Episode 81: Simple Things Matter!

Afterlife with Sandra Shamplain. Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware of the thoughts and opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only and do not reflect those of I Heart Media, I Heart Radio, Coast to Coast, am employees of premier networks, or their sponsors and associates. We would like to encourage you to do your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi, I'm

Sander Shamplain. For almost twenty five years, I've been on a journey to prove the existence of life after death on each epoch, So we'll discuss the reasons we now know that our loved ones have survived physical death, and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. Near death experiences are something that intrigue everyone, although stories are different. Because I think for as many people as have ever lived on this Earth. We each have a different story

of how life is and how death is. Death is unique to each one of us with some similarities. But today I want to introduce you to Pat Johnson, who had a near death experience while kayaking. Pat is a very active member in IAN'S, which is the International Association for Near Death Studies i A n d S dot org. You can find out more, Pat, and warm welcome to you. Thanks,

and I appreciate it that you're very kind. Well you are too to take a really horrific situation and now be on the other side to be able to serve mankind telling your story, well, we really appreciate it, you bet And and you know I love the opportunity to share, not not necessarily my story of my m D, but I love the opportunity to share the lessons and the messages that I received and and what it's meant to me in my life and what what I hope it

can bring to other people's lives. Well, if you would share your story, Pat, and I know you're coming to us today from Texas. Well, Uh, I live on the Blancover River. It's a river that flows in central Texas in the Hill Country. I'm located between Austin and San Antonio. Kayak. I usually go up the river about oh eight or ten miles and kayak back to my house and and that's my typical trip. And occasionally I'll go um south of my house and go downstream, which is a longer trip,

maybe eighteen miles or twenty miles. I hadn't done it a long time, and so I had a friend that was working at the South Pole at the time, and he had called me and and and you know, we always much for the river conditions to be right, and it just so happened when he called me this week that we had had some rain and the river was up and flowing really fast. So that was when we like to go. So I asked him, I said it

was Bobby humph for his childhood friend of mine. I asked Bobby to come up and spend the weekend with me and take the longer trip. And uh, he came up. And he's just a great outdoorsman and travel and adventured all over the world, so he's a perfect partner for for a kayaking trip. And we started out. This is a Sunday morning, September twelve, two thou ten and the river was up probably about two ft over normal. So if you're an adventure and you like the thrill of

the big rapids, it's a good time to go. So we had it out and UH beautiful day, you know, crystal clear skies with a little white, plessy puffy clouds. And about two thirds of the way into the trip, we're crossing a low water crossing. I hit the top of the bridge and it turned my kayak sideways and I dropped off my kayak and the water was real calm on the surface, so I didn't suspect anything other than that. I just dropped off the kayak and then swim over to the shallow water and get back in

kayak and continuing with the trip. As I went into the water, I got about not quite waist deep, and I just felt like the jolly green giant had reached up and grabbed me by the ankles and yanked me under the water. And at this point I knew I was getting sucked into something. A few years prior to this, I was in a near a low water crossing and there was a washout under the bridge that was a natural washout, and I'd gotten a leg and my legs

sucked into this washout, which was a small hole. You know, I just bruised and scraped my leg but uh, you know, no no damage. But I was aware of these washouts being under an of these bridges, and so that's what I thought was happening. I thought I was getting washed into one of these these washouts. And there's nothing I could do. I mean, obviously, when when we got that much pull against you, you know, you can't swim against

or fight it. The only thing I could hope for was that my my feet would hit a solid surface and I'd be able to pull my way out of it or walk my way out of it. Um, you know, since I'm at this point, I'm completely submerged underwater. And uh about that time, I filled these bumps on the tops of my hands and I recognized it immediately. I had been sucked into a corgated pipe underneath this bridge

that that I was unaware of it being there. I was able to push my hands up and push my feet down, and I was able to stop myself inside the pipe. And I looked over my shoulder and it was total darkness behind me. So I'd grown up, you know, shooting through these pipes as a kid and a teenager, and and when we would do it, we typically we run an inner tube through there. And we never went through a pipe that didn't have an airspace and it

and this one was completely submerged. But what you'll find in some of these pipes is you'll find an obstruction from either rocks or our metal post or branches, barbed wire, that sort of thing that gets sucked into these pipes and get stuck in there. And so I knew that that if I let go and I went through the pipe and there was an obstruction on the other end, that you know, that'd be it. You know that I

