Blooming Wand

Signs From Spirit: Are They Real Or Are We Making Something Out Of Nothing?

• Emily O'Neal • Season 3 • Episode 13

Share episode

Send us a text

In this episode I weigh personal signs and evidential readings against cognitive science, asking how much is guidance and how much is bias. 

I share specific stories, practical discernment tools, and a stance that welcomes both wonder and rigor without sacrificing either.

• critique of Tara Swart’s “new science” claims and gaps
• overview of essentialism, dualism, and the hard problem
• how cognitive biases shape pattern recognition and meaning
• why evidential mediumship demands specifics and verification
• stories of pennies, eagles, roses, tarot, and a jay
• practices for balancing intuition with skepticism
• reflection questions to test beliefs and sharpen discernment

Send your sign stories to: emily@bloomingwand.com or visit bloomingwand.com to share with the community

https://www.bloomingwand.com
https://www.youtube.com/@bloomingwand_emilyoneal

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Blooming Wand, your home for grounded spiritual content. I'm Emily O'Neill, Evidential Psychic Medium, Intuitive Healer, and Coach. And I like to think of Blooming Wand as your quiet, cozy corner of the internet where we talk about spirituality, rituals, spiritual practices, and more, and exploring different perspectives and histories on said topics. And this episode is going to be an interesting one. Its theme is signs from spirit. Are they real or are we making something out of nothing? And it's all about how a review of Tara Zwart's book, The Signs, The New Science of How to Trust Your Instincts, got me thinking about some pretty big topics. Now, I first heard about Tara Zwart through her YouTube appearances discussing intuition and science from the universe. And as a medium, I was curious about her latest book, which as I said is Signs, The New Science of How to Trust Your Instincts, which was published this year in 2025. And before adding another kind of validation of spirituality and validation of my beliefs kind of book to my reading list, I checked the reviews. And that's when I came across a comment that really got me thinking and researching a topic that I don't think I'd explored in a meaningful way. So, in a way, this episode is taking you down that rabbit hole that I went down when I read that comment. But it was a rabbit hole in the best possible way because I learned some things. A reviewer pointed out that Zwart's book, despite being written by a neuroscientist, didn't engage with research by Professor Iris Barent, B-E-R-E-N-T, if you're going to look her up, on cognitive biases. Now, why does this matter? It turns out that Barent's work directly challenges how we interpret signs and spiritual experiences by suggesting these perceptions arise from a built-in physiological bias rather than actual metaphysical phenomena. Whoa, right? Now, before we dive in, I do want to say that I believe in signs from spirit. I've experienced them and I know that many of you have too. And that my intention here is just to engage studies and views that challenge this belief, because I think that it's important to explore all perspectives. And in doing so, we engage our critical thinking and we learn. Now, what the signs doesn't address. So, what is not addressed in Tara Zwart's book? So, a little bit about who the author is. Tara Zwart is a neuroscientist, medical doctor, and senior advisor for neuroscience and leadership at MIT Sloan School of Management. In the signs, she draws on her personal grief after losing her husband to leukemia, alongside cognitive science, to argue that synchronicities are not random chance. She teaches readers to trust their intuition, recognize signs as guidance from the universe, and use neuroplasticity to review, to rewire the brain to notice these signs. All stuff I say to you guys all the time and that I'm really interested in. However, the book has been critiqued by the Society for Psychical Research, which, if you don't know about them, they research psychic phenomena, mediumship, all the stuff we love to talk about here, and a lot of the stuff that like I really value. And they criticized her for avoiding the very question that psychical research exists to ask, which I think is rooted in what they call the hard question of consciousness. And we're going to talk about that a little bit later in the episode. But I kind of agreed with this critique. I got the book because it said the new science, and I thought I was going to get more science about trusting your instincts in it. It really didn't answer a lot of the questions that I had or the more difficult questions that I had. And I think that that's what this critique was all about. It's like, well, yeah, well, this is a lot of the information that she presents isn't new, and it avoids any kind of the any of the hard questions that kind of come up around these topics. But the critique that led me to this sort of deep dive that I've been on came from a totally different direction. I think it was a review on Amazon that I saw of the book, but it was that Zwart doesn't engage with cognitive bias research that might challenge the entire framework of her