How to Live a Life of Purpose According to World-Renowned Psychic Medium

Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I have to take a deep breath because I have no idea what is about to happen in our conversation today. I'm not kidding. I am about to introduce you to a woman named Kim Russo, who changed the entire trajectory of my life three years ago.

Mel Robbins: Who is Kim Russo? Kim is an intuitive psychic medium. I met Kim because she was booked as a guest on my daytime syndicated talk show. I'm a huge skeptic. I love this stuff. I want to believe this stuff, but I have a massively healthy dose of skepticism. I don't know if you're this way, like when you go get your tarot cards read or you go see a psychic, there's a part of you that's like, did they do a Google search?

Mel Robbins: When Kim Russo showed up, I knew that she had a hit show on A&E. I knew that she had done a lot of appearances on Oprah Winfrey's talk show because my executive producer had worked for Oprah Winfrey for over 10 years. She's the one that said, you have to have Kim on. Kim came on to my daytime talk show and we learned all about her gift. You're going to learn about it today too. She literally can talk to dead people. That's what she does. I'm just going to throw it right out there in layman's terms. She is an intuitive psychic medium who has been able to do this since childhood. You will hear the whole story.

Mel Robbins: I'm going to ask you something. Please, if you're a skeptic like me, drop the skepticism for just the time that you're listening to this. I want you to open your mind and your heart up to a new possibility. One of the possibilities that I want you to open up to is that even as you're listening to this right now, whether you're walking in the park or you're driving your car, Kim Russo says you're not alone. Your loved ones who have passed on are here beside you, helping you navigate your life. You can learn how to open up to the signs, how you can tap into the messages that they are giving you, how you can borrow courage and confidence and insight from your loved ones.

Mel Robbins: That's exactly what happened to me when I met Kim Russo. She turned to me and said, are you open to receiving a message from somebody that you love? I'm like, yeah, sure. What she proceeded to tell me is something that you cannot Google. It changed the entire trajectory of my life. I sold my house. I moved from Massachusetts to Southern Vermont. The only reason why I did it was because of what Kim Russo told me on that day three years ago.

Mel Robbins: I haven't seen her since. I've been wanting to catch up with her. Now as I sit here in the house in Southern Vermont that she told me I needed to buy, I'm about to see her again. I have no idea what is about to happen. I've got my hand on my heart. I just know this is going to be magical. It's going to open you up to new possibilities. It's going to help you tap into your intuition. You and I are in for one hell of a wild ride. So without further ado, I see her in the waiting room. Let's get Kim Russo on the Mel Robbins podcast.

Mel Robbins: Kim! Hello.

Kim Russo: Hello. Hi.

Mel Robbins: I have been dying to talk to you. Thank you for making the time to come on and catch up. I couldn't wait to see you again. I have so many emails from the show I did with you that I don't even think you realize. It was very impactful.

Kim Russo: Well, it was incredibly impactful in my life because I don't know if you realize this or if you even remember the message that you gave me.

Mel Robbins: I don't.

Kim Russo: When we were on the set, you turned to me at one point and told me that there was somebody behind me that was wearing a decorated military uniform. You asked me if I knew who the person was. I said, no. Then you said, anybody in your family in the military? I said, well, my grandfather, and he was in the Navy. You said, no, this was a decorated Air Force pilot. Do you know who it could be? I said, no. Then you said, does the letter K mean anything to you? I said, no. Then you said, what about the name Ken? I said, well, that's what we call our daughter. She's named Kendall. She was named after her father-in-law, Ken, who has since died. You said, well, could it be Ken? I said, no, he was not an Air Force pilot. You said, he's getting agitated. I want you to check.

Kim Russo: They called my husband in the control room. In the little earbud, I could hear my executive producer say, Mel, we have your husband on the phone. It turns out your father-in-law was in the Air Force Reserves. He had always dreamt of being a pilot and they found out he was colorblind, so he couldn't be. Kim, this is a fact that you cannot Google about my father-in-law. This is a fact about a man that I knew for decades that I never knew. When you said that, I knew with every cell of my being that my dead father-in-law, Kenneth Robbins, was standing behind me. It was just like him to pick a fact like that, that I wouldn't know or couldn't Google, to dispel all of my resignation or skepticism.

Kim Russo: Then you leaned in and you said something about, you know, you have a son, don't you? I'm basically levitating because I realize my father-in-law is standing behind me. You start talking about our son and you then say that Ken, my father-in-law, has been watching him and he's a huge fan of our son. Then you said to me a sentence that changed the rest of my life.

Mel Robbins: Whoa.

Kim Russo: You said, Ken has a message for you about your son. You said, I don't know what it means. I hope you will. He said, he is upset about something going on at a school. You kept going, I don't know what it means. At the time, our son was going to a school outside of Boston that he did not like. He did not have a lot of friends. Then you said, I don't know what it is, but there's something about a school. You don't like it, but you have to trust your son. You said, do you know what that means? I said, I know exactly what it means.

Kim Russo: What nobody in my life knew is that at that moment in time, our son was advocating that we allow him to go to high school in Southern Vermont. We lived outside of Boston. He wanted to go to high school in the town where his grandparents lived. We had been fighting privately. This is not anything I had shared with anybody. My husband, my son, and I had been fighting nonstop about the fact that they wanted to move up to Southern Vermont and I didn't want to move. I had put my foot down and said, absolutely not. We're not moving. We live in Boston. My company is in Boston. We are not moving.

Kim Russo: I walked off that set that day after you and I talked. I called my husband and he said, honey, I'm not going to argue with your dead father-in-law. We'll try Vermont. We'll try it for a year. He then said, well, I didn't tell you what happened last week. I said, what happened last week? He said, my mom called me and my brothers and said that she was going to downsize and wanted to sell the house that my dad and her had built. When she asked all of us if anybody wanted it, my one brother said, I don't want it. My other one said, I don't want it. My husband told his mother, we've made a decision to stay in Boston. So no. I said, we'll call your mother back and get an appraisal because we're moving to Vermont.

