In this interview with Stephen Weber and his partner Katherine Plant, we discuss the accident that led to his life-altering Near-Death Experience. As happens with many Near-Death Experiences, Stephen is a different person now than he was before his experience.

Stephen Weber, a Technology Project Manager, and Katherine Plant, a childcare worker, and reiki practitioner, live in Northport, Long Island, New York.

After an accident left Stephen, a loving father in a coma, on the verge of life and death, he traveled to another place. On the outside, he was in a hospital bed; but, on the inside, he was in a place he calls, “The Place Between Here and There.” It was a place where time did not exist; where people were spirits; and where he learned the wisdom of the universe. This book details his journey to this wondrous place, then back to Earth, where he must rehabilitate from grave injuries, only to then experience the worst tragedy a parent can imagine- the passing of his son.

ℹ️ https://www.betweenhereandthere.org

 

 

Transcript

 

Brian Smith 0:01
Hey everybody, this is Brian Smith. I’m back with another episode of grief to growth. And I’ve got with me today Steve Weber and his partner, Kathy plant. And Steve and Kathy are the co authors of the book, the place between here and now. And here and there, I should say here there, and I’m going to read a short bio or short introduction, then we’re just going to have a conversation about their experiences. Steven Weber is a technology project manager and Katherine plan is a childcare worker and Reiki practitioner, and they live in North Pointe Long Island, New York with their precious pups Mary’s, a Rottweiler and banden and Australian shepherd. They both have 22 year old daughters at attend university in Connecticut. Steven Kathy has successful workshops in the place between here and there, which is their book, as I said earlier, accompanied by music and meditation. in their spare time, they enjoy hiking and many beautiful parks in Long Island, doing yoga, running and cooking. They also enjoy sharing their spiritual enthusiasm by helping curtains, full moon ceremonies, sound healings and guided meditations with friends, Steven Kathy love to hear from the readers and are thrilled to answer all correspondence. So after this, I’ll give information on how you can contact them. So with that, I want to welcome you to grief to grow Steve and Kathy,

Stephen Weber 1:10
thanks so much. I really appreciate the sharing your time and your audience with us. And thank you. Yeah,

Brian Smith 1:18
well, it’s great to have you here. I know just a little bit about your story. So I want to give you a chance to start wherever you like. And tell me about about what how the book came about.

Stephen Weber 1:28
Man well is that is that I’ve been a Harley rider all my life. But you know, from a very young age, I was riding motorcycles and been a part of my life. And I was driving out east on Eastern Long Island. We live in Long Island. And the eastern is more of a rural community. So I would occasionally drive out there have some barbecue and drive back Saturday, a Sunday afternoon. And the traffic was backed up from miles, people were driving on the shoulder to make make a right hand turn in the road ahead. And very foolishly I did the same thing. And and when I got to the intersection, a truck coming the opposite direction, made a left hand turn and T boned me on my motorcycle. And the lights went out. I mean, that was I was I was out the next things I knew is that I was flying through the air and a helicopter to to a trauma center. I recognized it from the air right away was Stony Brook Hospital, one of the premier trauma centers in the United States. I just happened dumb luck that I live nearby. And, and the helicopter could land nearby because there was a school is a rural area. And, and wow, they i was i was gravely injured, my spine was broken. I had grave internal injuries, they were immediately life threatening that operates several times. My hip was shattered. I it’s so many injuries. It’s like an autopsy report. Yeah, it’s it’s amazing. The things that they did at Stony Brook hospital is just, they did everything right. But it wasn’t just the machines. It was the people as the nurses, it was the caring people really cared. And that’s what I learned later on. That’s what that’s one of the most important lessons you learn in having these types of experiences. And so what and so what I lay in the hospital for, for three weeks in a coma, and that’s the way I appeared to the rest of the world. But, but in myself, I was in a place a place I call the place between here and there. And the overall is it’s kind of like purgatory the way I’m a Catholic and the way they kind of taught us what purgatory was. But it’s a it’s not a place of punishment. It’s a place of knowledge and enlightenment, and preparing you for for completing your journey into spirit. And it was there. I was in this place between here and there. And I was being prepared for the afterlife. And that’s the start of a story. Yeah.

Brian Smith 4:03
And when did this happen, Steve?

Stephen Weber 4:04
This happened in I guess 2016 four years ago. Oh, wow. Okay, so

Brian Smith 4:09
this is pretty recent. Okay.

Stephen Weber 4:11
Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it was it was, you know, and so many levels, it’s that you would think that it was a terrible thing that happened to me. But by far, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t go back and change a moment of it. But it took me a long time to realize it on when I say I was in a place between here and there is that is that it was centered on three important scenes that are that were taken from my life where I learned very important lessons, and I was actually tested on that knowledge. The first place was a work like setting me here was on this is where I was taught what I call the wizard The language of the universe are what I later learned to be synching with the Akashic Record. That means sharing all of your knowledge with the all that is, and downloading all the wisdom of the universe, that that will help you trance make this transit into spirit. The next thing that happened to me is I had a light review. And I reviewed my entire life from both to back many times, learning each time, and growing spiritually and feeling such a sense of bliss. Each time I reviewed my life, and, and I just saw so many things in my experiences that that really brought me You just just beautiful, beautiful enlightenment. And then finally, I was tested on my knowledge. And this was what was a test that I failed on. And, and this test was to determine whether or not I would continue in spirit or return back to Earth to have continued human incarnations. So that was the whole setting, in, in the place between here and there. And, and one of the first things that so So first, I was taught what out the language of the universe, I was taught certain wisdom that I was going to be using. But it wasn’t that I was in school that somebody sat down and said, okay, Stevie, now it’s time to learn this and blah, blah, blah, no, it wasn’t like that. It was to see things and feel things. So my internal teacher could see these things and learn them. And to help me understand those things. So this is a perfect example of one of the first lessons I learned is that I learned how to see spirit in people, okay. And so the way I was first introduced to this is that I saw people from my life, people who I knew I saw every day, everything looked fine, we’re in a work like setting, then I saw people who I hadn’t seen it 20 and 30 years, and they look just like I remember them, they haven’t changed, although many years have passed. And then as time went on, things started to change, I start to see people who I knew as, as teenagers, I might see them as, as elderly people, or people who I knew as elderly, I might see them as kids, or I might see people, men, as women and women as men, and all different types of nationalities, and, and, and ethnicities. And, and in the end, I was still able to recognize that part about each and every person that is unique to them, regardless of what shape or form they took. And that’s when I realized that I was seeing spirit. That’s what I was being taught. That was the first lesson, the that be able to see spirit.

Brian Smith 8:04
And this was you were taught in the first place, you said you went to the kind of the, where you were going to the Akashic records and doing the Okay,

Stephen Weber 8:11
and so on. And so I that went on for for quite a while on, I was taught different things. Like, for instance, once I could see spirit, and I could feel spirit, all of a sudden, I noticed everything around me had spirit. It wasn’t just people, it was plants, it was animals, everything has had had spirit. And that spirit was all common. And I began to realize that we’re really, we are all connected, we are all connected, we are all part of one consciousness, all of us, very similar to like cells in a body, how each cell has its own life that lives it dies it, it reproduces, you know, it’s, it has its own life, but all those cells together, make up us, and we have a consciousness, all of those cells don’t know of us in our consciousness. And that’s what what we are each of our spirits together, we are all part of the same the whole and that’s the Holy Spirit. And that’s one of another lesson that I learned as part of that consciousness. Some other lessons were, were that, that your experiences are so vital to help you learn and grow. And in the next step, that is where I really learned the value of the of experiences because the first things I learned was the Akashic Records synching with the Akashic records, learning the wisdom of the universe. The next place is that I was went through a life review, and this was a very tough and yet beautiful process, because that what I did is now I had the benefit of having this wisdom from this sinking of the Kaushik record, and secondly, I’ve only lived Through these events throughout my life, so so now I get to be a lawyer. It’s not that I could influence events, but I could see events over and over again, kind of like watching a movie. But there was something different about it. Because now that I could see spirit, every situation that I was in, in my life was really not what I thought, because now I could see why everybody was there. They were for different reasons. And, and there was a physical reason, like maybe we had a fight in the school yard. So everybody from school at the school don’t want wants to watch it. So that might be the physical reason why they’re there. But once I could see spirit, there was a spiritual reason their lesson learned or some something that had a play out within their own life app. And so now I began to realize so many of those experiences that I had, that I thought, Well, one thing really was another thing. And there was so much more to it, because now I could feel what the other people were feeling. And so now, after learning all throughout my life, seen it all over again, I’ve learned so many more things, and I was more blissful at the end than when I started. And one of the first things I’ve learned there is that some of the worst experiences in my life, some of the most heart wrenching things, or some of those experience that brought me the most bliss, when I was doing my life review, ruins, all of a sudden, you have all this stuff hanging over you, you have all this hate and animosity towards yourself, as well as others. Now, all of a sudden, all those things start to make sense, because you start to see other people’s perspectives, and why people are on different paths. And yet, you see things differently. And, and now when I understood those horrible events, and they washed away with the wisdom of the meaning of it, all of a sudden, it was like, Wow, it was beautiful. It really was because that you don’t feel, you know, hate and animosity is something that’s so difficult to carry around with you every day to project that on all of the people most of the time, people you love. And likewise, to be able to receive that from from yourself and for others, all that’s gone. And that brings bliss. And so that life review went on over and over and over and over again. Each time I learned from it, I learned

it was beautiful. I knew it’s gonna be a tough day, every time it started. But by the end, wow, you know, I wasn’t in a rush. But you get addicted to the bliss, because it really is. It’s just wow, it’s a great, great, great, great feeling. And, and that went on for so many times, because the need as long as I kept on learning I kept was in that situation. Very similar to the first place, the first place where I was learning the Kaushik record being synced with the Kaushik record and learning the wisdom of the universe. I stayed there as long as I was learning once I stopped learning, then I did my life review. When I stopped learning from my life review, then I went to the next phase of this, of this beautiful journey. Yeah. And, and that’s a that’s the first place I was in in the place between here and there. Where I shared my wisdom we see and then I did my life reviews.

Brian Smith 13:48
So when you when you transfer it from here to there, was there a feeling of leaving your body? Did you go through any? Or did you just what did you find yourself there? What did you think was going on? Did you know you’re dead?

Stephen Weber 14:02
Oh, no telling it. I had no idea. It was. Everything was so rooted in my life. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know. Although, when I was injured, I knew I was in an accident. But when I was here, I didn’t know I was in an accident because there’s nothing wrong with me. I was just like, I I don’t know. It’s just like, why I didn’t think of it. And and it’s not like I forgot it, but it just didn’t occur to me. I don’t know. It’s just like a continuation of my life. Yeah. And I know a lot of people talk about like, walking down or going to a tunnel or, or seeing a light or think things like lamp like that. I didn’t experience any of that. It was I was on my motorcycle. And the next moment I was in work, and I was dealing with the situation then I started to see the spirit and stuff. It was just like one second this. This was the next second. That was it.

Brian Smith 14:57
And was there any perception of time and you said that you went through these things over and over and over again. How did it feel? timewise?

Stephen Weber 15:04
Okay, time is kind of cool there in the sense that there isn’t like a sun rising or sunsetting in that in the way that it does here. And it wasn’t that this clock’s ticking like, like, what is time it’s like water boiling on the stove is I get turned on the key, it takes a while, then it boils out, well, you have appointments in the future is like that there. It’s that the real measure of time is how much you’ve learned, the experiences you’ve gone through, because you could always think back is like, oh, way back when is I thought this. But but then all these things happen. And I experienced these things. And now I’ve grown and now my awareness is here. Wow, I went through a whole lot. That gives you the impression of time gets what has happened to you. If you don’t do anything, which wasn’t the case, I would imagine, it would go so slow, like nothing would happen. It’s like really the, the as much as you learn and grow. That’s where the time brings you.

Brian Smith 16:11
Okay. And as you’re going through, like, for example, the reviews, were there for the guides with you were there, or was it you on your own? How does that work?

Stephen Weber 16:20
Not at this time. But but but no, that comes into play later on? But no, it was all a solitary thing. Okay. Okay, yeah, synching with the record, and the life review, I was being prepared for the next important step. And that was to be tested on my knowledge. And, and so that was the second place I was in. So I was tested on my knowledge, but I didn’t know at the time, anything to do with the test. And this is stuff that after thinking about it, and experiencing certain things that that now I realize it was a test. And but but at the time, I had no idea. I had no idea that I was on the verge of life and death and that I was being transitioned to be in spirit. And I would have been spirit if it wasn’t for all these machines, and the caring, but other than that my body thought I was dying. And so I was being prepared to spirit. And, and so and so that was the first place. Now the second place, I’m being tested. And that’s tested, what I mean is that if you think about the ascension of your spirit, after you pass, is that is that

are you going to continue in spirit, or you’re going to be returned to Earth for another incarnation To learn more, because if it wasn’t for my life experiences, I would have nothing to draw upon in the life review, there would be nothing there. Hmm. So the experiences are everything so so so that’s why we come to earth to have these experiences. I often say down to earth but but I that’s just a bigger speech. And often I’ll talk about days one and I speak about that place is that I really don’t mean days, I was just like the way people talk so on if I want to make that. And so in the in the second place is I was being tested, what I later learn to either I was going to be in spirit, be a spirit guide, or continue my evolution to be with the Ascended Masters and perhaps eventually, with the consciousness of the Creator, but right now is being tested on that. So what else being tested is I had, I was in charge of a group of kids, young adults, and I was there to teach them a task. And, and no matter what I did, they wouldn’t listen to me would feel like I was connecting with them. I really would I would feel it like like, hey, it’s you and me. You know, Come on, guys. Let’s do it. Kind of like coach Steve, you know, you know, it’s just like, I feel like I connect with them. And then they go and they run off. And then then I’d be held accountable for that. And I was just trying, I tried every bit of little manipulating tactics. I know, I tried bribing them. I tried one team against the other team. Like I tried all these little inspirational tactics. I know from sports or from work or from other things, you know, when you’re trying to get a team together, nothing worked. Finally on Finally I was at my wit’s end, I went back to the person who is in charge of me. And I realized as I stood before them, I realized I was looking into my higher self, that that, that my highest self that I was just part of that. And then I felt my higher self awareness. And then all of a sudden, everything my perception of everything changed, as I realized is that is that I wasn’t there to prepare those kids to do a task. That really those were spirits who have yet to have an encounter of human incarnation, and I was there to prepare them for their first human incarnation. That’s what I failed that because that I didn’t see them. As spirits, I was taught how to see spirit. And the first chance I get, I don’t see him as, don’t be kids wouldn’t listen. And then I tried to manipulate them instead of seeing this spirit, and understanding and making that connection. And that is where I fail that, but but eventually I succeeded because that with the help of this wisdom, but I didn’t do it myself. Okay. And, and I think that, that if I did, if I was successful, I think perhaps I would have stayed in spirit for forever or for time, because that it I think, if that was the case, I think I was going to be a spirit guide. That’s what, you know, that was the next step in my spiritual evolution for those who who are in physical incarnation. But but I wasn’t ready because that I didn’t see it. And then, but but there was something very interesting in that place is that is that there was a lady there who was always praying. And I didn’t understand that it because I wasn’t a spiritual person. I kind of looked like prayer it kind of like I did it. Because, you know, we, we pray before we, you know, I did, it wasn’t like, I don’t know. But I was feeling from this lady’s prayers is that I couldn’t hear a prayers, but I felt such a love. And such an energy that it was, it drove me You know, it, you know, in some of the challenges that I was there, I couldn’t hear her words, but our energy through a prayers is that that’s what helped driving me. And that’s something I learned a little bit later on what the significance of that is. And then finally, finally, that was the end of that place. As soon as, as soon as I was successful, and helping the kids transition to their to their next spiritual phase to have the human incarnation. Now, I was at the final place before I eventually returned back to, to my physical state of mind. Okay.

Brian Smith 22:20
Yeah. Okay. So, um, when you were going through this test was, were you aware that it was a test, or?

Stephen Weber 22:29
No, I wasn’t on an even at the end of it. I wasn’t aware of was was a test. I thought I was just doing tasks. And at this time, I mean, you would think that I would think at this point, that that Steve, you’re not in Kansas anymore. Like, like, like I expect, like, no, it just didn’t occur to me. I don’t know why. Yeah. No, it wasn’t until the very end, that that it occurred to me that that something’s going on here. Mm hmm. And it wasn’t until till the very end, and I and that’s, and that’s where we are right now.

Brian Smith 23:03
Yeah. So you were apparently were sent back at some point. So tell me about how that happened.

Stephen Weber 23:09
I’m sorry. I don’t not sure I understand the question.

Brian Smith 23:13
Well, you were you were sent back from that place. You said, you so you’re back here. So how did that tell me how that transition happened?

Stephen Weber 23:21
So true. Okay, so then I was in I live in a town on Long Island. I’m very young, it’s a very small community, but but it’s, it’s an old fashioned community, like everyone knows each other. And at the end of every day, we’ll have the town goes to the water to watch the sunset, we call it the bluff. And, and some people drink coffee, other people like drink out of red solo cups, and stuff and, and they watch the sunset. So so when I was in that place, I had a similar scene that that I did over and over again, with two old friends of mine, Joe and john, they were their old king sparkers that’s the town I live in. And they were in their 80s. And, and we would drink coffee and and watch the sunset at the end of every day when I was there. I used the term day, you know, we talked about just very loosely. And And this went over over and over many times over again. And it wasn’t. And then finally, I thought to myself is Joey and Johnny, Joe and john are both dead. Like, how could they be here? Hmm. You know, and and that was what was it and so it kept on going over and over again, seeing them and watching the sunset. And I want to ask them why they were here. And it was kind of starting to feel like an anxiety for the first time because that I was feeling like something big was going to happen soon. And and as each time I saw that I don’t know why I didn’t want to ask them. I’m thinking in my own mind, you know, I’m just starting to think this I’m not 100% sure, but on, but I’m starting to think because perhaps I was, I was I was very blissful at this point. And perhaps I was concerned, maybe the bliss would stop like, like, it wasn’t allowed. I don’t know, these are all things that that I just don’t know. And I was, it was all in my mind. Nobody said anything. It’s all in though, you know, the universe, according to Steve, you know, I don’t, I don’t know. But, but so. So. So then finally, I felt if I didn’t ask them now, I would never get this opportunity ever again. And so what so I finally asked them what they were doing here. And they said, They’re here to make sure I’m alright.

And that kind of echoed in my mind, because that I didn’t feel like anything was wrong with me. Yeah, you notice I felt fine. But But this whole experience was very odd. And so it was all getting to me at the same time. And, and then, then as we watched, the sunset just got brighter and brighter and brighter. And then when I couldn’t stand it, I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes again, I was in my hospital room, and my mom was was was there. And she was telling me, that was an awful accident. And, and, and that was me returning back to, to my physical state. But it wasn’t until I started to recover, I couldn’t walk, I was in a very, very, very bad state that, that my spine was broken. I had all these pins and screws in my hip. And, you know, I’ve been out for three, three weeks. I was I was I was pretty beefy guy before. And now I look like Cathy says, A pluck chicken. No, no, I wasn’t too, too good. But then I started to, you know, do my rehabilitation. I had such a drive to get better, that that I’d often feel this energy. And was then I realize, Joe and john Joe broke his neck when he was a kid at the bluff. And he and he had his back views the whole time as he is in his life, and would walk around kind of like Frankenstein. It was a funny guy, you know, he, he made a lot of fun with it as a good soul. And then john, he was a diabetic and he and his leg got all infected. And he died from from that, you know, when he was an old man, older person. Yeah. And I had problems with my back. I had a broken back, and my leg was in pieces. And it wasn’t then I realized that there would have been my spirit guides to help me through going through this process because that I didn’t, I didn’t have them in my ear saying Stevie Come on, or Kaunas TV, you know? No, but I felt their energy. Same way as I felt the energy of the lady praying is that I felt their energy and I felt their wisdom by having a having the same experiences. And that’s what what they meant that that I would, I would I would see you later that that that’s that’s that that’s that they were here to make sure that I was okay. Now Now it made sense. And, but that lady, I remember that lady now. Because Because that lady now I could see spirit and now I’m awake. And I’m starting to come to my senses again. I know who that lady was, huh? It was my dear friend Kathy. Oh, I knew it. This lady right here. My Kathy, my co author is that that we would just friends at that time. But But she was always a little kooky because she would talk about these spirit things sometimes because we were like, moms together like I would stay at home dad. So all my friends were were moms and she was one of my mom friends. And she would and she would sometimes talk about spiritual things. I wasn’t spiritual at all. But I felt her prayers. sigh as soon as I got my wits together, I said I had to, I had to call her I want to talk to her and tell her about my experience. So the first things I did is I I got my phone as soon as I was untied and I texted her and you got my text?

Kathie Plant 29:27
Yes, they did.

Brian Smith 29:28
So Kathy, you were

Kathie Plant 29:30
friends for a while. And then when he had the accident, it was very devastating for me. We were friends about 16 years. So I I did the only thing I could do. I wasn’t next to kin I couldn’t go into the hospital. So I said based on my knowledge of spirit and having lived through my mom’s premature passing and my twin brothers premature passing and learning to communicate with spirit because I needed that connection to stay alive. And knew that where Steve was was a place where, although he wasn’t in his physical self, he was his spiritual self back in our spiritual home. So through through, like my mind, I could connect to him. So I said to him in my head every day, I said, Steve, I need you to come back, everyone needs you to come back. I’m going to pretend that I’m in the hospital room with you because I can’t be in there. I’m holding your hand. And we’re going to pray the St. Jude prayer, which was what was very meaningful to me. Now, this isn’t a religious thing. I mean, this all paths lead to one destination. But this is the saint with whom I resonated. And then I did this every day. And three weeks later, I get a text from him. And he says, Hi, cat, that’s Steve, I’m okay. Wow, thank you for visiting me when I was out if you know what I if you if you know what I mean. And I, I was just like, so excited. And I typed back and I said, You mean, you know, and he said, let’s just say I’ve been to a place where I know that everyone is connected, but that you and I have a connection that goes beyond this earth. And I learned all about life. And I’d like to share that with you. So I went to the hospital the next day. And it was just amazing the things that he learned. And it’s just it makes life blissful. I mean, there’s so much wisdom. Yeah, what people need to know is that there is an eternity to life, there is a continuation of consciousness. So when our loved ones pass, our pets pass, they’re there in spirit, they’re in an eternal home, and we can connect to them. And and that’s just once you get rid of that fear that we’re no longer connected to those and that there is really no death, then you could just relax and know that you will see them again. And and there’s a connection that love never dies, it changes form, but it never dies. love and life are eternal. And that was a very valuable lesson. And it. He’s back and I’m so grateful

Stephen Weber 32:13
most of the times except if I leave my socks on the floor, then

Kathie Plant 32:19
that’s great.

Brian Smith 32:21
Yeah, that is?

Stephen Weber 32:24
Well, it was it was just a very, you know, I definitely it. It was it was definitely a connection that went beyond this world. Yeah. But but for a long time, as I put it aside is that is that I was so wrapped up in trying to get better is that I stopped talking about it. And Kathy didn’t push me on it too much. Because I was convinced that the experience was the drugs they gave me like, like the sedatives or what perhaps I was dreaming, I didn’t think it was real. And the couple of times that I that I shared some parts with Kathy Kathy would get real excited about and tell me how it’s how it’s real. And I would, I would think she was kind of kind of kooky about the whole thing. I just thought it was just a trippy kind of thing.

Unknown Speaker 33:12
I was there. How can it be trippy?

Stephen Weber 33:14
I don’t know. I don’t know.

Brian Smith 33:16
Well, I think that’s that’s really not uncommon for people try to rationalize and when you mentioned the drugs or dream, I mean, a lot of people talk about near death experiences and even even doctors will try to explain it away with lack of oxygen to the brain or the drugs or, you know, stuff like that. But how was the experience? Did it feel because what How did it feel to you when you’re in that experience?

Stephen Weber 33:39
I felt extremely blissful all the time. I felt I didn’t see like, like, people speak up, perhaps seeing divinity and other things is I didn’t see any of that. It was all that but it was a framework around everything is that it was an energy that I felt like love You know, I believe it’s, it’s deeper than then than that. It’s a it’s a love of action and about it’s more than a feeling it’s a it’s a wisdom, like, like love is wise. Because Because it’s like the expression of love is is it’s like the law of attraction. You know, the more you love and the more you put positivity and things around you the more your world changes because that you’re putting out a different vibe. it’s it’s it’s different and that’s what I felt that the idea is as I learned is that is that you built more evolved than and spiritual and, and it was a beauty like I often wondered like, if all this bs about heaven is true, you know, before I had this experience is that I’d be bored. Oh, I’ll be bored. But what am I gonna do? sit around, hang out the clouds all day and play to play harps and stuff like what? What would it be? At least for me This is what this experience was.

Brian Smith 35:02
So early, you said it this was kind of like purgatory. So kind of like an in between place, do you think this is heaven? Or just like a place that leads to heaven? Or how would you? How would you put that,

Stephen Weber 35:13
I would say all the bugs. What I mean by that is that is that I think it’s preparing you to be in spirit. The only reason why I was alive was because that they had these machines that were keeping me alive. And in the past, you wouldn’t have access to this type of medical care, because did they work these miracles even put my leg back together, I could walk now. And, and they work these miracles. And But what’s more than enable you to survive is that my brain wasn’t damaged, like, like, I still have my cognitive abilities. And so and so in the past, that was very rare. I believe that going forward, more people will have these types of experiences, because of these medical procedures and advances and the availability of this type of care. But there’s a doctor, I think his last name is par. Now, I should know that better by now. But he’s a cardiac surgeon over at Stony Brook hospital where they had the surgery for me, and I never met him. But I saw him on a podcast where he was discussing a book. And he was saying that, that the idea of these life saving medical technologies is going to bring more of these types of experiences that people talk about. And really, we are missing a very, very big component as a society, that that we really need to begin to document this, this information. But from a medical standpoint, just as a part of your documenting your history, you know, what did you experience as a part of like, the outpatient procedure? So I thought, you know, I thought that to be, you know, I it made a lot of sense to me that, that it was the machines that kept me going.

Brian Smith 37:05
Yeah, and one of the reasons I asked you that question, I’ve talked to several people who’ve had near death experiences, and my working theory is that it is kind of a place in between and, and a lot of times in near death experience, we’ll hear about a barrier, for example, people say I knew there was a place I couldn’t go beyond there was a there was a wall, there was a gate, there was a river I couldn’t cross or something. So it seems to be like it might be an in between kind of preparatory place. And maybe even as you said, maybe a place of decision. And I’ve never quite heard it put the way you did. It’s kind of like, why to come back to this physical life. I come back reincarnated. Or maybe I move forward to being a spirit guide or something. It’s first time I’ve heard someone put it that way.

