Near Death Experiences: The Ultimate Truth About Your Soul’s Purpose, Consciousness, & Oneness

1. 0:00 – 4:27

   Intro

   1. MRMel Robbins0:00

      I all of a sudden felt this tremendous sense of sadness.

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush0:03

      Yeah.

   3. MRMel Robbins0:04

      To think that the biggest realization for most people-

   4. ZBDr. Zach Bush0:07

      Is at the deathbed.

   5. MRMel Robbins0:08

      ...is at the deathbed.

   6. ZBDr. Zach Bush0:10

      Many of the, the death experiences that I've been around in which the individual let go of the body fully, like letting go of that egoic construct, they will journey immediately off the planet, and they will go to other planets. They will go to, you know, distant times and places. They'll j- jump to future places, and then they'll come back in and they suddenly snap out of a coma and tell you something absolutely mind-blowingly ridiculous that doesn't fit into our reality here.

   7. MRMel Robbins0:39

      Holy cow. If you've ever been with somebody as they are passing on...

   8. ZBDr. Zach Bush0:46

      They're whole. There's basically bookends of the human experience that everybody's going to, to have. They're gonna come in whole and they're gonna leave whole.

   9. MRMel Robbins0:53

      If I think about my own experience of my life, there are those moments, like one that comes to mind is thinking about being at the bottom of the aisle on my wedding day, and I looked straight down the aisle and Chris turned and he flashed this, like, huge smile, and it was that same experience of wholeness.

   10. ZBDr. Zach Bush1:15

       And that's where the near-death experience is a gift. You can actually feel what it feels like to be whole.

   11. NANarrator1:23

       (ticking)

   12. MRMel Robbins1:23

       Hey, it's your friend Mel, and there's been a topic that's been coming up a lot in my life lately, and it's not exactly the lightest topic, so I was thinking, "Should we even talk about this?" But the theme just keeps coming up, so I decided to pay attention to it and lean in, because everything that happens to you in your life is teaching you something. Your relationships, your mistakes, your wins, the things that trigger you and just get you so mad, all teachers, and perhaps one of the most impactful teachers is death. It's a natural part of life, and lately it's been everywhere. I mean, just yesterday my daughter was at a funeral for somebody who died so suddenly. Just a few days ago, I was talking to our other daughter who lives out in Los Angeles, and she was mentioning all these natural disasters in California that have been in the news and how much it scared her, and I said, "Well, why is it scaring you?" And she said, "Well, what happens if something happens and I die?" My mother-in-law, she's been coughing a lot, like a lot, and it's been going on for almost two years and she keeps saying, "Oh, it's (coughs) oh, it's nothing." We all want her to get a scan. Why? Because we're afraid. We're afraid she might have something that's undiagnosed and might be dying. And in just a few hours, I'm hopping on a plane to fly to Nashville and give a speech and it's, you know, one of those little planes. And as much as I love flying, I don't know about you, but I can never get on a plane and not have the thought of my death cross my mind. And I'm not afraid of dying anymore, because I've gotten to the point in my life where I'm so proud of all the things that I've accomplished and changed in my life, and I'm also so proud of the person that I've worked so hard to become, the amends that I've made, but whenever I do think about death, I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness because I just don't wanna miss out on more of my life. And so as it just kind of keeps coming up, I thought, "Well, why don't you and I lean into this and talk about it together?" And so I've reached out to a world-renowned expert who is so incredibly wise and comforting and profound. He also happens to be a triple board certified medical doctor who has spent a lot of his career with people at the end of their lives, and he is here today to share the wisdom and the lessons from what he calls the science of the soul, which is how to let death, the fear and regrets of people dying, near-death experiences profoundly shape your life. Dr. Zach Bush, welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast. Thanks for jumping on a plane from Columbia and flying here.

   13. ZBDr. Zach Bush4:26

       It's a pleasure.

2. 4:27 – 7:53

   How knowledge of near death experiences will COMPLETELY change your life.

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush4:27

   2. MRMel Robbins4:28

      Can you tell the person listening what they might experience in terms of their life changing if they take to heart everything that you're about to share with them today?

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush4:41

      It's gonna change absolutely everything in your life, and that's gonna be everything that is expressed through your being, which might be relationships, it might be jobs, it might be your different roles you're playing in your communities. It might be your spiritual practices, your religious worldview. And I think that, that'll be an interesting place to go on the podcast perhaps as we start thinking about death and dying. The only place we actually experience it oftentimes is in that last few breaths where we're suddenly like, "Oh my gosh, the whole thing was not a chase."

   4. MRMel Robbins5:12

      Wow.

   5. ZBDr. Zach Bush5:13

      (laughs)

   6. MRMel Robbins5:14

      I, I all of a sudden felt this tremendous sense of sadness.

   7. ZBDr. Zach Bush5:17

      Yeah.

   8. MRMel Robbins5:18

      To think that the biggest realization for most people-

   9. ZBDr. Zach Bush5:21

      Is at the deathbed.

   10. MRMel Robbins5:23

       ...is that the deathbed.

   11. ZBDr. Zach Bush5:25

       Over and over.

