Presentation To Tucson And Mesa, Arizona IANDS
Groups
November 8 And 9, 2012
I know that you have a NDE speaker every month.
As I asked myself what might be useful to share
with you, I was aware of the abundant breadth
of experiences you have already heard from all
of the speakers who come to your IANDS group
to share their experiences. For my part, I would
like to add not only my childhood NDE but also
how that has influenced me throughout the course
of my life. My NDE gave me a tremendous sense
of freedom throughout my life. I have never
had a fear of death. I have only a mild interest
in acquiring fame and money. And, I have frequently
felt the presence of God around me. My childhood
NDE was an enormous blessing in my life.
My relationship to NDEs began on Halloween weekend
in 1950 in St. Joseph, MO. I had just turned
six and was extremely disappointed that a sore
throat was keeping me from enjoying bobbing
for apples at the church Halloween party. Things
got worse from there. I developed a fever, headache
and stiff neck and by the next morning at church,
I was beginning to lose balance. In those days,
emergency rooms were not readily available so
we held out until the next morning when the
doctor’s office opened. At that point,
he told my parents that I had a peritonsillar
abscess that was tracking into my brain and
that my life was in danger. I was given an injection
of penicillin and sent home to see how things
would go.
At some point in the next few hours I had the
experience of being out of body with a vantage
point from the corner near the ceiling. In that
space I felt no pain, only perfect peace. I
wasn’t at all surprised although my background
might have led me to be surprised. I just felt
myself surrounded by love and experienced it
as God. I felt like the soul that I am, the
soul I would be when I remembered myself in
this lifetime, and the soul I would be when
I went Home at the end of this life. And it
was perfect.
I next “looked” down and saw a little
girl who was in a lot of pain. At first I felt
empathy for her pain but then realized that
she must be me. With that realization I was
back in my body. That single experience shaped
my whole view of the world and my place in it.
I remember making the conscious decision not
to tell my parents about it as I felt they would
try to fix me in some way and I was quite certain
that it was a precious gift from God.
So I lived my early years never speaking of
my NDE to anyone. I don’t remember feeling
isolated about that. It simply felt too private
and personal to be spoken of. Still, I had the
common effects that we have come to understand
accompany a childhood NDE. I was always interested
in spiritual matters and loved sitting in churches
and being quiet in the out of doors. I could
never understand teasing because I could feel
what the other person was feeling. I appeared—and
felt—more mature than other children my
age. There was always the homesickness for the
experience of being one with God. That was alleviated
to some extent by my frequently feeling the
presence of God surrounding me.
That homesickness continued for 18 years until
the moment of the birth of my firstborn, my
son Mike, when I was 24 years old. As I held
him in my arms for the first time, I felt myself
solidly commit to the desire to stay on earth
in order to see him become a man. I had not
been aware before that moment how much I was
unattached to being here. The homesickness never
went away completely, but it subsided substantially.
Five years later the aftereffects of my NDE
supported me when my husband of 10 years wanted
a divorce. At first I was devastated, but when
I took my two pre-schoolers to the park the
next day to give me time to think. I found myself
relaxing as I watched all of the children play,
not just my own. Soon I felt the oneness and
interconnectedness of us all and I felt myself
surrounded by God. With that awareness, I knew
that I would be okay, whatever the details of
my life.
With the divorce, I had the option of looking
at what I really wanted to do with my life and,
like most NDErs, chose a life of service. I
applied to medical school in 1975 and was the
first single mother accepted to Baylor College
of Medicine. In addition to choosing careers
emphasizing service, another characteristic
of NDErs is that they have little concern about
money which was a good thing as I was able to
go to medical school as a single mother with
very limited funds but not actually worry about
it. I have found that the lack of concern about
money gives an enormous sense of freedom in
that one isn’t tied to the need for a
lot of material possessions. And, I was fortunate
to have shelter and food.
When I completed my Family Practice Residency
in Houston in 1982, I joined one of the teachers
in his private practice. As Dr. Silverman was
showing me the office, I was struck by a poster
on one wall. It showed a ship in the distance
sailing on the ocean at dawn with these words
below it, “A ship in a harbor is safe,
but that is not what ships are built for.”
I had a deep sense that my life would be about
learning the meaning of that phrase. Soon I
was busy setting up practice and caring for
my two teenagers and a new baby. Settling into
a routine of a family doctor who was also a
wife and mother, I imagined this would be my
life for many years to come. This ship felt
comfortable in her harbor.
