Speaker 1: A Boundless Authenticity podcast.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another episode of Boundless Authenticity. This episode
Speaker 2: is for anyone going through it, if you've suffered a
Speaker 2: loss or are just facing adversity. My guest today is
Speaker 2: Vicky Paris Goodman, the author of To Sam with Love,
Speaker 2: a surviving spouse's story of inspired grief. After the death
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen of her husband, Sam, the love of
Speaker 2: her life, she was unexpectedly flooded with optimism and presented
Speaker 2: with a host of possibilities for an exciting and meaningful future.
Speaker 2: She received valuable insights, seemingly coming from an outside source,
Speaker 2: enabling her to conceive a more realistic and uplifting understanding
Speaker 2: of adversity and loss. She knows these concepts wire free
Speaker 2: others to face the passing of a loved one with
Speaker 2: a far more optimistic outlook. Having lived most of her
Speaker 2: life in the Los Angeles area, Miss Goodman now resides
Speaker 2: in the mountains of sen Arizona. She's a retired mechanical engineer.
Speaker 2: She sings and plays violin semi professionally, and for over
Speaker 2: twenty years she served a Long Beach, California area newspaper
Speaker 2: as a theater critic. She has just completed her second book,
Speaker 2: Speed Bumps and Other Impediments to Life in the Fast Lane,
Speaker 2: a slightly self deprecating memoir on the trials of life
Speaker 2: of a type A personality. Go to inspiredbrief dot com
Speaker 2: to purchase Sam with Love at a discount, to subscribe
Speaker 2: to Vicky's free belief Shifting three episode audio series, and
Speaker 2: to contact Vicki and read her blog. And while I'm here,
Speaker 2: I have to say thank you again to all of
Speaker 2: the new subscribers and followers, and I just want to
Speaker 2: remind you that if you aren't currently a follower of
Speaker 2: the show, go ahead and do so now. Boundless Authenticity
Speaker 2: is available on Spreaker, Spotify, Apple, Rumble, and sometimes YouTube
Speaker 2: when they aren't punishing me for being a bad boy. However,
Speaker 2: I highly reckoon men using the Speaker app as it
Speaker 2: is free to listen and no sign it required. All
Speaker 2: you have to do is just hit play. So how's
Speaker 2: it going great?
Speaker 1: I really want to thank you for having me on
Speaker 1: your terrific show, Jehan, and I'm really excited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm glad he contacted me. This is right
Speaker 2: up my alley because I've been wanting to focus more
Speaker 2: on this subject, So I'll let you have the floor.
Speaker 2: How'd you get into this situation?
Speaker 1: Yeah, back in twenty seventeen when my husband Sam and
Speaker 1: I moved to our our basically where we decided to
Speaker 1: retire in Arizona. You know, we moved into our house.
Speaker 1: We were so excited, and then we got his terminal
Speaker 1: cancer diagnosis, and you know, we both bucked up. He
Speaker 1: lived another two years, did really well. For a year
Speaker 1: and a half of that, you couldn't tell he was sick,
Speaker 1: you know, he was still eating well, working out, you know,
Speaker 1: doing great. Was really only the last six months or
Speaker 1: so where he declined and after Sam passed, even though
Speaker 1: I'm a survivor type basically not particularly optimistic compared with
Speaker 1: most people, not pessimistic, kind of middle of the road,
Speaker 1: but I was flooded with optimism. And it was on
Speaker 1: the day he passed, which seemed a little unseemly, you know,
Speaker 1: and my first instinct was to push it away, but
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I was so strong during our
Speaker 1: two year ordeal from diagnosis to his passing, and I
Speaker 1: took good care of him, you know, toward the end
Speaker 1: when he needed taking care of and I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: if good things want to come my way, even this
Speaker 1: soon after Sam's passing, maybe I should let them. And
Speaker 1: that started me on the road to a lot of
Speaker 1: really good things, opportunities that I felt motivated to embrace,
Speaker 1: insights that really gave me clarity and put me on
Speaker 1: this path to get those same insights out to others
Speaker 1: so they can benefit from them as well. And we
Speaker 1: can talk more about those serendipitous events were occurring, you know,