wouldn't be able to make it out. So I felt like my only hope was going forward the way I came in, and I was probably about ten or twelve feet into the pipe, and so I just started pushing with everything I had. I was making these little tiny steps, probably two to four inches at a time. I was moving forward because of the pressure on the water was, you know, was so strong against my body. And as I'm in there, all of my instinct are, all my

senses were, We're just heightened just incredibly. I could I felt like I could feel every drop of water going across my body, and I felt like I could see every every little tiny speck of dust or dirt that passed by me in the water. Um, you know, I could hear every sound. And I just started pushing forward. And you know, at that time, all I could think about was I was just surviving, and I was thinking about my wife and kids, and I was praying, and

that was it. You know, It's just just down to the very the very most basic thoughts are the very most basic parts of your of your core, you know. So I'm pushing forward. I make it to the end of the pipe. The bridge had about about eight or ten inches of water across the top of it was falling across the top of the bridge at the time. And so I made it to the end of the pipe, and I was able to get my hands on the outside of the pipe, and I was trying to pull

push myself out of the pie. But at the at the front of the pipe, the water was stronger and I couldn't get any part of my body. I couldn't get my head out, I couldn't get my shoulder out. Uh. The only thing I was able to get out of the pipe was just my arm, and so I'm trying to figure out, you know, what I need to do to come, you know, get myself out of that pipe. The pipe is probably three or four ft under the water. And about this time I see my friend Bobby, his

hand reaching down through the water towards me. The water was was murky because it had been flooding that week, but it was you know, it wasn't so dirty that you couldn't see. There was probably it was probably about six ft of decent visibility and then clouding visibility. After that, I reach up and I grabbed Bobby's hand. Always tell people that when I grabbed Bobby's hand, there's nothing that replaces the feel of the touch of another human being.

I mean, when I touched Bobby's hand, you know, just gave me hope and it um you know, I knew I w wasn't alone, and so he was one of his hands and knees on top of the bridge and hanging on with one hand and on his knees and reaching down with the other hand. Grabbed his hand and I thought, this is all I need, you know, just that little legs for pulling them out of here. I pushed up as hard as I could and pulled on Bobby's hand at the same time. And when I did that,

our hands came apart. I lost grasp with Bobby's hand in our hands uh separated, and and when that happened, I lost my grip with my other hand, and I got pushed back into the pipe a second time, and this time I didn't go back into the pipe quite as far. I was probably only about six ft into the pipe the second time, and I started pushing forward again because I knew I could make it to the

front of the pipe and already did it once. But my concern was, as I've been underwater for a long time at this point, I didn't know how much longer I could hold my breath. And I started pushing forward and I made it about maybe maybe a couple of feet, and all of a sudden, I just felt like like I was encapsulated. I just felt like a bubble surrounded me and everything. The water just seemed to be in slow motion. It wasn't hazy like I was blacking out.

It was it was very I had a very conscious thought of it, and it was very clear, but the sound got quieter. I didn't. It's like I didn't even feel the water touching my skin. And just in that moment, I knew that everything was where it was supposed to be, Everything was right with the world, and there was nothing to worry about, that everything would be taken care of, and I just was overwhelmed with the sense of peace. There was no fading. It was just in an instant,

like turning off a light switch. I went from conscious too, unconscious as far as the physical part goes at the spiritual or not the conscious, but but the physical body went unconscious. And when that happened, my immediate thought was, well, first of all, I went in to a different place. And the place that I went to, I felt like it was kind of in a like a hallway, but not quite like a hallway, some like like maybe the combination of a hallway and a in a cave. Because

of the floor was like black marble. It was just like a shiny black black marble. Into the left of me, and overhead of me there was a wall, but it was it was it was kind of rigid like you'd see on the wall of the cave, but it was it was soft. It was like covered with felt or velvet, but it was black, just black, and off to the right of me, it was just openness. It was it was just like it was endless darkness, and it was.

