#145 This week, my guest is the amazing Jeffery Olsen. Now, before even listening to this episode, I recommend you take a deep breath, be thankful for all you have, and give your loved ones a hug if possible.

My conversation with Jeffery is guaranteed to take you through a whole spectrum of emotions. Jeffery is a best-selling author with an international influence and audience. After experiencing a traumatic car accident which took the lives of his wife and youngest son, while inflicting multiple life-threatening injuries on Jeffery, he went through a mind-boggling near-death experience.

Tune in to listen to his experience and how he was able to choose joy after such a tragic loss. His journey wasn’t easy but he has a lot to teach us all about loss and the process of healing.

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like: The Ultimate Adventure; An Ice Climbers Near-Death Experience | Peter Panagore

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About Jeffery: Jeffery Olsen is a bestselling author who inspires audiences internationally with his intriguing story of perseverance and inner strength. After a horrific automobile accident took the lives of his wife and youngest son, also inflicting multiple life-threatening injuries to Jeff, including the amputation of his left leg, he found the courage to survive over 18 surgeries to eventually heal, both physically and emotionally, to thrive in his career and community contributions.

Jeff has appeared on many national and international television and radio programs sharing his insights. Olsen’s latest book, “Knowing,” is a compilation of his earlier books, yet with even deeper insights and extended chapters. Knowing can be found on Amazon in all formats.

Jeff continues his work as a Creative Director and participates on several Advisory Boards for causes he feels serve the higher good of humanity. Olsen’s personal platform, AWAKEN to ONENESS includes personal, one-on-one mentoring and group gatherings both physically and virtually around the world.

►Audio Version:

Key points with time stamp:

• Jeffery’s work in his own words (3:44)
• Does Jeffery’s near-death experience come up in conversation often? (4:23)
• How is Jeffery able to talk about this traumatic experience? (5:25)
• Jeffery’s story (7:12)
• Could Jeffery choose whether to “go into the light” or fight for his life? (12:52)
• Jeffery’s shared experience with his level one trauma physician (16:16)
• Did Jeffery have any other experience during his 5-month hospital stay? (21:23)
• How real did Jeffery’s experience feel to him? (31:01)
• Motivational forces in Jeffery’s healing process (33:41)
• When was Jeffery finally able to talk about his experiences? (35:03)
• Moments in Jeffery’s recovery journey which he is proud of (37:44)
• Did Jeffery ever ask, “why me?” How does he respond to that question? (42:21)
• Is our destiny pre-determined or do we have free will? (46:28)
• “Is putting meaning into life, finding our own divinity within us?” (49:36)
• About Jeffery’s published books (52:00)
• What Jeffery leaves us with (54:05)

Mentioned in this episode:

• Knowing: Memoirs of a Journey Beyond the Veil and Choosing Joy After Tragic Loss, A book by Jeffery Olsen.
• Anita Moorjani
• Peter Panagore
• Not Yet, A book by Jeff O’Driscoll, MD, Jeffery’s level one trauma physician and friend.
• I knew Their Hearts: The Amazing True Story of a Journey Beyond the Veil to Learn the Silent Language of the Heart. Jeffery’s first book.

Jeffery Olsen’s Website:
www.envoypublishing.com

 

About me:

My Instagram:
www.instagram.com/guyhlawrence/?hl=en

My website:
www.guylawrence.com.au
www.liveinflow.co

 

TRANSCRIPT

Guy 00:10
Hey, awesome people. Welcome to my podcast, of course where I have conversations that go well beyond conventional health and wisdom to inspire change in our lives. And are you ready for this episode today, as all I can say, Now, my awesome guest is Jeffrey Olsen. If you press play, I’m very happy that you did. But again, just ensure you give yourself the space and the time to listen to this episode. I think you’re welcome speaking for myself, I just interviewed him. I well… I had a conversation you know, I, you will go through the spectrum of emotions today. And these episodes for me actually becoming more and more important because when I have a conversation with Jeffrey and I get off the show, it just, you know, it just wants me to hug my loved ones more it makes me want to live my life more and, and just milk it for everything that we have right now and not take anything for granted. If you don’t know anything about Jeffrey and his story, then be prepared to be blown away. It’s it’s this I love this episode. I mean, I love them all. I got some amazing conversations and this will move you in all directions. What can I say? I’m, I’m even wondering whether I should read out his bio or not. Because sometimes you’re better off just letting the story unfold. But here look in a little bit about it. It’s he’s a best selling author who inspires audiences internationally, with this intriguing story of perseverance and an inner strength. After a horrific automobile accident that took the lives of his wife and youngest son, also inflicting multiple life threatening injuries to himself, including the amputation of his left leg. He found the courage to survive over 18 surgeries, eventually healing both physically and emotionally to thrive in his career and community contributions. His incredible near death experience as a result, the accident brings him gifts not common in today’s world. I’ll leave it at that. You’re going to get the gist of it. Please reach out to me. Let me know what you think of this episode. I really mean that please do you know hit me up on Instagram direct message me guy h Lawrence, tag me, screen share this. Be sure if you’re listening via iTunes or any podcast channel to subscribe, even YouTube, we do these video as well. I’m not sure if you know that. Please hit the subscribe button and share it with a loved one. or friend or somebody that can hear these messages right now. I love them. I love sharing them with you. Yeah. What can I say? I have no doubt you will. But I thank you. I appreciate it. I’m just going to dive into the show. We’ve got lots going on. You know where to come. Guylawrence.com.au liveinflow.co subscribe to our newsletter. We’ve got a free seven day meditation challenge that’s freely available. It’s a great place to start. If you’re not sure that’s on the liveinflow website. Links are below. hit the pause, jump in whatever you do. Have an amazing week live life. Embrace it. Breathe in the air. Life’s good. Enjoy this episode. Love you. Jeffrey, welcome to the podcast.