Speaker 1: at a pretty fast clip for a while after Sam passed,
Speaker 1: almost like he was sending me messages, you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, all of it put together. I decided to
Speaker 1: call it inspired grief because it was just so inspiring
Speaker 1: and I was grieving over his loss and mostly the
Speaker 1: changes that had happened to my life from him not
Speaker 1: being here with me anymore. But so many things happened
Speaker 1: in a timely fashion after he passed that I felt,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm being transformed. For one thing, I
Speaker 1: was raised very secular in a very secular family, and
Speaker 1: some years before Sam passed, I had decided there must
Speaker 1: be a higher power. All of this around us could
Speaker 1: not have happened spontaneously on its own. But I'd never
Speaker 1: taken my belief in a higher power. Very far, it
Speaker 1: remained very rudimentary. But after Sam passed, suddenly I wanted
Speaker 1: to know if he was still around and if so
Speaker 1: where I was offered by the hospice we used. I
Speaker 1: was offered meetings with their chaplain about once a month
Speaker 1: for a year after Sam passed, and I said yes
Speaker 1: to that. And the first thing I asked her in
Speaker 1: our first meeting was tell me about the afterlife, and
Speaker 1: she did give me some really insightful thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: But the best thing she did was she recommended that
Speaker 1: I read the story of a secular neurosurgeon who had
Speaker 1: had a near death experience. And after reading his story,
Speaker 1: I found it so compelling, so convincing, that it took
Speaker 1: me the rest of the way to fully believing in
Speaker 1: God and an afterlife. And that is probably the single
Speaker 1: most important thing that happened soon after Sam passed to
Speaker 1: start me on this mission of mine with the insights
Speaker 1: and the opportunities and now me working very hard actually
Speaker 1: to get to get the message out. Because let me
Speaker 1: just give you give you one example of one of
Speaker 1: the insight sites I received, and it's not even in
Speaker 1: the book, because this one came after I published the book,
Speaker 1: And I published the book two years after Sam passed,
Speaker 1: so the insights were still coming, and some of the
Speaker 1: most powerful ones came after I published the book, you know,
Speaker 1: two and a half, three years after Sam passed. And
Speaker 1: probably the most stunning of those insights, Well, I'll ask,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you in the form of a question, is
Speaker 1: death really tragic? And I say no, if you believe
Speaker 1: in a loving God and a beautiful beyond words after life,
Speaker 1: and if God has a plan for each one of us,
Speaker 1: and if your loved one passes ahead of you, I
Speaker 1: mean someone's got to you know. It's pretty rare for
Speaker 1: two people to you know, die in a plane crash together,
Speaker 1: or in a car crash or something. Usually one passes
Speaker 1: ahead of the other. So the way I look at
Speaker 1: it now is Sam that God's plan was for Sam
Speaker 1: to pass ahead of me. Now Sam is in this
Speaker 1: beautiful place, He's still around, just in a different way.
Speaker 1: And God's plan for me was to continue in this
Speaker 1: earthly life for some amount of time which we don't know.
Speaker 1: And I am tasked with learning more, experiencing more, and
Speaker 1: maybe even teaching others while I'm here. And so I
Speaker 1: don't see that as tragic at all. I see Sam
Speaker 1: getting to go to this beautiful place as cause for celebration,
Speaker 1: as crazy as that might, Sam, given the way we're
Speaker 1: conditioned in our culture to think of.
Speaker 2: Death, so you ended that with the right thing is conditioning.
Speaker 2: We're told to act a fool pretty much, and find
Speaker 2: that a lot about that makes the death of the
Speaker 2: person about me. You know what I'm saying really selfish
Speaker 2: and I don't think that that's a healthy response to
Speaker 2: that scenario whatsoever. So I find what you're saying to
Speaker 2: be quite fascinating. And again with that societal conditioning, then
Speaker 2: that kind of shines the light on the quality of
Speaker 2: relationship that you had with the person. Are you grieving
Speaker 2: because you're guilty that you didn't treat the person well?