It was such a darkness. It was a kind of darkness that you could stick your hand out too and and lose sight of your hand. It was that kind of dark. And in front of me, at a distance of if I had to guess, it felt like it was maybe sixty or seventy yards in front of me, there was what looked like a blue stained glass window with a hole in it, but not around hole. It was a hole, a whole like somebody had thrown a rock through a piece of glass. And behind it was

this bright, bright, white light. It was a white light, and and it kind of had a it kind of looked like a klanoscope because it was it was dimming and and brightening, you know, and changing patterns a bit. And the edges of the broken glass, that's only way I can describe it, had rays of light coming off of it which were reflecting off the floor and shining

on the walls. Pat we have to go into our first break, and when we come back, we'd love to hear more about your experience and it sounds scary, but it also sounds like there's some possibility for a much bigger view of life coming. So we'll be back in just a minute. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast Coast d a M Paranormal podcast network. Don't go anywhere. There's more Shades

of the Afterlife coming right up. You're listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast day M Paranormal Podcast. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain and we are with Pat Johnson talking about his near death experience. And Pat, when you last were speaking, you were telling us that you're under the water and your kayak trapped and you felt yourself in a hallway slash cave with a magnificent stained glass window cracked and you

were seeing a bright light. What did you sense next? Immediately? I felt connected to an indescribable number of souls. And I don't know how how I know that, I just know it. And my first thought is, man, you gotta be bad not yet to come here, because I felt like I was where I was supposed to be, and I just knew there was multitudes of souls with me, and I didn't feel like I'd been that good a person.

But I felt like I was there where, you know, where we're supposed to go when we leave this place. And the second thought that I had, or the second feeling that I got, our awareness that I got, was I felt like my kids and my wife would be walking I felt like I could look over my shoulder and my kids and my wife would be walking in right behind me. And I think that might be something to do with our distortion of time, you know, between

here and there. And I thought about it many times, and I think maybe that's part of the piece that I had, because if I leave them thirty four years, in terms of what we know as time on Earth, would maybe only be a like a snap of the fingers, you know. On the other side, I don't know. I felt no connection to my body. I just felt the relaxation like I've never felt before. I had my consciousness,

and I I had my awareness. But you know, even as relaxed as we get here on Earth, you know, we can still fill our clothes touching us or maybe even air touching us. But there there was it was just total relaxation with with no hurts or eggs or just no sense of a body. I wanted to get to the light. I was wanting to get to a light as quick as I could. But I was being drawn to the light, just gradually drawn to the light, not at not at my speed. And I'm sure as

people can relate to this. It's kind of like in a dream where where you're being pulled along slowly and you don't have control of of your movement. And that's what it was like. And as I got closer to the light, what was giving the light the kaleidoscope effect?

There were people walking back and forth in front of the light, very calmly, walking left, right, right to left, and I was getting closer to him, but the light was so bright behind them, all I could see was silhouettes and I could never recognize any of the people. I wanted to see who they were, but I never got recognition of who they were. And as I approached the light and I got closer to the people, you know,

I felt this overwhelming love and acceptance. I woke up and when I woke up, I was staring at the water I was on, you know, these rocks were below me, and there was maybe four or five inches of water covering the rocks, and I was going towards the rocks and being pulled back away from the rocks. And the first sense that I had when I came to was

what had happened was when I lost consciousness. There wasn't anything in the pipe, and I got pushed out of the pipe and pushed down the river through the rapids, and my friend was with me, was able to jump off the bridge and catch up to me about seventy yards down the down the river from the bridge, and he was able to pull me out of rapids into the shallow part of the water, and he didn't know how to do CPR, so he rolled me over on his on my stomach, and he said when he got

to me, my face was a grayish purple and my eyes were open, fixed, wide open, but you know, I wasn't breathing. And when he got me to the shallow part of the water, he rolled me over on on my stomach and he straddled me from behind and put his arms around me about my lower part of my chest and upper part of my stomach, and he just started raising me up and down that's all he knew to do and U and he was in shock at

the time. It worked. It worked as far as um you know, the act of doing CPR so resuscitated me. That's what I'm looking for, resuscitated me. And so when I came to, he's pulling me up and down immediately again, the first thing I feel is a touch of his hands around me and his arms around me. That's the first thing that I sensed, the same, the same as as when he touched my hand when I was in that pipe. Nothing replaces the touch of another human being. And the next sense that I felt was an air

touching my face. I could feel it just talking of describing it right now, I can. I can feel it like it was just happened a minute ago, this nice cool breeze touching my skin. And then I realized, you know, what was going on, and I pulled my knees up under me, and I put pulled my hands up under

