Transformed by a
Brush with Death
Nearly dying, or finding ourselves in a situation when we could die at any moment, can have a profound effect on our lives. Some of us may simply feel great relief to have made it through the incident, and end up with feelings of joy or exhilaration, no longer afraid to die. Others are left with less positive feelings. Those who have survived such an event can be left with feelings of anger, resentment, guilt, or fear. They may need assistance in releasing the negative emotions remaining after the encounter.
Another confrontation with death is what has come to be known as a “near-death experience,” or NDE. The term generally refers to situations in which an individual is clinically dead for a short period of time and then revives or is successfully resuscitated. While their life functions had ceased, they report events such as out-of-body experiences, encounters with deceased relatives or wise beings, or significant messages.
These experiences are of great interest to the public and more recently to medical personnel and researchers. Few people doubt that the situations are real to the person experiencing them, but there is still controversy over what causes them to occur. Some researchers believe that they indicate survival of consciousness after the death of the body, while others believe the experiences are generated by chemicals or neural responses of the dying brain. Additional research is needed to answer this question, but there is no doubt that these after-death encounters can lead to psychological and spiritual healing.
While most near-death experiences are reported to be positive, we have learned that not all who undergo a near-death episode have a clear or constructive experience. Research on patients having a cardiac arrest during heart surgery have revealed that some patients report confusion or anxiety following the episode. Some may need assistance to integrate the episode into their lives in a positive manner. Others may fear what this may mean for their future and desire healing.
Those who have had a positive near-death experience may wish to recapture the feelings of unconditional love and oneness they encountered during the event. Or they may wish to regain access to the source of wisdom they encountered, but are unable to do so on their own.
As we reported in our previous book, Llewellyn’s Little Book of Life Between Lives (2018), experiences described during a positive near-death experience are remarkably like those revealed in a Life Between Lives session. For most individuals, both experiences are life-changing. However, the Life Between Lives session is longer, offers more depth, and gives the opportunity to gain answers to questions. Thus, these sessions offer a way for individuals who have had a positive near-death experience to reconnect with the spiritual realm to gain clarity, healing, and additional wisdom. The sessions may also bring clarity and comfort to those persons who have fragmented memories of their near-death experience or some uncertainty and anxiety about it.
We believe that the spiritual realm is where we plan our incarnations on earth and where we return after our earthly death. We presume that individuals who have near-death experiences visit this realm briefly. The Michael Newton Institute continues to conduct research and collaborate with other researchers to expand our knowledge in this area.
This chapter presents cases that describe the healing from a Life Between Lives session, which can occur for individuals who have survived a life-threatening situation or who have had a near-death experience. We begin with the survivor of a violent event.
Rape at Gunpoint
Debra is a forty-eight-year-old hypnotherapist who has a Life Between Lives session. She gives the following history.
When I was eleven, my mother married a man named Charles who was half her age, and only fourteen years older than me. I can only conclude that she was flattered by a younger man’s attention, and he was good at presenting a positive and caring facade whenever they were together. It was a pretense that came down after they were married. The truth was that Charles was a narrow-minded man who believed that women were second-class citizens and that he was the most important person in the family. He had a love of guns and believed that they solved all problems.
Charles was a violent person. He beat my mother, he beat me, he beat my dog, and he attacked my older sister and broke her glasses. He created a state of siege in our home. The marriage only lasted two years, but all my memories of those years are in black and white. There is no color, no joy, no sense of really living.
When I was twelve, he started to come after me, first subtly, but when he didn’t get the results he wanted, he became open and determined about it. I was able to fend him off, sometimes with unforeseen luck or pure strength. But he kept trying. Eventually, the final attempt was rape at gunpoint, and I was afraid he was going to kill me. I managed to get away from him, but he told me that if I told my mother he would kill her. I was too young to know any better, so I believed him and kept my silence. From that point on, he left me alone. But for some unknown reason, he told her.
After that I was sent away from the family for my own safety. My mother filed for divorce and moved out of the house not long afterward, and we all moved to another area. Thus, a whole new and amazingly open life began, and those black and white years seemed as if they belonged to someone else. Sadly, when Mother and I were gone, Charles shot my dog and her cat.
When I was twenty-nine, a trusted medium told me that someone on the other side was asking for me to forgive him, so he could move on. I NEVER told anyone what happened, except my husband, who has been a huge part of my initial healing. The medium, however, was able to tell me the name of my abuser and the circumstances of my abuse, so long ago. I realized I had been hanging on to my anger and it was still hurting me, so I went through some healing- and anger-releasing processes and came out in a better place. But it was still there, deep inside.
Debra got training to become a hypnotherapist and healer when she was in her early forties. She found that many of the men and women who came to her were survivors of the same kind of abuse that she endured. Because she went through similar things, she had the extra understanding and empathy to truly help them.
