At Home at the 2nd Annual Afterlife Awareness Conference

2nd Annual Afterlife Awareness  Conference March 9-11, 2012 in Virginia Beach, Virginia

Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. Oliver Wendell Holmes


After making my gratitude statements in the shower this morning and thinking about the comfort that the shower provided, my mind drifted back to the 2nd Annual Afterlife Awareness Conference that I attended the weekend before last in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I thought too, about the comfortableness of the conference. The shower provided for my physical needs while the conference contributed to my spiritual needs.

This led to the thought of how we all are seeking comfort in our lives; we are all seeking that inner part of us that we all recognize and call home and what home is to us. As Kalhlil Gibran said: (comfort is:)“That stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.”

Home is the place where we feel solace. Home is the place where we want to stay. Home is the place that makes us feel warm inside and out. We all seek that spot when we want to move from the agony, the pain, the hurt, and the other wounds we experience in our daily life. Considering our current world, is it any wonder that we seek out this kind of environment in our personal world?

The 2nd Annual Afterlife Awareness Conference delivered this comfort like a person to person telephone call to one’s soul. (A metaphor those who remember telephone party lines will understand) The conference provided that glimpse of and touching base with home, with comfort, with the soul embracing what it wants and needs, reaching communication with and living in one’s spirit and not merely our physical being.

This morning I thought I would love to stay in the shower all day because it felt so good but that was a fleeting thought based on the immediate feeling of the physical warmth. Upon the conference closure, many attendees also stated their desire to remain in the comfortable environment. In reality though, anyone can have that feeling anywhere, anytime if that is their choice. If one chooses, they can have that warm, that comfort, that solace inside and they can live it everyday because of their choice and because that feeling can stay in their heart.

Our physical life is influenced by our choices. We know we are genetically programmed to inherit certain characteristics and diseases and our personalities are influenced by the nurturance or lack thereof in our families but we always have a choice. Also our spiritual life is influenced by our choices. Living from the spiritual is not merely “getting in touch with your spirit” but it too involves choice. One needs to:

1. Choose a higher sense of consciousness
2. Choose to let go of the ego
3. Choose to be aware of and be an observer of oneself.

This is what I call living from the heart.

I hope you choose to be aware of and be an observer of your home… Blessings to you all…Chris


P.S. Let me say that the environment was flawlessly crafted by the 2nd Annual Afterlife Awareness Conference organizer, Terri Daniel. The conference provided a setting that was conducive for the tranquility and comfort that the participants experienced. I appreciated her vision and foresight in the totality of the planning ( not just great speakers or great food or great hotel) which may not have been recognized as such but she was clearly responsible for creating a “Home” like environment to assist all on their journeys. Thank you, Terri.

Jane Vair Bissler, Ph.D,LPCC, FT and I at the book signing at the conference

What do you and St. Patrick have in common today?

St. Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland

Life is just a mirror and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you. Wally “Famous” Amos

Today is St. Patrick’s Day and do you know who St. Patrick was? But, more importantly we can ask; do you know who you are? We celebrate a man who most people generally know little about and even if we do know a some information about him, perhaps we are celebrating him in terms of what and how our current society uses him as an excuse for celebrating with green beer, parades, wearing green, feasts and telling jokes about Ireland, leprechauns and taking one day a year to remember him.

But first let’s glimpse at St. Patrick. St. Patrick, although the Patron Saint of Ireland and Ireland’s most widely known figure, much of his life remains quite a mystery. Much of the history of him is the result of exaggerated stories, is false or cannot be validated even to his birth and death dates. It is interesting that we think of him in terms of celebrating him and even if we do not know about him, we still know how to celebrate him. Church leaders have spoken of reclaiming St. Patrick’s Day as a church festival rather than a “mindless alcohol-fuelled revelry.” (It’s known that pubs in Ireland are only closed on Christmas and Easter!) Possibly in the course of this day if you watched the news or a television show or read a magazine or newspaper article that narrates a little Irish history, you might learn that he preached the Gospel, had visions, heard God speak to him and converted thousands to Christianity. Although never canonized by a Pope, the people declare him as a Saint in Heaven and he is still venerated in Ireland as a man who followed his ethics and inner guidance.

