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Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained ends here. We invite you to enjoy all our shows we have on this network, and right now, let's start with Chase of the Afterlife with the Sandra Champlain.
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast to Coast, am employees of Premiere 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 Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
On each episode, we'll decid us the reasons we now know that our loved ones have survived physical death and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. We were first introduced to the topic of shared deaf experiences back on episode twenty three, talking to William Peters, who runs the Shared Crossing Project. You may also remember talking to doctor Raymond Moody and co author Paul Perry about their latest book on shared deaf experiences back on episode
one fifty one. Today we'll continue our look at shared death experiences as we meet Helen Gretchen Jones. By day, she and her husband run a photography, film and lighting company in Austin, Texas. She's also a mom and a death doula, having volunteered hundreds of hours by the bedside of those passing with an organization called NODA, which stands
for No One Dies Alone. As a child, Gretchen had a special relationship with wise voices who would talk to her, and attributes that to spending much time alone and what we now call a meditative state. I ask that while you listen today, you engage your own imagination as she tells you some of her stories. Gretchen has recently written a book called Healing Whispers from Spirit Guides, bridging the gap between life and the afterlife with a death Dula's Wisdom.
I first met Gretchen six or seven years ago at a medium workshop in New Orleans. She's a kind and beautiful soul for sure, and be sure to listen to the end. She's got some great advice and what we can all do to slow down and bridge the two worlds. Here's Gretchen.
I am in Central Texas and I am married with a couple of kids, but I do death doula work, which is a little outside of social norms. A death doula is someone who holistically helped someone transitioned to the other side. I think it's a growing need with the changing shifts in our healthcare system. A lot of times nurses used to be able to have the time to sit bedside, and now they have so much red tape
and paperwork. It's very helpful now to have someone else that can come in and sit beside people who are transitioning. And I think that's where the death doula can come in and really help there. And so it's one of my favorite things that I get to do, and I am just so honored to be able to sit bedside with some of these patients.
How did you first get involved in that, because it's not the average person that says, gee, i'd like to do this.
Well, I've always had a connection with spirit my whole life, so that has always been a natural part of my own perspective of the world. But in twenty fifteen, my father transitioned and it was unexpected for a lot of people in my family. He had Cross of the liver and he was only in his fifties, so it sort
of took the family by surprise. There wasn't closure, and a lot of people had a lot of unsaid things, especially my sisters, around his death, and it just made me think, Wow, if there was a way that I could sit with families and help them find closure, find peace before their loved one transitions so that other families don't have to experience what my family did, or if there was a way to help people to transition so they don't feel that fear around death, that would also
be something I would like to be a part of. And through a series of their indipitous events, I came across certification as a death duela and I just dove right in and I haven't looked back since.
Those first days must have been tough, you know, we have that feeling that we want to do something, and I know there's a lot of joy within hospice, but you also get to know people and then they.
Depart, so with hospice. That's where it is the hardest, because you do form those relationships with loved ones. They become your family. Sometimes I've had patients last as long as five years on hospice. I also volunteer with NOA, which is a no one Dies Alone program, and in that situation, you only know these people for one to three days typically, so it's a much shorter time. But at first I thought I really needed to be the
strong one. I needed to not cry, I needed to have the answers, I needed to have it all together whenever I sat with these people and their families. But that really takes a toll on you because it is an emotional situation that you're sitting in. Once I allowed myself to be free to experience exactly what I was experiencing in the moment, and I do tear up with every one of my patients. It made not only the patient,
but the family feels safe to be vulnerable. Also. They all break down and then they say what they need to say. They find that strength within themselves to say those final words that maybe they're holding up. They don't want to appear weak or as a burden often and so they hold it all in. But if one person breaks down, then everybody else starts to and it's the
most beautiful thing to unfold. So long apply that resistance, trying to be the strong one, I allow what is to just happen, and it's amazing how everyone seems to open up. It's also important to note that the fear around death is often just after and before we are diagnosed with the terminal illness. The fear seems to go away in that final week. There seems to be a shift as that person moves into two worlds at once.
They start to see things and they start to have moments of peace and moments of hey, maybe it's not so scary after all. And it's the family who hangs on to this fear around death while the other person is moving into accepting it and recognizing loved ones at the bedside. So the fear is what we put on ourselves before death and when we first receive eterminal illness. But when we actually start the process of transitioning, that
fear releases, and it really is beautiful. So I have witnessed people standing outside their bodies, other beings of light, angelics, other family members. I've actually had shared experiences where I go part way into the spirit world with some of my clients and patients. I'm a believer, but I'm absolutely open to it, which is I think why some of
these experiences are happening so frequently for me. It's actually maybe too why I'm a death doula, because there's such a moment of joy that I get to experience at the bedside, so it doesn't fill me with all this sadness the way maybe some other people might perceive it. It's glorious. I would say. One story that I'm really enjoying sharing right now is a story about Missus Wilma.
