What a Life Review Taught Him About Forgiveness! With Stephen Weber

Stephen Weber 0:00

To the rest of the world, for the next month, I was sitting in my hospital bed. But to myself, I was in this completely different place. I was a zero on the spirituality scale prior to this. I was sailing through the air, and I was going through the clouds. I thought that this was it. It was a place of transition from physical life to go to spiritual life. I feel like I lived longer in that place than I lived in my physical life. Now I could sense and I could feel the energy in everybody and everything-the people, the plants, the planets, the rocks, the universe. But there was a portion of that energy that we all share. God and we are one. All of us together make up the consciousness of the creation. The worst experiences of my life were the things that brought me the most bliss in my life review. I was looking into my higher self. Only part of you has a physical incarnation, and part of you is always in spirit, those in spirit are always trying to connect with us, especially right after the passing.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:06

You said that you gained some spiritual gifts after this experience, and that you were able to see the future.

Stephen Weber 1:14

I could tell you what is going to be in the distant future. It is good news, and the transition is going to be very tough for us, but there's also something else that's very important.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:30

Hey, I have a favour to ask you. If you value these conversations, then please subscribe to my channel. Stephen Weber, welcome to the Wisdom From North Show.

Stephen Weber 1:41

Well, it's such an honour to be here, and I just appreciate so much you spending time to chat with me.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:48

I'm excited to really really dive deep into your near death experience today because that is a powerful one, and you've even written books about it, the place between here and there, and lessons learned between here and there, and it's funny because you're saying that you're the last person who should experience a mystical experience like this-being a computer guy, being a Harley rider, and a sceptic. But yet, it did happen, and we'll dive deeper into the story today. But before we start, I'd love to hear what is captivating you the most right now, globally, cosmically, and in your own life?

Stephen Weber 2:27

Well, we live in a very challenging world right now, and I feel that people are moving more towards spiritual pursuits. As you mentioned in your introduction, I was a zero on the spirituality scale prior to this, and I've learned so much, and I've come a long way. And as much as the world is challenged today, I believe there's plenty of bright spots, and connecting with spirit is one of those, both inward, the divine, which we all share, and the outward.

Jannecke Øinæs 2:56

Yeah, and your story has so many components to it. Actually, how different experiences in your now life, your 3d life, is connected to what happened on the other side. So I'll just let you tell what happened in 2015 in April. You had a new Harley. It was a quiet time on the road, but yet something devastating happened.

Stephen Weber 3:21

Yes, I was. I had my brand new Harley Davidson. I've ridden Harley Davidsons all my life, but this was a little different. It was a quiet Harley Davidson. All of mine were very loud and such, and I loved it. It had nice music on it. It was just a pleasure to ride. It was like riding a couch down Main Street. It really was. I really did enjoy it for the short time that I had it, and I went out to the Hamptons for some barbecue, and it was a regular day. It was a weekend, light traffic. It wasn't summer yet, so we didn't have the summer craziness that goes on in the Hamptons. That's out east on Long Island in New York, and and I was stuck in traffic. I was on my way home, and people were sitting in traffic, and for seemed like an hour. And I was holding my Harley Davidson, and I just wanted to get out of there. And I saw that people were going on the shoulder of the road to go up ahead and make a right-hand turn to get off this road and find like some alternate route. After watching several people do that, that's what I did. I pulled my bike over to the side of the road, rode on the shoulder, got to the intersection, and as soon as I got to the intersection, a gentleman driving a SUV made a left-hand turn and T-boned me right on the side of my Harley Davidson, and I had no idea what happened to me. The next thing, as I remember, is I was lying on the road and I was looking up, and there were emergency vehicles all around me, flashing lights, and I see that some time must have passed because that the. Everything around me, the lights-it was dim out, and and I could tell that perhaps I was out for a while, and and I wanted to get up so badly, and I went to get up like when I was a kid driving dirt bikes all my life. You know, we had a saying: if you go down, get up right away, because if you don't, you'll stay down, and that's what I tried to do. And the emergency workers were trying to convince me to stay down, you know, kind of like the movie Rocky, stay down. But I wasn't going to listen to it, and so I tried to get up, and oh, my leg! I could feel like the skin was still there, but the leg was disconnected. The bone was broken, and I felt like the the sharp edges of the bone sticking into my muscle. And I just, I just, I guess I passed out again. And the next thing is, I realised, is I was sailing through the air, and I was going through the clouds. You know what what someone would think when they're going through the clouds. I thought that this was it, but then all of a sudden I started to come out of the clouds, and then I looked down and I saw a big circle with an H on it, and I realised that I was in a helicopter and I was landing at Stony Brook Hospital. That's one of the premier trauma centres in the United States. I went to college there. My mother went to college there. My my daughter went to college there. We're all graduates, and it's a medical university with top notch care. And I remember being pulled into the emergency room, and I remember looking around, and everything looked surreal to me. It felt like I was going into a daze, and like I knew, like after this point, my life was not going to be the same. This is this. There was no getting up and walking away from this. This was going to be life changing, and I had to go through several very serious surgeries. I had a broken spine. They had to put two rods and and I don't know, like 20 screws in my back. They had to reconstruct my hip. It wasn't the hip joint, but it was the bone leading up to the hip. I had a broken arm. I could go on and on.

