Sue Frederick's Incredible Stories Of Shared Death Experiences - EP 380

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. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Hi there, this is Brian. Welcome to another episode of Grief to Growth. And I'm your host, Brian Smith. Whether this is your first time tuning in or you're a longtime listener, I'm thrilled to have you here. Our show aims to help you navigate the difficulties of life, to understand who we are, where we came from, why we're here, where we're going. Today we have a truly special guest and a longtime friend of mine. Her Her name is Reverend Sue Frederick. Sue is an ordained Unity minister. She's a clairaudient, a soul regression therapist, and a master numerologist. Sue has a unique ability to channel messages from the angelic realm and receive wisdom from guides, and she uses that to help people heal grief and find their true purpose. She incorporates sacred numerology and mystical information into her books and her teachings, offering a deeply enlightened personal perspective on using numbers to navigate the soul's journey. Sue is the author of 11 books, including Through a Divine Lens: Practices to Quiet Your Ego and Align Your Soul, and The Sacred Numerology Workbook. Her journey in numerology began in 1980. And since then, she's been guiding others with her profound insights. In today's episode, we're going to explore a fascinating vision that she received during an illness in 2014, which inspired her latest book. We'll go into how emotions like self-doubt, fear, and anxiety stem from living through the ego lens rather than through the soul's lens. And we'll discover ways to lift into the soul's view for a healing perspective. We'll also talk about the power of intuition, the significance of sacred numerology, and the transformative power of past life exploration. So as always, I encourage you after the show to visit grieftogrowth.com/community to carry on the conversation. And with that, I would like to welcome Reverend Sue Frederick.

Oh, thank you, Brian. It's such a pleasure to talk to you again.

So it's great to have you here. It's great to see you. We met— well, we met in person a couple times, but last time was at IANDS last year. So again, I'm glad to have you here. I know you've had several out-of-body experiences, but you had one particularly in 2014 that inspired your latest book. So could you tell us about that?

Yeah, it's actually here on this graphic behind me, if, if people can see this. And I had a really high fever for days, and I went out of my body and had an all-night experience of being held by— I call them angels. I know they were very high-frequency divine beings, and they were whispering in my ears, showing me Earth as a, as an interplay of light and dark, and showing that whenever a soul opens their heart on Earth and awakens to the fact that we are— excuse me— that we are more than physical beings, we are divine beings, and becomes loving and compassionate, then the light shoots up from their soul and helps illuminate and awaken others. And they showed me, the angels showed me, that around the globe It's a constant movement of light overcoming any darkness, that the light is always winning, no matter how things can look here on Earth. And I remember asking them, why are you telling me this? I mean, this was 2014. I mean, we look back at those times and we go, wow, that was easy back then. Yeah. And the guides and the angels said, they said, we're telling you this because things are going to get hard in the next few years on Earth. And people like you have to remember and teach that the light is always winning and that love always wins. I've had to go back and remember that constantly in the last few years, Brian.

Yeah, we've been through a lot. We've been a lot since 2014. Seems like you're right, that was kind of like innocent times compared to the way things are today.

Exactly.

So I know you've had several mystical experiences, um, And I know one goes back to the passing of your husband. So tell us about that incident.

Yeah, I mean, you and I have talked before about how grief can be our greatest spiritual teacher, our greatest spiritual awakening. And back in 1980, I was 29 years old. I was married to a beautiful young man who was a mountain climber alongside of me. We were both Outward Bound instructors back in the '70s. And what that means is we were basically life coaches, teaching people to overcome their fear, but we were doing it in nature, in the outdoors. And we kind of felt invincible. You know, we were climbing 14ers in Colorado and everything. And he had some stomach problems, and he was finally diagnosed correctly. And when they did diagnose him, um, they told him— told us he had colon cancer. He was 32, and he died a year later in my arms after suffering terribly for a year. But the last few months and the way he died was a complete shared death experience for me, which means that I was going on the journey with him. And we had mystical experiences before he crossed, like he was singing Lakota songs because we had been to see a Native American healer who actually taught him in spirit Lakota healing songs. And he would wake up singing those and the doctors were so confused, like, what language is that? And I had heard Lakota, and I knew that that's what he was singing. And he would say, Chief Foolscrow came back to see me in my dreams, and he gave me two songs. One song was to help me die, and one song was to relieve the pain. And then when he crossed, he had told me specifically he did not want to die in the hospital and that he wanted to die at home because I was caring for him at home. And he said, and I want to die in your arms. And I had made him that promise a million times, you know. And unfortunately, there was a medical emergency, and the hospice nurse said, you don't want him to die this way. We have to get him to the hospital and stop the bleeding, and then you can bring him back home. But things get out of control as things wind down, often when we're headed towards the exit point. But I also believe there's a reason for however it goes. And suddenly we ended up in the hospital, and he up in a hospital room in a coma. And he had always said, I don't want to be in a coma. And he was terrified that that meant his spirit would be trapped. And I kind of was afraid of that too. I mean, this was 1979, you know, I was pretty much an idiot at that point in my life. So what happened was he showed me in the final hours that he wasn't trapped in his body. I fell asleep on the floor of the hospital room. I was so exhausted. He'd been in this coma for a couple days. I felt so guilty. I couldn't get him home. All of his friends had arrived. They were sitting in the hospital room with us. And I finally fell asleep on the floor, and he instantly appeared vividly in front of me and said— I mean, I still remember it so clearly. It was such a vision. And he looked healthy, and he said, 'What are you doing on the floor? I am not trapped in that body.' get up and come over to the bed and hold me so I can cross over the way we talked about in your arms. And I just jolted awake and I went, oh my gosh, you guys, he's ready to cross. He's not trapped in that body. And I kicked everybody out of the room except for his mother and his mother and I stood on either side of him. And we just started rubbing his body and saying, we love you. We let you go. We're going to be okay. Instantly, Brian D Smith, he took one long, peaceful breath, and his soul left his body in such a visible, palpable way that his mother and I both saw it, witnessed it as his soul left his body. And we both looked down at the body and just knew that was an empty shell now. And that was kind of the beginning of a 3 to 4 week out-of-body experience for me. Where Paul was taking me with him into the divine and showing me about divine order. And Brian, I was in my 20s, I really didn't believe in any kind of a divine order. You know, I saw people suffering, I— that certainly didn't feel like divine order. And yet he was showing me, he would say, everything that happens on Earth in the physical world has a purpose to it. And it's a purpose for higher good. It takes the world to a better place of love and compassion and understanding. And like, if I dropped something, he would say— in my head, he'd say, that's on purpose. You're not supposed to take that vitamin or something, whatever I had dropped. And I had this constant dialogue with him, with me, for about 3 weeks. And that's known as a shared death experience. And I was very exalted, like I was feeling no grief, no pain. I could hardly eat. And it not what people expected of me after Paul died. And I was just in an exalted state. And then, of course, we all have to crash and come back into the body and experience grief, which of course happened. But for about 3 weeks, I had a mystical teacher showing me what physical life is really about.

