The More I Learn, the Less I Need to Know By Rev. Colleen Irwin

Not Everything Spirit Gives You Is Yours to Act On

When I was younger in my spiritual development, I thought growth would make me more certain. I imagined that the more I learned about Spirit, mediumship, guides, and spiritual communication, the more answers I would have. I expected experience to make everything clearer and perhaps even easier. In some ways, it did. My connection grew stronger, and years of practice taught me to recognize things I could not recognize when I first began.

What I didn’t expect was that spiritual growth would also make me more careful about what I claim to know. I haven’t become less certain about my connection to Spirit. If anything, my experience has strengthened that connection. What has changed is my certainty about people, interpretations, and conclusions. I have learned that someone can have a genuine spiritual experience and still misunderstand it. Someone can have a strong connection and still make poor choices. Someone can teach for years and still have things to learn.

That realization hasn’t made me cynical. It has made me more discerning.

Experience Changes What You See

When we first enter a spiritual community, we naturally look toward people who have more experience than we do. We need teachers who can help us understand experiences that may feel unfamiliar or overwhelming. We often assume that experience automatically comes with wisdom, and sometimes it does.

Over time, however, we learn to separate experience from wisdom. I have done this myself. I have looked at people with more experience and assumed they understood everything because they had been doing this longer than I had. Eventually, I learned to watch what people actually did rather than simply listen to what they said about themselves.

I pay attention to how someone treats people when there is nothing to gain. I notice how they respond when someone disagrees with them. I watch what happens when they make a mistake. Can they admit it? Can they learn from it? Can they say, “I don’t know”? Those questions tell me far more about a person’s spiritual maturity than how confidently they describe their connection to Spirit.

Spiritual growth has taught me that I can respect someone’s experience without surrendering my own discernment. I can learn from a teacher without assuming that teacher has every answer. I can appreciate someone’s gifts without putting that person on a pedestal. That has changed the way I see people.

Knowing Your Guide Doesn’t Mean Knowing Everything

I see a similar problem when people begin developing relationships with their guides. Learning to recognize a guide and understand how that guide communicates can become an important part of spiritual development. As we gain experience, we may become increasingly confident in that relationship.

Confidence, however, does not equal omniscience.

Knowing your guide doesn’t mean knowing everything your guide knows. It doesn’t mean every thought that enters your mind comes from that guide. It doesn’t mean every interpretation you make carries spiritual authority. Most importantly, having a guide doesn’t remove your responsibility to think, question, observe, and use discernment.

I have learned that just because I am told something doesn’t mean I will act upon it. I may receive information clearly and still decide whether sharing it would serve the person in front of me. I may receive something that feels important and decide that the person needs to sit with it rather than have me explain what I think it means. I may recognize that the information has meaning while also recognizing that I don’t yet understand how that meaning fits into the person’s life.

That becomes especially important when someone comes to a reading in a fragile emotional state. Sometimes a person doesn’t need a reading. They need professional mental health support, and a responsible practitioner needs to recognize that difference. Spiritual communication should never become a substitute for appropriate professional care.

Our connection does not give us permission to step outside our role. Discernment helps us understand where that role begins and where it ends.

The Message Isn’t Ours

One of the most important things I have learned through years of working with Spirit is that the message isn’t ours. We are the medium, not the owner of the information.

Our responsibility is to bring through what we receive as clearly and honestly as we can. After that, we need to allow the sitter to decide what the information means within the context of their own life.

This can feel uncomfortable for a new medium. We want everything to make sense. We want to connect every detail. We want to understand the significance of every name, image, memory, and feeling that comes through. We may think we haven’t done our job properly if we can’t explain the message neatly to the person sitting in front of us.

Experience has taught me that we don’t need to do that.

Sometimes I can tell someone, “I don’t know what this means, but this is what I am getting.” That doesn’t make the information less valuable. It acknowledges that the sitter may understand something I cannot.

They have the context I don’t have. They know their history, their relationships, their private conversations, their memories, and the experiences that shaped them. I have a piece of information. They have the rest of the story.

There is Beauty in Letting Go of Control

Sometimes the most respectful thing I can do is give them that piece and allow them to discover how it fits. We don’t need to force that understanding, and sometimes we shouldn’t try.

I think new mediums often put unnecessary pressure on themselves to understand everything they receive. They want to explain every symbol, connect every detail, and make sure the sitter leaves with a complete answer. I understand that desire because developing mediumship can make us want reassurance that we are doing it correctly.

