On the flight to Boulder, Colorado to film with George Noory for an episode of Beyond Belief, it hit me how it is my God-given right to shine, and it is your God-given right to shine too. Don’t ever let the judgements and projections of others diminish your excitement for life. Stay vigilant in your joy and light because shining simply means that you have good will for others and hope to spread good energy.
Recently, I interviewed Gordana Biernat, one of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 teachers, and one of my favorite motivational speakers. She reminds us that, “You do not become outstanding by dwelling on your weaknesses. You become outstanding by focusing on your strengths.” Many people struggle with the idea of purpose at this time, and a message I keep hearing is one of absolute unconditional love reminding us that we are doing nothing wrong. Meet yourself with compassion and meet others with compassion, which leaves room for growth and ascension.
In fact, imagine all the negative energy, words, and actions that you have absorbed into your nervous system being removed from you and taken up to that light of absolute love…washed clean and transformed for the benefit of humanity, allowing you to live your life more freely and sustained by that flow of unconditional love.
One of the messages I heard from my NDE was to be like a little child, and the child in this picture below met me with absolute joy and a complete lack of judgement. She was simply excited that I dressed like an angel on the streets of Boulder, Colorado. In the other picture, you’ll see one of GAIA’s beautiful crystals and Joe Dispenza on the wall behind me. I didn’t wear the wings for the filming, but we had some fun with them in pictures. I’ll let you know when the episode airs.
If you would like to join my spiritual community, receive theta healings, and talk about spiritual topics in our group, I would love to have you join. We meet twice a month on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Central Time. Here is the link! I’m also working with writers at this time to assist them on their journeys to write about spiritual topics. Stay tuned for future interviews on my YouTube channel focused on motivation, healing, and ascension.
I appreciate your support and interest in near-death experiences. This is my latest YouTube video. As an experiencer, I know how fragile life can be, and I also know the freedom, bliss, and understanding from my transition into the light. Dying for a few minutes turned out to be the greatest gift of my life. Many years after my experience, I continue to look out at the world and hope to see more people creating lives which are full of light and joy.
We can always reach for greater healing, hope, and connection. We can always make a difference in someone else’s life, and we can always help people by visualizing the best and highest outcomes for their lives.
I would love to have you join my spiritual community which meets on two Wednesdays each month at 7 p.m. Central. Here is a link to join.
We have fun in this group. I give theta healings, downloads, short readings, and more. Often, we simply discuss how to live more joyously and center light for healing and transformation.
Wouldn’t it be great if the Information Age became an age of greater enlightenment, love, and healing?
I am moved by stories like the Same Kind of Different as Me— stories where people grow spiritually and contribute deeply to the lives of others. It is a wonderful experience to see how love and knowledge can alter another’s path in beneficial ways.
If everyone accessed their POWER to make a difference in this world, the world would be transformed quickly. But, as things are, there are layers upon layers of fear, misinformation, sullenness, codependency, addictions, lack of community, and distrust.
Fear and and anxiety is growing in younger populations at epidemic rates. One study found that one in three children meet the criteria for an anxiety disorder. I don’t blame these young people for feeling anxious.
Children and teens see clearer what is obvious–things look like they are a mess. Too many of us are are disconnected from nature, disconnected from one another, and disconnected from direct access to The Source which is as free to us as the sunlight is free. No one need ever be cut off from this unconditional love and freedom.
How many people feel great love and gratitude for each breath that they take? Several times throughout the day I am deeply grateful to be alive. Even when my heart is breaking, when grief is raging through me like a waterfall and I am drowning—I reach for that next breath and find the solution. No amount of love is ever lost or ever forgotten.
Personally, I enjoy taking time to sit under a tree for hours. There is much release that happens simply by doing nothing outdoors or exercising and playing outdoors. I think our ancestors would be shocked and disappointed in us for losing touch with something so basic. We need nature. We are nature. We are not electronic or robotic. When a person becomes cut off from his or her natural self, he or she can no longer see the truth—only images, delusions, and the mind’s paltry manifestations that dance into broken realities.
Nothing is needed but water, air, substance, and the flow of the divine love which washes away anxiety, fear, stagnation, and depression in others and in the self.
You are light beings. You are vibration. You are incredibly sensitive and worthy of good, safe lives. And, when you know that you have light in your soul and a connection, you must turn on the lights in the places of darkness, not to your own detriment but in the places and the ways that you can. You can always do more than you think you can do, and you can find that power in the divine.
I didn’t think I had the bravery to make one video on a public format like YouTube, and two years later I have connected with so many beautiful souls who have told me their stories and journeys near God. I have faced criticism and bullying (apparently women are bullied at high rates on social media), but I have also met far more people who have offered their wisdom and joy to me. I have connected with people who enjoy my channel. The channel exists free of charge and ads, simply to add some light (knowledge, love, insight, wisdom, peace, or healing) into the world.
