From this tiny room was born music that changed the world – especially my world. Yet it’s such a small cocoon – this room that fits only me and one other adult – the custodian hired by Yoko Ono to protect the home she refurbished to look exactly as it looked when John lived here until 1963. Yoko donated this home to the National Trust so that it would be forever preserved as part of history.

Colin Hall, the well-educated, soft-spoken custodian tells me that John spent many hours a day sitting on this bed dreaming up a better life – sketching his visions and writing music while he gazed out of this window at the tree tops – all the way to Strawberry Fields – an orphanage a few miles away.

It makes me cry to imagine how John’s powerful dream for a better life reached across the Atlantic Ocean in 1964 to touch me – a lonely, young girl growing up in Alabama – and how his dream traveled around the globe awakening so many other people.

It makes me cry to remember the moment I first heard a Beatles song and how deeply it rocked my world. Standing in this room, I can imagine the birth of that powerful music and the pain that inspired John’s genius. Closing my eyes, I feel John’s creative brilliance burning up these walls, his restlessness, and his dark and powerful grief – the pain that fueled his work.

This room brings many people to tears,” says Colin standing beside me. And yes, you can feel the sadness that hung over this bedroom when John was brought to live here in his Aunt Mimi’s house at the age of five – already abandoned by both parents.

By then, John’s father had long disappeared. And his mother, Julia, had gone to live with her new boyfriend. Young John was brought to this house to be raised properly by his mother’s sister, Mimi, and her husband George. John’s mother continued to visit him here and tried to maintain a relationship with John. But she soon started a new family with her boyfriend, and John was never brought to live with them.

In this house, John’s new life unfolded. He grew to love Mimi’s husband George who became a nurturing father figure to him. But when John turned 15, Uncle George died suddenly – leaving Aunt Mimi broke and desperate for income so that she and John could stay in the house. Mimi took in student boarders – as many as five at a time – to help pay the rent for this two-bedroom house. And John, once again, felt the devastating loss of someone he loved and needed.

It was in this abandoned, struggling world that John spent his hours sketching, writing poetry, playing guitar and writing music. He excelled in art class at his local high school, but flunked his other subjects -which caused endless arguments with Aunt Mimi.

Mimi was convinced that John’s fascination with rock and roll would ruin his life, and she only allowed him to play guitar on the front porch. This didn’t stop John from pursuing his music passion; in High School he started a rock band called Johnny and the Moondogs – which soon became The Quarry Men.

When John turned 17, his mother Julia, on a visit to see him, was hit by a car while crossing the street in front of Mimi’s house. She died instantly. John was, once again, devastated by loss and poured his pain into music.

That same year, John’s band was invited to play for a local church feast and after the gig was over, John was introduced to Paul McCartney, a young musician who was also grieving the death of his mother.

Just a few blocks across town, in an even poorer neighborhood and smaller house, 15-year old Paul McCartney had lost his mother, Mary, to breast cancer. She had been a loving presence in Paul’s life and was well-respected in the community as a nurse and midwife.

Her death had devastated Paul, his father, and brother Michael. The McCartneys comforted themselves with memories and music; Paul taught himself to play guitar and write music in the living room of his cramped home in this poorer section of Liverpool.

When John invited Paul to become part of his band, the Lennon-McCartney genius was born. Even though they were still young high school boys, they quickly began writing music together – hanging out in the front porch of Aunt Mimi’s house, smoking cigarettes, exchanging lyrics, laughing and dreaming up a better life.

Their inspired music that the world came to love so passionately didn’t come from privilege, opportunity, brilliant teachers and all the advantages of life today. Instead, their music came from dreams that were launched in loneliness and grief.

From grief, came their longing to uplift and inspire others who needed love, who felt lonely, or abandoned. This passionate music that spoke of love reached across the universe – to millions of people longing for connection.

When Beatle music first began filtering into my local Alabama radio station and filling the airwaves of my world with a new sound, a new dream – I was only 12 years old. Yet it spoke to me in ways that John and Paul, light years away, could never have imagined.

From their brilliant new sound, I understood that life was expansive and carried endless possibility. When I heard their voices in harmony, I realized we were truly all connected, and that anyone from anywhere could have an extraordinary life – even me.

