How Sandra Champlaing Learned WE DON'T DIE

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you.

Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Hey everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of Grief 2 Growth. And today I've got with me Sandra Champlain. And Sandra and I go way back. I'm really, really excited about having her on the, on Grief to Growth. And she's actually— I'm going to give her credit for being the reason why I'm doing this. So I'll talk to you about that in a little bit as we get started. But I want to read Sandra's bio, and then we'll just have a conversation like we always do. The fear of dying led Sandra Champlain on a long road to find evidence of the afterlife. The death of her father caused her to investigate the painful world of grief. Now, 25 years into this journey, she is the author of the number one international bestselling book, We Don't Die: A Skeptic's Discovery of Life After Death. She's also the host of We Don't Die Radio and Shades of the Afterlife, a new podcast on iHeartRadio. She hosts online afterlife courses, demonstrations, and events, including the free global Sunday gathering. Sandra is committed to empowering all of us to live our best lives possible. So with that, I want to welcome my friend Sandra Champlain.

Oh, Brian, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Yeah, I think we're both really excited about this. As I said, we go back, oh wow, let me think about this, 5 years, I guess. I think I met you, I think it was the first AREI conference.

I think so, I think so, yes.

Yeah, yeah, it was really wild. I gotta tell the story and I hope it doesn't embarrass you, but we were at the conference and you walked up to me and you said, "I know you." And I'm like, "Well, that's crazy. I can't believe Sandra knows who I am." And you said, "I'd like to have you in my program." And I had been following you for a long time, listened to all your podcasts, But you actually thought I was somebody else. And so it was funny. I was telling my wife, I said, Sandra wants to have me on her program. But we ended up becoming friends. We met, and I have been on your program a couple times. So it's all worked out great.

It's so funny, because I think things are meant to be. But I embarrass myself all the time, actually. So it's okay. We're together.

Yeah, it was, like I said, I was thrilled. I was like, this is fantastic. So I'm gonna let you tell your story, but I'll tell people how I started, how I discovered you. You too. But how did you get into, like, starting with We Don't Die? And I'm going to ask you questions I already know the answers to, but I want the audience to hear it. So how did you get into writing the book and starting the podcast?

Well, way back when, oh gosh, it was 2000— 2005, I started taking afterlife courses and things. But it was in the mid-'90s that I actually started on this journey looking for evidence of the afterlife. And I had a fear of dying. I don't know where it came from. My mom speculates I had worked in a nursing home when I was a teenager volunteering, and I saw a lot of death. And maybe in my subconscious, it just all built up, and then this fear came. So very secretly, I started this investigation on the world of the afterlife, just for myself, just to rest my own fears. And there came a point, Brian D Smith, where I thought someday I should tell people about this because it's pretty big. But like many of us, we're afraid to share this because we're afraid of what people think. Because growing up, I thought anybody that talked about this woo-woo, spiritual, afterlife, angels, all that stuff, that they were crazy. Really, I did. I thought they're crazy. So the last thing I wanted to do was risk my reputation and come out to the public about what I had found. I mean, the fear that we humans share, I think, is awful. And it's crippling. So even though I would meet people that had lost a loved one, and I kept thinking, oh, if I could only tell them what I, what I found out what I knew, that would really help people, but the fear was so strong. And in the early 2000s, I really started looking for things I could tell people besides my story of taking a mediumship class and all these great things that came out of my own mind, you know, my fear was there that people would say, well, who do you see around me? And anyone who's taken a course in mediumship, fear and connecting to the divine can't be in the same space. So when you're fearful, all that shuts down. So I was looking for more reasons to be able to share with people good, credible evidence that didn't have to come out of my own head.. And along those lines, I started thinking, you know, someday I'm going to write a book, and I'm going to title it We Don't Die. You know, so that seed had been planted. And it wasn't until 2010, when my father passed— now, long times passed between mid-'90s and 2010. But when my dad passed, it was one of the worst experiences of my life, if not the worst experience, you know, talking about from grief to growth. My family split up, split apart, my siblings and I started fighting. My dad and I became very, very, very close in those last 6 months, I was his primary caregiver. And that relationship ended. And I got into trying to figure out why grief has to hurt so bad. That was the first thing because I think many of your followers know, I mean, grief is the most painful thing we, we go through. So I was really looking for a little self-help for me. But in that process, I opened up this world of grief that, man, I had no idea about. And I don't think many people know that it's an autopilot thing that our chemistry goes through to try to regroup and be accustomed to the new reality. And there are so many things that happen to our grieving mind that we think we should be able to turn off, you know, thoughts of guilt and replaying situations over and over and those really horrendous feelings of pain and crying. And so I found some things that not only helped me make a smoother transition through grief— and yes, it was painful, I'm not ever going to say it was easy— but when I decided to let people know what I found out about grief, I put out a free audio called How to Survive Grief, still not talking about the afterlife. And then what happened was, I didn't quite go viral, but thousands of people heard it within a few weeks. And people started writing me that not only did it give them understanding, not only grief from death of a loved one, but say a divorce or being diagnosed with a terminal illness. I mean, many things trigger grief. But people started telling me that they chose not to end their life. Because of my words. And those— that's pretty profound. I thought to myself, this information needs to be out there as far as it can. But between you and I and your followers here, not many people know they're grieving. Not many people are looking for a grief book. And then I had that aha moment that I thought if I could be courageous enough and come out with my reasons for believing in the afterlife, title the book, that title that I liked so much, We Don't Die, which is totally in your face, because people like, yes, we do. And strategically slide in that information about grief, that it could really help mankind. So that was the genesis of it. And the book came out, I believe, in 2013. And my biggest fear really truly was what people in my life are going to think about me believing in this stuff. And the opposite happened from what I thought. People embraced it. Very few people gave me a funny look, you know, very, very few. And people embraced it and were interested. And then I got the courage to just continue on and start the podcast. And, you know, then that grew. And unfortunately, COVID— unfortunately and fortunately, COVID put everyone in lockdown. Because it was an opportunity for me to be able to get to more people and share what I was really passionate about. And so in the past year and a half, we just have a— oh gosh, I don't even know how many hundreds of people that come weekly to our Sunday gathering and take courses that enliven the soul. And so is it a synchronicity? Is it a miracle? Is it my grief to growth? I say yes to all of the above. And that's what brings you and I here together today.

