Healing Messages

Awakening Without Seeking It

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 4 Comments

What is unique about a near-death experience is that this awakening often happens to people who were not seeking it.

A near-death experiencer may or may not have interest in spirituality before the event, yet they frequently return with a profound sense that consciousness continues beyond death and that reality is far larger than materialistic views.

For me, the experience was life changing. In a matter of moments, my understanding of life expanded beyond anything I had imagined possible.

Returning to ordinary life was both beautiful and challenging. Part of me was grateful to be alive and eager to continue my education. Another part of me could never forget what I had witnessed. I was obsessed and read countless books about spirituality while recovering from my accident. When I returned to college, I did not have the same interests or insecurities. I had so much more gratitude and a feeling of being connected to everyone and everything.

One of the strongest impressions I carried back was the importance of love. That sounds simple until we attempt to practice it. It is easy to love people who agree with us or treat us well. It is much harder to respond with wisdom, compassion, and healthy boundaries when faced with fear, anger, or aggression.

Love is not passivity. Sometimes love means protecting the vulnerable. Sometimes it means preventing harm. Sometimes it means holding a vision of healing for those who have been wounded. Love is both an action and a state of being.

I am not suggesting that near-death experiencers return as enlightened beings. We come back with personalities, emotional wounds, and challenges just like everyone else. Yet, many experiencers do return with a deep awareness that there is more to life than achievement, accumulation, or survival.

The moment I left my body, I knew that consciousness continued beyond physical death. I encountered a reality that felt more vivid and more “real” than ordinary life. Through direct experience, I understood that we are connected to something far greater than our individual identities.

No matter what happened afterward, I could never unknow that.

From that perspective, many of the things that consume us here appeared far less important. The struggles, fears, and disappointments that seemed so significant in life faded into the background. What remained was love, kindness, mercy, and connection.

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

Many experiencers report similar aftereffects. They often become less fearful of death, more compassionate toward others, and more sensitive to the world around them. Yet they must still learn how to integrate these insights into ordinary human life.

One aspect of my experience felt similar to what many spiritual traditions describe as enlightenment or non-dual awareness. As my consciousness expanded, my sense of separation dissolved. I felt connected to other people, to nature, and to the divine in a way that is difficult to describe with words.

However, returning to routines and systems naturally pulled me back into individuality. Bills still needed to be paid. Relationships still required attention. Old wounds and patterns still surfaced. Yet the memory of that deeper connection remained.

The challenge became learning how to carry some of that awareness into everyday life.

Awakening is not a permanent state. It is a practice of remembering. It is choosing compassion over judgment, gratitude over resentment, and presence over distraction. It is remembering that beneath our fears and differences, we are far more connected than we realize.

The question then becomes: How do we live in a world that is often fearful, divided, and reactive without becoming fearful, divided, and reactive ourselves?

Part of the answer is learning when to detach and when to engage. We step back from the noise at times, but we engage passionately and lovingly far more often. We do our best to extend goodwill to every human being, even when it feels difficult. Most of us start with the easy ones: our families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and the people we encounter each day.

We are striving to have minds that are less focused on greed, hatred, and fear while living in a world where these forces constantly compete for our attention. This is not easy work. When we fall into anger, resentment, or judgment, the answer is not self-condemnation. We meet those parts of ourselves with compassion. We heal them so that we can better support the healing of others.

Over time, we become less attached to every passing emotion. Feelings still arise, but they move through us more quickly. We learn to observe them without building a home inside them.

Gratitude also becomes an important practice. After my accident, gratitude came naturally. I was grateful for every breath, every painful step, and every bite of food. Simply being alive felt miraculous. This does not mean ignoring injustice or pretending everything is fine. I’ve never advocated spiritual bypass. What I have advocated is being happy. We don’t have to allow and ignore harmful behavior but we can grow in our reactions and ease our triggers to achieve more healthy detachment from the brokenness in others. This allows us to demonstrate spiritual and emotional maturity.

In the presence of God during my near-death experience, there was no sense of “I’m right and you’re wrong.” There was only love, understanding, and a profound recognition of our shared humanity.

That memory continues to guide me. However, like everyone else, I get frustrated, hurt, and discouraged. But the experience gave me a reference point for what is possible. It showed me that beneath the noise of everyday life, there is a deeper reality rooted in love and connection.

Many spiritual traditions teach that awakening is our true nature. Near-death experiences often provide a direct glimpse of that possibility. The work afterward is learning how to embody those insights while living an ordinary human life.

My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me about Healing, Survival, and Transformation, explores the near-death experience that transformed my understanding of life, healing, and consciousness. More importantly, it explores what happened afterward. The experience itself lasted only a short time, but integrating it into everyday life has been a lifelong journey.

Ego, Empathy, and a Healthy Identity

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 6 Comments

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Update 1/19/19:  My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival, and Transformation, can be pre-ordered now.  It is a #1 new release in several categories.  I would love it if you helped me make near-death experiences more mainstream. 

