Episode 275: The Heavenly Welcoming Committee: Verifiable Proof & Miraculous Reunions

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. With performances by Alex Warren, Kehlani, Laini Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Pepper, and Invoke. Plus Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Also Gold Medal Olympian, Alyssa Liu, Neo, Nick Colesure Singer, Nikki Glaser, Sombra, Weiser, and more. Watch live on Fox, Thursday, March 26th, at 8, 7 Central. And listen on iHeart radio stations across America and the free iHeart app. And you're here. Thanks for choosing the iHeart radio and Costa Coast Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained ends here. We invite you to enjoy all our shows we have on this network. And right now, let's start with Shades of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain. Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only. And do not reflect those of iHeart media, iHeart radio, Costa Coast AM, employees of Premier Networks, or their sponsors and associates. We would like to encourage you to do your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi, I'm Sandra Champlain. For over 25 years, I've been on a journey to prove the existence of life after death. On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we now know that our loved ones have survived physical death. And so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. It's been a long time since I first started researching the afterlife. And you may wonder, what is it that keeps me going? Yes, I've studied things like reincarnation, induced after death communication, the world of signs, EVPs, instrumental transcommunication, and so much other stuff. I would say the top three things I love talking about and investigating for myself that really keep me kind of plugged in to the reality of the afterlife is I can never get enough good stories about verifiable near-death experiences. We've heard a lot about that on the show in recent episodes. Also the world of mediums. Now I know it's tough to find a good medium, and you probably heard that our new film, Evidence of the Afterlife, just came out on Apple TV. But I do know that with the properly trained medium and even taking medium classes ourselves, we are so surprised with the information that we think is our imagination is really evidence of people's loved ones. So I love staying plugged into evidential mediumship, telling stories of physical mediumship, which you don't see in the world too much anymore. And then of course, transmedia. Those special times, when a good trans medium closes their eyes and someone who had once lived speaks through them with verifiable evidence and inspiration and empowerment and all good things. But also for myself, as I'm getting older, I turn 60 this year. It's so hard to believe. I love and can't get enough of discovering deathbed visitations. Those moments just before someone passes, and they see a loved one or they see an angel or a pet that comes to visit them. And that's really comforting to me to know that nobody dies alone. So that will be our theme for today. And no matter what I tend to read or watch on television, it always seems like there's some kind of a life after death connection. Last night was no different. My mom and I were looking for something to watch on TV. You know, at the end of the day, after we have our dinner, I go into her room, there's a big comfy chair in there. She's relaxed on her bed. We have a nice big screen TV, and we just like to watch something. And so recently, the TV show The Pit won for Best Actor, Supporting Actress, and Best Overall Drama Series. Not knowing what it was, we tuned into it. It's a hospital story. The Pit being the emergency room at a Pittsburgh hospital. The main star is Noah Wiley, who you may remember from ER. He plays Dr. Robbie. Well, on one of the episodes we watched a few last night, there's a man who's close to the edge of life. His adult children are with them. They're freaking out because they don't know how to handle the father's passing. Dr. Robbie gives them some advice. He says, four main things to say to your loved one. I love you. I thank you. I forgive you. And will you forgive me? Now, you fill in some extra with each one of those, like, I love you because I thank you for. I forgive you for. Will you forgive me for? You get the idea. I actually think those would be good to do right now with any living person. So in the TV show, the adult children do that with their father. And then later on, Dr. Robbie is told that the father has passed away. And when the adult children talk about the experience, they say, right before he died, he had a huge smile on his face. And he looked up and he saw his own mother. That is a deathbed visitation. And my favorite deathbed visitation person is Dr. Christopher Kerr, hospice doctor, who wrote the book, Death is but a dream. He's a neurobiologist, a brain scientist. And he was shocked himself by what he saw. He realized that dying isn't about the body breaking down. It's just a transition. He calls them end of life dreams and visions. I call them deathbed visitations. But he says that 88% of people have them. He researched either 1600 or 1700 people who are dying in hospice. And people say that they don't feel like dreams. These visions are real. Just like if you and I were in the room together, that's how people see their loved ones. They say it feels more real than real. Let me give you an example. This is the story of an elderly man named Frank. Frank had cancer and he had become very, very quiet and withdrawn. His family thought he was already gone and that his mind was gone because he wouldn't speak to anyone. But one afternoon while the family was taking a break, Frank opened his eyes and looked at the foot of his bed with pure joy. He reached out his hand and started making a stroking motion in the air. He was whispering, there's my good girl, Sadie. Now his daughter came back into the room and the volunteer told her what happened. The daughter started crying. She said Sadie was Frank's cherished dog, a