My life changed forever with reading one book
in 1987. I read Ken Ring’s book, Heading
toward Omega. It looked at how a NDE changed
people’s values and attitudes. As I read
that book, I realized how profoundly my NDE
had affected me. I had never forgotten it but
had thought that many of the ways that I was
different from other people were a result of
my personality, not my NDE. As I read that book,
I had the realization that I was simply an “ordinary
NDEr.” Once I had that thought, I realized
that I needed to share my experience and thoughts
with other doctors. At that time, Raymond Moody’s
book had been out for about a decade and doctors
were generally convinced that NDEs were a figment
of people’s imaginations and that they
were of little importance. Before I could talk
about it with doctors, I needed to tell my parents
and my husband, though. They were less surprised
than I expected them to be. Now it was time
to share it with colleagues. It was with great
trepidation that I gave a noon conference to
my fellow physicians at my hospital about a
patient of mine who had a NDE. I included the
meager research that had been done by that time
in 1987and concluded with my own story as a
childhood NDEr. To my relief, the attending
physicians were truly curious and brought up
puzzling stories told to them by patients that
they hadn’t known how to explain until
that moment.
I began giving a few talks about NDEs here and
there in Houston when asked. When questions
arose that I couldn’t answer, I contacted
Elizabeth Kubler- Ross and through an enormous
episode of serendipity she invited me to her
farm to talk about NDEs. That helped enormously
in fleshing out my understanding of NDEs. Another
useful experience was going to my first IANDS
conference in 1988 in Georgetown. It was just
amazing to me to be around so many people who
had not only had NDEs but were talking publicly
about them. I went to every IANDS conference
for the next 15 years and I still attend occasionally.
Even back in the Houston area, once I began
talking about NDEs publicly, I met many people
who had not only NDEs but also other Spiritually
Transformative Experiences (STEs.) It was amazing
to me how many people were like me. We simply
hadn’t been talking about our profound
experiences. Having these new deep connections
changed my life dramatically, greatly enriching
it.
Another dramatic change came with the advent
of HMO’s in Houston. Being a new entity
in the 1980s, they were not at all streamlined.
They made life quite difficult for the family
doctor and I became much less satisfied with
my profession with that change.
One evening I went to bed having prayed to find
an answer to my career dilemma. In the middle
of the night I was awakened, looked at the Harris
County newsletter for physicians and saw an
ad for a hospice physician at the Hospice at
the Texas Medical Center. I knew it was meant
for me and a short two months later I had made
the transition from Family Physician to Hospice
Doctor. With my partner’s permission,
I took the “Ship in a Harbor” poster
with me.
I discovered that hospice work is an ideal career
for NDErs since we typically have no fear of
death, love to be of service to others, and
have an interest in meaning in life and in spirituality.
In fact, in a survey that I gave at the National
Hospice Organization in 1993, 20% of the hospice
workers in the audience had had NDEs themselves,
way above the national average of 5% according
to the Gallup polls.
While caring for hospice patients in the In-patient
unit, I found that many of them were having
NDEs in the last few days of life and that they
often saw deceased relatives when they were
fully awake. In making these experiences part
of our check out rounds with each other at shift
change, we discovered that having those experiences
was one of the most reliable ways of predicting
when a person was nearing death. I also found
some differences between NDEs that occur in
an acute setting and those that occur in the
hospice setting. Life reviews are common in
an acute NDE but I never had a patient undergo
a life review in the hospice setting. I came
to believe that was because the purpose of the
life review is to live one’s life better.
The purpose of an NDE in the hospice setting
occurs is to prepare a person for death. Another
difference was that in the hospice setting nearly
everyone is greeted by deceased relatives whereas
that is much less common in the acute setting.
I felt comfortable in this hospice harbor and
imagined myself being there for the rest of
my life. But that was not to be.
Life changed again when we moved to Durango
CO in 1994. And, of course, the “Ship
in the Harbor” poster went with me. I
was setting sail again. Guided by Spirit, it
was there that I wrote my book, Love is
the Link: A Hospice Doctor Shares her Experience
of Near-Death and Dying. Its purpose was
to show physicians the kinds of experiences
that their patients were having, whether they
were sharing them with the doctor or not. It
also served to share stories of NDEs and the
experiences of the dying so that people having
those experiences would know they are not alone.
Nowadays, the book is available in an audio
version and I have brought a few with me tonight.
In 2000, I was asked to be the Medical Director
of the Wellness Center at Mercy Medical Center
in Durango, CO. When I asked what that meant,
the nurses said ordering lab work had been the
traditional job description. I asked them, “What
is your highest vision of what this department
might become?” It was from there that
we envisioned creating an Integrative Services
Department. Again, my NDE and “the ship
in the harbor” image gave me the inspiration
to invest long hours of development, research,
and negotiating to work with holistic nurses
to develop the signature program of the department.
To my knowledge no such program existed in a
small community hospital in 2002 when we developed
ours. The “Touch, Love, and Compassion”
program at Mercy provides free-of-charge energy
work, music therapy, aromatherapy, and guided
visualizations to patients with pain or anxiety
and to people preparing for surgery. It has
become the flagship program of the hospital,
has served over 10,000 people in the decade
since it was established, and has been the inspiration
for the development of similar programs throughout
the country.
Again, my NDE served me well since there was
so little money and a strong possibility that
our vision might not work out.
