Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Coming Back to Life with Stephanie Arnold

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

On today’s episode of “The Language of Love,” I sit down with Stephanie Arnold. Stephanie has an incredibly powerful story which she shared in her international bestseller, “37 Seconds: Dying Revealed Heaven’s Help—A Mother’s Journey.” The title of the book comes from Stephanie’s real-life experience in which she died for 37 seconds. That’s right: She died and came back to life, and what she learned in those 37 seconds is so unforgettably powerful. I am so honored to speak with her today and learn what dying taught her, and I think you will find it to be so uplifting and informative. You will learn about: • The truth about your ‘sixth sense’ and how it can save your life • What scientists, medical experts, and philosophers have learned from studying clinical death (a.k.a. ‘near-death experiences’) • Stephanie’s premonition that she was going to die, and how she learned to advocate for herself after her fears were not taken seriously by her medical team • What Stephanie saw and heard when she died • How you can key into your sixth sense and tap into your divine intuition Stephanie’s story is so important for all of us to hear, especially those of us who have trusting our own truths and advocating for own safety. Learning how to apply this wisdom may end up literally saving your own life, but also help you learn how to deeply connect with the powerful source within you and make your days more meaningful and magical. Listen now and share your thoughts with me--I love to hear from my listeners! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Dr. Laura Berman, a sex and relationship therapist. And for the past three decades, I've been helping people learn how to love and be loved better. That's what we're doing here on The Language of Love, where I get to answer calls and emails from people just like you. My goal with The Language of Love is to help you discover more meaningful emotional and physical intimacy, and to help you build more awareness of how precious and sacred your sexuality really is. Be sure to email me or reach out with your very own love-sex relationship

questions, and I might just answer them live on the air. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. I'm excited to introduce you to our guest, Stephanie Arnold. She's an award-winning international bestseller, inspirational speaker, a thought leader whose story has inspired millions of people around the globe. She is on a mission to help others realize that, first of all, there is a sixth sense, but most importantly, that connecting with that sixth sense not only enhances our lives in a million ways, but can actually save them. And we'll be getting into her story that she shares in her book, 37 Seconds, Dying Revealed Heaven's Help. And in the book, she recounts her determination to survive and return to her husband, her children, and her

family after she died for 37 seconds. And through her unbelievable experiences and journey to recovery, she's sharing how she was able to triumph over that trauma and find new meaning in life. So thank you so much for joining us, Stephanie. I'm really glad to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. I've had Anita, I'm sure you know her because you probably all know each other, but I've had Anita Marjani on the show before. She's a good friend of mine. Dying to be me was her book when she died through a severe illness in her case. There's so much that we can learn. And it's something that University of Virginia has a whole department studying this now. And

we're learning so much more about near-death experiences and the definition of that being that you die for some period of time, but you don't permanently die. That's why it's a near death. I mean, I don't really like that term. I think it should be like a temporary death experience or something. Yeah. I mean, the medical terminology is called clinical death when you're asystolic, so no electricity. So I call it clinical death. Yeah, because she clinically died. And I'm going to get into your story, but what I think is really powerful about it, and I know is a big part of what you write about, is that in your case, and this is kind of unique to clinical deaths or near-death experiences, you had premonitions. You were pregnant, right?

And then the third child. So you were pregnant with him. And when did you start having premonitions that you were going to die and how did it happen? Yeah. So at the 20 week ultrasound, where we get all of the big information about the baby, I was diagnosed with a placenta previa, which is basically the placenta growing on top of the cervix. And in that moment, I had a very sinking feeling that something bad is about to happen. And my husband, who's a PhD economist from University of Chicago. He is a former Air Force pilot. He relates to data and a placenta previa is a one in 200 risk. So you take it easy and that's all you really need to worry about and not overexert yourself. But for some reason I kept saying to him, I'm like, there's going to