A genuine wish for the inner freedom, happiness, bliss, peace and joy of all living beings is one of the freest and easiest things to give. Why not wish that for every soul you encounter? Do that as a practice, and then add actions to it and the world will change.
Beautiful ideas can be released into the world with ease like butterflies finally emerging and flying delicately in the sky. Take good care of the goodness and beauty in this world. Take good care of the goodness and beauty inside of you.
I am starting a series of videos responding to questions I have received this past year from readers and viewers of my YouTube channel. I hope you enjoy these. Thanks so much for your questions!
The journey of life is a beautiful and strange one, filled with joy and loss. The trick might be to see these moments as simply part of the whole of our existence. A focus on our spiritual purpose balances out these experiences.
Self-Love: I’ve recently started blogging for The Relationship Blogger. In this post, I talk about how one of the lessons from my NDE was how to become more of my best friend through the journey of this life no matter what I survived.
Without self-love, there is manipulation and drama in relationships. However, self-love grants us peace that no grasping at satisfaction will ever bring. That feeling of being o.k. as you are is priceless.
Healing: Themanuscript that I recently completed has a small portion which talks about learning to parent the wounded inner child inside of me. Wounds can’t be wished away or pushed aside; they will continue to crop up and get triggered if you don’t actively work to release and heal them. My strongest desire for young people is that they work on family of origin wounds and release these patterns early in life before these patterns get played out in various ways.
It would be amazing to see larger groups of college students open to the potential of energetic healing, as well as traditional forms of healing through churches, counseling, programs of recovery, mentorship programs, and success/inspirational workshops. Relationships are vital and important to everyone, and some college classes like sociology and psychology offer helpful information to students about healing and transformation. However, healing sometimes comes from having a loving focus on oneself and an intent to heal. Every human being is different and the modalities for healing are numerous–everything from nutritional therapy, functional medicine, sound healing, energetic healing, etc.
After my NDE, I am particularly sensitive to energy. I’m a fan and connoisseur of energy work. Because of this, I’ve decided to share the names of those whose work I have tried and deeply benefited from. I recently had an amazing session with Tara Rose . I’ve worked with shamans and had affirming, healing sessions. However, something about this session with Tara blew me away. I’m always looking for ways to bring more of the divine light into my life, and her session encouraged and greatly facilitated that experience. The healing work focused on a major wound in my life, and I still feel certain energetic changes many days later. If you try a session with her, I would love it if you let her know that I recommended you.
May each of you love and take great care of your inner child. I know mine better now that I have ever known her. Get to know yours, and be playful about the process. One of the lessons from my NDE was to remind people to be like a little child. Find a way to deeply enjoy life and be in the moment.
My inner child dances under the stars. She sends her wishes to the moon when it is full, and watches those wishes magically descend into her life. She has unexpected, divine messages and intellectual breakthroughs. She finds peace and healing in the embrace of nature. She is amused by creative, fun moments, and powerful, intuitive realizations. She feels the love and healing energy of angels and archangels all around her. The part of this inner child that is in touch with the light will never die.
The part of you that is in touch with the light will also never die. There is healing in remembering this truth.
As Tara Rose reminds us on her website, a true healer shows us our own capacity to heal and transform our lives, and love is always the greatest transformer. I wish everyone much healing and happiness no matter where your journey might be leading you.
I loved talking with Jannecke Øinæs in a recent interview, and she challenged me to think about concepts in new ways. In other posts, I’ve briefly mentioned the prayers I felt during my near-death experience, but I wanted to write more about prayer.
Prayer: One of the saddest questions I’ve been asked by a reader of my blog is from someone wondering why prayer does not work in some cases. Prayer isn’t a way to manipulate reality; instead, it is more like a gentle, healing wind. When my spirit was out of form, I felt the prayers of people I knew, and the prayers that moved me the most were the ones that were full of love.
Maybe the best that we can do when we pray is to pray with deep, unconditional love and to pray for the highest good in any situation. Even if our vision of world peace and a deeper connection to nature is at odds with the world around us, even if we don’t have the power to immediately shift the world to a better place, we can embody the type of love we want to see and send this love to the world with our prayers.
