Beyond the Static: How to Quiet Your Mind and Strengthen Your Intuitive Abilities – An Interview with Manna Dabholkar

What if the world isn’t getting darker—but the light is expanding, revealing what has been there all along?

Psychic medium, teacher, and philanthropist Manna Dabholkar sees this turbulent moment as a global invitation to become more conscious and compassionate. In this conversation, she offers a grounded look at the spirit world and challenges the idea that intuitive people simply possess special powers. Instead, she believes the ability to receive guidance begins with learning how to quiet the mind, listen deeply, and trust what arises from within.

Manna also explains why true spiritual development is about far more than mastering a technique. The most important work happens within the person developing the gift. Whether you have experienced communication from beyond or are simply curious about what might be possible, this interview invites you to move beyond the mental static and discover a deeper relationship with your own inner wisdom.

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As a psychic medium and philanthropist, you travel the world. You not only see the headlines about the good—and not-so-good—things happening in the world, but you have personally experienced them on a global level. What do you sense is happening on our planet right now? What is unfolding among us?

Manna Dabholkar: I believe we are living through a tremendous period of transition. At the same time, throughout our history, humanity has gone through seasons when old systems, beliefs, or ways of doing things could no longer sustain us. I feel we are in one of those moments now.

Some of my students ask me about this because when you go online, on YouTube, or on social media, all you see is negative stuff. It feels like everything is getting darker, but personally, I don’t think it is. From my spiritual perspective, I believe the light is expanding as more people become conscious and begin asking deeper questions: Why am I here? What is my purpose?

When you turn on the light in a dark room, you don’t create the dust—the dust was already there, and now you can see it. I think that’s what is happening. We are witnessing conflict, division, and suffering, but when have we not? I also think there is an incredible level of compassion and healing happening now, which is why we are seeing so many of those other things.

People are becoming less interested in simply surviving and more interested in living with purpose and connection. Since coming out of COVID, people really want that one-on-one connection. Nature also teaches us that life moves in cycles. There will always be a rhythm between expansion and contraction, day and night.

We are certainly witnessing many challenges, and I see them when I travel to these places. But I also see so much light in the children who were born and raised there and now want to help—not only the children we are assisting, but many of our volunteers. I see it in places like the settlement in South Africa, and to me, that represents an incredible movement toward greater balance.

My hope is that what we are experiencing isn’t a global crisis, but a global invitation—an opportunity to become more human, compassionate, and conscious.

In our previous conversation, we explored your personal story in depth. But if someone were to meet Manna Dabholkar and ask, “Who are you? What do you do in this world?”…how would you describe the breadth of how you serve humanity?

Manna Dabholkar: I see myself as a lifelong student. I’m incredibly curious about everything. Even the courses I design aren’t created by the teacher in me; they’re created by the student in me who wants to understand things.

I wear many different hats. From a distance, they may look unrelated, but the purpose beneath everything is the same: transformation. I don’t want people to depend on me or anyone outside themselves for guidance and clarity. I would rather help them lean on themselves and find that guidance within.

I think that is my purpose. Whether through GIFT, CLI, or all the teaching I do, I want people to transform and recognize the power they have within themselves.

On a more practical level, how are you living out your gifts in the world?

Manna Dabholkar: Let’s start with my work as a psychic medium. I’m both a psychic and a medium, although I would say I’m more of a medium. I’ve been a medium since I was little, and more recently, I’ve become curious about grief and what I call death education. Even within mediumship, I’m expanding and exploring how we can assist people who are transitioning, as well as those they leave behind.

The simplest way to define me would be as a psychic medium. I’m a medium; I’m a channel. That doesn’t mean I speak with the dead all the time. It means I can be a medium for bringing healing where it’s needed, and that doesn’t always have to involve death and dying.

In addition to that, you have your nonprofit philanthropic work. What does that include?

Manna Dabholkar: GIFT—the Global Gift Initiative—is a nonprofit that has been around for almost ten years. We currently work in 17 countries and do a great deal of work with children. I’m very interested in helping children because they are the future, and our focus is on prevention rather than responding after the fact.