Kim Russo: I am now talking to you from the house that my father and mother-in-law built, which we bought. We moved to Vermont. We renovated this house. I hated every second of it. Every day I would wake up and go, I have to trust in the wisdom of this message. I have to trust in the guidance that was delivered to me. There is a reason why Kim was on the show. There was a reason why my father-in-law appeared from the other side. There's a reason why my son knew that this was the right thing for him. He kept fighting me and I'm going to let go and I'm going to believe. I will tell you something, three years to the day that I talked to you and you delivered that message, I followed it to the T. I am the happiest, the most content that I have ever been in my entire life.

Mel Robbins: Oh my. Oh my. Wow.

Kim Russo: Whoa. Well, thank you for sharing that. When you were speaking, it was coming back to me. I don't recall the messages that I deliver because they're not coming from me. It's as if I am an observer and an interpreter. You know what I remember about coming on your show? I was called because you had a cancellation with someone else. I do believe everything happens for a reason. I am so happy you trusted. Do you know how many people would not trust some psychic that came on a show? Do you know how many would not trust? I would think the majority.

Mel Robbins: I didn't want to trust you because I didn't want to move and I didn't want to change my life and I didn't want to turn everything upside down. Yet somewhere deep in my being, I knew this was the truth. I knew that it was being delivered in a way to make me pay attention. I just want to thank you. I'm so excited to introduce you to our global audience because I think you have this extraordinary gift. I want everyone listening to suspend your suspicion for just a second. I want you to listen to what Kim has to offer you because she has changed my life. Why don't we begin with what is an intuitive psychic medium, Kim?

Kim Russo: We are all intuitive. I don't like labels. I don't even like the word psychic or medium, to be quite honest with you. I feel that as time goes on, that title is moving away from me because I am more of a teacher of energy. I'm very science-based in my mind. As spiritual as I am, I'm that science-based. I always loved science because my inquisitive mind needs to know how things work. When I couldn't really understand how I knew these things about complete strangers, I needed to research. In my research, I found that we are all intuitive. It's the language of energy that was suppressed because there might have been some people that didn't want us to know our power in this universe. It's all coming back to us now. We're all getting in touch with our intuition.

Kim Russo: I'm a very critical thinker, and I always like to use common sense. If the animals in the wild have intuition that tells them when danger is near, that guides them to find food and everything else, instinctively knows how to reproduce, why wouldn't more intelligent creatures on our planet have the same, if not more, of that same wisdom inside of them? It's a program that we've been conditioned to let go of, beginning with school, or beginning with the way our parents learned and then they teach it to us. I wrote all about this in my books because it's really about an unlearning of blockades where we're just so blocked in our thinking.

Kim Russo: It's really about what you did, Mel. It's about trusting and allowing and letting go of control. What I teach most people when I teach them how to get in touch with their gifts is releasing the control if they can, which was what you did. You put your ego aside for the betterment of your family, especially your son. I have three sons. There's nothing we wouldn't do for our children, as you know. I like what you said. You said everything within me knew it was the truth, AKA the word resonance. It resonated with you, with your soul, with your higher knowing. That's really how we should live our life. Following you, you teach this anyway. You just don't put a label on it. We are very similar in what we teach.

Mel Robbins: I agree. I agree. You just have this mystical sledgehammer in the way that you deliver the message that makes it very hard to ignore. Kim, I feel like there's somebody behind me. No, for real. They're tapping my shoulder going, Mel, you need to take a break. So that's what we're going to do. Everybody stay with us. We're going to hear a quick word from our sponsors. Do not go anywhere. We're going to be right back with more from Kim Russo.

[Commercial break]

Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. Today you and I are joined by a woman that changed the entire trajectory of my life. I'm talking about the intuitive medium, Kim Russo. Kim, how did you start to realize you had this gift of speaking to and delivering messages from people's relatives that have died?

Kim Russo: Long story short, as a child, every night going to sleep, there was this group of statuesque people with depressed looks on their face standing at the foot of my bed. I now know them to probably be spirits from a depression era. They were all in black. They never cracked a smile. I didn't understand who they were, what they wanted, and why they were in my room every single night of my life.

Mel Robbins: You could see them?

Kim Russo: I saw them. They did look transparent, like I could see through them, but yet I could see everything about what they were wearing and what they looked like. Just a little bit transparent. I slept with the covers over my head every night. My sister and I shared a bedroom. She's my bigger sister just by a few years, but she was always my source of comfort because she was older and she just always guided me. I felt safe knowing she was next to me, but I was all alone in this situation because she never saw what I saw.

Mel Robbins: Did you ever tell her what you were seeing?

Kim Russo: Absolutely.

Mel Robbins: What did she say?

Kim Russo: Go to sleep. No, I don't see anything. There's nothing there. When we would come home from relatives or we were out for the evening, we would come home. I wouldn't go in my bedroom. I would tell my dad, I'm not going in the room. My dad would humor me every single night, checking in the closet, checking under the bed, letting me know the coast was clear.

Mel Robbins: Right.

Kim Russo: I trusted my dad. No sooner did he leave the room, they would appear as soon as he left and my sister would fall asleep. Mommy, please, could I sleep in with you and daddy? They were very strict about that. Having my sister was a huge source of comfort. I would keep her up at night with every distraction I could. I told her to teach me how to spell. I mean, what was I? Seven, maybe five to seven. Please teach me how to spell. I'll never forget her teaching me the word elephant because it was the longest word. I just kept her up because I didn't want to contend by myself. I was up most of the night contending with this group of people. There were about five of them in total.

