Confronting Death With Christina Rasmussen - Ep. 101

How can your perception of death and change impact the way you view life and yourself as a whole? Join Dr. Jade in this episode of the Next Level Human podcast as he talks to the incredible entrepreneur, podcaster, and author about life, death, fear, change, and perceptions, Christina Rasmussen. Christina was 34 when she had to face the death of her husband; grief spurred her to turn to the stars and the universe for answers and open doors to a broader understanding of time and death. Stay tuned as she helps us understand that, in its more extensive sense, death is an opportunity for us to evaluate the way we live and why we are the creators of our everyday existence. “If it is not small in the beginning, it is not doable.” 

Check out the new Next Level Human sponsors!

• Visit paleovalley.com/nextlevel to learn more about the gut-friendly 100% grass fed beef sticks and save 15%! 
• Visit CuredNutrition.com and use checkout code NEXTLEVEL to save 10% on the best CBD and natural adaptogen supplements such as ZEN for your best night's sleep

Connect with Christina Rasmussen

Website: www.christinarasmussen.com

Instagram: @christinarasmussen7

Connect with Dr. Jade Teta

Website: www.jadeteta.com

Instagram: @jadeteta

Podcast Intro: [00:14] welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast. As a human, you have a job to do. In fact, you have four jobs; to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships, to find meaning and make a difference. None of these jobs are taught in school and that is what this podcast is designed to do. To educate us all on living our most fulfilled lives through the mastery of these four jobs. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Teta and I believe we are here living this life for three reasons and three reasons only; to learn, to teach and to love. In this podcast, I will be learning, teaching, and loving right along with you. I'm grateful to have your company; here is to our next level.

Episode Intro: [01:18] Today, I have a special treat for you, it will definitely be a special treat for me, but you're going to hear from my coach, Christina Rasmussen on this podcast. Just a little bit about Christina before we get into the discussion here. I hired Christina a while back to help me with my divorce and my affair and the fallout from that. In fact, at that time, I was finding myself in a place where we often many humans find ourselves at these places where our skill set just simply is not going to be good enough to get us to where we need to go and although I had been schooled in this work, and done this work, and even had done couples counseling, and all of those kinds of things, meaning that I was the counselor, I still needed someone's help, but I knew I didn't just want anyone and I was recommended Christina and she and I worked together for a year. Now she is an incredibly powerful, amazing woman, and amazing talent and somebody who was incredibly helpful for me. Took me really to the guy that I am today, she was instrumental in that process, and helping me get there and one of the things she said to me, because Christina comes at this, she got into this work after losing her husband at 35 years old. This is a devastating thing to have happen to anyone to lose the love of their life and she was able to turn this around and turn it into something good and it sent her off on a mission to understand death and understand loss and one of the things that I remember her saying to me, which we bring up in this episode is I remember lamenting to her that I was a little bit embarrassed complaining about my problems given that she lost her husband and she said to me, she goes in many ways Jade, romantic loss is much more difficult than losing someone to death because the person is still around, they just aren't choosing you. And it really, it was it's a different kind of death she pointed to. And it really was profound for me to kind of understand that. But in this episode, we talk about death, which is a topic I will be visiting more and more in this podcast. It is one of the two certainties in life, two certainties; change, and death. It's as certain as anything else, we all must die. This is simply the way of it. And Christina gives us a glimpse into her journey and her way of seeing death. And this was important for me to share with all of you because as we begin to talk more about death, and I'm going to do several different episodes, including a solo sewed on this at some point, I wanted you to hear from someone who I deeply respect, partly because her belief system around this and it's in her way of describing it may at first seem to many of you a little bit woo-woo, out there, new agey but it is important from my perspective to understand this because death is something that no one has answers to. Science doesn't have answers to it. Philosophy doesn't have answers to it. And so the best way for us to begin discussions around death is to talk to people who have experienced it, who have researched it and studied it and thought about it at a very deep level. This is going to be a little bit different than what you're used to as we get into some very esoteric conversations here but it is a conversation that I just loved and I know it will be really useful for all of you as well. So stick with it as much as you can and I will have some comments on the back end of this podcast as well, to kind of wrap it all together. So enjoy the show and I'll speak to you again at the end.

Jade: [05:37] all right, everyone, welcome to the show. Today, I have an incredibly special guest, Christina Rasmussen. Hello, my love. How are you doing?

Christina: [05:48] Hello, my darling, I am so happy to this conversation.