Anita Moorjani has amazing things to say about ego and connectedness to others. She talks about how we need both–a sensitivity to other’s experiences and an ability to embrace our ego.  We need a healthy ego and healthy dose of empathy in order to function successfully.  When one is out of balance, we don’t relate to the world harmonically.

Ego: The seed for growing a healthy ego might have been planted when I survived death and existed for a few moments in the presence of God.  For the first time in my life, I felt better than o.k.  I felt blessed just to be me, exactly how I am.  I didn’t feel that I needed to change or improve anything.  I could breathe with ease in the presence of God.  I wish I could bottle that feeling and drink it daily myself and give everyone on the planet a big drink of “FINE EXACTLY AS YOU ARE.”

You don’t HAVE TO buy anything, improve anything, lose a certain number of pounds, take seven more classes.  You don’t HAVE TO do anything to be fine exactly as you are. You can simply claim it and breathe this feeling in, deep inside of you.  You can later buy, improve, lose, and take classes if all these activities give you more joy, health, and happiness, but you do not have to do anything to claim being loved.  You are loved.

Moorjani writes, “”….as long as we are alive, breathing, and expressing through a physical body, the best thing we can do for ourselves and for those around us is to engage in life fully, embrace who we are, and express ourselves authentically. To me, being spiritual, and being ourselves is one and the same thing!”

All I can say is a big, “Amen.”  Right after my NDE, nothing felt more holy and true than to be authentically me, rejoicing at being alive.  Every book I read had great significance because I was reading it.  Every single moment of my life was holy, simply because I was alive to experience it.

At my core, I know I am an expression of the divine, and so are you.  Though sometimes love and light has to wiggle its way around cavernous wounds, the light and the truth always seeks to these heal wounds.  It always seeks to make you freer.  With greater love and more empathy for ourselves, we do find ways to let more light flow through us.

Empathy:  I have always felt the feelings of others.  Empathy/being an empath is a gift but a heavy one at times, especially when I have absorbed the negative emotions of others and not understood how to disconnect and practice more awareness of my own feelings.

In worst case scenarios, I’ve let energy vampires take away my good time and peace of mind.  Luckily, there is so much information  about how to identify energy vampires and deal with them.

Ralph Smart’s video has great ideas such as blasting energy vampires with your light or simply limiting the time and attention you give them.

The idea of energetically protecting myself from negative energy never worked as much as being someone who could blast light (with words or with energy) into a negative situation and change that situation so that others might learn how to be more loving and awakened.

In some cases, I had to learn when it was time to fold and walk away/run away from situations/people.  A healthy ego allows you to draw boundaries with people and protect yourself from harm.  Empathy is sometimes what you have for yourself simply for having survived what you have survived; it also allows you to help others in similar situations.

Love:  We all have the capacity to be empaths.  There is so much joy in being wide open with love for oneself and for others, and it is the best way to live.  We all have the capacity to have a healthy sense of ego and walk through this world in a way that allows us to be incredibly kind and self-protective.

You deserve goodness, and you deserve to be the embodiment of love.  Don’t let anyone take that away from you.

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Just Remember Compassion

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 8 Comments

 

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Update on 1/19/19:  My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival, and Transformation, can be pre-ordered now. It is a #1 new release in several categories.  I would love it if you helped me make near-death experiences more mainstream.

Just Remember Compassion

Go ahead and work hard to manifest every single one of your dreams.  Build the company you wanted to build.  Start the non-profit.  Win the awards you dreamed of winning, but don’t forget compassion.

Go ahead and marry the guy or girl many others wanted.  Travel to Cozumel, Tahiti, and Rome.  Get a new home every decade and move up in your company, but don’t forget compassion.

Go ahead and train for your first race.  Win and keep training.  Take your efforts to their maximum and beyond. Smile for the cameras as everyone watches as you blast into fame in those blessed 500 meters of your life, but don’t forget compassion.

Go ahead and write the novel that gets a big publishing contract.  Get the movie deal and the house in Encinitas, but don’t forget compassion.

Because…the business can fail, the non-profit can flounder, and awards can be a thing of the past.  Divorce, sickness, and disaster is the rain that falls into many lives, and athletes whose faces were known around the world in their twenties sometimes have trouble getting out of bed in their forties or fifties, their bodies wracked with pain.  The writer who was the envy of all his or her peers sometimes dies alone with a television or a cat, so extend compassion to everyone like it is breath.

When you judge another’s weaknesses, you judge yourself because we will all succumb to frailty.  The flower blooms, but even when we are green, we are also dying.  Even when we are dying though, we are sometimes simply learning what it means to live with compassion for all beings.

So, why not learn the lesson now?  Why not live as if you are already home?  Have compassion for everyone on God’s green earth and everyone who has come before you and everyone who will come after you.