And Missus Wilma was on the NODA program. When you volunteer with NOTA they send out an email just like an email blast to everybody, and you fill up a time slot in three hour time shifts. I signed up. I went down to the hospital and sat with Missus Wilma, and on my way there, I knew that I was going to be visiting an elderly woman, and I knew that she had family, but that her family wouldn't be able to make it in. When I got there, that was validated, and I think the reason spirit gives me
that information. They give me off times a age or a race or a gender is just so that when I arrivee and it's validated, I know that I'm tuned into spirit. So I think that's why they give it to me. So I knew when I showed up there she was, it was validated. And I sit down. She looks so peaceful already, and I start my own little ritual of like prayer and intention, and I place my hands on her hand, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a little girl walk in. And
then it occurred to me. She was in black and white. It's a younger version of Missus Wilma. She's probably twelve or thirteen years old. She's wearing her Sunday best. She's, you know, got her hair twisted in little pigtails. And she walks over to me and takes my right hand. My left hand is holding elderly Missus Wilma's hand. When this happens, the entire hospital room transforms into this forest. So I am aware that I am in two worlds at once. I'm very much aware that I am observing
elderly missus Wilma in the hospital room. I'm aware of the navy blue chair that I am sitting in, and then I'm simultaneously aware of standing in this forest holding young Missus Wilma's hand, and I had this amazing feeling that I was bigger than my body, bigger and free, this amazing feeling of freedom. If you put me in a bigger room, I would have been bigger than that room.
It was just the most glorious feeling. And then I had this knowing that there was an overarching theme in Missus Wilma's life where separation was the main part of one of her big lessons or experiences she wanted to have. So in her childhood there was a whole lot of segregation. She lived through that, and then now in death she's dying without her family, so separated again, and so this was a big part of her learning experience. So as we're standing in this forest, she tells me, we're going
to climb this tree. Young Missus Wilma does and just by thinking about it, We're at the top of the t and I can see full three sixty even though I'm just staring straight ahead, and she tells me that this tree is a life. But if we look more closely. Every single root on this tree is a life. Every single root that branches off of another roof is its own little life. Every branch is its own life, every branch branching off that branch is its own life. Every
single leaf is its own life. And yet it's all connected, and it's all in service to the greater whole of this tree. And then if we pull back even further, this tree is not just one life. It's part of this whole forest. And if we pull back even further, this forest is part of an entire ecosystem. And it was as though she had this final moment and a student to teach that we aren't separate, that we are all connected, even though we perceive ourselves to have all
individual lives. And so in this last final moments of her life, she took the opportunity to teach from her experience of separation and segregation to teach this moment of unity and connection of all things. So that was one of my favorite experiences. And as she took her final breath, I'm holding her hand with my left hand in the hospital, and missus Wilma's holding my right hand, and it was just this glorious moment of just unity and it was so beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that. Now, it's not the average person that might pick up on that. So I want to get into some of your beliefs about the afterlife. I know you've been trained as a medium, intuitive hypnosis, reikie, past life regressions, theology. There's a lot to you. So to everyone who's listening right now, you just didn't walk in and ooh all these things happened. You're open to it.
Do you want to talk a little bit about your history and how you first started believing in a bigger picture, believing in the afterlife, believing in the soul. When I was very little, I would hear a voice. And I could be four or five, we're talking very.
Very young, and the voice was very helpful, and it was always guiding me. I just assumed everyone heard this voice or had this voice. The voice was sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine, but it always came from the same place somehow. When I would get overwhelmed as a little girl, I would go sit in an empty bathtub, close the bathroom door, and I would just focus on the silence, and sometimes the voice would find me. In those moments of silence
and sometimes not. My family was not religious, nobody practiced anything. They weren't spiritual.
E there.
What I know I was doing now was the form of meditation, but my family would not have known what that was even then. It was just something I was doing. When I would see spirit and I would share that with my family, it was dismissed. My dad used to say, I believe you believe that's what you saw. The experiences with spirit were so beautiful and so comforting and so transformative. I never questioned if they were real.