be a problem. And let me just ask you a question, pause you for a minute. Were you someone who tended to be a worrier or like anticipate problems or feel anxious that something bad was going to happen before these feelings? No, I, in my former life, I was a TV producer. So I worked on a lot of reality shows. I worked on shows like the Puerto Rican day parade in New York, like 25 live cameras, 3 million people. You were really calm under pressure. You're not, you were an optimistic person, not histrionic, not neurotic. You just had this feeling. I had this feeling. I call it knowing you don't know how, you know, you just do. And sometimes with mother's instinct, you have it, but this, this went beyond that. And so I had had a baby before I'd had a C-section

before. So this wasn't the fear of the unknown. There was just this, this constant foreboding. So I ended up being Dr. Google and what is a placenta previa and what can happen and what are the complications? And it turns out that a placenta previa could turn into an accretum, which is what Kim Kardashian had where the uterus and the placenta marry each other. if that happens, you know, you could bleed. And if that happens, you might need a hysterectomy. And if that happens, you might hemorrhage and you and the baby could lose your life. And in that moment, how prevalent is that? It's so rare. It's so rare. And a half of a half of a half a percent chance of it happening. And when you learned about that, did you decide, did you

say, Oh, that's what's going to happen? Yeah, that's exactly what I did. And so I didn't shut up. And so everybody rolled their eyes at me. I went to work. I went into producer mode. So I told all my doctors, I told the nurses, anybody that would see me, I'm like, my placenta previa is going to turn into an accreta. I'm going to hemorrhage. You're going to need extra blood. And I'm all negative blood type, which is a rare blood type. So you're going to need a lot of blood. And then I'm going to be cut from sternum to pelvis. And then I'm going to be dead on the operating table. Baby's going to survive. And I talk at a lot of medical institutions and teach at hospitals. And everybody, when I say it like that, because that's how I was, they're like,

this bitch is crazy. We got a live one on our hands, guys. They put a little red flag on your file. A hundred percent. I understand because the tests were negative. Everything that I was thinking, I even sought out in Chicago, I mean, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, it's a teaching hospital. I actually, I did research and it turns out if you're going to get a hysterectomy in an emergent situation, you really want a gynecological oncologist to do it because your OB can't do it. They would transfer you to maternal fetal medicine. But a Gynonc has more experience with high risk reproductive organ surgery, especially when 20% of your blood supply is going to the uterus. So I made an appointment with the head of Gynonc at Northwestern. And my

husband went with me to every single appointment. And he's sitting with me and he's like, we're in the waiting room and there are women who are suffering from cancer. They have IVs in their arms. They have no hair. And my husband's like, we are wasting this man's time. He's busy saving lives. And he's like, and you're a healthy pregnant woman at seven months pregnant, and you're still having these visions. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you, but maybe he's had a patient who's had this kind of foreboding and maybe they can point to something that I could do because the ultrasounds and the blood workup aren't telling me anything. So I go into the consultation with him and I explain what I feel is going to happen. And he

sits very calmly and he says, Mrs. Arnold, have you been on the internet? And I'm like, why, why yes, I have doctor. He's like, okay, well, so he's like, let's get an MRI. If the MRI is positive for an accreta, I'll schedule myself during your mandatory C-section and we'll take care of it then. And I felt better because I had something to do. Unfortunately, the MRI was negative. And then I go into this crazy thing. I mean, I went to Starbucks, people would be like, you know, how's your pregnancy going? I'm like, I'm going to die. I was, I can't imagine. See my, I'm such a codependent that I am still recovering codependent that I would have abandoned it way earlier. You know what I mean? Like once enough people told me I was crazy and they did

enough scans, I would have convinced myself I was crazy. Well, and that's the thing. And you didn't. Well, a woman said to me, you know, after the 10th doctor told you you were crazy, I would have shut up. And I said, then you would have stayed dead because the reality is I posted on Facebook. If anybody had my blood type, I was going to need it. I wrote goodbye letters. I sent out goodbye letters. I told everybody what was going to happen. And then at one point, Oh no, I was, I was in a frenzy and my husband told me later, he's like, I thought there was something wrong with the baby because at this point there's no indication of anything else going wrong. And so my doctor said, you know, why don't you have a consultation with

