“Be like a lighthouse. Be the eye of the storm. Be that anchor and help bring peace to other people who are in a storm.”
—Sharon Farber
Signs from a loved one after loss are more common than people admit. Kimberly Hubenette and Sharon Farber share real stories about grief, comfort, and letting go of guilt.
Signs From a Loved One After Loss: What Grief Can Teach Us
Signs from a loved one after loss often arrive in small, strange moments — and for anyone grieving, learning to trust those moments can be its own form of healing. In a recent conversation, host Kimberly Hubenette and guest Sharon Farber talked openly about what it means to feel connected to someone after they’re gone, without pretending grief ever fully resolves.
Kimberly, who lost her husband Mark in 2019 after a 21-year lung transplant, shared a moment that stayed with her: while repairing scratches on a piece of furniture in his former space, his initials appeared clearly in the material. It was a small detail, but one that felt unmistakably personal.
You’re Not “Bothering” Anyone
One of the most common fears people carry is guilt — the sense that reaching out, hoping for a sign, or wanting closeness again might somehow disturb the person they lost. Sharon pushes back on this directly. In her experience, the opposite is true: people who have passed want connection as much as the living do. There’s no such thing as asking too much or too often.
Grief Doesn’t Have an Expiration Date
Sharon is honest about her own grief, including the loss of her father years into her career supporting others through theirs. That honesty matters. It reframes grief not as something to “get over,” but as something that can coexist with comfort, humor, and even joy.
She also addresses a painful misconception directly: that people who die by suicide are somehow unreachable or in distress. Drawing on years of personal experience, she describes the opposite — connection that continues, often marked by warmth and even humor.
Everyone Experiences Signs Differently
Not everyone processes these moments the same way. Some people see things clearly in their mind, some simply feel a strong sense of knowing, and others notice physical sensations or emotional shifts. None of these is more “correct” than another — what matters is that the moment feels real and meaningful to the person experiencing it.
Grief is rarely linear, and neither is comfort. Kimberly and Sharon’s conversation offers permission to sit with both.
Episode Highlights:
00:29 Kimberly Hubenette Opens Up About Feeling Mark Nearby
03:00 Meet Sharon Farber: Nearly 40 Years as a Healer
04:57 Why Reaching Out Is Never “Bothering” a Loved One
06:43 Kimberly’s Story: Losing Mark After a 21-Year Transplant
08:57 Grief After Suicide Loss: Sharon’s Personal Story
15:05 How Signs Show Up Differently for Everyone
21:57 Do Loved Ones Choose How They’re Remembered?
33:05 Sharon on Skepticism, Belief, and Not Needing to Prove Anything
53:02 Sharon’s Mantra: “Be the Eye of the Storm”
56:27 Where to Find Sharon Farber’s Classes and Retreats
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Quotes:
14:56 “Clairvoyance is psychic seeing. There’s clairaudience, where you hear things; claircognizance, where you know things; you can also smell and taste information from the spirit world, and there’s also feeling it, where you can feel emotions or physical things.” —Sharon Farber
18:08 “Knowing that your loved one is still part of your life often helps people give them a little lifeline, a little take the edge off the acute loss.” —Sharon Farber
29:52 “You are never obligated to connect with a spirit person. You can decide when to connect with spirit people and when not to.” —Sharon Farber
35:23 “It’s harder to learn something you don’t believe in.” —Sharon Farber
38:47 “It comes to you no matter what, so it’s either people want to hear it, or they don’t want to hear it, or they believe it, or they don’t. It’s not anything that you’re trying to force somebody off.” —Dr. Kimberly Hubenette
40:47 “Grief is real. My dad’s in spirit, and it’s been 10 years now. That doesn’t make the pain go away or the grief. We still grieve. Mediums still grieve.” —Sharon Farber
51:29 “Be like a lighthouse. Be the eye of the storm. Be that anchor and help bring peace to other people who are in a storm.” —Sharon Farber
Meet Sharon:
Sharon graduated Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UMass Amherst in 1983 with a BA in Sociology. She is a massage therapist, healer, award-winning artist, medium, teacher, and mentor.
Known for her down-to-earth approach, Sharon specializes in training new and experienced mediums. Having chosen to learn mediumship herself, she inspires students with an “If I can do it, so can you!” attitude. She provides encouragement and guidance for those who never even imagined they could become mediums.
Sharon offers mediumship readings, public demonstrations, mentorship, classes, and development circles online and in person, and she leads retreats throughout the United States and Canada.