From a spiritual perspective, she understands that the childhood abuse was part of her path as a healer. But there are times when she still feels anger and resentment from all that she has been through. During her Life Between Lives session, as soon as she enters the spiritual realm, she is met by her soul group. She hears music, and they all move together as their energies blend into one flowing circle of love. Then a master joins them in the circle and they all dance together, joined as if one being.
From there she moves to a lovely park with huge trees and lots of pavilions. In each, there are different groups, as if each family has their own spot to picnic and play. As she walks past, those she knows come out and say hello. It is a wonderful bright sunny day in an incredibly beautiful park full of people having a good time.
Eventually, someone gets up and comes to stand in front of her. At first, she doesn’t recognize the person. Then she knows who it is. It is Charles, the man who was married to her mother and the one who abused her. Her gut reaction is alarm. But his image fades and she sees who it really is. Charles, on this higher spiritual level, is a soul mate, someone she knows and loves. He is someone she trusted enough to ask to do those awful things, even if, as a human being, we would judge them as negative and evil. He agreed to be the person who abused her. Because she asked him to play the role of abuser, he did not take on any negative karma. She asked for the experience of being abused so that she could become a better healer. As her soul self, she explains this further.
I asked to learn about being abused and molested, because being a healer is my soul’s path and this is part of the healing process. I wanted to have a 360-degree understanding of it so I could truly help others facing similar situations. It is part of my work in this lifetime and he agreed to that sacred contract for my sake. As Charles, he did not have a happy life—he was beaten and abused himself as a child and died before he was forty.
After the session, Debra stated that she believed that this was the final piece of her healing from her “brush with death.” She gave the following explanation.
Prior to my session. I would not have been able to share this story or even speak his name. It took me years to get to a place of normalcy and balance. However, the final piece, the true release and forgiveness and healing, came through my Life Between Lives session. This work heals on many levels and it is real. It was only during my session that I realized the complete truth of what happened to me, and remembered that I, in my soul state, had asked for this experience to help me grow as a healer.
This session allowed Debra to truly release the episode and forgive her abuser. She now looks forward to returning to her soul home one day and being able to thank him “face to face” for acting out of love and divine truth to help her become the healer she wanted to be in this life.
Global Tragedy, Personal Awakenings
Earth school offers countless experiences that create a range of negative emotions. Experiencing personal or global tragedy, for example, can create tremendous anxiety. If there is no relief from the stress caused by these experiences, both physical and emotional health are jeopardized. Yet even amidst tragedy, there are opportunities for growth and renewed perspective.
Laura, a forty-year-old-woman, lives with her partner, Fabian, whom she considers to be her soul mate. Chilean by birth, she migrated to another country with her family as a small child. As an adult, she suffers with depression, which depletes her emotionally. This impedes her creativity, something that is crucial to her career as a film producer.
Laura schedules her Life Between Lives session after being on the site of a terrorist attack in 2017. Five people were killed and fourteen others were seriously injured after a truck careened down a crowded street and burst into flame upon crashing into a department store. Laura was unhurt but was badly shaken. She has questions about her soul purpose, her depression, and the meaning behind her presence at this tragedy. She is also hoping to eliminate the blocks to her creativity.
During her session, Laura experiences a past life as Bree, a woman born into a well-to-do family. She claims that she felt stagnant in that life, as she describes below.
I am independent, no partner, no children. I chose this way of life. I am not like other women. I never dream about a partner and children. I want to see the world, travel. I still have the same character as when I was running around in our house when I was a child. I learn how to play the social games and I do not want any conflicts.
Women must fight for their independence now. I was born in a good family, I have support, so they leave me alone. But it is difficult to become someone in society. In a way I live inside hidden walls.
Upon her death, Bree describes her life as wasted.
I did nothing. I had money and status, I had all I ever wanted. I could have married someone like me who could have helped me and supported me. I could have explored the world as much as possible. Although I died in peace, my soul is frustrated and irritated that I did not do more.
Entering the life between lives, we hear from Ariel, the eternal soul of Laura. When asked by the practitioner to describe Laura and Bree’s similarities, Ariel gives the following answer.
They both feel trapped. They do not use their full potential. I think that Laura has developed a bit more than Bree. Unlike Bree, Laura has a partner. Not only that, she has more insight about herself and about her life. She lives life more fully.
Ariel responds to the practitioner probing about Laura’s attraction to writing and filmmaking and about what is behind the depression which is holding her back.
She has stories that can touch so many people’s souls. She has the wisdom now to explore her creativity to the fullest. When she goes inside herself it’s like diving into a deep well. It’s like a treasure chest and she can dive right in and pick up the details like treasures and gems. The gems are her stories that will touch people.