Wow. So this was, you said, 1979, 1980. Had you heard the term shared death experience? What was your thought about what was going on here?

I know I didn't hear about that term until, gosh, it was like 2014, right around the time I had this vision. Raymond Moody was talking about it, I think. And, um, anyway, so back then what I thought was, um, I honestly thought, boy, I'm pretty weird and I've got to figure out a way to be more normal because here I am turning 30 and I don't know how to make a I'm grieving and my husband just died and I gotta get very grounded in this physical world. And so I would tell people about that death experience and they were all astounded like, "Wow, that's amazing." But it wasn't even a possibility in my mind that I would make my living talking about these things or even sharing numerology, whereas numerology happened right when Paul died. A friend gave me a numerology astrology reading. And that also really showed me what soul agreements are and soul paths and soul missions. But my focus became, you know, how do I now make a living here in this physical world? And I used everything in my toolbox to figure that out and became a professional writer for many years. I wrote about health because I was trying to help people avoid cancer, I became a pretty well-respected health writer until it was time for my next reinvention.

Yeah, right, right. So you— so Paul taught you about— or you said your friend gave you the book and you're learning things from Paul, you became a professional writer. How did you make the— how did you make the transition then to the next phase of the numerology?

Well, I was giving away numerology readings to all my friends, you know, I was working for a professional magazine and. And so we'd go out to lunch and people would say, tell me more about those numbers. Like, even back in the early '80s, people were pretty fascinated by it. And so I'd explain people about their path and do little readings, and they'd say, wow, you should do this for a living. And it just didn't feel like I could pay the rent if I did that. Although now I look back on that and I think I could have made it work, but I think my soul wasn't really ready to claim that. I still was trying so hard, Brian D Smith, to fit in and be accepted here on Earth. And I think you and I have kind of talked about this because you're an engineer, you're very logical. I love that about you. And my father was an engineer, very logical, and I adored my father. And I kept feeling like even though I'm in my 30s, my parent, my dad would never understand if I told him, hey, I'm going to be a numerologist and use my intuition. And I still wanted to please him, you know, but he could understand me being a journalist and a writer. And, um, and when my dad crossed a few years later, I had another profound shared death experience with him.

And tell me about that.

