The Healing Power of Meditation for the Grieving

“In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing a question we’ve gotten from so many of you over the past few months: Where has Bob been? I’ll explain exactly where I’ve been, the exciting new endeavor I’ve started, and the part I believe my spirit guides played in all this.

“Also in today’s episode, I have Jennifer Farmer in studio, which is a rare treat for me to have someone sitting in the same room. Jennifer is a psychic and medium who gave me an extraordinary reading eight years ago. We’ve been working together ever since. Jennifer shares how meditation can help us connect with our loved ones on the other side. She candidly reveals why the Orlando shooting tragedy inspired her to create a tool to help people find peace in suffering. This resulted in the special meditation program for the bereaved that she created for this purpose, which I personally love.

“We also chat about intuition, signs from spirit, and creating a new relationship with our deceased loved ones. Jennifer even shares the signs that led her to quit her safe corporate job to serve full time as an intuitive and medium. There’s a lot more here than meditation alone, so you’ll definitely want to listen.

“Finally, I want to wish you a joyful holiday. Thanks for listening to the show and, if you enjoy it, please share it with your friends. I love hearing what you think too, so please share with me what you like about it via email, Facebook or Twitter. Enjoy the episode!” ~ Bob Olson, Afterlife TV

 If you’d like to watch this video, The Healing Power of Meditation for the Grieving, visit www.afterlifetv.com/?p=2883

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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.

JOIN BOB’S NEWSLETTER: Don’t miss Bob’s latest content about life lessons and life after death on his newsletter called, Bob Olson Connect.

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Narrator: Meet Bob Olson. Bob’s the author of “Answers About the Afterlife” and the host of Afterlife TV. A private investigator who began investigating life after death in 1999, Bob now records his interviews with experts, authors, and people who’ve had extraordinary experiences so he can share it all with you. Enjoy the show.

Bob: Hey, everybody. Bob Olson here with Afterlife TV. You can find us at afterlifetv.com. This is where we talk about life after death, and answer the meaningful questions you have around that subject. I want to thank our sponsor, Best Psychic Directory. You can find them at bestpsychicdirectory.com and this is where you’ll locate over 800 psychics and mediums and tarot readers and energy healers right there in one location where you can search by state, country or even specialty so I recommend that you go to bestpsychicdirectory.com.

Now, welcome back everybody because I’m excited to be here. It’s been a little bit of a delay, right? It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a new episode, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to be back. I want to explain to you where I’ve been before we get into the main subject of today’s episode which is an interview with Jennifer Farmer, a medium and intuitive that I’ve known for I think, about eight years or more, and she has created a new meditation program. This is both on CD and mp3 that allows the listener to work through their grief by connecting with their loved ones in spirit. It’s a beautiful meditation that I have done myself. Absolutely loved it and I know that for any of you who are open to this, you’re going to really…you’re gonna love it too. Even more than that, the things that Jennifer and I talk about in this interview go far beyond just talking about the CD. Well, Jennifer has some incredible advice to offer to anybody who is dealing with a loss of a loved one. A lot of it from her personal experience. I think you’ll gain from it. I think you’ll benefit from it and I really look forward to you listening to that.

But first, let’s talk about where I’ve been and what has caused a delay in new episodes for the past six months I think, or more. It’s kind of an extraordinary story, and I think it definitely has lessons within it that are related to the subject matter of this show. So I think it’s important for not only me to explain to you, well, where I’ve been, but also, it’s important because it teaches all of us, myself included, some lessons that I think could be life changing to the right people.

As you know, I changed the format of the show. So I was kind of on a roll there and excited about it and having fun with this new format show and then something happened. May 3rd is my birthday so May 3rd came. Melisa gave me a new keyboard. It’s a really cool keyboard. It’s called a Qwerkywriter. You can find that online, qwerkywriter.com. Basically, it’s a Bluetooth-capable keyboard that looks like the keys of an old typewriter, has the round keys, the clickity clack sound, the tactile feeling of typing with these keys under your fingertips. I was really excited about it because I do a lot of writing and I’ve always loved old typewriters, and so this is sort of a combination of putting the two together without actually having to type on an old typewriter.

So she gives me this keyboard and I’m excited to just play with it. I just thought, “Oh, you know, what am I going to write so that I can just play around?” I remembered this story that I always thought would make a good novel. It was something that happens in my life. In fact, it was something that happened that changed my life so I wanted to share that with other people, but I wanted to make a fictional story out of it so that I could also teach some lessons that I learned around it.

So only knowing a few simple events that happened in the main character’s life, I sat down and used that as the basis for writing this story. Now, in the past, I had always wanted to write a novel and did all my research, took courses on it, read books about it, and that actually was a big mistake for me because the more I learned, the more overwhelmed I got. There’s so many rules that you have to follow and things that you have to keep in mind that once I would get into the outline process of outlining the chapters of my book, I basically got overwhelmed and would just stop. And I did that a few times over the course of my life and to the point where I kinda…even though I still wanted to write fiction, I kinda stopped thinking about it.

Well, come last May, now I decide just because I want to play with this keyboard that I’m going to write this fictional story, and I’m gonna not show it to anybody. And because I wasn’t going to show it to anybody, I threw out all the rules. I knew I didn’t have to worry about them. This was just for me. This was just for playing.

So I sat down, I started typing this thing out and this story started to unfold. And characters with quite a lot of depth started to come out onto the page and they were interacting with each other, and I just kept writing and I wrote for about eight hours until I was just starving and I had to eat and I had to call it quits for the day.

