From the time that they pronounced me that was
a good 45 minutes They cut my clothes and then
they paddled my heart my heart 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 can imagine Absolute love and peace
there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was
greeted by people I'd known in the past I'm back
home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home.
Welcome, welcome to Round Trip Death everybody.
We've got a great guest today, Ingrid Honkala.
No, Honkala. Is that better? Honkala. Honkala,
okay. And I'm going to add the PhD on the end
because you deserve some credit for that. So
anyway, welcome to the show. This is going to
be really interesting today. as we talk about
your near -death experiences, plural, and especially
all the things that you've learned from them.
That's really what it's all about and what we're
all here to do is to learn and grow. Before we
jump into it, I'm going to give you one minute
to tell a little bit about yourself so we can
get to know you. So Ingrid, take it away. Thank
you so much, Eric. Thank you for having me here
with you, with your audience. Well, Ingrid, I
am a person that, from a very, very young age,
started to feel fascination for, like, knowing
who we are. Because, yeah, my first near -death
experience happened when I was very, very young.
But life brought me to be an explorer, an explorer
of life, an explorer of the unknown. And I decided
to take the path of science. the path of trying
to understand things from the place of being
not just a person wanting to know a spirit, but
a person wanting to know how everything worked,
where everything came from, what was the dynamics
of it. My curiosity was such an intensity of
me wanting to figure out and understand things.
So yeah, I became a scientist. And I became a
marine scientist, something that shocked people
because they said to me, how could you have become
a marine scientist if you drown? And he said
he wouldn't say because drowning brought me to
see the light. For me, life had been a combination
of the outer and the inner. All right, well.
I'm glad you segued right into the beginning
here, because I think we'll go chronologically.
We'll start with your very first experience.
And you were very young. You're only three years
old. And one of the questions I want you to answer,
because some people are going to have is, well,
how do you remember something from when you were
that young? But first, just tell us what happened.
What was going on? I grew up in Bogota, Colombia.
My parents work. They will leave us at the care
of a maid. wouldn't pay attention to what we
were doing when they were not at home. One day
they left, my oldest sister, she was almost four,
I was almost three. The two of us decided, let's
go play in the patio. We phone a ball. And in
the patio, there was a tank, a deep tank where
we supposed not to play because we didn't know
how to swim. But guess what, Eric, when they
tell you not to do something, that's good. That's
where you want to go. And then it was fun. We
climbed the walls of the tank and she threw the
ball. The idea was to play cash across the tank.
And then she threw a ball, didn't apply enough
force. I thought I can grab the ball and I leaned
forward to try to grab it. It rolled. I lost
my balance and I fell in the tank. How deep?
Something you couldn't stand up in? No, I couldn't.
It was about 900 gallons of water. It was very
deep. More than wide, it was deep. And it was
just to store water and use that water back in
the day for washing clothes. So I have never
been in a pool. We didn't have a bathtub. So
I didn't know that if you fall in the water,
you drown. And this is the other thing, I was
born high up in the Andes, so the water in that
tank was frigid cold. It was early in the morning,
so that water probably was about, I don't know,
maybe 40, 30, 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So when
the first shock, more than anything, was the
frigid water. Just right there, I felt that my
breath was taken away. And then it was the horror.
the horror of why I cannot breathe. And right
there, right at the back area, when people ask
me, how can you remember? And I said, how can
I forget if drowning is a horrifying experience?
Imagine breathing, breathing is life. And you're
trying to just fight for that air. And I'm in
that moment of terror. And now how can I even
forget what happened next? All these after that
is, I like to name it because it's contrast after
contrast after contrast. And the first contrast
was going from that horror to peace, serenity,
calmness. I didn't know what happened, Eric.
I just knew that now I didn't need to breathe.
I didn't need to go out of the tank. I didn't
need to go anywhere. And it fell in... incredibly
amazing, the good. The next thing is that I was
hearing my heart beating so hard in my chest.
