Well with Arielle Lorre - 328: Lessons From a Celebrity Medium & A Wild On-Air Reading with Susan Grau
Episode Date: July 1, 2024Susan Grau is a celebrity medium, author, grief expert, and a globally recognized intuitive hypnotherapist/past life regressionist. In today’s unforgettable episode, Susan walks us through ...her near-death experience and journey with the spirit world. She shares the three-step process anyone can use to channel spirits and find peace among grief. She also gives me an insanely emotional reading! We explore the intersection of grief and addiction, how to cope with fear and trauma, and Susan shares advice for anyone struggling with addiction. Such a powerful episode!Subscribe to Patreon for exclusive weekly content: patreon.com/ArielleLorreThis episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Go to helloned.com/BLONDE or use code BLONDE for 15% off all products. Visit article.com/BLONDE for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Go to fatty15.com/BLONDE or use code BLONDE for an additional 15% off their Starter Kit.Head to airdoctorpro.com and use BLONDE for up to $300 off air purifiers and a 3-year warranty on any unit!Get who gets you, on eHarmony! Sign up today at eharmony.com Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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The following podcast is
A Dear Media Production
Welcome to the Blond Files
I'm your host, Ariel Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal
health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off
limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing
my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show.
Welcome, Susan. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Really looking forward to talking to you.
this is a topic that I have not touched at all. I don't think in the five years that I've had the podcast,
you know, the topic of grief and spirituality and clear senses, which I'm sure we'll get into.
But why don't we start by having you introduce yourself to the audience and tell them about what you do because it's very unique.
Okay. I'm a medium and intuitive and I'm an inspirational speaker and an author.
I started out having a near-death experience at four and a half years old.
I was locked in an unplugged freezer in a garage.
And when I came back from that, I was able to see spirits everywhere.
It was unbelievable.
And I was really actually terrified.
I used to cover my head and tell them to go away.
I thought they were the boogeymen.
But as time went on, it became my normal.
I ultimately was visited by them continuously,
and I became a counselor for grief and addiction.
And then I received my doctorate in divinity,
and I work with children who have near-death experiences.
So, you know, I've kind of gone an array of things I love to do. At the end of the day, I'm just a healer. That's what I love. That's my heart. Yeah. I'm curious about the kind of intersection between grief and addiction, if there is one. I've been in recovery for 10 years. So that's a particular interest to me. Absolutely. So I have, in full reveal, I have two brothers and a mother who were all in addiction and they committed suicide. And so, you know, I correlate.
those two things. I think addiction is very painful. It's traumatizing and it's out of the control of
the addict until they recognize they can do something different. And so, and the grief of having to
face their experiences and the things that they wish they wouldn't have done and the shame behind
that all correlates together with, you know, the process of letting go of that addiction and
becoming everything they're meant to be. So it's very much, you know, intertwined.
Yeah. I always get messages from people who are either sober curious or they're newly sober or they're trying to be sober. And kind of this like overarching theme in those messages are, it's always about that. You know, how do I deal with the guilt and the remorse and the shame and the traumas that are accrued along the way? And I know for myself, you know, I don't talk about it publicly, but I have a program.
That helped me to face all of that stuff. But I think that it's so daunting for so many people.
It is. I also am in a program for people who were raised by them. So I understand that verbiage.
I really believe that, you know, trying to do it alone, trying to heal yourself alone, trying to face the demons of what, you know, you're holding onto from your past, present or future.
You know, those demons are so powerful that having a support system is imperative in order to feel safe.
I think that, unfortunately, addiction is a mind of its own.
It's in the corner doing push-ups ready to come at you.
And so having to face all those traumas from the past that you really didn't have control over,
you know, any human doesn't have control over the things that we do when we're intoxicated or something's taken us over is really scary.
And so what happens is they flip back into finding a solution, and that solution has always been to use.
And so a lot of them go back to that process because it's all they know.
Their fear is really strong.
So I tell my people that come to me, what you fear, you feed, what you feed, you believe, or you perceive,
and what you believe and perceive becomes your reality.
So the goal is to get rid of the fear base, and we need help doing that.
That's not easy.
And so when I speak about addiction, I'm always talking about, you know, releasing that fear base you need to have a support system so that you feel safe.
Because it's really about that safety mechanism because it's not going to take me over and I'm not going to have anywhere to turn and no one to talk to and no place to go.
