August 2, 2023 • 55 mins
Every life has defining before/after moments; things that that change everything. What's yours, and how do you place meaning on it?
Guest: Nicole Angelique Kerr, author of You Are Deathless
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Promo: The Compulsive Storyteller
Disclaimer: Colin, The Podcast Host
Music: Jake Pierle -- https://jakepierle.bandcamp.com/
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Ignorance Was Bliss online: https://linktr.ee/iwbpodcast
Sponsor: Bath By Bex (code CBDkate for 25% off)
Sponsor: Komuso Design (code bliss15 for 15% off)
Sponsor: Horrific Hope Film Festival 2024 (code bliss24 for 15% off submission)
Guest: Nicole Angelique Kerr, author of You Are Deathless
....................
Promo: The Compulsive Storyteller
Disclaimer: Colin, The Podcast Host
Music: Jake Pierle -- https://jakepierle.bandcamp.com/
....................
Ignorance Was Bliss online: https://linktr.ee/iwbpodcast
Sponsor: Bath By Bex (code CBDkate for 25% off)
Sponsor: Komuso Design (code bliss15 for 15% off)
Sponsor: Horrific Hope Film Festival 2024 (code bliss24 for 15% off submission)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Compulsive Storyteller is a podcast ofcrazy true stories that you won't believe could
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(00:21):
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(00:44):
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eight or eight hundred two seven threeeight two five five You matter, Hey,
(01:15):
this is Kate. It has happenedmore than once that I've been talking
to people, either on the podcastor in regular conversation what have you.
And I'll mention the fact that I'mmiddle aged. I'm forty six, so
(01:38):
realistically i'm past middle aged given mymedical disasters. And it's not that part
that gets to me. It's thefact that we have this fear of mortality
and aging in our society that's soknee jerk and reflexive that people will correct
(02:01):
me, people who are my sameage, Oh no, I'm not middle
aged. Yeah, we're not middleaged. And I'm like, by definition,
even if I didn't have all ofthe medical nonsense going on, being
forty six means I would live toninety two, that's quite a bit beyond
(02:27):
the average life expectancy. So I'mpast middle age. Like, that's okay.
But there's that it's that knee jerkthat no, no, no,
no, no no no, we'renot gonna die, we're not gonna get
old. And I don't know,I don't quite ever know how to respond
(02:51):
to it, because their reflexive pushbackagainst the concept is no less valid than
my acceptance that yeah, I kindof am. But it's interesting to me.
It's interesting how we tolerate mortality.And I think, having survived a
(03:21):
couple of near death experiences myself makesit a little easier for me to accept
that, Like, yeah, thatlooks that's on my to do list,
and I don't have any idea howlong the list is. And I'm not
going to obsess over that. I'mjust going to accept that. Hey,
guess what, I'm not going tolive forever. It's okay, my guests
(03:46):
today. Her name's Nicole Kerr,and she wrote a book called You Are
Deathless, and it's about that conceptof mortality and face saying our own death
and how we construct meaning out ofour lives after a big bad thing happens.
(04:12):
Her big bad thing was a caraccident. My big bad thing was
a medical incident or several. Andit really kind of doesn't matter what started
it. We still end up witha ton in common in terms of how
(04:34):
we cope with it and how weview life. Now, are you sure
you really want to know? Thisis ignorance? Was bliss? My name
(05:18):
is Nicole aun July Kerr, andI live in Newbern, North Carolina.
After almost twenty years in Hawaii,we just moved here two years ago.
I've done a lot of things inmy fifty nine years now, but it's
all been in the wellness field.So I started out as a registered dietitian
nutritionist because I developed an eating disorder, compulsive eating, as a result of
(05:43):
not getting mental health help after thecrash that I was in. Then I
realized I was trying to fix myself. You know how a lot of us
go into a field trying to fixourselves while that didn't work. And then
I went and worked at the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention in translating the
science into consumer based messages. Didthat for a while, and then I
(06:05):
went to Hawaii and worked in hospitals. I was oncology dietetician that I was
a wellness director at another hospital fora number of years. And what I
saw with wellness is that you couldtell people what to eat, and you
know, work out thirty minutes aday and all of that, and as
soon as they hit a trigger orstressor in their life, all that information
(06:27):
went out the door. And whatI realized is this wasn't about knowing something,
It was about dealing with that partof your brain, the avigdola and
the fighting flight that you go intowhen you get triggered by something currently that
you never resolved from your past,from an emotional experience. So then I
went into anyt neuro emotional technique andbecame a practitioner with that to help people,
(06:54):
initially with the food to understand whythey were getting stressed out and want
to eat that pint of Ben andJerry's and then go ahead and eat it
even though they didn't want to,because it was, you know, it
was pulling them down and giving themthe dopamine and the serotonin it needed.
So so I came to that understandingabout the emotional and then I went on
(07:14):
to the mental part. And nowI come around the wellness wield and I'm
working in the spiritual domain and justpublished my book You Are Deathless and Your
Death Experienced taught me how to fullylive and not fear death and just release
the audible on it and it hasgone to number one in new releases for
INDE and my book has been atthe number one position of that. So
(07:39):
I'm so grateful because I wrote thisfrom my heart. It took thirteen years
to write, Okay, I amhonest in it. I did not write
it for my family. I wroteit for other people and how to heal
and the journey of healing and it'snot linear. Let me tell you that
it's not linear. And I stillhave to manage my t my PTSD and
(08:01):
all of that and learn to livewith that and realize what the spiritual dimension,
how important that is and the answerscoming from within. So that's a
little bit of my background. Wehave a lot to talk about. Holy
cow, Okay, let's start.Let's start with the factuals on your side.
(08:22):
You talked about the crash that youwere in. Can you give a
little information about that. Sure,I was nineteen years old, Okay,
Just at that point we're off incollege and trying to, you know,
become who you really want to be. And how was a people pleaser okay,
and I'm a recovering people pleaser now. But that identity may serve you
when you're growing up, but asyou get older, it turns on you
(08:46):
and it does not serve you.Okay, I will tell you out there,
it's like you're a roach that justgot stomped on. You don't get
the payoff. But I was aboutpleasing my father. He was in the
Marines. He went to the AirForce Academy, one of one of his
four children, and the academies hadjust opened up their doors for women to
come in. So I was oneof the early classes of women and I
(09:11):
got accepted. I was from Jackson, Mississippi, and I was like,
oh my god, what have Idone? When I set foot and they
said goodbye to me up in ColoradoSprings and I got through three weeks,
six weeks of boot camp, butthey let us have a phone call the
first three minute, the first threemonths of it. And it was a
three minute call, and I criedthe entire call. I heard my mother's
(09:35):
voice and I broke down, andI know now it was a panic attack,
because what I needed from her wasto say, Nicole, if you're
not happy there, if this isn'tworking out for you, you can come
home. You can quit. Itis okay to quit. You're not going
to be considered a failure. Butshe didn't say that, and my dad
(09:56):
didn't say that, And so Iand deal with the shame and the humiliation
and embarrassment of quitting. So Icontinued on. And let me tell you,
Kate, my whole career, Ihad done nothing to prepare myself for
a military life. And from asoul's perspective, that is not an alignment
(10:20):
position. Let's put it. That'swhat that way, and my soul knew
it was at the wrong place.Okay. A lot of abuse goes on
there, physical abuse, mental,sexual especially with the men and women interacting
now, and of course emotional abusebecause they don't want you to feel it's
yes or no, No excuse,sir. So nineteen years old, I
(10:43):
got through the first year by thegrace of God. Started the second year,
went to a squadron function, gota ride home with the guy lastily
and never made it back. Hewanted to go to a bar. Now
you have to remember I never wenton a date, and my dad's rule
were no smoking, no drinking,and no dating. Upper Cadets grew up
(11:03):
in a really religious household. That'sthe Deep South, the Bible Belt,
Southern Baptist and Lutheran. Okay,so we had a lot of church that
we had to go to growing up. So I knew rules were not meant
to be broken. And I justdecided, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
do this. I'm gonna go withthis guy. He's got a convertible and
(11:24):
he had a different agenda which Iwasn't aware of because I didn't know him.
And I later remembered that he stoppedat a bar and wanted to have
some more drinks, and then stoppedand wanted to watch the sunset over the
Rocky mountains. And then I knewat that point we weren't going to make
it back to the academy on time, because there's a curve few that we
(11:46):
had to be back, and hehad this whole agenda wanting to make out
with me and having sex. AndI didn't realize that I was so naive
and needless to say, when hemade a pass at me when we got
back on the road, I saidno, and he was so mad at
me that he turned the wheel andthe car fish tailed and we both flew
(12:07):
out a bit. Unfortunately, Idied. I was pronounced dead at the
scene. The bystanders near where ithappened called nine one one. It took
the first responders about ten to thirteenminutes to get there. They had tried
to find some vitals on me,couldn't covered me up with a blanket,
(12:28):
and when the first responder got there, he took a you know, we
took a blanket off of me.Couldn't get any vitals as well. Did
something called a sternal knuckle press,and that elicits pain in the body.
And let me tell you if you'veever had it done to you. Oh
boy, my right people it flinched, My eye flinched, and the right
(12:52):
people dilated. So he knew Iwas alive, and his greatest fear is
he wouldn't be able to keep mealive. Now, at that point,
that's when we always hear this saying, the eyes are the window to your
soul. You heard that. Mysoul came back in through my eye at
that moment because he was able toget a blood pressure on me of sixty
(13:15):
over zero. Now that's still prettymuch dead, but you're not dead dead,
okay. So they immediately got thesedevices called mass pants that push all
the blood up to your heart,got me in the bus and sent me
to the nearest community hospital. Theyhad no idea. I was a cadet
at the academy. The driver wasconscious, he was drunk, and he
(13:37):
had some injuries in his back,but I was a whole different story.
So I was in the hospital fourmonths, seven weeks, and I see
you six major operations. Had Igo into detail in the book I'm not
going to spend time doing this,but just say that I had a rollercoaster
(14:00):
everything from my left foot being ambautatedto them grafting it back together, to
having to have a colostomy, fromall the different infections that set in from
the gravel, the feces, Igot, sepsist, I had Gainbury.