Yeah, so my dad was my love. I mean, when I was growing up, Brian D Smith, my mom was pretty harsh and didn't really like me. And I forgive her 100% because I was not the daughter she wanted. She wanted the Southern debutante, the normal girl, and try as hard as I could. That wasn't me. And I left home at 17. But my father always honored my precognitive dreams that I would share in the morning. And talking about— he would take me to the library to try to figure out how can intuition be real? How can precognition happen? He wanted to understand it the way an engineer would because he was an engineer. And so we'd have these these amazing discussions about it. I love my father so much. And, um, so after Paul died, a few years went by, and I was always telling my dad, Dad, you can't ever die. Now that Paul has gone, I still need you here. And, um, but he was getting sick, and he had been a World War II soldier where they handed out cigarettes to people, you know. And so he had smoked all of his life. Our whole family had tried to talk him out of that, you know, but he was so addicted to cigarettes. And so he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and, and, um, he crossed very quickly after he was diagnosed. He just basically lived a few weeks to— so we could all get home and be with him. And, um, I got to be at his side and have very significant conversations with him about his life and the meaning of his life and what he regretted and what he loved about his life. He and I could talk so beautifully. And one day I knew this was the day he was going to cross, and I wanted to be with him. And my family is so Catholic and so different from me in their perspective on things. And they said, no, Sue, it's your turn to get the kids home and do the babysitting rounds, because we were taking turns taking care of all of our kids. And, um, and I was so angry, and it was kind of the perfect play for my family drama, right? I was always the odd girl, never really honored by my very logical family. And I was the one who felt like it really helped my dad cross without fear. And so I was outvoted and sent home. However, I had the best experience of being with him. Because I got the kids home, got them all down for naps. They were all under the age of 5, including my own daughter. And I got them all down for naps. And I was so upset that I thought, well, the first thing I have to do is sit here and meditate quiet my mind and calm myself, because I'd been meditating since the '70s. And so I sat down and closed my eyes and started doing my mantra meditation to quiet my mind. And instantly my father appeared to me just the way Paul had, and he was so vivid and so real and so young looking and happy and healthy and joking around with me the way he had done when he was younger and healthier. We would always say, Dad, you're such a clown, we're gonna send you to clown school, but we hadn't seen that part of him in a while. And here he was in front of me, just like making me laugh and being goofy. And I was going, Dad, what are you doing here? And then I was like, wait, Dad, what are you doing here? And I kind of came out of my meditation. It was so real. So I picked up the phone and called my— called the hospital. My brother Jim answered, and I said, Dad just appeared to me. And Jim said, well, he's having a heart attack now, and it's chaos in the room. And they're trying to revive him and it's terrible. I said, no, he came to show me he's already free of the body, he's not there, and he's already happy and he's already flying around being with the people he loves. And I knew for sure that that was his message, that souls are not stuck in the suffering that may happen in the final days or hours of crossing over, that they are already free. And that they're already coming to love on the people that they have been with. And my father did it so beautifully. And since then, he's come back many, many times. In fact, Brian, in my recent stint in the hospital with my own dance with cancer, my father was the most present spirit in the room with me, constantly telling me, calm down, don't worry, just the way he always did when he was alive here on Earth, and telling me things like, 'Trust the doctor to do their job.' He was just so much like that. And he really helped me be calm as I walked through my own recent health crisis.

Such beautiful stories. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, and, and the comfort that we can all take from that, because we've seen people suffer comfort, you know, at the end of life. And we wonder what they're going through. And we think about them being trapped in the body. So to know that even while his body was going through the process of having a heart attack, his spirit was already gone is, I think, something that's going to bring a lot of people comfort.

Yeah, yeah. Especially people who watch someone cross who's had cancer or something like that, because there can be really awful suffering of the body. And I work with so many clients who are stuck in memory of their loved one suffering. And I can with 100% confidence say, you know, I know with every cell in my body that your loved one was not in that suffering modality. And they don't want you focusing on that and remembering them there because they are not there.

Yeah, and we do— something about our human minds, it gets so stuck on that, on those final moments, whether they were whether they were a cancer or something, or whether they were murdered or in a car accident or whatever, our minds go to the worst possible thing.

Yeah, that's the dance between the human mind that always goes down the dark path if we give it a chance, and the soul's wisdom that's always going, wait, there's another perspective. Look at it this way.

Yeah. So let's talk about that other perspective, because I know that's one of the things you help people do is to make that shift from the everything is wrong, this is terrible, to that higher perspective. So tell me a little bit more about that.

Well, you know, when we get to Earth, we get talked out of trusting the higher voice that we all have, you know, the soul's wisdom. When we're kids, when we're children, we are very much in touch with spirit, with soul's wisdom, with love. We remember our essence as divine beings, and we're only looking at life from this very much higher perspective. But from our parents to our teachers to our classrooms and our world, we are constantly talked out of, you know, pay attention, don't dream, you know, hey, you're not getting good grades, you've got to buckle down and be logical, you know. And so we're really taught early on in life that there's only one way to look at the world, and it's through the monkey mind. Oh, I shouldn't say that. I guess the world doesn't call it the monkey mind, but the left brain logic mind that we all have to honor in order to succeed here is what starts pulling us down this negative path. Because when we come to Earth, we agree that we're going to have a left brain and a right brain. The left brain is our logic, our ability to live here on Earth and feed ourselves and be practical and grounded. And we need that. The ego's job is basically to keep us alive. And yet we also need to be in touch with our soul to remember this higher perspective, to remember that we are beings of light, that we're here to love one another, that we're here to share compassion and joy and laughter. And so we have to walk in the two worlds really here. But when we're miserable, depressed, angry, afraid, even grief-stricken, we're leaning more heavily into the human mind, the ego mind. And all I can ever say about that is, if you are absolutely miserable, I can promise you that somewhere there's a light calling you to look at it a different way, whether that's a friend who mentioned something to you or a spiritual book that you picked up that had a different point of view. But it's our free will choice to decide, hey, I'm gonna try to see it a different way and see how that feels. And you went through grief, Brian, I'm sure you, you did that dance yourself.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So what is it that helped you the most to step into that higher perspective? Do you remember?

