Thanks very much for posting, Dover. This subject haunts me

[Kind of Blue]

every single day of my life, since 1997 when I had an NDE during surgery to remove a tumor. I'm shaking as I write this because it's not what happened during the experience but when I came back that bothers me. Shortly after leaving the body and looking at my sad dead face and watching my anxious doctors and nurses, I was visited by a beautiful Lady who seemed made of pure white light and I knew she loves me. She was incredibly familiar but I couldn't remember how I know her. Though I asked her name many times, she only responded with more love and smiles saying, "Are you ready to go?"

Then I was in the waiting room and my family knew something was wrong. They held each other worrying intensely, and get this, I didn't care. This detachment unsettles me to my core and I've tried but can't find a way to reconcile it with daily life. I ask myself, how can I possibly love them with all my being and not give a darn when all is said and done?

The other thing that bothers me is that I was once very outgoing and had tons of friends, had showings in art galleries, and did a lot of traveling. After coming back I have absolutely no desire to be around others and would, if I could, be a hermit living in a cave. My husband calls me the Cave Woman. I just don't like being around other people any more, other than those who I love. I'm totally happy to be at home working, painting, taking life as it comes. I don't think I'm depressed, but it just doesn't feel right not to be a part of the world, not to be out there sharing with other artists and people.

After seeing myself on the O.R. table, though I prepared myself beforehand, just in case, I realized why I looked sad in death. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I just let the saddest part of life get to me and suppressed it. I'd forgotten how to live in Joy. It was like remembering you forgot to unplug the iron when you leave for work. You've just got to get back and take care of the problem. Well, I've found Joy again and again it's directly from what I remembered from my time with the Lady, and I know I won't die again with a pitiful face. But I'm wondering if you've ever heard or read anything about this feeling of practically detaching from the world after NDEs? Any insight is greatly appreciated because I don't think the point of coming back is to hole up. Maybe it's just a phase but it sure is lasting a long time.:crazy:

[Nia Zuri]

1. In "embracing the light" the author mentions a similar detachment

She menitons a NDE and being aware that she would be leaving her children behind but that she realized that there is no such thing as time and that her children's lives would fly by in a twinkling of an eye and that they wouldn't be without her for long. I don't remember but it had something to do with her being dead and "outside of time" that made her aware that the loss her children would experience would be almost like a skinned knee in the scheme of things. It's been about 20 years since I read that book but that is what I remember...

[Kind of Blue]

2. Thank you! I hadn't thought of NDE being outside of time.

I will have to get "Embracing The Light." It sounds like a good start in understanding this feeling.

[Cleita]

3. Here's a website that has all kinds of information on NDEs.

http://www.near-death.com/

Maybe there is something there that can explain your experience to you better. I wish I had something more comforting to say, but since I've never experienced anything like that I'm at a loss. What I do understand is that people do come back from those experiences with profound changes in how they viewed life before.

[Kind of Blue]

5. Thanks, Cleita! As soon as I finish work I'm gonna dig in.

I checked out the site years ago but am hoping there will be more experiences there now to relate to. Thanks again.

[Dover]

4. Hi tcdq. Welcome to the ASAH forum.

What a wonderful experience to feel that divine love....:hug:

I've never had an NDE myself so can only speculate based on personal experience of a spiritual nature and my own journey. You also might look into Eckart Tolle's books, as he talks quite a
bit about detachment.

When one begins to detach from the personality or ego self and the material dualistic world,
we become detached from the emotionality of that more limited world and lose fear as well.
It's a feeling of being in but not of the world. And that detachment seems a very common
experience during NDE's as well. That sense of detachment from one's own body (though perhaps still feeling compassion without the emotionality), I would assume extends to family or friends as well from this new vantage. I don't think that detachment is devoid of love though. It's just devoid of our ego attachments. It might be considered very freeing too, yes?

An NDE experience must surely be life changing on so many levels that expecting things
to return to the old 'normal' seems unrealistic and perhaps is an attempt at some level to reject the experience because it's difficult to integrate or rectify it with the old reality. I don't know how "joyful" your life had been prior to the NDE but perhaps its significance has since deepened and taken on a new level of meaning...one that you must rediscover in new ways with people, life situations and within yourself.
And that may take some time. Ultimately it takes as long as it takes and not a second more.
Perhaps time with yourself in the cave is just what's needed for now. "Cave time" has a long historical precedence in spiritual journeying. In fact it was and is essential. If it turns into a hiding place after awhile, then it's probably time to leave that space. We often don't know how much we've shifted internally until we leave the cave and re-experience ourselves in the world. Only you can know the answers to these most intimate soul questions. Of course you cannot experience joy when you are being critical of yourself for where you are right now or by feeling guilty. Be honest with yourself about where you are and what you need and then trust the process...even if others can't quite understand. Love yourself as unconditionally as the 'beautiful lady'.
Your journey to the other side seemed to be asking you to revisit the experience of 'joy' within and without. Not a bad assignment!

I thought this NDE experience was particularly poignant, and perhaps you can identify:
http://www.near-death.com/nightingale.html

Joy!

[Dover]

6. P.S. - I forgot to add that if you have found joy in your life

then that is an indication that you are one the right path, yes?