I mean, it was a nightmare. I coded in two of the six
operations. I didn't want to behere. Okay, I did not want
(14:22):
to be here, but I didn'tremember anything. I remembered us getting into
the car. That was the lastthing to get back on the road.
And then I woke up in theICU at Penrose Community Hospital and the only
thing I will tell you that Iremembered for nineteen years was bright white light
that was in it. And soI went on with my life, you
(14:45):
know, physically getting well. Myparents did not believe in mental health.
When the doctor said in the coldneeds to see a psychiatrist or psychologist,
they said, God Jesus are apsychiatrist, a psychologists. She's going to
be fine. She just needs tophysically get back to walking. So I
was reduced back to an infant stateat nineteen totally dependent on my mother.
(15:07):
Couldn't go to the bathroom and couldn'tdo any of that kind of stuff.
And you take your health for granteduntil something happens, and especially at a
young age. And from that pointon, my life, my whole adult
life has been about man managing myhealth and understanding why I came back.
Twenty years later, I'm working atthe CDC. Fast forward, coming out
(15:31):
of Starbucks with my soil latte,and boom, my memory comes back of
how I'm sitting in the car becauseI never could understand why I didn't have
brain more brain damage and my spinewas attack. Well. I'd had my
right foot up on the dashboard,the left foot. You know how you
pull your left foot over and putit rested on your other one. That's
(15:52):
how I was sitting my head back. So when the act when the car
hit a boulder, I went buttup through the windshield. So I cut
a fourth degree laceration between my angleand finder muscle. Cut a huge hole
out of my life. Right guythat had to be skin grabbed lost so
much blood throughout that whole thing.I had to have sixty four pints of
(16:15):
blood. And that's why we doin your system. I want to say
eight times, said about right,they're about eight pints. It's I got
no idea on that particular number.I took notes about the numbers of medicine,
but that's when I don't I don'tknow what normal people have, but
I think that, yeah, AndI'll tell you that was a time when
(16:37):
they were not testing for AIDS,nineteen eighty three, and it was only
a little bit later than that thatthey started. So when I got home,
they told me, at some point, you need to test for AIDS
because you'd been given so many bloodtransfusions. So I did, and I
was safe. But I also rememberthere was a congressman's daughter who was in
the wreck. She had one pintone pint kate and was contaminated and she
(17:02):
died from AIDS. So you justnever know, you know. So anyway,
I went on with my life,getting well physically, but I didn't
address the emotional and the mental andthe spiritual. I can tell you the
God that I grew up with wasa loving, protective father. But on
(17:23):
the other side, it was dualistic. It was punitive, critical, and
the wrath of God would come youdid not follow all these rules, and
the Baptist Church had one set ofrules, the Lutheran Church had another set
of rules. And then there weremy dad's ten commandments, which I have
in my book, you know,very strict upbringing, very strict. And
(17:44):
so when they came to the hospital, I was, I mean, I
was in and out of death daily. I knew my dad was going to
be devastated and disappointed with me,and he was. And when I got
to a point where they transferred meto pediatrics, which was seven weeks later,
and the Attorney general came in tointerview me about what I remembered because
(18:07):
they were pressing charges against the othercadet, I told him, you know,
I had a beer and I smokeda cigarette, but I wasn't dating
the guy. I was just tryingto get a ride back. And my
dad blamed me. He said,well, then you deserve what you got.
And from the heavenly Father's perspective,since I didn't follow my dad's rules,
(18:29):
I didn't follow by God's will.So I have tried my entire life
to get my dad's forgiveness. AndI was not driving. I was not
drunk. You know, it wasreal clear. Even the state of Colorado
was like, you know, yes, he admitted vehicular assault. So it
was the damage that was done bysomeone who you thought unconditionally loved you and
(18:56):
then turned on you and even lastMay. This is in the epilogue of
the book because it went to publishingin August. In May, I found
my roommate from the Air Force Academy. We had not been in touch for
thirty eight years. She quit thatChristmas. Okay, she went home for
Christmas break and never came back,and no one knew why. She didn't
(19:18):
talk to anyone. I found heron Facebook. I got her on a
zoom call with my two other roommatesthat did wind up graduating, who had
still not talked to her. Andthe first thing she said was Nicole,
I'm so sorry. So what areyou sorry about? Margaret? And she
said I caused the crash And Isaid, no, you didn't. The
guy driving did. And she said, no, you and I had an
(19:40):
understanding. You were going to driveback together to the academy. We were
going to go together. And thenwhen you asked me for a ride back
when the event was over, Isaid no because there was a guy that
was a senior who had been drinkinga lot. He was drunk, and
he wanted me to drive his carback, and I really liked him,
and I, you know, Ijust wanted to be with him alone.
(20:03):
So I told you, there's oneother guy with a car left, the
only one left. And I said, but he's been drinking. I don't
want to drive with him. Andshe said, Nicle, just go have
some fun. I'll see you backat the academy. You'll be fine.
They all been drinking and I didn'tmake it back. Now, she didn't
know he was going to stop ata bar, and she didn't know what
was going to happen. But shehas felt guilt and she has been haunted
(20:27):
by the fact if she would havejust said yes to what we'd agreed to
upfront, none of this would havehappened. Our lives would have been completely
different. So here I am findingthis out in May and my book set
to go to and I was justlike, wait a minute, I got
to put this in here, becausethis is important when you have to deal
(20:48):
with trauma, is understanding other people'spoints of view about what happened. Because
I had it wrong. Okay,I didn't remember that part at all,
and I asked, why didn't youever get in touch with me or tell
me you came to the hospital andyou know, to visit me, and
you never said anything. She said, I thought you remembered and you were
(21:10):
mad at me and didn't want tohave anything to do with me. And
I was, oh, my gosh, how did the miscommunication? So that's
one thing I want to say toyour audience with the things that happened,
talk it out, see what peopleremember. Don't assume things, you know,
because this was a huge piece forme to get you know that I
(21:32):
knew he was drunk because I'm like, how can I be so stupid and
get the car or someone that's drunk, you know, And I wasn't.
I wasn't stupid. I was justtrying to for once have fun in my
life and I got bam, youknow, slammed. And so it's been
very difficult for me to learn whatfun is in life and to let myself
(21:52):
relax and enjoy things without thinking I'mgonna wind up dead again, you know,
and trusting men. I didn't getmarried Ty was forty, and now
I know why it is because ifI made them angry, they could kill
me, you know. So therethere reasons why things happened to you and
you may not remember it because ofthe trauma. And the same thing with
(22:15):
sexual abuse. You know, Iwas sexually abused at eight and then didn't
come up untild my thirties. Andmy parents when I told him, we're
not supportive of all, they werelike, well, he's dead now,
so we don't. My dad saidhe's dead, so we don't have his
story, and mom was like,I always knew he was a pervert.
And I'm like, what, dot, maybe you know? Yes, I
(22:37):
mean you. So there are alot of ways in your story, I
think with a lot of us whohave gone so my listeners would know that
I've gone through mere death myself.I was thirty two and it was childbirth,
so a different path, but thereare so many parallels anyway, you
know. The for me, itwas a matter of I was sick.
(22:57):
I had three days of getting sickerand sicker and sicker after childbirth, and
but I still my husband and Iboth spent time saying we should have this,
we should have that. Why didn'tI this? Why I didn't't I
that? You know, like sortof you want to have a reason,
you want to have a thing thatyou can say, okay, as long
(23:18):
as I do things differently next timethat thing that's happen, you know,
turned left and said it right nexttime, and I'll be okay. And
the answer is sometimes like, Idon't believe everything happens for a reason,
because sometimes terrible things happen to goodpeople for no reason at all. But
I believe that you can find areason for everything in your life. If
that makes sense. It's the otherway. It's it's not that I deserve
(23:42):
everything that happened to me. That'sthe very Judeo Christian way of thinking.
I don't have that. What Ihave is okay, I went through some
shit. Now what what do wedo with it? How do I conceptualize
it? How do I think aboutit? With that took time, And
bear in mind, by the timeI got sick, I was thirty two.
I was already a practicing psychologist,right, so we valued mental health
(24:04):
differently. I'd been through therapy myself, and I was still in the ICU.
So I was in the ICU forlike two or three weeks and then
transferred to the medical floor. Yes, but I was unconscious in the ICU
for the big chunk of that,and it was one of the first like
I had initial major cognitive impact eventhough I hadn't hit my head or had
(24:29):
any brain trauma. But still yourbrain doesn't like lank still for ten days,
and so when I came out ofthe coma, I had complete amnesia
for the year leading up. First, I had complete amnesia period, which
is a weird leno. They're like, what's your name, and you're like,
oh, it's The answer is justyeah, not there. So that's
a weird one. And I mostlyfilled everything in, but I still now,
(24:52):
thirteen years later, I still havea blank for that year leading up.
I don't remember the pregnancy. Idon't remember I used to blog,
and I read the blog. I'mlike, huh, what do you know?
So that's that's me in a nutshell. But like one of the things
that you do that that I dothat a lot of people I know who
went through major medical issues or neardeath or coding experiences, is we have
(25:14):
our numbers. We're big on youknow, I was in a coma for
ten days and on day seven thatthis happened, and you know, and
I was in the hospital for me. I was in the hospital for six
weeks and then I was on homehealthcare for ten months, so they you
know, I never left the house. I had a home health nurse that
was in three days a week fordressing changes. I described my wounds with
(25:37):
their numbers. I described like everything, it's all and I don't know what
that is, fully, but Ifeel like there's a certain comfort in being
able to contain it numerically because somuch else changes, so much else is
out of your control exactly, youknow, but if you but if I
can, if I can contain itnumerically, then I feel a little better,
(26:00):
not better physically, but mentally,like I can I can say this
wound was eighteen inches long, andthen I can set it aside and go
on to the next thing. Yeah, that's a very interesting point, Kate.
I really had never even thought aboutthat, but I do same yea.
In the book, you know,I talk about that. How you
know I had this, had thismany codes. I was in the hospital,
(26:23):
you know, almost four months,and then it was eight months of
rehab learning to walk, you know, and just yeah, something to contain
it, because the biggest emotion forme was always dealing with lack of control
over events, which in Chinese medicineis all about your stomach. Okay,
you can't control them, and worry, worry that something's going to come up.