How that inspiration was delivered around the world in simple words such as “She Loves You” – was the miracle of the Beatles. Somehow their pain, dreams, and energy carried hope to anyone who felt alone, confused, or lost.

The Beatles created an intuitive connection between people everywhere that started a shift of consciousness in the early 60s. Their simple heart-felt music changed millions of lives for the better. I was one of those people and the Beatles were truly the miracle of my early life. I’m forever grateful for that.

Now, as I turn to leave John’s small room and follow the custodian down the stairs of Aunt Mimi’s house, I offer a simple prayer of gratitude to John for turning his pain into music. I tell him that I can’t imagine a world without his lyrics. And I can’t imagine the course my life would have taken without the Beatles. I blow a kiss into the empty room and say “Thank You John.”

How ironic it is that my husband Paul died only months before John died in 1980 – two of the most influential people in my life exiting within months of each other. And now, today, I get to come full circle and thank the first man whose extraordinary gift changed my life.

Whenever you feel lost, alone, depressed, or hopeless, consider this: That dark, powerful pain is your gift. Dig deep and feel it, then use it as your fuel. Make the world a better place by offering to others what you wish had been offered to you.

Take a moment right now to imagine two teen-aged boys from Liverpool living in poverty, with no opportunities for a better future, and grieving the losses of their loved ones.

Now picture these boys hanging out on Aunt Mimi’s small front porch, playing guitar, laughing, and writing music about love – in spite of the grief and pain in their lives.

Imagine their pure fearless intention, their innocent inspired joy turning itself into magic, into love, and spreading across the universe – changing everything in its path. That was the gift of the Beatles.<.

Now, YOU try it… See if you can imagine taking one small step in a brave new direction – in spite of all your pain and losses. That step will be your greatest gift to the world.

1. When your mind says, “You should just get a job, any job”. Your reply is: I will happily get a job – the perfect job for me. And laugh out loud!
2. When your mind says, “Who do you think you are?” You reply: I’m me and that’s good enough!
3. Your mind controls how you feel about things, therefore controlling your mind breath-by-breath controls how you feel and act. Think of a favorite comedy scene from a movie you love. See it until you start giggling. Giggle until you feel happy. Notice how quickly you improved your vibration level.
4. Imagine a perfect day in the life of a perfect career. See it start to finish – even if it seems impossible. Write down exactly what you saw and why you liked it. Now describe it out loud and talk about it until you’re smiling and getting the joy feeling inside. Walk around the house talking out loud about this perfect new career you’re going to have. Laugh about how ridiculously happy you’re going to be doing this work.
5. Start each morning by sitting for 20 minutes and repeating a word of your choosing. It could be a Christian word such as Jesus or “peace” or it could be the Hindu word Om. As your mind wanders, gently bring it back to that word – without tension. Be gentle. Watch the thoughts go by. When the mind is quiet, start pumping in the joy. See the perfect dream vacation you’re going to take your family on. See their faces when you tell them you’ve bought the tickets. Hold that feeling and build on it.
6. Start each morning reading from a spiritual book such as the bible, or the scriptures from your particular spiritual path. Go for that feeling of peaceful contentment. Read until you FEEL that everything will be alright no matter what. Ask for guidance. There is always help available from the other realms. Call in the light. Say God’s name in whatever religion you follow.
7. Start each day by visualizing a perfect day from beginning to end. Take at least five minutes to see it clearly from what you’ll wear to work that day to how easily you’ll get your work done, to how well the meeting will go. Imagine friends asking you out for dinner and getting an unexpected check in the mail. Do this until you feel the joy. Carry that feeling with you for the rest of the day.
8. Choose one of the positive career affirmations written in this workbook and repeat it throughout the day watching how it improves your feelings…and your vibration level.

When we need to get clarity, to make major decisions about our lives, we need to access this deeper part of ourselves which is always connected to the divine. The following exercise will help you access that place.

