#360 - "This Is What It's Like To Die" - Anna's NDE

0:00 Merry Christmas. Before we jump into today's interview with Anna, I just want to remind you of the master class coming up in January called What Really Happens After We Die? NDE expert and author Jeff Janssen will lead the discussion, and he's offering the class to roundtrip death listeners for half price. You'll love it, and it's a great gift idea. Click on the link in today's show notes for many more details. From the time that they pronounced me death was a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else.

0:44 The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home. Welcome to roundtrip death everybody, and welcome to Anna's Tromquist from out in Atlanta, right Anna? Yeah, thanks for having me Eric. I hope I said that right. Atlanta, Anna, anyway, didn't mean to tongue twist myself. No, it's Anna, Anna, and Atlanta, it is. Anna in Atlanta. Hey, before we get going, tell us a little bit about you.

1:26 My name is Anna, Tromquist. I live in Atlanta, Georgia with my family. I am a physical therapist. I do home visits. And my friend and I also have a podcast on the side. We do a spiritual podcast called this spiritual fix. And that's pretty much my life. Mother, healthcare worker, wife, podcaster, gardener. Gardener too. Oh, and a gardener. What kind of things do you like to garden? I love to garden. I love to plant flowers like zinnias, dahlias, peonies. And then I also am doing a vegetable garden this year for the first time with success because we made it deer proof.

2:09 And so we've had a lot of fun picking tomatoes and berries and cucumbers and all that. Well, we here are up in the mountains of Utah and speaking of deer proof, we had to put a big eight foot fence all the way around our garden and orchard because they would just eat anything and everything. Yes, yes, it's amazing. And the baby deer, we have a lot of baby deer fons come in and they don't know what is or isn't like deer proof. They don't know what is or isn't like deer proof. They don't know what is or isn't like deer proof. They don't know what is or isn't like deer proof.

2:49 And so we had to eat everything until they learned. And so it was just a mess. They were eating everything up until this summer. So you know the story how it goes with the deer. I do. And we love the deer. And so we, you know, we don't want to hurt him or anything. We just want to keep them away from certain things. And so we came inside the garage and found some things to eat in there. Believe it or not. Oh my goodness. That we had stored in there. That's how hungry the poor things were. So, yeah. Anyway, let's get to our topic. I'll quit rambling here. You had a near death experience when you were a teenager and we don't hear a lot of teenage stories. And so this is going to be kind of fun.

3:30 If I remember right, you were 16 years old. Yes. And so you were on a family vacation, set the whole mood, set the stage. Where were you? What were you doing? What led up to what happened? So we were on family vacation in Hawaii and I don't remember which island it was. I was on the swim team. So I was a strong swimmer. The only bodies of water I had swimming up to this point with regularity would be, you know, lakes or pools. So we were going for a walk along the beach and my family got really far ahead and we were all kind of spread out. You know, we knew we were going to meet back at the hotel or whatever at a certain time. And I passed a part of the water and there was no lifeguards on duty and it said warning, no lifeguard on duty.

4:13 And it said something about the tide, but I wasn't really familiar with it. I was from the desert and I thought, oh, no lifeguard on duty. That's no big deal. I know how to swim. So I get in the water. And within a couple of moments, I feel like I'm being swooped under the water and carried down. And usually when you're underwater, you get a sense of where up and down is by the light. But it was turning me so quickly and there was so much sand, including the surface of the water. I didn't know what was up, what was down. So I was suddenly very discombobulated. I didn't know, you know, what was up, what was down, what was left, what was right.

4:53 And I'm trying to get to the surface as quickly as possible and I'm struggling, struggling, struggling. And I feel like the waves are as strong as ropes and cords on me. And I basically run out of juice and I can't struggle any further. And I suddenly get completely calm. My body goes limp and I feel this immense calm and quiet. And I hear a voice distinctly say, like it was like inside my head. It wasn't like coming into my ears, but it wasn't my voice. And it said, this is what it's like to die. And I felt enveloped in this very space, safe feeling.

5:33 And when the voice said, this is what it's like to die without words, it was kind of conveying to me like, this is a natural thing. This is okay. This is, this is, this is okay. Like everything was okay. And in that moment, I suddenly felt linked to everyone that had ever died before. It was as if it was as if we all have a surprise package, a gift, and only some of us had opened it. So in that moment, I felt like I was seeing the gift that everyone before me who had died had opened and that everyone on earth has yet to open, but will one day also open it. So it was this strange feeling of connection between everyone who had ever died.

6:14 I felt connected to them in an infinite, beautiful, deep way. And then I also simultaneously felt connected, knowing that I was seeing the thing that they were everyone on earth that still alive was going to see. I can't explain how connected and, and, and what a sense of oneness and awe it was. And I felt so calm and so peaceful. And then suddenly I'm on the beach and I'm spitting up water. I don't remember even how I got to the beach, but I'm just like suddenly on the beach, I'm spitting up water. My lungs are burning on like they feel like they're on fire. I'm spitting out sand and saltwater and kind of like dry heaving. So no, I wasn't resuscitated or anything. It just, I just, you know, so maybe it wasn't a true near death experience.

6:59 It was a near drowning experience, but that happened and I didn't talk about it for years because it was so intimate and so special. And I didn't know how to put it into words. And also it wasn't something that would come up like people don't talk about these things. It wouldn't be like at a dinner table and I wanted to be like, Hey guys, by the way, and then have to disprove myself or explain myself. And it wasn't until we were doing a podcast episode on near death experiences that I was researching the commonalities. Like there's 11 11 things that people who have these all have in common, like one of the 11 and I distinctly had like, you know, the sense of peace and the sense of connection to mankind.

7:44 Knowing that I wasn't crazy that this was an experience many people had it gave me the strength to talk about it. We talked, I talked about a little bit on my show as well. And then as you know, the Daily Mail and other other UK tabloids found it and and wrote up about it. But that, that's the story. Okay. Wow. That in a nutshell. Good thing I have 100 questions for you. But first I just wanted to tell you, I'm sure you saw me kind of smiling, almost laughing. And that is was in no way, no way at all making fun of what happened. I just can picture that so well because I lived in Hawaii as a child and I have been that person tumbled and rolled and there's a thing we call an undertow that actually pulls you out towards the ocean and under the waves and then you just get slammed and you get rolled up.

8:37 And usually eventually a big enough wave is going to come along that is she could it's just going to spit you out on the beach and that's what it did for you. That's exactly how it was. Yes. There is I see some reels online from a thing called Cooke's lambs and you'll see a whole bunch of those on there just in case you ever want to see some people in the shore break just getting wiped out. Cooke's lambs with two K's and by the way that's not that's not mine. I'm not trying to promote it. It just would help people. I'll write it down and I'll check it out. K-O-O-K-S-L-A-M-S. Anyway, let's go back and dig into this a little bit because people have near death experiences sometimes even if their heart doesn't stop.

9:25 Some people are in a coma. Some people are so close to death as you were that they can have an experience like this. When we are on the freeway and somebody almost runs us off the road and we go, oh, wow, that was scary. That's not a near death experience. Although the news will often refer to it that way. So you had something that was very real and I want to understand that feeling of warmth that you had because one would think that you would be so overcome with fear instead. Tell me a little bit more about that. Well, I was overcome with fear until I heard the voice and the moment the voice came, it's as if I was embraced, although there were no hands.

10:15 It was like being hugged on a molecular level. It was this feeling of like, I'm safe. You know how when you skin your knee as a kid and your mom comes and kisses it and suddenly it doesn't hurt anymore and it's all in your head? It was kind of that feeling of being in the arms of someone. Something, it wasn't a person, it was this thing, energy. It was that feeling of being completely safe and protected. You remember it well enough to describe the voice or was it more of a feeling in your head? It was a voice. It was a woman's voice. And it was, I mean, I remember the voice, yeah.

11:01 Now that sentence, this is what it feels like to die. That could be put a number of different ways. That could be put like, well, that's what it feels like to die, girl. You blew it. Or it could be done in a very kind, loving way. Explain how it came across to you. It was like I was being comforted. Like imagine your mom's kissing your skin knee and they're saying, it's okay. It's just a skin knee. It was this, she didn't say it was okay, but it was like, it's okay. This is what it's like to die. This is okay. But the only words she said were, this is what it's like to die.

11:43 That makes sense to me. It wasn't a this is what it's like to die to scare you. It was like, it's okay to die. This is what it's like. Anything else on that voice? No, I don't know. I don't know who it was. If it was an angel or God or what, I don't know. Just a quick break here to give a shout out to our new sponsor, Smart Labels. With a new year, I'm sure many of you are like me with a resolution to get more organized. That's where Smart Labels comes in. With Smart Labels, you buy their QR code labels on Amazon, put a label on a storage bin, and then scan it with their app.

12:24 Catalog everything that's going into the bin and let your future self know where everything is. When you need something next year, search for it in the app and it'll tell you exactly where it is. Seriously, people describe this as organizing magic. Click over to Amazon right now and get your Smart Labels. Now, back to the interview. I've had so many people tell me about the connection that they feel during their NDE and all different kinds of NDE's. And I still don't know that I totally understand it. Please try to explain to me the connection that you felt with others. It happened on a visceral level. It wasn't mental.

13:07 So it's hard to explain in words because it was more of a feeling. But I felt connected to every single one of them. An analogy would be as if I had a little piece of thread coming out all the pores on my skin. And I realized that each thread was attached to another person. I mean, it wasn't like that, but that's kind of the feeling. It was like I was part of them. We were all part of the same thing. What do you take away from that? What does that mean? To me, it really helped me connect more with Buddhist religion later. Like I was raised Jewish.

13:47 And the whole idea that we are all one, like the oneness that's conveyed in Buddhism, I could relate to that. Like that to me made more sense than what I was grown up with. Because that's exactly how I felt that I was part of all of humanity. There was a oneness to it. Is that the very special gift that you related to? Yeah, I think so. It just felt like, you know, they say do unto your neighbor as you would do unto yourself. It just kind of, that just all made more sense. Like we are all just part, we were all part of the same thing. And the last word that I remember that stuck out to me that you said was you felt warm.

14:32 Yeah. How does that work? It was, like I said, it wasn't a logical mental experience. It was a physical visceral experience. And I just felt like this warmth and embrace around me. Like I said, like the way a mother scoops up a kid with a skin knee. There's a warmth there, even if it's not temperature, you know, there's a warmth, an energetic warmth. I hope I'm not sounding too crazy. No, you're not. It sounds kind of like a description of love in a way. Yeah, it definitely felt loving. So have you ever with one of your children when they scraped their knee, have you ever picked them up and said, this is what it feels like to hurt yourself?

15:15 I've said this is what it's like to die. You know, I'm just kidding. I didn't go that far. I've been morbid since the year we're sorry. No, but when they have been in pain and I try to soothe their pain, I try as hard as I can to create like a safe loving space because I just I just know how good that feels, you know, more than the words like to create the space. That makes sense. Why do you think you didn't talk about this for such a long time because you could have told your family right that day? It applied that day when they saw you all covered in sand.

15:57 Well, I probably rinsed off right after I don't know. But, you know, I think I had a lot of insecurities growing up about about my religious beliefs, my spiritual beliefs. I kind of say that I came out of the spiritual closet when I started doing the podcast because I just didn't feel comfortable with feeling like I would have to defend myself. And I'm not sure my parents would have, you know, made me defend myself, but I'm sure I would have been teased by my siblings or they would say I was making it up. You know how kids are. So it just it just didn't feel safe or comfortable to tell my immediate family and at that age, that would have been the only people I would have told.

