From the time that they pronounced me dead was
a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then
they paddled. My heart, my heart had stopped
and I could see people screaming and crying but
I didn't realize that was actually my physical
body because I was somewhere else. The only thing
that I could feel if you could imagine absolute
love and peace, there wasn't anything else to
be felt. I was greeted by people I had known
in the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly
safe and felt at home. Welcome, welcome to Round
Trip Death, everybody. I'm so grateful and happy
that everything is finally working technology
wise. I've got Deborah Haney with me here. Deb,
how are you? Hi, I'm good. After all the shenanigans
of getting this going. If listeners only knew
what we have been through for the last 45 minutes,
trying to make technology work, but it's working
and that's all that matters. So anyway, welcome
to the show. Thank you. Sorry for the rough beginning.
No worries. Learn something new every time you
do that. Hey, I don't know if I warned you, but
before we jump into your near death experience
and all the other wonderful things that we're
going to learn from you. Would you mind taking
just one minute and letting our listeners get
to know you so they know who Deb is? Just tell
us a little bit about who you are. I guess I'll
start with this. I'm a first -generation American.
My parents were immigrants from Germany. My mom
is gypsy. My dad is German. And in my mom's family,
some of these spiritual things have been passed
down from generation to generation. I have three
grandchildren and four grandchildren. I am a,
I guess I'm a psychotherapist, but I'm more of
a spiritual psychotherapist. So I've worked much
more in the spiritual realms. Gotcha. Thank you
for that. Okay. I don't want to waste any more
time after all this. I want to jump straight
into it. We're going to go back to when you were
only 26 years old. Yeah. And eight months pregnant,
lead up to the accident. Tell me what was going
on this day. So I had been working that day I
had driven lived in actually in Illinois so I
had been driving to a meeting and on my way back
I was on the highway and There was a red truck
that crossed across the highway To 15 year old
boys not to their fault at all. We all make mistakes
Took their truck from the ranch, but really didn't
know how to drive And so came across the road.
It was a head -on collision. I remember bits
and pieces of it, but basically my car was accordioned.
So I took the jaws of life and I was in a massive
accident. Yeah. Wow. Sorry. I don't know where
to jump into this, but you were eight months
pregnant. So any accident is really bad. What
kind of injuries did you have? Were you conscious?
What happened at the hospital? So it already
started actually at the scene and I remember
I remember just there were miracles like there
were small miracles. One was there was a paramedic
who was on his way to work who was actually behind
me which expedited the ambulance getting there
except they still had to cut me out of the car.
And there was a French woman who was out in her
land who happened to be not that far away. And
I just remember screaming and saying, I'm going
to have this baby because I was out of my mind,
to be quite honest. And then I sort of passed
out. The next thing that I remember is the ambulance
was there and I was in the ambulance. I remember
hearing them say, as they were calling into the
hospital, we don't know what to give her. We're
losing her. And that's all I remember. Right.
Before I went to the beyond. Let's talk about
the went. What was the process like? Do you remember
actually leaving your body or something like
that? A lot of people look down on their body.
Tell me how it worked for you. When I left my
body, it was more I didn't look back. That would
be so me. I didn't look down at my body. I looked
the other way. And I just remember being pulled.
Pulled into like some people will say it's a
tunnel. There isn't really a word for it. You're
pulled into a portal that's probably what I would
say pulled into a portal and The next thing that
I knew I was in Stan Groff would call the void
So Stan Groff would say like we experience God
in one of two ways either People going into the
light or people going into something called the
void where there's nothing but everything but
it's dark And that's where I was in that space.
And I should also say, as I was going into that,
I also heard what I'm guessing was an angelic
voice saying, don't worry, it's all gonna be
okay, whatever that means. So when I got to this...
void, this place. There were voices that were
talking to me, very gentle. And I think what
I remember most that will never ever leave me
is this sense of peace that passes all understanding.
There's absolutely no negative emotions, just
pure love and pure peace to the point that I
honestly did not even remember who I was. So
these beings were saying welcome back we're so
happy you're home isn't it beautiful here and
isn't it wonderful here and all of those things
and then they said the rocketing thing which
was and you know you have a baby and I said I
have no idea what you're talking about what are
you talking about and they're saying well you're
eight months pregnant if you choose to stay your
baby, they will take your baby. Hopefully your
baby will survive, will be raised then by your
husband and whoever who knows down the road.
So they were sort of like letting me know what
the outcome was going to be. And they said, but
you can go back if you want to. And it was, it
was like, it truly was in that moment, sort of
this, I don't know what to do until like, somehow
my wits came about me and I thought, I can't
leave my baby for someone else to raise my baby.
And as soon as I thought that, that's when the
spiral back down happened. The thing that I remember
most about coming back is so harsh. Going from
pure bliss to going to pure hell again, because
I was in so much pain and you hit that gurney
and I hear the paramedics say, okay, we've got
her back now. and going, Oh my God, what decision
did I just make? Okay. All right. Let's pick
some of this apart. This is great. There's a
couple things that I don't get. And so I, and
this is not skepticism. This is you try to help
me fill in some blanks. Okay. And one of them
is you don't see anything. You said it was dark,
but a being that talked to you said, isn't it
beautiful here? How does that work? It's a great
question. So it's dark But these beings have
a hue to them so they have a hue of Light just
like not like bright as a star. Does that make
sense? Yeah, like beauty doesn't always mean
it's visual beauty is I know a knowingness there
it is a knowingness of where you are a sense
of like what it feels like And I think even what
it looks like, because now that you're saying
that, I really do picture it. It is like being
inside of this womb, but much greater than that.
And everything is there, but nothing is there.
I don't understand what that means. I know, it's
so confusing. I've had other people tell me,
try to explain the void before. And so with the
little bit of frame of reference that I have,
Maybe you can help fill in some of my blanks,
because lots of people say everything is there
and they feel connected to everything and everyone.
And I think I understand that. What I don't understand
is everything and nothing. Because you can't
see it. Yeah. So the nothing, so we think of
energy, we can't see energy, but we feel energy.
Think of if we were, this is a really bad example,
but think of if we were in a MRI machine with
our eyes closed, we would know we were inside
of something and sort of what that felt like
and possibly what it looked like just by feeling
its dimensions and things like that. But magnify
that times a thousand. Okay. And so in this space,
maybe we could even say, let's think of this
as like a womb. but it's not as small as a womb.
So everything exists within there, everything
we would ever need, every connection to our own
DNA, our parents' DNA, to beings that hang around
us, to everything. And yet we're experiencing
it in this whole different way. In fact, in the
womb, in a way, there's the present, there's
also the future, because you're developing into
something. So that kind of makes sense to me.
And even the past, right? Because our parents
have DNA. We believe in past lives, which I do.
We have our own soul's history, all of that.
Okay. What else can you remember from this? You
talked about the peace, right? Did you call it
overwhelming peace or overwhelming love? Remind
me. Both. Overwhelming peace, overwhelming love.
If I could put a word to it, I would put these
two phrases. All that matters is love and everything
that we need is right here. Sounds like a Beatles
song. I like it. And in that space, this welcoming
feeling of sort of like, how did I forget this
exists? Cause we've been here many times before.
How did, how can, how do we keep forgetting that
that exists? And yet we incarnate and then Come
back to that. It's a home if you will. It's the
ultimate home. Yeah. So I guess what I want to
come back to is just finish explaining if there's
more to explain and then I want to talk about
physically what was going on with you and baby.
So coming to this place. And I hesitate to even
put a word to it, but for people who understand
void versus the other, they're all the same thing.
It's just a different experience. I think of
the same thing. And going to that place is exactly
like you said, like going to home that I think
that I actually, cause when I've been with people
who die, they say they want to go home, but they
don't mean their house. They want to go home
and This is the ultimate home. It is the place
where everything is. And yet in our earth dimension,
nothing is because it's not something we experience
on an everyday level here on this planet in this
dimension. Here's another way to describe it.
It's as if I had access to anything I would want.
When one of the beings said to me, Well, you
have a baby I I knew I could keep asking and
I knew that I wouldn't be forced to do anything
I knew that I could ask anything I wanted I knew
that I could stay as long as I wanted that it
was this very soulful interaction between higher
beings and My own soul because I wasn't my body
that was there. It was my soul Did you feel like
they were trying to talk you into going back?
I've thought about that many times over the years
and I don't think so. I think they wanted me
to make the decision for my soul so they wouldn't
leave a piece out. Now what they didn't tell
me interestingly is how I would fare in all this.
