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'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,
Darnella Ford. Welcome to the show. Thank you
so much, Jared. Thank you so much for having
me. I love the podcast. I enjoy it. I'm so honored
to be here with you and hopefully to inspire
and encourage and uplift some of your viewers
that may pass this way. Well, I appreciate you
reaching out to the show. Before we jump into
your experience, and by the way, we're going
to be all over the place today. And frankly,
we're going to be talking less about specific
near -death experiences and more about the questions
that they bring up, what we learn from them.
But before we jump into it, Darnella. Tell us
a little bit about you so we can get to know
you first. Oh, thank you so much. Well, my name
is Darnella. I think I've lived a pretty unique
life and my humble experience. I came here. I
feel like I was wired seeking God. I always looked
up into the cosmos and the heavens when I was
a young kid, and I always wondered, who is God?
Where is God? What is God? What is this? What
is this life about? And I remember I was this
incessant question asker, incessant. So when
we would go to family holidays and we'd go to
a friend's house, my mother and my grandmother
would always say to me, you always get the instructions
before you arrive. Don't run through these people's
house. Don't tear up these people's furniture.
Don't do this. Don't do that. Mine was always
the same. My mother had five girls. My instruction
was always the same for my mother and my grandmother.
They would look at me and they'd point and say,
Don't you ask these people $100 ,000 worth of
questions because that's my personality. I always
wanted to know why and why and why and why. Case
in point, when I was seven years old, my mother
had one of her cousins over and I guess she was
going through a divorce and she was very sad.
And of course I was behind the curtain, my grandmother's
house, peeking, looking, looking through the
curtain. When my grandmother and my mother went
to get this woman some glass of lemonade, I went
into the room at seven and I sat across from
her. This stands out to me, which is why I'm
telling the story. I sat and I looked at this
woman and I said, I felt like something was off
in her story. And I said, why do you really think
he left you? That was the question I asked at
seven years old, this grown woman. Well, the
next thing I knew, I was getting a lot of trouble
from my grandmother. That... sets the template
for my life. I always look at people. I've examined
people. I study people. Ultimately, I became
a journalist. I worked as a journalist for a
number of years. I ultimately became a writer.
I published books. I traveled. I did book signings.
I did all the things. And then in 2006, my life
changed on the edge of a traumatic breakup. I
believe that one of the great curriculums of
my life was exploring myself through relationships.
I had many relationships with men and they always
ended up the same. Them gone and me with a broken
heart. And this was like the mother of relationships.
And when this man left to go move to Hollywood
to be an actor and a model, we only live 15 minutes
from Hollywood by the way, but he left to do
that. I really wanted to understand How can I
change my life? How can I change my pattern?
How can I really pull myself up out of the ditch
of common human existence? Prior to that time,
I had struggled all of my life with depression,
anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder. I had
really struggled for balance and equilibrium.
So that thrust me into a study. I ended up in
Washington State. From there, I started studying
quantum physics and neuroscience. Ultimately,
I would come to teach that. It was an evolution
and a development, and I became a spiritual guide
and a teacher and a facilitator, which is what
I do to this day. So that's a long story short.
That's fantastic. I can certainly relate to the
whole asking questions about everything. That's
why I'm on this side of the table, and today
I get to ask you the questions. I love it. I
love it. Here's what I think we're going to do.
I think we're going to start with the heavy stuff.
Okay. Which is we're going to talk about the
death of your best friend a few years ago. Yes.
And then we're going to talk about all the questions.
So would you mind telling us that story? What
happened? And let me ask a few questions as we
go. Yes, thank you. My very best friend, I met
her when I was in the heyday of my wanting to
get a book deal. And I saw her in the New York
Times. She had a full -page ad. Her book had
been released, and she was doing very well with
her book. And I saw her. And I was just in awe
of this Black woman who was in the New York Times.
And I reached out to her by way of email just
because I was on the path of wanting to becoming
a published author in the way that she was. And
she reached back to me. From there, we developed
a very profound relationship. She ultimately
became my very best friend. I met her in Chicago
at a writer's conference. She lived in Jersey.
I lived in LA. We met. From there, we became
literally inseparable. Well, she was diagnosed
about 10 years after I met her with lupus. And
she had a more severe form of lupus that attacks
the organs at a much deeper level. So all to
say in 2012, she made her transition. She left
the physical body February 23rd, 2012. I've had
many experiences that changed my life that led
up to that moment, but I want to insert this
here. In 2006, once I began studying quantum
physics and neuroscience, I began to have what
would be considered spontaneous out of body experiences.