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During my near-death experience, one of the aspects of the divine love of God was compassion.  There were many aspects to this megadose of love, but compassion was one of the feelings.  To simply feel God’s acceptance and love as I was without judgment seemed way out of the ordinary for me.  In my life before my NDE, I encountered people who were often judgmental, and I didn’t always extend compassion myself.

The longer I live, the more I realize that one of the most important things we can do is to extend compassion both to ourselves and others in all moments of life, even in small moments when we are frustrated in traffic or unable to sleep.  Try showing yourself a bit more compassion.  The very act of showing compassion for yourself seems to free up space and allows things to shift.

I Stand for Love, Compassion, Unity, and Community

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 6 Comments

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I can no longer abide venom or anger on either side politically.  I will not let fear and outrage enter my body when I read the news or social media posts.  I will no longer label anyone as racist, sexist, xenophobic, nationalistic, ignorant, or ill-informed. I will not shame or alienate anyone on social media.  I will look at every human being on the face of the earth as my brother and sister, and I will do what I have done my entire career.  I will embody light and truth.  I will educate and speak my truth from a place of love and light no matter what kind of darkness I encounter in this world.

As Martin Luther King stated, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

No Fear:  I will be a teacher with a microphone and megaphone in our world so that I can reach beyond the walls of my classrooms.  Though I might take you to church in a few lectures, you will know that I respect you and want the best for you.  I don’t want you to live in fear of others, so I will not live in fear of you.

What do I stand for?  I stand for love, deep compassion, empathy, unity, community, wellness, equality, child-like joy, authenticity, freedom, passion, intellectual curiosity, truth, beauty, safety, and healing.

I stand for reverence and deep honor of Mother Earth so that we all might have clean air, water, unpolluted food, and organic, affordable produce.  The Native Americans have much to teach us, and I stand with Standing Rock.

I stand for taking care of all life from the plants we eat to the darling kids in Head Start programs to the college students graduating and entering the work force to the retirees.  I honor the accomplishments and beauty of disabled children as much as the star athletes. I love the kids from the country as much as I love the immigrants who just arrived on our shores and at our airports. I love them all, and I want you to see the light and divinity in everyone.  Though I am more of a Democrat than a Republican, I am mostly an independent lightworker.

I will speak loudly for all the young women who come through my classrooms to show them that sexism, misogyny, and narcissism will not crush them or their dreams.  I speak to show certain males that certain behaviors of our president will not be normalized.  For example, this man at a Pensacola Women’s March needs reeducation.  Don’t turn away from him.  Don’t criticize women for marching.  Ask the women why they marched, and keep this man’s image in your mind because he exists and needs a transformation whether he is a prankster, a rapist, or a future shooter.

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I will write letters, march, and do whatever is necessary for all the students I have known who have faced staggering health issues and deserve health care no matter their economic background, sex, or mental illness.

After all, I might not have died on that operating table had I gone into surgery earlier, and I would have gone into surgery earlier if I had health insurance. I overheard a nurse confirm this.  I suffered so that others might have an easier path.  My gay and lesbian friends fought for equality because they know and I know that no loving couple should ever fear their loved ones will be torn from their grasp.

I love all my students, and I speak in praise of all of my students including Christian gay, white males; brilliant, teenage Muslim girls who want to be doctors; kind, respectful, smart children of undocumented workers; Jewish poets; single mothers of all races and nationalities, veterans who are conservative and veterans who are liberal.  I allow every voice to speak and write their truths.  My classroom is a classroom of tolerance and free-speech.  I hang a flag on my wall because my father was a veteran.  I don’t burn flags, but I burn fake news to the ground in this post-truth reality; I know he’d be proud.

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Pro-Life and Pro-Innocence:  I will shout into my microphone all the love I have in my heart for the many young men and women I’ve met in my lifetime. I want to protect all of the elementary, junior high, high school, and college students.  I want to protect the six-year-old girl who is molested and doesn’t have the voice to tell her family what happened as much as I want to protect the fourteen-year-old teenager who wore a miniskirt to her first party and was raped by three boys.  Though I care about the boys who raped her, I want them to face appropriate consequences for their actions.  I want to live in a world where men and boys see that violence and destruction of innocence will not be tolerated.

More than that, I want men and boys to honor women and to protect the innocence of life around them.  We have to first acknowledge that there is a problem with misogyny and racism because these attitudes lead to violence.   Men who are protectors are worth their weight in gold.
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I pray for the fifteen-year-old girl who was raped by her father while her mother only asked him to pay for their daughter’s counseling. I wish that man had served time for such a grave offense and was not allowed around other teenagers without supervision.  I wish that this young woman knew her true value and brilliance.  I wish that she didn’t feel that she had to drown her trauma in drugs and alcohol, only to be revictimzed by many men.

My personal suffering has become a thread tying me to countless other survivors so that I might show them how to heal a little quicker than I healed. If you have one-fourth the compassion that I have, you too would hold this young woman in your heart whether she chose to get an abortion or to have a child or made both choices at different times.  She is one of the many lives that I serve and honor.