If Laura wants to do something, she can just do it. Nothing will stop her. If she adds some patience and peace, she can do it. She can soar like an eagle, like the one in her recurring dream. She can create whatever she wants on earth. She is free! She is competent. She has great inner power. She must tap into her higher perspective. The time for this is now!
In response to the practitioner’s question about the deeper meaning of Laura being at the scene of the 2017 terrorist attack, Ariel explains.
I was so frustrated. I wondered if it was time for me to leave earth, because I wasn’t getting anywhere. But at the last second, I realized that there is more to explore here.
Ariel goes on to explain the broader context of the incident and how it relates to the experience of others who are both directly and indirectly affected.
It was not only about Laura but about the people who were there. They needed to experience the same thing. It was the easiest way to do it. There was a much bigger picture to it than you see. Much, much bigger. We see it as sorrow, but all who were there needed to be there. Even those who died. They are fine now!
Elaborating on how collective experiences such as this terrorist attack are organized from a higher perspective, Ariel adds further explanation.
Those who participated were meant to be there. I am not sure how they all got there at the same time. I just know that Laura needed to be there because she was stuck. I was so frustrated. I couldn’t make Laura go forward in life. The recurring dream about the soaring eagle did not work. I tried to stir her using other techniques; even the depression was meant to get her to move forward. I thought, I give up! I cannot do anything more! It did not work. Then I wanted to shock her into waking up.
I had to find a way. Laura was stuck. She was difficult to reach. She was not able to break free from the malaise that had overtaken her. So that was why I needed to put her into a collective awakening like that. It worked. It woke her up. It did!
However, just because Laura and the others at the site of the attack could potentially benefit from the experience does not free the terrorist from responsibility for engaging in destructive actions. Even though some good came from this collective awakening, it does not give us permission to do bad things.
For Laura, her brush with death at this attack forged a path for her to move forward. It offered her a chance to break free from the despondency that had gripped her for so long. Seeing others die reminded her that she is still alive and still has a chance to move forward. Realizing that life can be over at any time jolted her awake to the sense that time was passing and she was standing still. The lessons that she learned from the experience provided fuel for her next steps as well as her dreams for the future.
We’re reminded from Laura’s case that our time on earth is valuable. It’s a time to explore, to experience, and to grow. Negative emotions, however, can make us feel stuck and prevent us from moving forward and enjoying our lives. Our souls and our guides try to help us get back on track through such things as recurring dreams, depression, illness, injury, or even close calls with death.
Surviving Life-Threatening Events
Tiffany, a thirty-three-year-old hairdresser and single mother of a seven-year-old child, comes in for a Life Between Lives session to gain a better understanding of the recurring life-threatening events she has been experiencing. She also hopes to gain some insight into the depression she has developed over the past several months for no apparent reason that she can identify. Tiffany owns a hairdressing salon and continues to train in the latest styling techniques. She travels throughout the world and leads a very active life. Tiffany has four siblings. Her parents work diligently. Her father is an artist, and her mother is totally submissive to him.
My father does not love my mother with all his heart. At home there is poverty and a lot of violence. My siblings and I often run away from home to our grandmother’s house while our parents are quarreling.
Nevertheless, as is customary in her home country, she and her siblings now financially support their parents. The father of Tiffany’s child was a foreigner. She said that he had a dark energy within him. He was also aggressive, and when she was pregnant, he quarreled with her frequently. She left him.
Tiffany reports that she is saved each time she experiences a life-threatening event, at the last minute. The first event was during her birth. After the umbilical cord was cut, she was accidentally poisoned. She doesn’t remember this event but has been told about it. She describes the second event as occurring during her teenage years, when she was hit by a car and had a near-death experience. Then years later, she was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy, just in the nick of time. Her near-death experience had the greatest impact on her and she is still somewhat troubled by it.
She describes it as starting with an incident with her parents, when she was fifteen years old. They were quarreling because her parents had forbidden her to go out. Refusing to conform, she made good on her threat to run out in front of a car. Observers reported that she was hit by a car and thrown almost nine feet into the air. Nobody believed that she could still be alive after that.
She was rushed to the hospital. She saw herself from above as this emergency operation took place. While she was above her body, her beloved grandmother, who had passed away earlier, appeared to her. Her grandmother told her to go back because she still had something to do, but she did not tell her what that was. She saw herself then in the ambulance and saw a cross that shone like a monstrance from the church. At that moment, her vital signs got better and she started improving This is the moment when she began to believe in divine protection. Now Tiffany really wants to find out what the task is that her grandmother had communicated with her about during this experience.
During the Life Between Lives session, Tiffany goes back to the time when she is hit by the car.
I wanted to run in front of a car because my parents did not allow me to go out and then I ran out and was accidentally hit by a car. I said that to my parents. [she sobs] I want to apologize to my parents because I did not mean for that to happen even though I said that. But it happened. [cries loudly]
They did not want to let me do what I wanted to do! [continues sobbing]
Next, she goes to the womb and experiences her mother holding her lovingly in her arms right after her birth.