Unknown Speaker 37:47
On

Stephen Weber 37:51
it took a long time to to adjust to that. Mm hmm. Like I wasn’t a spiritual person at all. And Kathy had a lot to do with it. And then and then well, is that is that I was well into my rehabilitation. You know, Kathy was was there all the time and, and she was like Sergeant slaughter and Mother Teresa, you know, sometimes she’d beat on me Other times, she would just be kind and supportive. And I had Joey and john as my speed. I felt their energy life was moving on. I was starting to feel really good about things then. And then my 20 year old son died of a drug overdose. Sorry, I went overdose now. This this kid was the light of my life. I was a stay at home dad. I mean that that’s how I knew Kathy and all the other moms and, and he was a musician. He was he played Jimi Hendrix, like Jimi Hendrix, he played Mozart like Mozart on the on the, on the piano, and he and he played the saxophone, like Dizzy Gillespie played the song horn. He was great. And he was a championship wrestler, New York State Champion. He was on a scholarship, he was just, you know, all these wonderful things. And it just happened so fast, you know, it just, it was devastating. I just I got into this funk and I just couldn’t shake it. And and Kathy, I’d go on these walks with with with Kathy and I really wouldn’t talk and I just like being in her presence, and I felt a certain energy. And, and I began to think about things a little bit more about about the place between here and there. And I wasn’t sharing it a lot with her but, but it was just wow.

Brian Smith 39:40
So when I’m sorry. What did I interrupt you? When did this happen?

Stephen Weber 39:43
This happened. The accident was in 2015. And I lost my son in 2016.

Brian Smith 39:50
Okay, so you were you were probably still recovering everything physically at that point?

Stephen Weber 39:53
Yes, yes, I was still in Kathy was helping me all along the way through experience. And yeah, it was just, it was it was, it was just such a difficult experience is, you know, I kept on thinking to myself, Was it me? You know? No, how did I screw up? You know, I was a biker, you know, I’d like to drink beer in my my Holly eat hot wings and, and stuff but I was fully involved parents I mean, I was my, my my son and my daughter would often tell me why can’t I be do parent things and leave them alone You know, you know like I was always in their hair, you know as always involved and and then to miss out on the weddings and birthdays and the grandchildren. And then then did I bring this about like, like, you have all these thoughts of deep regret and blame and everything else. And then and then one day when I was working through this, Kathy turns around and says Nick, this my son’s name is that contact turns around and says, Did they ever try to contact you from spirit? Hmm. I thought this woman was freaking nuts. I really did. Is that is that I’m sitting in grieving. And I’m looking to it and she was really really my best friends. You know? Really? No, although is a guy and girl You know, it’s tough to win all your friends are women and moms and stuff. You know, it’s tough to imagine in this world but but but but no, no, she was my dear friend. But how to say this, I almost felt I was almost off piste it because it didn’t seem real, like oh, my son’s going to talk to me now. And and she backed off right away. And so but but I didn’t say a lot. I just kind of went went with the flow because I didn’t want to, you know, I didn’t want to be that way. Yeah. And so um, but but the next thing is I know is she’s dragging me around to all these trails, we go on, she’s leaving little statues of St. Teresa. And we’re and we’re writing stones of prayers, we’re putting them down. And then we’re, we’re leaving the pen there. So so the next day, we would come back to be more prayers that it was almost like we’d go to this shrine this day, this shrine the next day. And each day, there were more, there were more prayer stones that and that was the first time that I started to really feel some relief from from the grief that I was experiencing. Because that all of a sudden is like that old sting song where he talks about the message in the bottle, and, and all the bottles showing up on the shore. Like, like, like, you’re not alone in this world. Everyone has problems. And everyone has heartbreak and just knowing like I was all of a sudden, I started to feel that connection, again, that I felt in the place between here and there that all of a sudden, like I was starting to feel that spirit. But but but I really, you know, I really didn’t share it too much with with with Kathy occasionally, because it was like giving red meat to a dog you know, you know, she she was already having me praying and doing all this stuff. And then then we start to see the signs and, and Kathy

Kathie Plant 43:08
Well, he was very hesitant to believe me that there was an ability to communicate with spirit, which was made me just shocked because we communicated when he was in spirit.

Brian Smith 43:18
Yeah,

Kathie Plant 43:20
see this now, but it was my magic. He was just living in his lower chakras, his ego, which, you know, everyone does.

Unknown Speaker 43:28
Some more than others.

Kathie Plant 43:30
So when I started doing what I do best again, which is the praying and trying to connect and seeing all these signs around us that I felt next presence. You know, we were finding roses everywhere we were going and I’m like Steve, does this mean something you don’t just find roses would be roses on a trail roses at the beach roses everywhere. And it was the anniversary of his son’s passing. And I said, you know, he’s contacting us. And he was just like, You are crazy. And I knew I wasn’t. Yeah. So it wasn’t until his cousin went to visit a very well known local psychic and the psychic when she went to go contact her grandmother, but Nick was like, I’m taking this opportunity to go through the psychic to give a message. And he said, um, she said to the site to my to his cousin, there’s a Nic that’s coming through and he Do you know who that his and his cousin was like, of course I know who it is. Yeah, let him come through. And she said Nick is saying that he has a synchronicity with St. Teresa and he’s sending the roses. Okay, and and I thought like, Oh, I had Steve now once he has this he’s gonna be like so excited. And he still didn’t he still chalked it up to Well, it’s a coincidence.

Stephen Weber 44:53
And I know I know it sounds kind of you know, in hindsight, it sounds like I should have known like, like, I should have known In that place, but but it just it was too hokey pokey for me, you know, turns with but things. I’m a computer guy. So two plus two equals four. Yeah. But well,

Brian Smith 45:11
I’m gonna ask you out,

Kathie Plant 45:13
I just have to say one thing when we made a found out and this was this was the aha moments was that Nick and St. Teresa shared a birthday. They both were born on January 2, and Nick passed on the day that St. Teresa was canonized, which is may 17. So when I found that out, and I just excitedly brought that information to Steve and I was like Steve, you know, he said he has a synchronous that he was saying, Teresa, he said, He’s sending the roses to let you know that he’s okay. And these, those are the synchronicities the birthday and the passing day. And then he was like, well, maybe there is something to this. So he finally was starting to see the connection. And once that aha moment happened, and he opened his awareness to all of that, okay, then the signs started coming left and right i mean we ever since then he is just a sign machines, like we are connecting with this loved one that one love this saying that say that Angel St. Michael, just, there’s just this magic that once you open that spiritual door, and you allow that beauty, that connection, I mean, we did the veil gets thinner. When you make that realization, then you get signed suddenly from your loved ones, but you get signs on how to live your life. Like what, what to do, you’re struggling with whether you should go down this road of this road, and you’ll see left written somewhere and you know, to go left, I mean, it just, it’s just such a beautiful thing. When you open that spiritual dawn, once he did that, then life just became better. He knew Nick was okay. He knew that there was a continuation of life. And then there was just magic. I mean, life has been magical ever since

Stephen Weber 47:05
it was it was really is that the aha moment was an aha moment for opening the doors to think about it a little bit more as that. And it wasn’t like, like just an epiphany. It was a process now, like Kathy says, It’s once I start to think about it. And then I started to think that maybe Nick is in the place where I was. And he was feeling the things that I was feeling that that place is real. And Nick is feeling those things that he’s alright, he’s happy. He’s learning he’s growing. He’s realizing his, his true self, his higher self in this world in this universe. And, and that brought me peace. And now, that understanding actually brought my son back to me because that anytime I thought of my son, up until that point, I thought of him passing, especially dying of a heroin overdose, and just me not knowing and my responsibility and everything else is that all of a sudden, is that is that no, no, he’s okay. You know, what, we’re all going to be okay, we’re all going to be together. And this isn’t the end, and that he’s feeling that bliss. And now I got him back. Because now I don’t think about the circumstances of his death. I think about all the happy times and him holding the trophies over his head or in playing the saxophone. And people like stopping in the street and looking at him with just all these things I had, I got that back, like giving up the grief, because the grief sub process, at least for me, really is a process. But it wasn’t until I was able to give that up that I got the memory of my son back. And that’s what I wanted. Second, I want my son back number one, but if not, that is I want the happiness when I thought of him back, and soon as I was able to understand that life is eternal, that that place is real, and that he’s going on to his beautiful, his beautiful, higher self and the rest of the spiritual existence. That that. Wow. It’s okay. Yeah.

Brian Smith 49:18
So it sounds to me that so you had this experience. And you up until your next passing? Maybe even you didn’t think it was real, right? You didn’t really put together the meaning to it. You just did you just chalk it up to a dream or hallucination or? Well,

Stephen Weber 49:36
both of those things. Really, I was so preoccupied with getting better. Yeah. That was like, Ah, you know, I woke up every morning and pain. I was excited because I it was a great opportunity for improvement. I would say that all the time. The Kathy and I started to go to yoga. And every time I couldn’t do something, I’d be like, Wow, what a great opportunity for improvement. And that’s kind of like that. Like the attitude I think I felt from my spirit guides Jolyon. And that, and that I was just so wrapped up in it. It wasn’t until, you know, really losing my son that it really caused me to really dig down deep. And really, like, I had to face it. I was kind of like, put it out of my mind. And Kathy wasn’t pushing it on me pushing me too much on it. But, but it was still there. And like, in my own mind is a lot of times when I would say little things to Kathy, I would, I would end it with all the universe, according to Steve Yeah, you know, is it what I didn’t talk about it as a place as I talked about, I made fun of myself all the time about it. But after a while, there was little bits of knowledge in there that kind of like, took me by surprise, like, Did I just say that? Like, it was, it was weird. It was. I mean, like, like, a lot of things were what were weird about it. But, but it’s just that, you know, when we, when we finally decided to tell the story, and to share with with people, that was a process too, but I expected people who are interested in near death experiences to, to, like, be very interested in the book. And they are I mean, they definitely are, but it’s people recovering from grief. Hmm, that those are the people we get very long letters from. And we try to reach out and talk to talk real talk with, with just about as many people as we can, not as therapists, we’re not therapists, we’re just parents having lost a child. And that, and that it’s, it’s a shared experience, a club that no one wants to belong to. But But knowing leaving that sorrow behind that losing a child, or somebody who’s close to you, that that it does, it’s liberating, it gets your get your child back to you, or your loved one, because you could think of the happy times. And that that really was the greatest gift is that you lifted from the fear of death, not only for yourself, but for others. Because if you think about those things that worry people the most is the fear of death, or themselves or their loved ones. And now with this health crisis that’s going on in the world today. And everything else people are really worried. And to relieve people of that fear of death is that your experiences are everything, you don’t want to be in spirit now. Because you are you are alive and you are getting experiences, you want to get the most of experiences. But when your time comes, it’s going to be blissful. It’s not about puffy clouds and white angels with the harps and everything else. It’s not like, like is sitting around and being bored. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s the highest high, it’s the most love. It’s it’s all of these things. And and once you feel that, and you make it real, all of a sudden, everything’s okay.

Brian Smith 53:04
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, as I listen to you talk, and you were saying that maybe I should have known this or known that. And I interviewed pmh Atwater, who studied near death experiences, probably more than anybody. And adults take somewhere usually an average between four and seven years to integrate a near death experience children’s even longer. So it’s not unusual for someone to take in a while to really grasp what they went through they, they’ve kind of got the the raw data, but as far as putting it together and the sort of information to understand what it means. And for you, it sounds like was kind of triggered by Nick’s passing was kind of accelerated your integration of it, right? So then, now you’ve got to, you know, figure it out. So it’s really interesting, I think how that how that played out in your life.

Kathie Plant 53:50
And also, I think, the fact that I was a believer, a lot of people don’t share that story because they feel fear that people will judge them and think they’re crazy. I was the one that was kind of extracting it at him like, Oh, this is okay, this is real. I mean, I read these books I’d like after my mom and my brother passed away. I’ve read every book like that the life heaviness for real, like, on death and dying, like I was just like, a sponge for knowledge. Because when you lose that person, you want to know that everything is okay, you want to connect. So once he and I started talking, it was just like, I saw, like, everything that he learned is what I read in books, this is real. And and I urged him I said, you got to tell the story. You could help people he could and and he didn’t want to because he’s like, you know, people studied this for so long. And I wasn’t a spiritual person. I just was lucky enough to survive and come back. And it’s a no but you have to tell people because not only did you learn this beautiful wisdom, I mean, in the book, you’ll see that there are To like really profound lessons learned from the other side, after losing your son and still being able to feel blessed, because you know where he is, I mean, that’s like, that needs to be shared. Yeah, to know this, because everyone grieves terribly. We all are going to lose somebody at some point. And it is a debilitating feeling. So if you could share that wisdom, it’s going to help so many people. And it is I mean, once the book came out, and we do workshops, and talk to people on YouTube videos, and all that people are really responding positively. And it’s so heartwarming that we could give that gift to people.

Brian Smith 55:44
Yeah. Workshops. I’m interested here, you said, I heard this you do. Host curtains, full moon ceremonies, sound healings, guided meditation. So tell me about these things.

Stephen Weber 55:55
All of those are just for our friends, we have people over our house all the time, okay. And most of the time, is that is that we’ll meet people at, at public events. And we’ll invite these people complete strangers, I mean, we, it’s a small community this year, nearly so people know each other, our son will, and will, we’re all musicians. And so we’ll play music. And we’ll do Kurt dance will sing and got the likes to dance. And we’ll have a whole house full of people just singing and dancing and having a great time. And then we’ll do something like like we’ll make like Reiki ones at a beach class. I mean, it sounds silly that like talk about it. But we just have so much fun doing this. And it’s and it’s old people as young people, people from all different backgrounds, and you just share the idea of spirituality. And, and that’s really important for us, especially with the young people, because that when I was in that place, is I was responsible for shepherding these young people, you know, to have a human incarnation. And now when we invite people, you know, about half of it is usually young people that, that I want them to know, like, if I was to be able to share one experience that I learned from that place that’s made the most difference in my life, is that ethics and spirituality are an asset in your life. Now, they aren’t a hindrance. A lot of times people think, like ethics and spirituality is a hinderance like, like, if you’re an ethical person, oh, you’re leaving money on the table, you could have got that you could have got that. But no, when you bring ethics to your work, it’s the law of attraction, you begin to, to not only send great vibes into the universe, but you start to surround yourself. And with the vents that are very positive, you know, you create your own reality, by by the way you behave, it’s the law of attraction. And so and so the ethics are key to that. And then also the ability to use the spirit in your everyday work, you can use everyone has intuition, that that part of you which you can feel the energy and people to use that in your everyday life, like if you’re in a business meeting, instead of seeing the kids as kids see the spirit in people. And so when I’m in a business meeting, is I try to connect with everyone’s spirit to find out why they are there, what’s the motivating what’s the physical reason, but what’s the physical, the spiritual reason, and over times, I get better at this, but now I created an environment that’s collaborative, as opposed to doggy dog, and then the whole benefit to everybody. And you as a person, as a spirit is so much raised because of the ethics and so and the spirituality. And so this is the message that we try to send to the kids when we’re with them. And, and that, that you could be spiritual, but don’t have to be poor. You know, yeah, you know, or not have assets or not have, you know, you can be that you just have to make those intelligent choices to, to really be able to make a difference in that in this world to realize that the Spirit is good, ethics is good. Those are assets in your life, and so on. And so that’s a very long answer to a short question.

Kathie Plant 59:21
Shops we do us about the workshop, right? And we’ve been we’ve been doing them locally, where we just we talk about the book, we discuss it we have a question and answer session. We do a sound healing, we do a little crystal.

Unknown Speaker 59:36
I think we’re still

Kathie Plant 59:37
waiting and an angel card reading just to make it fun. And it’s been very well received. We’ve gone to yoga centers, we’ve gone to the historical societies, and we were branching out and then the the health crisis hit us so we kind of took a seat back for a little while, but we have bookings and in other states and stuff coming up We’ve done a couple of zoom kind of thing. So we’re just trying to bring forth that message to everyone. Because when you know, we’re all individual consciousnesses on Earth, but collectively we have a consciousness. So not only should we work on our own consciousness, but as we do that we raise the collective. So we want to share this gift with everybody, and just bring this this earth to a higher awareness so that we can transcend what’s negative and fearful and anxiety produced in this world and just bring everyone to a higher level of consciousness,

Stephen Weber 1:00:39
really, by but by being positive, and sharing it with other people, you know, yeah, they give up work for bosses are real, you know, what am I everybody on the team is really upset and backbiting and the second negativity, that’s, that’s the energy that someone puts out, he has authority as well. But but that’s the energy as opposed to environments where, where people are very happy, and they’re all working together, and life is good. That’s because they’re putting out that energy in the same way in that environment. If you put out that energy into the world, it’s going to come back to you, but it’s going to spread, other people going to take that in their life. And then they’re going to bring that energy to people in their life and world. And especially now because people are afraid, you know, to be able to give that comfort by living that positive life is not about book reading. It’s not about just just on Sundays, you’ll be spiritual. It’s about every day. And that’s an asset. It’s beautiful. We have a good time. We, every once in a while, we’ll have some drinks, and we just, we just, we just live life and we’re going to get every experience we can I’m going to go skydiving, I’m going to ride the back of full Manchu the ball for 10 seconds. I’m gonna do everything I can to get as much experience and Cathy’s gonna make it her job to stop me and make sure.

Brian Smith 1:02:03
Really? Yeah, could you still write you know, are you riding motorcycles anymore?

Stephen Weber 1:02:09
I am. No, but but it is a big part of my life. And, and, and I we, we we talk about this it’s still in discussion. Yeah, but let’s leave it at that. But but but I do love riding horses and that’s tends to find the you know, fill that void. Because I just love horses that beautiful spirit animals and the our friends who had horses as moved away but but but we’re going to find something if this health crisis is over with we’re going to find another bond and we’re gonna go horseback riding does that is that a lot of fun too. And it also helps in the recovery because it’s about stabilizing your back and making small adjustments and so, so looking forward to that as well.

Brian Smith 1:02:57
Well, it’s really interesting talking to you, Steve, because it’s I could you know, as I hear you tell your story and your your big event evangelists for this now, and I can hear you saying how you’ve transformed and, you know, I kind of look at Kathy and I kind of wonder if Kathy is your spirit guide here and flesh to be there to kind of, you know, kind of pull you along and say, okay, you had this experience. Here’s what here’s what you experienced. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:23
yeah, little push.

Stephen Weber 1:03:25
Like I said, and she punches like a man so so I really have to watch out with that. But, but but I think you’re right. So because that, you know, but I think it’s like a two way street. Because that Yeah, she’s very much you know, but I bring other things to and that’s why I think like writing this book, is that is that the two of us I think it’s like a meant to be because obviously it’s meant to be by God. But we complement each other so well on so many levels. And so so she did provide that that but but also I gave the realness to to a lot of things she thought about and I’m more she’s more schooled person I’m a more you know, out and doing person the two of us together we help each other grow.

Brian Smith 1:04:13
Yeah, yeah, well, you’ve got the experience to kind of push the flesh on the bones. I’m the person studied a lot of this stuff to come, I think some of you Kathy, but I haven’t had any experiences. So for me, it’s all a matter of hearing or reading what someone else else has done. And I think you’re right to the two of you together, bring bring that and the other thing you know, Steve is you know, people talk about the near death experience. One of the one of the outcomes of a near death experience is people become transformed. They become like a different person. And and I’m just gathering from having this hour long conversation with you that you’re a different person than you were four or five years ago.

Stephen Weber 1:04:48
If the person five years ago met the person today, he’d beat the crap out of them. He would, he would end and also that’s also a comforting thought in the sense that that you Every time I look back six months, I think what a fool I was, you know, and that means I’m growing. And that’s also one of one of those things that that you take with you. Your openness and your willingness to find fault in yourself is a little tougher when Kathy points that things out to me, but especially when I bite them in myself, you know, the growth is good and feels good.

Brian Smith 1:05:21
Yeah. And there, you had like 12 universal truths that you learn. So let’s just go over some of those briefly. Well, we’ve got a few more minutes here.

Stephen Weber 1:05:29
On the first I universal truth, we have we spoke about was that every every is that everything has a spirit. And we spoke about that transition. And then we, the creator, and the creation are one, huh, okay. And, and that’s just what I felt. And I know other people feel differently. But but but but it’s what I felt when I was there is that is that we we talked about cells in your body is that is that I think that’s why we are here in human incarnation is because just as I was preparing those kids to have a human incarnation is that your spirit is always been here for eternity. And it will always be here forever, it’s part of the universe. But your spirit grows and develops through different incarnations over a period of time. And that as we are all connected, all of us together, are all part of the creation, everything, everything has a spirit, and the creation, and the creator are all part of the everything. The Creator and the creation are one. And so and so that was a very liberating thought or truth that I came to because that it gives a, why are we here? As we grow and develop our group consciousness, the creator and the creation, consciousness grows, this is why there are so many of us. And that’s why we’re in spirit, why we have these trials and tribulations while the why the earth is perfect the way it is, because it’s not a perfect place. It is this place to learn and to grow. So um, so the idea that the creator and the creation are one is, is another point. Another point is that don’t have hate or animosity towards anybody or yourself, not because you’re such a highly evolved person and like, Oh, I’m so wonderful. I don’t I don’t judge anybody. No, because that’s the way it is. Because that’s the truth is because when I was going through my life review is that I, the worst experiences in my life, were the ones I learned the most from, and the ones that I felt the most bliss from. And so and so everyone is on their life path. And so if people do bad to you, is that is that don’t allow them to do it. You know, don’t be a Pollyanna and say, oh, what’s going to be what what speed, I mean, that might be a life path. So bid, but don’t let people do bad to you. When bad happens, let it go. Don’t carry it with you let it go. Because that in the same way, the grief blocks your ability to have that that those happy memories, you know, these other things cause blockages when you hate someone, or yourself or you have anger towards yourself, or somebody else, it stops you from finding the real meaning and your experiences. So experiences are everything. That’s our reason for being here. So don’t have hate or animosity towards anyone who brings you those bad experiences.

Brian Smith 1:08:42
Yeah, those are extremely important lessons. And, you know, we experienced them, I guess, uniquely, you got something through the near death experience, but they’re kind of universal for people who have near death experiences, they come back and they tell us these things, that we’re all one that everything is good, everything’s gonna be fine. That is experience. And I think it’s really important especially as we’re going through the trying times are going through right now we’re recording this or anybody might be listening in the future. This is the end of November 2020 this and we were just joking before, you’re kind of writing this year off, this is like the worst year ever. Everybody found opportunity

Unknown Speaker 1:09:17
for growth,

Brian Smith 1:09:18
but it’s a perfect opportunity for growth and it’s a time where a lot of people are having to sit down and be quiet and get and get still by force. Right? So it’s a chance for us to to really take a deep look within and and realize that the this too can be used for good. Yes, absolutely.

Stephen Weber 1:09:38
It would be a shame to go through all this and not to get value.

Brian Smith 1:09:43
Yeah and exactly and you know and with your son You know, that’s something that that we share and I work with an organization called helping parents heal and you know, all of our all of our we’re all parents who have lost children. So in the lovely said that It’d be a shame not to use this You know, it’s like, it’s not any anything any of us wish you said, you know, you’d rather have your son back, I’d rather have my daughter back. But since this has happened, we need to use this for you know, for good. It’s an opportunity for growth.

Stephen Weber 1:10:13
Well, if there’s any opportunity for us to what is some something that that we can participate in some way to do to help your your mission with your, with the parents?

Brian Smith 1:10:26
Yeah, definitely. We’ll talk. Yeah, I would love to have you guys be part of the group. Yeah, it’s a great organization, I bet my daughter passed away five years ago, I’ve been in helping parents heal for four years. And for anybody who’s listening you, my regular listeners hear me talk about it all the time. But it’s a great organization, volunteer organization for parents who have lost children, because I said the word loss, we don’t lose our children. But for parents whose children have transitioned, we get together and we support each other. Because it’s it’s so devastating, as you were saying, Cathy, losing anybody. But especially when you have a child transition, it just seems it’s so out of order. So I I, your book, I think it helped people. And it’s great, because I think people that are going through grief should study near death experiences, there’s so many lessons, near death experiences, and people who study near death experiences can actually get some of the benefits from it. So I think your book is perfect. Because you’ve got both aspects in it, you’ve got the passing of your son, and you’ve got the experiences you had before that and how those two kind of tied together in your life.

Stephen Weber 1:11:32
Now, it also makes you think that, I mean, it does make me think that that is very purposeful. I don’t believe that that things are destined to happen. I think that there are likely outcomes. But but but the fact that I had this, this near death experience and a spiritual awakening, and then the loss of my son, and then the real spiritual awakening that, that if it wasn’t for the near death experience. I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t think I would have no, no, I would have reacted a lot differently. Because there’s a lot of times even now, the gentleman who sold my, my son and drugs was held responsible for for his actions. And people will often say, Oh, don’t you wish you That guy was was executed or all these horrible things? What would what would be happening to him? And I tell him, No, no, I want him I want him to be, I wanted to have life, I wanted to understand what he’s done. I wanted to have children, I want him to take care of the kids and feel the love. I want to take his kid to wrestling and teach them how to play guitar and, and to and to watch them get married and have the kids and to make something out of this terrible thing. You know, I don’t have hate or animosity towards you. And as part of that, like is so liberating. Is that is that to be free from that? I can never go back. I can’t.

Brian Smith 1:13:08
Yeah. And that’s and that’s a great perspective to have, as you said, we’re cells in the body. And we shouldn’t be hating on each other. Right? Because we’re all part of the same body.

Stephen Weber 1:13:16
So true. Yeah. And the only taken away from yourself in the here and now too, as well as whatever may come afterwards.

Brian Smith 1:13:24
Yeah, absolutely. Well,

Kathie Plant 1:13:26
advice to people who are sure, opening a new spiritual door. I like to explain it like a gym membership. Like someone read a book and they’ll feel bliss for like a month because it’s so helpful. But then that wanes. So we have to look at this, like, spirituality is a gym membership. You got to keep going back read the book, join a group, do yoga, do meditation watch inspiring you to videos really keep that going because once you do that more spiritual instances come to you read meet the right people, you find yourself in a higher alignment and then you’re just vibrating at a high level and all this wonder comes to you so just keep at it. Like don’t just stop, keep going. Yeah, really, really hone that spiritual practice just like you would do anything like education or you know, your physical body,

Stephen Weber 1:14:25
the week the garden you let it get away from you. Have you met in a short time?

Brian Smith 1:14:29
Yeah, I think that’s excellent advice. Thank you, Kathy. I want to let people know where they can reach you. So it’s between here and there.org just the best way to reach us.