Should we talk about the physical side now? Maybe
so because they did not like allude to any of
that. Okay. That's always one of the hardest
things about coming back. Right? You've been
in a place with no pain peace love only good
and then to feel that physical pain again I mean
after all you've just been through this horrible
accident. It sounds like the medical personnel
I don't know. How did they revive you? Did they
do you know did they shock you what happened?
They had put something in my IV that Got the
heart Whatever they would call it Like an adrenaline
to restart it. That's a good one. Yeah, like
an adrenaline I honestly never asked to be honest
with you why they didn't do the shock but my
guess is because I was eight months pregnant
and that would have I Don't know what but with
the adrenaline it worked Then I just remember
I honestly don't remember much again until I
got to the hospital and then there's just a whole
lot of people everywhere Ended up going in an
MRI machine because I had a broken hip and ribs
had internal bleeding and right away because
With a baby they get concerned about that. So
they put the monitors on and they're checking
all of that so Long story short and they're also
picking glass Crazily, this is what I remember
the most the MRI everything hurts so bad, but
they can't give you for it and not a lot of pain
meds, right? And so what I remember most is the
like four nurses picking glass out of my arms
and out of my face and from the broken glass
of the car and that hurting so bad. And maybe
I just focused on that because I was too afraid
to focus on anything else. Once they got the
monitors on and I was in intensive care, the
plan was to stabilize as much as they could.
and then to do surgery because I had actually
gone into labor. I was given medication to slow
down the labor so it could stabilize enough to
do a C -section and then do any repair that they
needed to do. Here's where the miracle comes
that I still don't quite understand. So the doctor,
the... Obstetrician and the surgeon spent the
night and they were coming in like every 10 minutes
and somehow I fell asleep for a while and I remember
before I fell asleep I had been praying which
I'm not typically a religious person I'm a spiritual
person but I kept praying because I kept thinking
well if I decided to come back I Needed I need
to do everything I can to make sure that this
baby safe and that I'm that I'm gonna be okay
and I woke up to the doctor over me, screaming
to the nurse to get another monitor for the pregnancy.
And he puts the other one and he grabs me and
looks me in the face and he's like, what did
you do? Your labor has stopped. I don't know.
I don't know. He said, I can't believe this because
we were ready to do surgery in the morning and
your labor has stopped. So we're just gonna watch
you really close now. So I had been vomiting,
not to be really gross, but I'd been vomiting.
When you internal blade, you vomit a lot of black.
So they had done another MRI to check all of
that and had decided that they really didn't
want to do the surgery for that and wait and
see. I ended up going two days past my due date
in the most miserable way, I will say that. But
in the hospital, most of the time, At the very
end, they would let me come home, but I would
have to go to the doctor every day. And then
my baby was born. Wow. How long were you in the
hospital? Weeks, couple weeks. Did you have other
broken bones besides what you mentioned? My hip
was broken and my pelvis was cracked. As anyone
who's broken their ribs before, it's so painful.
And what I remember most is At that point in
time, he was already head down. It was my son
and he was already head down, but he would kick
as he got, as he got how, as he got more, he
would kick. So I sat or slapped all the time
with my hand tucked under my ribs to protect
my ribs because every time he kicked, oh my gosh,
I just about came through the roof. I don't think
I've ever talked to anyone before that's had
broken ribs while they were pregnant. That's
a whole. A whole new level of pain right there.
Yeah, it's really painful. And was baby okay
when he was born? So he was healthy. Here's what
I would say. He was physically healthy. Here's
what was really interesting for anyone who doesn't
think that when we're in utero, we don't hold
memory. That's so false. He was a baby who was
very, very attached to me and he would get upset
really easily. When he was a baby, and I didn't
catch it right away, but when he was a baby and
ambulance or sirens would go by, he would just
start shaking as if he were in a trauma response.
When he was two, I think I finally figured it
out enough that he would, because he was constantly
doing this. And then as it got older, he would
hold his ears and just shake and shake and shake
like he was in a trauma response. And so, I took
him to an energy worker to help clear some of
that because he shouldn't carry that. Wow, we
don't think about those kinds of things. You
talked about, I think you used the term spiraling
when you came back down into your body. Explain
that a little bit more. If the going to was like
just gently being pulled up into this place.
The coming away from it was leaving that place
slowly, but then like if you're coming down a
fast slide and then bam, that's what that felt
like. So going from that to the gurney. And you
keep smacking your hands. So was it kind of like
a smack back in your body, slam in your body?
