BOB OLSON & NATALIE SUDMAN: “Hey Afterlife TV is back! Yay! And I’m beginning with something different. This episode is not an interview but rather an honest-to-goodness conversation between two afterlife authors & friends. And I chose to do it this way because this episode comes out during the holiday season, a time of the year when we’re feeling the void of our loved ones in spirit. So I invited Natalie Sudman to join me in this discussion about the why & how we can recognize that our deceased loved ones are with us at ANY family or friend gathering. We talk about inviting them to the party, recognizing the signs they send us, teaching them what signs we will notice, and even how our remembering them affects them in spirit. I think you’ll enjoy this holiday special that is delivered with joy, a little humor, some channeling, and a lot of love.”” ~ Bob Olson, Afterlife TV
If you’d like to watch this video, Recognizing the Presence of Deceased Loved Ones at Family & Friend Gatherings, visit www.afterlifetv.com/?p=2121
Afterlife TV is presented by Afterlife Investigator & Psychic Medium Researcher Bob Olson, who is the author of Answers about the Afterlife: A Private Investigator’s 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death.
Check out Bob Olson’s other sites: BestPsychicDirectory.com (a directory of hundreds of psychics & mediums by location with reviews & Instant Readings) & BestPsychicMediums.com (his personal recommended list of tested psychics and mediums) or visit Bob’s Facebook Page. Bob also has a popular workshop for psychics and mediums at PsychicMediumWorkshop.com.
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Bob: Hey, everybody. Bob Olson here with Afterlife TV. You can find us at afterlifetv.com. This is where we search for evidence of life after death and ask the meaningful questions around that subject. Today’s subject is recognizing the presence of your loved ones, your deceased loved ones, during the holidays. We’re doing this during the holidays because I know a lot of people are missing their loved ones. We feel the void of those people who have passed especially during Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years and that’s why I wanted to do this but I think this video I’m going to keep it up on YouTube on Afterlife TV because it’s good for birthdays, anniversaries any kind of family/friend gatherings that exist. We’re always wondering is our loved ones are in spirit or are with us and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
We have a special guest that… I was going to do this by myself then I thought, “No, no it’s been so long since I’ve done one of this. I want to do it with a friend. We have a past guest who has become a very dear friend of mine, Natalie Sudman. I can’t even get your name right. Natalie, let’s start over. That’s going to be one of the list of videos that you play later. Natalie Sudman has been with us for three interviews, is that correct? Welcome, Natalie, welcome back so much.
Natalie: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Bob.
Bob: I knew we would have fun together, we always have fun when we do this. Before we didn’t even know each other we were having fun and now you and I, I don’t think we have much time, but every once in a while we have a little phone conversation and they’re awesome conversation, I always think we should have recorded that.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bob: So that other people could have shared in this, and so that’s when we decided we will do here for the holiday video. I’m calling this Christmas with Bob and Natalie. That’s what we’re going to do here. One of the things, for those people who maybe or not familiar with you, or living under a rock somewhere, you know not sure who is this lady, you had a near-death experience in 2007, was it?
Natalie: Yeah.
Bob: 2007, people can watch those videos, all three of them will be linked below this one where they can learn more about that. But even before your near-death experience, you’ve always had some psychic abilities, right?
Natalie: Yes, yeah, ever since I was a kid I’ve had psychic type things happen to me and spoken with spirits and, yeah, so it wasn’t new. I describe my near-death experience as evolutionary not revolutionary. This was just one more step along that.
Bob: I don’t know where you come up with… I love this phrases that you use; evolutionary not revolutionary. You must sit down and think of that, “Oh, revolutionary, how is that one?”
Natalie: They do come to me.
Bob: That’s great. Now, one of the things that we’re going to do today that I think is very special is that we’re going to do a little channeling session here. This is a group channeling. I think anybody who is listening to this is part of that group. The messages that are going to come through today are for you. In the past, I mean we’ve really done this in all of the interviews. Whenever I have asked you a question you have sort of tune in to – we’ll find out who – but you tune in somewhere and a lot of times you’ll get the answer from there. So in past interviews we’ve being doing it without really acknowledging that that’s what you’ve been doing. We’re going to purposely do it here, let everybody know that some of the questions I’m going to ask, you are just going to kind of sort of tune in and ask the answer; Who are we asking? Who are we talking to?
Natalie: I’ll just ask for my sort of my highest and best people. A lot of people they call them guys. I happen to call them people or my buddies or colleagues. I am familiar with some of them because I have worked with them ever since I was a kid. But I don’t necessarily ask one specific being to come and be with me, I ask all of them to come and be with me and then whoever wants to answer this question comes through, please come and answer the question.
Bob: Hmm-mm I love that. Is it possible that someone might show up that you are unfamiliar with? Has that ever happened or is it always sort of your team of people?
Natalie: No, I’ve had unfamiliar people show up. After I listened to Paul Selig’s interview that you did with him, that was really good. I thought that was so good, and so I immediately ordered his books because it sounded so interesting. That evening when I was asking some cool questions, I had these six dim shots, and I’m like, “Who are you?”
Bob: Wow.
Natalie: Yeah, and often when I am doing readings for people, psychic readings for people, some of their people will show up to answer.
Bob: Yeah, that’s awesome. You know what? I am going to invite my father to join us today. He doesn’t have to say anything but at least he can be here. All the readings that I’ve had hundreds of them with mediums so many times the mediums have commented on the amount of love that they can feel from him. I think he is just a great communicator, he’s had a lot of practice. One of my friends who was sort of a new at it, the first person in spirit that he ever channeled and he was overwhelmed by that feeling that he got, that feeling of love, and I love that. So if my father can give you that little love while we’re doing this, all the better. That’s all, we want all the guests to feel good especially you, Natalie.