Stephen Weber 1:14:38
We have facebook youtube, and then I and then our email address is info at between here and there.org and and if you have anything you want to share or reach out to us in any way just just just send us an email and we’ll we’ll get in contact with with you either through through email or or texting or give me a call, you know what, we’re all in this life together and as long as as long as we can help each other, it’s good. It’s good. I, when my when I help other people it feel it, you know, even even when things aren’t going well in your life yet, you know to reach out to that it’s a it’s a wonderful thing. Yeah,

Brian Smith 1:15:20
absolutely. Well, I want to tell you, I want to give you guys a chance to say anything, any final words you might have, on your part, so much wisdom? I’m not sure what you have left. But go ahead.

Stephen Weber 1:15:29
Thank you, if I want to just leave you with with with two, two, Steve isms. Sure, is that life is good, and people are good, even when very sad things happen. And, and try to think about that, and meditate on that. And think about how could that be, so how that could be so and how that is so and that life is good. And people are good, even when very sad things happen. And that’s really what that whole experience taught me and everything that’s happened since because that it is it is. And the other thing that that I want to say is that our experiences are everything they are and just just make the most out of life. You know, a lot of times when spiritual people are going down the spiritual path, all of a sudden, they stopped living life and they do want to go on the mountain and omal day and, and cool. That’s your life path. But experience like that’s why you’re here.

Brian Smith 1:16:34
Thank you, Kathy, anything you want to add?

Kathie Plant 1:16:36
Yeah, I would just like to say that. Were we’re here to love. All the Ascended Masters said the same thing, whether it was Buddha or Jesus, the purpose of life is to learn to receive love and to give love. And, and if we could all just really think about that and live from our heart center and spread that out. That’s that would make the world a better place. So I just want to share that. And I just really also want to stress that when people contact us, we we do want to help like they don’t feel that we’re putting us off. We get so many messages we answer every single one we’ve had face to face meetings with people, if they’re local, and they’re just grieving, we don’t want anyone to suffer. So if there’s anything we could do, just please reach out either on on Facebook or on YouTube, just Anyway, you know, just please don’t don’t suffer.

Brian Smith 1:17:36
Thank you. Thank you, that’s very generous, it’s very generous of you guys offer and I really appreciate what you’re doing. It’s been great getting to meet both you guys and have this conversation.

Stephen Weber 1:17:47
And we and we love you and thank you so much for your message and bringing this piece to people through your through your message and through our shared experience and losing a child and still being able to put one foot in front of the other and help other people heal. You know very I feel your energy. And Kathy and I we both love you and we want to encourage you and and we’re we’re glad to be into this into the spirit into this life with you and your wife and and all the people that that’s part of your life. Okay,

Brian Smith 1:18:18
thank you. Thank you. It’s been a really great meeting you guys

Stephen Weber 1:18:22
sat now the one last thing

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

I met Sally through Facebook. We have a mutual Facebook friend who communicates with his daughter in spirit via several methods. Sally always intuitively knew she was cared for. But, about eleven years ago she went through a dark night of the soul that propelled her spiritual development forward. She began connecting on a deeper level and studying the afterlife. At the time Sally had no idea her son Tommy would tragically and suddenly pass in an automobile accident in May 2019.

Now, all of her hard work would be required to navigate this journey of grief. Tommy began communicating with Sally immediately. Then, in August of this year, Tommy found a new way to communicate with Sally that was beyond her wildest dreams.

 

Transcript

 

Brian Smith 0:01
Hey there, everybody. This is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth I’ve got with me today a woman named Sally Stacy and Sally and I just met this week and she has a fascinating story. I’m looking forward to you guys hearing it. Let me just read a short introduction to who Sally is. Sally was made aware of unseen forces that can guide and support us when she was young. And then 11 years ago, she had an existential crisis that sent her on a path of self discovery, healing and spiritual connection. And then what happened last year in May of 2019, her son Tommy passed.

And that actually led her to leaning into her spiritual connection for guidance, strength and comfort while she was simultaneously going through the grieving process. But Sally experienced a connection with the sun pretty much immediately. And that connection ox expanded to include her guides and others A few months later. So Sally started getting signs from Tommy like, right from the very, very beginning, we’re going to talk about some of the signs, and then recent development where she started a whole brand new way of communication with Tommy. So with that, I want to introduce Sally Stacy and say, welcome to Griff to growth. Thanks, Brian. It’s good to be here. Yeah, it’s really great to meet you, as we just we just talked a couple days ago.

And we were talking about a mutual friend of ours, someone that we both know, Marcus Lange, who gets signs from his daughter, and spirit, and you commented on there. And that’s how you and I met and you were talking about some of the signs you got. So I said, we’ve got to come on the show and tell us about it. So you said you were saying that you started, you knew there was something going on the spirit world when you were young. So start there and tell me what you what you felt,

Sally Stacey 1:37
okay. And around the age of 12, I had a little trauma happened in my life,

and quite serious trauma, and it was troubling. And we I come from a very tiny island called Guernsey and I would live within a walking distance of the sea. And I would go to the beach with with these issues with my concerns. And I would, you know, look out over the ocean, listen to the waves smell the seaweed. And in my mind, I would think things through the people involved how they were feeling, you know, what I could do to help and, and I never felt alone. You know, I just knew I was

supported for one of a better way I just knew something else existed, it was unseen. And I would often leave the beach, knowing what the next best thing would be to do. And I would do that for years and go to the beach and do that. Without ever thinking what it what it actually construed that it was I was connecting spiritually to whatever was it I never put any thought into it just it was just what I realized that that was about it. But it was something I didn’t carry through into my adult life. Yeah. So you just you felt that connection from a very early age. Yeah. Okay. And then you you had some sort of a crisis or something that that triggered you 11 years ago, what Tell me about that? I did. And, you know, I have lovely family, two beautiful kids. And happily married for over 30 years, we’ve lived in many countries in the world and got to experience many things. And I am, I found myself disappearing down a rabbit hole of emotional pain, and the trauma I mentioned from earlier in my life. And that occurred as a teenager and a little more, a bit later on. I’d sort of done the British thing of brushing it off and getting on with life. And I haven’t seen anybody I’d never dealt with the emotions or anything, I think, you know, they were the the emotions attached to that trauma just laid dormant for a long time. And they would come out in different ways they would in different situations, which created the same sort of fears. They kind of come up and resulted eventually to me, just yeah, having an existential crisis, a dark night of the soul, I reached the point of why am I alive? You know, what is the what is why am I here? I mean, what is the point of this pain is just excruciating. And I realized, you know, at the same time that all the answers leave within, they weren’t external, they were within. And that’s where I had to look. And that’s what I had to discover. And that’s what I had to heal. And,

and that’s what I did for a good couple of years. I worked hard on myself, you know, it’s difficult sometimes to look in the mirror. And that I did, and it was interesting, I had some therapy, great

woman that

helped me get back into my past and face those things, and realize what were triggering, you know, emotions over the years and I’m telling you this because it actually is quite important in growing

such a traumatic loss as a child, you know, those things that you bury because they’re too painful, they don’t go away necessarily, you know, they will just lay dormant and can affect you in all sorts of ways. And so I learned how to deal with the trauma that it occurred how to effectively processing motions, and release them, let them go. And as a result of that, over a couple of years, I, I developed spiritual practices, I began meditating, and prayer, if you want to call it prayer, you know, people often put a religious connotation on prayer. I thought, you know, it wasn’t prayer I just talked. And then it would happen in the mornings, but it was sometimes happened during the day. And during that span of time, before Tommy’s accident, there were a few times where I had knowings, come in, there was one time I was working late at night with my dog and an issue again from a long ago in the past, and when it came up, bought me a lot of pain. I literally wanted to turn it over. So you take this, I don’t want to carry this anymore. I don’t understand it. And out of nowhere, this voice, the check, can’t say is masculine or feminine, literally put knowledge in my markings that I did not know. And it was gone. That was the end of that. And that happened a couple of times, feelings of being surrounded by God or source just a couple of times, I absolutely felt it. And in those years, but nothing, you know, as big as what happened after my son passed. But during that time after, as I healed, I got involved anonymously in helping others that were in tremendous emotional pain. And I joined an online community, it’s not Facebook, it’s a lot of people there. And nobody knows who I am, apart from my first name and my affinity for some flowers. And then, you know, it’s a standing joke in the family. You know, if I was to die the next day, there’d be nobody at the funeral. But there’d be many people around the world that would mourn my loss. And I was just fine with that. I’m quite happy in that type of role. So that’s really the the background story of why, on the day of Tommy’s accident, I’d never felt more spiritually fit on Monday. I was primed for it.

Brian Smith 7:34
Yeah, it’s interesting how life works that way. Right. So we have these traumas. And I think it’s common people bury them and think that they’re buried, but the they seem to always come up at some point in life. And then we go through this dark night of the soul. And then you start work yourself. So tell me about Tommy, what what, what happened with Tommy?

Sally Stacey 7:52
Well, Tommy was Tommy was just such a child, he was shy, more of a listener than a talker. And that was a boy. And he grew into an agile, same way, but people were always drawn to be in his company. And he had a part time job, and where he’d saved his money to go on his backpacking trips each year, different places in the world. And then where he worked, you know, people that would work there, that we didn’t know him socially would, came to me at the funeral and said, You know, he, whenever he was on duty at the same time, as then they would always go and spend five minutes in his company because he always walked away feeling better. And that’s pretty much what he really said there was something quite, quite special about him. And do I think he knew what was going to happen? No, I don’t, certainly not at a conscious level. And he was very happy. Pi gift, he was just happy. He’s still in school taking degree had a part time job, he was traveling, he grown into his skin as an adult. So he wasn’t quite as shy as he had been growing up. But um, and he was loved by everybody wicked sense of humor, and he had a maturity well beyond his years, he kind of knew the important things in life. And he didn’t chase materialism or whatever, he earned money to go and explore a new country, or to spend time with his friends and so on. Lovely but so that’s the backdrop to him. And he has a system just under two years older than he is on that day. And he would heat the night before he was due to come home and watch the last episode of Game of Thrones with his sister. And because he was coming home, not going out with his mates, he took his dad’s car and for whatever reason he didn’t come home. And you know, waking in the morning just assumed he was sleeping over at a friend’s house. He often does not a big deal apart from the fact that it’s unusual for him to do that if you had his dad’s car, but you know, so be it. And I got up and I went to take the dogs out to use the bathroom side of the house. I have a big affinity with animals, all living creatures. Excluding British house spiders and mosquitoes. I think you’re working progress but, and always greet them in my day, no matter if it’s a lizard or, you know, whatever. And I went to the side of the house and there was this huge turtle enormous, the biggest turtle I’d ever seen. And we locked eyes. We just locked stairs. Mm hmm. And I went cold, I went ice cold. And I’ve never felt so disturbed in my life. Very, very unsettled. I didn’t know what it was trying to convey. But I didn’t want to know it. And, and I just stared at it. And then I broke the gaze got the dogs and went inside the house. That’s never happened before. And and that happens probably about an hour after Tommy had passed, it was going to be another four hours before we knew. That was about an hour after he passed. And basically he was coming home 6am in the morning, he’s going too fast. Distracted came off the road hit a tree, the car flipped and burst into flames. And that happened. So he he’d already passed an hour before that turtle moment. And I didn’t think too much more of it. And ironically, I went online to this group where I supported whole bunches of people and did what I did every day. And that day, I put in posted a load of Viktor Frankl quote, quotes, and an even bigger idea and Man’s Search for Meaning. And so before I knew of the accidents, and those quotes, I would go a year later on his first anniversary back to the group and see those quotes that I posted on that day before I knew of Tommy’s passing or is relevant today in my life as they were there. And then a few familiar but you know, one of the most famous Quincy houses between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space, you have the power to choose your reaction. And in your reaction, there’s the opportunity for growth.

And that’s huge. And I chose you know, I did that and talk to my mother via Skype. The morning I had no inkling just assumed that we got a text from my husband, Kevin, Is he back yet? No. And the next thing I know, the police were knocking at the door. And that was about four hours after the turtle. And he was it occurred a mile away from home and an intersection just down the road really that you passed all the time. And as you know, it’s I don’t care how prepared you think you are for anything in life that demolishes you.

Brian Smith 13:11
Yes.

Sally Stacey 13:14
That day. The shop, Foreman’s kicks in the pain and sharp lose was going to ebb and flow for months but on the on that first day I I went into the room about an hour after the police had left and and it looked like somebody that was due to return, you know, the bed made and there’s a towel on the floor and just saw made his bed. And that’s the first time I remember talking to him. I made his bed and that is the mother mode. And I was reassuring him. I said, I’m not sure where you are in now but just know we’re gonna be okay. A lot of pain, you’re gonna see a lot of tears, your dad and me and Phoebe. That will be alright, I promise you that. And I’m hoping you’re okay. Yeah, my first conversation with him shortly after the police left. And that was going to be a reoccurring sort of reassurance talk, because I knew he existed, because 10 years before my father passed. And my brother and sister wanted to pay respects to the body etc. And so I went within the three years and went to my I saw the body and I remember thinking as I was looking, that’s not my dad.

Brian Smith 14:33
Yeah,

Sally Stacey 14:33
that expression wasn’t his it was that wasn’t him and I knew that was just the carcass almost? Yeah, not him. And two months later, was two months after that. We were in Peru. We gone. We were going to tracks and Machu Picchu and we were climatized and to the altitude and I gone on top of a hilltop and it was over his birthday. And I saw this tiny little white.in the sky and I thought it was a plane and international plane flying overhead. And then I realized it was moving in a, an odd, odd way. And I initially thought that planes in trouble. And then over the seats of space of 10 minutes, it actually came and landed right in front of me. And it was a white feather.

Brian Smith 15:21
Oh, wow. Wow,

Sally Stacey 15:22
no other birds in the sky have the fate of the sky and where I was, and I have the feather friend. And that proved to me, you know, we lived in Florida. My dad was backing ginsey in here, I was in Peru on the top of the hill. He touched base with me, you know, it didn’t matter where his body was, in matter where I lived. I could be anywhere. And he came in touch base. I didn’t pursue a connection with him. That was very special. And I did what it was meant to, and I just carried on with life. But memory came back. Once this happened with Tommy. And so I knew he existed. And the following day, the turtle experience came back. And I remembered you know, his favorite toy growing up stuffed toy was a turtle. One of the last presents he bought me this mug and drinking out of it, school turtles covering it. Ricky with his dad, and a new, lovely friend that I’ve friendship that I’ve recently developed with someone called Raven. She tells me that the turtle represents the Mother Earth and to her. What happened to me that morning was Mother Earth offering no condolences for what had happened. And that’s that’s beautiful. That really resonated with me when she when she told me that but so that we have it. And so how

Brian Smith 16:46
old was Sammy when he passed?

Sally Stacey 16:48
He was 2121 Okay, yeah. And I six days later, I went to the crash site. Because I knew his friends had set up a shrine. And I was aware of the conditions of what had happened. And I wanted to see the shrine so I can find them at his funeral. And there’s so much car wreckage still left there. Multan, personal possessions and so on is just mind blowing. I sent my brother back to get some boxes. And again, I remember I talked to Tommy the whole way through, I was reassuring him I’m looking at this stuff thinking, what was it like for him? And I said, I hope you’re right. You’re seeing me doing this, don’t worry, we’re going to be fine. And those sort of conversations were happening every day. And the funeral was packed. People came from my quiet boy, a listener more than a talker with a wicked sense of humor packed that place. People came from out of state that people that he’d never met that had tattoos. You know, his name people that he gained with since he was little. They just, they were just in total shock. This guy who touched so many lives. And and I wish, you know, ironically, when you think it’s a funeral of your child, it was actually a very special day. And when I look back on it, I look back at it. And with fond memories, ironically, um,

Brian Smith 18:13
yeah, you know, it’s interesting, because you say that you don’t think he knew that he was he was going to transition early. But as I talk to parents who have had kids that have that have, you know, died early, it seems like almost universally, they’re special kids there, there are people that touch people’s souls. And you know, so my, my daughter was the same way her service was was packed. She was 15. And she’d only been in public school for like, two years. So, you know, I was like, I don’t think anybody would even know she was but you know, there were there were just tons of people there. So there’s, I think there’s something about these kids that they may not know, at a conscious level, but I think at a soul level, I think they kind of know,

Sally Stacey 18:56
actually, and you just made me remember. And what was interesting to me that the time was, firstly, he hadn’t chosen his subjects for when he went back to school. I mean, it was almost school’s almost down for the summer, in May, and he still hadn’t chosen his time was really ticking and he just hadn’t done it. And secondly, he still hadn’t decided where he was backpacking in the summer, he was kind of talking about Australia, maybe New Zealand this time than me. He was due to be going in, you know, he had the money saved. And he hadn’t actually gone ahead and like in previous years, he would plot the routes, the countries and so on. He done nothing. Interesting, interesting on that front, I think. I don’t think I just feel he didn’t know on a conscious level. I think at all, but a subconscious level. Perhaps you didn’t do that planning for the very reasons you say?

Brian Smith 19:54
Yeah, well, my daughter made a comment like a few weeks before she passed. She was playing with her sister. We were up in Colombo a couple hours from where we live at my brother’s house. And she made a comment she’s playing with her sister and her cousins, like when I die like to be cremated and buried under a tree. And she’s 15. And she was healthy. And we didn’t learn that till after she had passed. And we were talking to my daughter about what should we do in terms of arrangements that we, you know, barrier, everybody cremated or whatever. And we decided for cremation. And my other daughter said, yeah, that’s what Shayna wanted. And we’re like, well, how did you know this? And she told us the story. So I don’t again, I’ll let you know on a conscious level. But that was an odd thing for a 15 year old to say.

Sally Stacey 20:36
Yes. Yeah, very much. So. And it’s interesting, you prompt me to remember something else about six weeks or so before the accident, for whatever reason, he and I talked about the afterlife. In not in a family, you know, my husband is a Catholic, and I would just class myself as spiritual. My daughter has her own concepts of spirituality. She’s very spiritual in our own way. My son at that age, just couldn’t wrap his head around anything existing afterwards. And we had to talk and he knew about my my practices and what I did, and he said, mine, I don’t want to hurt you. I just can’t see it. I think just when we die, that’s it. And I remember, it was such a lovely conversation, me looking at him thinking, I think you’ll probably change your mind. You know, as you get older, I’m sure kids go through that of not quite believing that can be your only 21. So that’s really what he he died. That was his perception at that time. And when the signs became obvious, one of my very first conversations with him was that you were surprised.

Unknown Speaker 21:47
Yeah.

Brian Smith 21:48
So you knew you knew right away, because of your preparation, you had done your spiritual practice, you knew that Tommy wasn’t gone? And you were you were speaking to him, saying, you know if you can hear me or if you can see me, so when did you start getting signs that he was actually hearing you?

Unknown Speaker 22:03
Well, first of all, the

Sally Stacey 22:04
funny thing is that the funeral, we played the who, Tommy, can you hear me? Oh, yeah, because a lot of his friends aren’t religious. And so we had a prayer. In the middle, we have moments of silence, we played that. And it was a young person’s funeral. You know, we play the Spotify music beforehand, and so on. And I every day after the funeral, I would go in the garden first thing in the morning, and I would sing that first line, I would look at the sky and just gently sing the first line. And then I would talk to him about his dad, his sister, me, the animals, anything and everything. And little Dane would start with that line. And I, you know, I dance the dance of denial and doubt. And is it real? As many of us do with science? He sent he got me on the third week. I yeah. And it’s this is an interesting survey, because it tells it explains something relating to signs that happened a little later on. If nobody had been in his car, he’d been driving his dad’s car at night, nobody been in his car. And I suddenly thought, you know, I ought to check it out. In case there’s any food in there. This is Florida. I said to Kevin, I’m just going to go and check in and go and have a look in the car. And he said, we’ll turn the engine over while you’re there, just to make sure everything’s okay. So took the keys, and I sat in the seat and his personal possessions of his pens and T shirts and, and so on, and tears streaming down my face. It was, you know, it was such a painful experience. And I turn the engine over, as Kevin told me to, and then I thought, you know, I wonder because whenever I drove the car, I just got a he and I shared that car for quite some time. And I would always listen to CDs and he would always turn the radio on. I wondered what he’d been listed last listen to and I turned the radio on. And the song was by Mumford and son, and I’m a mom. I’m English Mumford and son, and it was I will wait I will wait for you. As the as the song is playing, I felt the car just filled with his presence. My breath is taken away the tears is stopped and the song is belting out the chorus and out of the car and surely not No, that can’t be and I walked around to the back of the house tonight. So it’s put my arms on the fence there to think it through and I felt a presence to my to my left and I glanced over and there’s a cardinal sat on the fence where my answer to staring at me and that took me over a cane and that’s when I made the joke to him about being surprised that he continued to exist but um, the big one for me and I wrote about it online was at six weeks I saw him Yep. appeared before me. I’ve been to the funeral home that day. And he had inadvertently taught me more about the state of Thomas body than I had known about. And it was horrible. It was terrifying and really upsetting and I came home. Now, I cleared it out of my system on the way home, trust me, I shouted and sobbed and whatever, as I drove home that night, I sat outside under the stars, and I talked for him for a couple of hours, and about anything and everything. And at one point, I did mention about what the funeral directors certain I was just concerned because I’ve started reading afterlife books by now. And a lot, say that goes, they leave the body, they look back and see their body. And I was really concerned if he had done that would have been very traumatizing. And so I wanted, I asked, I thanked him for the signs that I’ve been given. And I said you if it’s possible, could you just let me know that you’re okay that you’re not traumatized? If you did, you know, actually see the body and then Okay, you know, I brace myself for something happening out there for you know, but it was just a normal night breezes and night noises. And I finished I was very peaceful as I always was after these talks I came in. And I started just to tidy things up, ready to turn in for the night. And as I turned in the family room area, there’s a small hallway that goes to the living room, the sitting room area. And he just went, he was there, huh. And then I think he was as fast as he came. He didn’t graduate materialized. He was just there. He was just gone. And then he was wearing his greens, I can still remember it to this day green sweatshirt like shorts, he had one one foot on the last of the stairs. And he was smiling, looking directly into my eyes and smiling. And

well, I had no idea that could even be done. At this stage. I didn’t have a Facebook account and had no contact with any other parents. And I’d met one person locally. And that was it. So at this stage, I was pretty much doing this on my own. And I’m grateful for that actually, those three months that I had no real contact with with others. I knew from what had happened to me what I needed to do. A my connection to spirit was based on just unconditional love. The God I knew wasn’t judgmental, he didn’t punish. So I knew I had to lean into my beliefs, lean into my connection, for guidance, for strength for comfort, to help me and help my family get through this. And at the same time, I needed to honor my grief, I needed to feel everything that needed to be felt and honor it. So in those three months, that’s really what I did. And you know, try to help with the family to help see us through, leaned into my grief and leaned into my connection. And without having any and started reading as my connection to a building. I started reading books and and by the time I came online, I I was connecting daily. I had a daily connection, I’d seen you my third in the signs, which is wonderful. And then I I became aware of how how many people were not getting those songs. And then it became a quest for me of why, yeah, how can and how can I help these people and I was a closet. person so far as my connection was concerned for the first few months online. I didn’t tell anybody I had connected, I dove into the saddest places, most painful places, and I use every life tool that I could to try and help pull those people out. Yeah. You know, your mind muscles. Your thought muscles are like physical muscles, the more they’re exercise, the stronger they get. So the more you think about that one day, the more hold it will have on your mind, and the more it will affect you emotionally. Those are the kind of things I would go in and talk about, not about my connection I and it was because not because I was scared of what people would think I was really sensitive to those parents that weren’t connecting. I didn’t understand why and the last thing I wanted to do was make anybody feel less than right. And what happened and in eight months later, seven eight months after he passed I decided I get a medium reading I didn’t need one in fact asked me Would you mind if I got one? No way connecting this issue I didn’t want insulting him thinking all this isn’t good enough. But I’d really like to have more of a two way thing if that’s okay. And he then sent me he he wrote me a text he wrote me a line on my phone. I need to speak to you Sigmund that was that was the first time he did that. And so I saw two mediums which I won’t recommend they were mixed. And they were some good stuff in them, but also some stuff that opened up a can of worms on on how he died I had because he materialized in front of me and the Replace reports and the autopsy, etc. I put back to bed, I move past it, and they do a couple of things with now was swimming around in my mind again, which is annoying. So I said to Tommy, I went outside, talk to him, I said, Look, I’m going to get a third medium, because I need now to put what they’ve raised

Brian Smith 30:39
now.

Sally Stacey 30:40
I booked her immediately. And she was phenomenal. within three minutes, she bought him through by his first name. And then she said, and he tells me there’s some confusion over how he died. Just incredible. And and it said that that reading is interesting, because firstly, she put that to bed. And what had happened, she told me was the other mediums had psychically put themselves in the accident scenario, and we’re generating their own thoughts on what happened, as opposed to what really did. It was interesting. And I can see how that could be done. After the reading, she and I talked, she gave me an opportunity to tell her about my own connections. And partway through the reading, she kept going on about music. She’s showing me music, you’re creating music. Did you did you create the music for the funeral? I said, No, that’s one area that I didn’t have anything to do with. So no, he’s definitely showing it something that you did. And it has to do with music. And it was only after the reading when we were talking pinkley what he was meaning. And it’s important from a science perspective. All those months, I’ve been saying, He’s just amazing. You know, how he’s creating these signs, how he’s doing these things. It’s just incredible. And what he was saying was, it wasn’t just him. It was me too. I created the music in that sign that I told you about three weeks after the accident. I didn’t just randomly turn on the radio. And well, there’s a song and I connected with Tommy, he planted a thought in my mind to turn the radio on. And I said to the enough at that stage, probably because of you know, many years of connection to get it and turn you on.

Brian Smith 32:31
Yeah, I want to I want to interrupt you just for a second. I think it’s really important what you said, because I I’m an engineer, so I’m always learning how these signs work. Right? So do they? Do they put the music on? Do they tell the DJ to play the song at a certain time? are they putting thoughts in our head and what you just said, I got goosebumps when you said it because that’s what my my impression, I think they put they put thoughts in our head on the radio on now turn this on now. And a lot of things. The thing about science, science is the timing and recognizing it. So like you saw the turtle, some people might just say, Hey, I just saw a turtle. But you put that together as you thought back on it or seeing the cardinal. So I think a lot of times when people say I’m not getting signs, I think they’re just not seeing them. They’re just

Sally Stacey 33:16
not receptive to them. One of the questions further down the line that I asked me. And as, as my knowings increased, my knowings got stronger as I realized that man out of the equation, it just expanded as I trusted it. And I myself with it expanded and expanded. And I’ll just say actually from a musical perspective. Oh, quite a while later, I’m sat in the garden. My husband’s out in the car. And the knowing comes to from Tommy get dad to turn the car radio on. I think, am I really gonna risk doing this and being silly, but it doesn’t come through his voice. Great, right? So I text Kevin and I say what time you coming home and he says around six ish. And I say okay, well when you get in the car, just turn the car radio on, but don’t change the channel. And that was it because he knows I’m connected with Tommy. And next thing I know he gets in the car to come home and he sends me a photo of the radio and what’s playing and he’s t shirt. The band and the song that we’re playing on the radio are identical to the the song on the T shirt. He’s wearing AC DC back to black and put that and now the thing here is Tommy couldn’t do that directly to his dad. Dad can’t wrap his head around all of this. He believes it’s happening but he wouldn’t have got that but I got it and and he went ahead and did and as that was an interesting

Brian Smith 34:49
thing. I’m thinking Sally as we’re having this conversation is you’re talking all the prep work you did and you’re being open and your and your receptiveness to this, you know, just in general before Tommy passed, so That you are kind of a clear channel, I guess, you know, even when he passed because you were you were open to it and I, I just had something happen to me like, just two weeks ago I was I was I walk every morning. And I was like when I go home, I’m gonna make pancakes. And I hardly ever make pancakes because it’s just my, my wife and myself. And I used to make them for the girls. When they were here we were there was like a special thing we’ve done Saturday morning. So I come home, I made pancakes for breakfast that morning. Like two days later, I had a reading with the medium. And she brings up pancakes. And she says, used to make pancakes for the girls, and you would put chocolate chips. And Seamus, that was really weird, because I guess I’d never make pancakes. But I was out that day. I just had to stop when you get home make pancakes. And then so that’s, it’s weird how that all works.