me to to steady myself. When I did that, it took the pressure off of Bobby's arms and hands and he just rolled me over and grabbed me and started hugging me and kissing me and telling me he loved me, and then he started ellen and screaming at me and cozened me out, and this went back and forth, you know, for three or four minutes before he could settle himself down, and he was crying, and uh he was. He was actually in worse shape than I was in. He was

in shock. And that's been a few years back, and to this day it's hard for him to talk about it. I felt like he was going to be coming back to my house and having to give my wife the news that I died that day, and that's all he could think about when he was trying to resuscitate me. So when I came to and after Bobby had recovered, I crawled up on the bank and I laid on my back and I was just looking up at the sky,

trying to get myself together. After I had finished coughing up water, every muscle in my body was fatigued and was hurting, and and my my chest was hurting. I could I could just take these tiny little breaths, and then my head was just pounding. It felt like somebody had hit me in the head with a baseball bat. I had a terrible headache, But I remember in there on my back and looking up at the sky. It was like the first time I've ever seen the sky.

I couldn't uh you know, I've never seen us so beautiful, and I would just laid there in amazement. It was just this baby blue color with these little white, puffy clouds like little balls of cotton going floating across the sky, and all the clouds seemed to be illuminated. There almost seemed to be a light inside of each cloud. I could I could fill the clouds. I had a feeling

that I couldn't describe. I was able to lay there for a few minutes, and it's just thinking of myself, how you know, I've never seen a sky that beautiful before. After five or ten minutes, I had to get myself back together because we're out in the middle of nowhere and we're an hour and forty five minute floats still away from from a vehicle, and uh, you know, there's no roads, it's it's unting. It's just out in the

middle of nowhere and there's no houses, nothing. So I have to get back into kayak and continue on with the trip. And uh, I lost my paddle and so the fortunately these paddles at yu kayak with they come apart in the middle. So we took Bobby's paddle and he took half of it, and I took half of it, and we continued on. We finally ran across my paddle,

you know, not not long after we've gotten started. But one of the turning points for me, or maybe the turning point for me, was probably about twenty minutes down the river. I'm trying to take all this in and as I'm going down the river, you know, it's the strangest things are happening to me. I felt like I could fill the trees. I felt like they were a part of me. I felt like the rocks, the grass, everything I could just feel. I just felt connected to

everything that that was around me. About twenty minutes into the float, this white e grid flew from the in front of us, from the left side of the river over the right side of the river and landed in this big cypress tree, and it looked like it was it was illuminated. It looked like it had a haze around it that had light attached to it. It landed in that tree and just set there. It was just glowing, and I knew, I knew in that moment that my

life was changed forever. I knew that things would never be the same. Guy, I'm getting choked up thinking about it. I knew that things would never be the same after that point. Whenever I talked about this story, asked God to let it be his story and for me to be true to it, not to ever change anything, and let it to be, you know, for his service and his will and not mine. And I prayed that, and I like that. My friend Bobby and I told him,

I said, Man, you're gonna think I'm crazy. I don't think this is really nuts, but I'm glad this happened to me. And I said, I can't explain it, Bobby, but man, I went to this place. It was just beyond description. It was fabulous. I can't describe the feeling I have right now. Really glad that has happened to me. Anyway, we made the rest of the float and got back in our truck and loaded up our kayaks and came home.

And you know, my wife was waiting on us, and she could tell something was up, and so I walked to the bedroom and Bobby stayed in the kitchen with her, and Bobby started crying again and tell her and told her that but I almost died. And then she came in there, and you know, when we hugged and and she's she's fantastic. She's been very understanding. And you know, because when you do have a near death experience, a lot of things happened that that continued to happen to

you even after the experience. You know, you have different insights and you have different views on things. I know, like a couple of weeks after this happened, you know, people would come up to me and say, I heard what happened. You know, man, I'm just so glad you're okay. And I guess, you know, you're so lucky. I guess it just wasn't your time, and things like that. After a couple of weeks, I looked at my wife one day and I said, man, honey, don't take this the

wrong way. But when people come up to me and tell me that stuff, I just want to tell him, you know, yeah, I am lucky. But if I wouldn't have come back, it would have been okay. I was in such a beautiful place it was. It would have been okay. When you're here on earth, it's that's not our choice. You know, when we go when we're called, and in the meantime, you know, we do what we are sent here to do, to learn and to teach and and to be tempered to and to be prepared

