Why is Spirit Stronger Right After Passing?
Some people tell me that they can feel the presence of their loved ones intensely just after they pass. This blog entry discusses the top 3 reasons why Spirit is stronger right after passing.
If you’d like to listen to the podcast version of my response, click here. If you’d like to ask me yourself, please reach out here so I can answer all your questions!
1. Spirit has something urgent to say
Perhaps the crossing was sudden like a car accident or a suicide. Spirit would want to come through immediately to make amends or to tell their loved ones in the physical world that they’re alright. I once read for a woman whose husband passed suddenly in a car accident. He came through immediately to give her support in raising their kids, in helping her to transition to a new routine as a single-mother and caregiver. Spirit will come through to make your transition easier. When they cross, so do you, in the sense that your life is moving into a different territory of soul learning, expanding, and developing in lessons of loss, which I always tell people, are lessons in loving and being loved.
2. Spirit is Enlightened
Another reason why Spirit would be stronger immediately after their passing is because they have the spiritual capital to do so. People who have invested in developing their spirituality either through ritual, meditation, religion, or any other spiritual practice are able to come through sooner because of the spiritual power they’ve built up. I’ve seen this time and time again with people who meditative regularly, who established a connection with nature before they crossed, or simply were very religious. I once had a grandmother come through making jokes about Jesus—her grandaughter, expecting to hear dreadful, awful things because it was her first mediumship reading and she didn’t know what to expect, was pleasantly surprised. She said that her grandmother was a devout Catholic and while in hospital, she was coming in and out of consciousness, saying that she could see the other side and Jesus. Those of you who know me, know that I’m not religious, but I know that spirituality manifests in a myriad of ways and there are as many ways to work with Spirit and develop ourselves as there are people on this planet.
3. They don’t know they’ve crossed.
What I’m about to say could be controversial for you, so I’ve saved it for last. How you receive this information depends on what you believe about the afterlife. Again, there are lots of ways to understand Life after Life, so take what works for you and consider the rest with curiosity.
Another reason why Spirit might come through is that they are not aware that they’ve crossed. A woman once told me that her father came to her in a strange, chaotic dream. She was watching him call her on a cell phone, as an ambulance raced by in the night and suddenly, he walks up the stairs to look at his own grave stone, set into a wall at a mausoleum. Next to his grave marking, were the markings of his brothers’ grave (the woman’s uncles, who were in spirit). Thinking this was strange, the woman dismissed it as a crazy dream—only it felt very real in every way.
Three days later, the woman waited for her regularly scheduled phone call from her dad. Since they lived in different states, and he lived alone, they made their phone call an appointment so she could catch up with him and make sure he was alright. The phone call never came.
After a few days of waiting for him to call her… the woman received a message from the medical examiner’s office in the city where her father lived, with news that her father had passed suddenly. The date of his passing was estimated to be the same day she had had the dream. Suddenly, she realized that the dream was an explanation for why her dad missed their scheduled call. Recalling the dream, it seemed to her that he didn’t know that he’d passed. She then understood that her dad, in the dream, was quickly reorienting himself to his new condition—as pure Spirit, without a physical form.
Remember when I said that this reason for why Spirit would come through so strong immediately after passing would be “controversial”?
Well, the controversy has to do with how I explain or talk about what the woman witnessed in the dream state— language is so limiting. As soon as we try to explain something, the truth eludes us—was it just a dream that occurred coincidentally on the day that her father passed? Or was it a shared death experience of her father’s crossing? Can we understand the dream as a message from her father, as he was passing through Bardo?
Tangent: I just threw a lot of terms at you! To those who are familiar with research on survival of consciousness, the terms “shared death experience” and “Bardo” are concepts that you understand. To the rest of you, you’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about.
For now, I’ll simply state that: Bardo is a term which Tibetan Buddhist practitioners use to describe the intermediary state of 49 days that a soul lingers between its old life and its new life.
A “shared death experience” is when an incarnate person—a person with a physical body, experiences the transition of another person who is moving from the physical world to the spirit world. It can happen while you’re asleep or while awake, though usually when you are in a receptive state, doing something relaxing like fishing, on a plane napping, or showering.
There you have the two terms for reference when I talk about them in future episodes. Now, let’s get back to the woman’s dream!
In the dream, the woman received a message from her father, who was explaining that he wouldn’t be able to make their scheduled phone call because he had crossed to the other side. Curiously, her father was a deeply spiritual man, who meditated for 3-5 hours a day prior to crossing. It’s not wonder to me that he was able to come through right away.
The woman also recalled that though the dream had a sense of urgency, her dad was laughing and excited, as if he was just discovering his condition. He wasn’t in any pain, but laughing. This tells us that spirit has a sense of humor. Months after his crossing, the woman continued to experience dreams and visions from her father, both while she was sleeping, and when she was awake, in a receptive state—washing the dishes, chopping vegetables, on a walk in nature…these visions seemed to be narrations of her father’s past…events that she had heard of but she was now experiencing these events with heightened senses…not only does she account for her shared death experience, but she believes she was experiencing her father’s soul review, which is, essentially, a movie that they show you once you cross, so that you can understand your behavior, your choices, and how they affected the conditions for your development both in the physical world and in the spirit world. The consequences—both the benefits and challenges that your choices create are all shown to you—the people you helped, the people you hurt, those you loved, and those who loved you. You’re able to accept those lessons on loving and being loved from a completely different perspective in the spirit world.
I believe that as planet, we are struggling to reconnect with spirit, grappling with the practice of remembering our soul-selves, reconstructing awareness for all the ways that we are connected to the spirit world because we have somehow, in our fast times of computers and online everything, forgotten how intricately connected we are to each other and to the other side. Ancient cultures have long revered and worshiped the afterlife. As a contemporary world, we are trying to return to that sense of reverence. Our loved ones come through with strength after crossing because they have messages for us.
For the woman in the example, she received several messages after her father’s crossing, including evidence of her father’s soul review on the other side, which gave her hope that we have the opportunity after crossing, to re-member ourselves, put ourselves back together, look through the kaleidoscope that is our soul, to see how all the elements of our soul selves fit together. With this new understanding, we’re able to continue our soul development in the spirit world. Through mediumship, spirit is able to share this wisdom with those living in the physical world.
Gentle reader, I leave you with these questions to ponder: What if we practiced our soul review every night before falling asleep? How would the world be different if we watched our actions throughout this day that we lived? If we could come into awareness of knowing, then we would be aware of how we’re evolving everyday. Becoming aware, while we’re still in our physical bodies…that’s a Buddhist teaching of presence. Wouldn’t then being present with ourselves, in our bodies, in this world help up understand to how our actions and thoughts shape the conditions for our lives and our learning? Our actions shape the lives of all those we come into contact with? Increasing our ability to be loving begets more loving…so why wait for the soul review? Why not start living with sacred awareness now? Well, I’ll tell you, one of the benefits is that we can come right through after we cross!
Was this helpful for you? Let’s work together and discover what Spirit messages are meant to find you! Learn more here.