Sally Stacey 35:45
My call radio signs got massive. Yeah. And I’ll tell because this ties in with prayer and sending love out. And on. towards his anniversary, my daughter had put the compilation together videos and photos, and then put elton john song Rocket Man to it. And I played it for the first time in the garden, I sat in the garden, I’m listening. And I’ve done this before with different people. And I know it’s received and I poured my love to Tommy into the universe as I listened to the song over and over, I just poured it and poured it and poured it out there. And the song finished and you know, I had tears and so on. And the knowing was to go and switch the car radio on. And I went to switch the car radio on and the song playing was rocket. And within the song, Elton John’s Rocket Man is actually quoted in the soil. And immediately afterwards, that’s how easily you’re heard. And, and not just with my son, somebody’s husband passed, and there was such a touching video of the two of them that happened very close to the passing and I went in the garden, I was so touched by it. And I pulled that same love into the universe for this couple. And for this person that had passed, put it out to him. And he came to visit he was one of my first people outside of Tommy that came to see me and with a feather and a message for his wife. And that that that again is how you how effective prayer and pouring your love out can be absolutely as received.

Brian Smith 37:26
Okay, before before we start you said you wanted me to remind you there were some signs you want to talk about?

Sally Stacey 37:31
Well, just to show a couple I wanted just a couple I wanted one from a personality perspective because they really do take their personalities to favorite signs is belongs to this little guy this is an official Manchester United take you there. Okay. And I it was on a Sunday I was due to god it was Calvin chin had a sale going on at one. And I was due to go when it was 20 minutes to one. And I already said in the morning I was going to him and and I get I’m due to go and pick up a streamer later on in the afternoon from Home Depot. And I get this tournament. I have to go and pick up the streamer now and hear it. No, I can’t come pick the streamer up now. I have something I’m doing at one o’clock. And thought came back. Literally arguing with thoughts. I have a commitment. And it just got stronger. And now I’m curious. And I know that then sessions are taped and they’ll be able to see it later. Yeah, I okay. So I told my husband, I’m gonna get a Home Depot right now and go and pick up the strimmer. So I left the crash site is you know, just down the road and on your turn right at that intersection to go to Home Depot. And a bit as I’m going down the road, I get the feeling I need to go to the crash site. So I go to the crash site park on the grass verge. And I’m told to turn the radio on so I turn it on. And the song playing is photograph looking and thinking photograph and I checked my phone for On this day in previous years was there a relevancy and to see anything so I just take a photo through the windscreen of the the area where there is a shrine where the cash pressure could be and then if I toggle to go to Home Depot, straight away, I know that I’ve not done the right thing that comes through as a big big feeling. I’ve missed something. So I get a Home Depot and I pick up the stringer and on the way back I go back park on the grass verge I think I photograph well maybe I’m supposed to take a photo of the flowers etc. Around the lumpers maybe there are some new flowers there. And I’m supposed to take a photo so off I go get out of the car walk over in between the flowers. This little teddy bear has been tucked still with a cardboard. Wow. Is there and I know instinctively that I’m supposed to bring it home as I pick it up to take it to the car. I guess This euphoric feeling inside of me. Really happy feeling. I’m laughing because we would do torrential rain and thunderstorms that afternoon. And as I watch the car, and it’s just so funny, I get in the car, and I’m just about to drive off and I get to the knowing again to turn the car radio on. I turn it on, and these glory days by Bruce Springsteen, Manchester, United signature tunes, glory, glory, Manchester, glory, glory, Man United. Wow. I mean, look at. But that takes that doesn’t come overnight. But that’s sort of dance between knowings and signs. It’s very doable. And I know quite a lot of people that have learned how to do that. Yeah, it runs. It’s lovely.

Brian Smith 40:45
Yeah, I really love what you’re saying. Because I’m actually taking a course right now with someone who’s teaching people how to communicate with their loved ones in the afterlife. So it’s, you know, but what you’re saying is we can all do it, we just we need to be we need to be open to it. We need to follow those prompts that we get and and just follow feeling

Sally Stacey 41:07
sometimes, you know, you can make mistakes. It’s Yeah, always gonna get it right. You know, you might think and you do something and it’s not and that you know, just as with everything in life, you can learn a lot by your missus is a faithful hits. So, you know, just go for it and learn from them from the missus, that’s happened to me. And but that’s how you refine what you know is, does that mean I’m supposed to do this up? No, it didn’t. It helps you to refine what you’re getting in if you if you’re brave enough to allow yourself to make the mistakes as well as the hit.

Brian Smith 41:42
So something happened in August of this year, that kind of like kicked everything up another notch. So tell me about that.

Sally Stacey 41:48
Oh, my gosh. And well, my Tommy decided, you know, just to take it another step that it wasn’t just Tommy’s my guides as well. And in mid August, I use my voice memo app on my phone to to leave messages for myself because I have a memory like a sieve. So if I’m doing something, something pops in my head, I need to do later, I just leave a little voicemail. And it was in the middle of the afternoon. And I went to leave a message to myself in my garden and there was one created at around 7am in the morning. And in giving the title of x. It’s interesting, because if he just said recording number 10 or recording number 13 I may not have taken that much notice because I often don’t give my memories titles. I just you know, but it has actually been given the title x and my son like a lot of people he played in my phone all the time. So I knew this was likely something and I listened. And you can hear me from at that time in the morning, pottering around, you can hear my footsteps, you can hear me talking to my husband at one stage. I can close to the phone, then I get very distant and hear the cat meowing for breakfast. within it all. Then there is a whispered

Unknown Speaker 43:09
mom,

Sally Stacey 43:09
oh my gosh. And it actually sounded like him. And I sent the recording to three friends. And they all got it. They all heard it. And I thought perhaps of happening. That’s just incredible. And interestingly enough, I’d already had some contact with Susan Gizmo before over grief and possibly grief for parents. And at this time, I am then being nudged to contact her again. And I know literally pushing against it. No, I can’t do that. She’s really busy. I’m not know, I didn’t get back. And Kim came again. And eventually I did. And tonight I had had come to me basically. And I reached out to a six nine has been and here’s a recording, you know, for you to listen to. She listened to it. She couldn’t hear it. And I was just devastated. I couldn’t make so I went back to her message the back said this makes no sense. Why would deny that tell me to come to you this recording for you not to be able to hear it. And then Sunday came and she had the little lip twitching bit that kids came back to me. So Naya It was a teaching moment for me. And I absolutely confirmed that it was your son that made that message. And the teaching moment is you have to, you know, stay firm in your beliefs. You know, it was him You have to stay firm with that because there are going to be people that are going to doubt this. They’re going to doubt the fact that it was him, which is very true. And now looking back in hindsight, that was a very important market for me when I think what’s happened now because there are going to be major doubters about what’s happened since Then, you know, so it’s a good a good moment for me then. And after that, he then made a further message. This time I spotted it, I was walking between the kitchen and the living room. And I must say it was 630 in the morning, had a coffee in one hand phone and the other swung the phone up. And my phone, my voice memo app was open, and it was recording. And so I popped the the, my coffee cup down, pumped my hand on top of the zoom, which just happens to be in that area. And I was behind. And I let it record until I sat down, started ordering, played it back. And after my high, he says, Hey, wow, that’s just amazing. And then he did a third one. And he said mom again. And at that point, I’m thinking, I wonder if I can instigate doing this by now, since last November. So for the last year, I’ve been able to feel the presence of spirit, whether it’s Tommy or somebody else, I can feel it. And so I know I can draw his energy toward me. And he’s happened with other people as well. So that’s what I did. I focused in on him, waited till I can feel his energy, hit the record button and recorded a message leaving gaps to see if he’d answer. And he did. I played it back and he was there. And it was just like mind blowing. And then we started this new this new relationship.

Brian Smith 46:33
So I have to ask you, did you know about ebps? before and this Electronic Voice phenomenon? No,

Sally Stacey 46:39
I knew about it. But I had no interest in it. And I didn’t. I know the the thing, mashup human words, other background noises to make them Frankly, I’m complete, I should say I’m completely deaf in one ear, and partially deaf and in the other, which is hysterical. And this has been brought to me. And but as Susan, Sophie, what’s happening with me is I am click constancy, knowing those words a lot of the time, but that’s part of further down in the story at this at this time. And we I then could just literally take my phone anywhere. I could walk the dog and talk to my son be in the garden. I can I can. I talked to him when I voted presence with me as I’m walking back to the car. I said to him, because he didn’t have it didn’t you know, he didn’t have a chance to vote when he was here? I said, Did you just vote with me? And his Yes, was louder than my question. And, and so on. So. And,

Brian Smith 47:41
yeah, it’s really interesting, Sally, because you’re what you’re doing is for people that don’t know, it’s called Electronic Voice phenomenon and what people have done in the past, there’s different ways of doing it. Some is using humans gibberish, and they create this background noise. And we’ll ask a question, and then spirit, I guess, somehow manipulates it into forming words. But you’re not doing that you’re just using the voice memo app on your phone, which is awesome. My friend Marcus, you know, our friend Marcus is doing with with his daughter and his guides and spirits. They’re actually talking back and forth on the phone. So

Sally Stacey 48:12
I’m curious if he’s because I don’t need any background noise.

Brian Smith 48:16
Yeah, I don’t think he knows either. But Marcus is a physical medium. So I it’s because I’m working on the soul phone project. So this is all fascinating to me, because we’ve got different people doing things different ways. So in your analogy is doing her thing in a different way. But I think people like yourself. I think you’re, you’re like a medium. So somehow spirit is using your energy.

Sally Stacey 48:36
Well, I have had flashes of children through and I was told I was that was going to happen long before it did. But I didn’t I couldn’t, you know, I think it isn’t giesen kept a really good friend. She they’re incredible what they can do. I just know I can’t do anything like that. And

Brian Smith 48:53
this is different. We have different types of mediums, their type of abilities, like I said, Sonia Rinaldi, she doesn’t Bell herself as a medium. But if you took her equipment and gave it to somebody else, they can get the results that she gets.

Sally Stacey 49:06
This is now this is the where it got interesting for me. I actually was getting a little scared about what’s happened, what was happening because I’m well, it expanded. The next thing happened was my guide started using it Bailey’s messages. And from there, I spoke to somebody that made cvps with her son in a traditional way. And she had loads of messages from him and the next day and I’m talking to Tommy, he came to mind and I now realize he put himself in my mind. And he left a message. And then I realized, you know, if he left a message, maybe others queued. And I went, you know, I contacted a group hot smiles is a group and it’s got three administrators in it. I asked them if I could contact their children. And they said yes, and I went to each of them. All I do, is I knew what they’re doing. Children like anyways, I think of their children and focusing, wait till I feel the energy come in, then I record and I asked questions. And from there, a friend’s son just invited himself into recording. And that was really lucky for her, it actually sounded like him. And it just grew. And I let people know. And then people started coming to me. And then I wanted to just with my science always been really keen to make them as evidential as possible if I’m going to showcase them out there to help people believe. Thank you. So give me questions, preferably always learning that they prefer short answers. They are yes and knows, but also just single words. So it’s interesting, they can be very deliberate in their choice of words. So they can say the minimum amount of words possible to say something much bigger. Yeah. That’s interesting. So I asked, preferably, yes, or no answers, but things I don’t know. Just give me questions. And it’s just been astonishing what’s come back. And it’s, it’s interesting, because some people come through some children come through crystal clear, some children come through sounding like themselves, some don’t, some are so faint, the whispers that I have to pull the volume up so high it, you then have to use cleaning tools to take a static out. So you’ve got a winning sound running through it, which is a shame, because I have no background noise in these recordings. And some sound as if they’re on the other side of a football pitch, just weigh in the distance very clear that way in the distance. And why they come through like that. I don’t know. But I, I’ve asked my guides, I’ve had lots of feedback on this from my guides. And one of the things that come back with is you have to learn to do this. It’s not a given for everybody on the other side, they have to learn to do this. And is one of the things just like one of the answers that one of the children came through one of the mother asked to you, I you spending time with me every day, are you sending signs? And his response was I’m learning, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, they come they have come thick. They have such wonderful answers, personality coming through as well. And I like the balance that comes through a smidgen of evidence just to show and then some personality. And a lot of the time, I’ll ask, you know, can you tell your mom that you love your lover or something? Let’s say the message for your mom. And it’s the one one ad and he turned around? He said, you tell her? Yeah, yeah. And your mom said, Oh, my God, that’s exactly what he say. And other people have come through one, they sometimes put thoughts in my head to ask, I go in with not really planning much of what I’ll say. And find myself asking a question about some flowers for them to then respond dreams. For then the mother to say, Oh, my gosh, I I’ve had a dream visit with him, involving some flowers, like a validation that I wouldn’t I not intended to ask that. Likewise, another one with a little girl of three. I found myself asking her, you know, what’s your favorite color? And he planted that so she could then turn around and say yellow and pink? Yeah. Now in the mother’s like, Oh, my gosh, and so on. It just builds it’s

from a personal perspective, I reached out to my dad 11 years since he passed and that was he was there for Tommy when Tony passed. He said his mum and dad and so on. It was It felt so strange. And and he I confirmed to him I asked him about a couple of the signs of not having any signs from him and he confirmed them. And then my mother hearing that he wanted me to get hold of her father. And now he died when I was very little I didn’t really have a relationship with Him. And that was an odd thing. I asked her to send me a photo and I focused in on this old black and white photo, called his name, felt his presence introduce myself as his granddaughter and his daughter and wants me to do this. And he answered some questions that she asked me to ask. And then I said you know, my mother, your daughter, she loves you very much. Have you got a message for and he’s one of these that’s talking from a mile away. Clear but so faint. I just know it’s there. The sound line is flat, but I know it’s there. And you pull it up and you pull it up and you pull it up and I’m getting Lindy loose just fine. And it was said in a Lindy Lou just fine. made no sense to me. So I went to my mom and I said, this is what I’m guessing. Is this mean anything to you? And she said, Oh, my gosh, Sally, I’ve not heard that in over 60 years. That’s what he used to call me when I was looking

Brian Smith 54:54
a while. Why?

Sally Stacey 54:56
And that sort of made me very emotional. I guess being contacted somebody that’s been dead 4550 years. And it’s not been them. It sounds wonderful and exciting. But it’s, I’ve been. It’s been an emotional roller coaster ride as well. As this has opened, it’s been. It’s been interesting. I know. We mentioned cat before. She’s huge. She’s been enormously supportive without me when she first saw how she knew, and she sent me things and suggestions of grant how to ground myself and all sorts of different things. And I really needed that because this was just such an unknown territory for me. I, I felt like I’d gone from nought to 50.

Brian Smith 55:44
Yeah, yeah,

Sally Stacey 55:46
in a couple of minutes. But it’s it’s. And the other thing I did was, I was so keen on helping as many people as I could, by doing this, I just sit in the garden and do four or five recordings, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, no issue is really lovely. And it was every time I come in and ask questions. And that’s easy, then. And then you might have 10 minutes worth of, of recording, that I then transfer over to my computer. And there’s a flatline unless they Loudon, and you can obviously see it, and you watch every single second. Yeah, flatline. And remember, I’m deaf. I just know where there is words in that flatline. But it takes a lot of concentration and spit. I feel presence of spirit when I’m doing it. It’s pretty damn sure they’re behind it. Yeah, I can’t do five. I cannot do five on the chart. I lose it. It goes. And there was one time I there was another waiting for more recordings to come through. And I literally had to say, I’m sorry, I can’t I have to stop for three hours for a few hours. My ears have gone tired.

Brian Smith 57:00
Yeah,

Sally Stacey 57:00
I will still put it but I literally it stopped. Yeah. Then that was the learning curves to meeting. You can’t just expect each and yeah, so

Brian Smith 57:13
yeah, it takes it takes a lot of a lot of energy to do what you’re doing. And I know, I think we talked about Sherry pearl. And you and I talked the other day, and she was doing some things like this. And yet the recording is one thing but the parsing through and finding it and then enhancing it. And not everybody can hear of the word. So it’s essentially you what Suzanne casement said, you know, is this really happening? And she couldn’t hear. But there’s something about the interpretation also, that that requires, I think, a connection?

Sally Stacey 57:44
Yes, yeah. Because there have been times when something’s very clear to me, and I’ve passed it on. And I just didn’t hear that.

Brian Smith 57:51
Yeah. What do

Sally Stacey 57:52
you mean, you don’t hear that. And that has that has been part of the learning curve, too. And what I tend to do now is I’ll sit on a recording overnight, and I listened to it again in the morning, 99% of the time, I have sent out recordings that have been heard. And so it’s doing what it’s meant to do. And I’m really, really pleased at that. So the majority of the time what’s going out is heard otherwise, I’ve actually stated now, if I don’t think it can be heard, or if it’s so quiet that I know that by pulling up the volume and then having to use static tools, it’s not going to be good. I’m just not going to even attempt to do it. I will write your transcripts. And that’s all I can do. I could spend all day on something that’s not going to sound good at the end of the day. I can hear it really clearly. But one other thing and this is Susan Gibson’s observation, I sent her a recording of me telling my son as I walked my dog late at night, I love you. And he comes back with I love you.

Very clear. There’s no sounds, and this is what I went what because I was directed to go back to her again. And I had a fear because all I kept hearing from other EVP people was you have to have a background noise. You have to have a background noise for them to use. And I’m not and she used to be a linguist and she listened to this recording and she came back and she said I listened to the second day love you it’s got tones of your voice in it. And she found that fascinating. I found it horrifying my initial thought was oh my gosh, I said I love you twice that was me and and I literally thought and it only happened in a very small amount of cases. And but it has happened before and for a while I thought this is just ridiculous. How am I going you know a little crazy here and then I realized when I went back to the original

recording that hadn’t got the second I love you bumped up to match sound volume wise for the first yeah Soundwave for the first time love you normal sound. The second I love you, which is crystal clear, slightly sharper pitch than mine. And quickly more quickly said it is so tiny, it barely bumps the sound when there is no way a human could have said that in such a quiet tone. So what her suggestion was on notice is they are using the sound energy of my voice from my earlier comment to create the second comment. Yeah, that was a suggestion she you know, but I

Brian Smith 1:00:29
think there’s something to that because even with the jibberish the the theory is the hypothesis, I guess is that they’re taking the gibberish, which is chopped up human sounds. And there’s somehow manipulating those and putting them together to form their words. So it’s it’s, it’s it would be a similar type of thing. They’re using your energy to form the sounds that you’re hearing. And we don’t know how it works. We probably won’t for

Sally Stacey 1:00:52
I have I have asked Firstly, it’s it’s funny, because I do I am now sorry to my kids. If they don’t want to answer a question. They just don’t. Let’s face it. I think it’s partly to do with I’m not supposed to know that at this moment in time. And that’s fine. And I’m fine with it. And I did ask them, you know, with this the three the spirit world, the human the phone? How big a part does the phone playing in relation to the two other components? I’ve asked the question twice, and both times they came up with nothing. Hmm. And I thought that was interesting. Because people asked me what what phone have you got? What’s your voice memo app? Yeah, it’s not the phone is with me in the spirit world. And this is just the thing in the middle.

Brian Smith 1:01:43
And I think that’s absolutely true. And it’s like I said, it’s really interesting working on the cell phone project. Because what Dr. Schwartz is trying to do with that is this spirit energy, however, they’re, they’re using it. And this is like physical touch is so light, it’s so hard to measure in our world that the noise around is actually loud that we have the signal to noise when you’re in silence or the noise is so high compared to the signal that the thing is getting that subtle energy. So it’s not in that case, it is the equipment. And that’s what we’re really working on. So it makes

Sally Stacey 1:02:19
yes twice now as well. Since I knew we were coming on about the cell phone is against those times they came back and said yes.

Brian Smith 1:02:27
Yeah, it’s really been an interesting journey. I’ve been on the project now for about three or four years. And and that’s the that’s the challenge. So it’s always fascinating for me to talk to someone like yourself, or like Marcus, who was just he has a microphone that they’ve actually somehow spiritually manipulated, and he’s communicating through a microphone and how stuff works is crazy. And you were telling me you did the Scrabble tiles at one time to write

Sally Stacey 1:02:50
how I learned that Marcus I did because of what he did. And I put a load of Scrabble tiles in a flat cobbled pizza box under my bed under the bed in his spare bedroom. And sure enough, the tiles are moving. I couldn’t wait to see what was going to be said. And then my puppy got in there. been there for about a month by that stage. I kept it very secure. And she just saw them barks and wash.

Brian Smith 1:03:14
So people so people know Marcus Actually, that’s one of the ways he started communicating with spear he would put Scrabble tiles in a box and put it under his bed. For some reason it takes weeks or whatever for them to start to manipulate them, right. And I’ve seen some of the messages gotten from his daughter, and they’re just incredible, like full sentences.

Sally Stacey 1:03:32
I might do that. Again, actually, you have to be patient, that’s you have to leave it there for a long time by the sun. But mine was shifting, they were definitely moving. And I sent him a couple of pitches as they moved. But they weren’t into the forming of words yet. But I’m going back before I forget to the the message is something else that I asked. And you’ve seen these diagrams you get what raises your vibration and what lowers it, you know, these lists on either side. Thankfully, you know, I tick off a lot on the what raises your box, but I also take some off on the lower side. I still am prone to feel insecure, and I can feel shy. You know, I have things that definitely are there. I’m a human being, you know, and it surprises me how this has opened up and one of the questions that I was asking them I said you know, I talked about the vibration levels and I talked to I literally said to my guides about this chart I’d seen and I’d said I take off some of those boxes on the low vibration side. And yet I can I am able to do this why? And they came back with them in a very loud you know, it’s really loud. Ready, you are ready and later on the same recording probably. I’m asking everyone Going to be able to do what I can do with my phone. And they came back and said not ready. I think. And I don’t think any not everybody’s ready. And I think they mean some people are not ready. In other words, yeah, not a case. If you can all just tap in just like that, I think there is a readiness perspective to be able to do it.

Brian Smith 1:05:25
Yeah, there is something to that. The other thing is, I love having this conversation with you. Because we started off talking about like, recognizing the signs that our loved ones give us like the turtle and the cardinal, and the songs on the radio so that we can all open ourselves up to receive in those signs. And I’ve talked to people who are mediums and some people say, Well, everybody can be a medium anybody can train to be a medium. I don’t know that. I believe that, I think, I think it’s like playing a musical instrument. Some of us have the ability, we could just pick it up and be like virtuosos. And some of us would have to really, really work hard to plank, plank out, Mary had a little lamb. And that’s probably as far as we’re gonna get

Sally Stacey 1:06:05
this back on to what you’re saying in the fact that we are all unique individuals, we are a sum of our life experiences. And in that respect, none of us can ever fully fit into another person’s shoes. Right, right. And so it stands to reason, then, that our connection at whatever level is also going to be equally unique. What is going to work for one person or what is a combination of things that will work for one person will not work for another, we’ve all got strengths and weaknesses? how honest can we be in recognizing what our strengths are, and what our weaknesses are and what we need to work on? What needs to solidify, you know, all these things is, is right back into an individual perspective, I can’t make anybody else do this. It’s each person is on their own journey, I all I can do is share my story. And if any of it resonates or help somebody else in theirs, then that’s the best that can do. And likewise with me listening to other people’s stories, and I listened to many I’m, you know, early on when my signs were slower and further apart, and so on. I never felt not fair. When I saw other people getting more, I was just like, well, and I would listen to the background to that happened, what happened? And it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be the same as my journey. But the more I understand, the more aware I am.

Brian Smith 1:07:34
Yeah, I was thinking. I think of the Rolling Stone saga, you can’t always get what you want. But you get what you need. And I think because people have asked me about my connection with my daughter, and I can talk to people like you like yourself, and I could be jealous. Well, I didn’t get to. I haven’t seen Shana, you know, for example, or people said, I felt my loved one touch me. And I’m like, I haven’t gotten that. We all have different different relationship, different things and different things that we need. And I think we get what we what we need at the time. But if you’re open to it, you can start to develop it and you can and as you’re saying, you know, I’m open to follow that prompt, turn on the radio, go out and do this. Now I’ve got, I’ve got lots of stories where I’ve like, just got a nudge to go out and do something. And I went out and did it. And it turned into something really amazing. And I had no idea what I was doing when I when I wanted to do that thing. So just start following those things. You know, if you get a nudge to do something, just follow it see where it goes. Yeah,

Sally Stacey 1:08:30
yeah. And if it doesn’t go anywhere, that’s the lesson in itself.

Brian Smith 1:08:33
Yeah. And, yes, so well. And speaking of that, I have to tell people how you and I, you know, ended up connecting. So I guess we connected a little bit on Facebook before we were in the same places that I liked something you had said. And you’re like, well, if he really wanted to reach out to me, he reached out and you didn’t contact me. And then you want to you’re you said you turned over a dish the other day, and I’ll post the picture. You sent me a picture of it. You said your name was on the back of a dish. I’m like what? But it was set. It was there on the back of dish B Smith. And so you decided to contact me

Sally Stacey 1:09:01
next morning, that was literally I looked at the message you hit like metal. I’d love to talk to you about this. And I thought, Well, you know what, if he’s interested, he’ll contact me. And that’s that this is my my guides nudged me in all sorts of ways. Yes. If I was left to my own devices, I wouldn’t be meeting as many people reasons. Another one, my guides, literally, she doesn’t mind me talking about it on a message on the end of recording that I was making with a child about Raven. And from the details they gave me, I was able to find who she was. Yeah, that’s some lovely conversations. And as a result, you know, then let me know. And that was a big nudge. And that’s when I reached out to you and we’re having this conversation. I had no idea you were involved in the soul phone projects. And this is what I got. This is just what I’d like to do. All right, so I want to see if I can make a recording.

