Beyond the Veil and Living Fully with Stephanie Chevrier

Stephanie Chevrier, an artist based in Vancouver, Canada, has found herself deeply immersed in the exploration of death, reality, and what it means to be human. As an artist, she primarily works as a tattoo artist and illustrator, with a strong affinity for black ink. However, her curiosity extends far beyond her artistic pursuits, as she delves into the mysteries of consciousness and the afterlife.

Stephanie’s journey into the death space began with a fascination for near-death experiences (NDEs) and the scientific and personal accounts surrounding them. This exploration opened her mind to questions about what happens after death, the nature of reality, and the interconnectedness of all beings. Despite her skepticism, she found the research and stories compelling enough to challenge her lifelong beliefs.

Through her research, Stephanie noticed significant improvements in her mental health and relationships. She observed that by integrating conversations about death into daily life, she became more present and appreciative of the moments she shared with loved ones. This newfound perspective has inspired her to live fully in the present, embracing life’s fleeting nature.

Stephanie has also been deeply moved by the spiritual aspects of her work, which has led her to trust in the universe’s guidance and to let go of rigid plans. She believes that by listening to the subtle cues of the heart and following them, one can move toward their true purpose.

As she continues to share her insights on death and the afterlife, Stephanie remains open to the possibility that there is more to life than we can understand through materialism alone. She acknowledges that while science has made strides in understanding these phenomena, there is still much that remains beyond our comprehension. Ultimately, Stephanie hopes that by discussing these topics, people will become more open to the mysteries of life and death, leading to a deeper connection with themselves and others.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephanie: I was researching near death experiences that were from some of the top scientists in this field. It really opened me up to this world of death. What is reality? What happens to us after we die? What is our purpose? Why are we here? Is there something more? What are we all connected to? All those big questions.

[00:00:18] And I feel like I've really been going deep, deep into this rabbit hole now. 

[00:00:22] Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and end of life coach. Here on my show, I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself. My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects.

[00:00:41] I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true. In this episode, I have a lovely conversation with Stephanie Chevrier, who shares her exploration into death, consciousness, and the mysteries of the afterlife. We talk about how an exploration into death and dying has reshaped our understanding of life, urging us to live more fully and appreciate the present moment.

[00:01:08] Stephanie also touches on the intersection of science and spirituality, the compelling evidence from near death experiences, and the concept of soul fracturing, living parallel lives across different realms. Throughout our conversation, we both emphasize the importance of being open to the mysteries of existence and how contemplating death can enhance our experience of life.

[00:01:30] Thank you for joining us for this conversation. Welcome to the podcast, Stephanie. Thanks so much for coming on today. If you want to start us off, just tell us a little bit about who you are, where you're from, 

[00:01:41] Stephanie: anything like that that you want to share. My name is Stephanie. I live in Vancouver, Canada. And it's funny, I feel like the more I dive into the topic of death and what reality is and everything that I study, I have a harder and harder time answering that, like putting that label on myself.

[00:01:58] But what I do for a living, I'm an artist, just a human trying to figure it out like the rest of us. 

[00:02:03] Jill: I think pretty accurate the older I get and the longer I've been around. The more I'm definitely just kind of like, I don't know, all these labels and all the things that people want to use to describe themselves, me included, right?

[00:02:17] Sometimes I'm like, it just doesn't feel right. None of it feels right. I'm just a human. I'm just doing the best that I can with this wonky body that doesn't always cooperate with me the best I can. 

[00:02:28] Stephanie: Yeah, exactly. That's 

[00:02:29] Jill: exactly how I feel these days. And what kind of art do you do? Like, what's your main medium, I guess, that you like to use?

[00:02:35] Stephanie: Yeah, so my day job is I'm a tattoo artist. Just pen and paper, love to draw. Sometimes we'll take on commissions, but. Oh, very cool. Ink is my medium, whatever form. Perfect. 

[00:02:47] Jill: I love it so much. So, what is it that you do in the depth? Kind of space, like what's your main interest in that work? 

[00:02:55] Stephanie: So my interest really began when I was researching near death experiences.

[00:03:01] I got a hold of these essays that were from some of the top scientists in this field discussing whether or not our consciousness survives the death of our body. And within that conversation was just scientists presenting all their research, there were personal experiences from people who had had near death experiences, and it really opened me up to a world that I knew existed, but I think we've all kind of lumped that into a religious category at some time or another and discredited it.

[00:03:30] And once I started seeing it presented in this really scientific way, and also this really spiritual way that was just so, you know, we talk about being human, it felt so human. And it really opened me up to this world of death. What is reality? What happens to us after we die? What is our purpose? Why are we here?

[00:03:47] Is there something more? What are we all connected to? All those big questions. And I feel like I've really been going deep, deep into this rabbit hole now for about two and a half years. 