   12. MRMel Robbins5:27

       You have spent so much time in your work with people who are either at the end of their life or who are dying or who pass on. You have witnessed countless near-death experiences and you have so much wisdom to teach us. Have you ever had a near-death experience?

   13. ZBDr. Zach Bush5:48

       I hesitate to call it near-death just because I was actually-... unharmed, I think. I didn't have an injury per se, but I-

   14. MRMel Robbins5:54

       What happened?

   15. ZBDr. Zach Bush5:55

       I, I, I was... This was in 2010. So I'd been in academia, from all my trainings and practices and ultimately faculty and all that at the University of Virginia after my training at the University of Colorado. So 17 years of just this very inside the box, Western medical mindset. You know, here's the drugs that are gonna save the world. Here's the disease, here's the drug, all of that paradigm. I was developing chemotherapy, and I was using vitamin A compounds to kill cancer. And so that was my world. And, um, I found myself very depressed during that, those last few years as I started to watch the pharmaceutical companies placing blocking patents to keep these drugs from getting to market. And that was s- the beginning of a journey into kind of the, the unfortunate reality that we actually have a, a healthcare system that's really dominated by then, the need to manage disease instead of cure or heal. And so that was a pretty dark situation. I was in a couple hundred thousand dollars of school debt. My kids were, you know, heading towards college soon. I was, you know, I, I had no money, no savings account. I was working paycheck to paycheck. I was getting paid $70,000 a year in a university setting as a faculty member, a doctor, two sports specialties. And so I was just like trapped. I was financially trapped. I was energetically, emotionally trapped. And in that depression I started just calling out, you know, for help I think to the universe, like, "Show me the other path, 'cause this is a dead end and I can't figure out my way out of here. I worked too long to become the expert that I am. I can't imagine what I would do next. I can't spend, you know, any more money. I, I need to start making money, but I don't know how to make money." And then a day came where the universe answered and, and I just got this huge amount of information into my experience with like all, this huge path that I was here to embark on. And I felt amazing. I was like plugged into the universe for the first time in my adult life I think, and I just felt all of this clarity and all these things. And a couple of weeks later, we had the largest snow storm in Virginia. And, um,

3. 7:53 – 19:27

   Dr. Zach shares his never been told story of his near-death experience.

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush7:53

      I've never told this story on podcasts, and so I'm not sure how this is gonna go, but... (laughs) Um, we had a huge snow storm, and I heat my home that I built with my family and kids. Um, it's a log home in the woods of Virginia, and I heat it by firewood. And so I went out to chop a bunch of firewood in the morning before I went to the hospital, and so I was working in the dark, like 5:00 in the morning, and chopping wood. Carrying an arm full of wood, I slipped and fell and a piece of wood separated my ribs on the left, um, which is kind of a tearing of all the muscles between the mon- the rib. So it was just a lot of chest pain. It wasn't, nothing was broken, but it was just pain. And so I finished working and then, and got all that wood in there, and then I come back to the vehicle, which I'd borrowed my brother's four-wheel drive 'cause this massive snow storm had been forecast. And so we had 22 inches of snow. I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, used to driving in snow, no problem. But snow's half an inch in Virginia, nobody drives.

   2. MRMel Robbins8:44

      But you've also now got a hair between two ribs-

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush8:47

      Yeah.

   4. MRMel Robbins8:47

      ... thanks to the-

   5. ZBDr. Zach Bush8:48

      Firewood moment.

   6. MRMel Robbins8:49

      ... piece, firewood that, like, just basically lodged itself into your side?

   7. ZBDr. Zach Bush8:54

      Yeah, it was an unfortunate slip, but-

   8. MRMel Robbins8:55

      But so did you, you didn't, it just... You're not talking like-

   9. ZBDr. Zach Bush8:58

      It was just-

   10. MRMel Robbins8:58

       ... you don't have like a wedge of wood sticking out the front of your rib?

   11. ZBDr. Zach Bush8:59

       I don't... No, no, no, not at all. It was, it was internal. What's happened is it's now sending a lot of visceral chest pain through my body, which sets you up for the, the event that's about to happen. (laughs) So I'm having that chest pain, and I jump in the vehicle, and I'd brushed it off cursory 'cause I'm starting to run late to get to the hospital and knew I'd be one of the few doctors there. So, in a rush to get there, and so I drive slowly s- for the six miles to get to the highway. And th- uh, you're driving over just pristine, untouched snow, and it's just like driving on marshmallows, that beautiful. Get to the highway, it's been plowed. So I call my wife said, you know, "I'm fine." And made it to the highways, plowed, totally empty highways. So I zip up to 60 miles an hour, and I start to relax. And the heaters are on, defrosters, my body temperature shifts, and I've got this left side chest pain, and I su- suddenly do, have a, something called a vasovagal event where all my blood vessels suddenly dilate through me relaxing, change in temperature, the chest pain, all that, and I passed out instantly. And, um, I woke up in a river with no evidence that there was any civilization around, and I felt amazing. I, I felt like, I felt like I had just been rebirthed, like there was just this, this bliss state. And I thought I had disappeared into a different universe or a different timeline of humanity. I don't know what happened, but I was on highway and now suddenly it's just river, and it's a, it's an ecosystem I've not seen in this area before, uh, it just looks different and there's 20 inches of snow and my first thought was like, "Wow, I just didn't picture snow in heaven, like that's a lot of shoveling for eternity it seems like." So I was just having this funny moment of like, not what I pictured, you know? But it was beautiful. Sun was filtering through, and it was just overwhelmingly white and peaceful.