The other thing I just want to say before we get started, hey, I’ve been for a while, Afterlife TV, we haven’t done something since I think mid-summer or something like that. Natalie knows where I have been, so I came out with, in late spring, early fall, I came up with this book. In fact, Natalie, I don’t know if you have seen it, we have a new intro so everybody would have seen the intro by now to Afterlife TV. It mentions the book so I won’t have to mention it at the beginning of every episode but I mention now because that’s the reason I’ve been gone; doing a bunch of interviews, being interviewed rather than being the interviewer or being the interviewee. That was a lot of fun. I want to thank all of those radio hosts out there who were willing to talk with me in front of their audiences because that’s really such a gift to me to be able to speak to their tribes and we talked about the afterlife.
I haven’t really been away from talking about the afterlife, just a different venue, really, to other people’s audiences. I’m so excited to be back, I have been craving it, and here we’re first one back and we have a whole line up of people, people are going to be very excited come January. We’ll be doing an episode, my plan is to do every week. So people, there is no way they’ll be able to keep up, right? I mean you can’t watch one of these every week, they’re an hour long but at least there’ll be some… when they have a little extra time they can sit back and they can watch them. What have you been doing over the summer and the fall?
Natalie: I’ve been… let’s see…I’m teaching myself to quilt so…
Natalie: Yeah, but I’ve even met…I’m a facilitator at the Monroe Institute. So actually this year I was a trainee, so I was out at the Monroe Institute in Virginia a lot learning how they run their programs and that kind of thing.
Bob: And now you are going to be teaching?
Natalie: Yeah, now I’m going to be teaching there.
Bob: That’s awesome I would love to be on one of your groups as one of your students. Let’s show everybody your book. They’re going to see it on all the other videos because I hope they watch them, I encourage it: Application of Impossible Things, and they’ve got a little picture of you there. There you are in the hospital.
Now there is a real sign, I mean you look great there but there is a sign. Someone in a hospital bed probably hadn’t really been cleaned up the way you prefer to be in days, and you’re like, “Sure, take a picture of me. I’ll put it that on my cover.” That is a great sign there is no vanity, no vanity there. All right we’re going to get right into it, we’re going to start about this subject that we’re here to talk about; recognizing the presence of your deceased loved ones during the holidays, including birthdays anniversaries and any family gathering.
The first question I’m going to ask you Natalie, is… this is sort of, to preempt the other questions about recognizing our loved ones. I noticed, seems that I notice every year around the holiday season that a lot of people tend to check out around this time of the year. I don’t know if you know the answer already, if not maybe you can find out for us. Why is it that so many people die physically during the holiday season? I don’t know if it’s stress, I don’t know if is it’s a great time to be remembered later. “Hey, I’ll die, I’ll die just before Christmas, every time Christmas comes around they will think of me.” I don’t know but a lot of people tend to check out around this time of the year. What do you think about that?
Natalie: Yeah, they do. I think what I’m getting is that there aren’t a great deal more in numbers that check out around this season but the emotional impact of losing someone during the holiday season is higher and so it stands out more. So it’s noticed more and so you think it happens more often. The numbers are… they’re telling me their numbers are a little bit bigger, they’re a little bit more, a few more people and yes, it’s related to stress but it’s also related to having the whole family together at that time a lot of times.
Families gather or at least their attention is often turned towards family, and when you do that you create a safe space for someone to cross over because the family energy is there sort of holding people and allowing them to feel good, to feel safe and then to say, “Okay, I have seen everybody. I have connected with everybody and now I am ready to go.”
Bob: With that said, do you think that… well, from my research I know that people in spirit they like being remembered. They’re not asking us to enshrine them and think about them 24 hours a day but they certainly do like being remembered. I wondered if you knew if there were some sort of on a deeper level if there was some, in an energetic way, how our remembering them affects them. You know what I mean? Does it send up like prayer? Does it send up and affect them in some energetic way when are sitting around, chatting with them remembering good memories?
Natalie: Sure, yeah. Thought is creative energy. Thought is moving energy and so when we think about or talk about our loved ones on some energetic level they know that. You talk about [inaudible 00:12:45] to them. Well, I would say that there is no up and down, that everything is right here. We’re just tuning into this narrow band and experiencing this as it is, but if we expand our band then our loved ones are always right here, and so that energy doesn’t have to go anywhere. Wherein we’ve become… when we think about them and when we recreate that state of love for them inside of ourselves, then we’re in resonance with them and they’re going to feel that no matter where they are.
Bob: I don’t know if this is a dumb question but the question that comes to mind is, so many people we think that when we’re in spiritual form we don’t need the same things that we need as physical beings. Sort of the ego being removed type of thing. But why is that something that they enjoy so much? Because that seems something very egocentric in a way, “Oh, they’re thinking about me, they love me.” That never really goes away. I mean, in spirit we like to know that we had an effect on people when we were there.
Natalie: I guess that would depend on the person, whether they like it or not, I mean it’s always going to feel good. But this is not an ego thing. I mean, there is a difference between “I want attention. My ego wants attention,” and just receiving and going, “Oh that feels so good. That love feels so good.” It’s not receiving that kind of love and attention, we all like that but there is a difference between wanting and needing or accepting and needing. I wouldn’t say that any of us actually need it because we already are whole. But it feels good to get it, it feels good on the heart level, on a very fundamental energetic level and it really… not just that, “Oh, it feels good so I want more of it,” but it feels good on such a fundamental profound sort of visceral level, it’s like feeding each other. Or it’s like feeding yourself, really, I mean, because we’re all one. It’s, yeah, it’s feeding ourselves.
Bob: This is that’s why I asked you to do this, because I asked this just simple question, I had no idea how you are going to answer it but those are the answers that…that’s why I asked you to be here. You have this such a profound depth to your answers, that’s what I am looking for, that’s what I learn from and what I am reminded, I am so often reminded about things that are really important and you said so much there. I couldn’t even repeat it, you said so much. Anyways, thank you. These are the answers I am looking for. Keep going along this route, okay?