And that's what I hear a lot.
Like I have this, you know, all this darkness in my soul.
I said, your soul will never be dark.
Your soul is precious and perfect and it's from the spirit world.
It's the head is distorted in its thinking.
And so, you know, I tell them, you're trying to think.
your way into right actions to stay sober and you have to act your way into right thinking
to stay sober. So it's very different than what they've been taught or what they've tried to do in the
past. You know, I'm going to hold on and I'm going to think my way through it. Yeah. Yeah, that's something
that was paradigm shifting for me as well. When I got sober was this idea that I had to act myself into
feeling different, period, not just into being sober. I have to act my way into feeling different still,
You know, and that's often contrary action. And, you know, I was overrun by fear my thinking. That was a big reason. I think why I initially started drinking and doing drugs when I was young. And, you know, of all the defects, that's definitely still the one that rears its head most frequently for me, I think. But, you know, I watch for it and I have practices that I can do. And, you know, I know from support system. Support system.
Yes. And other things, you know, that really work. But I think grief's involved in that. I think
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And then it stops working. And no one knows what to do with that. So, you know, the, so the, so the,
guilt or the grief is very involved in that. And so what I walk people through is facing that
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We go through such shame and guilt. We don't want to tell people because we believe that they'll think
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So I want to rewind a little bit and go back to your near-death experience and, you know,
having these spirits visit you. At what point did you maybe recognize that this was something
unique? You became unafraid of it and it sounds like you accepted it. And how did that shift
things for you? I don't know if I ever completely accept it.
If I'm in honesty, I think when people go, how did she know that? I go, how did I know that?
But then, you know, and I'll go to work and I'll tell people, I might be making this up. I'm crazy. I'm
I'm going to be, you know, this is so bad. And then they'll say to me, you know, when you come out, tell us you feel the same way and I'll come out and go, I couldn't have known that. How did I know that? So I go through my doubts too. I'm having a human experience. But for me, I think about 17 years old is when I recognized that it really was real. And it was from my own experience from losing someone and they came to me. And so it wasn't outside of me anymore, you know, a stranger. It was right in front of me.
And it was someone that I loved that gave me evidence.
And I didn't know they had passed.
So it was extremely powerful to me to recognize, you know, what was going on inside of me.
And I called UCLA at the time was having a, I don't know what they called it, but a paranormal society, so to speak.
And I called them and they said, oh, you sound like a medium.
And I went, what's that?
And when they started to tell me I hung up, I thought, oh, I'm weird.
This, you know, and it's so interesting because my friends of childhood tell me now, you know, we always knew you were weird or something was different.
different about you. We just didn't know what it was. Because my mother, my sister and my brother had this
gift, but my mother was put away and put on medications for it. And in my day, you didn't talk about this.
So my mother was like, do not talk about it. So that's why I didn't come to full circle at a younger
age. It was my abnormally normal. So I didn't know to talk about it at that point. It just was.
When I started to do the grief work and the addiction work, you know, we have a lot of
an addiction a lot. We lose a lot of people, unfortunately, and sadly. And at that point was when I
think I started to say, I know things that I shouldn't know. People are hearing things out of my
mouth that they haven't told me and they're recognizing it. I have to start being honest,
as honest as I can be. And so it started there, but it didn't grow for another 15 years
to the point that I said, I'm a medium.
Mm-hmm. What is it like for you? I mean, is it you meet someone, you're sitting there, you're talking to them, and you're getting these intuitive thoughts or messages, or you're seeing something? Does it happen all the time? Does it happen infrequently? Is it only when you kind of prepare yourself to talk to somebody in that way and access that? Like, what is that experience like for you? Well, it's always there. But I've learned to turn the dial up and down. So I turn down the dial when I'm in a situation.
where I know it's not appropriate or haven't been asked.
And sometimes I don't, though.
I have to admit it.
Sometimes I'll be at a restaurant and go,
who's with that person?
Just because I want to.
But most of the time, I turn it down.
And then when it's time, it just seems to click in.
But I can feel myself.
It's like being on an elevator or something,
and I just go, and I'm in.
I'm very good at reading souls.
So when I say that, what I mean is I'm very intuitive
to who people are pretty instantly.
and I can tell their journey pretty quickly.
That comes from them and also studying it for so long
and practicing this gift because we all have it.
We just don't practice it.
We deny it a lot.