Jade: [05:52] I am too. And let me before we get started, Christina, I just want to give everyone who's listening to this a little bit of a flavor about how we sort of came to know each other and have developed our friendship over the years. So years back now, I don't know it must be about five years or so ago I was sitting with a mutual friend of Christina's and mine and I was talking about I was basically mentioning to her that I was going through a really tough time and she was asking me what I was going through. And I was telling her about, well, I had an affair, I'm going through a divorce and I was saying to her, I said you know, it's funny, I've done couples counseling, I've done all these things. I've read all these books, and I'm finding myself in just a very stuck place and I don't know where to go. And she looked at me, she said, well, are you willing to get some help? And I said, Absolutely, I'm willing to get some help but I told her, I said, I'm just skeptical, because it's very difficult for me to find somebody. I've done counseling, I've done these things, you know, I was a counselor, and I've had counseling and I'm just skeptical, and she goes, I want you to meet a very dear friend of mine who's been a coach for me, she doesn't usually take people but I'm gonna try to get you in with her and so the first conversation you and I had, I was like, oh my God, this woman, like just gets it and I found myself in this weird position of, you know, sort of being in a place where I was like, oh, my gosh, this woman just understands things at a level that I, I really need to understand. You know that whole idea, right, when the when the student is ready, the teacher appears and Christina appeared for me, and we work together for an entire year and she helped me the guy that you know, today, Christina really had a huge hand in and sort of mending him and helping on my healing. So and I wouldn't even say it helping is an understatement, Christina, I mean, you and I know I've told you this before, but without you, I think I would have eventually gotten there but it would have taken me I think twice as long perhaps and you were just such an amazing human in this regard. And so you might think that I'm having Christina on to talk to all of us about romance and but really what I'm here to talk to her about is the two certainties in life, and there's only two of them and those two certainties are change, and death and if there's anyone that knows about change and death more than anyone, she's written two bestselling books on this subject, her life experience, and I'm gonna let her tell you a little bit about our story is steeped in this subject and she's sort of my go to person to sort of understand this subject. She knows about death at a very deep level. And it is the greatest fear, I would say, for most humans and so that's why I wanted you here. And I know it's a very deep topic for all of you listening but Christina, it has just a wealth of knowledge and imagine if we could learn as humans to embrace death in a very different way, almost as a friend and a teacher and a transition and that's what I really want you to help us understand, Christina. We can go on a number of different you know, directions with this, because you and I can have some of the most amazing conversations but why don't you start wherever you want to start. I was thinking, you know, telling your story is absolutely fascinating, heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time and maybe we start there, but I really want you to kind of start wherever you feel is the best place for people to understand how you got into this work.

Christina: [09:28] Jade, thank you for such an amazing introduction. I as I was listening and listening to the great words, I was thinking to myself, can I hide? Can I go off? Can I go away? He can record this without me. It's so hard to hear good things about ourselves. Right? And I was like, yes and yes, but I remember meeting you Jade and I remember that first conversation and it was almost like I was also meeting someone I knew I could take these sessions, this conversation we had the level that I found exciting and why I wasn't just working with anyone and now I don't work with anyone privately. So at the time, I enjoyed and got a lot out of our time together as much as you did. That year was amazing and you're one of the kindest, most easygoing, smart, intelligent, kind hearted people; you see now how that feels when I'm giving it back? And then after that, just what watching your journey and witnessing you your way of doing work has been extraordinary. And thank you for having me here today. My, my beginning of experiencing death was when my 35 year old husband passed away of colon cancer, and Jade, I was so unprepared at the time. And I remember, and this is gonna get maybe uncomfortable for some people but this is what, how I live my life and the thoughts that I have within myself and the way that I understand this world. I remember sitting next to him as he was passing. He had been on this fight for his life for three and a half years at the time we had when he when he passed, the girls were four and six years old. He was the love of my life, at the time and it was when he was diagnosed, I literally turned to the universe and said, it would have been easier if I was the one dying. For me losing him, I couldn't imagine life without him. And I am there I am sitting at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, that's where he passed, next to Dana Farber, sitting up at the bed 2am in the morning, on Thursday night, going into Friday. And I knew it was about to happen, they had told us and the nurse came in a couple of hours earlier and said to me, whisper to him in his ear, she was in a coma and they and she said, tell him whatever you want him to know and he can hear you said, Okay, I go in his ear and I would whisper I love you. And he will go mhm every time he would just respond. Jade, all the way to two seconds before he was gone. This is the way he died. I love you. And he would just make this noise mhm like he was listening. And then just like that he was here one moment and just gone the next. And I remember you know, it doesn't matter how many years go by I, I think about that moment, as I was witnessing the love of my life leaving, but he wasn't walking out. He would it was literally from one second to the next. One second, we're here. And the next second, we are not at all, not even a little bit. Not even like maybe a little; it's done, it's gone. And in that moment, what you see immediately is that whoever was inside of him that soul, the force, the source, the energy is gone and you know it. It's an empty vessel, you immediately see that. And I looked up because I was reading all these books, telling me that I could see maybe his soul leaving his body in and I was looking up, like will I see anything like you’re, almost insane in that moment in time, you're almost also outside of yourself, time slows down for you as the partner of the person who's dying and you're also stepping outside of that time because everything just slows down so much. And you can visit that moment in time from the future like I am right now and it's still stopped, time stopped and I look up and there was nothing. And I think the whole room became him in many ways. And I had to get up two minutes later and walk out of the room to go the funeral person to arrange for the physical reality you know, things that we have to do and I remember getting up and my legs felt a little uneasy just to walk to take that walk to my new life to my next chapter. And that's how it was. And it's almost, it's not, I think feels unreal, because it's so hard for the brain and the mind to understand that, that we can leave the physical reality without just getting up and leaving, we just leave the body, we just go and it's done. That was my first real brush with death in such an intimate, heartbreaking way that there are never any words to describe how that felt. But he was present. He was there until that last breath Jade.