anesthesia? And I said, okay. And so I had a phone call with a doctor by the name of Dr. Grace Lim and she took notes and I told her what was going on. And she said, we're in a teaching hospital. we're prepared for emergencies. I hope I made you feel better. And I was like, it is what it is. And I prepared myself to die. No one's listening. Yeah. Including my husband, which took a toll on the relationship. I'll tell you later. Yeah. And I, my nickname for my husband is senior root chakra for the same reasons. I mean, he's very pragmatic, only believes in what there is clear scientific evidence for. And I have proved him wrong many times but this not in this kind of way not in this huge way

but the reality is it shakes the core of their foundation if you prove that something else they're like my husband cannot believe this because if he believes this everything that he has stood on his foundation is cracked his whole reality shifts yeah and that's scary that's why they're so pragmatic is because they want everything to be explainable right and the idea that it's not triggers huge childhood wounds in them. I know, but you know what? Get over it because the reality is that you have intuition for a reason. The men take less focus on it. The women are like, no, let's listen to what's happening. We're actually developmentally and biologically more prone to intuition because there's more communication between our left

and bright brain hemispheres than men. And also, I think it's in our cellular memory from the beginning of time when there were shaman women and wise women and women have always been the primary intuitives and the goddesses that men before the patriarchy really revered. Hopefully we're gonna circle slowly back around that

or at least to some sort of happy medium. But anyway, we digress. So you go into delivery, you've told the anesthesiologist and I read, yeah, but she sort of had a niggling like, okay, let me just, this anesthesiologist, like I, this probably is crazy, but JIC, what did she do? I go in to deliver Jacob. I give birth to a healthy baby boy. And seconds later I'm dead. I ended up having an amniotic fluid embolism, which is a very rare pregnancy complication that it's a one in 40,000 risk where amniotic

cells get into the mother's bloodstream. And if you happen to be allergic to it, your body goes into anaphylactic shock. And in most cases, you don't survive. So the first part of it is cardiac arrest and you shut down, you go asystolic. And then if you're lucky enough to survive that, your next phase is DIC, which is your body's inability to clot blood. And there was, so I flatlined for 37 seconds. They bring me back up, but there was something I didn't predict, which was in the OR, there was a crash cart and extra blood present. And unbeknownst to me, that anesthesiologist was very uncomfortable about how detailed I was. And she said later, she said, I never had a patient speak so clearly about what was going

to happen, had had a baby before, had had a C-section before, and had sought out specialists to save her life. And with that one phone call, she flagged my file and incorporated extra blood in a crash cart in the operating room at the time of delivery. And I needed both of them. What saves you? Normally that's not in the delivery room. No, they give about six units of blood. They give you about six units of blood for any kind of operation. Because I'm O negative, I can only take O negative blood. And I was given 60 units of blood and blood product to save my life. So once all that happened, I get stabilized and then they transfer me to the surgical ICU where I'm in a medically induced coma and I start kidney

failure. It was just bad. And then my husband shows up and he says, if she needs a hysterectomy, this is the doctor who we met with two months before. And they thought it was odd, but they took the note and they said, you know, we don't think she'll need a hysterectomy. We feel like we stabilized her. Seven hours later, the bells and whistles go off. I'm still hemorrhaging. And it turns out he did need the hysterectomy. They cut me from sternum to pelvis and they did the hysterectomy. They did the pathology on the uterus and they showed that an accreta had started to form, but where the MRI was, where its placement was, how early it was, it was undetectable. So everything happened exactly the way I said it would happen.

Exactly as you said. Now let me ask you this before we go on to what happened next. Do you have any memories of those 37 seconds? What do you remember when you really were flatlined? Yeah. So in the recovery, I ended up doing a regression therapy, using hypnotherapy to take you back to those moments of trauma. and I'm sure you're familiar with Dr. Brian Weiss and his work. So this therapist who worked with