Transcript:
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Welcome all. This is Kimberly Hubenette of Live, Love, Survive, thrive, and this is a new episode of our podcast. So we’ve been able to be on for about six months now, and everybody that has come on to my program really has a great story to share. And you know, I don’t know about you, but I’ve sometimes wanted to know what my loved one was doing. Are they there? Is my Mark around me? Is my Mark watching me? And I think he is. I’m thinking he’s really there because there’s been certain things that have happened in my life that you know, if he wasn’t there, I don’t know how he wouldn’t have been there because I ask for things, and sometimes it happens. A lot of times, things happen that you know it couldn’t possibly be that he wasn’t around. And some people tell me, “Oh, shouldn’t be asking him for things because I’m disturbing him.” But you know what? I do really only wait until it’s absolutely essential that I find something or that something’s lost. And I don’t know. I mean, I really feel like he’s around. So, with that being said, I wanted to introduce our next guest. Her name is Sharon Farber, and she’s been a medium for about 14 years. She’s going to share a special story, but then also she’s going to tell us about what she does and how she helps people with the next chapter of their grief. So welcome, Sharon. Nice to meet you. You want to tell us a little bit more about yourself and introduce yourself a little bit better than how I explained you?
Sharon Farber: Sure. I’ve been a massage therapist and healer for 38 years, and I’ve been on my mediumship development path, as you said, for 14. I’m not one of those people who just grew up as a kid seeing spirit people everywhere. I was exposed to it when I was almost 50 and realized how healing and amazing it was, and decided I want to do that. But I also wanted to address something you said. You were talking about Mark and how you mentioned some people think you might be disturbing him, and how you wait until it’s really essential to reach him. You don’t have to do that. They love being connected with us. They love when we talk to them, ask them. They are thrilled to support you and make themselves known and offer. So you never have to worry that you’re bothering them. When a medium connects with a loved one in spirit for someone, we’re not summoning them or bothering the people in spirit. They want to connect with us as much as we want to connect with them. And mediumship, as I understand it, is all about bringing love and healing between those on both sides. So it’s healing for us who have lost loved ones in spirit, but it’s just as healing for the people on the other side to be able to get closure, make themselves known, apologize, or say how they’re proud, or communicate anything they might not have had a chance to communicate. So the point is you don’t have to wait. You’re not bothering them. They love to connect with us, and they do it because they want to, not because anyone’s bothering them.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Well, you know, there’s mixed, right, people that say different things, and they said, “Oh, you know, you should just put sage all over the place and make him go away, so that you know he can go live his life the way he wants to. But you know what? I feel like, yeah, he wants to be there. I could feel it, and he wants his presence known. Are there some people that don’t want to be bothered, and then that means that they wouldn’t like accept any, you know, speaking back to their person, right?
Sharon Farber: I think that our loved ones pretty much always want to connect with us, and that there are people who don’t come through a medium because we have no idea why, and that it’s probably, and some of that might have to do with the person, the embodied person.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: I see.
Sharon Farber: But some people just don’t seem to make themselves known, but I don’t want anyone ever to think that oh, they don’t love me, they don’t want to connect with me. We just don’t know everything about the people on the other side,
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: And maybe you know they’re not looking in the right places to see how they’re connecting. You know, like sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes people, you know, like for me, there’s been incidences where I can’t– ll I know is, Mark’s there, you know.
Sharon Farber: And who was Mark to you? Is this a child, a husband?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Mark was. I lost my husband in 2019. He was the recipient of a 21-year lung transplant. It lasted that long, so it was, you know, a miracle that he was even alive for 21 more years. We always knew he was going to pass, you know, before me. So he had kind of prepared me for things, as you know. So then what happened was, you know, I’m a dentist by trade, and I started writing, and so I’ve written a couple books about grief, and basically, there’s been times that he’s reached out. Like, I tried to make his man cave an Airbnb, okay, and then what happened was I got a wall bed, and the people said, “Oh, it has scratches. Do you still want it? We’ll give you 10% off.” I said, “Sure, I don’t care. I’ll just fix it.” Well, they gave me this crayon to shave it, put in like the little scratches so that it would disappear. It appeared with his initials. It was so clear, M H on there, and I was like, “Oh my gosh!” I like kind of like had a thought. I was like goose pimples, you know. Like he’s telling me that’s his room. He wants everybody to know it’s his room. It’s totally M H. You cannot, like, say that it’s not there because it’s definitely there. It’s now it’s there forever.
Sharon Farber: That’s a wonderful, wonderful story.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah. Anyway, so you know a little bit more about yourself. I mean, what really made you become a median? Is there anything, one particular thing, or I know that we talked earlier about one of your friends, and you want to share about that.
