GAR 101 | Afterlife

 

Paige Lee’s riveting book is titled Choose to Believe: A Story of Miracles, Healing, and the Afterlife. Paige’s grief journey began when her only living birth child, Bryan Frost, was brutally murdered at the age of 23. Starting with a phone call in the wee hours on September 18, 2008, Paige entered the worst nightmare any parent can imagine. Paige was completely consumed by her grief, but then, Bryan reached out to her from the afterlife.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:

  • Bryan’s tragic death and how he reached out to Paige from the afterlife.
  • The ways Bryan now communicates with Paige openly, regularly, and clearly.
  • Paige’s extraordinary out-of-body experience in 2018.
  • Why a person must say YES to conscious suffering before he or she can transcend it.

SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS PAIGE:

  • What are some of the alternative modalities that have helped you with your grief and what you call “grief surges?”
  • Why is “discernment” so important for spiritual seekers?
  • Why is it important to “choose to believe?”

SHOW LINKS:

Website: www.paigewlee.com

Facebook: facebook.com/paigewlee
Instagram: instagram.com/paigewleeauthor

Listen to the podcast here

 

Paige Lee: Healer, Intuitive, Teacher, Author, Speaker

 

I’m eagerly looking forward to talking with author Paige Lee from Eagle, Idaho, about her riveting book titled Choose to Believe: A Story of Miracles, Healing, and the Afterlife. In addition to being an author, Paige is a healer, an intuitive, a teacher, and a speaker. Paige’s grief journey began when her only living birth child, Bryan Frost, was brutally murdered at the age of 23. Starting with a phone call in the wee hours on September 18th, 2008, Paige entered the worst nightmare any parent can imagine. Paige was completely consumed by her grief, but then Bryan reached out to her from the afterlife. I have so many questions for Paige about her amazing journey through devastating grief to healing. Paige, a warm, heartfelt welcome to the show.

Irene, I’m so excited to be here with you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I’m honored to have you here, also. This is going to be an amazing interview. Our personal stories, my story of losing my husband, and your story with your son. We have so many remarkable similarities in our stories. They almost validate each other. It’s fascinating to me. I’m going to begin with this question. Please tell us about Bryan’s tragic death and his burial, leaving you afraid of living the rest of your life without your son.

We always have to start there. I always tell people in my book, “The first two chapters are the sadness, and the rest of the book is all about the healing and finding joy, but we have to start with the death.” Thank you for asking that. Bryan was my only living child. I had three babies who died pre-birth before Bryan. I do have two beautiful, lovely stepchildren, and they have spouses and families, but Bryan was my only living birth child. We were very close. He was my everything.

Like I said in the book, if I wasn’t visiting him, I would be planning the next visit. He left home in 2004. After graduating high school, he’d gone to West Point Military Academy. He was brilliant and did not find his sole purpose there at the academy. After a year and a half, he left. He transferred in a roundabout way to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He finished his degree in Economics and then decided that he had discovered a passion for filmmaking, being in Los Angeles, and had met a lot of people from around the world who also had that passion. A big group of friends, and they were all in the film school together.

After graduating with one degree, he renewed to stay at USC, at the film school. When he was one semester away from completing that second degree, he was walking home one night with two other boys from a local bar. They had just moved into a new apartment, so they didn’t quite know the way. It was off campus, and they made a wrong turn. That wrong turn took them by an apartment building. The boys were not drunk, staggering, or falling down, but they had had a couple of beers. I always have to say that because Bryan loved to party. He was a party kid, but he was also brilliant, smart, friendly, compassionate, and kind.

The summer before he died, he’d been in Pakistan with one of his friends from film school. He had spent a considerable amount of time with all the kids that were on the soccer fields and talking to them about education and how important it is to pursue an education because Bryan was all about that. Anyhow, they were walking home. They walked by an apartment building. There was a gate standing open. Bryan walking by, reached out and slammed the gate shut. That simple act triggered anger and rage in somebody who came running out and started a fight. That fight ended in a fatal stab wound.

Bryan died in the ambulance. They finally got the guy to leave and leave them alone. They were walking across the street to get back on track to heading home. All of a sudden, Bryan stopped. He grabbed his chest. He said, “I’ve been stabbed.” He collapsed on the spot and died in the ambulance on the way back. One of the things that used to nag me so much, Irene, was how did I sleep through that? How did I not know? I remembered. I did know because the night before, Bryan and I had talked on the phone. He had told me he was going to go out, and it was getting late. I said, “Please don’t go. You don’t need to go. It’s too late to go.”

I was trying to convince him to stay home. I had a premonition. I didn’t even know it. Anyhow, we were so close. I was completely devastated. We had to go to LA. We had to meet with the school, which was horrible, to be honest with you. All kind souls that meant well, but that was the last thing I wanted to do the day or the next day. it was the day that my son died.

I was meeting with the people from USC, but they had good intentions. What do you do? We came home. It was a horrible experience. It was awful. It was devastating. We finally were able to have the funeral because we couldn’t get the body back right away because it was a murder investigation. There’s a sad story about the whole burial.

I’ll wait and let people read the book because I’d rather talk about healing. That’s my passion, my love. I’ll tell you the one good thing about it. His whole slew of friends drove up from LA. All this group of kids, this international group of children, came. They’re not children. They were like 20 to 22 years old. They all came up to Idaho 5 times in the first 6 months after he died. Can you believe that? They did much for my healing. All of his high school friends came. We got through it together. We leaned on each other, but those were hard days.

Bryan reached out to you from the afterlife only three weeks after he died. That’s amazing. How did that inspire your intensive search to find him and reconnect your mother-son relationship?

I am so lucky, Irene, because, for whatever reason, I was chosen to go on this journey. I know the reason, but we’ll talk about that later. At the time, I was like, I’ve got Bryan. I heard him out loud with my ears. I was lying on my bed. It was not nighttime. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t in pajamas. I was resting with my eyes closed, but not asleep. My husband was in the bathroom. All of a sudden, I heard out loud with my ears, “Mom.” I jumped up, and I was like, “Bryan, where are you?” I’m looking. I don’t see him, and I can’t hear him anymore.

I heard the one call. I knew intuitively that he still lived somewhere that I could find him and that I would never stop looking. I immediately jumped up. I went to my bookcase. I’m scanning my books. Do I have anything in the afterlife? I had no real knowledge or belief in the afterlife prior to his death, except I did believe in heaven. I went to church as a kid, but I didn’t understand what any of it meant. I didn’t have any personal experience with it.

I went to the bookstore. I bought tons of books on the afterlife, and that’s how the journey started. You wouldn’t believe it. Some of them threw themselves on the floor. It was like, “Get this one and this one.” The first book I read was Lessons from the Light by George Anderson. I was like, “This is real. I can still talk to him. I can have a relationship with him, and I’m going to find out how.” As I said, he was my only living child. He was my life’s joy. He was my everything. Everything I did was for him or about him. I hate to say it. That sounds terrible.

GAR 101 | Afterlife

George Anderson’s Lessons from the Light: Extraordinary Messages of Comfort and Hope from the Other Side

I’m in the same place as you. I have a son, and I understand. They say there are no coincidences. Something had to get you to start your healing journey, and you were led to a message circle that began it. Do you want to tell us about that?

This was no more than three weeks after I heard him call out to me. I had started my journey of finding him. I didn’t know what any of that meant, but I just knew I had to find him. My husband took me to the grocery store, where I had not been leaving the house very often, but I went that day. I’m in the produce section. I’m looking down, and then I look up. There’s a woman who I know that her son and Bryan were friends. I look away, and I’m like, “I don’t want to talk to her.”

I hear spirit. I didn’t understand it to be spirit, but I heard a voice in my head say, “Go talk to her.” Out loud, I said, “No. I’m not going to go talk to her. I don’t want to talk to anybody.” “Go talk to her,” and I’m like, “No.” It took me a while to trust the spirit and do what they said the first time. On the third time, I’m like, “Fine, I’ll go talk to her.” I’m like, “Hi, Carol.” She goes, “Paige, hi. How are you? How’s Bryan?” I almost collapsed. I’m like, “You don’t know? How do you not know? We’re such a small community. It’s been on the news nonstop.” She said, “Is there anything I can do?” I said, “You don’t happen to know a good psychic, do you?”

She’s like, “As a matter of fact, I do. I’m having a spirit circle, a message circle at my home in a couple of weeks, and I have two openings. Would you like to come?” I said, “Yes.” That opened me up to the whole world of mediumship, psychics, and communication with our loved ones on the other side in spirit and changed my world. All of this changed my world, but one step led to another, and I said yes always. I was able to keep putting one foot forward.

At the same time, I had one foot in my grief lane. I did a Facebook post about this. It’s like one foot forward with the spiritual learning and one foot forward with the grieving necessity of crying, screaming, kicking the floor, journaling, and sitting out at the grave site and crying. That was all happening simultaneously with pursuing this spiritual journey. It was the spiritual journey that allowed me to continue grieving and not give up.

I can still relate because the spiritual journey keeps you from total despair. It provides comfort, and you realize that it’s real.

It took a long time for me to realize.

