Up-Level Your Life with Mindy
Navigating Grief and the Search for Afterlife Understanding with Robert Ginsberg
My guest this week is Robert Ginsberg, co-founder of the Forever Family Foundation, and has been featured on the Netflix docuseries, "Surviving Death."
Bob embodies this voyage with a heartrending narrative that began with his daughter's passing. Sit back and prepare to be moved by our profound discussion, where Bob opens up about the catalytic effect of grief on his search for understanding beyond the physical world. We navigate through the complexities of consciousness, intuition, and the possibility of an afterlife, challenging the boundaries where science meets spirituality.
The quest for authenticity in mediumship is a focal point of our talk, as Bob sheds light on the meticulous process employed by the Forever Family Foundation to certify mediums. The goal? To sift out the genuine connections from those less scrupulous. It's a conversation laced with insights into the ethical challenges posed by the digital age and the tough questions that arise when fame complicates the initial purpose of helping the bereaved. Bob's dedication to maintaining integrity in mediumship is not just about validation – it's about offering a beacon of hope for those wrestling with the loss of a loved one.
Our closing reflections turn to the resources and solace offered by the Forever Family Foundation, from their weekly radio show to grief retreats, all aimed at supporting those navigating the choppy waters of bereavement. Bob's personal blog, beyondthefivesenses.com, continues to unravel the mysteries of existence. If Bob's experiences resonate with you, or if you're simply curious about the enduring bonds of love that transcend our earthly constraints, this episode is not to be missed. Join us for an exploration that promises to touch the heart and ignite the mind.
https://www.foreverfamilyfoundation.org/
To learn more about Mindy CLICK HERE
My guest this week is Robert Ginsberg, co-founder of the Forever Family Foundation, and has been featured on the Netflix docuseries, "Surviving Death."
Bob embodies this voyage with a heartrending narrative that began with his daughter's passing. Sit back and prepare to be moved by our profound discussion, where Bob opens up about the catalytic effect of grief on his search for understanding beyond the physical world. We navigate through the complexities of consciousness, intuition, and the possibility of an afterlife, challenging the boundaries where science meets spirituality.
The quest for authenticity in mediumship is a focal point of our talk, as Bob sheds light on the meticulous process employed by the Forever Family Foundation to certify mediums. The goal? To sift out the genuine connections from those less scrupulous. It's a conversation laced with insights into the ethical challenges posed by the digital age and the tough questions that arise when fame complicates the initial purpose of helping the bereaved. Bob's dedication to maintaining integrity in mediumship is not just about validation – it's about offering a beacon of hope for those wrestling with the loss of a loved one.
Our closing reflections turn to the resources and solace offered by the Forever Family Foundation, from their weekly radio show to grief retreats, all aimed at supporting those navigating the choppy waters of bereavement. Bob's personal blog, beyondthefivesenses.com, continues to unravel the mysteries of existence. If Bob's experiences resonate with you, or if you're simply curious about the enduring bonds of love that transcend our earthly constraints, this episode is not to be missed. Join us for an exploration that promises to touch the heart and ignite the mind.
https://www.foreverfamilyfoundation.org/
To learn more about Mindy CLICK HERE
hey friends, this is your host, mindy duff, and you're listening to up level your life with mindy, your number one personal growth podcast that will bring you closer to uncovering your greatest self. As a certified holistic health and nutrition coach, I created this podcast for anyone who desires to improve physically, emotionally and spiritually. I'll be interviewing experts and sharing tips and tricks that have helped not only my clients, but that have guided me on my own transformational journey. I believe that we all have a greatness that lies within. We just need to uncover it. Are you ready to level up? Then let's begin.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, and welcome back to Uplevel your Life with Mindy. I am your host, mindy Duff, and today I have a very special guest with me. I'm going to be chatting with Robert Ginsberg. He is the vice president and founder of the Forever Family Foundation. He has a blog. He's been featured in the Surviving Death docuseries on Netflix, which, if you haven't checked that out, I know it's still available on Netflix, and I highly recommend that docuseries if you are anyone that has even a tiny bit of curiosity about death or dying or past life experiences or anything like that. And Bob is also the author of the Medium Explosion my Life, here and there as well. So, bob, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, mindy, pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 1:And I am just going to start first of all with your work with the Forever Family Foundation and kind of your story and how this even came to be. So tell us just a little bit about your story little bit about your story.
Speaker 2:Well, as you probably know, sometimes having trauma in your life is a catalyst for exploration, especially death of a loved one, because you're searching for some sort of meaning or you know why it happened. Also, some people are curious if their loved one still exists in some form, that may be because of their religious beliefs or stuff that they read or experiences that they had. 23 years ago, I had no such belief. My son and my daughter were involved in a car accident. My daughter didn't survive her injuries and I didn't believe in life after death and I had no. To me, it was just a fairy tale or wishful thinking and so forth. But obviously, you know, losing a child devastates you. You know, I mean, I just wanted to die, honestly. You know, losing a child, uh, devastates you. You know, I mean you, I just wanted to die, honestly, you know, um, and and I began a search because, even though I didn't believe in any of this stuff, uh, I like to think of myself as being open-minded uh, evaluate the evidence and then come to a to a conclusion. So I became obsessed with studying the mind and the consciousness, or soul if you prefer and I started meeting with various medical doctors and scientists and researchers across the United States that studied these things, and I began to learn of evidence that was relatively unknown to the mainstream public, and that evidence came in the form of things like intuition and telepathy and remote viewing, and then to after-death communications and mediumship and reincarnation. Near-death experiences. Deathbed visions I mean it goes on and on. Experiences. Deathbed visions I mean it goes on and on. I'd never heard of any of these things, but the evidence is overwhelming. You know, when I started to look at it, why doesn't everybody know about this?
Speaker 2:And regarding the foundation, you know, my wife and I went to a grief support group because we're just looking for something. Before we went out of our minds, and every time that either my wife or I brought up the subject of life after death, the moderator shut us down no, no, no, we don't talk about such things here. This is we just deal with coping mechanisms for your grief. And I found that odd, because this was a group of all bereaved parents and the only thing they wanted to talk about was the possibility of life after death. So we found ourselves standing out after the meeting in New York in the freezing cold in the winter, in the parking lot, having a separate meeting with all these other parents and telling them what we had learned to date, and so forth.
Speaker 2:So, um, then we figured, you know, it has to be some sort of an outlet for people like ourselves to have, you know, meet with other like-minded people without being having this fear of fear of being labeled or judged.
Speaker 2:And so we started these discussion groups, and one thing led to another, and, you know, we got scientists on, and so we started these discussion groups, and one thing led to another, and you know, we've got scientists on board, and we started Forever Family Foundation, which is kind of a convergence of science and spirituality.
Speaker 2:So we study all these things from a scientific point of view, but yet what you find is that there are a great many of today's physicists and when you listen to them lecture, they sound like spiritualists, because they're essentially talking about the same thing, you know connectiveness coming from a single point of light, and so forth. So it's not as far apart, you know, science and spirituality, as one might think, and you know, so we just kept growing and growing. And because you know, so we just kept growing and growing. And because you know people that come to the foundation that come through a lot of reasons. The main reason is that they lost somebody. But now people like myself, the baby boomers, as we're getting older, a lot of people are questioning their own mortality. Hey, I never thought about this stuff before, but now, okay, you know, tell me what you know. So you know everybody has a different reason, but that's basically how everything came around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such an interesting story to me and I love that you talk about the kind of the blending of the science and the spirituality, because people that listen to my podcast know that's my favorite thing is science meshing with spirituality. And I agree with you completely. When you listen to certain scientists talk, if you're familiar with spiritual terms, you're like wait a minute, that sounds an awful lot like X, y, z and really we just have a lot of different words for the same thing. Essentially, I think they are explaining the same thing. So I just I think that's's really interesting as you're talking, I'm curious, and if you don't have an answer for this off the top of your head, that's fine. But as you were kind of exploring initially and you're reaching out to these scientists and whatnot, can you remember a time when you started to make that shift? Was there one particular study or one particular moment where you were like you know what this, this has to be? There has to be more out there than what I thought before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. It's funny because I was working very closely with a well-known scientist at the very beginning and I took part in some of his research and he'd call me up every month and he'd say all right, where do you stand now, bob? Because at the beginning I was like one percent convinced that there was life after you know, and then gradually it went to five percent and then ten percent and then I think there's a progression of if you ask people if they believe in an afterlife, a great majority are going to say yes, but what they're really saying is that they hope there's an afterlife. You know that may be because of various influences, but they never really saw any evidence. And sometimes that hope turns into belief and sometimes that belief actually turns into a knowing, and you know, you don't have any doubt which took me about seven or eight years before I reached that point. Now you can take two pathways to that knowing. One could be from the route that I took, the science route, learning about the evidence, and after I was convinced by the evidence, that opened me up to receive my own.