Jade: [15:46] so this to me is again, is sensitive, I've admitted this to you, Christina and one of my biggest fears, I've never had this, right so Christina knows, one of my fears we've talked about before is like I know and the way I see pain is that, you know, the next thing is coming and the next thing for me is either my own passing illness or more than likely the loss of my, one of my loved ones, my probably my parents next. And I know that a lot of people have this fear. And so I feel like having not experienced this, but the question that I think people want to understand is what then right? So you know, you're here you are in this world and some people have these transitions happening, where they live their way into a transition. This is to me, you know, like getting smacked in the face. It's like, one minute you have one life, the next minute, you have another life and I am fascinated by how you have become the person that you have become having gone through such tragic loss, because most people, and you and I work have worked with these people most people either never do or have an incredibly difficult time making this transition. So what I'm curious is, how did things happen then? And how long did it take? And what were the things that Christina had to do to make sense of this?

Christina: [17:16] at first, I think the pain was so unbearable that… am I allowed to swear in?

Jade: [17:26] of course I swear all the time. I'm Italian.

Christina: [17:28] I'm Greek so you know, you know, there's a lot of Greek profanities but I think that first that the first the first day, the first three days, and I say day, one day, that Friday, let me tell you, I felt so much pain on that day and it felt like it lasted a whole year. And every time someone would tell me, give me time. I wanted to tell them to fuck off because giving time; imagine being on fire, like you're burning and someone's saying we'll just take it easy, let you burn, just let you burn. So I'm on fire. I'm burning. I am I'm in so much pain and everyone will say just time, time heals, like so I'm supposed to stay in this very painful state for how long? How long, am I supposed to be doing this? And I remember, I couldn't drive so I asked one of his friends, they had all flown in from different parts of the world to be there to drive me home and I hadn't been in the house because he was in the ICU for a while and then and then we knew he was passing for about two weeks and I remember driving there was this fog and it was in the Boston area at Concord Mass that was bouts where we lived and I remember driving, he's driving and I'm sitting in the in the in the in the backseat, and I'm looking at the fog and it was 5am in the morning and it was almost like this surreal experience that I think everyone feels when someone close that they love so much dies and it's a grief takes place outside of time and space. So we are stuck in the third in this third dimension, this physical reality, but our experience of things takes place outside of it. That's why we have dreams of our, of the people that we lost, that's why we see things, we see, we see them, we hear them, we smell them, there's a lot of things that are taking place and people always say oh, they're visiting. No, I think we are visiting. We are visiting the other dimension because grief. My dear friend, grief is a vehicle. That is the only feeling in the world because it's love, right? That we feel so much grief because we love so much right? That can take you out of here. And, and to be able to experience all those things. So I went home and I remember hearing silence. Silence was deafening. I was, I remember putting on the shower and the water falling everything just your senses just exaggerated and I said to myself, I have no idea how I'm going to do this. I was in so much pain and the question that you've asked, how did I manage to become this person and do all the things that I've done when millions of other people can't do it? I think for me, A this was my destiny. I have thought about this so often. I did my thesis on the stages of bereavement before any of this happened. I wanted to be a grief therapist, I was fascinated with how the heck are we to say goodbye to someone we love so much? How do we do it? I loved people so much as a Greek as an Italian, you know, we love the people we love. We love them deeply and losing them. This is what I understand your fear losing them is the biggest fear in the world. How can we ever endure and overcome this? And I said what the fuck? Like, how is this? How did nobody tell me? I facilitated grief support groups, before any of these things have there anything like this happened to me and I said, How come nobody said anything? How come nobody prepared me? And I did feel like an alien living on a different planet. And people will just show up at my door and bring me casseroles. Like it was like I'm dying and you bring me food. I couldn't even eat anything. There was no food that I couldn't even eat, I had no appetite and there are millions of people right now, as we're speaking that are experiencing this. So I started slowly, I had to take care of the girls, I had to I don't like this sentence, I had to be strong; I could never be strong. I was not strong. I was weak. I was so weak walking in this life of strangers and all of a sudden, you have nobody you can talk to because in my I was 34 when he died, and all of my 34 year old friends, my 40 year old friends, my 30 year old friends, their life was still perfect Jade. They're still in the phase of like, let’s all have kids and hang out have barbecues and there's me in the perfect town, living in a nightmare and so it begun. And I said if I was ever this is this, the thought and the sentence if I was ever to find my way back to life, I will go back and get everyone else and then I will discover where the heck he went. What happened? What the heck, what the EFF? What the like? What is that? And the books on psychics and mediums and the spirit world that language did not capture me at all and I'm a Greek Orthodox that, you know, I'm not sitting here saying that I have the answers. But I needed my answers. And the quest began.