(26:45):
You know that if I let somebodydrive, that's how to drink that.
Oh, I'm putting myself in thesame situation again. Then it's my
blame, you know. But Ido want to tell you when my memory
came back working at CDC, Ididn't go to work that day. I
went to my chiropractor and my bodyworker and I sat there and waited till
(27:07):
he had an opening. And hetold me they were repressed memories and he
said the call they're starting to comeup. I said, nineteen years later,
I mean, how does that happen? He said, you feel safe,
your body finally feel safe, andyou have the support that you need
because my family would not understand andbe able to support what was coming up
(27:29):
for me, which was crossing overto the other side, which was a
conversation with other angels about how wehere on earth need to ask them for
help and to have a relationship becausewe all have at least one at least
one guardian angel, and angels comein all kinds of ways, Okay,
(27:49):
and They are here to help us, and we need the help, so
we need to start asking for itand not just when there's a crisis.
So that was one of the messagesI got was ask your angels for help.
And it doesn't have to be anythingelaborator. It's like a parking space.
And people laugh at me when Isay that, but they'm parking space.
(28:11):
Will show up, you know,and you can start having a dialogue
and they will. You can askfor their name, you know. One
of mine is I have two.One is Sarafina, you know. So
they'll give you their names. Ittakes a while because you have to,
like any relationship, develop trust withthat spiritual entity and being. But they
(28:32):
are working on our behalf and theywant to help us. The second one,
this cast for the ghost, iswhat I talk about in the book,
but it's actually my grandfather that camedown when I flew out, but
up through the windshield, my soul, my energy body split open, my
soul left me and that's where he, as an angelic being in his thirties,
(28:56):
picked me up, took me tothis other space that was on an
upper level, and that's where theyweren't speaking English. I don't know what
they were speaking, but I couldunderstand it because I'm not in my physical
form. I am in this soulform. And I could look down and
I could see my body in theditch. I was dead. It was
my core leigh there and I didn'twant to get back in there. And
(29:22):
my grandfather and I only found thisout in August because he died at fifty
eight years old. And once aroundthe time he died, he told me
came to be in my meditation anddreams in Synnicole, I came and I
was the one that lifted you up. And I'd always heard stories of got
people saying, oh I met mydeceased love one up there and this and
(29:45):
that and the other. And Iwas like, no, I didn't have
any of that. And then nowhere this piece falls into place, you
know, And it's interesting because thathappened later, but I had all the
pieces. I knew it was amale. I knew it was a in
his thirties, and I called himCasper the ghost, and then oh,
I know it's my grandfather. Buthis mission was you're going to go back.
(30:07):
And I was like no, no, no, no, no,
no, no no, no,I do not want to get in that
body, because here's the deal.I'm going to live with a lot of
pain and a lot of suffering becauseI have a lot of injuries, okay,
and I did not want to.My life was going to be forever
changed in terms of physically what Iwould be able to do. I was
going to be limited. Second ofall, I had the God that I
(30:30):
was raised with. That concept.It's a vending machine concept, is how
I describe it. You put inthe right behaviors, you punched the button,
and boom outcomes the reward. That'snot what was happening. And I
lost belief in that concept of Godduring my first year at the Military Academy
because I was being put through helland I would pray and it got worse.
(30:52):
Okay, it didn't get better.So I didn't believe that there was
an entity out there that was workingon my behalf and loved me. It
was pre techting me or any ofthat. So I had lost that.
But yet I'm coming back to parentswho are still seeped in that and still
practicing that, and that was goingto be a conflict. And then the
third part was my parents were nevergonna love me like I wanted to again
(31:19):
because I disappointed them, and theystill use that term disappointment. And even
when I told them, you know, Margaret admitted this, you know,
and my dad says, well,you should have walked back to the Air
Force Academy. Now we're at apark in Monument at seven thirty at night,
(31:41):
and I was supposed to walk twentymiles by myself back instead of getting
arrived at this guy, he alwayshas an answer, you know. It's
never, it's never. Wow,Nicole, I'm so sorry that you didn't
have that piece information. I'm sosorry that I blamed you. You know,
he'll never forgive me. He's anarcissistant. He's just not going to
do that. So I have nocommunication with either one of my parents.
(32:02):
Now, I've had to cut thatoff, and I have had to learn
that this isn't about my earthly familyhere and making sure that they love me
the way I need it and allthat kind of stuff. It's about helping
others heal and to dispel fear aboutdeath, because most of the books that
(32:22):
are ever written about death, they'recloaked in a veil of doom and gloom,
and death has a cloud of Iwould say depression and negativity around it
throughout our culture and society, andmy own experience, along with hundreds of
thousands of others, is one hundredpercent different because death is absolute beauty.
(32:44):
It's light and this loving, unconditionalkindness on the other side. And there's
ten common lessons from near death experiencesthat I talk about in my book that
are based in science from a reviewfrom the International Association of Near Death Studies,
And the very first one is wedo not die. Our soul lives
(33:06):
on our physical being. Yes,it does die, but that breath that
you inhale and exhale, that's what'skeeping you alive. Another one is we're
never alone. We are always surroundedby angels, and there's a whole realm
on the other side of this veilthat is working on our behalf. And
(33:29):
when we die, we will seeloved ones and others when we return to
the other side. And another importantone is we're not judged. We one
of the worst things that happens,I think for us as we come into
this world that is already judging otherpeople, and we take on this judgment
(33:49):
from parents and from other people,and we judge ourselves, and that lowers
eye vibration, causes us to doubtourselves, causes us not to trust ourself
and be the beings that we cameto be because we're judging our emotions,
our thoughts, our bodies. We'realways finding something wrong with us instead of
(34:10):
realizing our true selves and soulf formis perfect and we are loved more than
we could ever imagine, and thatlove is all that matters in the end.
It really is. God is love, period and energy. And if
we could get that experience of loveas an energy rather than an emotion,
(34:31):
energy speak to each other, Okay, my energy soul form were speaking to
other angels and entities or whatever,you know, and that is so cool
to me, you know, it'slike WHOA. So you know, I
truly believe we come here on ajourney to learn love and to expand that.
(34:55):
And there's so much fear in thisworld, and I want people to
let go of the fear of deathbecause as long as you're fearing death,
you're not going to truly live.And there's nothing to fear. There really
isn't again twenty seven ideas at onetwo. I know it's a bit overwhelming,
(35:15):
it's a big well, but soit's mine, so I follow.
The issue for me is which onefirst? So I'm going to try and
keep somewhat in order. I know, I know that I'll miss stuff.
But for one I had meant tosay and didn't quite finish to say that
the difference a big difference is firstof all, I was not raised religious,
(35:37):
although religion carries a very important rolein my childhood. But it's more
a flip side of your coin sortof thing. Is that that I we
My parents had me at seventeen,and the Catholic Church refused to marry them
because they were pregnant out of wedlock, and my mother was not Catholic,
and so the Catholic Church was notand so but like before I was even
(36:00):
and there was a sense of resentment, in an outcastness whatever from from that.
But when I was eight, mymother decided I should attend church to
see what it's like, and sowe went to a Methodist church, which
in upstate New York. Methodist isvery different from Bible Methodists. It's it's
(36:22):
less intense with the rules, andlike, we had a female pastor and
that was cool with everybody, andit's you know, it's just it's it's
different, yeah, you know,but still the concept was there, and
so that included attending a church camp. And so when I was twelve,
I was sexually assaulted at the churchcamp, which makes for a very mess
(36:45):
up experience because where's your God now? Because it was a violent enough assault
that I was left to die andI didn't at that time. But so
religion has a role, but it'snot fundamentally cod and how I think.
So when I came out of thecoma in twenty ten, I was thirty
(37:06):
two, and my husband came inthe room and I kind of recognized him,
but I couldn't talk. It firsttook a couple of days, and
eventually they removed the ventilator so thatI could speak. And the first thing
I said to my husband, thefirst coherent sentence other than what happened,
you know, was we need therapy. And I couldn't even word why or
(37:30):
how that was going to happen,or when or who or any of the
big, you know, logistical questions. But it was a matter of I
could recognize. Everything just changed,and you and I. He's real smart,
he's got a doctorate, I'm realsmart, I got a doctorate.
But but but we're not equipped.Humans are not equipped to navigate this kind
(37:57):
of change alone. This is whyeven psychiatrists and psychologists and therapists c therapists,
right, It's because things are biggerthan us. So there's a lot
of things that you talk about thatare parallel similar to how I think,
but you use different language. AndI think that that's a core of it
is that your childhood experience equips youwith a language in a worldview from one
(38:21):
direction and mine is slightly different,but the parallels or are there. And
so, for instance, I alsodon't fear death and have had other subsequent
health crises since that. You know, I've broken my back and developed epilepsy.