I will shout into my megaphone because I care for the women in their twenties who were raped by exes, beat up by boyfriends, or assaulted by friends of the family.  I want better community services for students I have known who were assaulted by family members and then ended up on the streets.  They deserve a chance at success, and I do my best to make sure they get that chance.  I want better services for all the veterans who have come through my classrooms.  I care about all the young men who were raped by another man when they were only five, seven, or eight.  These are similar stories to the stories of countless students of mine, and I pray for them every day.

I stand at my microphone for the lives of all the many children waiting to be adopted in this country and other countries.  I cry for my fellow human beings as much as I cry for animals in shelters.  I pray for the children enslaved in human trafficking and the children starving to death or injured from the destruction of war and violence.  If we can work together to create a world free from abuse, rape, human trafficking, war, hunger, and violence, we can also start creating amazing communities where single women can go and receive free health care and education during their pregnancies.  When all children are safe and loved, we will be living in a pro-life world.

I will continue to broadcast my message about how important it is to end human trafficking, war, hunger, and all abuse of innocence because we have real work cut out for us.  And in the face of this light and love, if you are still focused on birth and fetuses, I ask you to please adopt children who are here right now, dying for your love.  Sign up to foster children who need you.  Make that financial sacrifice.

If enough of you do this in mass, abortion rates will decrease.  Please realize that most men, even highly conservative ones, will chuckle and admit that if they could get pregnant after a one night stand or night when they drank too much, they would want the abortion pill available over the counter.  Their tone changes when they consider abortion and women’s rights.  This issue is obviously about control over women, and I will shout repeatedly that men would not tolerate this kind of control over their bodies and lives. I will say this on loop this until it begins to sink in to your consciousness.

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I will get out my microphone and remind you to put pressure on all work environments to provide free health care and day care, so that abortion rates will go down.  This will be a much better, loving way to address the abortion issue.  I am for the success of women as much as for the success of men.  One does not cancel out the other.  It never has.  As long as women are abused, assaulted, raped, and stalked at alarming rates, we need to focus on their protection.

I live to protect the innocent and to heal the wounded.  That is the meaning of my life.  Stand in my way of working to heal this world, and I will gather a crowd of loving human beings together, and we will counter all hate and darkness with a brilliant light that cannot be denied. God bless the marches!   God bless our right to protest with love.  God bless us all in every country and every place in this world.  I’m here to make the world great in a way that it never has been and that starts with changing the minds of many of my fellow Americans.

I realize this article probably hasn’t reached who it needs to reach, but I am just now getting warmed up.  Give me a chance, and give love a chance.

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  •  Special thanks to spiritual teachers like Marianne Williamson and Matt Kahn for reminding me to focus on love and what I stand for and not give in to fear.

Additional Lessons From My NDE:  Disconnection, Doing Your Best, and Adding Goodness to the World

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 2 Comments

 

gray bridge and trees

Photo by Martin Damboldt on Pexels.com

My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival, and Transformation, is available for pre-order.  It is a #1 new release in several categories.  I would love your support of a pre-order.  My aim is to help make near-death experiences more mainstream.

 

Free yourself from the psychological structure of society, which is to free yourself from the essence of conflict.  –Jiddu Krishnamurti

Disconnection: There’s no disconnection like real disconnection.  Leaving the body behind during my near-death experience gave me a perspective that I never imagined possible as an agnostic.  I carried none of my wounds to other side.  I was free as a bird, curious as a child, and smart as a dolphin outside of my body.

My consciousness survived, but I no longer had a deep, emotional, psychological connection to this human form.  That alone healed my wounds.  All the chattering of the mind, the repeating of offenses of others, and the storyline we all cling to evaporated instantly.

A Different Perspective:  I try to remember that perspective as I journey through life.  Whenever I am caught up in the drama of “she said this, he did this, and then they all did this,” I take a break and wonder what those situations will look like or if they will matter at all on my death bed.

I wonder if those situations will materialize during my life review.  If I was the one who was wronged, these situations probably won’t be in my life review.  The beauty and compassion of God is stunning and deeply loving.  God doesn’t replay the things that harmed us.  We do that to ourselves countless times while in form, but part of freedom is loving yourself enough to begin untangling and disconnecting from your wounds.

Goodness: I know that on the other side, I will look at my life to see if I eventually used the situations of my life to be better to others.  Did I continue to increase my ability to do good in this world no matter how people treated me?   Did I find more ways to be joyful, more ways to be whole, more ways to be lighthearted and uplift others? Did I make my interactions about healing and helping others?  Did I add goodness to the world?

Did I deeply enjoy my time on this earth?  Did I play like a child?  How often did I stand in wonder and awe at the beauty of nature?  Did I love as often as I could, even if that love was love for myself and a bird flying by me?  Did I use my intuition, my wisdom, my bravery, and my connection to the other side?  Did I love more than I thought I could when I first began this journey?