   12. MRMel Robbins10:42

       And you were... Just you? No car, no nothing?

   13. ZBDr. Zach Bush10:45

       I'm in the car in a river, yeah. And look down on my lap and my cell phone's sitting there and I, and time sitting right on it. I pull up my last call. So it'd been seven minutes that I'd been out, which is a very long time for a vasovagal event, it's usually a couple seconds and so... I don't know what happened during that time, and it's not very important, but I experienced for a moment what I'd seen my patients do, which is experience myself, felt myself for the first time as an adult or as a, as a young child. I hadn't probably been in that state since I was, you know, two or a little bit before. The lack of fear, guilt, and shame. The lack of any sense of I'm incomplete to the sense of I am here in this new universe and I'm, I've landed somewhere in space-time and I've la- and this thing and nature is dazzling me and I feel amazing. My body was like... I was not experiencing any of that chest pain, and I was just like... I was in an ecstatic state, and so, again, whether I just passed out, I have no idea, but the, the, the state of being was, I think, what set into motion my next few years. From there, I actually went and got a... I left the university months after that and started to realize all of the companies and dreams that had been shown to me a couple weeks earlier-And in that journey, I, uh, got a third subspecialty in hospice and palliative care. Um, and so I was running a nutrition center for reversing chronic disease through food as my, like, kind of part of realizing my dream. But to pay the bills, 'cause I wasn't making any money in the clinic, I, I was working as a part-time, um, medical director for a hospice, and in that I was admitting 80 patients a week to die. And when you do that for four years, that adds up to a lot of, you know, death and dying. And I had this new anchor point of, "I remember what it feels like to be without fear, guilt, and shame in my body." I remember the elation of being whole for a moment, and I remember how fast I fell out of it too as the day unfolded. And what had happened is, I had passed out on the highway, and I climbed out of the river. I was soaking wet in my doctor's outfit, you know, climbing up through all this snow, and thought I was, like, in a wilderness, and then suddenly got up to the top of this embankment, and Highway 29 was right there. There was no cars on it, just empty. And then there's a, a man standing right in, in the middle of the lane.

   14. MRMel Robbins12:57

       A man?

   15. ZBDr. Zach Bush12:58

       A man, and he's a state trooper, state trooper hat, the whole thing, no car in sight. So then I was like, "Oh, my gosh, maybe this is, like, the gates of heaven or something, and this is obviously Saint Peter." And, of course, I would make him a state trooper in my mind and... So I'm like having this complete existential experience-

   16. MRMel Robbins13:14

       (laughs)

   17. ZBDr. Zach Bush13:15

       ... and it starts to get really ridiculous in those next few minutes because he looks at me, so confused, like, but, but very earnest. He never cracks a smile. He's looking at me climbing over this bank, and I've got my doctor badge on, and I'm in loafers and a dress shirt and everything else, so I'm like crawling out of the woods. (laughs) He's staring at me, and he's like, "Son, how did you get here?" And so then I'm like, "Oh, shoot. This is my resume. Like, this is... I gotta get into heaven here. Like, I gotta figure out what, what have I done well?" So I started literally going through my life, like, "Well, I grew up in this little church in Boulder, Colorado, and I'm the oldest of three kids, and I was a great big brother, and I was this, and then I did this, and missions work in the Philippines and birthed babies, and I'm a doctor. I'm a great dad, and my kids are in ballet and fencing, and I'm doing this stuff." And he's looking more and more concerned, which makes me feel like I'm failing the test into heaven. (laughs)

   18. MRMel Robbins14:07

       Yeah, now you're

   19. ZBDr. Zach Bush14:08

       ... by the drunk driver. Yeah, exactly. (laughs) He's like, "This guy's on drugs at 07:00 in the morning, driving through snow," or whatever he's doing. At any rate, long story short, he finally stops me. He says, "Son, how did you physically get here?"

   20. MRMel Robbins14:20

       (laughs)

   21. ZBDr. Zach Bush14:22

       (laughs) And so I just got really angry all of a sudden, 'cause I was at the end of my wits. I was just like, "How the hell did you get here physically?" And he, to his credit, then suddenly burst out laughing. He's like, "That probably looks confusing as well," and he says, "My patrol car is down around the corner of the highway." We... And he said, "I, I got a call on my radio that somebody had gone off the highway-"

   22. MRMel Robbins14:39

       Mm-hmm.