Me, too, to this day. It’s like you’re continually convinced, but it is real. Bryan’s death became a catalyst for your spiritual awakening. As you began to explore spirituality, you learned why you’ve had many hardships in your life. You received insights into who you are. You became aware of your spiritual team and so much more. Please share some of the important spiritual insights you learned about yourself, which by the way, between you and me, is one of the reasons I encourage people to heal. As you go on your healing journey, you find out all these amazing things about yourself that you had no clue about. They’re so helpful.

When all of this started happening, I had one purpose, and that was to find Bryan. Everything was about finding Bryan. That was why I kept keeping on. It took me many years before I was able to look back and see all of the great rewards of my journey. That’s a tough conversation for anybody who’s newly grieving because they can’t even begin to see that there are gifts in the journey. I don’t even like to talk about that with people that are newly grieving.

Looking back, I could see not only did I find Bryan, but I also found my God. I found what God means to me. It wasn’t the God I grew up with who was scary and punishing. It was my kind, loving, all-that-is God that I formed a relationship with. Most importantly, or as equally important as I found myself, I found out who I am in my true nature. I’m a healer. I’m a teacher. I’ve always wanted to teach.

I don’t know why I didn’t. I wasn’t walking my path. Some of the work I do is about the birth path and numerology. How empowering that is for us to know that because we can learn through understanding the numbers surrounding our birth path, our time, and our date of entry into this life. The core gifts we brought with us help us navigate through, and there’s so much about that. Soul planning and all of that.

People can get a hold of you, and you can give them that information. You can find that information for them. That’s great. Anything else that you want to share that you learned?

One of the things I understood early on that I consider a spiritual gift was the importance of letting go of my pain and understanding that letting go of my pain wasn’t letting go of Bryan. I was so afraid to let go of the pain. I refused. I held onto it like a vice grip. I’m not going to let go of my pain because if I let go of my pain, I would be betraying him. I would forget about him. I would be moving on.

Letting go of your pain is not letting go of your loved one. In fact, it strengthens our connection with them. Click To Tweet

It took me a while, and the late Sally Baldwin taught me that it’s not letting go of them. It strengthens our connection with them because I’m also a healer. If we have a clear channel, if our chakras are balanced and clear, and we’re not holding onto this pain that’s going to have a blockage in us, then the spirit can move through us more freely, which is going to enhance the connection that we have.

I’ve done some very similar healing. I’ve had the same experience. Bryan’s given you many signs to let you know he is still with you. I am in awe because he now communicates with you openly, regularly, and clearly. Tell us all about that.

I am so eternally grateful to him. I’m so glad we’re soulmates because we are. He wasn’t going to give up on me because I can be a little thickheaded. He knew it was going to take a while for me to get it. In the beginning, it was, as most people experience, electronics. Back in the day of iPods, starting and stopping by themselves. The TV is freezing and restarting, things like that, lights flickering. That’s the fun stuff. One day, I was outside. I was working on my flowers. I felt a presence. This was about nine months after he passed. I’d already started my psychic awareness, my psychic development work. I’ve been going to courses and things, and I’m like, “Who’s here? Mom, is that you?” My mom died in 2002.

I got no response. I don’t feel anything. I’m like, “Bryan, is it you?” Again, no reaction. I was like, “Mom, if it’s you, send me a yellow butterfly. Bryan, if it’s you, send me a ladybug,” and forgot all about it. I did have that spirit message. You know what I’m talking about when you hear without hearing. You just know the thought. The voice said, “Don’t worry about this. You have asked, and it shall be granted.” I’m like, “Okay.” That night, we’re celebrating my birthday. The kids are all coming. I don’t know why I was cooking on my birthday. That’s another story for another day. Apparently, I was.

I walked back past our bay window. I happened to look down, and there on the windowsill is a ladybug. I screamed. I jumped up and down. Our kids thought I had lost it and that I was having a massive panic attack. We’d lived in the house for 10 or 12 years at that time. I’d never seen a ladybug in the house. That was the first one. I asked him for that. That’s the importance of that story. You can ask your loved one to send you a sign. Wait for it, be patient, and it shall be granted to you.

I wanted to ask you about the alternative modalities you’ve used to heal to help you with your grief, and I am so familiar with those grief surges, as you call them.

I coined the phrase grief surges because that’s what it felt like to me. It was this sudden onslaught of a surge. This whoosh of grief would hit me. You expect them right around birthdays, anniversaries, and things like that are going to trigger a memory. You can prepare for those, but it’s the random ones that hit out of nowhere. They ambush you. It’s this surge of grief, and you can’t stop it. It’s like, buckle down, go to your knees, and allow it. The best thing to do is to allow it to feel that moment and let it pass through you.