The next morning I woke up. I actually woke up thinking about these characters, and I was excited to learn what was going to happen if I started writing again. So I went back to the keyboard and started writing, and the same thing happened all over again. The story deepened, it went off in directions that I could never have imagined, and new characters were coming into the story as it was unfolding.

Some people might call this inspired writing. And you know, I used to do inspired writing when I was earlier in my investigations of life after death, and it was basically the idea of sitting in front of a keyboard or you could just do this with pen and paper asking a question and allowing your spirit guides to inspire you with the answer to whatever that question was. And what I would do, I would do it at a keyboard and then whenever the answer to the question was that I typed out, it would flood into my mind and I would type it out before I even had a chance to really think about it. So I knew it wasn’t my intellect that was giving me the answer. It was what I believed was inspired by spirit.

Well, I did that and that was something that I did for a while many years ago. So here I am, basically the same process. I’m just open to playing with this new keyboard and the story comes through me. It’s a very natural, organic experience and it was fun.

And so, then, the third morning I did the same thing. I woke up, I couldn’t wait to get back to the keyboard to see what was gonna happen with those characters.

Well, I wrote something at the end of the book that I’m looking at here that sorta tells about this story and it says, “As I wrote, my mind was suddenly flooded with ideas. Storylines, characters, and teachings flow out of me as if they were being poured into my head. Stories unfolded all that day and the next and the next for 28 consecutive days.”

Melissa normally encourages me not to work on the weekends. Yet on the first Saturday, she said to me, “I assume you’re gonna write this weekend so I’m gonna make plans for myself.” We both recognized that something special was happening with this book so both she and I wanted to let it flow. I wrote every day both on weekends and weekdays until the manuscript was completed. It was especially surprising to us that I wrote the book spontaneously because almost exactly one year prior I felt ready to write a new book but I wasn’t drawn toward anything in particular.

I thought, “Well, it’s almost summer. Maybe a topic will come to me during the course of the summer.” It didn’t. Then I thought, “Maybe in the fall.” It didn’t.

And then it didn’t come in the winter either. Finally, about a year later, in late spring, I got my birthday present, the keyboard. And I played with it simply for fun and out popped this book.

I’m very excited about this book. I love what it teaches. It’s one of those teaching books. If you read the “Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield or the “Way of the Peaceful Warrior’ by Dan Millman or even “The Alchemist” by Paolo Coelho, although that is more of a parable than the other two. If you read any of those books, you recognize that yes, it’s a story but it also teaches you something along the way and that’s how this book turned out. It wasn’t anything I planned obviously. It just…that’s what poured out of me.

It’s a fun story in itself, but the teachings within it are basically what I learned about life by investigating life after death, and that’s why I think it’s such an important book.

Some amazing things have taken place because of it and only a few people have read it, but everyone who’s read it had a transformational experience by reading it. It became very personal to them and very important to them. It did get shared within a few people in my community meaning my friends and some family members and some authors that I know. And it ended up in the hands of a movie producer that I know who just a few weeks ago came to me and asked if her production company could make a movie about it. So that’s exciting as well.

But it’s all part of the magic of whatever this whole book is. There’s something magical about it and there’s something magical taking place and I don’t know what it is. I just feel like I’m along for the ride. That’s what it feels like.

As a result, yeah, it took me the whole month of May to write it but since then has been the process of editing. And if anybody has ever written anything and had to edit it, they know that can be a very long process. I hired an editor who then, you know, reads through the book and says, you know, “Look, this part I didn’t understand that well. You could better explain this.” Or “Over here, there’s a character that I wanted to learn more about.”

And so, I would go back to the book based on all these comments, and fill out the book in ways to make it better understandable, more interesting and bring more life to some of the characters that needed it. This takes time and it’s a lot of back and forth. And here we are. I’m finally at the final stage where we’re giving it to somebody who has never read it before who can proofread it and proofreading just being looking for those…any misspellings, any extra spaces, you know, anywhere maybe I wrote the word the twice. You know, those crazy mistakes that once you’ve read it a couple of times, you can’t see those anymore and that’s where we are with it now.

I’m also working with the movie producer who’s worked in Los Angeles and now has an office in London, and we’re having weekly meetings and I’m working on the script for them so this is a whole new experience for me.

Anyways, it’s fun, it’s exciting. The lesson that was in it for me that I’d like to share with you because it probably might apply to your own life is that the only reason this book was born is because I took the time to play. I took the time to throw out all the rules and just allow something to come through me. I allowed myself to be inspired and I allowed my creative intuitive part of me to override the left-brain part of me that wanted to write the outline and make sure that I followed all the rules. And because of that something extraordinary, I think, happened and now I’m just along for the ride and it’s been a lot of fun.

This is a story I tell myself based on everything that I’ve learned about the afterlife. I believe that my spirit guides were trying to get this book out for a long time, but because I thought I had to do it using all the rules and writing out the outline, I never got very far. So all of a sudden, here I am playing, not intending anybody will ever read this and my spirit guides…I imagine them talking to one another going, “Here’s our opportunity. Let’s push this through him and hopefully, he’ll recognize that there’s something significant, something special going on here.” And that’s certainly what happened.

If there’s anything we can take away from this, I think it’s that we need to be more playful because I believe that by being more playful, we are allowing spirit to work through us. And when we allow spirit to work through us by being playful, we become more creative beings. And I really think that’s one of the reasons that we’re here is to create whatever that may be. It can mean a million different things from creating children to creating art to creating homes to creating businesses, but I believe that all starts from inspiration. And we get inspiration by being open and I think we become open by being playful. So use this story. Use my experience in the past six months as a catalyst to allow you to be more playful in a conscious way.

I should just finish by saying that if you’re interested in being one of the first people to find out when the book is going to be released, then if you just join our newsletter on Afterlife TV, there’ll certainly be a spot for it in the show notes but you can also just see it right there on afterlifetv.com. Join the newsletter and you will certainly be one of the first people to find out about the new book.

Hey, everybody. Bob Olson here with Afterlife TV again. You’re back and I’m happy to have you. I’ve got a special guest for you today who’s actually in studio. This happens very rarely. Hasn’t happened since we started with the new format and here we are. I’m so excited to have Jennifer Farmer. She’s actually on bestpsychicmediums.com where I write about some of my favorite readings ever, and she gave me an intuitive reading that absolutely blew my mind and was very exciting because I thought it was extraordinary and this was back eight years ago. Since then, she still does amazing intuitive work, but also does a lot of mediumship. And one of her passions is meditation, and we’re gonna have her explain that. So welcome, Jennifer. Thanks for being on Afterlife TV.

Jennifer: Thanks, Bob. It’s great being here.

Bob: Well, I’ll tell you what. I think it’s interesting that you have such a passion for meditation, and I’m curious as to why that is. If you could sort of tell us what it is about meditation that you’ve been drawn to for so long.

Jennifer: Well, first of all, I’m really high-strung. I’m a person that has a very busy mind, and it can be uncomfortable. It’s not a place of peace to be busy and in my world, I’m always looking for ways to be more connected, more at peace and years ago…oh, I’d say probably more than 15 years ago, it was suggested to me that I learn how to meditate. And I was like. “I’ll try anything to get my head to shut up.” And in that process, I started with a little kitchen timer for five minutes, and I focused on a couple of words and through that development of just focusing on the breath, relaxing the body, I began to feel more peace in my life. I began to feel more connected in my day, and I didn’t really understand meditation and what it was. It was new to me but I was willing to try anything to get my brain to calm down, and so when I saw the benefits of that where someone like me who’s high-strung, who’s got a lot of activity, very busy, hyper…when I saw the benefits of how that changed me personally, how I related to life, how I related to myself and how I could be more focused on what I wanted to do in a day, I really wanted to pass that on.

Bob: Yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, I recognize that from my own life when I’ve had incredible experiences no matter what that was. Usually, in the spiritual field of some sort when I was investigating life after death, and then I would have an experience in the course of that. I couldn’t wait to just share it with other people. You know, you find something that blows your mind and changes your life in some way, and people like you and I, I think, just tend to, “Oh, my God. If I’ve had this experience and it helped me in so many ways, then I want other people to be able to have that as well.” And so, we share it with others and that’s what you do.

And so, interesting. Now, for a long time, you were doing mediumship and meditation, right? Workshops kind of?

Jennifer: Yeah, it was an evening of meditation and messages from the spirit world, and that’s how it started out, how I really began to introduce meditation as a therapeutic tool to bring calmness, to bring clarity. And little did I know it would just sort of take off into this whole meditation expression. And I’m really happy that people are drawn to meditation, people are getting more familiar with meditation now. It becomes more like, “I need something to calm down and get centered.” Because it’s so busy. There’s so much of the right now kind of lifestyle we all have. We’re really only working at half of our potential because we’re not activating our inner self. I feel like that’s why people are looking for…to feel more fulfilled in their life and truthfully, the only way you can get more fulfilled is to go within.

Bob: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it’s interesting. I should do more of it, and one of the reasons I don’t is because I prefer guided meditation. And you know, most of my audience knows this already about me. For those who don’t know, guided meditation is simply when you listen. It can be in person or it can be using some kind of audio program where the person sort of tells me, “Do this, do that. You know, breathe in, breathe out.” Or creates a visualization for me to follow and allows me to just… This is the way I look at it. My intellect focuses on what they’re saying and it allows the other part of me, sort of maybe that intuitive part, to just do whatever it wants to do, go wherever it wants to go because my intellect, my…what most people might think of as the conscious mind, isn’t focused on other things. It’s only focused on that one guidance that the person’s giving me.

Now, I’ve listened to several of your programs for meditation, and they’re all guided meditation and I love them. But what I will say about them is some people have a voice for this, some people don’t and you really do. Because I’ve listened to so many over the years and I just listened to one yesterday that we’re gonna talk about that I think is extra special but wow. It’s like you were made for this. You know, I always thought that about Brian Weiss too. Brian has a great voice for bringing people into meditation and you have this really soothing, calming voice when you’re doing these, and did you know that about yourself?

Jennifer: I had no idea. All I know is that the things that I heard people complain about like, “I can’t do it. I don’t know how to do it.” I said “Well, let me help you.” Right? “So let me just walk you through a couple of techniques and we’ll do it.” And it wasn’t until I got into the studio and I sat in front of the mic. I was like, “Wow, what happened? Where did that voice come from?” It wasn’t something that I knew or it was familiar that I had, and there’s a shift that happened in my voice. It’s almost a level of a spiritual kind of movement that happened within me when I got in front of the mic and I was like “Wow, that’s…okay, I’m not a singer but I can sure talk my way through it.”

Bob: Yeah, I believe in the vibration of our voices have a special power within themselves. Sound is really, really powerful in our lives. More than I think a lot of people recognize, but the sound of a voice, it just has its own signature and it’s kind of a soul signature. And what you’re doing, especially in a program like a guided meditation, is you’re using the vibration of your own voice to help people get into the state that is intended with these, a meditative state and you know, look, for people who are kinda intimidated by that word, meditation, it’s just a relaxed state. It’s a relaxed state of mind. I tried your latest CD or mp3. However, you people want to buy it and I tried it yesterday and oh, my goodness. I just went into this…well, you saw me. I came out. I was a little bit of a zombie for a while, right?

