Have you ever felt like you have been speaking a made-up language for a while and then FINALLY, someone understands every word?

That is how I felt last night.

I was asked to be the speaker on a conference call for the International Association for Near Death Studies (IANDS). They have had everyone from Eben Alexander (the neurosurgeon who wrote Proof of Heaven) to Anita Moorjani (who was given a death sentence when her body riddled with cancer, was too weak to survive). They are “an educational nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, IANDS focuses most of its resources into providing the highest quality information available about NDE-related subjects.”  They are not a religious organization and they focus on getting the validated and verifiable “truth,” one story at a time.

Last night, they discussed our story.

I asked: “What do you want me to focus on? The overall story or what has happened since?”

The CEO of the organization said “This group happens to be very familiar with NDE’s and I think they would like to know what happened to you during your 37 seconds and subsequent coma. But also, if you have been bestowed any gifts after the experience?”

“What kind of gifts?” I coyly stepped my toe in the water.

He continued, “You know, psychic abilities, enhanced intuition, seeing spirits?”

I felt like I was just EXPOSED.

I then took a deep breath and told him I was not prepared to describe ALL of what has happened to me since then, for fear of criticism or self-doubt.  And he assured me, “It is a safe environment and I don’t think there is anything you can say which will shock this audience. In fact, I think they can help you through this confusing time.”

And he was right.

Up until now I explained what I saw when I flat-lined as a “Heavenly-state.” A friend of mine sent this photo of a Golden Girls episode and I told him “it was definitely something like this, except with hundred of spirits.”  Last night I went into much more of the descriptive. What it felt like, what it smelled like, how it felt on my feet.  And in greater detail than ever before.

I held my breath and waited for the audible eye rolls, grumbling, doubt and annoyance for having to listen to this “garbage.”  I think I was projecting because it couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

I wasn’t laughed at, I wasn’t even judged.  After they had heard our entire story and were told about the regression footage, what the doctors said and how things were shifting in my life, they were able to help me understand exactly what was happening now and why, because many of them had been there before. They gave their insight on how to handle more things which will be heading my way. And they embraced me on the call the way a family member would, as if they’d known me my entire life.

It only makes me much more confident to go forward with the message “we are not alone,” as I continue to be supported by people who have reached out after reading 37 Seconds and those who speak the same language as I do now.