Yeah, well, I have to say, you know, the book is excellent. I think yours was the first podcast I ever listened to, like, ever, not just grief podcasts, but the afterlife podcast. But I don't know even how I found it, because I wasn't listening to podcasts. And I was walking on a daily basis. And I was like, I've got to find something that's going to help me. And I found your podcast. I remember your audio, and I'm encouraging people get the audio. Get the book, the audio is free. And I remember lying in my bed listening to that audio, and I listened to it a couple times, and my wife and I listening to it. And it was so helpful for what I was going through that first, because my daughter passed away in June of 2015. I just, I listened to every one of your podcasts, I went back to through the back catalog and listened to all of them. And it really, it transformed me, you know, and it's interesting how we have similar journeys. And I, you talked about the fear of death,. And I think everybody has a fear of death. I think it's natural. But most of us put it aside. We don't think about death. People like you, you're, you're a real deep thinker. And you can't put it aside.

Absolutely true. I say people have 3 major fears. It's not public speaking. It is fear of dying, fear of being alone, and fear of failure. And we can try to put them aside. But you know, everybody knows what you resist persists. And then when you get to a certain age, I think it's only natural to start asking those big questions. When we're a kid, we don't have any fear— not so much do we think about death and who we are and what the big picture is. But I am thrilled because what I've uncovered, and many other people have as well— this is not just me— But when we do really believe in the afterlife, when we believe our loved ones, they have a purpose, you know, their soul's still growing, they're still living life on the other side, but they're only a breath of thought away, and they're our biggest cheerleaders. When we can embrace that, first of all, our fear of death can go away. But not only that, is our fear of being alone— to know that we have these invisible cheerleaders often with us within our toughest moments. And not only that, is if we don't die, there must be a purpose to our life. And I really do believe it's an education for the soul. I, I personally believe that heaven or the hereafter is fantastic. But the thing is, is we all know if you have something fantastic 24/7, it doesn't become special anymore. So here on Earth, we can really experience. And it is through our toughest times that we do have the most soul growth. But when we can embrace this big picture, those things that we're afraid of as failures, there's a new context for them. You're not failing, you know, at all. There's always learning to be done. So yeah, that's what I have to say about that.

Yeah, you know, it's, and it's interesting how parallel our journeys are, you know, that fear of death. And then, you know, again, some people turn away from it, you and I both turned into it. So I did a lot of studying about the afterlife before my daughter passed away. And you did before your father passed away. Away. But it's when the rubber hits the road is when we have that grief event. And that's what— that's when you have to take what you've, what you've learned and put it into practice. And for you, it transformed you into launching this, this podcast and the book and the, and the audio that have now reached, I don't know how many thousands of people. And, and with your Sunday program, which I want to talk more about, that people understand what that's about, you're just you've blossomed into something that you wouldn't have been without that event of your father having passed.

Yeah, it's absolutely true. And unfortunately, um, I'm one of those people that thinks I, I can do everything, right? So I figure there must be something within me that I can change so much of what's happening in my occurring world. And what's tough to say is I still have estranged relationships with my siblings. And I thought, you know, once I figured all this out, that they'd understand the world of grief, they'd understand why our communication broke down, because a grieving mind can't store information properly. Our perspective of what's coming in, it may not be the truth, so it really can break down relationships. So I thought everything would be great. Well, it's not that way. And on one hand, it saddens me. On the other hand, I know, Brian D Smith, we can choose to be responsible for our life, or we can choose to be a victim. So our Sunday gathering that we did on August 29th was Accentuate the Positive. We played music from the '40s, and there's a song, Accentuate the Positive, but it was really looking at the the positive side of life. And if I'm to choose that everything that's happened— Dad's passing, even the breakdown with my siblings— if I'm to choose that that's positive, what it's been doing is it's keeping me fueled to get the message out to more people. Because my family is not alone in family breakdowns during a death. What if my siblings and I And even my dad, way in the beginning before coming to Earth, we took a look at what's happening with humanity and we thought, hey guys, we can make a difference here. And dad said, you know what, I'm gonna go this way, you kids will fight, this will happen, Sandra will go on this, this journey, you guys support her from a distance. And like a circle, you know, things that come apart, they come back together at the top.

Right.

So it's not every moment that I think this, Brian, because I'm human, right? I have bad days. I do fall into that victimhood sometimes. But there is a conscious choice to see things from the positive. And so I try that as much as possible. I try to speak about my message as much as possible. I try to share as much as possible because I can't live in that victimhood. And it's not very attractive. But when I share about what I know to be truth, that's when I'm back in the driver's seat in life.

Yeah, and I appreciate— and it's one of the things that attracted me to you is your, your transparency and your honesty about your feelings and about your family. And with the book, you know, and you and the audio about grief, because people when they're going through grief, they think they're going crazy. There's something wrong with me. I can't concentrate, I can't sleep, I can't eat, you know, etc. Uh, we don't understand that these things are common, and I, I learned that by listening to your audio. And, and even the thing with your family, that's a very common thing. I've seen it over hundreds of people I've talked to saying, yeah, you know, I don't talk to my sister anymore, my brothers don't call me, you know, I've had a falling out with my mother, you know, etc. Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

Absolutely. And it's hard. It's very, very painful, because not only my dad's death happened, but it was like death of relationships and not being able to see the children, my nieces and nephews. And so I would have to say it was a good 4 years, even the things that I was doing, but 4 years that I had this cloud of grief over me. And then one day, and it really was like there was a cloud over me and dark rainy skies, but one day it's like the sun peeked through And I felt like I'm back, you know. You know, there's some moments that I fall in because, gosh, all we need to do is see a mushy television commercial for a Hallmark card and we can trigger it all over again.

Right.