When my physician, my general practitioner, reviewed the hospital report, he told me it sounds more like an autopsy report as opposed to a medical report. The the injuries were that severe, but perhaps the most life threatening was internal injuries, and they had to give me several surgeries over the next few days to find out what was wrong. And finally, I was stabilised, and to the rest of the world, for the next month. I was sitting in my hospital bed, but to myself, in my own spirit, in my own mind, I was in this completely different place-a place that I've come to call the place between here and there. You know, it was kind of like a purgatory-that-that's what Catholics would call it, and it's a-it's not like a place of punishment, though. It's sent like an in-between place to me. Not quite past, but certainly not here. And I believe now it was a place of transition from going to physical life to go to spiritual life to take those moments to make sense of your life and to prepare you for passing into spirit, and and at first I didn't know anything was very any different from my regular life, but some things I did notice right away. One thing is I noticed is that time wasn't like it was here. Like time, you have appointments in the future. The sun rises and sets. You can boil water. You know there are different things. There are certain things that happen that give you the notion of time passing. It wasn't like that there. What really gave you the notice of time passing was that your path of learning-it was a place of learning, and so you could tell what you were thinking before your learning, and then you could see the path by which your awareness was raised, and then where you are now, and that gave you the idea of time passing. But to say time passing, it really isn't the same thing. Is like I had forever in that place. In fact, I feel like I lived more in that place and longer in that place than I lived in my physical life. Although my body was in a coma for a month, in that other place it felt like I lived decades and years. I had so many experiences, and and one of the first things that I learned is I learned about spirit, how to sense spirit in everybody and everything. And it's not like I was sat down at a table and someone said, "Hey, Stevie, this is chapter one. Start reading here. It wasn't like that. What I was given was experience. Experiences, and I had to figure it out for myself. And at first, I didn't know what was going on. And what I was I was presented with is I saw a fellow who I knew from work. He was somebody who I hadn't seen in 20 years. He was just a client of mine. I was a computer guy. He was a client of mine for a short period of time, and I met this fellow, and he was a he was from Haiti, and he kind of like spoke like a French, English, and a Creole language. And when he didn't know the word, he would kind of act it out. You know, I mean, people in Europe may may experience this when someone really doesn't know the language, and they're travelling and they're trying to communicate they kind of act it out and that's what he would do and he was very funny guy and I really enjoyed his company and I saw him but looked like he didn't age a moment and I said to him hey aren't you so and so and he said yeah Steve it's so good to see you and and I just small talk, and that was what was it. But then I saw him again, and he looked like he aged 20 years. And at first I didn't recognise him, but then I recognised him, and I said, "Hey, aren't you so and so? And he said, "Yeah. How'd you know? I said, "Well, you look, you know, you look like you're having a bad day, and the game was on. He started to appear to me over a period of time in different. Sometimes he was a kid. Sometimes he was a man.

Sometimes he was a woman. Sometimes he was European. Other times he was an African or an Asian person, and I had to guess who he was. And at first, I relied on his mannerisms. He was so animated, you know. And I would see him, and I would say, "Hey, aren't you so and so? And he'd say, "Yeah, you got me. But then, over a period of time, I start to sense something else. I start to sense his energy, and and we all know that. Like sometimes we'll meet somebody, we'll say, "Oh, they got really good energy, or sometimes, "Ooh, keep away from them. You know, you get these feelings. Like people have this internal energy, and I start to feel his energy. And so more and more, as I didn't rely upon his mannerisms. I relied upon feeling his energy, and then eventually, over a period of time, is that I really didn't even have to see him. I could just sense when he was near me because I would feel his energy, and that was a such a changing moment for me because then I looked around and all of a sudden everything I knew took on a whole new meaning because now I could sense and I could feel the energy in everybody and everything not just the people but the plants, the planets, the rocks, the universe. Everything had an energy, and everything had an energy that was unique to itself, but there was a portion of that energy that we all shared. And what I began to understand in my own mind, in my own experience, that perhaps all of us together make up the consciousness of the creation, that whether you begin it believe in the Big Bang or let there be light, it explains the same thing. We all came from a central point, whether that was the Big Bang or let there be light, and then we expanded out into the universe, and we're here to learn and grow and build our energy and our awareness, and in building our awareness, the whole awareness of the creation is elevated, and that was one of the first experiences I had, and that was very necessary because I needed to be able to sense energy in everything that was to come. Because that my next experience, I later learned was to be a life review, and in order to really understand my life review, I really had to feel the energy of everybody in every situation. And so, what happened to me is that first off, is that I didn't have control over what happened. You know, I didn't go home, I didn't cook dinner. I was just presented with situation after situation. I had free will in that situation to learn or not to learn. If I didn't learn, time was so monotonous and things didn't move. But once I began to learn, things moved quickly, and I sort of received like bliss or an excitement from learning and raising my awareness, and so when I was going through my life review, I would go over and over it again, but not like you know the Dickens Christmas Carol, where I was walking around and looking and voyeuring on situations. It was like I was everywhere, you know. It wasn't like one set of eyes. It's like I felt everything. You know, it was like when I was going to school, Catholic school, as a young kid. They said Jesus was everywhere, and I didn't understand what that meant. And you know, does Jesus see me? You know, going to the bathroom. Like, what does that mean? And when I realised what it really meant is that it was everywhere. I sensed everything, and now I sense the energy in things. And so, what happened is when I went through every part of my life and I experienced it, is that when I was through it, my life review, my awareness was raised, and then I went through my life review again, and what that did is that I raised my awareness again. So each time I went through my life review and my awareness was raised, I was able to go through my life review again and get more out of it each time.