Jeffery 03:42
Thank you for having me. It’s good to be with you.

Guy 03:44
Beautiful mate. I asked everyone on the show. Let’s say you’re at a small intimate dinner party. And you’re sitting next to a few strangers right now. And they ask you what you did for a living? What would you say?

Jeffery 03:56
Wow. Well, my job I do have a job. I’m the creative director and I work with a small television network. That’s how I pay the bills. What my calling is literally after my near death experience, I had this awakened sense of being a manifestation of the unconditional love that I experienced on the other side, if you will. But that’s a great question. I love those small dinner parties.

Guy 04:23
Yeah. Do you do you find when you’re in conversation with people you first met that your near death experience comes up in conversation often? And you find people curious if it does,

Jeffery 04:37
yes, and it does often. I mean, in in in the accident that that was the cause of the near death experience. It crushed both my legs. My left leg was amputated above the knee. It broke my back. You know it ripped up my shoulders. So the reason it comes up is I I walk with a limp. I mean, you know I walk on a prosthetic limb and so even with strangers, often they’ll say what happened to your leg mate? You know? And it’s like, oh, I had a horrible automobile accident. Oh, wow. sorry to hear that. When was it? Oh, it was here. You know, were you in the car alone? No, the whole family was there. Unfortunately, half the family passed. So it often does. Even in casual conversation go very, very deep, very, very fast. about the experience in what happened? Yeah.

Guy 05:25
Yeah. Amazing. How do you? How do you find that and cope with it? Because, you know, I remember when my dad passed naturally, you know, of old age and, and there was a moment where I just, you know, people would talk and ask, and I just didn’t know how to handle it and cope with it and speak to people because I felt like I was having to relive the moment all the time. Yeah,

Jeffery 05:48
you know, well, and I mean, you know, one must realize I’m the accident was over 20 years ago. So, in the beginning, I couldn’t even speak of it, I would just cry. And of course, with all the injuries I had, I was in the hospital for almost six months, there was 18 surgeries, you know, 18,18 in total. You know, I was in a wheelchair for months after that. I mean, it was over a, you know, was a year before I was up and walking on a prosthetic limb. And so you know, that the the healing process physically was traumatic, but the grief was worse. And I and I literally couldn’t speak of it. I didn’t speak of my near death experience to anyone really, in the beginning, except my close, immediate family. And, you know, I was quite reclusive in those years, to be honest, I would go to work. I mean, I was still raising my surviving son. And, yeah, I didn’t speak much of it. Because if I did, as you pointed out, I couldn’t even say their names, I would just, I would fall apart and begin crying. And, you know, it was it was very, very, I grieved heavily. Now, I can talk about it, but it was almost, it was almost a decade, it was a decade before I ever wrote a book or ever spoke about it publicly.

Guy 07:12
Wow. Would you guys be sort of going in that direction? Would you mind sort of sharing the kind of what happened for everyone that be here in this?

Jeffery 07:22
Yeah. And I’ll be as brief as possible. But there’s so much to the story. I mean, as you know, I’ve written a book called knowing Yes, it’s one title knowing by Jeffrey Olsen, it’s available on Amazon. And that goes into far more detail. But, you know, I I, I was a regular guy happily married two beautiful children. You know, chasing my career. My wife was a school teacher. She taught high school, you know, the upper levels. And we were on a family trip, a family vacation. It was the Easter weekend. And on the way home, I lost control of the car. And this is the difficult thing to talk about, I suppose is there was reports of heavy cross winds or reports of the truck driving radically on the interstate. But to my best recollection, I believe I dozed off, just for a minute just just nodded off because what I do remember is swerving to the right, overcorrecting to the left and the car began to roll down the down the interstate, not off the road, but down the road, and I had the cruise control set at 75 miles per hour, which is a very, it’s as fast as I could legally go. I blacked out for most of the accident. But when the car came to a stop, I was completely conscious. The first thing I heard was my seven year old son, my oldest son crying in the backseat of the car and it was a cry as a father, I’m like, I he’s okay, I’ve got to get to my boy. I mean, he was banged up a bit, but it was a cry that made me aware that he was okay. And that’s when I realized I couldn’t move. I mean I was pinned either to the floorboard or the seat. I was struggling to breathe, I was losing consciousness. I was in intense pain. I had no idea of my injuries. I mean, I covered those briefly. But what had happened in the accident is both of my legs had been crushed. The left leg was amputated above the knee. Eventually, my back had been broken and l four and l five, ironically not damaging the spinal column. My right arm had nearly been torn off the whole rotator cuff was torn out there was a huge laceration underneath, you know my armpit. And then the seat belt had cut through my midsection and ruptured on my intestines and it just ripped my whole core wide open. And I was unaware of any of that. I just knew that my son was crying and I needed to get to my son. But that’s that’s when the brutal reality hit. And you’ll realize why I couldn’t speak of this for years. But that’s when I knew no one else was crying. And my wife and my youngest son, actually, were both sleeping, which I suppose is a blessing. I mean, Tamra, my wife had reclined her seat and she was taking a nap. And then Griffin, my youngest son, just just a toddler at the time, he was only 14 months old. His it’s still hard to talk about sometimes Guy but his his car seat had broken apart. And, and he had been ejected from the car, which both both of them were killed instantly in the accident. And I was aware of that, even though Griffin had been ejected from the car. I mean, it was the worst hell a man could be in. I mean, I you know, I thought where’s my little boy, but it’s almost as if spirit just told me he’s he’s gone, which was the worst news I could have ever received. But then also, I thought, Well, okay, he’s not suffering or hurt somewhere. But I was acutely aware of Tamra and Griffin are gone. Spencer’s crying hysterically in the back seat. I can’t move. I’m losing consciousness. And that’s when I had the beginning of the near death experience that has many, many elements to it. But in that darkest moment, it felt like light came. I mean, it felt like light came rushing to comfort me in this traumatic moment. And it felt as if I was rising above the scene of the accident. And I kept thinking how, wow, I’m okay, now I can breathe, the pain is gone. What happened? I’m okay. And it was in. It was in that that light or that bubble of light that suddenly Tamra, my wife who I knew was deceased at the scene, she was there with me, but she was emphatic that I go back. She’s like, No, no, no, you can’t. You’ve got to go back. You’ve got to go back.