[Kind of Blue]

8. Absolutely! The Lady was right about so many things that led right to it

and the clear path that led me here. I may sound daffy but I'm also realizing that Love and Joy are really not meant to be all locked up in one place. I've got to integrate the experience with daily life, as you say to experience it "within and without." That truly resonates with me. :)

[Kind of Blue]

7. Thank you, Dover. Wow, you are correct on many counts.

Particularly on the cave experience and not fully realizing the shift until we leave it. It truly helps in knowing it is not bizarre and it's part of the process. I'm very grateful for reading Nightingale's account and going to her site. I have a feeling I'm gonna be spending some time there, as well as at neardeath.com. I'm honestly not sure when I'll leave this cave but there's no doubt the impetus to do so has been building, and hence, I guess so was the guilt. But in the meantime, I'm understanding that it is not a waste of time spent in it. It's like being reborn and having to take baby steps all over again. Sheesh! and YAY! :D I'm just so happy right now that I finally found the voice to ask the question. Thanks to the info from you, Cleita, and Scard there's a lot more to investigate.

[Dover]

11. I'm so glad you found the courage to voice this as well.

And I'm betting there are other ASAH readers who can identify with your situation.

Your analogy of being as a child learning to walk again sounds so appropriate to your experience.
Baby steps seem like a good idea while you steady your new legs. Perhaps you can take some
brief steps outside and then retreat back for awhile until you establish a healthy
balance that works for you, simply responding intuitively to whatever beckons.
These 'outings' may also be very instructive in recognizing the changes as well as the
parts that are still in need of some deepening and further development or can simply be an exercise in holding your center out 'there'.

As you have discovered, joy and love are one and the same and cannot be compartmentalized or contained as they are a state of being that eminates out from and through us from a greater source.
And it's effortless because we are being authentically who we are.

The world needs this warmth and lightness of being.
In fact it's contagious!

[crikkett]

9. tcdq - you said you found joy again, and in the act of being *here*

you're participating in the world, and reaching out to people.

Are you beating up on yourself, are you insecure? Maybe you can venture out by doing something as simple as joining a local quilting club, and spiral out from there.

I can trace my entire (very satisfying!) social life in the place I live now to randomly answering a single ad in a newspaper for a musical studies club. All I did was pick up the local rag from my living room table and announce, "we're going to do something".

:hug: to tcdq. I'm glad you're here. Thanks for sharing your story.

(edited for spelling. sorry for my pre-coffee fuzzy eyesight)

[Kind of Blue]

10. Hi, Crikkett. Thanks very much for the questions.

Definitely think I'm beating up on myself because I'm still trying to gain more clarity from the detachment from my family when I saw them in so much pain. I mean, just this Thanksgiving we're having a great time but in the back of my mind I'm thinking, you can actually just let them go without a second thought. How mean. But from Dover's and Scard's posts it's more of a compassionate detachment, knowing they will be okay and it would be more like a scar in the scheme of non-linear time. Then guilt from gaining so much from the experience and withdrawing from the outside. I've thought what's the point? But now I'm finding the cave experience is necessary and I do love it.
I guess I've been afraid to ask my Guides for clarity because I will not know how to deal with the answer of, yes, you're really mean. But it is leading to insecurity because may be people will feel I'm cold. I guess I've just answered a question - funny, I use to give 100 percent and see I'm still trying to adjust this Now to the old reality.
I joined a caucus of women artists a few years ago, and it was great but the overwhelming feelings and emotions from the group was too much; always came away feeling fragmented. So I'm thinking of volunteering in the art department at one of the middle schools as a way out. And I'm going to look up the caucus, maybe not plunge in headlong as I did before. They were a great bunch of women doing good works and giving back to the community.
:hug: back atya. This group is great! :grouphug: Thank you.

[conscious evolution]

12. The cave

is a substitute for the cage you escaped from with your NDE.
It can be scary till you get used to be it.
Remember the line from the movie Shawshank Redemption about a charecter having become institutionalized?And how hard it was to reintergrate into society? The cave becomes our safe place while we reintergrate and come to grips with our changed perceptions of existance.

[Mnemosyne]

13. tcdq, I need to say that the 'detachment' may actually be your interpretation of

a feeling from that realm, felt in this realm that was actually the understanding of others missions in this realm from that realm, thus causing you to feel it was 'detachment' when it really was more of an understanding than of not caring.

Does that make any sense? Not sure I explained clearly enough, but needed to say it for some reason. :shrug:

:hi:

[Kind of Blue]

14. I understand what you mean :) That once in that realm, our

understanding about feelings is different and perhaps not highly charged anymore. :think: You got me thinking that when I met the Lady, not a word was spoken but the Love she generated was all encompassing and calm. But here we express it through actions, words, gestures, and expressions backed by the intensity of the emotion. I do remember now feeling sad that they were sad, but not sad enough to come back. And at the same time, all that amazing Love was not enough for me to stay There, because when I realized what I was missing (the mission, as you say), it was like having studied well for a test and being excited to take it. Thanks for your perspective 'cause it really helps juggling here, there, before, and now. :crazy: