By Dr. Jane Greer
There is nothing more shattering than dealing with the death of a loved one. It turns you inside out, and it can feel like you might never recover. The magnitude of the loss can be overwhelming. However, one of the most inexplicable, profound, and powerful avenues for not just coping with the death itself, but also moving forward with your life is experiencing signs from your loved one that they are still with you and sending you love. I call these signs transcommunication. Television personality and entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel had an experience with this when she accidentally texted her late boyfriend Dennis Shields, and at another point received a text that nobody claimed to write. She acknowledged after that she thought it was, “weird.”
I talk about this exact situation in my book The Afterlife Connection: A Therapist Reveals How to Communicate with Departed Loved Ones. I actually wrote the book because of my own experiences after I lost my mother. She gave me, and continues to give me twenty years later, such clear signs that she is still with me that I felt compelled to learn more and explore what was happening.
Opening myself up to the possibility of transcommunication transformed my life, and continues to today. It can do the same for you once you begin to know what to look for.
Many people have a hard time understanding or accepting this possibility, or might even be frightened by it. But numerous scientists are now devoted to research and a better understanding of this phenomenon, including the work being done at The Afterlife Research and Education Institute. The big question is, how can you bring this to a personal level? To begin with, in the same way Bethenny said her experiences were “weird,” one indication that you are receiving a sign is that you say, “I know this sounds crazy but,” when you talk about it. That’s because you know something important happened, but you don’t have the means to explain it rationally. Another clue is when you get goosebumps or chills. How, then, can you begin to learn to read the signs that are sent your way? In my book I refer to another book written by Louis E. LaGrand, Ph.D. called After Death Communication. In his preface, he describes the various ways people might become aware of communications from deceased loved ones.
Related Link: Relationship Advice: Will Your Perfect Partner Vision Become Reality?
ADCs (after-death communications) include sensing the presence of the deceased, feeling a touch, smelling a fragrance, hearing the voice or seeing the deceased, and meeting the loved one in a vision or dream. Messages are also received in symbolic ways, such as finding an object associated with the deceased, unusual appearances or behavior of birds and animals, or other unexplainable happenings which occur at or shortly after the moment of death. Several combinations of the above phenomena may occur within weeks of death or over a period of years.
Along the same lines, Bill and Judy Guggenheim, in their seminal book Hello from Heaven, have categorized and provided anecdotal evidence for the innumerable methods – from visual to olfactory to auditory to symbolic – those in spirit have used to communicate with the living. Those they categorize as symbolic include the appearance of birds, butterflies, rainbows, animals of all kinds and a variety of inanimate objects such as seashells, coins, and pictures.
Related Link: Parenting Advice: How to Manage Being a Working Parent
When coincidence comes calling, consider instead that you are really dealing with a message of love from the other side. Here are three important things to keep in mind as you search for your own answers. The first is, be open to its occurring. If you accept it can happen to you, it will. The second is to debunk the notion that something huge has to happen, which is not the case. The signs can be subtle and small. They do not have to be big, sweeping gestures. For example, you might think about your mother and her favorite song comes on the radio, or you think about your father and a picture falls over. And the third is to be aware that some of the signs might come through energetically and might affect your computer, your car, your television, or any other machine or device by interfering with their function and disrupting what you are doing. Instead of being annoyed when these things break or malfunction, shift your way of thinking to see it as a sign and embrace that.
In my book I also talk about dream visits, in which the deceased is present in your dreams but not dead. The feeling is so powerful that I call these dreams, “the your still alive, you’re not dead dreams.” There might be a particular interactive quality to the dream – different from others – where you feel you are right there with the person. It is defined by an intense reality that other dreams don’t possess, and after you experience one you wake up with a profound sense of well-being.
The most important takeaway here with all of this is that seeing is believing. It seems Bethenny had this experience, and if you, too, are able to open your heart and mind to this, you make room for your loved one to stay connected with you in a way that is remarkable.
Please tune in to the Doctor on Call radio hour on HealthyLife.net every Tuesday at 2 PM EST, 11 AM PST. First and third Tuesdays are Shrink Wrap on Call, second Tuesdays are HuffPost on Call, and the last Tuesday of the month is Let’s Talk Sex! Email your questions dealing with relationships, intimacy, family, and friendships to Dr. Greer at askdrjane@drjanegreer.com. Connect with Dr. Jane Greer on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/DrJaneGreer, and be sure to follow @DrJaneGreer on Twitter for her latest insights on love, relationships, sex, and intimacy. For more on Dr. Greer, visit http://www.drjanegreer.com.