Guy 12:23
And this was all happening while you were still trapped in the car that that moment?

Jeffery 12:27
I yes. Yes, I yeah. Yeah.

Guy 12:31
I you know, it’s interesting. I’ve had Anita moorjani on the podcast, talk about her experience. And also I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Peter Panagore. I

Jeffery 12:41
Yes! yeah, they’re actually both friends friends of mine I admire and respect and, and we’ve, we’ve traveled together and spoken together love Anita love Peter, both of them very good love.

Guy 12:52
There you go. You know, and, and I just I had Peter on about six weeks ago, weeks ago, as well. And they all spoke about choice. Did you feel like you had a choice? Once you were in that moment?

Jeffery 13:06
I did. And in fact it… You know, I learned that choice is all there is I mean, I think if there’s one cosmic law or cosmic rule, it simply is that it’s free will and choice. And Gosh, there I was looking at the woman I I loved more than life. And I felt delivered from this hell if you if you will. But I also knew I had a seven year old boy in the backseat of that car. That was okay. And, and I made a choice. But in many ways, we made the choice together. That’s what’s so profound is we had the conversation. And I said, the most profound Goodbye, that I’ll ever say. And then the intention, our thoughts are so powerful. I didn’t. I didn’t have to figure out how to come back. As soon as I made the choice. I’m going back. That pure intention, I actually found myself wandering about, or moving about a level one trauma center, an emergency hospital facility. And that was bizarre too, because when I say wandering about I mean, not there I was. And when I say there I was, I was seeing the doctors, the patients, the nurses, the families of the patients, everything in a busy level one trauma unit. And I had no concept of time in this bubble of lightness profound goodbye. I later found out that people had arrived at the scene. Emergency services have been called. They’d had to extricate me from the car. They rushed me to a local hospital but because of the extent of my injuries, I was then life flighted to a level one trauma center in the in the closest major city. I didn’t know any of that. I knew that I crashed the car. I said the most profound goodbye I would ever say. And here I was moving about seeing The patients, the doctors, the nurses, but boy, I was I mean Guy I was seeing them. I mean, when I say this, this was the most profound, connected experience, I I call it the oneness. I knew everything about them. I knew their love, their hate their joy, their motivations, I knew everything about every individual I saw. And it was it was coupled with this pure, unconditional love. I mean, I, I felt connected, and empathy and love for every single soul or person I encountered. until I finally came up to this body. This, you know, this man laying on the gurney that I didn’t feel anything from, which I thought was strange. And so I stepped forward to take a closer look. And that’s when I realized, oh, my goodness, that’s, that’s me. But But that wasn’t me. I was having this incredible oneness experience. But that was my body that was the, the skin suit, if you will, that I knew I was going to have to put back on and get back into.

Guy 16:07
Wow, so was your body unconscious at the time when you were able to see it from that perspective? And was it hours… days?

Jeffery 16:16
No, no, no. You know, like I say the concept of time was probably a matter of hours. And it was an interesting experience. In fact, my my level one trauma physician, the attending physician at that time in the facility, they they airlifted me or life flighted me into we’ve become dear friends, he had a profound experience as I was having this strange out of body experience. And he’s actually written a book about this, both he and a nurse are willing to admit and talk about the fact that they saw my wife Tamra, her soul, she was deceased at the scene. But her soul her spirit was in the operating room, as the team of five surgeons was working on me. And she communicated to the attending physician in such a powerful way that actually she just communicated her gratitude for all they were doing to save my life, because I needed to survive to raise our son. I mean, so she was still very connected. And he wouldn’t speak of it publicly. For years. They came to me in the hospital, after I was feeling better and well enough, and they didn’t know me from Adam. I mean, the fact that they came to share with me, and I hadn’t said a word to anybody about my near death experience, except my younger brother who was there in the hospital with me. But they came in and when they shared what they had experienced. Wow, I just, I thought, well, this is a safe place. And so me and the doc began to talk and we were friends for 20 years before he ever mentioned it publicly. I mean, he said, Hey, as a, as a physician, I can’t say I see dead people in the ER, that’s, you know, that’s professional suicide. But But he he finally took a sabbatical and was willing to talk about it. He’s written a beautiful book as well called, not yet. That’s also available on Amazon where he talks about my accident, but also other things that he experienced in the in the ER room there.

Guy 18:23
That’s mind blowing. did when he was in the operating table with you, then did he realize that that person was a soul and not a spirit at that point in time?