Very simply, to bring it up for a more surface level for a second, some of the ways that we can do this, I’m thinking, okay, family gatherings, friend gatherings. What are some of the ways that we can maybe inspire, encourage remembering our loved ones in spirit? I mean a simple one would just having photographs around, right?
Natalie: Sure, photographs would be great or telling fun stories about that person.
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: Getting people laughing and finding that that kind of exuberant fun emotion that really carries, it carries through us, and it carries into them. And also just having little conversations as if they’re there. You can talk to them as if they’re there because they’re hearing you.
Bob: Right, yeah. And it’s sometimes easier when you are alone for some people, it’s really easier to do on their own, when you’re with the group. Yeah, maybe after a few drinks it’s easier.
Natalie: Yeah, put a hat on the teddy bear and say, “This is him.”
Bob: Whatever.
Natalie: Yeah, the more fun you can with it really, you can’t insult them. Putting the hat on the teddy bear is not an insult…
Bob: Right.
Natalie: It’s having fun with it, and fun and joy are really, really powerful energetics. We all know how powerful fear is. Well, a really good way to dissipate fear and dissipate grief is to find laughter and find the really beautiful memories and to remember those very vividly and say, “It’s almost like we’re there again,” and to feel that joy again. That joy really can heal that, the grief and the fear. It can really sort of bust out of that. Very powerful.
Bob: That is powerful. I know some people like to leave the empty chair where someone is. I think as long as it’s something that is more on the positive side, it’s not making everybody fall into tears and be sobbing over their meal in a way that you can imagine that person is still with you, because they are. I think that can be a very healthy thing. It’s not something that is necessary of course, people need don’t to feel responsible; you’ve only got 10 chairs, “Sorry, you have to stand while you eat because we got to leave that chair empty,” not necessary, right?
Natalie: Right. I want to say too, there’s nothing wrong with crying either to let that grief come out. But let that grief come all the way out and go down into back into neutral energy fields so it’s not sitting in you and then find something to laugh about. Tell each other the funny stories too.
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: That taking time out to cry is also very healing, just don’t stick yourself in there. Be willing to move through that and out the other side of it.
Bob: And these kind of family gatherings are perfect for that because a lot of times, I don’t know, it seems like how many times you see someone, they’re very strong kind of person, maybe they have done all their crying alone and then they see someone else who is sharing in their grief, they both miss that… and as soon as they lock eyes on one another, there comes the water works again. There is something about sharing in that grief, there seems to be an exponential power within that. Is there something to that? Is there something to grieving together that has…is more powerful that grieving alone?
Natalie: Yeah, I would say, really, almost in many, many cases sharing something doesn’t just add one and one, it multiplies the energy exponentially. And so if this sharing in grief is done with the intention of moving through the grief and out the other side of it, yeah, that can be a very, very powerful healing.
Bob: It’s interesting. You talked about telling stories, family videos. Well, that can really do it. I’ll never forget…I think I probably mentioned on some other Afterlife TV episode that sounds, you know I love sounds and one time a found a tape, there was a cassette tape, that was an old answering machine tape and my father had left this long message on it and that did it for me. It was something about hearing his voice again that brought everything to a whole new level. Of course, with video we get the sound, we get to see them almost in three dimensional form, moving around, there is something very powerful about it, I certainly encourage the… I don’t know, what a gift that can be and again to be able to do and again do it with other people, other family members, other friends, whatever certainly…
Natalie: Yeah, sound is very, very powerful for a lot of people. You hear that old song comes on and suddenly you’re transported back to 1973 or whatever.
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: It’s very powerful. So music, maybe that person had a favorite song or a favorite kind of music or maybe a certain song that made them laugh or they always sang along. That could be a really powerful way of evoking that person and getting that resonance with that person and then sending that love and, “We still miss you, we love you,” kind of thing.
Bob: Yeah, when I was in high school we lost some people to driving accidents and suicide, and I think three of the funeral services they played Stairway to Heaven. And I know you can’t help but listen, I don’t know why I feel sad when I listen to that song. I love that song but it’s something… when music is involved, years later it can bring something back like that, and then not necessarily in a bad way. I’m kidding but…
Natalie: No, be really beautiful, beautiful memories and laughter and fun.
Bob: Right, exactly and I even remember because I was young and impressionable and sort of observing all this and very fascinated by death and recognizing that sometimes… again it wasn’t until the song came on that everybody sort of lost it. They’re holding on, trying to be strong and then all of a sudden Stairway to Heaven comes on and that’s it.
Natalie: Yeah, music and art, really, they bypass the intellect.
Bob: Is that what it is?
Natalie: And so they can go kind of straight to that emotional response and that really… there is some profound healing and some profound transformation available through music and art and drawing and things like that.
Bob: Yeah, yeah. The next question I have is, I think some of these things are going to overlap but, is there something extra special for our loved ones in spirit when they see their loved ones get together as opposed to watching our lives separately in different directions and they see us all get together? I think you touched a point it earlier, but I just wonder if there is something in it for them when they see their loved ones together whether we’re talking about them or not.
Natalie: Again, I would say it depends on the loved one and the family. You know, when a family gathers that family, it’s like a school of fish or something, each of those fish has its own life and its own personality. When it gathers together into a school, that school itself has… it becomes one whole being kind of. And so it has a resonance, as this one thing. And the family is kind of like that. Each of those individuals has their own life and their own resonance, but you get the family together and it becomes a unit, it becomes one being that’s resonating and it resonates more strongly. It resonates. It’s a more complex cord that it creates and because it resonates much more strongly and much more…there is a lot of power in it.
