We recently connected with Maria Leggett and have shared our conversation below.

Maria, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I love telling this story because it still gives me goosebumps to this day.

About 7 years ago my oldest daughter convinced me to step outside of my regular line of thinking and introduced me to essential oils. I loved them so much I became a Certified Aromatherapist and then my best friend convinced me step even more outside of my comfort zone to become a Reiki Master.

Quite a few months after I became a Reiki Master, I was driving down the road one day in my SUV. Driving is like meditation for me and I love it. I was driving without the radio on when all of the sudden an italian man appeared in the front passenger seat of my car. I could tell he wasn’t a living being because I could see through him. I knew I had to pay attention to the road, so I kept my eyes straight ahead while glancing to the right as you would if talking to a living friend.

He started talking really fast in his accented English and telling me all of this information. It was very important to him so I squelched my panic and just listened. He was talking about his three girls and showing me a three leaf clover. I kept saying back to him “Do you mean a four leaf clover?” Those are lucky right? He shook his head adamantly and said “NO! THREE!” I said “Ok sir, I got it three.” He said my three girls and apparently this was how he was making sure I knew three girls. He said “Saint Patrick.” He gave me some other private information and then I realized my right arm was burning so much it was uncomfortable.

My thought was “Oh my God, when women have a heart attack they can feel it on the right side. I’m dying and this is why I’m seeing people.” I went into full on panic mode and called my best friend Trisha. I was crying and she calmed me down. Told me to talk about anything other than what was happening until I could get to a safe place. I got home and parked. Then she said, “Tell me everything.”

I downloaded the whole story including the arm pain. When I was done, she started crying. I was a little annoyed and said “Dude, why are you crying? I’m the one seeing dead people.”

She said “Shelley, that’s my Dad.” I was flabbergasted. She verified every piece of information he gave me including the arm pain. He had cancer and would get chemo as an IV in his right arm and it would burn so bad and he hated it. Then she said three words which changed my life forever.

“You’re a medium,” she said. I responded with “I beg to differ.” In my mind, being a Medium was something reserved for special people, a gift and I was a nobody from Fairborn, Ohio with no college education.

This one situation put me onto a path of self-discovery, shadow work, acceptance and self-love. Mediumship is not a gift, it is an ability and anyone can do it if they choose to open themselves up to it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

To know me and why I do what I do, it’s important to share my backstory. I am a 53 year old mother to four beautiful adult children, two strong-willed son-in-love’s and three amazing grandchildren. I have been with my husband for almost 25 years and he’s the man who has raised our children. Prior to him, I was married three times. This is important to mention because our society shames people for being married more than once as though you should have a letter or armband to call you out for your “bad deeds.” I am not ashamed for being divorced three times, however I do want to acknowledge the pain I caused those men due to my own childhood trauma with men. My previous husbands had no idea what they were getting into and quite frankly, neither did I. I share my past openly in the hopes I am able to bring peace and hope to one person who reads about me and realizes they are not alone.

Due to my trauma, I had trouble believing and accepting I was worthy of good things in my life. Once I was able to accept my abilities as a Medium, I was able to discover Spirit had been speaking to me off and on throughout my life. I wasn’t able to recognize these situations though until I started training as a medium and learning how to perceive the information. As a little girl I “heard” each one of my dolls talk to me with different voices. At the time, I was the youngest and only girl of my siblings being raised by a single mom who had to work to put a roof over our heads. I would play alone for hours, but I never really felt like I was alone and now I know why.

There are more people like me in the world than society is aware of and it’s only when people like me find a safe place to share their experiences do they realize; they are not crazy, they weren’t making it up and it’s all true. Love, acceptance and a place of belonging is just a part of what I provide for my clients.

I teach mediumship and in the classes I explain mediumship is an ability, not a gift. With training, perseverance and practice, anyone can do this work but not everyone is called to do it professionally. The gift in this work is what I receive from my clients such as a hug with tears in their eyes after I deliver a message from a crossed over loved one. The gift of numerous emails and private messages I receive from clients or strangers who’ve said “I heard you speak and it changed my life to know I am not alone.” There are days when I cry from gratitude because I know I am making a difference in this world.