GIFT began after I became involved in anti-human-trafficking work. I realized that a great deal of funding and many resources were going toward rehabilitating survivors of sex trafficking, which is absolutely necessary. However, not much was going toward prevention—education, medical care, and ensuring that children don’t end up in situations where they can be trafficked.

That is what GIFT does in several different ways. We provide education and medical services to families who don’t have the resources to pay for their children’s care. We match sponsors with children to support their education. We also have Sports for Solar, which distributes solar lights through the medium of sports.

More recently, we’ve added mental health support, which is my favorite initiative. We offer free workshops and resources for people who need mental health support but don’t necessarily have access to a counselor or therapist. Everything we do is preventive and focused largely on children, but you cannot ignore the family when working with a child. It is a unit, so we tend to work with the entire family.

I want to navigate between these two worlds and go deeper into both, beginning with the psychic medium aspect of your life. You teach many courses through the Conscious Leadership Institute. For those who don’t know, I’ve taken a couple of your mediumship courses, and they changed my life. They truly opened me to new possibilities.

About three years ago, my partner Mandy invited you to give a mediumship demonstration—a platform reading—at Behind the Lids Healing Collective in Costa Mesa. I stood at the back of the room, and at the time, I probably couldn’t have explained what mediumship was because it had never been a focus for me. 

You very nonchalantly began writing in a book while about 20 people sat in the room. Then you started calling out the names of loved ones who were present—not just simple names, but specific names, birth dates, death dates, and other details that made it very clear who had come through. Nothing about it was ambiguous.

I began asking myself: If this is possible, what else might be possible that I don’t believe in, don’t understand, or don’t even know about? It opened my mind and heart to the possibilities of interconnectedness and the multidimensionality of our existence. You played a tremendous role in opening me to all of that.

You’re incredibly humble about your gifts and also very mysterious. You tend to stay behind the scenes and don’t share your whole life on social media. Do you feel mysterious?

Manna Dabholkar: What do you mean by that? That I don’t show up on social media? I’m a hermit! I like to stay away, especially in recent years. I like to hide.

I feel that the people who need to find me will find me, and somehow, it works out. I really want to enjoy what I do, and I think the best way to do that is not to overexpose myself. I’d rather manifest the people who will love me and whom I will love teaching and guiding.

You definitely have to work to find Manna! You’re on social media, but you’re more reserved and don’t share your whole life or what you’re eating for lunch. What are your day-to-day interactions with the spirit realm like? When you wake up, get ready for the day, or eat, what do you sense or experience that may feel normal to you but would be interesting to others?

Manna Dabholkar: I think I’m going to disappoint a lot of people with this answer, but it’s helpful to understand if you’re training as a psychic medium. One of the biggest misconceptions is that spirits are constantly talking to me. Thankfully, they’re not.

I’ve spent years learning to create very strict, healthy boundaries with the spirit world. If I were connected to the spirit world 24/7, with spirits jumping in while I was brushing my teeth or eating, I would exhaust myself. I wouldn’t be able to function as a normal human being. There needs to be what I call an “open” and a “shut” when you’re a psychic medium, particularly when you’re a medium. That is why training is so important: we need to know how to consciously open the door, let the spirit in, speak with them, and then let them out.

For me, mediumship is very intentional. When I prepare to read for a group, a sitter, or a client, I step into my classroom, quiet my mind, raise my awareness, and allow the connection to unfold. Spirit communication happens in many different ways and through many different clairs. Sometimes I hear names and dates. I may see memories or feel emotions, particularly if they are showing me something about how they died. Other times, I simply experience an overwhelming feeling of knowingness.

When I’m not intentionally connecting and am simply minding my own business, I’ll sometimes hear a strong, high-pitched buzzing sound in my left ear. It’s like a doorbell—that’s what I call it. It’s an invitation, like someone is at the door asking, “Can I come in and speak with you?”