In that moment of horror, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And the other contrast was so extreme because
it went from all that noise in the head to silence.
and I experienced what I call the silence behind
the silence. It was so profound, so peaceful,
so good that even after the experience I craved
that silence and I craved it for the rest of
my life. I would hide into closets under the
bed, under the sheets, because I wanted that
silence back. And I thought that that silence
was like an outer silence, and it took me many
years to understand that that was not something
of the outer, but the inner. Now it comes the
next contrast, and it was that the tank was a
very dark space. It had a roof, it was early
in the morning, and the last thing I saw when
I drowned was darkness. And then... After that
peace, that silence, that light. Now light is
coming like from below and this light is able
to illuminate the whole watery surrounding. And
then imagine it's the sense like now there is
light. And then I started to see bubbles. And
there was bubbles surrounded by light. And then
imagine with the childlike spirit, I'm like,
oh, bubbles. and I started to chase the bubbles
and it was when I was chasing the bubbles that
I turned around and I saw my body and my body
was there floating in the water and this is the
thing I did not feel scared I didn't even feel
shocked it was just that oh that's my body and
it feels the sense of familiarity like oh yeah
that's my body and I have to tell you that the
only thing that truly shocked me and that never
went away from my mind was that the eyes were
open and the eyes were like staring like nowhere.
You know how we say that the eyes are the mirror
of the soul? These eyes felt like empty. Like
if I was looking just like a costume and there
was nothing, nothing there. And then it came
the next contrast. I was born as a very sick
child. I was born with respiratory problems and
for almost those three years of life, I didn't
know anything else than being sick. I didn't
know how it felt to be otherwise. And when I
am in this state of complete well -being, I look
at that body and I'm like, I'm not going back
there. And I made the conscious decision, I'm
not going back into that body. And I turned around
and I left the body behind. The moment I turn
around, I started to see flowers. Flowers were
blooming from nowhere. So now I'm like, wow,
I'm mesmerized by these flowers. And then suddenly
the flowers pick me up. So imagine even that
sense of dimension, because who knows how big
these flowers were. They pick me up, and now
I am just floating in the flowers. And I'm being
carried in a forward direction, and I'm just
resting there. when in just a flash like that,
I appeared floating above the maid. And I was
in the room where she was listening to soap operas
in the radio. And look, Eric, this is so sharp,
so clear in my mind that I can even remember
the soap opera she was listening in the radio.
If you ask a three -year -old, a two -year -old,
oh what mom was listening or what a friend was
listening in the radio when you were two years
old, you think we're going to remember? I don't.
But that I do. And years later I shared the information
with my mom, with my family, and we were able
to verify that that soap opera was playing during
those days when I drowned. Wow. Do you remember
specifically ever. And maybe you're getting to
this. I'm sorry if I'm jumping ahead. Was there
ever a time when you were given a choice? Do
you want to go back or not? I mean, you've already
made up your mind. You're going to stay and not
go back to that body. Yes. And oh, and that,
that will be later, not even in this experience,
but later in my life. And in one of my, actually
in my last near the experience, I was given the
choice, but in the first one, neither the second
one I was given the choice. I make at that moment
my choice of like, I'm not going back. But it's
clear that my soul had a different purpose and
that I was going to come back. And you know,
now that I am mentioning the mate and what I'm
about to mention after the mate is clear that
the decision was, I was coming back or I would
not have gone and looked for help. So this is
incredible. Although my mind said, I'm not going
back. My soul is, oh, no, you're coming back.
So I went to look for help. When I went to the
maid's room, I even pronounced her name. I said,
Maria. That's Maria. But nothing happened. And
in another blink, I appear floating above my
mom. And then My mom, I have to tell you a little
bit of backstory right there, a little bit. My
mom had just got a new job. What is the sense
when you've gotten a new job? Urgency. You're
nervous. You're preparing for this new job. That's
all you have in the mind. The mom and I appear
floating above her and I said, oh, that's mom.
