"Pursued By God" - Kimberly's NDE (Near Death Experience)

0:05 Welcome welcome to round trip death everybody. We're so happy to have Kimberly Braun with us this morning Kimberly, how are you? I'm doing great and I love your background. It's it's gorgeous and mine's mine's a blank slate Well, it's my office I have wooden walls and I have plants and But I have to mention one thing the lava lamp that you see here that I get a lot of comments on by the way is is dying Tears for the lava lamp. It takes about two hours to become fully liquid like that The stuff inside over time, I guess gets hard. So I'm glad you brought it up because What I want to do is I'm gonna buy a new one But I want everybody to comment on what color they want to see because they now come in red blue green All kinds of colors glitters.

1:02 Don't say glitter But I want comments. So if everybody would comment about what color Eric's next lava lamp should be, I can't wait to hear what people come up with. I love it. Well, you're giving them, you're giving them like a carte blanche. Who knows what they might come up with. You might get something psychedelic going there. You can be first. What color do you want? I would think like forest green. Okay. It's interesting, you know, I see a lot that are, and I love purple and all of those colors so much. But for me, what's different is doing something really earthy, so. Sort of like the color of your shirt today.

1:47 It is kind of like that, isn't it? Sounds perfect. Okay, before we jump into your NDE, which I know people are going to find fascinating, I want our audience to get to know you a little bit. If you would just take one minute. Who is Kimberly? You know, I'm still discovering that myself. That tells you a lot about who I am that I could give that statement. I am a mystic adventurer. My whole life has been lived with the veil very thin. multidimensionally, from the standpoint of experiencing what seems to be sourced or uncreated and these varieties of forms and learning what it means to be in a body, learning what it means to have a heart and a mind. I have been somebody that's really been passionate about that. So my formal education, my experiential choices have all been at the service of discovering these eternal truths, living them and supporting others in finding their path. And it takes many shapes and forms. So that's that's most of integrity about who I am. My life is very simple that way.

3:06 It's got one focus. that opens up a horizon of adventure and opportunities. Well, I love that you use the term veil because I personally believe that the spiritual things that we often talk about on this show are right around us. We just have these blinders, this veil, whatever, that right now in our physical form makes it hard to see and experience these things. Would you agree with that? Yes, and I think that in some very mysterious way that is part of the will of the uncreated of consciousness or awareness or God is that somehow coming into form the joy is this discovery of it all the discovery that the veil is thin and It's some mysterious divine play. So while it may yield a lot of suffering for us all and confusion and wondering about life, there's a divine purpose in that very reality that you said. Okay. Well, I want to jump into your NDE because some people are very impatient.

4:25 But we're also going to talk later about things that happened to you early in life and things that have happened to you since then, and what we can all learn from these kinds of experiences. So take us back. I know it was just a couple of years ago when you were 19 years old. Things were a little rough in your life. What was going on? It's true. It's true. And I know we'll go back to earlier than that, but I can't really give the NDE without giving the setup that my life has had a lot of mystical experiences all my life. So when I entered a really difficult period in my life, there was a way that I was also held by what I believed at that time was God, even in that darkness. When I was about 16, and that's a normal time in our personal development to really be trying to discover who we are and where we fit. And we're dependent on our parents, but we're also gaining independence.

5:30 So I know it can be a challenging time for many their teenage years. And in many ways, life was really wonderful. I have wonderful parents. I have a wonderful sister. At that time, I have a brother now, but he came many years later. We were also a deeply faith -filled family, which was a joy for me. As I was coming into my own and developing as a woman, I had this very strong existential concern. I was very drawn to spirituality and very drawn to that being what life was about.