for that next part of our existence. Anyway, there's times when you know, as a near death experience or that you get confused, especially in the early years for near death, there's you get confused and you're you're searching for a purpose and and it can be frustrating and create a lot of anxiety. In my life, I finally came to the realization that our purposes are in front of us every day. We just have to be aware of them

and take advantage of the opportunities. What we think is important, and what we think is, you know, that we have to have this grand purpose saving a starving nation, or cure and cancer or something like that. Those are things that are on our terms. But the reality of it is is that in God's terms, maybe something as simple as you know, hugging a kid that doesn't have of a parent, are going and visiting with a shut in

neighbor that is isolated. I mean, you know, the reality of it is is there's no act of kindness or love that is too small, are that is more important than another one. They're all important. Oh, Pat, I agree, it could be the smallest acts that make the biggest difference with people. Anyways, we need to go to our next break, and when we come back, I'd love to find out more of the wisdom that you received and that one has unfolded since you've had your near death experience.

So we'll be back in just a minute. You're listening to Pat Johnson and myself here on Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast Coast a AM paranormal podcast Network. Don't go anywhere. There's more Shades of the Afterlife coming right up, Hey against the Wizard of Weird Joshua Pee Warren. Don't forget to check out my show Strange Things each week as I bring you the world of the truly amazing and bizarre right here on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a

m paranormal podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain and we are here with Pat Johnson, near death experiencer and Pat. Just before the break, we were really talking about making a difference. And it doesn't have to be these big, grandiose things. It can be simple things. Simple things matter, right, they absolutely do, and simple things are not simple things. You don't know where

it ends. I mean, you know, you could encourage in a small way, just give somebody a loving touch or a sign that you see them and they're valued, and they can take that and pass that on to another person and pass it on to another person, or they can hold at the rest of their life and you know, use it for motivation and inspiration to do good things

as long as they're here on earth. And you don't know whether that's going to take them or where that act that you think is simple or small will end up in a ripple effect on many many other people. Absolutely absolutely. One of the strangest things that happened to me was when I went into a restaurant or crowded

room or any place that there were people. For the first couple of months, I felt like it wasn't that I visibly saw their souls, but people's souls people that were around me, their souls were almost tangible to me. I felt like I could reach out and actually grasp your soul. I just had a sense of everybody's inner soul that was around me. The level of noise was reduced.

I could distinguish multiple conversations at one time. What was really neat about it, too, is when I had that sense that I could see and feel people's souls, it took all the judgment away from the way I looked at people. I was able to look at people the way God looks at people, the way he values people. It's for their soul. It has nothing to do with how smart they are, how party they are, what clothes they have on, what their job is, their education. Nothing.

The sense that I got was it in God's book, everybody is important and he desperately wants everybody. It almost got to be a joke to me. I would see somebody pull up in a in a big four wheel drive jacked up truck and strut out of it and

I would just snicker. And I would see some little old ladies shuffling down the street that may be considered uh low on social status, and she shined to me so And I will say that over time that faded, you know, I mean I could still get pieces of that, but not like it was when it when it first happened. You know, for the first couple of months, it was just like looking at another person, almost like a shadow.

I would say, we really are souls having a human experience, and I think you just got the opportunity to really see those souls. Pat what kind of things we left with after this experience. The messages that stuck with me first and foremost. I had this message that we're overthinking things. Just love God and love each other and everything is going to take care of itself. It was that simple.

It wasn't that simple. It wasn't this long drawn out floating through the stars, through the ages or anything like that. It's just like it was just like you're overthinking, not you're overthinking things. It was we're overthinking things. Love God, love each other, and everything else will take care of itself. Off. One of the other insights that just almost as strong was the connectedness. And when you're talking about you know, we don't see our souls while we're go on earth.

I got this overwhelming sense that and I could see it when I could see the souls, is that we're all interconnected. I was talking about it to this this when lady that was in our near death support group. And she was an elderly lady that had had an inn D back in the I think in the late fifties, and I described that tour and she just kind of chuckled and she said, Yeah, it's like that rug right there on the floor. That rug is as an individual rug,

but it's made up of thousands of threads. The threads are all bound together, but they each individually keep their identity, but they're all bound together to make up the rug. And that's where our souls are. We're all touching each other and we don't see it. That's why it's so important to realize, you know, your actions towards people, the way you were at the way you treat one person affects everybody. That ripples through the souls and it touches

all of us, negative or positive. When you do something to make somebody feel better, it can make lots of people feel better. And if you do something to make somebody feel bad, it can make other people feel bad. You're not just affecting that one person, and we're affecting ourselves to affecting ourselves. Yeah, for sure, Like I said, it's it's a life change. It changes the way you look at every everything, and especially for me, it changes the way I look at people more than anything. Pat,

how did you get involved with I NS Well? When I came back, Uh, when I had the experience, I was, gosh, let me think the two thousand and ten. I was scared. I was anxious because I was seeing things differently. And I mean, come on, you know, you're just having a good time and you're working and taking care of your family one day, and the next day you think you see people's souls. I mean, come on, I just done an app and you know, you know it was it was.

It was strange, and it was it was scaring me and I didn't know what And there were some other things that were changing for me also. And I told my my wife a couple of weeks after this happened, I said, you know, I got to talk to somebody, and I said, I want to talk to psychiatrists. I don't want to talk to a counselor. I gotta find somebody that this has happened to, and specifically, I'd like

to find somebody that's crowned. And so I started looking on the internet and I found IRONS, the International Association of Near Death Studies and I contacted there their office and uh during North Carolina, and they put me in touch with the local chapter. And at the time there was a guy named Ed Salisbury and he still runs

the group. That was running the group, and and they gave my phone number to Ed, and a couple of days after I had contacted him, Ed gave me a call and I felt an immediate connection with him because he understood what I was talking about. I can my family or friends didn't understand what I was what I was trying to tell them, They couldn't relate to it. But as soon as I got on the phone with Ed, but then five minutes of talking to him, I just

connected with him. Immediately he understood what I was talking about, and my my stress and my anxiety was gone. And almost immediately, you know, he just explained to me that there was gonna be some other changes that we're gonna happen, that it takes a while to integrate all these things into your life, and that it's all good and not to worry, and that's all I needed to hear, and from that point on I was fine. So they had a meeting once every two months here in Austin, and

I just live about thirty miles from Austin. So I started going to the meetings and and uh, I was in a group of other near death experiences and it's it's just a great support group. You know, they understand what you're talking about. You feel at home. Uh, you go out and you deal with the world as it is.

And every month or two you can go over there and be amongst friends that I'm dealing with the same things, and you talk to him and you feel like you're at home, and you recharge your batteries and then you go out there and you do it again. And speaking of recharging batteries, one of the things that I found very helpful for me is um I call it meditative prayer. When I can get up in the morning and just

be very very still and very quiet and pray. And then after I pray, just be very still in meditating, just try to open my mind and my heart and listen for answers. And that has given me the closest thing that I found to my n D. That's the strongest connection I have. Can you walk us through that again? What you do? I usually get up in the morning early before my wife is a and all our kids are grown, so we don't have kids in now. I

hear you have sixteen grandchildren. I got sixteen grands Like, we've got a lot of people around here, but you know, not just my wife and I live here. Fortunately, you know, so we don't have to at our age, we don't have to deal with sixteen screaming kids all the time. Anyway, I get up for the early in the morning, before she does, I like to come in. I got a chair that i'd like to sit in. ID like to leave the lights off. I wanted it as quiet as possible, and I just bow my head and I pray, and

I pray until done praying. It might take five minutes, it might take ten minutes. Whatever I want to share with God, whatever I want to ask God about or tell him, I do. And then I like to sit still for five or ten minutes and just listen. And it's amazing to me how often when there's something that's troubling me that it's you know, and I don't hear a voice. It's people say, oh, God spoke to me. I've never heard a voice, even in my antie, didn't

hear a voice. You just know, answers come sometimes and sometimes they don't come, but it always puts me at peace. So maybe that is the answer. Maybe just the pieces the answer. I have to say. Since we're on the subject, one thing that has distressed me a bit is I've met a lot of people over the last few years that our interests that are involved in the near death experience. A lot of people that I met that I have not had a near death experience but are interested in it.