Kim Russo: My dad's from Europe, from Italy. I started looking at photo albums as I got older. I said, this is the kind of attire that these people were always wearing. They went away when in my teenage years. We had moved into a new home and they didn't. They followed me for a bit. Then I didn't see them through my teenage years. My life was completely normal. I say I was a mere mortal at that time.

Mel Robbins: Let me ask you a question. Were you scared because you were a little kid? Did you have any, like other than covering your head, did you try to talk to them? Did you yell at them? I don't know how I would deal over the course of five or six years, looking at the end of my bed and seeing ghosts.

Kim Russo: It's true. As a child, children looked to adults for body language, for a smile, to show their approval, to show that they're kind. They never showed any emotion, just like that, just nothing. Then they would follow me to school.

Mel Robbins: What?

Kim Russo: I never saw them. I felt them following me. We would walk to school and I always felt like I had these people. You know when you go up a flight of steps and you just feel like something's behind you? Everyone has experienced that once in their life. Walking through a dark alley, you feel some weird vibe. I've always felt this energy around me and I just assumed it was them. Back then, parents really didn't pay much mind about things like this. I think now they're more open. Parents are more open to their children when they say they see a man. I get emails daily of parents telling me their child sees a man with a black hat, which is not always so great. I understand it now way more than I ever did. Of course, we didn't know any of this.

Mel Robbins: What do you understand now?

Kim Russo: What I understand now is these were either trapped souls connected to the property. My father and my uncle built that home. I don't know about the land, or they might've been immigrants to my dad's family that I don't know that may have gone back generations. Definitely from the depression era. The one man was gaunt. He looked like he really could use a good meal. They look just so miserable, honestly. I know now that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, as we know by science. It can only change form. Energy cannot be destroyed. If our soul is made up of pure energy, which it is, how can we be destroyed in our consciousness? It's consciousness that can't be destroyed, literally. I go back to energy because energy is real. We use it every day of our lives. We don't see electricity. We don't see the cell phone signals, but yet we use them as they translate through the receivers that we have in our homes. We have fuse boxes for our electrical. We have cell phone towers for the signals. We have mediums for the energy, the signal of deceased consciousness or even consciousness itself. I learned that I am able to communicate with people in a coma or people with Alzheimer's or dementia who are kind of not really in their bodies, but their consciousness is free. I'm able to connect with that. I only learned that throughout the years of doing this.

Mel Robbins: I remember when you were on my talk show and we met three years ago, you said something that I found very comforting. I turned to you before you started reading people and talking to the spirit guides that had come into the room. I said, now, are there dead people in this talk show room? You were like, oh, yeah, everybody always has one or two people with them. I found that to be very comforting. Is that true that we tend to have somebody that is with us as we're going about our day-to-day life, whether we feel them there or not?

Kim Russo: It's absolutely true. They are always there as a frequency.

Mel Robbins: Why do you think those five souls followed you? Do you think they sensed that you could connect with the energy?

Kim Russo: Great question. They absolutely can sense it. There's a little bit of a backstory. Prior to being able to see, I even backtracked a few more years. It was Christmas Eve and my mom was in the kitchen cooking, big Italian feast. I was a curious little girl, as I still am. I found a safety pin on the floor right by the Christmas tree. I wanted to see what would happen if I stuck it in the electrical socket. I did. My body shot across the room. I got electrocuted. My right arm was completely charred. My mother rushed me to the hospital. Actually, it wasn't the hospital. It was our family doctor who at the time was always on call. He said to my mother, meet me at my office. That doctor saved my life too, several times. He wrapped my arm in this ointment called Silver Dean. He told my mother that I may or may not have any scarring.

Kim Russo: The only reason I know that this opened up something in my auric field, which everybody has an energy field around them, it was a tear in my aura. That's how they got in. The only reason I know this is years later, I picked up a book in the library when I couldn't control the voices and the information that was coming at me. I needed to find some information on this and there wasn't much. There was a book called The Link, L-I-N-K. I bought this book on Amazon. I have it. I opened to a random page. Nothing is a coincidence. The page said that most mediums have found that prior to the age of 10, they were hit with high doses of electricity, such as being struck by lightning, electrocution. How did I open to that page? They wanted me to know. They wanted me to know because I needed to understand.

Kim Russo: I had a pact with God because I was raised Catholic. I needed to know that I wasn't going against my religion and what the Bible says. It does say, you know, do not consult with mediums. It does say that in the Bible. I went to Catholic school for a short time and I was pretty familiar with the commandments. I needed to know. I said, if you want me to do this work, I need you to work with me. I need to know that I'm not doing anything against you, God. I need to know that I'm not going to be condemned to hell at that time. I didn't know much. I'm a seeker of the truth. I now know that we all have this ability to connect with energy. That's all this is, is energy, honestly.

Mel Robbins: Kim, there's so much more I want to talk to you about. We got to hear a quick word from our sponsors. So hold that thought. Everybody don't go anywhere because we're going to be right back. I'm sure the loved ones, your spirit guides, they're telling you, you got to hear this. We'll be right back.

[Commercial break]

Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend, Mel. Welcome back. You and I are hanging out with the amazing intuitive medium, the happy medium, Kim Russo. So Kim, I have so many questions to ask you.

Kim Russo: Okay. Shoot. I'm all ears.

Mel Robbins: You get electrocuted as a little girl. You start to see these five spirits and energetic consciousness at the end of your bed. You then move and you sense that they're following you, but they don't come to the new house. What happened as you got older that made you realize, holy cow, this isn't some weird thing. I actually have a gift. What was that moment?

Kim Russo: Fast forward, my sister had called me one day. Now we're both adults. We both have our children. Everything is normal. I don't see dead people. I don't hear dead people. My life is normal. When I married my husband, my life was normal. I wasn't a psychic. I wasn't seeing dead people. Nothing like that. My sister said, there's this psychic going to be in town. Would you like to go? I said, oh yeah, that sounds like fun. We go see this woman. She was not giving readings. She was giving a lecture about how she walked into her mediumship gifts after her sister passed away. When we walked in, she had us sign this mailing list with our phone number and our address. I didn't think anything. Phone number, address. My sister signed it right after me.