And what I began to learn from the life review is that some of the most difficult things in my life-not that I had a terrible life, but everybody has their ups and downs in life. But the worst experiences of my life were the things that brought me the most bliss in my life review, because you know I didn't see pretty flowers, I didn't see Jesus, I didn't see you know the things that people say that brings them peace in these near-death experiences. What brought me peace was facing some of those traumas in life and understanding them and making sense of them, and then being relieved of this weight that was on me. It was that there were certain experiences that, even if you think in your own mind, is that when you start to think about them, you get to a point. All of a sudden, it causes you a lot of trauma, and you might get upset. You might want want to think about it anymore. You just put it aside, and you just go on with life. Well, here there was no going on with anything. I I would approach that part in my life experience and my life review where I would feel that trauma. I wouldn't want to go on, and maybe 1000 times I stopped. But then, after a while, I would go there, and I would start to relieve myself of these blockages. And once I relieved myself of these blockages, was able to dig deeper into my experiences. All of a sudden, things started to make sense to me, and that like just brought a bliss about me. It truly did. And one thing that I realise is so many things. The way you feel about it occurred when it happened. So like if you were bitten by a dog as a child, and then you never revisited it mentally, you might be afraid of dogs for the rest of your life, as opposed to if you reviewed it as an adult having life experiences. You may think to yourself, "Well, I know the difference between a bad dog and a good dog, and and I'm not going to be afraid of all dogs, but I'm going to be aware of the difference. And that's what those life reviews taught me. It taught me to review things that have happened in my life, not only there, but when I came back to the here and now. That's something I do all the time. In fact, if I can't look back to myself six months ago and think what a jerk I was, it means that I'm not growing. And you know, whenever I find a fault in myself, I have a different reaction now. I get excited because that I I could do better, and that's what that life review taught me. It was so critical in what some of the things that was to happen next, and what happens is is that I was presented with these situations, and once I stopped learning in the situation, I was presented with the next situation. But there was also something very important that I'd like to share from my life review. What I started to learn is that everything that we have in life, most every experience, has a physical reason for being and a spiritual reason for being, and I'll give you a perfect example: is I kept on revisiting this brawl I had as a young young fellow, like a young teenager in middle school, junior high school, and I was fighting with a friend of mine who was my friend before the fight and was going to be my friend after the fight, but but we're fighting, of course, over a lady, and and I kept on being revisited to this scene over and over again, and I kept on running it over in my mind, like like oh maybe I'm supposed to learn you're not supposed to fight, or maybe I'm supposed to learn you should talk things out, or maybe I'm, and I kept on going there, but I wasn't learning it because I kept on being presented with this scene over and over again. But eventually, I looked up with my awareness and my ability to sense energy, and I started to look at all the kids who had gathered around, and so I realised looking.

At one person that they were going to be in an abusive relationship later on in life, and I remember looking at another person, sensing their energy, and I realised that they were actually going to be imprisoned for a barroom brawl. And then I looked around and I saw yet another person who just had a combative personality who argued about everybody and everything, you know, no matter how small or how large. And to a person, if you had asked them why they were there, they would have said they were there for the show. But no, they were there to see this, to understand, and to get a lesson that perhaps they could use later in life to perhaps either avoid these situations or be able to make sense of these situations to get through them and to learn from them, and and so that was one of the key things that I learned is that there are physical reasons and spiritual reasons for everything that happens in life, and so so many things. You know, if you give it a second look, it may serve you well. And then, what I my next experience is that I was put in charge of these young adults, and I had to teach them a task. And no matter how I tried, they would act like they understood everything I said, but then they would scatter and do whatever, and then I would see them again, and they would act like nothing's wrong, and I'd be like, "Hello, didn't we have this discussion? And they'd be like, "They'd be happy, and I and I'd try again, and I'd explain it, and I say, "You, me, I see you. Red team, blue team, let's do. You know, I tried everything I could to coach these kids to do what I was supposed to get them to do, and there was this lady there who was always praying, and I didn't understand what her purpose there was. I really didn't, because everybody there had a purpose, and she was praying, and I really couldn't hear the words. But but what I did, it was this energy. It was almost like the prayer wasn't words. It was like a road under which this beautiful, loving, healing energy travelled, and I would feel that. And you know, when I was dealing with with the kids, it really gave me the ability to really keep focused and keep on trying because I was starting to feel like I was failing, and and I felt that this was a test, and I didn't want to fail this test. And then when I was at my wit's end, at my very wit's end, I stood before this gentleman who looked like they were in charge, and I stared at this gentleman, and I realised something very important. First on, I felt this grace, this energy, this aura. Now I could sense energy, but I didn't have any need any spidey senses to sense this guy's energy because it was very abundant, and I couldn't tell like the lives he's led, but I could tell he's experienced so much, and he made sense of it, and he feels good about it, like he was a very wise, wise person, and so when I sat in front of that, stood in front of him, I looked into his eyes, and I realised that I was looking into myself, not Stevie Webber in the here and now. Is that I was looking into my higher self? That perhaps only part of you, part of your spirit, has a physical incarnation, and part of you is always in spirit, and perhaps you are incarnated with the wisdom as intuition from your past lives, but with no memory of it, and and you are born into ignorance, so that so that you can make those mistakes that your higher self couldn't make, and in making those mistakes, you learn new lessons and you learn new awareness. Not only does that awareness flow to your higher self, but I believe it flows to the collective consciousness overall. And once I felt that energy and I stood in that grace and looked at my higher self, I felt an awareness. Like it's not like I talked, I spoke. We spoke back and forth. It wasn't like that. But I felt a grace, and I felt like a wisdom.

That when I applied that to my own situation, I saw things very differently. I realised that I was not there to teach those young adults a task. I was there to shepherd them in to their first human incarnation, and I was failing at that. I was taught all these things. I went through my life review. Learn to see spirit and sense spirit and everybody and everything. And the first thing when I was presented with these kids, all I saw was a bunch of dopey kids. I didn't see the real reason why we were here. You remember there was a physical reason and a spiritual reason for everything, and all I saw was the physical reason. And in the way that I stood before my higher self and learned this grace, I was that to them. That now, when they looked at me and I offered that to them, I gave them an understanding that enabled them to have a physical incarnation and to make sense of it and get value out of it, and that was an important lesson that I learned. Not only in applying spirit and seeing things, but also that perhaps our awareness grows through many physical incarnations, and perhaps none of them were human, at least up to a point. Is that there may have been very, very, very many experiences, not as people, maybe as animals, maybe as inanimate, you know, energy planets or rocks or trees, and that I really began to understand that perhaps the dividing line when our spirits evolve is when we learn to care for others. Like there are some animals who just bury their eggs and leave their kids alone and never see them again. But once a creature begins to care for its young, that's when I think the spiritual evolution of the individual is supercharged, and and that I'm starting to believe at that time that we live many lives through many physical incarnations, and we learn and grow throughout each one. And perhaps the ultimate destination is once you receive a certain level of awareness that perhaps you stay in spirit and continue to evolve until perhaps you're at one with the creation. At least that's my impression, and and a lot of this is the universe according to Steve. So all this, you know, this is just what I got from my experiences, and so this is what I have to share. And so I'm not here to dispute anyone's you know religious beliefs, but to share with you what I had experienced, and then after this, my next experience was is that I sat overlooking the water with two old friends of mine, Joe and and John, and and they were from my hometown. At the end of every day, we'd all go down to the seashore. Like half the town would be there, and we'd all hang out, talk about the day, all the gossip in town, like who's doing who, and and those kind of things. And some people would drink coffee, other people would drink out of red solo cups. That wasn't coffee, and and we'd all watch the sunset together and and chat a bit. And I sat there with my two friends, Joe and John. And Joe, Joe was an Irish guy. He was what I would call a raconteur. He had a certain wit about him. Joey did, and and he would tell these tales, and he was just so entertaining. You know, he talked with an Irish brogue to him, and I really enjoyed his company. And he actually had a broken spine. He was diving in the water very near that very spot as a kid, and broke his spine. And he had to have implants. And he kind of like walked like Frankenstein, like he really couldn't twist his body. He had to twist at his waist, and and and then John. He was he was like the voice of God in church. You know, he would do the readings, and he would say, "And Jesus said, and the place would shake. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but he just had this very present voice, and and he suffered from diabetes, and he always wrestled with these infections in his legs and stuff. And but I would sit with them and watch the sunset over and over again.

It wasn't like the sunset was keeping time, but it was the experience. There was something in that sunset that that I was had to experience, and I just wasn't sure what. And so I sat there with Joe and John, and then one day I use the term "day" very loosely, but one day is I realised something that both Joe and John had both passed earlier that year. Joe was hit by a car, and I imagine it's because he really couldn't turn around and see the car coming, and John died of septus. He he had an infection in his leg that spread, and he passed. And to me, this was like all of a sudden, like so many strange things were happening. And and you would think I would think that I was in a different place, you know. But I don't know, maybe. Didn't occur to me, or maybe I just didn't want to stop, or maybe I didn't want to know the answer. I just don't know. But as I sat there with Joe and John, is that is that I wanted to know why they were here, and I experienced that sunset with them over and over and over again, and each time we had that sunset together, I wanted to know even more why they were here. But I just couldn't ask them. I just couldn't make it known that this was something that I wanted to know. I don't know. Like I said, maybe I was just afraid because I knew they were dead. Like how could I be seeing them? And then finally, one day it just got so intense that I felt that if I didn't ask them now, I would never have an opportunity to ask them again. And so finally, I got up the courage, and in my own mind, I let them know that I wanted to know why they were here, and they told me they were here to make sure that I'm okay. I didn't understand that because I didn't remember any motorcycle accident. I I was fine. I I mean I'm okay. Like it almost brought a panic to me. Like I'm okay. Like I just kept on thinking about that, and then the sun, instead of getting dimmer as it went down, it got brighter and brighter and brighter, and then I had to close my eyes, and then when I felt it was okay to open my eyes, I opened my eyes, and I was in my hospital room, and my mother was holding my hand and telling me that I had been in a terrible accident, but I was going to be okay. And that was my trip to the place between here and there.

Jannecke Øinæs 31:58

Wow! Thank you so much for sharing, and I love how vivid you are telling it. I mean, it happened in 2015, and it seems like you remember everything as it happened yesterday.

Stephen Weber 32:10

Yey. No, no, it's so true because that, and that's what separates it from like a dream or the drugs. Is that I remember every part about it, and it happened for so long a time, and it and one part built upon another part. It it it just I don't know, like some things you experience and you forget, you know, a few days later. But some experiences are so intense that it's ingrained in everything that you are, and that's what this experience has been to me,

Jannecke Øinæs 32:42

and from what I understand, you were in a coma. Does that mean that you were not actually clinically dead? And would you say that there's a difference with what we can experience being a coma versus actually being clinically dead and coming back?

Stephen Weber 32:57

What I believe was going on is that I believe your body, both physical body and spiritual body, it prepares you for death. And so, when your physical body is dying in every way, shape, or form, I would have died anywhere else, most anywhere else in the world. I was just at this premier trauma centre, and I was so so ill and so injured that my body thought it was going to die. My spirit thought that I was going to return to spirit, and it was just for that medical care that I survived. And that's what I think I was going through. I think I was going through a death process where I was having these experiences to learn to prepare for returning to spirit, and but I survived. And what's different about surviving is I survive for the most part. I mean, my back really hurts, but but for the most part is that I survive with all my cognitive abilities, and that's why I think many people come forward in this time of age, because most of these people would have died. Now people are surviving past these things, and they have their cognitive abilities, and they could talk about it. And I think that's the real difference. Throughout history, there are many people who have had near-death experiences, and they could recount them, but there were so few of them because that people would pass. But with all the wars and all the mishaps, there were those one in a million chances where someone actually survived. And so that's basically what I think was going on: is that I was going through the death process, and because I was in a coma so long, I had plenty of time to work it through and figure it out in the here and now. I, I would imagine that perhaps if someone dies subtly from a heart attack, they would go through the same process, but but perhaps in a different way. I believe that I went through the process that made sense to me that in. Me to grow, but if somebody grew up in Africa or or in Tanzania or some other place, their experiences would be different. Is that I believe we're all taught this the same destination, but our paths are different because each of us have different experiences, and those experiences are rooted very much in the culture in which we live.

Jannecke Øinæs 35:24

Yes, there are many spiritual paradoxes. We are one. Many believe, and at the same time, we have these unique experiences. And it seems like all these mystical experiences are really tailored to each person because they are really unique. Even though there are some common commonalities as well, now what I find fascinating with your story is that it seems like you saw these spirits so physically. You're saying I saw these kids, I saw this man. You didn't say I saw these souls. So you saw these kids, and they were going to have their first incarnation, and I'm curious. So, did you see them as the person they would become since you saw them as kids, and did they sort of practice becoming a human? Was that was was going on?

Stephen Weber 36:15

No, it was just what I told you. Is that excuse me? It's just what what I shared with with with you. Is that they appeared to me as kids, just as everyday kids, young adults, not not not kids, kids, young adults. You know, type of adults that were getting their first job, and so and so they just looked like regular kids. There was nothing about them at that time, but once my awareness changed and I was before my higher self, now when I looked at them, the same energy I saw their energy. It was different. They were still in that kid form a little bit, but I sensed each and every one's individual energy. So it was that energy which was their true identity, not any physical form that I was presented with.