6:10 And I also found within myself what I would call a very passionate nature. I'm very enthusiastic and curious about everything. So passion wasn't just simply sex, and I know your hormones really get going in your teens. Passion was about everything, the passion to learn. the passion to self -realize, the passion to be in a body, the passion to have ideas, the passion to have connection. Like I had a lot of fire. I'm an Aries, so I had a lot, a lot of fire. And there was something within me that was troubled that all that passion wasn't holy. It hit a really deep place in me. Looking back, Believe it was both individually and collectively because I think in the Western psyche We still have a strong puritanical bent Where our ideas of holiness? Create a dualism about being in the body So I was experiencing all of this and not really knowing how to make my way through it But I mean it hit me hard. I was having bad dreams I would have these dreams that must have been past lives or other dimensions, all sorts of things that were very dark. And I was having physical things like migraines because I was so troubled by it all. I was just ill at ease.

7:44 I had low grade of anxiety. I didn't suffer real anxiety. I work with people that suffer anxiety and panic attacks. I was never hit with a real issue there that was chronic. But I had a situational anxiety around what it meant to be alive. And I didn't know how to go forward. I felt completely stuck. And I tried everything. I tried everything. I tried. Being light -hearted around it and I couldn't get away from it. It troubled me so badly I tried getting involved in things and it still would not Lighten the intensity with which I felt held by this there felt to be something Inherently like a low self -worth You know, I think there were psychologically there were some other things getting hit there and my personal development but that was the issue that contained these things I went on with a lot of anguish around this privately. You wouldn't have known it outwardly because I'm, I'm a outgoing gregarious, not overly gregarious, but I'm, I am a strong personality. And I was involved in service organizations and had lots of friends and did things with my family. And, you know, outwardly speaking, you would have had no idea of my inner turmoil that I was going through. No idea. I started getting into the doors. I was very fascinated by the poetry of Jim Morrison. And there was an interest

9:17 because it was on an edge. It was like a breaking through. It's like, what's reality about? And a lot of the music from that time period is like that too, trying to pierce the veil. Yeah. Back in the days when we actually listened to the lyrics, they meant something. And the doors were a perfect example of that. Oh my word is poetry in motion, right? Poetry in motion. So I found solace in a lot of that different music. I was never adventurous enough to get into drugs and I came from a very Midwest background. So I was very, in some ways, very sheltered. not purposefully, but just situationally. I went to a school that was for gifted people, so it was very geeky and small. And, you know, again, there wasn't a lot of drinking and drugs and all of that. And so I didn't find myself going down destructive paths like that, which was fortunate because I think I, while I could have broken through to a deeper insight, I also could have gone down a route that would not have had a good end. So I just went through this turmoil. It was like two and a half years and When it started to even reach a point where there was something within me that said no more Because I had experience being guided all my life Anytime I had anything that troubled me on the inside Grace would show up and show me the way In my mind and in my heart and here

10:48 it was like being abandoned by God Because I was left to my own feudal mechanisms to work through this so Coming into the two -year mark about I don't remember exactly I Began to reach out for help Specifically for this so instead of like doing things that I thought were healthy that didn't help I began reaching out for help and First I turned to a faith community that I had joined In college, I was in my undergrad. They had a very fundamentalist belief system. It was so hurtful that I felt very shamed for where I was. Instead of being prayed with and understood and offered compassion, I was basically told, you're sinning by thinking those thoughts.

11:42 You know, like, it was very unhelpful. And so I didn't feel safe to turn to this community. So I finally turned to a mental health clinic at the university because I recognized that while what was happening was a spiritual crisis, I as a human being, as a person was struggling with mental health around it. I was just so ill at ease. I was assigned a counselor to be a therapist and that counselor was a poor counselor. I went out on a limb and I shared the vulnerable workings that were going on inside of me and this counselor and this was a big deal to share it and I'm sure that your listeners, I'm sure you can all relate that when you really open what seems scary to share about your own process You don't want to be told that you're being rejected for that reason.

12:47 This counselor basically was like, ah, get over yourself. It was terrible. And that was a bit like the last straw mentally because I took so much courage to open it up and I had been worked, I had been trying so hard. I mean, it brings tears to my eyes looking back on it. I had tried so hard to come through it. And I was a good person, so I wasn't acting out in ways that were hurtful to myself or anybody else. And when he said that, it was the worst thing that could have happened. And I gave up. Shortly after that, I tried to take my life. The pain was too much.

