An SOS – Seeking Guidance on Spiritual Growth

I’ve come to terms that God/Source/Spirit is with me. It is not easy for me to write this. I’ve held the idea of God at the back of my mind. It was locked away and never to be discussed. I’ve always thought of myself as an atheist. All of that changed a year ago. Since that time, I have changed my views with spirituality. I have neglected my website and it has been a year since I posted anything. I actually started to write this draft about a year ago. I thought I was ready to write about my spiritual awakening but I never got past four sentences. A year later, I realize I am ready to be honest about my introduction my spiritual journey. Because I am still at the beginning of my journey, I hope whoever reads this can offer clarity and guidance.

Near Death Experience (NDE)Videos

Believe it or not but YouTube was how my spiritual awakening unraveled. My wife was getting into her spiritual journey at the beginning of 2023. I would support her but I had no intentions to join her. I was very reluctant to watch some of the videos on topics regarding spirituality. She would share with me what she learned and how she wanted me to watch them with her as well. I initially watched these with a very low level of interest. She finally got me to watch interviews of those who experienced Near Death Experiences (NDEs). When I finally gave in and started watching some of the videos, the interviewees described journeys to places beyond Earth. They would all say that those places felt more “real” than life on Earth. More “real” than Earth? How is that possible?

Some interviewees talked about popping out of their bodies and seeing their physical body. They described seeing people around them during the near death experience. They could hear the thoughts of everyone around them. I thought, “Wow, how cool would it be to hear people’s thoughts and to fly around!” Then they would talk about transporting to another place. Either by a tunnel or by some sort of portal or white light. Of course, I was very skeptical at this time. I wasn’t really taking any of this seriously. However, I was curious. That’s what would drive me to watch the entire video. I also requested that my wife only show me videos that were no more than 15 minutes long. I did not want to watch long drawn out videos. I feared these videos were trying convince me to join a church or to lure me into joining a weird group. I also had the expectation of seeing some religious text. No thanks!

During these interviews, people would talk about their journey to a new plane of existence. Some would call it heaven, others just called it a connection to spirit or “home”. I would watch their stories. Some commonalities were that they experienced a “Life Review.” They would watch and re-live an experience from their past. They would experience perspectives from everyone involved. For example, if they hurt someone, they would feel the pain that they gave to the other person. Or if they gave money to someone in need, they would feel the other person’s relief. They would also feel the joy it gave them. For the most part, they re-lived the hurt they gave someone. And that was for a reason, for them to understand that they need to change how they interact with others. In these moments of the videos, I honestly thought about my life review. I questioned what it would look like. I realized that I don’t want to go through it. I also would mentally roll my eyes about the lessons that given. In this realm, the people with the NDEs, would talk to loved ones or would have conversations with their angels. They all said that they felt this immense love that could not be described. They were given information that was necessary and were given a choice of coming back to Earth. They all came back but they all stated that they did want to stay. I would get tripped out by the fact that they wanted to stay but knew they had to come back. But what stuck with me after watching the videos is that they seemed sad to be back on Earth. They couldn’t really share this information about their experience with everyone. Even those who would talk to doctors and nurses would get a cold shoulder which made me sympathetic to them.

My wife would find more videos for me to watch. I would either dismiss them or view them after dinner. She would convince me about how good the video was when she saw it earlier in the day. So I would watch. The one NDE video that struck me was that of an atheist who nearly died. His experience was very much the same as everyone else who had an NDE. I resonated with his story when he talked about his reluctance to religion and God. He talked about how dismissive he was to anyone who would approach him with any hint of religion or God. His experience in the other realm was similar with a life review and I believe he talked to an angel. He came back to Earth with a knowing that we are all a part of God. He mentioned how he came back to Earth with more compassion. Although he did not become extremely religious, he no longer saw himself as an Atheist. He knew where we come from and where we go after this life. He had a peace with him and I immediately started to look for similar stories.

“I would like to have an NDE!”