She stopped. Look at the difference with the
maid. She stopped. And she knew something is
happening at home with one of my babies. And
that's when I had to bring the clarity of, look
what love does. Look what the connection of unconditional
love is doing here. Because when I went to meet
the maid, there was really no connection with
this person. So there was like nothing happened
there. And my mom, who was blocks away from the
place of the accident, at that moment knew and
I have to say two things about her she had an
amazing intuition and second she listened to
that intuition and Eric she started to run back
home and then I'm looking at her I wonder why
mom is running at that moment at the end of the
street I get distracted because I see a dog and
I love animals the moment I feel the desire to
be with the dog I am with the dog And just like,
whoa. And then I saw a park, and I felt the desire
to be in the park. I am in the park. And now
I'm like, well, this is fun. And I started to
play a game of going places. And while playing
this game in another flash, I appear in a realm.
And it was a realm that was made of pure, intense,
shiny white light. That was the first time that
I felt I am home. I am home. Although I had seen
my body, although all these things had happened
prior this moment, I have really never asked
who I was or wondered anything about me. You
know, like I just was in the motion of being
in the present having fun when I realized, whoa,
I am not that. I am not that body. And it's when
I realized myself as a being of light. And I
started to feel the sense of connection, losing
that sense of just individuality and started
to feel connected with everything. And this is
the part where people ask me, like when I was
saying I saw flowers or I turned around and I
did this and that, and how could you do that
if you didn't have a body? And I said, that's
amazing how when we... identify with the idea
of a body, we still think we are that. So up
to that moment, I did not even know what I was.
I never asked anything until I had this realization.
And although I started to dissolve, I was still
feeling the sense of self. But even that dissolve,
I experienced what I describe or what I can understand
or what I felt as nothing. Some people call it
emptiness, some people call it non -self. And,
you know, I could just tell you, Eric, that from
all the experience, this is the part that probably
is the most difficult to explain because I don't
really think there's words to describe what I
was experiencing at this point. But after many,
many, many, many years of trying to use the way
to explain what cannot be explained. I arrived
to an analogy. People don't like to hear the
word nothingness. That's kind of scary. But imagine
that there is a huge stadium. And in the middle
of the stadium, there's a little tiny box. And
all I thought I was was that box. And suddenly
the box opens up. and I said that is nothing
because it's nothing that I thought I was, but
at the same time is everything, is totality,
is a sense of expansion. I just can say if I
can find words to describe this state will be
the state of pure potentiality, state of pure
presence and absolute consciousness. is being
described in many philosophies. It could be a
state if I could just mention an emotion, what
some call nirvana or some call joy or just pure
bliss. And when I am in this state, my mom finally
arrived home and Eric, she knew exactly where
to go. And she directed herself to the back of
the house. She didn't waste time in any place
and anywhere she went there. And my oldest sister,
was trying to help me out. She didn't go say
anything to the maid because we didn't supposed
to play in this tank. So she looked at my mom
and she said, Mom, Ingrid is there and I cannot
get her. Came an incredible synchronicity. My
mom worked with children and she had been trained
to do CPR for children. My mom got me out. She
just said that I would like a raggedy doll, no
pulse, no breathing. completely pale blue lips
and then she started to just do everything she
knew and I was so disconnected from this reality
that I didn't feel anything nothing at all and
here comes the answer to your question nobody
asked me anything I said that I was pushed because
I felt like I had jumped from the tallest building
in the world and there's nothing I could do to
stop it, but I resisted. I was like, no! And
I'm being like sucked, like pulled back. And
then I knew I was back in the body when imagine
the sense of the expansive state of being back
to the little box. Like whoop! And I am like
feeling the sense of coldness and again the sense
of the illness, the sense of that lack of freedom
and oh I was so angry. I was so angry Eric and
I did not want to be here. That mother's love
is so powerful, isn't it? She was more powerful
with that love bringing you back than you were
wanting to stay, sounds like. Yes, oh yeah, I
didn't. think at all that I was going to come
back. That is so much for a three -year -old
to process. I assume you couldn't process at
all at that point. Did it just sort of happen
over the years that you were able to, you know,
not only remember these things, but you were
talking about some very mature kind of feelings
and topics here? Yes, it was very hard, very
hard, especially now that you're mentioning that.