1. All of us have known the experience of feeling grounded, centered and calm. We may have experienced this state during exercise, sport competitions, meditation, prayer or even when being with a loved one. Right now, sit with your feet flat on the floor so you can feel your connection to the earth.
2. Sit with your spine straight and put your hand on your abdomen with the thumb on your belly button and the rest of the hand below your belly button.
3. Take three deep breaths. As you inhale, feel this area of your abdomen expand. As you exhale, feel it contract.
4. This is your center, your place of knowingness. In western culture we put great emphasis on the chatter that goes on in our minds day after day. In eastern cultures, they call this the Monkey Mind. Mediation teaches us to step back from these thoughts, observe them, and control them.
5. The center is our place of greatest power. It is the place we can move from with certainty that we are going in the right direction. For example, when you study martial arts, karate, judo, tai chi, even dance, you learn to move from this place of center. When you are standing in a room and four opponents attach you from four different corners of the room, if you are in touch with your center, you know exactly which way to turn to face your opponents.
6. When you move from that place of center, you can’t be thrown off balance. You are poised, balanced, grounded, unshakeable; and you don’t care beans what anyone thinks about you.
7. Now, try to remember a time in your life, when you were very centered, powerful, grounded, fearless. You knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Picture that time in your memory. What was your breathing like? What did your voice sound like? How did your body feel? Try to remember any cues that might help you regain that state whenever you choose it.
8. For example, when I walk or hike, my feet feel very heavy, very connected to the earth. It helps me get into my centered state when I walk or pace and feel my feet heavy against the earth. Find a memory cue in your body that helps you get into your center easily.
9. In that state of calm, spend ten minutes silently repeating one word such as Om or Peace or Jesus. Watch the thoughts that flit across your mind. Gently bring your attention back to the repeated word whenever you notice your mind wandering. After ten minutes, take three deep breaths and stop repeating the word.
10. Now from that place of center, of knowingness, ask yourself the following three questions:
    1. What is the joyful work that would make me happy and support me in every way?
    2. What steps do I need to take now to make it happen?
    3. What can I do to remove the obstacles that are preventing me from doing this work?
11. As you bring yourself back to waking awareness, write down your responses to the questions above. Spend several minutes writing and reflecting on your experience before getting up and going about your day.
    - What insights have I gained about the nature of my mind?
    - What insights have I gained into my “belittler voice”?
    - How is my belittler stopping me from find work I love?
    - How can I use the power of my positive energy to overcome this obstacle?

We’d love to hear how this helps you get more clarity with major decisions. Share your comments just below.

My friend Marv sat on my shoulder today telling me to freshen up a chapter I was writing. He passed away several months ago, but his voice in my ear was strong and clear. “Just freshen it up,” he whispered. So I did. Then he was gone. I can still see the golden cord connecting us through our many lifetimes of friendship.

Let me assure you that seeing into the other realms is the only thing I’m really good at here. And yet, when I first hit the dirt of Planet Earth, I sprang into survival mode–forgetting everything I knew inside. I ignored the spirits in the room, dismissed my intuitive feelings, analyzed my precognitive dreams rather than accepting them for the gift they were. I learned to fit in. I wanted to be loved.

Most of us do forget everything when we land here. We look around at the limiting beliefs, the small-minded choices, the mindless chatter and we think, “Oh, so this is how it’s done here.” And we begin the journey of forgetting ourselves, of disconnecting from our intuition.

If today you’ve lost your way and long to reconnect to your higher self, just know what you know. Speak beyond the illusion. Share a truth at the dinner table that shatters chatter and serves divinity as the main course.

Become the one voice in the crowd who shares wisdom when all other voices are small and afraid. Make this your calling. Use your higher self and divine intuition to recognize your soul mate and attract true love.

Do this once and the angels will pick you up where you stand and bring you into the realm of light. They’ll smooth your clothes, wipe your face, and brush your hair. They’ll sing the sweetest song you’ve ever heard. You’ll remember it when you wake.

When you find yourself in the dirt once again, you’ll know better and move to higher ground–using truth as your password to become the shaman on the hillside or the mystic at the dinner party. It’s the only reason you came here.

Excerpted from I See Your Soul Mate by Sue Frederick

The Power of Those Things Beyond Our Control

Gwen is a rock. In the way people have of linking with something in your mind – she is a rock. Not that she is rigid or unyielding, but simply as I watch her walk away from me in hospital corridors I want to run after her and hold on.

Gwen helped my husband die nearly four years ago. We came to her terrified of his cancer but mostly terrified of how we were losing control of our living and of his dying. Gwen got us out of the hospital and home. She taught me to punch long hypodermic needles into his rear, to measure his intake of intravenous fluids and his output of urine and bile. She turned my living room into a hospital, me into a nurse, and put Paul back into control.