In order to learn how to deal with both the ones I could expect and the ones I couldn’t expect, I learned energy healing. I can’t say enough about it. Reiki and Pranic Healing are the two modalities that I learned and practiced for a number of years. Hiking and walking were my solace. I’m very blessed. I live in Boise. We’re surrounded by foothills here, and there’re many trails. I go out there. I love the feel of my feet hitting the dirt. I walk. I talk to Bryan. I talk to God. I am filled with such peace.

There’s a story in the book about one time, in the last few years, where Bryan literally carried me down the mountain. I’m telling you that’s a true story. I don’t know how I ran down that mountain as fast as I did. I wouldn’t have without his help. These are the ways. A lot of people say, “What’s the number one tool that helped you through?” It has to be meditation. People are scared of meditation. They’re like, “I can’t meditate. I don’t know how.”

Don’t make it complicated. It’s easy. It takes time to be able to get to the point where you can meditate without crying because I understand that I was there. Once you get past that point, it can be ten minutes. It doesn’t have to be an hour.  Meditation’s important to keep yourself open because we have to be open to receive the signs. We can’t be closed up and receive the signs. Bryan never quit. He kept sending them. He still does.

Meditation is important to keep yourself open because we have to be open to receive the signs. Click To Tweet

He’s my guy. Through all these modalities, is this how you enhance your intuition? Was there anything that was special that you did to also enhance your intuition?

Meditation and energy work. I tell people, “Go explore some energy, some understanding.” We need to understand our own energy and how our energy works. We need to understand life force energy and how it runs through us. We have different energy bodies. Trauma and drama have to work through our energy bodies before they can even make their way to our physical bodies.

We want to keep everything clean, cleansed, and balanced as much as we can to protect our physical body and to protect our astral, mental, emotional, and all of our bodies. It’s important to have an understanding of that. One of the fun ways to do that is to go outside and look at the trunk of a tree and loosely set your gaze on that tree. It’s like you’re looking but not looking. You’ll see the life energy of the tree. It’s the most powerful thing.

Everyone should try to do that. Spring is coming over here in the Northeast.

Meditation and energy healing for me. I took psychic development classes. I took angels and guide workshops because I wanted to know what all that meant. I’m like, “Guides? What do you mean guides, angels?” I did it all. If it was put in front of me to learn, I learned it.

You did all this. You experienced all these spiritual seekers, but you also learned about discernment. Tell us about that.

It is so important to seek. You want to be a seeker but be careful. Don’t do what I did. I was so desperate for information. Again, this was in the first two years of Bryan’s passing. I was desperate for more information about where he was, what’s my life purpose, and everything. I reached out online to this woman in Hawaii. I don’t recall her name. She was doing readings online. It was more of a life-purpose reading, I believe.

I signed up. I paid for it. I don’t know this woman. She wasn’t referred to me by anybody. What I got back was a written reading, and it was devastating. She told me I wasn’t of the light. My work wasn’t of the light because I’ve been doing this work on and off for a long time. I was floored. I was devastated that how could I not be of the light?

Did she want more money to help you with this?

Yeah. Somebody else said that. I bet you she would’ve, but I never even got back to her. I immediately called my psychic, whom I had seen every month for the first year after Bryan died. He does not do this outside of paid session times, but he did to me. He, thankfully, wrote me back pages of explanation and how I could have used discernment and how none of it was true and why none of it was true. I have another psychic friend here in the area who also came to my side that day. Between the two of them, they got me calmed down, but I was devastated.

It rocked me. It did because everything I had been learning, I believe, was of God. Everything I do is of God and of God’s light. Every time I do a meditation for people, I’m always like, “Only those of God’s love and light may enter this space.” Not only was that experience important for discernment but also for protection. There are ways energetically that we can protect ourselves from people and spirits who may not have our best interests at heart.

GAR 101 | Afterlife

Afterlife: Everything I do is of God and of God’s light.

It’s important to know. I tell people in every profession, being an artist, a lawyer, a doctor, or whatever, there are people who are disingenuous. There are people who are not operating for the highest good. It makes me angry because it gives this world a black eye, but there’re people in all professions that are not on the up and up. It’s important to be careful.

It does that. Especially in this arena because, as grievers, we’re so vulnerable. We’re probably the most vulnerable audience that there is. We all want information. We all want validation. We all want to talk to our kids or our husbands. How dare they take advantage? I was quite angry. After I got over my fear, the devil was going to grab me any moment and claim me.

You had an extraordinary out-of-body experience during a meditation in 2018.