For me, well, I remember the first medium reading I had, it was with Suzanne Wilson. And she was just so incredible. And again, my first experience even having a medium reading. And she said, Shayna is telling me that this had to happen. That was the first time I'd even heard of that concept. And I was— I'm fortunate, I was at the point where I was at least able to have an open mind to it. Because I was, I was, again, very rational, left-brain kind of person, cause and effect, A causes B, you know, determinism, Newtonian universe, all those, all those things, right? All the things that people drill into you. But I've always had this tugging in my heart about, like, you know, intuition. And frankly, this world just doesn't seem right to me. So I was glad I was at the point where I was able to start being open to that. And then being part of Helping Parents Heal, where we talk about, we talk about this. And then what I tell my clients is like, just try this perspective, you know, whether you believe it or not. Does it make sense to you? And which one makes you feel better? You know, and it's not just, it's not just wishful thinking, it just, it starts to make sense after a while.

You know, when I teach, I used to teach these 3-day grief shifting workshops at places like Kripalu and Omega. And then the first day, I would say to everybody, there's 2 ways for you to look at this tragic loss that you're here for. And one way is the everyday way that you've probably been looking at it since it happened. But for these 3 days, I'm asking you to put on your divine lens and look at it through a different perspective, a soul's perspective, and I'll guide you through that. And at the end of 3 days, you can go back to the other point of view, or you can decide that there is great healing in allowing yourself to consider the possibility that this is an all-good, all-God-loving universe, and that there is a higher plan and a higher understanding. And the minute they even just try that point of view, they end up coming back to it again and again because it feels so much better. 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 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 grieftogrowth.com/substack. Substack. That's grief2growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there. It does. And the other thing that helped— has helped me though, is age, perspective, you know, because I think about things that happened in my life that at the time I thought were terrible things that would never have wanted, when I got divorced, when, um, I got fired from a job, actually twice, um, you know, things like that. If you look at those things as opposed to the loss of a person, it's sometimes easier for people to see the quote silver lining in that, right? And you can see the arc of your life as, as you go farther and farther. You've had, you know, uh, a few careers like I have. I've had like 4, you know, 4 different careers. I've had 8 or 10 different jobs.

And I've been fired too, so I know what you mean.

Right. But, but when you think about that, there was probably something good that came out of that.

Absolutely. And this is also why I love numerology so much, because one of the most helpful pieces of numerology is that they show you your 9-year cycles in your life. And we all have these different 9-year reinvention cycles, and they start at different times depending on our path, etc. So when I do a session or help somebody through numerology, the first thing I'll look at is where are they in that 9-year spread. When you're at a 1 personal year, you're at the beginning. You got this new job, this new career, this new relationship, and it all seems wonderful. And then you walk through the arc of learning of where that's gonna take you, and then you hit the end of the cycle, and it's a surrender of some kind is always required. So when a client would come to me and go, "Hey, I've lost my job, I'm facing bankruptcy, I'm even maybe going through a divorce, I'd go, "I bet that client's in a 9 personal year," and I would go and look and they were. And then when you look back at your whole life and you see where all of those endings were already programmed into your life and you can see it in numerology and you go, "Wow, I didn't do anything wrong. That was a pre-programmed ending of that cycle of my learning." And so being fired was necessary to get shaken to step up and look at a different possibility for career. And of course, it's much harder when we see that we've had to go through the loss of a loved one. That's always the hardest, uh, letting go, right? But when I look back at Paul and my best girlfriend Chrissy and my dad all dying when I was in my early 30s, late 20s, and at the time they seemed absolutely crushing, and now Brian I know in every cell of my body that I couldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't be the person I am today, and I wouldn't have been able to help so many people with my work if I hadn't gone through those devastating losses. And that's the weird thing about human life, is that we seem to sign up for some hard heartbreaks here because they really force us to, to grow, to start looking for some other answers, you know, to start saying, what the purpose of being here? Who am I really? Where did my loved one go when they crossed over? And why am I still here? Those are the important, good questions here.

Yeah, exactly. And until you get that, that broader understanding of where our loved ones went— because if, if you have the traditional Western mindset that you're in the body and then you're gone, it's like a light bulb being turned off then it really is hard to find meaning in something like that. Um, so when we have that higher perspective that they're okay, you know, they're okay, I'm okay, I'm going to see them again, there's— your father's still with you, you know, these many years later— it— then we can start to say, well, maybe there is something to this. But I think as, as long as you hold that perspective that they're just gone, I don't see how get there.

I agree totally. You know, the other piece of it is once you begin to consider that, yes, consciousness lives beyond the body— and you and I know there's enough science now to say that is proven in quantum physics, that consciousness lives beyond the body— once you consider that and you go, wow, if my loved one is still around, they're watching me, and am I making them proud with how I'm living my life, or am I living my life locked down in my my anger, my blame, my grief. Every spirit I've ever connected with have, have said they don't want their loved one in that negative place wasting their life. Everything here on Earth is a combination of our free will. We get to choose how we're going to respond to these hard lessons that are programmed into our life. So when we see that combination of free will and destined path, path, we go, oh, I want to, I want to pass the test. I want to show my spirit's loved ones that I'm trying my best, that I'm really trying to live from love and compassion and, and kindness no matter what comes my way, that I'm going to keep trying to do meaningful work no matter what happens. And when we develop the muscles that allow us to live that way, And then the other benefit is it spreads like a ripple effect, like these lights in the graphic, and helps other people wake up to that and wake up to behaving for their highest good.