Then it’s up to me. If I’m ready and interested, I’ll say, “Of course. Come on in, and let me see how I can help you.” If I’m busy doing something else, I’ll say, “Not right now. Go make an appointment.”

At the end of the day, I don’t see myself as someone with special powers. I see myself as someone who has spent years learning how to listen. As psychic mediums—particularly as mediums—we are constantly operating in the realm of grief because our clients are grieving. To be a good medium, it’s also important to be a good death doula and to have excellent grief education. All of those things require listening.

One of the things you talk about frequently, as you just mentioned, is boundaries. Some people listening or watching may need those boundaries because they’ve grown up hearing and experiencing things constantly. I interview people like that.

But others don’t have that experience and are trying to break open the door to that realm. They receive little hints, experiences, or whispers here and there, but they’re thinking, “I want the door to open. I’m not trying to create boundaries; I’m trying to remove them.” How do you help that type of person?

Manna Dabholkar: The best analogy I can offer is a radio tower. Imagine a radio tower broadcasting a signal all day long. The broadcast hasn’t stopped, but the radio can become filled with static. There may be noise or dust, making it difficult to hear the music—not because the music has stopped, but because you have static.

That static could be grief, mental chatter, expectations, or the pressure you’re putting on yourself. The training we do isn’t simply about techniques, although technique is part of it. It’s more about learning how to quiet the mind.

That is what intuitive and mediumship training is really about. If you can lower the chatter and quiet your mind, the signal is always there. Spirit is always there.

How do I quiet my mind? I know I’m asking you to condense an entire eight-, ten-, or twelve-week course into ten minutes, but how do I reach a place where I can hear that signal more easily?

Manna Dabholkar: There are different ways to do it; it’s not one-size-fits-all. I would begin with meditation, breathwork, and spending time in nature. You also have to look at your lifestyle. How much do you sleep? How much water do you drink? What are you eating? Are you smoking or drinking? So much goes into quieting the mind.

You need to look at your everyday life and notice the moments that naturally bring you into a state of relaxation. It could be driving, folding laundry, taking a bath, or doing any of those little things that allow your mind to enter a flow state. You’re not really thinking, and you don’t have to try hard. Trying hard is actually the opposite of intuition.

The moments when you’re not trying too hard are also the moments when intuition flows in. Practice creating those little moments. Fold laundry for an hour, take a long drive, walk in nature, or go on a hike. Do things that don’t require your brain to think too much. That’s how you quiet your mind—by entering a flow state. What creates that state will be unique to each person.

Do you work with spirits or ancestors to guide your own life? When you think about your path, decisions, the courses you’ll teach, or your relationships, do you work with spirits in that way?

Manna Dabholkar: Yes, but perhaps not in the way people imagine. I don’t ask spirit what stock to buy or what I should eat for lunch. There’s a misconception that when someone dies, they suddenly become all-knowing, enlightened, and full of perfect wisdom. In my experience, that isn’t how consciousness evolves. Dying doesn’t instantly guarantee that you become smart or intelligent.

If your father was practical, he will probably still be a practical spirit. If your grandmother was nurturing, that quality will continue to come through. I don’t rely on dead people—those who are now beyond their material bodies—for guidance because we don’t know what level of healing that individual has experienced on the other side. That’s why I’m very careful about where I seek guidance.

Rather than asking transitioned loved ones what I should do with my life, I spend far more time cultivating a relationship with my higher self. For those trying to understand that idea, your higher self is the deepest and wisest aspect of your consciousness. The way I understand it, we all have a soul, and throughout our lives, we can choose how we relate to it.

We can become deeply identified with our human experience—our fears, attachments, beliefs, stories, and conditioning—or we can align with our true nature and become more connected with spirit, love, and what many traditions call oneness or universal consciousness. For me, intuition isn’t about depending on something outside myself, even if that something is a spirit guide. It’s about becoming quiet enough to hear my own higher self, which is also a guide.