[00:03:57] Jill: All those questions, they're my favorite things to think about and talk about. What do you do with everything that you're learning?

[00:04:03] Stephanie: I feel like I'm still trying to figure that out. I started sharing it, I was really motivated because the positive experiences I started having in my own life, how my mental health improved, I was noticing my relationships were improving. I was also noticing that by having this. Kind of constant conversation around death in general as a topic, whether something happens after we die or not, I think just bringing the subject of death into our daily lives.

[00:04:30] We're really faced with that mortality. I just felt, I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it was really inspiring me to live while I'm here just to live in the moment. So I was having so much. Just positive effects from knowing this and I wanted to share that with people and just because it's interesting.

[00:04:47] So all I really do right now is share the information. I'm not sure what else I'm going to do with it yet. And that's okay. I don't think we have 

[00:04:54] Jill: to know, right? Like as humans, we want to know. We want to have like our little map that we're going to follow, even though it almost never works the way that we think it's going to, but for some reason it makes us feel comfortable even though it never really works that way.

[00:05:09] Stephanie: And it's so funny you should say that it just really reminded me of something I was listening to the other day that I've been really trying to bring into my life part of my work in the death and dying sphere near death experiences is really feeling that connectedness to the universe and something bigger and really trusting.

[00:05:27] And letting go and listening to the universe speak through me in a way and guide me where I need to go as opposed to trying to have those clear plans being like, okay, I just need clarity. I just need to know step ABC. I need to know where I'm trying to get to. And just trying to really let go of that control and just let myself move.

[00:05:48] In the direction that the universe wants me to move in, 

[00:05:51] Jill: I try to live my life in a similar way, but then it brings me back to this idea of free will and destiny. And are those things connected with this idea of if I'm just going to open myself up to allowing Something to guide me the universe or god or whatever you want to call it Then does that mean that that's my destiny like that?

[00:06:14] I'm still following a path even though it's not the path that my brain's trying to construct I don't know and again, it just gives me more questions rather than answers, which is okay. I don't think that's a bad thing 

[00:06:26] Stephanie: Totally. But I do think that is truly following your destiny. If you're just listening to those little calls of your heart and letting yourself be pulled in those directions, I think that is moving towards your destiny, your purpose.

[00:06:41] We use our minds to kind of decide what is rationally the right way to go. Maybe not rationally, but we put our morals and our ethics and All the things we've learned and we use those two things together, the mind and the heart, to follow that path towards what ultimately I think we're here to do, whatever that may be.

[00:06:58] Jill: And when I read tarot cards for people, because that's the business that brings me some income right now. I love that. Being a death doula does not. So I read tarot cards and events at bars and stuff and it's fun. I love it. But I do find that one of the common themes that I say over and over again to people, and it is partially because of being a death duel in the work that I do, is this idea of listening to our intuition, trusting that even though, because sometimes tarot is referred to as the fool's journey, because the fool's card's zero, and that as the fool makes its way down this journey, it meets its end.

[00:07:33] It's all different people and situations, right? And some of them are going to be quote unquote positive, some are going to be negative. But that we have everything we need to navigate those experiences as best as we can. It's all within us. But oftentimes we let all the stories and all these things in our head get in the way rather than just.

[00:07:54] trusting that we're going to know what to do. We try to like plan and almost manipulate situations to fit this story in our head. So that's the common theme that I find myself saying over and over again, when I read tarot cards for people, it's like, really trust yourself, trust your intuition, God, the universe, whatever will guide you.

[00:08:13] You don't have to know what your next step is going to be if you can open yourself up to it. But yeah, We just, as humans, we have a real hard time with that. 

[00:08:22] Stephanie: We do. It's funny, this is not at all where I thought this conversation would go, because I definitely don't talk a lot about this on my page. I try to keep it to the research, to the science.

[00:08:31] So much of my own personal journey has been around connecting to the spiritual peace around death, the spiritual peace around our lives, our destiny. And part of that has been learning to listen to that intuition within me. And I've noticed. That the more I practice that, the more those yeses and no's within me become so clear.

[00:08:52] Jill: Yeah. That, that quiet little voice becomes not so quiet after a while. When you were talking about how you show up different in your relationships and you experience life different. And, and it's something that I feel like I say so often to people is that. Being okay with the fact that we're going to die is almost like, to me, the key to actually living life because once I really was okay with my death, and I actually was always okay with my death, but just really getting clear on the fact that it will happen one day.

[00:09:29] I don't know when that day is going to be. And not only that, Having to be okay with the fact that I don't know when my husband's gonna die. I don't even know when my children are gonna die. That was the ones that I was really not okay with. And I will still be sad, I will still be devastated if something happens to my children, but the fact that I had to be okay with not knowing, and knowing that it's a reality, that it could happen before I wanted to, really made me appreciate all of my time that I have with them in a way that I was never able to before.