Yeah, I have to say, as you were saying that, I was thinking about, you know, after Shayna passed, and I, you know, I didn't want to be on the planet. You know, I'm frank about that. It's just like, I didn't want to be here. And I thought, well, I have to stay here for Kayla, my other daughter, and for my wife. So, okay, I'll stay here for for them. And then later on, it dawned on me, it's like, Shayna is still here. And Shayna wants me to be happy. And she, and she wants me to be productive. And, and, and knowing Shayna, it's like, I'm gonna have to face her when I cross back over. That's a big motivating factor for me. It's the biggest reason I do what I do now is because I know Shayna's watching.

And she's so proud of you now, you know that. And she's such a shining, beautiful spirit. We can all feel her presence when we're around you. But it's true, you know, our loved ones on the other side— and that's why I love helping parents heal so much, because I believe that the children on the other side, the ones who cross early in the physical life, are the more advanced souls. Doesn't matter if on Earth they were diagnosed with a mental illness or they did drugs. Forget that kind of judgment. I believe they were very advanced souls, and they agreed to come in and shake things up here, wake up their soul posse, and then step into the divine and help us from that realm. So yeah, they're our cheering squad, you know. I mean, I'm so blessed to have friends like Elizabeth Boisson, the founder of Helping Parents Heal, because I see and feel the energy of their beautiful children. Those children are the team trying to help humanity evolve. That's the blessing of Helping Parents feel.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Let's talk about numerology, because, you know, we've all heard of astrology, and, you know, we have our horoscopes and stuff. What's numerology based in, and what is numerology?

So back when Pythagoras created our entire number system, 580 BC, he also said— he was a Greek mystic— and he said every number is not just a quantity, it has a spiritual meaning or spiritual quality to. And I've always thought it's so funny that that part of the message got drilled out of our world because I would have paid so much more attention in math class if they had told me that. And so it's not like a woo-woo thing that was invented last year. It's really the science and the art that came along with numbers. And yet it got kind of diminished. Diminished as we evolved to be more left-brained in our world. But now, as we help people combine these other two parts of themselves, the left brain and the right brain, we can say, "Oh, well, the number 4 is not just about 4 apples. It also has the energy of strength and determination and hard work." And then you start looking at all the meanings of the numbers. And when I look at the birth path that comes from the date of birth, I combine that with the Sun sign, and then you get a real kind of deep gestalt or an understanding of what that soul came to learn in this life and the gifts and the challenges they brought with them. And I've been studying this since 1980, so I have my own way of doing it, of course. But I would say in a in a couple sentences that the reason my numerology is a little different from others is that some people look at it as, well, there's a good number and a bad number, and oh, that's a bad path, or that's a bad number on your address, so that house, you won't be happy in that house. To me, that's superstition, and that's not the higher perspective that Pythagoras meant with these numbers. In other words, If we are on an 8 path, which is all about money and career and power, it means that every lesson that comes our way in this lifetime is asking us to learn the right use of our power, the right use of money, the right use of being generous, the right use of empowering others rather than abusing them. So every number has these two sides to it, and we are here to learn the light, the higher side of our path. And what we've come to do and be.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for sharing that. And I think it's, it's really interesting that things like this, that because we couldn't explain how it worked, people assume, well, therefore it must not work. And but science is starting to come around and look at some of these things that we said before were just— didn't make, you know, astrology even, you know, well, how could— when I was born, how could the planets affect me? But now people are starting to realize there, there are things that we don't understand. There's a lot that we don't understand about the universe.

And how arrogant of us to think that we— our logic can understand it all, you know?

Yeah, exactly. And the thing I'm, I'm like, I'm like, does it work? Does it make sense? And someone the other day, because of computers and stuff now, they can run these things, reports, you know, and they gave me a report something. And I was reading through it, and it was a combination, I think, of numerology and human design and some other aspect of, of, uh, this type of knowledge, metaphysical knowledge I'll call it. And I'm reading it, I'm like, it's just like spot on. I'm like, did they, did they go through my bio and they create this? So I tell people, you know, give it a shot, take a look at it and see if, see if it makes sense. Does it actually work?

Well, that's the thing, you know, I believe this is a loving, all good, all God universe, no matter how it looks up close. And so there's many signs here. I mean, why would we drop into the heavy, dense Earth realm with no help, no signs to help us remember who we are? We wouldn't do that. So there might be an astrology thing that pops up over here, and suddenly you understand why you have certain challenges or gifts. And then a numerology thing that goes, oh, your birth path is this, and by the way, you're at the end of a cycle. So you didn't do anything wrong, it's just time to surrender and step up to the next level and all of these beautiful gentle signs that are helping you remember that you're a beautiful soul on a journey who came to Earth on purpose to evolve and help others evolve. And that's how I look at all these signs from astrology and numerology. They're not a religion and they're not a dogma and they're not anything negative. They're saying, hey, if this helps you remember your great potential here. Use it. Embrace it.