There is a lot of light there. I am so happy that I am with her. It is very warm here. We want to go home, but we cannot, there are complications. They take me away. My mom does not want to let me go away. It is dark. After a pause [sobs] mom is here. She takes me and loves me. I want her to never leave me again.
Tiffany experiences her death in a past life and, as a soul, goes home to the spirit realm to reflect on the life that she has just lived.
I walk, I shine with light, there are many buildings, bliss. I look at all of this and admire it. There is someone here, but I do not see him. The light flows through me. This is like a light shower that cleanses me. I have been here, but I admire this place and see if anything has changed. I feel someone near me, an elderly, wise man in a purple cloak with a long stick. He has bright eyes, long hair, a beard, and a hat that looks like a pope headgear. I go with him.
There is my grandmother. She looks majestic. She emits a lot of light. She’s beautiful! She says to concentrate on my family. She tells me she worries about me.
I want the man who hit me with his car to come. He is here. I look at him with compassion. He still has so much to learn. Sad. I am told to pray for him. I thank him for the lesson. [crying] I have learned humility! I feel that what does not kill me strengthens me. I have become more determined, braver. He stands there. We hug each other. My spirit guide and grandmother are proud. Me too.
I want to apologize to my parents. Mama is holding me. She promised never to leave me, never. I feel strong gratitude. I thank you [crying]. My parents are here with my grandmother and I feel the love.
Tiffany reports that she experienced great healing from her session. She was particularly touched by the love she experienced from her mother during the session. She stated she now understands why her mother never left her father as others thought she should have. I wanted my mother to never leave me and she kept her promise and stayed with my father, and thus with me. I am now relieved of the troubled feelings that I had about my near-death experience. Love and forgiveness are so healing.
Traveling Through the Tunnel of Light
Zola, a sixty-seven-year-old woman, is retired from a career as a writer and editor. She was very involved with the theatre in her younger days. Because of a head-on collision years earlier, Zola traveled through the famous tunnel of light in a classic near-death experience. There she met with a council of beings of light, who were wise and humorous. They are guardians of humanity and the ancient wisdom, and shared with her the meaning of life and the secrets of the ages. She referred to them as Lion People, based on her own inner experiences. She said that these beings have been her companions for years.
During her near-death experience, Zola was given the choice to stay or come back. She cannot remember or imagine why she decided to come back, since during that time she felt such love and joy. Zola comes in for a Life Between Lives session to reconnect with the wise beings she encountered during her near-death experience. She also wishes to learn why she had this encounter and why she decided to come back.
Zola goes through a past-life journey that takes her to the life of Elsa, who lives somewhere in Germany at the start of World War II. She becomes involved with the resistance fighters to the Nazi movement. Elsa is captured in 1936, while they are trying to block a road as the German army tries to move into their town. She is taken to a camp of some kind, where she remains until she dies of malnutrition in the winter.
After the last breath, she realizes she isn’t cold anymore. She feels free but sad for the woman she has been, and she understands that she is no longer alive. She sees that Elsa had such a valiant heart, very fierce.
I am being bathed in love and light. I want to stay for 10,000 years! There are other beings around me, beaming and surrounding me with love. It’s like a party going on, but I have mixed feelings. I am still sad for Elsa, what she went through, and I am proud of the things she did to try to help. The Nazis did some horrendous damage! I feel like I’ve been away for a long time, now that I’m back. They are all telling me I did a great job. It’s a fast mood change.
I am walking around and talking to all the other people who are there and died first. We are talking war stories and patting each other on the back.
Wow! I’m glad that’s over! But wasn’t it fun!? We really lived! We were this group that was totally engaged with the life and all that was present to us, we just plunged in! I am starting to feel like it was all just a play. It isn’t really who we truly are.
Now we are all backstage at the cast party. Now there are more here than are in that life. Many of them are the ones who are there to meet me, not in that life, just friends who are in the audience.
Zola sees another soul coming forward that she calls the director.
He is very tall. He has been standing here the whole time, next to me. Good job, he tells me. I remembered the script, the plan. [pauses and gasps] We were betrayed! Someone in our group who we trusted informed on us. It was not done to hurt us; he was just trying to save himself. It was done out of desperation and self-preservation.
What was the purpose of that life? It was putting myself on the line for what is right. This was a deep truth for me. I see a picture book with flipping pages, different times and clothes and faces. It is people standing up for what is right and being punished for it. I’m done with those lives now.
Elsa reappears and addresses Zola.
Elsa tells Zola that everything was complicated in that life. But it was okay, just plunge into life! The water is fine!
Zola responds to Elsa by telling her she did well and that she showed her a lot. She tells Elsa that she didn’t hesitate!