Jeffery 18:35
Yes, he did. He and he and I have talked about it extensively. I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but that does worse. He he he got the report that they were life flighting me in and that the accident had had a fate had had multiple fatalities. He said they, they report those things. So it helps them assess the level of trauma and and that’s the speed and that you know that the level of condition of the patient me that may be coming in. So he was aware of that. And he wasn’t actually involved in my care. He wasn’t the one that, you know, had his hands in my gut trying to stop the bleeding. And it was a nurse that came and got him and said you’ve got to come down here. And if I’m relating this properly, she said it. She’s down there and he said who and she said that man’s wife who died at the scene is in the room and my doctor went down there. And he said, You know that she seemed to be like, standing in the air above my body. So he knew she was not a physical being he knew that she was a spirit or a spiritual person, spiritual soul. But she was able to communicate with him and she was aware that he could see her and I mean, he might be a great guest for your show. He sounds like he’s an incredible he’s become a dear friend and Doctor Jeff O’Driscoll is his name. And we Yeah, we’ve become friends over the years because I could speak to him about it. And I thought, well, he’s a doctor, if he had an experience, I can talk about what I experienced. And if I’m crazy, he’ll put me in the psychiatric ward and get me the treatment I deserve. But we, you know, we became friends because he could listen, and, and I was able to share in a safe place, all the things that happened to me,

Guy 20:27
I’m guessing that was his first experience to have something…

Jeffery 20:30
No, no, he had others he had had, yeah, he shares in the but he, he had a, he had his older brother passed away when his brother was 15. And he was only 11. And so as a child, he had this heartbreaking grief of losing his hero, his big brother at a very young age. And, and he said, that opened up something in him where he became aware of this other realm, and even as a physician, you know, knowing they don’t teach or talk about that medical school. He, he had experiences and he had had experiences before this one. But this one was memorable and powerful enough that he and the nurse decided that they should tell me about it. And we stayed in contact after the hospital and became friends.

Guy 21:23
Wow, incredible. I didn’t expect that. Did you have any other experiences whilst in hospitals, you said you were in hospital for six months is that…

Jeffery 21:32
almost six months, I was I was in the hospital for about five months. And then I was released to home health care. And then I would go back in the hospital, I would throw up pulmonary ambalaj that the blood clots that lodged in your… in your lungs, and I had a horrible infection. So yeah, it was quite a about I had multiple experiences. I mean, I shared what happened at the scene of the accident. And it might be worth mentioning, the two most powerful experiences were at the scene of the accident before they life flighted me to the hospital and administered narcotics because I was on morphine for a while in ICU, just because of the extent of the injuries in the pain. And they weren’t sure I was going to make it quite honestly. But then, the other most profound experience was probably at the end of my hospital stay. Now I during those months in the hospital, it felt almost like I had one foot in this realm and one in the next Tamra, my wife seemed very close to me. I mean, I would feel her and there was times I felt as if I stepped outside of the body again, and she was right there too. I mean, crazy things maybe but even early on, she was communicating me with me what she wanted done at her services what she wanted son what she almost trivial things like I want that special ring given to my cousin or I want my party dresses, give those to my sister in laws and yet very profound thing. She wanted to be buried with Griffin the baby in her arms. And she communicated all this to me in the hospital. But at the end of my hospital stay. When I was off of the narcotics, I was out of ICU, I was out of surgical recovery. I was actually in the rehabilitation wing. I had I had another near death experience. I don’t know what to call it a vision, a transformation, what what had happened is I was finally able to sleep on my side. And I had laid on my back so long in the hospital, I’d rub the back of my head bald, all the hair had been rubbed off the back of my head from laying on my back. But they had finally stabilized all those abdominal injuries. And so I was finally able to play on my side. And I recall drifting off into a very deep, comfortable peaceful sleep. Because I you know, I’m I mean, I had been unconscious and I had slept in the hospital but I was aware of Wow, I’m peacefully sleeping. And then I felt that light again, that same light that came at the scene of the accident that came to seem to surround me and and it seemed to lift me above the hospital bed again. But this time the light kind of went away it kind of just burst like like fog off a lake or something. It just seemed to kind of go away. And I was in the most incredible place. I mean it was it was so beautiful. And I’ve heard people say heaven or the other side, you know or the spirit world. The only word I can come up with that comes close is that I was home. I was home. It felt so familiar. So loving, so open on that I begin to run a big Kenda run I you know with my legs crushed and one amputated I wasn’t going to run into This life and but there I was running and it felt like a very physical experience and I was elated and then I, I kind of had the knowing that I wasn’t there to stay. At that same time there was this corridor off to my left. And I knew intuitively I’m to go down that corridor. So I began to make my way down the corridor, and at the end of the corridor was a crib. Now, Griffin, my toddler boy was sleeping in a crib at the time of the accident. I mean, he was of that age. And so I raised to this crib and I, I looked in and there, there he was. And he was he was, he was beautiful. He was he was not hurt. He was not injured. He was absolutely perfect. And I had been haunted by this since the scene of the accident, wondering, you know about him being ejected from the car anyway, I I swept him up and I and I held him in my arms. Guy. I don’t know if you have children. Have you ever picked up a sleeping child?

Guy 26:05
I’ve just got four and a half month old daughter.