Do I work with guides, angels, and ancestral spirits? Absolutely. I deeply respect those relationships, and there are times when I consciously invite them in. For example, when I do platform sessions at Behind the Lids, my ancestral spirits always stand guard. They support the work, create a container, and make sure nothing crazy enters the space.

My goal has always been to strengthen my relationship with my own higher self, which we tend to exclude. Most people talk about spirit guides, but your higher self is your first spirit guide. From my perspective, that is where the clearest guidance should come from—not because someone else is telling me what to do, but because I’m learning to live in alignment with who I truly am.

When you connect with your higher self, do you visualize something? How do you make that connection, or is it more of a feeling?

Manna Dabholkar: I’ve been doing this for 20 years, but if you’re just starting out, I would suggest giving your higher self an image. Imagine your higher self. It could look like you, or it could look like a tomato. You can make your higher self look like anything you want, and that becomes your mental image of who you’re talking to.

At this point, for me, it’s simply a knowingness. I pose a question and receive the answer. I don’t worry about what my higher self looks like because I know that very clear guidance is coming through.

I’ve also developed some physical manifestations. For instance, if someone lies to me, my body begins to shake. It’s the craziest thing, and it has only been happening for the past five years. It isn’t something I’m consciously doing; I visibly shake, and I know the person in front of me is either lying or hiding something that may be harmful to me.

I welcome that response. I’m not afraid of it or trying to analyze it. I simply say, “Okay, great. Now I have a tangible sign of the direction I need to take.”

You have this ability to know the names and dates of loved ones who are in the room. It’s astonishing. How do you do that? Why do you have that ability?

Manna Dabholkar: That’s probably one of the questions I’m asked most often. The honest answer is that I don’t fully know, but I can tell you what I think is happening.

When I’m practicing mediumship, I don’t decide which pieces of information come through. No medium does. We simply learn to pay attention to how the information arrives. One of the concepts I’ve been teaching my students lately is what I call the trickle-down effect.

I don’t believe intuition operates separately from who we are. It flows through the unique person you have become. In other words, how you experience the world every day influences how you show up in mediumship. If you’re a musician, you may naturally receive information through songs, melodies, or lyrics. If you’re a chef or someone who loves to cook, you may receive a lot of tastes and smells because your clairgustance is particularly strong.

Spirit works with language your mind already understands. The dead are making it as easy as possible for you to receive their messages. For me, one of the strongest aspects of my perception has always been my memory.

This may sound crazy, but I have what I would describe as an almost photographic memory for names, dates, places, and timelines. Strangely, I may not remember your face or what you look like. But once I read your name—and I do have to read it—your birthday, a particular year, or a memory, it tends to stay with me. I don’t forget it.

That is how mediumship happens for me. It isn’t separate from who I am in my everyday life or on the psychic side. That ability simply trickles down into my mediumship. It isn’t surprising that names, dates, and anniversaries are how spirit presents information to me.

I love it because it works wonderfully in platform sessions. I can move quickly. I also receive emotions, memories, and personalities, and I tend to focus on those much more during one-on-one sessions. In a group setting, receiving a name can create a “wow” factor. But when you’re sitting with someone individually, you want to give them much more than names and dates.

At the end of the day, the evidence that comes through is only the doorway. The true purpose of mediumship lies in the healing, love, and messages that follow. That is my understanding of why names and dates come through so clearly for me.

How can someone who wants a more intimate connection with loved ones who have passed away cultivate that connection in their life?

Manna Dabholkar: The first thing I would say—and I’ve said this before—is don’t try too hard. One of the biggest misconceptions is that you have to make the connection happen. You may become anxious, start looking for feathers or butterflies, or wait for some dramatic sign.

Think back to the radio analogy. If you don’t believe in mediumship, are afraid of speaking with the dead, have just lost someone and are grieving, or have a lot of mental chatter and expectations, it will be noisier and more difficult to connect. We call some of these things “mediumship shadows.”

Whether someone can communicate with a loved one depends on the density of their mind. This is something I teach in my classes, and it applies to channels as well as mediums: The lighter your mind becomes, the faster you connect. You have to determine what will help your mind become lighter.