I am an ordained spiritualist Minister and a spiritual life coach to provide better support for my clients in a deeper, more meaningful way. Coming to me for a reading is often the beginning of my clients healing journey. I want to continue to help them on their path by supporting and working with them through their trauma. I am not a therapist and I make that clear. I guide my clients through their past in a safe way to help them recognize how their trauma has affected their actions and how their Trauma Glasses (TM) have altered their perception of situations in their lives. Dealing with your past is not an easy fix. I have had to do all of this same work for myself so I can identify how hard this work is and validate their feelings.

I have an online learning platform with both free and paid classes for those who are not comfortable doing 1:1 sessions or joining a circle or ceremony with other women. For me, I try to think of the emotional safety of my clients first and I try to meet each of them where they are in their journey.

This is how I am different. I don’t do this work to be a brand name. I do it to be of service to Spirit and to be of service to my clients. When I help support them, their energy shifts and when they shift they show up differently in the world. I am honored to know that in some small way, I made a difference. In effect, I am changing the world one beautiful human being at a time. My favorite quote is from Ghandi “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” I strive for this every day. Without my clients, I wouldn’t be where I am right now because I do not advertise or market my services.

I am most proud of learning to embrace change. As a Warrior Survivor of childhood sexual trauma, change was overwhelmingly scary for me. As an adult I developed routines which I knew kept me safe and if something happened to change that routine, I would freak out not realizing why. Now I understand my triggers and work through the fears associated with them. I’m not saying this is completely gone, but I am saying I can more readily recognize it when it happens, I apologize if it affected anyone else and then forgive myself. I use my life experiences to help my clients so they know they are not alone. This isn’t something I’ve just read in a book, I’ve put my methods to use in my own life. I never ask my clients to do anything I haven’t done myself.

As a society we need to make it commonplace to accept and validate each other for what we are thinking and feeling. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with it or bring it in as part of our belief system, but it does mean we need to love and honor them for where they are in their journey including gender, sexuality and religious differences. If we were all the same, the world would be a very boring place to live.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

This story always makes me laugh because of the irony being a previous IT/Software person turned Medium, left-brain by day and right-brain by night.

I started out my business career at age 22 in the male-dominated printing industry in New Jersey. I had always been a very left-brain, logical thinker and there was absolutely no room in my life for the supernatural. If 2 + 2 didn’t equal 4, then it was wrong in my mind. I am extremely intelligent and as I grew up in the printing industry, I learned to cuss like a sailor and take no BS from any one. My mom instilled in me when I was young I’d have to work twice as hard for a man to take me serious in business and she was right. I worked longer hours and worked my way up the ladder at a very large company in NYC. I was promoted several times.

At age 37 I thought I’d reached the pinnacle of my career and after 15 years of working too hard, I burned out. I had an emotional breakdown and everything changed. A few years later I moved back home to Ohio where life moves at a much slower pace. I went back to work at a smaller printing company in Dayton, Ohio and accidentally landed into a position of learning and supporting a new software system. I became an expert at the system and only took jobs at companies who had this software system installed. In my mid-40’s I stumbled onto spirituality. It had to happen at a very slow pace for someone like me who worked in a very logical field. Generally, left-brained people are skeptics and aren’t open to the metaphysical.

It all started simple enough with just using essential oils. This was a huge leap for me because I thought they were only for the “granola” crowd. My oldest daughter believes in a holistic approach and had to convince me to use essential oils. Eventually I realized how well they worked and dove into learning about them. I became a Certified Aromatherapist and started building my audience by creating product with essential oils. I started my Facebook business page and asked many of my friends to like my page (except my family because I knew they were skeptics). By learning about the synergy of the oils, I began learning about energy work and went on to become a Reiki Master. I started taking more classes about crystals and energy healing. I became friends with other students in my classes which were mostly women. I invited them to like my business page too and it was hard because I didn’t like asking people for help.

The more I learned, the more intrigued I became. My once closed mind started to open changing my outlook on life and my trauma. My best friend, Trisha, turned me onto oracle cards and I discovered I could actually give people healing messages by pulling an oracle card and telling them what it meant to me. Then, I had my epiphany moment which I discussed earlier in this article.