black lab who had died 10 years before. And for every day for 14 years, that dog waited by the door for Frank to take her evening walk. And there he was at the end of his life, stroking her fur and saying, you came to take me for a walk, didn't you? Okay, girl, let's go. You see, Frank wasn't scared. He wasn't alone. He was going on one last walk with his best friend. So that shows us we are never alone, whether it's a parent, a spouse, or a dear pet, someone is there to take us across to our real home, the other side. And yes, it's not just pets. Sometimes it's the secret people. There's another story about a woman who had been asleep for three days. Suddenly she sat up and put a big smile on her face and said, Oh, Arthur. Now here's the thing, her husband's name wasn't Arthur, and her family had no idea who Arthur was. It wasn't until her funeral that they found out that Arthur was her fiance who had died in combat during World War Two. She had carried that love in her heart for this man for over 60 years. So he was the one who came to walk her home. We also hear about people reliving the best parts of their lives at the end. Dr. Kerr told the story of a man named Patrick who was reliving a family dinner with his deceased grandmother. He was sitting there in his vision, eating her secret spaghetti sauce. And the truth is, Patrick said he had tried to make her spaghetti sauce many times, but didn't know what the secret ingredient was. So in that vision, just before he passed, Patrick was actually told the secret ingredient from his grandmother and his wife made the sauce. And sure enough, it tasted exactly like it. He passed peacefully after having eaten some of this wonderful spaghetti with the spaghetti sauce. These things are validation, my friend. And here's one about Bridget, an 81-year-old grandmother. She started having visions that were so real, they started blending into her waking life. She saw her two deceased aunts standing in the corner of the room, watching over her. Then she saw her mother wearing a luminous white dress, sitting at a table and crocheting. Bridget was a very religious woman, so these visions actually caused like a crisis of faith for her? She thought, am I going crazy? I expected to see angels and harps, but I'm seeing my mother in the corner crocheting. It wasn't until the hospice team told her that this happens to about 90% of people that she felt relaxed. She eventually understood that heaven isn't some strange, far-off place. It's home. It's where our people are. It's where our pets are. So Bridget even started joking with the nurses, saying that spirits like to follow the living around, even the disbelieving people. And what about people who can't speak? Well, there was a man with Alzheimer's who hadn't said a word in over a year. His brain was failing. But in the middle of the night, his wife heard a voice. She ran into the room and found her husband sitting up, speaking in a clear, articulate voice. He was having a full-on conversation with his brother, who had died years before. He was laughing, reminiscing about old times, calling the brother by name. To me, this is ultimate proof. Obviously, if the brain is broken, how can a person be having a whole conversation filled with excitement and smiles and joy right before they leave? It's because the soul is finally stepping out from behind the curtain. The physical body is just dissolving. But the real person, who we really are, our wise souls, we are becoming stronger. Let's talk about the life review for just a second. We hear how people in their death experiences see their whole lives flashed before them. Some people say that it's like an Omni-Max screen, with all kinds of different videos playing all at the same time. Dr. Kerr's research shows that many of us start this process even before we die. We do a mental inventory. We start remembering things we haven't thought about in 50 years. Sometimes it's a beautiful garden or smelling a mother's perfume. It's like our consciousness is trying to heal what was broken and put us back together so we can transition in peace. I like that. When we look at our own bodies and we think about how miraculous it is that they can heal themselves from, say, a cut, why wouldn't transitioning to the afterlife be just as miraculous? When we understand that love never dies, then our loved ones are literally waiting for us. It changes how we live today. It takes away that fear. And when you take away the fear of dying, we suddenly have the courage to live, to go after our dreams. So if you're feeling a little lousy today, or maybe you're worried about a loved one, or maybe you're just stressed, or feeling the weight of the world, or your work, I want you to just sit back and listen and take a deep breath. We're going to spend the rest of this episode looking at the stories that prove that you, my friend, are a divine soul having a human experience. You are perfect just the way you are, and your life matters more than you can possibly know. You aren't just a body. You are a divine light, and that light doesn't go anywhere when the body stops. When we get back from the break, we're going to talk about those verifiable stories, including a man who came back in a dream to tell his son exactly where he hid $5,000 in a dresser drawer. So stay right where you are. We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM, paranormal podcast network. The Coast to Coast AM mobile app is here and waiting for you right now. With the app, you can hear classic shows from the past seven years, listen to the current live show, and get access to the Art Bell Vault where you can listen to uninterrupted audio. So head on over to thecoasttocoastam.com website. We have a handy video guide to help you get the most out of your mobile app usage. All the info is waiting for you now at coasttocoastam.com. That's coasttocoastam.com. We have a handy video guide to help you get the most out of your mobile app usage. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Art Bell Vault never disappoints. Classic audio at your fingertips. Go now to coasttocoastam.com for full details. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. by Alex Warren, Kailani, Laini Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Kappa, and Invoke. Plus, Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Also, Gold Medal Olympian, Alyssa Liu, Neo, Nick Colesure Singer, Nicky Glaser, Sombra, Weezer, and more. Watch live on Fox, Thursday, March 26th, at 8, 7 Central. And listen on I Heart Radio stations across America and the free I Heart app. Hey, this is George Norrie, and you're listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Thanks for being here. Now let's get back to more with Sandra. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain, and before the break, we were talking about those incredible end of life visions, those moments where just before a person dies, they see a loved one or a pet, and all their fear suddenly vanishes. You know, I used to be such a die-hard skeptic, and I didn't believe in any of this stuff. I used to say, well, it's just the brain shutting down. It must be the lack of oxygen, but research has challenged that, not just myself, but so many others, even professionals, that come across these stories that go beyond comfort for people. I've seen cases where a dying person, or even a loved one in a dream, right after a person passes away, receives information that is 100% verifiable, and this is information they couldn't have possibly known. Let's start with a story. It's about a man whose father was in hospice back in the 1990s. The father had been in a coma for weeks, totally unresponsive. On the day he passed, he suddenly held up his arm toward the corner of the ceiling. He had a big smile on his face, and he spoke in a very soft voice to someone no one else could see. 25 minutes later, he was gone. Now, about two months later, the son had a very vivid dream. His dad appears to him looking young and happy. He's actually flapping his arms like a chicken. He says to his son, I feel so light. It's wonderful. But then he says, son, I never had time to tell you what I left $5,000 in the top dresser drawer for you and your family. So the man wakes up, tells his wife, and they go into the father's old room. They open that top dresser drawer. There's a pile of books and papers, but they dig all the way to the bottom. And right there, they find a white envelope with their names on it. And inside, yep, exactly $5,000 in cash. So how do you explain that? A hallucination with a brain shutting down does not tell you where money is hidden. A dying brain doesn't give you specific information and the correct dollar amount that turns out to be right. This is a piece of verifiable information from a consciousness that is still very much alive and looking out for those it loves. This brings me to the incredible work of Dr. Karen Wyatt. I interviewed Karen many years ago, and she leads her own podcast. She was a hospice doctor for over 25 years, and she wrote the book called Seven Lessons for Living from the Dying. Karen didn't start out wanting to be a hospice doctor. She was a young family physician when her own father died by suicide. And of course, she and her family were devastated. Karen felt like a failure as a doctor because she couldn't save her own dad. She was lost in grief three years until she felt a little divine spark, we'll call it, to call a local hospice. She told me that she describes the dying process in a way that I've never heard anybody else put it. She says it's like the physical body begins to dissolve. It becomes less solid, less material, and as the body becomes less solid, the soul becomes prominent. It's like the real person, the light we are inside, is finally breaking through the cracks of the physical shell. Karen told a story about a patient named John who had advanced Alzheimer's. Now, medically speaking, John's brain was severely damaged, and he had not spoken a single word in over a year. He was just a shell of a person. But one night, his wife was in the next room, and she heard a voice talking. She ran in thinking a stranger had broken in, and she found John sitting up in his bed, but he was totally articulate and lucid. He was having a full conversation with his brother who had died years before. He was calling him by name, laughing about things they did as kids, reminiscing about specific memories. So let's think about that. If our brain is just the source of speech and our memory, and that brain is 100% broken by Alzheimer's, how can that man suddenly speak perfectly for 10 minutes? This is actually called terminal lucidity, as we've talked about before. It's because the soul isn't in our brains. The soul uses the brain like a radio uses an antenna. When the antenna is broken, the music is still playing. You just can't hear it. But at the end of life, sometimes the connection becomes clear for a moment, and then the real person, that soul shines through and steps forward to say goodbye. Dr. Karen says for these patients, their fear completely disappears. They get this aura of light around them. They aren't going into the dark. They are arriving in the light. I also want to share a story from a young boy in hospice, and this story comes from researcher Martha Atkins. This boy was very close to passing, and he kept looking at the corner of the room, talking to what his family thought were imaginary friends. He gave the name of three boys. Later, after he passed, the family found out that those were the names of the last three boys who had stayed in that exact hospital room and passed away just before him. He had never met them in life. He had never heard their names, but these boys were there to greet him. They were his welcoming committee. Like I said, I'm getting older and you are too. But these stories remind us that the world is so much bigger than what we can see with our two eyes. I talk a lot about how we're like a radio or a television. Right now in the room you're sitting in, there are waves of music and news and GPS signals and all kinds of other signals in these space around us. We can't see them, we can't hear them, but if