Like I said one plus one doesn’t equal two, it’s exponential. So you get all that family together and you’ve got this very beautiful really, really rich cord of frequency or energy that’s being… that’s resonating. And so those loved ones, it’s a much… I keep trying to say easier and it’s not easier, it’s just different to tune into that. It’s that kind of a resonance, that kind of a group resonance crosses all boundaries, all frequency boundaries so it becomes very inclusive. Not only of that little tribe, that little family group but of everyone. That resonance goes out to everyone that ever connected to with those people, all those people that are in that unit. And so it’s very inclusive and it’s very powerful communication.
Bob: This would be same for family units as well as friend groups, correct?
Natalie: Sure. You can look at that on any level, whether it’s just siblings or the whole extended family or the extended-extended family up to six cousins and pretty soon… or just friends or friends who are in a larger group. On some level we’re all one and so you can break it down into schools or you can take the whole of humanity and it is your tribe, it is your family, everyone who exists is your family.
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: Right? So if you connect it in that way and just sit here and say, “Everyone is my family and I’m going to feel that. I’m willing to feel that.” Then imagine the exponentiality available there, is that the word?
Bob: Yeah, that’s true. That can be a little mind blowing, right, if you think about it too much. That’s interesting. I just want to mention to people a couple of times you got a little “uh, uh” with the video, we’ll let people know, you live in a remote area of the world, Arizona. And you’re actually using your phone on 4G because it was better than your crappy Wi-Fi. Anyways, to me, it’s about the information, it’s not about necessarily the quality of the video and so for those lovely people on YouTube who love to find fault with things, go blow it out your stocking. That’s what I really want to say, your Christmas stocking, of course.
How do you know our loved ones are present during our family gatherings? All right. I mean, it’s not as though we haven’t talked about this in other videos over and over again, but I think there’s always new people to Afterlife TV, and I think it’s always a good reminder for us. I’m going to tell a little story. Two days ago I’m doing one of the last interviews I did for my book with Roy Richards. The second interview I did with him and he asked me to come back and we were chatting about the similar subject that we’re talking about today, and we were talking about some of these things, some of the ways that you can look for, the signs and signals that our loved ones send us to let us know that they’re present.
And we were talking about the phone ringing and you pick it up and there is nobody there. This used to happen to me when I was a kid, and I was telling him this on the air. We had this happening a lot when I was a kid where we used to grow up and so I remembered it happening often. Not really thinking too much about it, I was a little more of a skeptic back then but I thought it was interesting.
Well, anyways, the very next night which was last night, Melissa and I are just sitting eating dinner and my phone which has this sort of wallet case on it, is closed and it had been sitting for a long time, hours all by itself, and all of a sudden it starts ringing. I open up and it says, “Bob Olson,” I’m junior so, “Bob Olson,” and it was the weirdest thing because I don’t know how to call myself on my own phone. It was my number, when I checked it later it was my number but how else will my father going to call me other than, with his name on it? Probably it could happen but maybe the easiest way was use my own darn number. I can’t figure out how it happened but I thought it was pretty cool. I opened it up and when I answered it he wasn’t there.
Natalie: That’s very…
Bob: It was fun, and if hadn’t just talked about this with Roy the day before it wouldn’t have been quite as serendipitous but the fact that I had this conversation, I think it’s a nice way of my father saying hello. Can you think of some other ways that people like to say hello or maybe something that you’ve experienced?
Natalie: Well, I think, first I would like to say that I think a lot of… like you said I wouldn’t have really paid attention to that if we hadn’t talked about it the day before. A lot of times we are just passing things by.
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: So pay attention, open up to what might seem like, “No, that can’t possibly be,” or “Was that it?” After one friend of mine passed, every time I would turn on the radio it would be this specific song, and I thought, “This is just really weird.” But then I actually listened to the words of the song and it was like a message from him. [inaudible 00:33:54] and I thought, I never really listened to those words before. So repeating things, like, “Oh, I keep hearing this song. Why do I keep hearing this song? Oh, maybe it has a message, maybe somebody is trying to communicate with me.” Lights flashing. I’ve been talking about somebody and all of a sudden the lights go flicker, flicker, flicker. Maybe your Christmas tree lights will flicker or something, that’s…
Bob: Yeah, it’s cool.
Natalie: Yeah. Loud noises sometimes… one specific friend of me that passed, when I talk about this person sometimes there will be big clunk on the wall and it’s louder than just the house kind of settling or shifting. For a long time I didn’t notice these things, it’s kind of in the back of my mind. Then all of sudden I went, “Wait, you know what? Every time I mention that guy’s name there is a big clunk on the wall.” So a lot of these things, like I said, we’re passing them right by. Well, there is no coincidence. Pay attention to the little things and if you are sure just say, “Well, I’m not sure whether that was communication at all but if it was I’m willing for you to show me that same kind of thing again. That’s pretty cool.”
Bob: Yeah, I think it’s really important. My work with mediums, so many of the mediums have these little, what’s the word? It’s not coming to me but – symbols – they have these symbols so when they see their aunt Mary it means something, when they see a penguin it either it means a priest, or somebody in a tux or, I’ve heard all sorts of different things with the penguins, but whatever it means to them. People in spirit have learned to sort of go through their filing system and their brain and figure out how to communicate with them because they have already set up this is going to mean this.
I believe that it really helps our loved ones in spirit when we recognize some of these things. Roy Richards was talking the other day about… he goes under a street light and the street light goes off. He lost his daughter and so he thinks, and I totally agree, that this is his daughter saying hello. I think probably maybe the first time it could have been mere coincidence and then when he thought of his daughter because of it, maybe she caused that, it gave affirmation her to do that every time he goes under a street light. I think that happens with a lot of us with the thump.