   23. ZBDr. Zach Bush14:39

       "... and they were looking for you, and, uh, how did you get here?" And I said, "Well, my vehicle is down at that river. I don't know how I got there." He's like, "Well, let me show you what I just saw," and so he takes me back around the corner of the highway, and you can see where my vehicle drifted off the highway at 60 miles an hour and jumped a six-foot embankment of snow that had plowed over the guard rails. And the vehicle had dropped about 30 feet, uh, off this cliff side and landed on two wheels and drove for about maybe 30 meters and then settled onto four wheels on this steep embankment. Drives nearly a quarter-mile around the cor- corner on this embankment, finds the only break in the trees, takes a 90-degree turn, and drives down into the river without touching a tree. And that's where I woke up. And so when he showed me that, you know, I started to get this overwhelming experience of like I'm... I just had an experience that was outside of my physical plane there. Something happened to me that, um, can't be logicked, you know? And I was extremely logical human being. Like, I, I wanted to understand everything I was seeing all of the time. That's what made me a great scientist and doctor and everything else, you know? And this was just something that was so outside of the mental constructs that I could put nothing together for this, and it was exactly what I needed. I needed an experience that was so radically outside of my, my human mind, that, that it would lead to a deeper state of surrender to my, to my path, whatever was gonna happen next.

   24. MRMel Robbins15:56

       I love that the trooper showed you the accident, and here's why. When you described your car drifting off, jumping a 30-foot embankment, landing on two wheels, then driving a quarter of a mile, then taking a 90-degree turn through two trees that it missed, and ending up in a river, and you were largely unscathed, but left-

   25. ZBDr. Zach Bush16:18

       Yeah.

   26. MRMel Robbins16:19

       ... with a profound near-death experience that changed your entire life. And you s- do strike me as somebody who is extraordinarily smart and logical, that you needed the universe to deliver something unexplainable to wake you up to the reality that there's something bigger going on, and you're gonna be the one to figure it out.

   27. ZBDr. Zach Bush16:44

       I wish I could say I was that easy to teach, um, but the universe (laughs) was about to see how stubborn my human mind was. And so, um, they actually managed to, to lift that vehicle out of the river by its back bumper with, with two tow trucks on different sides of the river. And so the vehicle was suspended 100 feet in the air and, and came across back onto the, to the highway, and set down on its front bumper. The state trooper pushed on the roof just slightly, and it just, like, started to tip down onto its wheels. They lowered it down onto the four wheels. I got in and started it up. There wasn't a scratch on the car, not a scratch on me.

   28. MRMel Robbins17:17

       You drove to the hospital, did you not?

   29. ZBDr. Zach Bush17:19

       Drove to the hosp- 'Cause, uh, again, this is a, a situation where nothing is running in the town, so I knew it would be more time. And by this time, it'd been 45 minutes, and I needed to get to the hospital quick, and I was fine. I was, like, unharmed, feeling actually amazing in my body, in my spirit, and so I drove and worked a 12-hour day. Saw 700 patients that day, just like... We only had, like, six doctors running the entire medicine floors, and so i- it was a busy, busy day. Got home that night, and by that night, I'd already gotten disconnected from the experience. And so I was already back in my mind 'cause I thrust myself right back in. You know, "Gotta do everything. Gotta save the world. Duty, duty, duty, responsibility. This is what makes me valuable as a human being, is I can go and work my ass off in a hospital." And so by the end of the day, I'd already lost touch with it. And so here's probably one of the most important events of my life, and it only took 12 hours in the hospital to disconnect me from that event. So I went home that night, um-I hadn't told my wife much of what had gone on 'cause I didn't want her to worry. So I got home, told her that night, and fell asleep at, like, 11:00. And the phone rings at 6:00 AM, and I pick it up, and it's, "This is Lieutenant So-and-So. We're looking for a Dr. Bush." I'm like, "Oh, this must be the, the accident yesterday. Yeah, this is Zach Bush." And he's like, "We need you in Haiti Port-au-Prince Bay in six hours." And I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, who are you?" "This is Lieutenant So-and-So from the US Navy, and, uh, we've got you on top of our list for large-scale emergency relief. There was just a huge earthquake in Haiti, and, and we're sending the, uh, Navy ship Comfort into the, the bay right now. We need you on that ship to run a hospital ward." I was like, "I'm not in the Navy," but I had trained a couple years earlier and, and deployed a large group for emergency relief for Katrina, which had happened in New o- New Orleans. So that had ended me up on some Navy list somehow. And so six hours later, I was in Port-au-Prince Bay being dropped onto the Navy ship. And so that all happened in a 30-hour period. And so that's, that's how stubborn I think my mind was is I needed even a deeper schism and break from my reality at the hospital. And I worked on that Navy ship for a couple weeks and took care of s- 780 women that had been crushed in that, in that earthquake, uh, that became quite famous. But, um, and I needed

4. 19:27 – 21:20

   Why Dr. Zach believes the universe needed to bring him near-death.

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush19:27

      to see all of that. And so the universe in a very short period of time took me out of my mental constructs and challenged me with a whole bunch of new realities that, again, just once I came back from that, I couldn't reintegrate, um, into my previous belief system.

   2. MRMel Robbins19:40

      Well, what are some of the biggest takeaways and lessons that you've learned from being around so many near-death experiences, from having a very profound one, which you just described, from witnessing so many people that have died in two natural disasters, and as your work as a hospice doctor, what are some of the biggest takeaways that you have that you wish people who are living, anybody that can hear this would know?