Sharon Farber: Sure. Well, first about the friend. I have a friend who took his life about 25 years ago, and once I started working with mediumship, I was taking classes, giving readings, practicing with people, and I have several mediumship development circles that I run. And this friend has come through at least a dozen times through different mediums, but that was all after I became a medium. So I’ll tell you about how I became a medium next, but some people think that people who pass by suicide don’t go to a healing spirit world. They get thrown back into this world to complete what they didn’t, or they’re in hell or limbo. And just there are horrible theories that people are told about our loved ones who pass by suicide. I know for a fact, as much as you can say fact with mediumship, I have connected with hundreds of people who’ve taken their own lives, and they come through more often than people who’ve passed by any other way, like heart attacks, accidents, old age. Because the people left behind are in need of hearing from them more than they’re in need of hearing from their grandmother who had a stroke. So also, and my friend Ed has come through over and over, and he comes through with humor, love, support, and I think he was helpful in this process because he’s a great example of somebody who comes through to love and support people. And I think part of his message is for everybody to demonstrate specifically that people who pass from suicide are not somewhere terrible. It’s not a sin. They’re not in hell. They are on their soul’s evolution journey, healing, doing what they need to do, and they can come through. Back to the other part of the question, I’ve been a healer, as I said, for almost 40 years, and then somebody randomly invited me to a mediumship demonstration. I think it was about 2011, and I said, “Sure, that sounds interesting.” And I went, and it was a small group in someone’s home. There were about 10 of us, one amazing medium, and she connected with Ed for me and my first dog, and she gave beautiful healing greetings to everybody else in the group, and I went. Oh my gosh, this is so healing! And then I invited her. I had a massage center at the time with four rooms, including a large room for group events. So I invited her to come to my massage center, and she came once a month for about a year and gave small group readings there. And again, I got to see how amazing it was and the healing that came through. And then I decided that she was too busy to work there anymore, and I decided I wanted to do that. It can be so much more healing than doing massage or a Reiki session. So I read books, took classes, and became a medium. And now my niche is sharing that you too can become a medium. That it’s not just for a chosen one who’s been, like, a third-generation medium or people who see spirits since they’re toddlers. That people, pretty much anybody who feels compelled to, can choose to become a medium, and it’s step by step like learning to play the flute. And so that’s my niche: teaching people how to become mediums and taking mediums who are already connecting with spirit and teaching them how to create good boundaries, do it better, decide when to do it intentionally, I got here.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: And so, you think anybody can connect if they wanted to learn how to connect?
Sharon Farber: Pretty much, yes.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: And how do you know that you’re connecting with the person that you think you’re connecting with? Do you see them?
Sharon Farber: Well, that’s a great question. Do you mean me enjoying my mediumship, or the people, the new people learning, or both?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Both. Yeah. How do they know they’re connecting with the person that they think they’re trying to connect with?
Sharon Farber: Because what I do and what I teach is called evidential mediumship, and what you do is get specific evidential information. It’s not like a newspaper horoscope. There’s a grandmother in the kitchen bake with an apron and she’s baking, or there’s a tall dark man. It’s specifics. What we do is get personality, character, essence. If you’re connecting with the grandma in the kitchen, you need to be more specific. Like she plays the trumpet. She has a yellow canary in a wire bird cage in the kitchen. She has 12 cats. Her name is Gertrude. What you do when you’re giving a reading, whether it’s me giving a reading to my clients or somebody learning is you read, you give mediumship readings to people you don’t know and you don’t know their loved ones, and then you describe them and give information that you can’t know any other way, and it’s got to be specific. And then the person says, “Oh my God, or they cry and they understand, and they said, “Yes, I know who that is.” And then there’s a healing experience. That’s how you know. That’s how I know, and that’s how my students know. Though for students, when they do it for the first first time or the first two, three, or four times, they’re like, “I thought I was making it up. Are you sure I’m really doing it?” But they give beautiful evidence, and there’s person getting the reading is crying, so it’s pretty obvious.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: So, do they see it visually, or they get it in their brain?
Sharon Farber: There are several ways to perceive people and spirits. Their clairvoyance is psychic seeing. There’s clairaudience, where you hear things, claircognizance, where you know things, you can also smell and taste information from the spirit world, and there’s also feeling it, where you can feel emotions or physical things. So the most common is clairvoyance, where people see, and that’s where you get the phrase “I see dead people, but it is seeing in your mind’s eye. For myself, I give readings with my eyes open, but the images that I see, I could see with them eyes open or closed. So for me, I will see an image of the spirit person, and then I will tell my person about who I see, like a little bit, and then I just pretty much know the rest. Like I’m seeing a man, and he’s about 5″10′. He’s got brown hair. He has facial hair. He’s not presenting as elderly. So I will kind of see that. Then I generally go into what I feel. Ah, he’s in a classroom. He’s a professor. I could see that he’s teaching. It could be a professor or just a classroom. But I know that this man is intellectual. He’s educated. He’s knowledgeable, and I know that he likes to share his knowledge. So that would be an example of I see and then what I know, and it could be anything. It could be seeing I have a young man here, and he was goofy and happy-go-lucky, and etc. etc. And then go in more, and I know we had a quick, sudden passing, and like that. And different mediums perceive in different ways. I predominantly see, feel, and know. Some people might hear things they’re telling me and hear sentences, but the whole point is that when you connect with loved ones in spirit, it brings healing. It doesn’t make grief go away, but it helps people cope with grief instead of my person’s gone forever. I don’t know where they are. It’s that they’re here. They’re aware of me. I’ll just pop in one more thing that’s very helpful for people. When spirit people come through, they often share information that shows how they’re still present in a person’s life. For example, they might bring up the wedding, the child, the experience. One of my first readings, there was a man, and he was showing me blowing bubbles. And this was 12 years ago. It just stuck in my mind, there is a young widow with a two-year-old child. I’m connecting with the husband, and I’m like, “Did he? I’m getting blowing bubbles, and for me, I thought he had to blow bubbles. He was showing me. She told me that that morning, she and the young child were blowing bubbles, and he was coming through to show her that he was present with them and he was there for the bubble blowing experience. So knowing that your loved one is still part of your life, aware of what’s going on, often helps people give them a little lifeline. Give them a little take the edge off the acute loss, knowing that on some level, a different level, your loved one and spirit is still with you.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Interesting. So that means that, you know, when they pass, they never get older. Like let’s say, you know, when they pass, what if they’re young? They never get older in the spirit, right? Look, physically,
Sharon Farber: Their spirits. Spirits don’t have physical bodies. They don’t have the aging process.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: I see.
