It Was All Preparation: Erin Adkins on Near-Deafness, Three Awakenings, and Learning to Listen Beyond Sound

Conversations That Illuminate | Episode 12 | Erin Adkins

https://youtu.be/yYy5FXONlus

She came into this world already serious.

Her baby picture shows her, in her own words, "already frowning, already intense," as though she had arrived already knowing what lay ahead. Born nearly deaf, her first four years of life felt, as she describes them, "very dreamlike." The world was dense and shocking to her sensitive system. And before her ears were even fully open, something extraordinary happened.

During one of several surgeries to correct her hearing, four-year-old Erin desperately wanted her father there. He could not come. And so, without fully understanding what she was doing, she turned to the only presence available to her. "I was essentially pleading with the spirit world," she says, "before I even really understood what spirit was."

What followed was not a near-death experience in the traditional sense. But when she hears others describe theirs, the resonance is unmistakable. "The memory is so vivid that even today I can recall precise details from that dream state." And from that moment, she understood: there is another world there for us. It has always been part of our world. We simply do not always experience it the same way.

The Gift Inside the Limitation

Being born nearly deaf, Erin would come to understand, was not a limitation at all. It was an opening.

"I now understand the deeper purpose behind being born without full hearing," she says.

"It opened up powerful clairaudient and telepathic gifts." She is deeply clairaudient, meaning she literally hears the spirit world. Sometimes, she notes with quiet humor, those in spirit forget she cannot hear them continuously. But she can hear a great deal from that world. The silence of her early years taught her a different kind of listening, one that would become the foundation of her life's work as an evidential medium and spiritual coach.

The path there, however, was long and deeply human.

Three Awakenings and the Soul That Drove Anyway

Erin grew up as an only child with a single mother navigating addiction challenges. School was, as she puts it, "my saving grace," the one place she could simply be a child for a few hours a day. At home she had grown up fast, absorbing far more than any child should have to carry.

Her family tried to raise her within fundamentalist Christianity. Even as a child, she already understood intuitively that consciousness was everywhere, and that particular framework simply did not fit.

From childhood she had felt a persistent sense of presence around her. "I always felt like I was being watched," she says, "which I now understand was my guides." Without anyone in her world to name or encourage that awareness, she carried it alone for years. But the guides, it seems, never left.

She went through three distinct spiritual awakenings in her lifetime. The first lasted nearly two decades. "I made what I can only describe as a conscious decision to disappear," she says. "My heart completely shut down." With suicide in her family and significant mental health challenges around her, she feared for years that her gifts meant she was not well. So her heart stepped back. And in her own words: "My soul took over and my soul was driving."

She landed in corporate America, one of the grittiest and most competitive environments possible for a deeply sensitive person. She medicated herself to cope. But spirit showed up anyway, in boardroom meetings, through words that came out of her mouth that she knew were not coming from her. The more that happened, the less corporate life could hold her.

She left corporate America once. Then, as she puts it with characteristic honesty, "I went back once more because I am stubborn and spirit had to make it very clear." The second time, she was laid off. And at precisely the same moment, her mediumship began opening fully.

"It felt like a message," she says. "This round is complete. Pay attention now."

The Wounded Healer

One of the most quietly powerful moments in this conversation comes when Erin speaks about who she attracts in her mediumship work.

Because of the suicide in her family and her own intimate understanding of mental health struggles, she has noticed that she draws to her, in spirit, those who took their own lives and those who suffered with conditions like schizophrenia. "I am genuinely proud of that," she says. "It tells me that those souls feel I am a welcoming home for their message."

This is the essence of the wounded healer: not despite her history, but because of it, she can go where others cannot. Her own darkness became her greatest qualification.

But she is equally clear that this work requires preparation. Ethical mediumship, she explains, rests on consent, clear channels, and energetic boundaries. "If you have not done your own inner work, you risk projecting your unprocessed material into a session. That can cause harm. I am extremely serious about do no harm."

For anyone whose gifts are just beginning to open, her guidance is grounded and direct: get still, go within, do the inner work, and find your community. "There is no playbook for this," she says. "We are all bumping around in the dark together. At least when you do it together, you are not alone."

Soul Walks and Ladybugs from Mom

Her everyday spark began as dog walks and became something far more sacred. Soul walks, she calls them now. Moving through nature in quiet, noticing what arrives. Her mother's symbol is the ladybug, and she receives them constantly. Once, at the beach, her mother swarmed her with them.

"I am a deep believer in signs," she says. "These walks restore me completely."

And her closing message to every Lightworker listening, especially those carrying heavy histories and wondering if they are enough for this work:

"Just be gentle with yourself. We all volunteered to come in at this time. And this can be a harsh world when you are tapped into what is unfolding. So give yourself grace. Allow."

The silence taught her to hear. The darkness taught her to hold space. The wounds became the qualifications.

It was all preparation.

Listen to Erin's full episode of Conversations That Illuminate wherever you get your podcasts.

Find Erin and her work at sacredsoulconnections.com or connect with her through the GLU mediumship development circle at globallightworkersunited.org

Global Lightworkers United is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit spiritual community for healers, teachers, and conscious creators. If this stirred something in you, you belong here. globallightworkersunited.org