I blah blah blah blah blah likewhatever we can, like, I
said, full coverage on the medicalbingo board, right, That's what we
(38:44):
were talking about before, and thatis what my life feels like. And
a couple of years ago, Iwas on a DNR do not Resuscitate order
because I was so done recovering.I wasn't done with my life. I
liked my life. My life wasgreat as far as lives can be when
(39:04):
you're profoundly middle medically compromised. ButI couldn't keep getting up again, like
everybody falls a certain number of times, and so I mean, my husband
and I talked through it. Ofcourse he's not delighted about it, but
he got it, and I thinkit helped that I made the decision when
I was at baseline, when Iwas as healthy as I got, and
(39:24):
I made it rationally, and itwas a matter of like, look,
I'm not suicidal. When I sayI don't want to be resuscitated. This
is not a statement of I wantto die. This is just a statement
of I'm good. Yeah, I'mokay with where where. I'm okay with
our lives and the decisions I've made, but I'm just done now. I
(39:46):
lifted the DNR at the start ofCOVID because DNR includes putting you on a
ventilator, and my primary care doctorwas like, look, if you get
COVID, you're likely to get itbadly because I have an autoimmune disorder as
well, and you are a goodcandidate for a ventilator. So if you
(40:07):
lift the DNR, we can dothat. If you don't lift the DNR,
but you go unconscious, because ofCOVID and low oxygen levels, I
can't make that call. And Iwas like, okay, that is fair,
that is rational, And so welifted the DNR and I have not
put it back in place. Idon't know whether I will. I don't
know, but I so you andI have parallels there. And you know,
you say death is beautiful. I'mmore in the My moment right now
(40:30):
is beautiful. Yes, I mightright here, yes, and That's what
I've learned to do. But atthe same time, death is not hell
work. This is what I'm saying. Yeah, this is the difference is
I'm not afraid of something that's right. And growing up that was what the
fear you are. You live ina fear bubble because your church preaches fear
(40:54):
and the wrath of God, andyou go to a place called hell and
you're separated from your family and Godfor all eternity. And that's the worst
thing you can tell to a kidis you're going to be separated if you
do these you know, bad things. So yeah, because so you know,
I don't have money, I don'thave shoes, and what am I
gonna do? I gotta behave that. Yeah, Yeah, I can't be
(41:15):
abandoned. So you grow up withthat fear your whole life. Well,
that is the absolute worst you know, place to make a decision is from
that a big dela that fight lighterfear. You're not making it from that
neo cortex where your rational executive thinkingis coming through. So you live your
life and fear of screwing up andbeing separated. So it causes that.
(41:38):
And then if you don't start addressingthat and start, you know, looking
at these belief systems that create thefear to begin with and go, wait
a minute, where did that evercome from? Do you know? And
start looking at it. And that'swhat I want people to do, is
what is your concept of God?Because I believe your beliefs about God shape
(42:02):
your relationship with death. Well,and that's impositive. Possibly I also believe
that like for me, so Iwould describe myself as agnostic at messed right
that I'm open to Like, Idon't believe that I have the answers and
my husband when we got together andwe've been together since I was nineteen years
(42:22):
old, Um, I don't.I kind of don't know how to not
be. I don't know how tobe an adult without being married and a
mother. I had my first kidto twenty two, so like that's that's
shaped my world. And so there'sa band that we listened to and that
we did listen to when I wasin the coma, which is kind of
an important thing that that this isback in the days of the little,
(42:44):
the little iPod nanos. Yeah,all it was was the playlist, and
so he took mine and he wouldjust play the songs I had listened to
recently, and he put one earbutt in my ear and one in his,
and I spent you know, eachtime I would my blood pressure would
go real low and my heart ratewould go real high. In machines blaring
(43:05):
and everything, and if you putthe music in, my vitals would level.
Yeah. And so that band,this band Blue Xober is their name.
They have a meaning to us,even though I wouldn't consider a super
fans necessarily like anymore, we listento just separate music in different music now.
But I have a line, youknow, from one of their songs
(43:25):
tattooed on my arm. So there'sa there's a point. And I bring
that up to say that one ofthe lines in one of their songs called
the Worry List is I know thatGod exists. I held her in my
arms and he's speaking about his daughterand my husband when that song came out,
my husband was like, it waslike a lightning bolt. He was
(43:45):
like, that's what I mean aboutspirituality, is that I don't believe in
a person like God. Yeah,I believe in something. There's got to
be some reason for existence and humanand I neither of us believe that everything
happens for a reason. But webelieve in the Okay, but what are
(44:06):
we going to make from this?And when I had my my our first
child, and we have four umand we had our our first when I
was I was twenty two and dumbas a brick and not ready for this,
but here we go, and andand he said, he's like when
I when I held her, Irealized there's something more, There's some there's
some reason beyond just get up,go to work, make money, go
(44:30):
home. You know that there's there'shere's this person, and here's this thing.
So this concept of spirituality, likeyou use God and religion language as
a as a sort of baseline,because I think we need to we need
to have a vocabulary to start.I use more interpersonal psychology language because that's
(44:52):
where I come from. And Ilove that. I love that I can
see the parallels, even though youknow, because like okay, to talk
about guardian angels can sound crazy.It's not. It's not. What it
does is it's a way of youshaping your world. And this is how
you feel protection. That's right,you know, And and there's a meaning
(45:14):
in a story that you have constructed. And and I don't want to sound
dismiss over like, oh you madethat up. I don't mean that at
all, But I just mean webuild our own meanings out of absolutely And
that's what I've come to is we'reall on a journey to figure out what
do we believe in terms of whatelse is out there in the universe or
the world, or what's the greaterreasoning? You know? And so I
(45:39):
know that for me when I crossedover, there wasn't this God that's uh,
you know, up in the sky. It's not a persona a person
form. There's no form to it. It's there's no what I realized,
there's no where God is not.God is within, It's not something external
that you go figure out and youhave to believe in something to get through
(46:00):
it to something that all of thatstuff that those belief systems were completely like.
So it's you know what I whereI'm at today is that the term
God's source whatever you want to callit, is love, and it's it's
there's nowhere, it's not and it'snot working. It's not causing negative things
(46:23):
to happen to you. You know, if you don't do something, it's
not judging you. It's because it'snot feeling any of this. It's just
this greatness presence this YouTube. Youfeel it like when a baby's born.
And so when people say, oh, it's born in original sin, I'm
like, bs on that. Well, I mean for so parallel stories that
(46:45):
in my podcast, my sort oflike it's I say that the I don't
say it, but I have friendsread my disclaimers at the beginning of each
episode, and then I say itagain at the outros is you matter.
And people have begun to associate thatwith my show, Like they'll send me
(47:06):
things, you know, either imagesor actual physical things that say you matter
on it. And I've had peopletell me, you know, I listened
sometimes to your show just until theend of the disclaimer to hear someone remind
me you matter, and I feellike beautiful, well, isn't it?
And that? But that to meis the parallel. It's another way of
(47:27):
saying God isn't everything in love?Isn't everything? Like you know, it's
just that I don't think in aGod sense. But the point is we
find our meeting, we build ourmeeting, and we start to feel as
though our existence is transactional. Youdo A and B happens and instead it's
not an ending machine. And youmatter no matter what. And you don't
get to decide how I feel aboutyou. You don't get to decide whether
(47:51):
you matter. You do it baseline, fight me absolutely, and everyone and
everything is connected and you don't needto know how Now you know what I
mean? Like it doesn't matter,Like you don't have to spend all of
your day's soul starching. I justlook that. Here's fact one. You
matter. It's a two sentence whereyou know, two word sentences went on.
(48:12):
Um, I wanted to touch briefly. I don't want to keep you
all night, but we could vigetting but the perspectives of others and disappointment
and shame and the guilt that theycarry. And and I word that as
don't should all over yourself. Yes, take that word out of your vocabulary.
(48:32):
You know that the words should offendsme more than any curse word you
want to come up with. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that
should implies that there is some idealout there that someone has established and that
you are not reaching it. Andyou could and you're not. And so
like the perspectives of people with me, like I tell people I died in
(48:58):
child with saying that sentence I dieis fascinating to watch people help people respond
and I do the same thing becauseit's just the most impactful way of explaining,
like this was a big deal.Yes, this was not just I
felt itchy for a little bit,like no, I died. That's that's
where we're at and a different person. And I want you should be because
(49:21):
you fundamentally also matter and you areimportant enough that there should be an impact
on you. There should be achange on you, and you deserve to
be a different person after doing thework and going through all of that and
coming out the other side. Thankyou, you know, And so just
that that measuring yourself by families,I have my mother is narcissistic and we
(49:45):
have no contact, and so Imean she at that time was still in
our lives, and so you'd think, like, it's I don't want to
say easy, but it's typical inour culture when there's a crime committed to
victim blame. Yes, you shouldn'thave drank, you shouldn't have gotten the
car, you shouldn't have gotten gonewith a strange should you should right?
(50:05):
Okay? In my case, Ifollowed all of the doctor's orders. I
had more than one doctor. Iwas careful, I was responsive to my
body. I blah blah blah,and yet died in childbirth. And yet
my mother told me, well,you shouldn't have had a third child.
You had two healthy kids, Whydid you need a third? And I
(50:29):
was like, first of all,bite me. Secondly, I didn't know
as pregnant until I was, andI decided, oh my god, it
was insane, but but I tookit. At that time in twenty ten,
I was like, well, Iguess you're right, you know,
like you just absorbed this like andand it took me years to first of
all, be like that's not appropriate, and secondly to find there are positives
(50:54):
that I took from this, like, I don't recommend it. Don't if
you if you can avoid dying likein childbirth in a miserable way, like
maybe do. But if you gothrough stuff, I don't think there's a
reason it happened to you. Youdidn't do something bad to deserve it.
But I believe that you can pulla ming from it. Yes, And
(51:17):
that's why one of my credentials thatI think is the most important credential is
bt DT and I put it onmy book, then they're done that because
that allows me to have compassion,empathy and understanding and sympathy, and that
is important, you know, tobe able to relate to that and be
(51:38):
able to speak from my experiences.I don't care what the other stuff is,
that's theory and whatever. It's myexperience, my journey, and none
of us are ever going to havethe same identical one, but if we
can get the same and that's whatthese lessons are. They're all positive ones,
which you're saying is pulling that positivehymness out of it, you know,
(52:01):
That's what I'm trying to tell people. There's a lot of things about
this conversation that really resonates with me. I mean, we could have kept
going, and I really hope thatNicole will come back in play sometime because
(52:25):
I feel like we have a lotmore to say. But if I want
to pick just sort of one bigthing, I think that that avoidance of
disappointment of others and worrying about howwe should appear and masking, which is
(52:50):
what it really is at its base. That's terrible stuff. It We spend
so much of our time and energytrying to meet expectations of other people when
we don't even necessarily know what theirexpectations are. So I don't know the
(53:12):
answer other than maybe asking people whatthey expect and then believing whatever answered it
is that they give. But itis a thing that I think all of
us spend a lot of time doing, and those of us with chronic illness
(53:37):
or recovery processes really spend extra timepressuring ourselves to be good enough, even
though we already are. So Nicole, thank you so much for a fascinating
conversation and just for coming to play. I do hope you'll come back.