book, which is a choice that she probably intentionally made. I don't think she's unaware of this research, and she probably had her reasons for doing it. I wish more people would talk about research, science, and findings that do challenge some of our beliefs in the metaphysical arena, like around psychism or mediumship signs, near-death experience. As I said, I still believe in these things, and I don't mind reading things that challenge my beliefs. I find it incredibly interesting. And, you know, science can't explain everything away, but I think the attempt to discover how things work is wonderful. And sometimes we get answers we don't like, and that's fine. Now, some of the things that she doesn't include in her book are cognitive bias, which is our tendency to notice and remember things that confirm our beliefs, pattern recognition, our brain's evolved tendency to find meaningful patterns, even in random data, apoplea, which is seeing connections between unrelated things, and the psychological need for meaning, especially during times of incredible grief and stress, or Iris Barent's research, showing that our perception of consciousness as special may be itself rooted in how our brains categorize mind versus bodies. Now, Zort does use neuroscience terminology to make spiritual experiences feel scientifically validated, but she doesn't engage with research that might complicate that validation. And I want to take a different approach and honestly engage with the challenges, including the cognitive science that questions whether spiritual and intuitive experiences mean what we think they mean. So who is Iris Barent and why should we care? Well, she's a cognitive psychologist from Northeastern University who studies how our minds naturally categorize the world. Her research on afterlife beliefs and dualism brings up an important question. What if our certainty that consciousness can survive death isn't based on reality, but on the way our brains are wired to think? Now, here is what I want to say. Barent does not study mediumship, psychic abilities, spiritual intuition. She doesn't study these things directly. She studies the cognitive biases, the automatic thought patterns that we all have that make us believe in these things, or kind of could explain our belief in these things to some degree or extent. And here's her core argument. So we talked about that hard problem of consciousness. So philosophers and scientists talk about the hard problem of consciousness. They've been talking about this forever. And when you stub your toe, scientists can measure everything physical. So this is where the hard problem comes in: nerve signals, electrical impulses, neuron activation, chemical releases. But here's the puzzle. Why is there also the actual experience of pain? Why does it feel like something to be you? What is it? Why does it feel like something to have pain from a stubbed toe, let's say? Barent's claim. She's saying that maybe it isn't a mystery about consciousness at all. Maybe it's a mystery about us and how our brains are wired to think. And she argues that there's this split between mind and body that's not based on reality. It's based on two automatic mental patterns, which are essentialism, where we believe things have invisible essences that make them what they are. And we apply the same thinking to people. There's something invisible that makes you you. There's something invisible inside you that makes you you. Now, essentialism was something that came up in my mediumship development. It was one of the first things that we were taught was to capture someone's essence in a reading. That when we felt a spirit presence to lean into, quote, their essence, whatever it was that made them who they were, which was special and unique to every spirit communicator. So when I was reading about this, obviously it piqued my interest. I'm like, I know what essentialism is, I know about essences. You probably do too. The second is dualism. We instinctively categorize minds and bodies as fundamentally different categories. Bodies are physical objects, minds are, well, frankly, something else. This happens automatically and with without us even thinking about it. These aren't beliefs that you choose, they're built into how your brain processes information, like wearing invisible glasses that you've had since birth. Now, here is a key insight from Barent's research, and I'm going to try to sum it up as best as I can. Our sense that consciousness is mysterious changes depending on what we're comparing it to. So let's dive in. She discovered this from asking people a series of questions, and I'm going to try to frame that up in a short and concise way for you here. So imagine somebody saying, Could you have all the physical brain processes? So neurons firing, chemicals releasing without any felt experience. Could you be a perfect physical copy of a person, but with nobody home inside? And think of it like being a zombie. I mean your move, your body's moving around, but that consciousness isn't there. And most people say, Yeah, that seems possible. Consciousness feels like something extra beyond the physical. Okay. Now she asks the same person another question. When you experience seeing red for the first