him and I videotaped my hypnotherapy, she took me back into those moments. And what I saw was who hit the button for the code, which nurse jumped on my chest to give me CPR. And remember, there was a curtain in front of my face to having a C-section. So I heard my doctor saying, this can't be happening. This can't be happening at the far end. My anesthesiologist by my feet, what was going on down the hall, what they were, what my daughter was doing in the labor and delivery room. And then I saw hundreds of spirits. I saw family members and people I didn't know, like hundreds of them. And I didn't see God and I didn't see heaven. And it just was a very ethereal place and warm and inviting. And you know, you never know. I grew up in Miami, so I'm

like, oh, a warm beach. And that was kind of like my void. But I saw people that I didn't know, but knew people that I didn't know and had messages for that, including my husband's father who had passed away in 1998 and my best friend's little brother who was seven. And it just weird. And they gave you messages? They gave me direct messages. So I had information when I came back and, you know, therapists will say, you know, of course, when you're traumatized, you go through a near death experience, your loved ones are there and welcoming you, but it's all BS. And I'm like, okay, let's put a pin in that. Let's, let's forget those people for a moment. But it's the people

that I didn't know that gave me incredibly accurate information that I couldn't have possibly known to friends and family that like pulled the curtain back on us. Can you give an example of one of those? Yeah. So I write about it in the book. I, you know, I talk about Jonathan's father and when I came back and when I was healing, I said, I saw your father. He's like, I'll tell him.

I said, hi. Right. So typical, right? Typical. I said, look, you know, he was wearing a specific jacket and had patches on the elbows and and had like a green stripe there and had, he's like my, and I said, it was a tweed jacket. He's like, my father didn't have a tweed jacket. You know, he wouldn't. And I was like, okay, fine. Forget about the jacket. But he had a coin and the coin was very specific. And it was more

of like me, me trying to sleuth it because it doesn't come out like a, here's an audio message. It is. And, and maybe because I worked in TV, I see things in flash frames, but I was like, it was a frame and it was a, a coin that was a different metal. It wasn't gold or silver. It was different shape. It had a bird on it and had, you know, like I wouldn't throw all of this stuff. And he's like, I don't know, Stephanie, forget it. I like, you know, I don't know what you're talking about. So I'd go family member, family member. And finally one person said to me, the tweed jacket, did it have, you know, beige patches on the elbows and everything? So his mother said, I said, yeah, it's like, that was his favorite jacket. So I go back to Jonathan.

I said, that was his favorite jacket. What do you mean? And he's like, he's like, if you would have said herringbone, I would have said yes. Oh, come on. Tweed is herringbone. Well, I had to look that up. I had to look that up, but I was like, that's an asshole thing to say. So then I'm like, all right, no problem. But what about the coin? So coin, member, member, family, nobody knows. Finally, I'm with the middle brother. And he's like, oh, Stephanie, how's your therapy going? And Jonathan, now my shoulder says, well, she saw dad. Oh, really tell me about it. I was like, listen, do you know anything about a coin? And he's like, what's funny, you should mention that. He said, I was going through one of dad's old suitcases

and in the crevice behind the zipper, there was a coin. I said, can you describe that coin to me, please? And it was almost verbatim. And it turns out the coin was from Croatia. And the last time he and his father, the son and his father had a happier moment was in Croatia because this was the son that was with his father when he had a massive heart attack and died in London. So he had always blamed himself that he could have. This is your husband's brother. Brother. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And then I looked at my husband. I said, F you. I'm out. You know, forget it. This was really a message for his brother. It was.

I mean, it was a message for him too, to be like, holy yit. This is. Right. Like, how would I know that? Right. But also it was a message for the brother more than your husband. Right. That he could really, that that was what was real.

The connection, that beautiful trip, the energy of that beautiful trip. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. All of those things start unfolding and you're like, okay, I don't know. Quote it to me. Like as a kid, I was on low voltage where I'd had intuitive moments as a kid. That's why I don't shy away from talking to my children about what they're feeling or what they're thinking. And then you go asystolic, which means you get unplugged and then I get plugged back in and now I'm on high voltage. So now I think about more empathic than I was before, but I also have opened myself up protecting, but opened myself up to saying, okay, this is