[00:10:03] I really, truly live my life now, where in the past, I wasn't fully living life. And I was trying, I mean, I was trying all kinds of stuff. I did all this stuff. I tried all the different religions. I tried yoga. I tried tantra. I tried drugs. I tried sex parties. I mean, like, I tried it all. And I was like, never really able to get there.

[00:10:25] And then I was like, let's talk about death. And all of a sudden I'm like, Oh, now I actually live my life. And I don't need that other stuff, the things that I was trying and just being like, well, if I add one more thing, let me just keep adding one more thing. And now I'm like, no, I have everything right now.

[00:10:42] That I want everything that I need and I'm just going to be here for it while I can be and fully experience it. But it does seem so strange to people when you're like, but no, for real, think about your death. You'll actually live life or just like the funnest 

[00:10:54] Stephanie: people at the party. Also, I just love everything you just said.

[00:10:58] I feel like I'm like listening to my own story in so many ways. Just this story of seeking something for wholeness. Going to personal development courses, reading every book I could get my hands on. And I can relate so much to that story of as soon as I brought death into my life, I was like, okay, I feel really present now with the people that I love.

[00:11:21] I feel this It's intense gratitude and appreciation for every moment I have with them because this moment might not come again. It's really allowing every moment to fully exist and then letting it go and letting it die. That brought this piece in my life that sounds so strange to be like death is a thing that helped me realize how beautiful and full life is and to really be here while it's happening.

[00:11:47] Jill: Yeah. And I like the way that you said it and I'm probably not going to say it exactly right, but just like, Having the moments and like letting the moments die because that is really a big part of why I think we Suffer so much sometimes because we just can't have something for now And then allow it to go just let it all go.

[00:12:06] We can't hold on to it good or bad, right? Like we want to punish ourselves sometimes, beat ourselves up about mistakes that we made. Just let it go. It's not here anymore. Learn what you needed to learn. And then like, let's move on and focus on what's happening right now. Because 99. 9 percent of the time, and again, I could say this from a place of privilege, right?

[00:12:27] I understand that. But 99. 9 percent of the time, the moment that I'm in right now, there's really nothing wrong with it. It's okay. But when I'm stuck in thinking about things that happened in the past, beating myself up or thinking about it and thinking about it or stressing out about the future, that's what's causing me pain right now.

[00:12:47] It's not the moment itself. If we could just live in this moment, knowing that tomorrow might not be here, I mean, it, it might not, and that's kind of okay, because I don't want to be here forever anyway, right? 

[00:12:59] Stephanie: Totally. I don't feel as afraid of dying now, but I do feel afraid of dying too soon, and not fully living while I'm here.

[00:13:07] I feel like this has brought me such a love for life that I didn't have before and now I'm like, I just turned 34 and I feel like I'm like the happiest I've ever been. I'm like, okay, like I'm ready. I just want as much of this as I can for as long as possible. And yeah, I have to be okay with the fact that that might not happen, which is hard.

[00:13:25] It's really hard to let go of. Yeah. It's like, I know I need to, some days are easier than others. We're still working on that 

[00:13:32] Jill: for sure. And that's, yeah, I mean, I'm 45 now, which seems insane because I don't feel 45 because when I was a kid, 45 seemed old when even thinking back when I was a kid, especially the 40th birthdays, it was like, you're over the hill.

[00:13:46] Like, that's it. You're done. Especially as women, right? We're done by the time we're 45. And yet I keep reminding myself. That ideally I will live a lot longer, right? Again, I don't know for sure, but if I live to be 90, I'm only halfway there. That means I still have a lot longer to go, but yet there's still that part of me that is like, oh, but I don't know.

[00:14:08] I feel like legs 

[00:14:09] Stephanie: done already. It's such a weird feeling and I've been, as I'm getting up, I feel like, I don't know, but this birthday, I just celebrated back in April. I know I'm very young, but it is one of those ages where people start feeling as a woman, like, Okay, I'm in my 30s. Like, do I have my shit together?

[00:14:24] Do I want kids? Like all these big life questions that society ingrains on us and this feeling like we have to be so much more now than what we are. It's a weird journey being a woman and aging. 

[00:14:38] Jill: It really is. And society puts these stories in our head and upholds this story. So even if we don't believe it within us, we still have to exist in a society that it's like, 34.

[00:14:52] Having kids? When you having kids? Because once you hit 35, you're high risk. So you better do it now. When it's like, well, okay, sure. Then even for me, I'm 45. My daughter's 10. So I had her when I was 35. And now. In her eyes, I'm embarrassing because I'm one of the old moms and I was like, oh, damn. All right.

[00:15:12] And I'm like, well, I mean, I don't even know what to say to that with her. Because again, it's just a story that is being implanted in her, even at a young age, that by the time you're 45, just this whole thing is like really working on her that I'm so old in her eyes. And I'm like, what are you going to do?