time, does that change your brain physically? And the same person answers, of course it does. That's what brains do. They process experiences. So then the question becomes, is consciousness separate from the physical or not? Because the person just gave contradictory answers. And this inconsistency is the clue. It suggests we're not perceiving consciousness accurately. We're perceiving it through cognitive biases that make us categorize minds as different from bodies, even though we know that minds depend on bodies. And for my fellow yogis out there, we have been practicing, right, that union of mind and body, and we can feel it and sense it. Many of us do, no matter what our practices are. So it's weird we know they're united, but depending on what question we're asked, we do see them as two separate things. Sometimes we see them as separate things, sometimes we see them as united. This is the problem, the hard problem of consciousness that we were talking about. Why does this even matter? Well, Barent's study doesn't apply, she's not studying mediumship specifically or science, but her work as well as other people's work raises questions that I have to kind of sit with, including when I feel certain that consciousness continues after death, how much of that certainty comes from accurately perceiving reality and how much of it comes from the built-in cognitive bias? And can I even tell the difference? And when I see repeating numbers or a meaningful bird appears at just the right moment, am I perceiving actual guidance from the universe, or is my brain finding patterns and assigning meaning where there might be only randomness? Now the feeling of connection that I experience during readings, that sense of a presence, a personality, a consciousness reaching through, could that feeling itself be generated by my dualistic bias? I can't help but wonder if the strong intuitive certainty I experience when I'm working or experiencing, quote, signs isn't proof, but maybe it's just my brain's categorization system doing its job. And I'm not gonna lie, asking myself these questions made me go, yikes! Like, whoa, this is some big stuff to ponder. Now that said, these questions make evidential accuracy more important to me than ever. I can't just rely on the feeling of connection, though I do feel this is incredibly important to my work. I must also provide evidence, such as specific names, verifiable details, and facts that I could not have known through normal means. For signs and synchronicities, I'm going to need to be more conscientious. The cognitive bias explanation handles these well. They're subjective, interpretive, and exactly the territory where pattern recognition and meaning making would operate strongest. Now, lastly, I think it's okay that science can't fully explain mediumship, psychism, signs, near-death experiences, or other spiritual phenomenon. I think it's okay that we believe in them, and I think that it's okay that we feel that they are healing, supportive, and miraculous because frankly, they are. Now, where the bias explanation struggles, or at least does for me. Barent's work has different implications for different phenomenon. And let me be honest about where I think the biased explanation works and where it doesn't. For signs and synchronicities, I think the cognitive bias reachers is genuinely challenging. And when I see repeating numbers or that meaningful bird, I can't prove that's not my pattern-seeking brain at work. I hold these experiences a little differently now with more openness to the possibility that some might be biased and some might be actual real guidance. And the way I tell the difference is just something I'm going to continue to work on. And that I think that that practice will be unique to me, and your practice will be unique to you. But evidential mediumship is kind of different territory. The evidence problem. So Barent's research might explain why humans have historically believed in an afterlife, but it doesn't explain the specific, verifiable, repeatable phenomena that occur in evidential mediumship sessions, including specific information that I couldn't know. When I provided deceased person's nickname that only the family used, and I've never met this family before, what am I actually accessing? Your grandmother sends love feels like a bias, but showing me that yellow bird statue that she kept in her kitchen windowsill feels different. Physical details. When I describe a specific object hidden in someone's home that relates to their loved one, where is that information coming from? Where does it come from? I obviously feel like it comes from the spirit communicator, but I can't prove that. So I'm open to this like question where does it actually come from? I'm never going to tell you I have all the answers because I don't. Convergent evidence. When multiple unrelated mediums provide consistent information about the same deceased person, how do we explain the convergence of that information? You can go to five different mediums, they don't know you, they don't know each other, and they bring through people and they bring through similar or consistent evidence. How the heck is that working? Post-death knowledge. This is one of my favorite things that