“Did you call Abuela to check in on her?” I asked my father on New Year’s Eve, 1500 miles away from where she lived. My father asked why?
I had felt a sharp pain in my heart as if someone just stabbed it and then nothing. I was 10 years old and didn’t know why I thought of my grandmother in that moment or how to articulate the “why,” but I would learn more about it when a similar event would happen 35 years later.
My father never called that night, but he did the next morning, only to find out my grandmother had a heart attack the moment I was feeling it and died instantly.
How do I even begin to tell him what I felt. My father was a judge, a lawyer, a former cop and Cuban on top of everything else. He was my rock and my foundation for everything tangible. He challenged me to seek the truth and research everything before weighing my decision. Use logic, not something you cannot see or hold. Facts and evidence you can touch. Wasn’t what I said evidence? Wasn’t it enough I saw it and said something as it was happening, tangible? I had no way of articulating all of this at age 10 and no one to talk to in order to help my argument, so I shut down.
It wouldn’t be long before I needed to face certain facts that history would repeat itself. Not only did I marry someone like my father (I know, cliché), but after our story unfolded, I was researching and asking every scientist, therapist and expert I came across to debunk this “spiritual” stuff and give me something more logical. And to top it all off, I couldn’t get far enough away from it, when new unexplained phenomena would hit me, causing the desperate need to prove it was just my imagination.
What became evident to me is every time I saw a stranger, I could see someone they loved who had passed beside them. And then I would describe an incident in their history with that spirit. They would always ask, “how are you seeing this?” Now, don’t get me wrong, it does not happen all the time and I have ZERO idea when it will happen, but when it does, it makes me realize, I will never understand HOW it is I am seeing what I am seeing. But that doesn’t stop me from trying to figure out what seems to be a new “party trick.”
I still refused to believe it, even after all of the drama unfolding in my life. Even when I was at one of my BFF’s sister’s funeral and I saw her sister and her mother (who had passed as well) right next to her as she was eulogizing her. I thought “wishful thinking.” Even when I was at a concert and I had a vision and walked up to a man I had never seen before and asked “why did you try to commit suicide?” and he fell to the floor crying, admitting he jumped in front of a train. And even when I walked up to a nail technician I had never met in Las Vegas and said “I am so sorry you just lost your best friend,” she asked “You see Gloria?” How I knew it was a friend and not an aunt, how I knew this man attempted suicide or how I see what I can see, I did not know. All the while trying to get ahead of this information, searching for answers explaining what I see, I start feeling things physically.
Back to the 35 years later comment. I was in a pitch meeting for a TV show with a prominent show-runner. I had never met her before. We have a mutual friend who introduced us and the woman who runs this company came up to me and says “I think your story is fascinating, but I am a skeptical person. Not that I don’t believe people have a strong intuition, but it has never happened to me.” I said “Cool, I am not here to prove anything to you, I’m just here to pitch a show.” We sat at the table with 10 of her employees and I began the pitch. In the middle of the meeting, I start feeling like I am going to have a heart attack. And I KNOW it isn’t mine. I only have one choice- I need to speak up. But how? If I say something, I am the crazy person in the room. I cannot breathe, it is so strong and they are noticing me uncomfortable. I stop the meeting and say “I am so sorry, someone is trying to tell me something.” INSERT: CRAZY PERSON TALKING HERE. “Does someone in this room have a male family member who just had a heart attack?” My friend is panicking. Everyone stops.
They all say NO. The owner says “My mother had a heart attack years ago, but she is ok now.” As she is talking, the pain is getting stronger (in hindsight, I will learn when the feelings enhance when someone is speaking to me, the message would be for that person). I say “That’s not it, but I have acknowledged it, so let’s move on.”
Awkward silence and I continued the pitch.
When I left the building, it released. My friend says “What’s with the theatrics?” I tell her, I have no idea, but I was in pain. I was sure I just blew the pitch.
Four days later, we get a call. My friend tells me “Are you sitting down? They figured out what the heart attack was from?” I listen. “Turns out, boss lady after the meeting, received a call from her sister in New York. Her father had a heart attack the moment you were feeling it.” The father would be fine and this woman doesn’t want to talk about it again, EVER. They bought the pitch and I threw up. (Not in that order).
I call Jonathan to tell him what transpired and said “Can you believe it?”