Speaker 2:You know, communications, or two people can have a profound personal experience and that flips them. They don't even care about the science, they just know in their heart. Now, you're probably familiar with people that had near-death experiences, and that is an example of a life-changing experience. Or it could be an extremely evidential reading with a medium, a well-qualified medium, or it could be a dream visitation or an after-death communication and you just know in your heart that there's something more than a physical body. So for me really to answer your question, I had a lot of things that were happening personally, but my wife was very intuitive and they were happening to her, not to me. But I knew that. You know, we were married 46 years before she passed and she never once lied to me in 46 years. So I knew that.
Speaker 2:I took you at face value what she was telling me and once I became convinced, I kept dismissing all these extraordinary things and, at the urging of my wife, I wrote down everything that was happening and my mind, the way I am. I mean, I'm so sick that one day I had somebody asked me to put all these things together, sick that one day I had somebody asked me to put all these things together and I opened up the journal and I actually hired a statistician and I asked her to calculate the odds against chance of each one of the things occurring. And I had 20 experiences that each had odds against chance of a million to one, you know, and 20 of them I said, okay, now just shut up. And you got to. You know, you can't question this stuff anymore. So it wasn't one thing, although a lot of really profound things were happening, but it was an accumulation, you know, over time. That put me, you know, on that true belief that there's, you know, more to the than this physical world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's interesting. I'm going to put you on the spot again and see if you can can share one or two of those things that were like all right, you know, as you're writing down things, because I think that's a really normal reaction when, when a loved one passes and you, you so desperately want to have that sign from them or want to have that acknowledgement that they're okay, regardless of what your belief system is, and then maybe you get that sign but you think, well, that's not, that could happen, that was just coincidence, and then you just kind of poo-poo it. So I'm curious what some of your signs were, that you were a little like well, I don't know if that's real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you start questioning yourself what I didn't mention, what started me on this path, was that the morning that my kids were involved in the car accident, my wife woke up at three o'clock in the morning that the day of the accident, shaking and trembling, and I said what's the matter? She wouldn't even talk and I said what's the matter? And she said something horrible is going to happen today. And I said well, what does that mean? She said I can't tell you exactly, but our lives are going to be changed forever today. And I took it seriously because she was intuitive to a degree and had these visions of premonitions before and every time she had one, everything played out exactly the way she said. So logic told me if she was right, then she could be right now. To make a long story short, I watched over my three children during the day. Two were back at college and I let my guard down at night. You know, I let it fade from my awareness. We were all at a restaurant, we had two cars. I let the kids from my awareness. We were all at a restaurant, we had two cars. I let the kids take one car back and they got into that accident. So in my mind, visions like the premonitions were not possible. So that was part of my obsession of finding out how she knew, you know. And if she knew, was it a case of precognition? Was she catching a glimpse of the future? Or, as much as hard as it was for me to believe, was somebody sending her a warning? A discarnate source? You know as far as a specific example. So, as far as a specific example, you've heard of people, of apparitions, I mean, the media likes to call them ghosts, but they're essentially still conscious, discarnate beings who no longer have a body, that somehow figure out a way to manifest themselves in physical form. I'll make this as quick as possible. Physical form. I'll make this as quick as possible.
Speaker 2:When we moved from one house to another and we were still in New York, my youngest daughter, Bailey, she was very, very upset. She had her love to school, she loved her friends and she was really pissed that we were moving. And we finally moved and she settled in. But every month she would say to my wife you have to drive me back to the old house I to see my own. She loved her old room. And my wife would say you know, bailey, we can't do that it's not appropriate, we can't knock on the door and ask you know it's not going to happen. And she persisted. Every month for years she would say same thing.
Speaker 2:And then, um, and it turns out that the people that bought our home, our old home, were friends with one of my wife's first cousins, and they were the person who bought our home and my wife's first cousin were at an event, a wedding or something, and the woman came over to the first cousin and said can I? First she expressed her condolences about my daughter and then she said can I tell you something? And I said what she said. Well, my daughter has the same room that my daughter had.
Speaker 2:And one day she woke up and she came downstairs and she was terribly upset and she said she saw a young girl walk across a room. And her mother said well, it was probably a bad dream. And she said no, mom, I wasn't dreaming. I saw this girl walk across the room and her mother tried to reassure her okay, go back to bed, honey, We'll talk about it in the morning.
Speaker 2:And then the next morning they were sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast and the daily paper was the morning paper. And on the front page of the paper was the story of the accident that my kids were in, and it turned out that she saw this young girl walking across her room exactly 15 minutes after my daughter passed, and I said, you know, it was just one of those things. I said, wait a second, you know? I mean, what is the one place, the first place that she would go to? She wanted to go back there. You know, constantly, hockey, go back back. And I was convinced there was no other logical explanation. You know, the woman's daughter had never had any type of a bad dream, never any no paranormal experience. There was nothing. When you put all of it together, I just knew in my heart that she went back there, you know, right away. So that's one example of something that I finally accepted, you know instead of question, because it made perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, wow, that gave me chills. That's awesome. I love stories like that. Now you mentioned earlier some people you know when they're bereaved they might reach out to a medium and maybe you'll have a profound experience with a qualified medium. And I know that your work with the Forever Family Foundation has done a lot of work kind of, I guess, vetting mediums. Basically, I first heard about this organization when I was listening to a book by Laura Lynn Jackson, who you know if you know mediums, you probably have heard of her by now. She's kind of made a name for herself as a pretty darn good medium, I guess I you know, and I know that she does a lot of work or has in the past anyway, with the Forever Family Foundation. So how can just the average person tell if a medium is legit? What is your process like for vetting these mediums? Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Well, you know you mentioned one of my books before, which is called the Medium Explosion, and the reason I wrote that book. It was not to expose, you know, mediums. It was the opposite. But I stated in the book, which I believe based on my own research and observations over the past 20 some odd years, that roughly 85 to 90 percent of the mediums in practice practice today cannot do what they claim. You know that I'm not saying they're all fraudulent, you know a few are, but you know they're intuitive, as we're all intuitive to various degrees, but they don't have the ability to communicate, you know. You know, with the dead, at least not consistently.
Speaker 2:And once I started on my search, before we started the foundation, I went to a bunch of mediums, reluctantly because my wife dragged me to them, and some I thought were horrible, you know, which made me feel worse, and some were pretty incredible, which I was just trying to find the trick. There was no trick. So we started. I met with some scientists that studied mediums under controlled conditions in universities and they helped me design my own process, which I think I improved upon. And so what we do is we.
Speaker 2:There are many stages to the process, but the last stage is we invite the medium to participate in one of our certification processes where they do five different readings for five different sitters that we train um and how to score the reading and you know information that a medium gives you. I mean, let's say you were the medium, mindy, and you were giving me a reading and say, bob, I have your grandmother in spirit, do you have a grandmother in spirit? Well, I'd have to mark that as a hit. But considering she'd be 120, it's pretty damn good guess as a hit. But considering she'd be 120, it's a pretty damn good guess, right? But if you said to me, bob, I have your grandmother Rebecca here, and then you gave me five pieces of identifying information about Rebecca that nobody could have known, that's given a lot more weight in scoring, you know so.
Speaker 2:And today it's important because it wasn't. You know, I mean 50 years ago, before the internet. I mean you couldn't look up somebody in an instant and find that about their life. But now you can, you know, you Google them and so, uh, especially now, a lot of the mediums after COVID stopped doing face-to-face readings in person, you know, they do it on zoom and so forth, so, um, so we developed this process. It's only 10% of the mediums who have gone through it have passed, which meant 90% have failed, which doesn't make me very popular, but the fact is that the mediums like Laura that you mentioned Laura was one of the first mediums that we certified back in 2005. There are some mediums that can do this at a very high level and they're very consistent.
Speaker 2:But, to answer your question, it's a problem because mediums listen, they're not grief workers, they're not therapists. They should never represent themselves as such unless they have that training and degree. But a medium, there are no guidelines. I mean there's no certification process, there's no licensing, no proficiency guidelines, no continuing education, no ethical standards. So you tomorrow can say, say okay, I'm indy the medium, and hang out a shingle and start charging people 400 an hour, and you know, and and people that are in grief will often try to make things fit because they so desperately want to believe that they'll love one and I, and I used to be horrified, you know, know, with this. So I mean, we developed the program to be a resource for the bereaved. Now the problem is that over the years, because we've certified 27, I think, mediums over the past 19 years, that's not a lot, that's a little more than one per year, and a lot of the mediums that we certified have become famous. You know a lot of sometimes you know.
Speaker 2:Part of it is their association with us, and you know what happens when somebody becomes famous. I mean, they do fewer and fewer readings, they charge sometimes ridiculous amounts of money, they have waiting lists that are three, four years long, so that doesn't serve the purpose as a resource for us. So I've been gearing it up again and we've been evaluating more mediums and we've been identifying mediums that can do what they claim and don't charge a ridiculous amount of money and you have some availability to see them. So that's basically in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's really, um, very important things to consider. Everything that you have just mentioned. And, you know, even if you're someone who is bereaved and you're looking to find a medium and maybe you can't, you know, go through the forever family, maybe you can't, you know, go through the Forever Family Foundation, for whatever reason, you know, still keeping these things in the back of your mind as you're selecting a medium, basically checking them out to make sure they're not going to check you out too much before you show up, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to give a medium. I go into this in the book, but you want to give the medium as little information as possible.
Speaker 2:As a matter of fact. So over the past 20 years I have never personally got a reading from any one of the mediums that we certified, and the reason for that is because I can't trust them. I trust them implicitly because I've evaluated them, but in my mind I can't trust the information because they know too much about me. My story is out there. For me it wouldn't do. You know, when you mentioned the Netflix series, wesley Kane, who wrote the book Surviving Death, the Netflix series was based really upon her book and I used to. When she was writing the book and doing her research, I helped her evaluate and score some of the readings that she was getting from mediums around the world so she could evaluate the evidence. So after my wife passed, you know, wesley called me up and he said I know you don't get medium readings. Would you like me to set you up?
Speaker 2:There was a medium that appeared in the docuseries who has since passed, unfortunately Sandra O'Hara and she. I said, yeah, I'll have a reading with her, but there's two conditions. One, the only name I'm going to give her is Bob. That's pretty generic. You know how many Bobs there are. You can't look up Bob. And I said that you need to pay for the reading for me, you know, using your PayPal account or whatever, and I'll certainly reimburse you immediately. And she did, and I got a wonderful reading from her and she later became certified with the foundation and, you know, a few months later she passed away. So, but that's an example. I trusted the information. It was very meaningful to me because she had no idea who I was and she couldn't look me up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad that you got that gift, that gift there, because that would be really hard for you, I would imagine, because, like you say, your story is out there and somebody might appear to give a great reading, but how do you know, and how do they even know you know, if they're really receiving it or if it's just prior knowledge that they can't separate?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you know, we once did a I once did a survey A long time ago a membership, and I asked a question to all our members. And we have now. We have close to 15000 members, but I remember how many we had then. But and I asked one question, I said, given the choice of communicating with your deceased loved one, would you rather get that communication directly or through the services of the medium? And I was sure when I devised that question that the majority was going to say I'd rather get the information directly. You know, come straight to me. And that wasn't the case. The majority said through a medium.
Speaker 2:So then I started to find out why and contact some of these people. And there were two reasons. One there is still the element of fear that goes along with things that we can't perceive with our own physical senses and that's, you know, greatly a result of the media, you know, in movies and so forth, and possibly religion and whatever. And the second reason was that you touched on this before is that the people said, if I get the information directly, I'm going to question it, maybe it's a product of my own imagination, whereas if I get it from an expert, so to speak, I can trust the information, and both of those you know made sense to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me too. It's just a little more validation. It's kind of like, even if you go to the doctor because something's wrong with my I just know there's something wrong with my knee, but I'm just not sure and you go and the doctor says, oh, guess what? Something's wrong with your knee. Okay, Yep, I kind of thought so, but like I needed you and your expert opinion to tell me. So, um, we just don't always trust ourselves and you just want to hear that from that external source. So that makes complete sense to me. So what would you say? You've been in this, this world here, for quite a while now. Um, and I'm sure you encounter a lot of skeptics, having been one yourself. What would you say to someone that is a skeptic that just believes? You know what I think, once we die, that's it. There's nothing else out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I, you know, listen, I understand and I respect these people, cause I was one of them. Um, you know so, um, I never, ever try to convince anybody of anything, you know. I just if, given the opportunity and the receptive to it, I'll tell them what I've learned. And then you know, even by watching the Netflix series, it opens minds to possibilities. If you remain open to it, you know, it might move you in one direction, you know, or another. So it's a closed-minded skeptic, one who will ignore the evidence. You'll never convince, but somebody that's open-minded.
Speaker 2:Some of the most profound transformations that I've seen in people in grief were those people that were like me. I mean, they came, you know, we hold these grief retreats like four of them a year and sometimes the greatest skeptics have the most wonderful experience because their mind gets blown, you know. So it, you know, works two ways. But I think that you know there have been many scientific research studies that have been published in peer-reviewed journals that show that people who believe that there's life after physical death do better in their grief than those who don't. And that's logical, right. I mean, what would give you more comfort or hope than believing that your loved one still survives in some form, but it's, you know, it's really, it's really true.
