i was an agnostic college student on my way to run the austin 10k and unfortunately i
had this or fortunately i had this head-on collision on my way to run the race and i
broke my back in three places the uh spine was compromised and three vertebrae were completely
shattered pieces of the bone were pressing on my spine i waited in the er for 17 hours
i remember reading 17 chance of death i thought no i'm young i'm strong i was about to run
a race there's no way i'm dying so you can imagine my horror and my excitement and my
joy when indeed i did die on that operating table and being agnostic i assumed that you
know we just became nothing you know that when we died there was nothing maybe our energy
dissipated into the grass the trees and earth and that was it so when i had this this deeper
intelligence as a spirit i was shocked because i placed so much emphasis on my brain that
when my spirit form lifted out of my body i was like oh i'm so clear this is truly the
true me this spirit form is made that body on the table is just a bloody piece of meat
that they're operating on that i use as as something to take me through this life but
the real me is the spirit and it was so clear over there like in those first few seconds
my intelligence felt uh more heightened immediately i felt like i could see the entire room i
could see what the surgeons were doing i could observe a lot and understand a lot of information
all at one time and you know we're not limited by eyes that look straight ahead when we're
the spirit form we can just see everything then i saw these angels at the foot of the
bed and i didn't call them angels and i still you know i'm comfortable calling them light
beings because they were composed of light so if you imagine just this flowing energy
it looked kind of like robes i didn't really see wings if there were wings behind them
you know they were just part of this flowing robe but they looked ancient they looked incredibly
intelligent they did to have a human face and this kind of curly hair that was about
shoulder length but they really could have been male or female that i mean i just looked
at them and they were beautiful the main thing is that their eyes were made of this light
and they communicated with telepathy through their eyes and that's the part that really
got me i remember thinking wow this light not only communicates to me but it's sending
this healing into my spirit form and healing into my physical body and i remember thinking
those neurosurgeons but they don't realize that the angels are assisting them because
the angels very playfully said watch this and they sent this light through the back
of the surgeons through their hands and it lit up my entire body and i knew that i'd
walk i knew that i'd run i knew that i'd have a life after this and i knew that it was partially
because of their assistance and you know this was the 1990s so you have to imagine that
you know reiki is kind of common uh knowledge you know that people use angelic realms to
help people heal at that time i'd never heard of it so this looked like most far-out scene
you know i've never seen in my life i thought wow so this intelligence is working through
the neurosurgeons for my benefit how amazing is that um the next part of the near-death
experience occurred when the monitor flatlined and we've all heard that sound
and that beep i knew missed my body was dead and it looked a little gruesome already my
back was open and they also had my hip opened up because they were taking bone from my hip
and putting it into my back and i remember thinking i don't think i want to watch how
they're going to revive me this is not going to be pretty this is going to be really ugly
so i left the operating room and when i was in the hallway i observed my stepdad get a
candy bar and this became a verifiable detail later but you know in the moment i just remember
thinking oh that's funny thought he was a health nut he's eating snickers bar and and
moved on from the moment but i hoped that he might be kind to my mom in case i didn't
come back so even though the angels told me i'd walk and run again i think there was this
embrace of the spirit form and immediately it's like i was trying to take control of
that and go yeah i don't really have to return do i think this is this can be just my reality
from this point forward the parts of the near death experience that changed me the most
was the next few parts which was this feeling of oneness with everyone i've known and i
think in these particular times we need more of that we need this understanding that what
does all of this matter in 50 or 100 years what matters is how kind we are to those around
us and this can include even people at a grocery store or barista or anyone in our classes
or people we work with that we're connected energetically that we're more of a there's
this oneness of energy that flows through all of humanity and when you're unkind to
people it reflects back to you in certain ways so i felt this just like general love
for everyone that i've ever known and really kind of got it that when we leave here all
that we're taking with us is this kind of wish for humanity to do well to be better
to be happy then it transitions through that some people call it a tunnel or it was very
quick for me i was just in the night sky and i looked out and i saw all these beautiful
stars and this light i wasn't afraid there wasn't a single moment where i was afraid
in this experience and that's what i want people to understand is that a lot of people