Jade: [22:32] so the interesting thing is I want to just get some practical before we move on because I want to continue with the story but just the just the practical thing. What could what was the right thing that someone could have said to you at that time? And was there even a right thing? Like what is it that we humans when we're watching someone go through this what is it in hindsight that you wished or that you could have said this is all I need? I'm just curious, because I do think a lot of us who haven't experienced this, we always get it wrong. Maybe not but I mean, I'm just curious.

Christina: [24:07] I'm so grateful for you Jade because not only you're asking all the right questions, but I can sense your passion with this, the your curiosity with this, the real raw feelings I feel it and when someone goes through something so surreal, catastrophic, beyond this world, the other side, the people around them need to get used to just being next to them in silence if they have to. They need to get used to calling them and then not picking up and to keep calling. They need to get used to them not being the nicest people. People who are grieving can be angry, can be sad, can be mad. They don't know what they want. They don't know what they need. Sometimes it's nice when some people can take over practical things but don't make assumptions as to what is right. For example, I had a friend went to my kitchen and when someone dies, your house is so open; you have friends coming in and out, there's everyone who is there in that first week. Don't assume that what you've think might be helpful, it will be helpful for them, someone took all his medications out of the cupboard with his name and because she thought and lovingly that this would upset me and took them and I opened the cupboard just to reminisce. I mean, just to look at the medication and, and it wasn't there and this is just an example, she meant really well, she was a very good friend. She brought them back and put them back the way they were and then I got rid of them when I was ready. My mom changed the sheets of the bed and I'm like, I was waiting to go back and try and smell him in that bed and all I smell was brand new sheets. So you're in this insane experience, and nothing is normal. So be there. Listen, when the person wants to talk, help when you can, ask questions if you don't know the answer, and keep coming back. In the beginning everyone shows up, because they're part of that grieving experience and then within three months, everyone disappears be the friend that calls a year later.

Jade: [26:29] my next question for you is like you've actually done all the work on this where it so it's like, I guess there's two parts to this really, and one's gonna seem a little bit odd. I know it won't to you, but it might seem to the listeners. But so one is where did you discover that he went? And the second question is, where did you go? You know? Where did you go? Where did that old Christina go? Or, you know, we're not.

Christina: [26:59] you are gonna make me cry. She left and she took with her innocence, social, my social extroverted nature, my just happy go lucky girl, always Ah, you know, like when I when I decided to study grief before all this happened my professional at the University said, you’re such a happy person. Why in the world would you ever study grief? I want to know how to help people get through loss when they love someone so much. That girl that had all the crazy, you know, useful nature about her, who loved so deeply and, and was so intimate in many ways is gone. And she never came back. And I do miss her. I went, I first I had to survive, and then had to rebuild who I was and discover the new identity and I said goodbye to a lot of friendships, a lot of interests, a lot of hobbies, I basically have lived with two Christina's in my life. One in the first part of my life. This one, not many people know, people read my books and read my blogs and I write every week and I speak and you get to know me but Jade, I think I call this an invisible loss and a lot of people who have gone through what I went through and other similar losses is that we lose so much of ourselves that we never ever get it back and our life is very different. And we always find that not many people can understand us and it's not their fault. When you go through something like this let me tell you, I get very bored in conversations. My stimulate brain stimulation experience has to be so much more increased, my reward center has changed, my executive functioning is very different; the brain before grief and the brain after grief I bet if they did MRIs and scans and things, they would see that that first year changes the brain so dramatically. So it's been a lonely world and I'm surrounded by extraordinary people. I'm married to an amazing guy who I'm so loved. I'm so supported. I'm so respected. I have great parents. I have so much but yet, my dear friend, it is a very lonely experience because it changes you. It doesn't just change you. You do become an alien. They the things that I find fascinating and interesting I cannot get out and visit with my neighbors next door and talk about those things. I have to go and talk about the crap that everyone talks about and it sounds arrogant. I know I sound snobbish I know but I'm almost like I'm visiting Planet Earth, right? I've been visiting since that day.

Jade: [30:02] I remember when a conversation that you and I had, I don't know if you remember, but I said something about like, I feel like I'm not the same person anymore after I went through my thing, which was a hangnail on the big scheme of life, things compared to what you went through although I'll let you say a little something on that, because, well, I'll even say it for you because I just want to go on with the story but one of the things you said is like you said something long Jade, you love that the movie The Matrix? And she goes, it's like waking up out of the matrix. You're not you absolutely are not the same and I do, it's funny. It's so funny, because in my, you know, I call it my awakening. You know, I used to love the NFL, I can't stand I couldn't care less about that. It doesn't interest me at all. I used to love mixed martial arts. I mean, I'm like, who is the guy who liked this thing? Right? So I totally understand sort of what you're saying here. And it is, and I have lost a lot of my you know, I tend to be more deep than humorous now and that feels a little bit like a loss but I also feel like I've gained so much. And I guess that's the next sort of, well, before I said, I would say what, what Christina told me, one of the things she said is I remember talking to her, and I said, you know, I can't believe I'm sitting here complaining to you about the loss of love and going through what I've gone through, and you lost your husband. And I don't know exactly how you said it. But you said Jade, in a lot of ways, what you went through is worse because the person is still there as a potential and you can't have it, at least in mine, it's just gone.