Did I retain some of my innocence?  Did I try to fashion myself as the hero of a situation with words, false and true, or did I simply do what is right and true?  Did I leave when I should leave?  Stay when I should stay? Did I climb to the top of a mountain, breathe deeply, and pull in a great stream of light from the heavens and send that light to every human being on the planet?

Did I do my best?  Did you do your best?

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed. Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Remind Them to Go to Nature–A Command From the Heavens

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 5 Comments

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At the end of my life-review, I ended up in a vividly green, lush, heavenly landscape. Much like my spirit body felt eternal, the grass, trees, and the natural landscape of heaven appeared deeply and completely alive without a hint of desecration.  I wondered if this is how beautiful nature could be if we lived in greater balance.

There is healing potential in nature.  I have known this at various times even before my near-death experience, but to hear the command, Remind them to go to nature as a direct message from the heavens has stayed with me.

Great thinkers like Einstein have recommended nature as a way to deepen our peace and awareness saying, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” And, great poets like Whitman have extolled the power of nature as well saying, “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains.”

I remind my college students to eat as many whole foods, especially raw fruits and vegetables, as possible.  I remind them to take breaks and breathe deeply by the river.  I take each of my classes outside to meditate at least once a semester, but there is more to the importance of this statement. We all need reminders to live closer to the natural rhythms and wisdom of nature.

Most of us need more time with our feet in the earth.  My student’s faces look more relaxed and happy even after a short meditation outdoors.  Though some of them might think meditation outdoors is a waste of time or a way to get out of lecture, I know that meditation in nature is a focus on health and a focus on decreasing their stress levels.  This combination always makes for a more successful life, and their success is my success.

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Most of my students light up when I ask them questions like, “Should I buy a Mac or a PC?” or “Do you prefer Instagram or Snapchat?”  They tell me their opinions hurriedly and with excitement in their voices.  When I ask them about hiking or camping, many of them don’t have experience with it or they have one or two pleasant memories about camping. Students who grew up in other areas of the country like Oregon or California often have a greater appreciation for nature.

I don’t hate technology; in fact, I love it and spend a lot of time on it.  However, I have more fun when I’m in nature and keep my phone usage to a minimal, and I want students to know this form of therapy is there for them throughout their lives.  I feel reset after time in nature.   I feel cleansed, renewed, and rejuvenated.  I look at my life from a different perspective, and answers to problems that eluded me often occur easily and spontaneously.  I give my worries to the natural world and in return I’m given joy.

Many people have this insight and understand the importance of spending time in nature.  Time magazine published an article this summer titled, The Healing Power of Nature, and a researcher in 2005 coined the term “nature deficit disorder” for many children alienated from time in nature.  There are movements to address anxiety, depression, and stress through what is called “eco-therapy” by researchers.

God said it simply to me with the words, Remind them to go to nature.

I don’t know how many times I need to remind them/you/me/us, but here is our reminder for the week–GO TO NATURE!  Play, have fun, relax, take a break, breathe, let your worries go, and soak up all the love that is available to you.

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More About the Angels From My NDE

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 5 Comments

The Angels

I will never stop being astonished by the size and intelligence of the angels that I met during my near-death experience.  These two angels were wise, caring, and full of insight. Most of all, they had the ability to heal both emotional and physical issues.  I would love to meet a sketch artist who might be able to bring these beautiful light beings into focus.

Connecting with Your Angels:  If you are interested in connecting with your angels to assist you with a certain situation or to help you be of greater service to others, you might simply say a prayer that the angels might be with you and guide you.  Call on specific angels by name or even unknown beneficial angels.  I like this list which starts with prayer and meditation as a way to connect with angels, but it also includes writing or spending time in nature.  The angels brought me peace during my near-death experience and afterwards in several situations.

Peace:  Angels are not only messengers and healers, but they are also there to comfort us and anchor peace in our world.  There are many remarkable accounts of experiences with angels.  This woman from the IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies) website received messages from her angels when her doctors could not figure out the cause of life-threatening infection.  For four days she spent time with the angels and describes them in detail.

“I saw an outline of form filled with golden white Light that radiated past the faint lines. As if I was a star shining brightly in the Heavens. The Light was fluid, iridescent and connected with ease to the Angels near or beside me. I connected with the stars and the vastness of the Universe. I was a part of everything in existence all at the same time.”

When she asked the angels about our purpose here on earth, she received a few amazing messages.

“Our purpose here is to discover unconditional love within ourselves and then offer it to others. We are all on the path. What differs between us is the road we take, the experience we choose, and how much we have learned about love. No one road is better or more important than another. It is all a matter of what speaks to your heart and feels like home within.”

To read more about her story, you can click here.

Consider calling on angels for anything type of healing in your life.  May you be blessed!

My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival, and Transformation, can be ordered here.