Do things that naturally put you into a relaxed state. If it’s dancing, dance more. If it’s singing, sing more. If it’s folding laundry, fold laundry all day long! Anything that naturally relaxes you creates the best environment for speaking with loved ones.

That is why so many people see their deceased loved ones in dreams. When you’re dreaming, you’re relaxed, so the signal comes through clearly. If you can be awake and active while allowing your mind to remain relaxed, that is when the signal will be strongest.

Speaking of strong signals, as you know, I’ve had a few psilocybin experiences. They have given me access to things I didn’t even know existed before. I’ve told you about one particular experience, but I want to revisit it briefly.

When I took the second level of your mediumship course, there was a strong emphasis on ancestral healing. I found it incredibly boring because I wasn’t ready for it. It felt so intangible that the analytical part of my brain couldn’t grasp it.

Months later, Mandy and I were having a psilocybin experience at home. Very early in the experience, I looked at her and said, “Manna is here. She’s with me right now, and she’s taking me somewhere.” I knew you were taking me through an ancestral healing experience. Mandy was having her own experience and didn’t want me to bother her, but I wanted to talk about what was happening because it was so clear.

Then my grandmother appeared in front of me, and I experienced a knowingness that she had carried a profound sense of abandonment. I knew her story, but I later revisited it with my parents. Her father left the family when she was very young, and her mother died when she was around 12. I saw clearly how that abandonment had affected my father, his sister, and eventually me.

I sensed that I was going to feel the totality of that abandonment and somehow alchemize or transform it as it passed through me. Even as it was happening, I was thinking, “I don’t even believe in this. I don’t think in these terms. What is this?” Then, as I sat on the floor leaning against the couch, all of this pain came over me. I could feel it flowing through me, and I cried out as it did. You were right there with me.

Later in the experience, it felt as though the veil of life lifted. I sat on the floor with my eyes wide open, blinking, and saw that everything we perceive is an illusion. It was as though I was seeing through it. I saw numbers and infinity, yet at the same time, I experienced infinity and oneness. Everything was one, and everything was right. You remained there throughout the entire experience.

What happened to me? What was going on? Give me the guru’s explanation of that experience!

Manna Dabholkar: That’s what I do when people drop out of my classes—I randomly show up and take them through the experience!

No, ancestral healing is difficult. You need to arrive at it when you’re ready, and I think that night was the right time and the right way for you to arrive. Maybe the classroom setting wasn’t right for you.

Many people complete Level One Mediumship, but Level Two is much harder because the focus turns to you. Ancestral healing is about you. Level One is about speaking with deceased strangers, connecting them with their families, and feeling good about it. In Level Two, the focus becomes, “Now, what about me?” That can be overwhelming. Many people struggle to complete Level Two, but those who do often keep returning to it.

I believe that night you became one with your spirit. Your soul became one with what we call oneness, and in those moments, you experienced what truly enlightened beings may experience when they transition or die: returning to the ocean of information that exists within universal consciousness.

It’s interesting because we believe we need to die to attain that state, but there is no guarantee that we will attain it when we die. As I wrote in my article for the magazine, death does not guarantee liberation or freedom. But liberation and freedom are possible while we are still alive. We can work toward them, and many people have.

That is exactly what you were doing. In those moments, you experienced complete liberation from your humanness. You became one with spirit and with Source.

What do you sense was happening between my grandmother, my lineage, and me?

Manna Dabholkar: You were releasing ancestral trauma—anything that needed to be released. But ancestral healing isn’t only about releasing the bad things. It’s also about recognizing all the amazing things your family has given you. That is the balance.

We release what doesn’t belong to us but has been passed down to us, as you did. At the same time, we can recognize, “Simply by virtue of being part of this family and lineage, I’m an amazing medium or channel. Why? Because someone before me was, and they blessed me with that ability. I was only focusing on the negative.”

What happened that night was a release of the burdens you had been subconsciously carrying. Hopefully, you’ve also seen changes in your relationships since then because you’ve become more aware of all the good things in your life.