Jennifer: Yes, I was like “Wow. What’s up, Bob?” It’s like you’d had a Valium and you didn’t even know that’s what you had.

Bob: That’s right. So you’re kinda selling a digital Valium is what we’re doing here.

Jennifer: Right.

Bob: Yeah.

Jennifer: That’s exactly right.

Bob: I’m not sure that’s legal, but no. It was beautiful. It was just really calming, wonderful and I attribute a lot of it to one, the sound of your voice, the vibration that comes from it. Also, you know, you really carefully plan out what it is that you say and how you say it and where you lead people in these. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jennifer: Well, my goal really is in each meditation that I do is to really take people on a journey and every life circumstance…within us, we have an inner journey of healing that we can go into to let our soul lead us to a place of peace. And in this particular one…and I actually…this came to me in June. Whenever we experience such terrible trauma with the Orlando shootings and a couple of weeks after that we had the Dallas shootings. I was really overwhelmed by the suffering that I was feeling personally in my neighborhood. I live in Florida and it was something that you could tell everybody was in a state of grief.

And grief for us as a human race, grief as us as we’ve lost people, grief for humanity in that way, and I was really stricken with the desire to serve in some way. I wanted to do something positive and allow…take my negative energy or my pain about that and really bring it into a way to help. Others find peace in the suffering that we’re all walking through in the state of humanity, and the vision for this particular track was to get out of the storm of grief and you know, walk into the light of a rainbow and to let the…find a way to let grief raise up out of us so that we can feel connected to life in a better and more connected way.

Bob: And connect with the other side. I’ve heard it said in so many beautiful ways. The higher side of life and that’s one of the things you allow people to do in this. I just backtracked a little bit. You live in Florida?

Jennifer: Yes.

Bob: You mentioned the Dallas shooting.

Jennifer: Yes.

Bob: You grew up in Texas.

Jennifer: I am a Fort Worth girl.

Bob: Yeah, so here you had boom, boom, two things. You know, this is the way the universe works in my mind. Two things happen. It hits you, it hits home for you in a way that maybe it wouldn’t have happened if it happened in two other locations. It does this…and not that this is all about you. Those shootings obviously not. It has something for everybody and for you, you were able to turn this negative thing into something positive by being inspired to create this particular…I’ll call it a CD right now.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Bob: But mp3 and this audio and what is the name of it? What’s the title of it?

Jennifer: It’s “Healing Grief Meditation Practice.”

Bob: “Healing Grief Meditation Practice.” Walk us through it a little bit. There’s three tracks, correct?

Jennifer: There’s an introduction track that really introduces the idea that we’re gonna explore a world beyond what we can see.

Bob: Wonderful.

Jennifer: And to really help people know that there’s nothing to be afraid of. So I really take a little time. I’m talking about the power of the spirit world, but I wanted to mention one little thing about kind of the building of this particular track is I had a gallery that was planned where I’m gonna give messages to the spirit world at the end of June, and I was sort of preparing for that through the grief and I was like, “I am overwhelmed. I want to make sure I’m in a good place to prepare for this gallery.”

And the day before that, I had entered into a kind of a meditation state myself and, oddly enough, I felt the presence of the young men and women that had passed in Orlando and, of course, I was panicked. I was like, “Oh, my God. If they come tomorrow at that gallery, I’m gonna burst out in tears. I won’t be able to contain myself.”

And it was like they were reaching out to me to let me know that they were there and that it was okay. And I didn’t really know where that was going to take me, but it’s like I felt a calling from the other side from the spirit world to communicate that in some way that “There’s still a way to reach us.” Because a lot of people did not get to say goodbye. There was no closure. There was no last phone calls.

Bob: Right.

Jennifer: It was, you know, you get the phone call and now the person who you were looking forward to having breakfast with the next morning, that’s now disappeared.

And so, track one really talks a little bit about the spirit world, about the death of a loved one is so profoundly painful and for many people, it is a life shift. There’s all these questions that begin to happen meaning, “Who am I now? How do I relate to my life? Will I get over it?” And in that thunderstorm of pain, which is really what grief is, there is a helping hand from beyond that wants to help us, that we are not alone, that they want to help us…our loved ones, our spirit friends, they want to help us through that grief just as like as if we passed today, we’d want to help our people on this side. We would want to find a way to reach them to let them know the things that we love ’em and that we have not forgotten them.

Everybody’s like, “Well, do they want to talk to me?” I’m like, “Of course they do. If you’re dead, you want to talk to them too because you don’t want to see your loved ones in pain.” And so, in that track one, I talk a little bit about the safety. It’s okay to explore that.

Track two is really for beginners that are going through just grief in general meaning an introduction to what it feels like to enter into an altered state where you can open up to the spirit realm. It’s very calm. It’s very relaxing. It’s very much like what you said. It’s in a place where it’s safe to explore what’s within you but it is connected to beyond you. Right?

Bob: Yeah.

Jennifer: And that’s really a track to introduce the concept, to really give you a chance to explore healing grief in a general way. And then track three is where we actually gonna invite the spirit world and our loved ones and they’re in spirit to join us in that mind practice and give them a chance to work with us, work on our consciousness, work in our energy to let us know that they are with us and that we’re gonna heal together.

Bob: Right, yeah, yeah. And I went through that experience. It’s beautiful, it’s profound, it’s sacred, a very moving experience. And one of the reasons I was so excited of you having to come here. I said, “Look, we’ve got to talk about this new audio program to help people through their grief using meditation on the program because, you know, so many people who listen to Afterlife TV have lost someone, and they’re going through this deep pain and suffering because they’re feeling the loss.”