Can you see the connection of similarities between us and St. Patrick? Perhaps not in the areas of religion and his teachings but in that we live our lives without examination of what is inside of us. St. Patrick is a fine example of trusting himself and his God, following his intuition, his inner guidance, his beliefs and ethics.

But the bottom line is that we may celebrate this man who we know so little about and only recognize him on this one day per year. Is this how we also treat ourselves? Do we ask ourselves and ponder those difficult questions about the mystery of our lives?

Many of us pay a lot more attention to a person in history than we do to our own inner self and inner guidance. Perhaps St. Patrick could be used as a model to think about ourselves, our ethics, what we value in this life and what is important to us in this life.

Banishing all the snakes in one’s country is a pretty lofty goal (although one St. Patrick never accomplished either!) but being aware of, noticing and trusting what is in your heart is definitely doable if we choose to….

I hope you all had a Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Chris

Learning a life lesson from Charlie Brown…

 

Don’t miss the donut by looking through the hole. Author unknown

Do you look at life as:
1. a multiple choice test
2. a true or false test
3. 3. a thousand word essay?

Do you:
1. Ask the questions why did this happen to me or why did I deserve this or why can’t I be successful, happy, famous, rich, healthy (or whatever you seek)?
2. Depend on luck or do you just say life sucks, life is always that way or do you ask what did I do to deserve this?
3. See your life unfolding as you planned it with lessons to be learned and growth to occur as a result of your learning?

Different eyes, different thoughts, different lives…

When my boys were little they were offered a cruller (a twisted, cinnamon and sugar, oblong pastry made of deep fried donut dough) and when first offered they scrunched their noses and said “yuck!” They had no idea what it was and so they automatically refused it. While not necessarily encouraging the sugared treat, I hoped to teach a lesson and because we had a rule that they had to take one bite of something before making the decision whether they liked or disliked a certain food, I encouraged them to taste mine. Of course both of them changed their minds when they realized this “ugly thing” was really good and that the taste did not match their perception at that moment in their experience.

Now, I was grateful for this experience as I was able to use that example many times in their lives. Often, when facing an unpleasant situation in their lives I was able to caution them about the result they might obtain if they didn’t reframe the situation and think about other possibilities. (they learned they might “pass up a donut!”) If we notice, are aware and trust, we can find out that sometimes life situations, experiences and circumstances are not always what they seem on the surface.

Many people don’t recognize that the pain they might be feeling, the anger they carry, the illness they endured or the devastation they are currently experiencing is being presented to offer them an opportunity for growth. It is not always apparent when one is currently in a painful situation to notice an opportunity for growth or even think beyond the pain. But hopefully sometime in our lives we’re able to recognize that the “ugly things” in our lives just may not be quite what we expected.

I love the quote by Buddha: As an irrigator guides water to his fields, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives.

Zac so compassionately reminded me of this lesson at a time when I was in doubt: “It’s a jog in your journey. So get through it! You planned it! (Zac 7-26-07)

I hope you don’t miss the donut by looking through the hole… Chris

What I Did on Leap Year Day…

“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.” Alphonse Karr


What does Leap Year mean to you? It’s not an official holiday and there is nothing to guide us as to what should occur on this day, so what did you do with that extra day yesterday?

1. Many folks complained about the weather. My town had a dusting of snow which became a focus for grumblings while five mid-western states experienced a tornado that killed nine, injured 150 people and left massive destruction throughout the states.

2. Businesses offered Leap Year specials offering special prices and no finance charges for new appliances, furniture and cars, etc while everyday 884 million people on our planet lack clean water and 1.2 billion have no sanitation facilities. http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/

3. And many people wondered how would/could a person celebrate their birthday if they were born on Leap Year Day and what are the odds that a parent and child would have the same Leap Year birthday? And many people no longer have a child or loved one to celebrate birthdays with.

I sat back, considered many events of the day and observed. Leap year day is an extra opportunity to notice and be grateful. But be aware of what you notice. Celebrate what is really important in your life (Love and relationships) and let go of that which isn’t. (Everything else!) Zac continues to remind me with his favorite phrase, “It Don’t Matter!” (Zac, all his life and beyond) I wish you lots in your life that really matters! Chris

P.S. Have you really contemplated what is truly important to you?

Discussing Our Fears About Death or Not?