But the cloud started to lift. And I'm sure you talk about this like I do, but some— like, there's a pine tree that needs to be subjected to Extreme forest fires for new growth to begin. And I love Grief to Growth because I think I, I really buy into that the toughest times are the things that have the possibility of giving us our soul growth and getting us each on that individual journey. Because so many people tell us what to believe in, but we ourselves need to find our meaning and And once we start going on that journey, not only is it enriching to ourselves and gives us purpose, but people start automatically falling into our lives that need to hear what we have to say. So while not everybody's going to have a podcast or a book, don't ever discount anyone who's had a tough time that you're not the person to really make a difference for another. And so many people live, and you see a nice smile, but inside they could be one step away from ending it all. And that interaction with you might be a compliment, might be just a few nice words, can really shift the needle for people.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't want to assume everybody knows what We Don't Die is, your podcast. So take a few minutes and explain to people what it is you do on your podcast. Yeah.

I can talk about both, actually. Back after I wrote the book, I had real employment that I was working as a chef for race car teams, traveling with my mom. We had a big business, which unfortunately— unfortunately got taken away because of COVID because again, now I'm doing this. But in that time, I still yearned for looking for reasons to believe in the afterlife. But I didn't have time to invest in books. So very sneakily, I thought if I could have conversations with people that have written books or have had near-death experiences, that I could learn a lot without having to invest a lot of time. So I just invented We Don't Die Radio, just why not? And I would record these conversations and just put them out in the world. And before you and I met, I got invited to be a speaker at that afterlife symposium symposium where we met. And I asked Craig Hogan, who was the president of the Afterlife Research and Education Institute, if I could share on the podcast about this upcoming symposium. Oh, absolutely, he said. So each and every time, at the end, I would say, oh, and you can meet me and other great people, these dates, and just go to this website.

Mm-hmm.

Once we got to that symposium, there was something like 750 people there. And Craig Hogan said to me, when he put in the registration, how did you find out about this? 550 put Sandra Champlain's We Don't Die Radio. So it still gives me goosebumps today.

That's how I found out about it.

Because here I am most the time recording these conversations, sitting in my jammies, you know, and never having known the impact And then to meet people face to face who have suffered incredible loss, many times of children, loved ones, many things, many people, and how they found hope and faith in my words and understanding. And again, boy, I don't take this lightly when somebody doesn't take their own life because of the information. I mean, that's— that fuels me to keep going. So with that, I just kept it up. And so now there's 361 hours of episodes of We Don't Die Radio. And about a year ago— actually, it was about a year and a half ago because it was just before COVID hit— I got a call from the producer of Coast to Coast AM, which you may or may not know, but they're this overnight radio show on mainstream radio dealing with the paranormal. And I had been a guest on their show a couple of times. They really liked my words. And they said, we are working with iHeartRadio, and we want to create our own podcast network. We want to have one on the afterlife. Would you be interested in being our host? Yes. So I actually had a conversation with the president of iHeartRadio. Wow. And then COVID hit, and I heard nothing else about it. So I thought, well, that's all right. It's in God's hands, so to speak. But then I got the call. We're ready, we're settled, we want to start. And so how Shades of the Afterlife is different than We Don't Die Radio is that if I only had 1 hour to have with someone on Shades of the Afterlife, I want to pump in as much information as I can. So there's different topics within each episode of Shades of the Afterlife, whereas We Don't Die Radio, I talked to one person. So there's different topics, there's more of my thoughts, instead of just hearing the thoughts of a guest. And also, there's a lot more of the new and cutting-edge information in that. Now there are commercial breaks, which on We Don't Die Radio, there's no commercials. Because I don't like commercials. But the thing I had to realize is to be backed by iHeartRadio, Coast to Coast AM, they're committed to getting to the most people. Well, commercials are necessary to do that, to get sponsorship, to get it out there. So anyways, there's some pretty great sponsors to it. And now there's, between the two shows, there's, oh, well over 400 hours of episode Wow, crazy, incredible.

Yeah, that's amazing. So, um, so you, you mentioned, because you and I had— we were— I said let's not talk too much before we get started. So I know that you, when I met you, you were a full-time chef, um, catering on the race— racing circuit. I know that kind of fell apart last year. So are you not doing that at all now?

Not at all. The teams we cooked for, we would have a big hospitality tent with a buffet down the center, lots of tables and chairs. And it was for the IMSA series of racing, which is owned by NASCAR. Cars go 200 miles an hour, and it's a business I shared with my mom for, uh, over 33 years. And with COVID hitting, there could be no more buffets. So the races stopped for a while, and when they started again, the racetracks were supplying the meals in individual to-go containers.

Yeah.

And we didn't have the staff or the equipment once it started opening back up again to be able to offer that. Plus, Mom's close to 80, I'm 55, we hadn't had any vaccines yet. The last thing we wanted to do was to be around a lot of people. So there's another fellow who also had a catering company, so we supported him from a distance to be successful so that he could have a livelihood and be able to put these meals on for these teams. So a lot of teams don't get the, the catering. They will go out and have sandwiches for their teams. So it's still up in the air, the future, how that's going. But for myself, it's like, how do I pay the bills? Yeah, what do I do? And for a long time, I've had this hope and wish and dream that somehow I would transition out of doing the catering and be full-time sharing what's in my heart. And that's the after— the reality of the afterlife, helping people through grief and helping people have a better life. And nothing can force you into that more than when you no longer have an income. So in a way, I mean, I have to have integrity because that's who I am. But I partnered up with some of my favorite medium friends, Scott Milligan, Carrie McLeod, Philip Dykes, who also couldn't travel and also couldn't support their families. And I said, guys, what if we start doing things online? 100% money-back guarantee, low cost. People get recordings of everything because, like I said, integrity is so important to me. And over the past year and a half, building this community that people can take courses to tap into their soul, to tap into their psychic nature, to get into these breakout rooms and be able to do readings with people that could be 3,000 miles away for people to learn mediumship, to— and so much more. We've really developed this community. And then one of the things we had done also, and this is the Sunday gathering, is there are places called spiritualist churches that are around the world. And I've been a couple of times, and they're great services. But at the end, what makes them different is the minister is also a medium. And he or she will work the congregation and prove that life after death is real. Not as entertainment, but as empowering people that your loved ones are still around. So I had thought someday when we do a live event— because before COVID we did a few We Don't Die live events and had many people attend— but I thought we could bring that Sunday service to our community. And between my friends and I, we thought, what if we tried to figure this out online? People are in lockdown, people can't leave their homes, people are scared, there's a lot of death going on. Let's just try it. So happy that we have now over 75 weeks of these, which you can watch the replays. They're all very empowering, very empowering, Each one has a theme, whether it's gratitude or accentuate the positive, living in the positive, or whatever it may be. But we bring in a few really great elements. One is the power of prayer. We don't push spirituality on anyone, so people of any religion or not can attend. There's a moment that we do healing, so we, we play a beautiful piece of music and We have people send healing, visualize people in their lives and themselves healthy, well, and whole. We do a reading, and the readings are not like a reading from a gospel. They are people living on the court on whatever subject matter we talk about, so they're lively. There's an address where someone will speak from their heart. It's usually one of us, sometimes a guest. You've been on our Sunday gathering to really share what's in your heart. And then what makes us really different is that we have a medium demonstration within every one of our gatherings. We may have 200 to 300 people joining us live, and only a handful of people will be reunited with their loved one who's in the afterlife. But the way it's brought through, there are so many specifics that our mediums can't make up. And we ask the people attending, if you are working with one of the mediums, to just say yes, no, or I don't know. Don't give them any information. And everybody can feel the love coming through, the shared memories, the evidence. And so it leaves people realizing that in this unseen space around us are our biggest cheerleaders that are still very much alive and doing their very best to plant images and thoughts and memories in our imagination. But sometimes our minds are so very busy, we don't feel it, but that's how they work. And so there's music, they're very light-hearted, but it really gives a shot in the arm of spirituality and knowing that there's a much bigger picture and that our lives here on Earth are important.