Again, once you let your loved one in spirit know, “I am going to associate that thump with you.” Now they’re like, “Now I’ve got her. Now I have a way to communicate with her,” and thump, thump we go, right? It just continues. We’ve heard a lot of people associate finding coins, finding feathers, finding all sorts of different things that aren’t very popular. Scents, my father like lilacs, we were smelling lilacs in crazy places that we shouldn’t be smelling them after he passed. We had a cat Pesky [SP], who passed. And Melissa, I don’t know why Pesky chose this, but Melissa would smell urine because she used to clean the litter box, so it made her think of Pesky and it worked.
I would have chosen something better, “Pesky, let’s not do that one.” My father was a smoker and a lot of people would smell smoke. Mediums when I was getting readings they would smell smoke, they would be, yeah, yeah.
Natalie: That can be very powerful.
Bob: Sometimes it’s a good smoke, it’s a pipe smoke or a cigar smoke, if you like that. Sometimes my father’s was just cigarettes. Baking. You might smell banana bread or something like that and it reminds you of somebody who used to do a lot of baking. And then there are some people who without being extra sensitive even or having any ability for medium-ship or stuff they will hear a voice, they will sense the presence. I think we all can do that, right? I mean how many times have any one of us been in a room, someone walks in behind us, comforting, there is no way you didn’t hear him but you just knew somebody was there. We can do the same thing with people in spirit. You want to add that to all? Is there any way for us to…?
Natalie: I think a lot of people believe that they don’t have that sense but if you say to somebody, “Have you ever felt like somebody staring at you?” Almost everyone on earth will go, “Oh, yeah, yeah. I’ve had that feeling where somebody is staring at me and you turn around and they are.” That’s the sense we’re talking about.
Bob: Yeah, yeah.
Natalie: It’s a subtle sense but we all have it, and it’s just a matter of becoming aware of it or tuning into it once in a while. Just stop, pause, once in a while and say, “Do I feel anybody around me?” And you may go, “Oh, it feels like my son is standing right at my shoulder.”
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: That can be very powerful and very, very comforting.
Bob: It is. When we were kids, old enough that I was driving, I remember Melissa and I were at a red light and across the red light were three guys and one of them was a friend of ours and they were all salesmen and they were in front of a store. And I don’t know why, I don’t have any idea, I didn’t normally think this way but I said to Melissa, his name was Dale, “Let’s get Dale to look us.” His back was to us. “Let’s get him to look at us.” And I don’t know what we did… sending those signals. I swear, all of a sudden, he just like flips around and sees us and he starts waving. He probably didn’t even know why he flipped around.
Natalie: No, I am sure he didn’t.
Bob: Yeah, and it was I guess early lessons for me, I don’t know why I tried the little test or what but it worked and it was great.
Natalie: Yeah, and it’s good to practice those skills. Because by practicing them we become more aware of them, we become better at them.
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: I remember as a kid, I probably shouldn’t tell this story but in short, I used to stare at people and try to get them to scratch their… and a lot of time it worked. But it’s really… it’s not about manipulating other people, it’s about sending a message to people, “Can I communicate? Can I be the sender? Can I be the receiver?” And practicing those skills a little bit.
Bob: Yeah, yeah. It’s fun. Those are great things to practice, to see what power we have and to recognize our connection with other people. We don’t know the half of it. You talked about the electronic phenomenon, we got the phone ringing, lights flickering, if anybody listens to any of my radio shows they heard me talk about my radio going crazy right after my father died. It was one of those old radios, had a needle that you’d have to use the dial to move it back and forth, and it just started going from station to station to station back and forth. I was moving the knob and it didn’t have any effect and then I finally, for whatever reason, associated with it him and, “Oh, dad that’s you?” And it stopped and it never happened again. I had that crap for a couple more years.
Natalie: Yeah, alarm clocks, are also often sending…
Bob: Wake you up.
Natalie: … used to set off.
Bob: We had a toilet flushing.
Natalie: There’s lots of ways. I mean really I think people sometimes can get certain ideas stuck in their heads, “If my mother was here she would do this. She would…” why can’t you make the lights blink on and off?
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: When maybe she has been like wafting scents past you and you’re not paying any attention.
Bob: Totally.
Natalie: So open it up and kind of cast around and certainly, you can give suggestions, “Hey mum, I can figure out how to do it, flicker this light for me.” But it’s also… sometimes it’s not that easy to interact with the physical world and so they may be trying to get to do something that is they’re capable of doing, that it’s easy for them to do. So cast around and pay attention to a lot of different things and just see what happens.
Bob: Are there some things that you know of that are easier than others? I mean probably the ones we have talked about, a lot of electronic kind of stuff, lights flickering that sort of thing seems to be a little easier. Things like dialing the phone might have been a little more on the challenging side but I also wonder, are they able to get somebody else’s spirit who is better at this kind of stuff to help them?
Natalie: Sure.
Bob: She is asking. I don’t know, that seems really stupid, Bob.
Natalie: Yeah, but I need to check in with that, because that is not something that I… I’m trying to think but, yeah, I mean we all help each other and certainly we have people that we call guides and they’re not alone out there, in here, between here or wherever they are. So if they want to figure out how to do something they certainly have access to help and assistance the same way you do. And, yeah, things can get easier for them. Just like when we come into a physical body it takes us a while to remember how to move that body around in a coordinated way and when you leave the body it maybe… there may be times when you are, “Wait, I don’t remember quite how to do this.”
Bob: Yeah, yeah, right.
Natalie: You were in there before but… or maybe we’re trying to do something new. May be we never explored this or that, we never explored communicating with people who are not all that aware of how to communicate. Maybe the last time we tried to communicate we were Aborigines in Australia and everybody in the tribe was very good at telepathy or something.
Bob: Yeah, I would imagine it’s somewhat frustrating sometimes for some of them.
Natalie: Yeah, it’s kind of surprising and then they kind of flack us on the heads sometimes.