And you know, I always say about grief what you know, what I know, the spirit world exists. We know it. It’s a knowing for us. We’ve had so many experiences. We’ve seen so much evidence. I mean, you literally have talked with people in spirit but when we lose someone, we still miss their physical presence.

Jennifer: Every day.

Bob: We still miss being able to hug them. We miss their companionship. There’s nothing we can do about that, but thousands and thousands of people who have been a part of my audience in one way or another have let me know that understanding and learning and getting from a place of belief to knowing that there is an afterlife still brings them a sense of comfort and peace that they did not have before. If we don’t know that they exist, if we don’t know that they’re okay, if we’re wondering are they anywhere and if they are, are they still suffering, you know, all those questions that people have…when you take that all away, it’s much easier to deal with the loss of their companionship and their presence because you don’t have all that other stuff.

Jennifer: Yes, the regret for not being good enough or not getting to say goodbye, the feelings that you could’ve done something different or maybe, you know, you didn’t…maybe you had an argument with your loved one before they passed. That in itself, the invisible layer of grief that nobody wants to talk about. We all want to pretend it’s not there because we don’t want to drag on…you know, we want to be positive people, but the truth is it is the elephant in the room. Grief is the element in the room. It’s how do I live knowing that my loved one’s on the other side and how do I get comfortable with that?

Bob: Yeah.

Jennifer: How do I relate to that? And so this particular CD, the way I wrote this was not just for us to feel the release of guilt and grief and regret and emptiness that comes from a sense of loss. I call it…it’s just a change in relationship.

Bob: Right.

Jennifer: So and I’m one of those people that, you know, my father passed on unexpectedly and we had somewhat of an argument before he passed. And so for me, it took me 12 years to figure out how to feel loved and feel enough in this world without having that scar of regret on my heart that, “Did he know I loved him?” Because of that.

And so, through this practice, there’s an introduction to open yourself up to release, to have a way to naturally release your grief, your regret, your pain, your suffering. And then allow the power of the spirit world to kind of touch in your consciousness and into the greatness that we all are. It’s like the power that runs, you know, an ocean. It’s the power that moves the clouds. We can’t always articulate what that is, but what we know is there’s an energy of force that is here to support us. And in this meditation, I give you a chance to kind of sit in that.

And then through that raising of our awareness of entering to a field of the unknown, we invite the presence of our spirit friends and our loved ones to be with us, and it gives you a chance to feel how that would sit on your consciousness and give them a chance to interact with us. And you know, it’s not always immediate. And I know, for me, when I practiced it, some of the things that I experienced in there wasn’t…it wasn’t anything that hit me until the next morning.

And I realized that the grief I had been carrying was so deep within me I didn’t even know it was there. I was like, “Wow. It’s like somebody took a load off my heart that…” I’d gotten so used to it that it become a part of who I was. And so, when I left it sort of in the rainbow, right?

Bob: Right.

Jennifer: And the next morning it’s like I had a new sense of self that was restored in that process. So my hope is that people will…that are really struggling in their life and there was a grief and there’s nothing more painful than losing a loved one. You know, you can step on my toe and pull my hair and I can get over that, but the feeling of loss sometimes can be overwhelming in such a way that we’re not effective or we’re not productive and we can’t be who we were created to be because it sort of stands in the way of us feeling safe to move forward.

Bob: Right. I love it when I see guests that I’ve had on the show who have created something like you’ve created this and then used it themselves. It’s a great benefit. You know, there’s a lot of people who create things and then they just hope people will buy them. This is something that you actually created, used it on your own, saw the benefits and now are looking forward to sharing it with other people. I am too. How can people get this? It’s in two formats, is it?

Jennifer: Right. So right now, I just loaded it this week. Celebrate. I just loaded it on my website. You can get the digital download today and then the CD, you can order the CD or the digital download and you can have it shipped right to your house.

Bob: Oh, that’s beautiful and by the time this actually airs, it’ll all be out there for you. Where can they go to find out, you know, more about it and where can they get it?

Jennifer: jenniferfarmer.com.

Bob: Pretty easy.

Jennifer: Yes. And it’s got the beautiful butterfly on it, you know, which is such a symbol of transformation and such a powerful visualization of what we can be from a painful place is that we can learn to spread our wings. But we have to let go of the guilt and the pain that we hold that really keeps us from doing that so…

Bob: Do you mind sharing that story that you shared with me this morning about the butterflies and why they’re so powerful for you?

Jennifer: Oh, yeah. So I was really scared to kind of share my gifts with the world, and I knew that I was really pushed to do it. And I cried for a month really because I knew I needed to make the change but I was so afraid, and every day when I would come home from my regular corporate job, there would be like a swarm of butterflies at my front door. And I go, “Wow, that’s interesting.” And through that time, it was about 30 to 45 days, literally…and this was like almost in the winter time so there’s not really a place for butterflies there, right? So swarms of butterflies would greet me at the door. It’s kind of like, “Wow.” There was a magnetic force of love saying, “Hey, hey. Are you listening? Are you paying attention?”

And so, and then after I made the shift, look…they went on to somebody else’s front door. I was like, “Where’s my butterflies? They haven’t showed up in a while.” And so, this morning it was awesome. A butterfly that’s actually on the cover of this CD was on the front porch step this morning.

Bob: This morning.

Jennifer: It was remarkable. And for me, that’s a sign from spirit. I always believe that even if you’re not a believer into the spirit world, they will leave us signs and messages to say, “Hello. Do you know we’re here?” And it’s really are you open to explore the power of what’s beyond us. It’s wanting to help us lead happier, fulfilling lives.

