After

This week I listened to an audiobook about near death experiences, called After, and I’d like to tell you about it, because in these times of stress, uncertainty, great changes in the world, and what seems to me as a year of disempowerment, this book gives one hope.

We are bombarded day and night by messages that start or end with the words “the science”, as in “listen to the science” or “the science says” … However, as Bruce Greyson, MD, a man whose background was scientific and who studied to become a psychiatrist, discovered, science is far from having all the answers. Science, by definition, is ongoing exploration and investigation. Even when we think we have gone from theory to fact, we may very well later discover that things are not as we thought.

 Death has loomed large for many of us this year, and although it may not be in the realm of science, the thousands of people who experienced NEDs (near death experiences) studied by Bruce Greyson over 40 years of his research, raise questions over the nature of the mind-brain connection and consciousness, as well as our abiding fear of it.

 Why am I writing about this book in my health coaching blog? Because I sense that the amazing tales told by those who were near death and came back will be a great source of comfort to those who read them, it may also spark an interest in you to further explore meditation as a tool for getting in touch with the conscious mind, taking time to pause in our busy and often stressed lives, to contemplate the nature of awareness and to find solace in knowing that life as we know it may be only a first stage in the continuation of consciousness in another form.

 I loved the humility of this doctor who despite his scepticism, was able to overcome the dogma of his medical training and open his mind and heart to the people whose NEDs changed their lives and his. Bruce Greyson called his book After, not only as a reference to life after life, but to how we view our own lives after we read this book, and how life can change after such a profound experience.