Speaker 2:And I've seen people that just by you mentioning the possibility that their loved one still survives is hurtful to them because they become defined by their grief. They, you know, and how dare you suggest that my loved one, you know, still exists, when you know, when they're dead, it's somehow in their mind. It diminishes the depth of their loss, you know, and there's nothing I'm ever going to be able to say that's going to dissuade them. And it's unfortunate, you know. And but most people and I and since we started this work, I'm finding more and more people at least listening, you know, and forming their own opinions, instead of just shutting it down, you know, and burying their head in the sand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that would be. That would be my hope for everyone, and I know everybody's on their own path and they'll get there in their own time. But my hope would be just more open mindedness, more okay. Well, I believe what I believe, but what do you have to say? I'll just, I'll take it in and see what I think after that, but sometimes that's hard for people.
Speaker 2:It really is, you know, and people they have such fear of discussing this. We encourage people just to share. Share your experiences with people, with friends or family or colleagues, with people with friends or family or colleagues, and you know, just tell your story. The more people are open about these things, the more mainstream it'll become. You've heard of electronic voice phenomena, mm-hmm. You know people being able to affect things like you know telephones and recordings and leave voices and whatever. I'll tell you a quick story. About two years after my daughter passed, I went to a family doctor who was a friend of mine and I went in there for some ailment, I don't know for what, but he said you know how you doing. And we said, okay. He said what have you been up to? I said well, you really want to know. I'm studying survival of consciousness. And we go on talking about another 10 minutes. And he said can I ask you something? I said what he said what's survival of consciousness? And I start talking about some of the things we're talking about now.
Speaker 2:And about 20 minutes later he gets a real serious look on his face and he closes the door and he says to me, I have to tell you something. I said what he said my father died eight years ago. I said well, I'm so sorry. He said and I had a lot of critical patients in the hospital and you know, and I had to call my answering service and check and I called and they said, doctor, your father called and he said my father died at nine o'clock this morning. And they said I'm so sorry, doctor, we must have gotten the message wrong. He must've said your father-in-law. He said my father-in-law died 16 years ago.
Speaker 2:He said what time did the message come in? He said 9.15. He said read me back the message. The message was Frank, it's me, I'm okay. So you know he's a medical doctor, he's a man of science. In those eight years he never told his soul, never told his wife, never told his family. Certainly wasn't going to tell you know, one of his colleagues. But after he heard the stuff I was talking about, he knew I wasn't going to judge him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I guarantee you now that another you know, 15 years or so have gone by and he still have never told you know anybody else. But that's unfortunate, right? I mean it's kind of an incredible thing, but yet it's kind of an incredible thing, but yet it's hard to explain in physical terms, but it's a shame that he feels so afraid to share that with anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think you're going to have more experiences, probably, and then recognize the experiences and then not feel weird about it and go, oh cool, I heard from my loved one too. This is really neat. I've heard you know, a friend of mine had something similar happen and now I get to have it happen too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're exactly right. And um, it also has goes a long way in overcoming this, this fear factor. You know, I once had a woman at one of our grief retreats and I was having a conversation with her and she was really not taking anything in and I said what would it take for you to absolutely believe that your daughter still exists? You know what would that be? And she said Bob, if I saw my daughter, you know, then I would believe. I said okay, you know, maybe someday you will. And I didn't see that woman again for about 10 or 12 years.
Speaker 2:And she came to another retreat after 10 or 12 years and she came up to me. She says you remember that conversation we had? I said not really, but she reminded me and she said well, I saw my daughter. I said really, she said not really, but she reminded me and she said well, I saw my daughter. I said really. She said, yeah, I was awake, I had just awakened from sleep and she was standing on the side of my bed. I said and what happened? And she said and it scared the shit out of me and I yelled and then my daughter disappeared. And it's like, oh, my God, you know, your daughter went through all that trouble to figure out how to greet you and say hello and you scared her away. But it's an example of like she desperately wants to see her deceased daughter and it happens. But that fear that's instilled in us is very difficult to overcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what would you say to somebody who has recently lost a loved one and is feeling that desperation? They're just desperate to make contact. What are some of your tips or advice, or what should they do?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, unfortunately, these things it's nothing that you can force to happen. You could take the route that a lot of people take. You know such a thing as bibliotherapy. You know there's tons and tons of books on the subject and sometimes I always the only thing that gave me comfort was reading a book. Usually they were science books, but even books about people's experiences. You know, I felt better while I was reading them, you know, and that could help to open you up.