Awesome. So tell people how they can get to the Sunday Gatherings. I know I go through Facebook. Is it available on YouTube also?

It is available on YouTube also. Yeah, if you go to my— or our home base, which is wedontdie.com, you can click on the store button or the calendar and see everything that's coming up. But there's also a tab on the top that says Sunday Gathering. And so there's the Facebook links of all the past replays, and then there's also the registration link for the upcoming one. So you can register and you can be part of our Zoom room if you'd like to. And they're all— they're all free. So, and while you're at wedontdie.com, there is a box that you can join my email list. And if you do, I don't spam you by any means, but you get a free copy of my book, We Don't Die: A Skeptic's Discovery of Life After Death, in PDF form. And you also get that audio of How to Survive Grief. Plus, if you scroll to the radio show tab at the top, you can listen to all those episodes I was telling you about.

We'll get back to Grief to Growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach? If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving, his book Grief to Growth is a best-selling, easy-to-read book that might help you or someone you know. People work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at www.grieftogrowth.com. Www.grief2growth.com. If you'd like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grief2growth, www.patreon.com/grief2growth to make a financial contribution. And now back to Grief 2 Growth.

Yeah, I want to say to anybody, because I said I listened to the audio, this was several years ago. And, you know, read the book and listened to every episode up into that point, at least. This is an excellent, excellent free resource on getting through your grief, especially that early part where you're like, you think you're going crazy. And a lot of times people when they're in grief, they can't read. They just can't focus enough to read. So having it in audio format is a great way to get that information, you know, out there. And the Sunday gatherings, uh, I, I go to them on occasion. I can't get to them every week, but I go to them. They're fantastic. They're like the most uplifting service you've ever had. They're 2 o'clock Eastern Time on Sundays. Of course, you can always get the recordings, but it's a, it's a great way to, to really fill your, fill your soul.

Yeah, people need something to keep themselves plugged into the bigger picture. I've had a tough couple of months. My mom is healthy and well, but she went through a little spell that she wasn't, and I'm relocated to live with her. I still have my house in Massachusetts, but like, here with mom is where I, I know I need to be. And not every day has been a great day. I just got tremendously sick myself a couple of weeks ago. And it's hard for us human beings to understand the bigger picture 24/7. So we all fall into this inner chatter. I mean, our mind is not a pleasant place. You know, it starts off when we look at ourselves in the mirror in the morning, whether it's the wrinkles or the gray hair or too much weight or whatever, we're, you know, right there it's saying something negative, or we're stewing about the past, or we're worried about the future. It can be ugly to be in our own minds. And I think that might be the design of the human being, because when we can have so many experiences in life, this is how we grow, this is how our soul grows. But it's important to remember the big picture. So We like to do the Sunday gatherings. I really enjoy people that listen to the podcasts, and I listen to my own things and listen to books as well, or, you know, read books. Because left to our own devices, we are living in a negative mind. We are. It's just how it is. But keeping connected through podcasts and books and the Sunday gathering or an online course it can help in the bigger picture. So for me, every Sunday, even when I wasn't feeling good, you know, I had to put a smile on my face. And guess what happens? I feel good. I feel good. And here's a little trick for any one of your followers, and I think you already know this, but a lot of people around us can be negative, and there's a way to shift them that also shifts us. And you get people engaged in some of their favorite memories. For instance, I was working with a guy at the racetrack catering, and he couldn't have been any grumpier and just mean, you know, and not somebody that normally worked with us. And I thought, Sandra, let's try this strategy. And I just asked him, I said, hey, Dan, you do have kids? Yes. I said, how many do you have?

I have 4.

You know, he is so grumpy. And I said, um, Do you remember when your first child was born? You know, I'm single. I haven't had that experience. Well, it took him a second. And all of a sudden he just had a smile on his face, remembering when he held his baby in his hands for the first time. And he paused. And then I said, oh, what's— what are your kids like? Well, the more he started sharing about that, Brian D Smith, oh, he became happy. Where do you like to travel? You know, what are your favorite vacation spots? What are your favorite, you know, Tell me about your kids. So it's a strategy, yes, but when we are with people and they can start feeling better and start sharing, they'll naturally ask you the same questions. And it's just— it lifts us up, and people need people. So that's just a little tool I'm giving everybody.