And with mediumship, I think it's just,
I'm so in tune with my losses and my grief.
And I've always been a person,
I put away my limiting beliefs, let me say it that way,
and I became present.
And when you're present, you see and feel things.
and I began teaching it.
And so I had to really recognize what is that process?
And that's how it took off.
I don't know what your experience is with this,
but I would imagine that it's still kind of taboo.
I mean, I think that so many people have this perspective,
that is we are humans, this is it.
You know, we can only see things through the lens
of our own human experience and our own human mind.
So any other realm is just unfathomable.
And I think because of that, people just reject it.
So how has that been for you?
If I'm really honest, it hasn't happened to me very often at all.
And I think it's because of my background.
So when you're a therapist and, you know, you deal with grief and addiction of these things, people give you a little bit more respect in it.
What they're picturing is you setting up house and doing the woo-woo, you know, crystal ball, palm reading kind of thing.
And that's not how I work.
So once they meet me, they see it differently. They see that my goal is to help people heal.
But mediumship is taboo, and I think mediums have created that. They didn't know what to do with their gift. And so it became that woo-woo scary out there. They call them grief vampires. And I tell people, we really are grief vampires. And I'm going to tell you why. We suck in all of that grief. They see it differently. We're taking from these people. But what we're doing is we're carrying a space for these people.
and we're taking it on and then we're trying to help them heal.
So in essence, we are, you know, grief vampires in that sense.
What they mean by it is something negative.
Once people come to me who don't believe,
I would say a good 98% of them walk out saying,
I can't believe that I believe.
I'm blown away right now.
You couldn't have known those things.
That wasn't anywhere you couldn't find it.
And that's what they think you're doing.
And I'm sure some mediums do that.
I won't say they don't.
But when you have integrity and character and your goal is to help people heal, that's the last thing you want to do.
You want to be true to who you are so that you like who you are.
Love that.
So having had access to this spirit world, I don't know really in the terminology for it, but.
That's a good terminology.
Okay.
So what do we get wrong about life?
Well, I think people are looking for a soul path and it's really common for them to come to me and, you know, what's my soul path?
and we're searching for that right thing. Well, that's not a soul path. A soul path is self-love
and self-acceptance. That's our true soul path. And so I think that's what they get wrong most often.
Our life path is everything else. And that takes us to our soul path, right? But when we come here,
we innately are able to love others. So that little story that you hear out there that, you know,
if you don't love yourself, you can't love others, I don't agree with that at all. I believe that we are
innately able to love others. It's loving ourselves. That's so difficult. For whatever reason,
I can't tell you that reason, but it's there. And we're so hard on ourselves. So the goal is to
start gaining self-love. And then we're on that right soul path. And when I tell people that they get
relieved because they think it's something they're supposed to be doing outside of them. And a
healing is an inside job. And people also believe that their souls are damaged. And I have a real
problem with that. So they say soul wounds. And, you know, I honor everyone's belief system,
but if we don't have somewhere to go inside of us to heal, that is soul healed, we're in trouble.
Because we're supposed to go inward to heal ourselves, not outward. And that's even if we're
guiding someone, we're guiding them to go inside of themselves. Well, if everything's damaged,
our brain, our heart, our spirit, and our soul, we're in big trouble. So what I tell people is,
you know, the breath of life, spirit, that can be hurt, damage, broken.
Our hearts can be hurt, damage, broken, and our brains can be, you know, really dysfunctional
and distorted.
But our souls are perfectly pure and it's the vine to the spirit world.
That's so beautiful.
I'm just thinking of, you know, myself at certain times and probably others.
It's so hard to attune to ourselves, I think, and I think that there's a resistance to do that
because it's scary, right? And I think, you know, going back to addictions, there are so many other
addictions now, social media, technology, like we can go through the entire day without once really
being present in our body. So I think this concept of like your soul and attuning to all of that is
probably just so daunting. So how do you walk people through that or how do you recommend the listeners
start to attune to that? Well, I think attuned.
To The Spirit World has a three-step process, like most things.
We have an awareness that they're there, and they become aware that we're aware.
So maybe our hair stands on end.
Maybe the room gets cold.
Maybe we feel their energy.
We're thinking of them, and we feel like they're next to us.
And we allow that.
And so we become aware.
And then we get into acceptance.
I'm going to accept that something's different in this room.
I feel it.
I sense it.