I found the videos inspiring and I found them cool. It made me even say, “I would like to have an NDE!”. My wife would laugh and told me that she would believe me if I did have one. Later, I saw a YouTube video where a woman had an NDE as a baby. She did not realize that she had one until her brother told her about that experience. After watching that video I realized I may have had one. I felt like it may have happened to me.

There was always a family story about how I fell down the stairs twice as a baby. My brothers would make fun of me for falling down. I was learning to walk and I was in a baby walker when I fell down the basement stairs. I don’t remember any of it. The first time I fell, my mother was aware of it and had freaked out. The second time, my mother was at work. My dad covered it up so my mom wouldn’t know about it. Some time later, my older brother accidentally told my mom. He revealed that I had fallen down a second time. Of course, she was angry with my dad. While telling my wife the story, I suddenly recalled something important. My family mentioned I had passed out in one of those falls. I came to the conclusion that that I may have indeed had an NDE! This was an ongoing story that I remembered as a kid and teen. I hated hearing these stories because it made me feel like such a klutz even though I was just a baby!

I became curious about that whole event. I called my older brother and he told me a version of the story I had never heard before. He said that I passed out during the first fall. My mother immediately rushed to grab me and he saw my body limp. My mother ran upstairs and ran outside of the house hysterical. According to my brother, she was screaming and yelling outside of the house. He remembers her saying, “They took my baby! God, please help me!” At some point, while I was in her arms, I came to. My brother stated that he saw me my legs kick out and that I had started crying at that point. My mother was relieved. So it was no surprise that she would be very upset knowing that this happened again. Sidenote, there is a door leading to the basement. My parents had rented out the basement room to my uncle and aunt. Someone accidentally left the door open, hence why I fell, twice.

After talking to my older brother, I called my mother about this story. She recounted it, she got very emotional talking about it. I felt bad for bringing it up. However, it gave me confirmation that I potentially had an NDE as a child. I was just a toddler! Of course, if I did have an NDE, I don’t remember it. In the YouTube videos, people who experienced an NDE would sometimes say they felt gone for a long time. This was even though they were gone for only a few minutes on Earth. So I wonder, how long was I gone for?

Dreaming – Is it a gift?

I came to the conclusion as to why I had very vivid dreams growing up. It was most likely the result of an NDE. Becoming aware of this event made me understand some of the things I dealt with as a child. I was always confused by my déjà vu dreams. These moments from these déjà vu dreams would happen within a couple of days. They were so vivid that I couldn’t understand why I was having them.

I remember as a 6 year old trying to explain them to my parents. I would dream about myself and the people I was around. A few days later, it felt like I had been here all along. I wanted them to help me. They weren’t bad dreams but they were dreams of the near future. As I got older, I started having fewer déjà vu dreams. However, when the moments would come to fruition, there was an intense dream recall. Almost a reminder that I still had those type of dreams. I would also have odd experiences that I could only attribute to the paranormal. Yet, I always knew I had something special. It felt like I can attract more that what’s in the physical plane. I kept these things to myself. Sometimes, I shared them with my siblings when they talked about certain weird things they noticed.

I could talk more about my experiences growing up in my parent’s house but I’ll save that for another time. Fast forward to now. I only remember having had one lucid dream when I was a teenager. I’ve had four lucid dreams this year and I’m trying to figure out how to “do” it again. In all four of these dreams, an event made me realize I was in a dream. I have tried to use some of the same triggers but they don’t seem to work. I have been reading more books than I ever have. In the past, I read only when it was necessary. Now I’m reading a lot of books about spiritual growth and how to heal. I have joined a metaphysical church and am learning about gifts that people have. I want to learn more about these gifts and to find my own gift. I’m guessing that my gift might be that of dreams or dreaming. Dream Incubation has been mentioned to me. I think tapping into that would be my goal as well as others. There are so many things that I have learned over the last year and a half. I will use this time to write and share with whoever wants to read.