Kim Russo: About a month later, I get a call from that same woman telling me that she lived in my area. Actually, she lived pretty much around the corner from me. She told me I am a medium and that I was meant to do big things with my gifts and that she was giving classes on mediumship. First of all, I am a New Yorker. I don't trust. I don't fall for anything. I'm very level-headed as much as I know. I was very skeptical. I'm like, oh, this lady needs students. She's targeting me. I live around the corner. I said, oh, you know, I don't have childcare. Her classes were in the morning and I had just had my third son. I had no sitter. I was a stay-at-home mom. She said, you know, I'm going to let you slide, but I won't forget about you. I called my sister. I said, did that woman, Ali, call you for classes? She said, no, I didn't get a call.

Kim Russo: One year later, she calls me again. She said, I am being pushed. You need to take my class. She said, but guess what? It's not in the morning. It's at night. My classes are at night. You have no excuse. She really did not take no for an answer. I did go to her class. I didn't know if I was going to see chickens getting their heads cut or voodoo. I didn't know what this was. I looked around, I saw everybody look kind of normal and I was ready to bolt out the door if I saw anything that did not resonate. She was a nice Jewish woman. I looked at like, where does religion fit into this? That was my question. I went to 12 classes in total. Every time there was once a month that she invited us to read each other. I never went. I didn't want to read anybody. She wouldn't stop. She's telling me that my name will be well known. I didn't believe a word she said, none of it. You're meant to do this. You're going to be.

Kim Russo: Anyway, I'm done with her classes. Another month later, she calls me to do one of her psychic fairs. I said, I don't read. She said, yes, you do. I said, no, I don't read. I said, Holly, did you ever see me come to any of your classes and do reading? She said, no, you never showed up. I said, so why are you calling me? I can't do it. She said, okay. I didn't do the fair. Within that month, that's when the water faucet turned on. I was hearing everybody in the heavens as I would do mundane tasks. I was blow drying my hair. I was vacuuming. I was washing dishes. This is what I would hear. Hi, my name is Lisa. I died in a car accident. Hi, my name is Tracy. Please get in touch with my mother. I'm like, no, this can't even be real. I'm imagining this. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to call her. She said, I've been expecting your call. I said, well, you know what I'm about to say? She laughed. She's deceased now, by the way, this wonderful woman who was such a catalyst on my journey. I said, Holly, how do I stop the voices? She said, you can't. I did her next psychic fair. I was never more terrified in my life. After the first reading, it hasn't stopped. I've been on this journey ever since.

Mel Robbins: Wow.

Kim Russo: That's my story. There's a lot more in between, but I gave you the cliff notes.

Mel Robbins: What I love about it is you had to do that moment of letting go and leaning in. That something bigger that cannot be explained is actually what's meant for you. I would love for you to talk directly to the person listening that has a sense that they maybe have this gift too. What would you say to somebody who feels like they've had these experiences, but they don't know what to make of it and they don't know how to tap into it?

Kim Russo: This question comes up every day of my life. If you think you have a gift, you already know you have a gift. There's no thinking involved. What a lot of people do, and again, this is a lot of psychology, so I know you'll be able to relate. What people fear, they don't embrace. They don't necessarily choose to look into it because it's a program. Fear is a program. The biggest blockage of letting go is ego. I don't mean ego in the sense that you think you're great. I mean ego in the sense of fear is ego. Needing to control is ego. Not surrendering to a higher power is ego. To clarify for the audience, people think, oh, I don't think I have ego. We all have an ego. It's how we survive in this world. Not trusting is part of your ego. There's a healthy ego, getting washed every day, focusing, committing to a purpose. That's also the healthy ego. But getting rid of the ego.

Kim Russo: If something is telling you on your way to work every day, you have the best route mapped out, but something is telling you make a left, don't go your usual route, do not discount that. That's your spirit guides or your higher wisdom of your own soul telling you, guiding you to avoid something major. Cancel that trip. What do you mean cancel that trip? I paid a lot of money for that. It's my 60th anniversary. I can't cancel that trip. Cancel that trip in your gut, in your solar plexus. Some people get it in their heart, like a pounding. These are our chakra centers, the fuse box to the house where energy comes in. We have fuse boxes in our body called chakras. We all have them. They're energy centers. This is what allows us to stay connected to the 3D earth and it allows us to navigate how we react in this world, how we transfuse anxiety or so many things. Our chakras have a lot to do with it. Chakras are very much based on belief systems. If you refuse that little voice, you're going to wish you didn't.

Kim Russo: I teach this to everyone. You cannot put faith and logic in the same sentence. It doesn't go together. Logic is what you were trying to use. I have my business here in Boston. I have everything dedicated here. But something's telling me to let go of it all and go to the next chapter because there's something in that chapter that's waiting for you. I always say nothing changes if nothing changes. That's the God's honest truth. We have to get off of the loop of everything we've always done and step out in faith. We all have innate abilities. What I was about to say earlier is if the conscious mind does not allow you to tap in, these abilities will show up in your dream state. Why? Because the conscious mind, the guard dog, is sleeping. It's put to the side. It's not doing all the logic and the rationalization. The left brain is put to the side. Your psychic awareness will come through precognitive dreams where you have dreams of future events. Do you ever wake up and say, gee, I'm thinking of so and so. Why am I thinking of them? Something in your sleeping state was telling you to call them when you woke up.

Mel Robbins: Wow.

Kim Russo: I like to teach people to pay attention while you're awake. Allow the subconscious mind or the soul to filter through the conscious mind, even if it doesn't make sense. Something is telling you this. Even if it's not a voice, it could just be a feeling.

Kim Russo: I work mostly on feelings, which is called clairsentience. You've heard of clairvoyance.

Mel Robbins: Yes.

Kim Russo: That's where people could see the vision. Clairaudience is when they can hear the voices. Clairsentience is when you could feel something doesn't feel right. Like when you walk in a room and it looks beautiful, but it doesn't feel right. Something, maybe someone just had an argument in that space and you are picking up on the vibrations of that. We do this every day. We just don't have a name for it. We just don't know. And we don't want to give ourselves so much credit, right? That's a thing. People don't like to take credit. "I'm not a psychic. I'm not a medium." I'm like, yes, you are. I tell everyone, yes, you are. Everybody's a medium.

Mel Robbins: Everyone's a medium.

Kim Russo: Now, a medium is not only someone who could connect to dead people. That's another misconception. A medium can just channel for the moment. Medium for the moment. We all have done this at some point in our lives.

Mel Robbins: Give me an example of the way that you can be a medium in the moment.

Kim Russo: Have you ever had a conversation with a friend and they're telling you their problems? Let's just say they're talking about their husband, their relationship, their boyfriend. And you're listening with empathy, compassion, because you're a good friend. Something tells you inside, "Don't even worry about it. You're not even going to be with this guy." And you say that to your friend. And they say, "What do you mean I'm not going to be with them?" You say, "I don't know what it means, but you're not going to be with him anyway. Something is going to happen that will take him out of your path. So don't even worry about it." And they push you. "What does that mean? What do you know?" You say, "I don't know. I just felt that. I felt that in the moment that you're not even going to be with this guy anymore. Maybe he'll die. Maybe he'll cheat on you. Maybe he'll get a job transfer." And you don't know what it means, but you knew you needed to say that because you felt it. Has that ever happened to you, Mel?

Mel Robbins: Of course. It's happening to me right now with somebody that I love in my life. And I'm smart enough not to really say anything because I know that'll make them cling to them tighter. I just know that this is not forever.

Kim Russo: How does the other side, people who have passed on, communicate with us? Is it a language? Do they move stuff? How can we tap into that?

Mel Robbins: Great question. Again, it's the language of energy.

Kim Russo: And what is the language of energy if you're trying to tap into it for the first time? Everybody's clairs, which is how you receive information. You may have a more developed clair than the next guy. Some people have problems with visualization, right? They're like, "No, I'm not a visual person. So I can't really see that." That's why a lot of people can't meditate when they're being walked through a visual meditation. So I would say, well, that clair is not developed, but they have the clairsentient, which is feelings. So everyone is different in the way they receive information and which clair is more developed. So what I would say is pay attention to how something makes you feel. I am a more visual person. So when I receive information, I can watch a movie in my mind and I can tell you what's happening in that movie. A lot of spirits who didn't speak English communicate with me through a movie. They also can give me feelings because love is a universal feeling. So with sadness, everybody knows what that feels like. So I would say pay attention to your strongest clair. Remember the pit in your stomach? You're feeling something and it's not right. That's why it's called the gut feeling. It's in your gut. If you get a vision of something out of nowhere, like a fire or something, pay attention to that. Why did that vision come out of nowhere? So the first thing I would say is pay attention to how things make you feel. And be open to it being a message and guidance.

Mel Robbins: Yes.

Kim Russo: And the message doesn't always translate in the moment. Sometimes it makes sense later.

Mel Robbins: That happens a lot because time is not linear in the other realms or in the language of energy, or even in the quantum field. Quantum mechanics talks about energies. Time is not linear at all. It's only linear based on our clock and our time system, our calendar here in the 3D. But in the quantum, it's not linear. So that's why they talk about manifestation. You put a thought out there and based on the intensity of the belief system and the emotion, it will come back to you like a magnet. Not always. If you're having pessimistic thoughts about getting that manifestation, you just kind of canceled it out. So we have to release. Here's a great example. When you go through a drive-thru at McDonald's, Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, you're getting your coffee. You place an order through this little machine, this voice. When you pick up your order, you expect it to be exactly as you gave it out.

Kim Russo: Yes.

Mel Robbins: Same thing with the universe. You put a thought out, you expect the result to be delivered and nothing more, nothing less. Except if it's not for the highest good of all concerned, because the universe won't give to you and take from someone else. It's a fair universe. So it has to always be for the highest good.

Kim Russo: When you ask for something, what does that mean? What if I'm manifesting that my loved one goes into remission?

Mel Robbins: That's a good one. If your loved one contracted for a certain exit point in this lifetime, you probably won't be able to manifest that because there's a soul contract with that loved one. "I am exiting at this date, at this time, in this manner."

Kim Russo: What is a soul contract?

Mel Robbins: It's a contract that every soul has before they come to Earth. The contract is... let's talk about you.

Kim Russo: Me? Why not?

Mel Robbins: Maybe in your last life, or one of your last lives, you hurt some people with your power or your money or your notoriety. This is hypothetical. And in this lifetime, you're like, "You know what? I have to balance that." In the universe is the law of balance. There's no way around that. You could call it karma. I don't like that word, by the way, because you always think about a negative connotation when you say the word karma.

Kim Russo: It's true.

Mel Robbins: But I like to call it the law of balance. That's why I'm known as the happy medium. Because the happy medium is a phrase that's been coined to find the balance. And if you come back here this time to balance out your soul, you're like, "Yeah, you know what? I have to dedicate my life to helping people, empowering people, because I took people's power away in other times. And now I have to teach them how to get it, how to keep their power, and how to bring that into fruition this lifetime." So you are the teacher of that for people. So that's one of your soul contracts. Say you had a lover that died at war and he never came back. That chapter is not closed with that soul. So the contract with that soul is, "Let's go back and get this one right. Because we had such a good thing going until you went to war and my heart has never been the same since." But this lifetime, we're going to write it out. You're not leaving me early. Maybe I'll leave you before you leave me. So they're just agreements, just like we have agreements here. They usually work with other souls. And it also connects to an experience you want to have.