[00:15:30] You just try your best to teach children. To not take in the stories, especially as young women where it's like, don't believe a lot of what is going to be thrown at you because it doesn't serve you. It's just going to make you feel bad about yourself. Please don't believe 

[00:15:47] Stephanie: it. And you know, I do feel I hope things are changing because I think that as we get older, we just Even just topics like this, we have so much life to share and wisdom to share.

[00:15:58] And the older I get, the more I really love and appreciate the things that older women bring into my life. And I think there's so much value there. And we just need to keep talking, just keep getting what we know out there. 

[00:16:10] Jill: Yeah, for sure. I mean, that is a lot of it is having conversations and sharing experiences.

[00:16:16] It's interesting. to be in a different generation now and have there be young women that are in their 20s, but like we're all still women, right? But they grew up very differently than I did. And I have experiences that they did in and just having the conversations. I love it. And then I'm also like, all right, good.

[00:16:35] And then now y'all can talk to my daughter too, since I'm too old, you know, like we all need to do this together. It really is. That we need to kind of work together and unfortunately it feels like sometimes society really pits women against each other, which is something I'm still struggling a bit with of like not having too many female friends because it seems like There's just this way that we've all been trained to interact with each other like we're competing with each other over limited resources or something and it's like, no, really, it doesn't have to be that way.

[00:17:13] So I don't know. Hopefully we can change that. 

[00:17:15] Stephanie: Yeah, totally. And I do think that talking about Death and dying and bringing that kind of spiritual peace into our daily lives is going to help people connect better with each other. I was reading the Tibetan book of living and dying, and one of my favorite parts was they're like, do you look at every human?

[00:17:35] With the, and I'm paraphrasing, but do you see every human just as someone who is actively dying? Like, do you just look at everyone and see that, that humanity in them? What that was really getting to for me is that we're all just here for a short time, doing the best we can, and every single one of us is dying right now as we speak.

[00:17:55] And to hold everyone with that compassion and that softness has really helped me personally feel. A lot kinder towards people, a lot more grace in my interactions and just the thoughts that run through my head. So maybe I'm a little biased, but I do think that this is a piece that society is missing.

[00:18:17] We're so adverse to death and spirituality in a lot of ways. It's kind of lumped into that. New Age, wellness, personal development world that can be quite culty and toxic and bypassy, but I think we need to redefine what those things mean for us in our society. 

[00:18:34] Jill: One of the things that I realized that helped give me a lot more compassion towards people is that When I really started to understand that most of our fears and our anxieties and the reasons that we don't like a lot of people sometimes is really just a fear of death at the core of it, right, that even using women as an example, we've been taught to believe that if this woman is younger and prettier than us, if they're more successful than us, they're going to Basically be the one that's going to get the man and the man's going to keep them safe.

[00:19:11] And the rest of us are going to be the old maids that are going to be by ourselves, left alone to die, right? Like that's the story when you really get down to like the root of it. And I think about all the different interactions that I've had with people that have maybe been quote unquote negative, because again, I'm Especially the older I get, the more I don't believe anything's really positive or negative.

[00:19:33] It's all just a kind of gray area of things in between even if it doesn't feel good. It doesn't mean that it's bad, right? But I think when I really got clear on the fact that Most of us are just afraid the other person is going to kill us And it comes out in really strange ways. And if you were to ask people like, Oh, it's just because you're afraid of dying.

[00:19:56] They'd be like, No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. The more that I'm like, I'm not afraid to die. I'm afraid to die too soon because I don't want to leave two little kids behind. But death to me, I don't know, especially the more that I talk to people. that have had near death experiences, the more I'm like, I don't know, from everything I hear, it's probably actually not that bad.

[00:20:15] Doesn't want to do it anytime soon, but there really doesn't seem to be anything to fear. What I fear is what will lead to the death. I don't want to be violently Whatever that is, an accident, murder, like any of that stuff. I don't want to go through that. I don't want to go through a long cancer quote unquote battle.

[00:20:33] Like, I don't want that. But the death itself, I'm not afraid of it. And I'm not afraid of even what comes afterwards, even though I have no idea what it actually is. 

[00:20:41] Stephanie: Totally. I mean, I ultimately have no idea either. None of us do, but yeah, there's just so much really interesting research. You know, when you look at the near death experience stories, people say, oh, well, they're just stories.

[00:20:56] But I'm like, there are thousands of people who have these near death moments and they, All report shockingly similar things that it is really compelling to look at. And I don't want to die too soon, but it has made me completely question the nature of reality and everything that I have been led my whole life to believe is true, which is we just die.

[00:21:21] and there's absolute nothingness. But yeah, I really hope, I really hope, and if there isn't, it won't matter, we'll be in. Eternal nothingness, but like the afterlife sounds pretty great. I don't know if you've read the journey of souls, but it's one of the most recent ones I've read. Are you familiar with it?