We need to take a quick break and we'll be right back with Gretchen Jones. You're listening to of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast, a m paranormal podcast network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain and we're here with Helen Gretchen Jones, a death doula, and she was just sharing about being a little child and hearing the most beautiful voices when her mind was quiet. Let's continue.
The experiences with spirit were so beautiful and so comforting and so transformative. I never questioned if they were real, but it did make me question the wisdom of my parents, if I could trust their teachings, because it didn't make me think, oh, I must have imagined that, because I knew it was real, I thought, oh, are they not experience that? And then I started being more mindful over
who I shared those experiences with. Once I went to college and graduated, went to grad school, got married, had kids, I really put this on the back burner. I focused on all the amazing things that this physical life had to offer, and I was going full force. I did not want to take time for any kind of spiritual stuff. But my team and spirit started coming around and started
wanting me to focus on compassion. I think one of the things when we're really young children, teenager, and even into our early adulthood, were so self focused because we
have to for survival. We have to learn what our family wants so that we can be accepted, and then we change who we are so we can fit into that family, and then we do that with our friends through middle school and high school, and then in college you're starting out and you're like, who am I as a young adult, so you're still so self focused, and my team and spirit decided it was time for me to move from that self focused attitude and move into
a more compassionate way of viewing the world. And they would always remind me put yourself in their shoes, not how you would do something different, not to try to fix your circumstance, but just put yourself in their shoes. And that's it. Trying to help me understand what someone else was going through. And so, with the help of who I call a team, my team and spirit, I started allowing their teachings to change my perspectives around life.
But I've always had a spiritual connection. I even studied in college art history and theology. I was looking for the answers like if my parents didn't have them, who would I had to be out there, And the more research I did, the more questions I had over and over.
And I think that the most important thing that we can all do, where we can all start is by turning inward and trusting our own connection to our own higher self or spirit or God or universe energy, whatever word works for you, it's all the same, really, So if we're tuning into that, we can start to navigate our own challenges with a little more grace and peace by connecting to what we can trust absolutely.
When did reiki and mediumship come into the picture. It all happened really so fast. I had this idea after I became a death dealer that I would help out with green funerals and green burials and things like that. And I thought I was going to something like that, like a conference, and I actually found myself at a conference.
It was a bunch of mediums. They were there, and I'm like, where am I? I thought I was at this funeral thing. And then I started thinking, well, mediumship and then I hear people doing reiki. Right after that, I was taking that mediumship workshop in Louisiana where we first met, and it just unfolded all so quickly, and I just was so thirsty for as much knowledge as I could get. I started taking courses and everything because
I wanted to know more. So I got certified and everything as quickly as I could.
I'm ever so proud to have that first conversation in Louisiana to where you are today. I know you just put the book out, which is fantastic. Congratulations. It is a labor of love. It was tell us about it, what can we find? What is it about? And maybe some stories from your book.
Sure. So a few years ago, I was laying in bed and I heard a voice outside. So normally I hear the voice of my team and spirit inside my head. This one came right in front of my face from outside my head, and it said, you're going to write a book. And I was like, write a book? Are you sure?
Like?
I don't feel qualified. Surely, I didn't have anything worth saying that someone would want to read. That was sort of my idea, and they said it will take two and a half years to complete and write. What you know, I didn't know what to write about, had no idea. What do I know? I know a little about a lot of things, but I didn't feel like an expert in any one field. And then it did occur to me that my favorite thing that was happening were the
transformative bedside experiences of my patients. And I'd already journaled all the experiences I'm having, and so I referred to those journals and compiled them my favorite ones into this book. Every other chapter is one of my patient stories, and the preceding chapter is something that I've learned from Spirit and something that I've learned through the process of working with spirit and people who are dying, and then I would put a relatable story of one of my patients
as they transitioned. So it's really a teaching book and then beautiful stories. I end every chapter with a channeled message from my team and spirit a team, so it's this kind of compilation of all the beautiful things happening. I can share one story that's a little out there, but it is one that happened fairly recently. It is one that I'm hoping will happen more times for me. I was out late, later than I normally am, and I see on my email that there's a request for
a note of visit. I had a feeling that I should be there for this person, but it was already so late. It was after midnight. I was so tired. I just wanted to go to bed. But I looked on the schedule to see what timeslots were available, and although I did see there was a six am shift and that was just a few hours away. But I thought, Okay, if I'm supposed to be there, guys, I'm talking to my team in spirit. If I'm supposed to be there, you guys are going to have to wake me up.
