Paulson saw a small, dark-haired figure
run across the hall in her home. It
wasn’t any of her children.
“The first thought that I have is:
Matthew. I didn’t want it to be true.
I wanted him to be safe in his body, so
I decided I was crazy.”
But a couple of days later Katrina
called to let her know that Matthew
had passed and she hoped that Paulson
would talk with the family. Paulson
was afraid of instilling false hope in
the family, so she demurred.
Then, she said, Matthew began
visiting her dreams nightly, waking
her from much-needed sleep to show
her an image of herself carving on a
tombstone.
“He said ‘I need you to talk to my
mom,’” she said.
Worn down by his persistence, she
agreed to talk with Matthew’s family.
What followed forever changed her
attitude about her gift and what she
should do with it.
“We ruled out [me being] crazy,”
she said.
Matthew’s family was in the process
of packing up his room when she came
for the visit. Matthew spoke through
Paulson and described items he wanted
his sister to have that Paulson had
never seen. His mother would go down
the hall to his room and bring back the
items he described.
“I still get goosebumps thinking
about it. I was the biggest skeptic. I was
trying to figure out how is this possible,
how is this really happening?” she said.
As for the dream of the tombstone,
she said it turned out that his family
had yet to put up a headstone. In the
dream, she was carving a symbol.
Matthew’s father asked if she would
recognize it if he wrote some down. She
wasn’t sure, but agreed to try. Paulson
recognized the one Matthew’s father
wrote immediately.
“His father said it was Matthew’s
name in another language. I picked it
out of all of them. We both about fell
over. He had just taught Matthew how
to write that before he died,” she said.
Translating the Spirit World
From that point forward, Paulson
began to listen in earnest. “Spirit
wanted not only to be seen but heard.”
By 2011, she began to work with
a small number of clients privately,
though she came and went from it until
October of 2017, when she began to
work full time.
Paulson has found that clients come
to her two general reasons; to speak to
a loved one who has passed, or for a
sense of peace or closure.
“They want to know, am I going to
be okay here? They come to know that
their loved ones are okay.”
Though some people also want
guidance, Paulson makes clear that she
is not a therapist and only translates
what the spirits tell her. “I one hundred
percent work for spirit.”
She also makes no guarantees that
a loved one will show up, but she said
they do about ninety percent of the time.
“I never make a spirit speak, but I
will ask.”
Sessions last anywhere from an hour
to ninety minutes. When clients come
in, she begins with the Matthew story
as a way to share something personal
about herself and put them on the
same footing.
Then she tells her clients, “My job
today is to give you the messages that
[the spirits] want you to have. They
brought you here and I’m just their
microphone.”
A Deeper Faith
She draws upon a strong faith in God,
though she is open to all faiths and
those who consider themselves atheists.
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
FALL/HOLIDAY 2019
“He gave me this gift, it’s his not mine.
I do it to the best of my ability and get
my ego out of the way,” she said.
Her work as a medium has deepened
her faith. “I get to witness miracles. I
even notice the miracles that were there
all along, the simple little things.”
Though she was nervous in the early
days as she began to open herself up,
she now feels her work “has made me
more authentically me.” She believes it’s
important to model authenticity for her
four children.
Her family supports her work, as
well. When she took a break from it for
a while, her husband of 16 years, Brian,
encouraged her back toward it. And
recently her father introduced her as a
medium, which she said was a big deal.
She has studied other mediums over
the years to practice and hone her gift,
and has learned to trust that what she
sees and hears is real. However, she
does caution people who wish to work
with her that if they’re just looking for
specific psychic information, that’s not
her area of specialty.
While she said sometimes the
spirits communicate information about
the future, she tends not to pass that
information on. “I don’t think we’re
supposed to have all the answers. I
think we’re supposed to figure things
out. We have to choose. That’s why
we’re here.”
Instead, she said, “I feel like my
job is to connect those of us here to
our loved ones who have passed. My
job is to translate soul, or it’s translated
to me.”
For people who come to her
expecting answers, she clarifies, “There’s
so much I don’t know. I don’t have the
answers.”
Instead, she urges people “Come
with an open heart. Let go of some of
your expectations because you’ll receive
more that way.”
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