Was it 2018? It seems like it was long ago, but yes. I was at the Helping Parents Heal conference in Phoenix. Dr. Mark Pitstick was running a guided meditation in a workshop there. This was an out-of-body experience. I believe that spirit planned for me to have this experience that day. I’m a good meditator, but I haven’t had a lot of that real concrete experiences.

This time, I immediately went under in the meditation. This was a room that probably had 100 people in the room. This was not a small gathering. We were all in uncomfortable folded chairs. I was with my core group of Sun Valley Moms, we call ourselves. I immediately went under. I’m following the instructions. We’re walking through the meadow, over the bridge, and through the door, and all of a sudden, I come to a garden. Most people say that if they have an after-death experience, they get to the other side, and they can’t believe the colors.

I’m here to tell you that is true. The colors were so vibrant and so amazing. I can feel my mom’s energy as I tell you that right now because my mom loved flowers. I have my love for them. It’s where I got that. I can hear her saying, “Yes.” You can’t describe how beautiful it is. I saw the ladybugs. The ladybugs were on the flowers. There were bigger ladybugs flying around in this garden. I saw my loved ones coming toward me.

First, I saw Bryan, and then I saw my dad, my mom, my grandparents, and all the people. Not all the people, there are many people here I hold dear that I love, but all my people are there. All my immediate family people other than my siblings are all there. They came to me and they wrapped me up like a big group hug. They started sending their love to me. On the one hand, on the left side of my brain, I saw myself in the chair in the conference room, and tears were streaming down my face. The right side of my brain, I’m there. I’m in this meadow, and my loved ones are giving me this big group hug.

I’m aware that in my physical body in the chair, my stomach was starting to hurt because the love was so powerful. It was honestly too much for my body to take. They kept pouring and pouring, and right when I couldn’t take it anymore because of the pain in the physical part of me, they pulled back. Bryan grabbed my hand and said, “Come with me.” He took me flying. We’re flying around.

I didn’t know it at first, but what I wrote down immediately afterward was the sky was the ground, and the ground was the sky. That meant we were flying. I saw spirits everywhere. Little dots of white light spirit were all over the place. They were flying too. I was flying with Bryan, holding his hand. He stopped. He looked at me, and he said, “Remember the movement. This is why I don’t want to come back. There’s power in the movement.”

A lot of people have different interpretations of what that means, that message. To me, it was acceptance of the fact that he is not only happy where he is. This is his choice to be there. He wants to be there. He doesn’t want to return to this body. I know for a fact that Bryan and I are working together. He brings people to me that I work with like Saul. Saul brings people to you.

Anyhow, he brought me that message. One more time, I had all of my loved ones. Bryan was like pulling back. They pulled back their energy. I was fully back in the chair, again, still sobbing. Immediately, when I finally came out of it, I wrote it all down. The chapter of the book that tells that story is verbatim, word for word, as I experienced it immediately after it happened.

What a blessed experience. That’s fabulous.

I’m so blessed. I’m so grateful.

What a wonderful experience. I have to ask you, what is conscious suffering? Why must a person say yes to suffering before he or she can transcend it?

I ran across a quote by Eckhart Tolle once in his book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. The quote is, “The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness. The ego says, ‘I shouldn’t have to suffer.’ That thought makes us suffer so much more. It’s a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.”

It’s an acceptance of it before you begin how to move through it.

You have to say yes to it so you can fully feel it too. No feel, no heal. You have to fully feel it, and then we have to let it go. If we want to expand, and if we want to grow our awareness around this spiritual journey that we’re on, this ride that we are on, that we didn’t ask to be on, that’s another topic. That’s another conversation, but you must say yes to suffering. When I say yes to suffering, that is conscious suffering. I’m consciously choosing to feel the pain so that I can release the pain so that I can heal.

This is all about living consciously. Being aware, being in touch. There are so many helpful grief support groups. Why did you choose Helping Parents Heal? Tell us what you do in your role as a caring listener and an affiliate leader for Helping Parents Heal.

Thank you for asking that. When Bryan died, there were not very many resources out there. There was one grief support group here locally. I knew intuitively that I had no interest in that whatsoever. They kept sending me things in the mail, and I had no interest in going to talk to people who were just going to sit around and cry. I knew that wasn’t my path.

I found out about Helping Parents Heal. Their philosophy is the same as mine. Our loved ones still live. We can connect with them. We can continue having a relationship with them. The mom-child relationship can continue. We do that in a non-religious, non-dogmatic way. We don’t discuss religion. Everything is spiritually God-based. I was an affiliate leader for them.

This is in the first couple of years after Elizabeth and Mark started Helping Parents Heal. I was an affiliate leader in Boise, Idaho. I did that for about a year and a half at my healing center, which I closed. I discontinued being a support group affiliate leader. I signed back up to be a caring listener. As a volunteer, people can call us and have a conversation with us about their grief, how they’re feeling, and whatever it is they want to talk about.