Jannecke Øinæs 37:00

I see, and your life review-that is very interesting. And many have different experiences with that as well. And it seems like you had to go through it many times. And then I'm curious, how do you sort of use that knowledge today in your life? Because I assume that you saw yourself really at a meta perspective and seeing, ooh, you know that side and that side and this shadow and this shadow. I mean, has that all helped you now become much more conscious in your everyday life

Stephen Weber 37:33

in a big way? And that's why I'm smiling so much because, in so many ways, is that I don't have hate or animosity towards other people, even if they do me something wrong, because that I learn from that experience. I don't allow people to do wrong by me, and I don't lament over negative experiences. But in the same way that life experience, that life review taught me to try to get through the blockages and understand the meaning and the lesson that I was to learn, I apply that in my regular life. And so, first off, my relationships with other people are a lot better. It's not like I'm a Pollyanna and oh, I love everybody and everything's wonderful and oh, I know you're sorry. No, no, I learn from each experience. But there's also another side of that, is that I don't bear any guilt or remorse for anything that I've done or I do, not because I'm a psychopath, but because that, in the same way that I I do the right thing, I live my life to do the right thing. So when I make a mistake, I realise my mistake. Of course, I apologise for it, and I try to settle, you know, any differences with somebody, but in my heart, as I don't feel shame or regret, I actually look at it as an opportunity for learning and improvement. And when you take those two things together, that affects your whole human, the physical incarnation psyche. Because all of a sudden, I find a lot more pleasure in life. So many times, people carry the shame and regret with them, like chains that hold them to the past, that prevent them from enjoying life or break relationships. Sometimes people have a really bad day and say things that they don't mean or do something that that if you could just get past those things. I find I have a lot more friends these days, and I'm a lot more happier for my ability to be able to let things roll off your back. I know it's like a it's like a full circle coming down with grandma. Grandpa used to tell you, but but but that was one of the most important things I learned from the life review, which made a difference in my everyday.

Jannecke Øinæs 39:40

And you've written another book now about your understandings, the 12 understandings from here between here and there, and there you you one of the understandings is about no judgement. I'm curious in your life review, did you judge yourself, and did you feel anybody or. Around you, who were sort of saying, "Look at what you did here, or were you totally alone experiencing that?

Stephen Weber 40:08

I was totally alone, and that's what I mean by no judgement. But there was no reward either. Is is that there was no punishment, there was no reward, there was no pushing you to get going. You had all the time in the universe, and so if I reproach the same scene over and over again, and I didn't get what I was supposed to learn out of it, nobody would say, "Bad, Stevie, you know, you know, this is what you're supposed to learn. I'll just be presented with it over and over again. You know, that may not work in in the physical world, but it certainly worked there, and it really taught me that so many times your prison bars are of your own construction, and you truly have the key. And it's so many times that shame or regret that prevents you from truly obtaining that bliss and that peace. And once I was free from that, it's really made a wonderful difference in my life. It's not to say I have bad days and I could be very grouchy, and it is very easily said than done. It's like a garden that that you have to weed every day, and if you don't weed it, it can get out of hand. And so I try to weed my spiritual garden every day, but but I am a lot happier and more more set in my life than I once was.

Jannecke Øinæs 41:18

And many NDE experiencers they have a choice whether to come back or not, and they also become aware very much of their life purpose. That they have a purpose and they need to go back. Did you have a sense of your life purpose and that you had chosen this life before? Like, did you learn more about your incarnation as Steve and your life mission,

Stephen Weber 41:43

I'll give you my first one-word answer: no. And and let me explain. Is that is that what I felt? Is that at that time? Is that things started to happen that I realised that that near-death experience, the visit to the place between here and there was to prepare me for what was yet to come, and it started to happen very quickly because at first is that I didn't believe it. I just thought it was the drugs. You know, it's like, hey, could have a six pack to go. You know, it was just like I, I just, I didn't believe it, but a series of things happened over a period of time that started to get me to believe it because I had to walk this path of understanding, and so it wasn't right out of the accident and the recovery. It wasn't like oh, I'm now aware, you know. I kind of like forgot about it for a while, and and one of the first things that happened was was when I was waking up in the hospital. Now I could sense energy in everybody and everything, and I realised who that lady was who was praying for me in that other place. It was my dear friend Kathy, and and she was, when I say just friends, I don't mean to diminish the relationship. We just weren't intimately involved. But I knew her for like 20 years. We'd go walking our dogs together, and I used to call her Saint Kathy because she was really into the Saints and things like that. And I remember the first time she saw me, she crossed the street because she was afraid of me. But but over the years we we would meet each other in the park just by happenstance, and we developed a relationship while walking our dogs together. And I realised that that person who was praying for me was her because I sensed the energy in in that lady and in my friend Kathy. And so as soon as I I got I was tied down, you know, and in the hospital, and I was intubated. And as soon as they got the intubation out of me, and they untied me, you know, it was the first time I was tied down with my clothes on before, so it was a little strange experience. But once I was able to text her, I texted her and I told her, I thanked her for visiting me when I was out, out, if you know what I mean, and she texted me back, and you said, you know, I said yes. You know, I was in a place, and I explained a little bit shortly about the place between here and there, and that I could sense everything. And it wasn't until later, to talking to Kathy and seeing on Facebook and social media, that Kathy was having all these prayer sessions, and she was getting the whole town together. And they would get together. They would pray for me. They would post all these things on Facebook and these other platforms, saying, "Oh, Steve took a turn for the worse. We have to pray hard, pray harder, or or oh, the things are going better. The prayers are working. There were people there who I had fu fu fights with. I grew up in that town, you know. I've been living there all my life, and those people were the first people online to to pray for me and wish me, and so that was the energy that I felt. You know, it was that loving energy of all those people. You know, that energy was so important to me, but I wanted to get better, and I put. Myself so hard. There was a certainty about what I was doing because I knew if I do these things, I would get better. Even though it hurt, I couldn't walk, and it just everything really hurt. And I knew if I got better, if I did these things, I would get better. And it was then it occurred to me what Joey and John meant when they said they were there to make sure that I was all right. They didn't mean there.