I'm not sitting in alarm, and it's going to have to be like at four point thirty for me to get ready in time and get down there. At four twenty eight, I wake up and I have the song playing in my head. It's called Colors by the Black Pumas. The song lyrics are talking about the meadows of green and the trees and the blue skies, and I'm like, oh, this is going to be relevant somehow, and I look at the clock. I'm like, all right, guys, I'm signing up. I hop in the car, so I drive into the
hospital and I turn on the radio. Colors by the Black Pumas is playing again, and I'm just like, oh, this is going to be a thing, okay, And I have a sudden realization that my patient will be male, he will be having issues around anxiety, and he would be black.
Well.
At that time, I was having panic attacks. They came out of nowhere. They were really, really scary if you haven't had them. And I was a little worried about that anxiety because sometimes I feel like if I watch it, it might trigger one. So I was like, Okay, let's see what's going to happen. I get there and mister Virgil, he is male, he is black, and he is having panic attacks over and over, ninety seconds of peace followed
by like thirty seconds of panic. So it was hard to watch if you are unaware of the spiritual aspect happening bedside and you're just focused on the physical. So I sit down with him, I put my hands on him, trying to bring him peace, and when I realized that wasn't working, I decided to connect to him more on the spiritual level. And as I did, once again, the hospital room transformed into the most beautiful scene that you can imagine. It was a green meadow. There were all
these big, bright flowers. They were bigger and brighter than any flower that I've ever seen on earth. And there was like a forest straight ahead and off to the right a little bit, and everything emanated light from within every blade of grass, every flower, every tree. It's like light came out of it. And everything had a sound. It was as though it had a humming or a tone of some sort. I really can't explain it, but
it was musical. Didn't have a beat, but there was this music somehow out of every single thing, and it was just glorious, and I recognize that I'm standing in this field right next to mister Virgil. So again I have this awareness that I am sitting bedside mister Virgil in the hospital, holding his hand. And also mister Virgil and I are standing together in this magnificent field of light and color and sound, and I know that we have to walk through the forest as part of our journey.
I can hear a party happening over there, and this is very, very common. There's always a welcome home party that's happening for our loved ones, and these can vary from small picnics in a park to something grand in some kind of ballroom. And it's always fun to see which kind of party my patient's going to be having, because it gives me a lot of insight to who they are or what they like that maybe I didn't
realize in their physical life. So we start walking towards the forest, and all of a sudden, I feel mister Virgil have just a real rush of apprehension. Fear comes through him, and he didn't want to enter the forest. It's like he knew once he entered and went into that welcome home party, which I can see his mom
at I don't know what seemed final for him. So just then a being of light comes out of the forest and she is blue and white light, and she is absolutely gorgeous and just peace rushes over you when you see her. And it was me. I was the being of light. I don't know how now I am in three places at once. This is the only time this has ever happened. But we are multi dimensional beings after all, and so I'm thinking that this is how this all relates. I am physically in the room with
mister Virgil as his body is shutting down. I am observing all of this happening from the field of flowers with mister Virgil, and I'm also the me of light coming from the forest to aid him through his journey through the forest. So it was and continues to be the most astounding experience so far as he's having all this apprehension, I bring a gift out of I don't
know nowhere. I resent him with a small gift, and it's a little box wrapped in a purple ribbon, and I explained to him that this is his gift of life, and that inside this little box is every experience he has ever had, as mister Virgil, and he's like, I don't think I can go in there to the forest because I have sinned and I have so many things that I'm regretful of and things I shouldn't have done. I, the me of Light, had this unconditional love for him,
an unconditional love I have never felt before. I love unconditionally, but this was different. It didn't matter what he did, it didn't matter who he was, it didn't matter any of that. I loved him so much. It just was all in this box, like it was just experience and that was it. There was no judgment at all. I've projected somehow that he was safe and that he was loved, and nothing like that mattered. And he agreed to enter the forest, and so he goes with the Mea of Light.
The other Mee stays in the field of flowers, and yet I'm watching, somehow observing them as they walk through the forest, and I'm also present as the Mea of Light, very much aware of walking with him through the forest.
Suddenly again he has this wave of fear come over him, and I get really really big, the Mea of Light does, and I scoop him up like he's a baby, and I hold him and I rock him and I kiss the top of his head, and the entire forest I don't know fades away and it becomes a backdrop of stars, and it's like we're in space somehow, and I'm holding him until he felt ready again to go on the trip, and then I put him back down. We're back in
the forest and we continue our journey. As we get to the edge of the forest, we can see the party and he decides he's not re ready to go in yet and wants to sit down. Oh one more thing I forgot to mention. He asks the Me of Light what's going to happen to my nephew and my uncle? And the Me of Light rejects to him potential possibilities and outcomes for both of these people. But when that happens, my awareness wouldn't let me see what was being projected
as the Me of light. It shot back to the observer in the field.
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Pironormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain, and you're listening to how Gretchen Jones talking about a patient she was with before he passed, mister Virgil comforting him in the share death experience of a forest.
He sat on the log and he decided you needed a minute to take time before he went into the welcome party where his mom was waiting and other people. Just then a nurse comes in and I all of a sudden shoot back to my physical self, and she's chatting about the bachelorette party she's about to go to for the weekend and get in his vitals, and I just thought it was so funny. She's interrupting at homecoming party talking about the bachelorette party, and it was just
so interesting and how everything was just all connected. She has no idea that she's left him about to transition right there on the edge of the forest, or that I was in three worlds at once, all at one time. It was time for me to leave on that shift, and I really wanted to stay. That the next volunteer had shown up, and so I allowed them to stay. And as I was leaving, that's when mister Virgil finally walked into the welcome home party. But it was one
of the most profound experiences I've ever had. I'm looking forward to having more of those.
Incredible. So you're saying that's when he passed just shortly after, Yes, probably at peace. Wow, So you experienced these And if I was a skeptic, I would say those all sound great that you experience them, But have you received any verified information. I don't not believe you, because I do. I think we are multi dimensional beings. I've heard just some incredible stories and when we slow down, when we study psychic and mediumship and explore what's possible, I know
your real gift to people as a death duela. But if there was somebody skeptical saying, well, these are your experiences, how do we know.
So for a lot of people, unless they're having a near death experience where they can come back and verify, if they're all the way transitioning, then it's very difficult to prove. But I can say that these people have similar experiences even with people not who are dying, but who have Alzheimer's dementia or a condition at birth that kept them from being nonverbal. So even if they're not transitioning, yet they step out of their bodies very very frequently.
And I have been able to work with families through some of these situations, and when I explain something like, hey, they're telling me this, or hey, they're telling me that through Alzheimer's or dementia, or even one case which I haven't written about, will call him Eric. Eric is a male in his twenties. He's quadriplegic, and at two years old he developed a condition that made him nonverbal. His mother hired me because they were told that he was
probably going to be transitioning soon. So I was coming in to sort of be a death duela for the family and for him. And I would like to say he's still going, he's still here as of now, but because he's nonverbal, there's been some situations with the family where family has different ideas of how they want to proceed with him. And so he was able to very clearly tell me certain things that were uncomfortable, that were
causing pain. I relayed this information to the family because he's standing outside his body, He's right there, and I tell this to the family and they're like, no, no, that doesn't make sense, No, that doesn't make sense, and I'm just like, Okay. Well, she calls me a few days later, she goes, well, we went ahead and took him into the doctor just in case, and you're right, he had this going on with his body on that side.
He had this going on with that body. And I'm just like, yeah, because he's saying it, he's standing outside his body. He's right there. So without giving away his help, I haven't thought how to word some of this because of the privacy of the family and the fact that
they're still around. But the fact that they had no idea this was going on within their son's body or their brother's body, and then it was validated a few days later when they decided just to go check it out at the hospital was very validating to the fact that he was communicating very clearly and very fac actively.
He had some other things that he wanted to negotiate with the families on how relationships were unfolding with them and how his purpose has been in one way or another to unify the family, and he feels like it's difficult for him to move on with everyone fighting over how he should be moving on. So a lot of that got resolved after they had it validated, and so that was very helpful and healing. So even people who aren't dying who later can have the evidence validated is
really really helpful. When I'm helping someone transition, I'm really focused on how to make that transition more peaceful and embracing all of the spiritual and physical experiences that go along with that. So for me, it's very very real. And I have dealt with many families who don't maybe believe in this type of situation, and so it's not
my job to convert them. Why would I ever want to know, But it is my job to bring peace, and so we can navigate or maybe shift how we were things so that it brings peace to the family as well.
Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, it's so difficult. There could be so much family baggage. And you and I both have done our share of psychic and medium work, and the stuff that we think is our imagination. When it gets confirmed and it's not, you just think, oh my gosh, you know, how can this be? And so to be that and be that for the dying person, whether or not someone believes, And it isn't your job to try
to convince someone. Can you talk about the welcoming as a dying person, what might tend to happen, whether we believe or not believe.