Speaker 2: While because a lot of people I've seen will just
Speaker 2: be like in tears forever about it and they won't
Speaker 2: really resolve anything that's going on in their heads. It
Speaker 2: just continues for anything up to a lifetime until they
Speaker 2: eventually die. And that doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 2: And it's almost like they're beyond any kind of conversation
Speaker 2: about it. They're not open to changing the way that
Speaker 2: they feel or feeling better or doing better or any
Speaker 2: of those things. And then it also shines to light
Speaker 2: on Okay, well, how do you actually end up loving
Speaker 2: this person that has passed? Is the way that you
Speaker 2: love them a container? Is it some kind of a
Speaker 2: prison that you put them in yourself? Because that doesn't
Speaker 2: sound a lot like anything that's very free to have
Speaker 2: that kind of reaction. Am I making sense?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? You're making sense, you know. We You're right about
Speaker 1: the guilt. There's a lot of guilt, not so much.
Speaker 1: It might have something to do with the way they
Speaker 1: treated the person, you know, when they were living. You know,
Speaker 1: none of us have perfect relationships, and there is a
Speaker 1: lot of guilt around that. But I think most of
Speaker 1: the guilt with people who have lost a loved one
Speaker 1: who was very important to them is more about am
Speaker 1: I getting the grief right? Am I? You know? How
Speaker 1: long should I do this for? You know, in order
Speaker 1: to honor this person? You know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: shorten it too much, because you know, then I'm not
Speaker 1: honoring them properly. All of this this conditioning that tells
Speaker 1: us to look at it this way, it makes no sense.
Speaker 1: And what I find really interesting is when I say,
Speaker 1: is death really tragic? I say no, There are more
Speaker 1: people with this belief system loving God, beautiful beyond words afterlife.
Speaker 1: There are more people with that belief system who nod
Speaker 1: their heads knowingly. And I'm thinking, well, if you know this,
Speaker 1: why do you not connect the dots? Make that connection
Speaker 1: that from what you're you're saying, you know.
Speaker 2: To.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, to how you're grieving or how you're treating
Speaker 1: someone else who has suffered a loss. You know. I'd
Speaker 1: like to start a movement to get people to connect
Speaker 1: those dots so that we're so that the way we
Speaker 1: react to a death is more aligned with our belief system.
Speaker 1: But death really isn't tragic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just so much more healthy to feel whatever
Speaker 2: is that's going on and try to move on from
Speaker 2: that then make it into something that's bigger than what
Speaker 2: it is. It affects people around you negatively, and it's
Speaker 2: not doing you any goodness either. It's really just subtractive,
Speaker 2: and I don't feel like the process of grieving needs
Speaker 2: to be subtractive to your energy whatsoever. It's hard. We
Speaker 2: know that there's going to be things that come up.
Speaker 2: Like you said when you were realizing the impact that
Speaker 2: your husband on you and you know you will miss him, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know there are so many people who get stuck
Speaker 1: in grief, as we have alluded to already, Jehan And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it last week, sometimes months, sometimes years,
Speaker 1: or as you as you pointed out, sometimes sometimes people
Speaker 1: do this for the rest of their lives until they pass.
Speaker 1: And I look at it as such a waste of
Speaker 1: time and energy and what they could have done with
Speaker 1: their lives. So here we are with this new belief system.
Speaker 1: And so what does that mean I'm not going to
Speaker 1: feel bad about losing my loved one? Well, yes and no,
Speaker 1: because I think what we do need to grieve, or
Speaker 1: at least process, is the fact that your life has
Speaker 1: changed when you lose someone, especially someone who's shared your
Speaker 1: you know, big part of your life with you, like
Speaker 1: your home for example. So you lose a spouse and
Speaker 1: everything changes, you know, And as human beings, we're a
Speaker 1: little bit afraid, most of us, of the unknown, you know,
Speaker 1: the uncertainty of what life is going to look like now,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we're uncomfortable with that. And you know,
Speaker 1: there are people who tell I know because they told
Speaker 1: me this and others I've spoken to who have lost
Speaker 1: a loved one. You know, there are people who will
Speaker 1: tell us keep yourself so busy that you don't have
Speaker 1: time to think or feel, you know, in order to
Speaker 1: avoid the pain of the loss. And I knew that
Speaker 1: that was bad advice, however well intended, so I ignored it.