Brian Smith 1:10:03
Yeah, sure.

Sally Stacey 1:10:04
Again, I won’t be able to show it to you now, but

Brian Smith 1:10:08
yeah, absolutely.

Sally Stacey 1:10:10
This I tend, although they were made with Tommy not using an earpiece, and I like using an earpiece when I make them because I’m completely deaf in one ear. So when I use an earpiece, he kind of, I go into my own little world. From the outside this there is no sound in this room. I don’t know if it will work. But let me see if this earpiece is actually yeah, it’s on. Okay. So, I’ve I’ve just gone into my standard sort of, I don’t think you can see it. It’s a voice memo app on my phone. Nothing Tommy for a second. Hi.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:30
I’m Brian. The screen.

Sally Stacey 1:11:34
Brian Smith, he got a message. 1145 Oh, exactly. One minute. And yes, I feel presence quite strongly. So be interesting, then. I’m telling you the time and the eggs and the exact length. afterwards. I don’t listen to it on my phone, because usually it’s too quiet. Often if I want to skip the computer as I look on my iPad, because I can see the recording. But the voice memo itself on there, it has the same app. And I can see the sound wave. Yeah, I can just tell when there’s going to be you know, looking at the dots of the sound waves if there’s something there. And then I get all excited and transferred on my computer onto wave pads, bump up the volume and listen to the whole lot. So immunity. It won’t take me long to do.

Brian Smith 1:12:52
Awesome. That’s awesome. Well, so you’re you’re doing this for other parents now. Right? I think this is particularly doing it for parents. So Can people reach out to you to have you do it? or How are you? How to connect with people?

Sally Stacey 1:13:05
Yeah, I have a quite a long list. And okay, I am trying to limit it to two to maybe see two a day, maybe three? Yeah, yeah, if it comes to clear, and some of them really do some of them. It’s really easy. I don’t do anything apart from triple and volume 13 to recording segments that are easier to send out. That’s it, you have to raise the voice or raise it, raise it and raise it and then use tools to bring the static down. Some of it is slightly muffled. And it’s really difficult to make out what they say. So those recordings can take a long time. And what I do with some and I have three at the moment, is they’ll come through maybe with two or three, clear and comments. And the rest is really good enough to make a recording. So I’ll make notes and I’ll put it in my file as pending. The next day when I do another one out, go back to that person and see if I can get more. And I might do that two or three times because I like to end up with a really clear name. And something more than a yes or no. If I can have an insane name that seems to go down really, really well. If I can have something validating that I can’t possibly know that’s just brilliant. And then I love you as some sort just and also without every single one has come back you know do you spend time with your mother with your parents and we do with Yes, they say it in different ways. Yes, absolutely. Sure. Learning but there’s always it’s always been positive. And I always since last November, November since I could feel Tommy’s presence like I just did. Every time I think of him, I he comes I feel him. And then there are other times in the day I might be doing something like either the dishes something mundane or I might be chasing a dog My dog that escaped that happened once. And I feel him come. So he comes when he wants to, and he comes when I asked him to, but he’s certainly not here all the time. And that’s fine. I hope that he’s off either having a blast or, or doing whatever he I know he helps other kids the transition, sudden death transitions and I know you helps with these cvps with my, my guides have actually come through in my EDP recordings. I had one child come through, and I’m in the garden, and he got really noisy first the car went past on the private road behind the house, I pause there in an airplane went over her eyes. And this was somebody who had not been expecting this person came in of their own accord. That so I wasn’t sure who I was who it was in relation to apart from the fact that related to the previous recording, I’d done. They knew this previous recording. So there was a space with some quiet and time type quickly set the name to speed up them responding before another noise was made. And my guides came in, almost with a slight reprimand it was and said, play 10 minutes. And then after then she then came back and she said I’m ready. Oh, wow. And then we went. And that was interesting. That’s that’s a that’s the first time I’ve heard them come in, literally say something in it. Yes. Rushing for a response. And interesting.

Brian Smith 1:16:33
Well, Sally, I am really glad that you reached out to me. It’s like I said, it’s really interesting, because the timing happened to work out that you know, I had this the slot available. And you reached out to me, you know, when we made this happen? I think you’re, you know what you’re doing, you know, where you are now everybody should say okay, I’m not going to get my phone and make make voice memo. Maybe not everybody can do that. But we can all start to look out for those signs and, and feel those signs and they just pour that love out. I think that’s a big part of it. When I hear people talk about that. Just pour that love out and you know, talk to your kids know that they’re still there. No, they’re still involved our lives, they tell us all kinds of ways all kinds of times, that they’re still a part of our life. So we don’t have to wait till we die to see them again. We can we can have that relationship even right now.

Sally Stacey 1:17:21
Absolutely. Yes. And I love is always there, even if you’re not feeling them, and no reasons. I think that there are phases when you don’t feel the presence or in the early days, there are perhaps things that you need to be doing. And in this plane, I get that feeling anyway, I but to know they’re always there. I mean, what I was trying to say before about being able to pull in other kids just by thinking of them, to me, exemplifies what I’ve been saying the last year, they are only ever a thought away. It just happens that I can feel them when when they come there any of them and hopefully other people will begin to do that. But in the meantime, I didn’t feel him before last November. I didn’t have that feeling a sense that he was there, and then happened. But before then I didn’t know for sure. Yeah. Go through the process anyway of trusting and being.

Brian Smith 1:18:21
Yeah, well, Sally. I really appreciate it. It’s been fascinating talking to you and getting to meet you and learn about you know your relationship with Tommy and the things you’re doing and I think this is gonna help a lot of people so I really appreciate you doing this.

Sally Stacey 1:18:35
Well, thank you. Thank you for you know, asking I loved him and I’ll get back to see if there’s anything on that recording.

Brian Smith 1:18:41
Alright, sounds good. Well Enjoy the rest of your day

Sally Stacey 1:18:44
and you cheers bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Terri is a long time friend and colleague. We have taught together several times and I am always impressed by how her knowledge of death, dying and grief has helped the people in our sessions.

Dr. Terri Daniel is a hospice and hospital-trained spiritual care provider and end-of-life educator.  She conducts workshops throughout the U.S. and teaches SPIRITUALITY AND BEREAVEMENT  to chaplaincy students at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Terri  is also the founder of The Afterlife Conference and the Ask Doctor Death podcast, and is the author of four books on death, grief and the afterlife.
Terri had no idea what she’d be when she grew up until she was in her early 50s, when her son Danny died at age 16 after a long struggle with a rare metabolic disorder.  Danny began communicating with her after his death, and his  guidance — in this world and the next — changed everything. Starting out as a hospice volunteer, Terri went on to spend the next several years in academia, pursuing degrees in Religious Studies and Pastoral Counseling, and also launched The Afterlife Conference, which is now in its 11th year.

Over the years Terri has helped hundreds of people learn to live, die and grieve more consciously. Her work is  acclaimed  by hospice professionals, spiritual seekers, therapists theologians, and academics worldwide. You can find her at www.SpiritualityandGrief.com, and of course at www.AfterlifeConference.com

 

Transcript

 

Brian Smith 0:01
Hey everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth and today I’ve got with me my friend, Dr. Terry Daniel. Terry and I have known each other for I guess a couple of years now. Our passkey Krause and we’ve taught several classes together. And Terry’s a fascinating person gonna be really interested to hear his story, but I’m gonna introduce her dr. Terry Daniels, a hospice and hospital trained spiritual care provider and end of life educator. she conducts workshops throughout the US and teaches spirituality and bereavement to chaplaincy students at the Graduate theological union in Berkeley, California. Terry is also the founder of the afterlife conference, and the ask Dr. Death podcast and She’s the author of four books on death, grief and the afterlife. Terry had no idea what she’d be when she grew up until she was in her early 50s when her son Danny died at age 16. After a long struggle with a rare metabolic disorder, Danny began communicating with her after his death. And his guidance in this world of the next changed everything for Terry. She started out as a hospice volunteer, she went on to spec spend the next several years in academia, pursuing degrees in religious studies and pastoral counseling. And she also launched the afterlife conference, which is now in its 11th year. Now over the years, Terry has helped hundreds of people learn to die, live, die, and grieve more consciously. Her work is a claim by hospice, hospice professionals, spiritual seekers, therapists, theologians and academics worldwide. And you can find Terry at www spirituality and grief calm, and at www afterlife conference calm. So with that, I want to welcome Dr. Terry Daniel. Hey, Brian. Thank you, my friend. Hello. Hi, everybody. Really nice to be here. Yeah, Terry, it’s good to see you, again, haven’t talked to you in a while. So I’m looking forward to having this conversation with you. But sorry for our audience that doesn’t know you as well as I do. Tell me how your journey started?

Terri Daniel 1:49
Well, I started out as actually a very mystical and spiritual kid, I was always really in tune with my dreams, I was always getting messages and having feelings and all that. But I’m not a psychic or a medium. I preface my story to say that I was always kind of in tune with that stuff. I was always super fascinated by religion and spirituality, I was raised essentially with no religion. My parents were secularly and socially Jewish. But when I was about 16, I decided to read the Bible, just because I was curious about what all the fuss was about. We didn’t even have a Bible in my house, I had to go out and buy one. And I was I knew immediately on reading it that Oh, yeah, you’re not supposed to take this literally, you’re supposed to read between the lines and interpret everything. Then when I was 19, I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. And books by some of the really popular mediums in those days, this was the 1960s, late 60s, and just kind of got on this spiritual path. In terms of what I do now, if you fast forward a whole lot of years to in my 40s, my 10 year old son was diagnosed with a rare life threatening illness, and given five to 10 years to live. And he died at 16 and began communicating with me very clearly and in great detail 30 minutes after his death. So from that, I wrote my first book, a swan and heaven. And I felt like all my spiritual preparation that I had done all those years, was really just leading me up to that to, you know, having to deal with the death of a child. Because I had so many sort of Buddhist leanings, I believed in reincarnation, I believed in soul contracts. And when he was diagnosed, and everybody around me was freaking out and falling apart. And I was too, of course, I still had this other feeling about it, which was, oh, what an interesting plan we apparently have, together, he’s gonna die at 16. And I do all this spiritual stuff, and there must be some connection between those two things. And so along with the grief and the fear, and all the sadness of losing him, I also had this other thing going on, which was curiosity about the spiritual and metaphysical meaning to all of it. And that really helped me not become devastated by grief, but to kind of become friends with grief. And kind of walk hand in hand with it. Yeah, so so you had this this spirituality before and you have this this studying of death and the afterlife and all that, but then when Danny died transitioned, is that when you started the academic aspect of it, because I know you

You kind of like went fast forward, and everything did well. So when Danny died, you know, I mean, he had a long illness, he was disabled severely for the last half of his life. And so it was a long process of preparing for his death. And at his actual death, he’s the first person that I ever saw die. And of course, I was at the bedside, not when he took his last breath, I was actually vacuuming the house, when he took his last breath happens often that way. But the process of being with the person as they’re dying, especially in the active, dying phase, when they’re really not fully in their bodies, is so mystical and beautiful. That after I went through that with him, I thought, I want to do this some more, I want to be in that space with people. So I became a hospice volunteer, but I couldn’t really do that until a year had passed. Because with hospices, they don’t let you volunteer, until you’ve been 13 months out from your loss. So I started as a hospice volunteer. And I started witnessing people, the dying people and their loved ones, having really deep existential questions about God and afterlife, and all of that. And I really wanted to talk to them about that. But as a volunteer, we’re not allowed to have those kinds of conversations with people because it’s just too iffy. In in a hospice setting, because you never know if a volunteer is going to, like, evangelize and try to save their soul or you just, it’s just not safe to let volunteers do that. Only trained people can do that. So I said, I want to do that. So I decided to go to college at age 56. And I got a first I got a bachelor’s degree in religious studies. And I did that so that I could understand what people were thinking and believing around death. And so I could understand the different perspectives of different religions. And then I realized I want to be a hospice chaplain. So I did chaplaincy training, and got a master’s in pastoral care, and did a bunch of internships. And during the chaplaincy internships, I realized I didn’t actually want to be a chaplain, because I’m a better talker than a listener. And I decided I wanted to be a teacher. So then I went to school some more and got a doctorate. And now I am really in a place that I love. I’m now teaching chaplaincy, students who are going through that same path that I went through. I teach death, dying and bereavement. I teach a course called spirituality and bereavement, and another one spirituality and chronic illness, and doing one on spiritual care for marginalized communities. So it all happened, you know, I was said to somebody just yesterday,

if my son hadn’t died, and introduced me to the experience of grief and loss,

I wouldn’t be where I am today. I don’t know what my life would be like, but it I feel like it wouldn’t be as productive and meaningful and useful in the world and in the culture as it is because he died. Yeah, you know, it’s really interesting how Thanks, Brian. Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting how those things work out. And I know for myself, when my daughter passed, I was like, This is the worst thing that could ever possibly happen. And when people say something good can come out of it. I was, I would say about nothing. Nothing good can come from this, but we just have to trust and allow time to kind of bring to us what we’re supposed to be doing. And and, and what you’re doing now is just like, phenomenal. And you said you wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t for Danny for Danny dying. So what have you learned, you know, you, you went through the experience of grief, and then you then you did the high academic thing. So what did you learn from your academic studies of grief and death and dying? Well,

I learned a whole lot and I learned things that I wish more people would learn. We You know, one of the first things I learned was that most of the people who are out there talking about grief and teaching about grief today don’t have adequate training and don’t actually know what they’re talking about. And there’s a lot of really bad grief advice floating around out there. And let’s go back a little bit. right about the time when I started the undergrad program. That’s when I also started the afterlife conference. And that sort of ties in to how when I learned about grief, so

very early on

this national bereavement group for brief parents that compassionate friends which I’m sure you know of

They were having a conference in Portland where I lived. This was 2009. And I had just written my first book about communication with my son. And I pitched them and said, Hey, can I come and you know, do a presentation about after death communication? And they said, Absolutely not. We don’t allow that content. Or it’s very upsetting to our parents. We don’t allow anybody to talk about anything spiritual or talking to dead people. We don’t do that. So I got really upset. And I said, Well, if they’re not going to allow that at their conference, I guess I’m just gonna have to start one of my own. There were no other afterlife conferences back then. So I started this, and I reached out to people who at that time were well known in this field who had written books like, for example, Bill Guggenheim, who all your listeners know. Yeah, wrote Hello from heaven. Sandy Goodman, I had a book called Love never dies very well known. Lula grande was another guy can’t remember all of them at this point. But

I called them and I said, Hey, kids, let’s put on a show. And he became the founding members of the afterlife conference. So one of the first things I learned about grief and loss, is that there wasn’t enough of a forum out in the world for people to approach it from a spiritual, metaphysical, non religious perspective. Yeah, I think that’s really interesting, Terry, as you said, when you just said that very last part for spiritual, metaphysical, non religious perspective, because we could go to a traditional pastor or priest or whatever, and they can talk to us from a religious perspective. Or we could go to a traditional grief counselor who may not believe in the afterlife. And I think that’s, I think that’s what’s missing is that person that can talk about it from a metaphysical spiritual perspective, but not a religious perspective. And I know when I went to see a grief counselor briefly, it was just, it didn’t help me at all. Because the guy there was no talk about where my daughter was, or what the plan was, or anything like that.

Yeah, so that Thank you. That was You’re right, Brian, that’s so you need some job description, some person who can talk about it from the metaphysical perspective, and the psychological perspective. And that’s what you want in a good grief counselor that has the psychology background and knows the grief research and all this stuff, and also knows the myriad of afterlife scenarios and different ways that people might look at it. You know, they’ve done a lot of studies in the field of grief research now on does grief counseling help? And the conclusion is no. Right? And and for different reasons than you might think. I mean, one reason is exactly what you said is counseling generally doesn’t include a spiritual component. Most counselors and therapists are not trained in spiritual care and spiritual work. But the other reason it doesn’t work is because

grief is not a disorder that needs to be treated.

So really, all counseling does, and it’s good. This is a good thing is it gives you someone to talk to who will who is interested in listening to you. Because, you know, as we all know, our friends and family cannot hold our grief, they can’t, they don’t want to hear about it. You can only talk to them about it up to a very limited amount of time. And either they get very uncomfortable, or they get very upset and they start to grieve and feel pain, too. And then you have to take care of them. Yeah. Right. So we can’t rely on friends and family to be our grief support system to that degree. So counseling is great for that. But

it doesn’t provide a treatment, because grief doesn’t need treatment.

Brian Smith 13:56
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s really important. What you just said, yeah.

Terri Daniel 14:00
Yeah. Now grief does need treatment when it gets into complicated grief. And so complicated grief is is nowadays literally a diagnosable disorder. And it’s, there’s all this criteria of what constitutes it. There is even a time frame, but we don’t really pay much attention to the timeframe. But for example, if you lost an aging parent, let’s say your 90 year old mother died, this is a normal, unnatural, unexpected death, your grief response would be within certain boundaries of normal for such a loss. Totally different than if your five year old kid gets run over by a car. Right, right. But in a normal death of an aging parent, you know, six months later, you should be pretty much stabilized. Right? functional, enjoying life again, having healthy relationships. Creating your new life. If three years after that death, you’re still depressed. And I hear from people all the time who say things to me like my mother died 10 years ago, I still can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t live without her. That’s complicated grief.

Brian Smith 15:15
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. Because I’ve seen even with, even with the passing of a child, even though it’s different from a parent, you know, I went to some of these grief groups that you talked about, and I won’t name the groups. But what did some of these groups and someone 10 1520 years after the child pass is just as bitter as they were the day that they passed, and it’s gonna take longer with the child to get there. But it should, you should be able to make some sort of progress in 10 or 15 or 20 years,

Terri Daniel 15:43
you should make some for to sort of progress in two or three years. Yeah, no matter how tragic the death is. And you know, you and I both know, people, Brian, whose children have died in a horrible, tragic, violent ways. And we hear these stories every day. And so this is why the diagnostic criteria for complicated grief is kind of full of crap. Because it says six months, yeah, and I know that if your child is killed in a drive by shooting, you’re not going to be stabilized in six months,

Brian Smith 16:13
right? No, because

Terri Daniel 16:14
everything in your world changes not just your role as a parent and your relationship with a child. But, you know, that has like social and political elements to it, you know, there’s just so much around it. So the point being normal grief, doesn’t require a therapeutic intervention. Mm hmm. And that’s why grief counseling doesn’t generally work. I mean, I’d love to see all the grief counselors out there, get some spiritual training, along with doctors and nurses and everybody else.

Brian Smith 16:47
Yeah, that’s all I really like about, you know, working with uteri, because as I said, when I when I think about traditional grief counseling, which is basically when the past at least was your your loved one has gone get over it move on with your life. I just don’t think that’s satisfactory to most people, again, especially with a parent, maybe an aging parent, or grandmother or something, but especially when it comes to like the loss of a child, I think people need more than that to hold on to,

Terri Daniel 17:13
or the loss of a spouse, you know, at a young age, your 35 year old wife, I mean, all these things. And we just part of the problem is we don’t have these tools. In our culture, we’re very death avoidant culture, we have almost no meaningful rituals around death. So if you go to, you know, most in almost all indigenous societies, and pretty much anywhere outside of the Western, Judeo Christian world, you’re going to find really beautiful processes for facing death, or going through the loss dealing with the grief, finding, meaning, having a spiritual practice, that incorporates that meaning into the rest of your life, we don’t have any of that here, we have a funeral, which for most people is really meaningless. Because if they’re do it through their church, or some tradition that they’re not really bought into all that much, it becomes really meaningless. And people are in shock when they’re planning a funeral. And they’re not really paying attention. And there’s so many different things that we can do. Other than that, to learn how to be with death and loss.

Brian Smith 18:29
Yeah, you know, that’s one things I’ve really learned working with you as, as we’ve taught over the years, is this. The importance of rituals, and the fact that we don’t really have any in our culture. So I’ve seen you bring these rituals in, and they’re always coming from somewhere else. Because our culture is kind of like, I don’t know, if we had the one time we forgot them or what but there’s really, there’s not much, you know, and we don’t talk about that. So it’s and then the rituals I’ve seen you provide the people are so uplifting and so helpful and, and help people because you’ve got a process that you know, we get, and we I think we have a tendency, I was listening to someone talk this morning about when their father killed himself. And the mother came and just said, Okay, well, we’re just gonna, we’re not gonna talk about this, except in like, 1970, we’re just not going to talk about we’re gonna move on. I think there’s still a lot of that in our, in our culture, we just don’t understand how to talk about grief. And that’s what I really appreciate about you know, what you’re doing with your with your podcast, and all the things that you do.

Terri Daniel 19:28
Well, and I appreciate that about what you’re doing, Brian, you know, you just you’ve put yourself on this public forum that is addressing all this stuff. And I don’t know how big your following is, but I hope it’s really really, really big because you have a lot of really great stuff to share. Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. It’s interesting how you said that it’s like all those ceremonies and stuff that I do do come from somewhere else, all of them 100% never found one from modern America, and even if you Look at you know, pre America, like, you know, the history of basically Anglo Christian white people is what we’re talking about. And you know, the people who settled here, for example, okay, so we can go, we’ll go back to England, and Europe and Rome. And it really was the onset of Christianity or really monotheism, you know, the Hebrew tradition that really started taking all that stuff away. Yeah. Because prior to the Old Testament prior to the Hebrews, we had these pagan cultures all over the Middle East and the room, oh, there’s no roman empire that time but, and they had beautiful traditions for death and birth, and reproduction, and honoring nature. And all this stuff and the Judeo Christian culture, just strip that all away and wrapped it up in Scripture stories.

Brian Smith 20:55
Yeah, you know, I was talking to I was working with a couple over the weekend, it was on the 31st. So it’s the day of the dead, you know. And they’re, they’re in San Francisco. So they said, but they showed me the altar that they had built and the food that they laid out and all this stuff. And I said, Well, I didn’t realize that, you know, that was a big thing in San Francisco. They said, well, there’s a big Mexican culture, I guess, there. And so they were doing this, I was like, What a great ritual to have that, as we’re going in. And as I described it, we’re going into the darkest part of the year. Now we’re going into Halloween, and we just change the clocks for and we’re coming into Christmas, and everything’s getting darker, and a lot of us really dread that. But the way that they were talking about it, it’s like this is when the veil gets thinner. This is when we feel closer to our loved ones. It was just a beautiful way of looking at it. That unfortunately, didn’t come from our culture.

Terri Daniel 21:42
Well, and you know, we’re really came from it’s interesting, because Halloween, it’s funny, just this last Halloween on Saturday, I actually performed a pagan wedding on the front. It was so wonderful. where it came from is the ancient European pagans. Yeah, who had a festival called sawin, which celebrated exactly what you said on this date. November 1, basically, is the day according to their tradition, when the veil was the thinnest, and the dead people could just kind of really come through. And so that’s where that started. The Catholic Church got hold of it, and turned it into All Saints Day. And then Hallmark greeting cards got hold of it didn’t tell the win. But there are many among us who recommend and then of course, it became the day of the dead in the Latin cultures. Yeah. And they have a mix of the Catholic version with the indigenous Aztec, Mayan stuff. That’s your ancestry. And that’s what you see on those Day of the Dead altars. But they still believe that the dead come through on this day and you open your door to your house and you give them food. And candy. That’s what it that’s what ends and little kids are going around dressed up like skeletons and ghosts and collecting candy. And they have no idea why.

Brian Smith 23:04
Yeah, and that’s the thing. And she did mention sewing because one of the one of the people in the couple, she is pagan. So she mentioned solloway, and then even All Saints Day, but we don’t really it’s not in our culture is that really taken that way, I guess it’s just become a silly thing just become was just put on the costume or walk around to get candy. And there are a couple I was working with their son, it just passed early this year. So this is their first time going through this. And it was just so you know, so meaningful to them. And it set up this altar and everything. And it just it just changed everything. I think the way that they were looking at it that was really healthy. And have

Terri Daniel 23:37
that to have something like that does change everything.

Brian Smith 23:41
Yeah.

Terri Daniel 23:42
Yeah. And and most people don’t have that, you know, they might, like in the Jewish tradition, you light a candle on the anniversary of the person’s death. Hmm, that’s it. Yeah, that’s, that’s, I mean, that’s what I grew up with. And there are deeper traditions than that. But in most modern Jewish families, they don’t go any deeper than that. I don’t know what they do in the Catholic tradition. I don’t know what they do in the evangelical tradition. I know evangelicals have really long funerals that lasts all day long. Yeah. What do they do in a year?

Brian Smith 24:16
Anything? There’s really, there’s really not much that I know of. And I know, as you and I, you know, we’ve worked together we’ve been teaching we show people the altars that you and I both build, yeah, the response that people give when they see the altar that we have to honor our ancestors are children, for Narcos, our children who have passed and how we keep that as part of our lives. I think it really helps people say you realize there’s something that they’re missing if they don’t, if they don’t work with someone like yourself, and learn these things that you’re teaching.

Terri Daniel 24:46
You know, do you want to show your alter on this recording that we’re doing right now? Would that be?

Brian Smith 24:52
I don’t have it available right now.

Terri Daniel 24:53
I do it would take me a minute to find it though. So I’m okay. Well, if you want me to

Brian Smith 24:58
go ahead and look for that one. You’re talking while we’re while we’re, while you’re looking for that. But yeah, I think, you know, the, like I said, Terry, what I’ve appreciated about working with you over the years is just there’s so much written richness that we can bring to this, that I think people don’t really realize is even available. And that’s what, like the afterlife conference you’ve been doing it for is you’ve just, I know, we missed it last year. So is it the 11th one that’s coming up?

Terri Daniel 25:22
This would be in 2021. It would be our 11th one, which is just amazing. I can’t even believe that it. It’s been going this long. And boy, does that make me happy?

Brian Smith 25:33
Yeah, yeah. Well, there’s, I think there’s a real need for and you’ve got, you got a training coming up this weekend. So you got something coming up really soon?

Terri Daniel 25:41
Oh, yeah, I started, um, a couple of, I guess it was just a month ago. I’m online grief support group. So you know, people aren’t going to their groups and their therapists or anything anymore. So I’m now doing every other Sunday. Basically, just a support group, except we’re doing it on zoom. So I just finished one session of it, which was for four sessions, which is over. And now starting on this Sunday, November 8, we have four more and that one is themed to the holiday season. Okay, so that’s our holiday season one and people can find that on spirituality and grief.com. Okay. And here I found and, and we do an in this, we don’t just talk like people usually do in support groups, we actually do ceremonies, and I do have them build an altar as part of the process. And I actually found the videos. Brian, do you want? Do you want me to share them?

Brian Smith 26:43
Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Why don’t you share screen?

Terri Daniel 26:45
All right, hold on. Oops, hold one second.

Just a minute.

Okay, put this down here. And I will share my screen.

Okay,

Brian Smith 27:01
there we go.