Sure, in every case that I've experienced so far, there has been a welcome party of sorts, and there's music, there's decorations, there's loved ones, even people maybe that we loved that we didn't have in this physical life. We know them from another time in space. So there's all sorts of people congregating to welcome you home. You're the guest of honor. The amount of excitement that I feel is more excitement than I have felt at any surprise
party or at any gathering. It is overwhelming. It's so joyous. My grandmother when she transitioned, she was giving her team in spirit where she was talking to her loved ones who went before her. She was telling them exactly what she wanted. She was always in control. She planned events and parties for our families. So she was very much into event planning, and so she was telling them exactly
what she wanted before she died. She's like, all right, guys, when I get over there, I'm going to want to be on a golf course. So when I go over there, so she wanted it to be at the country club. She wanted it to be casual, she wanted everybody there. She was talking about every way she can plan it. So she was planning her own homecoming party. My other grandmother was completely different. She had a little bit of fear around dying. And her welcome home party was something
I hadn't seen. But my grandfather was sitting outside of a dela livery room in a hospital and she was going to be delivered into the other world. And back then, men weren't allowed in the delivery room, so he was waiting outside the door. So that's how it was. He was waiting for her to be delivered into this world. And down the hallway, just a couple of doors down was this all white, bright room that was so bright
it was just light and all of these people. I saw him open the door and tell everybody it's time. And when he did that, I could see some of her children, I could see some of her siblings. I saw people that I didn't even recognize, and they were all just anticipating just the best time with her. And it was as though it was in a delivery room. So what an unusual party, But it was something that
sort of suited that grandmother. It was like being rebirthed into something, and so that worked for her, whereas my other grandmother throwing parties for all her life and very controlling. She was telling people what she wanted. When she transitioned and she got it, she was there, she was wearing a visor, just like she would play on the golf course. So these welcome parties, it's a way to have someone
feel loved. It's a way to have someone feel that they're not alone and that this world is not so different than where we're coming from, but it's filled with so much more. I don't know. Just beauty and grace and understanding and freedom is what it feels like. Expansiveness We as human beings, we'll never get our heads around how glorious. The next stage is our returning home. I'll put it that way. I think we're here just for a short time and we go back and like we welcome a.
Baby to this world. I mean, it's a grand celebration and then a death. Although many cultures do celebrate death our Central and South American countries and others here, I know it's fear and I don't want to go and to have loved ones show up. And I've heard many, many stories of people who verbalized who they see and how they see them, and so often they might not even know somebody's deceased, and there they are, and that
feeling of just like I'm going home, you know. So I get it, that rebirth, that big celebration that we're back together again. And I remember my grandmother before she passed one week short of her ninety first birthday, and everybody in her life had died, all of her friends and husband and almost all brothers and sisters. So she wasn't afraid. And she says, when God calls me forth, I can't come fifth. That was her line.
But just getting that reunion.
And I've lived a good life and now I'm ready to go home. I'm ready to see everybody again. And I have full one hundred percent confidence that that's how goes and there and then we get to like, go, oh my gosh, that life will make this life here seem like just a dream.
Yes, yes, absolutely, And when I'm in the other space in between walking with people to their parties, for example, it feels so much more real than when I come back to this reality. This reality feels confined or restricted somehow than when I'm there, and I know that I'm not even experiencing all of it, just a little snippet, but it's so much bigger and brighter, and the light and the sound everything is just somehow more amazing and more intense than it is here here. I feel not trapped,
that's not a good word. I want to be here, but limited a little bit. And we aren't limited. We are limitless, and we are perceived limited I think by our brains that kind of shut out some of our otherworldly experiences that are happening right here with us right now.
If you're having these experiences, tells me other people can have these experiences.
Yeah, how can we begin now?
I know not everybody wants to be a death doula, or maybe this will open the door for some volunteers with NODA no one dies alone. Wouldn't that be great coming out of this great episode? But how do we start? Is it meditation? Is it being present? Is it a prayer? What advice would you give all of that?
So meditation often comes with a little bit of apprehension for some people who just absolutely say I cannot meditate, and so I sometimes say, well, then, don't call it meditation, right, call it sitting in silence or closing your eyes is really helpful to remove some of those distractions in your physical reality.
I would say start now. I'm going to pause right now, because in the next segment Gretchen will go on in even more detail about how we can each slow down connect with our imagination, which, as it proves, may not be our imagination to our loved ones in the shared death experience. So we'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast and Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of
the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain and we're here with Helen Gretchen Jones. As she's just beginning to explain how we can each tap in to the other side and possibly have a shared experience.