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush20:17

      You are the most beautiful thing. You are the entire divine expression of your soul. And that's where the near-death experience is a gift is if you can actually feel what it feels like to be whole. It's not something to be achieved. You've always been whole. You were whole at the beginning, you will still be whole at the end of your life journey. Uh, there's only a perception that you are incomplete right now. You are the most beautiful thing. This is what happens in near-death experiences. If you can start to feel the universe, if you start to feel yourself, you start to realize you can r- access information that had never entered your mind.

   4. MRMel Robbins20:54

      You know what I just freaking loved about both your story and, and the way that you're explaining this is that you've defined a near-death experience as a completely different thing. I'll never look at that term the same way again. Like, it literally is a moment where you escape your mind, and you drop into deep connection and wholeness.

5. 21:20 – 26:12

   This is what YOU can bring into your life from Dr. Zach’s experiences.

   1. MRMel Robbins21:20

      So how does somebody listening access the, what you've learned from near-death experiences and from witnessing so many people dying and caring for them as a hospice doctor? How do you bring that wisdom or that experience into your day-to-day life?

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush21:39

      You are right now clinging to everything around you out of fear that you're incomplete. You're clinging to your little rituals. It might be your morning cup of coffee. It might be the way in which you pack the kids' school lunch. It might be the way in which you drive to school. It might be the way in which you show up at work. It might be the way in which you organize your email box. You've got all of these rituals in your day. Anything that takes you out of that construct for a moment, when a child says something to you, you get goosebumps, or an elder speaks to you and you get goosebumps, that's some, that is a momentary near-death experience. That's why child s- child speak is so deep and often gives you goosebumps. When a wi- when a child drops a wisdom bomb on you, lights you up in those goosebumps, that's an experiential moment of a soul speaking. If you're getting goosebumps from anybody speaking to you, that's one of their moments where they just came into alignment with their coherence, their complete waveform of truth. And a child is always speaking from that space to a certain age, which is typically around age two. They start to learn how to watch behaviors around them, and this is when they start to get an, an idea they are different than others. They're the kid, and that's their brother. And so they're being trained to believe that they're separate from everything.

   3. MRMel Robbins22:49

      And that's the split that you're talking about.

   4. ZBDr. Zach Bush22:50

      And that's the terrible twos and the threes and everything else that are so difficult for a child 'cause they're going from a, a state of being complete to the terrifying reality of they are incomplete. And that's why I think two and three look so difficult on the psyche of a child, and it's why they're so labile with their emotions, and everything's overwhelming 'cause they are starting to learn a reality of, of disconnected, you know, truths or disconnected to half-truths.

   5. MRMel Robbins23:16

      You know what, uh, I just got is that if you consider what you're saying that any human being that comes into this world, you're born, that you are completely intact and whole and basically an expression of pure love and connection and oneness with everyone around you, and you can see that in a baby's eye, that if you then jump all the way to the end of someone's life, and if you've ever been with somebody as they are passing on-

   6. ZBDr. Zach Bush23:50

      They're whole.

   7. MRMel Robbins23:51

      ... they're whole, and your ability to look at them in the eyes with love, forgiveness, all of it, is the now same experience. And if I think about my own experience of my life, there are those moments whether... And, you know, I just cry thinking, like, one that comes to mind is...... thinking about being at the bottom of the aisle on my wedding day, and I looked straight down the aisle and Chris turned and he flashed this, like, huge smile, and it was that same experience of wholeness. And there are other periods of my life, think a lot of times, like when I'm outside, and you see, like right now in Vermont, the fireflies are going crazy. And so, when I take in a moment in nature like that, and you have this, like blip of wholeness, that's what you're talking about, that experience right there.

   8. ZBDr. Zach Bush24:51

      That's exactly right. I love where you're laying this out is that there's basically bookends of the human experience that everybody's going to- to have. They're gonna come in whole and they're gonna leave whole.

   9. MRMel Robbins25:00

      Yeah.

   10. ZBDr. Zach Bush25:00

       And as I watched those happen over and over again, I saw them, a lot of them in the ICU, you know, I spent 10 years working in intense hospital settings, and in those years, I got used to seeing these- these moments of time where you really do see a soul showing up...

   11. MRMel Robbins25:17

       Mm-hmm.

   12. ZBDr. Zach Bush25:17

       ... as it exes- exits the- the frailty of the human mind, and then comes back in with new information, uh, to the mind, but not to itself. Because at no point does it get surprised about its journey. It's- it's never like, "I can't believe I just did this." It simply says, "I went to this place, I saw this, and I'm bringing this back to this human mind."

   13. MRMel Robbins25:36

       So what you're basically saying is that in the ICU, for example, where you would be the witness to all of these near-death experiences, and people would then wake up from a coma or they would, quote, "come back to life," there would be an absolute certainty and knowingness and lack of judgment about what they had experienced during that near-death experience. Like they just came back like, "This is the truth. This is where I was." And that that almost, like certainty started to strike you?