This isn’t easy after tragedy, but the best stories are the ones that make us cry with a rare form of joy and awe. We are amazed by people who overcome incredible odds. We are amazed when love wins in the darkest of situations. I was surprised recently to see Tony Robbins talking more openly about the abuse he survived growing up, and how this abuse motivated him later to help others. In an article in Men’s Journal, he reveals,
“I really stopped feeling sorry for myself. I stopped blaming my mother for everything that was wrong in my life. She was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs. She also was abusive and would smash my head into a wall or fill my mouth with liquid soap until I threw up because she thought I was acting out of line. I never talked about her while she was alive, and I still love her to this day. The fact is if my mother had been the mother I hoped for, I wouldn’t be the man I am proud to be today. All of this is inside me somewhere, driving me to visit 14 countries in a year and work 50 hours on a weekend. I suffered so much, I didn’t want anyone else to suffer and I was obsessed with finding answers. Now I am obsessed with having the answers and sharing those answers.”
Robbins also talks about the books that influenced his thinking, as well as his newest book.
How does prayer help others? It can give a lonely wanderer strength to make it to an oasis. Prayer can be the wind that carries the drunk safely home. Prayer can be a message to someone departing the planet like a secret note. It can be a nod of farewell or greeting, a bow of respect, or a heart shaped text from one mind to another.
I never liked listening to pompous, showy prayers spoken out loud in the churches I grew up attending. Even as a child, it was obvious to me that the majority of those prayers were about the ego of the one speaking. The one praying wanted others to see how much of the Bible he knew by heart. If the child wasn’t impressed, then there probably wasn’t much unconditional love attached to the prayer.
As a child and as an adult, I was moved not only by authentic prayers, but authentic deeds. I was always motivated and moved by those who transformed pain into a mission to help others. Robbins is a good example of that kind of mission.
Can we pray for angels to assist in certain situations? I know we can and should pray for their assistance. At different times in my life, I’ve been gifted the sight to see how many angels are around us all, and there are so many of them. To not call on angels is to miss out on a great resource. My angels were assistants in my surgery, and angels are available to us in dramatic situations and ordinary situations where we sometimes struggle. The medical medium suggests calling on specific angels for specific needs.
Why are some prayers answered and not others? Everyone struggles with this question, and the angels say to simply not struggle. When you are in a state of love, you are doing great things for your own physiology and psychology. The outcome is not as important as the act of being in a state of love and connection like a flower blooming. Reach for the sun, reach for your own nourishment, and shine. Be aware of the process of life, and send great love into the world.
Certainly, studies have proven that meditation and prayer can reduce crime when enough people are consistently anchoring that kind of peace in the world. You may not immediately see your prayer’s effects, but some tragedies might be avoided because of the authentic, loving prayers you pray. Light may dawn in the lives of those who would not have otherwise awakened.
For fans of healing geometry, here is a link to an artist, Ann DeRulle, who works in this medium.
Forgiveness: Many spiritual teachers talk about the necessity of forgiveness. The sooner we can get through the stages of grief and get to forgiveness, the better of our inner worlds become. I know we don’t take pain and trauma with us when we die. I know it is washed away. Bringing the light of the heavens, the love of the heavens into our own hearts to heal all that we have experienced is important.
In a sense, this kind of focus does bring more success into one’s life. Although there is a basic truth to manifestation, the theory doesn’t explain everything about living in this complex, unpredictable world. However, a positive focus, no matter one’s difficulties, makes for an easier journey.
The Now: My near-death experiencetaught me to live in the moment and treasure each moment. Forgiveness can be accessed quicker simply by switching one’s focus to all that is beautiful about the world whether this is a meal with friends or family or a walk in a beautiful park during your favorite season of the year.
To deeply access a place of forgiveness takes courage; forgiveness doesn’t mean that you continue to hang around people who harm you. Forgiveness simply means you choose to love and appreciate yourself and your life, no matter what occurs before, behind, or beside you. You are the embodiment of love.
Try to remember that when you are near death, you don’t want to yell at those who have hurt, shocked, abandoned, abused you, or otherwise wronged you. Instead, you want to be surrounded by the people who love you. You want to tell everyone you love how much you love them and how much you want only goodness and happiness for them. And when you die, love is what you take with you.
The lesson you must learn during your earthly experience is to refuse to populate your mind with the people who have wronged you. This kind of focus can rob of you of precious time and health. Forgiveness of others grants you a wonderful, blissful life.
Your forgiveness lets others fly free, and most of all puts you in touch with the love of heavens. Your hope that others might live better lives works to create a better world.
Our legacy eventually becomes how much we were able to love and forgive despite the conditions of this world. So, forgive it all as if every breath might be the last one.
Death and Dying: Even those who have the power to heal both themselves and others will eventually die. We all die. We don’t necessarily manifest death. Death is just part of life. Nature teaches us this. You’re not losing the game by leaving the world early. No one is losing by dying; it is just part of the life experience.
You are only losing out on the joy of life when you refuse to love deeply and forgive everything. However, even if or when you are consumed by bitterness, try to remember that you are loved more than you can imagine. This might open your heart to forgive others.