Speaker 2:The advice that many researchers and mediums give you is that meditation is extremely important where you know you have to get into an altered state of consciousness. Now, there are some people like me. I have a hard time meditating, but you could meditate by walking in nature or listening to music or looking at art. You know, when I play golf, I play golf by myself. I don't want to play with anybody else and I'm just in my own zone, and to me it's a form of meditation. So, but the thing is getting into some sort of a relaxed state of mind where your chatter mind is put aside. That could be regular disciplines of meditation or the other things that we discussed is helpful.
Speaker 2:Also, the most common form of after-death communication are dream visitations. You know there are certain stages of sleep. You of sleep when you're in this altered state of consciousness you have no conscious chatter, and our loved ones from the other side see a conduit for them to get through. They can't get through when we're all over the place and in grief, but when we're in that stage of sleep they can grief. But when we're, you know, in that stage of sleep they can.
Speaker 2:And people have these profound dreams and they're much different than what I would call regular dreams. The regular dreams are all disjointed, they're all over the place. You forget them as soon as you wake up. They don't usually make a lot of sense, whereas in a visitation you could see your loved ones. Sometimes you could talk to them, you could smell them, you could hug them, you could kiss them as if they were there and you remember them forever. You know afterwards.
Speaker 2:So we hear those over the years. I'm just thousands and thousands and thousands. You know of cases like that. So again, it makes sense because you're just allowing the reception. Our brains act as a filter. You know we're surrounded, we're only 5% of the universe is observable. There are things happening all around us X-rays, electromagnetic, the whole spectrum. We can't see most of the spectrum of light and we can't hear most of the spectrum of sound, and we can't hear most of the spectrum of sound. And yet, when our brain gets out of the way, you know, and then the filter is off, that that information comes through the brain serves a purpose, because if we didn't have that filter and we had information, from all the places we wouldn't be able to navigate our lives, you know.
Speaker 2:But you know anything that you can do, and also it helps to set an intention. We wouldn't be able to navigate our lives, you know. But you know anything that you can do, and also it helps to set an intention. There's nothing wrong with talking to your loved one. You know, in spirit I still do it. It doesn't have to.
Speaker 2:It can be out loud, but it can be just through thought you know it's telepathy and set the intention. Ask them to come to you in your dream, or ask them to make a recording on a recording taper, and sometimes that helps. As a matter of fact, when we used to hold these medium certification processes in a physical location, we used to have a ceremony where all the sitters used to light a candle and invite their loved ones, you know, to come in. And I don't know whether it actually helped, but certainly didn't hurt, you know, you know. So those are some things you could do, but the problem is that if you lost somebody, you're trying to force it to happen, and these kinds of telepathic experiences are spontaneous. You just can't make them happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think just from, I guess, listening to you and some of my own research on the topic, I think you're right with getting into that relaxed state. But again, there has to be some form of detachment and that's really hard to be able to just let go and be okay with not getting a sign. But the faster you can be okay with not getting a sign, it seems like the faster you'll get a sign from that loved one.
Speaker 2:I think that's true. A lot of people say you know, like when they talk about things like this, as they say you know, when you set an intention, you know you don't focus on and say do this, do this, come to come, you don't keep repeating it like a mantra, you just have the thought and you throw the thought out into the universe and let it.
Speaker 2:You know, let it do its thing, but but it, and that makes sense to me. You know, I mean you just that's the way that this, this kind of stuff works. You know, I mean you, just that's the way that this kind of stuff works. You know, the more, the less interaction that you have, the better, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, you have shared some really incredible stories with us already today, but I'm going to see if I can squeeze one more out of you. I'm wondering if you, as you look back and you're, maybe it's a personal experience or an experience from somebody that came to one of your retreats or somebody that you've worked with, do you have one or two that just stand out like whoa holy cats? That story I'll never forget. It was so amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, these things happen every day. I mean, maybe a turning point experience for me was a scientist that I was working with. I had told him that after my daughter passed, we started getting what was called what we called Morse code coming out of the car radio and it had a set cadence to it, you know, and and it was like you know. So, um, and we had my wife had just gotten a new car and she told me about this and I said, yeah, you know, new cars they always have electric problems. When we bring enough for service, they get it checked out. And I was driving her car like a week later and I heard the same thing she was talking about. So I shut the radio off, but, but didn't matter, it still came on. And then things started. The same cadence started coming out of things in our house, things that don't make sound microwave ovens, tvs, whether they were on or off. You know, it was incredible.
Speaker 2:And then I'm driving my car to work, a car that I was driving for three years, and the same cadence started coming out of my radio. Shut it off, didn't matter. I'm sitting in the audience listening to him and in the middle of his lecture in the PA system, in this huge auditorium, the same Morse code. So he says to me all right, we have to make an experiment out of this. And he tells my wife he was working with various research mediums at the university and he said, he said to my wife his, I want you to ask Bailey, my daughter in spirit, if this is she who's sending this Morse code. And you have to be very specific. Ask her to go to this medium. And he mentioned the name of the medium that he was working with and let her know, because he was in contact with her every day.