   14. ZBDr. Zach Bush26:11

       That's exactly

6. 26:12 – 29:41

   Mel describes an experience that made her feel more present in life.

   1. ZBDr. Zach Bush26:12

      right.

   2. MRMel Robbins26:12

      Does it always have to be with another person? Like when you are out in nature, and you are just struck with awe, and you have no thoughts, it's just a pure experience, is that from at least like a biological standpoint, a near-death experience because you are back whole and connected in the moment to yourself and to the world around you again?

   3. ZBDr. Zach Bush26:35

      Maybe you've had the experience of a wild animal suddenly coming into your... an interaction with you, and-

   4. MRMel Robbins26:40

      Yeah, just actually the other day, we were walking down the back drive. We have a logging road on the mountain that we live on, and, um, we had the dogs, and about 100 yards down the dirt path, uh, a black bear walked across, and so we of course stopped. And thank God the dogs didn't see her, and I assume it's a her 'cause th- the cubs have been born recently and you see a lot of them running around where we live in southern Vermont, but there was a moment where she stopped and turned and looked, and we made eye contact, and it's as if sound and time disappeared, and then all of a s- I don't know how long I stood there with Chris and we just saw this bear. And then the thought came in, "Oh my God, the dogs." And then she turned and walked away and it was over. And that's an example of what you're describing, is this ability that you have in your life now to come into these moments and drop in to connection and presence in your life, 'cause it's true. If, like if you really think about people that are dying, I mean, you have exper- you have more experience with this than I do, but I- I- I mean, my- I'm married to somebody who's a death doula and a hospice volunteer, who sits with people who are dying and supports people who are near the end of their life, and I always wonder, "Are people scared? Are they afraid?" And Chris talks a lot about how no, people actually seem to be more at peace. I mean, is that what you've found? Do you find that people are, like when they're approaching death, they're not as afraid? Because I- I think it's normal to be afraid of dying, isn't it?

   5. ZBDr. Zach Bush28:34

      There's great terror in the end of something because-

   6. MRMel Robbins28:37

      Yeah.

   7. ZBDr. Zach Bush28:37

      ... to die incomplete suggests that there's a brokenness that didn't heal-

   8. MRMel Robbins28:42

      Mm-hmm.

   9. ZBDr. Zach Bush28:42

      ... and so, the reason we develop fear of death, I believe, is because we can feel this in- this state of incompleteness that we perceive. We know that there's something deep that needs to heal, and we can feel it all the time.

   10. MRMel Robbins28:53

       How do you reconnect then, or what do you say as a parent? Like I- I- I'll give you an example. So I was talking with one of our daughters the other day, and she lives out in southern California, and I remember when I was in my mid-20s, I was terrified of dying, terrified of getting on a plane, terrified of, uh, a car crash, terrified of my parents dying, terrified that something might happen, and there was something in the news, I don't know what, about something going on in California and she was getting herself all worked up. "What would happen if there was a natural disaster and something happened to me?" And I said, "Well, you would die." And she said, "Yeah, but I don't wanna," and I said, "But once you're dead, doesn't matter." And worrying... Like I- I- I was very pragmatic about it, and I realized upon reflection, Dr. Zach, that

7. 29:41 – 41:11

   This is how Mel learned to accept death and how you can too.

   1. MRMel Robbins29:41

      I was terrified of dying probably up until about six years ago.

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush29:47

      What happened?

   3. MRMel Robbins29:48

      Well, what happened is I got my shit together.

   4. ZBDr. Zach Bush29:52

      Yeah.

   5. MRMel Robbins29:53

      And I worked on myself, and I went to therapy, and I started pursuing work that was meaningful, and I worked very hard to get reconnected to myself so that I was proud of the person and, that I am, and how I was acting, and I felt a sense of...... meaning in the way that I was spending my time, and I had faced a lot of the things from my past, or cleaned up behaviors, or made amends along the way of doing work for five to 10 years and just trying to be a happier person, trying to-

   6. ZBDr. Zach Bush30:41

      Mm-hmm.