Speaker 1: What I did instead, and this worked really well for me,
Speaker 1: and I think it can work really well for everyone
Speaker 1: who is in this position. So what you do. You
Speaker 1: don't expect to feel wonderful because of the uncertain and
Speaker 1: you know, this person, even though they might still be around,
Speaker 1: this person you lost, they're not there in the way
Speaker 1: they were. You have to process this. So what I
Speaker 1: did and it worked so well, was I I created
Speaker 1: a balance between what I call activity and quiet time,
Speaker 1: you know. So I started doing things immediately. Opportunities were
Speaker 1: coming my way. I grasped them and thought, why not,
Speaker 1: you know, why not do some things that I've never
Speaker 1: done before? And so I did them. You know, I
Speaker 1: started singing, and it turned out I could sing, you know.
Speaker 1: I auditioned for to be in a play at our
Speaker 1: local playhouse. I'd never done that before. I reviewed theater
Speaker 1: for years but I'd never actually acted, you know, and
Speaker 1: all these things worked out really well. So I was
Speaker 1: doing those things, but I also made sure that there
Speaker 1: was that there was time to just sit or or read,
Speaker 1: or take a walk or a height so that I
Speaker 1: could process what had happened in my life, and over
Speaker 1: time I did. Now. One interesting thing I noticed through
Speaker 1: this process was that when I'd be out having fun,
Speaker 1: you know, lunch with a friend or going to karaoke
Speaker 1: or whatever it is I was doing that was fun
Speaker 1: and satisfying, I'd come home and I'd feel empty inside.
Speaker 1: And I realized that that was very likely due to
Speaker 1: the fact that Sam wasn't here anymore to either do
Speaker 1: the thing with me or to hear me tell them
Speaker 1: about it. When I got home, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: what this means is things are going to be good,
Speaker 1: but they're not going to be great, and they might
Speaker 1: not be great for a long time to come. And
Speaker 1: I realized I had no control over that aspect, so
Speaker 1: I just accepted it. So this is the way I
Speaker 1: proceeded on, and I don't think it came for me.
Speaker 1: I think God was leading me into this next chapter
Speaker 1: of life in a way that worked so beautifully for me,
Speaker 1: and it made me closer to this God that I
Speaker 1: had just just begun believing in very strongly. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, here I was having this experience, it was
Speaker 1: almost like like God was saying, you know what, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming so quickly to your faith in me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do something for you, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to make this process as positive and inspiring as possible.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, here I sit, five and a
Speaker 1: half years after sam past getting the message out. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a real selfless person because of some things
Speaker 1: that happened in my childhood that we need not get into.
Speaker 1: You know, I kind of found it necessary to grasp
Speaker 1: for control and I became a little self involved, i think,
Speaker 1: growing up, you know, just to try and survive what
Speaker 1: was going on in my family. And so I'm not
Speaker 1: a real selfless type, you know, and I've always felt
Speaker 1: a little guilty about that. You know, people are volunteering
Speaker 1: in the community and doing you know, for the homeless
Speaker 1: or for the hungry, or you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm here, I am writing books and
Speaker 1: you know, doing other things. Well. When I started, when
Speaker 1: I started going on various podcasts like your own Jahan.
Speaker 1: It was not something I necessarily wanted to do at first,
Speaker 1: but it felt so right because I thought, Wow, I've
Speaker 1: felt so guilty for so many years that I don't
Speaker 1: do anything to give back, and here I am. I
Speaker 1: have found a way to give back. So here I
Speaker 1: am in my retirement, you know, when I could be
Speaker 1: taking my dog on two or three walks a day
Speaker 1: instead of just one, you know, from getting on podcasts
Speaker 1: to try and get this message out because I just
Speaker 1: feel so strongly it can help others, and it feels
Speaker 1: so good and right. The more I do it, the better,
Speaker 1: the better, the more right it seems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand what you're saying completely and totally. When
Speaker 2: you were talking about processing it, that's the thing that
Speaker 2: keeps us all stuck in any situation, any weird emotion.
Speaker 2: We don't want to process it. And the longer you
Speaker 2: stay like that, the more it causes you pain. I
Speaker 2: was just telling someone else in relation to a different subject,
Speaker 2: that the conditioning that we receive on this planet is
Speaker 2: pretty much centered to dissociating from one thing or another.