live in fear of death when they're in the physical body i understand that but once you're
there it's not that scary you know it's just another reality and so in that place i felt
the intelligence of god coming toward me god showed me my life i relived certain moments
moments that were most important to me were the moments where i was kind or i was in touch
with god then god showed me that i should be perhaps better to people at 22 i was a
little judgmental cliquish and looked down on some people who actually prayed for me
i didn't like them because they i don't know they didn't go to my college they didn't go
to college at all and so i just thought i didn't have anything in common with them but
it turns out their hearts and souls were very beautiful and i could see this on the other
side and i was embarrassed by how i had acted and i thought from this point forward i'm
not judging people superficially i'm looking at their hearts who are they what is their
true motivation in life and are they good to others and i think you know now that lesson
has played out so many times there's so many manipulative people on this planet and so
many people who don't come from that pure-hearted place and i think god was showing me there
are some people who come from that pure-hearted place and find them and make them your friends
and so i i saw that very clearly and then moved on to this beautiful landscape with
where the grass was beautiful so deeply green as if nothing had ever touched it there was
no death no harm everything was just vibrant with life and my soul kind of hovered above
this place i began to hear messages as i was entering heaven like love is all that matters
all that we take with us be like a little child um these particular messages seem simple
though and i remember honestly having a moment of like oh god please give me more if i'm
coming back i need something more than a beatles slogan of love is all that matters like maybe
you need to give me some formulas or some gifts or something you know like this is not
enough that love is all that matters but what i saw is that when i met my grandfather he
was part of the unconditional love that i'd experienced in life and he was the only person
who had transitioned when i saw him he gave me great peace and i thought well all i have
is the memories of love with him i don't have the memories in that place of his dying form
of what he looked like when he had leukemia i just remember his soul's desire to write
stories to me to connect with me to be that loving grandfather to be that figure in my
life that showed me that i was important and that was that was beautiful that's all that
we had in that realm was the love that we had experienced when he looked at me and he
said you want to continue on i knew this meant go to the light of god so i just flew my soul
just like went towards and god looked like this bright light but it was more than a light
it was intelligence it was magnets it was something that changed me i i can't describe
how how shocking it was i'd never experienced love like that before only pieces like through
my grandfather through parents through friends but this was like i call it an atomic bomb
of love because it was so massive it just hit me and i thought wow in physical form
we spend so much of our time not loving ourselves not being happy with the circumstance feeling
anxious feeling i mean we just spend so much of our time not really understanding that
we're connected to the greatest love on that we can imagine and that we can all feel okay
we can all feel this bliss that this is kind of our divine right and what we deserve uh
no matter how we've been treated in childhood no matter what we've experienced every single
one of us can connect to this love i felt people's prayers trying to pull me back and
i just remember breaking through them going whatever you know like i i'm going towards
god god's awesome and as i got closer and closer to god i didn't want to come back here
this place didn't seem interesting after experiencing god i thought i very much want to keep merging
with god going into that light and going into that beauty at some point i was stopped and
god said with this booming voice looked down and when i looked down i saw this river which
i i thought was like a river of life you know those people walking along in time and i saw
that some people had darkness around them and some people were just lights and they
were connected to that light of god even though god was far away from them they had that connection
and i thought what is that darkness and it looks so simple it looked like oh i can just
remind people to connect to god and that's all that they'll need it doesn't look complicated
like there are murderers down there or there are people doing really horrible things it
just looks like there's fear and then there's a connection to god and that's all there is
and so when god said i'm going to work as a teacher i was upset that was not what i
wanted to do with my life i've grown up poor i thought no way no no no and let's just stay
here or give me a different mission and god almost laughed at me and that's when i was
hurled back into my body why do we come here that mean that's a good question i think too
i think our souls are almost like journeyers or warriors you know we're trying to learn
something in a dramatic way by coming here and those of us who remember it you know we've
won in a sense it's like no matter what happens from this point forward it's like we won we
got it we remembered we're loved we're gonna mess up but we're gonna do the best that we
can from here on