13:34 It had been two and a half years. And I was young, so I didn't have the skills. I didn't have the capacity. I didn't have the tools. I didn't have the support system. There were many things I just simply didn't have that left me feeling like there was no way out except for this one choice. I didn't believe I was going to go to hell. I didn't believe that I was committing a sin by what I was doing. I just simply despaired of life in this form, in this body. When I did that, I was in the dorm at the college. Pretty closely after that, I reached out after that and I let a fellow student know. So they called 911, but I left my body after I remember there was a flurry that happened in my dorm room. And then after that, I left my body. And just like most NDers, It's not possible to capture in words the understanding and the experience that happens when we are truly free from this 3D construct.

14:50 And what happened for me, which is not, it's not completely unique. A lot of times the idea of NDEs is the tunnel, the white light, the meeting loved ones. What happened for me was nothing like that. What was surprising, Eric, when I look back on it, is oftentimes people have NDEs that are influenced by their enculturation. So the fact that I was so Christian and I loved Jesus and I loved Mary and the fact that I actually didn't see anybody was so counter... cultural to the NDE experience. Most of the time the experience is a segue from your understanding in the human body is how you kind of get initiated into this out -of -body experience and where the messages come. But what happened for me was I awakened as and within the luminous void. existence. It was completely grounded and yet had no center at all. And you could say it was dark, but the dark was illuminated, not to the physical eye, not like I was looking at something as me. It was like being particles of luminosity. And I

16:23 was it, in a very easeful way, I did not lose a sense of me as an individual. But I was simultaneously not an individual. I was as well the whole of consciousness. So I was both of those things. At the same time, the coming home, the freedom, the freedom, that was the biggest quality I would say. You could say the luminous quality was love itself. But the quality of experience was utter freedom. All things were possible. Anything was possible. All was potential and all was actualizing.

17:07 And as I was it, I encountered the eternal source, it falls short to say within and without, but I don't have a context for it, with an intimacy of all aspects of what My journey was up to that point, all aspects being celebrated and held and known. And in reflecting on it, because this wasn't my reflection in it, but reflecting on it, there was an unconditioned acceptance that was in the form of respect. tenderness and love.

17:49 It wasn't sympathy for the hardship I had been going through. It wasn't affirmation for my life journey. There weren't these causal things happening, but there was this incredible recognition. If you think of somebody, if you're listening to this and maybe you've had an experience like this, when you've had an isolated moment, when you felt seen with the most tender respect and love, by something or someone else. It was that without any conditions around it. I found myself to be existence itself. And in that my dilemma completely was washed away because the dilemma I had was an erroneous thought that couldn't coexist in the purity of intelligence. in which I was. And I didn't even need to bring it into my experience. Again, there wasn't this linear time when I was out of body. It wasn't like I suffered so much and I cried, which would have been wonderful, but that wasn't what happened.

19:03 What happened was anything that was less than or not resonant with the purity of the intelligence that I was in didn't exist anymore. It was simply gone. And so I was abiding in this, it was like an oasis of being. And this went on, I don't know how long, I have no idea because I left my body when I was in the dorm room. And at a certain point, there did become an exchange. And an exchange I could say that was both within me and outside of me that was between me and the eternal source. And I was given a choice. Do you want to go back? And it was so empowering because there was no wrong answer. There was no sense of, you need to go back because you have a service and a mission. You need to go back to finish your journey and work things out.

20:00 There was no consequence that was like a karma around it. There was nothing. It was just the freedom of that choice. And what happened as that came about was there was this self -worth that just put me in touch with on a soul level, on the individual Kimberly soul level. Let me be truthfully in touch with what did I really want? Like from a place of joy and simplicity, what did I actually want? And in that rawness, I encountered that I wanted to return and not for something I didn't have this thought like, I want to return and finish my journey, or I want to return and share this love, or there was nothing like that. It was such simplicity.