happens during readings, by the way. When I share details or events that happen after the person's death, so information the deceased couldn't have known while alive in the traditional sense, what mechanism allows for that? So meaning spirit commander gives me the spirit communicator gives me information about you and what's going on in your life today, and they've been gone a while, which that happens a lot in readings, actually. The cognitive bias explanation might account for the feeling that consciousness survives, but it doesn't explain how specific verifiable information emerges. It's like explaining a car by only describing the driver's expectations about transportation, but you're not actually addressing how the engine actually works. I don't know if that's a perfect analogy, but I'm trying here. Both things can be true. And this is kind of where I'm at right now. What if we do have cognitive biases, which we know we do, that make us naturally perceive consciousness as mysterious? I think Barent's right about this. And consciousness genuinely continues after death in a way we don't yet understand. I think that's true. I don't think we understand this. And understanding our biases helps us distinguish genuine connections from projection or wishful thinking. I do think that kind of by taking on board some of this information that we're discussing here, it can make us not question everything like prove it to me. I need facts. And it's more of like, I'm gonna learn to use my discernment and feel and sense into are there some biases at play here, or am I really getting a sign, a symbol, information from the spirit world? And that's been a really important thing for people who work as psychics and evidential mediums to develop. It's actually something that we're taught and that we work really hard at. And through practice, right? And through working with each other and having good mentors. It's a huge part of mediumship development, actually, to kind of know where that line is. And it's not always easy to find. I won't lie to you about that. I don't want you to think that I'm being anti-science, quite the opposite. I'm I'm kind of loving talking about this, these studies, but it's acknowledging that our current scientific model may be incomplete. Just as physics once couldn't explain quantum entanglement until we developed new frameworks. Perhaps we need new models to understand consciousness after death. Here are some questions for reflection. Have you ever experienced synchronicities or signs that felt too specific to be coincidence? And I'll tell you that some of what Tara mentions in her book, they're pretty darn specific. It'd be hard to just explain that away with some of the topics we've talked about today. And I'm also going to mention another book, which is called Just Plain Signs by Lorelyn Jackson, who is an evidential medium. And I really admire her work. And she has some wonderful, very specific stories of signs, and it's pretty hard to explain it all away. How do you distinguish between wishful thinking and genuine intuition? I, oh my gosh, this is one that I really work with a lot with people that come to me or in my mentoring program. They'll ask themselves this question I mean, is this wishful thinking, Emily, or is this my intuition? And and that's where that discernment comes in in practicing. And I would say that development of intuitive abilities is a process that unfolds over time. Some people come into the world and they're pretty, they're kind of quote naturals at it, but they still need development. We all do. And it and I think we live in a culture that wants things right away and instantaneous. But for you to build trust in that intuition and trust in the signs that you're receiving, you have to give things time to unfold. And you have to be open, but also skeptical. Like curious but skeptical is always a kind of a fun balance. I'm curious about this, but I've also got my rational mind that's gonna question it a little bit, and I'm not just gonna so to drink the Kool-Aid, so to speak. Now I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and I want to say again, I do believe in signs from spirit. I've experienced them, and I know that you have too. But let's think about some of these things that challenge that belief. And let's ask people who are gonna publish books or create content to also include and incorporate information that might challenge what they're saying, and to acknowledge that that information too exists in the sphere of like spirituality and metaphysics and include and incorporate that into the conversation because we I don't think it's appropriate to completely like ignore it. And it's I think it's through conversation and sharing of ideas that we can kind of learn and learn and grow. Now, on that note, I wanted to share some of my signs that I've gotten that are kind of unexplainable with you. And they're pretty, one of them's kind of pretty wonderful. So let's kind of dive into a little storytelling before we close. So when my mother-in-law passed, we had to fly across the country. They lived in Virginia at the time. Obviously, things were very busy getting ready for the funeral and just everything. And I was helping my father-in-law and the