Reflections On My Near-Death Experience After Watching The Movie, Soul

It's been 5 years since it came out and I finally sat down to watch the Disney Pixar movie Soul! Ever since I saw the preview for it, I knew I needed to see it! And then life happens… But all in Divine Timing, Right? … I am grateful though that I watched it in this chapter of life, especially with a lot of life changes for me these past 3 years … I wouldn’t have looked at this movie the same 5 years ago. But I knew when I first heard about it coming out that I eventually needed to see it and I would connect with it due to my own near-death experience.

With the recent start of my blog and writing about my personal story again, I knew it was time to finally sit down, watch it and see what insight and connections I would gain from the messages in the film.

In this 40s decade chapter of my life, I did what many of us do, watched it in chunks on my phone! Anyone else relate? Anything more than 30 minutes these days for me has to be watched in chunks of time. And since I wanted to watch it by myself, that was the easiest way to watch it. Making time and space to actually sit and watch a movie requires planning and energy (there’s irony in that from the message of this movie ;) ha!) and right now in life, and especially in this time of year, there’s a lot happening, so it was easier for me break it into a couple of chunks for me to truly focus and soak in the lessons I took in from it.

I will say I definitely connected with it and felt similarities in the story, identifying with it as I watched… actually was almost like a meditative opportunity to re-connect with my own near-death experience, giving me time to sit with those emotions again. If you recall from my personal story shared, I do not have any clear memory of my time comatose (a total of 5 days) that happened in 1995. I actually don’t have any memory of an entire chunk of my life from that chapter. I guess in the year that followed I made comments about my time in the coma, but this was during a chapter in my life I have absolutely no memory of. Later in my life when I was older, my parents shared with me that I had made comments to them in the weeks and months that followed, sharing with them that I remembered choosing to come back. In more recent years I have done some hypnotherapy work and EMDR with a practitioner and in one of the sessions I did go back to this chapter and it wasn’t anything “big” at the time, but some days later I did have an emotional memory come up and a wave of emotions that needed to come out. For me, it was more the emotional release of grief and loss feelings, versus memory of what was experienced during those 5 days. Definitely an experience in some capacity of “re-membering” that brought up stored emotions from that experience and that needed to be released and that I’m grateful I was supported in doing so.

Over the years I have thought about those days comatose and where my soul was during that time etc…. I used to really wish I had clear memory of it and could write some big profound book sharing a detailed journey of those 5 days and all that I experienced. Or when I see people interviewed who share their extraordinary experiences for us to be witness to, I wish that I could do the same. And more importantly that I could remember my own experience clear as day and what was shared with me in that space. But now the older I get, the more I honor the fact that I don’t have vivid memory of it and with time I have come to look at this experience as truly sacred and because it’s sacred, I’ve come to accept that it isn’t meant to be remembered any more than what I did and do. I know it happened, I honor that it happened, I give gratitude for it and hold it in my heart for it to be between me and God, Source, Divine.

I love that there is a Disney movie that portrays a spiritual experience in the capacity that it does in this film and I think it is an opportunity to open the door of thinking about it and talking about it. I debated having Evan watch it with me after I watched it alone first, but I don’t think he’s old enough for it. Yes he is obviously old enough and mature enough for it, but do I think he would truly get the point of it and appreciate the point of the movie? No, I don’t feel he’s ready for that and he would miss the point and intention of it. Truthfully, the movie is more for adults than kids and even teens, or at least young teens. That’s just my personal opinion.

Here are a couple of the takeaways and thoughts that were stirred up for me from watching it.

Definitely the concept of 2nd chances and truly living and honoring every moment of it. Especially realizing how significant our journey is and that what we think is “big” is truly not what is the “big thing.” Appreciating the “mundane” and having recognition of how meaningful we are to others and more importantly, others are to us. Especially in the small role’s we take for granted and the interactions we have on a daily basis with people we aren’t close to, but yet MATTER in our lives – much more than we rarely stop to truly appreciate.

If you’ve been blessed yourself with any form of a 2nd chance in any capacity, you too know the Energy that comes with that. Perspective is definitely a beautiful gift, but also with that gift comes something that we often don’t talk about post near-death experiences …. and that is the Responsibility, and sometimes even pressure we put on our selves and carry to make the most of this 2nd chance.

Survivor Guilt is a real thing! I talk a little bit about this in my Memoir, but that was also years ago, and the interesting thing about survivor guilt, at least for my situation where my near-death-experience was when I was 14…. you would think that pressure would lessen with time, but actually the older I get and the more life I live, the more I question if I am doing what I came back to do AND more importantly I question a lot if I’m making Them (God, Source, Divine, all my Spirit Guides and Angels and Loved Ones in Spirit), proud! Am I enough? Am I doing enough? Am I loving enough? Am I grateful enough? Am I honoring this 2nd chance enough? That is a spiritual journey that doesn’t ever end.

And that brings me to the question that most of us live with every single day… What is my Purpose? Am I living out my Purpose? This was the big point of the Soul movie … he was so convinced that his music goal and achieving that ultimate goal of his was the very sole Purpose he was put on Earth for. As humans, I think most of us are guilty of this at some point and we want to believe that we will tap into our Higher Selves and will be able to find that … but some live their entire lives seeking it…. Questioning it, and others live their entire lives convinced there is only one reason they’re here, possibly missing the entire point of their existence….

None of us truly know.

My personal opinion from my own spiritual Journey is that we put wayyyyy too much pressure on the concept of “Purpose.”

We talk about it in our society like it’s a goal to reach and we’re going to earn some big reward if only we can find it! Some days I really think Divine just laughs at us for our definition of Purpose. And yes, I understand the Spiritual and Religious teachings of Reward… and what many believe that Reward to be, but outside of that, I think as humans we think some big box of confetti is going to explode over us when we finally have an ah-ha moment of FIGURING OUT WHAT OUR PURPOSE IS! Yet, no one “tells” us fully…. So really it’s sadly a never-ending rat race.

This is exactly why the practice of Mindfulness and Presence is so powerful. If you’re not practicing some form of Mindfulness or Stillness or Prayer or whatever you want to call it, please do!

And join me on my human spiritual journey of doing my best every single day to try to remember that we truly have no “answers” other than doing our best to live our lives fully in whatever way that looks like for YOU.

And the next time you hear the word Purpose … associate it with PRESENCE and LOVE and simply BEING ENOUGH! Who you are, where you are and what you do today is ENOUGH and you are LOVED.

If all you do today is give a small act of LOVE to someone … person, plant, animal, Earth … THAT IS ENOUGH and that right there is PURPOSE.

Remember that.