Bob: Yeah, yeah. I will get it really wrong and I will get it bad but there is this old joke that I heard Dom DeLuise talk about, and he was telling, his boat capsizes or something, he is out in the ocean. And so I don’t know, he comes up with these three different things. A boat comes along, they’re going to save him and he is like, “No, no, no, I have faith in God, I have faith in God, move on, move on.” Helicopter comes, “No, no, I have faith in God move on, move on.” Third thing comes along, he pushes them away. Finally he drowns and he gets to heaven and he is like, “God, what is going on?” “I sent three people to help you.” It’s doesn’t always come in the way we expect, right?
Natalie: Yeah.
Bob: So pay attention to other things. We’ve got to open our minds, I think that’s what we’re trying to do here.
Natalie: Yeah.
Bob: Open peoples’ minds to new possibilities. And don’t always chalk them up to coincidences, it’s just so easy to say coincidence, coincidence.
Natalie: Yeah, what is coincidence? I mean really there is no such thing as coincidence.
Bob: Right.
Natalie: We’re creating a reality. And so do we create random things? Well, yeah, sometimes we do but sometimes we’re creating, we’re co-creating and we’re interacting. So, yeah, pay attention to the little things and if you’re not sure, “Was this just random or is this real, really something?” Then ask. You say, “Is it? I’m willing to have that proven one way or the other or show me again.” Or something.
Bob: Yeah. I have done that a lot with like cards, like they have the angel cards, the tarot cards, kind of stuff and I’ve even had tarot readings where I went through tarot reading, this is early on in my investigations. I went to tarot reading and then I went to another tarot reader and not 100% exact but so similar that you can’t deny. I got the same reading from two different people. We’re talking about the same stuff, you think about all the different things. And I have done it with these little angel cards that Melissa has on the counter, it says whatever, peace. I’ll pick it again, you get the same card, “Okay. I get it.”
Natalie: You could get the same card for days on end, he is like, “Okay, I’m getting the message, I’m getting the message here.”
Bob: Exactly. Have you ever tried spirit writing? A spirit writing meaning, you could interpret that however you want, right? Meaning either with pen and paper, or I used to do it on a computer where I would ask a question. I didn’t even know who I was asking it to, spirit guides or something. Ask a question and whatever answer pops into my head I would just type it as quickly as I could.
And what was happening was I was sort of asking these questions and then writing the answer without really… I was typing so fast like wasn’t really paying attention, wasn’t worrying about grammar or spelling or anything because I wanted to be fast because I didn’t want to intellectualize it. I was trying to keep it more in that intuitive side, but then I would think of another question and I’d do it. And then I’d usually wait a couple of days before I picked it up and read it. It was always amazing to me, it didn’t sound like me writing the answer. It sounded like someone with much more wisdom which is not hard to do, but anyway. But it was… I always thought that was kind of fascinating.
I also know of people who’ve just done this in their heads, they’ll talk to their loved ones in spirit in their heads or they could talk out loud and they would hear a voice in their head. Sometimes it was their own voice so they questioned it. I told the story in my book, I have told it other times here about my friend whose husband died and she was talking to him in her head and she said, “Can you give me something that I don’t know so that I can know that this is you that is talking to me, not just talking to myself here?” And he said, “Your mother wants to…”now I can’t remember, “Your mother wants to buy a new blue dress…”
And then, of course, she went and asked her and apparently her mother kept going back to the store and couldn’t get herself to pay the money for the dress. So there was a truth to it. It helped her to acknowledge, “Yeah this is, this is really me that you are talking to.” So I think asking those kinds of questions you know is a great way to sort of confirm for ourselves so that we can continue with these processes. But have you done any kind of spirit writing yourself?
Natalie: Yeah, I do that a lot actually. I often suggest to clients that they do that too. It’s a really good exercise or practice in listening and also in… if you do that long enough, you know, when you first start off doing it you going to be like, “This is just me, this is just me answering,” but if you just say well that is, “Okay, just keep going.” Then sooner or later as you do that all of a sudden you going to find yourself writing something and going, “Where did that come from?”
So it’s a good practice. And then if you keep it up you are going to begin to really notice when you cross that boundary from your own thoughts into receiving. And when that happens now you’re taking a big leap in your own awareness, now you are… now you know, “Oh, this is my stuff and this is something else,” and you’re also practicing tuning your focus into that something else, opening it up to receiving. So, yeah, that can be a really beautiful practice.
And it does work when you have just do it in your head too. What I like about writing is that you are actually sitting down and doing it very deliberately. A lot of times when we’re doing it in our heads, we’re doing other things, we’re washing the dishes or we’re walking through the grocery store or something. And that has its value too, but when you actually sit down and say, “Now this is what am going to do,” then you’re doing it a little bit differently. You are focusing your own intention and the potential for learning about your own consciousness and your own ability to focus and your own ability to control your own focus. That really comes true when you do it as a practice, I think, if that makes sense.
Bob: That’s great. I remember when I did it more regularly I made a commitment that I will do it the same time for a certain amount of time. Probably it doesn’t really matter to them because of the time thing but it helped me to set that intention that at ten o’clock every morning this is what I’m going to do. I would just listen to some music to sort of get myself out of my thoughts and in a more relaxed state and then I would start it and it seemed like the more I did it the better success I had, yeah.
I wanted to ask you. Let’s skip this one a little bit, I know this seems like a silly question because but I’m going to ask it because… again, I know, it depends on the loved ones, so I’m getting that, it depends on the person, right? But do our loved ones like to be invited to the party? And does it help to invite them to the party and is there a better way to do that? Is there a good way or a better way to do that? Is that silly? I mean, I know they’re going to show up anyway but does it help to invite them to the party?
Natalie: Yeah, I think, it doesn’t hurt to invite them. I mean everybody likes to be invited, right?