In 2018, I started as a student in the Mediumship Mastery Program in Blue Ash, Oh. I started learning, studying and practicing mediumship in earnest while working a full-time corporate job. I had already been doing some readings before I started mediumship classes, but I kept it on the down low. I didn’t want my day job to know what I was doing. I was too afraid of how they would react and how they would treat me after finding out. I wouldn’t even allow co-workers to be my friends on Facebook because I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing.

I graduated from the first mediumship program in 2020. I also started a new job that year and adored one of my co-workers. I got a little too comfortable and let it slip what I did in my off-hours. He was a skeptic, but he never judged me to my face. He had lots of fun with it though and he encouraged me to tell our other teammates, which I did. It was a very scary moment for me, but I knew it was time. I knew I wanted to do this full-time and I couldn’t do it while hiding.

I was already working 7 days a week at this point. My clients would book appointments with me after work and on the weekends. I was still making aromatherapy products, doing readings and working full-time. In 2021 I started a program in Lily Dale, NY to become an ordained spiritualist minister and had to travel 5 1/2 hours to class on the weekends once a month. Working full time, going to school again and taking clients filled my 7 days a week, I was heading towards burnout once again. This time, I knew I wasn’t going to allow my mental health to the hit. I knew it was time to make the leap. My husband and I both were scared, but even he knew this was the right path for me.

Finally in February of 2022, I gave notice at my corporate job that I was leaving to run my side hustle, full-time. I was absolutely terrified to leave the comfort of the regular salary and health insurance. With my husband’s love and support, I knew Spirit put me on this path for a reason and it was time to take a leap of faith into TRUST with all capitals!

It took years of me working 7 days a week to switch from a side hustle to my full-time vocation. I am living proof you can absolutely do what you love for a business. I no longer allow those who do not believe or call me evil to reign in my head. I send them love hoping one day they have the same type of peace in their heart as I do mine.

Never give up on yourself. You are worthy.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Organized religion, of any kind, can be detrimental to the emotional health of its congregation. In the churches where I grew up, I saw women talk about each other and judge them even though the bible talks about not judging others. I’d see men come to church and talk and behave in ways they didn’t talk and behave the other 6 days of the week. I even had one church tell my mother and I we couldn’t attend any longer because their largest benefactor was no longer comfortable with seeing us at the church. I had to unlearn all of this behavior and learn to open my mind to something different.

Through this upbringing, I was taught mediumship was evil. I learned the “We don’t talk about those things” way of looking at life. If it’s not accepted by the masses, then you should be ashamed of certain behaviors. I learned by watching those around me it’s ok to gossip behind someone’s back and then treat them like your best friend to learn more. I learned it’s ok to lie about who you really are as long as you tell the church what they want to hear. I also learned that with enough money, you can tell the church how you want things to be run and they’ll agree.

I had to find my way through religion to figure out what I actually believe. In my 30’s I converted to Judaism and while it fit for a time, it still didn’t feel right. For lack of a better example, I was like Goldilocks trying to find what was most comfortable, When I moved back to Ohio, I started researching Paganism and discovered in the US, anything outside of Judeo-Christian beliefs is considered Pagan. I looked at many different religions and finally found witchcraft. I delved deep down into it to discover so much about myself and the fact witchcraft is far from evil. I also discovered there are dogmatic practices within witchcraft I didn’t subscribe to either.

The majority of my clients have had very difficult pasts with religion as well. My mediumship students all have childhood backgrounds similar to mine where they were told it’s evil. I hold space for them to learn differently and provide guidelines to them on to ensure they can work comfortably without fear. I also teach Spirituality 101 online for anyone who wants to find a different point of view.

I have come to peace with the term Omnist. I believe there is truth in every religion but not every religion has the whole truth. Because I am a Medium, I lean more towards the Spiritualism and this is why I went to school to become an ordained minister. I am opening an online church with an open format not following any dogmatic practices which will allow anyone from any faith to attend. It’s all about providing a safe space for people to be themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marialeggett.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/marialeggettmedium
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/marialeggettmedium
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-leggett-0493984/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@marialeggettmedium
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/maria-leggett-medium-hamilton
• Other: https://tiktok.com/marialeggettmedium

Image Credits
Patrice Pugh – First image – the rest are ones I created.