I came back with an awareness that I didn't have
before. It was clear. You might say, oh, but
she was just a little one. There was a before
and after. I came back and I experienced my parents
as like, I didn't feel them just like my parents.
I have experienced a state of oneness. I felt
them as my equal. And I became very rebellious.
Why do I have to listen to these people? I also
came back with awareness. I am not a child. I'm
not a child. And I never felt like a child again.
I look at other children and I was, what is happening
to these people? They don't know anything. And
I could not relate with them, even with many
adults. It was so hard, Eric, to prove that actually
this girl came with something that was different
besides my attitude, besides what I was experiencing
was that I am like, you know, I'm just about
to be three years old. And now they started to
see pretty quick how I was developing in an incredible
fast rate, like I could read, I could write,
I could develop mathematical problems, I could
put together complex puzzles, I had a more complex
language. Where all this came from? And then
it was so fast that I even started to school
early in my life and I learned so fast that In
my mind, it was the clarity. I'm not learning
anything. I'm just remembering and just remembering.
So it was very hard. It was moments where I stopped
eating. I didn't even want to be touched. I didn't
want to be here, period. And people ask me, but
you should be grateful your mom brought you back.
I mean, I was so little. You don't even have
these concepts of being grateful or not or nothing.
And then I come with another analogy. Imagine
that you are a child and they take you to the
most amazing amusement park. You go to your dream
place, Disney, and suddenly a few hours later,
oh, we have to go home. I don't want to go. What
are you talking about? Quick shout out here to
our favorite returning sponsor, One Skin. They
have me hooked on their skin products and now
I'm giving their OS1 hair a try. It's the same
science. now in a scalp serum, and it's scientifically
proven to increase hair thickness and density
all while reducing hair loss. Whether it's stress,
hormonal shifts, or just getting older, hair
changes can happen to everyone, men and women.
OneSkins OS1 hair is powered by the OS1 peptide
to actually work on the scalp where hair health
begins to nourish the root so your hair looks
and feels better over time. I just started using
it and if it works half as well as their skincare,
I'm gonna love it, you're gonna love it, and
of course we have a deal for our listeners. Born
from over 10 years of longevity research, OneSkin's
OS1 peptide is engineered to support your hair
to look visibly fuller and thicker at any age.
For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15 % off
using code roundtrip at oneskin .co forward slash
I didn't want to be here and I could not fit
in. I felt like I was like an alien. It was very
hard and imagine like you mentioned I was so
little I didn't have the language. to express
what was happening. And there was not just the
barrier of the language. But back then, early
70s, nobody knew anything where I was about near
-death experience. And nobody knew anything about
this. So it even made it harder, thankfully.
For me, it didn't end there. Right after my near
-death experience, I... continue having experiences
like what I call a or what is known today as
our body experiences which I understand clearly
just as shifts in a state of consciousness where
I kept accessing that realm of the light and
in these journeys I started to communicate with
described by back then as beings of light. And
that connection was the one that made things
possible for me. Say that the possibility that
I was able to calm down and continue my life
with more, let's say with the possibility to
adapt better just because of this connection.
So yeah, it wasn't easy. And yeah, it took many,
many, many years, Eric, to integrate the experiences.
Because after that came all these other spiritual
experiences and a second ND and to understand
what was happening and from where all this was
coming from. So I think it probably, it wasn't
until my late 40s that I had what I call a big
awakening. We're going to come back to that if
we have time. One of the things that really stood
out to me, and I know it didn't seem like a big
deal. But it's unusual and that is how much you
craved silence after this Especially as a child.
That's an unusual thing I think it's really cool
and really interesting and you don't have to
have any more answers than that I just am kind
of pondering on that interesting fact All right
that that's amazing and in all of these experiences
change people Even a three -year -old can be
changed and you were changed in some big ways
and different than the other kids in some very
big ways. All right. Let's fast forward. Let's
go to when you were 24 years old, when you had
experience number two, and there's a great big
gap between these, but let's talk about the next
NDE and then we'll see if we need to make some
kind of connection between the two. Yes. Perfect.
