Agnostic’s Near-Death Experience: Surprised by Who She Met in Heaven with Tricia Barker

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.

Tricia Barker 0:08
Yeah, I was 21 and it was my senior year. I was a few weeks away from graduation, and literally, the Austin 10k was the morning of my accident. So I was going to run, and I've been running really hard, trying to train for this and and having a little bit of fun with it. So I was in great physical shape, which I think probably saved me on some level. I had a head on collision, and I'll never know if it was my fault. I think the other guy must have jumped the gun, or at least didn't slow down and rolled through the intersection pretty fast, and it was curved, and we hit each other almost head on in a little bit of a curve. Luckily, he was in a suburban, and didn't get hurt very badly. I was in this small Honda Civic and older model, and it just crunched up. In fact, later I look back at death reports of 60 miles an hour and faster, and most said instant death. So I was in bad shape. I had a lot of internal injuries. My back was broken in three places. I was slumped over to one side, screaming out the window at this intersection, Lamar and Guadalupe, if you know, Austin, and three cars passed by without stopping, and it was Sunday morning, and I know one of them was going to church, and I was like, I hope they're calling when they get somewhere. This is terrible. And then a nurse stopped her and her boyfriend called for the ambulance, and she stayed with me and said, don't move. And then they loaded me into the ambulance. I waited 17-18, hours until I went into surgery. So there was a shortage of neurosurgeons, and I didn't have health insurance, so I was waiting for someone to take my case, and I didn't have a lot of time to think and cry, and I lost feeling in one leg. And before I went into the operating room, I gave this kind of half hearted prayer, like, Oh, God, if there's a God, please help me. I've got to walk. You know, I don't want to live this way. And I went into surgery, and then my life changed dramatically during that surgery, this is when the near death experience happened, and it was nothing like a dream. Alex, the only thing I could say is the minute I was outside of my body, I was so at peace. I just knew that the consciousness that I was experiencing was far greater than what I experienced in the body that I suddenly just understood so much more. I felt more awake, in a sense, just more alerts I could see with this 360 degree vision, and see the whole operating room looked down at my body. Didn't feel any connection, really to the body other than that's where I was. I didn't feel this the way we're in the body right now. You know, it's us, and yet, in that realm man that was no longer me. It was just this thing bleeding out on the table, and I was what continued on, my soul, my spirit, who I am. And when I looked up at the surgeons, I saw that there were these light beings behind them, and that's that's why I called my book angels and or it's not really a religious book. And I think sometimes people who are highly religious are very turned off by my book, because it's really just a near death experience and then a story of of the awakening that that ushered in and the changes that it ushered in. But these light beings were enormous, like eight feet tall, and they sent this healing light energy through the doctors, through their hands, into my body. I felt very much at peace that they knew what they were doing, that they were higher beings. So to speak, they were highly intelligent, and they communicated with telepathy with me. So this whole time, I was at peace. I knew what was going on. I understood this realm because of their energetic help. And then the monitor flatlined, and I remember thinking, Oh, well, the angels just told me, I'm gonna walk and run, so I'm coming back to this body. That means they have to revive it. I don't want to see this, what's out there. And so, you know, I went into the hall, saw my stepdad get a candy bar, which later became this verifiable detail that researchers love to talk about. But to me, it was important, because my mom and dad verified it later that he came in with this candy bar, and they were certain I died. And I feel like there's a biological connection, a spiritual connection, between families, and they just understood at that moment that I'd left my body, and they were on the floor praying, crying, you know, asking that I live. And that was the very moment I was dying and going out into the stars and feeling this oneness with everyone I'd ever met in Austin. I just felt like every barista, every person who'd hand me a bagel like they were my friend, and every person I'd seen in class, my professors, everyone I passed on the drag I was just like, I love you. All have a great life. You know, I'm going on, and the further I got away from my body, the more I didn't want to come back. So I started. Feeling these downloads, as we call them today, the way it looked to me was just light coming towards me and filtering into my consciousness, and I would hear actual words like, love is all that matters. It's all that you take with you when you leave. Remind them to go to nature, remind them to be kind to one another. Here's a moment in your life where you could have done better. And so I started seeing these life reviews. And better was being more connected to others, not being judgmental. And so I considered myself an intellectual and so I looked down on people who weren't in college or weren't doing the same things I was doing. And I saw how silly that was, that there were great people. And here I was not looking at the heart. I was looking at outward things. And I realized, Oh, you have to look at the heart and soul of people to know who they are. And I want to show my heart and soul, and I want to always look for that