From Grief To Grace: A Widow's Story Of Healing & Hope. With Vicki Goodman

From Grief To Grace: A Widow's Story Of Healing & Hope.
With Vicki Goodman and Samia Bano

Not sure how to support a loved one through their #GriefJourney? Or struggling with your own #HealingAfterLoss?

Listen now to this interview with Vicki Paris Goodman, #Author to share the insights she received after the loss of her husband Sam in 2019. For instance, Vicki asked, "Is death really tragic?" Vicki says No, not if you believe in a loving god and an exquisitely beautiful afterlife. There's so much more...

Share in our candid dialogue about:

-- Faith, Science, and the Mystery of #lifeafterdeath.

-- What it really means to #FaceDeath, the fear of non-existence, and how shifting beliefs can set us free.

-- How #grief looks different for everyone — and why it’s okay if your #healing doesn’t follow the “expected” path.

-- how Vicki #embracedjoy in the middle of sorrow.

-- And so much more!

Connect with Vicki and get her book now at: https://vickiparisgoodman.com/

#LifeAfterLoss #HealingThroughFaith #AfterlifeBeliefs #WidowsSupport #SpiritualHealing #TurningPainIntoPurpose #InspiredGrief #WidowsHealing #SpiritualAwakening #AfterlifeQuestions #NearDeathExperience #FaithAndScience #AfterlifeMystery #griefawareness #lossofalovedone

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

Here's the audio version of this episode:

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Full Video Transcript

SAMIA: Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry! I'm so happy to be with you guys again. And I know you'll be so happy you've joined us today because we have a very awesome guest with us and we'll be having a very meaningful conversation. And our guest today is Vicki Paris Goodman, who is an author. And you know, we are going to be talking about one of your books today. You have written more. But before we get into all of that, welcome, Vicki. I'm so happy you're with us…

VICKI: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Samia.

SAMIA: Yes. And Vicki, please tell us more about who you are and what you do.

VICKI: Okay. Well, I'm retired these days in the mountains of central Arizona, but I'm a Los Angeles girl. I was born there and lived the first, well, many decades of my life there. I was, I'm a retired mechanical engineer. I was a theater reviewer on the side for over 20 years in long Beach, California. And I sing and I play violin semi professionally. So I'm having a fun retirement environment, you know, doing all these things that I love. And I've been traveling some as well. And one of the other things I've done is I've written two books since I retired a few years ago, one of which, as you said, we will be discussing today. And it's called To Sam With Love, A Surviving Spouse's Story of Inspired Grief.

SAMIA: Thank you so much again for taking the time to be with us. And I'm so looking forward to our conversation. I'm so happy to hear that you're having a fun retirement that you're getting to do so many things that you love to do. That's awesome…

VICKI: Yeah, it is great. And a lot of the reason for that is because when my husband, my wonderful husband Sam passed in 2019, I was blessed with quite a few insights which helped me to see death and loss in a completely different way than we are culturally conditioned to view it. And it's really helped me to move on knowing Sam is still around, that his soul didn't die. And you know, that's really what I would like to pass on to you because I want people to see what I see so that they don't grieve so hard and so long. We all lose people, whether it be siblings or friends or parents or a beloved spouse, which... Or a child even. And to be able to See this in a whole new light, I think is very, very important and beneficial.

SAMIA: Yeah. So did you always have this particular perspective that you are finding so helpful now, or is this like something that you came to believe in later on?