Bob: Yeah, yeah.
Natalie: Again, you know, and two, part of the power in actually inviting them is your own awareness, tuning your own awareness to including that person or to tuning in to that communication.
Bob: Yeah.
Natalie: So that can be really valuable in practicing your own control and using your own awareness. Whether how to do it differently. Differently from what? I’m not sure what the what the [inaudible 00:54:51]
Bob: Do you send an e-card?
Natalie: Yeah, send an e-card, e-mail, put it on paper.
Bob: Email them? No, I don’t know. I don’t know, please show up, I don’t know.
Natalie: Your intention really does it and so whatever you want to put out there, I think certainly including gratitude in anything. Yeah, it really carries it further or boosts the energy or clears the energy. So when you say, “I would really… I think you’re probably already coming to this party but if you’re not please do and we’d be very grateful if you do, if you showed up.” That could be really powerful.
Bob: I get a lot of comments obviously all over the… YouTube, Afterlifetv.com and Facebook. A lot of people comment that I really nurture my guests which I love to, they’re my guests, right? But you are so sweet and even just to take that question seriously and give me the best because that is a stupidest question I have ever asked actually.
Natalie: It’s not a stupid question, no, I mean, I don’t think it is a stupid question. There are viewers out there who kind of would have the same question.
Bob: Well, if they ask it then it’s not, it’s a very good question, but for me to ask it… I want to talk about dream visitations because we’re thinking about our loved ones at this time of the year or when a gathering is coming up at any time of the year. I think that is sort of an invitation for them to visit us in any way that they can and coming to us in our dreams is certainly one way to do it.
I had a little quote from my book on Facebook today that was about that and so it made me realize. And I love it when I do these little quotes on Facebook, people tell me about how these things have happened to them, you know what I mean?
Natalie: Definitely the stories.
Bob: I love it. So anyway thank you everybody for sharing all the time on Facebook. The last one was about you know how a lot of times the spirit will leave the body before the car accident or the plane crash or the bullet hits and people had all these stories about how obviously they lived, but they didn’t experience the pain of whatever it was because it was as if they left their body. Great thing. But this particular one today was about dream visitations, a lot of people have had them, I mean I would not be surprised if it were millions of people have had their loved ones visit them in their dreams, and they certainly seem unique to dreams in that they’re extremely vivid and you remember them thirty years later as if it happened the night before.
And it does seem to be more, it’s not like your loved one is necessarily involved in this crazy story that is going on. They’re literally there, “Hi, I’m okay, I’m happy. I’m doing well,” that sort of a thing seems to be very typical for dream visitations. Have you had any yourself? I haven’t personally.
Natalie: I have, yes, actually. Yeah, they’re really lucid dreams. There is none of the fuzziness of a dream and there is none the sort of irrationality of some dreams. Everything is very rational, it’s very… it’s crystal clear, it is as clear as when you are awake or more clear. So, yeah, that does happen and you can actually invite that. You know you can learn to lose a dream, there are plenty of books out there and suggestions and ways that you can teach yourself to lose a dream. You can also just before you go to bed invite your loved ones to come to you in your dreams, that can be very powerful.
Bob: Yeah, that’s awesome. I never remember my dreams. I imagine if I had one of these I would probably remember it. I remember that I had a dream and I get a sense of what the energy was about around it, like that was a very creepy dream, or that was a happy dream but the details of it are lost the second I open my eyes. The next one I think, you know, if we’re having this gatherings and we want our loved ones in spirit to be around, and certainly, you know, we set that intention. Two things we can pay attention to: Pay attention to what our children, because a lot of the times our children are like, “Grandpa is over there,” and everybody is like, “Yeah, go play,” and you also see the cat or the dog like looking into the corner of the room in a weird way, they don’t normally do that and obviously they’re following something and there’s nothing. It’s a great way… you know, we don’t necessarily have the same abilities that our pets do and our children do, and so I think just having that awareness of the kids and the animals might help us to recognize that our loved ones are with us. Have you had any experiences like that?
Natalie: Yeah, I had a dog that was very sensitive who would perk right up and kind of follow things around the room or get really frightened sometimes actually.
Bob: The dog would? What do you think he or she was frightened of?
Natalie: I don’t know. At the time I didn’t really… I wasn’t that curious about it. I was like picking up on something and then I’d just pull him over to me so that he felt safe. I didn’t really investigate it. It’d be interesting, yeah.
Bob: Yeah, yeah.
Natalie: Yeah, cats and animals and little kids can kind of haven’t had that socialized out of them that sensitivity so, yeah, that is good suggestion to pay attention to them.
Bob: Okay, we’re over an hour here but I don’t even care because this is a special. This is Christmas with Bob and for Natalie and we’re just going to finish this out.
Natalie: We’re working the reindeer.
Bob: I just have a couple more actually, the only other one that I was going to mention is, I have actually seen photographs… there is no denying this, this not an orb that I’m talking about. I have seen photographs, peoples’ faces on them. Not real people, at least not living physical people, but somehow there is this face got into this photograph, and these are from people that I trust and you know they were manipulating things on Photoshop. Check your photographs. I mean, if you’re taking photos during the holidays or during any family gathering, check those photographs. Have you seen anything like that?
Natalie: I’ve seen a couple of things like that. Yeah, I’m a big skeptic of photography because I do a lot of photography. I studied in graduate school and so I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know.” But, yeah, from a couple of people that I trust, I have seen things like that. It was very interesting. Yeah, definitely check your photographs. Because, I mean, when they’re your photographs, you know no one is messing around with it.
Bob: That’s right.