[00:21:36] Yeah, I have 

[00:21:37] Jill: a copy of it. 

[00:21:38] Stephanie: Okay. Amazing. Well, I guess with people that haven't, he does hypnosis and he takes his patients into past life regressions and the space between lives. And then he wrote a book about the things that were most commonly reported. So we started to notice patterns and themes. He would make these chapters.

[00:21:52] And he just paints the most beautiful picture of the afterlife. My mother in law, she bought it for me, and she calls it her Bible. I understand why, like, you read that, and there's something so soothing to the soul about feeling like, oh, this is who we are. We are so much more than this body, this flesh, all the things that could happen to us, all the thoughts that we have, the impostors, the job, the labels, the little bios we write about who we are.

[00:22:18] We're so much bigger than that. To think about soulmates and the people in my life and my sister, my husband, these people that are so deeply meaningful to me to think like, Oh, these are my soulmates who I'm going to spend so many lifetimes exploring with. It's such a nice thought to have. I hope it's true, but who knows?

[00:22:35] Jill: Yeah, who knows who's right. And if I remember correctly, it's been a long time since I read it. He started off as like a totals. skeptic to these things. He just noticed that so many people that as he was doing hypnosis, he didn't even start doing hypnosis for past life regressions. He was doing hypnosis to try to help his patients and then started realizing that it sounded like a lot of them were talking about Past lives and then he started looking for the different patterns and then when they were talking about the place in between That they go to so this was one that was really interesting that my daughter She's 10 now when she was about three.

[00:23:14] She told me that she Came from a planet called Indigo. And I was like, excuse me. She was barely speaking at that point. And she used to, I, I want to go home. I want to go home. And I'd be like, you are home. And she's like, not this home. I want to go home. The last time she said it to me, I said, you can't go home right now.

[00:23:35] Like this is, this is home for right now. Like you can go home eventually, but right now you need to stay here with me. And then she never said it again. So I was like, there's something. And I had already read that book. So, of course, there's gonna be people probably even that are gonna listen to this and go, Well, it's just because you read the book and you're putting these things together.

[00:23:54] And she was a child, so she was learning colors. But either way, you had to be there to experience a child screaming and crying that she wants to go home. And the more that I tried to convince her she was home, the angrier she got at me like, Come on, you dumbass. I'm not talking about this home. And the fact that then when she said she came from a planet called Indigo, I was like, How do you even know the word Indigo?

[00:24:17] The whole thing was definitely weird. And of course, now at 10, she doesn't remember any of it. Even if I was to ask her about it, she'd be like, I have no idea what you're talking about. But at that point, man, she was convinced, and so, I don't know, I mean, I really don't, and yes, pardon me, I hope that that is the reality, because I don't want to leave my family, I don't want to leave my kids, I don't want to leave my husband, I don't want to leave the people that I love in this lifetime.

[00:24:45] But it's not like I would remember and kind of thank God I didn't like if I have had many lives. Imagine how bombarded our brain would be with all of that information. I do not want that either. We could not 

[00:24:57] Stephanie: handle it. 

[00:24:58] Jill: I could barely handle some of the bad things that happened to me in this life. I don't need the bad things that happened to me in every single lifetime.

[00:25:05] Totally the good things that I would miss and I would wish that I still had like now I don't want that and that's why I've never even done I've had people say to me, Oh, you should do a past life regression. I'm like, why 

[00:25:16] Stephanie: I did an Akashic record reading. I didn't actually go into a lot of the past life that wasn't really.

[00:25:22] And that moment what I was particularly interested in, I was more interested in soul patterns, but there is a part of me that she said a few things and I was like, Oh, that is really interesting. Again, it's like the whole point of my page, we talk about these things and I've been a skeptic my whole life.

[00:25:36] I was always really interested in science. I wanted to be an artist or a scientist when I was a kid, maybe in a career. Kind of a weird way. I'm now doing both. So I always have that skeptical mind and I take everything with a grain of salt. But what this work in these stories, listening to you, tell that story about your daughter.

[00:25:53] It's like, yes, it could be nothing, but it could also be something. And it's just about allowing ourselves to be. open and available to the possibility that there's something more to life than we think and allowing ourselves to feel that connection. And then by feeling that connection, allowing ourselves to really relax into the presence of life and not take it so fucking seriously, 

[00:26:14] Jill: for real, we take things So seriously, and in some cases that serves us well, and then in other cases it really just causes us a lot of suffering when it's like just relax, just relax, enjoy the ride as best as you can, right?

[00:26:29] Totally. Because again, it won't be here forever, no matter what. 

[00:26:34] Stephanie: Mm 

[00:26:34] Jill: hmm. Even if our existence does go on, it won't be here forever. And I do like the fact that science is starting to look at it a little bit more seriously. Because I feel like if nothing else, I don't know a ton about science. I don't know a ton about quantum physics.