VICKI: Yeah, very much the latter. In fact, I was raised in such a secular family. Nobody in my family to this day other than myself believes in anything. You know, you die, you're gone. That's the end of everything. And there's no one that I know of in my family believes in a higher power of any kind. So I consider myself very fortunate to have been blessed with these insights that I received after Sam passed in 2019. Some of them aren't even in the book because a couple of the best ones actually came to me after the book was published. So I have those in some audio episodes online that are free of charge. They're on YouTube. And I. I think you have links that you can post Samia so that people can get to those things. So what happened for me after Sam passed was on the very day that he passed, I was suddenly flooded with optimism. It was unseemly because I thought, wait a minute, Sam was the love of my life. Why am I... Why am I feeling like this, you know, and why am I seeing possibilities for a promising future? I'd be very glad for that a month from now. But today seems a little strange. Well, all putting all that aside, I decided that I had been so strong during our two year ordeal from Sam's diagnosis to his passing, and I'm not the caregiver type, but I took excellent care of him the last two or three months. When he had declined to the point where he needed taking care of, I thought, okay, given those two facts, maybe if good things come, want to come my way, even on the day he passes, maybe I should let them. And so instead of pushing these good things away, decided to just open myself up to whatever wanted to come. And what came was not only the optimism, but opportunities to do things that were fun and interesting, that I would have loved, as I said, to embrace a month hence. But I thought, okay, why not immediately? What's so terrible? If these things want to come my way now, there must be a reason for it. And why should I push them away? So I did. I embraced all of these fun things. I learned I could sing. I didn't know that before Sam passed. That had to do with some friends asking me if I wanted to come and join them at karaoke. And it Turned out I could sing. You know, I had the opportunity, an email came to me to audition for a part in a staged reading at our community playhouse. I thought, well, gee, I reviewed theater for all those years. I'd always kind of thought it might be fun to act. Well, a staged reading where we'll have, you know, scripts on the stage with us. We'll have to know our lines, but we won't have to memorize all of them. Maybe that's the best way to test it out. So I did that. And it was wildly successful too. I lived a really inspired existence for at least a year after Sam passed. And I just am so grateful. Someone recommended I read a book because I had asked about the afterlife. I, having been so secular, hadn't thought about a higher power or an afterlife very much. But now that my Sam was gone, I was curious. I wanted to know if there was a chance he could still be around. So I asked the hospice chaplain about the afterlife and she told me some things. But what she really did was recommend this book about a secular neurosurgeon who had death experience of his own from a brain infection that he had really no way to even. He didn't have a wound of the kind necessary to even allow the infection into his body. And then he wasn't going to survive it. And then miraculously he did with no brain damage whatsoever. The whole story is so divinely inspired. And it brought me the rest of the way to fully believing in God and an afterlife. And I thought, okay, Vicki, this is not going to stick. You know, you are going to start questioning things I never did. I never questioned it. It's been almost six years now since all of this happened and I still fully believe in God in an afterlife. I'm really kind of shocked. So here I am with this newfound spirituality. And so the insights started coming and one of them was, okay, if there is a loving God and a beautiful beyond words afterlife, where souls are surrounded by a love so powerful we can't even begin to imagine it here on earth, then what exactly is so terrible and tragic about death? It didn't make sense to me. The way we awfulize death and the way we grieve so hard and so long. Now there's a big life change when you lose especially someone you shared your home with and your whole life with, like a spouse. Suddenly I'm alone in my house, you know, that I shared with him. So obviously there's a transition and a grief for that life that I once had. Now I have to invent a new life on my own. But the actual grief over the loss I no longer understood after receiving these insights. So that was one of the more powerful ones. And it's actually a message that could start a movement because if people can... And not everyone has this belief system, but I'm finding most people do. Most people believe in a loving God and a beautiful afterlife. And for people who have that belief system, I don't see any reason why they can't somehow counter this cultural conditioning that tells us that death is so tragic.

SAMIA: Yeah, you know, it's interesting you're sharing this perspective because it's something that comes up for me often. You know, as you mentioned, there are many people, many different faith traditions and so forth that share some kind of belief in an afterlife. My personal background is that I belong to a Muslim family. And as a Muslim, you know, we are definitely one of the faith traditions that believes in an afterlife and a loving God. And, you know, we are actually taught very clearly that death in itself is not any kind of tragedy. If first of all, it's just a fact of life. And secondly, you know, we are taught that this life, you're meant to see it, to understand it, to know it as a transitionary phase in our existence. This is not meant to be forever. It never was. And our real life really truly is our after life, the life after this life. That's the truly that's the, you know, insofar as that's the eternal life that are the eternal relationship that we are going towards and going to, that is truly the more more significant life. And so the purpose of this life is really more to prepare us for that life. You know, it's a, like a going back. You know, there is the... I think in, in Christianity also there is a similar saying, but like for an example, in the Muslim tradition, when someone passes away, the first thing that you are taught to say in response, whether it's to yourself or if you're speaking about, like when someone else shares the news of someone else's passing away, the first thing we're taught to say is to God we belong, and to God is our return... And, you know, it's a reminder for us that, yeah, this life is temporary. It's always meant to be like just this way for us to transition. And our deeper reality is that to God we belong and to God is our return. And our return to God is actually a really positive thing. You know, because our God is, our love is a loving God is a God that cares for us and you know, actually wants us to return to God. Not that we are really separated in any absolute way from God even now. I mean, we couldn't exist if you were completely separated from God. But there is a certain, you know, limitation that we experience in terms of how connected we feel to God. But that is a limitation of our human consciousness. It's a limitation of, you know, like the like as humans we are limited and so what we are really doing is... But you know, it's... So really what we are doing is we are training our spirits, our souls to be in greater harmony with God. And so when we no longer have this body, then, you know, you can return to God and be in greater harmony. And you know, so that's actually a really beautiful, beautiful retarding. And this life is meant to help us with that closer relationship that we want to have with, with God, you know, so death in itself from a Muslim point of view, Muslims point of view is not a tragedy in. But you know, we often nonetheless experience a lot of grief when death occurs for various reasons. And I think there is some value to our reflecting on what were... Like, I was just curious like before you came to this perspective, what were some of the things that challenged you about the idea of death that were not so positive for you?