 

Cameo Theater, Newberg, Oregon

Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death. Erik H. Erikson

Tonight we gave ourselves another opportunity to view a snapshot of our society. My husband and I went to see the movie “The Descendants.”(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDwUH02DDWU) Yes, I would whole heartedly vote for this movie to win the Best Movie Oscar and for George Clooney to win the Best Actor Oscar but that is not my reason for posting about this movie.

Our small town has a 1950s circa Cameo Movie Theater that does not hold hundreds of viewers but does show first run movies, has a good sound system, very comfortable chairs and old fashioned ticket prices. As the movie house rules that children younger than 16 must be accompanied by an adult, there were no children present. The theater possibly sold 40 tickets to this showing.

I was highly anticipating the film due to the reviews, the subject matter and actors and I would have expected most of the attendees probably had similar expectations. But, it was interesting to note the reactions of the other movie goers because it reinforced a notion I have held since becoming intimately familiar with the field of death and dying.

The movie grabbed my attention from the first moment and due to that force of attention and my focus, I was aware of little else… except… the constant chatter around us. Now I would not expect people to discuss the actions or verbally interpreting the actors’ actions in a movie in which the central theme is death. But surprisingly, this audience did. Because we could not concentrate on the movie, we did change seats to the other side of the theater after about the first half hour because couples on both sides of us did not curb the chatter as the movie progressed. But even more surprising, after we moved, the two elderly women next to me continued their commentary throughout the movie. It was only when the movie reached its climatic heart wrenching moment that the theater reached silence. (Perhaps that silence was in my own mind due to my own vigilance to my personal experience of removing a loved one’s life support and anticipating the moment of death) (I only mention this plot as it was stated in the promotional previews so I hope this is not problematic for anyone who has not seen the movie)

Death is not an easy subject to think about, to discuss, to observe and especially to grief. But being aware of the uncomfortableness of so many people in this small segment of society was stunning. It is well known information and is a common complaint by many bereaved people that their (personal) lack of support is due to others’ general fears about death (or fears of discussing the subject) by people in their lives.

It was certainly an eye opener to observe this phenomenon in this small venue. I wrote my book, Afterlife Agreements: A Gift From Beyond, I blog about and talk with many bereaved people about death and the hope to normalize the highly denied subject of death. I am grateful to Hollywood for releasing movies of this caliber to give the public the opportunity to at least think about death.

This is a year of massive change. I hope in those changes we become more comfortable discussing our ideas, beliefs and fears about death so as to normalize death as well as recognize the preciousness of life. With hope, Chris

P.S. Have you seen this movie, “The Descendants” or other thought-provoking movies about death? What were your thoughts?

An Awe-Inspiring Celebration of an August Life

 

Ron August
An awe-inspiring Teacher

Say not in grief “he is no more” but live in thankfulness that he was. Hebrew Proverb


I attended the celebration of life for a dear friend’s husband yesterday. This was a celebration of life in the truest sense of the term. It could have been the example that funeral planners employ as their demonstration model.

Although it was his request not to have a funeral, the love that flowed from so many from and to this man required a commemoration of his life. And thus, besides the number of those affected by this man’s life, the enormity of the gratitude was felt necessary by so many to voice that his remembrance was held in the local high school gymnasium. Although one speaker said that the venue should have been in the football stadium, this location was a better fit for Oregon’s February weather.

During the commemoration, four people spoke of his history, teaching and high school and college football coaching career, awards, championships, friendships, activities, his personality, jokes and pranks, hilarious memories, his family, his 51 year marriage and his love. And they spoke of their love and respect and the legacy he left in this world. The music played (loudly!) reflected his personality, his life, his family and friends. Their life (gratitude for his wife, Betty was also honored) was the epitome of a giving life. He was a model of expressing life and sowing seeds for others to help them open their hearts.

Certainly there were sad eyes and solemn moments but the feel, the energy in the room was the result of those seeds he sowed in his life. Ron August knew how to beam out that spark of his soul. He knew that in the exchange of his gifts that he, along with those he came in contact with, would grow, learn and become. I know he was present at his celebration and no doubt felt pride in the imprint he left on the many lives he touched.