So my consciousness would detach from my physical
form. And I began to experience things that people
might experience in a near death experience.
and or in an afterlife environment. So I want
to say that. I also want to say this is very,
very important for me to say this. I am not here
to convince or convert anyone. I'm not here to
say that what Darnella is saying is the truth
or even a truth. But I will say this is my truth
from my lived experiences. So I want the viewers
to remember that when they're hearing me, I am
not pushing anything on anyone. and would ask
people if they could keep an open mind that if
there is one thing that you hear that serves
your life and makes your time here on earth just
one degree better to be open to that. So I wanted
to say that. So my friend transitioned, but I
will say something. When I started having the
out -of -body experiences, something started
happening in my brain. I started receiving precognitive
premonitions. I started knowing things that there
would be no way in the body that I could know.
And it wasn't because I was just seeing these
things once I left my body, but my brain and
my abilities, my natural, I believe we all have
precognition. I believe everyone has gifts. These
are spiritual gifts. My gifts started coming
online. They started becoming activated. So I
was in a sandwich shop and I received a precognitive
hit. that my best friend was going to transition.
It almost, it was a whisper. Whenever something
has come to me, it's not been loud and glaring
and glaring. It is a whisper. And it was so gentle,
but it was so deep in the knowing. I ran to my
car. I sat in my car and I picked up my phone
as quickly as I could and I phoned her. I was
so overcome with emotion. I remember the day
she answered the phone. She always said, hey,
D -Love. She called me D -Love. Darnella, you
know, she called me Dee. Hey, Dee love. And when
she answered the phone, I couldn't speak. I was
weeping so deeply into the phone. She was also
very intuitive and she knew and she stopped and
she was very quiet and there was silence on both
sides of the phone. And she said, so this is
how I'm going to go out. I didn't say anything.
She didn't say anything. And then my voice emerged
through my tears and I said, I have begged, I
have begged, I have begged for your life, but
it is not mine to beg for. She said nothing.
Nothing else was said. About 30 days later, she
got up to go to the bathroom, collapsed on the
floor, never gained consciousness again. Interestingly,
again, precognition, I spoke to her at 10 o 'clock
that night. When we got off the phone, I sent
a text message and I still have the phone here,
2012, that was many cell phones ago. I still
have the phone with our text thread on it. The
last words I said to her was, keep breathing.
I love you. Interesting, right? Interesting,
why would I send that to her? Why would I send
keep breathing? I never said that to her. She
replied, I love you. She didn't say anything
to the keep breathing. Five hours later, she
dropped it in her bathroom, literally. So she
came to me, I experienced her in my room. My
phone rang at three in the morning and it was
from her phone, but I knew it wasn't her. I knew
it was not her. It was her sister -in -law telling
me that she was on life support. and that they
were trying to resuscitate and revive and that
she was on life support. But she came into my
room. I could feel her on my right side because
the energy in the room changed. I'm very sensitive
to energy and it was very peaceful. It was very,
very peaceful. When she entered my room, she
was supporting me. She was holding me up emotionally
because I was getting the news. And all of a
sudden I felt overcome by peace. I felt a strength
that was not my own. Her sister -in -law said
they're trying to figure out what level of brain
damage or how much brain activity she has left.
She is on life support. And I knew then she's
not coming back. I knew it because she was already
out of the body. She wasn't even there. And I
just said, okay, but I knew she wasn't in the
body anymore. And that was actually February
22nd. They called time of death, February 23rd.
In my heart, I feel like she died February 22nd
because she left the body immediately. She was
no longer there. The vessel was shutting down.
She was already gone, but her death certificate
reflects and her obituary reflected February
23rd, but she actually transitioned February
22nd. Something the doctors don't understand,
though. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. When she
left, I struggled, even with all that I know
and with all of my access into other realms and
experiences, which are beautiful. I've had beautiful
experiences. I do not subscribe to that, you
know, this is demonic or I'm channeling demons.
I like to put that out there because sometimes
people will feel that and they will feel inspired
to put that in the comment. I am an ambassador
for light and love, period. So I wanted to clarify
and just say that as well. She came to me about
a month after she transitioned, because I was
just struggling. I was having a really hard time.
And I would cry myself to sleep every night,
just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. And one
night she walked right through the wall as I
was falling asleep. I looked in my bedroom and
she just walked in. I mean, radiant and glorious
and healthy and whole and beautiful. And she
echoed this power. She was so powerful. And she
looked at me. She communicated to me telepathic.
She used her mental energy and inserted it into
my brain. The words went right into my brain.
No lips were moving, but I understood every word
with crystal clarity because it was a frequency.
It was an energy of communication. And she said,
stop crying for me. Stop crying. And then I felt,
interestingly, this interesting flush of embarrassment.