Yeah, I love the way you said that. It's like, why— you know, it's, it's interesting to me. We come here, it's like a little game we play with ourselves. So we come here, we forget everything, or— and then, as you said, children still have that remnant, but then we drive it out of them, right? So they're like, oh, I guess I need to just, you know, fit in. But then we've also left ourselves clues or breadcrumbs to kind of lead us, lead us back.

And that's a great—

in the Western world, we've thrown a lot of that stuff away, which is why I think so the universe are completely lost because we don't even know who we are.

I mean, look at the state of the world today. You know, it is completely, I would say, split between light and dark. But I also know that light is always going to win. I go back to the vision of 2014, meaning that even if things feel really bad right now, we have to trust that our job is to simply keep on loving, keep on holding our light up, keep on bringing messages of higher consciousness, not to diminish our light by being angry about the world or hating on people we disagree with. And that is so hard for humans. We just want to argue. We just want to say, I'm right and you're wrong. That's what got us in this mess to begin with. So now we have to hold our light so bright and really recognize is that that's my job at this tipping point, is to love more, to find more compassion, to share more wisdom, to help more people, to live on the brightest side of my path that I can possibly be.

Yeah, thank you for saying that. So tell us, tell me about your book. What can people find in your book?

So many very practical tips and tools about shifting this perspective, because I am a Virgo. So a Virgo always wants people to understand a system, a very practical tool for living a better life. I can't be up in the vapors, you know, just talking about dream visions and shared death experiences. I have to make it very real for people. So I share things like certain meditations you can do during the day, even if you're out doing the laundry or driving in traffic. You know, what are some of the ways that we can shift our thinking? Say an affirmation. I'm a Unity minister, and Unity is so good at teaching how we shift to gratitude, no matter what's going on in our life, we can find one thing to be grateful for. My cat, or the sun coming in the window, or the fact that I, I personally just made it through a very intense physical challenge and I am still here and I'm feeling pretty good. So I am seeping myself in gratitude every day. And by doing that, we shift up no matter what's coming our way. And that's our job here. And even in this recent thing, I was diagnosed with colon cancer, the same thing Paul crossed from. And as soon as I heard that diagnosis, my human self wanted to go into, oh my God, that's the worst thing that could possibly have happened to me. I'm just going to give up. I'm so angry. All the human emotions. Emotions. And yet, I've done this work long enough. And that's what I always tell people, you need to get these spiritual tools in place before the crisis comes. So that you just know right away that that negative emotion isn't going to save me, it's not going to help me, and spend as little time in it as possible. And then start, I'm grateful, I'm grateful for the nurse who just came in and eased my pain in some way. I'm grateful for my girlfriend showing up at my bedside and giving me a different perspective. And the minute we do those little tools, our frequency shifts up, and then we see the way through. There's always a way through the dark night of the soul. And in my book, Through a Divine Lens, it teaches so many of those little techniques to help you find that light no matter what you're facing and shift into that higher perspective.

Yeah, that's so awesome. We started talking before we start recording, and, you know, we had to postpone this because you were going through your health, health crisis, right? But the way that you talk about it is such a healthy way of talking about it. Because as you said, we, we can, we can choose, we, we do choose how we, we frame it. You could say, this is the worst thing ever happened to me, how could this happen to me, I'm, I'm— you're a very healthy person in terms of your lifestyle and everything, this isn't fair, this shouldn't happen to me. But instead you're like, okay, I've got my friends. You know, I've, you know, I've got the nurse, you know, it's a sunny day, whatever. There's always something that we can be grateful for. And it is, it is a choice. And this is something I've realized fairly recently, and within the last 5 or 6 years. But it's a practice. And as you said, the time to start is now, when you're not in crisis, because when you're in crisis, it's really hard to get to that.

Yes, I'll tell you what, I'm, you know, I'm so grateful that when I I hit this bump in the road and I'm in my 70s. I've had decades of working with clients, studying numerology, studying spirituality, developing all these tools, meditating, so that the minute it hit me, and it hit me like a wall of bricks, really unexpected.

Yeah.

I was able to go, all right, well, today, you know, how about we use a little humor to pull up the frequency? And the true story is, Brian D Smith, on the day I got, the diagnosis, I sent all my friends and family home and I said, I just need to be alone. I gotta shift my frequency here. And Brian, I've always known all my life that laughter saves me. And if I can shift into some sort of laughter, I will be able to cope with whatever's coming my way. So alone in my hospital room, I set up my cell phone. And I watched— I have many favorite comedy movies that I've watched over the years that I know they're my go-to life-saving comedies. And so I sat there alone in my hospital room watching my favorite ones and just laughing and laughing and laughing. And knowing in that laughter that God was with me, that the God force was surrounding me, that there was somehow a purpose to all this, and that I would understand it as it was revealed. And by shifting my frequency with laughter, it opened my heart. It just changed how I was able to walk through it. And it was a really good thing because the next day, you know, there are all these people coming in the room, like different surgeons going, hey, we're going to cut you open and do such and such. And, and I had to trust my higher self, my intuition intuition to guide me making those kinds of decisions. And if I had been in my lower state, you know, of anger and, and all the things I could have done easily, I don't think I could have seen clearly the right choice and the right way to make it through. And that's what I always tell people. There's always an intuitive choice that feels good, and you can find it even in your darkest moment. But if you're already in a very negative state, you may not be able to hear the guidance, you may not be able to feel what is right. So our first job is to shift our frequency. And if laughter works for you, pull out your cell phone and watch a comedy, you know, and get your energy shifted. So that when you've got to trust your intuition, when you've got to make that big decision, now you're shifted in a higher frequency, you can hear the guidance from the higher beings, you feel loved and loving, and now you can make the right choice.

