Monica Ten-Kate

We spoke to Monica about her medium journey, soul purpose and the things she learns while helping others.

You were very intuitive and empathic when you were younger, but up until high school you didn’t know you had a gift of communicating with spirit. What were your first medium experiences?

Monica Ten-Kate: I didn’t know or realize that Spirit was around me until high school. So growing up I was intuitive, I was empathic, I’d feel things around people. I’d get emotional and choked up for no reason. I’d get a sense of things that were going on in their life and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t explain those type of things. In high school, that’s when everything kind of different and weird started happening.

Do you think you were more open to it at that point? You started exploring it?

I definitely think that growing up being in a very Catholic household and going to Catholic school, contributed to me subconsciously suppressing my gift for all those years. I think that it’s a gift I had and I could’ve used even then, but that I’d suppressed it, not even knowingly. I did so just out of my life and my surroundings and the people that were around me; what I’ve been taught was right and wrong. But then going into high school, I was kind of a rebel with everything. Even with my gift I was a rebel thinking, “I know my mom is going to think that this is the worst thing ever, she is gonna think that I’m connecting to the devil”, but I knew once I started having those experiences that it was a positive thing, a gift from God. At that point I wasn’t afraid to explore it and strengthen that gift and develop it in a way. Maybe if I was younger I would have been pushing it out, but at that time I thought I needed to figure out why I’ve been feeling these things. I’d be around friends and classmates and I’d get all emotional and start crying for no reason. At first I thought I was gay to be honest, because I’d start getting these weird feelings and sensations around certain people. It all happened with this one girl in particular starting out and I was like, I think maybe I am gay. But then I realized that she lost her mom in 3rd grade, and every time she’d tell stories of her mom and her childhood, I’d hear or see the ending before she’s finish telling it. I started to connect the dots, realizing that was coming from Spirit and that’s why I was emotionally and physically feeling these sensations connected to how she passed and things that she’s gone through. It started happening with more and more people. All these things started happening, like knowing the exact day and time my grandfather had died before anyone had told me, or when I’d been in a car accident when my friend was driving just a little too fast and I remember hearing Spirit yell out my name, protecting me.

The first reading I gave to a stranger at my old job was the defining moment when I knew it was not a coincidence. I was not making it up and it was not a lucky guess, it was Spirit. Leading to where I am now, it never really stopped. I just started sharing it with more and more people.

Amazing. And now with “Monica The Medium”, you have this platform and you can help so many more people. How do you describe your purpose or mission? What do you believe you’ve come to this planet to learn and accomplish as Monica in this lifetime?

I 100% feel like this is my life purpose, this is my plan to be here. Not just to grow and learn within myself, but to be a teacher, to be opening people’s eyes to the fact that there are those of us who have this gift and it’s very real and that your loved ones are still with us in Spirit. Life does go on past the physical world. I think that I’m supposed to, as part of my purpose here in this lifetime, not only be sharing my gifts, but teaching on this larger platform and bringing the healing and comfort to people. There are people that question me asking, “If you are really gifted, why would you do a TV show? That makes you seem like a medium that just wants fame or money.” I didn’t look to be on TV, that is a whole other story in itself. That landed in my lap completely randomly without me trying. It made me think that I at least need to be open to the idea of doing a show, because the way it all came about was so random. I saw it as a sign. Really meditating, praying and thinking about it, I truly realized it was part of my purpose here on earth to share my gift on a larger platform, show people what it’s all about, and have them view mediumship in a more positive way.

What are you learning through helping so many people?

That’s actually a very good question. I learn things every single day through the people that I meet, the spirits that I channel and the messages that I give. Every single reading is a lesson for me. It’s teaching me certain things about life; how to treat one another, how to treat your own friends and family, how to go through the world being a kind and grateful person, to take advantage of the time that you have here with the people that you love. There are little every day life lessons in every reading. Through the experiences that Spirit shows me, I’m just constantly seeing the world differently.

On the show you talk a lot about your psychic symbols during the readings. How did you learn to interpret them?

I call that my spirit dictionary. Before I even started publicly doing this work as a medium, I was sitting in the HUB at Penn State, kind of like a central location on campus where you can get a cup of coffee and do your homework sitting on a comfy chair. So I was sitting there writing a paper and it would be like out of 40,000 people, whoever would end up sitting next to me happened to just have lost their dad, or their best friend just committed suicide, or their brother got in a car accident. Whatever the loss was, it was always significant. So I ended up giving all these free readings. I didn’t even call them readings, just passing along the messages. Through the experience of connecting to spirit and doing this work time and time again, I started to build and develop certain meaning for the things they showed me. The first time you see it you don’t know what it means, but then the next time spirit shows it to you, you understand. The Spirit will have me see little images or certain feelings during the reading to interpret the message, and then there are also signs and symbols that all of us will get from Spirit, like butterflies or dragonfly, a rainbow, a song on the radio, pennies from heaven, dreams. Those are all signs and symbols, or “hellos from heaven” as I like to call them.