Sharon Farber: People who pass at various ages usually, or at least sometimes, they present at the age they passed. Like a 20-year-old, they’ll pass at 20, and somebody and somebody who passed at 44 might present at 44. But old people who lived into their 70s, 80s, 90s who declined, they often choose to present themselves through the medium at a time when they were in radiant health, when they were robust and the way they want to be remembered, so they can present themselves to the medium the way they want to be remembered, or when somebody knew them, somebody might be have a close friend who they spent a lot of time with at a certain age, and the person passes older. The person will present to the medium at a younger age, but that has nothing to do with them getting old or not getting old on the other side. This is their spirit, their essence, with personality, memories, and able to connect out of love. They no longer have a physical body, so they do not age like that, the way we do here.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: That’s really interesting, really, really interesting. Yeah, I have some clients that, you know, yes, they had some a loved one pass by suicide, and then I’ve also had loved one that basically passed away during surgeries. I have had clients that passed away because of a disease process, a colleague, their loved one passed away through a tragic, you know, accident. But it was like a toddler. So I mean, it’s very interesting what you say that they present the way that they want you to remember them by,
Sharon Farber: And they’re intelligent. They want present at a way you’re likely to recognize them also. If you were close friends with someone when you were 30, and you’ve been out of touch for a couple of decades and they just passed, if I described a 50-year-old person, you probably wouldn’t recognize them. If I describe them how they were when they were your close friend at 30, then you’re likely to recognize them.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: But they tell you how they want to be recognized, right?
Sharon Farber: They present themselves. They show me an image of how they want to, so they almost never present older than they passed, but they sometimes present younger or healthier. And people who declined and had health issues almost always talk about how they’re in perfect health now. No more dementia, no more pain, no more illness. There is no illness on the other side, physical, mental, or any other way. Everyone is well on the other side, which helps people heal, especially if there has been traumatic decline of their loved one in spirit.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Interesting. I want to have ask you a question that ,you know, I’m sure a lot of people have watched the movie Ghost, right? And, you know, how I always thought that if they couldn’t really touch physical things, like showing somebody with a physical, but for me, I feel like there’s things in my life that physically something happened physically in my world. Could that really happen?
Sharon Farber: If I’ve seen the movie, it was decades ago, so I don’t really remember the movie, but basically, people on the other side-they don’t have physical bodies, so they can’t theoretically physically interact with us or do things. However, hundreds of mediums I know specifically, people I work with in circle classes, students will talk about feeling their spirit people. When they’re near, I can feel them brush my hair. I can feel them pat me. There are examples of people who can feel their cat land on the bed and walk on them. I don’t personally feel physical sensations from people in spirit. Other people do, but I think it’s more an energetic component that these people are sensitive, and it’s the same as how we mediums can see things with our clairvoyance. I can see a spirit person. I can describe a dog that I’m seeing, a German Shepherd, and I can see them with my mind’s eye and tell you about it. I believe that the physical interaction is the same way. If someone’s sensitive, they can feel a physical sensation, but it’s not actually physically happening. Does that make sense? Does that answer your question?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Well, I mean, even things that touch, like for instance, one day I threw a ball to my dog and it never came back out of the sky. Okay, I don’t know where it went, but could they really touch that and take it, or put it through a different world.
Sharon Farber: Yeah, that’s out of my– I don’t know. That’s out of my specific realm of knowledge with mediumship. I cannot answer that. I think all kinds of things can happen, but I can’t answer that.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, I mean, physically, there’s like four different things that happened physically. Like something was like somewhere else, and you know, it couldn’t have been any other thing. And so somebody told me, “Oh my gosh, it’s the devil playing with you. Don’t talk to tha spirit” and I’m like no, I don’t think so because it wasn’t mean, you know.
Sharon Farber: I’m one of the people– this is somewhat unusual. I believe that all of our interactions with the spirit world and our spirit people and loved ones and everything having to do with mediumship is all about love and light. I don’t personally believe in a devil, hell, demons, entities, negative entities, things that attach onto people. I don’t believe in any of that. I’m in my 15th year of development. I’ve had over a dozen mentors who’ve been doing this for decades each. I’ve had hundreds of classes and circles, and there’s never personally been anything scary, creepy, evil, or anything like that. And the teachers, the mentors that I trust and learn from have the same view: the spirit world is safe. All the evil and harm and stress is here on this physical plane. I’m not innocent and gullible or delusional. I know that people here on the planet can do terrible, awful things. I have a healthy fear of embodied people, but I have zero fear of interacting with the spirit world. So some people, a lot of people, have different views than that but I can work with people individually, and I offer reinterpretations. I never tell people you didn’t experience what you experienced, but I can interpret scary perceptions in ways that help people realize that maybe that was their imagination, their mind, their interpretation of a benign spirit person trying to connect with them, and they’re a kid, and someone’s sitting on the edge of their bed, and they’re terrified, and that how that might be their grandfather coming to visit them out of love, as an example.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: So, can you help our listeners distinguish between what’s the difference between psychic work and mediumship?
Sharon Farber: Mediumship is a subset of psychic work. Psychic work includes predictions, tarot cards, reading your mind, communicating to animals, divination, what’s going to happen in the future, dream work, and all that kind of stuff. Mediumship is a little subset. It is a psychic ability, but mediumship, in my definition, is specifically connecting with loved ones in spirit, people you knew from this lifetime, friends, relatives, associates, people you knew of. It could be the grandfather that passed before you were born, who’s still aware of you. So it is connecting with loved ones in spirit for the purpose of bringing love and healing between both sides, so it’s not predicting the future, reading someone’s mind, akashic records, angels, or all that other stuff. It’s specifically loved ones in spirit. Does that answer clearly?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah. So they don’t come to you unless you go to them, or do sometimes you’re trying to sleep and then something comes to you?
Sharon Farber: Me personally, I connect with spirit people when I choose to, when I set my intention, when I’m giving a reading, when I’m doing a demonstration, when I’m leading a circle or a class, and I want to link in with a student medium who’s connecting with somebody. I do not have random spirit people, my own or other people’s, approaching me in the rest of my life. There are probably 1000s of mediums and hundreds that I’ve worked with who have it differently, and they’re just like, “Ooh, there’s a spirit person. Oh, there’s my mom.” I have clients who connect directly with their loved ones in spirit and chat with their mom over coffee and are aware of their spirit people without setting the intention. So it has to do with being open at any time, which can be fine if that’s what you want to do. But some of the people come to work with me are like, it’s all the time, and they can’t go to the grocery store or the mall because there are going to be spirit people, or there are people who feel like they need to tell if the spirit person comes to them, they need to tell their server or the woman cutting their hair about their loved one in spirit. And I teach you: you are never obligated to connect with a spirit person. You can decide when to connect with spirit people. And when not to, you can have your own life and decide when you want to do that. And it’s not about having spirit people bombard you whenever they feel like it.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: But it could happen if you let it happen?
Sharon Farber: I don’t know. I have inherently good boundaries, and I chose to develop. So this is how I do it, and so it’s like a spirit door. Some people have their spirit door wide open and they’re just flooded with connections. Some people have a door that just like flaps open and shut by itself. So sometimes they’re connecting with spirit people. I have a nice, solid boundary. My door shut except when I open it.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, I actually have a neighbor that said since she was young she’s been able to connect, but she said that she shut the door on it a while back because she doesn’t want to listen to it anymore. It actually came to her. She didn’t try seeking a lot
Sharon Farber: I think that’s much more common than having someone like myself choose to learn to do it out of choice. And your friend person might not know that she has the option of deciding to do it and use it and open it when she wants to. It’s not an all or nothing. Oh, I don’t want this happening. I’m going to stop it. That she has the option of intentionally connecting with spirit people when she wants to for herself or others, rather than just all the time.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I mean, you know, some do you believe you don’t believe, listeners? Hey, you know, I’m not here to say you could believe or not believe, but it’s just a part of like what you do, right?