I know it.
I just don't know what that is.
instead of going to fear base, go to acceptance, and then that action, which is trust.
I'm going to trust something's going on here. Well, the whole time, the spirit world's going,
okay, she's accepting I'm here, she's aware I'm here, and now she's going to trust it. Right or wrong,
she's going to trust it. So I'm going to come on. I'm going to come in. I'm going to do whatever
that thought was that they said it wasn't me, that they just thought that. Now I'm going to do it that way.
So even if you're wrong, they'll start showing you in different ways once you get to that space.
we fear what we don't understand, and that's the big issue.
And again, what we fear we feed.
So, of course, we're going to go the other direction.
We're feeding it.
But my goal is to get people to release the fear and their limiting thoughts or beliefs and just let it be.
Life's in session.
We need to be present.
And if we're present, we're going to see things differently.
So I go through my day as much as I can, not driving here, as much as I can, being present.
And that changes my path.
You know, of what I'm seeing, what am experiencing, what is my soul telling me. You know, I'm tapping into that always so that I can be aware of what's around me.
You referenced spirit. What is the difference or is there a difference between spirits and people who have passed?
Spirits are people who have passed. Okay. So when I was on the other side, what I saw were guides, deities, angels, which is not a religious connotation. I want to be.
want to be very clear. They crossed me over and brought me back. And it was not a religious feeling
at all. It was just pure love, unconditional love. And then there's the spirits. The spirits are
our loved ones, our animals, you know, the spirits. So think about your breath of life is your spirit.
So if you think about how the soul comes and seats inside the heart, which, by the way, the heart
has 40,000 neurons. It carries memory, learning capacity. Our brain's don't.
don't go with us. So all the memories that we have as a loved one is going through our heart memory. Those
beautiful neurons, they call it a mini brain. It actually speaks to the brain more than the brain
speaks to the heart, which is phenomenal to me. They found this out scientifically. This is proven.
And that's what goes with us. So our loved ones do remember us. They have that memory base. It's
just not the brain. The brain's got so much junk in it. It's so distorted. If we took that,
we'd be in trouble. You know, we'd be depressed and we'd be, you know. Yeah, thank God we don't take that.
I know, but our heart is love.
And that's why it can be broken because it's love.
And it carries those memories.
It goes with us with our soul.
So those souls I call spirit.
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Okay, I'm thinking of this experience that I had.
Maybe you can tell me if this is anything.
But I was at my parents' house last year and it was just,
so vivid. I've never experienced anything like it. I wasn't even thinking of anybody and, you know,
there have been just a few people in my life who have been close to me, who I've lost. But I was sitting,
I remember on their couch and all of a sudden I got this freezing cold gust of wind and I had
goosebumps and my hair was standing up. So much so to the point it was January on the East Coast. I was
like, oh, I must have left the front door open and it blew open because it was that, you know, visceral of a
feeling and I got up all the doors, windows, everything were shut. But that was it. But I was like,
that's the strangest thing that's ever happened to me. So, but you became aware. Yeah.
And that's how they start. They start making you aware. So you thought it was something else. And then
you recognized it wasn't. And what was that? And that's how they start tapping into you.
I find that a lot of people that have forms of addiction are very intuitive and extremely gifted
in the field of being able to tap in the spirit world. It's just a matter of whether they want to
and whether they'll accept it. And so at that moment, you were in some form of acceptance that
something is different here. Yeah. Yeah. And that gives them the opening. And people say to me,
I don't want them to, you know, know what I'm doing. I'm doing private things, you know, whatever it is they're doing.
and I tell them they're not interested in your human activities.
They're interested in your soul and tapping into the love that they feel for you.
And when you know that, there's nothing to be afraid of.
So you start to put away that fear and you start accepting that that's what happened to you.
That would be a signal for me that a spirit was around you.
It felt like a spiritual either grandmother or grandfather for me, but I think it was your grandmother, if I may be honest with you.
She was sitting in your energy and she loves to be in your energy.
she's in your energy right now. I'm sorry. This woman loves you. Loves you. You're her little girl. You're her baby girl. And she's
kind and she's strong. I do want to say that. She's not weak. I don't see her over in a corner sitting
now staring. She's strong, but she's kind and she knows how to love and she's a matron.
And she just wanted to know that she loves you so much. Whoa. That's crazy because that's what I thought at the time.
She was the one.