   7. MRMel Robbins30:42

      ... not hate myself so much that I was on a plane one day. I'll never forget this. I, I, I remember the moment like it was yesterday because I used to be terrified of flying. I had so many rituals before I would get on a plane to make sure it would not go down. I would literally get to the airport, and I would be on edge the whole time. And when I got to the, uh, waiting area, I'd be scanning the area, looking, "Okay, is there a baby getting on the plane? Okay, good. Is there anybody in the military? Okay, good. Is there anybody in a wheelchair? Okay, good." (laughs) "Is there anybody, uh, that, that is a person of, you know, w- like, spiritu- Okay, good. Oh, do the, do the pilots have the military-style haircuts? Okay, great." 'Cause I would s- then say, "Oh, all these people, if they're getting on the plane, God, the universe not gonna let this sucker go down." And then, I would get on the plane, and then I would start bargaining with myself, as if I have any control about what's going on. "All right, once the seatbelt goes in, you can start breathing. Then when we take off, and we get past that point where they then ding the bell," like all of this active crazy-making in my brain over something I can't control. And that was my life. And, uh, a number of years ago, I was sitting. I was on the right side of the plane. I was right up against the window 'cause I remember looking out the window, and it dawned on me, I hadn't done any of that stuff before I got on this plane. And it dawned on me that I wasn't nervous at all. And then, it dawned on me, "Well, it's because I'm actually not afraid of dying." And the reason why I'm not afraid is that I feel like I have done the work that I needed to do to be connected back to myself, and that I was proud of how I had changed my life. I was proud of how I was showing up in relationships. I was definitely, as I sat there and thought about it, very sad about the idea of missing out and not being alive, you know, when my kids get married, or when they have kids, or just, you know, living a much longer life 'cause I was actually really enjoying it. And so, I feel like I understand what you say when you say most of us are afraid of dying because we have not taken the time to do what we can do while we are alive to feel more connected to ourselves and to feel more of those moments of wholeness, whether you're staring at a bird, or you are looking at somebody in the eyes, or you are staring into the eyes of a baby. And instead, I think the sadness, I would imagine, witnessing so many people dying, is just knowing that they had it in the beginning, and th- didn't experience it really again 'til the end.

   8. ZBDr. Zach Bush33:40

      Yeah. I think there's, there's levels of the sadness, but back to that realization that wholeness never left you. Whatever happened in your life, it looked like a good life, looked like a bad life, that's the beauty of near-death experiences. You suddenly realize, it was all perfect. Like, the whole thing was perfect. It was exactly what I needed to learn the things I learned, become the one I became, and ultimately to realize I was whole the entire time. Any perception of incompleteness was incorrect. I put myself on a human journey so that I would feel everything, and I wanted to feel heartbreak. I wanted to feel, you know, deep depression. I wanted to feel the elation of coming out of depression. I wanted to feel, you know, a cup of coffee in the morning. I wanted to feel sex. I wanted to feel these things in my life. And so, I got to do all of that-

   9. MRMel Robbins34:20

      Mm-hmm.

   10. ZBDr. Zach Bush34:20

       ... and I had that experience, and that's beautiful. But I would say that one thing to, for us to get excited about is that what you descri- described, the journey of getting out of fear of flying, was one possible, you know, description or, or, or reality that allowed that to occur is you were moving from a previous state of trying to make everybody else proud of you to a state of being just proud of yourself. So that was, that's what I would call maybe like one of the most fundamental shifts a human can have. And so, it's a relief when no longer are you trying to perform for everybody else, and I think that is a big thing to celebrate, when we finally reach that state of like, "You know what? I'm just gonna perform for me today, and if I'm happy with the day, and my value systems align with my behaviors, then I'm proud of myself."

   11. MRMel Robbins35:07

       Hm.

   12. ZBDr. Zach Bush35:07

       But the deeper opportunity that lies next is are we willing to go to the point where there is no pride because there was nothing to do or achieve. There was, in fact, the release of all that belief because you were valuable before you did anything to be proud of, and if you can approach that space. We can move into it for moments. You mentioned a few of them. Breath work, I think, is a powerful way to do this. I think, and your, and your husband, Chris, is training in holotropic breath work right now for his death doula stuff probably, but super potent thing. There's many, many traditions coming out of India, Africa, South America, uh, North American orig- original peoples all over the worlds had some form of breath work, and there was some sort of chant, dance, storytelling at the fire, all of these putting people into wholeness. And so, we, we act as we do because we lost these mechanisms of near-death experiences moment by moment, day by day.

   13. MRMel Robbins35:58

       Reminding you of who you are at your core.

   14. ZBDr. Zach Bush36:00

       Before you do anything.

   15. MRMel Robbins36:02

       Yes.

   16. ZBDr. Zach Bush36:02

       Before anything is performed, for yourself or for others, before pride can enter the equation because you realize you were, you were the whole beauty of the divine the moment you took your first breath, and you were whole at that moment. And you will be the same at the end of life when you've been in a coma for six months, and you've done nothing, and yet, the divine state there is whole.

   17. MRMel Robbins36:21

       It's, it's, it's encouraging in some ways and surprising to hear...You, as a hospice (laughs) doctor, Dr. Zach, talk about that state as being divine and whole when somebody is in a coma or somebody is in a near-death experience or somebody is about to die. And I guess the reason why, I'm realizing, is because we project our own pain and suffering onto that situation as we observe it.

   18. ZBDr. Zach Bush36:51

       We're observing a, a, a rebirth event. And you can imagine what it looks like maybe to a twin who's in the womb and suddenly watches the disappearance of the only other soul, soul that has ever physically been around in this lifetime. And that thing suddenly just disappears down a dark tunnel, and it's gone. You know? And there'd be sorrow, and disappointment, everything else. But the reality is, that thing just went down a dark tunnel and just entered a world that is so beautiful you can't even describe it. And that second twin then goes down the journey of the tube m- minutes later and is born into this extraordinary environment. We are all twins in a womb right now, watching each other pass down a birth canal. And we call it death, and we think it's horrible because we have a split human mind, but it's always a rebirth. You cannot destroy or create energy. It's the first law of thermodynamics and physics. And so that soul that allowed you to self-organize in your mother's womb is still the soul that's self-organizing that entity into its next expression as it comes out the birth canal on the other end.