you have a radio or the right television or a GPS, then suddenly the signal appears. Our loved ones are exactly like that. They haven't gone away to some distant planet or they haven't disappeared forever. They've just tuned their frequency. At the end of our lives, our tuner starts to slide over and pick up that other station. Isn't that cool? Karen Wyatt also talked about a patient named Ted. Ted was a very successful financial guy. He had a big house and all the fancy cars, all the toys, but he was miserable. He told Dr. Karen, I spent my whole life focusing on being rich and I sacrificed love to do it. He was estranged from his son and he felt like his life was meaningless. And because he was in hospice, he had that time to do that life inventory that we just spoke about. So he reached out to his son. They reconciled and Ted learned what he calls what really matters. He realized that love is the only currency that carries over. He told Dr. Karen, if I had known this 20 years ago, it would have changed everything about how I live. So that's the message I want to give to us all today is that we don't have to wait. We can learn what really matters right now. We can look at our lives through the lens of that man at the finish line. Are we focusing on the stuff and money and possessions or are we focusing on love? Dr. Karen Wyatt says that when we handle the fear of death, we actually handle the fear of living. I have a friend who is a champion race car driver. He flatlined on an operating table years ago after a crash. He told me he was greeted by his grandparents in a world that made this life seem like it was just a dream. He said, Sandra, after that, I wasn't afraid to go faster. I wasn't afraid to take the curves aggressively. He became a champion race car driver because he knew he was safe no matter what. Now, I'm not telling any of us that we should speed or drive a car at 200 miles an hour, but where in your life are you playing it safe? Because maybe you're afraid or maybe you're procrastinating on something. Where are you not saying, I love you because you're worried about being rejected? Where are you staying in a lousy mood because you're stuck in the past? Maybe making yourself or someone else wrong? When we look at these death bed stories, the message is always the same. Love is the point. Everything else is just detail. There was a woman who saw her deceased sister in her room wearing a saggy pea green cotton jersey dress. That's specific. She didn't see a glowing angel with a harp. She just saw her sister in her favorite old house dress. It tells us that our personality, our memories, even our favorite clothes, they go along with us and we stay us. We also see people being transported back to places they love. There was a woman named Lucy who told her daughter she had been out of her body visiting the old farm in Pennsylvania where she grew up. She described the kitchen and the view of the cows in the field. She saw it so clearly. She wasn't confused. She was visiting the places her soul felt most at home. And then there's the story of Arthur. I mentioned this briefly, but it's worth repeating. The woman calling out for Arthur when it wasn't her husband's name. It reminds us that our hearts are huge. We have room for so many people and the spirit world doesn't have the same jealousy or limitations we have here. All the people we have ever loved, even that fiance from 60 years ago or people that you have long forgotten are part of our team. I want to encourage you to think about those four things I mentioned earlier because they really are making me think. Please forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you. We can start using them today. Don't wait for the dissolving process to start. If you have a parent or someone you haven't spoken to or a friend you had a falling out with or even if you need to say it to yourself, do it now. Sometimes writing those letters, even if we don't send it, can be quite healing. You know, I have to be honest. I felt a little crummy today, but every time when I sit here with you knowing that you're listening, it helps me remember who we really are. In my life, I used to be such a crump and a skeptic and my attitude has shifted because I'm focusing on the reality of who we are. Divine souls having a human experience. We are wise, we are eternal, we are connected and we're never alone. When we get back from this break, we're going to hear about Dr. Penny Sartori. She's an intensive care nurse who has seen the difference between a hallucination and a real near-death experience. We'll hear about the life review and what it's like to feel the ripple effect of every kind thing that you have ever done. We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring Podcast playlist is available now. Whether spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Along with your favorite I Heart radio station and the I Heart radio app. The Internet is an extraordinary resource that links our children to a world of information experiences and ideas. It can also expose them to risk. Teach your children the basic safety rules of the virtual world. Our children are everything. Do everything for them. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring Podcast playlist is available now. Whether spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch as we honor the biggest stars from all genres of music that you love listening to all year long on your favorite I Heart radio station and the I Heart radio app. Icon Award recipient John Mellencamp, Innovator Award recipient Miley Cyrus with performances by Alex Warren, Kailani, Lainey Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Kappa and Invoke. Plus Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Also Gold Medal Olympian Alyssa Liu, Neo, Nicole Scherzinger, Nikki Glaser, Sombra, Weezer and more. Watch live on Fox, Thursday, March 26th, at 8, 7 central and listen on I Heart radio stations across America and the free I Heart app. Hey, it's the Wizard of Weird Joshua P. Warren. Don't forget to check out my show, Strange Things each week as I bring you the world of the truly amazing and bizarre right here on the I Heart radio and coast to coast AM paranormal podcast network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. Now I want to take a look at what happens when the soul actually steps through the door and then it comes back to tell us about it. To do that, I want to revisit a conversation I had with Dr. Penny Sartori. Penny is a lady I admire a lot. She worked as an intensive care nurse for 17 years with the most critically ill patients that you can ever imagine. She eventually undertook the UK's largest and first long-term study of near-death experiences and was awarded a PhD for her research. Penny is the author of a wonderful book called The Wisdom of the Near-Death Experience. Penny told me that what sparked her research was a man she was caring for in the ICU. He had a very long, difficult, and very painful death and it hit her so hard that she went home and realized we don't understand death at all. And as a nurse, she was trained in science. She was taught in medical books that near-death experiences were just hallucinations or a dying brain firing off random signals. But her heart, thankfully, told her something else. Now Penny did something very smart that a lot of researchers miss. She decided to do a side-by-side comparison. She studied patients who were clearly hallucinating because of their high doses of drugs, fever, etc., and compared them with patients who reported a near-death experience. What she found was interesting. They were completely different. You see, when a person hallucinates, they're usually confused. They might see spiders on a wall or think the nurse is someone she isn't. It feels messy and all mixed up together. When those people wake up later, they rationalize it. They can say, oh, I was out of my mind. I was on those medications. I'm so sorry. I was embarrassed by what I said. But the people who had near-death experiences, they're different. They are adamant. They told her it was realer than real. They described a heightened state of awareness that made our everyday life on earth seem like it was just a fuzzy dream. Penny said she's seen grown men, and I'm talking tough military-type men who don't show emotion, break down in tears, crying unconditionally, trying to find the words for the pure unconditional love that they felt on the other side. They all say the same thing. There are no words in our language to describe how wonderful it is, and the memories are clearer than any memory they had on earth. One of the most powerful things Penny and I talked about was the panoramic life review. So imagine your whole life played out in front of you, not just like a movie on the screen, but you are in it. And here's the part that really makes you think. You don't just see what you did, you actually get to feel and witness the ripple effect of your actions. Penny explained it like this, if you were mean to someone or you were violent or unkind, you don't watch it as a spectator. You actually feel what it was like to be on the receiving end of your own actions. You feel their pain, but, and this is the beautiful part, it works for the good stuff too. If you were really kind, even in a tiny way that you didn't think mattered, you feel the joy you gave that person. Penny said that something as simple as giving someone a compliment or holding a door open for a stranger has a ripple effect of kindness, and you get to experience that in your review. The most amazing thing she found is that there is no judge sitting on a throne telling you you were a bad person. The presence with you, the light, the being of love, whatever you want to call them, is actually there to comfort you. You are the one doing the reflecting. You look at your life and you think, well, I could have done that better or, oh, I'm so proud I was brave there. Think about how that changes how we live today. If we actually knew that we are going to feel the receiver's end of our actions, would we stay in a lousy mood and snap at our spouse or our roommate, or would we take a breath and choose kindness? It's actually a huge incentive to live life with integrity right now. It isn't about being perfect. None of us are perfect. We can't be, but it's about being aware. Penny told me a story from her study. It was about a man on a night shift. He was unconscious and his condition was very poor. It wasn't looking good for him. During the night he started communicating with someone no one could see. He had this huge beaming smile. He was mouthing the words, what are you doing here as if he were having a conversation? The next day, when he revived, he told Penny that his deceased mother and grandmother had visited him, but then he said, I can't understand it. My sister was with him. Why was she there? Well, it turns out that his sister had died the week before, but he was in such a bad shape that the family hadn't told him and they certainly didn't want to upset him while he was in the ICU. This man had no earthly way of knowing that his sister had died, but he saw her in the spirit world. This isn't a byproduct of our brain shutting down. This is a fact from a world, the spirit world, that is very much alive and real. Penny also told me about her very first day as a student nurse. She was in the morning report and the night nurse said, the man in bed six will be dead by noon, and he's been talking to his dead mother since 3 a.m. Penny thought they were winding her up because it was her first day at work, but when she went to the bedside and saw the man gesturing to the air and calling out to someone and then around 11.30, he suddenly sat up with a huge smile, and then he got this burst of energy out of nowhere. Then he reached out his arms as if he was welcoming someone into a giant hug. Then he just relaxed, leaned back, closed his eyes, and he was gone. It happened so often that nurses like Penny just consider it a normal part of their day. Can you imagine that? Normal to see this. They see it as a welcoming committee who gets the person ready to pass. To me, that is so comforting