One of the Aftereffects of NDEs: Seeing the Divine in All Living Beings Including Ourselves

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 5 Comments

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Update on 1/19/19:  My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival, and Transformation, can be pre-ordered now. It is a #1 new release in several categories.  I would love it if you helped me make near-death experiences more mainstream.

After my accident, back surgery, and near-death experience, I had a lot of time to think about the afterlife and lessons.  Many mornings, I felt like a kid again and woke up with a joy I hadn’t experienced in a long while.  Some mornings, I simply stood by the window and looked with joy at a robin in the tree. I spent hours staring into the sweet eyes of a kitten one of my stepdad’s workers scooped up out of the middle a crowded freeway.  Though more of a dog person, a shy, scared kitten suited me better at that stage of my physical recovery.  I named the tiny kitten Crystal, and she perched and purred on top of my body cast, seeming to send me white threads of Divine love and healing. She felt safe with me, and I felt safe with her.  We were one, and the love I had for life, even the smallest moments, carried me through my days and nights.

Eventually, I learned to send all the over-flowing love I had in my heart into my own heart.  The love I had been sending to others, I focused on myself for a while, observing the waves of emotional pain from my past until these waves subsided.  I gave myself the respect and attention I desired, and eventually, I cried a whole lot less and laughed a whole lot more.  My life before my near death experience needed my loving attention and the type of healing I felt from God and the angels while out of form.

When I look back to those months spent in a body cast, I think of that sweet kitten who used my body cast as a place to sleep. She grew up and grew stronger as my body healed and grew stronger.  I don’t have a picture of her as a kitten, but my memory creates her like the kitten in the picture.

I received a question about animals in heaven and from what I have seen in my communications with those on the other side, animals are certainly in heaven.  I saw one young man who recently died petting a dog which was more his mother’s dog than his dog.  She confirmed this was true, so I felt blessed to receive this message.  I’m grateful to have received this message from him so that I can assure others who wonder about their connections with pets.

Our pets bring us a bit of heaven on earth, so it only makes sense that they would reside in heaven.  The green grass of the afterlife would not be the same without our beloved pets running to greet us.  We associate love with our pets, and love is a powerful bond that survives death.

One NDEr, Jan Price, talks about being first greeted by one of her pets in heaven.  She writes, “What I came to realize is that there is a love connection between the two worlds – a stream of energy that forms a heart bond between two souls that is the strongest at the time of transition. Love comes out to greet you, wearing the form that will be most meaningful to you at the time. In my case it was our precious dog, and yes, dogs have souls – Plato knew it and so did Saint Augustine, along with most other true saints and sages.”

You can check out her full story at this link.  There is a video about several NDErs who talk about pets in heaven as well.  Here is that link.

crystalThe real cat Crystal in her older years.

 

Three Simple Steps for Bringing Your Gifts into the World

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 1 Comment

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Step One:  Rest

I often tell my Creative Writing students that they should be well-rested in order to be their most creative.  Certainly, we can all preform under pressure when we are highly caffeinated, sleep deprived, and tense.  Stressed out states of being, however, do not allow for the miracles of divinely inspired communication to flow through us effortlessly.  Meditation and connecting with the love that is available for each of us is a much better way to open to great ideas.  In peaceful states of being, we might receive messages from higher states of consciousness and our creativity might be more inspired.  If you have ever noticed how some of your greatest ideas show up just before you fall asleep, you can understand that when the worried mind lets go of its grip on us, the great, inspired thoughts begin to flow through us.  Problems naturally work themselves out.

Keep a journal and pen on your nightstand and return to these ideas later in the day.  The ideas in your dreams or just before you fall asleep might become poems, stories, novels or a simple answer to a question.   Be receptive and open to great ideas, and more of these ideas will be sent your way.

Step Two:  Play

Go where your joy resides.  Adults do not enjoy life as much as children because we often forget how to play.  Play can mean many different things to different people.  Most of the time, exercise and time in nature can put us in a positive state of mind.  However, if you have a problem to work out, try addressing this problem from many different directions.  Don’t censor wild ideas, and try following unexpected thoughts to see where they lead you.

During graduate school, I worked full time teaching seniors in high school.  The long hours at work didn’t leave me much time to be creative on one of my twenty-page essays.  Mid-way through a particular essay, I decided that I needed to have more fun with the research and wrote something that entertained me.  I stopped thinking about writing for my professor and followed my own joy.  This turned out to be one of my better essays.  Even if playing around doesn’t lead to a great product, it is important to notice what ideas and activities bring more joy into our lives.

Step Three:  Plan

If you are an organized, detail oriented person, this should not be a difficult step for you.  Write out a one-year, three-year, and five-year plan for a certain goal.  Simply writing down a plan increases the odds of accomplishing this goal.  If you have a book idea, write an outline.  Even if you amend the outline and completely change the book later, a plan can still be an important step and a great step during the revision stages.

If you are not a detail oriented person, take a deep breath and do what you can each day toward your goal.  Imagine the repressed side of yourself taking control and dealing with the details.  Make the details more interesting or fun in some way.  Offer yourself a reward for accomplishing things you usually put off for later.  Ask your angels for help and call on God to help you.  There is no need to stress over the details.  Jump in and enjoy the journey.  The sooner you jump in and work on the things you are putting off, the quicker you will realize that the process isn’t as difficult as you imagined it to be.

Good luck!  May your best dreams make it into the world soon.

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Narcissists at Work, in Love, and as Parents:  How Empaths Fail to Recognize Them

/ Tricia Barker, Author of Angels in the OR / 26 Comments

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Update on 1/19/19:  My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival, and Transformation, can be pre-ordered now. It is a #1 new release in several categories.  I would love it if you helped me make near-death experiences more mainstream.

There are many degrees and shades of narcissists.  I highly suggest you check out the work of Breakthrough Life Coach Lisa A. Romano and other sources like Psychology Today to better understand narcissists.  Narcissists can be introverted, passive aggressive, and display traits we don’t initially associate with narcissism.

It is my belief that many near-death experiencers come back with greater empathy.  Most of us are born with sensitivity and love as our inherent nature and near-death experiences simply remind us of this love. Anyone who broadcasts love and innocence can attract souls in great pain who might be narcissists, sociopaths, or psychopaths.   Our journey might simply be to learn to protect ourselves from narcissistic abuse and help others heal from relationships with narcissists and shine their lights.  Many narcissists can be handled easily in small doses, but in larger, more intimate relationships or projects they can cause considerable pain.

The Narcissist at Work:  If  you start a creative project or business with a narcissist, everything will seem spectacular in the beginning.  Their exuberance and confidence will give you confidence. They will speak passionately about their efforts, and you might live in their dream world for a while where everything is easy and all effort equals instant, brilliant success.  Eventually, you will notice that they don’t like hard work.  You find yourself taking care of more of the details, but you tell yourself that they offer inspiration and bring charisma to the project/business/plan.  Eventually, you see that their egos are fragile, and you try to hide how much work is needed because you don’t want to lose everything you have worked to create. Conversations become more difficult, and the narcissist fights to hang on to his or her original ideas without considering revision.  Chances are good that they will sabotage everything, and you might never get a straight answer about why they gave up.  Narcissists will simply move on to another scenario that fulfills their ego to a greater degree, a dream that looks brighter, a path that seems easier, and you will be left falling through empty space.

You will wonder if you did something wrong, but the only thing you did wrong is miss the warning signs that you were dealing with a narcissist.  Perhaps, this person despises all authority figures, even the nurturing ones.  Perhaps this person brags in a way that is off-putting to some, but you thought this person was simply spunky or confident. Perhaps they always make themselves the hero or the amazing one in their stories and never admit to having a flaw.

There are always warning signs that a narcissist is in the office.  An avoidance of hard work is generally the best clue. Narcissists might even brag about how they get out of work yet still believe they should be offered promotions and given awards.  If you are starting a business with a narcissist, they may be absent large parts of the time and blame you for the problems. If you are co-authoring a book, they may fail to see that great books are often rewritten eight or nine times, yet they expect to become a millionaire with a first draft full of typos a fifth grader might make.  They want to call themselves a great writer/singer/dancer but not put in the hard work to become one.

Whatever the scenario, the narcissist will be full of energy, dreams, and braggadocio in the beginning and will slink away sullenly, secretively, or angrily in the end of your relationship, often blaming you for the pain they caused. You might even believe the situation is your fault, but all you tried to do is do the hard work for yourself and someone else.  Beware of narcissists in other areas besides work. You can find them in churches, spiritual gatherings, and political organizations.

The Narcissist in Love: No one is more skillful than the narcissist at promising the world, mirroring your desires back to you, and focusing on you with an intensity that you have rarely if ever encountered in your life. Many women are hungry for deep emotional intimacy, and we can mistake a predatory gaze for intense connection.  Narcissists, whether male or female, speak a language primarily made up of phrases like soulmate/twin soul/love of my life and usually say these phrases after a short amount of time. If these types of words don’t turn you on, the narcissist promises anything that will make you feel secure, happy, and safe. They want to bask in your adoration of them.

Narcissists know how to make you feel addicted to them. They take their time in the bedroom, and make you feel treasured. When I think of narcissists, I think of the poem by Sharon Olds “Sex Without Love” and how narcissists know they are never honestly going to connect with another human being. Everything is a great big show. They come to the bedroom like great runners, and “they know they are alone/ with the road surface, the cold, the wind, / the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-/vascular health–just factors, like the partner/ in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe/ against its own best time.” With a narcissist, you might initially feel like the God or Goddess, the light, the eternal love of the universe with this person because of the effort they put in, but the narcissist is only showing off his or her skills, hoping to get you hooked. Exercise is an apt metaphor for how narcissists function in the bedroom.