Jeffery 26:09
Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, I mean, you can imagine I mean, I swept up my boy and, and, you know, the weight and the heat when you pick up and, and, and I could feel his I could feel him breathing. I mean, I was, I’m like, he’s okay. And in fact, I held him close. And I, I felt his breath on my neck. I knew he was breathing. And it’s odd that it was such a physical experience, but I felt him breathing. And I I leaned over and I smelled his hair, you know, I thought it’s, it’s him. I mean, it’s like, this is my child and I, I begin to weep. Holding my little boy number one that he was okay. Number two, that we were together in a very, very, what felt like a very physical way. And yet, as I held him and began to weep, I felt a very powerful presence coming up behind me. I mean, it was something that’s just so powerful, so overwhelming, so cosmic, and I, I actually begin to be fearful because I grown up in a very conservative Christian home and I, I thought, that’s God, that’s God coming and and the guilt began to bubble up. I had extreme guilt because I was driving the car here. I was holding my child. And I thought he died because I lost control of the car. His life was cut short, you know, because I overcorrected. And the car rolled, and I had all this guilt coming up, as this presence was coming closer and closer, and as it became right up to me, you know, I, I had the thought, I hope somehow I can be forgiven. And, and yet what happened in that moment, here, I was holding my child. And I felt this almost felt physical to, I felt these divine arms wrapped around and hold both of this. And then it’s like, the lid just came off. I mean, there was this downpouring and the first thing as I held my child and then was held was, was there’s nothing to forgive, everything is in perfect divine order. And, and you are as precious to us, as the child you hold except even magnified. And yet, it was a very personal experience, but I knew it. I knew it encompassed all of us, all of humanity, everyone, you know, but there was this downpouring of peace and love and and knowing and I did have an extensive or at least a powerful life review. I was seeing my life and I was saying oh, well that was a mistake. You know, that was a mistake and this beautiful being communicated to me. Those are your judgments of it. Not not ours. We love you. You’re You’re perfect to yours perfect to us is that child you hold that was the that was the beautiful thing is everything I felt from my son. I was filling that magnified back from this divine being and and and you know, Griffin was just learning to walk he was just learning to say a few words and you know, they crawl and fall and drool and you’ll have all those beautiful things coming up my friend but but he was perfect to me. And yet in those arms. The Divine was communicating that you’re all perfect. Sure, you’re simply learning to walk and we love you. And there aren’t words really gay to describe it. But again, choice came up and then I’ll wrap up so we can chat but I was given a choice. I was told I could be angry at God. For the rest of my life, because half my family passed, I was told I could feel guilty for the rest of my life because I was driving the car. But I was given a different choice that I hadn’t thought of. And I was told that I could exercise my will. That in that beautiful, profound moment, I could give my son I could let him go, I could pass him over. I could, I could hand it off and exercise my will in this situation, even though Yes, the accident had happened. Yes, he had already passed away. But I was given the opportunity to give him back to God. And, and in all that love I, I kissed my little boy and I handed him back. And then I you know, that I came back to myself, in the hospital bed to the injuries, the amputation, the wheelchair, all those things. But yeah, it shifted my perceptions a bit, to say the least,

Guy 31:01
I can only imagine, you know, I’m just thinking of everyone listening to this. Now. You know, those those experiences are so unique, and individual and personal, like you said, but I like how real did it feel when it was happening? Like, did it feel like you’re in another reality like this? Or did it feel dreamlike? Or like how, you know,

Jeffery 31:23
I’m so glad you asked. I mean, I, I call it a dream in the book, because I don’t know what to say. But I’ll tell you what, that was far more real than this is, this is the weird, crazy, foggy dream now. That was pure reality. And when I talked about how physical it felt, you know, the joy of me running and thinking I’m home, like, I could feel the energy of the ground under my feet, I could feel intelligence in my calves and thighs. And when I when I picked up my little boy, I just felt everything. Light, and love and every one of his cells. I mean, it was just, it was like, it was so physical. It was beyond physical. It was like the senses were multiplied. I mean, I saw it was like sensual. Like I could smell his hair. I could feel him I could. It was beyond anything I’ve experienced here and magnified, but far more real. This feels like the dense dream to me after experiencing that.

Guy 32:29
Wow, incredible. I hear what you say cuz I think I’ve spoke about it briefly before, but I had a meditational experience. And I was I went beyond myself and expanded to something grew greater than I felt connected and could is almost like a knowing and clarity came through that I couldn’t perceive just from my five senses in this reality. And it was like a like a glimpse a gift if you like. And once I had that experience, I like… a lot went on. But that was the kind of just a bit make a bring that back into this into my body. And from that moment on, it just changed the game and direction because all of a sudden, I could bring that into my perception. It brought more awareness to how I was actually perceiving reality and realizing that I’m just perceiving reality through the lens in which I’ve decided to look upon life from my own belief systems and upbringing and everything that’s putting a bias to it. And they helped me get beyond that bias if you like, and, and start to see things or try to see things for how they really are not how I interpret them to be. Wow. So it’s Yeah,

Jeffery 33:41
it Yeah, I mean, our perceptions are a reality. But when that breaks open, yeah, everything in this experience was somewhat turned upside down and inside out for me, but in a beautiful, expansive way. Now I still grieved I mean, I don’t want anyone to think I had the accident and had these profound experiences. And I was okay. I mean, I the accident happened. I had beautiful, profound experiences, but I grieved horribly, you know, and, and, and missed them and cried and had to fight to get back healthy enough. My son who survived Spencer, he was my motivating force. I mean, he was the reason I came back and he was the reason I was committed to getting well and learning to walk again and getting back to work. And he’s, he’s one of the heroes of my story. I mean, I eventually did fall in love again, and remarried and Tanya, my current wife is the other hero of my story, though. Those two are the heroes and then we adopted two boys. I don’t call them my adopted boys. They’re just all my sons. They just came to me in different ways. But, but those are the heroes of the story. I mean, though, I you know, I don’t know what I would have not I don’t know what I would do. without all that support, and all those things happening, and