family. I cleaned the whole house. I took care of everything because we were gonna have people come after the funeral. And I cleaned that house pretty good, head to toe. And after the funeral, I came home tired, exhausted, sad, grieving, as we do, all do. And I sat on the couch and there was just a perfect penny sitting on the couch cushion, and nobody else had entered the house yet. There were no was no change around the house or anything like that. I was like, that's weird. And I just noticed it and I thought, hmm, maybe that's my mother-in-law kind of giving a sign, but I didn't think that much of it. And I put the penny away and I let it go. And I did mention it to my husband. And then it was time for us to fly home, and we do not carry change, we don't carry really cash or anything like that when we travel. I know we didn't have any change. I know it for a fact. And when we went to check, go through the airline check-in, you know how you do you have to go through the metal detector and get screened and all that stuff. I mean, you put your stuff in those bins and then they go through the screening. I remember putting my stuff in the bin and putting my husband's stuff in the bin, and they were empty and clean, and there was nothing in them. I have a vivid memory of this. And then they go through and I pulled them out, and there were a penny in mine and a penny in his. And I was like, oh, there might be something to this. You know, she's leaving pennies for us. And I mentioned it to my husband, and he's kind of like, eh, yeah, whatever. Like, oh, I think your mom might be a, you know, a lot of people from spirit or people that I know have people in spirit who leave them coins. It's like kind of a thing, it's a phenomenon that happens. And I'm not the first person to experience it. And then later on down the road, you know, life is changing and things are evolving. And I thought, well, I'm gonna ask her for a sign to leave me a penny if I need help. And there were times where I would need help, and I'm I kid you not, the penny would just show up where it couldn't have shown up, right when I needed it, in kind of remarkable ways. Like I'll tell you one, I've got the penny thing I could go on and on about. But so my brother-in-law came to visit us, and I thought, oh my, I was talking to my mother-in-law, who I call Mama Jane. I said, Oh, Mama Jane, you know, your sons are together. Wouldn't it be funny if you left us a penny? Because that would just let me know that you're happy that we're together. I was like, give us a sign. And so we were all gonna go out to dinner and get into my car, which has no change in it. It's all I'm telling you, I don't have any coins or change. I I don't think anybody carries pennies anymore. And we went to get into the car, and on the seat, right where my brother-in-law was gonna sit, was a shiny penny. And I was like, Oh, that's your mom giving a penny to you. And he's like, Well, that could have come from anywhere. And this is the funny part. My husband's like, No, no, it's definitely our mom. We don't keep, we don't keep pennies around. There's no coins in the car, like that's her. And he kind of chuckled and laughed it off. And then just this year, my husband received an award from the military, the distinguished flying cross, which is kind of a big deal, and we had to fly to Nashville. And his dad and his brother were picking us up, and I said, Oh, I wonder if Mama Jane's gonna leave us a sign. And I kind of asked her to. And so we were just walking out of the airport and about to hop in the car, and I went to take a step, and sure enough, right on the ledge, just precariously perched on the curb, was a penny. And I was like, Look to my husband. I'm like, there's a penny because she's here with you while you're receiving this award. And so we've collected them and kept them. And I have more stories about the pennies appearing, and it might sound simple or maybe not specific enough, but I think that when I experienced them and the way they appeared and where they appeared in places where I knew for sure coins were couldn't be, or the way that they were perched, was just super interesting. So I call that's my pennies from heaven story. I have another story about developing as a medium right before I was starting to do my practice readings with the public. So I trained with the Oak Bridge Institute, and there's a period where we're asked if we're ready to go and do readings for the public, which is supposed to help us learn and develop. Because if you have to you get to the point where you have to start doing readings. And I was scared. I was like, oh man, like I don't know, working with the public, what if I mess up? What if I can't do it? And I said to Spirit, please give me the sign. Can you send me an eagle? And it was a Sunday, and I went on a walk, and I do see birds and eagles around here. So I was like, Yeah, you're probably gonna see one because you see them anyway. And I thought, hmm, we'll just wait and see. Well, when I came walking up from my walk, I did see an eagle, but it was perched in the tree in my yard in a place that I would have never seen them before. And the way that it was acting and kind of the way where where it was positioned, just so I