Yeah, it's interesting when you just said that one thing, you can hear, you can feel the guidance from the higher beings. Because earlier today I was interviewing someone who goes out of body all the time. Um, he does it in like astral projection, and he was talking about, um, you know, the higher— we call them higher beings, but this different frequency. And if we we're in that, that lower frequency, we're in that funk, I think it makes it harder for us to connect with them. So ironically, when we need them the most, we've kind of blocked ourselves off.

That's exactly right. You know, and that's why when I work with people who are in their deep grief, which I totally understand, I'll say, I'll say, you know, decide that you're going to make yourself laugh at one point in the day, and you can set aside a time, you know, maybe it's It's lunchtime, you're gonna go and sit with a friend who makes you laugh, or you're gonna read something funny or watch something and just see how that little sh— and it's not hurting your departed. You've gotta help. Some people think, well, if I laugh, I'm not honoring my departed loved one crossing over. And I'll say it's the opposite. They want to see you laughing. Every spirit who's ever come to me has— my father, my best girlfriend, Chrissy, Paul, they're happy, they're laughing on the other side. And that's what they want to see in us, that kind of joy, that lightness. And when we're in our funk, not only are we blocking those spirits from being— I mean, they're still around us, but we just can't feel it. But also we're blocking our own intuition of being able to say, hey, I know what the right action is for me to take in this situation. We've got to be a little bit shifted up in our higher self to be able to access that intuition and our soul's wisdom.

Yeah, and what you just said there about it's okay to feel, to feel okay. I know a lot of times in that early part of the grief, and I work with a lot of parents who've lost children, there's guilt about their passing. It's my fault. And since it's my fault, therefore, I don't deserve to heal. And if I do start to feel better, that I'm not honoring them. So yeah, that's all those crazy thoughts that we have.

They believe that if they're suffering, somehow they're showing their departed how much they love them. Right. And the opposite is true. Their departed knows how much they love them. They want them to be happy and fulfill their own soul mission here. And, you know, I always say to people that it's all the dogma of mainstream religion that created guilt. Really, guilt comes from the stories we were told about, you know, Jesus, which I'm a minister, so I can tell you, Jesus said there's one commandment more important than the others. It is to love one another. And all of this dogma about heaven and hell and sin that was created by popes and bishops of the Catholic Church. So all of that guilt that we have grown up in, swimming in the soup of this world, is basically— doesn't exist in the divine realms. It is not a valid feeling. Guilt is a human-created negative state that has no connection to the truth of our souls being here. We cannot possibly be responsible for another person's crossing. Their soul picked their soul exit before the lifetime began. So if I am guilty that my husband died— and it's a natural human feeling, wow, I didn't give him enough of the right medication, or I didn't get him to the right doctor, or blah blah blah— the human mind wants to go to that. But on the other hand, we go, oh well, if there's a soul agreement we had and he had his own path. This was his exit point. I can't take responsibility for that. I'm not in charge of his soul path and his soul mission. And I'm only in charge of my soul path and my soul mission. And suddenly guilt evaporates.

Yeah, really good point. And do you, do you think it's maybe ego also, that, that thing like we think we have control over everything, right?

I always say that too, you know, it's like guilt makes us believe that we're responsible for everybody else's life here, you know? Yeah, it's like, sorry, that's, that's the ego talking to you, you know? We, if we can just simply live to our own highest nature, we are doing great here.

Yeah, exactly. So you mentioned that you're, you're a minister, and that's a relatively recent thing. You're a Unity a minister now. What made you decide to become a minister?

Well, as I've been doing my work for a while and the world was starting to shift around 2016, I was feeling like I needed a spiritual reboot because I was getting very depressed about the world. And I, and I felt like I need to dig into the origins of the Bible. I grew up Catholic. I've studied Buddhism. I've lived in a Hindu ashram. But I needed to put it all together and say, this is what I truly believe God is. And Unity teaches that God is a loving force of consciousness, and we're all part of that force, so we're all part of God. And I truly resonate with that. I know for me that that's the truth of what I've experienced in my out-of-body journeys with my departed loved ones, that it's a loving consciousness. And when we leave the body, we feel that unconditional unconditional love, and we're all part of it. So when I read those Unity principles and really immersed myself in them, and I got to go back and read the origins of the Bible and the Aramaic, you realize that all that fear, all that judgment is human-made, human-written, had nothing to do with what Jesus said. And I kind of— I always joke that ministry school healed my, my relationship with God because I had seen so many terrible things done in the name of God that I was troubled about that. And going back to Unity Ministry School, I realized, ah no, God is that loving force, and I'm 100% clear on it now. And so I'm really better able to help my clients because grief is also a spiritual crisis, Brian. You know, when people are deeply angry and grieving and they don't find a way— they can't find way through it, they're in a spiritual crisis about what they believe to be true about life and death, right? Because if they really believe that the soul lives on, that the physical body is just a brief time of our journey, then that grief is lighter and easier to navigate.