How would you describe it? What I remember most
is like slam back in my body and feeling that
hard gurney because the gurneys and ambulances
because of what was happening and how I was strapped
and everything. It was a hard gurney. And I remember
just feeling so uncomfortable. Tell me what you
learned from all this. How did it change your
life? Radically. Wow, there's so many ways it
changed my life. I always speak my truth about
what it was what it was like for me. I'm not
saying that it's like this for I know many people
have had near -death experiences and just felt
glorious and all of that. For me, that was not
the case. In all honesty, I had a deep depression.
Having a baby and being in so much pain, it made
me really go to that place of like, I don't know
if I like this earth. I don't know if I like
this. However, that being said, when I had my
second child, we moved to Colorado. And that
is truly when the magic started happening. And
it all I truly believe it all came from this.
I feel like the near -death experience was a
part of my journey. It was supposed to be. I
was fortunate enough to connect with a therapist
who I was doing some trauma work around, around
this accident. But panic was getting worse, not
better. And she contacted someone, his name is
Stanislav Grof. I'm not sure if you're familiar.
He's a very brilliant psychiatrist who developed
holotropic breathwork. He was doing research
with Timothy Leary and that whole crowd in those
days and came over from Prague. And when he developed
holotropic breathwork, he would talk often about
these different experiences. She was connected
with him, which in turn, then I became connected
with him and he told her to just keep me in this
until it passed through because this would be
an initiation of some sort. He said, don't worry
about it. Teachers will come along the path.
And I'm like, well, screw this. I don't want
to be initiated into anything. I just want to
feel better. But the truth is that really did
happen. I got past it. I had shamanic teachers
who came upon my path who then said, this is
your journey. This is part of what you're needing
to learn and the near -death experience was part
of your initiation. So I went kicking. I did
not want to do this. I said, I'm not going to
do that work. That's not who I am. We can sometimes
say no all we want, but it keeps coming back
in front of us, right? And so I started to learn
all of that. And it was true as I studied more
and learned more that there are like, and I knew
none of this before. There are certain kinds
of initiations that would be looked at in tribal
communities that would bring people into that
space. And a near -death experience was one of
the prime ones. We're just about done. But before
I ask the last couple of questions, was there
anything else on this whole journey that you
wanted to fill in for us? It's not about me,
but it's about my son. Because my son who was
born in this, I... sometimes think he was supposed
to. He ended up spending much of his time in
Nepal and India and Tibet. He now translates
Sanskrit and he speaks many languages and he
teaches Buddhism. And so I don't know, that's
his journey and we've talked about it on and
off, but I sometimes wonder if this wasn't part
of his journey as well. It really sounds like
it, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. How much
fear of death do you have? This is what I always
say, I have no fear. And then when the time comes
when you know you're gonna die, who knows, right?
But I do, I get called sometimes by hospice to
journey, to journey with people into their own
deaths. And when you journey with people into
their death, it's so beautiful to watch what
their journey across is. Can I share the death
of my father? Yeah. I was just going to ask for
an example. So go ahead and tell us about his.
There's actually two that come to my mind that
were so beautiful. So when my father passed away.
So think about my father. He was, he worked on
Apollo. He was like an engineer. He worked on
Apollo. He figured out how to bend titanium.
So totally a science mind. He was not spiritual
at all. When he was dying of cancer, he came
to me with shock and asked me if I would help
him, help him die, help him cross. I said, well,
you know what that means. You know that I drum
and I go in and journey. And he's like, that's
what I want. And he started to cry. Oftentimes
hospice gives you that three hour window, right?
Where they think people, someone will pass. So
my mom and my sister and I, went to him and I
had all my things with me, my drum and my rattle,
and I could tell that he was starting to go.
So when someone journeys for someone, when they're
dying, you actually go with their soul. You actually
help their soul leave and you actually get to
see what happens at that very beginning. It's
not always like horrendous, you know, like the
bad things that I went through. The first thing
that happened was, and this was in a hospice
facility, not a hospital. There were many people
down the hall and all of that. And when he, when
his breathing started to really change, then
I saw a whole line of elephants come walking
towards him. Or anyone listening should know
that he did love elephants and I have a love
of elephants too, but I've never seen them in
a journey. And there was a whole row of them,
I don't know, maybe 20. It came towards him and
they started to circle his bed. Just circle and
circle and circle and circle. And then they stopped
and the biggest one took his trunk and lifted
his soul onto his back, turned around and started
to walk towards the light. So there there was
this beautiful light of the very far away, but
it was there. The second elephant behind him
said, you can come to the edge, but you know,
you can't cross through. Speaking to you, not
him. Me. And I said, OK. So I rode on that elephant's
back. And then there was a whole row behind that.