[00:26:52] But the energy that makes me me, that animates my body, that has thoughts, that has memories, that has aspirations, all of these things, that's just some kind of energy. So like, I don't know, if it can't be created or destroyed, then where does it go? 

[00:27:09] Stephanie: Ultimately, there's that argument of our body goes back to the earth and gives energy to the trees, which is also a really beautiful thought.

[00:27:15] But when you look at reincarnation and there's so many compelling stories, this has been studied for a really long time. You have to wonder if our consciousness is continuing, if that energetic part of us is continuing life after life, where is it going between those lives? I think it's going somewhere, but yeah, I think science is, it's becoming a little more mainstream.

[00:27:37] Parapsychology has been. Studied in the basements since like the seventies. I think Raymond Moody really pioneered that, but people have been really in this for a long time. Like Bruce Grayson has been researching this for almost half a century. It's not a new field, but I think it's really starting to.

[00:27:56] have a light shone on it, and I think it's time. It's like there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And I feel like us really wanting to understand the world we live in and not being so attached to materialism, which has been the leading scientific mainstream view. And really questioning who we are and why we're here and what happens after we die.

[00:28:16] And these scientists are starting to have their work be more recognized in a public sphere, which I think is incredible. Like I'm, I'm really here for it. 

[00:28:26] Jill: I'd like to remind myself. Often and remind other people to sometimes if they're willing to have the conversation with me that there's so many things that science didn't know even 100 years ago, 200 years ago, right?

[00:28:40] That now we take it for granted, right? Even things like I teach serve safe, which is a class for people that work in food service. The biggest thing. That I say constantly is wash your hands because our hands transfer bacteria and viruses. You can't see them. You can't smell them. You can't taste them.

[00:28:57] Wash your hands. They believe me, right? My students believe me. They understand it. Even I understand it without necessarily having proof because to me, there's enough scientists and doctors and people that came before me that are smarter than me in that sense, that. Say to me, like, no, for sure. Viruses and bacteria, they're tiny.

[00:29:16] You can't see them. They're on your hands. Make sure you wash them. Soap and water will wash them away. But you look back, even a couple hundred years ago, doctors didn't wash their hands. They were cutting people open with dirty, gross hands covered in bacteria. They would dissect a body that died from something to like, figure out what was going on, and then go help women have babies at the same time.

[00:29:41] And then these women were getting sick and dying right afterwards. So like, if I were to travel back in time and say to these doctors, all you have to do is wash your hands. They'd be like, get out of here. You're crazy. What do you know? A lot of people view science almost as a religion in that this is science up on this like pedestal and it's like, well, it doesn't know everything yet either.

[00:30:00] And maybe in a hundred years, they're going to look back at us and be like, can you believe they didn't believe that ghosts were a real thing or that afterlives were a real thing or that come back for more than one life was a real thing. Now we could prove it because we have X, Y, and Z, whatever that thing is.

[00:30:15] But I mean, for right now, we can't prove it, but really. Totally. Doesn't mean we won't be able to at some point. 

[00:30:23] Stephanie: Totally. That's ultimately what I hope for with sharing this research is that people realize that the current framework that we look at science within is really an incomplete way to look at all the experiences that are happening in the world, specifically around those more paranormal experiences.

[00:30:42] And I don't know what kind of proof we'll ever have, what people will need. It's one of those things that does rely so heavily on personal experience. And there's so much more people having shared death experiences where people who are very sound minded, not dying, all experience the same thing at once.

[00:30:58] People having out of body experiences where they are able to correctly report things that were happening around them at the time that they were unconscious, and there's no clinical explanation for that. So there are these things that are very strong, kind of more on the physical evidence side, but they still rely on people's stories.

[00:31:15] These things can't be replicated in a lab, and they do require that we kind of open our mind more to what the world is and how we're a part of it all. 

[00:31:23] Jill: The shared death experience is something I heard about, I don't know, maybe a couple years ago, not that long ago. And it's one of those things that the more that I kind of read about it, there was doctors that were like, I've had that happen when I've been with somebody that has died, but I don't tell anybody because people will think that I'm crazy.

[00:31:43] And so I keep that to myself. I don't share. Or I think too what happens to people is sometimes we have experiences like that. That then even within 10 15 minutes, you're like, did that really happen though? Even now, I'm not sure. I don't know if I even believe it because again, we've been told not to believe it.

[00:32:02] So like, I don't know, maybe I was dreaming, maybe I was hallucinating, like. Whatever it is, they try to put this, like, other thing to it. We talk ourselves out of it. Or they don't share because they're afraid. They're afraid of being judged. They're afraid of people saying or doing things to them that will make them regret ever saying that they had that experience.

[00:32:22] Stephanie: Yeah, I think for me, one of the more compelling pieces of the personal story aspect is how many people prefer to remain anonymous. Due to a lot of things you just said, a lot of it is, around judgment and being invalidated in their experience and then they talk themselves out of it. But I think the fact that so many people have these experiences choose not to become public with it.