Speaker 2:The next morning I went into my office and first thing I did is I turned on my computer and started reading my email. The very first email was from this scientist and it was a forward of an email that he got from the medium that he was working with. And the email said I have no idea what this is, I've never received anything like this before, but somebody is sending me Morse code. And I was like, like the people in my office, like they came running in because, you know, with the medium and this was a prank, you know which wasn't the case, these were reputable people and that was kind of a turning point for me. I mean, did it prove life after death? No, but it certainly proved that there's something going on beyond our brains you know, yes, wow, yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 1:And what a specific. I mean that Morse code, that same pattern like what a specific thing like that doesn't what does? That happen to.
Speaker 2:It doesn't come out of intercoms and microwave ovens, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's not a random pattern.
Speaker 2:It's a specific.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh goodness, that well, thank you. That was an incredible story and I appreciate you sharing that with me. Bob, this has just been a delight for me to listen to you share about your experiences and the work that you're doing with the Forever Family Foundation. I think is just really, really important, and I am honored to be a platform to help spread this message. What are some ways that we can help support the Forever Family Foundation?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, the best thing that I would advise people to do is to become a member. It's free, we don't charge. So just go on. Forever Family. You know three words ForeverFamilyFoundationorg. It says become a member. You know, you put in your name and address and then you know we have a weekly radio show that we've been airing since 2005. And you know, sometimes mediums are on it, scientists are on it, and all the shows are archived going back those 19 years. We have a recommended reading list if you want to read about some of these subjects. There's information on the four grief retreats that we have per year and a host of other resources that people could use. So that's foreverfamilyfoundationorg.
Speaker 2:I write a personal blog at beyondthefivesensescom. It's not connected to the foundation, but so my head doesn't explode. I can get my thoughts out there, you know Sure, and then you know I have the two books. Can get my thoughts out there. You know things, and then you know I have the two books. So people should just keep learning, keep experiencing, keep an open mind and and hopefully find renewed purpose and meaning in their lives.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, oh. I love that. I do have one final question for you today, and this is my. I say it's my question of the month, but it's been longer than a month, but I've been asking all of my guests this question, and that is what is one thing that you wish everyone on the planet would do in regards to their own well-being.
Speaker 2:You know it took me a long time to realize this, but I think it's important to live every day as if it's your last day. I think it's important to live every day as if it's your last day because we live under this illusion of permanence. You know, we think that all of our stuff and all of our people are going to be there tomorrow and in the blink of an eye. You know, often they're not. So. If you have to say something to somebody, say it. You know. If you have to do something, you have to show an act of kindness, you have to help somebody. You know, do it and say it. You know, if you have to do something, if the show an act of kindness, you have to help somebody. You know, do it and do it, you know, right away.
Speaker 2:So I try to. Everything that I experience is it's as if I'm experiencing it for the last time, because that lets me get into the moment and appreciate it right. When I watch a sunrise in the morning, I'm not taking out my phone and making sure that I get the perfect shot, I'm just experiencing it, you know. You know. So you could say, yeah, well, that'll always be there every day. Well, yeah, you know we live on this earth that's spinning at thousands of miles an hour and you know, floating in space, you know, held together by gravity. Who's to say the earth's going to be here, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. I think that's that's great advice that we all should do our best to live by, and I know, you know we, I'm sure many of us have heard this before and thought of it before, but I think the more we bring it to our awareness, the more we're likely to try a little bit harder and put the phones down, like you say, and just experience that, that presence, that of that experience that you're in. So love that, love that advice, love everything that you've shared here today, bob. Thank you again so much for being a guest today.
Speaker 2:Well, it was my pleasure being there. It was great being with you.
Speaker 1:Awesome and everybody else that's listening. I am curious to hear your response to this, so don't hesitate to reach out and tell me your thoughts again. If you have your own stories, I'm here for it. If you think somebody's gonna think you're weird for sharing this experience that you had, I 100 will not think you're weird. Bob won't either. So reach out and tell us and share um, and we can be that support for you. So, wherever you are at, I hope you're having a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next one. That's it for today. Friends, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe or, even better, leave a review and let me know what resonated with you the most. The more you tell me what you love, the better I'm able to create future episodes with even better content. I'm sending you so much love and light. I'll see you in the next episode.