(54:01):
Thank you guys for listening. I'llbe back when I can. I you
know, I'm not any good atall right now at predicting when the next
episode is going to be because mybody is wildly misbehaving lately. But I'm
(54:23):
here today, so we'll take it. No matter how frequently I release episodes,
or what kind of nonsense I spouton them or whatever, I'm going
to refer you back to earlier inthis episode and remind you you matter. B
The Compulsive Storyteller is a podcast ofcrazy true stories that you won't believe could
happen to anyone, let alone thesame person. It's got deceptions and subversions,
infidelity and infiltrations, bad actors andactresses, soccer punchers and belly lefts,
cops, creeps and criminals, allserved up along with a cast of
good characters. Episodes are short,five to fifteen minutes, perfect for a
(00:21):
break in your day. The CompulsiveStoryteller proves over and over the truth can
be stranger than fiction. Listen whereveryou get your podcasts. This podcast involves
topics such as violence, sex,and mental illness. If this might disturb
you or those around you, pleasereconsider it's okay. Privacy and confidentiality have
(00:44):
been protected, with personal information removedwhen impossible. If you ever feel unsafe
or suicidal, please call your localcrisis center, emergency services, or a
national hotline. In the US,the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is nine eight
eight or eight hundred two seven threeeight two five five You matter, Hey,
(01:15):
this is Kate. It has happenedmore than once that I've been talking
to people, either on the podcastor in regular conversation what have you.
And I'll mention the fact that I'mmiddle aged. I'm forty six, so
(01:38):
realistically i'm past middle aged given mymedical disasters. And it's not that part
that gets to me. It's thefact that we have this fear of mortality
and aging in our society that's soknee jerk and reflexive that people will correct
(02:01):
me, people who are my sameage, Oh no, I'm not middle
aged. Yeah, we're not middleaged. And I'm like, by definition,
even if I didn't have all ofthe medical nonsense going on, being
forty six means I would live toninety two, that's quite a bit beyond
(02:27):
the average life expectancy. So I'mpast middle age. Like, that's okay.
But there's that it's that knee jerkthat no, no, no,
no, no no no, we'renot gonna die, we're not gonna get
old. And I don't know,I don't quite ever know how to respond
(02:51):
to it, because their reflexive pushbackagainst the concept is no less valid than
my acceptance that yeah, I kindof am. But it's interesting to me.
It's interesting how we tolerate mortality.And I think, having survived a
(03:21):
couple of near death experiences myself makesit a little easier for me to accept
that, Like, yeah, thatlooks that's on my to do list,
and I don't have any idea howlong the list is. And I'm not
going to obsess over that. I'mjust going to accept that. Hey,
guess what, I'm not going tolive forever. It's okay, my guests
(03:46):
today. Her name's Nicole Kerr,and she wrote a book called You Are
Deathless, and it's about that conceptof mortality and face saying our own death
and how we construct meaning out ofour lives after a big bad thing happens.
(04:12):
Her big bad thing was a caraccident. My big bad thing was
a medical incident or several. Andit really kind of doesn't matter what started
it. We still end up witha ton in common in terms of how
(04:34):
we cope with it and how weview life. Now, are you sure
you really want to know? Thisis ignorance? Was bliss? My name
(05:18):
is Nicole aun July Kerr, andI live in Newbern, North Carolina.
After almost twenty years in Hawaii,we just moved here two years ago.
I've done a lot of things inmy fifty nine years now, but it's
all been in the wellness field.So I started out as a registered dietitian
nutritionist because I developed an eating disorder, compulsive eating, as a result of
(05:43):
not getting mental health help after thecrash that I was in. Then I
realized I was trying to fix myself. You know how a lot of us
go into a field trying to fixourselves while that didn't work. And then
I went and worked at the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention in translating the
science into consumer based messages. Didthat for a while, and then I
(06:05):
went to Hawaii and worked in hospitals. I was oncology dietetician that I was
a wellness director at another hospital fora number of years. And what I
saw with wellness is that you couldtell people what to eat, and you
know, work out thirty minutes aday and all of that, and as
soon as they hit a trigger orstressor in their life, all that information
(06:27):
went out the door. And whatI realized is this wasn't about knowing something,
It was about dealing with that partof your brain, the avigdola and
the fighting flight that you go intowhen you get triggered by something currently that
you never resolved from your past,from an emotional experience. So then I
went into anyt neuro emotional technique andbecame a practitioner with that to help people,
(06:54):
initially with the food to understand whythey were getting stressed out and want
to eat that pint of Ben andJerry's and then go ahead and eat it
even though they didn't want to,because it was, you know, it
was pulling them down and giving themthe dopamine and the serotonin it needed.
So so I came to that understandingabout the emotional and then I went on
(07:14):
to the mental part. And nowI come around the wellness wield and I'm
working in the spiritual domain and justpublished my book You Are Deathless and Your
Death Experienced taught me how to fullylive and not fear death and just release
the audible on it and it hasgone to number one in new releases for
INDE and my book has been atthe number one position of that. So
(07:39):
I'm so grateful because I wrote thisfrom my heart. It took thirteen years
to write, Okay, I amhonest in it. I did not write
it for my family. I wroteit for other people and how to heal
and the journey of healing and it'snot linear. Let me tell you that
it's not linear. And I stillhave to manage my t my PTSD and
(08:01):
all of that and learn to livewith that and realize what the spiritual dimension,
how important that is and the answerscoming from within. So that's a
little bit of my background. Wehave a lot to talk about. Holy
cow, Okay, let's start.Let's start with the factuals on your side.
(08:22):
You talked about the crash that youwere in. Can you give a
little information about that. Sure,I was nineteen years old, Okay,
Just at that point we're off incollege and trying to, you know,
become who you really want to be. And how was a people pleaser okay,
and I'm a recovering people pleaser now. But that identity may serve you
when you're growing up, but asyou get older, it turns on you
(08:46):
and it does not serve you.Okay, I will tell you out there,
it's like you're a roach that justgot stomped on. You don't get
the payoff. But I was aboutpleasing my father. He was in the
Marines. He went to the AirForce Academy, one of one of his
four children, and the academies hadjust opened up their doors for women to
come in. So I was oneof the early classes of women and I
(09:11):
got accepted. I was from Jackson, Mississippi, and I was like,
oh my god, what have Idone? When I set foot and they
said goodbye to me up in ColoradoSprings and I got through three weeks,
six weeks of boot camp, butthey let us have a phone call the
first three minute, the first threemonths of it. And it was a
three minute call, and I criedthe entire call. I heard my mother's
(09:35):
voice and I broke down, andI know now it was a panic attack,
because what I needed from her wasto say, Nicole, if you're
not happy there, if this isn'tworking out for you, you can come
home. You can quit. Itis okay to quit. You're not going
to be considered a failure. Butshe didn't say that, and my dad
(09:56):
didn't say that, And so Iand deal with the shame and the humiliation
and embarrassment of quitting. So Icontinued on. And let me tell you,
Kate, my whole career, Ihad done nothing to prepare myself for
a military life. And from asoul's perspective, that is not an alignment
(10:20):
position. Let's put it. That'swhat that way, and my soul knew
it was at the wrong place.Okay. A lot of abuse goes on
there, physical abuse, mental,sexual especially with the men and women interacting
now, and of course emotional abusebecause they don't want you to feel it's
yes or no, No excuse,sir. So nineteen years old, I
(10:43):
got through the first year by thegrace of God. Started the second year,
went to a squadron function, gota ride home with the guy lastily
and never made it back. Hewanted to go to a bar. Now
you have to remember I never wenton a date, and my dad's rule
were no smoking, no drinking,and no dating. Upper Cadets grew up
(11:03):
in a really religious household. That'sthe Deep South, the Bible Belt,
Southern Baptist and Lutheran. Okay,so we had a lot of church that
we had to go to growing up. So I knew rules were not meant
to be broken. And I justdecided, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
do this. I'm gonna go withthis guy. He's got a convertible and
(11:24):
he had a different agenda which Iwasn't aware of because I didn't know him.
And I later remembered that he stoppedat a bar and wanted to have
some more drinks, and then stoppedand wanted to watch the sunset over the
Rocky mountains. And then I knewat that point we weren't going to make
it back to the academy on time, because there's a curve few that we
(11:46):
had to be back, and hehad this whole agenda wanting to make out
with me and having sex. AndI didn't realize that I was so naive
and needless to say, when hemade a pass at me when we got
back on the road, I saidno, and he was so mad at
me that he turned the wheel andthe car fish tailed and we both flew
(12:07):
out a bit. Unfortunately, Idied. I was pronounced dead at the
scene. The bystanders near where ithappened called nine one one. It took
the first responders about ten to thirteenminutes to get there. They had tried
to find some vitals on me,couldn't covered me up with a blanket,
(12:28):
and when the first responder got there, he took a you know, we
took a blanket off of me.Couldn't get any vitals as well. Did
something called a sternal knuckle press,and that elicits pain in the body.
And let me tell you if you'veever had it done to you. Oh
boy, my right people it flinched, My eye flinched, and the right
(12:52):
people dilated. So he knew Iwas alive, and his greatest fear is
he wouldn't be able to keep mealive. Now, at that point,
that's when we always hear this saying, the eyes are the window to your
soul. You heard that. Mysoul came back in through my eye at
that moment because he was able toget a blood pressure on me of sixty
(13:15):
over zero. Now that's still prettymuch dead, but you're not dead dead,
okay. So they immediately got thesedevices called mass pants that push all
the blood up to your heart,got me in the bus and sent me
to the nearest community hospital. Theyhad no idea. I was a cadet
at the academy. The driver wasconscious, he was drunk, and he
(13:37):
had some injuries in his back,but I was a whole different story.
So I was in the hospital fourmonths, seven weeks, and I see
you six major operations. Had Igo into detail in the book I'm not
going to spend time doing this,but just say that I had a rollercoaster
(14:00):
everything from my left foot being ambautatedto them grafting it back together, to
having to have a colostomy, fromall the different infections that set in from
the gravel, the feces, Igot, sepsist, I had Gainbury.
I mean, it was a nightmare. I coded in two of the six
operations. I didn't want to behere. Okay, I did not want
(14:22):
to be here, but I didn'tremember anything. I remembered us getting into
the car. That was the lastthing to get back on the road.