Why do you think you were there? Why were you with me throughout that entire journey?

Manna Dabholkar: I was probably the physical manifestation of a guide for you. I don’t know whether it was actually me. It could have been a spirit guide who took my form or looked like me to make the experience less frightening.

During those experiences, you need to be completely relaxed. Spirit—the life force—is intelligent enough to take shapes and forms that help us feel comfortable. If you’ve ever experienced a Reiki transmission, Reiki energy is so intelligent that I don’t need to tell it where to go. It moves to exactly where it is needed in the body.

That is how all energy healing works. We may think we are healing someone, but we are actually the medium through which the energy passes. That is why I appeared as a medium, and you were shown what you needed to see that night.

This goes back to what I said about viewing myself as a medium. It isn’t necessarily only about speaking with the dead. I can be a medium for any kind of healing that needs to happen through me. I don’t want to call myself an open portal, but I am a portal through which I invite that energy to work. I tell it, “Use me. Go wherever you need to go and do whatever you need to do.” Then I step out of the way.

Even in the Reiki classes I teach, I tell my students that being a Reiki Master does not mean you are healing someone. You are simply the vessel being used for healing to happen. Don’t give yourself that much importance. You remain outside of it while the energy flows through you to wherever it needs to go.

That is what happened that night. I was simply there to channel and open that energy for you.

Why are you so passionate about teaching others to cultivate their intuitive gifts? I assume that these days, you spend more time teaching than doing one-on-one work.

Manna Dabholkar: Yes, but I didn’t arrive there overnight. It happened gradually through thousands of readings. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and early in my career, I did what most psychic mediums do: a lot of readings.

I still offer readings, and I absolutely love mediumship because it brings so much comfort to grieving families. But over time, I noticed that as much as I enjoyed giving people answers, I found greater joy in teaching them how to find those answers themselves. I realized I wasn’t as interested in becoming someone’s lifelong source of guidance as I was in helping them build confidence in their own intuition.

I don’t believe intuition belongs only to you or me. I believe it is part of our human nature. Some people may develop it more naturally, just as some people naturally develop musical or athletic abilities. But generally, I believe every person has the capacity to strengthen their intuition.

For me, teaching isn’t about creating thousands of psychic mediums. It’s about transformation and helping people trust themselves. That is more gratifying to me.

There is absolutely a place for readings. People often seek them during times of grief, uncertainty, or transition, and those experiences can be very healing. But if I had to choose one path for my life—giving readings or teaching—I would choose education every single time. Education changes the relationship people have with themselves, and I love witnessing that.

I’m not kidding when I say that my greatest hope is that the students I love will leave the classroom needing less of me, not more. If they walk away trusting themselves, listening to their own intuition and wisdom, and never need to come back to me for that, then I’ve done my job. That is how I feel about transformation.

How would you describe your courses, training sessions, and certifications as different from other available programs?

Manna Dabholkar: I think the biggest difference is that I’m not interested in offering shortcuts because I don’t believe shortcuts exist in spiritual work. You truly have to put in the work. We live in a world where people want a weekend certification or a quick technique that promises to unlock their gifts, but real growth doesn’t happen that way.

Even my shortest course, Reiki Levels One and Two, lasts eight weeks. On top of that, students complete six hours of medical intuitive training and additional practice hours. You won’t find that everywhere because people often teach Reiki Levels One and Two over a single weekend.

Mikao Usui—Usui Sensei, the person who developed the Reiki we study today—went through a 21-day fast on a mountain during a very cold season before he discovered ki, the life-force energy. If it took him 21 days to channel that kind of energy, how can you expect to study it in ten hours?

Whether you’re developing your intuition, becoming a medium, supporting someone through grief, or sitting beside a dying person, the greatest instrument you will ever use is yourself. If you haven’t done your own inner work, no technique can compensate for that. In everything I teach, we spend as much time developing the person as we do developing the skill.

I think your superpower—and I know that term is overused—is your ability to hold space for individuals to step into a greater dimension of who they are and into their own greatness. I think it comes from your belief in people.