Christina: [31:43] and I say to people who have gone through a divorce, I say, the person is dead for you and alive for everyone else. And my dear friend, and for everyone who's listening was experienced, and I have chills always, when we talk about this, the complexity of the divorce or heartbreak up is so intense that it doesn't just take you off the planet, it can take you so far away that you're never even aware that you've gone and a lot of people get lost in what I call the waiting room stuck because they're not supposed to be grieving, like a death because the society and this is what I want to change in my lifetime; grief is in and that's another conversation. Grief is so complex. And so such a big part of our daily life, like you have grieved today, did you know that? You've grieved something you had, like, if I had access to your thoughts right now, Jade, and I was able to download them. You know, one day will be I tell my kids, I will never die, I'm really strange. I will never die by the time my time will come, I will be able to download my consciousness in, in a computer and you'll always have access to it. And you know, the girls said, Mommy, I don't know if that is something we want. And I said you don't want me to live forever? Anyway, but if it's they are amazing girls, because they've had a crazy mom and we talk about so many incredible things. But if I had access to your thoughts, or if I was sitting for five minutes, just listening to your day so far, I would find the grief narrative. I would find how you stop that narrative, or you let the narrative be a part of your day, we will learn where that grief narratives coming from, I could thread it back to an experience one year ago, two years ago 10-20 and I believe because of my obsession with post loss living internally and externally, I believe that everyone grieves every single day. And the more invisible it is the more complex and traumatic it becomes. So the more we can talk about the complexity of a divorce, the more we can find the words and say you are you're in love with a dead person or you're said I was in love with a dead person for years afterwards. Like what do you do with that? Where do you go with it? What? And love transcends time and space. Love is the thing that is the bridge to the I hate the words the other side to the world that cannot be seen through our senses. It does exist. And it's a matter of time before every kid gets to know this in school. And we are being told that as a fact because we have proven it and we're getting close to that. But anyone who has experienced a hardship I call it a moment of impact a moment of impact, whether it's considered a small moment of impact or a big moment of impact. If it has changed you are responsible to discover the changes that has brought on your life and to talk about them to find a way to externalize and understand and process and say yes to the resources, and the friendships that allow you to do that. Otherwise, we're all screwed.

Jade: [35:17] so what so where? Where did he go? Where do these things go?

Christina: [35:27] I wish we had wine.

Jade: [35:29] this is a wine conversation for sure. So I know Greek and an Italian sit and talking death with wine.

Christina: [35:37] I can talk about this for hours, he so when we got so I wrote a book called Where'd You Go, and I, and Jade, I nearly didn't, really, really didn't, because I was so afraid of not only that, it was going to be very different to what's out there and the way that I found my way into his version of the world or, or the world that is not visible here but at the same time, the hate that I've received from that, or the anger, if someone is not experiencing the same that some people are experiencing as being dense, always worth it, he went on a very different existence that the physical brain, the physical matter experience, the way that we have been trained to live in this life is very hard to understand. Here's what I say, when the fact that we have access, even just a little bit to a world that cannot be seen whether it's signs or whether it's proof of some kind, we hear things or we see things or we have, we have consciousness, you hear me, you can hear me okay, right? We have consciousness, that when we sleep travels outside of our bodies, or we have the near death experiences, and we get to see a world beyond this one, we come back changed, however, are with my temple journeys, that I that the book takes you on however this happens, if we were not meant to know this, it wouldn't have been a part of our lives. And if we were meant to know it all, we would have known it already. The way humans evolve is that every time we discover a new reality, every moment we observe the new reality, a new hidden reality gets seen for the first time and we will never reach a place where we've reached the end. There is no end. Like the Big Bang, that we can keep going, there is no, it's infinite. And no reality is objective. Everything is subjective. So my version of where did you go my understanding my experiences my proof may be very different to everyone else's in my in my world, in my world is that he actually lives a different life right now. He's in a physical new life, but also outside of it because I believe our consciousness and our second dimensional outside of a hologram. This is a holograph is a holographic experience. And for anyone who wants to know more about this, they have to read the holographic universe, you can also buy my book but the Holographic Universe is a classic by Michael Talbot and it is an extraordinary book and it explains how this you and me right now Jade, this experience that is taking place is a hologram.

Jade: [39:06] I read you know, it's funny, I read that book, it's an older book, I must have read that in my early 20s and it's tough for me to I know it had an impact on me but it's tough for me to sort of bring up exactly sort of was what it was about, but essentially, that you get these repeating patterns and so what dawned on me is interesting, then when you said he's lived, living a different reality, you know, and then I go well, so are you and I also love this idea, right? Like you are as well, like we talked about you and I are live living different realities. It's just in the same, you know, I guess dimension in a sense, but it's still a different, you know, sort of a different reality than what we were living before. And then there's this, you know, sort of interesting idea that when we talk about, you know, seeing the next layer, you know, we see this as humans as well like you know, and I question I've you know, I'm you know kind of want to get your thought on is I oftentimes think we humans, were meant to go and make these level up processes, right? We're meant to kind of be, it would be a trap a tragedy in my mind, if we all stayed adolescences, many of us do, I would even argue most of us do. It's not a judgment. It's just it's kind of how we sort of do things. And some people go backwards from the strides and evolution that their parents and people made. But I would argue, and we'll see what you think about this, that our job is to evolve, to get wiser to, you know, reach better understand is too mature, you know, we call it mature. But then, of course, as we mature, and other people are sort of making these same strides, the holographic universe also matures, and we get to see deeper, sort of into it and so I don't know if you would say I'm describing this appropriately. But I guess the follow up question to that is grief for us to evolve and for us to grow as human beings? Do you think that grief is a requirement for that? And if you do think that what else do you think is a requirement? Like, is this something we all have to jump through? Like, there's just certain hoops that we have to go through as humans to and we're going to go through them regardless and that they serve the purpose of growing us? Is that how you see this?