And then I woke up in theICU at Penrose Community Hospital and the only
thing I will tell you that Iremembered for nineteen years was bright white light
that was in it. And soI went on with my life, you
(14:45):
know, physically getting well. Myparents did not believe in mental health.
When the doctor said in the coldneeds to see a psychiatrist or psychologist,
they said, God Jesus are apsychiatrist, a psychologists. She's going to
be fine. She just needs tophysically get back to walking. So I
was reduced back to an infant stateat nineteen totally dependent on my mother.
(15:07):
Couldn't go to the bathroom and couldn'tdo any of that kind of stuff.
And you take your health for granteduntil something happens, and especially at a
young age. And from that pointon, my life, my whole adult
life has been about man managing myhealth and understanding why I came back.
Twenty years later, I'm working atthe CDC. Fast forward, coming out
(15:31):
of Starbucks with my soil latte,and boom, my memory comes back of
how I'm sitting in the car becauseI never could understand why I didn't have
brain more brain damage and my spinewas attack. Well. I'd had my
right foot up on the dashboard,the left foot. You know how you
pull your left foot over and putit rested on your other one. That's
(15:52):
how I was sitting my head back. So when the act when the car
hit a boulder, I went buttup through the windshield. So I cut
a fourth degree laceration between my angleand finder muscle. Cut a huge hole
out of my life. Right guythat had to be skin grabbed lost so
much blood throughout that whole thing.I had to have sixty four pints of
(16:15):
blood. And that's why we doin your system. I want to say
eight times, said about right,they're about eight pints. It's I got
no idea on that particular number.I took notes about the numbers of medicine,
but that's when I don't I don'tknow what normal people have, but
I think that, yeah, AndI'll tell you that was a time when
(16:37):
they were not testing for AIDS,nineteen eighty three, and it was only
a little bit later than that thatthey started. So when I got home,
they told me, at some point, you need to test for AIDS
because you'd been given so many bloodtransfusions. So I did, and I
was safe. But I also rememberthere was a congressman's daughter who was in
the wreck. She had one pintone pint kate and was contaminated and she
(17:02):
died from AIDS. So you justnever know, you know. So anyway,
I went on with my life,getting well physically, but I didn't
address the emotional and the mental andthe spiritual. I can tell you the
God that I grew up with wasa loving, protective father. But on
(17:23):
the other side, it was dualistic. It was punitive, critical, and
the wrath of God would come youdid not follow all these rules, and
the Baptist Church had one set ofrules, the Lutheran Church had another set
of rules. And then there weremy dad's ten commandments, which I have
in my book, you know,very strict upbringing, very strict. And
(17:44):
so when they came to the hospital, I was, I mean, I
was in and out of death daily. I knew my dad was going to
be devastated and disappointed with me,and he was. And when I got
to a point where they transferred meto pediatrics, which was seven weeks later,
and the Attorney general came in tointerview me about what I remembered because
(18:07):
they were pressing charges against the othercadet, I told him, you know,
I had a beer and I smokeda cigarette, but I wasn't dating
the guy. I was just tryingto get a ride back. And my
dad blamed me. He said,well, then you deserve what you got.
And from the heavenly Father's perspective,since I didn't follow my dad's rules,
(18:29):
I didn't follow by God's will.So I have tried my entire life
to get my dad's forgiveness. AndI was not driving. I was not
drunk. You know, it wasreal clear. Even the state of Colorado
was like, you know, yes, he admitted vehicular assault. So it
was the damage that was done bysomeone who you thought unconditionally loved you and
(18:56):
then turned on you and even lastMay. This is in the epilogue of
the book because it went to publishingin August. In May, I found
my roommate from the Air Force Academy. We had not been in touch for
thirty eight years. She quit thatChristmas. Okay, she went home for
Christmas break and never came back,and no one knew why. She didn't
(19:18):
talk to anyone. I found heron Facebook. I got her on a
zoom call with my two other roommatesthat did wind up graduating, who had
still not talked to her. Andthe first thing she said was Nicole,
I'm so sorry. So what areyou sorry about? Margaret? And she
said I caused the crash And Isaid, no, you didn't. The
guy driving did. And she said, no, you and I had an
(19:40):
understanding. You were going to driveback together to the academy. We were
going to go together. And thenwhen you asked me for a ride back
when the event was over, Isaid no because there was a guy that
was a senior who had been drinkinga lot. He was drunk, and
he wanted me to drive his carback, and I really liked him,
and I, you know, Ijust wanted to be with him alone.
(20:03):
So I told you, there's oneother guy with a car left, the
only one left. And I said, but he's been drinking. I don't
want to drive with him. Andshe said, Nicle, just go have
some fun. I'll see you backat the academy. You'll be fine.
They all been drinking and I didn'tmake it back. Now, she didn't
know he was going to stop ata bar, and she didn't know what
was going to happen. But shehas felt guilt and she has been haunted
(20:27):
by the fact if she would havejust said yes to what we'd agreed to
upfront, none of this would havehappened. Our lives would have been completely
different. So here I am findingthis out in May and my book set
to go to and I was justlike, wait a minute, I got
to put this in here, becausethis is important when you have to deal
(20:48):
with trauma, is understanding other people'spoints of view about what happened. Because
I had it wrong. Okay,I didn't remember that part at all,
and I asked, why didn't youever get in touch with me or tell
me you came to the hospital andyou know, to visit me, and
you never said anything. She said, I thought you remembered and you were
(21:10):
mad at me and didn't want tohave anything to do with me. And
I was, oh, my gosh, how did the miscommunication? So that's
one thing I want to say toyour audience with the things that happened,
talk it out, see what peopleremember. Don't assume things, you know,
because this was a huge piece forme to get you know that I
(21:32):
knew he was drunk because I'm like, how can I be so stupid and
get the car or someone that's drunk, you know, And I wasn't.
I wasn't stupid. I was justtrying to for once have fun in my
life and I got bam, youknow, slammed. And so it's been
very difficult for me to learn whatfun is in life and to let myself
(21:52):
relax and enjoy things without thinking I'mgonna wind up dead again, you know,
and trusting men. I didn't getmarried Ty was forty, and now
I know why it is because ifI made them angry, they could kill
me, you know. So therethere reasons why things happened to you and
you may not remember it because ofthe trauma. And the same thing with
(22:15):
sexual abuse. You know, Iwas sexually abused at eight and then didn't
come up untild my thirties. Andmy parents when I told him, we're
not supportive of all, they werelike, well, he's dead now,
so we don't. My dad saidhe's dead, so we don't have his
story, and mom was like,I always knew he was a pervert.
And I'm like, what, dot, maybe you know? Yes, I
(22:37):
mean you. So there are alot of ways in your story, I
think with a lot of us whohave gone so my listeners would know that
I've gone through mere death myself.I was thirty two and it was childbirth,
so a different path, but thereare so many parallels anyway, you
know. The for me, itwas a matter of I was sick.
(22:57):
I had three days of getting sickerand sicker and sicker after childbirth, and
but I still my husband and Iboth spent time saying we should have this,
we should have that. Why didn'tI this? Why I didn't't I
that? You know, like sortof you want to have a reason,
you want to have a thing thatyou can say, okay, as long
(23:18):
as I do things differently next timethat thing that's happen, you know,
turned left and said it right nexttime, and I'll be okay. And
the answer is sometimes like, Idon't believe everything happens for a reason,
because sometimes terrible things happen to goodpeople for no reason at all. But
I believe that you can find areason for everything in your life. If
that makes sense. It's the otherway. It's it's not that I deserve
(23:42):
everything that happened to me. That'sthe very Judeo Christian way of thinking.
I don't have that. What Ihave is okay, I went through some
shit. Now what what do wedo with it? How do I conceptualize
it? How do I think aboutit? With that took time, And
bear in mind, by the timeI got sick, I was thirty two.
I was already a practicing psychologist,right, so we valued mental health
(24:04):
differently. I'd been through therapy myself, and I was still in the ICU.
So I was in the ICU forlike two or three weeks and then
transferred to the medical floor. Yes, but I was unconscious in the ICU
for the big chunk of that,and it was one of the first like
I had initial major cognitive impact eventhough I hadn't hit my head or had
(24:29):
any brain trauma. But still yourbrain doesn't like lank still for ten days,
and so when I came out ofthe coma, I had complete amnesia
for the year leading up. First, I had complete amnesia period, which
is a weird leno. They're like, what's your name, and you're like,
oh, it's The answer is justyeah, not there. So that's
a weird one. And I mostlyfilled everything in, but I still now,
(24:52):
thirteen years later, I still havea blank for that year leading up.
I don't remember the pregnancy. Idon't remember I used to blog,
and I read the blog. I'mlike, huh, what do you know?
So that's that's me in a nutshell. But like one of the things
that you do that that I dothat a lot of people I know who
went through major medical issues or neardeath or coding experiences, is we have
(25:14):
our numbers. We're big on youknow, I was in a coma for
ten days and on day seven thatthis happened, and you know, and
I was in the hospital for me. I was in the hospital for six
weeks and then I was on homehealthcare for ten months, so they you
know, I never left the house. I had a home health nurse that
was in three days a week fordressing changes. I described my wounds with
(25:37):
their numbers. I described like everything, it's all and I don't know what
that is, fully, but Ifeel like there's a certain comfort in being
able to contain it numerically because somuch else changes, so much else is
out of your control exactly, youknow, but if you but if I
can, if I can contain itnumerically, then I feel a little better,
(26:00):
not better physically, but mentally,like I can I can say this
wound was eighteen inches long, andthen I can set it aside and go
on to the next thing. Yeah, that's a very interesting point, Kate.
I really had never even thought aboutthat, but I do same yea.
In the book, you know,I talk about that. How you
know I had this, had thismany codes. I was in the hospital,
(26:23):
you know, almost four months,and then it was eight months of
rehab learning to walk, you know, and just yeah, something to contain
it, because the biggest emotion forme was always dealing with lack of control
over events, which in Chinese medicineis all about your stomach. Okay,
you can't control them, and worry, worry that something's going to come up.
(26:45):
You know that if I let somebodydrive, that's how to drink that.