Jonathan said “Yes, I believe it and I have accepted it. You need to stop looking for the how this is happening and just accept it because you will drive yourself crazy. There was a mathematician I know of who literally drove himself into an asylum because he couldn’t find the answer to an equation.”
The science versus spirit conversation has been going on since the beginning of time. At some point one chooses a side or spends the rest of their lives questioning the very foundation on which they stand. Which is everyone’s right. I did a lot of soul-searching and have chosen my side, as you can see from the recent Megyn Kelly Today show clip here. I will never stop asking questions, but there is no going back.
I am not asking any of you to accept it. It’s taken me a long time to “just” accept it and all that comes with it. All I am asking for you to do, is research it and listen to all of the facts, before you dismiss it.
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1 Comment.
Hi Stephanie, my spiritual experience
Happened in 2013 during the savasana stage of my yoga class. I wasn’t dying physically but I was so afraid for my children and their future. My husband had lost his job and was in a severe depression. I had just sold my physical therapy practice in LA, CA a few months back thinking life was good and the kids were just growing up so fast that I should slow down and play Mom for a while. This desire to play mom seemed a huge mistake once we found my husband out of work and our family struggling to make ends meet financially speaking. I was beside myself w fear and thought maybe yoga would help me stay positive. Since i was out of a job I had plenty of time to attend classes. My teacher happen to be an excellent yoga and meditation teacher. He had traveled to India and spent years in the i resents if a powerful Indian guru. He had undergone his own spiritual awakening years earlier and hung out and is actually buddies spiritual giants like Eckhart Tolle and Krishna Das. It was in his class that I sat in God’s Light. Just sat staring at it and bawling my eyes out. I seemed to be in his warm white light for 20 minutes. I kept saying to him, “ I missed you! I missed you SO much!! While at the same time thinking …”how do I know God???!!!” I remember the feeling that every thing I had ever done that I though was “bad” was instantly forgiven and that the warmth of that light carried many things included LOVE forgiveness and comprehensive non-judgement. I also recall telling The light repeatedly, “I want to be pure, I want to be pure” I want to be pure.” I have no idea why I was asking God for this but I was asking Him directly for this purity knowing only He could grant it or cleanse me and/or elevate me to the level that would be considered “pure.” I think what I was asking for was to be closer to Him because in the final seconds of our meeting I was invited to move toward the light. But I didn’t. Instead I turned my face away from the light. I turned away because I felt I was not pure enough And I did not want to tarnish the Light by moving towards it. I am explaining that these are things I knew and felt at the time but I cannot tell you WHY I felt and knew to ask for these things. It also seemed like everything was happening at the same time yet nothing seemed rushed. I also knew the entire time that I was in a yoga class filled with 80 students and was curious why I was having such an intensely emotional
Experience and why no one seems to notice. I mean…I was SOBBING! I was trying to control my emotion but when you are sitting in front of God trust me…you will not be sitting there smiling. You will be so overcome with emotion that there is nothing you can do but cry. I was happy I was sad. I had missed God. I knew he was my original home. I LOVED him with all my best and soul. All things I knew at the moment this happened but not things I would have said to you before this experience. Anyway I could write chapters and chapters more but needless to say your blog inspired me to write to you again because I read your blog “spiritual vs science”….I think that was what it was called. I also read got book by the way 😊loved it! This is my 2nd email to you btw🙃! Anyhow I just wanted to let you know that similar to you my experiences have continued and that I too have many “premonitions “. I too have had to learn that perhaps I will never fully understand WHY and HOW these things are happening to me. What u do know is that I am so incredibly grateful and I hope that, like you, I will one day be able to share my story in a way that is helpful and empowering to others. In the meantime I await God’s guidance. I have to say though, for the first time since my experiences (it has been 5 years!) I am actually starting to write my story down AND I fell upon your today show and had he pleasure of reading your book. So if there are no coincidences then you are clearly God given in my life and I am forever grateful. By the way …my oldest son is 15. His name is Jacob. He was born May 13, 2002. 😊😌😌💕✨💜xoxoxo michelle Schrader, PT/masseuse
Ps. I have read and read and read everything I can find to try and understand what I went they and what I am going they but there is very little. So i went to the Bible the Torah and Bagavad Gita and other spiritual texts and stories. I also read Elkhart tolle’s power of now and ram dass’ Be here now. I also read a book about spiritual women saints that was amazing . If u have any books u can suggest feel free to share. Xoxoxo !!