So you see things, feel and hear them as well, and as everything is energy, how do you distinguish between spirits or spirit guides and angels? Is it various levels of frequencies or vibrations? Can you describe it in terms of feeling or what you see or feel.

It’s definitely different frequencies, vibrations. I know that I don’t do this, but there are people with the gift of communicating with angels – angel readers. When you communicate with the archangels or any guardian angels – that’s a much higher vibration. You are bringing your energy even higher, it feels stronger. For me, when I’m connecting to spirit, I don’t always bring through guides, but I can feel the difference.
It’s just the feeling that I’d get between.. let’s say this is a woman’s father that’s coming though, versus this is one of her guides who is a male energy and looks to be around 30. I can just get the feeling that this is the guide versus this is the relative or their loved one that had passed. There is definitely a lot of energy that goes into it, that’s basically what mediumship is. You have to raise your energy very, very high in order to connect. The Spirit lowers theirs and then we meet somewhere in the middle in order to communicate. It’s not an exact science. It’s definitely hard to sometimes even wrap my brain around how it even works, but it just happens.

It seems like children are more and more aware than ever. More children are being born into the world where they are gifted healers and communicators with the other side. What do you have to say about psychic kids? What advice can you give to parents who think their kids might be seeing spirits or having psychic experiences, in order to raise them to understand their abilities and not be afraid of them?

I’ve had many clients that I’ve given a reading to when the spirit was communicating about one of their children being open to spirit or seeing spirit. I feel like it’s always been that kids are more open. When you are born you are naturally open to the spiritual side of things. You are open to feeling and seeing and hearing things, because you haven’t been taught yet that that’s not okay. I think why you hear more and about these kids today is because society is in a phase of spiritual awakening. We are becoming more and more accepting of people with these gifts and talking about it; it’s more of an open conversation. A lot of kids with these gifts grow out of it because the world teaches them it’s not really normal and they start to suppress it. The advice I tell parents is that they shouldn’t make their child feel ashamed or afraid for experiencing the things they’ve shared with them. I’ve had a lot of clients whose kids have described a loved one who’s passed away that they have never met before. Things like that happen all the time. So I tell them, try not to have your reaction make them feel like something is wrong with them; be very open and encourage them. If the child does communicate that they are scared or frightened, help them understand that they have control and they can say no. Help them with ways to push it out, know that it’s not scary and that they are allowed to say that they don’t want that. And if the child seems happy – just be open in talking about it.

Can you tell me your thoughts on soul contracts and soul groups? I personally think that being aware of that really helped me to be more understanding and compassionate when things happen. It just stays on the back of your mind and doesn’t allow to get angry. Instead it makes me think about things I need to learn from it.

I believe that even before we were born in the physical world, with the help of our spirit guides and immediate people in our soul family, we come up with our soul contract, or as some mediums call it, “the to-do list for Earth School”. Certain experiences that we’ll go through, the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the ugly and even the timing of when we will cross over, are all according to this contract. It is what we are supposed to achieve, learn and grow from in this life. People then always ask me, “Well, does that mean we don’t have free will?” That’s not the case. There are things that may be a part of our life according to our soul contract, that might have been on our to-do list, but because we have our free will, we completely go against it and we completely don’t honor it. We push it out and we decide we don’t want any of that. And that’s why you’ll come again next time. That’s why you are learning and growing. And I know it’s controversial, and some people might not like to hear me say this, but I personally believe in past lives and in coming back, in learning in different lifetimes. So I do believe that we have free will, but if you didn’t learn things you were supposed to, you’ll probably have to do it again next time. I do believe that and I feel like in our soul groups or soul families we not only have our immediate family here in physical world, but it also is made up of closest friends, even teachers or random people.

Yeah, definitely! Those people could become catalysts for us to learn something.

There are definitely people as part of your soul group that are supposed to cross paths with you and come into your life. It may not even be forever, maybe just for a short period of time, but you grow more as a person and learn more out of that friendship or relationship than you would’ve in years. There is always a reason why. Maybe it’s not even the best relationship, but you grow and learn so much out of it, because it’s part of both your soul contracts to cross path and learn from your experiences with each other.