Christina: [41:22] I think I always saw grief as a portal and I think I wrote this in my first book and I said, when this happen, a portal open for me that would not have been open before and if I didn't experience this catastrophic, devastating, I'm going to lose my mind experience that the stages of movement could not possibly capture, or my thesis did not the books I've read, couldn't, nothing could, there is nothing that can prepare you for that kind of loss. The only thing that prepares you is like I feel the next time this happens and of course, there's going to be many next times. I say to Eric, who also lost his 35 year old wife, my husband, who turns 50 today, by the way,

Jade: [42:13] so you both lost your 35 year old loves

Christina: [42:16] and we met at a support group for our kids, a year later, about we lived, we didn't know each other, and we lived about seven minute drive from each other. We didn't know each other. And here's the funny thing and I really want to tell everyone what I discovered when I went to find out about death, because that's basically was the biggest surprise for me and the biggest discovery. When, before I met Eric, people would say to me, do you think you are going to date again, do you? What do you think is going to happen? And I would say these words, and I don't know where they came from but I believed them and I said, I believe they came I do know now they came from the future because there is no time. Time is a creation of our of our human selves. I said, the only way I'm going to ever marry again, or meet anyone would be if he came and sat right next to me and that is exactly what happened. One day, I went to this group that I've been going to for a long time, and a new member joined who had lost his spouse, and he came with his kids and the kids would go to another room. This very handsome guy, the same age as me, everyone else in the room were 20 years older, because it's very strange that we were so young to experience this. He came and sat next to me and he said hello. And I remember thinking you have got to be kidding me. I knew. I mean, I knew. I knew. I knew. I knew. I knew. And this and that's another story. But how did I know before this happened? And sure I'm confident and the way I've always lived my life or when it comes to relationships but because I've loved my dead husband so much I never thought I would ever love again. And he's very different. And we will talk about love another time but and what it means and how it evolves and changes but, but I couldn't believe that this was happening. When I was doing my research about death the biggest discovery I made is when we die, we return to the place we create and we come from. Death is just a door and the whole my whole book is the doorway that death is just a door back to the place that exists outside of time, outside of one reality, that place exists in multiple, multiple dimensions and multiple worlds, the parallel universe. There, we have the choices that we also have here but there, we know that we have these choices, we come here and we forget that we are the creators and unfortunately, the law of attraction and all that very basic explanations of who we are and what we can do have diminished physics and science so much that we laugh about it. But the truth is that we, we are reminded when we die, that we are the observers and the creators, of everything of time, of the past, the future, the present and right now, Jade, and this is the biggest surprise and I know I'm talking a lot, but there's so much to learn we are existing in all the previous moments, and all the future moments at the same time. So you Jade, right now, this is, this is why the brain starts to do flips like that you are in this moment in time, as well here, as when you are married with Jill, when you live at home in your high school years, in all the 1000s experiences that you've had, that are actually happening right now and everything that's going to happen, and all the potential versions of the future are happening at the same time. The past and the future are considered the same. They're actually as fixable. The path is not steep, like the path can be altered in the way that the future can be altered because there is no time.

Jade: [46:40] so okay, yeah, that does make your brain do flips, right? And so how does this then translate this understanding? Because it's one thing in life to have sort of an insight, right, so you come to this understanding and you have this insight but right now, you know, we experienced things a particular way and so I want what's the practical aspect of this? Does this mean then for me, that what I think about my past and how I choose to, is it something as simple as me saying, I choose to make my past mean this? And then it changes? Or do you mean, literally it is I'm living that existence currently? Is it simply my choice in this moment to kind of say my past will now I'll now make it mean this and my future I will now make it mean this from the present moment is that what we're talking about? Or are we talking about something that's even more magical than that? Because to me, that's a pretty amazing insight to have and to be able to do that. That insight that I can make my past mean, whatever I want and I can also direct my future in the way I want is an insight that I think most humans never reach but it sounds like you might be saying something even a little bit more deeper, I want to understand.