Bob: Yeah, yeah. Well, I was the first person to see that butterfly and I thought I don’t… Obviously, we have butterflies around, but there’s this particular one that I love which is absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know what it’s called but it’s kind of black with this iridescent blue in it and absolutely gorgeous and he’s flying around the front porch and Jennifer’s here and I know her symbol is the butterfly. You can’t go to her website and not know that. So I called you guys in, you and Melissa.

Jennifer: It’s great. I was like, I wanted to jump up and down like, “Wow. Oh, my God. They’re at the front door again. This is a good sign.”

Bob: That’s right. I was pretty excited about it too. That’s great. All I want to do is I just want to add…so you are a medium.

Jennifer: Yep.

Bob: You give mediumship readings. The article that I wrote was about a psychic or an intuitive reading, whatever you want to call it. People know what a mediumship reading is. You communicate with people in spirit. It’s great. I think it’s obviously…everybody knows I think that’s very valuable. I don’t talk that much about psychic or intuitive readings. Yours was very special because you sort of ran me through different categories in my life and looked into those categories. I don’t know. You probably have a better word for it. Of my life and sort of informed me with them and I’ll just say and I said it to you this morning, Jennifer, but I’ll say it to the audience. One of the things I love about intuitive readings is that not that I listen to what psychics tell me I need to be doing or anything else. I am just confirming what my own inner wisdom is already telling me.

So when I feel like, “I’m not sure what my intuition is telling me. It’s hard for me to tell the difference between what’s in my mind, my intellect or what’s intuitive.” Sometimes when I get to that place, I love a psychic or an intuitive reading. And then, when I get the reading and the psychic is telling me things that I now recognize and they resonate as true for me because I was thinking the same thing but I didn’t trust myself. That to me is the power of having one of these readings. Tell us a little bit about an intuitive reading that you give because I thought it was extra special.

Jennifer: Well, first of all, I’m really glad that you’re open to intuitive readings because they can be very helpful in rediscovering yourself after the passing of a loved one because you have to change your identity. There’s so many questions about that and there’s such an…because everything is unfamiliar in change, right? It’s supposed to be unfamiliar because it’s new and it’s usually uncomfortable because you haven’t found an anchor yet.

Intuitive readings give three things. They give a new perspective on things, they give an insight of potential of where things can go and then there’s that validating factor. And if you’re gonna get an intuitive reading, you’re gonna want to really have that connection with that person. It’s a little bit different than a mediumship because mediumship is all about the connection with the loved one for the evidence that they are with you there. But an intuitive reading is all about you. It’s all about where you’re at, about where you’ve been and where you’re going and what the outlook is for that can be communicated spiritually. We all have a spiritual aura. Mentally, where we are in our mind. Emotionally, career, relationships, all of that has an energetic force. And with an intuitive reading, you should be able to walk away with some sort of validation, new perspective and potentially something you haven’t considered that is a milestone or a checking point for yourself, and I really agree with you. Psychic readings are not meant to, you know, predict the future but what they do offer is potential outcomes based on the energy patterns that that particular person is seeing, you know.

Everybody always laughs. You’re gonna go get the lottery numbers or play the horse track? Well, occasionally I do, but that’s not the purpose of an intuitive reading. If you’re using them the way they are meant to be, you should use that as a guidance for yourself. Not necessarily a rulebook for your next step forward.

Bob: Yeah, and I love to think of the metaphor of…it’s like a snapshot through the window, your windshield of your vehicle that is your body and it’s a snapshot in time, in that moment in time. Now, you take a left turn or a right turn which is your free will making those choices. Now it’s a different picture, right?

Jennifer: Correct.

Bob: So you know, it can change the moment. I’ve seen this with people. They’ll get an intuitive reading and something that was said in that reading changed the way they thought, changed their choices. And the moment they hung up, the prediction was different because they changed.

Jennifer: That’s correct.

Bob: And which is beautiful. And as long as we all understand that a prediction is not something that’s set in stone and that’s the way it’s going to go. It’s a snapshot in time.

Beautiful. Now, one of the things you did…and again, I want to say it was eight years ago or something but it was kinda new at that time. I think more people have adopted the same sort of technique nowadays, but for me it was new and I had already had hundreds of readings by that time but you do the intuitive reading but if somebody in spirit shows up and they just kinda want to add to something that you said, you allow them to do that.

Jennifer: Oh, yeah.

Bob: I thought that was…do you still do that?

Jennifer: Oh, yeah. So because it’s a different field of perspective, and because there’s something coming from a different source other than what that person who’s sitting in front of me or I’m talking to…what I’m reading from them on a psychic level or an intuitive level…remember, psychic is just a knowing or a feeling without logic.

Bob: Interesting. I like that.

Jennifer: It’s not necessarily just a crystal ball going out there. It’s like reading a book. Everybody’s got a book within them, somewhat of a story to tell, and I just naturally have an ability to do that but with the spirit world, they’re all about their story. They’re all about their story in the afterlife.

And I want to mention one thing about the “Healing Grief” CD is what can be really important in the healing with the spirit world. The purpose with that is to help you understand and help me understand that we can create a new understanding and a new relationship with that loved one in the spirit world. And I know that, you know, in my family, my father whom I am so, so connected to today, he was instrumental in where I’m at today and that’s because he’s in the spirit world.

It was because of his passing that really opened the door for him to be a better father, a better supporter, a better guide because I’ve seen moments when he’s in my life. He’s not all the time in my life, but I know that there are milestones, that there’s without a doubt my father is a part of my life. And everybody has those connections, and opening up to the spirit world to allow them help us grieve and heal. This particular track opens that doorway to a pathway of peace but be aware. Your loved ones are not suffering in the same way so they’ll be more supportive in a way that maybe they weren’t even on this side.