to know that we are never alone. Penny's research also shows that we have more control over the timing of our earthly departure than we realize. She's seen patients hang on until a relative arrives from hundreds of miles away, or this is so common. Sometimes they wait for the family to leave the room to get a cup of coffee or something before they let go and pass. It's like they need the quiet to finally step through the door. I want to remind you about what Penny found out about the fear of death. She spoke to a hospice consultant who said the most peaceful deaths she ever witnessed were from people who had previously had a near-death experience. Now, why is that? Because they knew exactly what was coming. They had zero anxiety. They knew they were going to a place where they would be with family again, and where they'd be healthy and whole. I want to pause here and talk about children, because Penny loves studying children's near-death experiences. Children, you see, don't have all the baggage and religious ideas that maybe we have. She told a story of a young boy in Germany who had to have emergency surgery. He told his dad later that he went to a park. He said he had to go through a tunnel to get there, and the park had a white picket fence. He tried to climb over it, but a man was there and said, no, you have to go back. He wasn't scared. He just described it like he'd gone to a real playground. When we see children having the same experiences as adults, it proves it's a universal human experience. Penny Sartori actually gave up her nursing career to do this afterlife research full-time because she was so gripped by the message, and she's right. It's not a morbid subject. Learning about death is actually the best way to learn about life. It teaches us to be of service. It teaches us to be mindful of the ripple effect that we leave behind. She also found out that even when an experience starts out scary or dark or negative, which is rare, if the person just relaxes and lets go, it almost always turns into a beautiful, light-filled experience. It's our own fear and clinging, that ego we have, that makes it feel heavy. But when we surrender, love takes over. I loved when Penny said that being kind isn't just nice. It actually changes our physical health. There's so much science showing that our compassion and laughter produce good chemicals in our bodies that actually help us heal. They're called endorphins, by the way. So when we live like we truly are a divine soul, we can actually help our bodies. It's all connected. It just reminds me of all the stories that I've told you over the last five years and a little secret hint if you want to help people light up their own soul, get people talking about what they love about their life. It helps us remember who we really are and it helps bring joy to them and to yourself. So I feel like my own divine spark is right on track at this exact moment. Here on earth, we're developing and doing the best we can. Our souls are growing. I always say that life is an education for the soul and we're doing our best to be the best version of who we are meant to be. But here's one key I want you to remember. We don't have to be perfect. We just have to keep trying. Gonna go back to those four things. Are you saying them to yourself? I love you. I thank you. I forgive you. Will you forgive me? I want to leave this segment with one last thought before we go into our break. If you've been carrying around a secret or a regret, remember the life review. You have no power to fix the ripple effect right now. Of course, you can make an apology. You can send a thank you note to someone that might have helped you long ago over the years or send out a silent thank you, mind to mind. But remember, you're still living your life. You can change your life any moment of any day. The past is in the past. You did what you thought was right then. But going forward, we can change the narrative. So when we get back from the break, we're going to talk about how we can connect with our own loved ones in two ways. And I'll share a few more of those winks from heaven stories and we'll talk about how to live life fully so that we're all ready to cross that finish line with a big smile looking at those people that have come to greet us. We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM, paranormal podcast network. Stay there. Sandra will be right back. Let's go. Our I Heart Radio Music Awards are coming back Thursday, March 26th live on Fox. Watch as we honor the biggest stars from all genres of music that you loved listening to all year long on your favorite I Heart radio station and the I Heart Radio app. Hosted by Ludacris, Icon Award recipient John Mellencamp, Innovator Award recipient Miley Cyrus with performances by Alex Warren, Kehlani, Lainey Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Pepper and Invoke. Plus Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Also Gold Medal Olympian, Alyssa Liu, Neo, Nick Colesure Singer, Nikki Glaser, Sombra, Weezer and more. Watch live on Fox Thursday, March 26th, at 8, 7, Central. And listen on I Heart radio stations across America and the free I Heart app. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to the I Heart radio and Coast to Coast AM, Paranormal Podcast Network, with the best shows that explore the paranormal, supernatural and the unexplained. You can enjoy all shows on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Let's go! Our I Heart radio music awards are coming back Thursday, March 26th, live on Fox. Watch as we honor the biggest stars from all genres of music that you love listening to all year long on your favorite I Heart radio station and the I Heart radio app. Hosted by Ludacris, Icon Award recipient John Mellencamp, Innovator Award recipient Miley Cyrus, with performances by Alex Warren, Kehlani, Lainey Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Pappa and Invoke. Plus Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. I cry out, I smile, Elizabeth Taylor's happy for real, deep pink it's forever. Also Gold Medal Olympian Alyssa Liu, Neo, Nicole Scherzinger, Nikki Glazer, Sombra, Weiser and more. Watch live on Fox, Thursday, March 26th, at 8, 7, Central. And listen on I Heart radio stations across America and the free I Heart app. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The best afterlife information you can get while you're alone. Shades of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. We've spent our time together traveling through some of the incredible evidence for the survival of consciousness. But now I want to bring this all home to you because all this evidence in the world doesn't mean too much unless you can feel it in your own heart. And I know you want to connect with your loved ones. You might say I'm not a medium. I don't see visions. I don't feel like I have any special gift. I want to share something that changed my life. And if you remember, I started out a complete skeptic on all of this with a big ego. I didn't believe any of this. But what I discovered and what I've spent over 25 years still researching and sharing is that the other side communicates through our feelings and our imagination. Just because we see something on that canvass in our mind doesn't mean we are making it up. I used to think that your imagination was cheating. If I thought I imagined my dad sitting in the room, that I was just making it up to make myself feel better. But I had a massive breakthrough during that first mediumship class years ago when the teacher told us to pretend to be a medium. I sat down with a woman I had never met before. I closed my eyes and decided to just invent a man standing behind her. I described to her a fisherman from Denmark by the name of Jan. I saw his windburned skin and the big gap between his front teeth and his blonde hair. I even imagined him or so I thought coughing and that he died of lung cancer. I convinced myself I just made it all up and I was telling a story. But when I opened my eyes, this woman was crying. Why? Because her grandfather's name was Jan. And yes, he was a fisherman in Denmark. And yes, he did die of lung cancer. And there were other details like being able to tell her mother that her dad apologized because he never said, I love you. Those are the things that make me know that the afterlife is real and that we are divine souls having a human experience. So our imagination is like a bridge. It's the canvas that the spirit world uses to paint pictures for us. We do still have an imagination. Some of it is us making it up, but they are able to put thoughts and feelings within us. So how do we make that connection? I want to give you two tools that I've learned that I practice. The first one is from the wonderful dream expert, Dr. Janet Petolato. She talks about something called the dream gate. It's simple yet powerful before you go to sleep at night when you're in that daydreamy state or when you're just waking up in the morning in that same state. Imagine a doorway or a gate in your mind. Picture it clearly. Maybe it's a gate in the garden or a door in a house. Make it a place that you love. Now just allow your loved one to be on that other side of the gate. Don't force it. Don't try to make them appear. Just allow it. So you're essentially jump-starting a visit. So picture them on the other side of the gate or the other side of the door and you can open the door. You can open the gate. I recently tried this with my dad. I pictured the gate in my backyard and there he was. And that image moved to him sitting at the kitchen table with me. He was wearing his favorite black and white flannel shirt and tan corduroy pants and the ball cap he used to wear. Dad gave me the biggest hug and I could actually feel the fabric of his shirt. When I woke up, I really felt like my dad had been there with me. It was a real connection and it all started with that one simple thought at the gate. Doing this before bed and thinking of your loved one is also a great way to jump-start a dream and you may find them appear in your dreams. But just remember, if they're crazy dreams and you feel uncomfortable or it's negative, that's our own subconscious. But when you can remember the dream clearly and when it's filled with love, that is a dream visitation. So if we want more than a vision, if you want a conversation, this brings me back to the incredible work of psychology professor Dr. Matthew McKay who would have never believed in the afterlife or any of this before his son Jordan was tragically taken from him. Dr. McKay was consumed with two questions, does his soul still exist and is he okay? Dr. McKay discovered a way to talk to his son Jordan that he calls channeled writing. It's a way to push through that voice of doubt that lives in each of our heads. He says that in the spirit world, love is the air they breathe. It is unconditional. But we come here to earth to learn how to love intentionally in the face of pain and sometimes that pain is the doubt we feel when we try to connect. So here's the exercise Dr. McKay taught me. First, find a safe spot. Go to a place where you won't be interrupted and that you feel comfortable. Two, find a belonging or a representative of your loved one. It could be something that belong to them like a watch or a ring or even writing their name on a card. This is kind of like your spiritual address, your WWW that tells the universe exactly who you're looking for. Light a candle, take a deep breath, visualize a golden orb like a miniature sun, very bright one, about six inches above your head. Now see that orb getting longer and becoming a tube, a tube that connects all the way to your loved one. Have a pen and paper ready or have your fingertips at your keyboard. Write down a question. It could be how are you or what do you want me to know? Next is the download. So just wait. The answer will show up in your mind. It might be a picture, a feeling, or just a sudden knowing. Sometimes it's just one word. Whatever it is, write it down immediately and then keep writing. And don't stop when you doubt yourself. When you think, oh, I'm just making this up. Just say, thank you, doubt for sharing