You said something there I think is really important, um, and I've, I've wondered this myself because you said people tend to be negatives, and our mind's a bad place to be in a certain extent. But I believe that's the way the human was designed. That's biology, because it goes back to, you know, we're biological beings, we have to look out for danger. So we're always looking for what's wrong, you know, that's the way— so we'll look at a situation and 99.9% of it can be right, but we're looking for what's wrong. And that's, that's not a bad thing. That's just the way we're designed. But we can make a choice. And this is, you know, when I first heard about this, positive thinking or accentuate the positive. And I'm, I'm a real rationalist kind of person. I'm an engineer. I'm like, that's a bunch of hogwash. I'm not going to try to fool myself into believing things are great. And I remember reading Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking, I literally threw it in the trash can. I'm like, this is just garbage. But I have realized over the course of especially the last 6 years since Shane has passed, that everything is a choice. How we look at everything is a choice. And the things that you've gone through, the passing of your father, the breaking up of your family, we can choose to look at that as the negative part of it, or what, what growth came out of it. And what purpose does it serve? And that's why your show, you know, both of your shows, The Sunday Gathering, the book, those are all making a choice to look at things from a different perspective.

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's not easy. You know, I've had some real dark times. I never contemplated ending my own life, but I got— life was so dark that I completely understood how people would choose that option. And it is a choice. And there's a lot out there about the power of gratitude. And while I do buy into the power of being human. There's so much more that we're capable of on this unseen level that we, we don't know. I do buy into a lot of that, but also to live on the court. And if I start going down that negative tunnel, it takes something to catch it and go, oh my gosh, I'm on this kind of a loop, repetitive loop here. And the more we think thoughts, the more those thoughts will come. So the more guilt we feel over— say, my dad, when just before he passed, his best friend called me on my cell phone and said, I'd like to just let my best friend hear my words before he goes. So I held my cell phone to my dad's ear Brian D Smith, and for about 10 minutes this guy said whatever messages he said to my dad. They were friends forever, just friends forever. And it wasn't until after he hung up that I realized that I held the phone to my dad's deaf ear. I lived with that guilt for so long, just feeling awful. Now, many moons later, I realized that the big picture dad hurt it. But I learned to catch myself in the act every time my mind wanted to start thinking about that. I would start thinking about something positive, something I'm grateful for. And while I couldn't come up with these big grandiose great things I'm grateful for, I would say, I'm grateful I can breathe. I'm grateful I can walk. There's some people that can't walk. I'm grateful that I have a bed to sleep in. And I would force myself to write down 50 things that I'm grateful for and to give my mind attention to that, to side rail those thoughts of guilt. And once you start writing things you're grateful for, a really sneaky and wonderful thing hap— happens is you start really feeling the gratitude. And there's a whole different way of living thinking about the positive, feeling grateful for something. And it does make you feel better. And here's a bonus. It helps lift those natural neurotransmitters that help us move through grief.

Yeah.

So it does a lot for our chemistry as well.

You know, and again, when I first heard this, before I started practicing, I'm like, yeah, I don't believe this. But I have to say, I've been doing it for several years now. And it works. And also, we talked about how the brain is naturally drawn to the negative, it retrains your brain to see the positive. So you will start noticing more positive things in your life. And there, we call them little things, big things. But I do this, I have a practice every morning, forget it, but at least 3 things I'm grateful for. And it can be like, I get to go for a walk today, I couldn't go for a walk today because it's raining. So if I get a chance to go for a walk tomorrow, I'll be grateful for the fact I do get a chance to do that. So We, we definitely can choose that. And that's what, you know, that's the message that you give. And I love, like I said, your transparency, because people— the other thing we tend to do is we idealize other people's lives. So we say their life is great. Look how great— I've actually had someone say this to me, a friend, actually, we fell out as friends. He said, I can't be around you, your life is too perfect. And I'm like, Okay, let me, let me tell you what my life is really like. But we do that with other people. My life is horrible, your life is great. So it's really important for us to understand we all have challenges, you know, and I want to go back to something you said earlier, because people, again, they look at people like I, like yourself, Sandra's got this successful radio show, you know, she's got to have thousands of listeners, she's probably making all kinds of money from the show. And when we do podcasting, there's very little to no money, no, in podcasting. And so I want to broaden this a little bit, because I know you talk to a lot of mediums. I've heard people say, well, mediums shouldn't charge money. People that are doing podcasts— I just had a situation very recently, where somebody was monetizing YouTube channel, and someone else criticized that person for monetizing the YouTube channel for putting ads on it. And, you know, it takes time for us to do what we're doing. So I just want you to explain to people what it's really like being on the other side of this. You have— you had a full-time job for most of the time you were doing this.

Yeah, I had a full-time job that paid my bills. So this could be a hobby. And that disappeared. So while I had a little bit of money in savings, certainly not enough to go forward to pay all my bills. It's tough. And just because someone writes a book— so I've written a book here, I can show it off. That's it, it's my book. Yeah, that's it. Um, I think I get less than $2 a copy that's sold in the world. And no, there's not millions of copies sold, so there's thousands but not millions, right? And the podcasts are all labors of love. I mean, certainly they've brought people to some of our online courses and things like that. But there needs, first of all, to be an exchange of energy. It is proven that people that are given a book, 97% of them don't read it.

Right.

It's only those people that actually purchase it. And then once they purchase it, most people only read the first chapter. So if you're going to write a book, put your best stuff in the first chapter. But people don't take seriously things very often that they don't pay for. I'm a big proponent of this money-back guarantee. And while most people don't ask for their money back, it breaks down the barrier that, okay, this is somebody I can trust. If she's really willing to put that out there, you know, I'll take a chance. So even some of the mediums that I recommend do a wonderful practice of saying within the first 10 minutes, if you're not feeling that connection or I'm not supplying you good information, let's just call this over and no money exchange hands. Because there's people out there charging a lot of money for things. Doctors can't give away their services, you know, we just can't. It takes money to make the world go around. So if you look for people that have that transparency, have that integrity, it speaks volumes. It really does. I've had people very kindly donate to me knowing the situation, but because everything's made a difference and because I've been the person I am. So people, I say, need to shine who you really are. Anyone listening or viewing right now, you are one of a kind. You are special. The world needs you just the way you are. Not trying to be somebody else, but try to be you. When we are authentic and we can show our embarrassment or our warts or whatever they say, warts and all.

Yeah.