Terri Daniel 27:03
Okay, so the first one we’re going to look at is Brian Salter, which he made for a class that we taught together a couple years ago. Can everybody see that?

Brian Smith 27:12
Yeah, I could see it. So for anybody who’s listening to the podcast and not watching on YouTube, I’ll go I’ll explain as we go through, but go ahead and pull it

Terri Daniel 27:19
has your voice on it, too.

Brian Smith 27:20
Does the meditation alter where I sit every day and meditate and think about my daughter, Shayna, who passed away at this point three years ago, and also to bring peace to myself and kind of recenter and try to reach higher states. On my altar. I have a Jesus statue. I bought this at a little local shop thinking it was actually a Buddha. And thought was really cute Buddha. When I got at home, I looked it up and found that it’s jeiza, who’s a Japanese figure, who is a someone who watches over children who cross the other side to keep them safe when their parents aren’t there with them. Jesus is also revered by people who are spiritual seekers as he watches them on a spiritual journey. So that was a fortunate synchronicity that I bought that statue thinking it was actually a Buddha. This is a candle like the light candles when I meditate. This is the year as a compassionate Buddha. I saw the statue on a TV show, I had no idea what it was, but it just really called out to me so I googled it and found that this is actually Buddha, who is showing compassion for the for the cares of the world or for the sorrows in the world. So I found this statue on eBay. And I love it because it’s used and it’s actually kind of worn you can i can tell where it’s been handled. So I love that my capacitor Buddha statue is made out of wood. This is my Krishna statue that my older daughter bought for me because she knows I just love looking at God in different forms. I believe God has many different facets. So I like the look at different ways of it, of looking at God. This is the ganache that my same daughter bought for me when she was on a trip in New Orleans. This is a keepsake box that a friend of mine made for me shortly after Shayna passed. And in the box she placed for heart shaped rocks and gave me some other things that she had made for me. But she went to the beach and found these rocks and they represent myself my wife and my two daughters. Also in the box is a crystal that someone who became a friend of ours. Shana after she passed she came to him. He didn’t know us he didn’t know Shayna. But she came to him he reached out to a mutual friend and she contacted me and he told me that Shayna had contacted him and asked me to him to give me that crystal. Also when I find feathers and other keeps say things like put it in the box and keep them there. This is a pair of sandals glasses like to keep something Shane is close to me. When I’m doing a meditation. I feel like just nice having something physically close to me. This is an amethyst that I picked up when I was in Colorado for the properties of am with this plus I just like the way it looks and purple is my shape. My favorite color is also Shane’s favorite color. This is my incense burner This is my altar itself. I love it found us on Etsy. Actually, a guy makes it by hand. So I love my altar. This is something that my daughter gave me. So I pondered this when I’m sitting here, doing my meditations. And I’ve got some prayer beads that a friend of mine gave me which I use on occasion. So this is my sacred space. So they come to every day to do my meditations. And to, I guess, escape the cares of the world.

Terri Daniel 30:33
Yeah, yeah. That’s so that’s so wonderful. I’ve seen it so many times, and I never get tired of it.

Brian Smith 30:38
Yeah, it’s while looking at it now, because it’s been two years since I did that. And it’s changed a little bit, but I still sit there.

Terri Daniel 30:45
Wait, hold on. Where’s that coming from?

Brian Smith 30:51
All right, we’re back.

Terri Daniel 30:52
All right. Oh, I didn’t know that. You turned it off. Okay.

Brian Smith 30:55
All right. So let’s look at your altar.

Terri Daniel 30:57
Okay, you want to see my altar? Okay. I just hope we don’t get that thing again. Okay.

Because that happens on YouTube, doesn’t it? It just the,

Brian Smith 31:05
the autoplay starts

Terri Daniel 31:06
the next thing. Okay, so let me share my screen again. And now we’ll look at my altar reminds

Okay, share sound. Okay, here we go.

This is my grief healing altar. And starting on the far left, that you can see that little piece of paper that’s in the white frame. That is a page, a little torn page from the Bible that blew into my garden on the wind during the Santa Rosa fires, and it is Matthew nine on one side and Matthew 10. On the other side, which is a long story, I can send you a link to an article about it. It was a very powerful message from the divine little gold Patil here. That is my son’s ashes. And that’s a picture of my son. And there’s a little collection of healing stones that I use for chakra work and meditation. There are two candles, both of them have significance one was given to me by a important shamanism teacher of mine. And a little colorful one on the right was given to me by by son’s hospice nurse. And there’s my shaman rattle there in front of the candles. And this little beautiful white statue of an angel was actually made by my son in school when he was about six years old. He always kind of had a sense that he wasn’t going to be here long. So these are the things that are on my altar right now. They change periodically, depending on what I’m working on. But I think this is a good example of an altar that is very personal and very spiritual. having to do with my own personal, transformative experiences on my

Unknown Speaker 33:21
spiritual journey.

Brian Smith 33:25
Yeah, I think that i think that’s great. And I love your altar, and I love that everything has meaning and everything has a story. And it’s in there and that thing about altars when we’ve taught people before it’s like, it’s, it’s personal to you, whatever you want to put there, because sometimes people so what should I put on my altar? It’s like, whatever works for you, right?

Terri Daniel 33:42
Yeah, well, in my classes that I’m teaching now for the chaplaincy program, the people in these classes. They’re such an interesting group. I’ve got a Buddhist monk and a Jesuit monk, and a Catholic priest. I have a medical doctor, a funeral director, a couple other Buddhists, a Baptist pastor, I just have like such an interesting group of people. And so these are people who’ve done a lot of spiritual work. But they’ve never most of they’ve never really done altars like this. And so I assign this to them, you know, their assignment is to make an altar and send a video. And they do such an incredible job, they put so much into it. And what that says to me is that we need this, our souls are just starving for this. And I’ll tell you a very sad story. My sister and her husband just got a cute, sweetest little dog about three months ago, and she just got hit by a car and died the other day, and they’re just devastated. And it was really kind of horrible how it happened. And so the first thing I told my sister to do was make an altar in your house and in The way you do that with a pet is you take their bed, and all their toys, and their bowl and their color and all their stuff, and you put it in a corner of your house. And that becomes the place where you do your grieving, it takes your grief, which is so big, and it puts it in a smaller space in a container. And that’s what the altar does. So this little space, you know, she made this little space with all the dogs things and of course, her cats walk over there and lay down and go and sleep on it. Because the energy is there. And so when you’re just really suffering and you’re crying, and you’re just miserable, and you can’t get a breath, you just go and you sit in that space with that altar and just be with it. Yeah, just one little simple thing. They also have a lot of trauma around this dog getting hit by a car. So I told them and, and her husband was there, when it happened, she came a few minutes later, they eat and the husband has this image in his mind, of the dog breaking free of the leash and running into the street and bam getting hit. That’s the image, he has my sister’s image, if she comes running down the street, and her husband is sitting there at the curb, just crumpled up and sobbing, holding his dead dog. So each of them have a different visual imprint. And so I told them to each draw a picture of that imprint, that is keeping them awake at night that is driving them crazy, that visual that you can’t stop seeing, yeah, right, each drawing your own picture, don’t show it to each other, it’s each your own personal thing, and then go out in the backyard and dig a hole and bury it in the dirt together and give that image and that the intensity of that pain, you give it to the earth and let the earth hold it for you. Because the earth is so big and strong, and it can transform the paper will decompose and become nitrogen for the soil or whatever. And that way you get it out of your body into a representational form. And you put it into the world of Spirit through the earth. So those are the kinds of things that you know, none of that exists in, in our current culture, it’s all borrowed from somewhere.

Brian Smith 37:14
Yeah. And I think those things are very important and interesting, I love what you said that, you know, our grief is so big, and this way as a way of at least kind of making it into a manageable size. And I never really thought about that when I was putting my altar together. But you know, it does kind of feel that way. Right? That’s, that’s the place I go to. And you go there and you feel the feelings. That’s one of the really important things about grief tubes, you get to feel the feelings, there people to try to bypass it or ignore it, you got to get to process it. And it gives you a chance, a time of space to where I’m going to go process this for dinner for for a certain period of time, you know, and then and then when I get up, I can do other things, at least for a while.

Terri Daniel 37:54
That’s right, because you can control it. And you know, you feel no control you complete loss of control when you have a tragic loss. And so if you can create this little space and contain it in a container, then you can control when you’re going to really feel it. And when you’re not. And you’re like you know what, right now I’m really feeling it or right now I really want to feel it and you go over to your altar, you light a candle, you sit there, you talk to your loved one, maybe you write in a journal, you cry, you pray, sing a song, whatever. And then you’re done for the moment. And just like you said, you go back to work or whatever. And then when you feel the need to do that, again. You go there. I mean, that’s what churches and you know, places of worship are supposed to be for.

Brian Smith 38:38
Yeah. So

Terri Daniel 38:39
yeah, let’s make our own little church in the house.

Brian Smith 38:42
Yeah, that’s a really good point. Because I think a lot of people are kind of missing that even when we do go to churches become so generic, I don’t another word. It’s just not. For a lot of people. It just become so rote. There’s just there’s not much feeling to it. And it’s not really personal. So and the thing is, I guess what people know, you can do this in your own home and you can do it, you can do it every day. You don’t have to go somewhere else. You don’t have to go to a to a special designated, you know, holy place you can you can make a holy place in your own home.

Terri Daniel 39:12
Yeah, and do and do the proactive, very intentional work of interacting with the holy place. That’s why funerals are not helpful for most people because they’re rote, and they’re impersonal. You know, a lot of people who don’t have a church or a synagogue or a spiritual community. I’ve seen this happen with so many people. So somebody dies, and they don’t even know who do I call How do I have a funeral? And they’ll just call like, whatever religion they think they’re supposed to identify with. Because again, these are you know, unchurched people. Yeah. And they go, Well, you know, dad, dad was kind of Catholic. I guess he never went to church, but I’ll just call let me get the phone book out here and call the local Catholic Church and hire somebody to come to the funeral. That’s just Like terrible, but not many people. I mean, how many people listening know someone in your circle in your network that can organize and facilitate a funeral for you? Right? Probably not many. Right?

Brian Smith 40:13
Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, absolutely. So I know you have a Facebook group called Bad grief guidance. So what’s the What does that mean? And what’s an example of bad grief guidance.

Terri Daniel 40:24
So, um, so many people come to me, and YouTuber, and I’m sure you know, bereaved parents, who have gotten just the worst advice. And a lot of that advice comes from some of these groups that I don’t approve of it, these national groups with conferences and chapter meetings, and a lot of them have websites and Facebook groups. And these groups are led by peers, it’s peer LED, and the peers are other bereaved parents. But they are not, there’s no training required to become a chapter leader or a group leader, other than how to market your group, no requirement for any kind of education, or certification in grief, or trauma, or even group dynamics. And I have seen so many people be so broken by these groups, like you described, Brian, um, people have gone into these groups and seeing people who are been coming there for 10 or 15 years, who still say things like, I can’t get out of bed in the morning, I still can’t, except that my child died 15 years ago, and they’re still coming to these groups, and they should not be still coming. The idea of those groups is it’s not supposed to be your your life for the rest of your life. And, and people say to me, you know, I went to that first meeting of that group, and I saw that lady who’s been there for 15 years, and the first thing I thought was, I don’t want to be like her in 15 years. Is that the model that they’re showing me of where I’m going to be in 15 years, right, number one, that’s bad grief guidance right there. Having people like that, as a model, you should put them in a separate group, and not have them in the room with the new people coming in. Because you don’t want the new people to see that. Yeah. There is something online, anybody can find it. You can Google it, it says it’s 64 things I wish someone had told me about grief. And this was contributed by many people, and they made this list. And most of the things are pretty good. probably five or six of them are absolutely terrible things to tell a grieving person. One of them is holidays, birthdays and celebrations will be sad forever. Yeah, yeah. Another one that stands out is, no matter how much you think it’s gonna hurt. It will be a million times worse. Those are just the two that come into my mind. Mm hmm. Um, there are. Yeah, you know, you don’t say things like that to grieving people. You also don’t say things like God wanted another flower and his garden and all that crap. Yeah. But they’re so so I heard so many stories of people who really suffered behind these kinds of things, that I started this group on Facebook called Bad grief guidance. And people were joining up and telling me stories about the kind of stuff that they heard. And then people in religious families, of course, were hearing that God was punishing them. Or that, you know, their child who died, who was a drug addict or was gay or something, you know, is in hell. And all these and you know, the religious beliefs is a whole different category, right? of bad grief guidance. There’s also something and I don’t mind naming the names of these groups publicly, because I think people should know, there’s a group called grief share. I think it’s griefshare.org. And they, it’s a Christian group. And it’s they don’t really make that very obvious on their website, but there’s a tab on their website that’s called something like, why we grieve or how to heal from grief or something. And if you drill down in that website, it tells you the reason you suffer is because you’ve been disobedient to God. Hmm. And they actually say this to grieving people.

Brian Smith 44:21
Yeah. Yeah, there there is. And some of its most of its most of us, probably, well, meaning but you know, the other thing is, you and I were talking I know there’s this really common this five stages of grief, Oh, God, the people will come to me and say, well, which which stage am I and and what’s what’s my next stage? And so what what’s your reaction to the five stages of grief?

Terri Daniel 44:44
Well, it’s not just my reaction. It’s the reaction of the entire grief, support community and psychologists and academics everywhere, nobody uses that anymore. And what Elisabeth Kubler Ross did is she interviewed 200 patients in a hospital for her book, so it wasn’t actual research format. It was anecdotal just talking to people and getting their stories. And these were dying people. They weren’t grieving. They were dying. And she noticed that the five most common responses they tended to have were denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And she put it in the book. I believe she did call it stages. But it’s not. It’s not official research. It’s, you know, it wasn’t done in proper research parameter. And so really, what she observed was that people were having these five reactions to facing their death. If you think of them as reactions or responses rather than stages, you can add another 500 to that list. Yes, exactly. Right. So like one response could be fear. That’s not on her list, guilt, remorse, perhaps joy and exhilaration, I’m finally going to die. I’m not going to be suffering from cancer anymore. There’s all these different kinds of responses. That’s how it should have been presented. But it caught on really big. And everyone latched on to it, because everyone likes to make lists. And it became really popular, and we all we know, now, there are no stages, there’s nothing sequential about it. You can go through the most tragic loss in the world, and never experienced denial, right, or bargaining. You know, anger is pretty common. Depression certainly is. So is acceptance. But you know, you could you could go through this, and not be depressed and sometimes not even be angry. So they don’t exist these stages. So what we have now is what we call tasks of grieving. And you can look that up. The researchers who develop that is Teresa Brando are a and do William Warden, who are de and these are the people who are formulating these new ideas now. And tasks are just about like, things you have to do to deal with your grief everyday, just like you have tasks, like you have to clean your house and put gas in your car, feed the dog. And the tasks are things like there’s one process called the six R’s letter R. And I’m not going to remember all six of them right now. But some of them are recognize the loss, which is you know, except that it has happened. And sometimes if someone dies, like in a war, or they’re estranged from the family or their missing person, you won’t see a body. And that’s hard. that complicates that task. If you don’t see a body because it’s hard to recognize the loss. Then there’s react to the separation, which is feel your feelings, scream and cry, do what you have to do. recollect, which is to sit with your family at Christmas and Thanksgiving, where there’s that empty chair where that person used to sit and talk about the person. Remember that Thanksgiving when she was seven years old, and she threw up on the table, or whatever, you know, bring them into the conversation. So many families will not talk about the dead person, especially if it’s a child. My own family would never talk about my son when we were together until I gave them permission to Yes, I had to teach them. I want to talk about him.

Brian Smith 48:35
Right, right. Yeah, a lot of times people will think why don’t want to bring it up because I don’t want to make her sad. You know, that’s, that’s another misconception, especially when it’s a parent is that a child? You know, pass? They think they’re gonna make us think about our kid. Like, we’re not already thinking

Terri Daniel 48:50
we’re not already thinking about them. Oh,

Brian Smith 48:53
yeah.

Terri Daniel 48:54
Yeah. And it may and what is really happening in there is it makes them sad. Yes,

Brian Smith 48:59
yes.

Terri Daniel 48:59
It’s really about them. And so then they get sad, then we end up having to take care of them. Because they haven’t done the proper, you know, grieving tools. So it is really important. My mother came up with the most beautiful idea a couple of mother’s days ago. She called me up and she said, here’s what I’m getting. Because my mother always gave me presents on Mother’s Day. And she said, here’s what I’m going to give you for Mother’s day from now on. I’m going to call you up and we’re going to just talk about your son for 20 minutes now. Wow. Isn’t that the coolest thing? Yeah, yeah. So I’ve passed that on to other friends of mine. So on Mother’s Day now. Well, my mom has died now. But you know, I’ve got this like phone network going on of all these mothers calling each other up and saying, I’m just gonna let you talk about your child. Yeah, minutes.

Brian Smith 49:47
Yeah, that’s great. So another question want to ask you because you know, you and I have talked about toxic theology also. So religious beliefs do they help or hinder the grading process the healing process

Terri Daniel 50:00
Depends on the belief.

Right? Yeah, you know, and the language is so iffy. Because if you have a spiritual belief in reincarnation, or you believe in the survival of consciousness after death, is that a religious belief? You know, so then we have to get into defining what’s religion? Yeah,

Brian Smith 50:18
that’s a great point. Yeah.

Terri Daniel 50:20
Um, but you know, we believe that

some part of our essence, our consciousness lives on in another dimension. And that is extremely helpful. You know, and, and, and hopefully, we can talk a little bit about mediums in that context. Yes. However, if your religious belief says that all suicides go to hell, and your loved one died by suicide, then that is not going to be a helpful belief and in the middle of your grief and everything else you’re going through, you’re going to have to struggle with that horrible idea that your teenage son is burning in flames in hell, forever, we’ll never get out. And then when you die, and you go to heaven, you won’t ever get to see him again. Yeah. So though it’s so it totally depends on the belief, there’s been some really good studies on that, if anybody listening wants to email me, go to spirituality and grief.com. And you can email me through there. And I’ll just tell me, you want to see some of the studies and I’ll send them to you. There’s really a good one that’s used a lot now on positive and negative religious coping.

Brian Smith 51:32
Yeah. Yeah, I think you made an excellent point. You know, it does depend on the belief. And you also another great thing you said was, where do we separate? What’s original religious belief? And what’s metaphysical spiritual belief? So that leads me to another question, because I’ve had people ask me this. So if I want to work with you, do I have to believe what you believe? Do I have to believe in the continuation consciousness? Do I have to do I have to have any particular belief?

Terri Daniel 52:01
Absolutely not. I mean, the people who work with me like my sister and her husband with the dog who died, they don’t believe in anything. Mm hmm. You know, and but they The funny thing about belief is, the ceremonies and rituals have no religious belief attached to them at all. Hmm. And that’s what’s so nice about them. And so I have given these rituals, like draw the image of your trauma on a piece of paper and buried in the earth, or the string ceremony. Have we done the string ceremony? Brian? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the string sermon, there’s no religion to that at all. And so even the most devout religious person will respond to that. Because their soul just says, Oh, God, I need this. This feels good. And the string thing I’ll show you just for your audience, really? Yeah, please is. So you get a little piece of string like this. And just you just take your pain, and you roll up the string and a little ball, and you cry. And you say, I’m so angry that that car hit my dog that my son killed himself, blah, blah, blah, you just talking into them, I’m angry at God, I’ll never forgive the drunk driver. And you just tell it into the string. And you roll it in a little ball. So it has a little piece hanging off like that. You tie it up. And then you take it outside, and you tie it in a tree, and you let it unfurl. And it just hangs there in the tree forever. As it decomposes, it becomes like the Tibetan prayer flags that blow in the wind and the sun, and they shred and tatter. And all the prayers contained in them are released into the universe. So doing a little thing like this releases your pain. And if I’m showing that to a person who identifies as religious with a belief in quote, God, I’ll just use God language. And I’ll say, just put it in here and give it to God. Hmm. And then hanging in a tree and just give it to God. Yeah, one word changes everything.

Brian Smith 54:05
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So before we we started recording, we were talking about different types of grief. And we were talking about right now, it seems like everybody I’ve talked to is in some form of grief. So let’s talk about different types of grief.

Terri Daniel 54:20
And right now, everybody is November 2 2020. Yeah, the day before the election, just for reference, and no matter what side of the aisle you’re on, you’re probably freaking out. And we’re grieving. What Brian and I were talking about before was, there’s a tight there are many, many types of losses that we have. So we have relationship loss, when someone dies, we get divorce. You have material or financial loss. If you lose your job, or your house burns down, you’ve lost something material, stock market crashes, whatever. There’s a roll r o l e loss. If you were a caregiver and the person you were taking care of dies, you don’t have that role anymore. If you were a wife and your husband dies, you’re not a wife anymore. So there’s all these different kinds, I don’t want to go deeply into it right now. But what so many people in America and in the world really too, because of COVID are experiencing his system loss, were the systems that were supposed to take care of us in our assumptions that were supposed to be taken care of by said, systems, they’re failing. And that could be the medical establishment, you know, medical research, you know, the Center for Disease Control, they’re, they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re not combating COVID, the hospitals don’t have enough equipment, they’re not doing their job. So it appears to some people on the government, I don’t even want to get into touchy politics here. But I think no matter what side we’re on, the elections can’t be trusted. The news media can’t be trusted, everything is not secure. And that there is grief around that the systems are failing us. Yeah. religious belief is also a system. So there’s this massive collective grieving going on in America. And after the election, regardless of who wins, millions of people are going to be grieving. On one side or the other. Yeah, it doesn’t matter what side you are just the energy of grief, like a dark cloud over the country. And anger and separation and division. It’s it’s heavy, heavy stuff. What do we do with that? energy?

Brian Smith 56:44
Yeah, that that is an excellent question. And I think it’s an interesting observation. Because you and I’ve been talking, you know, people over the last several months, and everybody I talked to, as you said, on both sides are all they’re all freaked out right now, as we’re like, okay, in a couple days, or a week, or however long it takes us to get the results of selection, at least 30 40% of us are going to be in deep grief, you know, we’re gonna be feeling like we just lost the system, that the thing that we’ve we’ve relied on. So I, you know, as, as people that help people through this, we, you and I have to figure out, you know, what do we what do we tell people? How do we how did we deal with that,

Terri Daniel 57:22
I think having community grief ceremony says a really good idea, you know, like, maybe on your next podcast, maybe we could even do this together, make it a ceremony and have everybody do one of these strings, and just, you know, to, to express our broken hearts, or we can also do a string for positive affirmations, our prayers, for healing for the country, any kind and, you know, it’s another thing that we don’t have in this culture is community grieving. But we kind of do, you know, like, when there’s a mass shooting, all the people come out and they lay flowers. Yeah, little memorials. That’s a beautiful thing. And I’m really happy to see people in America doing that. So maybe we should come up with some way to do that. For the election. You know, or just for, you know, the loss of, of safety. Yeah, in our society. And the thing is, we were never really safe, that we never that sense of safety was always the loss of the illusion of safety.

Brian Smith 58:27
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But there’s so much. I mean, as you went through some of those different types of losses, I mean, you know, my wife lost her job, you know, we lost our loss or health insurance. You know, there’s everybody, people going through all this stuff, people losing their businesses, you know, small business owners are going out of business. So there’s, there’s a tremendous amount of loss and grief right now. And people have not really been trained to have a, how to deal with it. So I think, you know, taking courses like yours that you’ve got coming up this weekend, even if you haven’t maybe had a loss yet, or if you haven’t had a loss of a person, just understanding the whole idea of grief as it relates to everything, and any type of deep loss that impacts as, you know, at a deep level.

Terri Daniel 59:15
Yeah. And, you know, another kind of loss that we’re experiencing is we lost freedom and autonomy. Absolutely. We’re not free to move about the world, like we were, you know, I mean, you could drill down on the on that list of losses and just find so many things. Another thing that’s happening, too, is relationships are breaking up. Not just because of politics, certainly because of politics. There’s been rifts and families, but even COVID one of my longest best friends that I’ve had for 50 years who lives two doors down is not speaking to me anymore right now. Because he just got he’s like excessively extreme about COVID. He still washes the cereal boxes when he brings them home from the grocery store. Okay, I’m not quite Hit that level, really mad at me because he thought I was too loose. About COVID Oh, wow. And you know, there’s this big split in our relationship. I mean, people are just going crazy right now.

Brian Smith 1:00:12
Yeah. Well, that’s Yeah, that’s the other thing is there’s there’s a loss of family I, I know two people that emailed me just within a couple of weekends ago that we’re friends with their fathers on Facebook, that have unfriended their fathers on Facebook, because because of politics, and it’s like, I, I can’t talk to you on Facebook anymore. Because because we’re on different sides of this political thing. So it’s a time of a time of the world really, you know, as recognizing, you know, what’s going on and bright lines being drawn in. I like what you said also, though, about the illusion of safety, because we do have this presumption that the systems are going to take care of us, you and I, that our kids are going to outlive us. And then we realized that was never promised to us. And that could that can be a big loss,

Terri Daniel 1:00:57
nothing was ever promised to us. And you know, that’s another thing that in the Judeo Christian way of thinking, is, there’s this idea that if you’re a good person, and you’re faithful believer, yeah, there’s a promise of protection, and safety. But of course, we know from the book of Job, you know, we just know from life, that there’s no protection and safety, that’s just gonna happen to you no matter what. And that’s why the religion designed it so that the promise is after you die, yeah, the promises in the afterlife, so we can’t show it to you now and your life, you’re gonna you’re gonna have poverty and sickness and loss and all kinds of stuff in this life. But if you believe in this belief, you’ll get your reward after you die. And that’s just such a bad belief. Because it’s, it’s been twisted into thinking that piousness and faithfulness can protect you, even in this life. I once had a woman I was renting out a room in my house, and this woman came to interview as a potential roommate. And I asked her for references, and she said, Oh, I don’t need any references. I’m a Christian. Yeah,

Brian Smith 1:02:12
yeah.

Terri Daniel 1:02:14
It’s like, Where do you get this idea, you know that you have something special, because your life is gonna fall apart, just like mine. And everybody else is so bad. If you go to the Buddhist way of looking at it. The idea starts out with Yes, of course, things are gonna fall apart. Mm hmm. And what we really do in our spiritual practice is learn how to go with the flow. Yeah, and how to be with the things because they are going to happen.

Brian Smith 1:02:38
Yeah, and that’s a really good point. And I like the way you put that about, you know, the promise, if there is a promise was for the afterlife. But people misinterpret that. And so many people come to me and say, What did I do wrong? or What did my son do wrong? Or why am I being punished? You know, I must have done, you know, something wrong, because otherwise wouldn’t have happened to me. And it’s such a hate to say it’s a juvenile point of view. But it really is, it’s about what’s what we’re taught in Sunday School, a lot of us that went up grew up in Sunday school, that if something bad happens, then surely you did something, to trigger it. And so that, that’s, you know, we talked about religion, good or bad, that’s an example. Or it can be very, very bad, because it really, people now they’re piling guilt on top of the grief, because you’re like, I must be responsible for this.