Sharon Farber: I never try to prove things to people. I don’t intentionally work with skeptics. Yeah, skeptic wants a reading or comes to circle. They might get a brilliant reading and leave not a skeptic. But my job isn’t to prove anything to anybody. My job is to bring love and healing, peace, support to people who are grieving their loved ones, and to teach people who want to be able to do it themselves. A lot of people come to me because they want to connect with their spouse, partner, child, parent, and I explained that it’s easier to generally it’s easier to connect with other people’s loved ones in spirit. But as you learn that, a lot of people connect with their own people also, and there are many people who begin this journey out of loss. They lost a loved one in spirit, like maybe a child, and then the next thing you know, they’re aware of the presence of that child, or it might be a grandmother, and then they’re like, “Oh my goodness, I can do this!” And then they may choose to develop and become a professional medium, or just develop enough to be able to bring love to others the way they’ve received love and support for themselves. So sometimes, often it’s spontaneous and not an intentionally sought after thing. But my job is helping people who want to begin or want to strengthen or create the boundaries or otherwise have a better experience with mediumship, whether they want to become a professional medium or they just find it fascinating and healing, and want to provide that service for others.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Can you teach beginners, or how you teach beginners? You know, like including like grounding, intention setting-you know that kind of stuff. Work interfere. The practical elements that you emphasize in your book. You wrote a book, right?
Sharon Farber: I wrote a book. Can I show the book?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Sure. Go ahead. Let’s see the book.
Sharon Farber: This is my first book. It’s called “Choosing to Be a Medium”, and it came out published by Llewellyn in 2019. And there’s an audio book; it’s on Audible and everything. And it tells you from the beginning how I became a medium and how pretty much anybody else can. So it tells you how it works, what not to be afraid of. It’s got exercises. It talks about circles, practicing, and all the way to becoming a professional medium, if that’s what you want. To make it simple, when I teach beginners, I offer an online beginner mediumship class that’s either three and a half or five hours, depending on. Number of people, three to five people. We’ve been doing it in three and a half hours. Up to 10 people in five hours. People who’ve never done mediumship five hour class, I talk about this is how it works. This is let’s work through any fears you might have. This is what you do step by step. Make yourself learn that it’s truly a thing. It’s harder to learn something you don’t believe in. So working through that, and then step by step having a sitter, which is the person who gets the reading, because trying to learn how to do mediumship without having somebody to give a reading to is nearly impossible, and preparing yourself, grounding just means being present, raising your vibration. So you’re trying to be at a higher lightness, joy, love, prayer. Because spirit people are at a higher vibration, they do not have bodies. We have physical bodies, and the density of here on the planet and all of our challenges. So anyway, step by step, I work with the people in the book in person to tell you this is how you do it. This is ways you may perceive spirit people. This is what you might feel, see, hear, experience, and then like in a class, I will hold their hand metaphorically and walk them through it. And that includes telling your sitter, the person getting the reading, what to expect and how it’s not scary. And then, step by step, you ground, ask for help, spirit guides, help anything you believe in like that, and then you use your intention, see what you perceive, tell your person. There’s the basic: don’t let the sitter tell you extra information. The person getting the reading gets to say yes, no, maybe, and I understand. So I teach mediums that you don’t do a reading by saying, “Oh, who’s Caroline? Oh, is your father in spirit? You don’t ask them questions, so there’s professional things, and there’s you don’t fish. You tell people what you have and let them say yes and no. That way, it’s evidential, and people don’t like, “Well, they asked me all these questions, so I don’t know if they really did it.” So I help teach how to do it in a professional way, whether or not you’re doing it professionally. But the idea is to bring information that helps person know that it’s really their loved one, how it’s loving, supportive. They may have messages. They might say things like, “I know you were there. Say they were in a hospital, non-responsive, and the sitter was there holding their hand and talking to them.” They sometimes say that, “I know you were with me. I wasn’t responsive, but I was aware that you were there. Or they might say, “I know you weren’t there with me when I passed, but I know I felt your love, your support, and that was enough. And I could go on and on, but I’ll stop.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: It’s just like really interesting. We could go on and on. I mean, this subject, everybody has like a a question. I think anybody, even the ones that are very hard to like, you know, not understanding, or people that don’t want to think that it’s real or whatever. I think everybody has a question about this. Possible.
Sharon Farber: They their question might be: So, are you delusional or are you a liar?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, I mean, but honestly, like you said, it’s what you feel like if you’re open to it, and it comes to you no matter what. So it’s either people want to hear it or they don’t want to hear it, or they believe it or they don’t. It’s not anything that you’re trying to like force somebody.
Sharon Farber: I had an in-person mediumship development circle from 2012 to March of 2020, where we met in person once a week and started on the first Wednesday of the month. We would have guests because it got a little limiting just reading for each other. You know, how many times do you want to hear from the same spirit person? So we just spiced it up a little bit by inviting guests. I remember one time this skeptic came. Somebody who’d been to several of them as a guest loved it. Brought a friend who we didn’t know was a skeptic, and he came and he got incredible readings. Somebody came through who had drowned in a pool while he was there. I think his mother came through. There were super evidential readings, and most of them were for this specific man, as opposed to the three other guests. That was incredible. Spirit turned out to be like We’re going to teach this skeptic that this is for real, and so that was interesting.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: How does my podcast “Live, Love, Survive” intrigue you? The way what the name of it is? How did you decide that you, you know, wanted to be a guest on my podcast.