Kim Russo: So some people say to me, "I don't know where I should move." Your case was different because there was a son involved and everything else. And here's what my answer would be. There's no wrong or right answer. What experience would you like to have? There's no wrong or right answer. You have free will. Now, the experience you'd like to have will really put you on that trajectory of that soul lesson. See, your higher self has all the answers. You know exactly why you're here. You have the program downloaded inside of you—the contract, I mean. When an astronaut goes into space, he doesn't go unprepared. He goes with the food, the right garments, the right vehicle. He's going on a mission. He knows what he needs to survive going into space. We know what we need to survive coming onto Earth. It's no different. So when you become a medium in the moment and you allow yourself to lean into your intuition and your feeling, whether your power is in the visual or the auditory or the feeling—and I would put mine in the feeling category for sure—that's how you tap into that inner wisdom that's programmed in you. That's how you connect with your spirit guides and the guidance of loved ones who have passed on.

Mel Robbins: After communicating with tens of thousands of individuals who have passed over to the other side, what are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned?

Kim Russo: Through them, you mean?

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Kim Russo: Well, number one is our earthly life is a blink in the equation of eternity. It's a blink. 99 to 100 years, which is the average lifespan. We're just passing through. That's all we're doing here. So don't sweat the small stuff because you're just here for a quick stop. This is not eternity. They always want us also to know this is not where we came from. So there is a place where we all came from. That's the place we go back to. And that's where we're reunited with our loved ones. This is just the stop on the train. A big lesson they would like to talk about is forgiveness and the scope of our understanding through these two little slits in our head, which are the earthly eyes. We're only seeing life with these two little eyeballs. Can you imagine? It's like getting in an airplane. You see the aerial view, but when you're on the ground, you can only see what's in front of you. So they love to talk about the bigger picture and what was keeping you in bondage while you were there on your earthly journey. That it was just a figment of your mind. It was bondage of your own thoughts. It doesn't mean it was the truth. And we're all coming to the table with programmed thoughts of limitation because that's the program. We're all in that program. It's a matter of getting out of that program.

Mel Robbins: When I think about the example of getting a message from you three years ago from my dead father-in-law that I needed to trust my son, and even though I didn't like what was going on at the school, he knew what the answer was, and I needed to let him make the decision, and I needed to trust it. The only thing standing in my way of embracing what I knew to be true was fear. I think a lot about the example that you gave early on about how every other animal and sentient being on this planet operates based on instinct and vibration. They do not have language to talk themselves out of the wisdom that is programmed into them. They're running on energy and instinct and intelligence. And the only difference, and what ironically makes us a more intelligent being than animals and sentient beings, is that we can talk and think in words, which ironically is what buries our intuition. It is what we turn to whenever we get afraid of change or of what the message that your life is trying to give you is telling you. And so it's with our words that we talk ourselves out of the magic and the possibility and all of the messages that I think our higher self and our spirit guides are trying to give to us. If you were to say to somebody, there are two things that you can do in order to start to strengthen your connection to your inner wisdom, to your higher self, to the messages that are all around you every single day, what would those one or two things be that you want people to do beyond just paying attention to the feeling? Is there anything proactive that somebody can do to start to develop this "medium in the moment" skill that you're talking about?

Kim Russo: Absolutely. I love how you just reworded everything. That was perfect. And how true it is. The left brain is the logic mind. So we have to move into the right brain. That's where the higher wisdom comes from, the downloads, the intuition, the connection to the higher realms. Meditation is number one. I am not a person that goes into some kind of organized meditation in a yogi position. I don't do any of that. You can meditate by walking on a beach without your phone, just you with your own thoughts. Sometimes pushing the thoughts out and just allow yourself to be. You don't have to do anything where you sit there with your eyes closed. I take a nice hot bath. That's my form of meditation. I just sit alone with my thoughts and I allow for the gratefulness and the thankfulness. That's the number one thing you could do to open up your heart chakra, because the way to get to that right brain and to that wisdom is only through the heart. Never through the mind. Ever. It's only through the heart. So I encourage my students to work on their heart chakra. And when you work on the heart chakra, thankfulness, gratefulness comes from there. Forgiveness comes from there. You don't have to forgive the act of the person, but just allow for the forgiveness to understand that that person is working off a program, and that's not a healthy program that allowed them to do that to you, whatever that might be. So we have to start to look at people as souls rather than harmful human beings. Souls with a program, and everyone's program is different based on their childhood. The heart chakra is the gateway. That's the way to God, to the higher minds. The heart chakra can be opened with compassion. Do some volunteer work. See how your life is in comparison to the less fortunate. Help others. It helps you. When you help others, it helps you feel like you have a purpose. And if you don't know your purpose, make that your purpose: to help someone, help an animal, help someone who cannot help themselves. That's another way to the heart chakra. Allowing for forgiveness, compassion, empathy, gratefulness, joy. Joy is huge. Did you ever find anybody that you know that didn't work from the heart with joy? Not really. They're working from their lower chakras, which is fight or flight, survival. There's also something that I love and it's so much fun, and people could do this with their children. Children, before they've been indoctrinated by this world, their gifts are just so highly vibrating and they don't have that mindset to talk them out of it. So what I would do is take an object of someone you know. It could be a living person, a deceased person—energy is still there. That's why when they look for people that are missing, they give the psychic a piece of the person's clothing, because it's holding energetic vibrations. So take an object of someone and give it to someone as an exercise. Let's just say it's your grandmother's ring. And you know everything about your grandmother. Let's just say she was a baker and she was a singer and she worked in the church. The person holding onto the ring of your grandmother—it's called psychometry. It's a real thing. That's a psychic exercise. Just write down the impressions that you're receiving. Without thinking, don't think yourself out of it. If you see a color, if you feel a feeling, if you're watching a movie and you see something, write it down. Give every single piece of information you're receiving. Remember, you're the receiver now. You will read the note paper and you will see that most people are very intuitive without them knowing it. I love to prove to people how intuitive they are. That's one exercise that I use with my students: show them how intuitive they are by holding something that has a vibration. Everything has a vibration. Everything is a living being. And it doesn't have to be like a relic or anything special. It could be anything. It could be clothing of a living or a deceased person.