We got to the edge of the light. They all stopped.
And the elephant that I was on said, you have
to know you have to get off now. And so I did.
And only like through talking to my mom and my
sister, who were right there, because I'm in
a journey. As soon as I got off the elephant,
the elephants walked into the light. they lined
up in a straight line like looking at us it was
at that moment that my dad took his last breath
and at that exact moment all the elephants raised
their trunks and there was this incredible bright
light like it consumed everything in the room
and Trumpeted to the point that and this is truth
half of that hall woke up weeping Because it
was nighttime. It was three in the morning Two
of the nurses came running into the room wondering
what was happening and they were sobbing It was
so beautiful That's a beautiful story. Thank
you for sharing and my father had a tortured
life. So for me that that was so beautiful because
he had been He had been in Siberian prison camps
and you know survived quite a bit. So then I
thought And I had already sat for other people,
but I began to think this is what's so important
for our loved ones to know, like what was it
like for them. So I had gotten a call from Hospice
that there was a Native American man in the Native
American tradition. This is the way it would
go anyway, is to drum for that person and go
with them. And I happened in the time to be in
Hawaii facilitating a retreat. And so Hospice
called and said, we have a Native American man.
He really wants you to come. journey with him.
I said, I'm in Hawaii. I think this was on a
Tuesday maybe or a Monday. I'm like, I can't,
I won't be back until Friday, but I'll, and they
said, oh, he'll never make it till Friday. He's
already in a coma and he's modeling and all of
that. And I said, okay, well, when I fly in,
when I know that I'm landed, I'll check with
you and see. So this is what's really funny.
So When I got off the plane, I called immediately,
I called hospice, and this man, his two daughter,
his two estranged daughters, I should say, had
called a priest because they wanted his last
rites to be read. He sat up out of a dead coma
and told the priest to get the fuck out of there.
Then laid back down and went in a coma and he
waited. I couldn't believe it, he waited. So
I got home, I got my things, I went right over
to hospice. His two estranged daughters were
there, I knew nothing about this man. And he
was ready to go, there's no doubt. And so I just
began the journey, I began the drumming. In his
particular case, when he left his body, we were
on like a pathway around this beautiful lake.
And there was a very old woman who came to greet
him and he was just weeping. She took his hand
and they began to walk around the lake going
this way. And as they walked around from the
side, there was a whole herd of pinto horses
who had run to greet him as well. And just as
that happened, he took his last breath and that
was that. But I was very confused. So it's best.
in my world that I not know things because then
I really trust it and so I asked the daughters
like what was his life story like so here's what
his story was he grew up on the rez and his mother
couldn't take care of him so he was sort of abandoned
at a young age and the tribe sort of took care
of him but then he left the tribe and guess what
He lived on a small farm. He had these two children,
but these two girls he sort of abandoned too.
And then later in life, they sort of had a little
bit of contact with each other. Guess what he
did for his hobby? He raised mental horses. And
then I said, well, who's this older woman? Well,
it was his mother who had abandoned him. Came
to get him. Came to get him. It was a beautiful
story in a sense. So it's always like where I
go to that no matter how we die or no matter
what preceded that, we still go to these beautiful,
we go home, we go to these beautiful places and
how we go may be different for each person, but
it's still beautiful. Deb, thanks so much for
all that you do, for helping all of these people
and for sharing these great stories with us today.
I really appreciate it. Thank you. and hopefully
it will help someone else. That's the whole idea.
That's what this show is all about. Yeah. Is
we're just delivering a message of hope out there
for everybody. Thanks again for listening and
sharing this podcast. Don't forget to hit the
follow or subscribe button and sign up for our
newsletter at roundtripdeath .com. If you want
to share your near -death experience, or if you
have questions or comments about the show, send
an email to eric at roundtripdeath .com. Until
then, I wish you everything good that you're
looking for in this life and the next.