Christina: [47:56] So about. I'm so excited about this part. About two weeks ago, I was hired to do a speaking engagement on a panel that was taking place for SpaceX to take into orbit 104 human remains for a space Bureau and I remember being invited to be part of this panel and thinking to myself, you've created this and as the countdown was taking place in SpaceX, the rocket, Falcon Nine, which is the biggest one was we did my talk, Nicole an astronaut did her talk, Frank White did his talk. He's the creator and the guy who coined the over the effect. The three of us were the speakers. And then the countdown begins and about 700 people who were there saying goodbye to their loved ones going to space and I felt really emotional because I said to myself, Christina, you've created, you've brought this in your life and that is one example of many that I believe that I have observed these futures that are taking place and observing the past can change it Jade, in there's a human version of the way that we can explain that and then there's a supernatural version. Have you heard of something called the Mandela effect, where the past can change in the same way as the future? And we by telling different stories and by observing the past in a different way it does leap. The leaps may not be big because we are in this physical reality and we are confined by the beliefs that we are stuck in time, that we are stuck in this body, that we can have an out of body experience that we can have a near death experience, that we can't experience all those things but if we allow that belief to change, and if you start thinking, and this is the hard part, and this is you're gonna experience depression because of it, you're going to experience isolation, loneliness, sadness, because if I wake up every day, and I think death is not real, we change existence when we move from this reality to the next, I am in control of my life and I can create everything else observed with the belief that I observe it in and that I can choose the version of the future that I want then that responsibility is huge, and millions of people will not accept the truth of that my friend. Y

Jade: [50:56] you know, I mean, I'm gonna say something. It may sound crazy. It won't sound crazy to you, though, but maybe to some people, and it's a question. So I will phrase it like a statement but it's a question. It sounds almost as if, when I listen to you speak sometimes that it's almost like we are the gods who get to create. And I know that's crazy. But is that actually kind of what you're saying?

Christina: [51:20] we are, we are God, we are divine, we are energy that's created can never be destroyed, we are created forever and infinitely and I think that we also have the responsibility to know this, and also live without knowing it because if, if we lived as gods, we wouldn't experience the lessons, and the mistakes. So my job every day Jade is to wake up, knowing what I know, and still make all the crazy mistakes I'm going to make and still complain about whatever I'm going to complain about and still be human but then use the knowledge for the things that really matter to me, and also let go of the controls of the god like skills because people will die because you know why they will die because we have created death and God help me for all the messages you're going to get about this conversation. Because what will happen ask the question what will happen when we stop observing death as real? We won't die. And there are history there's history for many hundreds and 1000s of years ago that there were kings and queens that lived 600 years there's you can actually research and find history, real history that will tell you that there was this Emperor that lived for a really long time Jade, we have created the 100 year length, we have created the timeline that were supposed to be in this body, the day that we choose that this time zone timeline changes, we will have allowed for ways to live longer, 200 300 years. So we die because we observe our own death.

Jade: [53:19] and so we have, we have 10 minutes left and I want to kind of I can imagine I know you could imagine there's people listening to this, who are having any number of thoughts, some are just kind of like this is crazy talk. Some of them are just like, oh my God, this speaks to me on some level, I don't quite understand. Some are like, I feel like I have a sense of this because I've experienced I think that's where I sit. I feel like I have a sense of it but a very little sense of I feel like I've experienced some unexplainable things in my life that have allowed me to see some of the truths of this, and part of it came out of my pain but then there's just the ones who are just like, okay, Christina and Jade this is all great, but I am in deep pain right now and so, in the last little bit here, is there anything because I because I guess if I had to guess there's the one answer is you just have to go through it like you were told, right? And then the other answer is there's things maybe to look for to if it's a portal, if it's a sort of an awakening, or there's things that are happening around you that if you're stuck in this old mindset, and you know sort of anchoring to the old beliefs around this, you're missing them and so is there any advice or any thoughts you have about that where you can kind of say Listen, I I've been there, I've done this, I know what you're going through and there are things that potentially are happening that you have access to now that you didn't before that you're ignoring because you're trying you're not allowing yourself walk in the, into this space.

Christina: [55:00] this is what I say, first of all, the reason why you and I can have this conversation is because of you. So I'm invited to all these different podcasts like you are like, there's so many different people that you go in and I always allow for the interviewer to take this conversation to the level they're capable of taking it and I stay within that level, every time and you my friend I am able to do this to, to, for us to have this conversation. So if someone is listening, was like, I'm in debt, my wife just left me, I am depressed every day, I'm suicidal I am, there's so many, and my community have those problems, and then some right? Start from zero. Start from level zero, start with nothing. I started with nothing, minus nothing, minus that. I was underground, there was not only nothing, everything, I knew that there was real wasn't real anymore. Everything I was wasn't here anymore, the way I felt about the world is gone and if that is you, for whatever reason, whatever your moment of impact was, start with very little close to nothing and go on your own journey to understand the next level of your life. I call it life for injury and I have, I have millions of practical ways to do this but if I was to say one thing, it would be, take the advice that fits nicely in your own brain and then use it to change your life and start with small steps. Start with not activating your fear center because this the fear center when I started looking at this, or any of this, or the beginning of neuroscience, I taught I apply for my PhD Finally, and hopefully, I'll get in, then starting in August, or September on neuroscience and psychology because all this time I was teaching myself to understand my own brain. The brain is your engine that filters this reality. Any change you make inside of your brain, from one new thought a day, from one new belief, from one new paragraph you read in a book, from one hike and walk you took because you heard Jade said get out to death as a steps, the thoughts you had that were new in that walk are going to be a part of your change. And if it's not small in the beginning, I don't think it's doable, not to the level that we've reached in this conversation. And you don't, you don't have to get here and you don't have to have all the answers. But you have to know that we're all made the same, that if Jade and I can have an understanding of this and live our lives from the observer effect. You can Google those words the “observer effect”, and believe, even a 20% that we are the creators of our everyday existence, the good and the bad so can you. If I can do it, you can do it. And there is no other, I am not special, you're not special. We're all the same. And we're here to learn. So be human, be the next level human. And also be consciousness and in the way that you came into this world. Because we are both and we deserve to be both and experience both in this life. Otherwise, we wouldn't have access to it at all, we wouldn't even know about it.

