February 07
My Search for Answers Began with My Near-Death Experience
by Leita Reichle, TMI Volunteer
My search for answers began early. I had an anesthesia-induced near-death experience (NDE) at age 5 during surgery. As I left my body, I turned and looked at my face and then I felt as if I were carried down a long white corridor by a Presence. This is the extent of my memory of that time. I have many memories of seeing Beings in my room at night throughout my childhood, but when I mentioned this to my parents I was told that this was only my imagination and I no longer talked of these visitors.
In 1998, after a health crisis, I began to have lucid dream experiences in meditation and many other experiences of states. One experience was a result of my Christian upbringing and questions I had about what I had been taught. In a moment of intense desire to know the truth I said, “I would like to look through the eyes of The Christ and see the world the way he sees it.”
I returned to consciousness in the chair in which I was sitting, but for three days the Love flowed through me and I was unable to speak other than in sobs.
As I gazed out a large picture window with clouds drifting by, there was a bright flash of light and I found myself over the Earth. I could focus in on individuals as if I had a telescope and with each person I looked at, there would be such a flood of Love that I would sob. I returned to consciousness in the chair in which I was sitting, but for three days the Love flowed through me and I was unable to speak other than in sobs.
Following this experience, I went from teacher to teacher, channel to channel, and asked,” What was this!” I never got an answer that satisfied me until 2012. In 2012 I was invited to attend the Professional Division Seminar at The Monroe Institute. One of the featured speakers was describing a near-death experience and I realized that was the closest description to what I had experienced. The only puzzling part was that I had not been physically near death, but that the health crisis had somehow triggered my experiences, and there were many other experiences that I could not logically explain.
After that, I began attending programs at The Monroe Institute and every program brought an intense experience that could be termed a near-death-like experience. In 2014 I attended Guidelines and had an experiences of what I call the Embracing One, a Space of Silence before manifestation with endless potentials. A place of no thought, no thing, but endless potentials full of a Love that was boundless. In this Loving Embrace there was no me, there was no it, it just was and contained ALL within this embrace—the Ultimate Womb of The Mother of ALL that IS.
In 2017 I attended the Near-Death Experience (NDE) program at TMI and it all came together. In preparation for the program, we were asked to take a short NDE introductory course. I began to realize that all my experiences fit into specific NDE categories.
It was then I decided to write of my experiences. I think for the first time since I was told that this was my imagination, I realized that these experiences were reality for me, and it was time to focus that reality through words and ground it into my life by owning my experiences without reservation and without trying to make them seem “normal” or anything other than what they were. As a gift to myself, I sent these experiences to a long-time researcher, PMH Atwater. She graciously accepted my story as a “Universal Story” that included all the major types of NDEs as she had categorized them in her studies.
What I came to know was that this brave little girl had agreed, along with her Life Council, to remember her experience as she grew and to ground that experience in the physical world.
The following week I attended the NDE program. As we went through the exercises we came to a particular exercise where we were to be with someone through the death experience and escort them to the other side. The one I escorted was my own 5-year-old self. I was the Presence that carried her through the corridor of light and I was with her throughout the experience. What I came to know was that this brave little girl had agreed, along with her Life Council, to remember her experience as she grew and to ground that experience in the physical world. She was to remember it as she practiced living her physical life, a piece at a time as she grew and built a strong foundation in the physical. She was to bridge both worlds and honor both in her journey.
The Monroe Institute has been a place for me and many others to explore and to learn and grow more and more into a Unified Being, with a foot firmly placed in both the physical and the nonphysical. It is a place to gather and share our journeys, a place of love and acceptance for the stories and journeys of another.
As I have grown and developed, I have expanded my role with TMI. My greatest joy is introducing others to TMI through the Outreach weekend workshops I offer. As a certified Outreach Trainer I am delighted to be with each and every one who chooses to attend these programs! Together we help ourselves and each other remember and rediscover what we truly are—beings of love immersed in an infinite field of love.