VICKI: Well, one thing is that I was I had always been at least a little bit afraid to die because I thought that's all there was. I remember when my father was dying, he was in his early 80s and he couldn't speak anymore that day. But I remember he looked up at me when I went after work that day to see him because I didn't know how much longer he would live. And he looked up at me with terror in his eyes, sheer terror. And I can't know for sure, but I think he knew he was dying and he was terrified of it because of this secularism that was all he had ever known, like the rest of the family, which is why I feel so blessed to have moved beyond that now. So now I am no longer afraid to die now that I know there is a loving God and a beautiful afterlife. In fact, I just had a birthday. You know, a round number birthday. I'll go ahead and say it, the big seven zero. I'm now 70 and I was making a big deal about this birthday and I couldn't quite figure out why? Because I don't make a big deal about birthdays. I like to do something to celebrate, you know, maybe go out for dinner or something or, you know, or do something fun, but that's it. I wanted a party for this birthday and they gave me one. My friends and a man I've been seeing. But I thought, why? What? There's a meaning here. You got to figure it out. And it finally occurred to me that for me, 70 years was the span of time that constituted a full life. Such that if I were to die the next day, I would still feel like I made it to what I consider a full life. Now, obviously, quality of life matters more than quantity. But I guess I know that I have, for the most part, made the most of my life, so the quality isn't an issue. And so I'm left with quantity. If this makes any sense. I'm not even sure it makes complete sense to me, but this is what I've come up with so far. And this was just a couple of days ago that, you know, the party and all that. So anyway, now I have this lateness of being that I didn't have last week before I reached this birthday. And it's because I feel somehow deep down that I've made it and that everything from now on is icing on the cake and I can relax. If I don't achieve anything more, if I don't write another book or anything that could be considered an achievement.

SAMIA: Yeah.

VICKI: I'm fine because I've done all those things, I've spent my whole life doing them, and maybe I can just do what I want now.

SAMIA: Yeah.

VICKI: And I've never really given myself that permission before. Even when I retired, I didn't give myself permission to just, you know, do whatever I felt like doing after waking up that morning. You know, there was always a goal, there was always an achievement to be accomplished. This is kind of off the subject, but…

SAMIA: Oh, no…

VICKI: ..maybe it kind of ties in.

SAMIA: It does, it does... Because, you know, when we think about being afraid of death, like people being afraid of death, I think it is very much connected to what we believe our life is all about. You know, I mean, even if you have a secular perspective, why be afraid of death? Like if you think you're going to die and that's it, why be afraid of non existence? You know, I mean, personally I find that like, that is not a fear that I've personally ever related to, like the fear of non existence. In fact, in my youth, when I was very traumatized by the way. I used to dream of not having to deal with being alive anymore. Like, I was like, why am I alive? Why am I putting up with all this pain, the suffering, this hurt? I wish I would just be dead and not have to deal with it. Except that in my belief system I couldn't, I couldn't... Like, you know, we are taught that, you know, you because to God we belong. You know, you don't commit suicide, that's a no go because, you know, it is God who has given us life. And God decides when it's time for us to not have this life anymore, for us to transition into the afterlife. And you don't infringe. So it's God's right to decide when this life begins and when it ends. And you don't infringe on God's rights, you know, and so suicide is not considered a positive option. And I was always like, I took these beliefs that were given to me almost for granted, you know, and so I never became actively suicidal. And that was maybe one of the reasons why, among other things. But I never was found myself afraid of non existence. I was not happy with existing in a state of suffering. And so yeah, I was like, you know, if I have to exist, I wish I didn't have a body. And because for me my body was source of pain and suffering and so I spent a lot of time wishing that I didn't have a body anymore.