Sitting in silence or closing your eyes is really helpful to remove some of those distractions in your physical reality. I would say start now, Start now. Don't wait until someone's dying. But if you are already in a position where someone has been diagnosed with the terminal illness, again, start now and take time every day and just sit for a few minutes. It doesn't have to be some
overthought process. Just sit quietly for a few minutes, say, set an intention, whatever feels right for you, talk to God, universe, angels, whatever again feels right for you, and you just say, hey, guys, I would like to have a shared death experience. Now I'm going to sit quietly and if you can help me practice receiving information so that when the time comes, I can have one and then write it down. I cannot stress that enough write it down, because you will forget.
And if you go back and you were to do this, even for ten days straight, and you go back and look at day one and then you look at day ten, you're going to be like, I think I'm discerning these messages a little more now than I was when I first started, even just in a short time like that, because at first you start to think, am I making
this up? Everything feels made up? And you know what I say to that, I say, make it up because this world is co created and we are all co creating it together, and your imagination is part of creation. It's part of how we create things. So if you're feeling like you just want to explore what your imagination can do visually. That's an excellent way to open the door to spirit leading you to impressions. Absolutely feel like you're making it up. Go for it, and this is
a good way to start. And then when you allow yourself to move past that a little bit, you'll start to have discernment over what is actually coming in as an impression from spirit and what you're creating. A good way to tell is if you're creating it, you take time in your head to kind of think about what you want to create. I want to see a blue sky, I want to see a waterfall. Now, if it's being given to you, all of a sudden, you just see blue sky, waterfall, green meadow. It all comes in super
fast like a download, bam. The more you practice, the more you start to recognize what's made up and what's not. And even someone who's been doing this a long time, I've been doing it for several years now. And just like when Eric's family told me, no, that's not right, I left feeling a little defeated, like how did I mess this up? I really missed the mark here, and I felt like I had failed the family, And so I was really grateful when they called back a few
days later to validate those things coming through. So even people who are doing it all the time feel like, am I making this up? Did I interpret that message correctly? That's part of it. That's okay. Allow yourself to experience, and as you practice that, when the opportunity comes for a shared death experience, you're already open to spirit. You've already learned what it feels like to allow the outside distractions to fall away, and you can be open to
what comes through. So I would say practice solitude and writing it down good words.
I was on an interview earlier this morning. Somebody was interviewing me and I talked about my first medium experience and I was one hundred percent accurate with names, places, everything. Wow, my very first experience. Though I was told that I wasn't doing a medium rating and I was pretending just
to get the hang of it. So the words were invent that there's someone standing behind her partner, Invent what they look like, invent what details about their life, and invent that there's a message that they want to share. I just invented a man standing behind my partner who was a grandfather on her mom's side. His name was Jan. He was a fisherman in Denmark. Died of lung cancer, a big gap between his front teeth. Never told her mom, his daughter that he loved her and wanted her to
pass on that information. And I opened my eyes having invented that, and she was crying. Her grandfather's name was Jan, fisherman in Denmark, gap between his teeth, died of lung cancer, and she always knew that. Her mom was never as told I love you, He didn't hug and all that. So that imagination is the most powerful force. Even Einstein has some great quote about imagination is the most important tool we have. So anyone right now, get rid of the words, oh, it's just my.
Imagination, because your imagination can be magic, it can be Let that go. Yeah, do you have any tools in your new book about helping people?
It's not just filled with stories, right right? What's in there that can impact somebody who's reading it their life right now, whether they're dying or not.
So one of my favorite things that I like to tell people is what it feels like, at least for me oftentimes, to connect with spirit. If I were to have you close your eyes right now and imagine the beach and feel the sand beneath your toes and the water, hear it crash up on the shore, maybe hear the cry of the seagull, and feel the breeze, you know, coming over your skin or through your hair. But at the same time, you're also aware that you're sitting right
where you are. So that's what it feels like to be in two worlds at once. Sometimes it could feel so subtle, like that I am at the beach and yet I'm in this chair, and that is easy for us to dismiss. Sometimes it can feel like a memory or a thought or something that's right on the tip of our tongue, but we're not quite there. That's what
sometimes connecting to spirit feels like. Whenever we do it enough, though, and we become familiar, those images of the beach become more vibrant, and they become more real than us sitting in our chair. That takes practice, but when it first is happening, it feels like a memory or just a
thought that you're creating. But thoughts have power. So I would say to not dismiss the experiences and to recognize wherever you want to be imagine that you're there, and that is the start of being in two worlds at once. And it can feel really subtle like that, and to not dismiss it. That's one of my biggest, I think beginner teaching things.
