Original subtitles

I remember being in

surgery and at that moment I felt love I

thought I must have died on the

operating

table the second thought now here's my

analytical science mind still kicking in

so wait a minute if I

died what's all

this because first of all I don't

believe in

anything second of all my parents told

me that you're going to go to hell

because you're an atheist now so I'm not

experiencing either one of

those and that's when I really began to

wonder what the heck was going on and

why am I here I asked that question in

my mind but then there was an answer to

the thought I had and the answer

came kind of from around me in the

atmosphere and it was the answer of this

is your home you're a part of me you're

a part of us welcome

home when it said that welcome home I

lost

it because I

remembered that's when it came back to

me and I knew

immediately oh my

God that life that I had on Earth was

just an

illusion that thing that I was doing

down there on Earth was really just a

temporary

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state

I'm Nancy

Ryan I grew up on a small family farm

out in the middle of

cornfields very Northwest part of

Chicago I was a very weird kid I was

very

spiritual I looked around and saw that

divine presence everywhere I would tell

my family oh my gosh gods in the trees

spirit is all around

us they kind of looked at me funny

because we were Catholics and my family

was pretty pretty Catholic they weren't

just cafeteria Catholics or they weren't

just weekend

Catholics when I was about

15 we started having a lot of those news

reports about priests who were abusing

kids that were really becoming prevalent

especially in the Chicago area and

that's when I actually began to question

my previous Viewpoint about is there a

god you know did was I just imagining

all of that uh and so by the time I

would say I was 16 or

17 I had pretty much decided that God

didn't exist because if he did exist how

could this

happen and that cemented my movement

away from religion or

spirituality

I went into college and got a series of

degrees in

geology so I became a really rational

scientist very material focused by the

time I was in my mid 20s I was a pretty

uh pretty firm

atheist after college I worked for the

Department of energy for a while doing

very scientific things out in the

Western United States

and it was mostly became scientific

writing because I was actually quite

good at writing and a lot of scientists

weren't so I would do editing for them

for the journal articles they were

writing or books they were writing and

that pretty much kept me through you

know the rest of my career up until my

mid-40s I was 46 years old and I had

moved to Boulder

Colorado I was beginning to

feel a bit disatisfied with where I was

in life some things had not gone well um

my marriage had ended and I was in that

point of really questioning what was

going to come next for me so I started

looking for another job I thought you

know what I needed really was was

another job a different job somewhere

else or you know maybe in Denver or

something a little bit later that month

you know CH between Christmas and New

Year's I took a week off from work so I

went out for a bike ride just do a

little bike ride around town drop off

some stuff at the library and run a

couple of errands and then go out on a

trail

ride I went into a traffic

circle the bike lane that I had coming

in just completely went away and the the

roadway got really

narrow so I rode into it very

cautiously and I kind of eased my way in

noticing that there was some traffic

coming in from my right from the highway

into this traffic circle and it looked

like they were slowing

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down at the last minute that lead