Mel Robbins: I had something happen the other day and I am still marinating in the meaning of what happened. It was my 27th wedding anniversary and my husband and I were coming back from dinner. It was dark and it was pouring rain. And we were having this conversation about spirituality. My husband is a death doula and he is getting his master's right now in spiritual psychology. So we're having this conversation. We come up over this hill and all of a sudden we see this massive bird fly down onto the road and try to grab a mouse or whatever with its talons. And there was a car in front of us. And as the bird came up, the car hit the bird and the bird went tumbling. And I yelled, "Chris!" and we hit the brakes and I jumped out of the car. There were a couple other cars behind us. I mean, it was pouring. So it was this very cinematic, out-of-body experience because I'm in the pouring rain dressed in my high heel boots because I had come for my anniversary dinner. We're up in the mountains in Vermont. I'm stopping traffic. And there in front of me through the headlights and the pouring rain is an owl and its wings are splayed out and one of the wings is bent backwards. I run over to it and it's an adult barred owl and it was kind of face down with its belly on the ground. I'm just drenched and the water's coming down and the headlights are coming through and there are no thoughts in my mind. It was like a pure spiritual download. And the guy in the car behind Chris and I said, "I have a towel in the car. Let me grab it." And as I stood over this bird going, "It's okay, buddy, we got you," his head, like how an owl's head can turn all the way around, turned from the road all the way backwards. And this owl held eye contact with me for probably 25 seconds. And the towel came, I swooped him up. I don't even know what I was thinking because I wasn't thinking about his talons or his beak or anything. I just swooped him up like a baby and swaddled him. And then I held him in my arms for 30 minutes as we drove home. And he didn't move. Now, clearly he was in shock. But to me, I feel like that was a profoundly psychic, spiritual experience. And to your point, I have no clue what it means, but I know at some point I will.

Kim Russo: How's the owl doing now?

Mel Robbins: We called my vet and my vet told us about this incredible rescue organization in Woodstock, Vermont. They told us what to do with him overnight. We put him in a dark area in a laundry basket with the towel with the lid on top. They came the next morning and he's going to be okay. They're not going to be able to release him back into the wild, I don't think, but he will survive.

Kim Russo: As you know, owls represent wisdom. That's what I keep hearing as you're telling me this. Wisdom, higher wisdom. That's why an owl can turn its head. It sees everything. It's like a 360 view, an aerial view, the bigger picture. I think it's very representative. And bravo to you for doing what you did. Many people might not have done that. But it's your car that was targeted. And I take it as, especially what you just said about Chris and this new chapter opening up of the higher wisdom coming in, maybe with him, maybe with you, maybe with both of you. But I definitely feel something is a new chapter regarding everything we're speaking about today with you and Chris.

Mel Robbins: Totally. Especially Chris. I mean, that's amazing what he's achieved. And he's definitely got to be doing that from the heart chakra. You can't be a death doula without feeling all kinds of emotions on a daily basis.

Kim Russo: You know how there are those of us that say that we are empaths and you just absorb what everybody else is feeling and you can have your energy drain? Is that a form of being a medium? That you're absorbing all those voices? Is being highly empathic a form of downloading messages, not only from other people that are physically in front of you, but from people that have passed over?

Mel Robbins: Absolutely. Yes. Because you're like a sponge. And a lot of what I call psychic vampires, which could be just regular everyday people—those are the victims, those are the narcissists. They always are drawn to empaths because they know that we're easy prey. So I would say empaths without good boundaries could be dead in the water. They can leave you for dead energetically if you allow them. I also am working on a book like Ethics of Mediumship and also the Dangers of Mediumship. And to answer your question, there are dangers of mediumship because you are connecting with a higher frequency and the medium must raise their vibration in order to connect, and the spirit world lowers their vibration. As you can imagine, when they don't know how to control their vibration or emotions on the other side, they can allow the medium to be very anxious because they're vibrating really quickly and they're hanging around my aura. So a lot of mediums have anxiety and they don't even know what that anxiety is. But a lot of the time they're natural born mediums and they're picking up on the vibration and they have to have strong boundaries and say, "Whoever is around me, you need to calm down because you're making me anxious. I was calm one minute ago and now I'm not." And that goes with getting in a crowded plane or train, concerts. When you're around people, if you start to feel anxiety, you very well could be picking up on all these people's energy coming into your space. So you definitely have to do some protective psychic work, putting the bubble around you and learning how to protect your own aura and your own space. And using your voice chakra. That's huge. When your voice chakra is underdeveloped, you don't speak your truth. You're a people pleaser. You are afraid to hurt anyone's feelings because then you think they won't like you. Then you're not living your truth and you're not speaking your truth. And then you can get thyroid issues, you can get all kinds of vocal problems, and you can get asthma or feeling like you can't breathe. It's all connected to the proper chakra. That's why when they speak about heartbreaks, literally you can die of a heart attack because of the impact to the heart chakra. So it's all connected. And yeah, empaths have to really be careful about people taking their energy. There's that phrase, "Don't take my kindness for weakness." That's where that came from.

Kim Russo: Can you quickly explain to somebody who doesn't know what you mean when you say "aura"? What is an aura and do we all have one?