Now Elsa dances off, wearing the same dress she did at a dance party when she was younger. She’s twirling around and moving into the light.
Zola is now about to enter the spiritual realm. As her soul self, she reports on what she is experiencing.
It is very expansive. There is a lot of movement and activity, but I don’t really see anything yet. I feel others around me, I am not alone. I see a series of meeting rooms. I will meet with somebody. The rooms get nicer and nicer, now I see an executive meeting room.
Now I am back at the pavilion I was at in my near-death experience and I am choosing whether to stay or go back. Next, I find myself back in the executive meeting room again. I sit down at a big rectangular mahogany table and chat with the others who are there. At one end of the room there is a wall of windows. The room is very bright and sunny, and there are potted white lilies and big potted palms.
Everyone sits down now, and I realize that I have dreams of this place. I see myself and see that they are doing it again. They unroll plans that look like blueprints, the plan of my life, for discussion. I am the architect; these are my plans. There is a general feeling of congratulations, validation, and self-love. I see that the foundation of my life is strong, even though it was so hard to build. Looking at my life as the house I’m building on that foundation, now I can complete it and put on the finishing touches. It’s amazing!
Why did I come back from my near-death experience? I wanted to see my house finished. At the time, the foundation was not complete. I see that the purpose of the near-death experience was to help me connect. I was about to give up, because I had spent half of my life working on that foundation, but I couldn’t get it right because things kept going wrong. They showed me how to fix the foundation.
I am in a new phase now. My house is finished and it’s perfect! I get to do decorations, flowers, find beautiful things to put in my house, bring beautiful people into my home. I love my house. It has a three-sided wraparound porch. I see myself putting tables and vases and lamps from all over the place. I can travel and collect. I understand that the message for me is to lighten up! I’ve finally finished it!
The practitioner asks, “Who are the Lion People?”
They are me; I am them. They are a clan of beings, my people. We have lived in many worlds. We are helpers and guardians. We guard the truth and humanity. Around thirty of us are here on the earth plane. It’s hard for us to be here, the vibration is too low.
I am exactly where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. They show me the image of a lighthouse shining the light to help people to avoid the rocks, even though I get smashed by the waves in the process.
A check with Zola six months later finds her doing very well. She has purchased a new home and is busy decorating it. She received the answers she needed from her session and now understands why she came back from her near-death experience. She still had work she wanted to complete on earth. She received assurance that she was right where she was supposed to be, doing what she came here to do.
An Out-of-Body Experience
Dana did not even remember that she had a near-death experience, which she refers to as an out-of-body experience until years later. She tells her story in her own words.
I had a serious accident. I was bicycling and a vehicle hit me. I do not recall anything about the collision, except for a flash of realization that I was going to die if the vehicle hit me head on. I remember screaming to alert the driver that I was in the path of collision, and then I experienced a knowing that I wouldn’t die, as the driver altered the course. That is the extent of my memory.
Dana’s body healed in time, but she had been traumatized by the accident and sought counseling to help her adjust to life after her accident. She continues her story:
Over time, my counselor eventually took me back to the moment I was hit by the vehicle. To my surprise, I recalled that I had an out-of-body experience. I was part of a beautiful black space, which was very peaceful. In this rich, spacious, loving blackness, there was no “me.” I sensed others in this space and had no desire to leave. There was a lot of chaos outside of this black space, and I sensed that someone really needed help. I felt so content and peaceful and continued to rest in the blackness. Time didn’t exist.
Again, there was more commotion down below and I sensed that the person was really in trouble. Then a beautiful silvery-white rope-like cord caught my attention. I felt curious to see what it was and lazily followed the swaying cord down. Later in discussion with my counselor I felt that I was tricked into leaving the peaceful black place. This lovely silver cord was placed in my awareness so that I would follow it down to my body. When I got close to my body, I felt like I was falling fast and then slammed into my body. My first thought was “holy cow, that person in trouble is me!” And my path of recovery began.
Through my recovery, I worked on reconciling my out-of-body experience with my life; I am alive! A big hurdle I had to get through was the realization that I was okay with others having an out-of-body experience, but not me! It took me time to accept and process the experience, especially the feeling of the space when there was no me. The philosophy of Buddhism and meditation helped ground me in the process.
Years later, I discovered Life Between Lives sessions. I was nervous about trying this out and initially felt that I was straying into nut-ball territory. But after I learned more about the process, I felt that it was an opportunity to better understand the context of the accident in my life, reconnect with the black space, and learn more about my out-of-body experience.
During Dana’s regression, the practitioner guides her back to the time of the accident. Dana’s guide is there, showing her what has happened during the accident. She is describing what she is experiencing.
My guide is showing me energy. He is putting on massive wings. He is showing me that he caught me when I was flying off my bike. I have a sense that he was flying so he could catch me. Others helped to catch me too.