Yeah, well, yeah, thanks for answering that question. It's really interesting. You were talking about uh, you know, becoming Unity minister kind of helped your— or healed your spirit thing with God? Because a lot of times when ministers go to seminary, it's that— it's the opposite. They become atheists because they realize the stuff— traditional teaching in the Bible is insane, right? And I grew up with that. My grandfather was a Pentecostal pastor. I grew up in the church and everything. And so I had to deconstruct the whole thing. I didn't— I decided to become a minister. I didn't know about Unity until actually after Shayna passed away. Um, and so the last church when we were attending church was a Unity church. So yeah, when people now tell me, you know, I want to find a church, I'm like, okay, Unity or UCC. Those are the two that I would recommend.

I agree. There's a lot of healing in kind of reprogramming the dogma that we all grew up with one way or another.

Yeah, but it's, it's really interesting to me because the criticisms I get on my, my YouTube videos and stuff are either from the fundamentalist Christians or the fundamentalist atheists. Yes, they're, they're those, those two extremes, you know, basically say the same things. But right, and all that, you know, we talked about, about guilt, but there's also a lot of fear in religion. There's a ton of fear.

You know, I have to tell this story. I have a 97-year-old old mom, and she is still alive. And she and my dad were deeply Catholic. And Catholicism— and I, and I have to say, there are a lot of good things about Catholicism because I grew up in that church. I went to Convent of Mercy schools until I was 18 and left home. And but the good part for me was I really could feel the presence of something sacred in their ceremonies, in their traditions. And the Catholics really paid, at least back then, paid homage to the Divine Mother. You know, they called her the Virgin Mary, of course, but she is the Divine Mother. And so I was really clear growing up that those pieces were true. However, all the going to hell, the sin, the mortal And it is so overdone in the Catholic tradition and so crazy that my mother, who's now 97, is afraid to die because her husband, my father, we all know he was a saint and we all know he's absolutely in heaven according to the Catholic dogma. Mm-hmm. But my mom believes that she was not a good enough person. Mm-hmm. And even last week I was talking to her, she's back in the hospital. And I said, Mom, you don't have to fight death so much. You know, Dad is in heaven, and you'll be in heaven, and it's a pretty good place. And I was just trying to comfort her. And she said, I don't think Dad is going to be able to get me into heaven. And I said, Mom, what are you talking about? And she said, I had a bad temper. And I was like, Mom, you have raised 4 kids and all these grandchildren, and you're in your 90s. You are so worthy of heaven and so worthy of God, and you know, and all is forgiven. And she— this poor woman is hanging on for dear life, afraid to die because she believes she sinned, quote unquote, in the Catholic tradition and won't make it to heaven where my father is. That is the sin of religion, in my opinion.

Yeah, completely. That is so heartbreaking, you know, something that's supposed to bring us comfort and peace that, that does bring that kind of fear. And I— it reminds me, I was working at a church here locally, and we were teaching, um, was it like— it was indoctrination. We were bringing people into the church, and we would teach this thing called Alpha. And this one poor guy just kept saying, I know I'm going to go to hell. And we're like, no, you know, Jesus, you've been forgiven, you know, you know, you understand you can be forgive. I smoke and I drink and I cuss and I'm— I can't give that up. And I just— and I mean, for this was like a 6-week class. For 6 weeks, we're just trying to convince this poor guy that he's not going to hell. Right? My camera just disconnected, but we'll keep going. So Sue, we're coming to the end of our time. Maybe that was a sign.

Okay.

But I want to thank you so much for doing this. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wish I I had asked you.

I just wish everybody listening and watching this podcast could take a moment, no matter what their beliefs are, even if their beliefs are very different from what you and I've talked about today, and just shift into a little gratitude or a little humor and just see if it begins to open up a different possibility in their thinking as they raise their frequency to consider that this could be an all-good, all-God-loving universe where everything is actually happening for us and for our growth and our evolution rather than to us. If they could take one minute out of the day to consider that, that would help all of us to awaken.

Wow, that's some great advice. Thank you for that. So remind people the name of your most recent book, because you do have 11. So people go look at Sue's other books as well. But tell people about the name of your most recent book.

Through a Divine Lens, which they can get on Amazon or in a bookstore. And my numerology workbook, which is so fun, called Sacred Numerology. And that's on Amazon. But also on my website, they can go and do a soul path calculator that I have there where they can see what their soul path is. And my website is Sue Frederick. And they'll also see there that I have a lot of very fun classes coming up, including a numerology class online in July and a very fun class starting this week about how to be— I call it How to Be a Mystic, really about how to be focused on that higher soul perspective and channel in guidance. So that class starts this week, and there's many other fun classes on there if anybody's interested. It's Sue Frederickson. Briandsmithandrick.com.

All right, well, Sue, again, thanks so much for being here. I'm glad we, we got to do this today, and continue to get better, um, and have a great afternoon.

Thank you, so fun to talk to you, Brian.

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 useful 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.grief-the-number-2-growth.com/NDElessons. I hope you enjoy it.