Guy 35:03
incredibly like, it’s like, it’s like you lived 1000 lifetimes in this one chapter of a book kind of thing, you know, and to go through all I still can’t relate, I was only thinking this morning. Well, I actually took Eva for a walk my daughter, and I just, you know, she’s my world now and kind of go there to where your experience right? Once you there’s two questions that came to me, did you share your experiences? Actually, let me just start with that one first. And I’ll try and remember the second question. But when you had those experiences, did you share with them with people straight away? Or did you find yourself trying to compute everything that was happening and thought you’re going crazy or like,

Jeffery 35:49
Yeah, I didn’t…I didn’t share. I didn’t share much… I only told my younger brother and my mother about these experiences. Now interesting enough. When I had the experience with my son, Griffin, when I fell into the deep sleep, my younger brother was there in the hospital with me. I mean, my brothers were incredible. I, I’m the middle of the older and younger brother, and they both about lost their jobs to see to me and even though I was months into my hospital stay, my younger brother was there. And he knew how difficult it was for me to sleep, I was still grieving miserably, and I was still in intense pain. And mostly, I mean, the physical pain was bad enough, but the emotional pain and he had said that night he said, I’ll just sit with you till you fall asleep. And I did fall asleep and wait yet when I came back to myself after this experience, this this visitation, his vision, if you will, he was still there. And he had dozed off in the chair by my hospital bed, and I woke him. And I did tell him right in that moment, I said, I’ve had the most incredible experience, and I was emotional and weeping. And I told him I was with Griffin. I was with God. I I didn’t, I didn’t even know how to put it in words. But he he remembers it well, and I’m very, very close to my brothers. I was comfortable enough telling him that. But yeah, he was right there. Now as far as the general public or anybody else, I didn’t say much to anyone for years, I, I didn’t want people to think I was crazy. I had a lot of processing to do myself just processing everything that happened. And then it was painful. I couldn’t speak of it without just I would just burst into tears, which made me feel silly. And so I just avoided the conversation.

Guy 37:44
Wow…Yeah, with the same questions gonna ask in that recovery. Because again, I’m thinking of people that might be listening to this that might be in pain right now of whatever circumstances in their life is. Were there any key moments during your recovery or pivotal points that you can now reflect back upon and think well, I’m really glad I did that. Oh, hang on to that to to help to help you.

Jeffery 38:08
Yeah. Yeah, there’s so many In fact, one of the first ones was interesting because it was when I was returning home from the hospital. And of course, my brothers had come to get me in at that point, you know, my, my right leg was in a in a brace because they had to repair the whole rebuild the whole knee. My left leg, obviously was amputated above the knee. My right arm was in a sling because they were attempting to repair all the rotator cuff and shoulder. All I could do is drive an electric wheelchair with my left my left hand and arm that work. But my brothers came to get me and I wasn’t able to go to my own home. I was I was going to my younger brother’s home. And he had been taking care of Spencer, my oldest son during this long hospital stay. But as we arrived home, I became so worried about Spencer, I’d been thinking about him and he you know, he’d come and see me in the hospital, but I thought how is he going to accept me as a father? I mean, I was the rough and tumble dad and now I was in a wheelchair with one working arm, you know, how is he gonna process all this? And as we drove up to the house there, he was peeking out the window you know, watching as, as my brothers his uncles, you know, lifted me his dad literally had to lift me up and put me in the wheelchair. And I thought how, how’s he going to deal with this and everything was so atrophied, um, I was still very sick and quite weak. And as they put me in the wheelchair, he came running out of the house, and he began to run toward me, but he ran right past me, you know, he just went right past. And I thought, Oh, I knew this was going to be hard. I mean, now we’re on his turf. I’m not in the hospital. We’re gonna have to go to the grocery store like this, you know? And, and, you know, it was it was emotional and difficult and I begin to navigate my way up to the house, and my brothers had build a ramp so I could drive the wheelchair up. And as I turned the wheelchair, I just looked to see where he had gone. And he had run across the street. And he was knocking on all the neighbor’s doors, and he was shouting, Come out, come out, my dad has made it home, come see my dad and I, I burst into tears again, I and, and he you know, and he eventually did come in he, he threw himself on my lap with just about killed me because I still had all the, you know, the sutures and everything from my surgery. And he threw his arms around me. And I explained to him, Hey, I’m going to be like this for a while, but I’m going to work very hard to get well and function. And I said, Are you going to be okay with this. And we still laugh about this. He’s a grown man now. But he, he said, Dad, if you were nothing but a puddle of blood, I would still love you. And, and you know, through the tears, we begin laughing and he hugged me tight. And here’s why I share this. It was in that moment that I had a profound realization. I thought, wow, here I am in a wheelchair holding my surviving son in this room. And it is no less divine than being in those other realms holding my son that’s passed. I mean, suddenly, like Kevin was right here. And there was nowhere to go, there was nothing to become there was, you know, it was like, wow, right, in this profound now moment. And I’ve had several of those and many of those as, as this is unfolded, there’s been those horrible grieving, painful moments, and there’s been those glimpses of, wow, maybe heavens right here, you know, maybe maybe it’s not about Oh, eventually, when I pass, or Oh, maybe I can embrace this beautiful, beautiful gift that life is and find heaven, right in the moment of a sunset when I’m just sitting there, you know, with my child, my spouse, by myself, but literally connecting to that divine part of me. That knows, it’s all okay. And, and and that each moment is a profound gift in some cosmic way.