and keep writing. Our mind often tries to kick in telling us we're making it up, but just trust. Go right back to that orb and that connection. Dr. McKay has been doing this for 15 years and he still says that doubt pops in, but he pushes through it because the love he feels from his son is worth it. Matt's son, Jordan, told him something so beautiful across the veil. He said that we don't have to be afraid of the dark door of death because when it opens, the light of love takes us in. And he told his dad, I am with you. I am always with you. And friends, I'm here to tell you they are with you. In the beginning, it might seem like 99% you, these words that are coming out of your pen or your fingertips, but in time, you'll find that they have practice working with you from their side. And more and more, it'll seem like their words. We can do that exact same process and connect with our soul as well. Did you know you have a divine soul that is extremely intelligent? You can talk to your soul. You can talk to your guides in the exact same way. And remember, don't critique it as it's happening. In fact, never critique it. Just look at it through the eyes of love and practice. Now, if you want to see what spirit communication looks like when it's done with the highest integrity, if you haven't seen it yet, we have a new film on the producer. It's now out on Apple TV. It's called Evidence of the Afterlife, Saving Evidential Mediumship. It follows my dear friends, Carrie McLeod and Phil Dykes, Evidential Mediums in the UK. It's about how mediumship works, how it's possible to communicate with the other side, how we use our imagination. If you ever go to a medium, what to say and what not to say, how to let them do the work. Unfortunately, we are in such pain of grief when we normally look to get a medium reading. And mediums should all be highly professionally trained. The bad news is they aren't that first medium class that I told you about, where I saw Jan, the fisherman in Denmark, at the end of just three days, they gave me a certificate and told me I could charge $150 an hour and give people readings. And I knew this wasn't real. I had no practice and I didn't have any confidence. So unfortunately, there's plenty of not so good mediums in the world. So check out that film Evidence of the Afterlife. You can find a link to it at my main page at wedon'tdie.com. Go to a medium that is recommended to you by somebody else. Do your research. You can email me. I can send you a list of people that I know. You don't have to spend a lot of money. And mediums should always give you that 10-minute guarantee that in the first 10 minutes, if they're not providing accurate evidence of your loved one, the reading comes to an end and you don't pay. Truth is, sometimes mediums can't tune in their receiver to the exact station, but there might be another one that can. I want to bring this back to also to that TV show, The Pit, I was telling you about. I'm not recommending it, although it's excellent, but it does have a lot of blood in it because it's a hospital TV show. Those four things before someone dies or as you are with people right now, the four things that matter most. I love you. I thank you. I forgive you. Will you forgive me? If you take nothing else from today's show, then those four statements and use them first on yourself, forgive yourself for being, oh, whatever it is you don't like about yourself, but thank yourself for having the courage to look for the truth for all the things that you've done in your life to make a difference. Tell yourself, I love you. And of course, talk to others, those people in your life. We never know how long they're going to be around. I love you. I thank you. I forgive you. Will you forgive me? Yeah, you don't have to wait for someone to be in a hospice bed to say them. Dr. Karen Wyatt said that once we handle the fear of death, we actually handle the fear of living. Are you playing it safe in your life because you're afraid? Remember, you are surrounded by love. Take a few risks. Go after your dreams. As Richard Bach once said, don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before we meet again and meeting again after moments or lifetimes is certain for those who are friends. I hope these stories have given you some comfort. Again, my website is wedontdie.com. If you don't have a copy of my book yet, and you'd like a free PDF copy of We Don't Die, a skeptics discovery of life after death, you are welcome to it. Just enter your name and email address at the bottom of the page. You'll find the link to evidence of the afterlife film and also the other film we did about researcher Sonia Rinaldi. And I invite you to come to one of our free Sunday gathering inspirational services. It's on Zoom, 2 p.m. New York time every single Sunday. A medium demonstration included, and they are all so powerful, inspiring, and it's fun. And I would love to have you there. So in closing, remember those four things. Go out there, live life fully, will you? Remember, you are loved, you are wise, you are a divine soul, you are more powerful than you know, and you're perfect. I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you so much for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Thanks for listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out all our shows on the I Heart Radio app or by going to iheartradio.com. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring Podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the Stuff You Should Know ThinkSpring playlist on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Icon Award recipient John Mellencamp, Innovator Award recipient Miley Cyrus, with performances by Alex Warren, Kailani, Lainey Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Pepper, and Invoke. Plus Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Also Gold Medal Olympian Alyssa Liu, Neo, Nicole Scherzinger, Nikki Glaser, Sombra, Weiser, and more. Watch live on Fox, Thursday, March 26th, at 8, 7, Central. And listen on I Heart Radio stations across America and the free I Heart app.