When I’m in your Zoom classroom, it feels as though you specifically believe in me. I think, “This is crazy. How can this woman believe in me?” And yet I know that you do. That belief, combined with your knowledge, wisdom, experience, and credibility, creates an environment in which people can rise into their character and abilities. I think that is your superpower.

Manna Dabholkar: Thank you. When you left the Level Two class, I knew you were going to leave. It’s so crazy. I mentioned it to someone—I think it was Jen, because she did the exercise on connecting with ancestral guides with you.

When I’m teaching, I feel deeply connected to each of my students. Even if they don’t email or text me, I somehow know what is happening with them in relation to the class. It isn’t like I’m reading their minds; I just have a general sense of what they’re experiencing. If I sense that someone is having a difficult time with the material, I’ll reach out and offer to meet with them. I don’t know how it happens, but as long as they’re studying with us, I somehow know.

I also think it’s important not to force people. This work doesn’t happen overnight, and it may not be the right thing or the right time for everyone. You have to allow people to grow at their own pace.

I want people to know about some of the courses you offer. You’ve mentioned Reiki and mediumship. Can you walk us through the full list and explain how people can learn more?

Manna Dabholkar: Let’s start with the shortest course: Reiki Levels One and Two, followed by Reiki Master-level training. We also offer Mediumship Levels One and Two and Psychic Development Level One. After completing the foundational psychic development course, students can expand into areas such as tarot.

We also have a 10- to 12-week grief education course. It teaches people how to support family members or friends who are grieving, as well as how to navigate their own grief, because grief is something each of us will experience.

Then there is the Death Doula course, which is my personal favorite. People may think, “I don’t want to be a death doula,” but someday, someone within your orbit will die, and others may look to you for help. This course teaches you how to support people who have experienced a death in their family or how to show up when someone in your own family is dying.

Those are the courses that come to mind right now. You can find them all at CLIUS.org. I collaborate with Behind the Lids on the mediumship and psychic development courses, so those classes are also listed at BehindTheLids.com.

The Global Gift Initiative currently works in 17 countries. Where can people learn more and support that work?

Manna Dabholkar: The website is GGIUSA.org. When people look at GIFT and then at CLI, they may think they are two completely different things—one is a nonprofit, and the other is a spiritual institute. But to me, they are the same. Both are bringing transformation into the world, simply in different ways.

Transformation can happen in many ways, not only spiritually. The children I work with in South Africa aren’t thinking about Reiki or mediumship courses because they don’t have food in their stomachs. Transformation looks different for them than it may look for you and me. We want to make transformation available in different ways.

I’m very excited that you’ll be presenting two workshops at the Awakened Lifestyle Expo on August 22 and 23 in Costa Mesa. Tell us about the sessions and what people can expect.

Manna Dabholkar: I’m really looking forward to them. The first is a 75-minute session on spirit communication. Last year, I spoke about mediumship and explained how it works. This year, I want to try something different and allow people to experience some of the foundations for themselves.

We’ll explore some simple exercises for quieting the mental chatter you kept asking me about. I may also provide handouts so people can take the exercises home and continue practicing. That workshop will take place on Saturday.

On Sunday, I’ll be giving readings in a platform mediumship session. I’ll invite the spirits of audience members’ loved ones to come forward and communicate. I may combine psychic readings with mediumship so that as many people as possible can leave with something meaningful. I’m very excited about both sessions.

I love that. I recently had a vision—and I don’t want to put this on you, but I’m going to put it out there. If you ever wanted to collaborate on a mediumship and channeling event, where I channel messages for people who don’t receive mediumship readings, I would be interested. I think that would be fun.

Manna Dabholkar: That would be lovely. We should definitely explore it.

Now for the final question everyone is curious about: What toothpaste do you use to get your teeth that white?

Manna Dabholkar: My dentist asked me that yesterday! I swear I’m not making this up. She asked, “Do you do something to your teeth?” I said, “No—good DNA. Thank you, Mom!”