Sharon Farber: I came because the whole theme is coping with grief. And grief, I believe predominantly for the loss of loved ones. It’s not like somebody lost their job or going to come here for grief. So, because your podcast is about dealing with grief from the loss of loved ones, I came to offer a perspective that yes, they’re not physically with us. Grief is real. My dad’s in spirit, and I’m a medium, it’s been 10 years now. That doesn’t make the pain go away or the grief. We still grieve. Mediums still grieve. Just to clarify that, it’s not like oh, they’re alive in the afterlife, so it’s fine. We still grieve. But I came here to share the perspective that maybe a few people would become aware, if they’re not already aware, that our spirit people are in an afterlife that they can connect with us sometimes directly with people if they’re sensitive and open, or through a medium, and that through those connections, people can really understand in a core way that their spirit people aren’t really gone, that they can be aware of what’s going on. They can be loving and supportive, and they can share messages like “It wasn’t your fault. I love you. I’m sorry.” Important messages like that. So that’s why I came because I thought I could provide a little enlightenment about the people on the other side that might bring additional peace, support to the people who are grieving.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: And you do. You answered my question about being online or in person. You do both, right?
Sharon Farber: Yes, and there’s no difference. I live in a little dinky town in Northwest Connecticut. I do 95% of my mediumship online. I think Zoom is amazing. I’ve done mediumship demonstrations to groups of people, teach classes, mentorship, and all on Zoom, and it’s pretty much the same as being in person. I do in-person things also, but less because I’m in a little town. Speaking of in person, I teach in-person classes, and I lead retreats. And just you know, I have a mediumship development retreat coming up in February on the island of Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands for eight days, where you come to a beautiful Caribbean island and immerse yourself in mediumship, and I will work with you at whatever level you are. I’ll teach. I’ll help people. People do lots of readings, and that’s anybody who’s interested in their still room, and you can find out more on my website. Also, just with that, I’ve invited observers-people who don’t know if they are a medium, want to be a medium, and don’t want to spend a week working on mediumship-they can come to the retreat and hang out with mediums, get readings from mediums because the students will have extra people to give readings to, take part in as much or little of the classes that they want, and immerse themselves in mediumship, even if they don’t want to or know if they want to develop as a medium.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Is there a prerequisite, like, do they have to read your book first to get there?
Sharon Farber: They don’t need to read the book. The retreat is not starting at the very beginning. So if people want to come as a student to really work as a medium to get the most out of it, I recommend that they have some experience, some interaction with the spirit world, or they can take my beginner online class were half price for $44.50 instead of 89 at the risk of sounding like a commercial, but they you know for because I just it’s not a big investment less than $50 they can take the beginner class most people who take the beginner class get a validated connection by the end of the class and that’s plenty to be able to come and take full advantage of the class, and if you don’t have any experience, you can show up and attend as observer. And often the observers end up doing mediumship.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, and then you know, obviously, listeners, this is not a commercial or anything, but it’s really just interesting work. And Sharon is so much of a giving person that she said that she’s offered a signed copy of her book for those who want to listen to it.
Sharon Farber: One signed copy, not, like, anybody who wants one. But I don’t know how you want to do that. But yes, I did offer. I forgot about that. A signed copy of this, and I could ship it to anywhere in the U.S. If you’re not in the U.S. the shipping would be ridiculous.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, DM me, you know, so that we can see, you know, who gets to win that prize. But hey, how can everybody listening that wants to get to know you? Do you have a website? You said you did.
Sharon Farber: I’m Sharon Farber, and the website is SharonFarber.net. Okay, so I have SharonFarber.net as a website. I have YouTube videos on mediumship, TikTok videos on mediumship, a Facebook author page, and a Facebook group called Mediumship and Mediums where people can discuss mediumship and all that. But you can get to everywhere else by going to SharonFarber.net. How do we figure out the book thing? Are you going to have people approach you, or do you want people to reach out to me? There are counters if people want to connect; email me where you can do that from the website. Tell me I’m interested in the free book. Then there are counters where you put in the names, and it’s like digital, electronic; you will pick one, and then I can send it out to them. Do you want to do that?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, let’s do that. Whoever wants to read her book or get a signed copy of her book
Sharon Farber: So we want to just be clear that don’t expect me to just ship out a free book to everybody who emails. So if you want the chance of being the winner of a free copy of a medium-hardcover book, I don’t have access to sending out digital copies like Kindle or the audiobook. But anyway, email me at sharon@sharonfarber.net. Go to my website, use the link, or just email me at sharon@sharonfarber.net and I’m going away for the long. I don’t even know when you’re going to run the podcast, so we need a time limit for people to do that. So I was going to say a certain time, but I don’t know when you’re running the podcast. Do you know?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: We’ll do it by the end of October.