Um, that's when people can fall in love with you, is be you. You're one of a kind. People need to hear things just the way you have them. And with that, you can never lose, really. And when you put your sights on making a difference for another person, I think life can work out. If I was forced, Brian D Smith, to do an afterlife show or shows or do the Sunday Gathering because I needed to make money, it wouldn't work. But if I'm able to share what I love generously, genuinely from my soul, be able to exercise my creativity— and I'm a fun person, I like to have fun— so to engage in good conversations with people, I trust in the big picture that it will work out.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's— yeah, it's interesting because I've, I've gone through a similar transition that that you're going through. You know, I do have a full-time thing, which is not going so well right now. So I'm figuring out what that's going to do. I love doing this work. But sometimes people don't realize how much effort it takes for, you know, for us to do this. You know, you have 400 episodes, that's, that's at least 400 hours just recording, not to mention the editing and the prepping and inviting guests and all the other things that go into it. So Just, I guess I want people to understand that, you know, we love doing this, but it does, it does take a certain amount of effort. I want to talk to you about your experiences, because you've had some incredible experiences. Like, I know you traveled to Arthur Findlay College, you're, you're a medium, I don't, I don't think you're practicing medium now in terms of professional. You've been to physical, you know, séances and stuff. So tell people about some of the stuff you've been able to experience as you've been going through this journey?

Oh, I'd love to. First of all, the subtitle of my book is A Skeptic's Discovery of Life After Death. So it's important to know that I didn't believe in any of this at all. At all. So I was very secret going through it. And one of the very first things that I had done was take a course in mediumship. And the instructor had said, if you get drawn to this class, it's because you're a natural medium and et cetera, and so forth. So I thought, when things seem too good to be true, yeah, most of the time they are. But I went, and she gave us just the basics of how mediumship works and how the afterlife, this unseen world, is a vibrating energy around us, that we are actually part of it instead of it being out there somewhere. And that when we can quiet our mind and trust the feelings and the images that we're getting, and we have love in our heart for the person that we're with, that all you need to do is tell a story of what's coming to your mind. And so the very first exercise she gave us, she says, we're not going to do a medium reading because you're not, you're not there yet, so to speak. But she says, I want you to each pretend you're a medium. I just want you to evoke your imagination and create that somebody is behind your partner She had us pair up in twos, and somebody is behind them. And she says, I want you to sit there, hold hands with your partner, close your eyes, and just invent that there's somebody standing behind them. And all there is to do is just tell the story. Now, again, we're not really doing it, we're just— this is what we will do eventually. So she took away that fear that I needed to try to be a medium. I didn't know that at the time. But I'm certainly creative, I think. And I invented with my eyes closed that there was a man standing behind my partner. I didn't know this woman at all. But I heard the name Jan come in my mind. I heard Denmark. I saw a blonde-haired, blue— blonde-haired, blue-eyed man with a big gap between his teeth, puffing on a cigarette. And then I saw a fishing boat. So I said, well, okay, I believe that I've got your grandfather here with me, that his name was Jan. He was a fisherman from Denmark. This is what he looked like with the gap between his teeth. And he died of lung cancer. And then I got this message kind of coming through that he never said I love you to his daughter, which would have been her mother. And anyway, so I just delivered my message with my eyes closed. I opened my eyes just to tell the lady, okay, it's your turn to go. And there's just streams of tears coming down her face. Her grandfather's name was Jan. He was a fisherman in Denmark, died of lung cancer, fit the description. And her mother was somebody who was really hugging and really, I love you, because her own father never said I love you.

Wow.

Wow.

That started it, Brian. That started it. And while I'm not a practicing medium, I do keep a foot in the door of a medium class we do on Thursdays, just to kind of keep that up. I think my mission is— I don't want to say bigger than being a medium, because being a medium is pretty mighty to be able to reconnect people with their loved ones. But I want to reconnect people in different ways. And I want people to know their life is for a purpose. So I'm not a practicing medium, I've never got to the point where I can really trust that stuff that's coming out of my mouth is from the afterlife. It's not my imagination, because sometimes it is my imagination. So that's one of the things that had happened. But once I learned that, again, I didn't tell people because the first thing they'd ask me is, who do you see around me? And, oh gosh, the fear was crippling. But I took a course in something called electronic voice phenomena, which is EVP, and I wanted to see if there was any credibility to this. There was a husband and wife that I had seen at a spiritualist church, and they played a recording that they said they left their tape recorder in their room with just a fan blowing, and they left the house for 20 minutes. And they said when they came back, this is what we heard on our recording. And both the couples, the both the people in the couple had been divorced, and they had had children who had passed in prior marriages. So the little voice said, Mommy and Daddy, don't be scared. We're still here with you. And there was giggles and things. And oh my gosh, Brian D Smith, again, goosebumps filled me to think, if that's possible, and people can actually hear this, then I'd have a little bit more of a backbone to share the evidence of the afterlife. So I went on to a retreat center, the Omega Center in New York, and took a weekend retreat on this electronic voice phenomena. And it was just a small group. There was, I think, 8 of us in the class. And the couple were very scientifically minded. And they were also spiritualist ministers. And they would say that our loved ones don't have all the answers in the universe just because they pass, but they can practice this as well. There's different things they can practice on their side to be in communication. So we always say just a little loving prayer, I just feel that builds the energy in the, in the connection. And there's always something going on in the background. So whether it's a fan blowing, people call it white noise. And of course, that was the name of a scary movie. But there's no scariness that comes through. That's, that's Hollywood. But there's messages of love and sometimes humor that comes through because we get to keep our own personalities when we pass, which is great. But every night, we would practice this. And I went to my room on the last night of class before the last day of class, and I wanted this to be so real. I really did. And unfortunately, I had not heard anything in my own recording, so I was getting a little discouraged. But I went back to my cabin, and it was just pouring rain outside. I was all alone. I put my tape recorder out there, holding it, and I imagined my grandmother, grandfather, and aunt and uncle in the room. And I said, guys, if this is real and I'm supposed to help people believe in the afterlife. I said, please try to talk louder, you know. And so I just left the tape recorder recording the raindrops for about a minute. And when I played it back, again, the goosebumps. I had to replay it over and over and over. And it said, good night, Sandra. And then I hear two little whispers, good night, good night, and then good night. And Oh, yeah. Talk about a holy cow moment. You know, it was comforting, but it was also a little fearful. I think, are people always around me all the time? The answer is no, they don't watch you in the shower, in intimate moments. No, they have lives to live. But that they are around. And so using that recorder, I started sharing my story, and I'd meet people and we would do recordings together just to see if somebody would come through. And I know Hurricane Ida is hitting New Orleans as we record this.