VICKI: Yeah. You know, you bring up a really interesting point that I've never given a lot of thought to, you know, maybe even from a secular point of view. What's so terrible about non existence? I haven't received any, any insights on that. So, you know, I can't really expound on it too much, but it's sure certainly an interesting way of thinking that I really haven't done.

SAMIA: Yeah, I mean I think I've heard some people talk about the fear of the unknown, that death in some ways is the ultimate unknown. And so there, and we have a tendency to really have a strong fear of the unknown. And so yes we do manifests in terms of like when we think about death, the fear of the unknown manifests as a fear of death. So I guess it's like, all right, okay, maybe that is something but like, but if you're thinking about just non existence, there's no like what's the unknown there to be afraid of. It's just you cease to exist. So there's really like, for me, non existence doesn't seem anything to be afraid of. But I'm thinking like, maybe there's also like a sense of attachment to life that people have, and so they just don't want life to end. And maybe that's why also so many people are so like, especially I've, you know, I've heard a lot of people say, like, as you get older and older and you know you're going to die, people become more and more concerned about leaving a legacy, for example, because they're like, well, we know our bodies will be gone at some point, but we want to leave something behind off us that can continue. And so how can we do that? You know? And so that's one of the reasons I hear people give for why they want children. It's like you want to have your child and then you want to make sure you have a grandchild so that that's a way for you to continue to exist. And other people think of other ways in which they want to leave legacies so that something of them continues to exist. So it seems like part of the tragedy people feel around death is also this need to want to continue to exist.

VICKI: Right, right. You know, it's funny what you said about leaving a legacy. You know, I didn't have any children of my own. Maybe my books are my children, you know, my legacy. Food for thought.

SAMIA: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it's very interesting because I've also never personally related much to this idea of wanting to leave something of me behind. Like, I don't have children either. And I don't feel any pang of regret when I think about it in the context of, oh, who's going to carry on for me? Like, no, I'm not. I'm not... That's not something that concerns me at all.

VICKI: Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, yeah. So what I did with my book, getting back to, you know, Sam and his passing and all these inspired things that happened afterwards, I looked back on it about. I think it must have been about a year and a half to two years after, after his passing. And I thought, you know, this was so unexpected, the positivity, the optimism, all the good things that have happened. The way that even though I grieved, I didn't waste that time. I created, I instinctively created this balance of activities, new things, new experiences, and what I call alone time or quiet time, because I knew I needed to process what had happened in my life with Sam being gone, or at least physically gone. And that really worked for me and I wanted other people to have the benefit of my experience because, you know, you can read these grief pamphlets and which I did, you know, they were given to me by the hospice and others and they tell you all about the cycle. There's a cycle, you know, the cycle of grief. And they tell you, you know, how it manifests itself in most cases, even though every. And it, while acknowledging that everyone's grief is different. My experience was so far removed from what those grief pamphlets stated that I, you know, I began to wonder if they were more of a how to set of instructions than a this is what you can expect narrative. And you know, so there won't be any unpleasant surprises. I mean, it was really strange. So anyway, I wrote the book a couple of years after Sam's passing in order to relate my experience in the hopes. In the hope that it would help others who read about my experience and realized that there is no half do as to how to grieve that the guilt that so many feel is utterly misplaced. And so that they could see one example of how someone moved forward unexpectedly in an unexpectedly positive way and maybe they could figure out how to do that for themselves. So the book is kind of roughly divided into three parts and again it's called To Sam with Love, A Surviving Spouse's Story of Inspired Grief. And the first part, I actually didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But the first part of the book, about the first third is devoted to Sam's life and a little of my own since he was married to me for over 20 years. And so that people would get to know him, so that there would... So that what happened with his diagnosis and eventual death would have more impact. And so the middle portion of the book is devoted to. It begins with the diagnosis, the terminal cancer diagnosis, and then takes us through that two years of treatment until Sam's passing. And there were some very interesting things happened or that happened around the time of his passing. And then the latter third, roughly a third of the book is about all of the really inspired things that happened for me after he died. So that's the book people have said. This is what people have said about it. They said, couldn't put it down. Imagine a first time author, first book, people saying it was a page turner. I couldn't put it down, imagine how that made me feel because I didn't know how people would react to it. You know, they said, and it's not depressing. You know, we thought a topic like this would be so depressing. And there were definitely a couple of sad parts in the middle during Sam's, you know, treatment and his eventual passing. But the vast majority of the book, they said, is funny and entertaining. You know, I tell a lot of stories in it, and they were very well received. So, you know, I'm just, I'm just so grateful I was able to tell this story in a way that people can enjoy reading and not only benefit from, but actually be entertained, maybe laugh a little, you know.