I was so embarrassed. She said, stop crying for
me. She said, I'm happy in my real home. And
she turned around and walked straight through
the wall. And I was just sitting there like,
instantly I stopped crying. And I was embarrassed
because it would suggest, If she stated that,
that she was watching me cry, she's seen me cry,
she's watching me cry, she's watching me grieve,
she's seeing what I'm going through. And she's
like, stop it. Just, I mean, almost like put
her foot down, like stop it. And honestly, it
was effective because I don't think I cried for
another couple of weeks. Now, eventually I started
back crying. I'm gonna tell you why I started
back crying. One night I was in my room, five,
it's so much happens in my bedroom, five in the
morning, or four in the morning, I sit up and
I look in the corner and I see a man who looks
like a wizard. Imagine a wizard from Harry Potter.
Okay, there was a man in my room. He looked like
a wizard. He had a beard and he had like a hat
on and he had his robe and I was like, wow, who
is this man? I didn't want him in my room. I
didn't know who he was. It was a bit overwhelming
to be able to perceive him. When I travel out
of body, I can move energy. I'm very powerful
when I'm out of my body, and I can do this with
my hands, I will do this. If I am experiencing
something that I do not want in my way, it basically,
I can move energy. I can move things out of my
way, and I can do this, and the energy just shoots
from my fingers, and it'll just open, like, park
the way for me. And I knew I could do that. So
when I saw him there, I thought, well, I'm going
to use my technique I use when I'm out of body.
And I did this. I just... I threw a little energy
to the wizard. I called him the wizard. And he
didn't move. And I thought, the wizard did not
move. I said, wait, let me try it again. I said,
I did energy and he just stood there. And I thought,
and I knew instantly why he didn't move. He was
more powerful than me. That's why I couldn't
move him. Much higher being than me. All I thought,
that bumble was, oh Lord, I hope I didn't offend
the wizard. Cause I can't get him out of my room.
When he's teased, I'm trying to get him out.
He opened up his robe. He took a spinning globe,
one of the most beautiful things I had ever witnessed.
It was a spinning globe. And it was this beautiful
combination of lavender, purple, interestingly
her favorite color, my best friend's favorite
color was purple, magenta. It was soft pink pastel.
It was so beautiful. And when I saw it, it instantly
put me into a trance. And he took the globe and
he tossed it to me. And when he did, I reached
out like, I had to connect to the beauty of what
I was seeing. The moment I put my hand, like
imagine a ball, somebody throws you a basketball.
The moment I put my hands on it, I was pulled
out of my body and pulled into the dimension
where my best friend was. She literally pulled
me by the hands, pulled me out of my body. And
when I saw her, Eric, I literally felt, oh my
God. She's right in front of me. She's right
here. I couldn't believe it. I was overwhelmed.
And in that moment, I flashed all the tears,
all the crying, all the heartache, all the devastation.
And in that moment, I said, I beat you death.
I beat you. I felt like that I had transcended
beyond death for a blink of an eye. We were holding
hands and we were spinning around like little
kids. And I went to say, oh my God, I said, man,
where have you been? I said, where have you been?
I said, I went to say, I miss you. But you know
what happened? The most profound thing happened.
I was blocked from the thought. I couldn't even
articulate the words. I couldn't even articulate
the thought, I miss you. And I'm gonna ask you,
Eric, why do you think I couldn't articulate
the thought, I miss you? Why was I not allowed
to communicate, I miss you to her? I'm going
to have to venture a guess here. And my guess
is that is not really an emotion that we feel
when we're on the other side. That's so good.
That's a beautiful guess. And you're exactly
right. Because where she was, there was no such
thing. It didn't exist. And I was not even permitted
to think it because it wasn't true. The only
thing that I could say to her was, I love you.
because love is the only real truth that there
is. So all of the things that we say here in
the earth realm, all of the words that come out
of our mouth, so much of it is driven by ego
and personality. And that's why sometimes we
say unkind things and experiences that we have
and judgment and condemnation and things that
we say, there is a realm where none of that exists
and only high vibration. She was in a very high
vibration realm where it really was harmony.
It was harmonious. So love was the greatest harmony.
In that moment, I thought maybe I want to stay
here because it looked like a garden. It looked
like I was in a most beautiful garden. It looked
like, imagine if you were in Greece. You had
these incredible structures, it's ancient world,
a courtyard with all these beautiful living vines
and oh, it just pillars, these enormous pillars
and the peace and the birds and the way the light
illuminated the plane and everything was alive.
And it was almost like it wasn't air, but whatever
it was, it was so clean and it was so, you could
just be in that realm and just. Exhale and transcend
the human drama, the human story, the weight
of being human. And in that moment, I experienced
that and that's where she was. And I thought
to myself, well, I like it here. I'm thinking
I might want to stay. And the moment I thought
that, immediately back in the body, it's like,
oh, no, no, not your time. Not your stage right
now. Your stage is earth. Boom, back in the body.