I was just going to say, she was the one.
So she was loving being in your energy, you know, and you recognize that she was in your energy.
So now, as you go through the journey, as you get those kinds of feelings, you'll know it's her.
You'll know it's her.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, to what you were saying about addicts, you know, having this kind of intuition,
I've always just thought that I'm like hyper sensitive.
And as a result, I'm kind of hyper attuned to myself and everybody else.
and I do feel intuitive, but as far as, you know, people that I've lost, like, I haven't,
I don't know, I think that one, my grandmother and my grandfather and my mom's side were hard for me
because they died when I was in my addiction, so I never said goodbye, you know, and they never
got to see this version of myself. But anytime I think of them, the first thought that comes to my
head is they're here. And I don't know where that comes from. I don't know if we all just kind of
innately have that, you know, there's like that saying and,
recovery deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. I'm not religious,
but I kind of think of God as spirituality. So we all have this inside us. And I have always attributed
that to where that thought comes from. Like, oh, they're here. Like when somebody dies, I'm like,
they're here. And that's just my knee-jerk reaction. And then I go, wait, why am I saying that?
It's like my thinking start, you know, my brain starts to kind of-
Limiting beliefs.
That's what I'm talking about.
So when you do that, if you just say, I'm going to accept that.
Even if you don't fully trust it, I'm going to accept it.
And they just walk in that.
And you'd be surprised what you see.
I don't know which one of them like gardening, but I'm seeing them in the garden.
And I feel like they're sending you hummingbirds and butterflies.
I feel like this is going to keep coming to you the rest of your journey.
Wow.
You understand?
Yes.
Yeah.
My grandmother.
Yeah.
And I just bought a house two days ago.
there's hummingbirds everywhere. Yeah. They'll also act differently. So the ones that she's sending,
you always see hummingbirds. And that's what I tell people, they go, well, we all see hummingbirds,
right? And yes, we do, but this will feel different, just like that feeling you had. You know,
you've had wind on you before. You've gotten cold before, but this felt different. Yeah. The hummingbird
will feel different. It will act different. It will interact with you differently. It might buzz around your
head or, you know, sit and look at you, which they don't do. You know, they don't like to be near our skin.
And so, you know, and then you go, oh, and also I tell people, if you see a hummingbird
and you just think it's a hummingbird, great.
But that one time that you go, God, I just thought of my grandma, she's put that in your
head.
They love that.
Yeah.
But, you know, it's really comforting to know they can't see anything private and they can't
read our minds.
I do want to say that again because I think people panic about it.
Yeah.
It's like, I have private things.
I don't want anybody seeing it.
And I'd lose my mind if I thought they could see everything I do.
because I see spirits all the time.
So, but you know, your grandmother, she's your person and your hers.
And it will always be that way.
So if you think that dies, it's inaccurate.
It doesn't.
It can't.
We don't die.
We leave this physical body, but we don't die.
And it's hard to conceptualize that.
I think we're not supposed to know because if I think everyone knew, they'd never stay here.
Yeah.
They just leave.
Yeah.
And I wanted to tell you, you were talking about how people tell you you're really sensitive
or you're highly sensitive.
The truth is you are a sensitive.
And if I were you, that's how I'd respond.
You're accurate.
I am a sensitive.
I feel things around me.
This is a very powerful statement that takes you to the place of acceptance of that
and allows you the freedom to be that beautiful person that you are, which is an empathic energy.
Mm-hmm.
You know, not an empath to the negative.
empath to the positive.
You feel things around you.
You know when someone's in pain.
You know when they're going to suffer.
You know if they're mean.
You know all these things when you're not medicated.
Well, a lot of impasse want to medicate themselves.
Yeah.
Because that's a safety mechanism from feeling all of that energy around them.
They don't know what to do with it.
Yeah.
We lose many of them to suicide, etc.,
because they don't know what to do with it.
So it's so important that that gets out there in the world
that they understand that there is an answer to that.
And they need to look it up, the traits of an impact.
And they'll find who they are.
They'll be blown.
They'll be blown.
They'll be blown.
That's me, you know, which is really cool.
Do most people who come to you are the majority of them dealing with grief?
And is it usually death or is it heartbreak or?
All of it.
Okay.
All of it.
Death is the most difficult of grief.