possible whereas before i was like maybe i'm out of my mind right well what i think is so interesting and ironically something you know something similar happens in my marriage not a near-death experience but around the time that i sort of conceptualizing quantum love was after one of my afges another fucking growth experience one of these things that break your life open and that was the beginning as a child i was really saw things felt things experienced things but i they got conditioned or teased out. I remember I even wrote, because I would have these lucid dreams and lucid awake dreams of me flying. And I would try to tell my mother or my sister, and they made so much fun of me. And they convinced me, my whole family convinced me

that it was not real. And I was so convinced it was real, but I also felt myself being convinced it wasn't that I wrote on a little piece of paper. I must've been like six years old. I wrote on a little piece of paper, I really can fly and hit it behind the refrigerator. And when we were moving several years later, my sister found it and they were making so much fun of me. But I eventually got conditioned out of it, let go of it all, met my husband, married him. He's, like I said, very pragmatic. And then when this huge breaking open happened for me, and it happens for all of us in different ways if it's going to happen. Yours was this near-death experience. It shifts everything and you kind of awaken to the truth and the reality and it changes you, but your partner

signed up for something else, right? So how are they going to, and thank God, my husband, he still just pats me on the head and says, go on with your bad self. I don't need him to believe in it. He doesn't say you're full of shit or anything. And I can see around the edges of when I say something is going to happen and it does, or when he sees something happening with me, I can see him starting to kind of open a little crack, it doesn't matter. Like I don't need him to believe what I believe, but I'm wondering how that has played out in your relationship. Cause you're probably an extremely different person. What you talk about, what you're focused on, what you're interested in, what you believe in is probably pretty different than before this. Like I said, I worked in

television. So it was entertainment. It was, it's linear, right? It's practical to get the job done. And that's for my husband, Mary. But, you know, what's interesting is that on our fifth date, I was scheduled to go to Tulum. And so I went to this eco lodge and spiritual retreat with these shamans. And like, I was working with Mayan shamans. And Jonathan is like, I'll go to Mexico. You know, I'm like, you know, it's like, okay, but it's not five star. It's like, you know, he's like, he's like, no problem. So he goes there and like the first day that we're there, we're in the ocean and a wave hits me on the back of my head and hits me on the back of his head. And I hear my nose crack. You hear it snap. I'm starting to bruise. I look at him.

I'm like, he's like, oh my God, let's see. I said, look, I just need to know if the nose is in the same place because I had it done at 21. So I'm like, if it's in the same place, he's like, no, it's in the same place, but it's fine. I said, then take me to the shaman. He's like, what? I was like, don't argue with me. Just take me to the shaman. So he takes me into this little grass

hut. The shaman is like, you know, I'm like, and he's like, okay, so he takes me in 20 minutes later. I come out, my nose is fine. No swelling, no bruising. And, and Jonathan's like, do I want to ask? I'm like, no, I, and he can't deny that happens. So I say that may I've changed meaning like the, like what you say, the roof has been blown off the place from this experience, but he always knew this was part of me. So, you know, writing the book was very painful for him because for him, we're good. Like Air Force pilot, like emergency done, suppress, repress, let's move on. Why do we need to relive it? And he has a woman like many other women are like, no, no, I need to talk through it. So he's like, this is your story, not mine. And I said, no, I need you to

write a chapter in the book about your perspective. I was telling you for three months, this is going to happen. You were saying, no, you're the voice of reason. And he fought me for so long to write that chapter. And so ultimately he did. And I realized how much pain he was in. It made him realize like he wasn't, cause he wasn't there at the time of delivery. He felt bad that he couldn't protect me. And I was like, God works in mysterious ways. I mean, the reality is you could hear your wife had flatlined, but to see her, you would have been dragged out of the OR. You wouldn't know that image. You wouldn't have been able to say. Yeah. No. So through this process, we've kind of come to terms and we're now in an amazing place, but we've come to terms where