SUV instead of stopping

she actually sped

up I was in a really bad spot because I

was right there at where she was coming

in and all I could do like there was

this instinctual response as I put my

hand out I have no idea what happened

from the time I put my hand out till I

ended up on the hood of her vehicle so

somehow I

flipped up off the

bike up onto the hood of her vehicle

looking in at her and she's

texting I'm actually trying to pound on

her

windshield and she she kept driving she

didn't see me like like literally right

in front of her and I couldn't hang on I

just the the hood of her vehicle was so

slick so I slipped down desperately

trying to grab on to

something but I couldn't find anything

to grab on to and I hit the

pavement and I heard the crack of my

helmet and all of a sudden she was over

the top of

me somehow my backpack got caught on

something underneath of her vehicle and

at the same time that happened I reached

up with my right hand and grabbed her

axle I don't know how long she

technically dragged me it was at least

60 ft and what finally happened is that

the guy that was in a truck behind

her saw what was going on was able to

get around her and he drove his truck

around the traffic circle the wrong way

and just stopped in front of her so I

kind of owe my life to this

guy as soon as she stopped I started

trying to wiggle my way out from

underneath of the

vehicle I got to the point where my

shoulders were out

from underneath the front of her vehicle

and at that point a woman came up and

she just said I'm a nurse just stay

where you are and I thought what's the

big deal you know I'm just going to get

up and walk away and she said no you

were just in a you know you're in a

serious accident I just need you to stay

on the

ground so when the paramedics came they

of course were starting to try to figure

out what was going on with me

medically and and as soon as one of the

the guys touched the side of my neck I

just screamed at the top of my lungs it

was just so

painful and that's when I realized I was

in pretty bad

shape so they brought me to the trauma

center I had a head injury I had the

cracked collar bone five ribs that were

broken in multiple places I had a

collapse lung but the main the main

damage was really to my neck and my back

the doctor basically said well every

process in your back is

cracked and you've got major damage to

your neck vertebrae and then your lower

back

vertebrae so they called in a surgeon

who decided that he he could fix it was

going to go in there clean up all of the

broken bits and then put titanium rods

up and down my back on either side of my

spine and that surgy was scheduled for

the Monday after this accident so like 3

days

later I had an unbelievable fear of

death coming up to

this that was the biggest fear of my

life was the fear of death I was

absolutely mortified by that one fear it

paralyzed me in so many ways so going

into this surgery I was really

scared and almost had myself convinced

that I wasn't going to make

it they were Wheeling me in they got me

moved onto the operating table the

anesthesiologist came up and you know as

soon as he administered it within like 3

seconds I was you know drifting

off

in a normal surgery that I've had I've

had a few before it was just gray

nothingness and then they were waking me

up in the recovery room this time I

drifted

off and I was even more awake than I was

before the

anesthesia and it was that moment that I

realized something really weird is going

on

here I woke up and and what I'm looking

around

at is this beautiful

Hillside it's sort of like in a meadow

so there's low grass and flowers all

around

me but I'm on the hillside looking out

over a series of rolling mountain

ranges and I thought well this is kind

of a cool hallucination I could do this

while I'm in

surgery the first first thing I noticed

was this wave of

Peace it felt like you know standing in

front of a fireplace when the fire is on

and that heat kind of coming through

you it felt like I was being

hugged but there was this big moment of

feeling

acceptance and really just unconditional

love coming into

me and um it was

powerful and that's when I knew

something was not

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right and I thought oh my God I died I