My ship was set to sail again in 2002 when I
discovered Tai Chi for Health, developed by
Dr. Paul Lam. It is a modified form of tai chi
that improves the pain of arthritis and prevents
falls in older adults. I recognized how helpful
it would be to have physicians backing the introduction
of this program in a widespread way. It was
easy to immerse myself in this project as it
fit in perfectly with my values as an NDEr.
I became a Master Trainer of instructors and
have taught over 70 workshops nationally and
given many talks to hospitals about the benefits
of tai chi. It has been a great joy to see how
it has expanded throughout the world and is
now benefitting over 250,000 people worldwide.
So what am I up to now? This summer I participated
in the “Science of Compassion” conference
in Telluride, CO. It was co-sponsored by Stanford’s
CCARE (Center for Compassion and Altruism Research
and Education) and the Telluride Institute.
Over 40 international researchers presented
the findings of their compassion research over
the course of four days. As I took notes on
the research, I was particularly attuned to
how that research might be related to NDEs and
NDE research. It was interesting to me that
no one mentioned NDEs throughout the course
of the conference and that they seemed to know
very little about the research when I brought
up questions. Much of their work centers on
helping people to develop the motivation for
compassion. It seems to me that the motivation
for compassion is an instant result of a NDE
and I am fascinated by how that might occur.
This sudden increase in compassion may well
stem from a mystical recognition of the Oneness.
I have begun to wonder, however, if there might
also be an epigenetic effect. What we are learning
through the field of study of Epigenetics is
that aspects of the environment may turn on
or turn off certain genes and that causes permanent
profound changes in a person. This is called
an epigenetic effect and I’m wondering
if an NDE is one of those environmental triggers
that affect us a genetic level. This is pure
speculation, but what I know for sure is that
there definitely is a permanent change in values
after a NDE.
The research also showed that mindfulness training
and meditation helped to reduce chronic stress
and the physiological markers of stress, including
C-reactive protein. I wondered if that might
be helpful for people who have undergone NDEs.
It might help not only the necessary adjustments
after an NDE but might also help relieve the
stress caused by the illness or trauma that
led to the NDE. I believe that it would be very
valuable for NDE researchers to work with researchers
in the Science of Compassion to combine their
research both to learn more about compassion
and to discover ways to increase it in the world.
Another area I have been pursuing lately is
the use of hypnotherapy to help people integrate
their NDEs. Research shows that it takes several
years to integrate the experience. People often
change careers, friends, and even spouses after
a NDE. Is there a way to help make that transition
easier? Certainly, IANDS groups provide mentoring
through group support, information, safety,
and connection, all important aspects of integration.
For the past couple of years I have been using
transformational hypnotherapy to guide people
back to the NDE or STE in order to be able to
access it more easily and to use it for personal
growth. That same process helps a person to
integrate the NDE into the rest of their psyche
so that they feel balanced sooner than they
might have if hypnotherapy were not available.
As with all counseling after a NDE or STE, it
is important to find a counselor who really
understands NDEs. It is for that reason that
I am delighted that ACISTE (American Center
for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative
Experiences) has formed to find therapists who
are specifically trained in helping people integrate
their NDEs. Last month I attended the first
conference sponsored by ACISTE for therapists
and ACISTE is a great resource for finding just
the right therapist for you.
One thing that I learned at the ACISTE conference
is that the NDE is often the gateway to other
STEs that may be of a more gradual nature. Each
of us in the audience who have had a NDE or
STE found it to be an “aha!” moment.
Most people have likely had an exceptional experience
at some time in our lives. It may be a NDE,
STE, or ADC (after death communication.) How
can we use the accumulation of exceptional experiences
to change our lives and our culture? Now that
more of us are in the aging population, can
we use that as an opportunity to develop soul
making as a prototype for aging? Can we focus
on our experiences that show us deeper aspects
of ourselves? What conditions predispose us
to that deepening?
We’ve come a long way since 1950 when
I had my NDE. We’ve put a name to it,
we’ve done research on it, and NDEs have
become a household word. Now, how can we use
NDEs to change our culture?
Perhaps Eben Alexander’s new website,
Eternea, will take us part way there. Eternea
looks at all aspects of consciousness from NDEs
to STEs to Nonlocality. It shows the science
and philosophy behind the phenomena. I’m
particularly pleased about the Community groups
called Love in Action. LIA takes the philosophy
and applies it practically. What community projects
increase love in our communities? How can we
support and inspire one another in the practicalities
of growing these projects? This is the area
of NDEs where I am now devoting most of my energies.
I’ve moved from keeping my NDE to myself
to sharing it with colleagues and the world
at large. I’ve used my NDE to start “Love
in Action” projects in my own communities
and now I’m helping to support a wider
effort to inspire one another to fill our world
with Love in Action projects in all communities.
Please do share your ideas with me through eternea.org.
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