Oh, I'm putting myself in thesame situation again. Then it's my
blame, you know. But Ido want to tell you when my memory
came back working at CDC, Ididn't go to work that day. I
went to my chiropractor and my bodyworker and I sat there and waited till
(27:07):
he had an opening. And hetold me they were repressed memories and he
said the call they're starting to comeup. I said, nineteen years later,
I mean, how does that happen? He said, you feel safe,
your body finally feel safe, andyou have the support that you need
because my family would not understand andbe able to support what was coming up
(27:29):
for me, which was crossing overto the other side, which was a
conversation with other angels about how wehere on earth need to ask them for
help and to have a relationship becausewe all have at least one at least
one guardian angel, and angels comein all kinds of ways, Okay,
(27:49):
and They are here to help us, and we need the help, so
we need to start asking for itand not just when there's a crisis.
So that was one of the messagesI got was ask your angels for help.
And it doesn't have to be anythingelaborator. It's like a parking space.
And people laugh at me when Isay that, but they'm parking space.
(28:11):
Will show up, you know,and you can start having a dialogue
and they will. You can askfor their name, you know. One
of mine is I have two.One is Sarafina, you know. So
they'll give you their names. Ittakes a while because you have to,
like any relationship, develop trust withthat spiritual entity and being. But they
(28:32):
are working on our behalf and theywant to help us. The second one,
this cast for the ghost, iswhat I talk about in the book,
but it's actually my grandfather that camedown when I flew out, but
up through the windshield, my soul, my energy body split open, my
soul left me and that's where he, as an angelic being in his thirties,
(28:56):
picked me up, took me tothis other space that was on an
upper level, and that's where theyweren't speaking English. I don't know what
they were speaking, but I couldunderstand it because I'm not in my physical
form. I am in this soulform. And I could look down and
I could see my body in theditch. I was dead. It was
my core leigh there and I didn'twant to get back in there. And
(29:22):
my grandfather and I only found thisout in August because he died at fifty
eight years old. And once aroundthe time he died, he told me
came to be in my meditation anddreams in Synnicole, I came and I
was the one that lifted you up. And I'd always heard stories of got
people saying, oh I met mydeceased love one up there and this and
(29:45):
that and the other. And Iwas like, no, I didn't have
any of that. And then nowhere this piece falls into place, you
know, And it's interesting because thathappened later, but I had all the
pieces. I knew it was amale. I knew it was a in
his thirties, and I called himCasper the ghost, and then oh,
I know it's my grandfather. Buthis mission was you're going to go back.
(30:07):
And I was like no, no, no, no, no,
no, no no, no,I do not want to get in that
body, because here's the deal.I'm going to live with a lot of
pain and a lot of suffering becauseI have a lot of injuries, okay,
and I did not want to.My life was going to be forever
changed in terms of physically what Iwould be able to do. I was
going to be limited. Second ofall, I had the God that I
(30:30):
was raised with. That concept.It's a vending machine concept, is how
I describe it. You put inthe right behaviors, you punched the button,
and boom outcomes the reward. That'snot what was happening. And I
lost belief in that concept of Godduring my first year at the Military Academy
because I was being put through helland I would pray and it got worse.
(30:52):
Okay, it didn't get better.So I didn't believe that there was
an entity out there that was workingon my behalf and loved me. It
was pre techting me or any ofthat. So I had lost that.
But yet I'm coming back to parentswho are still seeped in that and still
practicing that, and that was goingto be a conflict. And then the
third part was my parents were nevergonna love me like I wanted to again
(31:19):
because I disappointed them, and theystill use that term disappointment. And even
when I told them, you know, Margaret admitted this, you know,
and my dad says, well,you should have walked back to the Air
Force Academy. Now we're at apark in Monument at seven thirty at night,
(31:41):
and I was supposed to walk twentymiles by myself back instead of getting
arrived at this guy, he alwayshas an answer, you know. It's
never, it's never. Wow,Nicole, I'm so sorry that you didn't
have that piece information. I'm sosorry that I blamed you. You know,
he'll never forgive me. He's anarcissistant. He's just not going to
do that. So I have nocommunication with either one of my parents.
(32:02):
Now, I've had to cut thatoff, and I have had to learn
that this isn't about my earthly familyhere and making sure that they love me
the way I need it and allthat kind of stuff. It's about helping
others heal and to dispel fear aboutdeath, because most of the books that
(32:22):
are ever written about death, they'recloaked in a veil of doom and gloom,
and death has a cloud of Iwould say depression and negativity around it
throughout our culture and society, andmy own experience, along with hundreds of
thousands of others, is one hundredpercent different because death is absolute beauty.
(32:44):
It's light and this loving, unconditionalkindness on the other side. And there's
ten common lessons from near death experiencesthat I talk about in my book that
are based in science from a reviewfrom the International Association of Near Death Studies,
And the very first one is wedo not die. Our soul lives
(33:06):
on our physical being. Yes,it does die, but that breath that
you inhale and exhale, that's what'skeeping you alive. Another one is we're
never alone. We are always surroundedby angels, and there's a whole realm
on the other side of this veilthat is working on our behalf. And
(33:29):
when we die, we will seeloved ones and others when we return to
the other side. And another importantone is we're not judged. We one
of the worst things that happens,I think for us as we come into
this world that is already judging otherpeople, and we take on this judgment
(33:49):
from parents and from other people,and we judge ourselves, and that lowers
eye vibration, causes us to doubtourselves, causes us not to trust ourself
and be the beings that we cameto be because we're judging our emotions,
our thoughts, our bodies. We'realways finding something wrong with us instead of
(34:10):
realizing our true selves and soulf formis perfect and we are loved more than
we could ever imagine, and thatlove is all that matters in the end.
It really is. God is love, period and energy. And if
we could get that experience of loveas an energy rather than an emotion,
(34:31):
energy speak to each other, Okay, my energy soul form were speaking to
other angels and entities or whatever,you know, and that is so cool
to me, you know, it'slike WHOA. So you know, I
truly believe we come here on ajourney to learn love and to expand that.
(34:55):
And there's so much fear in thisworld, and I want people to
let go of the fear of deathbecause as long as you're fearing death,
you're not going to truly live.And there's nothing to fear. There really
isn't again twenty seven ideas at onetwo. I know it's a bit overwhelming,
(35:15):
it's a big well, but soit's mine, so I follow.
The issue for me is which onefirst? So I'm going to try and
keep somewhat in order. I know, I know that I'll miss stuff.
But for one I had meant tosay and didn't quite finish to say that
the difference a big difference is firstof all, I was not raised religious,
(35:37):
although religion carries a very important rolein my childhood. But it's more
a flip side of your coin sortof thing. Is that that I we
My parents had me at seventeen,and the Catholic Church refused to marry them
because they were pregnant out of wedlock, and my mother was not Catholic,
and so the Catholic Church was notand so but like before I was even
(36:00):
and there was a sense of resentment, in an outcastness whatever from from that.
But when I was eight, mymother decided I should attend church to
see what it's like, and sowe went to a Methodist church, which
in upstate New York. Methodist isvery different from Bible Methodists. It's it's
(36:22):
less intense with the rules, andlike, we had a female pastor and
that was cool with everybody, andit's you know, it's just it's it's
different, yeah, you know,but still the concept was there, and
so that included attending a church camp. And so when I was twelve,
I was sexually assaulted at the churchcamp, which makes for a very mess
(36:45):
up experience because where's your God now? Because it was a violent enough assault
that I was left to die andI didn't at that time. But so
religion has a role, but it'snot fundamentally cod and how I think.
So when I came out of thecoma in twenty ten, I was thirty
(37:06):
two, and my husband came inthe room and I kind of recognized him,
but I couldn't talk. It firsttook a couple of days, and
eventually they removed the ventilator so thatI could speak. And the first thing
I said to my husband, thefirst coherent sentence other than what happened,
you know, was we need therapy. And I couldn't even word why or
(37:30):
how that was going to happen,or when or who or any of the
big, you know, logistical questions. But it was a matter of I
could recognize. Everything just changed,and you and I. He's real smart,
he's got a doctorate, I'm realsmart, I got a doctorate.
But but but we're not equipped.Humans are not equipped to navigate this kind
(37:57):
of change alone. This is whyeven psychiatrists and psychologists and therapists c therapists,
right, It's because things are biggerthan us. So there's a lot
of things that you talk about thatare parallel similar to how I think,
but you use different language. AndI think that that's a core of it
is that your childhood experience equips youwith a language in a worldview from one
(38:21):
direction and mine is slightly different,but the parallels or are there. And
so, for instance, I alsodon't fear death and have had other subsequent
health crises since that. You know, I've broken my back and developed epilepsy.
I blah blah blah blah blah likewhatever we can, like, I
said, full coverage on the medicalbingo board, right, That's what we
(38:44):
were talking about before, and thatis what my life feels like. And
a couple of years ago, Iwas on a DNR do not Resuscitate order
because I was so done recovering.I wasn't done with my life. I
liked my life. My life wasgreat as far as lives can be when
(39:04):
you're profoundly middle medically compromised. ButI couldn't keep getting up again, like
everybody falls a certain number of times, and so I mean, my husband
and I talked through it. Ofcourse he's not delighted about it, but
he got it, and I thinkit helped that I made the decision when
I was at baseline, when Iwas as healthy as I got, and
(39:24):
I made it rationally, and itwas a matter of like, look,
I'm not suicidal. When I sayI don't want to be resuscitated. This
is not a statement of I wantto die. This is just a statement
of I'm good. Yeah, I'mokay with where where. I'm okay with
our lives and the decisions I've made, but I'm just done now. I
(39:46):
lifted the DNR at the start ofCOVID because DNR includes putting you on a
ventilator, and my primary care doctorwas like, look, if you get
COVID, you're likely to get itbadly because I have an autoimmune disorder as
well, and you are a goodcandidate for a ventilator. So if you
(40:07):
lift the DNR, we can dothat. If you don't lift the DNR,
but you go unconscious, because ofCOVID and low oxygen levels, I
can't make that call. And Iwas like, okay, that is fair,
that is rational, And so welifted the DNR and I have not
put it back in place. Idon't know whether I will. I don't
know, but I so you andI have parallels there. And you know,
you say death is beautiful. I'mmore in the My moment right now
(40:30):
is beautiful. Yes, I mightright here, yes, and That's what
I've learned to do. But atthe same time, death is not hell
work. This is what I'm saying. Yeah, this is the difference is
I'm not afraid of something that's right. And growing up that was what the
fear you are. You live ina fear bubble because your church preaches fear
(40:54):
and the wrath of God, andyou go to a place called hell and
you're separated from your family and Godfor all eternity. And that's the worst
thing you can tell to a kidis you're going to be separated if you
do these you know, bad things. So yeah, because so you know,
I don't have money, I don'thave shoes, and what am I
gonna do? I gotta behave that. Yeah, Yeah, I can't be
(41:15):
abandoned. So you grow up withthat fear your whole life. Well,
that is the absolute worst you know, place to make a decision is from
that a big dela that fight lighterfear. You're not making it from that
neo cortex where your rational executive thinkingis coming through. So you live your
life and fear of screwing up andbeing separated. So it causes that.