Sharon Farber: Okay, then email me by Halloween, sharon@sharonfarber.net. Go to my website and say I’d like to win a free copy of your book, and I will make a list. And then on Halloween, I will have it digitally done, U.S. only addresses, and then you can announce on one of your shows who got the book if you want.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Sounds good. Thank you. On a lighter note, I always ask my people, what is your favorite food that you would like to share with us? Like, is there something that you have a go-to recipe that you recommend for people to eat or love? Because I love food, so I like to share foods.
Sharon Farber: It is not a recipe. It is Ben and Jerry’s vanilla ice cream, hands down. Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream is a close second, but it’s high test, super creamy, fattening ice cream, and vanilla is my favorite. I’m plain, but it really is. I can explore others, but no recipe needed.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Wow! So, is there really a difference of flavor between the Ben and Jerry’s and the Haagen-Dazs? Can you tell me the difference?
Sharon Farber: And Häagen-Dazs has vanilla, and they have vanilla bean. So they have two different vanillas. And what I realized is that they have the same ingredients; they just have more sugar in the vanilla bean. So I’m an ice cream addict. I very healthy, otherwise like very healthy, except I have a slight ice cream addiction. So Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen-Dazs, and I’m sure there’s some homemade ones that can compete. But I won’t have a vanilla ice cream that does not have real vanilla as an ingredient. Do you know that Brier’s real vanilla ice cream milker has vanilla in it? I hope I don’t get sued, but vanilla flavor, natural flavors.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Oh, they have to say flavored if it’s not real.
Sharon Farber: All these vanilla ice creams that don’t even have vanilla in them-forget it. But Ben and Jerry’s and the-they still have vanilla extract anyway. So I’m going on and on but my favorite food,
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: And I also, secondly, I always ask, what is your mantra that you live by?
Sharon Farber: My current mantra. I we didn’t get into this, but I do trance mediumship, trans mediumship healing. I was receiving some trance healing on Zoom from two of my peer students, and while I was there, and this was like maybe a year ago, I got the message in my head: be the eye of the storm. So, in my perception right now, especially here in the U.S. things are chaotic. Things can be scary, chaotic, turbulent, and just there’s a lot going on. And people who are socially conscious or not, or involved in it, whether they want to or not, or just like kind of be in shock, traumatized, stress, stress at the least. So what came to me in that during that healing was be the guy of the storm. So while there’s all this stuff going on, you can be aware, compassionate, raise your voice to support people in need and all that. But my intention is to retain some peace. Be like a lighthouse. Be the eye of the storm. Try to stay in peace myself as much as I possible, and be that anchor and help bring peace to other people who were being or in a storm. Does that make sense?
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Yeah, totally.
Sharon Farber: I printed it out and I put it on my my desktop, and so that’s it.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Thank you so much. Yeah, I know. Sorry, we ran out of time, but boy, I think you’re gonna have to have a second episode one of these times to come and talk to us again. I mean, I’m sure I’m gonna have a lot of listeners DM me and say, “I want to hear more. I want to hear more.” So, listeners, if you’re there and you’re interested in hearing more, learning more about Sharon, reach out to her. This has been such an amazing episode, and I just love it. I mean, even me, I feel like I want to hear more too. This is amazing, amazing topic, and you know, if you’re there and you’re thinking, “Gosh, I want to hear something from my loved one,” maybe you want to reach out, or maybe this is a a calling to you that maybe you want to become a medium too. I don’t know, but I’m just here to support and share, and you know, hope that I’ve touched your life in some way, and then tell us again your when is that wellness retreat that you said? What was it called?
Sharon Farber: The next beginner class. There was one on a Saturday, and like I think a week from tomorrow, September 12 th is beginner class. Another one in October. I do them once a month or so. The retreat in Saint Croix is November 27 to March 6, and it’s limited to 12 students. Wow! And up to four observers on top of that, so it’s up to 12 students, and the place is amazing in the Caribbean, on the ocean.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Beautiful,
Sharon Farber: And there’ll be time to snorkel and swim and appreciate the Caribbean. It’s not a class. When I teach classes, I know we’re done. When I teach classes, it’s like 9:30 to five tons of information. How much can we pack in for to a two or three day class for a retreat? It’s get out of your element, bond with other people, eat food prepared for you, swim and experience nature, which opens you up, and immerse yourself in mediumship at the same time. So it’s a good balance of everything, nature, and I’m really excited to go back to the Caribbean.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Sounds fun. Okay, everybody. Well, this was the next last episode until November. I’ll see you then. Live, love, survive, thrive.
Sharon Farber: Thank you so much for having me here. Pleasure to meet you and be here.
Dr. Kimberly Hubenette: Okay. Thank you. Say bye for now.