could see it like front and center in the yard, I was like, oh my gosh, there's the eagle. But then I thought, well, okay, that helped me get through that day or that reading. And then the week went by and I was doing all of these mediumship readings, and I was still feeling like I really I need some support. Like I'm I'm doing okay, but this is still kind of scary for me because I I take what I do seriously and I want to take good care of people, and I want to develop like a high standard of care. I want to help people basically help them heal. And I had just been out pruning my roses, and I had I have a beautiful red rose, it's like gorgeous, and it was kind of done because it was fall, and there was no more blooms, so I kind of pruned a couple of the dead, I deadheaded it basically. And I'm telling you, there was no blooms or buds on that rose bush. I know it because I just pruned it and tinted it and was taking care of it. And I was like, oh, the rose is done for the year. There's not going to be any more blooms. And then I thought, well, I'd really love a sign from spirit. Maybe they could send a red rose, and that would happen. And I was thinking it would come through. I don't know. I didn't know what I was how I thought it would come through. But on a day when I was getting ready to do readings, I was taking the dogs out and I walk by the rose, and there was a red rose blooming on the rose bush. And I have no idea where that rose came from or how it bloomed. And I was like, I took a picture of it. I was like, oh my God, like this is remarkable. There was no buds or blooms, but then miraculously, like a day later, there were. It was pretty remarkable. And that's when I started to think, you need to take this more seriously. And then I thought, well, now that I'm engaging with spirit and I'm receiving signs kind of pretty consistently, I wonder if I kind of take it a step further. And so many of you probably know this, but I like to use tarot cards and oracle cards and things like that. And I thought, well, if a red rose is a sign for me with my mediumship for like confidence and you've got this, I was like, could you show me another rose? And so I used a tarot deck that I have that actually has more than 78 cards. So the statistical probability of pulling the rose card is pretty low because there happened to be a rose card in it. And so I shuffled it around, and sure enough, I pulled the card with the red rose. And I thought, okay, there has to be more to this. And I think a lot of us have stories like this. And I'll tell you one last one because it's the launch of my Oracle deck just happened. So if you're interested in my Oracle deck, visit BloomingWand.com. I created it for the community, and I have to say, I'm really enjoying hearing your guys' reactions to it. But throughout that process, I was feeling kind of scared. It was a big investment of time and money to produce the deck, and I thought, well, I'm gonna, I could use a sign spirit. And I don't know if you know, but the deck is like purple, purple and starry, and it's got a purple starry sky vibe, is what I'm trying to say. I'll show you the back of the card because that's kind of the theme. Oh, and for those of you that are listening, just think purple starry sky. And I worked with a designer, Chantal Davis Gray, to help me put the deck together. And we've been going back and forth, and I was getting more and more nervous. And I was like, oh, I hope everything turns out. And then I got this random message from her. She's like, Emily, you're not going to believe what I just saw. I have to share it with you because you have this purple starry sky theme for your Oracle deck. And I'm driving by a car that is literally a purple star car. It was like purple starry theme. And it was a car that was like had a wrap or something on it. I've literally never seen a car like that ever in my life. And I don't think she had either. She texted me and she sent it to me. And I said, I think if that's not a sign from the universe, I don't know what one is. And I put that picture of that car and with the picture of the deck in one of my newsletters. And uh I a lot of you were kind of thrilled about that story. So I think for me, worst case scenario, like let's say signs aren't real. Okay, fine. What's the harm? I mean, they made me feel me personally feel seen, validated, supported, and encouraged to follow my heart and to follow my dreams and to do the things that I knew I was called to do despite being scared or being stressed or even in grief with my mother-in-law. And I think that if it's healing and supportive, great. And like I said in both Laura Lynn Jackson's book, which is just signs, The Secret Language of the Universe, and Tara Zwart's book, which is The Signs, the New Science of How to Trust Your Instinct, they tell some pretty miraculous stories, ones that I think are even more phenomenal than mine. And they're not making it up. And nonetheless, I the whole point of this episode is to acknowledge and, like I said, include and incorporate the things that challenge this belief. Because it's just kind of good to know that they exist and explore all sides of things and to always have a curious and open mind and not think, oh, I know the