My guide looks out for me. He is very strong and he is caring for me. I have nothing to worry about. He is a great guy. He has a powerful, strong light. I can feel the light in my body.
The practitioner guides Dana to let the light and energy do what it needs to do. Dana explains what she is feeling.
It feels different. It is a heavy energy that is healing all through the body. It’s like liquid gold, like white and gold light. It is a very firm energy. My guide is working very hard and all I need to do is let go. He is working on my fracture site and doing a body scan. Now he’s working on my head and checking the energy. My head energy is expanding, and it is sweeping all over my body. There is gold and white light with a thick cloud of red, gold, and silver sparks.
My guide is very stern and serious, and he appreciates the opportunity to work on me. I know I have a stern guide who never says much. I have seen him before. I am connected to him. I have an image of a crystal in my head that is helping me to heal. It is lighting up my whole body and I can feel the energy. He tells me that the reflections from the crystal are helping me keep out unwanted energies and letting me reflect energy in. This light is like a map because it shows me where to do more work.
The light of the crystal is important to me, as it helps me connect outward and inward. It’s like a clothesline to my higher self. It gives me light, so I can see and heal the shadowy parts of myself. I know I can heal myself after the accident. I know my body can do it. It is more important for the emotions to heal and I have been doing that work with my counselor. After I release the emotions, things that are cloudy become clear. My guide is done. I feel a completeness now.
The practitioner guides Dana to a quiet place to integrate the healing she has received. She is instructed to breathe in peace and light and return to her body. Dana makes the following comments during a follow-up to her session.
As I reflect on the Life Between Lives process, it was an incredibly powerful experience for me, which continues to offer new insights. The experience was not static. I came home to my body on a deeper level and feel more grounded on earth. As a human. I know that I am never alone and that I am deeply loved. But often I forget and then remember again. I feel a much greater respect and empathy for people now, recognizing that each of our paths as humans is uniquely individual. Love connects us all together.
A Troubling Accident
Judy, a thirty-five-year-old married woman, was on vacation with her husband and five-year-old son in another country when tragedy struck. They were driving along a mostly deserted road on a warm, sunny afternoon, on their way to another town, when they were hit head-on by a large truck. The last thing Judy remembers was hearing a lot of noise. Her husband was killed instantly and she was badly injured, but miraculously their son sustained only minor injuries. Adjusting to the loss of her husband and recovering from her injuries has been difficult. She is still troubled by the accident and its aftermath. During her Life Between Lives session, the practitioner takes Judy back to the time of the accident. She describes what she is experiencing.
I see my husband in front of me and he says that he is sorry. Now I see myself lying on the ground in an unnatural position. My hand is crooked, and I do not feel anything. Now, I see a bright light. It feels very soothing. I recognize my father, who is no longer living, and he is smiling. He tells me, “Be brave.”
I still do not feel anything. Somehow I know that my husband has died, but I want to come back. I want to come back for my son and for my dance career.
Next, Judy starts to feel some pain and tries to look around for her son. She is unable to move and can’t see him. She tries to call him but can’t seem to make a sound. Then she sees him walking around, looking as if he is trying to figure out what is going on. She tries to call out to him again, but he doesn’t seem able to hear her. It looks like he has a small cut on his forehead, but otherwise he seems okay. She feels very helpless because it is starting to get dark. There is nobody around, no cars and no light. She starts feeling hopeless and very afraid for her son.
The next thing she remembers is being picked up and put on a stretcher. Then she is aware of being in an ambulance, and her son is sitting right beside her as they make their way to the hospital. She is in and out of consciousness during the ambulance ride, but she recovers fully from the accident.
As Judy enters the spiritual realm, she receives some additional information from her guide.
My husband lost control of the car. The purpose of the accident was to help me connect with my strength. I see a picture of a tiger and I look directly in his eyes. I feel the strength and hear my father telling me to be strong.
Next, she goes back to a past life in India in 1857.
I’m a male around thirty years of age, wearing my dress scarf and sitting on a large, ornate chair on a raised platform. There are many people down below, looking up and waiting for me to speak. I’m the king and they have come to receive my opinion. They are parents who are fighting with each other and not taking care of their children.
The king takes seven of the children away from their neglectful parents and brings them to his palace to be raised. He says the parents are relieved rather than upset by this. One of the children is Judy’s son in her current life. While the servants provide daily care for the children, the king loves them and spends time with them frequently.
A few years later, the king marries, and he recognizes his beloved wife as Judy’s husband in her current life. They have no children of their own and are devoted to the children that the king is raising in the palace. There are many wars over the years, and through his strength and endurance, his kingdom survives and flourishes. Between battles he loves spending time with his wife and the children. His wife becomes unhappy and leaves him, but he remains content spending time with the children. He lives a long life and is dedicated to the welfare of all the children in his kingdom. Judy’s guide explains why they have visited the king’s life.