I sit up in the bed. And I just burst into uncontrollable
sobs. Uncontrollable sobs. But you know, I said
when that moment happened, Eric, I said, I will
tell this story to anybody that will listen to
me to the day I leave this planet. I will tell
that story and retell that story and retell that
story. Because in that moment, it was confirmation
to me, even though I had confirmation many times
before that our loved ones are well. They go
on, they're supported, they are elevated, they
are in love, they are embraced. And that was
a beautiful, beautiful demonstration of truth
for me. And again, I'm not saying this is somebody
else's truth, but some people experience hellish
realms. But I have also learned through my 20
years of research, I am a scientist in essence,
I am a researcher, I am an explorer. of consciousness.
The final frontier is the exploration of consciousness.
It absolutely is. That is the far reaches of
humanity's. It's the segue between the flesh
and the spirit. The breath is the intersection
between birth and death. Notice I don't say life
and death because life has no opposite. It's
birth and death. That's a part of this realm.
But life is a continuum and science has proven
now consciousness goes on. Darnella, thank you.
I appreciate you sharing all of that. Let's go
back. I want to talk about some of these emotions
because I have some theories on some of this.
This emotion of you not being able to say that
you have missed her. Let's dig just a little
bit into that because why do you think that is
that you couldn't say that? Because it was not
true in that realm because she was in a realm
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missing someone is a very human experience but
in that realm where she was she had an understanding
that all things are connected. and that she didn't
go anywhere and that she's still right here.
So in that understanding in her realm, what would
there be to miss? There would be nothing to miss.
I think that's a good way to put it. Let me speculate
a little bit more on that. Pure love, kind of
love that people feel that they tell me about
every day that they felt when they went on their
journey to the other side and came back. It's
so pure that there aren't negative things such
as guilt. And I think this emotion of missing
someone, while it sounds very positive here,
it means there's something lacking, right? And
so maybe it doesn't exist in the same place with
perfect love. Also, if we're thinking about time
and space, and you described it as another realm
or dimension, other people would call it heaven
or spirit world or something like that, and I'm
not here to try to define it for anybody. But
I believe that the people that are there in spirit
form, because it's so easy for them to see and
feel what's happening here, that it's not like
they're really apart from us. Now it is for us
because most of us can't see them, right? And
can't see them very often. Even you with your
friend. don't see her every single day, right?
So for us, it's like, oh, we're longing for that
again. For them, maybe it's not the same. And
maybe that's part of why it's so easy for people
to stay there. Now, as you know, because you've
studied, a lot of people with near -death experiences
are given an option. Do you want to go back or
do you want to stay here? Well, The ones that
report back to us are the ones that chose to
come back here. We have no idea how many people
made the other choice to stay there. It may be
a much greater number, and I would totally understand.
And that's okay. if they made that choice. That's
great that they made that choice. We miss them,
but for them that was a very natural thing to
stay there. Absolutely. Okay, the other thing
that I would like you to expound on just a little
bit is you mentioned this beautiful place that
you saw and witnessed. Can you give us a little
bit more detail on where you felt that was and
some of the things that you saw and felt and
experienced? Thank you for asking. I don't, you
know, there's so many infinite dimensions and
even use the word places because I don't even
know that it's a place. It was, I would say to
the best of my knowledge and awareness, it was
a higher realm. When I say a higher realm, it
just simply referring to the energy. Everything
was energy. So the energy oscillates at a faster
frequency beyond the space -time continuum. There
is no time there. So thought is instantaneous
manifestation. It's not dense. It is not compressed
into matter. We are energy compressed into matter.
That is why we have form. It is more You can
see a transparency of form or the soul can project
what it looked like in the body. But in our truest
space, from my understanding, we don't even have
a real true form. We are pure light. We are light.
We live at a place beyond, at the spark. The
spirit is beyond form. I was in an environment
that... Imagine if you were, again, if you were
in Greece and you were on the side of the coast
and you were by the water, but you could also
look and see a garden, the most beautiful garden,
the most, it was the most tender, the most tended
to place. And then imagine you can look over
here and you could see pillars and great buildings
and coliseums and incredible structures rising
upward. And then imagine you looking in the distance
and you could see mountains. Not that it was
sun, but it was light. It was light that was
so pure that permeate a golden light, also sometimes
a white light. There were many different colors.
Imagine also, too, you can hear the sound of
birds and water running. So it was everything
in one. Sounds like a Garden of Eden kind of
place. Sounds pretty wonderful. Yeah, you'd also
mentioned in your email to me, you got to attend
your own funeral. Okay, explain. And by the way,
some people are going to go, you know, woo woo
on some of this stuff, so. And you know, that's
fine. I mean, yeah, it's fine. Yeah. I mean,
I'm very well aware this is not everyday average
conversation and I don't live an everyday average
common life since all of this started by a long
shot. And that's okay. I've accepted that. It
has some wonderful things about it and it has
some challenges about it. In 2006, I had an out
-of -body experience where I was shown a split
in my own reality. I was shown an illness that
was developing in my body. In that space, I was
given a healing, a tremendous healing physically
in my body. I was on a timeline basically that
was running out. And I know that gets more complicated
into parallel realities and all of that, but
I was running on a timeline that was actually
running out. So I had about two years of earthly
life left and I saw this. So when I came back
into my body, it almost seemed bizarre. Interestingly,
around that time, two really good friends called
me out of the blue. One of my friends said, God,
I had this dream and you looked really sick.
My friend lived in Washington that I went to
school with. Interestingly, another friend who
lived here in Santa Monica said, I had a horrible
dream that you died. Two friends around the same
time, right? So how did that happen? Was that
precognitive? Were they picking up something
in my timeline? I'm not saying yes or no. I'm
just presenting it as something for consideration
because I find that incredibly synchronistic
in that moment, especially given what happened.
After that experience, when I would leave, when
I would go to bed at night, I found myself going
down almost looked like a hallway. And it looked
like I was in a hospital. And I was traveling
for days and days and days down the same hallway.
And there was this bed at the end of the hallway
and the curtain was drawn. Intuitively, I knew
that I was behind that bed. And I never wanted
to see behind the bed because I didn't want to
see what I looked like in that vision. or out
-of -body experience. It was not a vision. It
was my consciousness moving into another realm
that you would call or that I would call the
future, two years advanced. So I was really uneasy
about this and I was being drawn into the same
hallway every night for days, days and nights,
the same thing. And then finally, on the last
day that I had this out -of -body experience,
I got to the end of the hallway. and the curtain
was open and the bed was empty. And I just thought,
I remember thinking, oh my God, this is great.
The bed's empty. Well, interestingly, the next
night I ended up at the mortuary at my funeral.
The bed was empty because I died. Then I ended
up again at the funeral in another timeline.
That was the timeline that I was on. I saw myself
in the casket, very profound. My family was there
grieving friends. Oh my God, she was so young.
Oh my God. That was a very, how do you even,
there's not a language that I can give to you
around that experience, other than to say that
after that experienced, I really began looking
at my life, the quality of my life, and really
began to channel my energy into what I really
wanted my life to represent, what I wanted to
give to the world, how I wanted to show up, how
I wanted to be of service. And it really was
a fast track. That experience fast -tracked my
stepping into my journey as a teacher and a facilitator
and a guide and a healer. So that was an interesting
journey for me and it changed my life. One other
thing that you had sent me, and I don't know
that I agree with this statement. That's why
I want to talk about it. I'll be open -minded
to it. Okay. You said that the death experience
is a timed experience and is never an accident.
Explain. I love that you asked me that. I welcome
the challenge. I have a lot to say about it because
I have had several friends who have transitioned.
I have walked many of them through their transition.
What I have been shown, what I have been taught.
When you are born, even if you came here by way
of an accident, an oopsie from your parents,
because every soul agrees to come here from what
I have been taught. Now I've been taught this.
Who's teaching Darnella this? Is Darnella being
deceived by demons on the other side? I have
been taught this by the teachers that I have.
I work with a team of beings on the other side.
They are master teachers and they have informed
a lot of my work and my deeper understanding
about this life because everything is ordered,
Eric. Everything is ordered. The universe beneath
the seeming chaos of this is order. It is ordered.
Everything is synchronistically timed and connected.
And we don't see it from this realm because we
only see this small amount. The indestructible
essence of you, the spirit of you is never taken
off guard, first and foremost, because it is
not in time. It is out of time. You as the human
are experiencing this life through a linear progression.
First, second, third, before, during, after,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. But there is a higher
aspect of each of us that sees beyond time. And
it knows meticulously the exact moment that you're
going to transition, however it is, accident,
illness, or dying of natural causes or dropping
dead from a heart attack. It's timed because
the soul has exit points and we all have exit
points because when a soul comes here to have
a human incarnation, it knows it's going to be
a temporary journey. We're all just visitors
here, meaning everybody's going to die. So. If
you understand the order of the universe and
that everything is ordered, you'd understand
nothing, no thing just happens without there
being an order beneath it. Now, do we understand
why a 13 -year -old would die or a 10 -year -old
would die? In our human linear brain and processing,
we cannot because in our world and our civilization,
we look at longevity and the length of a life.
But certain souls come here to experience experience
definitively shorter lives for the purposes of
what they're learning and especially for what
they're going to teach their people, their family,
their parents, their siblings. Nothing affects
you more than the loss of a child, the loss of
a sibling. So it is an orchestrated, profoundly
timed, orchestrated event. Now, near -death experiencers,
let's go there for a moment. Some of them are
not given a choice. You must go back. I'm sure
you've heard this many times, right? Talking
to people saying, I was fighting for my right
to stay there and they said, you must go back.
Are you familiar with that, Eric? Oh, absolutely.
But I will say when you dig deep into it, that
is very unusual. That's something that is much
more rare than people given a choice. Although
something pretty common is, hey, you need to
go back. Oh, I don't want to go back. Well, here's
why you need to go back. OK, I'll go back. In
my opinion, that they still have a choice in
that one. But yes, there are some where it's
just, you gotta go and they're back immediately.
Yeah. I mean, I've been studying near -death
experiences as well for 20 years. There's a mix
of all of it. Some have choice points, some do
not. And yes, you made a statement that we don't
know how many said, I'm not coming back. But
you have to understand again, all of this is
ordered because what you're looking at is a soul.
We all have a curriculum. Every one of us, none
of us are just here. We all have a curriculum.
Your curriculum is going to be the stage of your
life, how you entered this dimension, your parents,
your childhood, how you grew up, how you were
conditioned, and specifically the challenges
that you have that create the curriculum of your
life. So the soul is utilizing this incredible
experience, being human, utilizing a body, and
being in the stage of life to learn, to develop,
to grow. Not that the soul is not already into
a perfect state unto itself, but it's actually
going down into a dense matter. the dense plane
of matter to do it, which is very different because
things are very easy once you get into beyond
this realm. They are easier. They are much easier.
We're in a very dense, very heavy realm. So we
come to flex our spiritual muscles and to see
if we can. How can we be in this dimension? What
can we how can we alchemize suffering? How can
we transcend? How can we be resilient? What can
we learn? How deep does the well? get within
us as a result of the very challenging things
that we have lived. So in my understanding, from
being on the other side, from walking with several,
several friends, I've had a lot of death in my
own life. I understand that the time is perfect
for your birth and the time is perfect for your
death, no matter the age. And what you have to
understand that the soul is eternal, immortal,
indestructible. It is not obsessed with time
the way human beings are. because it only knows
itself as forever and ever endeavor. So whether
you live 100 years or five years to the soul
itself, it only knows itself as immortal. So
it'll capture what it can in those five years.
Maybe it only came to have five years of experience
and made some very profound contracts with the
parents and the siblings of all the people who
will be infected by this child's transition.
It will change the trajectory of the life of
the parents. It will change the trajectory of
the life of everyone who has loved this child.
And some people will alchemize that into incredible
experiences and do tremendous things for the
world at large as a result of what they lived
and lost as parents. I think part of why I struggled
with that concept, and you make a very good point
of it, is the fact that I'm a huge believer that
one of the core principles the universe is agency
and our ability to make choices for ourself.
And it seems when things are predetermined that
almost goes against that choice. Now based on
what you've said, well maybe X amount of years
ago, assuming time is even a thing in the eternities,
we chose this is the time of our birth and this
is the time of our death. That would be the same
thing that you're talking about and would also
fit in with my philosophy of agency. So anyway,
I don't want to beat a dead horse there before
we run out of time. I want to talk about what
are some of the most important questions that
to you come up from all of this? What are the
deep things that we should be contemplating because
of near death and some of these other spiritual
experiences that we've been discussing? Well,
I love, I want to go back to some of these things.
I think it's really important the whole concept
of agency. free will versus predestination. It's
been an age old discussion. And I think there
are some things that I have learned along the
way that potentially would be helpful. Predestination
is the stage of your life. It is where you're
born. You had nothing to do with that. The personality,
your parents are who they were, whether they
were great or whether they were psychopaths.
They were who they were, right? The stage of
your life, you don't... have agency, meaning
you didn't decide, I really want this alcoholic
father, and I think I'll take a drug addict mother,
yay, let's make it happen. On a human level,
we would have never chosen that. The time you
were born, the time period you were born, the
home you grew up in, the religion you were indoctrinated
into, all of that is beyond this concept of agency
in the human. Now, at a higher level, it was
a 100 % agency. So I think agency is a really
interesting, depending on how you're using it.
Now, what is free will here? We hear a lot about
free will and people feel like, well, I don't
know, do we really have free will? I always say
your free will ends where your programming begins.
Science proves that. When you're in 95 % of your
day, you're an autopilot, how free are you if
you're just acting on automatic programming?
So your free will begins where your metacognition
is implemented when you can take a moment and
stop and think about your thinking, thinking
about how you're thinking when you start questioning
your own belief system. So many times we just
accept what's been said and told and we just
go, my mama believed it, my grandmama believed
it, and we'll just live and die right on out
of here with that. So metacognition, the ability
to see oneself in their own thought processes,
right? So the stage is set, that's destiny. How
you act upon that stage is free will, given if
you can rise above in a lifetime your own neurological
programming. how you are conditioned, what do
you do every day? How do you handle conflict?
How do you deal with things when they don't go
your way? We all have go -tos. To be able to
see ourselves increases our agency. Otherwise,
we are puppeted by our neurological programming,
if that makes sense. When you say neurological
programming, are you referring back to a statement
you made just a minute ago? I believe you said
that Our personalities are based on our parents.
Did you say that or did I take that wrong? No,
I didn't say our personalities are based on our
parents, but I will say this. Our personality
is the collection of thoughts, beliefs, emotions
that we develop and our programming, which is
basically the software that we're all running.
We all are running the brain, the way the brain
works. We're collecting data and we're accessing
that data and we're responding to the stimuli
of our brain. And science has shown. Science,
this is not even a speculative thing. It's shown
that we are 95 % of the time in our day on autopilot.
So who's choosing when we're on autopilot? Who's
choosing? We get up the same way. We move throughout
the same day the same way. Mostly we drink our
coffee the same way. We do the same. Like we're
on autopilot. We'll drive in the car. We don't
even realize how we got there. We pull up to
our destination. That's a great example of autopilot.
But we also respond to life's circumstances and
stimuli often the same. That's how you can be
with someone and you know how they're going to
respond when something comes up. When you know
someone's response before they even respond,
that means you have glitched their program. because
their program means that when this happens, they
always go here, right? And we all have that experience.
Our personality is absolutely shaped by our home
environment. Absolutely. We have some propensities
genetically, but we also, what we saw was modeled,
what was demonstrated to us by our parents. It
gave us a message to the world. How we were treated
as children becomes a voice inside of our own
head. So unless we become conscious, that is
why being mindful, and I use the word metacognition,
unless we become aware, unless we become aware
of our triggers. A trigger is just a wound that
hasn't been healed. That's why it triggers you.
Two people can be in the same situation and both
can have very different responses. It's not based
upon the external stimuli. It's based upon how
their brain is programmed. And the reason that
I bring that up is because I have five children
and they were born with different personalities.
They were raised in the same home and turned
out differently, but that's not just the way
they were raised or different things that happened
to them. They came here from day one, they had
different personalities. I could see it and I
could witness it. Absolutely. It's not just environmental,
and I'm not saying that it is just environmental,
but environment does play an impact. But my mother
had five girls too, so I'm one of five. We're
all very, very different. We had some innate
things, right? So your children had innate qualities
that belonged to them. Some were maybe more sensitive,
some were more creative, some were more expressive,
some were more extrovert, some were more introvert.
That is a part of their own unique expression.
but growing up in an environment in general will
have a significant impact on the brain and how
the child processes. They will process different,
maybe one child process it this way and theirs
will look very different than how this child
process it. But nonetheless, that internal stimuli,
that environment did and does influence how a
child develops because the brain is in a very
low brainwave, right? It's in theta. Theta is
automatic suggestion. So all of us as children
are being influenced and that influence is affecting
how we're programmed. So how we will play out
that program may be very different from our sibling
because we have a different innate sense of,
you know, more sensitivity, et cetera, et cetera.
And Darnella, you are being so sweet and I just
want to make sure that you understand I'm not
being argumentative on this stuff. I love to
talk about both sides of issues. That's how I
learn and grow. And so please, please, please
don't take any of this personally or as me arguing
with your beliefs, okay? Oh, no, no, no. I love
it. I'm here to have a conversation and I actually
really do enjoy the challenge because I know
these are very complex concepts and they're layered
and they're multi -dimensional and they're multi
-expansive. And I endeavor to do my best to express
them and try to use the language that I understand
from my own understanding. But I'm also aware
when I'm speaking, there may be people that disagree
with me and there may be people that really disagree
with some of the things I've said, or maybe all
the things I said. The world is big enough for
a space for us all. I think at the end of the
day, again, it's not about me convincing or converting
someone into my belief system, but it's just
me sharing. And if someone hears one thing, that
maybe they said, hmm, that's worth considering,
then our job has been done well here today. And
amen to all of that. And if you don't believe
it, just look at some of the comments that people
leave on our YouTube videos. They're all over
the place. Believe me, I don't take them personally
very often. Hey, before we go, I do want to jump
back into this just for our last few minutes.
Some of the deep questions. Throw some of them
out there that you like to ponder on yourself.
Because of the amount of death I've experienced,
you know, I had a dear friend that passed three
weeks ago from cancer. She was 44 years old.
She fought it for 12 years. One of the most valiant
fights I've ever seen. Walked with her through
that journey. The questions that I always ask
why her or why him or why this little boy, I
still have the very human questions. Because
even though I have the answer, I feel like I
have an answer for me. I'll say that. But not
everybody's gonna set my answer. I subscribed
there's something greater than me guiding and
navigating me through this life and that it knows
exactly and precisely when it is time to transition.
I must trust that with everything that I am,
lest I go crazy trying to figure out why good
people die and people who are less than noble
live very long lives. So I can't frame all of
this. from the human perspective. That has been
my piece. When I look at this like a human being,
I would fall out onto the floor and cry injustice.
When my 38 -year -old best friend died with two
kids in high school, it didn't make any sense
to my linear processing brain. and it didn't
seem right on any level, but her journey was
perfection. I have come now to understand that
if I attempt to qualify all the questions through
my human brain and my human reasoning and my
human programming, because I do have it, because
I know that there is a higher order and that
when I'm in the human experience, because the
human eye can only register less than 1 % of
the visible light spectrum, there is 99 % of
the world I'm not even seeing. So, In that humility,
I understand I get a sliver. Imagine me looking
at you right now, Eric, and all I could see was
the bottom of your mic. I couldn't see you. I
couldn't see your shirt. I couldn't see your
background. I couldn't see your flowers. I couldn't
see that wheel back there, right? If I could
only see that, I wouldn't really get the full
picture. So in the human experience, because
we are veiled by the body itself and our limited
awareness, we don't have the full picture. So
from my understanding, I don't know. I don't
always know the answer, but I trust there is
a higher source that does and that it is navigating
and directing my steps and ordering my path.
And that's my faith, right? I guess that's what
we come down to, faith. What do you really believe
in? And the thing is, you got to believe in something
even if you don't believe in something. Even
if you believe in nothing, that's still a belief
in something. That's a belief in nothing. It's
still belief. So we all believe in something.
And the beautiful thing is that one day, everyone
will get the opportunity to answer this question
for themselves, because we will all approach
that gate to death. And the question is, how
will you meet it? Well, how will you live? I
believe a large part of how you live is going
to give you either more peace when that time
arrives or less peace. And what I mean by that,
it's looking at our everyday actions, how we
treat the people we say that we love. And I say
we say that we love because oftentimes, It's
easy to snap up your partner. It's easy to take
advantage and be the people that you know so
well, people that will love you. It's easy to
mistreat someone who's in your space every day.
It's how we show up. It's how we speak to others.
It's how we speak to ourselves. It's what we
are contributing to life. It's not always about
just making that vote once every few years. People
are on this big push, vote, vote, vote. You vote
every day that you wake up and get out of your
bed. You're voting for life. You're voting for
life and your energy and whether you are giving
a kind word or destructive word, whether you
are lifting up someone or tearing them down.
It is all a reflection of what you're offering
to the planet. I believe all of that accumulates
in a lifetime and you will meet that at your
transition. Who have I been? What have I offered
to this planet? Did I endeavor to help more than
I hurt? So my thing is, I hope everybody will
consider those things while they're alive. Keep
close to your own heart that one day your time
here will be done. This moment, even if you live
100 years, is still very brief. Era on the side
of love, I always say, but love is never an era.
Beautiful. Hey, if people want to reach out to
you, it is journeytoworthy .org. And by the way,
go ahead and plug your book. Oh, thank you. Yes,
I had a dear friend of mine who transitioned
in 2021. He took his life. He was a student of
mine, a protege. He worked with me, traveled
with me all over the world, co -facilitated retreats
with me, but he struggled with addiction and
with mental illness. He ended his life in 2021.
It was a really... I went into a very, very...
difficult, dark place. So I wrote a book called
The Next Breath, Life After Loss and Journeys
into the Hereafter. I address the very difficult
topic of suicide in that book. And I also incorporate
a lot of my own personal experiences in the hereafter
through my travels. And I also met him on the
other side of the veil after he ended his life.
And I share that in the book as well. So it's
called The Next Breath by Darnella Ford. And
yes, Journey to Worthy, they can contact me through
my website. And it's T -O, Journey to T -O, journeytoworthy
.org. I do read the comments. So if people drop
comments and let me know what you thought of
the episode. And I'm always, my heart is always
open. Please be kind. My heart is tender, but
I'd love to know how, what people thought. Yeah.
When it's YouTube, not everybody's kind. I know.
Yeah, I've seen. I've seen. But I appreciate
you being with me today. A lot of good stuff
to talk about. We could go three more hours easily,
and maybe we will one of these days. But in the
meantime, take care. It's been great getting
to know you, Darnella. Yay. Thank you so much,
Eric. I appreciate the opportunity to be with
you today. 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.