Guy 38:41
Being able to see it, isn’t it far out with it? From your out of body experiences and the experiences you had, were there any anything that happened or lessons or insights to that came to the fore? Like, why me? Why would why this accident? Why now y in this time?

Jeffery 42:45
Yeah, the you ask such great question I really do. I asked the why questions a lot. Why, why, why? And it wasn’t until I shifted that to the what, you know, what am I learning? What What is my soul’s journey? And what is the opportunity provided in this catastrophe, if you will, I had a profound thing that this was later on. This was after, you know, I mean, gosh, I had healed I was walking on a prosthetic. And in fact, I had met Tanya, my current wife, and you know, she was just a friend at first, but I realized that I was having romantic feelings for her. I was incredibly lonely as a man, but I found myself back on tamaraws grave my wife who had passed, and I was angry. I was kind of I was kind of like, even crying out to her saying, how, you know, how dare you leave me like this? I mean, I’m limping. I’m, I’m trying to raise our son, and you’re in that beautiful place. How dare you go. And, boy, you know that that veil if you will get so thin, I felt her there with me. Suddenly, it’s like, Wow, she was there. And it’s almost as if I could feel her hands on my shoulders as I’m hunched over bawling in her grave. And she communicated and she said, Don’t berate me. I loved you enough to leave. And I’m like, You loved me enough to leave what do you mean by and she said, We had a deal. There was a contract I would have loved nothing more than to stay and grow old with you. But we had a different plan. your your your soul is expanding. You’re learning things you would have learned no other way and I loved you enough to leave and support that please do not berate me. And this was one of the insights I I don’t fight fair. And I said, well, by the way, I’m having feelings for another woman. It was it was like an argument here it between spirit and me and she laughed. She laughed and said, of course, you are. I know who you are. I’m watching this all in fact, I’m trying to orchestrate it. She said, Please, and here’s choice again. The words she used were choose joy, please choose joy. Because she said, You’re holding me hostage in your grief. I’m still connected. I’m watching it, I heard with you. Even though I might have a higher perspective, I can only be as happy as you are, I want you to be happy. I want you to move forward, you’re, you know, I’ve never gotten over it. I’ve gotten used to it. You don’t you don’t get past it, you move along with it. But here was the pleating of the woman that I you know, was married to and, and who I loved saying I want you to be happy, love, again, move on in life, choose joy. And I had, I had heard those words whispered to me from what felt like the divine Previous to that. So it’s almost like she was repeating it to me. But that was an insight that, well, it’s a choice, we can’t control what happens. But we can control to some extent, how we experience it by looking not at what we’ve lost, but what we have, you know, and and what we and what we can gain and what we can learn from the situation.

Guy 46:18
Wow. You know, there’s a paradoxical question that came in to me that I’m, forgive me if I’m on the right track or not, but

Jeffery 46:27
that’s okay.

Guy 46:28
The, the thing that come to mind is like a soul contract if if this is kind of pre written our destiny, you know, because it’s often spoke about and these kind of conversations, but then when we come here, we have free will and choice, which is the paradox. What are your views on all of this then?

Jeffery 46:50
it’s a huge paradox. It’s a dichotomy. It is the duality we live in, in other words, she communicated, we had a soul contract, there was destiny in this thing. But at the same time, I had free will and choice, you know, I could choose to be the guy strung out on some street corner somewhere wondering what happened, that was a choice. And quite honestly, that would have been honored by the universe to, I still would have been loved. And, and, and maybe just as much and even more so. So, I feel that in that dichotomy, we do have a souls journey, we do have a, a end goal, so to speak, and things are going to happen. But there’s free will and choice all along all along the way. You know, and yet that paradox that that that end goal, that that final journey to meet is to pure unconditional love In the end, and whether I’m a struggling homeless addict, or whether I, you know, remarry and adopt children. That’s just the journey. But the end result will be finally grasping, pure, unconditional love. And quite honestly, for myself, that that, that that was the most powerful no one needed speaks of this, too. But I was looking for outside validation in everything, oh, gosh, just let me feel better. You know, I mean, just just helped me, you know, using these, you know, I was looking for this validate, there was this big sucking hole in me that could not be filled. Even with what I experienced. I mean, here I was held in the arms of God, which was very validating. But that was still an external force giving me that, hey, you’re okay. You’re beautiful. You’re perfect to us. It wasn’t until I stepped into self love to forgiving myself and loving myself. And realizing that those moments are gifts. And then and then capitalizing on them in a way that expands my soul rather than diminishing it. That I found forgiveness and joy and peace and it took it took some time. In fact, I Gosh, Tanya would tell you I she mean, I I was a mess. Even after she married me, I was still picking up the pieces and putting things together. And Spencer and my surviving son was one of the catalysts in bringing me along that path to self love and self forgiveness, which was finally the healing that brought me brought me peace in any way. Wow.

Guy 49:36
That’s incredible. What I’m trying to try to articulate this last question for you in the right way. My brains my brains gone. I’m more caught up in what you were saying then. When people are struggling feeling this way, or that’s what I was gonna say as well. Do you think then To put meaning into life is to find our own divinity within us. So then we can share it with others.

Jeffery 50:07
Wow. That’s pretty profound Guy. And, and yes, I believe we’re only here to learn and the only thing we’re here to learn is to re-member to remember to re-member to put back together or to realize our own divinity. I love how you asked the question. Because if I realized that I’m divine, that if I if I am that I am, and I can be my perfect vibration in this whole big game. In other words, this, this universe, you know, this, this unit, one verse, this this one song, this universe, I can sing my pitch, I can sing my tone, and it’ll be unique from anyone else. And and, and if I realized that that’s divine, and that that’s perfect, just the way I am. And follow that and honor that and trust that, then then yeah, I believe that’s what we’re here for, is to remember that, no, there’s nothing to become in that it’s simply to be that. But realizing it and recognizing it. I mean, others have done this, you know, we we all talk about this fellow, my dear friend that wandered this earth 2000 years ago saying, Hey, I’m a divine manifestation of that. And, and you know, people don’t like that and are uncomfortable with it. But if we realized that and if we embrace that type of love, we we’d solve all the world’s problems. You know, we wouldn’t we wouldn’t be at war or have poverty, we would literally lock arms and stand up together in oneness and say, let’s just have each other’s back and make this world a beautiful place. And heaven might be right here. If we did it, there may be nowhere to go. We would just create it right here.

Guy 52:00
Yeah, absolutely. No, that’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. I just want to wrap up in a couple of things before you finish. I want to talk about books. There’s I got two questions for you. One is about your own books. How many have you released now written and released?

Jeffery 52:15
I’ve written three books. And I’ve been contributors to several others, one came out of the UK and but the you know, my first book was I knew their hearts and that I I never had any intention of writing a book. I never had any intention of speaking about this. In fact, it’s funny I was I was approached by a publisher to write the first book, which I did. And and I figured my mother would buy a copy it all seemed quite a futile, to me, but boy, the book hit number three on Amazon in the category in the first 10 days, and suddenly there was all these requests to talk about it and and and that was incredible. And so then the publisher asked me to follow it up. The first book was about the near death experience. The second one was about putting together all the pieces, you know, how do you build a life or rebuild a life after having it all shattered? And that book did quite well as as you know, it did well, too. But the third book, knowing knowing is the definitive one, it’s actually the first two books compiled together with deeper insights and extended chapters, and it continues on in life. Right up and I mean, right through Spencer, my oldest son, the who survived the exit with me, right up through his marriage. He was recently married and has grown to this incredible man. And it’s it’s his journey too because he didn’t have any near that near death experience. He had lost everything I lost, but he had no answers, no visions, no dreams. No, none of that. And so he anyway, knowing his if you want to know the story, knowing is the book to get the book together that that that actually encompasses the first two. Yes.

Guy 54:05
Yeah. Amazing. Just to wrap up the show, with everything that we’ve covered today, is there anything you’d like to leave the listeners to ponder on?

Jeffery 54:16
Wow, yes. I mean, I’m, I’m here in the United States, where we’re so divided right now. You know, we’re, we’re just weeks Well, we’re practically days from an election. And, and here in this part of the world that I’m at, everything’s divided by gender, by race, by religion, by preference by political party, you know, I mean, this is an illusion. here’s, here’s what to ponder. We are one, there is more oneness in humanity. We have far more in common as, as God’s children, if you will, then we will ever have separate and if we could Simply change every thought of us and them into we, into this oneness into this unity into we, we, we, the people together worldwide could literally shift consciousness in such a powerful way. It would it would be like the pandemic, you know, this Corona in 72 hours, suddenly it was everywhere, everything it was a global pandemic, what if we created a pandemic of love? a pandemic of carrying a pen demick of compassion? That’s, that’s what I’m about. And that’s what to ponder how in the world can i as one person, shift consciousness or do something about all that’s going on, and in the end, perhaps it’s quite simple, I can be a better person, I can be a kinder person. I can treat others with respect, even if they’re completely different from me. And I can love those that are different from me and be educated about why they’re different and and just be open.

Guy 56:10
Therefore, that’s a great place to end this podcast, Jeffrey, if anyone Are you active on social media, or you have a website.

Jeffery 56:18
I mean, I don’t know that I’m active. I post a lot of pictures. I love nature. I love nature. But you can find me under my full name. It’s Jeffrey j, e, FF, er, y, middle initial C. Olsen Olsen, o l, s, e n. And that’s my, that’s my Gmail address to Jeffreycolsen@gmail.com. You can find me there and write me a note. Or my website is envoypublishing, envoy is French for messenger, envoypublishing.com. And you can find videos and ways to contact me there as well.

Guy 56:52
beautiful. Everything will be linked in the show notes below. And Jeffrey, I just want to thank you for coming on the show and just speaking to open heartedly and sharing your your wisdom, your journey and everything that you’ve learned along the way. And just know he’s had an impact on my life. And I’m just very grateful for everything that you’ve done. So thank you.

Jeffery 57:12
You’re an incredible man. You’re very welcome. And I’m honored to be on your show. Have a beautiful, beautiful day and take care of Australia for me and we’ll we’ll both send love to Wales.

Guy 57:23
Absolutely. My best Thank you. Thank you guys. If you hear my voice right now, that means you listen to this conversation myself and Jeffery all the way through. And if you did enjoy it, be sure to reach out to Jeffrey to and let him know like he’s an amazing amazing human being. We had a beautiful conversation obviously. And like I said at the beginning, just embrace life go and hug a loved one. Just Yeah, life time stands still for no one. Let’s make the most of it. Hey, love you guys have an amazing week and I got some more incredible episodes coming up soon. See ya.