Yeah.

And 16 years ago was Hurricane Katrina. And I had met a woman at a conference and told her my story. And she said her mom had died in Hurricane Katrina. And she says, could we try to do one of these recordings? And literally we were sitting at the San Francisco airport. I had no idea if this would work. The lady introduced herself to me as Dee. And that's how I knew her. And so we recorded the white noise, the background noise was just airport noise, people talking and all of that. And just before she boarded her airplane, we did this recording. And I heard, and she heard a very loud, I love you, Elizabeth. That didn't make sense to me. But she looked at me and she said, my real name is Elizabeth. Only my mom called me Elizabeth.

Wow.

So shifted her life, she boarded her airplane. And you know, there's other stories to tell about that. So that's amazing. There's also people that are mediums that are spirit artists. And they can talk to you and tell you evidence, but meanwhile, their hands drawing their picture. And like my dad came through how he looked in his 20s when he was healthy and well in the Air Force. Also, there's a beautiful woman in Brazil named Sônia Rinaldi, who I think is the leading edge of afterlife proof because of some of these images that she shows. I know there's also folks with the Soul Phone that are really doing some amazing things as well. But Sônia can take video, and she works with the audio to these voice messages. But she can create different— it's like white noise, but visually. So she'll use some different projectors and put like the— whatever you want to call it— static images kind of all in the center here, and she'll film it. And there's— she'll film it, and then she'll go through frame by frame, and in each second of a video, there could be 32 or 64 frames. So she'll literally go through each one. And at one point, she was sending me pictures of these unknown people that would come through. And one of them kind of looked like my dad. And I just kind of very silently said, Dad, if you're trying to come through to Sonya, I said, it looks kind of like you, but I'm not 100% convinced. Well, one day she She sent me a picture, Brian D Smith, that was almost identical to my dad, how he looked when he was in the Air Force. I've got an image of my dad looking straight at the camera with the smile. The image that she got through this transcommunication was he was looking off to the side, but it was like the same picture. And then she sent me the video of all the static. And then you can see it transform into his face and then it disappears. So currently right now we have wedontdiefilms.com, and my friend Robert Lyon is just coming home from Brazil now, and we have a documentary that's being made. So if anybody wants to look at wedontdiefilms.com, you can see the preview and you can see a whole bunch of the work she's done. But those are just a handful of the things. There's so much more, and I know time goes by fast. So again, get a free copy of my book. And there's a ton of stuff at wedontdie.com. So I won't go through all of it. Yeah.

And that's one of the things I really appreciate about you. You're, you're not only a skeptic, but you're also an experiencer. You're like, okay, if this is real, if this mediumship is real, let me take a mediumship course. Let me go to an EVP course. I know you've gone to Arthur Findlay. You've been to— and we want to— we have a little bit of time left. But I know you've been to physical séances, which a lot of people might not understand what physical mediumship is. So maybe take a cut, because I know you're friends with Scott Milligan, who is an incredible human being. And he does this thing that— tell people what a séance is.

It's wild. Now, first of all, for all of our skeptical minds, that word séance can really activate something in us to think, okay, I've really enjoyed this interview on Grief to Growth, but now they've gone too far, right? So our mind can tell us that. And there's also a word that I was always afraid to say too, which is ectoplasm, because we think of a green stuff from Ghostbusters. Well, when I started digging, Dan Aykroyd, who wrote the movie, his grandfather— great-grandfather as well too— would participate in these séances. So that's how he learned the word ectoplasm. And again, I totally get it if this seems a little far out there. It's one of those things you have to experience to believe. And same thing, there's very few things, few physical mediums out there. And due to COVID, people aren't meeting, but eventually we will again. But it's being in a small group of people. The one person who is Scott Milligan, a physical medium, he sits in what's called a cabinet. It's just a frame, which has got 4 black curtains on it, basically. And that's to build up this energy. We sing songs, we laugh, and this builds up this energy that exudes from him. So it's like a vapor or a mist that comes out. And again, it sounds wild, but what I have experienced is people who are deceased actually can step into this and become real again. You can hear their voice, you can touch them. Um, there's been animals that have come through with little cat stepping on your lap. I have— it's dark. It's— this is done in the dark. But there's often a red light on or a little glow-in-the-dark something. And I've actually seen the hands of a little spirit child. I could see them. She touched me as she moved around. I've heard people reunited with their loved ones again, really specific information that only that person knows. Um, it's incredible. It's really wild. And again, to the skeptical mind, it seems like it could be make-believe. So again, when we— when the world starts cleaning up a little and we start doing more live We Don't Die events, we'll have Scott Milligan there. You can experience it for yourself. Another thing that he does is what's called trance mediumship, which for the past 25 years he has learned how to quiet his mind and let a spirit person— you know, we all have guides and friends in the unseen world— be able to use his mouth and speak through him. Now, he's not possessed, he's not being taken over by any means. All that's present is love. And every Friday you can come for free, you can leave a donation, we do one of these demonstrations of trance mediumship. And we get to speak to his friend in the unseen world and ask any question about life, death, the afterlife. Now, the person that comes through has a different voice, a different tone to their speaking. He passed at the end of the 1800s, so it was very prim and proper. Being around this gentleman, Eric, for the past 5 years, it is completely different than Scott. Its personality, or who Scott is. And again, this could be something you experience to realize that, hey, this guy's not making this up. If you want to watch one, again, wedontdie.com. If you click on the store, scroll down, there's got to be 50 replays there. Be my guest, use coupon code FREE, and you can listen to one. And also, at the Arthur Findlay College, I took two courses on trance mediumship to try to quiet my mind. And we were all given the opportunity, if we wanted to, to present to the entire class. And so I knew in my soul that I have a real incredible problem with fear. Most of the time fear stops me, and I was committed to not let it stop me. So I raised my hand, I closed my eyes for about 10 minutes, I just concentrate on my breathing. Now I'm still aware. But you know, you say a little prayer that whoever my guide is, or my friend is, in that unseen world can use me to speak. And what the instructor would say is it could be 1% the spirit world and 99% Sandra, because our souls are very intelligent. But Brian D Smith, I just went for it. And so with my eyes closed, just focusing on my breath. We always say the spirit wants to tell you, you know, just to get the ball rolling. But didn't my mouth and my words continue to come out of my mouth? Now, when we talk, we're very present that it's us talking. And when I'm concentrating on my breath, and words still keep coming out, you know, the first thing I did was try to pay attention to what those words were. And it stopped. So then I went back to paying attention to my breath. And the words continued. I also had the feeling that I was turning and I was talking to everybody in the circle. There's probably 30 people. And finally, the words stopped. It took a few minutes for me to just kind of get myself together. And I opened my eyes. People were crying. I thought, oh, They said I told some kind of a story about a ship on a journey and the waves and the darkness, but relating it to our paths as being human beings and how all these different things are going to come in and try to rock us. But down at the deep depths of the ocean where everything is quiet, it's where we can tap in, something like that they were telling me. And I said to them, I said, it was so weird because I moved. I moved looking at everybody. It felt like They said, Sandra, you remained perfectly still.

Hmm.

So we must have this etheric body. And so while I'm not practicing that, because I don't have anybody— like, my mom would freak out if she knew this story. Nobody send her this video. But to know that that's possible, and to know how important it is to sit with the quiet of our own mind, and just I, I love it. I love it, and I love being part of it. I don't have any idea how it's going to unfold. I've got some roses outside that are these really tight buds, and no matter how much I can't wait to see them bloom and smell their fragrance, we can't force it. So I know what we can— I can do is I can water and give good fertilizer to my roses, but same with us. If we can kind of surrender, believe that there's a bigger picture, take some time to quiet our mind and just trust, focus on our breath, know that we're loved, we're giving ourselves that water and sunlight and fertilizer for ourselves to unfold.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love hearing you tell this. And this is— I want to give people a little preview of what you're going to get if you listen to the We Don't Die podcasts, and, and also, I guess, on Shades of the Afterlife. There's so much. And so you might say, okay, I can't go as far as physical mediumship, I don't believe people can do that. Okay, that's fine. But, you know, the EVPs and the NDE people that you've interviewed, and, and all, all the other— there's just so much. And I've talked to, quote, skeptics. One person always comes to mind, she said, there's no evidence of any of this stuff. And so she was total skeptic, said, send me the best medium, you know, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna prove this is wrong. So I sent her the best medium I knew. And she came back, she goes, it's absolutely true. Then she started doing all of her own research. And she came back and she goes, why hasn't anybody told me that all this is out there? You know, and if you find a podcast like We Don't Die and start listening to it, you'll be amazed by how much evidence is really out there and the things that we all experience and Scott's, you know, incredible what he does. I've heard other people channeling. I've seen some women with very high-pitched voices channel men with very deep voices. I'm like, I know they're not that good at impersonating a voice.

Yeah, and you have to really look for, um, the intelligence, because I hate to say it, there are people out there that are frauds.

There are.

But when you get the goosebumps, when you start having this pull at your your soul, your gut saying this is the real deal. Pay attention to that. We all have that inner BS detector. I'll say that. We do pay attention to our feelings. You know, we all have the gut instincts. But if there's a little bit of you that's interested in exploring, the evidence is there. You know, there's a company, a group called IANDS, I-A-N-D-S dot org. And I know You know them well. There are millions of people who have had near-death experiences, and for me, as the skeptic, I would say, oh, there's no proof of, you know, a near-death experience. It's just a natural thing that our minds go through when we die. Well, idiot Sandra. Meanwhile, there's this organization that's been out forever that's got the military involved with countless stories of these people and what happens and what they've witnessed and what they've come back and how they've lived life. And blind people that have never had vision can see during a near-death experience and have accurately told people what they were doing, what clothes they were wearing. There's so much more, but, you know, we want to— it's not that we choose to be skeptical, like you said, it's part of our human design, but doesn't serve us all the time. So if you want to have the most powerful life ever, really buy into the positivity, and that there is a much bigger picture. Don't take our words for it. Go on the journey. And you're going to find some miraculous things.

Totally agree. I think that's a great way to wrap up. It's actually 11:11 here too. So Sandra, I want to thank you so much for doing this. It's been an honor you know, having you on my podcast. I would have never thought 6 years ago that I'd be doing a podcast and certainly didn't think I'd be interviewing you. So we don't know where things are going to go. So as we wrap up, remind people where they can find you and what it is you're doing.

Yes, I would say you start at wedontdie.com, home base for everything. Excuse me, you can see our Sunday gathering, our online courses, past things, future things coming up, and listen to a ton of episodes if you click on that radio show link. There's no need for you to believe that you're alone in this world and that your life doesn't matter. I tell you, you who's ever listening or watching this right now, you are special, you are one of a kind, and none of us want to take that final breath in this life having any regrets. So your dreams are important, It's never too late to start, but know when you do take that last breath that the journey continues on. Whatever we don't do here, we can do over there, and we will open our eyes, and like crossing a finish line with people doing the wave and standing ovation, we'll be greeted by our loved ones and even our pets. Wow. Thank you, Brian D Smith.

That's a great picture. Good seeing you. Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Grief to Growth. Brian hopes that you find this episode helpful, and will come back for future episodes. Brian's bestselling book, Grief to Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource for anyone who is coping with grief or knows someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/grief2growth. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of grief to growth. For more about Brian and grief to growth, visit www.grief2growth.com.

Hi there, I'm really excited to tell you about my latest ebook. It's 4 Lessons That You Can Learn From the Near-Death Experience Without Going Through All the Trouble of Dying to Learn Them. I've been studying NDEs for several years now. I am completely convinced that not only are they 100% real, but that there's some very universal wisdom that we can get from the near-death experience. And I've distilled that down in this book into 4 short lessons. And I've also given you all the reasons why I believe that NDEs are absolutely real. So go to www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons to pick it up for free. Www.grief2growth.com/NDElessons. I hope you enjoy it.