way, I have all the answers. This is true and this is absolute and this is firm. If you live life long enough, you know that nothing is as firm as that, that things are swirly twirly and move and change and evolve. And I think we can do ourselves a favor by being flexible and adaptable to learning and growing and to be open to things challenging our beliefs, and then we can take the information on board, or maybe we can say that might be true, and this might be true. So I'd be again really curious to know your thoughts. And one of the things I'm really hoping to hear from you guys is I want to hear your stories of receiving signs from spirit. Send them to me at emily at bloomingwand.com, or you can go to bloomingwand.com, my website. My information is all there for those of you that are new here. And I want to hear and collect your stories and maybe even share them out with the community because I was talking to a dear friend today, and I think storytelling and sharing our experiences is something that connects us, it builds authentic relationships, and it helps people us to see other people's experiences and seeing other people's experiences as a way for us to maybe also see ourselves and them. And I feel like I have to know one last story before we close. Because it was a special one. In my mediumship development, I got to read for a person who had lost their husband. And we were doing the reading, and there was tons of evidence that came through that was very, very specific. And I'm not going to tell all of it because it was a really special story, and I don't want to, I don't know. It's a special story between me and that sitter, but I can tell you one piece of it. At the very, very end, I looked out the window and there was this blue stellar ja. You know, the blue ones with the mohawk. And I see scrub jays and stellar jays in the yard, mostly scrub jays, but not I rarely see stellar jays in my yard. But it's not just that I saw the jay, it was that it flew right next to the window, and it was acting very odd. So odd that I said during the reading, I'm like, I have to stop because I'm so distracted. There's this blue stellar jay in the window, and it's like dancing around and kind of it feels like it's trying to get my attention. And I said, I feel like I need to mention this specific bird, that it's a J, J-A-Y. I I was like, I don't know, maybe that will mean something to you. And and the sitter said, Emily, that's the bird that's the symbol for my husband. Is this that was his name? And also, we agreed that that would be the sign that he would send me when I needed to hear from him. And so the sign was given. And that was also just the feeling that came with that and the way that it happened. And she's like, I didn't think that would happen in this reading or in this session. I didn't know how it possibly could. But as soon as you said, I have to stop, I have this bird here. She's like, I knew. I knew it was the sign I had asked for and the sign that I wanted to come through in this reading. So I know I spent a lot of time talking about how maybe signs are something that we're making something out of nothing. People are gonna say this to us, right, when we believe in certain things. And I think it's you know that's okay. I think it's really healthy to question things. But even after exploring the science, I can still tell you that I've had so many unexplainable and miraculous experiences that even though it was hard to read some of the science and a little bit scary to maybe have to take on board something that challenged the very work that I do and something that I'm very passionate about, I did. And I came out on the other side of it, okay, and I learned a lot. And I'm still fascinated by, you know, these studies. And also, I can hold them both gently. I can hold my beliefs and I can hold these ideas that contradict them together in my heart and in the same moment, and they don't cancel one each other out. In a weird way, they enhance the experience and make it more remarkable and more special. And I also want to model for myself, for my future self, and to you that it's okay to explore things that we don't agree with or that challenge something that's really special to us if we have the capacity mentally, physically, and emotionally to do so. Well, I hope that this episode was interesting and fun for you. Don't forget about our reflection questions, which I'm just gonna recap real quickly before we close, which was three questions. Have you experienced synchronicities or signs that felt too specific to be coincidence? And don't forget, I want to hear about them, share them. It's awesome and meaningful to me to hear those stories. And maybe I can share more of them out into the community, obviously, with consent and respect for your privacy. And the second question: how do you distinguish between wishful thinking and genuine intuition? Which is probably one of the number one questions I get personally get asked. And what would it mean for your spiritual practice if some experiences were cognitive bias and others were actually genuine connection? So hold all this gently, give yourself some time to think about it, take good care of yourselves, get those journals out, and I will see you soon.