Gwen works for the Boulder County Hospice. She is the associate director of nursing and has done this for six years. Though it’s been four long years since Gwen taught me to give a Heprin push in Paul’s TPN line, still when I watch her walk away from me I want to run after her. Still, after all this time.

(Note: Gwen recently came to my book talk in Seattle and was as powerful and beautiful as ever. It made me cry with gratitude to see her again.)

One evening Gwen and I sit in a hospital hallway and talk. I tell her I’m writing a story about the Hospice. Gwen is rugged with dark bushy hair and strong features. Pioneer woman rugged in the way she looks at you – or through you. She doesn’t like to mess around.

Now she looks at me like I’m crazy. Why do you want to write this? She asks me. I’m not sure, so I blabber away about being intrigued with the strength people find when someone they love is dying. And her, I say, I want to understand how people like her can do this for a living. How could she help me hold Paul in my arms as he took his last breath and the same afternoon help three kids watch their mother die.

Gwen should have been an Outward Bound survival instructor. Survival instructors like to yell at people when they’re stuck 200 feet up on a rock cliff and say: “So did you think it would be easy?”

Gwen has simply always known that strength was required. “My husband died in a car accident 10 years ago. For awhile, I quit working for the hospice and worked for a family physician. But it drove me crazy. Here were healthy little kids screaming about a sore toe. I felt like saying – ‘hey, there are people out there dying and you’re worried about your toe?”

In the middle of a crisis, Gwen seems most alive. When the husband is speaking gibberish and slipping further into a coma, and the wife is crying and the kids sitting tightlipped and stone-faced, Gwen eases into action. She knows what must be done and she does it. She speaks about death the way some people discuss dieting.

And yet she is vivacious and laughs and laughs over silly things – like a patient calling her Wendy or a chart being misplaced. But in the same breath, she’ll turn to you and say, “Your husband won’t be leaving the hospital again. You understand that, don’t you? He’s dying now.” Her eyes are soft and she looks like she’s ready to hold you if you fall and that anything you say or do is okay with her. It’s these moments when you want tie a rope around her waist and hang on.

Now Kaye is looking at Gwen that way. I watch Kaye watching Gwen walk down the hospital corridor and wonder if Kaye wants to run after her too. I don’t mention this but I notice that Kaye seems unsteady when she turns her eyes away from Gwen and invites me into her husband’s hospital room.

Kaye and I sit in chairs only inches away from each other and whisper back and forth. I have never met this woman before but Gwen has told her that my husband died of cancer, so she ends most of her sentences with, “…you know that feeling, don’t you?” I try not to look at the tall white bed beside us where her husband lies mostly still, but twitching sometimes, and mumbling words that make no sense.

I keep my eyes on Kaye’s face. Her eyes lock me in. they are large and brown with soft laugh lines around the corners. She tells me immediately that if she and Tom couldn’t laugh they would never have been able to cope. She finds little stories to tell me that crack her up. She leans back in her chair holding her belly and the laugh lines deepen. But these are things that most people would find sad. “Don’t repeat these things,” she tells me. “People would think we’re sick.”

Kaye is in her fifties, but there is no weariness about her. She has a kind of charged nervous energy – ready to spring from her chair at any minute. Her eyes are always on the hospital bed, even when she faces me.

“Today he keeps asking for Matt, our son,” she tells me. I think for a minute that she might cry, but again the eyes lock into mine and hold there for several seconds. Then she looks across the room at her daughter Jane.

Jane, who is 21, is sitting in a chair with a magazine on her lap. She is blonde and pretty and looks like someone who should be going to barbecues and softball games. But she is sitting very still, watching her father. Her eyes seem very liquid and her mouth is one long tight line. When Jane watches her father and her lips tighten, Kaye watches Jane and moves her hands rhythmically in her lap. No one speaks.

Finally someone speaks. Kaye, Jane and I all turn to look at Tom in the bed. He is calling. The words seem unintelligible to me but the gibberish is quite clear to Kaye. Kaye is beside him now leaning down close – her ear beside his lips. “You want Matt? He’ll be here later honey.”