(41:38):
And then if you don't start addressingthat and start, you know, looking
at these belief systems that create thefear to begin with and go, wait
a minute, where did that evercome from? Do you know? And
start looking at it. And that'swhat I want people to do, is
what is your concept of God?Because I believe your beliefs about God shape
(42:02):
your relationship with death. Well,and that's impositive. Possibly I also believe
that like for me, so Iwould describe myself as agnostic at messed right
that I'm open to Like, Idon't believe that I have the answers and
my husband when we got together andwe've been together since I was nineteen years
(42:22):
old, Um, I don't.I kind of don't know how to not
be. I don't know how tobe an adult without being married and a
mother. I had my first kidto twenty two, so like that's that's
shaped my world. And so there'sa band that we listened to and that
we did listen to when I wasin the coma, which is kind of
an important thing that that this isback in the days of the little,
(42:44):
the little iPod nanos. Yeah,all it was was the playlist, and
so he took mine and he wouldjust play the songs I had listened to
recently, and he put one earbutt in my ear and one in his,
and I spent you know, eachtime I would my blood pressure would
go real low and my heart ratewould go real high. In machines blaring
(43:05):
and everything, and if you putthe music in, my vitals would level.
Yeah. And so that band,this band Blue Xober is their name.
They have a meaning to us,even though I wouldn't consider a super
fans necessarily like anymore, we listento just separate music in different music now.
But I have a line, youknow, from one of their songs
(43:25):
tattooed on my arm. So there'sa there's a point. And I bring
that up to say that one ofthe lines in one of their songs called
the Worry List is I know thatGod exists. I held her in my
arms and he's speaking about his daughterand my husband when that song came out,
my husband was like, it waslike a lightning bolt. He was
(43:45):
like, that's what I mean aboutspirituality, is that I don't believe in
a person like God. Yeah,I believe in something. There's got to
be some reason for existence and humanand I neither of us believe that everything
happens for a reason. But webelieve in the Okay, but what are
(44:06):
we going to make from this?And when I had my my our first
child, and we have four umand we had our our first when I
was I was twenty two and dumbas a brick and not ready for this,
but here we go, and andand he said, he's like when
I when I held her, Irealized there's something more, There's some there's
some reason beyond just get up,go to work, make money, go
(44:30):
home. You know that there's there'shere's this person, and here's this thing.
So this concept of spirituality, likeyou use God and religion language as
a as a sort of baseline,because I think we need to we need
to have a vocabulary to start.I use more interpersonal psychology language because that's
(44:52):
where I come from. And Ilove that. I love that I can
see the parallels, even though youknow, because like okay, to talk
about guardian angels can sound crazy.It's not. It's not. What it
does is it's a way of youshaping your world. And this is how
you feel protection. That's right,you know, And and there's a meaning
(45:14):
in a story that you have constructed. And and I don't want to sound
dismiss over like, oh you madethat up. I don't mean that at
all, But I just mean webuild our own meanings out of absolutely And
that's what I've come to is we'reall on a journey to figure out what
do we believe in terms of whatelse is out there in the universe or
the world, or what's the greaterreasoning? You know? And so I
(45:39):
know that for me when I crossedover, there wasn't this God that's uh,
you know, up in the sky. It's not a persona a person
form. There's no form to it. It's there's no what I realized,
there's no where God is not.God is within, It's not something external
that you go figure out and youhave to believe in something to get through
(46:00):
it to something that all of thatstuff that those belief systems were completely like.
So it's you know what I whereI'm at today is that the term
God's source whatever you want to callit, is love, and it's it's
there's nowhere, it's not and it'snot working. It's not causing negative things
(46:23):
to happen to you. You know, if you don't do something, it's
not judging you. It's because it'snot feeling any of this. It's just
this greatness presence this YouTube. Youfeel it like when a baby's born.
And so when people say, oh, it's born in original sin, I'm
like, bs on that. Well, I mean for so parallel stories that
(46:45):
in my podcast, my sort oflike it's I say that the I don't
say it, but I have friendsread my disclaimers at the beginning of each
episode, and then I say itagain at the outros is you matter.
And people have begun to associate thatwith my show, Like they'll send me
(47:06):
things, you know, either imagesor actual physical things that say you matter
on it. And I've had peopletell me, you know, I listened
sometimes to your show just until theend of the disclaimer to hear someone remind
me you matter, and I feellike beautiful, well, isn't it?
And that? But that to meis the parallel. It's another way of
(47:27):
saying God isn't everything in love?Isn't everything? Like you know, it's
just that I don't think in aGod sense. But the point is we
find our meeting, we build ourmeeting, and we start to feel as
though our existence is transactional. Youdo A and B happens and instead it's
not an ending machine. And youmatter no matter what. And you don't
get to decide how I feel aboutyou. You don't get to decide whether
(47:51):
you matter. You do it baseline, fight me absolutely, and everyone and
everything is connected and you don't needto know how Now you know what I
mean? Like it doesn't matter,Like you don't have to spend all of
your day's soul starching. I justlook that. Here's fact one. You
matter. It's a two sentence whereyou know, two word sentences went on.
(48:12):
Um, I wanted to touch briefly. I don't want to keep you
all night, but we could vigetting but the perspectives of others and disappointment
and shame and the guilt that theycarry. And and I word that as
don't should all over yourself. Yes, take that word out of your vocabulary.
(48:32):
You know that the words should offendsme more than any curse word you
want to come up with. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that
should implies that there is some idealout there that someone has established and that
you are not reaching it. Andyou could and you're not. And so
like the perspectives of people with me, like I tell people I died in
(48:58):
child with saying that sentence I dieis fascinating to watch people help people respond
and I do the same thing becauseit's just the most impactful way of explaining,
like this was a big deal.Yes, this was not just I
felt itchy for a little bit,like no, I died. That's that's
where we're at and a different person. And I want you should be because
(49:21):
you fundamentally also matter and you areimportant enough that there should be an impact
on you. There should be achange on you, and you deserve to
be a different person after doing thework and going through all of that and
coming out the other side. Thankyou, you know, And so just
that that measuring yourself by families,I have my mother is narcissistic and we
(49:45):
have no contact, and so Imean she at that time was still in
our lives, and so you'd think, like, it's I don't want to
say easy, but it's typical inour culture when there's a crime committed to
victim blame. Yes, you shouldn'thave drank, you shouldn't have gotten the
car, you shouldn't have gotten gonewith a strange should you should right?
(50:05):
Okay? In my case, Ifollowed all of the doctor's orders. I
had more than one doctor. Iwas careful, I was responsive to my
body. I blah blah blah,and yet died in childbirth. And yet
my mother told me, well,you shouldn't have had a third child.
You had two healthy kids, Whydid you need a third? And I
(50:29):
was like, first of all,bite me. Secondly, I didn't know
as pregnant until I was, andI decided, oh my god, it
was insane, but but I tookit. At that time in twenty ten,
I was like, well, Iguess you're right, you know,
like you just absorbed this like andand it took me years to first of
all, be like that's not appropriate, and secondly to find there are positives
(50:54):
that I took from this, like, I don't recommend it. Don't if
you if you can avoid dying likein childbirth in a miserable way, like
maybe do. But if you gothrough stuff, I don't think there's a
reason it happened to you. Youdidn't do something bad to deserve it.
But I believe that you can pulla ming from it. Yes, And
(51:17):
that's why one of my credentials thatI think is the most important credential is
bt DT and I put it onmy book, then they're done that because
that allows me to have compassion,empathy and understanding and sympathy, and that
is important, you know, tobe able to relate to that and be
(51:38):
able to speak from my experiences.I don't care what the other stuff is,
that's theory and whatever. It's myexperience, my journey, and none
of us are ever going to havethe same identical one, but if we
can get the same and that's whatthese lessons are. They're all positive ones,
which you're saying is pulling that positivehymness out of it, you know,
(52:01):
That's what I'm trying to tell people. There's a lot of things about
this conversation that really resonates with me. I mean, we could have kept
going, and I really hope thatNicole will come back in play sometime because
(52:25):
I feel like we have a lotmore to say. But if I want
to pick just sort of one bigthing, I think that that avoidance of
disappointment of others and worrying about howwe should appear and masking, which is
(52:50):
what it really is at its base. That's terrible stuff. It We spend
so much of our time and energytrying to meet expectations of other people when
we don't even necessarily know what theirexpectations are. So I don't know the
(53:12):
answer other than maybe asking people whatthey expect and then believing whatever answered it
is that they give. But itis a thing that I think all of
us spend a lot of time doing, and those of us with chronic illness
(53:37):
or recovery processes really spend extra timepressuring ourselves to be good enough, even
though we already are. So Nicole, thank you so much for a fascinating
conversation and just for coming to play. I do hope you'll come back.
(54:01):
Thank you guys for listening. I'llbe back when I can. I you
know, I'm not any good atall right now at predicting when the next
episode is going to be because mybody is wildly misbehaving lately. But I'm
(54:23):
here today, so we'll take it. No matter how frequently I release episodes,
or what kind of nonsense I spouton them or whatever, I'm going
to refer you back to earlier inthis episode and remind you you matter. B
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