Natalie: And invite your loved ones, and say, “We’re probably going to be taking a group photo at some point, would you please get in the photo and show yourself if you can? That would be fun.” Let it be fun too. It’s okay to have fun and to joke around that’s holy. You don’t have to be like serious and… we have this idea that holy things are, you have to have a hush voice and the NPR voice, but laughter and playing around and joking around, it carries a really beautiful energy very powerful, very powerful healing and very powerful communication. So go ahead and be excited and be… joke around and have fun.
Bob: Yeah. So my last question, but this can lead into others. I don’t… like I said I’m worried about the time here. This is like a special, it might be a two-hour special. No, just kidding. You had a near-death experience, it took us three interviews to get through the whole darn thing. It was quite intricate. It was amazing, fascinating, but you had one. What did you learn from the other side that might relate to the subject or maybe just might be comforting to the bereaved during this time of the year?
Natalie: Well, what did I learn from that experience? We’re taken care of. I mean when we cross over we’re not just sort of left on our own. Even if it may seem like that for a while for some people because you’re so habituated to that physical mind that you’re not tuning in to the people who are around you, may be in the same way that we are now, but we’re not alone. So for those who may be worried about their loved ones. Their loved ones are getting help. If they need help they’re getting help. They may be over there helping other people already. I think that can be comforting to people. In my experience when I left my body I didn’t care about who was left back on earth, I’m like, “Whatever, I’m doing my thing. I’m sure they’ll all be fine.”
Bob: I’ve heard that a lot, I’ve heard that from a lot of people with NDs and some people take that in a negative way and that’s fine if they want to do that. We all have a choice.
Natalie: It’s not negative, it’s very neutral, it’s really a deep a trust. [Crosstalk]
Bob: Go ahead. No, go ahead… I… go ahead. I’m so excited..[crosstalk]…please go head let me not interrupt.
Natalie: It’s really that detachment that is really a sort… the Buddhists talk about nonattachment. That has nothing to do with not loving someone and not caring about them. Nonattachment is trusting yourself and your own experience and trusting the other person and their own experience and knowing a true love, it has no strings. It doesn’t say, “Oh, I have to have this way,” or, “I have to be this way,” or, “I have to really want to be with that person right now.” That’s not love. That’s not really true unconditional love. That love is a state of being. It’s not an emotion. It’s a state of being. And I was in that state of being when I was I left my body and so I was in love, I was loved, and I trusted and knew that everyone else was too.
I knew that if I wanted to contact those people they were right there. I could contact them. And right now my focus and my intention was to take care of somebody else, not to be, “Oh, I have to get back to earth or I have to go to talk to people.” It was like, “Well, I’m doing my business and I trust that they’re doing their business and we’re all okay.”
Bob: Yeah, that’s beautiful. We should end there because we’re not going to do better than that. You talk about love, you talk about the love, man.
Natalie: The love.
Bob: You can’t do better than that. No, really you can’t. This was a great time. I do want to ask, I want to remind people again about your book. This, I’ve said in every interview, this is one of those books that doesn’t have a lot of fluff in it, you know what I mean? You get this six-inch book, okay that’s not six inches, but you get the big huge book and there is all kinds of filler in there and you don’t waste a word in this book. It’s one of those books that you can just keep reading over and over and get something new out of it every time.
It’s lot like Paul Selig actually, which is, I know you’ll take as a compliment. You can only read a short amount at a time and you have to really think about it, right? And that is a compliment. The only reason I still have a copy is because I won’t let anybody to take it because people don’t give them back, and I just would like to always have it around. So anyways that’s Application of Impossible Things. You can look that up, there will be a link down below this video and I know you are doing workshops now. Could you just tell us about the workshops that you’re doing?
Natalie: At the Monroe Institute?
Bob: Yeah, no, no I thought there was something else beyond that.
Natalie: No, yeah. I thought about doing some workshops myself and then we ended up… I ended up being invited to train to be a facilitator there, so that’s what I’m doing. Two friends and I do have… we have formed another institute, the Event Horizon Institute, and it’s eventually… we’ve got programs for that’s TBI, PTSD, addiction, things like that, and we’re still working on that and kind of working with some entities to get… well, some research is underway right now on these programs, the sounds that we’re using. It also uses the sound technology the way the Monroe Institute does.
We’re working on that and we do have a program for anybody and that is being offered at Monroe Institute called the Event Horizon Program.
Bob: Okay, and when you’re ready we’ll tell people about that. That’s what I was referring to. In the back of my head I’m like, “Let’s talk about that,” I didn’t know you weren’t ready yet. When you talk about you’re working with some entities just… because people will misunderstand, you’re talking about other groups?
Natalie: Yeah, well, we’re…
Bob: Physical, physical groups, in the physical.
Natalie: Institutions that are interested in what we have that really needs some research results before they can… they feel that they can commit to using these programs and so we’re waiting for the research results. But we are, as I said, we do have a really, really good program for anybody that’s being offered at the Monroe Institute called the Event Horizon Program and it uses our sound technologies and is really… we did one program last year and just got rave reviews. I think it’s a really powerful program.
Bob: All right, you’ll give me those links and I’ll make sure that they’re below this video, this episode, okay? Well, thank you very much. This was enjoyable, hopefully informative to people, maybe a little bit comforting to them. Maybe there will be a bunch of people in spirit who will be happy that we did this.
Natalie: Yeah, thanks for inviting me, Bob. It’s always fun to do a show with you.
Bob: It was great. Well, I know we’ll have you on more often. I would have loved to do a weekly show with you. See if I can get you to do that. But, anyways, thank you everybody. I want to thank everybody. I hope everybody has happy holidays. Again, you can watch for Afterlife TV. We’ll be starting again in January full force, a whole bunch of new guests and until the next time.
Natalie: Happy holidays.
Bob: We’ve got to go now. Afterlife TV wave.
Afterlife TV is presented by Afterlife Investigator & Psychic Medium Researcher Bob Olson, who is the author of Answers about the Afterlife: A Private Investigator’s 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death.
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