20:53 There was just the raw desire that didn't need a reason other than love to want to return. And that seems so counterintuitive. Someone who has just tried to take their life chooses to go back. Right? So my guess is and you you correct me if I'm wrong All of that love and everything that you felt was doing a lot of healing to you emotionally Yes, it it had What I had been washed when I left my body the very encounter of truth on that level Unknowingly to me because it wasn't in my thought process. I was simply washed psychologically and emotionally Our suffering comes from error in thought that oftentimes comes from responses to trauma. That trauma could be individual or collective. And in that muddiness in our being, we work things out. And there was something about being jettisoned into the embrace of existence that washed me of those. things that washed me not just of the erroneous thought of the issue of passion and holiness and spirituality, but whatever the conditioning was, whatever the trauma was around these things, it washed me of the impelling force that would take me to those places

22:23 of despair. I mean, it was gone. It was just gone. I agree with you. It would be so counterintuitive to find that I actually wanted to come back. that that was actually the root of my joy and desire. And so when that happened, then I came back into my body. I was in my body and I was actually in the ICU. I had to have been out of my body for at least a half hour. I don't know how fast an ambulance would drive from the dorm to a hospital. Well and to the dorm and getting you on the gurney and all that kind of stuff.

23:04 It all takes a while. Let me throw some questions at you before we move on. And I can't wait to hear the next chapter. Some of the things that you talked about are hard for some of us with very literal brains, a little bit hard to understand such as You said something about being individual but not individual and the dark but illuminated. Help me understand how that works. You know, that's a brilliant question. And I think it takes penetrating that paradox. Those are both paradoxes.

23:45 It takes penetrating it to gain the insight. that there can be a coexistence in these ways. And what I would say with it is, if you look, this doesn't answer directly, but I'll try to answer directly in a moment. If you look at the writings of mystics of all eras, if you look at the deep mystical theology of traditions, you will find in all of those writings, there are these paradoxical statements that take place. Like John of the cross. I I ended up being Carmelite He was who's a Carmelite one of his breakthrough insights that he lived for the rest of his life was the soul center is God Well to a linear thought process that makes no sense How could a soul that has a is a pattern of an individual actually be God that has no boundaries? You're going to find these kinds of paradoxes in everything that comes close to a description of reality. I was given the gift to, in a very mysterious way, to go to that on a very essence level, a very foundational level. When I was out of body, and I can't describe the texture of it because I was aware I was a Kimberly, but it was... think about if you look out on the starry sky and you experienced yourself as the sky as All the particles

25:17 as once you have to use your imagination on that and it's even that's limited because it's only the sky but if you took the skies that opportunity and you tried to feel into being the sky and you were both the stars and the Black matter and the gray matter the white matter all of those things all at once You would find that you're existing as a whole, but then you're also existing as the individual stars and particles at the same time. That was a bit of what it was like, except there were literally no boundaries at all. There was no horizon. There was no globe looking. There was no, it was all -ness without any, and it's interesting because if I look at it, even now having been out of body, You know what? I would never want to be an astronaut.

26:09 And you would think I'd want to go into space. Like after this, you'd think I would have no fears about being in a spaceship. And I'm like the thought of being cloistered into a spaceship. So that's part of the mystery of the experience, too, is it did not yield for me that boundlessness in my body. I still like having my feet on the ground. You could also look at it this way. Think about when you've had a moment of darkness in your own life, a loss, a betrayal, a sense of trauma that has yielded a painful thought or reflection. And it's taken you into a dark place.

26:56 And then you've been given a grace to just be there with yourself in that place. Oftentimes when we experience the grace of that kind of acceptance where we just are and we're not trying to change ourselves, there's a certain subtle ease that comes about, a relaxation. And that relaxation and that ease is a certain luminous quality because it's providing a place that is Love, safe, held, and that also could speak to it. When we take these dark moments and we have been given the grace to be there, there's something that the being there itself has a certain healing property to it alone. Or think about if a friend or a professional has really offered you true listening. And you may not be 100 % understood, because maybe they haven't gone through your experience, but you feel held, wordlessly held.