They meant here, that perhaps they were going to be my spirit guides, not my spirit shields to prevent me from feeling pain or anguish, but my guides to give me that grace, that understanding-they didn't answer my questions, but they gave me the power to understand them, and so I got the benefit. Like Joe, he broke his back; my back was broken. John died of septus of his leg, and my leg was crushed. Who better to be my spirit guides and to help me through this situation, and in the same way, I received that grace from my higher self. I received that grace from them, and that gave me the power, the strength to keep on going because I knew I would get better. And also, my friend Kathy, my dear friend Kathy, you know, I started to be able to walk again, so I started to see her, and we started to walk our dogs together, and and so Kathy, she she's an athlete, and she punches like a man. I mean, she, oh God, you know, she doesn't get away. She can give me a good wallop in my arm, and and so she was an athlete. So she pushed me, and she was halfway between Sergeant Slaughter and Mother Teresa. You know, there were times when she kicked me in the butt and told me to get going, and other times she she told me that would be all right and I shouldn't be so hard on myself. That's the way it went for for quite some time, and then what happened is one evening, I found my beautiful 20 year old son Nick dead from a drug overdose. He had been at college, and he came back, and and he just fell into some bad crowds. It wasn't like a long drawn out thing. It was all of a sudden, you know. He was a great musician. He played the guitar, saxophone, and the piano. Just lights out, and he was a great athlete. He was on a scholarship, a d1 scholarship, to an engineering school for wrestling, he was just an incredible person, and he just fell into this bad craziness. And

Jannecke Øinæs 47:29

so sorry.

Stephen Weber 47:30

Thank you. I was so devastated, you know, because like in a lot of ways I was an old personality, and it wasn't so funny now. And I tried so hard with the kids, I mean, I really did, and I was their main caregiver, and I just, I did so many things with them, and I just, I mean, how did this happen? It was just so difficult, and it was just a very difficult thing to understand, and and that was when Kathy really started to help me. We would go for these walks, and every once in a while, I would tell her about the place between here and there, but I would joke about it. But Kathy wouldn't laugh, like like I would tell other people, they would laugh, but Kathy never laughed. And then finally, one day, Kathy said to me, "She said, Steve, it's not funny. She says you experience something, and there was a reason that that was preparing you for losing Nick, and and you have to start thinking about that place and what you experience because all the signposts are there to help you understand and get through this and make sense of this and be able to laugh again and to be able to enjoy life again and to miss your son, but but to understand why these things happen, and and that's what what she said to me, and and so and so was it was a difficult time, but but and she was always talking about signs, we're receiving signs, and I I really didn't pay attention to her. Like I don't believe in sign at that time. I didn't believe in signs, and and so one day, one my cousin went to a medium, and she said that the medium didn't know anything about my son, but she said to my cousin who was there to speak with her grandmother, is that she said that Nick is trying to get through. Do you want to let him through, and she said, "Of course. And she said that Nick has a synchronicity with Saint Teresa, the little flower, and that he's been trying to reach his father, and and he's been sending roses. And have you been seeing roses? And yeah, we've been seeing roses all over the place. In fact, Kathy was was saying, "Oh, someone's sending us a message. Like we'd be on a beach, and all of a sudden we see a dozen roses. And Kathy would say, "Someone's sending a message. I knew what she meant by somebody, but I didn't like. I just I didn't want to encourage her. Or we'd be you know hiking on a trail. And would see roses out in the middle of nowhere, and she would say, "Huh, Steve, roses? And and I was like, "Yeah, what? What? Would someone materialise them, kind of like the transporter on Star Trek? You know? And she says, "No. What what happens is that people are on different paths, and sometimes those paths cross. Someone left those roses there for their own reasons. We don't know those reasons, but we're finding them for our own reasons, and that's the way signs work. They aren't magic. They're rooted in this physical world where spirit brings two these events to happen together, and that I really needed to open my eyes to to see those spirits because once I open my eyes to these signs and synchronicities, I may receive more signs and synchronicities and information. And then about a year after that, Kathy and I we would walk in the woods, and and one day is that she brought a little statue of Saint Teresa, little statue, and we put it at the base of this tree, right next to this brook. It's this thing we went by all the time on our hikes. And she brought some flat stones and a and a sharpie, magic marker, and she wrote a little prayer on it, and she put it down at Saint Teresa's feet, and she she made me write something. Up until that point, I left a praying to Kathy for both of us, but I, you know, I saw what she was up to, and so I wrote on the stone and I put it there. You know, we we picked flowers and we put them there.

I felt kind of ridiculous at the time, you know, being a biker, you know, Harley guy with loads of tattoos and things like that, hunting for flowers, but we made it really nice. And then we came back, you know, about a month later. There was like 100 rocks there. All of them had prayers on it, and and like they had taken the magic marker and the and all the rocks that she left, and everyone start and nobody vandalised it. And and I'm sitting there and I'm looking at all of these rocks and with all these prayers on it and I'm thinking to myself first off you know you might think oh yeah everyone has problems but that's not what I felt is that I felt that energy again that energy I learned in the place between here and there that we're all in this together, that we're all here to help each other, and that we're all going through these things together. It kind of like reminds me that Sting song message in a bottle, where he put a message in a bottle, throw it in the ocean to hope he got a response instead of getting an answer to his prayer. He got 10,000 bottles with with with you know prayers in it for for help, and and that's what started to really get me on this path to like begin to really understand it and make sense of things. And then Kathy brought a mass card with her for Saint Teresa, and she wanted me to put it at the base of Saint Teresa, and so I look on the mass card, and I see on the back Saint Teresa's birthday. That was my son's birthday, the very same day. And of course, Kathy got excited about it and talked about the synchronicity that the medium had said. But then I looked at the day that Saint Teresa was canonised. That was the day she was made a saint. That was the very same day that my son died. Like I thought to myself, "Wow, how could this happen? You know, I'm a computer guy. I understand statistics and things like that. But even one date can be like a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidences anymore, but could be a coincidence. But two days, no. And so that night, when I went home, I had this dream that a lot of people have when they've lost someone: is that my son came to me, and he looked like everything was fine. That that none of this had happened. Like it was all just a crazy dream, and it seemed so real. And then when I woke up, is that I realised it was just a dream. But all of a sudden, it's like not all the grief went away, but a big chunk of the grief went away because I saw him and I knew he was happy and he was in that place between here and there and he was learning and growing the way I was learning and growing and he won't be able to return to his self now like I did but I believed and I saw in that dream that we would be together again, but not as Nick and Dad, but as our higher selves. And in the same way that I learned so much from my life review, all these things would make sense. It would make sense, and and that was the relief. That was the. Message the mission that I feel that experience gave me. It wasn't for me to change the world. It was there to change my world and make sense of it and prepare me for not only experiencing this but to find some peace in all of it. That's what it did to me, and that's why I feel I had that experience.