Tom is on his back in the bed. A maze of clear plastic tubing runs from various bottles and containers to connect with him somewhere beneath the sheets. His face is round and swollen; his eyes are dreamy and unfocused. His lips are puffy. He looks nothing like the man Kaye describes to me as the man she married 23 years ago, who was a truck driver for 20 years.

Tom is going to die soon. His cancer was diagnosed two years ago. He has had eight major surgeries in those two years for a brain tumor, lung tumors, spinal tumors and on and on. Now he is paralyzed from the neck down.

He walked away from all the other surgeries, but not this one, not this time,” Kaye tells me. “Every time he gets critical we cry and start to grieve and let him go. And the next day he’s better and back and forth. One part of me says let him go, and the other part says as long as he’s still breathing, there’s hope.”

Kaye has taken care of him for two years, but especially since January when he came home from the last surgery paralyzed. When people tell her they admire her strength and could never do what she is doing she always answers without hesitation, “Yes, you could. You do whatever you must do. And Tom gives me strength.”

This brings back memories. It is June 1980. My living room has been transformed. Where once books were lined neatly along the shelves, now there are boxes of syringes, needles, morphine vials and plastic IV tubing. Inside my refrigerator where once there were tortillas, yogurt, eggs, salad and beer, now there are piles of clear plastic bags filled with IV solution and bright yellow bags of liquid food called TPN that has become my husband’s baked chicken and mashed potatoes.

My husband, who is 35 and only two years ago ran the Las Vegas marathon, now is a mass of bones huddled long and lean on the bed that has become the center of the living room. The bones define his face as chiseled as a monk who has fasted for years. His gaze is far away and vacant.

He whispers gibberish and immediately I understand that he wants a sip of water and that his canister of bright green bile pumped from his stomach through a long plastic tube, needs to be emptied. I give him the water and begin to empty the bile. This has become ordinary stuff – the way mothers change diapers. I have no feelings at all as I watch the green liquid disappear down the drain.

My friend Merrin is in the kitchen. She comes periodically and cleans with more ferocity than a brigade of magic maids. My dirty counters become the target for her anger – and mine as well. The house seems lighter, sillier when she is finished with the sponge.

Now she stops with a sponge in one hand and the other dripping suds on the freshly mopped floor and says to me, “I don’t see how you do it. I could never do it.”

It seems an odd thing to say. I’ve never questioned not doing it. Is there a question? “Yes, you could Merrin. You do what you have to do. Paul gives me strength.”

(Note: Twenty five years after my husband died, Merrin spent a year caring for her 30-year life partner and best friend who died in her arms from pancreatic cancer.)

Now Merrin turns away to wipe crumbs from the toaster. She feels she has been lied to. It seems the most meaningless, empty answer in the world. How does strength come from a dying person who speaks only in whispers and needs a sip of water, a clean sheet, a pain shot, a bath, to sit up, to turn over, to lie down, to use the bed pan? The wife-mother-father-husband-child learns to jump at a sigh, to understand gibberish, to have a second sense about what is needed. Is it so wonderful to be needed? Is it that simple?

Kaye gives no answers to this. To her it is not a question. I sit in her hospital room and watch her checking tubes, temperatures, lowering the bed, adjusting the pillows, phoning home to check on the kids, whispering to Matt to please come to the hospital soon because dad is asking for him.

Kaye and I have iced tea in the basement cafeteria. We talk for 30 or 40 minutes. She tells me that not many families are given the opportunity to mend fences. She speaks about family tensions and adolescent problems and the years when Jane and her father never spoke to one another. She tells me she is so relieved that they’ve had the time to make peace with one another – and with God.

I tell Kaye about the time Paul woke me up every 15 minutes because the tube leaked or he needed a shot or the sheets had to be changed because bile had leaked on them. I tell her how I screamed and cried that night and threw a glass against the wall and told Paul I hated him for being sick. She looks at me like we are blood kin and nods and nods her head.

“Tom knows I’ve been angry at him,” she tells me. “And he’s even pushed me sometimes. When he was home, that cow bell he had – he’d ring it every couple of minutes.”

She looks at her watch. It’s been too long. But I have one more question. “What’s been the hardest?”

She is quiet for awhile then she says softly, “My kids.” For a second I think she will stop now and decide I’ve invaded too much. But after awhile she looks at me again, “When Matt says – Why my dad?”