he doesn't want to hear about other losses. I sit on the board of the AFE Foundation and we have deaths each week. And so for him, he's like, I can't handle that. I don't want to hear the sort of details. He's like, he comes with me to some of my speaking engagements and he walks out like when, you know, I talk about some of the traumatic stuff. So he will never admit that he's been changed by it or, you know, he'll just revert. Especially, you know, your wife and your child going through that. And now when you say, and I've heard this from other people who have had near death experiences that, and I like this idea of being like, I forget exactly how you put it, but sort of hyper-wired. How did you put it? High voltage. Yeah. High voltage, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I've heard that a lot and that a lot of people who remember with the whole journey and even experienced it will say that it was sort of hard to come back into this body because it's being so out of it, you experience your full expansiveness and light and it feels really small and constrictive coming back in. So A, I'm wondering if you've had any of that experience, but also the other thing I've heard from a lot of people who have had similar experiences is the high voltage element. It's like the veil has been pulled back. And so they get a lot of messages and a lot of spirits come through and a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff that the rest of us are unconsciously filtering out. You probably are not. I mean, I know you can,

No, it was you, but you otherwise will get it for sure. It was, um, I didn't have the experience of not wanting to come back. And I, you know, when I discussed your husband and kids, right. I mean, I wasn't leaving a life that I was ready to leave. I had found my husband. I met my husband through a matchmaker, a Yenta. And so when I found him, I just knew that it was him and I wasn't ready to go. And I had this new baby boy that we fought really hard through after seven rounds of IVF. And so when you go through all of that, you're like, okay, I've been on this journey to have this family. So no, I didn't have the desire to stay away. And in fact, when doing the regression and other therapy, they're like, you have the ability to do astral travel and to

leave your body. And I can teach you how to do that. I'm like, no, no, no. I left my body by accident. I'm not ready to do it again. I'm totally fine. I'm fine. Be grounded. But it was really difficult for me to filter out any energy because once you get plugged back in, and I'm sure you've heard this, without knowing how to protect yourself, to mentally guard yourself, there was so much information and I almost had a breakdown because I was like, it's too much. For 50 years, Canadians have wondered what the names of IKEA furniture mean, like Natopa, the guardrail for children's beds. Natopa means giving your favorite person room to grow. It means their safety and your peace of mind. No, in Swedish, Natopa means night monkey. Mom, he's back. IKEA, 50 years of

Swedishness at home. Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute. You feel like you're mentally crazy. I mean, it's like you can't even think. Yes, I've heard that. And so you've learned how to create boundaries and filter and ask. It's not welcome until you ask and that kind of thing. Yeah. How does that play out in your life today? Because I mean, even for me, I mean, I don't have the same high voltage that you do, but I use my intuition and the guidance that I get for everything from what I wear in the morning to what projects I'm going to do to who to reach out and send a text to. But I don't have someone knocking on my energetic door with a message for anyone or anything like that. So I'm just wondering how it operates in your day-to-day life.

Well, so I couldn't write. I couldn't function. I was nervous sending the kids out to school thinking of whatever would happen. And half of the time that I would say certain things, they would come true. And so my odds were in my favor that things that I was thinking was coming true, which also played into the one doctrine when I went to say thank you to everybody was like self-fulfilling prophecy, you manifested this. And I'm like, oh, so you believe that because my brain has the capacity to cause my body to hemorrhage and need a hysterectomy. And he's like, well, I didn't say we believed it. It's just the only thing I can come up with. And I said, it's an asshole thing to say, because I'm already living with the guilt

that I killed myself, right? So I was worried about thinking something and then having a spontaneous heart attack. Or so- Yeah, because you're so powerful. Yeah. Clearly things that make a lot happen, holy yet, I better not think. Right. So I've learned from friends and people that I respect, it's like, it might sound stupid.

So I say to out into the universe, I'm like, look, I can only handle what I can handle. These are office hours. If there's something really important for me to know in that moment, send a clear message. When it comes, and other than that, I'm like, I'm tuning it out because it's too much. It's too much. I have to worry about the family and worry about like where I'm going and what I'm doing with them and for them. But the way that I look at intuition is that it's partially hardwired in you.