thought I died I remember being in

surgery and at that moment I felt love I

thought I must have died on the

operating

table the second thought now here's my

analytical science mind still kicking in

so wait a minute if I

died what's all this because first of

all I don't believe in

anything second of all my parents told

me that you're going to go to hell

because you're an atheist now so I'm not

experiencing either one of

those and that's when I really began to

wonder what the heck was going on and

why am I here I asked that question in

my mind but then there was an answer to

the thought I had and the answer

came kind of from around me in the

atmosphere and it was the answer of this

is your home you are a part of me you're

a part of us welcome

home when it said that welcome home I

lost

it because I

remembered that's when it came back to

me and I knew

immediately oh my

God that life that I had on Earth was

just an

illusion that thing that I was doing

down there on Earth was really just a

temporary State and this is real it just

it was like so

obvious I all of a sudden saw someone

kind of materialize out of

fog and she was very ephemeral so

vaguely a human and she had what

appeared to be long hair but I was never

able to see her face because it wasn't

about her it was about me learning what

I needed to learn and that's what she

said we you know it's time for you to

learn what you need to learn in order to

go back and make your life one that

would be worth living and those are

pretty much her exact words and I'm like

whoa I'm not going back there what are

you kidding me I am not going back to

that place she said well you've already

agreed to go back and I said I was kind

of going back to

my my younger my younger self when I was

kind of a pain to be around with my

parents as I was always challenging them

so I was challenging her like I don't

want to go back there and I don't

remember agreeing to go back she said

well you did that before you were born

into your life and so let me show you

and it was this weird movie moment where

like in the air in front of me sort of

materialized almost like a movie

screen and she showed me me planning my

life before I was

born so in a way the experience was sort

of planned out and I got to see that

and there was a point at which I looked

behind

me and all it was behind me was fog it

was this foggy

gray whereas in front of me it was this

really vibrant maybe it was a forest or

a canyon I was walking in or a mountain

or something but behind me it was just

gone and I asked her about that I like

what's up with this and she said the

place that you are in now is not the

Ultimate Reality of where you're going

to go it's sort of a she called it a

holding place and she said in this place

it is your place of

learning and here what we do is we're

making this an environment that is

comfortable for you to learn in things

that you enjoy places that make you feel

comfortable and that will allow you to

learn what you need to learn in order to

go back and make your life one that's

worth

living she would teach me things about

not only this spiritual place I was in

but that everything was based on an

energetic structure not a physical

one everything you see around you it's

an

illusion the more I thought about it the

more I knew it to be

true the equivalent amount of time that

was out on the operating table because I

did code my blood pressure tanked my

heart rate

stopped the Flatline part lasted at most

about 2

minutes if we were to do here what I did

as far as places that I traveled and

things I learned it would take about 2

or 3 months here to do that but it also

seemed like forever there you know it

was a completely different experience of

quote time what I realized from that is

that it's not that time passes

differently it's that they are on the at

the spiritual level outside of our

perception of

time I went to one place where I stood

there and all around me I saw the map of

my life it was like this virtual reality

map like an old timey you know nautical

chart laid out all all around me and I

was at the center and there was this big

I think they call it a compass row and

I'm looking all around it and there's

these different Pathways that I can see

from one end of the map to the other and

I knew those were all of the different

paths I had taken or I should that could

have taken up into this point and then

there were a lot of Pathways kind of

branching out from where I was but all

going back to the same place and the

point of that particular teaching was

first of all we can take one of many

paths in life and they pretty much bring

us to the same place so it's it's not

like there's a particular right path

that you need to be on the other part of

that was I noticed that compass rose was

centered figuratively in my heart

area and the point of that teaching that

she she finally went into that is you

know you don't just use your brain your

human brain to make

decisions you also have to dig

deeper into what we would call Intuition

or that that inner know KN and she said

balance those two out so that you're

making

decisions from a really holistic Place

rather than simply an analytical

decision up until that point in my life

I had completely ignored that I didn't

pay that any attention at

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all after that I had what people call A

Life review

now at the time you have to understand I

didn't know any of these terms I didn't

know about ndes I didn't know about life

reviews I had no idea all of this stuff

so she brought me up this kind of

Meandering Mountain Valley into what

looked like a pond up in the mountains

and she said well I want you to kneel

down by the side of the pond and just

touch the surface of the

pond so I just did it

and I just sat back on kind of on my

heels and and just watched the

surface the ripples going out I could

see on top of the ripples there were

small little pockets all across the

surface of the

pond that to me looked like little

videos vget of specific moments in my

physical life but when I would focus on

one I was back in it I was it wasn't

like I was watching it from outside I

was back in it experiencing it again

from my perspective but also

experiencing it from the other

people and I could feel everything they

felt as if it was

mine and that really got to me

because there were times when I helped

someone one or said something nice and I

could feel that person's for a one of a

better term I could feel their Spirit

sore I could feel how buoyant they felt

because someone said something kind and

then it also I could see the the

downstream effects of those actions

too so if I said something positive and

uplifting to someone I in turn saw how

that allowed them to be more positive

with other people so this teaching

was you have an impact on the people

around you not just

physically but there's also an energetic

or spiritual component to every

interaction that you have whether it's a

verbal interaction whether it's there's

something non-spoken it doesn't matter

everything that you do has an impact and

therefore be more conscious of how you

impact others on the flip side so it was

balanced out for me to learn from with

things that weren't so great that I did

there was a a time when I was a teenager

and my younger sister and I got into a

fight we fought like cats and dogs when

I was a kid we just did not see eye to

eye and I loved her but we didn't get

along very well and there was one point

when I was I think I was probably like

17 and she was

14 I said something not so kind to her

and I didn't think anything of it at the

time it was just a way to get her off my

back you know I just was I was really

tired of the fight we were having so I

just said something stupid and not very

nice and she didn't

react you know I didn't see any reaction

in the moment for her except she left

but in my review I could feel the hurt

that I caused her in that moment and

this really this is the the second thing

that always gets me when I felt her pain

at what I said to her that was like

biggest teaching moment

ever and that's the one thing I wish I

could give to people

was

understanding viscerally how you're in

impact affects your your actions affect

someone else your words affect someone

else and in that moment I

realized okay I'm changing the way that

I interact with people right now like

that's it that that point woke me up

like nothing else that was just this big

aha moment and ever since I've come back

here I remember that almost every day

and it helps me formulate how I interact

with people every day I'm

very concerned

and careful about

how I interact with

people all of a sudden for the first

time in my whole you know experience

there I looked up and there were clouds

in the

sky we were just kind of looking around

you know like when you were little kids

looking for Animals up in the clouds and

so we did that for a while and then she

got up and she said well it's time for

you to go

now I was not happy to hear that I

thought I was I thought I had passed

some kind of test you know and was going

to stay there I was really planning on

doing this end run around my teacher I I

was like planning can I just like run

around her and just keep running until

until I find where I'm supposed to go um

that was one of the things that I wanted

to do and I I also thought well if if I

pitch a fit enough they'll just let me

stay I started getting a little bit

weepy with

her so at that point she laid hands on

my shoulder that was broken my

ribs and right up like right up here cuz

the top of my sternum was the part that

was cracked and then she sort of sent me

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back and I woke

up in the recovery room I was actually

screaming when I woke up I was yelling

and I was not happy I was really angry

to be back and the nurse who was helping

me she literally jumped back but I kept

yelling where is she where is she I

don't want to be here can I go back can

I go back and they thought I was having

some kind of psychotic episode I'm

sure the anesthesiologist came in and

talked to me a little bit he got me

calmed down but I kept asking I said can

you please send her back to me can you

please send her back to me and they had

no idea who I'm talking about I had a

friend in the waiting room so they went

and got her and she I feel so bad for

her so they brought her in and I said

that's not who I'm talking about I don't

want to see her I want to see the woman

I was with during surgery and they're

like what in the world is going on so

finally I realized well okay then my

rational mind kicked in and I you know I

remembered everything that happened but

I thought okay you need to shut up

because they don't get it they don't

understand what you went

through so I just stopped talking

I was in a Lutheran Hospital and the

next morning one of the chaplain stopped

in from the hospital she poked her head

in like you awake and I and I could tell

who it was and I said oh thank God

you're here out loud and she she came in

and we talked about what happened she

was amazing she was really

amazing if she hadn't reacted

in the in the positive way that she had

I may never have told anybody ever again

but she was very accepting very positive

and explained you know that I had

died and she said well you had in

near-death experience I'm like what is

that she said well it's a thing you know

people people die and we bring them back