Terri Daniel 1:03:26
Yeah, and that is an infant tile way of looking at it. It’s exactly the way you learned it in Sunday school. And or interpreted it when you were five years old, in the mind of a five year old. And so most people get their theology at five years old. And then never think about it again, you just go through your life, and then you’re 35 and 45. And you still believe this? Because you’ve had no reason to change it. Yeah. until something shocks you into changing it, like losing a child, then you may start questioning that theology.

Brian Smith 1:04:00
Yeah, that’s, you know, that’s an interesting thing, too. Because there, there’s has to be something to knock us off that center, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, you know, it’s momentum, whatever you want to call it, we’re going to stay on something until it doesn’t work anymore. And that’s one thing about grief that a lot of times causes us to reevaluate, you know, reevaluate, reevaluate everything, right? We started saying, well, this isn’t working for me. And that’s when it can become a blessing. That’s when we can start to Well, that’s

Terri Daniel 1:04:31
because if you don’t reevaluate, then you’re stuck. And that’s how you get into complicated grief. So you reevaluate your relationships, your values, your spiritual beliefs, you know, you reevaluate your personal life, like why am I working at this job that I hate? Yeah, you know, I guess I don’t need to be here anymore. I don’t have this child to send to college. You know, maybe now I’m free to be an artist, you know, or something like that. But that’s kind of how it happened to me speaking of grief, to grow You know, I never would have thought that this is what I would do. But you know, before my son died, I was in a terrible, abusive marriage, I was obsessed with trying to keep that marriage together and suffering in that every day. I had no real power passions or interests in any sort of professional work, you know, I made it I was a writer, I made a living as a copywriter. I mean, my life was just kind of nothing. And now, it’s so full of meaning. And so that’s because I allowed things to shift. So what if people don’t allow things to shift? You’re going to see somebody who’s had a loss 10 years ago, and they’re going to be mad at God. Yeah, God was I had one client who told me this, two of his children died. And he said, when I became a parent, I only asked God for one thing to keep my children safe. And he didn’t do that. And I’m mad at God. And the answer to that is, you have to change what you think God is. Yeah. And if you’re not willing to do that, then you’re going to be mad, like he is not he’ll,

Brian Smith 1:06:14
yeah, that and you really have to start to change to change your perspective on the whole idea of death and dying and what it really is because if we get to we understand everybody that is born dies, every single person that is born dies, the only difference is how and when. So we get angry that God took our child that’s we’re really saying he took our child too early. we’re arguing with the timing, right? Yeah, they should have lived longer. And that’s that’s not for us to determine. And longer is not necessarily better. I mean, the more we start, when we really start to open up our minds and think about this thing here longer is not necessarily better.

Terri Daniel 1:06:53
Well, especially when you have a big view of what here is, yes, you’ve got like the 30,000 mile view from space, like what is here, earth, you know, this body is just like a stopover on this much bigger journey that goes on forever. This, if you believe that this isn’t all there is for our consciousness to experience, then you can see that bigger view and you’re not so attached to this. But if you think that this is it, you get this one life here in this city in this country with this family and this husband, and then the husband dies or something. I mean, that’s the end of the world. Yeah, because you think this is all there is. And again, this is kind of an Eastern versus a Western view. This is also something speaking of community grieving that is so interesting about climate change. And a lot of people don’t like me to say this. But the way people you know, people getting upset about climate change

is kind of just a form of that kind of attachment. It’s like, Hey, we’re here on the earth. We want it to behave the way we want it to behave. Climate change has always happened, the earth has heated and cooled and heated and cooled and, you know, planets blow up all the time. If you look at it from that big view. This is just a little rock floating around in the universe. And who are we to think that we have the control to keep it from dying? Hmm, we do have control about taking care of it, we can certainly treat it better. Yeah, you know, but in the bigger picture of things no matter what we do, sooner or later, it’s going to die. Because it’s the thing that was born to Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, we do we have this attachment, you know, and I go back to religion, because you know, I’ve talked a lot about religion over the years, I think about when I was a kid, I’m like, Okay, well, if we really believe that heaven is our home, and Heaven is so much better than Why are we sad when people go there?

Brian Smith 1:08:52
You know, it’s like, shouldn’t we be happy?

Terri Daniel 1:08:55
Have you ever asked that question of your, your pastor when you were a kid, or I’ve probably

Brian Smith 1:09:00
gotten all kinds of trouble in Sunday school? Because I would always ask, you know, those types of questions, you know, and and, yeah, it’s interesting how people are talking about near death experiences No, back to religion. Again, I was interviewing someone. And when people have near death experiences, a lot of time they get kicked out of the churches. They’re like, we don’t want you talking about that. I’m like, Oh, yeah, we’re supposed to believe in all that stuff.

Terri Daniel 1:09:23
Right? You’re supposed to believe in that. But your, your near death experience has to include Jesus and pearly gates. Yeah. And if it doesn’t, then you get kicked out of the church. One of my favorite Sunday school questions that somebody told me he asked when he was a kid, talking about the 10 commandments, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Mm hmm. The kid says, You mean there are other gods?

Brian Smith 1:09:46
Yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about that.

Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s one of the questions I would have asked to Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Terry, it’s, it’s really great catching up with you and I could talk about talking about this stuff. All day long, but what I want you to let people know where they can reach you find out more about you. I know you’ve got some some stuff coming up short term, you got the afterlife conference coming up again, hopefully next spring. So let’s talk. Let me let people know what’s going on in your life.

Terri Daniel 1:10:14
Well, the afterlife conference, we are planning to do it live in June, but it probably won’t happen that way. So it’ll be online. Again, we did it online in 2020. And it was great, and I loved it. And I’d like to do it that way every year if I could, but I’m contractually obliged to the hotel to do it there this year. I don’t know what’s going to happen there. But go to afterlife conference.com join the email list and you’ll get all that information. I’ve got this grief group starting on Saturday, go to spirituality and grief.com for that. And if you’re interested in professional development, I’ve got a thing coming up in January, called the conference on death and bereavement studies. There are seven CE credits for social workers, nurses, etc. That’s a day long online seminar and also a class coming up in a certificate program for spirituality and mental health. Lots of stuff. So go to spirituality in grief, calm and you’ll find everything there.

Brian Smith 1:11:19
Yeah, and I would recommend people to join Terry’s newsletter because you’re always sending out you know, information about and I get that through spirituality and angry calm right. Sign up.

Terri Daniel 1:11:29
Yeah, we’re afterlife conference.com any place you can subscribe and so it’s a newsletter that goes out once a month called the afterlife advocate.

Brian Smith 1:11:37
Yeah, yeah. Great, Terry. It’s good. It’s good. catching up with you again, looking forward to everything you got going on and hopefully work together soon.

Terri Daniel 1:11:46
Thank you, my dear. I love you to pieces.

Brian Smith 1:11:48
Alright. See you later. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Suzanne Giesemann is a messenger of hope—a mystic, metaphysical teacher, and medium who shares The Awakened Way – a path to knowing Who you are and why you’re here. Whether in her books, her classes, and workshops, her weekly radio show, or her one-on-one sessions, Suzanne provides stunning evidence of life after death. She is a former U.S. Navy Commander who served as a commanding officer and as aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Suzanne’s gift of communication with those on the other side has been recognized as highly credible by noted afterlife researchers. She brings messages of hope, healing, and love that go straight to the heart.

I’ve known Suzanne for nearly four years. Our paths continue to cross and I feel like she’s a friend. Shayna drops in on Suzanne on occasion to get messages to us. Shayna was also a big part of one of Suzanne’s presentations at several conferences. Suzanne is a great resource in these trying times. I recommend subscribing to her daily updates. They always help me through my day.

 

Transcript

 

Brian Smith 0:00
Hey everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth. And I’ve got with me today my friend Suzanne giesemann. I was just telling Suzanne earlier I kind of feel like she needs no introduction cuz I feel like everybody in the world knows who she is. But I guess that everybody does. So I’m going to introduce her anyway. Suzanne giesemann is a messenger of hope she’s a mystic, metaphysical teacher and a medium who shares the awakened way, which is a path of knowing who you are, why you’re here. Whether it’s in her books or classes and workshops for weekly radio show or one on one sessions. She provides stunning evidence of life after death. Suzanne is a former US naval commander who served as commanding officer as a to the air chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. Her gift of communication with those on the other side is to recognize as highly credible by noted afterlife researchers and she brings messages of hope, healing and love that goes straight to the heart. And I also want to say Suzanne, I consider to be a good friend. I was just thinking this morning, I guess I’ve known you for almost four years. met you in a workshop down in Pensacola, Florida, like, you know, four years ago. So I want to welcome Suzanne Kaseman degree for growth.

Suzanne Giesemann 1:04
Thanks, Brian. I’ve really enjoyed watching you change a bit over the years you were you’re still intense. But you were so intense and serious when it came to my workshop. And and I didn’t know if you were into all of this or not. And now I know that we all are.

Brian Smith 1:22
Yeah, well, that was I think it was February of 2017 sort of been probably a year and a half after Shayna had passed. And I was still at the time very, very deep. My grief, I kind of knew who you were at the time, my wife had been following you. And she said, If Suzanne ever comes close to us, I want to go see her and Florida is nowhere close to where we are. But we decided to come and it was great. It was it was really great to meet you. And I said that we felt developed a friendship since then. So for people who don’t know who you are, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into doing this.

Suzanne Giesemann 1:55
Well, even just saying that who I am, I’ve changed so much since Oh 12 years ago, or longer 14 years ago, that when I have to when I’m asked to tell my story, it’s from a whole different point of view. Now I recognize that what I’m about to share with you is strictly a story. It’s really not who I am. It’s not who any of us are at the deepest level. But we all learn from our story. So my story is that for most of my life, I was that Navy officer that you just described. And I had no idea that was a greater reality or that there was another aspect to us beyond this human life. And so I lived very much stuck in the story and took my role as a Navy Commander very seriously. And that that served me well because I did get to rise to the top of the whole military lifestyle there flying with the chairman on Air Force One and Air Force two and meeting kings and queens. It was just an amazing lifestyle. I get to serve as a commanding officer. That’s every every Navy officers dream. But there was still this emptiness inside this something’s missing type of feeling that I know most of us can identify with. And I don’t have children of my own. But my husband Ty has two daughters. And one of them Susan followed in dad’s footsteps. But she joined the Marine Corps, even though I said that’s like, not the best one for women. You know, that’s the hardest route. So she took that one. And I was with the chairman on 911. We were the lead in the last aircraft in US airspace. And that was a real wake up call for me to start asking, Why are some people in the wrong place at the wrong time? And all those other deep life questions because I knew some of the people that were killed at the Pentagon that I had just left hours earlier. That was my office building. And I wasn’t satisfied with the answers I got. So just put that aside. The seeking didn’t last for long. And all I knew was I wanted to run away from life after 911. So I did I retired from the Navy as soon as I was retirement eligible. And with my husband sailing for several years, we sold the house and cars and life was idyllic. I literally ran away from Washington DC, which maybe isn’t a bad thing to do. And that’s when I really had the big wake up call. It was like life said look, you have a path you came here to do it. This all was background. And so we had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean living a dream. And we’re off the coast of Croatia when we got the news we needed to call home something important had happened. And that phone call dropped us to our knees was that Susan was crossing the flight line at Marine Corps airbase where she was station and a bolt of lightning out of the blue Strucker down and they worked on her for seven hours and they couldn’t save her. So To find out that Susan was gone and a phone call was, Oh, it’s shattering. We return to the United States. And I grabbed a couple of books on the afterlife to take back to Croatia after the funeral. But it was the funeral itself that really changed my life. Because in that moment of looking at Susan’s body, I knew there was something else besides the body that makes up who we really are. It was this epiphany, having not really seen no, having not seen anybody. I don’t I may have seen a grandparent or something, but nothing had the effect of me of knowing that that wasn’t Susan, that was just the vehicle. And so I decided to start meditating. I thought people have done this. I’ve heard about this meditation thing. I’m gonna see if I can connect with her in whatever form she is, she has to still exist. And I’m gonna take my husband to see a medium

and so people need to understand I had heard about mediums to think that I would one day be a medium was not even on my radar. Yeah. And, ah, never saw spirits never talked to guides. They’re nothing. I used to think there’s no such thing as spirit guides. Can you hear him laughing at me now? And the medium? Well, I made sure she didn’t know our last name. I was not going to be gullible. I was not going to be hoodwinked by somebody that was a fraud. But this medium, nailed it. She brought in a young girl who passed suddenly in her 20s, who was she had an electric tingly feeling running up and down her arms, like, like, like lightning strike. She said, I have the headache of Zeus and Athena all of a sudden, and Zeus is the god scene with a lightning bolt. Oh, that had me sobbing. But what was truly life changing? Brian? was when that medium said, Wait, wait, this young girl who’s looking at your husband and saying Daddy, Daddy, and she’s upstairs dancing around in front of you saying mother is bringing with her a little baby, a boy she wants to introduce to you but he’s standing back shyly, as if he doesn’t know you. And he’s sucking his thumb. Well, what we hadn’t told the boy, he hadn’t told the medium anything. But what very few people knew was that Susan was six months pregnant with a boy when she was killed. So we lost both of them that day. But that medium showed us that you don’t lose them. In the total sense physically, yes. But that, that turned my my worldview upside down, I couldn’t deny there’s a greater reality. And so I was all in, I’m gonna learn about mediumship. I’m going to find out why it works, how it works. And I’m going to write a book about mediums that people will actually read not not, not some text book, but maybe a biography. And I ended up writing a biography of two mediums. And by attending their classes found out, I can do it too. And I’ll just touch a quick, I don’t do anything halfway. And once I found out, I had a connection to the spirit world, my whole life has become about making that connection, as clear as possible. Because if I can offer the kind of healing that that medium gave to our family in one hour to anybody else, that would be nothing more sacred to me. And now I get to do it every day.

Brian Smith 8:32
Yeah, one thing. But there’s a lot of things I find fascinating about you. But you know, it’s interesting that you’re you’re not what we call a natural born medium. You didn’t see spirit from the time you were a child. But I know you I know you for several years now I know how you work on things and how you work to develop this. So that gives hopes to people like myself and other people that feel like we don’t have this as a natural ability. So how did you choose to meditate to to connect with Susan, Where’d that come from?

Suzanne Giesemann 8:59
Well, it must have come from the soul. Because I just knew that I had to quiet my mind so I could hear her or since her obviously my eyes weren’t working to see her. I started trying, saying Susan, let me see you and that never work. I still to this day have not seen a spirit. But I’ve thought okay, I’m not going to hear with my with my physical ears. She’s not in physical form anymore. So something in me said shut out the outer world, and maybe I’ll find her. And so I just sat and I fell asleep every day for three weeks when I would sit to meditate. It’s like the body was saying, whoo, we finally get that time. Yeah, this one doesn’t take naps, you know. And then I just started to know things. It was actually three years, three years till I connected with Susan Hmm, but I connected with other people’s loved ones first. That’s really important for grieving people to understand that your commitment Just the knowing that they’re here to trust that they’re here. But the thing is, Brian, so many other wondrous things happen in those three years, including total transformation of how I see the world. And now I saw myself that it was worth it.

Brian Smith 10:16
Yeah, I think that’s another really important point. Because I think a lot of us, we want to see our kids or hear them and we feel like we’re not connecting. If it’s not something physical, you know it through our auditory senses, our visual, and it’s really not, it doesn’t work that way. I think for most people.

Suzanne Giesemann 10:32
Well, could it also be that Susan was hanging back, so I would have all those transformative experiences. Yeah. And get to know the greater reality better, and get to know what love is. and self love is and build up my own consciousness. And then it was like, Okay, now I’ll come in. And there she is.

Brian Smith 10:50
Yeah. So um, you go through this and you go through this transformation and and you start what started you actually doing mediumship as a as a profession or to start reading for people?

Suzanne Giesemann 11:01
Well, it was this exactly what I said, when I discovered I could connect and if you go to YouTube, and and search for Suzanne keys, and messages of hope documentary, you’ll see in there, we recreated the moment in gentle habits class where I was there to write her story. But she pulled me to the front of the room and said, there’s a spirit here, you can do this, what do you sense, I not only got how the guy died, that it was somebody’s father that how old he was, and what he looked like.

But I he gave me his nickname.

When that happened, I said, Oh, my God, I can do this too. And like I said before, if I can do this, for others, I am all in and I was I just started taking classes and working more on myself. And when you take classes, you do practice readings with other people. And I said, Wow, this is working. So let’s just make every reading a real one. And the practice one to this day, it’s a practice of doing mediumship. And we just get better and better and better by doing it. And that’s what makes it so joyful, even for the medium.

Brian Smith 12:08
Yeah, and I’ve seen over the years, as I’ve watched you develop, and I’ve seen you, you get excited when you find new techniques and new things that work and you’re always, you’re always pushing yourself, you’re always trying to get better at stuff. And you call yourself an evidential medium, and a few mediums do but not all mediums do. So what’s what’s an evidential medium.

Suzanne Giesemann 12:28
An evidential medium is one who’s not satisfied or content, until and unless those across the veil give us verifiable facts about them that we couldn’t possibly know. That’s the evidence. So we don’t settle just for messages. Oh, there’s a beautiful light here, your loved one is here, they love you very much. Those are the messages that balance out the evidence in a reading, we need to get both evidence and messages. It doesn’t always have to be 5050. But there needs to be enough evidence that shows us that shows the continuity of consciousness through validation, that life is continuous.

Brian Smith 13:07
Yeah, and I that’s something I’ve learned from you and I and I’ve worked with a lot of mediums over the years with helping parents heal. And something I’ve learned from from you especially, is does have to be as balanced. I’ve worked with mediums who just give you a list of evidence and and it’s just those readings are very dry, they’re frankly, they’re not very healing. And then there’s some mediums to just say your grandmother is here and your grandmother loves you very much. And you know, those we have to wonder, did they really cut my grandmother or not? So and I’ve noticed with yourself, you always establish evidence, you know, first and every time I’ve seen you give a reading or, or do anything, it’s all you you’re about the evidence, which helps us to really to believe and understand that you’re really making that connection.

Suzanne Giesemann 13:47
I’m glad you noticed that that’s certainly the goal. But you know, Brian, I’ve even narrowed it down more lately and I teach I teach. I love to show people how this work that that you can do it too, because it is a natural ability. We are all souls. And this is Soul to Soul communication. But what I asked every medium to go for is to capture that essence of that loved one across the veil. Who are they as a person and a soul. So you must feel into that personality. If I don’t feel their personality I call the reading off, because it is possible to pick up information about someone as a mentalist from the sitter’s energy field. And so it’s very possible to get that list of evidence and be blown away. Wow. But if you don’t capture the essence, how do we know you really had that person there? This is a two way conversation. They make me laugh those across the veil the way they bring things through. I have to tell you, I did one the other day. I started off and I knew the couple had a child who had passed and I tuned in and I was getting a few things but I said This feels like the sun. And they said, No, it’s a daughter. And I thought, whoa, this, you know, you start off and it’s, it’s like a snowball, sometimes the energy picks up, and I’m like, Whoa, that’s a big one to get wrong to not be able to feel male or female. Then we got her I dug in, and I could feel her personality, and now were flowing. And then all of a sudden, she shouted her name at me. And I usually don’t get names, but it was an unusual thing. It was like, Whoa, I said, she just gave me the name such as such a mom very nonchalantly goes, Yeah, that’s her name. And I went,

Unknown Speaker 15:34
Wow, you’d have no idea what

Suzanne Giesemann 15:35
a miracle it is for me to get the name. And then I started laughing. I said, Your daughter said, Your daughter just said just like that. Well, that was the makeup for thinking I was a guy. And the mother laughed, and she said, that sounds just like her. And I said, That’s because it is her. And that’s when you get the essence. And so the test of any good reading is, does your client or sit or leave and say, Oh, my god, that was my loved one. Because you captured their essence.

Brian Smith 16:08
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something that you do so well, when you when you do readings. So I a lot of people, my listeners are parents who have lost children because of my association with helping parents heal. And because of my own story, as you know, the name of my show is grief to growth. So how did you think mediumship can help in terms of transforming people’s grief?

Suzanne Giesemann 16:27
Ah, transformative is the word I had a father that wrote to me and begged me to do a reading and my waiting list has been closed while I tried to catch up with the long list. But the heart said do this one. And I did it. He said, my wife is she’s not eating or sleeping well, well, her son was his stepson came through so beautifully with a few moments. She was pretty serious throughout grief, of course, does that. But at one point, she left too. And one of the things he showed us that was so significant it was at the time, she told me I could share a domino, show me a little Domino, I said, Now I don’t think he’s shown me played the board game. And she goes, let me tell you, let me tell you, he, he was a manager at Domino’s, his dad owned a whole a Domino’s franchise. And one of the things he left was this little Domino truck. And no wonder we were clapping. That’s a wow, you know, and never many other wells in that reading. But afterwards, I wrote to her husband who had originally reached out to me and I said, Tell me how she’s doing. And he said, she cried every day for two years. And she has not cried a single day, since you’re reading. Oh, how’s that for wrapping up what a one hour session with an evidential medium, can do by the grace of spirit, when the energy is perfect, and you have the best energy with that spirit with the medium and with the loved one here. And everything clicks, you can show that parent or any loved one, they are still part of your lives. And so we can’t turn back the clock and get them back physically. But it’s so much different than dead and gone. Yeah, forever. And that’s simply not the case.

Brian Smith 18:18
Yeah. Now I know, I’ve seen some people get I don’t use the word but get addicted to medium readings. It’s like they want to come back over and over again. So what do you say to someone that’s saying, I want to connect with my my loved one again, I want to go get another reading?

Suzanne Giesemann 18:34
Wow, that’s a good question.

Just realize that we are here to live our lives, they are living their lives in a different chapter. And just like we would call our loved ones regularly. They’re overseas now. And it’s a long distance call. And it cost a little bit of money. And trusting that they’re here is one huge goal. Developing your own sense of their presence is huge. There’s only so much they can tell you through a medium. So it’s realizing we don’t need the medium. We, the greatest thing we can do is develop that connection ourselves. And that’s how I started on this path. My sole goal was to connect with Susan and she doesn’t come through that often. But when she does its bonus, it’s wonderful. But I just trust that she’s around and live my life to the fullest in her honor.

Brian Smith 19:33
Yeah. And what would you say to someone, they’re new to this thing, this mediumship thing and they’re saying I’m nervous. I’m skeptical. Should I you know, what would you say that person?

Suzanne Giesemann 19:45
I would say, what’s that word skeptical? and say I’m open minded? Because I just heard a recording with David Hawkins the other day and he said, people who are atheists create exactly what they expect. There is no God that you get what you expect. And I said, this is exactly what happens in a reading. If you expect that there’s no connection, you, your wishes may very well be fulfilled, because you are walking that whole flow of energy. Remember how I said, it’s so important that the sitter is part of that connection. And I’ve had this happen so much so that if somebody said, I want you to do a reading for my neighbor who’s grieving, I won’t do the reading, unless the neighbor shows me, I want this reading. I’m open to it. Because if they’re skeptical, and they only do it, because their friend says I should have this reading with this person who was a medium who’s probably a fraud, guess what? They’re going to get nothing. And they’ve just proven themselves, right? in their own mind, we know better. So being open minded, open hearted, is hugely important. Because it’s a flow of energy. And it’s part of our life’s path to open up to the greater reality, if we’re already sucked to it beforehand.

Brian Smith 21:10
Not going to experience it. And it’s interesting. So I hear you saying you should be careful with the word skeptical because I tell people to be skeptical really means to be still be open minded. It just means to be to be cautious and to so when you went to see the medium, you said you weren’t you weren’t gonna be gullible, you weren’t gonna feed or anything, but you were open to the experience.

Suzanne Giesemann 21:28
I was. And I was skeptical. So that word is valid, but just saying be cautious of it. And we should be. Every time I say should my guides grab me watch the sunset, okay? It is beneficial to be skeptical. Because not everybody does make a good connection. But that open mindedness and open heartedness is hugely important for the energy field that you all create together.

Brian Smith 22:02
I have to say, I’ve been I’ve been in this field for about four years now working with people like mediums, etc. And I find a lot of people in this field are still skeptical. You know, I Sandra Champlain one of the first people I started listening to her podcast, she still calls herself a skeptic. And I know a lot of mediums are skeptical, not about mediumship itself. But about individuals. We don’t we don’t know if that person is on the up and up are a good, you know, good medium or not. So, I think you’re right, it is beneficial to be skeptical. But we need to be open minded when the evidence does present itself.

Suzanne Giesemann 22:33
And you know, what I was showing the other day, because I’m still skeptical about some other medium. I was showing I’m projecting. So somebody must have told us that something about mediums or how other people are, and we’re certainly not that way. So we projected on other people. We don’t want to be thought of that way. So we projected on other people. So it’s really interesting, the lessons we learned from our own defenses, isn’t it?

Brian Smith 22:59
It is Yeah, it is. So when I get I my experience is mostly with parents. And when a parent loses a child, I think it’s as I hate to say special kind of grief, because every grief event is unique and different. But we could get into a really, really deep grief. And I’ve heard some mediums say, well, that grief can prevent you from making your own connection, which to hear that as a parent, it just hurts because like, how do I get out of this? How do I make that connection? So would you say to that person,

Suzanne Giesemann 23:29
you don’t push it down, you allow it to be present and you honor it, in honoring that grief, you’re honoring the love for your loved one, you realize it’s a process your book and program is grief to growth, you go through that grief for the growth that ensues. And you know that as you go through it instead of suppressing it, your connection with your loved one will eventually awaken as your vibration rises. I want to just give you an example of two days ago, I sat to do a reading. And the same exact thing happened two days in a row. I said this feels like a sun and they said no, it’s a daughter and I went Oh, not again. This is not good. And then I said okay, we’re gonna get the personality. And I felt nothing, no personality. And that’s why I go for the personality. Because I could have been sat there and read their minds about their daughter, but that’s not. There’s no integrity in that. And I said, what’s going on here and I knew exactly what was going on. My husband and I had just been working on our Japanese garden. we just calculated it. An hour ago. We moved literally one tonne of stone that morning, the two of us. I was exhausted. Mentally I felt good. But physically, I was so tired, but I had to schedule this reading and I thought I was going to do it. And clearly my energy was off. So I knew If I don’t feel that personality and I got the agenda wrong, two days in a row This time, it’s me. It’s definitely me. And so I asked them to reschedule for this morning. Hmm. Right after that reading, I fell asleep immediately. And I don’t do nap. So I knew it was me. This morning, I got up, I cleared my Shockers, I was like, we’re gonna do this right away, I can feel my guide. She’s present. I didn’t feel her the other day. And boom, that young girl stepped in the personality. It was a five bar reading. So what am I saying? grief, tiredness, illness, all of these affect our ability to tune in. So yes, grief will get in the way of your connection. But what do we do? We give it time we rest the body, we work through it. Because if you push it down and deny it, it’s still there.