Speaker 2: But there's no real insight or anything to be gained
Speaker 2: in just sitting around beating yourself over the head. Whenever
Speaker 2: you have any kind of tough situation that you have
Speaker 2: to deal with. Life is happening. You don't have a choice,
Speaker 2: and you could either sit there and cry about things
Speaker 2: at infinitum, or you can learn to process the things
Speaker 2: that are going on in your head, understand that it
Speaker 2: takes a long time, and just move on with what
Speaker 2: you have to do, because the rest of the world
Speaker 2: is not going to weigh on you to get over
Speaker 2: whatever is you have to get over. And granted, it's
Speaker 2: your right to get over in whatever time period you
Speaker 2: see fit, but it's not necessary to drag anything out.
Speaker 2: So I'm just wondering what tips you can give to
Speaker 2: anyone that feels like life is against them.
Speaker 1: That's a good one, you know. I think I think
Speaker 1: what you're describing as sort of a victim mentality, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who suffer loss and
Speaker 1: adversity do feel like victims. And one thing is this
Speaker 1: is yet another of the insights that I was with
Speaker 1: which I was blessed after I wrote the book, and
Speaker 1: that that was that the God. Part of God's plan
Speaker 1: is to present us with challenges in order for us
Speaker 1: to learn lessons I'm fully convinced of this because I've
Speaker 1: noticed that if I finally stop resisting the lesson, God
Speaker 1: seems to move on to try and teach me something
Speaker 1: else rather than the same type of challenge over and
Speaker 1: over again. So, you know, my advice to people is,
Speaker 1: when you face adversity, whether it's something trivial or something
Speaker 1: truly you know, earth shattering, think about God's intended takeaway.
Speaker 1: What is he trying to teach me? And learn that lesson?
Speaker 1: And he won't stop trying to teach you lessons, but
Speaker 1: he might stop trying to teach you that one, So
Speaker 1: you know, it's yeah, yeah, So that's my best advice
Speaker 1: for people. You know, get out of the victim mentality.
Speaker 1: What am I supposed to learn from this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: That makes ask Yeah, I agree with you. You just
Speaker 2: have to get out of that feeling of being helpless
Speaker 2: and get off of that hamster wheel that you can
Speaker 2: find yourself on. And you know, are there any other
Speaker 2: bits of insight that you would like to share that
Speaker 2: we can look forward to insight of the book.
Speaker 1: Well, the book isn't loaded with insights, to be honest.
Speaker 1: The book is more of a a It's more of
Speaker 1: an example of one woman's far more positive and optimistic
Speaker 1: than expected experience of moving into the next chapter after
Speaker 1: losing the love of her life. That was me, of course,
Speaker 1: and that that's the book. The insights are all in
Speaker 1: three episode audio series that I that I recorded, because,
Speaker 1: as I said, most of the most of the best
Speaker 1: insights came to me after after I wrote the book.
Speaker 1: So those are free online and we can talk about
Speaker 1: that at the end. But I would like to tell
Speaker 1: you about some more of those insights that I had,
Speaker 1: because I think it's very helpful to people, if that's
Speaker 1: okay with you, Jehan. You know, they're described more fully
Speaker 1: in the audio episodes. But one of the things I
Speaker 1: think people people expect or not expect. I think we
Speaker 1: all have this idea and many of us, many of
Speaker 1: us believe that there's an ideal life in terms of relationships,
Speaker 1: and that is you meet someone, let's say, in your twenties,
Speaker 1: you get married, and you both live into your eighties
Speaker 1: or nineties, you know, having been married to the same
Speaker 1: person for you know, six or seventy years, and that's
Speaker 1: the ideal I thought that, you know, and what occurred
Speaker 1: to me, this is such a good insight and I
Speaker 1: don't take credit for any of these insights were These
Speaker 1: were insights with which I was blessed by God. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not that good, so you know these came to me.