and then they have these experiences

that was that was the first time I ever

heard of nde

she helped me to understand it was

normal I'm not crazy it was a real

experience and now okay now she said now

you need to start thinking about what

this means for you cuz it's cuz I knew

and she was trying to get me to

understand but I knew that this could

potentially blow my life open in a way

that I would never have thought of

before it was a complete shift of what I

thought was real what I thought was true

of everything I

believed and I knew at that point it was

like I had a

choice I could go back to the way things

were I could completely deny everything

that had just happened I could

completely deny the experience itself

what I learned and just try to go back

to the way things were

before and that seemed you know some

somehow safe because it was predictable

like I knew I knew that path I was on it

I didn't like it but I was on

it but this other path was a complete

unknown if so if I knew I

could Embrace what I

learned and continue to learn from it

but I had no idea where that was going

to

go and I I really worried

about what that would mean for my career

because I was in still in the

Sciences I just assumed that I'd never

be able to get a job again in the

Sciences because people would see that

and oh she's crazy we're not going to

hire her so I was really afraid of that

path but about 2 weeks later when I came

home from the

hospital I realized well I'm going to

give this New Path a go I don't know

where it's going to

go I'll see what

happens I was out of the body cast in

just like a I think 2 days over 4 weeks

and they expected that to be

16 so it was very rapid very rapid

healing what I started doing was I would

go out in nature every day and

meditate that was one of the things I

started doing that really helped you

know kind of bring that soul level of

awareness into my life the second thing

and it's very it sounds very

simple but it has a big impact is really

truly learning how to be

grateful in the morning I would start

the day before I got up out of bed I

would be very grateful for just being

able to walk just basic stuff I would

allow myself almost to meditate on it to

really think about and feel not just

think but also feel the gratitude for

that like I could have been a paraplegic

from that ex and I'm so grateful that I

can walk right

now just those simple acts of

gratitude allowed me to focus on what

was good in my life right

now and just little by little those

Small Things allowed me to stay

more centered and

present the rest of the

day it's about being aware of your

actions in the moment without going on

autopilot it's so very easy to be living

your life on

autopilot which is where I was

before so now I'm not hooked up into to

dramas like I used to

be um whatever goes on in our

governments it's like yeah it's going on

but I'm still at peace in my

life concern yeah I have concerns about

the world definitely but it doesn't

change this core of Peace inside because

I know it's important to be here in this

reality it has things to teach us we all

learn from it

But

ultimately we are not this

reality we're a bigger level of

reality I was learning really how to

live from that soul level of awareness

rather than just

my limited human level of awareness it's

not that the human level of awareness

was bad but it for

me it was very fear-filled

and and it was reacting to life rather

than being proactive and I didn't want

to be that way anymore and I wanted to

live life from that level of that higher

level of awareness because it felt

better it was more peaceful it was more

connected it was more love-filled and

joyful it's a much better place to be U

I'm not anywhere near as stressed out

and certainly not fearful anymore

you know it's been a really great change

for me I'm not driven

by this being a material world anymore

I'm not stuck on that um I'm I

understand that there is a bigger

picture not just to the world but to

each one of

us that fear of death that I

carried really kept me from fully living

living at least for me it kept me

thinking small and

safe and that's not necessarily where

all of us are meant to be at all times

in our lives there's that's perfectly

fine for some people and and at times in

our lives that's perfectly

fine but any decision based on

fear it's not to me the most the the

strongest decision that you can make

it's somehow

limited when I work with people

individually I really try to get people

into that space where their their

decision making is based on a place of

strength and and Trust in themselves and

and maybe a place of compassion or love

rather than oh I'm afraid that person

won't like what I'm doing so therefore

I'm going to do this this thing instead

of the thing I really want to do

for the vast majority of souls that come

here to have a life

experience and it's funny because my

teacher calls this a near life

experience and so I just like to tell

that to people they consider this nearly

life but not real

life so all of us who are here to have

this near life experience we come here

for a variety of reasons and and some

people come here to

learn a very specific thing a lot of us

come here to experience things that we

can't experience anywhere else or that

would be very difficult um having a

child for example you know you don't you

don't necessarily give birth while

you're in heaven so a lot of people like

to come here and experience having a

family or raising a

family

this physical reality it's like a

crucible meaning it's a very focused

place where you can learn a lot of

different things in a very short amount

of time and so the the real challenge is

narrowing down what it is that you want

to learn while you're

here all those different reasons or

purposes that people can have there's

one core and that one core is to learn

how to be here in this environment and

still live from a place of love and

compassion not just for your immediate

family but for everybody

else and that's the core purpose that we

all

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