   19. MRMel Robbins37:50

       I love that you just said that, because when people always a- when people ask me, you know, "So what do you think happens when you die?" I always say, "I think about it like birth." Like, when you were in the womb, you had no knowledge of the world you were about to be born into. And the fact that you had no knowledge of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And I believe the same thing, that there is this whole world you're about to be born into when you die. And just because you're not quite sure what it is doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You know, I see a lot online, um, about, like, the regrets of the dying, and I know that there's been, uh, a lot of research and books written about this. But in your work, Dr. Zach, are there kind of top things that people regret that we can use in our lives now to live a better life?

   20. ZBDr. Zach Bush38:44

       Yeah. The number one regret is, I was performing the whole time.

   21. MRMel Robbins38:47

       Hmm.

   22. ZBDr. Zach Bush38:48

       I never was actually being me, and I was afraid to be me. And I didn't even know what it would feel like to be me. But right now, as I'm dying, as I... as that veil thins, I feel myself, and I'm a beautiful being. I am whole. And so, really, the n- the regret is, wow, if I'd just known I was whole the whole time, and, and hadn't had to do all the performance, and had been able to taste the cup of coffee for what it really is instead of perceive it for everything that it's not.

   23. MRMel Robbins39:13

       If you were to leave the person listening with one message, what would it be?

   24. ZBDr. Zach Bush39:22

       The deep dysfunction of relationship that we have on the planet right now is, we are trying to find somebody else that will make us feel good about ourselves.

   25. MRMel Robbins39:31

       Mm-hmm.

   26. ZBDr. Zach Bush39:31

       And more than that, we are looking to another person to help us feel complete. And so, we have this language. "This is my better half." "This is," you know, "this is my partner." And you're gonna cleave onto that, thinking you're gonna become complete, and you're gonna go into these many relationships to try to create the sensation of fullness or, or wholeness. We want to be seen so badly, and it's why relationships struggle so much, is we keep expecting that other human to see us and feel us. Uh, they cannot. It's not possible. No human on the planet can see you, but you're surrounded by a cosmos that has been seeing you since before you were in the moon. You are an energy field that is felt at a deeper level than any human sense. You're a very unique vibration as a soul, as a, a physical phenomenon. And at this moment, you've stepped into an experience of a human body. And to get there, to that wholeness, before you die, go out into nature, lie down below a tree, and look up to the branches of the tree, and watch the way in which the sh- the leaves shake in the little bit of a breeze, and those white clouds float by, and let your body be seen. For a while, it's gonna, to just be you being overwhelmed by the beauty of the tree. It's gonna be you being overwhelmed by the bl- beauty and peace of the cloud floating over top. And you're gonna have to go through that, feel that. It's extremely important. See the beauty of nature, no question. But the healing won't really begin until you let the tree see you. And you can only be seen by a tree by, as the whole you, 'cause it doesn't have eyes that will convince it that you're everything that you're not. Only humans will do that. And so this is our time to realize that our eyes are tricking us. Every being is whole, and there's no need for a performance.

   27. MRMel Robbins41:09

       Dr. Zach, what are your parting

8. 41:11 – 42:58

   Dr. Zach wants you to take this advice with you through life.

   1. MRMel Robbins41:11

      words?

   2. ZBDr. Zach Bush41:11

      I gain hope every time I meet one human. And so I would encourage all of you to meet yourself, because you can ultimately be your own tree as well through breath work, through the cold plunge, through your treks outside in nature. Take yourself into those experiences. And so I hope that one of you falls deeply in love with your state as a being that is whole at every step of life. And as soon as you do, we will all follow you into a very beautiful reality.

   3. MRMel Robbins41:38

      Amazing parting words, Dr. Zach. (laughs)

   4. ZBDr. Zach Bush41:41

      (laughs)

   5. MRMel Robbins41:42

      Wow. Thank you.

   6. ZBDr. Zach Bush41:45

      It's a pleasure.

   7. MRMel Robbins41:47

      Um, thank you. And I wanna make sure that I also thank you. Thank you for being here with me and Dr. Zach. And in case nobody else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you. And I can tell Dr. Zach does too.

   8. ZBDr. Zach Bush42:02

      Mm-hmm. Each of you are in a very unique moment. So you are here on purpose, and you are equipped with everything you need for the journey. You need nothing from me. You are already complete. I hope that this whole thing was basically a tuning fork to remem- remind you or/and let you feel what it feels like to already be a complete symphony in and of yourself. We are tuned together on purpose, and we all came into play right now. You got everything you need.

   9. MRMel Robbins42:28

      You heard him. Go play, and I'll talk to you in a few days. And for you sitting here watching with me on YouTube, I just wanna say, please share this with somebody. Don't just sit and watch. Please do something. And take a minute and subscribe to this channel, because it's really a way that you can support me in bringing you new videos every single day. And I'm sure you're looking for something really inspiring to watch, to really move you. So, I want you to check out this video next.

Episode duration: 42:59