Maureen herself, would have been absolutely cynical and untrusting of anyone who said they were a channel or medium. The only reason she let go of her protective, conservative views, was because it happened to her. How can you deny something, that you experience yourself as truth? Maureen was always interested in self-help books and self-improvement, but never took it farther than that. She had an Education degree, with plans of teaching for the rest of her life.

When Maureen was pregnant with her first daughter, she became ill enough that normal allopathic protocols were not going to make her better. She was forced into the world of alternative medicine, including some ‘new age’ healing alternatives. Though she scoffed at them at first, she was desperate enough to try them. One modality called The Bodytalk System did help improve her symptoms quickly enough that she was so inspired, she became a Bodytalk Practitioner herself, one of the first few in Manitoba. Slowly Maureen realized that there was a whole world of healing that her resistant views had blocked her from experiencing.

One day, spontaneously while doing the Bodytalk System protocol with a client, she felt a presence in the room. She could sense he was a man. She had no belief systems at this time about ‘angels’, and so assumed that it was a ‘ghost’ – a deceased brother or husband connected to the woman she was doing the Bodytalk session with. This ‘man’ spoke to her, telling her his name was Michael. He asked Maureen to relay information to her client, that was accurate about her health concerns and issues with her family. While in the middle of relaying this information, her first foray as ‘messenger’, the client asked if it was Archangel Michael and the ‘man’ said yes. (This client was Roman Catholic and asked Archangel Michael to be around her all the time in her prayers). Maureen continued to play messenger and give the advice to her client, but she was shaken up. How the hell could this ‘man’ possibly be an angel? She wasn’t even sure if she believed they existed. The client left, happily overwhelmed with the session. Maureen crashed, convinced that she had just made up all that information in her head, and that she was ‘crazy’. Within days, people were calling Maureen to ‘talk to Archangel Michael’.

Maureen had no idea how he had appeared in the first place, nor was she sure she wanted to talk to him again or could conjure him at will. It took Maureen some time to familiarize herself with books on angels, discovering that there were other channels out there who did talk to angels and guides, and that truly, this wasn’t so ‘weird’ after all. Perhaps not the norm, but certainly possible. And thus Maureen began her foray into channelling in 2006. It took Maureen many years to work through her resistance to being a channel. Many people who had known her for years (including family members), had a difficult time understanding her newfound beliefs and abilities. Though Maureen channelled Archangel Michael at first, at times, she would channel other guides that were attached to the clients that she would see for sessions. She did not like the uncertainty of not knowing who would come through, so asked for her own personal guide who would be consistent no matter who she saw for a session. It took six months of asking, but one day when she did a session with a client, a new guide appeared. The client went home, but the guide stayed in Maureen’s house and continued to talk to her. That was the day she met the collective consciousness SAM – Securely Attached to Mankind. They explained that they were a group of thousands of guides, who had mastered this game of life. They created a ‘collective’ in thought so that they could all teach the same wisdom – thus were a ‘collective consciousness’.

What Maureen discovered quickly about SAM was that they were very down to earth. They had a tell-it-like-it-is approach to giving guidance, which fit well with her personality. Maureen was concerned that her ‘potty mouth’ (Maureen has been known to drop an F bomb here and there) would get in the way of channelling. Instead, SAM told her that part of the reason they picked her, was because they liked her use of language (even the swearing). They wanted to normalize channelling and lose the stereotypical expectations of a channel (basking in white light, seated like a yogi, exuding out prose and prayers). Maureen was not convinced – who was going to believe that she was channelling guides if they allowed in this ‘normal’ dialect that the general public used? Over the years, Maureen has discovered that what people say about her the most, is that they could relate to her/SAM right away, because of this exact approach. “She’s so normal! It was just like talking to a counsellor, or a friend!” This is what SAM wanted, this integrated style of channelling, where they feed Maureen the guidance, but allow her to express it through her own vocabulary and dialect. 14 years in, Maureen has learned a lot of new vocabulary taught by SAM, and so her own language now is integrated with more of their wisdom. She still likes to swear though!😉