Jade: [58:51] Christina, I love you. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with all of us. How do people get more of this work and this understanding? You have two amazing books, second, first, and where did you go right? And where else do they have, you have the, your podcast. So tell us where we can get more information cuz there's going to be people who just want to eat all this stuff up and it's going to send them on a tear. So I want to make sure they know where to find you.

Christina: [59:19] so christinarasmussen.com is the main hub for the book Where Did You Go. If you want to experience a portal getting in and out of this dimension and yes, it is as crazy as it sounds. The where'd you go book is for you if you've gone through a difficult loss a death the second first book is for you. That introduces life reentry, which is a process. Christinarasmussen.com. DearLifepodcast.com is my weekly podcast that I do every week without a miss. Liferange.com is the institute where we do the teaching of life reentry and the trainings and secondfirst.com is my blog that I've been writing for 10 years, every Friday and I talk about everything and anything that has to do with nostalgia and grief, because I believe it is a portal and it is our gateway to a different existence and a next evolution and the next level human, as you say, Jade, so well.

Jade: [60:19] thank you so much, Christina, for being here and thank you for saving me and just being so amazing and helping so many people change. You're the best.

Christina: [60:26] Thank you so much for having me, Jade, this was awesome.

Jade: Outro: [60:29] all right. Thanks so much for joining today. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. I do want to say a couple more things before I let you go on this idea of death, which we will be covering more in this podcast. One of the things that I think is so important, as humans, and especially as next level humans is to confront our fears. Death is an unknown; it is something that we simply cannot understand. But as you've heard Christina talk about it is she sees it as very much a transition. And what I want to say here is that with death, one of the things that I think is powerful is for us as humans to begin to understand and fool around with how we think about death and all the ways that it's been described by philosophers by religion, but mostly by the people like Christina who have gone through it and watched it and thought about it in a very deep way. I have a tattoo on my chest, memento mori, which is a stoic saying, that means remember death, and it is a call to action in a sense. Many people see it as morbid when we they asked me about it but really memento mori in the stoic saying of remember, death is a call to action to understand that our time here is limited, and that we cannot waste time putting our creative works out into the world, our time is not guaranteed, you might be here, another 15 seconds, another 15 minutes, another 15 years, for all we know another 150 years. The point though is that you will, at a time, come to the end of this life as we know it. And the way that you think about and spend time with thoughts about death is the degree to which you will be able to make that transition. For me, I know that by contemplating death and understanding how I will approach death, I can exert some level of control over it. At least, I don't know when I'm going to die, but I can actually choose how I will die. I will choose the way that I can die, you can do that as well. And I don't mean the way in terms of what will happen that will finally get me there, whether it's going to be an accident or an infection or an illness or whatever it's going to be. I mean, the way that I think about it, the way I show up for it, am I going to be terrified of death and avoid it? Or am I going to look at it in the eye and treat it as a best friend, somebody, something that actually spurs me to live my best life? So by the time I get there, I can be proud of the human that I have been and death gives us that ability. Without death, without this coming ending of a thing we might not ever feel the urgency to be our best next level human selves. And that's what I want to leave you with, is I want you to be thinking about when death comes for anybody it is an opportunity for us to essentially evaluate the way we are living. There is no light without dark, there is no life without death. This is part of its magic. And the more we think about it, the more we sit with it, and the more we decide how we will show up when it comes however it comes is the part that will free us from all aspects of angst in life. And to me this is a key thing that nobody wants to talk about. Death is powerful for us if we allow it to be. I'm going to leave you with that we will revisit death in future episodes.

Jade: Ad: [64:29] before you go let me tell you about our sponsors. Don't forget about Cured Nutrition, and Paleo Valley; CuredNutrition.com and paleovalley.com. Cured Nutrition is the CBD Company that I use. Every night for I go to bed I take their Zen formulation to help me sleep and with Paleo Valley I use their protein bars and their protein meat sticks which are my favorite. I use the meat sticks, mostly for very convenient, healthy, grass fed whole food protein sources. Both companies use the code nextlevel you will get a discount on those and I will get a little bit of a kickback. This is the kind of relationships that I love to have, please go and check out Cured Nutrition and Paleo Valley and I will see you at the next episode. [65:43]