So I liken it to the lowest of vibrations.
like sloths aren't low vibrating internally, but they move very slowly. So I'll say that. If you
picture a sloth being at a very low vibration because they're in the deepest of grief. So we're
the sloth, right? And a medium might be the hummingbird because they're vibrating higher from
whatever experience they had or that they've taught themselves to. And then the loved ones are the
hummingbirds. Well, by the time the hummingbird is moved 60,000 places, a sloth still hasn't turned
its head. It goes so slow. So you're missing all of it. So grief is a very powerful entity. It is,
like I said, in the corner doing push-ups, is waiting for you. You're standing in the grocery
store and nothing's wrong. Everything's okay. You had a loss. And all of a sudden, you burst into tears
looking at the can of beans. That's grief running for you. And it's like, I'm stepping in right now.
So grief is a very powerful thing. And we think we can control it and it's, we're in charge of it.
And the truth is grief's in charge of you. It decides when
it's going to put you to the end of it or if there is an end or help you heal. You don't get to
decide that. And when you know that, you allow it. You step into it and allow. And when you do that,
you move through your grief. So people come to me for all reasons of grief. And we grieve from the
moment we're born. Truthfully, our mom takes our bee away. Right. We're too big for it now.
We won't let us suck our thumb. We're grieving. So we're getting prepared for these losses that are
enormous. So we actually have preparation internally. We just don't know where to tap into it.
So learning to do that is going to a grief counselor, how they help you tap into that knowledge
that you already have of what grief looks like. Yeah, I've heard you say that before. Grief decides
when it's done with us, not vice versa. And I also heard you say, I think what we're controlling
is controlling us or something along those lines. And what we run from Chase is us. Yeah. Yeah.
It's also counterintuitive because we think that we have control.
And of course, we desire to control these things.
And we don't want to feel grief and sadness.
I love how you put that.
We think we have control.
Our thinking is distorted.
We live on this planet.
Yeah.
The true knowing is we don't.
I can't control what you're going to do right now.
You could get up and walk away.
I can't control.
I don't have control over the next moments.
We know that in our knowing.
but we think differently.
Because that's how we function in this world.
This world is a scary place and we have to be able to function in it.
So we have to have that feeling of control.
But in truth, what we try to control controls us, we can't stop thinking about it.
We can't get over it.
You know, we're trying to change it and not change ourselves.
It's an inside job.
Yeah.
So and then if we run from something, it does chase us because our soul is meant to learn from the experience.
So if we're running away from something, we're being chased.
And that chasing is the experience.
Yeah.
How do you guide people through relinquishing control?
Because I think that's the hardest thing.
I don't think they ever will.
I think that it's a matter of what you can control is you.
So what I try to do is redirect them.
There's the one thing you can control.
You're not going to control someone else, but you can control you.
So I have this saying, I love.
If someone else is my problem, my problem is me.
And that's the good news because I can do something about that.
If I'm not the problem, there's no solution.
And so I live my life when I see a problem, I go, okay, what do I need to change internally?
Because I can control that.
I can't control what they're doing.
Nothing I do will change what they're doing.
How many relationships have you been in where you go, I'm not going to let you talk to me that way.
And they go, well, I am going to.
They just do.
And you stand there and think, what am I going to do with this?
The question is, what are you going to do when they do it?
And that's a true boundary, by the way.
True boundaries are what am I going to do when they do this behavior?
Because if I have to set a boundary with them, their boundary crossers are going to cross it.
So I might as well not bother.
You can try once.
Yeah.
It reminds me of another recovery thing.
Any perceived wisdom of mine comes from recovery.
But acceptance.
Acceptance is the answer to all my problems.
And if I'm disturbed, it's because something in me needs to.
to be changed, not you.
Right.
Right.
And you can't have any peace until you get there.
Yeah.
I understand that one.
Yeah.
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So get somebody who gets you on eHarmony and sign up today. So you said that you work with children
who have near-death experiences. Are the experiences, you know, are they universal in some way?
Or does it really depend on the person? Well, for children, it's very similar. So we, you know,
I find that they want to come back and be with their families. They have an
had enough life experience to be daunted by it. Right. And also, I feel like they are confused and
afraid of the spirits that come in, where most adults, they understand, I had this happen.
I know exactly what I experienced. I understand every bit of it. We as children have to go through
our process of living to understand what they taught us. So it's a different experience in that.