Jannecke Øinæs 55:24

Wow, it's really touching and profound. And I would like to add that I feel that even though you feel this is for you, I feel it's also also for so many other people because you just sharing this is so healing to so many souls out there who have lost people, and my question is: After this experience, what is your sense of the nature of reality and this other side? Are we really close to them? Are there are they actually right here, and can we connect with them?

Stephen Weber 55:59

Yes, and let me explain it this way. I'll tell another story that that happened that will explain it a little bit more. Is that I feel that those in spirit are always trying to connect with us, especially right after the passing, where they're making sense of things and they're trying to help the ones they left in physical form to get over on things. My friend Kathy and I, we would walk to the beach during every day, and during that health crisis that we faced as a world, this was especially important to us. It was only place we can go that we can be free, and we would walk along the beach. And good old Saint Kathy, she was praying for healing in the world. So if it wasn't for Kathy, things would have been a lot worse. But but but she would pray to Saint Jude, the Violet Flame, and she tells me that is a saint that she connects with, and and she wanted to hear that Saint Germain had heard her prayers and was going to honour it, and so she wanted to see a sign. And so what she wanted to find was violet beach glass. You would find hen's teeth on Long Island before you would find violet beach glass washing up on the shore of Long Island. You'll find plenty of green bottles because of Heinegan. You'd find plenty of brown bottles glass because, like Budweiser, you'd even find some blue because like Naxima containers and things like that. But you would not find Violet, and so we're walking back, and I could see that she has her pouty face on, and I'm trying to think of something to tell her to make her feel better, let her know that Saint Germain did hear her, and and she was saying how she didn't find the violet beach glass, and then all of a sudden, this Dalmatian puppy-you know, the white dog with black spots all over it-comes running out of the sands dunes and starts jumping up all over us. And you know, we're doggy people. I started pulling on its ears and yanking on its tail and mushing its head, and and you know it's a beautiful little puppy you know maybe less than a year old and then the owner comes running from behind the sand dudes she was saying oh I'm sorry I'm sorry and we're like no we love dogs forget about it and and so I asked what's the dog's name Violet the dog's name is Violet. The white dog with black spots' name is Violet. How does that happen? And Kathy doesn't get this. She's just chatty Kathy. She's she's getting this lady's life story and everything. And I'm like I'm like giving her the eye, like Violet, Violet, and and so now that was it. We start walking away, and she still has a pouty face on. I'm like, Kathy, the dog's name is Violet, and then then she she she got it. But but I said we have to see that lady again. You know what I was beginning to learn at that point was that when you get a message, don't go oh wow a message oh grandma or someone send me a message. Try to find out why you are receiving that message, and the more you find out why, and you get that why, I've noticed the more messages I get because spirit can communicate with you then. And so I said, no, we have to find out why that dog's name's Violet. There's something there. A few weeks later, you know, we walk there every day. We see the doggy again, and of course the doggy remembered us, came running over us, and we talking to the lady. And so finally, I asked the lady, "Why is the dog named Violet? And she said that her family they their favourite show to watch together was this old show called Gone with the Wind, and there was this character Scarlett O'Hara at one point, Brett Butler, you know Cary Grant, gives her this violet dress that she wore. She looks so beautiful in it, and and the mom really liked this. and And so when she got the dog, she decided to name the dog Violet, but spell it with 2t's, like the colour, not like the way Scarlett would spell her name.

And then she told me that she lost her son. Her son was about the same age as my son, and she named the dog after that happened to try to bring her some peace because they would watch it together as a family. And I began to talk with her, and we began to be friends over a period of time, and we began to share some of our feelings, what we were dealing with, and you know, I thought I was on the way to healing, and I was, but having those conversations and sharing, there's the first person I met who had a similar experience to me, and. and had a similar experience to me, and it was so healing, and like, was that a coincidence? It wasn't like I went to a medium to get a message from my son, but I believe so much that that was her son and my son, using a little dog Violet to bring us together, so we could have those conversations. And so, and so, when I say that spirit communicates with you, sure it does in many ways, in many things. But if there's one way that I could tell you is keep your eyes open, especially soon after someone passes, to look for those signs and synchronicities, and just don't go. Oh wow, go in deeper. Sure, some mediums are great, and that may be a way of you connecting. But also, you have the ability, I believe, most people to do it themselves and to have that deep personal connection, and so to answer your question, yes, spirit is always there and is always connecting with us.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:01:49

Wow, there's so much learning in your experience and so much wisdom there. Thank you. I want to ask you because I believe you've said that you gain some spiritual gifts after this experience, at that and that you were able to see the future. In what way are you able to see the future?

Stephen Weber 1:02:10

Well, is that I can't tell you what's going to happen today or tomorrow or the next day, but I could tell you what is going to be in the distant future and the distant distant future and the distant, distant future, because that I think we're beginning to understand that now. When I said earlier in the beginning of our chat that I believe that the creation and the creator are one, that perhaps this doesn't upset anybody, but perhaps God and we are one. That all of us together make up the consciousness of the creation, and and that that is what I've learned in that place, and that and that if we think of who we are now, we think of technology and how we've grown, and that we're doing these crazy things with artificial intelligence and CRISPR technology and gene editing, and we could tell the colour of someone's eyes by taking a look at their their their genes and such. This has just happened over the last few years. Imagine us 1000 years from now if we don't blow ourselves up between now and then. That what we will learn and what we will be able to do, what I believe very strongly is we're walking that path of realising that we together-not any one individual, but we together-are the consciousness, the creator themselves. And as we learn and grow, so does the creator learns and grows through all these experiences, and that, and that picture us. We will begin to learn how to. I don't want to sound like Dr. Frankenstein, but how life is created, and all these things that we'll be able to do. If we saw them today, they they would look like magic, and that's what I'm saying is that we are walking that path now of understanding, and eventually we'll get to that point where we'll understand that the Creator and the creation are one. God and we are one, and that's and that's what I believe. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but but but that's that's been my experience.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:04:16

But is that something you also see and feel or believe? Because I feel like those are different things.