As August means awe-inspiring, magnificent and worthy of great respect, he certainly chose an appropriate name under which he chose to experience his life lessons in this life. Ron will be greatly missed by many…

This celebration had a profound effect on me and gave me much to ponder…how do you want to be remembered? As Zac said: “Life is a short trip. Make is a good one!” (Zac 6-27-08)

I Want a Sign from My Loved One and Beyond

 

Owen opening Christmas present with assistance from deceased loved ones...
(deceased child in orb over heart)

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; Who looks inside, awakens. Carl Jung


I’ve talked to hundreds of bereaved parents and others who have experienced the death of loved ones. Many discuss the possibility of receiving signs or messages from their loved ones to prove or confirm that their loved one is on the other side or to prove or confirm that they are OK. Then, when someone does receive a sign, the reaction is usually that of elation, a feeling of relief from the ongoing pain and then they want more signs. One sign or message is never enough. We need verification. We want the ongoing relationship. We start to doubt. We slide back into our grief journey again. But, there is an alternative to this process. It comes from opening one’s heart and Knowing.

The following is a wonderful example of this…

I ran into a friend yesterday and she told me such an impactful story that I asked her permission to share it as it is a perfect example of the message I share with others about maintaining a relationship with our deceased loved ones. Her account was not merely the story of a mother receiving a sign or a message from her deceased son but it was a demonstration of reaching and living from a higher level of heart consciousness after the death of a loved one. She too, is a mother who has experienced the death of her child and has maintained a continuing relationship with her son. 17 year old Andrew died on December 30, 2008 of an aggressive form of brain cancer. Although I could illustrate the kind of person he was and how he was respected and loved in his physical life, any reader can sense those attributes by his ongoing actions to maintain the relationship with his mother. I want to display a glimpse of how he is continuing to be a part of his family’s life and how this is possible through his parents’ noticing of his presence.

My friend Anne Meinert shared with me that she received a Christmas gift from Andrew that was overwhelming and beyond anything she could have imagined happening. She prefaced the story with the fact that she asked Andrew for a special Christmas present this year but admitted she was not prepared for the magnitude of his gift from beyond. (Prior to this gift, other family members have received signs from Andrew as well as Anne being aware of his presence through auditory messages and signs.)

The ongoing holiday season activities provided the backdrop for Andrew’s special multi-faceted Christmas gift. As a Christmas present, Anne decided to give their grandson some of her grandfather’s antique Civil War cannons. But, although not finding them in the guest bedroom where she thought they were stored, she completed an exhaustive search of their house, to no avail. Imagine her surprise when she again entered the guest bedroom to find the cannons lined up on the bed! Several weeks later after searching the house for Pokemon cards for the grandkids, they “suddenly (and surprisingly) appeared” in a bag next to the bed. Andrew’s grand finale was in the above picture. This picture is of grandson Owen opening the present containing the antique cannons. If you look closely you can see three orbs and in the one above Owen’s heart is a profile picture of Andrew. (The other one is a close friend who recently passed away and they cannot quite identify the person in the faint orb on the pillow)
Now all of these signs would be wonderful validation to anyone seeking proof of life after death and would comfort a bereaved parent that their child’s spirit continued after their physical death but Andrew had a grander message in mind.

Stepping back from the “materialness” of the gift; the physical moving of the cannons and Pokemon cards and producing themselves in orbs, Andrew bestowed on his mother a gift beyond merely the signs. He gave his mother an opportunity to recognize and own her Truth. And he knew she would recognize it as such.

She asked for a special Christmas gift this year. And although my friend Anne understands soul planning and recognized that her son died as part of the plan they created together, she had no idea she was to gain a clearer understanding of that plan. Andrew helped her move to the next level of her understanding. She did not just receive proof or validation or comfort from his efforts. The magnitude of his gift was in the lesson he brought to light for her and not in the impressiveness of the individual occurrences. He gave her the opportunity to accept this (her current life and relationship with her son) as her Truth not just her belief. And Knowing ones’ truth can occur only when the heart is opened.

JJ Van der Leeuw said that the real mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, it is a reality to be experienced and I surely hope that you recognize the signs you receive and that this experience leads you to an understanding of your Truth…. Chris

P.S. Please let me know if you have had any experiences like my friend or if you’d like to share the signs, messages or gifts you have received….