Bob: Yeah. My father’s come through many times through mediums and saying to me…because I know he’s helped me through this whole journey. I don’t think I’d be doing what I did today if not for him not just because he was the catalyst for me wondering about the afterlife, but he’s helped me on the other side. And he has specifically said through mediums, “I am able to help you in ways now that I never was when I was alive in the physical form.”

And this is true for every one of you who are listening out there. Your loved ones in spirit are doing the same thing. Don’t put them in a box as they’re the same person that they were when they were alive in physical. Now, they’re alive in spirit, and they’ve changed a little bit. They can see a bigger picture and they have great automatic…what’s the word for it? You know…

Jennifer: There’s an intelligence to them that wasn’t capable or we weren’t attuned to here.

Bob: Yes, and they just…automatically, it’s like a knee-jerk reaction toward love and forgiveness and understanding.

Jennifer: So true.

Bob: And if you think of them in that way, then you can better understand why they’re helping you. Some people might be like, “No, no. He would never do that for me.” No, he would.

Jennifer: Yes, they would. I have an uncle that he and I didn’t get along and so…because I blamed him so much for my dad’s problems and this is pivotal. I’d go to these groups and if he showed up, I was like, “Oh, my God. If he shows up one more time…” I couldn’t stand this guy because I had pain in my heart. What I know now is that my dad is happy because him and his brother are connected. And they were together but he meant to say he was sorry to me, you know, for those things and it took me a while to open up to receive that because I wanted to hold that perception of him as being the bad guy in my mind because it gave me a way to connect to the grief.

And again, grief helps us stay connected to our loved ones but it’s not the healthy kind of connection. It is, you know, me staying mad at him for years helped me stay tied to my dad in somewhat of a healthy…so I got tied into that old perspective of who they were and if I just…you know, I wasn’t ready to forgive until I was ready to forgive.

Bob: That’s right.

Jennifer: You know, and I wasn’t willing to let my idea of them or my judgment of them grow until I was willing to grow and allow that new opportunity for them to come in my life.

And so, I can understand when people get stuck in their grief because of a certain situation or a personality trait that they were always that way, and now what happens if I let that go? What happens if I stop being mad at my dad? What happens if I stop feeling guilty? Will I forget him? You know, and my answer is no. What it does is it opens the doorway. It’s like they’re knocking at the door and we finally open up and say, “Okay, now you can come in.” Right?

And that’s part of the whole process in healing grief is we’ve got to go through it, and unfortunately, it’s different for everybody. Some people, they have grief and it’s better in three days. Some people have it so bad that it lasts, you know, 12 years and some people have it so bad they want to die and I know that I’m one of those people. If somebody had told me this when I was a kid, “Hey, did you know when your family member dies that you can still communicate with them and you haven’t lost them? They’ve just gone before you.” If somebody had told me that a long time ago, I might have not been in pain as long as I had and it’s just kind of the time. We see, you know, the spirit world when we’re kids but we’re not supposed to talk about that. You’re like, “Oh, you’ve lost your mind.” You feel crazy.

And I know somebody’s with me but then you, of course, sort of second guessing it and I’m saying, “Stop second guessing it and say hello.” You know, one of the most common ways that our loved ones have stepped near us is we may say things that our loved ones would’ve said that we wouldn’t have ever said. And when you hear yourself like say what your mom said, you just go, “Oh, hey mom. That’s you. I know you’ve just stepped into my circle, and I’m glad you’re here. Hello and I love you.”

Bob: That’s beautiful.

Jennifer: Right? And so, everybody’s always looking for that physical way. Yeah, Jennifer. You know, I’m talking to the spirit world and I’ve released my grief, but how do I know they’re there? And it is subtle. It’s not the physical. You can’t hug ’em the same way but make no mistake. Their energy is present through songs and music, through leaving different messages. You feel them. You know, for me, I always feel them when I’m in a quiet space when I’m not distracted by the outside world and it can be just simply sitting at my computer and I feel somebody sort of step in, you know, next to me.

So with the track, I like to say, “People, give it a chance.” You know, some of you may have a great like, “Wow. Oh, my God. I saw my grandmother and that was her, and thank you and now I’m at peace.” But some of us that…the way that our loved ones connect to us going forward maybe a little different but it’s very special and unique for everyone. It could be you don’t feel or sense anything for a week or two and if it doesn’t, don’t give up because if you’re open, they want to come in.

Bob: Well, I always say that I went through these three stages. I went through from skepticism to believing to knowing. And I talk about knowing as that sacred understanding. It’s like you know something at like a cellular or a soul level to the point where you know it’s true. It’s true for you. You don’t care if it’s true for anyone else. You don’t even care if anybody else believes you because it’s yours.

Jennifer: Correct.

Bob: I said this a couple of shows ago and people really picked up on it which I loved is that knowing is a process and not an event. And you used the word process a few minutes ago and so be patient with yourself. If you’re not there yet, that’s okay. You’ll get there. You’re listening to this show for a reason. You’re reading the books you’re reading for a reason. You’re doing all the things that you’re doing for a reason. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process. It’s not an event, and so just be patient with yourself and allow yourself to be wherever you’re at because…luckily, I was with myself. Otherwise, I would’ve beaten myself up a million times. I was very stubborn. I was very skeptical. You know, I was a pain in the butt so…

Jennifer: I think they call that hardheaded.

Bob: Yeah, hardheaded. There’s the word I was looking for.