28:08 There's something that's light -filled about that. And there's something that, in that light, it penetrates whatever is dark that you're sharing or revealing about yourself. I would say those are 3D examples of where you have Luminous darkness or a luminous void can feel very empty to be disconnected from ourselves and have darkness. Yeah, so That speaks to it a little bit. That's a really good try I appreciate it and it still is gonna take me a while to totally Grasp it, but there are times in life when you can feel For example, I love the ocean and there are times where when you're in the ocean And it's warm and sunny and beautiful. You feel a part of it, right? It's not like you and then there's the ocean. You feel like you are a part of it. Maybe that's a little tiny glimpse as to what you were feeling. That's a great example. Yeah. All right.

29:13 Thank you for that. So how was your life different afterwards? I mean, I want a little bit of nitty gritty here. Like you were in the hospital for how long? And then what was your attitude like when you went back to the dorm? I didn't. I flew home. I was living in Santa Cruz and I flew home to Florida. I was crystal clear when I came back into body. I had this very dramatic blessing that happened in that. There was one of my guides who's formless came into form as a nurse. When I came back into my body. There was a nurse standing beside me and It was really one of my guides.

29:57 I thought it was a nurse at the time She held me as I came back into my body and I wept I Just wept I don't even know how long I wept for but I wept and she held me and Then at a certain point I went to sleep I was never able to find and I could tell this this nurse was very lit up like it was very radiant Being but it informed because she was able to physically hold me I was never able to find that nurse which confirmed my sense that it was one of my guides So I was given a great grace in that transitioning back into the body. I didn't have to feel alone Because as individuals oftentimes in these moments we can feel really alone. I was clear as day that I wanted to understand myself better and I told the next day, of course, given the fact that I tried to take my life, they needed, you know, they they in the hospital, they went to meet with me. Like, am I still suicidal? What is my stability? You know, and all of that. So I immediately I only remember having one meeting, but there could have been more than one meeting. I said clearly, I said, I know I meant to fly home.

31:14 And I know I am meant to go into therapy. I know I'm meant to understand the layers of this more for myself and for my life. I knew I was completely washed of the trauma. There was nothing suicidal in me that existed. So I wasn't worried. I didn't feel unstable. But I did know that I had experienced a level of freedom that I wanted to know what even took me down that path. On other levels not just the spiritual level, you know on the emotional level. What was the trauma that was unconsciously there? psychologically, what's my makeup as a human being and Simultaneously my mystical experiences which were very strong all my life. I've there's so many stories in my first book I tell a lot of the stories of these Very powerful mystical experiences that started when I was five And what's beautiful about this reality is I think it's so relatable.

32:22 People can look at my mystical experiences and assume that I'm walking on a golden path and that nothing could touch me or trouble me. And then you encounter this dark night period that I went through. And it reminds us that being human is a very complex thing. And so it's very relatable to see that just because we have deep mystical experiences doesn't mean we're 100 % whole that we don't have growth to do and healing to do. My mystical experiences went off the chart. My spirituality over these, I'm close to 60 now, so it's been a lot of years. My spiritual is very different now, but back then I began experiencing being pursued by God. There was a personal God like a lover That I couldn't get away from it would fire up my whole body It would lead me into long periods of contemplation Prayer was an active part of course but it was even different than prayer was just being assumed into deep states of presence and quiet and bliss I mean, it went off the charts and I was having visions and miraculous phenomena. I went through five years of being like Eckhart Tolle on the park bench. So Eckhart Tolle talks about when he suffered severe depression and then he was given the capacity

33:56 to really let go. And he said, now I'm paraphrasing, I may get it a little wrong, but the point is that he felt like he was sucked into a vortex, moving at really fast speeds into the unknown. And in that, he was released of this severe, debilitating depression. And after that, he says it was like sitting on a park bench because the world was so magnificent. You were just experiencing so much connectivity to everything in the world and such sweetness that you're just not grounded. That's my five years after all of that were a bit like that, but they were filled with synchronicity as well. So I went back to Florida and I went through, I put myself through intense period of therapy while simultaneously having these very deep mystical experiences. And I learned so much about myself, about human development.