That is such an admirable thing that you do. People have such pain, and they’re calling you like that.

There’re so many of us now too. There are 30 Caring Listeners. On the HelpingParentsHeal.org website, there’s a tab that says Caring Listeners. You can go through there. You can scroll through the entire list and pick the person most resonates with you. It might be somebody whose child was murdered, like mine. It might be somebody on there who is living with a death by suicide that you might relate to better, whatever it is. That’s all at no charge.

I do that. I was running a weekly Zoom to connect with our loved ones, meditation series in November and December 2020. I decided to incorporate that under the Helping Parents Heal umbrella. I’m now an affiliate leader under what we call a specialty group. It’s called Spiritual Tools for Grief Healing. All of the tools I talk about in the book, but we go into those on a much deeper level. We’re meeting weekly. I don’t know how long we’ll do that, but we meet every Monday night. If somebody wanted to join, they could go to Facebook and search for Helping Parents Heal – Spiritual Tools for Grief Healing.

I love working with people like that. I love teaching them the tools. It’s like an AA meeting. They’re going to take what they need and leave the rest behind. I did a big presentation on crystals and it was amazing. I loved it. The week before that, it was about essential oils. I had another mom presenting about essential oils. Sara Ruble with Death Teaches is going to come on and talk to us about soul planning. These are all tools. I hope you’ll be a guest sometime. I know you’re going to be on the main Helping Parents Heal soon.

It’ll be my pleasure.

Thank you.

For everyone, I need to ask you. What does a Bryan hug feel like? You’re sharing gratitude to help lessen the intensity of grief. Share, tell us more.

It’s interesting how my communications with Bryan have progressed. When I first started meditating, I would get that tingling at the crown, which a lot of us do. As our crown chakras are opening up, we got that tingling. Bryan used to do that in the car. I would be driving, and all of a sudden, he would mess with my hair because he knew I didn’t like that. He used to always mess with my hair, and he knew I didn’t like that.

That was the first physical thing he did with me, and then all the signs that we’ve talked about and more. I’m trying to think about when it started after that meditation in Phoenix. That must have opened me up. That’s what it was. I’m having this a-ha moment right now as we speak. That must have somehow opened me up to be able to receive him and the way he comes to me now. He enters my body energetically. We call it Team Rush now because it’s probably not just Bryan. It’s Bryan and some of my spirit team.

They send me this hug like I’m physically vibrating. The intensity is so strong. One time, I was holding my phone and talking to somebody. When it happened, I had to drop my phone, and they were like, “Hello?” I’m over here going, “Whoa.” I’ve learned to stop when it happens and let it run through me because it’s such a gift. I know the next step is going to be seeing him. It almost happened a few weeks ago, and it will happen someday. I’m so excited for that too. I don’t know if he’ll present in his physical form or his light body form, but I’m willing to see him in whatever way he chooses to be.

You’ll take him however you can get him.

The Bryan hugs are amazing. They get stronger over time. I’d get a little one. It would be little. Now, it’s grown to such an intensity that it stops me dead in my tracks. I love it.

That’s a precursor to what it’s like on the other side when you reunite. It’s a vibration thing when people come together. Tell me how prayer and gratitude help read to the intensity of grief for you.

It’s always true whenever we’re in any trauma. I don’t mean trauma like rape or anything like that, but when we’re having a bad day, the best way to get out of ourselves is to do something for other people or to feel gratitude for the blessings we have in our life. I know that sounds like that’s old news, but it’s so important. I had to include a short chapter of that in my book because it is so powerful and important every day. Even if you can only be grateful for the fact that you opened your eyes, then be grateful for that. Try to find three things you can be grateful for every day.

The best way to get out of a bad day is to do something for other people or to feel gratitude for the blessings we have in our life. Click To Tweet

You’ll be amazed at how many things you are grateful for in your life. For me, nature is such a huge part of my healing. Get outside. Be grateful for the sky. Be grateful for the birds that are starting to chirp and sing again. Be grateful for all of these gifts. Be grateful for your child, husband, sibling, or grandparent that’s in spirit. Be grateful for the fact that they’re right beside you and that they’re trying to communicate with you, and that you can still have that relationship with them.

Prayer to me is almost simultaneous. It’s almost the same thing as meditation. I always pray when I meditate. I was never a churchgoer. I don’t do prayer in the traditional sense. I understand it, and I don’t have any problem with it. Everybody does it their own way. Whatever it is for you, that works. Whatever it is, prayer, meditation, or whatever word you use for God, find what works for you. That’s what I tell people. What worked for me may not be what worked for you, but if you keep looking, you will find what works for you. I’m telling you, it will 1,000 times enhance your healing.