You know that feeling when you're in fight or flight mode. You know when there's a difference between having a premonition and a casual thought. a premonition is something that's incessant. It keeps going in your head over and over and over again. It's a dream that won't let up. And if that happens, my opinion is speak up because who cares if somebody's judging you or thinking you're crazy. Everybody thought it was crazy, but the reality is, is if I was wrong, that'd be great. I sent flowers. I'm never having another baby again. Exactly. But on the chance that you're right, it's not worth staying quiet if it's going to save your life.

Especially if you're having a premonition that you're going to die. Yeah, and so your intuition, once you start getting used to, and I tell people, I'm like, write down. If you're too afraid to speak up, write down the date, all the details of what you're wearing, what weather it is, anything that keeps coming to you.

And so you could see how accurate your intuition is in the weeks to come when that situation arises. Or if you're about to take a job and you decide I'm going against my feeling, my gut feeling, take note of where it places in your body because that is there to tell you there's something wrong. Yeah. And so many people are not even in their bodies to get those messages. Now, how has this, I know it has, how has this experience changed your work in the world? Yeah. So I used to work on shows like Surreal Life and Flavor of Love and a bunch of reality shows,

And I can't do that anymore. When I came back, I realized, okay, I, why don't I do a reality show about people who've had near death experiences. And when I went out to pitch the networks, they didn't buy the show, but they were fascinated with my story. So I was like, oh, well, they're like, you should write a book. You should write a book. Like, I don't want to write a book. Writing a book is hard. And so, so ultimately I wrote a book and looked at, okay. And then, you know, through that, all of the content, the program, the speaking, I'm so much more connected to the soulful connections, because if you and I never see each other again, we have a moment that we shared. If we see each other again, it's like, it's getting down to, we're not talking

about the weather. We're talking about something really that's important to our soul. And I don't think I would have had that without this experience. So I, are you incapable of small talk? That's my problem now. I can't have small talk. I know I feel bad for my children, you know, because the, you know, there's parties and there's, you know, school stuff and I don't know about you. I can't, I, you know, and also they know our story. So it's like, and I'm a much older parent for, in Jacob's group. I was with my youngest. Right. So he's in third grade and the parents are in their thirties and I just turned 50. So it's a disconnect. It's a life disconnect and you try, but then it's inauthentic. And also you probably, I mean, I know for me,

after I sort of went through my transformation and I'm sure you're this on steroids, really sensitive to other people's energy so it's not that it's like dark or yucky or evil but it hurts to be it's really uncomfortable to be around people who are really disconnected from themselves or not friends with their shadows at all and they could be acting perfectly polite and nice it's not that they're bad people but it like if they're being inauthentic to themselves just living their Instagram life or they are having where it's like, I can see through it. And half of the time they don't want to get in my optics. Like they don't want to get, so they'll just turn around and they're, they're, you know, I'm like, I'm not going to call you out. It's all good.

Yeah. I sort of, I mean, I don't call them out, but I often find myself saying, you know, listen, like wherever I'm really bad at small talk. So can we just like have a real conversation? And sometimes there'll be like, yeah, we have this amazing conversation. And sometimes they're like, I have to go get a drink. They just sort of excuse themselves. But it does really change, right? So in many ways, I heard you say that you feel bad for your kids. I mean, we could argue, right? We have this story about what experiences kids are supposed to have as kids, what is a good childhood and what isn't. But in the end, the gift that your awareness gives them just by being their mother is, in my opinion, astronomically larger than

you schmoozing with the moms while they run around a birthday party a million times a week. I'm going to take this clip and I'm going to play it for myself with positive motivation every day. It's so funny how we all find things to feel maternal guilt about. One way or another, we're going to beat the shit out of ourselves if we can. And we'll find a way. Our parents used a wooden spoon, beat the shit out of us. And so I'm like, our children are coddled and you know I'm like locked us out of the house all day yeah go play yes and so and well plus they didn't have they didn't have the awareness that we have as parents now about everything that we're doing to screw up our children so yeah right and then we still