I am sending an SOS. This is to those who have begun their journey like me. It is also for those who have been on their journey for some time. It is for those who would like to share some wisdom and knowledge. I am a believer that we are all the same and we are of love. I am loved, you are loved, we are all loved. With that energy, everything becomes better. I just want to stay in that mindset. I also want to keep my heart open. If you’re out there and see this SOS, say hello.

It’s been over 3 years, it’s time to write something…anything…DO IT!

I can’t believe that it’s been three years since my last post. Writing during the pandemic was helpful and then…I just stopped writing. Every year since I’ve had to renew my subscription to the blog and I’ve thought about writing something, yet nothing was produced. It’s weird, recently I thought about my blog and it had nothing to do with the renewal. I logged back on and decided to dust off the cobwebs. For the last couple of days, I have been thinking about what to write and I’ve decided to write about my podcast. It’s probably one of the most fun and yet frustrating experiences I’ve had. I’m going to keep it short and sweet for now.

History of the Curbed Wheels Podcast

My friend Freddy, aka Wheels and I talked about starting a podcast as a way to get through the pandemic/shutdown and to revive our comedy goals/careers. I found the talks to be invigorating but was hesitant to even start. I finally decided to give it a shot and bought equipment for the podcast. It was exciting as I felt like, we could do something creative and something informative.

Freddy and I met because of comedy. I wish I could remember the moment I first spoke to him but honestly it all seems like a blur. I know I met him somewhere between 2012 and 2014 when I was performing three to five times a week. I eventually slowed down my stand-up career and really got into teaching comedy through the library. It was a lot of work but I really enjoyed it and fed off of the energy of the students who really enjoyed comedy. Some students wanted to perform and needed the push. Some were curious but wanted to learn more. Freddy was a guest comedian in some of my sessions and would talk to my students about his experiences, lessons learned, and imparted some of his wisdom to them. At the end of the four weeks, there would be a comedy show and the students would perform in front of a live audience. Sometimes, the guest comics would perform. Whenever I invited Freddy, he was the first to say yes and would perform extremely well.

Once COVID hit, we would chat about comedy and baseball. We definitely connected when it came to baseball. So much so that in 2018, we took a trip to Boston. I had planned it as the Mets were visiting Boston for an inter-league series then. Freddy is a huge Red Sox fan and I have always wanted to see Fenway Park. That trip gave me insight into Freddy’s world because he uses a wheelchair. There was a lot to consider going on this trip and made me realize how hard he has it when it comes to using public transportation. This would be a part of the podcast that I wanted to highlight. Something that would give Freddy a platform to discuss the difficulties of getting from one place to another. We brainstormed and discussed how the podcast would take shape.

The Podcast

After discussing the logistics, we just ran with it. We recorded our first two episodes on our first night of recording. Everyone was excited, it was great to see Freddy again, we hadn’t seen each other in person since 2019. It was a reunion and we had fun recording. We had a lot of response from friends and family on those first two episodes. Everyone said that they loved the show and were looking forward to the next couple of episodes.

Podcasts are very similar to doing stand-up. After a couple of times up on stage, your friends and family will stop showing up. Same with the podcast, after a couple of episodes, we were dropping off on listeners. We didn’t get many likes with our social media posts and eventually it just dried up.

I was frustrated and I was talking to Freddy about doing more on social media to promote the podcast. We got lucky with a few videos that were posted on YouTube but nothing was sticking. We weren’t consistent with our topics, on our recordings, and with our social media presence. We ended up taking a break as we both lost the energy to continue.

Conclusion?

We forged through it. Despite getting annoyed at each other we came back and just recently completed our first year of doing a podcast. We have tried to retool our show but the medium for a podcast is difficult. If you’re famous or have some sort of big following from something else, a podcast would already have a built in audience. We have started from scratch and my hope is that we can build a following.

We are still trying but we’re struggling to get listeners. We’ve dried up on our likes from our friends and families. We’re going to have to find a niche soon or this may be a project that was a part of my and Freddy’s life that became unsustainable. Stay tuned.