Thank You, Carisa Hendrix

What Magic Taught Me About Being Myself

I don’t have many pictures from that night.  That should probably tell you something.

I discovered Carisa Hendrix and Lucy Darling in late 2024 and began following her work.  For the next year and a half, her clips became something I returned to again and again.  They made me laugh.  They gave me a break from whatever was happening around me.  Without ever knowing me, Carisa became someone whose work had found a place in my life.

Then, in June, George and I gave each other an anniversary present: tickets to see Lucy Darling in Rochester for her show, You’re Welcome, including the pre-show.  The title makes me smile now because I have a lot to thank her for.

We were about a week away from bringing Mom home, and we knew our lives were about to change again.  George and I did not know exactly what the next chapter would ask of us.  We just knew we had this one evening together.

What I did not expect was that a night of laughter and magic would leave me thinking about boundaries, belonging, and the version of myself I may still be becoming.

Seeing Carisa and Lucy

The pre-show ended up being one of the things I remember most.  Not because what followed was not memorable—it absolutely was—but because of what Carisa shared before the show even began.

She talked about what it takes to become Lucy Darling and about the relationship between herself and the character she created.  There was Carisa, and there was Lucy.  The transformation into Lucy was deliberate, and when it was over, Carisa was still Carisa.

That distinction stayed with me because I have often done almost the opposite with my own work.  I have boundaries with Spirit.  I know what belongs in my mediumship and what does not.  Separating Colleen the person from Colleen the medium, however, has never come quite as naturally.

For a long time, I thought putting my whole self out there was simply what being authentic meant.  Many mediums struggle with that same idea.  We are taught to be open, vulnerable, genuine, and willing to share.  Those things matter, but authenticity does not necessarily mean giving everyone access to every part of ourselves.

Watching Carisa made me wonder what it might look like to keep something in reserve—not from Spirit and not from the people sitting in front of me, but simply for myself.

The Question of Where I Begin

That thought led somewhere I had not expected.  How do I remain fully present in my work without losing the sense of where I begin and end?

Trance work has made that question especially complicated for me.  I have been leery of it for a long time, not because I do not trust Spirit, but because I have wondered where I start and end and where Spirit takes over.  Deliberately stepping back from that sense of myself has always made me cautious.

Maybe some of what has held me back is the need to know that there is still a Colleen there when the work is over.

Earlier that day, I had a fleeting impression of myself onstage with Lucy.  I know how ridiculous that sounds coming from a psychic medium, but all I saw was myself onstage with her.  I brushed it off because it seemed unlikely.  So when the show began and Lucy called me up to the stage, my first thought was, Oh.  This is happening.

I had expected her to choose George.  Instead, she chose me, placed me center stage, and something surprising happened: I felt like I belonged there.  Gallery work has always felt natural to me, yet I was not thinking about performing in that moment.  I was simply standing on a stage with Lucy and feeling completely at home.

When I Found Myself on That Stage

Lucy had a magic trick that involved a complicated story and two people from the audience.  At one point, she asked me to tell everyone how the story ended because she did not feel like doing the show.  Of course, I was not about to ruin it for everyone else.  Besides, what fun would that be?

There were not many spoilers for the show, and I genuinely had no idea what was coming.  Being part of that moment was just plain fun.  What followed was pure magic—the kind of experience Lucy sets out to create.

For a brief moment, though, something bigger shifted.  I stopped seeing myself as simply someone Lucy had pulled from the audience.  Instead, I saw myself as someone who could hold a room, entertain people, and create an experience for them.

It was not about wanting attention.  What I recognized was a capacity in myself that I had spent a long time minimizing.  I mattered.  I had a voice that people needed to hear.

There Is Room for Your Version

Standing on that stage brought me back to another comparison I have carried for years.  Lisa Williams showed me that mediumship could have a large audience.  In her own way, she gave me permission to take the work seriously and showed me that it could reach more people than I had once imagined.

At some point, though, I began using her success as a measuring stick.   I knew I could never be Lisa, and the truth is, I cannot be.  The truth is that I can only be Colleen.  Somewhere along the way, I let that comparison become a limitation instead of accepting the obvious truth: we were never supposed to be the same.

The same struggle shows up in my students all the time.  They look at a medium who is successful, confident, established, or simply further along in their development, and they begin measuring themselves against that person.  I understand why.  I have done it myself.

Comparison takes more than it gives.  It can make you question your ability instead of developing it.  It can make you imitate someone else’s voice before you have had the chance to discover your own.  Most of all, it can convince you that because someone else has found an audience, there is not room for you.

But there is an audience for Lisa.  There is an audience for Lucy Darling.  And there can be an audience for me.

Carisa’s story made that impossible for me to ignore.  She created something unmistakably hers, and audiences responded because it was something they had not seen before in quite the same way.  Carisa did not have to become somebody else to fill larger theaters.  She simply kept becoming more fully the artist she already was.

A Gift, Not a Competition

The lesson reaches far beyond performance.  Mediumship is not a competition.  It is a gift meant to be shared.  My job is not to become another medium or fit myself into someone else’s version of success.  My job is to connect with the people who need what I have to offer and help them understand what can sometimes be difficult to understand.

There is also a kind of freedom in accepting that.  I do not have to be like anyone else — I just have to fully commit to myself.  I do not have to sound like someone else, work like someone else, or build the same kind of audience.  What I have to offer will be different because I am different.

That is not a lesser version of someone else’s success.  It is simply mine.

Permission to Play

There was something else I took from that night that surprised me even more.  Lucy gave me permission to play, and I had forgotten how much I needed that.

So much of my life is built around responsibility: family, work, caregiving, appointments, decisions, doing things correctly, being prepared, and being the person other people can depend on.  Even my mediumship carries a seriousness for me because I care deeply about doing it ethically and doing it well.

Still, this work is supposed to contain joy.

I want to make people smile.  I want to give someone even a little relief when grief has become overwhelming.  More than anything, I want people to leave an experience with me feeling lighter than when they arrived.  Carisa did that for me without ever knowing me.  Her work gave me laughter, gave me a break, and reminded me that there was still a part of me that wanted to play.

I want to do that for other people.

Standing on that stage, I was not thinking about whether I measured up to someone else.  There was no need to prove that I belonged there.  I was having fun, and somewhere in that experience, I saw a version of myself that I had been reluctant to see.

What Comes After This Season

Maybe I am capable of more than I have allowed myself to imagine.  Maybe traveling with my mediumship someday is not as far-fetched as I once thought.

When this caregiving season is over, I know I will need to rest first.  Our home will need to become ours again, and I will need to find parts of myself that have been pushed aside.  After that, perhaps I will find a way to travel and do mediumship along the way.

I do not have to know exactly what that looks like yet.  Not a five-year plan.  Not a new identity.  Just a possibility.

What She Gave Me

Carisa did not know any of this.  She did not know what was waiting for me the following week.  She did not know how much her clips had meant to me over the previous year and a half.  And she could not have known that her words in the pre-show, followed by Lucy choosing me from the audience, would stay with me long after that night was over.  Almost three months later I am still thinking about it.

George and I went home with memories instead of a camera roll.  We had laughed together.  The inside joke of “Oh Nuo Heulp” is used on a regular basis with us. We had an evening that belonged only to us, just before caregiving took over so much of our attention again.  I also went home with something I did not realize I needed: a sense that there might be a way forward when this season of caring for Mom eventually ends.

Carisa made me feel seen in a way that I had been afraid to see myself.  She reminded me that I do not have to compete with another medium’s success to find my own audience.  Carisa  reminded me that I can be genuine without giving every part of myself away.  Lucy reminded me how good it feels to play, to laugh, and not worry about every detail.  In all of that I also learned that I can have separation between Colleen the person and Colleen the Medium.

Most of all, they reminded me why I love this work.  I do not do mediumship because I need to be the best or because I need to be someone else.  I do it because I believe it is a gift meant to be shared—and because sometimes making someone smile or giving them relief from overwhelming grief matters more than anything else.

The show was called You’re Welcome, and the more I think about that night, the more fitting the title feels.  I went in needing an evening of laughter and came home with something much bigger: a renewed sense that I can be myself, keep something for myself, find joy in the work, and trust that my voice has a place in the room.

Thank you, Carisa.  You gave me something I want to give to other people.  And now that I have seen her, I do not think I can unsee her.