Mel Robbins: Yes, we all have one. It's the energetic body that a lot of mediums or psychics can see. And it's connected to—I'll call them fuse boxes to make a correlation—our bodies have chakra systems. There's seven main ones running from the base of your spine to the top of your head, like the crown. That's why in a lot of religious figures like Jesus and Buddha, they will always show these religious masters with a sun around their head or a white light, because that's connected to the crown chakra, which connects us to the higher wisdom or realms. It takes us out of our own knowing and it takes us to the deeper meanings and wisdom and connection to the masters in the higher dimensions. So there's a color associated with each chakra. So you will actually see someone's aura based on their chakra system. If you're a person who doesn't trust people, or if you're an angry person—anger comes from the root, which is red. The root chakra is red color. If a medium can see an aura and there's mostly red, there's a lot of anger or that person just had an argument. Your aura colors change from moment to moment based on your emotions and your thoughts.

Mel Robbins: You know what I'm getting from you that's really cool? You're coming at personal development, mindset, life fulfillment by basically saying you're a soul and an energetic being. And when life isn't working, you have blocked your energy. It is supposed to flow. When you're in a state of intuition and trust and love and growth and possibility, you are allowing energy in and you are allowing yourself to lean into it. And when things are blocked or you're angry or frustrated, when energy is blocked, it's also a message that something's not working or that you're gripping or that it's fear. I love coming at changing your life from the angle of thinking about where the energy flows and where it's blocked and where you're receiving messages and where you are actually arguing against those messages. It's extremely accessible and empowering. And there's something about it that makes me go, "I know that's true." I know that we are meant to live in alignment with our higher calling and with the energy.

Kim Russo: I'll tell you, you were just the medium in the moment. Do you know that?

Mel Robbins: No. What do you mean? What did I do?

Kim Russo: What you just said to me, you were like, you just kind of put it all in a nice package and said, "You may see it as your assessment or your observation." I took that as a message. It resonated with me. It hit my heart. So thank you for that.

Mel Robbins: So Kim, when you read people or you talk to somebody's loved ones who appear and have a message, how do you do that? What's the step?

Kim Russo: Here's what I would recommend people do trying to tap in. There's different ways we can listen. If you are in a room with a television and you're watching YouTube on your computer at the same time, we have the capability of switching our listening skills to the television or to the computer. That's how mediums do what they do. They focus in the direction of where the information is going to start flowing in. They tell me what to say.

Mel Robbins: How do you feel when you're done channeling messages like that?

Kim Russo: I feel good when it helps people. I also feel like I was doing translation for the deaf. So it's the spiritually deaf. And can I tell you?

Kim Russo: Yeah. I learned through these messages for myself. When I give these messages, I say to myself, I can apply this. I should apply this. This is for me too. I'm thinking that in a lot of the messages I deliver, that's how I know it doesn't come from me. Because I'm like, wow, that's a great idea. It helps me when I help others. And I think that goes with any time you help anyone with anything. It's a great feeling.

I love that I've stepped into my soul mission contract. People sometimes are very depressed because they haven't stepped into their purpose yet. That's why their vibration is like a wet blanket on it. They just know there has to be more for me. This is not all there is. This is not why I came here. We know innately what we're good at and what we can do to change the world. That's my mission. If I change the world just one person, I'm happy, honestly.

Mel Robbins: Well, you changed mine. That's still mind-blowing to me, by the way. Not for anything, it just blows my mind, honestly. There is absolutely no way that we would have launched this podcast, or I would have done the level of healing that I've done in the last three years, or that I would be the version of myself that I am, had you not walked into my life and handed me the message that I needed to hear in a way that made me wake up and say, "Fuck it. I'm trusting this. I'm not arguing with my dead father-in-law. I know deep down that this move is what I need. I haven't known how to do it because I've been afraid." It wouldn't have happened without you.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for opening that up for me, for walking into my life, for being a part of my life, and for all of the wisdom and guidance and tools and inspiration that you gave everyone around the world listening today. We fucking love you, Kim Russo. Thank you so much.

Kim Russo: Ditto. Likewise. Thank you for what you do. And everyone here that's making this happen, I feel like we're doing the same thing, all of us, each one in our own way. But thank you. Thank you so much. And I'm glad you listened to the message. And I'm glad I listened to my message. And that's for everyone listening. Please listen. When the messages come calling, don't put them on the shelf.

Mel Robbins: Honestly, thank you so much. You're so cool. Holy smokes.

[Mel addresses the audience directly]

Mel Robbins: I am so happy you got to experience the inimitable, incredible, one of a kind force that Kim Russo is. I hope that you took to heart what she said: that the messages are coming from all around you, that you aren't alone, that there are guides that are with you. When you really lean into the fact that you do have this power, you can be a medium in the moment. You can tap into the messages that are all around you. I think you'll be surprised about what opens up in your life.

What opens up in your life is your purpose, a connection to something deeper, and growth and majesty that you didn't even realize was possible. In case nobody else tells you today, I want to tell you that I love you. I believe in you. I believe in your ability to create a better life. My life is an example of the fact that sometimes you have to just trust something that you know to be true in your heart, but doesn't make sense in your mind. Because your heart always knows what's right before your mind makes sense of the fact that it is.

Alrighty. I love you. I'll talk to you in a few days.

[Audio issue - mic feedback]

Mel Robbins: Oh my God, I can't believe we're about to see her. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? You can't hear us? We can't hear you. Wait, can't you hear? Okay. I think we need to do something with her mic. Hold on. It's echoing. Okay, now we can. Oh, there we go. Okay, here we go. Let me start all over. Woo!

And the power of your intuition and what your dead relatives are saying. I don't even know. She turned to me in front of a live audience and said, "Oh, you know what, YOLO?" Maybe my dog... You know what, you guys? This is weird. My dog is starting to make noises. I wonder if our relatives are starting to come into the house. This is kind of crazy.

All right, great. No, I think we got it. Oh, my God. Everybody. Kim Russo. Wow.

[Legal disclaimer]

Mel Robbins: Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language that the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.