35:00 I grew even more in the depth of intimacy with me as a human being. Then I ended up moving back to Santa Cruz. And then I had this synchronicity set up where I started working with the homeless. And I happened to find myself magnetized into a group of about five to 10 people that were all having really life changing times in their spiritual journey. And we would gather for long periods of silent abiding and prayer. And so it was very powerful. It's like I call it the honeymoon period between me and the divine. So, I mean, things just catapulted. You mentioned how you liked the word that the veil was thin.

35:48 It was almost like there was no veil. I would be helping an older person because I was getting into home health care because I love helping people. They would shape shift into Christ or into angels or into saints. By location happened. Lots of miracles, lots of fast healing for myself or others, being taken up where I would have visions. All these things really were my daily bread. And it was very grounded because it wasn't just during my time of solitude. It was with everybody as well. So that eventually led me to join a monastery because it was just the natural next step. I was already living a monastic life and I was so on fire with love that I just had to be with the beloved. It was that simple. I just had to. All right. Before we wrap up, you've written how many books now? Three books. Three books? What's the most recent one? Miracles in the Naked Light. Oh, I like the title. Okay.

36:57 I've got to give that one a try. For somebody out there today who may be struggling, because there's a lot of tough things in life, and I'm not sure the date that this episode is going to come out, but just last week we had some really traumatic things happen in this country and really right down the road from where I live. Give us a message of hope. Based on the things that you've learned and you've come to be, why should people have hope in the future not only here while they're in body but afterwards? I've experienced that what is true is that we are in form impelled by an uncreated source that delights in us. and that the fulfillment of the journey of the formless becoming form, that the fulfillment of the journey has only one end, and that end is union in the fullness of this eternal love and light. And in that alone, love casts out fear. In that alone comes the insight on how to navigate the uncertainties, the complexities, and the difficulties of this life. In that alone, we find the way to open up that we can embody that love. And I know this is mysterious, and it can feel unreal. It can

38:30 feel like a concept if you're going through something that is so troubling. But... If you can open up to the unknown, to the possibility that it's true, you give some space to experience it. And it's in the space of experiencing it that you can discover the truth that sets you free. I believe there's only one end, and that end is the happy ending that is beyond our wildest imagining. And you had mentioned earlier two things. That really stuck out to me one was the word freedom and we've talked quite a bit about that. The other was coming home Would you expound on that just a little bit? Yes So in my own experience that we inform we in these bodies and with these souls and with this journey we're taking That it's a bit like the Wizard of Oz We're on the path to awakening that coming home is awakening to self and that our very center is that self capital S. So the body is the very way that we are journeying to the lesson of coming home to source and self. And again, this is an experiential, it's a very intimate and tender journey and you deserve the respect and community and the companionship and the support. To make that journey with vulnerability

40:03 and trust Thank you, Kimberly. I wasn't able to make it to ions this year, but I'll see you there next year, right? I Will look forward to seeing you there next year And and if you want to connect with me before my website Kimberly Braun calm has everything online community videos that are free, other resources, courses. It's a great way to connect. So Eric, if you're inclined or if you're listening, drop me an email or join my newsletter and let's stay connected. Well, stick that link in the show notes. Thanks again, Kimberly. Thank you. Blessings. Thanks again for listening and sharing this podcast. Don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button and sign up for our newsletter at roundtripdeath .com. If you want to share your near -death experience or if you have questions or comments about the show, send an email to eric at roundtripdeath .com. Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.