Brian Smith 25:56
Yeah, yeah. That’s why some people that I work with, when it comes to grief, you’ve got to you’ve got to feel it. And you’ve just got to let it come through you. And I was working with someone just yesterday and thought that people apologize to me for crying over working. And I’m like, Don’t ever apologize for crying, those tears are healing. There’s chills or tears are cathartic. They help you get to push that stuff through you. And I heard you say earlier that you know, with yourself even it took us several years to connect with Susan. So I also encourage people you know, to be patient, with yourself and with your loved one.

Suzanne Giesemann 26:29
Yeah, but a very important point is not to despair. I mean, I I got we have fabulous signs from Susan in those three years. I’m talking about feeling her step in hearing her voice and having a conversation with her. That took three years. But in the meantime, locks the document or we got the butterflies we got the TV’s turning on we got the size she was around. But the the other thing is, Brian, as you will know, grief comes in waves. So it’s not

Unknown Speaker 26:57
like when am I finally

Suzanne Giesemann 26:58
passed it. There will be moments of joy. Even when you’re going through the grief process, there will be moments of beautiful lucidity when perhaps your loved one will get through far sooner than with me. We’re all unique. Each one of us.

Brian Smith 27:12
Yeah, it is. It’s a different journey for everyone. As you said some people they might make that connection right away. But when there there are people that do despair, and I’ve seen this when it’s when it’s taken longer than they think it should take especially in those early stages of grief when they’re just just so heavy. And so, so maybe even closed off to having that connection. But it’s also interesting, I talk I’ll talk people so I haven’t had any signs and I’ll ask them that. Have you had any dream? Oh, we I’ve had dreams? Or you know, or I’ve had you know, the TV keeps turning on and off. But I haven’t had any signs. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Suzanne Giesemann 27:47
Yeah, we have to educate people about signs for sure. Yeah. It was something I want to tell you, but I just lost it. So. Yeah.

Brian Smith 27:57
So um, you were talking about your guide. And you mentioned you said she I didn’t know that you had an individual guy cuz I know about scenario. I know about this group that you that you channel we’ll talk about tonight. But tell me about your guide. How long?

Suzanne Giesemann 28:09
You know, I had barrus my main mediumship guide for the first year of doing this work, but now it’s Brenda. Oh, wow. We have a friend. You know, Brenda, you met her right?

Brian Smith 28:21
Oh, absolutely.

Suzanne Giesemann 28:22
And so Brenda is a real pistol when she was here in physical form. And she had told everybody she was studying mediumship and Suzanne and I are going to be teaching mediumship in a school someday. And I thought, really Brenda, I don’t know about that. And she actually helped me teach a class with the shift network earlier this year. It was stunning. I had a chair set out for her with her Boa on the chair. And she would pull me over here and I would channel her it was it was amazing and hilarious actually how she would take over the class with evidence. And that then within the last in this last year, she has shown me that she is my mediumship guide now, and every reading barrus has stepped back and it’s stunning Brian before every reading we sit down we play this game I say you hear Brenda? She goes yeah, so what’s going on with our friend Lynette and boom, she shows me what Lynette is doing in the moment. Yesterday or no. In yesterday’s reading. I said no, it was whatever three days ago. I sit down I said Brenda you Here she goes. Yeah, and she shows me Lynette moving a zipper up and down. So I quickly get on there. I said Brenda is ready to work. She says she shows me you use the zipper. And Lynette texted back o m g this very instant. I mean, it’s just stunning that this little fun game filled with evidence that our guides are real that somebody we love Brenda is here working now and

Unknown Speaker 29:58
it’s magical

Brian Smith 30:00
That that is that’s really wild because I met Brenda and Lynette in that workshop that I met where I met you and they were at the time like follow you around the country like your, you know your own personal groupies. Yep. And Brenda, I was gonna say was when she was here was a force. And I know as soon as she crossed she came to you, right? Yeah,

Suzanne Giesemann 30:19
yeah. And that mean another one you know, like, what’s Linda don’t tend to do a reading you rarely work. I am. Lynette, Brenda shows me you have your hand and ice, you’re breaking up ice because that little spy, because this is what she’s doing. It’s, it’s stunning. It’s fun. It’s magical. And this is the kind of connection we can get with our loved ones. You notice this is without going through some big ritual quieting my mind. I just sit down. I know she’s here. Just like I tried to get all of you to understand your loved one to pass. When you think about them. They’re right here. So it’s just,

Unknown Speaker 30:54
Hey, what do you have to tell me?

Suzanne Giesemann 30:57
And you can get to the point where you have that kind of relationship Your daughter has dropped in on me like that many times? as I know.

Brian Smith 31:02
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s interesting, as you say that also because it takes time to think of our guides, who sees you know, these exalted beings that you know, and and, you know, I’ve read a series a book called The team, I read the I read it a couple times, I love this book, these books, but they talk about how we we are we come here in teams, you know, and we play different roles in each other’s lives. And so Brenda was here, Brenda played a role in your life in the physical. And now Brenda has crossed before you is playing a role as your guide right now. I didn’t realize she’d become your guide on the other side. That’s really cool.

Suzanne Giesemann 31:38
And as you say that about her some exalted being she’s cracking me up, she’s putting on like this turban, and she’s acting like that, but hamming it up because she’s, she’s anything but what, what allowed Brenda to step into that role so quickly is that she worked so hard on herself to clear out the blockages and the gunk, and she truly found self love while in human body. And that’s our path to realize we’re already that love that everybody’s seeking out here. And once we awaken to that,

like it’s like icing on the cake.

Brian Smith 32:13
Yeah. And I want to talk about I want to talk about Ben do some work. I just love talking about Brenda. But you know, she she had this illness that she was, you know, seeking healing from the physical illnesses and that she saw that he saw a healer. And I thought was interesting. Because, you know, the healer said, I guess that Brenda was healed, but not physically. And

Suzanne Giesemann 32:32
that thing, right, she cleared out the last of the gunk, it was Deborah Martin, and you can find that interview on my radio show messages of hope, through my website and the archives, and incredible story of how she sought healing of her cancer. But she died of cancer, but she was healed emotionally, spiritually. And that’s what she says, I went straight to the head of the class Brenda did.

Brian Smith 32:57
Yeah, I think it’s important for people in dogs A lot of times when we we lose a level we’re like, why did they have to go? Why wasn’t my prayer answer? Why weren’t they healed? You know, and, and I remember, this is kind of a segue. But I remember when you were channeling tonight at it was either hpH conference was another conference. And it was hpH. Because everybody in the room that lost children, everybody in the room, child transition. And someone asked why did this happen to us? And so nyas answer was basically, you see it as a tragedy from the human perspective. But from a higher perspective, it’s a different thing. And I still remember that when you when you are you are denia said that. And it’s something I take for as I’ve worked with parents that have gone through this because we we have a very limited perspective that that talking to someone like you and taking your classes and going to your workshops, can help us open up this broader perspective of who we really are.

Suzanne Giesemann 33:53
Yeah, that’s, that’s ultimately the greatest fringe benefit of trying to connect across the veil. We find out there were so much more than these finite beings. And it’s, it is transformational.

Brian Smith 34:03
Yeah. Well, that’s, I think that’s kind of what it’s all about. It’s that I we talked earlier, I said, Tell me about you. And you corrected me instead, it’s about your story. And we identify so closely with our story, but we are these infinite beings.

Suzanne Giesemann 34:19
Yep. And you say that it reminds me that we got invited to the Marine Corps birthday dinner here, where I live in my community were part of the I live in a community called moss Creek and they have moss Creek Marines, and Ty and I are honorary members because of Susan being marine. And we’re both retired Navy officers. So we’re honored that they allow us these Marines allow us to be part of their group. But Ty said, I’m wearing my uniform to that dinner and I thought, oh, we’re allowed to wear uniforms to specific things like that. And I found mine now I’ve retired. It’s really scary 17 years ago now, but I found my uniform and it still fits which is awesome. But I put it on. None. I found this bag of all my medals and all my friends. ribbons and on my doodads. Let’s say I would, that’s a terrible word. No disrespect to the uniform. But it says I was a commanding officer and I served on the Joint Staff. And Brian, I felt myself getting caught up in the story, oh, I even ordered a new set of ribbons because it didn’t have the last one that I earned on my retirement day. You know, it was like my guides caught me up short and said, Yo, what is happening to you? And the next day, I cancelled the order the ribbons. And I said, you know, we love our stories. But I see now I’m so proud of my time in the military. But I’m not gonna wear my uniform to that dinner, because that’s not who I am anymore. Yes, it was a wonderful role. But when you identify with the role, when it causes you to feel more important, or special, or all those things, that’s a trap. That’s a real trap. And so, yeah, I honor the story. Because of that background. People pay attention. When I talk about the gritty reality. So many people say, Oh, if she can believe then it’s safe for me to believe. And it is. Yeah, but I don’t want to go back to

allowing roles to,

to show me who I think I am. Yeah, a lot of times we who are we we’re souls, we are the light, we are the expression of this life force, who put on costumes. And I’m not talking about a uniform, I’m talking about this body. And I know this is so because I talked to those who no longer have a body every day, that’s what mediums have shows us. So my greatest goal is to see all of us here in physical form, without the body to see everybody as the light in the military, you walk down the hallway, you immediately have to look at what rank they are, especially if you’re outside. So you know, if you have to salute them or not. You look at the ribbons, you look at their insignia to identify them to put them in little boxes and see how you relate. That’s that that is the antithesis of seeing everybody as the expression of love of light. You see the difference? Yeah. And it was stunning. How quickly I was just gonna fall right back in that role I get to dress up.

Brian Smith 37:26
Yeah, that’s a great point. Because I think we do get caught up in roles and and we can either cling to those roles sometimes especially I know, sometimes parents when again, when a child transitioned, am I still a mother? Am I still a father? And and we’ve, we grieve the loss of that role. And we’re like, you know, who am I now? Because I’m, that’s all that I was. Or if someone gets divorced, I’m not a wife anymore. So that cleaning to the rolls can cause us a lot of suffering.

Suzanne Giesemann 37:52
Yeah, so you just, you know, we’ve come to this life to play roles. And we do, we do have to identify ourselves in some way, because that’s how we relate to people. But the question I ask is, I show a slide off and with this little character with a ball and chain around the ankle? Does that role help you or hinder you, I still will slip into the commander role when I need to be really organized and get things done. But I opened my heart at the same time and try not to be rigid about things. So that role served me well and still does. But I don’t want it to become my identity.

Brian Smith 38:27
Yeah, and it makes it makes life a lot lighter. I think when we can we can start to carry that perspective on a daily basis. I am not this body. I’m not just you know, Brian, I’m not just Suzanne, this is a role that I’m playing. I played other roles before I play other roles in the future. I think it makes it we can more easily let go of the things that seems so burdensome, you know, in this world.

Suzanne Giesemann 38:52
Yeah. And this is these are the deeper spiritual lessons that all come out of studying mediumship. So it’s just a blessing all around.

Brian Smith 38:59
But we’re going through, you know, incredibly difficult times. It seems like for everybody right now. And I’m sure as a medium, you probably get asked what’s your opinion of what’s going on? And what’s going to happen? And so that leads to a question. Now, what’s the difference between a psychic and a medium? And do you do psychic things? Or do you talk to dead people?

Suzanne Giesemann 39:20
Both because once you can talk to the spirit, you tune into an energy field and we and human forms are that energy field field, we just happen to have a body. So if you can tune into a spirit without a body, you can also tune into spirit with the body. And so you just merge your energy field and read it. But as far as the future, I don’t see the future as laid out in stone. It’s so variable depending on the choices people make. So the future is predictable to a certain point because you can get the higher perspective and see all the parts coming together based on choices that have already been made or about to be made, but too much farther than a few weeks out. It’s challenging, there are some who can do that very well. But that’s not to usual. So a psychic is reading the energy of someone here in a physical body. mediumship is someone who’s no longer in a body or guides and angels know that. As far as what’s going on now, the guides continuously just say, it’s all going to depend on the choices that you all make. But everything everything, especially chaos, and unrest is an opportunity to learn through trial and error, what works and what doesn’t. And always, when we tune into the heart, and align with the light, the force that flows through us, we come together in much more beautiful ways.

Brian Smith 40:43
Yeah, I think I think the chaos suits from my perspective, the castle numbers do breed bring us sometimes Stark choices. And we realize we get to make choices. It exposes things that maybe we could be doing better. But I know this is a time where a lot of people are feeling nervous, they’re feeling very scared, and wondering if everything’s gonna be okay.

Suzanne Giesemann 41:06
Ultimately, everything at the deepest level is okay, because source can’t be harmed. And we are an expression of that. And we will all eventually leave these physical bodies and say, God, it was like waking up from a dream. And I look at them, and I’m still fine. So if only I had known then that all is well. So if we could just, it’s like they say die daily to the ego to the story, right? If we could just join our loved ones in our awareness, sit beside them looking down on us. They tell us our loved ones tell us repeatedly in my readings, it’s fine. Everything is okay. So we we get caught up in the drama and forget, there’s another whole perspective we can take and find that piece that’s already present.

Brian Smith 41:50
Yeah, and I I get your messages every day from tonight. And I appreciate those very much because I get I first thing I look at when I get on Facebook in the morning, and it helps for people it helps for me to try to keep that perspective that that everything ultimately is okay. But you know, the drama, I think, was for some at some level, we’d like to drum I guess we must because we come here and do it right? So what would you say? What is what is the purpose? Why do we come here and do this

Unknown Speaker 42:18
source?

Suzanne Giesemann 42:20
spirit, God consciousness awareness is already whole and complete. But it’s so full and overflowing with potential. It’s basically people says it’s to get to know itself better. No, it’s completed, knows itself intimately. So it decides to know itself as something other than itself. So it becomes limited and finite in billions of expressions for the experience of being something other than holding complete. And through making choices. We get to experience completeness, fullness, joy, beauty, creativity, and something other than that, and it’s so painful at times we say, Ah, yes, but I know what it feels like to be complete. So I’m just gonna keep following that nudge back to completeness. So it’s for the experience of all of it. The Good, the Bad, the not so good. Not so bad, the whole palette, because it is school, we are here to learn lessons, but it’s more like art school, how to make something more beautiful out of the beauty that you already are.

Brian Smith 43:33
Huh, wow, that was a appreciate that. That’s a great way of putting it. So sometimes people I don’t know how you feel about soul planning. So I will ask you, how do you feel about so planning? Because when I talk to parents when they hear soul planning and be like, I would never plan this? Why? Why would I do this to myself?

Suzanne Giesemann 43:54
I can understand that. Trust me. Oh, yeah, I know, moments where I say let me off the planet, you know, and those other moments where you just know I am in this world, but not of it. I’ve asked my guides about soul planning and they’re absolutely roles we agreed to take on milestones we agreed to to achieve exit points, sometimes multiple when we can leave because you will have learned a certain amount. But within that there’s there is some sway because we have that free will get too far off the path and you will get nudged back. Other than that, I don’t want to get into that too deeply because it’s still going to be a story. And if I tell you I won’t know ultimate truth till I get to the other side. Yeah,

Brian Smith 44:47
yeah. Well, I was looking for your opinion. It’s something that comes up a lot. And it’s interesting because some people say yeah, and I know I know people that are very well versed in the afterlife and they’re like absolutely public. And I know other people say, Well, no, it’s all about freewill. My personal thing is I don’t think we know I think it’s, it’s somehow both and in our human minds can understand how it can be both at the same at the same time.

Suzanne Giesemann 45:12
That’s like, both human and soul at the same time. It’s not either or.

Brian Smith 45:16
Yeah. So I think, yeah, I tell people, I was talking with someone yesterday, and they were just like, I just can’t accept this. And I said, then fine. Don’t if it. If it doesn’t help you, then then don’t but what we can though is that we are ultimately going to be okay. And that and that it’s assistance. It’s temporary thing, right?

Suzanne Giesemann 45:37
How about we we are okay, right now beneath the layers of gunk that just needs to be excavated? Yeah, we are. Okay, now, it’s in there that help you through this time.

Brian Smith 45:53
I’ve alluded to scenario a couple of times, and people may not know, because I was so nice was tell us who are what’s deniers.

Suzanne Giesemann 46:00
They’re my guides who laughed at me when I said, there’s no such thing as spirit guides. I was stealing commander mode. And they’ve just proven themselves to me with evidence over and over and over again. And these daily messages that come through, and I sit to meditate each morning, thousands of people read them now Brian, and, and it’s what compels me to keep going because they touch people at a heart level. And they keep us balanced and centered. But the evidence comes in beautiful ways. Like, they’ll give me a morning message. And they’ll they’ll start by talking about puppies, and then make a metaphor about puppies in life. And then I find out later, it’s national puppy day, that kind of evidence, it’s just magical. And it started well over a decade ago are thousands of them on my website, we you can find it easily by going to daily weigh.org or on my Facebook page and sign up to get them by email. But one thing that guys have said over and over is that we get so caught up in our human roles and the drama, we’re here for the experience. But it’s really great to read something uplifting, something that helps us bring our soul awareness to front and center. So these daily were messages and there are many other things we can be reading as well are just a way to do that to not get so caught up in the drama that we think this human life is all there is.

Brian Smith 47:27
Yeah, I think I think it’s this it’s all about balance. As you said earlier, we have to be we have to be both we have to be in use in the world, but not of it. And so I know your backgrounds, not really in religious stuff. But my background is very religious. So I quote Jesus all the time. And being in the world, but not of it keeps coming back to me over and over again. And when I’m when I’m talking to people, I’m like, okay, we have to be part of the human story. The human story does make a difference. You know, we do feel real pain and everything. But we are at the same time this this magnificent being that’s that everything is all well, and we have to we don’t want to get so lofty that we can’t function here. Because I’ve heard people say that they’ve had spiritual transform experiences where they lost their ego, and they’re like, I couldn’t do anything. Like I couldn’t go to work, I couldn’t do anything. On the other hand, we don’t want to get really too bogged down. He does something like sinaia to me on a daily basis, you know, really helps me to say, Okay, yeah, I’m going to be okay, I need to go out and still do my thing during the day, I’ve got to go through all the stuff we have to go through as human beings. And I was talking with someone just earlier today, we were saying, you know, because we’re both, we’re both followers of you. And we were saying how, you know, we were looking forward to going home, but we’re enjoying being here, but at the same time.

Suzanne Giesemann 48:39
That’s wonderful. And that’s that’s the whole goal to enjoy the experience during the good times. And during the times that aren’t so good. Just recognize that isn’t experienced, and this too shall pass. I wanted to say that. So Naya is the name that this group of guides gave me when they first came through in 2009 or 10. And I looked up the name and it it means eminent distinguished and of the gods it means one worth knowing. But it was years later Brian I found out it also means flash of lightning, which is how Susan was killed. And so it’s a group of higher beings, they they change sometimes there’s a different voice speaking like a literary voice, sometimes philosophical, sometimes scientific, but they know what they’re doing far better than I did.

Brian Smith 49:31
Yeah, well, I’ve known you for a while and I remember when I met you, you were starting to channels and I have publicly you’ve only done it a couple of times I think before that and I got a site for me it was really interesting experience because you said you know I don’t I didn’t know if you’re into this stuff or not. And that was a little bit beyond my comfort zone. But I’ve seen evidence since then. That it’s definitely absolutely for real.

Suzanne Giesemann 49:54
Oh yeah. I love when the guys come in. They’re like, I don’t know Is she memorizing all those words? And then we take questions from the audience. And the answers are immediate, they’re fluent, they’re clear. They’re lengthy. And it’s just no denying that’s not coming from this one.

Brian Smith 50:10
Yeah. So um, Suzanne, you’re everybody wants to get a reading with you. And I know you’re, you’re, I think you’re taking wedding lists anymore at this time.

Suzanne Giesemann 50:19
I know that, because we just got it down to under 800. From the thousands.

Brian Smith 50:23
Yeah, well, you know, it, you’re, like I said, I said, when I talked about, you always assume everybody knows who you are. Because I know that you’re, you’re definitely one of the best mediums in the world in terms of your messaging and the evidence and everything else that you do. But I know you give of yourself in a lot of other ways with your radio program, and your and your, what you’re doing with this shift network. And so tell people other ways that they could reach you, besides just getting a reading with you?

Suzanne Giesemann 50:50
Well, that’s the thing, Brian, it’s kind of the old, give a man a fish or teach a man to fish, I can’t, I can’t deny the impact of a reading. And I love doing them. And I will continue to do them. But I can reach far more people and help them help themselves by teaching you how to connect yourself. So I do that in a variety of ways. First, I have my radio show, just to give us hope that’s a weekly thing. And then I have monthly mentoring sessions, which people happily find very valuable because I keep doing them. And what that is, is the freshest teaching from the guides over the past month, they’ve never failed me two solid hours of what the guides want us to know about connecting about mediumship about our lives about raising consciousness. So those are monthly mentoring. And then I have this three courses with the shift network two are already done. I have a new one starting in December with a big launching event for that I believe sometime in November, if you’re on my email list, you’ll find out about it or Brian can tell you about his email list. And then what else I have online classes I have meditation, CDs, lots of free gifts on my website, Suzanne giesemann comm slash gifts, and probably 100 YouTube videos, and just so many tools to help you connect yourself. You never know if you can be a medium for other people till you try. If you haven’t been seeing spirits your whole life, I’m the living proof of that. So it’s it’s fun to open ourselves to new experiences. And most of all, the greatest gift I can give everybody, besides showing that their loved ones are still here is showing how much love is inside you right now. This is just an awesome journey to be on with all of you.

Brian Smith 52:33
Yeah, it’s, um, I just said, you know, getting to know you over the years and watching as how you’ve developed your, your integrity, your professionalism. It’s just it’s really, it touches people, which is why everybody wants to wants to get a reading with you. So people always ask me, like, Who’s the best beating me and I’m like, Well, you can’t get a reading with theirs. Tell me Give me somebody, let me give you somebody else. But there are other ways that people can can learn from you and experience you know, what you’ve experienced. And and your story is just your story, not who you are. But your story is really, you know, inspiration, I think, for people that are skeptical and say, you know, this stuff is all woowoo and you know, your naval commander background that that gives you credibility. So

Suzanne Giesemann 53:17
well, you know, the greatest thing for me is the joy of doing readings when when these wows come through and I’ll say, Oh, that’s a wow. And I still do I get so excited with something fun happens. And I remember this one guy who came with his wife, and they each got a rating separately. And he came in I said, so how do you feel about mediumship? And he says, Well, I’m kind of on the fence about it. I sent all right. And all this stuff came through and including his brother who showed me a special knife that he still had from his brother. He showed me his brother was really angry. So it wasn’t just oh, here’s your brother who loves you. He was an angry man. And then in comes this guy’s friend I said your your friends show me you guys used to smoke these funny little cigarettes. And he said how you doing bro? And he also tells me you actually have Native American background and the guy’s eyes are just wide like this. And when the reading was over, I said so how do you feel about mediumship now and he says I gotta tell you I’m not on the fence anymore. It’s like yeah, spirit did that they got another convert there to the fact that we are not alone. I just want to tell everybody talk to your loved ones Brian the thing that I’m not satisfied unless I get in every reading is current events. What is your level and just done recently? What’s going on in their life now to show they’re here with you like your daughter tells me You’ve just spilled a glass of water and you were wiping it up right before the reading or your your husband tells me you have a tooth that’s missing right here. Yeah, just fill out these kinds of things like, like Lynette is, is moving a zipper up and down. These are common events of the Spirit. See, because they are part of our lives. They are right here.

Brian Smith 55:04
Yeah. And I’m glad you said that because my daughter, you and Shana seem to have a special relationship with Shayna. We’ll drop it on you and you can’t buy our house like it’s about a year ago. And you were telling us things that we were we were doing that day or a couple days before. And Shayna will tell you things that are happening in our lives. Or, you know, I remember one time you said something about Kayla was playing with the basketball. And I was like, well, Suzanne’s got that wrong, because Kayla won’t touch a basketball. My daughter hates any kind of sports. And we called her and said, you know, would you play with the basketball that maybe your boyfriend Did you know, they were playing the basketball or something. And she’s been playing with one little girl she was watching. And they were making balls out of playdough and pretending they were bouncing them like basketballs. So I would when you said that I was like, there’s no way that That’s right. So and I could tell I could go on and on with stories just between between your yourself and myself. But I say this to the audience to be open and to look for look for signs and and and they’re just incredible things. And I had a friend once she asked me she’s a she’s a I guess you’d call herself an atheist. Maybe she called herself agnostic, but she didn’t believe in mediumship at all. But she was open minded. She said, Tell me the best medium, you know, Brian, because I want to get a reading from the best medium that you know, I don’t believe this is gonna work. I’m not going to tell her any information. But I’m gonna I’m gonna check it out for myself. And I gave her the name of a friend of mine. And she called me back later on. She said, she blew me away she made she converted me she and so I was like, I was so glad now she’s she’s a believer. I’ve had her on my show. She’s like, yeah, I’ll tell everybody about this woman because she told me things she couldn’t possibly know.

Suzanne Giesemann 56:39
Yeah, that’s what it’s all about. Yeah. And spirit will pull out all the stops to let us know this one. When, when it serves the greater good. I have one woman I was getting next to nothing. And I feel this woman’s grandmother here with me. But just it was like pulling teeth. And I said, I’m sorry. It’s just not flowing. And the woman said, dog going at this happens every time. I mean, I feel my grandmother around me, but I

just can’t believe she’s here.

Yeah, you know, grandma had to hold back because that was this woman’s life lesson to open up to trust them believe our beliefs are so important. Yeah.

Brian Smith 57:22
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good to know. That’s, that’s, I think that’s important for all of us. And so I want to encourage people to set to, to stay open to look for the evidence to look for the signs. You know, if you if you begin about getting medium reading, find, find a good medium, find a recommendation. It can and it can change your life. I’ve seen it change people’s lives.

Suzanne Giesemann 57:43
Like the woman who, whose son came through and said, Mom, you don’t need those meds anymore. And I said, check with your doctor if he can go off this medication. But she was so transformed by that reading. She went back to work and her colleagues said, What meds are you on? You’re so happy all of a sudden she said, My son is my meds. Yeah. That’s it. She found out he’s still around. And

that’s what we need to know.

Brian Smith 58:11
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Suzanne, I really appreciate you doing this. I know how crazy busy you are. So I appreciate you fitting this in your schedule. As always good talking to you. So I’m

Suzanne Giesemann 58:20
up and I’d rather do Brian and let people know how real this is.

Brian Smith 58:25
Yeah. All right. Well, you have a good weekend. You too. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai