A near death experience can be so glorious that it leaves one longing to return to that overpowering reality. That in turn can make living in the world, which now seems pale by comparison, difficult. How does one cope with this challenge? The following interview does not answer this dilemma as much as it brings it to the surface for clarification and healing. This is an essential first step, because if such conflicts operate behind the scenes they can sap many dimensions of life of the investment and commitment necessary for success and satisfaction.Another challenge for many people who have near death experiences is one confronted by Martha: “How do I find meaning in everyday work when I feel my greatest usefulness is to spread the truth about non-physical existence and that death is not to be feared?” By bringing all such issues up to the surface they can be acknowledged, accepted, and released.What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?I’ve recently gone from having investment income for many years to having that end and to also having my client base slow down in my counseling work. I’m looking at suddenly needing to make more money. This has brought up big resistance which isn’t working for me. Thoughts of working for someone else tends to make me feel trapped, not to mention that having to work full-time at this point in my life feels shocking to me and was not in my plan. I feel like I’m self-sabotaging my ability to create a job, putting myself at big risk. I find the job hunting process exhausting, made more so by the pressure of the financial deadline I have. I recently was turned down for a job I was in close running for. I have an excellent resume and education, yet I feel stuck. Where do I fit into the world? Part of me would prefer to be there (in heaven) and not here!I’ve lived in many different places. For a long time, I haven’t felt rooted and felt that where I was, was the right place to be. I want that more than ever. Eugene, Oregon is not my ultimate place to live.
I am wanting and intending to manifest a new home in a wonderful stable place, with a mate, and a job that likely will be a stepping stone to much more. It feels like I’m starting completely over, which feels so out of sync to me.
Tell me about your near-death experience.
One was when I was a baby at birth, another when I was seven. The last was when I was about twenty-three and I almost drowned. I took from it a sense of remembering that I chose to come to Earth. I always felt that as a very intuitive child anyway. On some level we’re not victims. “There” was more real for me than here. That we’re all one. We are part of the greater whole. That light, love, and divinity is not a concept, but a reality that lives within us. My soul chose to come in when it did. I had a choice to leave. The being that I saw asked me if I wanted to come. He was very familiar to me. I saw that I had spiritual work and a life mission. I was divorced and didn’t want to leave my young son. I also could see how life-changing my dying would be for my friends who were with me and I did not want them to suffer, especially when I felt so great.Why do you think that you had this near-death experience?So I would choose to stay on earth and to help others diminish their fears of death- my main life purpose.
I would like to have you imagine that you are the water and ask it some questions. Would that be OK?
Yes.
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your NDE and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Yes.
Water, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I’m deep. Parts of me are green and slimy. She loves to water-ski and swim in me. I took her to a heavenly place.
Did you intend to do that or is that just what happened because she stopped breathing?
I invited her and she wanted to go. She has been in many wateryplaces in other lifetimes that she has loved, including Atlantis.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
Sometimes I have beautiful colors. Sometimes I don’t. I don’t like it when I don’t. When I have giant waves it scares people. I can represent a lot of emotion. I bring life; I bring reflection. I’m fun! People like to play in me. They can be around me and through me. I’m also really useful. I reflect the moon and the sun.
What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
I can be dangerous. Green, slimy. Things can get lost in me. Mud. I feel sad when the world pollutes me. Martha doesn’t like it when I rain on her so much where she lives! Sometimes I’m overpowering; sometimes I’m whimpy. Sometimes I’m a goddess and people think I’m a puddle!
Water, you are in Martha’s life experience, correct? She created you, right? Water, what aspect of Martha do you represent or most closely personify?
Being stagnant. The beauty, sun, beach, being powerful, floodgates of heaven. Emotional sensitivity, awareness, reflection, perception…
Water, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change If so, how?
I would be a water spout or a fountain that was very directed, aware, and focused. My water would look like rainbow colors. It feels safe, pretty, happy, conscious. I would go around watering the earth and flowers with divine purpose. I would want to be more expansive, the ocean. More like a cove that didn’t have a lot of big waves. Crystal clear, not cloudy. Like in Hawaii or some place tropical.
That’s how you look to Martha. How do you feel?
Peaceful and like I can’t hide forever.
Water, how do you feel about Martha having this experience?
I almost killed her! She had it coming! She was thinking bad thoughts about her boyfriend while she was water-skiing!
So she punished herself by almost killing herself?
No, she wanted to show herself, her real self rather than the temporary ego-self she was dealing with, with him.
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chooses to change.)
Water, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 20! Martha is a 7. Depends on the day! A 7, because I left the big issues for last for me to handle.
Compassion:19!
Wisdom:14!
Acceptance: 3! The child water in me is 3; the rest is higher. My accepting others is about an 8; accepting myself would be sometimes an 8, sometimes a 3. But I don’t know how I’d score myself.
Inner Peace: 8
Witnessing: 6. I’m too hard on myself. Maybe I’m not a six! I lowered my number so she would feel less different; I was trying to support her. I am really about a nine.Should I go down to her level or should she come up to mine? If she wanted to be who she really is she would come up to mine!
Water, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?
I might be too much alone. Others might find me too powerful.
How would Martha’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?
She would either have a really good time or no one would like her. She’d make more money! It would be green like the green ocean! There would be like.. flowing water! Now it’s more like mud in the bottom of a cesspool! Maybe better but still… I’d do money laundering! There’s a matter of believing that she deserves it.
If you could live Martha’s life for her, how would you live it differently?
I would have her swim more often. I would have her take more risks. Something really good could come out of it and she would never know unless she tries. She could get really successful. Trust in love more! Trust the love of others; trust she is fine just the way she is.
If you could live Martha’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently? If so, how?
I’ve recently gone from having investment income to having that end. I’m looking at suddenly needing to make more money. That’s brought up some resistance. Working for someone else makes me feel trapped and I feel like I’m self-sabotaging my ability to create a job. Where do I fit into the world? Part of me would prefer to be there (in heaven)and not here!
She is afraid that people won’t accept her in certain situations. I actually don’t want her to get a job! I want to send her off to a nunnery and protect her. But she doesn’t really need protecting. She acts like she needs protecting, however hidden it is. There is a belief that if she gets too much money, it will get taken from her, like in other lifetimes. She needs to be one of the struggling mainstream! Her timing is impeccable! Most of the USA is doing the same thing right now! If she’s not a struggling human and she comes in with NDEs and higher wisdom, others may not listen to her so much because she doesn’t fit in. She’s just not a regular human. A tiger can’t change its stripes. She’s a tiger! I say, she should get really rich.
I’ve livedinmany different places.For a long time, I haven’t been rooted in one placeandfelt thatit was the right place to be. I want thatmore than ever. Eugene, Oregon is not my ultimate place to live.
Her soul intended her to move around a lot. She has spread a lot of light and goodness. There’s a part of her that wants to be like everyone else. I want her to have that, too. She, in part, sees something wrong with having moved a lot and not having found “the place.” Some wondered. She should just tell them to take a hike! Sometimes, others think she does what she wants to do anyway, but it doesn’t feel that way to her. She’s never going to be a normal human. I think it’s a good thing; she doesn’t think it’s such a good thing! I could be like her higher self! I’m high and holy water! If she would just surrender a bit more, a whole beautiful thing will happen for her!
I am wanting and intending to manifest a new home in a wonderful stable place, with a mate, and a job that likely will be a stepping stone to much more.It feels like I’m starting completely over, which feels so out of sync to me.
I would take her to a place where she could have a spa day at a resort and then take her up a the high diving board and tell her to dive into the deep water. Go for it!
What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of her life?
1. She needs to be writing her life story in her NDE book.
2. She needs to do more laying on of hands for others.
3. She needs to be around animals more.
4. Wear more sunscreen!
In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Martha to imagine that she is you and act as you would?
Going into prayer and visualization work; visualizing diving into me and getting inspiration or guidance. A trip to Jamaica or Bali. When she is doing resumes and interviewing. She’d rather be dragged at full speed behind a speeding boat, like she was, than going on job interviews!
Why do you think that you are in Martha’s life?
She was smart enough to contact you! To get her to not be wishy-washy. She would move up the ladder faster.
How is Martha most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?
I don’t think she’ll ignore me right away. It might take her five days or a week to start ignoring me!
What would you recommend that she do about that?
Have fun and love herself; keep giving! Go sit in some mineral hot springs!
I think Martha had this NDE so..
She could choose to be here more. To help people transition to the other side because she knows what she knows and others see it; they see the wisdom.
What have you heard yourself say?
The water loves me. If I was more like it, it would be a good thing. I take things too seriously. I can’t be what I’m not so I might as well be who I really am and really be it. (I scored the same as only 1% of the population do in the Myers-Briggs personality test). I am more aware than ever that I’m a visitor here. Yet, there are others like me. I’m not mainstream at all. I There is a gift in that if I can just stay courageous. At some point I won’t need to be courageous. I’ve been fighting. I feel like I’m really behind in terms of the NDE world. I was way ahead of the curve having had my NDE before Life After Life came out and I started lecturing before it was that trendy or popular and then I allowed life to take me in other directions which is a bit sad for me. I always knew it could get big, given my life purpose.
Water: That’s unnecessary; off the path. Missing out on all sorts of connection, meaning, death, sex, travel. I don’t want her to get to the end of her life and say, “Why didn’t I do it more and fully?” Set up lectures again! Shift inside! Forgive yourself for the past! Stop being a primadonna a little bit about money. Take some risks!
If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?
Why are you holding back the flood of goodness that can come to you?
Notice that the water sees Martha as hiding. It says, “She can’t hide forever.”
Also, Water thinks she had it coming (being almost drowned) because she was “thinking evil thoughts about her boyfriend while she was skiing.” So either Martha needed this wake-up call or Water took upon itself the role of Persecutor, or this was not Water talking, but Martha’s conscience, still feeling guilty after all these years. However, the next answer implies that Water was giving Martha a wake-up call to show her her real self instead of her ego, with which she had been dealing with her boyfriend.Dream symbology books often attempt to interpret dream and spiritual images as symbols. However, meanings are so individual that interviewing and asking is much more likely to produce an accurate understanding of what part of us a character represents. Notice that Martha’’s water, can be green and slimy, rough and dangerous, and stagnant. It doesn’t like such things about itself, is different from Ann’s, which finds nothing about itself that it dislikes. Martha’s water wanted to transform; Ann’s did not; it liked itself the way it was.Water’s answer of “6” to the “Witnessing” score indicates an inner dilemma between Martha lowering her goals so she feels more accepted and less self-critical for not attaining them, or keeping them high and aspiring toward them, despite the gap between where she is and where she wants to be. This is a common dilemma that many of us face. Many of us do what Martha is tempted to do: ramp down our goals because their seeming unattainability makes us feel miserable.There are other reasons why we ramp down our potentials. If we strive for them we may not have company – we may find ourselves feeling alone! Others might find us too powerful. Of course, these are concerns about how others act or feel, which is more or less out of our control.Martha is concerned that if she focuses on her potentials that “no one will like her.” All of us on a spiritual path have to decide what we will do if friends and family fall away.Do we deserve to grow into our potentials or do we deserve to live small? It is not unusual to be in conflict about this. It is easy to say the former, but much scripting and social pressure can cause us to live the latter.Water has concrete recommendations for Martha. She needs to take more risks, to trust in love, herself, and others more. She needs to write her life story, do more laying on of hands, be with animals more, use more sunscreen! She needs to set up lectures again and forgive herself for the past. Water recommends specific occasions on which Martha would benefit from becoming it.Notice that Martha has good reasons why she has resisted finding a job. At least one important, powerful, high-scoring inner potential, Water, doesn’t want her to get one! If seems to feel that getting a job will expose her to danger and it wants to protect her. Then Martha owns that as her own fear, not Water’s. Sometimes she fears she will misuse money that she makes or that she will have it taken from her. Part of her thinks she should be a struggling human but another part thinks she should stand out, based on her NDEs. Yet another part feels that if she does so she will be rejected. Yet another voice wants her to get really rich!How does one resolve all these competing voices? In years of experience with these interviews, this is normal. Most of these voices are not from high scoring inner potentials. Instead, they are aspects of the subgroup of self-aspects that make up our waking identity. Like family members, they squabble and fight for attention and power. It takes multiple interviews to access and strengthen the presence of the culture of our high scoring potentials to a degree that the various parts of waking identity feel safe, secure, and calm down.There is an ongoing debate in Martha between pleasing others to avoid their criticism and pleasing herself. In order to resolve such a dilemma, we need to access those parts of ourselves that don’t care if we please them or not! Just like in an NDE, we want to align ourselves with their energy and presence because it feels so good and right. When we do it makes the agendas of others, their needs and whether we please them or not pale in comparison.There is a lot of internal conflict, a lot of struggle in all of this for Martha. It’s quite understandable that the result would be ambivalence and resistance to taking decisive waking action of just about any sort. Water tells her if she will surrender she will create space for beautiful things to happen to her! Martha’s story is the story of all of us: great potentials recognized but generally unrealized because of too much conflict in our waking minds about what to do and how to do it. These conflicts are easily resolved with IDL because we amplify our natural inner compass that is confident, compassionate, wise, accepting, at peace, and witnessing.Postscript:Water, do you still feel the way you stated at first in the interview, that you do not want Martha to work because you want to protect her?Mostly, yes.
If so, what are you wanting to protect her from?Being exposed and in potential danger. Loss of freedom, too.
If not, was that her speaking instead of you, or was that some other part of herself?I was speaking.
Water, what do you recommend that Martha do about money and work?I don’t know. She never listens to me anyway. She’s not very happy with me right now because she feels I am holding her back from what she needs to do.
Water, do you remember when you said the following?She would either have a really good time or no one would like her. She’d make more money! It would be green like the green ocean! There would be like.. flowing water! Now it’s more like mud in the bottom of a cesspool! Maybe better but still… I’d do money laundering! There’s a matter of believing that she deserves it.
What did you mean by the “money laundering” remark?Making money from something not authentic, meaning not being true to her soul.
Thanks, Water!Clearly, Martha needs subsequent interviews to get to a space that transcends and includes a deep-rooted ambivalence about making money. She can do so by interviewing different aspects of her NDE, recent dreams or those from the distant past, or the personifications of waking life issues. But most important is to listen to and do her best to apply the guidance she is already receiving from her inner self.Do you think your IDL interview helped you to “wake up” in some way to the usefulness or relevance of your NDE for you in your current life circumstances?
I found the interview very helpful and insightful. Yet, I think of my NDE as the the time I spent in heaven, not in the water beforehand, and thus there is a bit of a disconnect for me when I hear the question. The interview revealed deep issues that have more to do with this life and past lives, not so much my NDE, unless I am not seeing something. (Perhaps addressing different parts of my NDE before the heavenly experience would reveal more, like being dragged behind the boat with the rope).
Was becoming an aspect of your NDE useful? If so, in what way?
Becoming water was useful and very interesting. Words that came up like wishy-washy and stagnant, etc., had meaning as did what was communicated. It showed me the conflicts within more clearly and also how I could aspire to be more.
Did you feel like you were in touch with the divine in any way or at any time during your interview? If so, in what way(s)?
At times, water seemed to take on the higher self for me or mirror my soul’s wishes, like the suggestion to write a book, etc.
Have you experimented since the interview at becoming your interviewed character and attempting to live your life from its perspective and out of its energy? If so, have you noticed any results? If so, what?
Not exactly but something seemed to shift for the better anyway regarding my issues around money, job, and my home situation, which is no small thing. It is still in process but I feel freer in some ways and have taken action.
Now that some time has passed, do you think that the recommendations your character had for your waking life were appropriate, relevant, and useful? If so, how?
Yes, especially as far as taking more risks and putting myself out there even more. The desire to write the book still seems far off and yet that could shift as I handle more pressing issues.
Sometimes we can get swamped with recommendations during interviews and sometimes the press of daily events swamps our ability to apply the recommendations we do receive. Has either been the case for you?
I did not feel too swamped during the interview and was able to receive the recommendations and felt more free in the days after, even if it seemed to trigger more “stuff” for me. I have not consciously applied what I was told exactly, however it feels like because my soul has the intention to shift and expand, that I have benefitted anyway simply by experiencing the process which was valuable.
Did you learn anything new about your NDE from your interview? Did it change your attitude about it in any way?
Not exactly. The process seemed to almost strengthen my point of view of how different I feel from the norm and of how much I prefer being in heavenly realms. However, I do feel at least somewhat more free to be on earth and to move into the future, so paradox or not, that is a good thing.
How about NDEs in general? Did your interview change your attitude about NDEs in any way? If so, how?
No.
Has your character continued to be present? Have you had any success at becoming it? Or has its significance faded with time?
I came out of the interview annoyed with water, and I still feel that way when I see the word, thus I did not go out of my way to become it, and I felt conflicted with the different voices within me. I just let it be in the coming weeks and now that time has passed, I seem to feel more flow (yes, smile, a watery term!).
Do you think reading over your IDL interview would help someone who has not had an NDE to benefit from them all the same?
Perhaps, but I see it as a great therapy tool and still can’t quite make the leap to the NDE significance of it. Maybe using the same method for some quality in the actual out of body/NDE might create a difference in my outlook.
Do you think an IDL interview could help people who have not had an NDE to get in touch with the divine?
Yes, likely so. I think whenever we delve deeply into ourselves that a door is opened for a more full awareness of the divine within and of integration.
Do you think this interviewing process could help NDEers avoid doing a “spiritual bypass?” (thinking they were totally healed and not addressing their psychological issues.)
I don’t know of any NDErs who feel that they don’t have issues of some sort! Ha! While they may feel blessed with having been in the light or whatever, such an experience almost always CREATES new inner conflict in returning to earth.
Do you think that sharing your interview with family and friends could help them come to grips with the transformation that is still occurring in your life as a result of your NDE?
Again, I don’t see my interview as that NDE connected, even though I understand the intent behind it. I think my interview could give certain others great food for thought regarding how I am, NDE or not.
Do you think that an IDL interview on a NDE theme could help terminally ill patients and their families?
YES, definitely! For instance, using this tool regarding a fear of death and/or using it to bring insight into each family member’s inner emotional situation and outer circumstances with others involved could be most transformative. An ill person, caregiver, or exhausted other would have to have the energy to participate, however. (Also, the terminally ill often see heavenly states or have visits from loved ones or others in spirit).
