we have a lot of angry people.

So there's anger constantly being emitted out there and absorbed by other people, which then affects them.

It's interesting.

It's fascinating.

The more you travel, and I'm sure you've learned this, the more you learn.

Yeah.

You said you like to lay in the air conditioning in the dark.

I like to lay on the floor.

That is my fav.

My old apartment didn't have any carpet, and my mom gave me a piece of carpet because I didn't want a rug.

I wanted carpet.

Piece of carpet so I could just lay on the ground.

When I moved to it this year, my.

I just remember walking into my bedroom, into the closet, putting something away.

And I.

You know, I host these big psychic fairs with thousands of people, and I'm very extroverted.

So it also.

It energizes me to be around them, and I get so excited.

And then when there's always people there, then it's like I don't want to be there in the moment.

Yeah.

And then afterwards I miss it because I'm like, oh, I want to be able to enjoy it, but it's just so much.

But I remember getting home after the first night of this event and going in my closet to change and just laying down on this beautiful brand new carpeted floor, and I was just so happy to be grounded.

And I just stayed there for like 15 minutes and then I was fine.

I was just giving it to the earth.

But, yeah, maybe we should send you to the Renaissance Festival consistently for the entire time that it's in town.

And you could be around those people, which is.

There's a similar vibe to it.

It's not exactly the same, but that might.

That might make it so you're like, screw it.

I want a turkey leg.

You know, you just start having a good time because you just realize that you can do this.

You just have to acclimate to the energy.

And when we stay away from people for extended periods of time, we're not.

We're no longer acclimated to that kind of energy.

And then we go out there and it overwhelms us.

So totally relate to that.

Tell us about your spiritual affairs, though.

That was my next question.

I'm curious.

Tune in next week for part two of my interview with Carolyn Ulrich.

Thank you to my listeners.

I'm Alison Dubois.

This is the Dead Life.

And to all of my believers out there, don't stop believing.

Join us next week on the Dead Life.

And don't forget to subscribe now to get notified of every new episode.