And that's in the book Healing Whispers from Spirit Guides, Bringing the Gap between Life and the after Life with a Deaf Doula's Wisdom. Can we talk about our teams? Do we all have a team? Do we all have a spirit team? Are there people up in me on my mission right now?
Yes, of course we all have a team. I call my team a team. I called them eighteen. That was the name that came to me, and then my husband reminded me of a crime fighting group from the eighties. I think with mister T. They were called the eighteen. It's a little bit before my tie, but not too much. I remember mister T. He's you know, I pity the fool, you know. So then I thought, oh my gosh, I have chosen a lame name, like I don't want this to be my team's name. And so I said, all right, guys,
I want to change your name. I want it to be something that means oneness or unity, and I want it to be something singular, and I want it to more represent a collective. And so I was like, balls in your court, here we go. And I left right after that to take my cat to the vet. And as I'm pulling into the vet, all the parking places are being blocked by a delivery of a temporary dumpster and it's a green dumpster, and in big white letters it said a team on the side of the dumpster.
And I was like, okay, you guys, I guess we're sticking with a team. And it was in that moment that I realized that A is singular and it does mean one in the English language, and that it implies we are a team. We're a team together and they need me as much as I need them, and so
a team stuck. So I'm not trying to rip it off of the crime fighting heroes from the eighties, but that's my team and spirit, and my team in spirit tells me that we all have a team in spirit, we all have helpers and guides, and they may not all just be ancestors. A lot of people think that their team and spirit is people that they've lost their grandmother, their dad, Things like that, and it can be it
can be your ancestors. But in my experience, when I tune into other people's teams and spirit, there's alternate beings. There's angelics or what I perceive to be angelics. There's masters or what we perceive to have masters on our team. I think that spirit takes forms based on what we need so that we can more easily connect. Because for me, knowing a name for my team and spirit, being able to call certain voices that I hear a specific name really helps my human self to be able to call
upon a certain spirit to connect to. So a team has several members and I will talk to them individually. And when I meet other people who have their teams, I have found that they feel it's easier to connect once they assigned them a name or a physical appearance in their mind. So, yes, we all have a team and spirit. And if you're wanting to connect to yours, there are so many amazing meditations out there that allow
you to practice connecting to your team and spirit. And don't be dismissive if you barely imagine that beach but it's a person, go for it and just say, all right, that's one of my guides.
Great. Thank you. When you talked about the beach, yes, I had my eyes closed. I was there. I could feel the sand between my toes. But it reminded me of some loved ones I have that are in the spirit world. I could be say, editing a podcast, asked, or paying the bills or something, and suddenly I get this memory and the feeling of things that we've done together. Don't discount those anyone. Those are little calling cards from our loved ones. I think working the same way, right, that's.
So well said, little calling cards from our loved ones. I love that, and they are working the same way, and that's how you receive information. So are you very visual? Are you visual?
Per science? Yes?
Yeah, that's how they're working with you.
Thank you so much. Well, our time is just about up for today. What closing words do you want to share with our listener today? Maybe a little gemstone they can use in their life right now today or whatever you want to share.
Oh, there's so much. I suppose I would say that the power of your entire life is right now. Everything is in this present moment. Everything, every choice that you've ever made leading up to this moment, you can let that go. Everything about your future, you can let that go. What do you want to do right now? How do you want to live right now? If there are things that you haven't said to your loved ones, if there are avenues to open up conversation with loved ones, it's
time to take steps to do that. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. Death comes for the healthy and the sick, the old and the young, and none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. So if you can go to bed tonight thinking it would be okay, then you're living your life just right where you should be.
Thank you to our wonderful guest, and if you'd like to see her, you can simply visit her website, Helen Gretchen Jones dot com. Our loved ones are only a thought, a breath, a heartbeat away, and I know we all want big signs that they're around. But again, don't say it's just my imagination. Pay attention to where those thoughts and images and memories and shared time times together seem to come out of the blue and into your mind. That's them saying I'm right here with you. Don't forget.
Come visit me at Weedn'tdie dot com. Join a free Sunday gathering with medium demonstration. And we have a whole bunch of new events and classes planned on our store page. I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you so much for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going to iHeartRadio dot com.