Stephen Weber 1:04:23

All the above, all the above. But but it's just a logical step because because once I came to the realisation that perhaps the Creator and the creation are one, God and we are one, then I start to think about who we are today, and is there anything around that shows that, and that's the conclusion I drew. That that yes, if you just play this out, what's going on in our society and with our knowledge and with our awareness and how that is growing now exponentially, where is it going to lead? And so when I say I can. See the distant, distant future. It's based upon what I'm sharing with you now.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:05:06

So it's good news.

Stephen Weber 1:05:08

good news, and and I believe the transition is going to be very tough for us. It really is. And some places are going to do a lot better than others. Some places are going to resist change, and they're going to suffer greatly. But once this whole thing plays out, I think things will be a lot better. But there's also something else that's very important that I learned. It is a spiritual thing, but it's also a thing in the here and now. And that, and this is that this whole experience taught me was forgiveness, but not forgiveness because I'm a virtuous person. I just like to forgive, and I know that's the right thing. No, forgiveness because that there is no other thing that you can do that would everything else imprisons you. And what I learned from this is that they caught the fellow who sold my son the drugs, who that that killed him. My son was only 20 years old. He wasn't even able to buy alcohol in the United States, but he could certainly buy these drugs. The fella came to our house to give my son the drugs, and I had cameras on the outside of the house. And because my son was an athlete, he didn't have any other substances in his body. So so they knew his death was caused by the drugs that this fellow delivered to our house. They caught the guy, and they were actually on his trail for a long time. He had sold drugs to many people. No one else had died, but people had been hospital hospitalised. There was a long trail of carnage behind this this this gentleman who was selling this terrible poison to everybody, and and so they caught him and they put him on trial. Now I'm going to go to that trial, and I'm going to. I had hatred building up my heart because I wanted. I wanted. I don't know what I wanted, but but I couldn't have my son back, but I wanted him to be held responsible. I really did. But when I got to the courtroom and I saw the kid, he was just a stupid drug addicted kid. And by this time, he was clean because he had been in prison for a while, and he was just a dopey kid who made a terrible mistake. Like, and then I thought about the kid in the beginning, and I thought about my life review and everything that I'd been through. And I'm certain I don't recall, but I'm certain that whole experience was part of my life review. And I learned about how those things could destroy a family, but also destroy a person who who did a terrible thing but wasn't filled with malice. And when I saw that kid there, is that I couldn't, I couldn't have hatred towards him. I felt forgiveness. He didn't even have to be sorry. You know, I felt, I felt no. I felt that I wanted things to be better for him. I wanted him to be able to have a life and to be able to perhaps children of their his own someday, and be able to take him to wrestling and band practice, maybe even go to his wedding and have grandchildren and have some of those things that I missed out on. It didn't make sense, and that and that I know spiritualists make terrible leaders, and so I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but that's what I felt in my heart that I wanted things to be better for him, and that would bring me peace. That would bring me peace to know that that he's successfully has made a difference in his life and has turned it around. And that's what truly taught me forgiveness: is that I have no animosity towards that fellow, and I just want things to be better, and you see, in offering forgiveness, it's not because I'm such a virtuous person; it's because that it set me free. It truly did, and that's what this experience taught me: is that is that yes, it's about spirituality, it's about sensing spirit in everybody and everything, it's about having this level of awareness, but truly, it's about love. It's about love, understanding, and the warm and fuzzy love is just the door that opens up to the house.

The true love is a wise love. It's a knowing love. It's a patient love. It's a love that knows when to hold and a love that knows when to stand back, and it's a love that knows that sometimes what a person wants isn't exactly what they need, and that's what I learned from this experience: is that truly, is that love is the ultimate goal in life. It's the ultimate understanding, and through forgiveness, you'll find that love.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:09:44

Beautiful. It seems like everything is connected, and this is a beautiful place to end this episode. Thank you so much for sharing, Steve. I have a few questions I ask everyone, and my first one is: What is self-love to you?

Stephen Weber 1:10:02

Self love, I would say, is to have love for. Well, I guess when you love yourself, don't you love everybody and everything if we're all connected? And truly, you know, in the most physical way, it is to not to take care of yourself, but also for shame and regret. Shame and regret will cause you to despise yourself and to feel that you're not worthy. And so the ability to free yourself from shame and regret-I think that would be the first step to self-love. And I guess I guess that would be my answer.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:10:40

And in one sentence, what is the deeper meaning of life?

Stephen Weber 1:10:45

To learn that love is the ultimate intelligence.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:10:50

Steve, where can people find you if they want to connect or read your books?

Stephen Weber 1:10:55

Sure. The best thing is that my website is betweenhereandthere.org. org not .com between here and there.org that has all of my books it has meditations and it has free downloads and so yeah visit that as links to everything but also a really good way of contacting me is through the comments of this video I read every comment and I and I answer everyone that's asking for an answer. I can't give you advice, but but what what I could share with you is common experiences and the way that I look at things, and you may find value in that. So so after you watch the video, if you have any questions, there's no question that's too small or too large. Even if you want to say, "I think you're nuts, Stephen, that's okay. Just put it in the comments, and I'll respond to it. and And the conversation is a good one, and I enjoy it. And so, those would be the way to contact me.

Jannecke Øinæs 1:11:54

Beautiful. That's generous. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, and thank you for your powerful, beautiful healing work.

Stephen Weber 1:12:02

Well, thank you. I I'm so so excited, and and I admire you and your mission. And I urge you to keep on working hard and spread the love.