You consider Maureen Hancock to be your medium mentor. How important has this friendship been to you? And how important is it to have a mentor in life and work?

I call her my medium mama! We actually met after I already was publicly out as a medium, with a website and giving readings. I’d only seen Maureen through social media, on YouTube and her Style Network special. I was drawn to her energy. I went to Boston for a group reading and learned that she was doing a small event 20 minutes away from where I was staying, so I bought a ticket and went to see her. I was in the last row just being quiet, not looking for a reading because I didn’t need it. At the end she said, “your loved ones have been bothering me this whole time, saying that you are gifted and you need to talk to me after. Come find me”. I was so touched. After the show, I went up to her, we talked and just immediately clicked. So through email and social media we stayed in touch and formed a close friendship. Every time I’d be in her neck of the woods, or vice versa, we’d meet up. We just call each other all the time. Even though I can always call my sisters and friends, to be able to call her as a person that totally gets everything about the medium part of my life, is pretty amazing.

Early on, you read different books by other mediums and watched certain shows and interviews that helped you validate what you were going through. Any books that particularly helped in the beginning of your journey?

Yes! I did read a lot. I can’t remember a specific book, but I remember trying to get my hands on everything. Reading about other people’s experiences, confirmed for me that I wasn’t crazy [laughs]. It opened my eyes. In Northern Virginia, where I grew up, there wasn’t a big medium community. There are a couple weekly meet up and meditation groups. I’ve met people along the years that have helped me grow and develop and strengthen my gifts by sharing different techniques. But I’d say that Spirit has been the biggest help, they’ve been the biggest teacher for me, working with me in every reading. Every meditation in every exercise I do helps cleanse my energy and ground myself.

Besides being a medium, you are communications and PR major in college. Do you see yourself ever transitioning to a regular job? What does education mean to you?

I definitely don’t see myself transitioning to a “normal job”. I definitely want to finish school and not only make my family and friends proud, but make myself proud to know that I accomplished that. It’s another way of learning things that is gonna help me in what I do. My life experiences, frame of reference, my spirit dictionary, all can be used by Spirit to communicate things with me. My major is definitely helping me with business side of things, including social media and my website. I always tell people that I’m not a psychic. I can’t predict the future. I’m strictly a medium who connects to those who crossed over. I can’t tell you for certain that in 10, 20, or 30 years from now I’ll be a medium as my full-time job. One day I might wanna start a family, I might wanna be a stay at home mom for a couple years. Just because I am a medium doesn’t mean I don’t have any other ambitions or hobbies. I feel like if one day I decide to maybe not do mediumship full-time as a career, or I take a break for a period of years at some point, that doesn’t mean I won’t always share and use my gift. If I’m not being a medium with the website and booking appointments, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still give the spontaneous messages when someone needs it or give a reading to somebody that I stumble upon.

With your show, what is the message you want to give to the world?

I think ultimately the biggest thing for me is being a teacher in a way. They might not believe in everything and I always say I don’t have all the answers, but my message is teaching others that there is more out there and life exists beyond here in the physical world. Another big reason why I did this show is that I’m one person. I can’t personally reach every last person individually and give them a reading. It breaks my heart getting all these floods of messages. I wish I could help every last person, but the beauty in this television show is that even though I can’t reach everyone individually, I have a platform to share my gift and the comforting and healing messages that come through.

I’ll be honest with you, Monica- I cry during every episode.

Aww. And I cry reading all the comments; I’m running a free reading raffle on my Facebook page and I asked to comment on the post saying your favorite moment of the season so far. I started crying reading through them all.  I get emotional talking about it now. I just started getting teary-eyed. It touches me hearing how everybody’s favorite moment was something different depending on what they could relate to because it made them feel good, or reminded them of one of their loved ones they think about or miss. It brought them some comfort knowing that their loved one is okay. I get emotional just seeing how much it affects everybody in different ways and teaches people different things about life. It’s crazy to be 21 years old and see how much of an impact what I do has on people. I get messages from people saying “Your show changed my whole perception on life”.

It’s interesting and it’s actually one of the big reasons I wanted to do this interview too. I get the same kind of messages when I bring these stories to people and they get inspired or change their perspective.

YES! That’s amazing!!

I have my last question. I feature people like yourself, making a difference empowering and inspiring others and making a change. Please name one person that you consider a real “warrior”?

Maureen Hancock. People don’t know how much she gives back by helping kids and helping people to cross over. She is such a role model to me. And of course women in my family, especially my Mom! She is a real inspiration to me. My mom is the strongest, most hardworking person I know!