There seems to be they read a lot, they theorize a lot, They're looking for answer, a scientific proof, you know, they talk about it a lot. And I think all those things are great. I think you know, in my opinion, you know, your your prayer is part of your spiritual life. Your your study and your your search is part of

your spiritual life. But one thing that I see that's uh, I think it's the third leg of it is just living, going out in the world and living and sharing and serving and loving and being loved, you know, the contact with other people. And sometimes I see the n D movement with a lot of study and research and and reading and writing and contemplation, but I think we also have to take the lessons that we learned from the

n d E and act on them. Also, I don't think, you know, when we talk about unconditional love and we talk about, you know, the love that we felt on the other side, I think that that we're we have to share that love. And I think I think the love can be dead if we're not, if we're not touching people with it and we're not sharing it with people.

And when I say sharing it with people, I mean actively getting out in your community and your in your environment wherever you might live, and given that word of encouragement to somebody that that's down on their luck or is having a troubled time, you know, uh, sharing a laugh with somebody, you know, going to stop and bind,

visiting somebody that you haven't seen in a while. I think we learned from each other and we're teaching each other, and that is part of the that's part of the journey that sometimes we don't get involved with as much as we should, where we help each other and others help us. Pat we're going to go in for our last break and when we come back, I want to talk a little bit about service, because it's really great

to learn about the afterlife and near death experiences. But you're right, how do we live our lives and putting this all into action? So we're going to hear more in just a minute from Pat Johnson. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast a M Paranormal Podcast Network. Stare right there. There's more Sandra coming right out. Thanks for listening. Keep it here on the I Heart Radio on Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of

the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain and we're talking with Pat Johnson about his near death experience and what he's learned after. And if you're somebody interested in near death experiences, you've absolutely got to check out our friends at IAN'S which is the International Association for Near Death Studies. For over forty years, they have been collecting stories of people's experiences. They are on the forefront for sharing all information about

the near death experiences. There's always a conference in the late summer. This coming one is going to be in in Salt Lake City. It will be online also in person, and you can find out where your local ions chapters are on the website. You do not have to have had had a near death experience to join. It's a great group of people talking about the afterlife, talking about living life powerfully, and they do lots of things online also. So their website is i ans dot org. So it's

the letter I A and d S dot org. So let's get back to you, Pat. We were just talking about being of service before the break and what are your thoughts about being of service to others and really how to treat other people? I think just acknowledging somebody just saying I see you. You know, you're valued, you know, and and there's many different ways that you can do that. Just a kind smile, thank you, let me get that door for you. So so many ways that we can

do it every day, all the time. And those are the things that lift our spirits and we can give it for free. It doesn't cost us anything, you know, we can every time practically, lem me turn around. You can have a positive effect some somebody. Simple things really do matter. And I do think that for each one of us hearing all these different stories, you know, there's definitely a message that we can take away from it. Yes, and the messages for all of us, for everybody. It's not.

It doesn't exclude one single person walk in the face of this earth. This is all about love and togetherness and connectedness and what we can do for each other. You know, how can anybody not want to live that life? Yeah? And I think to Pat, there's so many different stories that have happened that I've heard of interviewed a lot of people that have had the near death experiences, and

they're different stories with a lot of common themes. But you know, some people, you know, you might have seen the light through the glass and the souls, and some people have seen deceased loved ones, and I mean different There's so many I think, you know, not any human being. Um. I mean there's many different experiences as there are people living this this earth, um, But each one of them matters.

And you can be so inspired about us being souls, having a human experience about what our life is for, and also have the comfort that this life is just part of a much bigger hole. Yeah. And I think we know the lessons, We know the messages. Everybody knows most most of your major religions are based on these themes. But when you experience it with other people, it inspires you,

It makes you more aware of them. It takes it from you know, it helps you take it from a thought or our feeling, and it gives it legs and feed it. It inspires you to make it active in your life, you know. And we need that from each other, you know, we need to inspire each other. And uh, that's the fuel that we need to run on, you know. So you're surrounded by like minded people that want to

make things better and it's a battery recharge. You go out the next day absolutely work with a with a little pep in your step, and it's inspirational to the people that you run into after that. That's why it's so important to stay plugged in and recharge ourselves and have people in our life that speak this same language. It's so important whether you're listening to podcasts, going to a seminar, reading things online, reading books, coming to one

of our live classes. Oh, we've got tons of great things, but it's important to stay plugged into the bigger pictures so you remember who you are. So Pat, I want to thank you so much for being our guest today and ask if you have any closing words. Oh, thank you, Sandrad, Thank you so much for for all the hard work that you do and spreading the messages and and the insights that you've been given and that your guest share