A few years after my NDE, I remember meeting an older gentleman who had also recently experienced a NDE. He decided to sell everything, retire, and live way out in the country in Montana. His family freaked out and kept asking him what he would do if he had a heart attack out in the middle of nowhere. He replied, “After making the 911 call, I would simply walk out into my gorgeous backyard, lie back on the ground, look up at the stars or the clouds, and send my love to this earth and everyone in it. If I died there, I can’t think of a better way to go.”
I can’t think of a better way to go either. Since you will probably send your love to everyone in the end, you might as well send your love to everyone in every moment of your life.
This video discusses a few important messages from my NDE, but here is the abbreviated version.
Message #1: Be Open to Communication and Assistance From the Other Side
Our world does not celebrate the gifts of intuition and being right-brained as often as it celebrates the left-brain types of accomplishments. However, the right brain is a lovely place to live. Guided meditations might be one way to open more to imagination and connection. Stilling the mind through mindfulness meditations might facilitate more receptivity. The realm between sleep and waking can be a place to access messages as well. However, these activities are not necessary for communicating with angels and guides.
These are simply possible ways to open your mind to divine communication. Taking a walk might be a way to open to guidance. Lorna Byrne says to simply ASK for communication from angels, and Ann Albers gives a beautiful overview of connecting with guides and angels in this article.
Message #2: Be of Service to Others and Angels Might Work Through You
I wrote a post about how being of service is one way out of depression. It is not the only way, but simply one part of shifting one’s focus off all that is wrong with one’s life to what can be done to help others. In serving others, our hearts open to the world. During my NDE, I saw how powerful it was to help others and realized that the beauty we create in the lives of others is one of the main memories we take with us.
Message #3: Be Open to Others and Don’t Judge
During my NDE, I understood that many people were just like me. They were doing their best, struggling to make sense of their lives, and trying to survive. I saw that they needed as much grace and compassion as I was given in the afterlife. Consider many different possibilities when interacting with others. For example, those with poor social skills might have a disability or be suffering from an anxiety disorder. Offer as much mercy and kindness to people as possible.
We are not that different; we are all more similar than we think. During my NDE, I saw clearly how my judgments prevented me from knowing lovely, spiritual people in my vicinity. Be open to kind people especially. However, personal boundaries and self-protection/love is a theme I come back to often. Abusers in spiritual communities and other areas of life can trespass on the boundaries of very loving, open people. Love and openness given to others must be balanced with protection and love for the self.
Message #3: Go to Nature
I made a recent post about this idea and believe that nature is healing, calming, and important for our mental health. Additionally, many people who experience an awakening have a greater awareness of the energy of certain foods and the importance of treating our bodies like temples. I have found a lot of healing at different times in my life from a diet focusing largely on fresh, organic fruits and vegetables.
My grandmother, who lived in the country, picked fresh beans and vegetables from her garden and often said, “Food tastes best when the sunlight is still in it.” She had a good point! Not many of us have access to food that fresh, but look for possibilities to eat the freshest possible foods. Spend time enjoying the beauty of nature; it will reset your energy level and often erase your worries.
Message #4: Be Like a Little Child
In Matthew 18:3 Jesus says, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you change and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It is easier to access the love of God with an open, trusting heart. Children do this more effortlessly than adults. Look for ways to be pure of heart and gleeful about your connection to the divine. Greet your life with immense gratitude. On a basic level, NDErs will always know the fragility of this life and how easily our lives can be ripped from our grasp. We appreciate being alive, but you don’t have to have an NDE to be grateful, joyful, and peaceful.
Message #5: You Are Loved and You Are the Light
Before my NDE, I lived in an almost constant state of worry and fear. I survived a lot, but this fear was not improving my life in any way; rather, it was destroying my well-being. The immediate knowledge of the immense love of God during my NDE altered my perception of reality. It is important to know that fear can be dismantled and forgotten. Remembering our connection to unconditional love can ease much of the strain of this life.
Message #6: Be Good to Yourself and Others
This is a golden rule of most religions. To me, goodness is more than simply doing no harm. Goodness is making the world around you brighter, healthier, and a more positive experience for others.
Message #7: Live a Purposeful Life
The last part of my NDE showed me that I needed to return to earth and teach. You do not have to be a teacher to live a purposeful life. You do not have to have a NDE to know your life purpose. You only need to infuse your actions with goodness and blessings for others with whatever it is you do in this world.
Years ago, I read The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. If there is a quote from that book that sums up my major life lessons, it must be this one: “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. Don’t waste your pain; use it to help others.” ― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for
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
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.
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.
Tricia Barker 