Yeah, by then I was already working as a marine
biologist. I was living in an island in the Caribbean
and I got my first motorcycle and I was nervous
and happy to have it and a friend asked me to
bring him to his house in the mountains. I was
very nervous too. driving the mountains and look
what fear does. The fear of not knowing what
you're doing. I was, I guess, in a moment of
blinding fear that I don't even know what happened.
The moment we were going up the hill and I had
a friend sitting, the friend that wanted me to
bring him to his house, he was sitting at the
back, that I lost my balance. I don't know what
happened, but the bike fell. And it just, when
he was asking for changing gears, something happened,
the bike fell. And I know that the next thing
I know, I'm standing in the middle of the road
and I'm in the presence of the light. And the
light is shining so bright. And you know, the
most amazing thing was again, going back. from
fear. Look, in the first one was drowning, in
this one was the bye to peace and calmness. That's
the thing that I would just say maybe shocked
me the most or I can keep in my mind as the most
clear thing the lack of fear. None of that was
there, no negative emotion, only again, peace
and quiet and stillness and calmness. And again,
the sense of like, I'm ready to go home. And
I was completely ready when I was picked at the
scene of the accident. That's when the fear came
back because somebody touched my body and I just
wonder why I cannot feel, why I cannot see this
person that is. someone is touching me and I
cannot see this person. And I touched my face
and I realized that I could not see my physical
eyes. I had a very, very bad head trauma and
I had lost my vision. I was taken to the hospital.
At the hospital, just inflammation started to
go down and I started to recover my vision. But
right there with the doctor and my friend in
the recovery room, the doctor said that I had
to lose my vision when I fell the moment my head
hit the ground because I didn't have a helmet.
Oh, my God. Crazy girl. And then I said, I don't
think so, because I was standing in the middle
of the road and I was seeing light. I thought,
yeah, I'm seeing. And then my friend said, no,
Ingrid, it's not possible because it was at night
and the road was pitch black. There was not street
lights. You could not have seen any light. And
he said, by the way, you never stood up. So it's
when I realized... I get it. I didn't see the
light with the eyes of my physical body. Look,
the physical eyes were not even there. I was
seeing with the eyes of my soul. So it was that
clarity of light. It's when I started to understand
with more clarity about the inner senses, what
I call the senses of the soul. And then this
is the other thing. This experience was so key
later in my life when people ask me if their
loved ones suffer. when they die in accidents
that are terrible accidents like this. And I
said, no, no, there's no physical pain. Emotional
pain might be different, but physical pain? I
said, the pain belongs to the nervous system.
The moment that you're out of the body, no pain.
Even before the bike fell, I was already out.
I never felt any pain whatsoever. So it was that
reassuring sense of like, yeah, there's no physical
pain. And the other incredible thing that I experienced
there was when I came back in the body, the connection
between the soul and the nervous system, like
almost like a spark. I don't know how to explain
this. Imagine that you have a toaster and without
being plugged to the electricity, it cannot do
anything. And the moment you plug it, you hear
the spark of connection with. the electricity
and now it has a function. So I experienced that
how we came here to experience through all these
bodies, through all these senses, through these
nervous systems. So it was incredible. And at
that moment I have become a little bit busy with
my career, a little bit out of focus from all
this spiritual thing. And it was kind of like,
oh, no, no, no, no, no, you need to come back.
You need to come back to alignment. Go back and
look within to brought me back to that silence
again. Okay. Wow. It's beautiful stuff. I want
to go ahead and jump up to, to the latest experience.
There was another one in between that, that you
were telling me earlier, you don't really remember
very much of. So let's jump to an experience
just what three years ago? Yes. Three years ago,
I, uh, I was. I was diagnosed with, what is the
name of this? I had very severe inflammation.
Eric, I cannot even remember the name of this
condition, but I needed surgery. At that moment,
I was avoiding surgery because I just thought
I could heal with just traditional things or
just medicine. I was just thinking, I don't need
this surgery. I decided just to walk away from
that. And one night I went to sleep and I was
feeling the sense of dread, the feeling of deep
anguish, the feeling of, I don't know what is
happening. And I am a very empathic person. So
I just thought maybe I'm feeling somebody else's
stress or somebody else's feelings. And every
time I mentioned these, these feelings go away.
That moment, I kept feeling so worried. I went
to sleep. I just slept for a couple of hours,
woke up again. And the worry was such that I
felt that I had tachycardia when I woke up. I
went into deep, like a state of breathing, calmness.
I already practiced all these different techniques.
And then it's when I heard the words, do you
trust me? And when I heard the words, do you
trust me? I wanted to peace the moment I say,
I do. Yes, I do. And then the rest of the night
I was in a state of deep, deep, deep connection.
And I even heard the words that said, you are
in sync with God. Next day, I got up and I was
in that state of deep, deep, deep connection.
And now remembering these words, five days after
this experience, I was in a horrendous car accident.
And in the car accident, the seat belt pressure
so hard, my chest and my abdomen, the surgery
that I didn't want to have had to happen. Pretty
much life was pushing me to have the surgery.
I guess it was to have the experience I was about
to happen. Prior to the surgery, I told the doctor
that something was going to happen. I already
knew, Eric, I had. the knowing. I said, something
is going to happen with my blood pressure. And
I told the doctor repeatedly, something you have
to monitor my blood pressure. And then she called
anesthesiologist and everything because I was
so adamant. And then she listened to what I had
to say. And during the surgery, they were just
their check -ins when my blood pressure went
to the ground and I went into hypothermia. And
the moment this happened, I immediately went
to the light. I just have to say, and I don't
know if you hear it from other, near -their -experiencers,
it was like, cut with the chase. You don't have
to go experience any other thing, so go here
to see that, go directly to the light. And now
I'm answering a question you asked me at the
beginning. If I ever heard, it's not your time,
or if I was given a choice, this is the first
time. that I heard if I wanted to stay or I wanted
to come back. And when I heard if I wanted to
stay, wow, my first answer was, of course I want
to stay. Since my very first near -death experience,
I always wanted to go back home. I was homesick
all my life. And that's why this experience was
so important, Eric. It closed a cycle. of depression
I had had all my life because I always felt I
want to go back home. And I felt kind of bad
to tell the story to my family because I felt
so detached. And this is beautiful because the
detachment is no lack of love. The detachment
is because you are in complete connection with
everything and everyone. So when I am there,
I'm like knowing that God's plan is perfect.
And there's nothing I have to change or fix.
And then I heard, oh, you want to go back. And
at that moment I say, wait a minute, is this
a test? Because if God is everywhere and absolutely
everything is a manifestation of consciousness.
So what is here and what is there? I said, oh,
I get it. There is no here and there is not there.
There is only consciousness. Where I am in my
state of consciousness. And it's when I realize
I get it. Home is not a place. It's a state of
being. And then the only thing that crossed my
mind was to say, keep me where I can serve God
the most. And the moment I said those words,
give me where I can serve you the most. I started
to feel the sense of how detached I was now.
I was like, oh, my son, my husband, my family,
my purpose. I needed something that anchored
me back. And all that pulled me back here. And
it's when I realized, Eric, I get it. It's not
about near dead. It's about near life. how I
can live my life to the fullest, how I can use
the whole of everything to remember who I am
truly and continue just living a life in presence
and love and connection. And yeah, in challenge
too, by understanding that all these challenges
are for my own growth and evolution. So now that
you've had that side of the experience where
it was more of your choice and you realized the
whys behind it, Do you still feel that longing,
that homesickness that you had before? No, it
completely closed that cycle. It was the absolute
clarity. And you know, I even had a vision of
say that you're sitting here and you put in yourself
some virtual reality goggles and you put the
goggles and you just go up and down and here
and there. And you feel that you've been experiencing
all these and you remove the goggles and you
realize I never went anywhere. I've always have
been here. I've always have been home. I just
thought that I was going somewhere else, doing
this, being there. And now my connection with
the divine, my connection with spirit, my wholeness,
my expanded state of being is in me. I am the
whole of it. So I don't have to go anywhere and
I can even feel this now. I don't need to be
here or there to feel that I belong. I belong
because I am the scent. How much fear of death
do you have now? Zero. Zero, Eric. And you know,
you can even ask me and it happened since I was
little, not even with the very first near that
experience. And one thing is to know And one
thing is to believe that you don't. And I had
the possibility to experience firsthand that
what I was feeling was real because I have had
experiences in which for other reasons, I faced
situations of deep, deep danger, deep danger
where my life was like about to be taken once
I was almost raped and murdered. And the moment
that I remember who I truly was and the moment
I was in a beach area, I turned my head and I
said, today's a good day to die. And I was in
this space of complete presence and I knew you
can kill or you can destroy this body all you
want, but you cannot destroy me. Well, there's
something we don't hear every day. It's a good
day to die. That's really different. Now, when
you were a child, were you also lacking that
fear of death? Yes, to the point that my parents
had to keep an eye on me because I didn't fear
anything. And that brought me to have actually
the possibility to do so many things, travel
the world. I've been in 65 countries of the world,
be here and there, do extreme things, sports,
anything, because I never had this incredible
house to live alive. without the fear of that
you're more daring. You're able to do just many
things because you know really you are an eternal
being that doesn't really exist. So I always
knew you can take this body but you cannot destroy
who I am. Yeah I like that a lot. Do you have
any advice for parents out there who maybe have
a child that has been through an experience like
this? Your child is now different. Okay, parent,
mom or dad, how do I not only deal with this,
but best nurture this child after what they've
been through? It's very important. And I have
had the possibility to talk to parents and to
talk to children. And incredibly, I met like
in my experience, the children were nervous.
They didn't want to talk. They were scared because
what is that? You need validation. The most important
thing, just listen. listen to what they have
to say. I think for me, in my own experience,
my mom became the greatest thing. My mom was
the first person validating what I was seeing
and I was experiencing was something she had
to listen to. She had to connect with me there.
And after that, my grandmother, she became my
spiritual teacher. So I think the most important
thing is to listen. to don't go on and just right
off the bat denying what they're saying or you're
seeing things or you're crazy or whatever, because
that immediately is going to cause a sense of
pain and suffering and is when things are going
to go very, very wrong for the child. But the
moment that you feel that you're being listened
just by, you know, the power of listening has
so much healing. in it so just listen with an
open mind and an open heart that's already the
route of healing. Last thing that I wanted to
get into for a minute is as someone who grew
up with these spiritual type experiences and
then you became a scientist and we tend to think
that those things are at odds with each other
that there's no congruency. How did you balance
all of that in your own mind? Well, you know,
and right before going to that answer, just because
we're going to talk about science, I would also
tell the parents to be informed, to be informed,
to study, to learn what is happening, not just
be reactive and I don't understand what it is,
just study, learn. Nowadays, there are many things
that are available for everybody to be able to
understand things deeper. And yeah, my path of
science is that this is so interesting because,
you know, for me, I would just say that science
and spirituality, people feel the sense that
they are the world, that they are divided. And
I say the separation is in the mind. Because
the most important thing is also to refrain the
idea of what is to be spiritual. To be spiritual
is to remember. your authentic self to go back
to the root of who you are and to be able to
go back and explore and see and remember who
you are. You have to be an observer. You have
to be curious. You have to ask questions. You
have to have curiosity. You have to go look for
answers. And that's the path of science too.
So I just say that in reality, spirituality is
science. If I come to you, Eric, and I said,
look, and there's a sky, all this is full of
clouds. And I said, Eric, beyond those clouds,
there's a blue sky. If you choose to believe
me, just to believe me, that is dogma without
any other way of proving that, that's dogma.
But in the moment that you say, you start by,
yeah, I believe, but... Let's go on and let's
ask the real, is there really a blue sky there?
I want to go see it. So you start with your hypothesis,
is there is a blue sky or not? And after that
you get your airplane, however you get it, you
build it, you get it, and you cross those clouds
and you see there's really a blue sky here. then
now you get your results. You're able to compare.
You come back here and you share all these results
and your conclusions and everything with the
people. So look at the end of the day, you need
to do the work. You need to have curiosity. You
need to have observation. You need to have results.
So I said, I could offer you the best meditation
in the world, but if you never practice it, you
will never know what it does for you. See? So
at the end of the day, you have to go through
all the experience. At the end of the day, you
have to become the observer of yourself. There
was a moment that I asked the universe, how can
I do to understand and unravel the mysteries
of the universe? I asked for nothing. And the
answer was to understand and unravel the mysteries
of the universe. Know thyself. And we can be
very curious without being skeptical. Exactly.
And everything, yeah, of course, because everything
starts with that, like that question. And there
is choice in our belief. How does that relate
to somebody who might be saying today, I don't
know if there's an afterlife. I don't know if
there is a God. Does it fit the same formula?
I just say that everyone is having. their own
experience and we have to go through everything.
Sometimes we have to go through the path of like
peeling layers of what we are not until we discover
what we are. The only way to know what you are
is by knowing what you are not. So you peel all
these layers, all these layers until you just
get to the core of what you are and sometimes
we have to go through doubt and sometimes we
have to go through disbelief and sometimes we
have to go through all these things and life,
only life and your own experience because I can
tell you and I can try to convince you all I
want and that's not going to work. The only thing
I could do is share my experience and everybody
else will do. their own experience. How many
near -their -experiencers were atheists and say,
I didn't believe in anything. I've talked to
many. I will shake you hard. And you're like,
oh, people that it doesn't even have to be a
near -their -experience, an experience of such
extreme moment that people that never believe
in God would just go and say, please God help
me. And it happens. It's the moment in which
you open yourself to what was hidden. It is always
that knowing inside ourselves there's more than
this outer reality. Beautiful stuff Ingrid. And
if people want to learn more about you, we've
got ingridhankala .com. I'll put it down on the
show notes and go ahead and mention your couple
of books that you've written too. Yes, yes, yes.
I've written a few books, two for adults, two
for children. My first book is an autobiography,
A Brightly Guided Life, how a scientist learns
to hear her inner wisdom. And my second book
is Dying to See the Light, a guide to reawakening
without nearly dying. So it's more like a guide
to... bring people to realize you don't have
to die because people ask me I would like to
die and like no you don't want to die but you
can do all these things instead so it's a guide
and it's a guide for that for questioning for
looking within for looking for answers for curiosity
so that's that book and then I have two books
just for children so children kind of start asking
those questions yeah I think encouraging the
questions is a good thing I'm going to give you
the last word here. This show is not about death.
It's about hope and it's about life and it's
about love. Leave us some kind of a message of
hope because we're living in a world right now
that, wow, there's not a lot of it. There's just
bad news everywhere. Leave us with some hope
today. You know, this is a message I received
from what I call being so light, and it's a really
beautiful message they sent to me. Ingrid, you
don't imagine how grateful everyone would be
if you realize that for you to exist, trillions
and trillions and trillions of subatomic particles
have to be in agreement. You are divine. You
are a divine being. Look at these subatomic particles
could have chosen be anything else and they decided
to be you and I see it with everything and nowadays
I see wow these spend trillions and trillions
of subatomic particles keep it together to be
this pen so I can use it and at the same time
it was created by the creative thinking of the
universe someone that was connected with creativity
so I tried to see things with those eyes what
can I do to be the peace I want to see in the
world. What can I do to be the joy I want to
see in the world, the love I want to see in the
world? So I do not lose myself in what is happening
out there. The beings of light also say to me,
do not worry for what others do. Not because
you don't care, but because you care so much
that you correct yourself first. So be the light
that you want to see in the world. Be that. 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.