with the public. It's it's just super important. And just I want to remind everybody that's listening, you know, just to fill your heart with love and go out there and spread it and and be aware of what's going on around you and look for those opportunities to encourage each other and to encourage other people around you. Yeah, and it all starts with the four letter word of love. Right. That's yeah, that's right. And we gotta give legs and

feet to it. We got to be out there touching and hugging and patting each other on the back and doing what we have to do to lift people up into the glowing spirits that we all want to be. I've been thinking this week about mother Teresa, and if you were at our most recent Sunday gathering, you would have heard me talking a little bit about her. And if you've been listening to this show, you know we offer a freeze Sunday service that's unlike any other service.

I think it's got a little bit of prayer. Some music videos some readings have be address. We call it words of Inspiration to get you started for the week, and always have a medium demonstration so that members of our online congregation get messages from their loved ones and everybody gets to see that life goes on and your loved ones are only a breath away. They're cheering you

on in life. But last week I had read this quote by Mother Teresa, and our interview with Pat just now just reminded me that everything we learn about the afterlife is for two different reasons. One is to help us through the incredible pain from grief. It is the most horrendous thing any human being will have to go through ever. And the other thing is it helps us live a good life. When we take away that fear of dying and we know that our loved ones are

around us, cheering us on. It's almost like they left for a vague cacation before we can go. We're too busy, still working and we're going to catch another flight, but they left first, so they're there and they'll be waiting for us. Even our pets will be there. But while we're here, we really make the most of it. And as great as it is to look for evidence of the afterlife. What's important is to use the messages like

we just heard from Pat. So I'd like to read to you the Mother Teresa quote that I read this past week on our Sunday gathering. Spread love everywhere you go. First of all, in your own home. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness. Kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness near, warm greeting. And we all have

our own version of God. Whether you want to believe it's a bearded guy sitting on a throne somewhere out there in heaven, or it's the light that is within all of us, that connects all of us, but we all have a sense of this higher power. I have a couple other quotes by Mother Teresa that I just found, and it goes along with what Pat says and about how to live life. This one says, intense love does

not measure, It just gives. You know. What would it be like to go through life and look into somebody's eyes and see the soul behind that person, behind all that baggage or those things that irritate you about them. You know what I mean, Just to see a pure soul and give them love no matter what. Here's another one. Let us always meet each other with a smile. For a smile is the beginning of love. I know we've lived a long time wearing masks, but a smile is

the best accessory going. It really is, and it makes people feel warm. There's so much fear that we have, but just a little smile to say, hey, I see you. And here's the last one. At the end of life, we're going to be judged on the basis of our love for one another. Well, here's a little secret. From all the people I've interviewed and everything I've researched, guess who judges you at the end of your life. Are

you ready for it? It's you. You get to look back on your life, experience a life review of sorts, and experience the different times in your life where you made a difference for another person. If there's times that no, maybe you said something you shouldn't have, or lied or hurt another person, you get to experience it from their perspective. Not as a make wrong, but looking at yourself and your soul. Did you do the right actions while you were here on earth? And if you didn't, what could

you do in the future. You see, when we travel to the unseen world the afterlife, we continue to learn, we continue to love, and we continue to grow. Those things that we didn't end up doing while we were here on earth, we still have an opportunity to do them. Nothing is lost. But if we do have this life review, why not take a look at your life and my life now, clean up the things we need to clean up for, apologize where we must, and have a new slate,

turn over a new leaf. Life is an amazing place and we really can't live it when we have too much baggage on our back. So even forgive yourself. We human beings do the best job we can with what we've got. So there's no sense in stewing in the past, are worrying about the future. Just be present because the present moment. Yes, it is a gift. So a reminder. Our home base is we Don't Die dot Com, where you can find past episodes. You can attend our free

Sunday gathering. You can join us for one of our wonderful online courses or medium demonstrations. And if you go to the store page and you want a copy of my book, We Don't Die as Skeptics Discovery of Life After Death. Just scroll down on that store page and to find the audio book use coupon code free f R E and be my guest. You'll also get VPDF file if you'd rather read it. So in closing, I want to thank our friend Pat Johnson for being here today.

I want to thank you for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network. Thanks for listening to the I Heart Radio and Coast to Coast Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out all our shows on the I Heart Radio app or by going to i heart radio dot com