[00:32:45] They have nothing to gain from lying about it. And I think the more we continue to share, I've had my own quote unquote, weird shit that's happened to me that for a really long time, just wondered, did that actually happen? I'm like, no, I've had dreams before. There was something different about this. And once I started researching this and speaking to people, my father in law's actually works in this field as well.

[00:33:08] And once I started having those conversations with him and having those experience validated, I was able to really open myself up to. The possibility of the truth of them. And I think that's what we need to do is really become more accepting with talk because everyone has, I want to hear, I want to talk about it.

[00:33:24] It's just another really cool, interesting piece of being human. 

[00:33:28] Jill: For sure. That's a really nice way of looking at it. That rather than fearing these experiences, rather than trying to convince people that they're wrong for having these experiences, it's just kind of another cool thing about being a human.

[00:33:42] Maybe none of it is real. Maybe it is just a function of the mind because I've heard that too as well with even near death experiences that it's basically that we're hallucinating as the mind shuts down. We're thinking that we're seeing these things or experiencing these things or whatever. I mean, honestly, Who really cares what it is if that's what I experience after I die?

[00:34:04] I have heard some experiences where people are like, I went to a place that was very much like hell when I had a near death experience. You do hear those sometimes too, but a lot of people, they're like, no, it was comforting. It felt good. It felt like peace. It felt like God. It felt like all these really amazing things.

[00:34:22] Do I really care what it is if it's just a function of my brain or is it a real experience? Either way, if that's what the me, the Jill, is going to experience after I die, sure, 

[00:34:34] Stephanie: whatever, I'll take it. I have obviously heard every counter what it could be, and one of the biggest things is just the brain hallucinating as the mind shuts down.

[00:34:44] And it could very well be possible, but for me, I feel like, Every story doesn't fit so perfectly into that category. There's people who are given information from people they talk to on the other side that turns out to be accurate. There's people who are given premonitions about the future that turn out to be accurate.

[00:35:03] There's experiences like the Life review where they experience it from the point of view of somebody else and feel those emotions that that person felt and those thoughts of that person was thinking if that's not something that happened to us, that store that our brain would then bring up in that moment of death.

[00:35:20] I just. I just feel like these explanations don't fully account for everything. All the counter explanations, they're not fully convincing for me. 

[00:35:30] Jill: Yeah. I feel like all of it leaves me with more questions than answers. 

[00:35:33] Stephanie: Yeah. All 

[00:35:34] Jill: the time. Right. So many questions constantly. So many questions, but it really does lead to better conversations with people.

[00:35:42] Having conversations about the questions that I have around life is a much better conversation conversation. Then having a conversation about things that I quote unquote know to be true, right? Or let's talk about the things we don't know and try to figure it out together. When I did my yoga teacher training, like it was the first time I really learned about Hinduism's belief in reincarnation.

[00:36:03] So it was the first time I ever really learned about reincarnation and thought about it that much. At one point, my husband, he's very, I would still say he's probably pretty atheist, very scientific minded. So one of his questions was, is if we're reincarnated, then how is there more humans? Like, how are we still increasing in population if we're reincarnated?

[00:36:23] And so then that led me to thinking, like, I don't know, the soul may be fractures, right? So like, maybe I was one. person in a past life. And then in this life, I kind of fractured into two. And then maybe that's where this idea of twin flames come in. Maybe my twin flame who was just like a friend of mine, right?

[00:36:42] It's not like a romantic partner. But I definitely when we met, I was like, I feel like I just met my twin, you and I there's there's something. And then I was like, maybe we were one person in the past. And now maybe we're two people. And we're just living our lives parallel to each other right now. With different partners and different stuff.

[00:37:00] Maybe it's all the destruction of the planet that in order to fuel more humans, we needed more animals to die and more life to die. I don't know, but it's fun to think about. 

[00:37:13] Stephanie: Totally. I feel like I can definitely. answer some of those questions. First of all, not every soul who is in the afterlife is going to be incarnated on earth at the same time.

[00:37:24] There's going to be many more souls than are physically here right now. I don't want to say inventory souls, like there's enough. And then also from what I've read and the conversations that I've had with people whose opinions I really value, our soul fracturing is a thing. Like, You can look at our soul as facets on a diamond and we can exist in multiple places at once as different people at once.

[00:37:51] I think a soul being on earth living parallel lives isn't as common, but it does happen. Like a piece of ourselves can be existing at one time. Again, I don't know exactly, obviously, but from what I've read, the journey of souls, the conversations that I've had, our souls do fracture. We can exist. In multiple places at multiple times.

[00:38:12] Jill: See? Then again, I love it. I think it's interesting. And then there's still that little part of me that's like, do I believe it? And I'm like, I don't know. 