16:38 Yeah, I think I was afraid to be teased. You know, I think I was afraid to have to defend a story that wasn't there to be to defend. You know, I wasn't trying to argue a point and I knew that if I brought it up, I would be forced. I'd be interrogated kind of, you know, and I just didn't feel like it was something I wanted to have to defend. It was just something that I experienced. Well, besides, how could you defend it? You couldn't prove it. Right. And then, you know, I could just see my brother being like, you know, you're just making this up for attention or whatever. I mean, I don't know what he would have said, but I'm sure it would have been, you know, something obnoxious that little brother say, and I didn't want to have to deal with it.

17:19 I'm that obnoxious little brother. Be careful. If there's another 16 year old girl out there listening to this, who's had some kind of a near death experience out of body experience, something spiritual that's hard for her to understand. Do you have any advice for her? Should she talk to somebody or should she just keep it to herself? I think that she'll know, you know, what's right for her. I think it's a new day and age. There's the internet. There's Reddit, you know, there's subreddits that are called glitches in the universe or true off my chest where people can anonymously post stories, like very weird things that are happening and the people in those groups believe them.

18:03 There's not the need to defend and there's anonymity. So maybe I'd say take a baby step and anonymously share your story if you feel so. She could listen to our podcast and reach out to us. We've had so many people, so many listeners call, you know, email us or DM us and say, you know, that episode really reminded me of this story, you know, or, or this or that and, you know, if they feel like they need to reach out to professional, I would say. To reach out to someone less traditional than a psychotherapist, but maybe a shaman or someone who is just super open minded, like maybe a unity based psychotherapist versus, you know, Christian or Jewish, just to be open to someone like that.

18:51 I think that is just a different day and age and, and, and she would be able to find very easily that she's not alone in the way in what she happened to her. You know, whereas when I was alive, there was no or not when I was live when I was 16, there was no internet, or there was maybe but it was like the AOL dial up I wouldn't have known how to find people who shared my story. You are not that old, I don't believe it. Oh, I am. I think the talking about it can be very helpful. Yeah, people seem to need to talk about it. I often have people on this show that had an experience 40 years ago, 30 years ago, and didn't dare talk about it.

19:31 And after we're done with the interview and, you know, we're not recording any longer, they're like Eric, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. I feel like there's this giant weight off my shoulders. And it's so nice to be able to talk about it and not be judged. So I think it can be a good thing. Yeah. And then I just, I just tell myself like the people who need to hear it will hear it like for whatever reason I thought it was so random that it was my story was published and I just thought well you know what, maybe it needs to be published maybe someone out there needs to read it and know that what happened to them is very normal or not normal, I would say is happened to others.

20:11 It's happened to a lot of others. The numbers are are really high. We don't know exactly what they are, but there are thousands and thousands and thousands if not a few million people in this world that have had these experiences. Now your podcast is called This Spiritual Fix. Did your experience as a teenager lead to some spiritual gifts or something? Tell me about what it's done for you, your life going forward. So I wouldn't say the podcast is a direct result of that experience in Hawaii, but I would say that my culturally, yes, I love the Jewish religion and I love the food, I love the holidays and all that, but the way that I was taught to believe in God, I couldn't, after that experience, I just couldn't, I couldn't connect with it.

21:03 So I slowly started to ask myself, like, if God is this loving, union safe thing, and not the jealous, vengeful biblical God that I was taught to believe, like, which religion has it right, you know, and I studied a lot of different religions, I tried a lot of different meditation techniques, I went to India, I kind of, I did a lot of different things. And that's what the podcast is about, it's about what's the next fix, right, like looking for the next fix, because I think that that experience was so outside the box of what I was taught that I was searching for answers. And that's what the podcast is really about is about what kind of answers can you find in different places.

21:48 And people when they have a near death experience, it really changes them in a lot of ways. And they make some big changes in their lives, especially as adults. For someone that was just 16, do you feel like this changed you. It absolutely changed me. I know that my grandmother died a few years later and I didn't grieve her the same way I had grieved my mother who had died when I was 11. And at her age, I just my relationship with grief changed so much when people died that I could, I would mourn the loss of them, and I would mourn the family, I would, I would feel bad for those of us that kind of left behind but I no longer had this sense of grief for the person in itself, like I just felt like they were going to a better place like I really feel like it not just like the thing you see in Hallmark cards Oh, they're in a better place now, like I really felt in my heart, they're in a good place like they're in a better place, and it's okay to die.

22:51 So it didn't have the same effect on me. And then I also think it, it lessened my fear of death like of course I have the survival instinct if you threw me in the ocean I'm going to struggle to get out and I'm going to, you know, try to feed myself and not starve to death in any situation or whatever but like beyond that biological desire to stay alive I don't actually fear death like it's not something that keeps me has ever kept me up at night since then, like worrying about my death or what's death like I just, I don't have anxiety about about dying anymore. Well there's a question I asked a lot of people now I don't need to because you answered it for me already thank you.

23:32 Oh about fear of death. You're jumping way ahead here. I know it's not something I used to worry about that a lot as a child I was an anxious child and I don't think I've thought about it once since then. So could you carry that over to some advice for people that maybe, I don't know maybe somebody is critically ill or something and, or somebody has just lost a loved one. How can they take what you're feeling and make it work for them. Well I think if someone's critically ill, or you know, facing death, they're going to know soon enough. I really believe those last moments are going to be beautiful.

24:12 Most people who come back from an NDE that's what they say. So maybe take refuge in those numbers to anybody who is grieving a loved one. I don't know if I have any advice because I think we need to be true to our hearts and, and grieve them, you know, because what I experienced, it was a feeling it wasn't logic so I don't know if I can give that to anybody, right, with words, but I do believe, I do believe we all go to a better place. I just can't imagine feeling what I felt that day and there being anything bad out there, like beyond, beyond this life.

24:54 That's beautiful. So you've interviewed people that have had NDE's also. Do you have any favorite stories or favorite things that people have told you that you want to recount? We've only actually had one, we only did one NDE episode on our podcast, but interviewed a woman and, and her story I loved because what happened was is her ex boyfriend was violent and was choking her. And in her NDE, she went to a place where her angels told her like, this is what's going to happen. You're going to go, we're going to, you're going to go back in your body. You're going to do X, Y and Z. You're going to grab your car, your car keys, you're going to run out of the house. And she was like a 90 pound woman. The man attacking her was 200 pounds. And sure enough, she suddenly was back in her body.

25:39 She did everything they told her to do. And she got out of there. She, whatever it was, the hand grip, the, you know, moving his hands off her throat, whatever it was, and they're like, grab your keys and don't look back. Just run to your car. You know, and she did exactly as they said, and she ended up surviving. I love that story because that's not an NDE you often hear about is like a step by step how to get out of a killing situation. Wow. I'm trying to remember if I've talked to anybody that survived a murder kind of situation. That's very unusual. Yeah. Her name is Anastasia Joyce Anastasia. And when she came back, she says that she was actually given clairvoyance.

26:23 She's, she's left her full time job and became a psychic because she can, she says she can see things now that she couldn't. That's one of the changes some people have. Yeah. Yeah. Or gifts or whatever, whatever we want to call that. Okay. Before we wrap up, anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners? We'd love to leave with some kind of a great message of hope. I guess my message would be when you're in nature, when you're around nature, when you're gardening, when you're in the forest, when you're in the ocean, try your best to feel how you feel in your body and not so much what you're thinking.

27:03 I believe that the way we feel in nature tells us more about reality than the thoughts in our head. Okay. Love it. Thanks a lot for being with us. Thanks, Tromquist. Thank you, Eric. I appreciate it. And from Will and I at Roundtrip Death, we thank you so much for listening and wish you a very Merry Christmas. We look forward to connecting again after the first of the year as we kick off season three with an interview unlike anything you have heard before. Lastly, if you enjoy this podcast and want to help support the show, please click over to roundtripdeath.com. You'll see a little donate button in the upper right hand corner of the page.

27:43 We so appreciate your generosity that helps us keep the best near-death experiences coming your way every week. Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.