Jennifer: Hardheaded. You know, and just to kind of piggyback on that. Remember, it’s kinda like leaving a voicemail. You know, everybody talks to people today and how many times you actually…somebody pick up a phone. You actually end up leaving a voicemail so what do you gotta do? You gotta wait for them to call you back. And so this meditation is somewhat like a prayer into the spirit world but also, “I’m leaving a voicemail. I’m leaving a voicemail and I’m waiting for that callback.” And so sometimes they pick up during the call and sometimes you have to wait for them to call you back and sometimes you have to call ’em back.

Bob: Well, that’s right, you know, and people can listen to this particular program and the digital program that you created. And there’s a point where you open them up to receiving a message from their loved one in spirit. Look, if you don’t get it the first time…you might get it on the third time or the fifth time. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re working your way towards that and when you have…what I love about it…I hope I can keep the one that you gave me.

Jennifer: Yes.

Bob: I put you on the spot here on the air.

Jennifer: Yes, of course, you can.

Bob: Because it’s one of those things that you can just go back to whenever you feel like it. One, for me, it just calms me. I love that but in that calm state, I’m more open to receiving those messages and where I just don’t get them the way you get them, the way other mediums get them. I don’t get them in my day to day life. It would require something like that, but I also know it’s not gonna happen every time. My mind is very busy and it’s hard for me to quiet it. If I just am able to quiet it, fantastic. If one of those days I also receive a message or have some kind of experience while I’m doing it, wow. That’s just a gift that I’ll never forget, and I remember every single one that I’ve had.

So one last thing. So we’re just going to say, people, jenniferfarmer.com. All the links are gonna be in the show notes. A link about the article that I wrote about my reading with you eight some odd years ago will be down there as well. Anything else you want to tell people about?

Jennifer: You know, my hope is that if you have a friend that’s grieving and you don’t know what to say because, you know, some people don’t know how to handle people’s pain when they seem like…what do you say to somebody who’s lost a loved one or a child or you know, somebody committed suicide and you’re like, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to bring up anything bad.” You know, this is a tool that if you want to give ’em something that maybe they use now or later, it’s something that you can give as a gift.

That, “Hey, you know, be open. Your loved ones are with you.” And it might just be that comment because we want to be supported on this side, but remember, we are not alone in being supported. We have a world beyond our physical eye that is waiting to help and hold our hand and guide us through how to learn how to live again on this side with them in spirit.

Bob: Oh, that’s beautiful. Beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Thank you so much, Bob. I appreciate it.

Bob: It’s been a pleasure.

Jennifer: All right.

Bob: All right, bye.

Well, that does it for another Afterlife TV episode. Again, you can find us at afterlifetv.com. Let’s thank our sponsors, Best Psychic Directory where they list over 800 psychics and mediums who have been carefully vetted right there at bestpsychicdirectory.com. And don’t forget that if you want to be notified about the release of my new book that I wrote and talked about at the beginning of the show, be sure to sign up for the Afterlife TV newsletter, and you’ll be one of the first to find out when that book is coming out and how you can get a hold of it, and you can find that in the show notes where you can sign up for the newsletter. Anywhere on Afterlife TV, you’ll see it.

Also, special thanks to Jennifer Farmer for joining us. Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve done an interview here and honestly, I really enjoyed it so I know that I’ll be doing more. I’ve already done…let’s see. At least one and I have one scheduled. Does that mean I’m gonna keep doing them? I don’t know. I think I’m gonna be switching back and forth because it’s fun to have the variety, and I like the interaction with other people. I also like to share some very special people with you, people that I think are extraordinary and you ought to know more about.

Certainly get yourself a copy of Jennifer Farmer’s CD or mp3 on healing grief. It’s the “Healing Grief Meditation” that we talked about. I did it myself. I really enjoyed it and I’m not just saying that. I love guided meditation. That’s what it is and I came out from my office after having done that and I was just in sort of an altered state myself. I was very, very relaxed, very calm and I had some cool experiences while doing it.

Also, you can get an intuitive or mediumship reading with Jennifer Farmer. If you want to read about the reading that I had with Jennifer, it was an intuitive reading and it was extraordinary, and I think you should read about it so you can see what it might be like for you.

Again, I had an intuitive reading. Not a mediumship reading but if that’s something you’re interested in, certainly check that out. And again, the link to that article that I wrote about my reading will be in the show notes.

So finally, I want to leave you with one thought that we sort of talked about at the beginning of the show which is just be more playful. I think I talked about it in another episode last spring. It’s an important message that the great thing about being playful in your life is that not only is it good for your health, it’s really good for your health. It’s been shown to boost your immune system, reduce stress levels. It’s also great for inspiration, to help you be more creative. That’s what it did for me, and that’s what the lesson was for me with this last book so I highly recommend it.

The other thing about being playful, especially at this time of year, is that it’s great for relationships, right? Sometimes we just sit around the table and we talk, talk, talk, and sometimes that leads into sort of heavy conversation that you really don’t want to be having when it’s supposed to be a joyful time of the year. And one of the best things we can do is just play. Does that mean pull out the old boxes of games, pull out a deck of cards, just play with the kids that are around? That certainly does it for me. I love to play with the kids. They make me feel younger because I’m feeding off of their youth, and we all laugh and giggle and have a good time so that’s what I recommend for you.

Finally, just enjoy the holidays. If I’m not back…I’m hoping that I will, but it is a very busy time and I realized it’s already pretty late into the month. So if I don’t get back with another show, let me just say happy holidays to you. I wish you joy and blessings for Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s Eve.

Man: That’s all for another fantastic Afterlife TV episode. Bob couldn’t be happier. If you enjoyed this episode as much as Bob, please leave a comment on afterlifetv.com, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. And don’t forget to check out Bob’s book, “Answers About the Afterlife.” Thanks for watching Afterlife TV.

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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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