[00:38:20] Stephanie: Maybe, maybe not. There's a part of me that as I'm talking about this, I'm just like, oh my God. Because we worry about how we're going to be perceived. As someone who's relatively new in this space, I've been researching this for about two and a half years, and the Instagram page is under a year old.

[00:38:35] And I'm very grateful with how it's grown and the success that I've seen, but that has also drawn a lot of energy, a lot of criticism. So I do find myself questioning sometimes as I'm talking about things, but you know what? These are things I've read. These are ideas about the world that I'm contemplating.

[00:38:52] Truth is a personal journey that we're all just on for ourselves. Everything that I read and research is just, I'm just trying to figure out how that feels. Does that fit in with my view of the world? Does it line up with other things I'm learning? Does something feel like truth for a while and then I want to let it go?

[00:39:07] Like I've mentioned before, the stories that I've read, the books that I've read, the people that I've spoken to, we are able to live as different people at once. 

[00:39:16] Jill: It's so good to think about it. And this idea too, with putting ourselves out there, especially on social media, I think even when we know that there's going to be people that are going to come on and say things, it just, it's really difficult.

[00:39:29] It's hard to navigate it. And sometimes just be like, look, man, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. You don't have to come on here and post these things. 

[00:39:40] Stephanie: Totally, I mean, people choose, they like get on my page and they're like, stop trying to push your agenda. And I'm like, you're here. You don't have to comment.

[00:39:47] You don't have to be here. Just keep scrolling. But people get really angry. 

[00:39:50] Jill: Well, I think people get angry when they're being challenged to think about what they believe to be true, because you made a really great point where you were like, maybe this was true today, but it's not true for me now. And that's okay.

[00:40:03] But a lot of people. Get so uncomfortable with the thought of staying open to the fact that what I believed to be true 10 years ago is not what I believe to be true now, let alone sometimes what I believe yesterday is not what I believe to be true now. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with learning and opening ourselves up to other people's experiences.

[00:40:24] I think it leads back to that fear of death, where it's like when people are saying things that goes against what we believe to be true, We start to fear our beliefs about everything and then it's I'm not safe now if I don't feel that I have this reality that is true. I'm not safe. And so I get it. I try to have compassion.

[00:40:48] Also, don't come on my page. being all mean to me for no reason because I'm still a human. It's as much as you expect it. It's also, I just don't feel that I need to engage with it as hard as that is sometimes to just be like, I'm just going to let that go. 

[00:41:05] Stephanie: Of course we're human. And when you're receiving that much energy at you, it's still something energetically you're taking on.

[00:41:12] And I think that's really what is missing in the world. It's that open mindedness to all different perspectives, ideas. And social media is such a ripe breeding ground for hate and negativity. We really could use more grace and compassion and listening and being comfortable in that gray area, that gray space of human experience and that.

[00:41:35] We're all just trying to figure it out. 

[00:41:37] Jill: Yeah, then it goes back to your point, and we're all just dying and trying to figure out what to do with ourselves before we hit that point. 

[00:41:44] Stephanie: Totally. 

[00:41:45] Jill: Yeah. We're all just dying, everyone. We're all dying. And at that, we are just about at time, even though I could still talk for another Totally.

[00:41:53] I could be going forever. I know. I will for sure put a link to your Instagram in the show notes, but if you just want to tell us the name of it or if there's a website or anything else that goes with it, let me know. 

[00:42:04] Stephanie: Yeah, so it's just the Instagram page at the moment. You can find me at live dot deathless.

[00:42:11] Jill: I will put a link in the show notes so people can just go to the show notes and click the link and they can find you. Thank you so much. This was awesome. Such a fun conversation. I really enjoyed 

[00:42:21] Stephanie: it. Such a fun conversation. Yeah, me as 

[00:42:23] Jill: well. so much for having me. for listening to this episode of Seeing Death Clearly.

[00:42:28] In my next episode, I talk with Indra Rinzler. Who has been on a spiritual journey for over 50 years. Indra shares his unique perspective, shaped by his spiritual journey, on life, happiness, and the inevitable journey towards death. We explore his belief that happiness isn't something life gives us, but something we must actively pursue by letting go of control and embracing what is.

[00:42:53] Indra also discusses the importance of preparing for death daily, seeing life and death as a continuum, and how karma and life lessons shape our experiences. His wisdom encourages us to find peace through surrender and acceptance, offering a transformative view of how to navigate life's challenges. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or family member who might find it interesting.

[00:43:16] Your support in spreading the podcast is greatly appreciated. Please consider subscribing on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a five star review. Your positive feedback helps recommend the podcast to others. The podcast also offers a paid subscription feature that allows you to financially support the show.

[00:43:33] Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free. Whether your donation is large or small, every amount is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can. You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo.

[00:43:51] If you prefer to make a one time contribution, thank you. And I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death Clearly.