As far as, you know, if they have near-death experiences and what you experience,
as well with the spirits and everything, is that universal? Because I think what I'm getting at
is everybody is afraid of death, right? Or maybe not death itself, but how they die. Exactly.
Yes. But you hear from a lot of people who have kind of been to that other side that there's really
nothing to fear. But you don't know it till you know it. You can't know what you don't know.
Again, it's the limiting beliefs and thoughts of our human resources. And I think that, you know,
part of us needs to have at least a little fear or we'd all end our lives because this is a very
difficult place to be. It has so much beauty, but it's nothing like the afterlife. And they don't want
that. That's why we can't see it. We're not meant to. So I really believe that that's, you know,
the process they put us through in order to grow. We're here for soul expansion. That's it.
In a nutshell. And in order to expand our soul, we have to have negative.
positive. And I think actually the negatives or the seemingly bad teach us more than the positive
because we want out, right? So we're going to search the answer. When we're happy, we're happy
and cozy. So I think it's a better teacher. So this is our experiential place. We come here to
experience that so our soul can expand. Because the more our soul expands, the more knowledge we have,
the more beauty we have spiritually. I love that you said the seemingly bad. I picked up on that
because, you know, the seemingly bad is often the best thing for us, to your point.
Yes.
And I can, I talk about that a lot because I look back on my own life, you know, my addiction and
alcoholism and that nearly killed me and other things that I've gone through both in and out
of sobriety that I thought would be the worst things to ever happen to me were the best things
for me because they got me, you know, to where I am and built character and all of that.
But you chose that.
You made that choice.
It's part of your character.
There are people that go through things.
And if I were to say this to a mother who lost their child, they would not agree with this.
Yeah.
Right?
But what I tell them is, because I work with a lot of that.
And what I tell them is, is that you will make good of the bad in order to survive.
And so you'll create something.
I don't know what it will be.
Maybe it will be you'll have a charity for your child.
You'll get their name in lights or you'll save other children because of it.
Whatever that is will come to you and you will create good from that horrible, horrible experience.
Yeah, and I heard you talk about this as well, you know, that people come to you and they ask why.
That's what everybody asks, right, when something bad happens.
And I think you said, you know, it's not really the why, it's the what and the how.
So can you talk about that a little bit?
Well, I've known a lot of the whys. I've figured out a lot of the whys and it didn't heal me.
Right.
It just answered the question why.
Right.
But when I know what has happened, what I need to do differently and how to do that is when I begin the healing.
So if I need to know the why, I can get it, but it really isn't the thing that's going to catapult me into healing.
Mm-hmm.
But if you tell me what is happening and how I can change it, I'm going to jump on it.
Because I want to feel okay.
We innately want to feel good.
Yeah.
We do. Yeah. So that's what I mean by that. Well, you have a book coming out, right? It comes out in
June. July, 60th. Oh, July. Okay. Tell everybody about that. Infinite life, infinite lessons. It's wisdom from the
spirit world on living, dying, and the in between. It was written with me and spirit. I believe that
100%, but it's phenomenal. It is. Anyone who reads it says they don't want to put it down. It's all about,
well, it talks about my experience, what I saw, what I have done with my life.
life with that. It talks about the pure love of spirit. It has exercises at the end. It talks about
harnessing your fear, harnessing intuition, all those things that we want so badly to understand
and how does mediumship heal grief and how do we heal grief? And what do we do with the pain that
we're carrying? And what are the signs? All of those things it talks about. And then at the end of each
chapter, there's integration moments to look at your life. When did I see that? When did that happen to
me and then exercises to make it happen for you. And what I'm going to be doing, which is really cool,
I'm really excited about this, is if they pre-sell it or they buy it the first month that's out,
I'm going to be doing 13 zooms to redo the 13 chapters, one a month, to go through the exercises
with the people who do that. Amazing. I know. And when can they pre-order? They can pre-order now.
They can go to Barnes & Noble. They can go to Hudson Books. P penguin Random House. They can go
anywhere they choose that. This is a hay house.
I love Hayhouse. Yeah, I love Hayhouse. They're the publishers, so...
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Maybe we'll have to do a part two when it comes out.
Yeah, it's so great meeting you. And where can everybody find you?
Susangraw.com. It's G-R-A-U, SusanGraw.com. They can go to Susan Grau official on any social media and they'll find me.
And I think that's pretty much it. You know, those are the best places.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me. I'm so grateful.
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