Speaker 1: It's almost like I'm the messenger about the ideal life
Speaker 1: that I just described. It occurred to me that that
Speaker 1: is one one way some people spend their lives. But
Speaker 1: who's to say that a life that's lived more in
Speaker 1: chapters or segments isn't just just as valuable, just as ideal,
Speaker 1: maybe even better, because maybe there's more opportunity if if
Speaker 1: you live your life in chapters, maybe maybe two or
Speaker 1: three of those chapters with different in relationship with different people.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe you get married twice or three times,
Speaker 1: or you know you're or you're in a significant relationship
Speaker 1: in one of these chapters. You know, who's to say
Speaker 1: that isn't equally ideal to being married to one person
Speaker 1: you know, for sixty or seventy years. You know, we
Speaker 1: make that assumption, but I'm not sure why we do.
Speaker 1: And I think it's so important to understand that if
Speaker 1: if you wind up divorcing, or if your loved wine
Speaker 1: your spouse passes away in their forties or fifties instead
Speaker 1: of in their eighties or nineties. And now you're faced
Speaker 1: with another chapter that you don't feel like you've failed
Speaker 1: to live out that ideal life, because there is no
Speaker 1: ideal life, and it's so freeing to realize that you
Speaker 1: haven't failed. If you divorce, or if your loved one
Speaker 1: passes away far earlier than expected, it just means that
Speaker 1: you were meant to do something else, and you may
Speaker 1: as well enter that new chapter of life as soon
Speaker 1: as possible and get going with it and see what wonderful,
Speaker 1: exciting and inspiring things might happen. And they will. So
Speaker 1: that's one one thing that occurred to me. I call
Speaker 1: it one of the insights that was so great because
Speaker 1: of how freeing it was. Another thing was if with
Speaker 1: the afterlife is so beautiful, and as so many people
Speaker 1: who have had near death experiences have related, if it's so,
Speaker 1: if there's a love there that is so powerful that
Speaker 1: we can't like here on earth. If that's the case,
Speaker 1: then when we feel guilty about moving on into another
Speaker 1: relationship after losing our spouse, let's say it occurs to me,
Speaker 1: there aren't any negative emotions in the afterlife, there's no
Speaker 1: ag there's no there's no jealousy, There's only love. And
Speaker 1: when these these souls experience that unbelievable love, all they
Speaker 1: want for their loved ones here on earth is the same.
Speaker 1: They want them to be happy until they come and
Speaker 1: join them in the afterlife. They want them to find
Speaker 1: as much love and satisfaction as possible. So the guilt
Speaker 1: need not need not be there for those left behind.
Speaker 1: So there's guilt. You know, you brought up guilt first, Jehan,
Speaker 1: But there's so many different ways in which we feel
Speaker 1: guilty over over loss, and none of them, it turns out,
Speaker 1: really are valid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this just came to me. If Sam was
Speaker 2: to read your book, what do you think he would
Speaker 2: say to you?
Speaker 1: Great question, No one spar asked me that. I think
Speaker 1: I think really proud of it. I think he'd be
Speaker 1: proud of both my books, actually, but I think he
Speaker 1: probably he was a very funny man. He'd probably say,
Speaker 1: I'm the most boring guy on the planet. How come
Speaker 1: you spent a third of the book talking about me,
Speaker 1: you know, the first third. He'd probably say something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a character.
Speaker 2: He was Oh gosh, yeah, yeah, that's really great. So
Speaker 2: Vicky is there anything else you'd like to say?
Speaker 1: Well, you know what we could do, Johan, I could,
Speaker 1: I could tell I could tell you about some of
Speaker 1: some of the serendipitous events that occurred. One was especially well,
Speaker 1: two of them were especially striking. Do you mind if
Speaker 1: I do that before we finish up? I think they're
Speaker 1: good stories. One of them, Okaya's Sam had a favorite flower.
Speaker 1: He loved sunflowers. Used to bring them home from the
Speaker 1: grocery store sometimes, you know, and put them in a vace.
Speaker 1: He loved sunflowers. So and his celebration of life that
Speaker 1: I had about a month and a half after his passing,
Speaker 1: I arranged to have sunflowers on all the tables. So
Speaker 1: I'm on my way to this venue where I'm going
Speaker 1: to be holding this celebration of life for Sam, and
Speaker 1: suddenly there's this cartoonish blue car in front of me,
Speaker 1: kind of a car, kind of a silly little blue car.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what it was, but it struck
Speaker 1: me that it looked like a cartoon and not a
Speaker 1: real car. And coming up from the roof of that
Speaker 1: car was a plastic flower, and it was bent back
Speaker 1: to me, so I could see that it wasn't just
Speaker 1: any flower. It was plastic sunflower. And I thought, you
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever seen a flower coming up from
Speaker 1: the roof of a car. What are the chances that
Speaker 1: I'd be behind a car or half mile from my
Speaker 1: destination that has, you know, where there's going to be
Speaker 1: an event for you know, honoring Sam. What are the
Speaker 1: chances that I see a plastic sunflower under those circumstances
Speaker 1: coming up from the roof of this car. And pretty
Speaker 1: soon the little car turned off in another direction, not
Speaker 1: headed toward that venue anymore, and I thought, that must
Speaker 1: be the first message I'm getting from Sam to tell
Speaker 1: me that I'm on the right track or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know what he was trying to tell me, but
Speaker 1: at least maybe he was just trying to tell me, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm here and I can't wait to see my celebration
Speaker 1: of life. You know, maybe that's all it was. I
Speaker 1: think the most stunning thing that happened. And this is
Speaker 1: still happening, by the way, and it's how I know
Speaker 1: Sam is still around. Soon after he passed, I would
Speaker 1: go to bed at night, turn out the lights, and
Speaker 1: while I was just kind of relaxing before falling asleep.
Speaker 1: About three to five minutes after turning out the lights,
Speaker 1: I would see a kind of a smoky grayish white
Speaker 1: thing sort of just gently floating around or kind of
Speaker 1: going in and out in my view, I guess you'd say.
Speaker 1: But most of the time it was so subtle I
Speaker 1: wasn't really sure it was there, and I actually said
Speaker 1: to myself, this is pathetic. Why are you imagining something
Speaker 1: just to give yourself the comfort of believing that Sam is,
Speaker 1: you know, somehow visiting you after you turn out the
Speaker 1: lights at night or something, so, you know, I was
Speaker 1: even kind heart on myself with regard to that. But
Speaker 1: sometimes it was vivid enough that it was hard to ignore,
Speaker 1: and I'd think, huh, that's not so subtle. Anyway. This
Speaker 1: is going on most nights, not all, but most nights
Speaker 1: for a few months, and then suddenly one night it
Speaker 1: changes color. It becomes kind of a neon yellow green,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, that's interesting, because even though it's
Speaker 1: pretty subtle, I've never even thought to imagine it changing
Speaker 1: color before. I don't think I'm imagining this. And then
Speaker 1: sometimes it would be, you know, really vivid, and five
Speaker 1: and a half years later, I'm still getting visits from
Speaker 1: the neon yellow green thing. But I guess the most
Speaker 1: stunning part of the story is I had started to
Speaker 1: pray to God, or I didn't actually pray, I would
Speaker 1: just sort of talk to God every night before bed.
Speaker 1: Well about a year after Sam passed, and I've been
Speaker 1: seeing the neon yellow green thing most nights. I said
Speaker 1: to God early in the day. Never talked to God
Speaker 1: early in the day, very rarely, but on this occasion,
Speaker 1: I said, God, I never ask you for anything for myself,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to make an exception to that. Today.
Speaker 1: I'm really growing weary of wondering if the neon yellow
Speaker 1: green thing is some sort of a manifestation of Sam's soul.
Speaker 1: So if it, if it is Sam, would you please
Speaker 1: just make it more vivid than ever or make it
Speaker 1: move differently than it usually does tonight after I go
Speaker 1: to bed. And if it's not Sam, would you just
Speaker 1: kind of give me jet black, which will be, you know,
Speaker 1: the really decisive absence of the phenomenon. And I figured,
Speaker 1: you know, if I get what I usually see, you know,
Speaker 1: just sort of a cloudy nothingness when you're going to sleep,
Speaker 1: I figured, you know, then God had chose not to
Speaker 1: not to do what I'd asked, and I'd be no
Speaker 1: worse off. So that night, you know, I'm getting ready
Speaker 1: for bed, and I'm thinking, what have I done? What
Speaker 1: if I get jet black? Am I ready to find
Speaker 1: out that this happened Sam all this time? And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I can't stay up forever. So I go to bed
Speaker 1: and I turn out the light. And instead of just
Speaker 1: kind of laying there for three to five minutes and
Speaker 1: then the thing coming and gently moving around, the second
Speaker 1: I turned out the lights, it was there. For the
Speaker 1: first time ever, it was there, and it was very vivid,
Speaker 1: and instead of floating gently around, it shot across my
Speaker 1: view about four or five times horizontally and then poof
Speaker 1: gone And I burst into tears and I thanked God,
Speaker 1: and I said I would never question the identity of
Speaker 1: the apparition again. And I still get those visits almost
Speaker 1: every night.
Speaker 2: Well, what exactly did that do for you? What did
Speaker 2: that give your perspective? And you know, how did it feel?
Speaker 2: Did fail your soul? Did it did it make you
Speaker 2: want to have a stronger belief in God? Didn't make
Speaker 2: you question other things in your life?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What did it do? Because there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: that have these experiences and they do different stuff with it,
Speaker 2: and I'm always surprised to hear what they.
Speaker 1: Say, I'm sorry, you said. There's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry. There's an internet thing happening here, it seems.
Speaker 2: And I said, there's a lot of people that they
Speaker 2: have these experiences and they do different things with them,
Speaker 2: and I'm always curious as to what they say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, you know, it's funny, I can't really communicate
Speaker 1: with Well, I can communicate with Sam, but he can't
Speaker 1: really communicate with me, at least not in a way
Speaker 1: that I have found if I could ask him a
Speaker 1: yes or no question and maybe get maybe get some
Speaker 1: sort of a signal or something. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: it's not very satisfying at all. But I think what
Speaker 1: I've always loved to be apparition is that it's just
Speaker 1: what it means to me is that Sam is there.
Speaker 1: He's still with me, he hasn't given up on me.
Speaker 1: He's in the afterlife doing whatever he does there, and
Speaker 1: he's and he he has stayed with he has stayed
Speaker 1: with me. Is he is making these visits, I guess
Speaker 1: you'd say, just to let me know he's there, and
Speaker 1: that's really powerful for me. That's really all. Mostly, mostly
Speaker 1: what I need from him is just to know he's there.
Speaker 1: And so I get that, you know, and I'm so
Speaker 1: glad God or maybe it was Sam, or maybe the
Speaker 1: two of them together chose to give me the blessing
Speaker 1: of knowing it really was Sam that night when I
Speaker 1: had asked God to.
Speaker 2: Verify the fact. Okay, well, Vicky, let's grab this thing up.
Speaker 1: You can get my book to Sam with Love, a
Speaker 1: Surviving Spouse's Story of Inspired Grief, and subscribe to my
Speaker 1: audio episodes, which are free at inspired grief dot com.
Speaker 1: Get the book, get the audio episodes. Very powerful combination,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Johan, Well, thanks for being here on the Boundless Authenticity Podcast.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Boundless Authenticity Podcast, where we discuss
Speaker 2: everything related to the evolution of human consciousness.
Speaker 1: At the very leasy.
Speaker 3: You need to understand that the United States builds bunkers,
Speaker 3: which are basical cities on your ground every three months.
Speaker 1: Basically, dream into your self conscious. It is your love, intuition, you, creativity.
Speaker 3: And imagination, unshamed from conscious saison and ligate.
Speaker 2: All your life.
Speaker 1: And soul.
Speaker 3: If I have a consciousness section algy your cultures of
Speaker 3: aguety of the writy. We live in a multi dimensional reality,
Speaker 3: whether it comes through essitary information in.
Speaker 1: The spiritual realms or the upho people.
Speaker 3: Experiences, or mainstream and put the physics, and through natrem science,
Speaker 3: and now realizing that parallel dimensions probably exists.
Speaker 1: We're all spiritual means, we're all having these human experiences.
Speaker 1: We've heard that phrase over and over and over, but
Speaker 1: what does that really mean?
Speaker 3: And all of the questions of why do we have
Speaker 3: these answers inside of ourselves. We're ultimately studying the nature
Speaker 3: of what it is to be human, good and evil,
Speaker 3: our psychology, how were fitting our health. That's why I
Speaker 3: love Bruce Lee's great quote all knowledge is ultimately self knowledge.