SAMIA: Thank you so much for writing that book and sharing your experiences and wisdom. It's really important, I think, for us to have these different perspectives, because you're absolutely right. You know, there are these dominant patterns in terms of what people experience or expect to experience, but no pattern holds for everyone. There is always people for whom their experience is different. And I think it's really important for us to have an awareness of this range of different experiences that people have, because part of it is about. Allows us to give ourselves permission to feel like to feel what we are feeling and to know that it's okay. There's a lot of... I can imagine, you know, a lot of people, who... If they felt some sense of optimism on the day of their spouse's passing, that they might have been like, oh, there's something really wrong with me. And just you allowed yourself to feel it and move forward with that optimism. But for a lot of people, they may have shut it down and suppress it and not allowed that, you know, for themselves, because they're like, oh, no, there's this... It's just not part of what's known to them as what's acceptable and what's.

VICKI: Yeah.

SAMIA: And, you know…

VICKI: Yes. You know, one of the things I strongly felt during that time right after Sam passed, and I believe it started the day he passed, it was as if a helping hand was coming down from somewhere. Now, at this point, I was still secular. I mean, I begun to sort of believe in a higher power, but only because it seems that all of this around us couldn't possibly just have happened on its own. So suddenly that was making less and less sense to me. But I really hadn't taken this belief system very far, you know, so it was really very ripe for building upon and growing and deepening. And so there was this helping hand. And I'm thinking is that Sam from the afterlife reaching down to me to guide me in this more optimistic direction and making sure these. This email came to me from the playhouse, you know, with this opportunity for this staged reading and all these. And was he the one who had my friends asked me to go to karaoke, which I almost didn't go. And then I thought. And then, you know, at the last minute, he made sure that I did. And then later on I thought, I'm not so sure it was Sam. Maybe it was God. So this was how it happened. I forgot to mention the helping hand. And I'm glad you said what you said, because that's what it felt like. And I'd never had a spiritual experience of any kind in all these decades of life. This was the really the first one that I was aware of anyway. And I thought, you know what? It's leading me somewhere, and I need to trust that it's leading me in a really good direction and that if I follow, will turn out better than if I hadn't.

SAMIA: Yeah. Yeah. It's that again, I just so appreciate your openness, receiving. Because, you know, like, I have truly come to believe that as a matter of fact, our loving God, our loving Creator, is always present and sending us all kinds of love and blessings and help. And we are the ones who are sort of not aware or not willing and blocking, you know, because of our attitudes, because of our beliefs, you know, we block that help and that love from having an impact on our lives. We are blocking the awareness of even its presence. And it you know, sometimes it takes our going through really hard things and hard times to open ourselves up, to even being open to the possibility of, oh, there's something there that's loving, that's present, that's trying to help us and allowing it to actually help us.

VICKI: Yeah, well, you know, you made me think of something the neurosurgeon said, and I don't think he said it in his book. I think I read it online. It's a quote from him in his book. Before I say what I was going to say, I'll preface it by saying that in his book, he talks about having known everything, all the knowledge of the universe, you know, physics, math, history, everything there is to know. And I'm thinking, oh, that makes sense, because God knows everything. And when you're there, you're at one with God. And so you would have maybe the benefit of all of the knowledge that God has because you're a part of God now. So I'm trying to make sense of what he's saying. But then in this quote I read online, it kind of made further sense because he says the brain, the physical brain, is like a filter or reducing valve that brings all the knowledge of the universe down to, I guess you'd say, a manageable level for us human beings to contend with while we're here on Earth in these bodies of ours. And he, and he said in the book, when I came back from the near death experience, I remembered having known all the knowledge of the universe, but I no longer had it. So anyway, another kind of tangent, but, but related to what we're saying, it makes a lot of sense that we might have these moments or sparks of wisdom or knowledge that isn't characteristic of us because maybe that brain of ours, that filter occasionally allows something in, or maybe there's a little void in it where it didn't filter out something, you know, and so it's very interesting to see the afterlife that way. You know that when you go there, you know everything God knows.

SAMIA: Yeah, it's like as far as our brain is concerned, it's like we know that the brain, you know, like when you're a little baby, you know, literally you're learning, your brain is learning, it's developing, it doesn't come fully developed. We don't fully develop all the capacities of our human brain even to the extent that we have. Whatever capacities we have. You know, our brains are still developing well into our early 20s. I mean, research has very clearly established this. And the way that our brain is set up to function, it has a strong, strong bias and tendency to kind of prioritize the familiar in terms of like when it gets new information, you know, it. The more that new information, like if you encounter it again, it's like, ah, I've encountered this before. And you know, it strengthens those neural pathways that have that information. If you don't encounter something again and again and again and again, your brain is like, oh, this is not so important and you're more likely to forget about it and not be able to really benefit from having experienced it that one time because your ability to learn from that one experience is limited, you know, but when you experience something again and again, you know, your brain…

VICKI: ..it reinforces.

SAMIA: Exactly, it's reinforcing, it creates stronger memories. And so it's very inclined to act in the future on the basis of what it has learned in the past. Which makes sense. Which makes sense. But it has limitation though, you know.

VICKI: Yeah, so when you go to the afterlife. Your brain has died along with your body. You are no longer limited by this filter or reducing valve. So you know, all of those pathways that helped us to retain memories and to get better at skills or at knowledge that we have been acquiring throughout our lives, all of that kind of goes out the window. And now you have all the knowledge of the universe available to you because you're in the afterlife no longer limited by that physical brain. So…

SAMIA: Yeah, and I mean, but a lot of that, I mean, we don't know if it is really all the knowledge, you know, like from a Muslim perspective, you know, we... I would, you know, we are, we are taught that God is the only one who knows everything. And for us, no matter what state we are in, whether we are in this physical state or we are in some other spirit state, soul, you know, without a body, etc, you know, there's always limitations, you know, and we only know what God allows us to know, gives us the capacity to know. The only being that knows everything is God. You know.

VICKI: Yeah, and that may be a part of this too. You know, maybe I overstated the case.

SAMIA: Yeah, it's just, you know, like from our human perspective, like when we are having these experiences, we're doing the best we can to figure out and make sense of them. So it's not that, you know, the what I'm saying is just some ideas that we have come to believe that this is a perspective that God has revealed to us. But you know, not everyone has even agreed that this is the truth. This is in fact a revelation from God. So I'm sharing my perspective and other people are sharing their perspectives. And ultimately, you know, I think probably the wisest approach is for us to acknowledge and be like, you know, there we are all at some level just guessing about afterlife and what happens after death because there's only so much we can even possibly know about it.

VICKI: That's true. But one of the things that made this so convincing for me is his the neurosurgeon story was from a near death experience. And if you read or look at videos of people talking about, I mean, there are thousands of these things out there.

SAMIA: Yeah.

VICKI: Near death experiences and they have certain things in common and they have certain things that make them differ. And I have my thoughts about the ways in which they differ. But it's interesting that, and you know, no time to go into that now,  but it's interesting the ways in which they, the things that they have in common. Like almost everyone for example, talks about being greeted there by someone deceased family member or friend that pre deceased them, you know, or a group of these people. So that's interesting. And the light at the end of a tunnel. They're various things that they almost all have in common which to me lends credibility. You know, what was great for me is I was a mechanical engineer. I've always been real analytical, you know, I'll believe anything as long as you can prove it to me. Well, this is why you know, my secular family. I never really move thought about moving beyond that because none of this can be proven as you pointed out. But boy, these near death experiences are so many now. There are just so many thousands of them out there, you know, because I guess because of the state of medical technology they can bring people back from a lot of near death conditions. And so there, that's why there are so many now near death experiences to report. And I find them very convincing because of what they have in common.

SAMIA: Yes, no, for sure... I think just another limitation to keep in mind. And I mean and this is just said for us to be, you know, like when you have a near death experience, of course you experience what you experience and there's no one can be like oh, you didn't experience what you experienced. So that's whatever someone shares with us honestly about their experience is something we should obviously take seriously. But also for us to recognize that what we experience in the context of a near death experience may also be limited by the fact that well it is a near death experience and we don't know how much more there would be that you know, beyond like if you were to actually die and you know, like what happens in like there may be like that you didn't get to experience because you sort of came back.

VICKI: You came back. Yeah…

SAMIA: ..came back.

VICKI: So maybe you didn't go get all the way in.

SAMIA: Yeah. And so what do you not know? Because you didn't get all the way in. So there may be some limitations in terms of what we can understand about life after death in that context, you know, and stuff. So like I try to like not overthink these things just for these kinds of reasons and just to be, and to also like be like what does it really matter? Like what at one level, what does it really matter what the details are of everything that happens or may happen or could happen to us after we die? You know, there is a how... Yeah, it's like, you know, like... And this is like something that again, it's my Muslim bias coming out that in the Quran, that's our holy scripture, it gives us a certain level of information, like some ideas of what the afterlife is like, but we are also very clearly told. But really you cannot like for example, when there's descriptions of heaven and even hell that are given to us in the Quran, on the one hand they're very, they're there and they're very detailed and very evocative. But on the other hand we are also told at the same time that this is actually, these are realities that are beyond what you can really truly understand.

VICKI: Yes.

SAMIA: You know, and so there are scholars who say that, you know, because the Quran makes these statements that these realities are beyond what we can really truly understand in our human as a while we're still in our human condition, that even the descriptions that are given in the Quran, they're meant to, we should consider, not take them so literally. We should consider them more as, you know, allegories where there's something that's really unexplainable and you know, that you're trying to explain. And so you do the best you can by painting certain scenarios and pictures that it's something like this something of that reality. But really, honestly, the reality is such that it's not something you can truly understand until you act except through actual experience.

VICKI: No, I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we're all doing the best we can to make sense of what we've experienced. You know, and there are no, no 100% for sures certainties.

SAMIA: But it's good to have these different perspectives and for us…

VICKI: Well, I just know that mine has helped me. This experience really, really helped me to get beyond the loss of, of the love of my life brilliantly in a way that I never thought was possible. I never thought I would be one of those people that would get stuck in grief. Don't get me wrong, you know, there is complex grief and people roll up into a ball and don't emerge for weeks or months, sometimes even years. I never thought I would be one of those people. But I did. I was very afraid to tell you the truth of Sam passing. I thought, what then? And I never had to ask that question again after he passed. It just became very clear. And I attribute that to the helping hand, whatever that might have been that was so clearly moving me in a direction. I was pretty Sure. I wouldn't have gone, at least not at that time on my own.

SAMIA: Yes, I hear you. And perhaps that's the thing is like take what you find really helpful.

VICKI: Yeah. Yep.

SAMIA: Oh, gosh, Vicky, I could keep talking to you and I know you need to go and I promise to let you go on time, so…

VICKI: That's okay…

SAMIA: Yeah. ..Wrap up for today. Do you have any last thoughts as we wrap up?

VICKI: Oh, I'm just so grateful to be able to tell my story to you and your audience, Samia, you know, and if I might give a tip or two to people who have experienced a loss recently or because of maybe a terminal diagnosis, they will be experiencing a loss soon. Be open to guidance that might come your way from outside yourself. You know, trust it and let yourself be led. Good things might just be in the offing. Be open to opportunities that come your way to do, you know, possibilities to do things you might not have thought to do, but that sound exciting to you and strike that balance between activity and the quiet time. You know, some people will tell you just keep yourself as busy as possible so you don't have time to think or feel. That is well intended advice that I instinctively knew was bad advice. You do need to process what's happened to your life when you lose someone who's very important to you. So you can do both at the same time. You can move into that next chapter of life, have fun immediately, and also give yourself the time to process the loss.

SAMIA: Yeah.

VICKI: So grab the book. It's a fun read, you know, as told from everyone I know who's read it, and the audio episodes too. I'm sure there will be links to all of that. So, yeah, grab those things. Very beneficial. The audio episodes are only about 12 to 15 minutes each and there are three of them, so they're not very long and they're full of the insights I received after I published the book. And then maybe you and I will have a chance to discuss my next book.

SAMIA: Yeah.

VICKI: That just got published.

SAMIA: Yes. I would love to have you come back and for us to continue chatting because we have lots more to chat about. So for my last reminder. Yes, for sure, for sure. Please make sure you check the show notes because we will be dropping Vicky's links in there so you can make sure you're connecting with the right Viki and get the help and support you need whenever you're ready for it. And until we connect next time, I wish you lots and lots of peace and joy... :)