I had a near-death experience about 15 years ago. I very rarely talk about it, due to the circumstances leading up to that experience. Now that I have had many years to think about my experience and put things into perspective, I know that I am ready to put it out there. My experience, in my opinion after this deep retrospection, was to get me back on track for my soul’s purpose. In retrospect, I now understand I was given multiple warnings before things had to get to that level, but I can be very hardheaded.

One such warning came at work one evening. I had recently been promoted. I sat at my desk in my office with a window overlooking I-95. In my mind, I was doing well. I was so proud of myself. I grew up in the inner city in a tough neighborhood. The students I went to high school with were not expected to accomplish much, and it showed in the effort some of the teachers and administrators put into us. There was a lot of violence in my life.

I was a mother at a young age. I remember when my mother found out I was pregnant she looked at me with disappointment in her eyes and said, “YOU’RE A STATISTIC!” Her words cut like a knife, but I was disappointed with myself so I don’t blame her for voicing her frustrations. This accomplishment, to me, was proving them all wrong. “Not bad for a chick from the hood,” I thought to myself as I kicked my feet up on my desk and sat back in celebration. What happened next shook me to the core.

“Is this what you think you came here to do?” It was a woman’s voice, but it wasn’t my own. How was this even possible? There was no one else in the office with me and this voice was coming from inside of me. Was I going crazy? Was I schizophrenic or something? It was as if I was speaking in my head, but this internal dialogue was in someone else’s voice. “You were a warrior in a previous life. This is not what you came here to do!” I was frozen in shock, listening intently to every word. “You are nothing more than a hamster on a wheel,” she went on to say.

As I heard those words, it burst my bubble immediately. It was as if a spell had been broken. One second, I was celebrating, the next, I was back to being disappointed in myself. I had an instantaneous realization that I was in fact not happy. I was doing what I thought was right to please everyone else and to prove others wrong. I had never really thought about what I wanted to do for a living. I just took a job to support myself and my family. From there I stayed and climbed the corporate ladder. I literally clawed my way up. I was not handed anything. I had to forcefully show how valuable I was and work harder than everyone else for a very long time. From there I was confused, but the first domino fell that day and I could not stop the trajectory of what was to come.  

I was in a difficult marriage, and I spent a lot of time at work to escape. I had suffered a lot of traumas in my life and had never stopped once to even acknowledge any of it. I just kept plowing through life at full speed sweeping it all under the rug. My husband at that time too had a very difficult life, which is what we had in common. We were finding that we did not have much in common outside of that so to connect we started hanging out and partying with one of my co-workers and her husband.

We used to drink and sometimes there were drugs involved. Mostly marijuana. I had expressed that I no longer wanted to smoke, so we started taking ecstasy. This is the reason that I was so hesitant to share, but it is my experience. I was in a very dark place then because I was so far off course. I have always been very sensitive, so while everyone else was partying and popping pills, I would go to the bathroom and spit it out or I would spit them into my napkin after everyone else stopped paying attention.

The night before my NDE I pleaded my sensitivity case with everyone but eventually agreed to take half of an ecstasy pill. I drank some alcohol. Probably a rum and coke which was my usual drink of choice back then. Once the night was over, we headed home. I was wide awake. I was full of regret for allowing myself to fall victim to peer pressure. I had gone through all my high school years avoiding it and here I was falling victim at thirty something.

The next day rolled in, and I was still awake. I made breakfast for the kids and carried on like everything was normal. By the afternoon I started cleaning the house. I didn’t know what else to do. I began to feel tired, but it wasn’t a normal tired. It was different. It’s hard to explain, but I knew something was off. After a while I started to feel even more and more drained. I knew that it was time for me to rest, but there was something in me that was telling me to keep going. Not to lay down. I needed to keep cleaning. I started to have this internal battle. I was telling myself I was tired and ready to rest, but another part of me knew that I should not stop cleaning. This went on for a bit until my will to fight gave in to my body’s need to quit. I didn’t feel good. Something was off.

I lay down in my bed. I began to feel my heartbeat slow. Something inside of me was telling me to get up, but I kept fighting it. I was too tired to get up. As my heartbeat slowed, it was as if the blood pumping through my veins and arteries also began to slow its movement. My breaths were starting to be less and less. It was as if I was hyper aware of everything, but unable to move or do anything. I monitored everything slowing more and more until it all stopped.

Next thing I knew I was looking down at my body curled up on my bed. I stared at myself in confusion; then suddenly, I was in complete darkness. There was nothing in front of me, nothing behind me, nothing above or beneath me and nothing to either side of me. It was as if I didn’t exist, yet I was part of existence.  

I’m not sure how long I stayed in that space of nothingness before I began to feel a presence. I could feel this presence getting closer and closer to where I was.  It didn’t feel as if I was moving or traveling. It is more like I was the space. I saw nothing, but I began to feel as if I was being scooped up and held. I was being enveloped in unconditional love. It was overwhelming and indescribable. There are no words that can express how wonderful that felt. It felt like I was being cradled in pure bliss. After a while the Prescence began to communicate with me.  “Are you sure?” it questioned. “I’m tired,” I responded. We were not speaking to each other because I no longer had a body or a mouth I could communicate with. We were one yet we were able to have a discussion.

It seems unreal when I describe it, but during the experience it felt so natural. “Like this?” was the next question. “I’m so tired,” I responded. “Your children?” I thought about my babies and hesitated; somehow I knew they would be ok. I held firm with my previous responses. “Your mother?” As soon as that question was posed, the awareness was present that my mother would have a hard time dealing with my death. Especially the details of me using drugs. That was the meaning of the previous question posed – “Like this?” As soon as I had that awareness I was back in my body on the bed. Instantaneously.

Back in my body was such a vast contrast from where I had just left. Even now thinking about it I get a feeling of being homesick. I was in extreme pain and I could not move. To this day I am unsure if it was me trying to get used to being back in my body or if something was truly wrong with me. I tried to get up from the bed, but I could not. It took me a while to get my bearings. I was trying to wrap my head around the experience. I could still feel the remnants of the love I had just experienced.

 When I was finally able to pull myself up from the bed I tried to walk to my bathroom which was just steps away. I realized something was severely wrong. There was a pain in my back that was unbearable, and I had a severe headache. I was also very weak. I knew something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the vastness of my experience. I called my mother to tell her how much I loved her. It was the second time I had a indescribable experience and my mother was the anchor.

 I tried to lay down and relax, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong. I decided to go to the hospital to get checked out. I was diagnosed with a double kidney infection.

At the time I wondered if it was all a dream, but deep inside I knew it was realer than anything I had ever experienced in my physical life. It would take me years to fully unpack the vastness of that experience and to fully integrate what happened to me that day. Maybe I am still processing, but nothing would be the same from that day on.