Do Mediums Need Psychic Protection? What Lisa Williams Taught Me

"I think the word protection creates fear."

Lisa Williams said that to me on the podcast, and I nearly fell off my chair. Not because it shocked me. Because I have been teaching the same thing for years, and here was the woman I watched on TV before I even knew I had gifts, saying it out loud.

So many people come to mediumship afraid. Afraid of what they might pick up, afraid of dark energy, afraid that opening up means leaving the door unlocked. They wrap themselves in white light, salt every doorway and still feel jumpy.

I want to offer you another way to look at it.

Do Mediums Need Protection?

Here is the myth: the more open you are, the more protection you need, so you have to shield yourself before you connect.

Here is the truth, as I see it: your power and your grounding are what keep you safe. Fear doesn't.

When I asked Lisa what she thinks about protection, I told her where I stand. I said "let's not come from a space of protection, which is like there's something to fear." Because I always say, "your greatest protection is your power and is your grounding, and I don't let anyone read unless they're actually grounded."

Lisa's answer surprised a lot of people who heard it:

"I actually don't do any form of protection."

She isn't saying there is nothing out there. She was very clear: "where there's light, there's dark, but if you play into it, you're gonna attract it."

What Lisa's Grandmother Told Her

Lisa's grandmother was a psychic medium too, and she gave Lisa the perspective that has stayed with her ever since:

"If you fear them, you've got more to fear in the living than you have to fear in the dead."

And then this, which I find so comforting:

"If they never hurt you in the living, they're never gonna hurt you in the dead."

Think about your Nan, your Mum, the friend you lost too soon. They loved you here. They love you there. The heaviness people feel is very often human energy, not spirit, and that is where Lisa says an empathic boundary comes in. That energy is yours, not mine.

Fear Is What Opens the Door

This is the part I want you to really feel.

When I went through my awakening at 33, I had entities around me and I was frightened. I was brought up Catholic, so my first reaction was panic. Then something shifted in me. I decided I was done being afraid, and I held that energy. These days I joke that I'm a demon slayer.

Lisa had her own version of this. She told me she once played into a negative energy, freaked herself out, and it became an attachment. In the end she wiped it all off. Her words on it:

"If you fear it, it's gonna come at you."

She also said something every developing medium needs to hear. The mind is so powerful. It filters everything we sense. So when we are scared, we see scary. When we are grounded, the light outweighs it.

"I am my own protector, and I'm my own protector of energy, my own protector of my own wisdom, my own being."

Grounding Is the Real Protection

Lisa and I are both very ordinary women. Mums, practical, feet on the floor. As Lisa put it, "We live in the normal life. We don't live in the woo-woo land."

That normal life is not a distraction from your gift. It is what holds it.

Lisa told me she actually has to work harder than most to stay grounded, because astrologically she has no planets in earth. She does it anyway, every day, because she knows ungrounded mediums are the ones who struggle to switch off. They fear closing their gift down, worrying, "What if I can't open it again?"

How to Switch Your Gift On and Off

If you watched Lisa on TV, you'll remember the hat. When people ask me how to switch on and off, I often say, "Well, Lisa Williams used a hat."

The secret, she told me, was never really the hat. It's her watch.

"Whenever I've got a watch on, it means I am off duty."

Before she teaches or connects, the watch comes off. She calls it "my on-off switch." And it doesn't have to be a watch. As Lisa said, "hats work, watches work, rings work. Whatever works."

Here is how I'd begin, in the same spirit:

Choose your switch. A ring, a bracelet, a scarf, a candle you light and blow out. Something physical your body can feel.

Set your intention. Lisa studied neuroscience for years and tells her students, "Hey, set your intention." Your brain needs to know what you are about to do, so tell it.

Ground before you open. Feel your feet. Feel your breath. Notice the room around you. Grounding is not a step you skip once you are experienced. Lisa still does her own exercises, and so do I.

Clear your space. This one came straight from Lisa's TV show and it shaped how I teach. A lot of clutter around, Lisa says, "it holds energy." Before anyone works with me, I tell them, "You're gonna declutter." Lisa says it simply: "Don't have clutter, don't have mess."

Ghosts, Spirits and Residue

One more thing I learned from Lisa years ago, before we ever met. I watched an episode where a woman's friends were sure her house was haunted. Lisa walked through, felt into it, and found it wasn't a ghost at all. It was the energy of a living person, locked into the home.

It changed how I describe it to my students. "Ghosts are like an echo. So that's not actually a spirit, it's an echo of residue. And a spirit is, like, the blueprint of the human that was."

When you understand the difference, so much of the fear falls away.

So here is my invitation. Next time you feel the urge to shield yourself, pause. Ground. Feel your power. And remember, you are your own protector too.

Victoria Bond was a hairdresser in a small New Zealand town until she woke up to her gifts at 33. Author of Everyone Is a Medium. Read her story.