screw them up I can tell you that having had now that they're grown up or growing up that you know and I said that to them their whole childhood I was like listen I know on some level we're all you know despite all my best efforts I'm screwing you up just know that I'm screwing you up out of love. And I'll pay for your therapy if and when you need it. And how did they respond to that? It didn't come up like every day, but when they would complain about something or when they really were saying that, you know, or I remember telling them when they were going to the little ones, they were little and I was clueless. You know, I was like you grew up in Southeast Georgia. I was clueless about this ice hockey thing and they were dying to play ice hockey. And I was taking them to

a tryout. Of course, I took them with only ice skates and none of the gear, which was mortifying because everybody has gear at the hockey tryouts, but I was the clueless mom. But as we're going, they were talking to each other because they were only 14 months apart. I'm nervous. I don't know. And I was like, let's envision you hitting the puck. I'm sure I said it wrong, like hitting the puck into the goal or whatever it was. And I was trying to walk. And they're like, stop making us manifest you know they were just they get annoyed but like yours they are very emotionally intelligent and they have all i mean my oldest is now 26 and he went through really tough time mostly due to medical trauma because he had cancer as a young child and he struggled with depression and anxiety

and he felt way too much and but in later and then that obviously created dynamics in the family with which then circled back to negatively affect him. And so as he really dived into his own self-work, I had to sit there and with an open heart and mind, really listen to the ways that I marginalized him or wasn't there for him in the way I could have been or abandoned him accidentally, not literally, but emotionally.

And I had to really own that. Even in times where I wasn't sure that he was right because I saw it differently, I understood why he saw it and experienced it that way. Yeah. And so, you know, we all screw him up. That's the thing. And I think that's part of the reason we come here to be in these bodies is to, because

on the other side, as you probably experienced, right? We don't have these pains and fears and guilt and shame and loss, and we're just in the oneness. And I think we come here to have this experience because otherwise we're in the void of the oneness all the time. There's something really beautiful about being in the separation and the pain because then you can really feel the joy. If we didn't have the pain, we wouldn't be able to feel the joy. I think your story is really beautiful. I love how it's shifted. You're still using, and this is true for all of us. I love watching how this unfolds for people, but it's

always when you look back with hindsight, you can see, oh yeah, and that thing I did and that detour I took it was like all in service to what wants to happen now. And, you know, your production history, all the things that you've done up to now, you're still using, right? And all of those skills. Right. Yes. And now it's kind of shifting trajectories and you're moving to much more soulful work. And I know that you're going to be starting a podcast, right? the podcast is so we're currently on a netflix show called surviving death and so the producers on that show i had pitched an idea for a podcast called knowing how you know you just do and so we signed it with whale rock industry as an echo verse and we're in the finishing up the pilot so

should be very hopefully this year it's taken a lot and i think so many people always and i think so many people are starting to attune especially with everything all the pain and the afges you know those freaking growth experiences that the whole world has been going through over the past several years that people are really opening minds and hearts to this kind of information and wanting to really live from their knowing and get now that they're off the hamster wheel and so i think it's a perfect time for you to do this because people are ready to learn more and more about how to really access this ability to sixth sense, so to speak, that we all have and that we're all born with. What I was going through, there weren't any stories that I could point to about pregnancy and

foreboding and premonitions and everything. And now that our story's out there, people reach out and talk about, oh, I had something like this happen or I did this. So that's the point of telling stories. And that's the point of doing your podcast and sharing things that people could say, okay, well, maybe I'm not crazy. Maybe just, we don't talk about it. We don't talk about it because people think we're crazy, but it actually happens more often than we think. And so by shedding some more light on these stories and people might be able to open up and share their stories, um, and help affect other people in a different way. Amen. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story here with us. And if you want to learn more about Stephanie Arnold, definitely

go to Stephanie Arnold. That's with a P-H-S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E Arnold.net. They can follow you on social media, I assume. Yes. Right. Yeah. Instagram. Are you Stephanie Arnold? 37. Stephanie Arnold, 37. And we will be looking out for your podcast. And thank you. Thank you for all the work you're doing in the world and the light that you are. And I'm glad that you came back. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Baby, you're my rock star Smashing all my guitars One day I will charge you

For breaking my heart You're just like my sport car Driving fast, you go far When I'm standing by you, we get high This song is about you And my lips are crying for