Experience has taught me something different. I can trust the information enough to offer it without pretending that I understand every part of it. The sitter may understand something about that message that I could never understand because they hold the context I don’t have.

The message isn’t for the medium. It is for the sitter.

Sometimes We Are Only Planting a Seed

This understanding has also changed how I teach my students. I tell them not to beat themselves up when they miss a detail or don’t understand something immediately. Sometimes they leave a reading convinced that they missed something important, only to make a connection a week later that makes them wonder how they could have overlooked it. That experience can teach us something important about how Spirit communicates.

Sometimes, as mediums, we are only planting a seed. Other times, we are watering a seed that someone else planted long before we met the sitter. We may bring through one piece of information that doesn’t make sense to us or even to the sitter at that moment. Later, another medium may bring through another piece. The sitter may receive a message directly from Spirit. Something may happen in their life that suddenly connects everything.

The breakthrough doesn’t always happen in our reading, and that doesn’t mean the reading failed.

Spirit Communication is Vast

Spirit can communicate through many avenues, and we don’t always know which piece will finally help someone understand what they need to understand. Sometimes the person needs to hear something more than once. Sometimes they need to hear it from another person. Sometimes they need to experience something themselves before the connection becomes clear.

That is why I tell my students that Spirit will always find a way. If something genuinely needs to be understood, we don’t have to force the connection in that particular moment. Another opportunity may come through another medium, another spiritual experience, a conversation, or something the sitter receives directly. Sometimes we simply need to trust that the seed we planted will grow when the time is right.

This doesn’t mean we should become careless. We still need to practice, listen carefully, develop our skills, and take responsibility for what we bring forward. Discernment still matters. So do accuracy, honesty, and knowing when something falls outside our role. But we don’t need to carry the responsibility for making every message complete or producing the breakthrough ourselves.

The more experience I gain, the more comfortable I become with that. I can do my part well and still recognize that I am only one part of a much larger process. The message belongs to the sitter, and Spirit has many ways of helping that person understand it.

Certainty Isn’t the Goal

Perhaps the biggest change in my own spiritual development has nothing to do with my connection to Spirit. I trust that connection. What has changed is my relationship with certainty.

I no longer need to believe that someone is right simply because they speak with confidence. I don’t need to assume that a teacher knows everything because they have taught for many years. I don’t need to believe that every thought from a guide requires action. I don’t need to explain every piece of information I receive, and I certainly don’t need to pretend that I understand something when I don’t.

I have learned to trust my connection while remaining responsible for my interpretation. That distinction has become increasingly important to me.

Spiritual maturity doesn’t necessarily give us more answers. Sometimes it gives us better questions. It teaches us to recognize the difference between what we know, what we believe, what we have experienced, and what we simply don’t understand yet.

It also teaches us to trust other people with their own understanding. The sitter may know something I don’t. A student may discover something I haven’t considered. Another medium may bring through the piece that completes a message. Spirit may communicate directly with someone in a way that makes sense only after they have had the experience themselves.

I don’t need to control that process.

Trust with Spirit

I trust Spirit without needing to control the outcome. My relationship with my guides doesn’t require me to believe they have given me every answer. The same discernment applies to intuition; receiving an impression doesn’t require me to act on it. When I bring through a message, I can deliver it honestly without claiming ownership of what it means.

For me, that is one of the unexpected gifts of spiritual maturity. I haven’t lost my certainty about my connection. I have simply learned that I don’t need certainty about everything else.

Sometimes I need to listen. Sometimes I need to wait. Sometimes I need to say, “I don’t know.” Sometimes I need to give someone a piece of information and let them discover what it means. And sometimes, I simply need to plant the seed and trust that Spirit will know when, where, and how to make it grow.

Colleen’s Book

Find Her Book on Amazon: Guided by Spirit: A Development Circle Guidebook offers a practical and flexible roadmap for anyone on a spiritual journey. Whether you’re an experienced circle leader, a group just starting out, someone already part of a development circle, or a solo seeker, this guidebook provides clear, compassionate guidance to deepen your connection with Spirit.

Designed as a 13-lesson program, this guidebook builds progressively, allowing you to grow at your own pace. Its adaptable structure makes it perfect for individuals and groups alike. With journal prompts, meditation scripts, and practical exercises, it supports reflection, skill development, and meaningful spiritual growth.

Guided by Spirit: A Guidebook for Enhancing Mediumship and Psychic Skills: Irwin, Colleen: 9798999475305: Amazon.com: Books

ROC Metaphysical Interview With Colleen