He is telling me that I already know how to be strong, I just need to remember it. The king regained contentment after he lost his wife, through spending time with his children, and that will be of help to me as well.
Judy reports that her session has really brought her peace. Revisiting the accident and the time spent waiting for help to arrive helped her fill in the gaps. Encountering her father during her near-death experience was very special to her. To remember her strength as she adjusts to life without her husband, she recalls the eyes of the tiger and his encouragement.
Tiffany, Zola, Dana, and Judy achieved emotional healing and peace from revisiting their near-death experiences. This relieved anxiety and allowed them to integrate these episodes more fully into their lives. They now see the purpose behind these occurrences.
Cosmic Healing
Kai, a retired professional woman in her sixties, has been suffering from a debilitating chronic illness since childhood. She has become so ill at times that she is transported to emergency rooms and has endured several near-death experiences. Somehow, Kai’s inner strength and determination have pulled her through, for, despite her physical limitations, she has accomplished a great deal in her life. She has more projects that she wishes to complete, and further aspirations. So she is seeking some understanding or perhaps even some intervention regarding her underlying health conditions.
In her Life Between Lives session, Kai easily flows into an exalted soul state. She communes with spiritual beings of startling immensity and power, including her own soul’s mother, that great and loving spirit who nurtured her as she was first created. During the session, Kai encounters several advanced beings who perform energetic restructuring and healing on her.
I see the earth itself and it shines like a jewel. It is so rich with experiences and all the light. It’s gorgeous. So beautiful! Oh my gosh, there are so many faces, and they look like giants. All these beings of light are much larger than people on earth. They are looking lovingly at this planet. Now they’re piercing through my thoughts and my barriers; it’s like they washed through.
Kai laughs with delight.
I’m being turned on a giant circle. Slowly, as if allowing me to watch all the stars above and all the stars below. It’s like saying hello to a new vision. I feel myself rising. And the earth and the large beings are helping me to create a translucent pattern of a new body that I will receive. As it solidifies, it will carry me through this life. I’ll need it because this life is going to last longer than I thought, by far. All this light, it’s taking different configurations around me and forming in different patterns. I don’t know what this is, but I like it! It has to do with healing. Lights and colors and shapes, I feel it all over. Different beings are bringing different specialties of healing.
It’s as if I have tiny light beams moving through all of me, at different frequencies and colors and vibrations. It’s changing moment to moment. I’m receiving these infusions. This is fabulous. This is a gift. And I won’t be the same.
I’m feeling these very wonderful pastel colors, but with a warmth and life. The body interior is changing into something more coherent and integrated. I can feel this restructuring coming from above, down into all parts of Kai, in my hands. It’s like a burst of celebration. I’m having an internal feeling that’s different. I don’t know what to call this. In my lower legs there is a feeling of pulling, increasing my bone and muscle.
I am shown an image of a box-like structure, stacked like pancakes, and it glows as if it’s made of stars. It’s a healing device.
The practitioner asks, “Is this an actual earthly or physical device?”
It will be. It’s being worked on right now. It will be known. It balances to a degree we can’t imagine. The energy, the cells. It creates an alignment of harmonious interactions within the body. We do not have this understanding, but it’s coming sooner than we think. This device uses chakras as portals. I feel this light energy traveling through me, I feel like a mountain, and a stream, running by trees and the sky in sherbet colors. I’m being disintegrated, taken apart, being restructured head to toe, everywhere. Harmony, integrating the systems at an energetic level.
I am balanced so precariously on my own. I am getting help all the time, but not the help that I just opened to; knowing, only now, there is so much more to ask for! And this is the first baby step.
Some weeks after her sessions, Kai writes the following note.
My first intention for seeking a Life Between Lives session was to help revitalize my body back into a state of functional health. During our session, I experienced sensory, palpable, vivid sensations of internal integration, calmness, deep peace, joy, and evidence of healing within my physical being.
One of my meditation group members said that during the spiritual healing part of my session, when I saw multicolored pastel lights comprising the inside of my body, and no longer a chaotic jumble that represented a life-threatening condition, that I had experienced a reset of my original essence energy.
Afterward, those expansive feelings of connection remain. My health continues to improve, and I have been presented with some exciting new opportunities. I feel as if we opened another doorway to source and love, which is where all true healing comes from.
Kai’s experience shows us that self-healing is possible, even for those who are very ill. A connection with the spiritual realm, such as that experienced during a Life Between Lives session, is one way to facilitate this self-healing.
Revisiting a Mystical Experience from a Coma
Nora is a sixty-three-year-old biologist who had an infection that shut down her brain and put her in a coma that led to a near-death experience. Free from the brain and body, she experienced extremely expanded states of consciousness and returned to consciousness completely cured from her condition.
Nora seeks a Life Between Lives session to return to her out-of-body time to reexperience the expanded states of consciousness. She hopes to recover more of the gifts, learnings, and insights from her time in a coma. She has been trying to do this on her own for many years but has been unable to do so.
During the session, the practitioner gently guides Nora back to the time when she is free from her body, but still connected.
There is an illuminous umbilical connection, an illuminous filamentous strand that comes into the navel and is an eternal connection. The physical body in all stages, in all times, is connected to this awareness. The physical body is a light, an ideal. And there is a connection to that. The final connection between light, the light form, and the physical body is one of projection. There is never an actual existence of the physical body. Always, it has been a projection, but the light body is very real and eternal and yet fleeting, eternally morphing from one basic awareness. Projected from the perspective of the light form, the light form, the ideal is always perfect, is always one. All is part of one process.
The practitioner asks, “Can you help me understand, if the body is a projection of this perfect light form, how is it that there are times it becomes ill?”
These are attunements to instruct. The apparent imperfections are all a perfect part of the plan. Always perfect and only when viewed from the proper perspective; we’re just more inclusive. Illness can be addressed. In recovering the love and the oneness, all apparent imperfections evaporate. All in a perfect oneness exists.
“And can you help me understand how, when your body is so ill, you make this journey into this oneness? How does the healing of the physical body come about?”
It is the only possible outcome. Once the decision is made to return, the healing occurs. There are no other options, given the willingness to return. It comes from simply knowing that it is the only possible state given the choice. The choice is the important connection, and all the rest flows.
So, I am seeing alternative futures, because the past and the future are similar. All of them exist, but in potential form only. It’s by connecting the dots that the optimal future, the pathway to healing, becomes the only possible pathway. The free will choice involves only one of an infinite number of possible futures. It’s the connection with the higher soul that is all oneness around eternity, infinite dimensions, all existence visualizing the pathway.
The practitioner asks, “How do you make this choice?”
Simply the recognition that it has always been exactly like this with complete free will to determine your pathway. All is possible through choice.
The higher perspective is from the direction of the oneness, and only by originating in the oneness can one begin to perceive how the actuality functions. You cannot see it from the other side, this side of the veil. It’s like a one-way mirror, but the connections, the apparent separation soul-to-soul viewed from the proper perspective, the origin of the oneness; this perspective knows that the free will of the one mind does direct actuality out of an infinite cloud of potentiality. It’s all done from pure unconditional and infinitely all-inspiring love and connection. A love of creator, creation, it’s made of pure gratitude, love, bliss, joy, and the original actuality.
The practitioner asks, “When there is disease in the human body, is there a way to connect to this realm to bring about healing?”
Yes. It is through trust, trust and fearlessness. Trust in complete abundance. The universe always gives us everything that we need. Trust, gratitude, acceptance. Knowing that we have nothing whatsoever to fear. We must overcome the false sense of limitation. Know with complete and absolute assurance, with no doubt at all. Believe in infinite power, unveiling of wisdom, and becoming whole. Know and trust. Gratitude. Gratitude.
The practitioner asks if any other information was given that might have been forgotten, missed or not clearly understood during the out-of-body experience.
There are themes between lives that focus on learning the same lessons. These lessons repeat and grow more complex as the soul group progresses. Through this process, patterns are built up and amplified, resulting in growth. Over time this leads to extraordinary evolution and awakening of consciousness to the highest levels. Nothing is ever lost. All that we reap we must sow. This occurs in repeating patterns of growth, knowing, and connectedness. All is fueled by a pervasive, loving force, everywhere throughout the universe.
It’s all a part of a much larger plan, a plan of infinite perfection and growth. The realization of oneness, sacred bond, and perfection.
Nora tried in various ways for almost ten years to attain that same expanded state of consciousness she experienced while free from mind and body. She was elated to have finally reconnected with this state. She finds it easier to now connect on her own. She is also much more aware of the amazing gifts and profound insights she received during her “dead” time and is now writing about her experiences so that others may benefit.
Coming close to death is a life-changing experience. While such events are traumatic, they contain within them a great potential for spiritual growth and healing. There is a reason behind these events. Debra’s brush with death helped her become a better healer, while Laura’s experience jolted her out of being stuck in her life.
Near-death experiences can be life-changing and bring peace. However, not all of these experiences are reassuring. The cases in this chapter illustrate the power of Life Between Lives sessions to promote healing for those who have had a near-death experience. Visiting the spiritual realm during a session can assist these individuals to gain clarity, find peace, and integrate the experience into their lives. It can also provide them with the opportunity to return to the unconditional love and wisdom they received during their “dead” time.
Kai, Dana, and Nora received not only wisdom, but physical healing. While all healing is ultimately self-healing, Life Between Lives sessions can bring the guidance and insights to empower individuals to promote their own wellness.