in people and and then I transitioned into this realm, which most people imagine heaven to be like, you know, rolling green hills and, you know, beautiful skies and there was no death. Everything was just alive. You know how you look at nature, and sometimes the grass is dead and you know, part of the tree is falling off. Everything was perfect, including my grandfather, who was over there in that realm, who looked about 35 and I hardly recognized him, because he had died of leukemia and was very thin hail toward the end and and he just looked strong and beautiful. And I was like, Well, of course, everyone wants to be their strong, beautiful self, like, like the nature that I see, no errors, nothing, nothing awry, everything full of light. And so I felt very peaceful with him. At some point, though, he where we spent some time interacting, but he turned towards me and said, Do you want to go on? And I knew on, met closer to God, and I was like, yes, and my soul just like leapt forward, and I was going through this wind, which was like a bunch of prayers. So I began to hear everyone's prayers. And I think this should give people comfort, because even if I had died, even if someone dies, they actually do hear and feel your prayers and your love for them as they're leaving. And you know, they know that you care. So if you didn't get to say, I love you to someone, and they transitioned. They felt your thoughts, you know, they really felt your energy. And so that was beautiful to me. And then I got closer to God, and I just felt all the wounds of childhood, any abuse, any verbal abuse, anything that had really dimmed my light and my my self esteem over the years, I just felt like, Oh, it wasn't me, it wasn't me. All these wounds weren't me. I'm loved, I'm cherished. I'm like a child of God, you know, like, and I heard earlier, be like a little child, and I knew that that meant be open to wonder, be be easily, to forgive and let go of things and be in that moment of joy. And then I felt like I understood that love is all that matters. And I finally felt okay, and I didn't want to come back like that was the point where I was like, Oh no, no. Don't really care about that anymore. I want to stay here. And I felt this loud, booming voice, which vibrated through me, say, look down, and somehow, magically, I was able to look down through the clouds. You know, there was just this vision of a river, and people walking along this river, and the light said, some people will be full of fear, and some will be in the light of spirit. And you remind everyone to stay in the light, and you remind everyone who has fear to let it go and to find the light and and it was, you know, more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it, that there's just fear and love, you know, which we learn from the Course in Miracles, and which is kind of a basic tenet of many teachings. But there it looks so simple. Here it looks so complicated. So there I was like, okay, that's fine. How am I going to do that? Oh, you're going to be a teacher. And I was like, No, that was the one moment I remembered who I was. And I was like, I'm shy. I hate public speaking, and I really want to make a lot of money. So this is absolutely the wrong choice for me. I mean, I want to do anything non traditional, but not that for a woman, just not that. And it was like God laughed at me somehow, and I felt my whole soul kind of hurled, almost like a softball, or something like I was crunched up into a softball and thrown back into my body. And it was horrible being back in the body. I was immediately changed. So there are some near death experiencers who, you know, it submerged for a time, and then they remember it. I knew exactly what had happened to me, and I did not feel like I was fully back in my body. Nurses were after that massive surgery where they repaired. Part of my spine, and put in rods and metal and all kind of stuff. They were asking me my name, and I felt like I was, I filled up the entire room. I felt like I was a part of everyone, and I still was in this we kind of mentality. So it's like, Oh, her name, yes, I remember the individuality of this person, and I believe her name is Trisha, and now I have to come back and be her. And they're like, You sound a little out of it. You're gonna need another blood transfusion. And I was like, my name is Trisha, if I'm okay. But there was really a disconnect, like I didn't feel like me at first. I felt still outside of my body, and so lots of after effects happen, even in the hospital. But you know, the coming years, I was very different than I was before. So one of the most important things was to remind people to be the light of who they are. So whatever that is, you know, like, what brings someone joy? What brings them, you know, authentic joy in their life. How can they do more of that? And as an instructor, I just believed that I'd be assisted. And sometimes I'd hear from their ancestors, sometimes I'd hear from an angel. You know, I did get help sometimes to help certain students really find what's going to bring them joy. And it wasn't always academia, you know, sometimes it was starting a food truck or becoming an automotive designer, you know, like there were, there were just other things that people sometimes wanted to do that didn't tie to education, but sometimes they did, and sometimes that was just such a beautiful thing to help people accomplish goals, believe In themselves. I think we forget how many students, even when they have great homes, still might have self esteem problems because of all the advertising that's out there and all the comparison and you know, just to help people feel good about themselves and their lives is is important no matter what job you're doing. And I think, you know, we forget how how fragile so many people can be at different moments in life, and how a kind word can really help someone.