After a while, you might realize that the narcissist is unable to truly connect with you because he can’t swim through the sea of millions of bodies he has observed through the lens of pornography to clearly see you.  Maybe he is a calloused type, especially if he has a lot of money and is full of his own image. Men in this category might make women work to get their attention and make them feel insecure with little digs. Women who pay a lot of attention to their looks might be critical of their mate and make this person not feel good enough for them. There are many different scenarios for narcissists, but the outcome is the same. Eventually, you will feel that the connection is not genuine or uplifting.

Promises from narcissists evaporate, and you are only left with words. You might fight to make these words turn into the promised reality, but if you are dealing with a narcissist, no such luck. The minute you have doubts, they know that your adoration will be tinged with doubt and this won’t feel good enough for them.  Their focus will shift. Often, their focus was never fully on you anyway, though their words proclaimed otherwise.  They are masters at triangulation.

The narcissist might make passive aggressive jokes about how he or she would not miss you that much if you broke up. This person is only testing how much you are hurt by that statement to gauge how much to pretend to invest in you. Communication feels more like a sick game than an honest dialogue.  Passive aggressive behavior will escalate over time with deliberate procrastination, the silent treatment, and withholding praise.

Work is another interesting factor that plays into this relationship.  Narcissists come in many varieties.  You might find the dependent narcissist who believes in a ridiculous form of law of attraction that will “someday” make this person wildly successful without any effort on their part.  Alternately, you might find someone who is tied to his or her work and sees their job as a reflection of his or her image.  Everything will be sacrificed for his or her image.

Narcissists in a relationship, however, are not excited to do the hard work to make a relationship work. They don’t want to learn new communication skills or be forced to a new level of honesty.  They will avoid counseling or criticize and demean therapists outside the office.  Most likely, they will start building a new dream with someone else instead of working on themselves.  When the narcissist leaves, he or she leaves you with a blank space inside. They were never really 100% there in your life. They leave you with the loneliness that they must feel as they walk through this life never being completely real and honest with another human being.

Narcissists as Parents:  The obvious type of narcissist, usually a father but sometimes a mother, is the type of parent who is absent. Maybe they are absent due to drugs and alcohol or maybe they are too self-centered to be bothered by the mundane, annoying details of raising a kid. They might be more loving or upbeat than the parent who is around more often. Children might long for a deeper relationship with that parent, but as they get older they usually see that this parent isn’t giving financially or otherwise. This type of parent is charming and good at building you up, but if you ask for the money or assistance they may not be able to deliver reliably. Their own needs and desires will be more important than the needs of dependents.

If this type of narcissist gets sober, these types focus on how much they missed their kids when they were out living the lives they lived. The narcissist will overly focus on his or her accomplishments in sobriety but won’t find the time to heal the harm they caused in their kid’s lives. Often, narcissists are not willing to address their psychological issues. They won’t actively  teach their kids about co-dependency and how to break these patterns. They won’t warn their children that alcoholism has a genetic link. They can’t be bothered to have difficult conversations that might benefit others.  However, they will brag about their kids and take more credit than they deserve for their accomplishments. Maybe they passed on a few of their good-looking genes. That’s about all they can take credit for when it comes to your accomplishments.

The abusive, narcissistic parent is on a continuum like all narcissists. They might be religious and use a Bible verse to justify spanking their very young kids who don’t understand why they are being hit. Their love might be contaminated by belief systems that tell them it is o.k. to take their stress and anger out on a child. Maybe they are emotionally manipulative and want to prove to the world or their family what a giving, loving, fantastic parent they are while paying very little attention to your actual needs. Maybe they are verbally abusive and fly off the handle in a rage at the smallest of irritations.  Maybe they are emotionally abusive and keep their children away from one side of the family out of spite.

Maybe they are more toxic than these examples and physically and sexually harm their children. Whatever the level of abuse, reconciling with an abusive, narcissistic parent is difficult. Maybe you tried to get along with this person for years, only to be thrown off guard by the hateful things they say in conversation. If you go no contact, the narcissistic parent will probably blame you for this when they talk to others. They will blame you for not being a good/respectful son/daughter and for pulling away from them even though they will never honestly care about what you are going through. They will only be concerned with themselves and how your behavior affects them.

Maybe they believe they reached forgiveness with their own abusive parents, but you find it hard to believe since they didn’t transcend the pattern. They can’t be loving or consistently decent to you in conversation, so how could they truly have forgiven their own parents? Whatever the case, the abusive, narcissistic parent leaves children with a wound that is hard to heal. Healing is possible and usually found through breaking patterns and filling one’s life with people who know how to honestly care about you. Healing takes a lot of work which is something narcissists shy away from even as parents.  Narcissistic parents will tell you how their life was much harder than yours to prove a certain superiority and avoid acknowledging your pain and their role in that dynamic of pain.

My greatest hope is that empaths might find larger groups of caring people.  My hope is that narcissists might heal the wounds that keep them from addressing their problems holistically.

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