This leads me to Paige, why is it important to choose to believe? It is the title of your book, and it is so important.

On this whole journey, it has been twelve and a half years for me this 2021. It’s been a day. It’s been 1 day or 2. I talked about that one foot on the spiritual lane of the highway. I’m learning all this stuff, and Bryan’s sending all these amazing signs, and then there’s grief. With the grief was that voice saying, “That’s not Bryan. That couldn’t be real. You’re not hearing anything.” I doubted, and then I believed. I didn’t understand fully what it meant to embrace these new belief systems I was learning about.

One day in meditation, I’d been having a particularly difficult time. Spirit said, “Listen. Choose to believe, and then you will. It’s that simple. Quit making it so hard.” I’m like, “Really? I can just choose to believe like I can choose to get out of bed every day?” I can choose to be happy or sad. I could choose to believe that it was all real, so I did. It was no time at all before there was no difference anymore. I always knew that would be the title of my book after Spirit told me that. It took me many years to write the book after that, but I always knew that would be the title of it because all we have to do is choose.

GAR 101 | Afterlife

Choose to Believe: A Story of Miracles, Healing, and the Afterlife

I myself have had an experience where people told me, “I don’t know how you can believe this. I don’t buy it.” I’ll say to them, “You could choose not to believe.” I tell this to people. If you want to think it’s over when it’s over, and that’s all there is, go for it. I choose to know there’s more, and I like my angle on the dangle a lot better. Thank you very much.

For some people, it’s enough to know they’re in heaven. I’ll see them again someday, and that’s fine. I was telling a mom, “For me, that was not enough. I was not going to ever settle for that or be happy with that because it wasn’t enough.”

We see proof of otherwise, which is so important. You have a mom-child reunion coming up this fall in McCall, Idaho. Do you want to tell us about that?

I’m so excited. I don’t quite have it ready to announce yet. In 2010, I was very blessed to be 1 of only 7 moms who went to Sun Valley with the late Sally Baldwin, who’s a very world-renowned channel and medium. This was her volunteer work. She only got three years in before she passed, but she would channel and handpick out of 100 or more applicants to come to this three-and-a-half-day retreat at the time in Sun Valley, Idaho, which for me was a three-and-a-half-hour drive. She always said, “Bryan wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to pick you up. He kept bugging me.”

Sadly, when she passed after she did the retreat, I always knew that I wanted to do that. I wanted to offer that to other people because what we were given and gifted those three-and-a-half days was everything. It completely changed the trajectory of my healing. I was introduced to reiki there. They introduced us to animal spirit guides and The Grief Recovery Method, which I include components of that in my teaching because I’m certified in that as well. Channeling and mediumship and the concept of letting go of the pain, so much that we learned and that we bonded together as a group. It was so critical to my journey that I’ve always wanted to do that for other people.

Finally, it is happening this 2021. I want to be conscious of COVID. It’s October 3rd through the 8th. We are doubling the numbers. Instead of 7, we’re going to have 17, a little more than double the number of participants. We keep it small because you can’t have that group experience if you make it too big. We’ll have a medium there. Even though I and a lot of my presenters have intuition and mediumship skills, I wanted somebody who, that’s what they do for a living.

That’s who they are. We have that person. Jill Renee Feeler is coming. She’ll be there the entire weekend with us doing readings and channeling. I will be doing reiki sessions. My friend Lynn, a fellow Sun Valley mom from England, is coming all the way over. She’ll be teaching channeling, which is how Sally taught us to communicate. It’s going to be amazing. I don’t want to give all the way.

I’m going to encourage people because we’re going to find out how the best ways for people to connect with you. You may have to plan a few of them because I’m sure people are going to reach out to you about that.

I would like to take them on the road. It’d be fun to take it into different communities. I don’t mean to make it sound cheap, but wouldn’t it be great to do these small grief workshops? That’s my ultimate dream.

I want to ask you. How is spiritual growth a pathway to healing? I believe in it also. What is your message about the importance of healing grief that you’d like to share with our audience?

For me, the spiritual journey was the only pathway to healing. I would not have healed. I almost chose not to heal. I almost took a different path, but I knew intuitively that that wasn’t my truth. That wasn’t going to be my path. I kept putting one foot forward in front of the other, receiving the signs, receiving the messages, and doing what I thought was my part to keep moving forward. I had to. If I didn’t find Bryan in the afterlife, I simply was not going to. I wouldn’t be here. That’s just the bottom line. I, without a doubt, would not be here.

GAR 101 | Afterlife

Afterlife: The spiritual journey was the only pathway to healing

It made all the difference.

For me, it was the only way. There was never going to be any other way. I know now, after all of the studying, the work, and the things that I’ve learned, that Bryan and I did plan this, and again, soul planning is a whole another conversation. We did plan it. We did choose that this was a possibility. That we would in our humanness and with our ability to choose once we’re here, that this is something that might transpire. He chose to exit when he did. Who am I to say no to that?

I have to honor that he chose to put this into motion, so I have to do my part. That’s how I look at it. I know he guides me. I know he brings kids to me. I know he sets us up with parents. Spirit as a whole makes these connections for us and leads us to one another, to other people like you, Irene, soul sisters on the journey

We’re passing it forward all the time.

When you meet somebody who you’re connected with in that way. For me, there was no other way.

Why should a person choose to heal their grief?

Why would you not?

They’ve got a choice. They can stay and suffer. Some people like staying in that spot. I’m proposing to them, “Give a listen, and you have a choice. You can choose to heal your grief. It can be healed.”

Some people honestly just want to stay stuck in their story. I always say, “You are bigger than your story. You are so much bigger than your story of pain. Don’t belittle yourself and the contract that you made with your loved one. You are so beautiful, shining light, shining soul. You have much to offer the world.” That’s why I bring the numerology stuff into some of my reading types because it empowers us to get out of that space and to want to step forward and think, “How can I be happy? How can I be joyful? How can I make a contribution to the world? What gifts do I have I can use as therapy in my own healing?”

You are so much bigger than your story of pain. Click To Tweet

I can turn around and share it with other people because that is why we’re here. We’re here to share with each other. We’re here to help each other heal. You can choose. I tried the wine bottle. Let me tell you. You can choose to stay in the wine bottle. You can choose drugs. You can choose to stay in bed forever. That’s your choice. We have free will. Irene and I are here to tell you that you can heal from your pain. You can still have a relationship with your loved one. It does, but it takes work. I’m not going to lie.

I want to hear about your grief healing sessions, your private intuitive sessions, and the best ways for people to connect with you about all of this. Let her rip. Let her go. Paige, how do they find you?

You’re so generous. I love it. Thank you again. I have a website. It’s PaigeWLee.com. My business page on Facebook is Paige W. Lee. On Instagram, I’m Paige W. Lee Author. That’s it. I don’t Twitter. I don’t know how to do all that. Those are the best ways to reach me. For my email, go to my website, and there’s a contact form.

I have a variety of offerings. The Intuitive Grief Session, which is the one that I’ve talked about, is probably my favorite session. It’s my most popular session by far. It’s $140. It includes a love letter from Heaven, which is a channeled letter from your loved one to you that I channeled prior to the session. It’s super empowering with all of the numerological influences that affect you and how you can use that information to move forward in your healing. As an Intuitive, I do intuitive readings. I’m getting ready soon to launch a soul circle type, small group format.

We’ll meet weekly and go over a lot of guided meditation and tools on a deeper level to help us move forward because that’s all about opening people up to their own intuition. Understanding how their own energy works, how can they feel it, how can they sense it, how can they manipulate energy, how can they protect themselves, and all of that. That’ll be a small group format coming soon. I will offer actual grief healing, not in person, but on a virtual basis. I’ll be offering those again too. Bringing in the healing that I missed so much. That’ll be powerful in helping people clear any blocks they have.

What is your tip for finding joy in life?

Finding joy in life is belief. Finding joy as a griever is 1000% believing in the afterlife and believing that my son still lives, hands down, no doubt about that. If I take myself out of that grieving suit and put myself as just a person, for me, joy is nature. For me, joy is the trees, the birds, the flowers, the mountains, all of the ocean, particularly the mountains, and living in Idaho.

Finding joy as a griever is a thousand percent believing in the afterlife. Click To Tweet

Paige, I have to truly say that your book Choose to Believe: A Story of Miracles, Healing, and the Afterlife is spellbinding. It’s a wonderful read from start to finish. Even more spellbinding is how you chose to find Bryan and move through your devastating grief to healing, which has filled your life with inspiring new meaning. I have no doubt that your insightful, riveting book will inspire many in our audience to choose to believe and heal, as will this remarkable interview. Thank you from my heart. Here’s a reminder, everyone. Make sure to follow us and like us, because we know you do, on social at @IreneSWeinberg on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Thank you so much. For your readers, thank you for reading. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to spread the word because it’s all about spreading the word and spreading the love.

You are wonderful. Thank you so much. This applies to you and me, Paige. As I like to say, to be continued, many blessings, and bye for now.

 

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