Now we’ve crossed the line. Her eyes fill up and she looks away. Both of us sit very still for several minutes. I suddenly feel that the room is too small and notice that it seems difficult to breathe in here. I can hear Matt’s voice – Why my dad? Why my husband? I contemplate running for the door, but I sit still. She waits.

Finally, she continues. “But when I ask Matt if he’d wish this on anyone else, after awhile he says ‘No, I couldn’t wish it on anybody else. We have our belief in God to give us strength and not everybody has that.”

I am relieved that she believes in God, that something takes away her pain. I am breathing again and the room seems larger and perhaps I’ll have another iced tea. She gets one too and tells me that she gets a lot of support from her bible study group.

Then she says: “Somebody once told me that my faith in God wasn’t great enough or my husband would be healed.” She just stares at me for a long time like there is a mutual understanding between us of what garbage this is because my husband has died too. She continues, “What do they think? That people will live to be 500 years old if their faith is strong enough?” For several seconds we simply stare across the empty table at one another, not knowing what else to say.

In the elevator, Kaye tells me how good it is to talk to someone who understands. I am wishing I didn’t understand. Tonight I must go home to my empty apartment and make words out of this.

In the room again, Tom wants water, a pain shot, Matt, a fig bar. I step out of the room and sit in the hallway. There are four Hospice rooms at the end of this corridor in Boulder Community Hospital. Gwen has worked hard to get these rooms in the hospital. Until recently, the Boulder Hospice has only offered home care to its patients. These rooms have been needed for a long time.

Sitting here in this corridor is like being in another world. A woman comes out of one room and reports on her husband’s swallowing a sip of chocolate ice cream as if he had just won the Boston Marathon. Finding just the right position for his pillow assumes the same importance as nuclear arms negotiations. A 70-year-old woman comes to her door and asks for a reading light so she can read while her 50-year-old daughter, who is dying from breast cancer, sleeps.

In this other world, I sit taking notes, watching visitors come and go, picking up People Magazine and wondering if I can write this story.

Gwen, my former Hospice nurse, is there again. I hold on to her with my eyes. She lets me. She sits down across from me and we talk. She tells me about her new baby, Cara, and what an “intense kid” she is with large eyes and a piercing stare that sometimes makes people uneasy. I have no doubts that she is just that way. I imagine what it would be like to have a mother like Gwen. I ask Gwen if she will always be able to do this – to work with the dying. She laughs for a long time over this. “I want to take up fiber weaving,” she says. We both laugh now, picturing Gwen spending her days in a quiet studio weaving to soft classical music.

“No, I guess what keeps me doing this is my awe of the way things unfold. Like the other night when I was working here and a man died while I was with him. You feel such awe – that moment is so powerful. I can only take a patient so far and then they do the rest. The power of those things beyond our control is amazing.”

I know that moment she is talking about. I remember holding Paul in my arms while he took his last breath. I remember the crazy, almost giddy way I felt the moment his spirit left his body and he was free. It was a feeling I couldn’t explain to anyone but it made me smile for weeks, looking rather drugged and vacant. My friends thought I was on Valium. But the feeling came from somewhere else. I can’t begin to explain it.

A woman comes out of a Hospice room and asks Gwen to come help her turn her husband on his side. Gwen disappears into the room and a new Hospice nurse sits down beside me to go over her charts.

At first we don’t speak and then after awhile she introduces herself. She tells me that when she started nursing she loved to work on the Oncology unit because of the level of involvement with the patient. “We worked with them physically, emotionally, spiritually. It was so much more intense than the other wards. So it was a natural progression to come to work for Hospice.”

After awhile into the conversation she mentions that she has had cancer twice. “This last summer when I lost a kidney, I decided I’d quit working for the Hospice because it was too difficult. But a little while ago they called me up and asked if I would take on just one patient. And I did. And I was fine. So I guess I’m healed and ready to give back.”

She is smiling so vivaciously while she says this that I feel out of breath – like I’ve been kicked in the gut. I look down at the People Magazine on my lap and want to read about the mermaid who starred in “Splash.” But I finally look at her and tell her I admire her for being able to work with dying patients when it must touch on all of her fears of dying. “Exactly,” she says. “But it inspires me. I see how much these families pull together to get each other through and I see how much love this brings out in people and that gives me courage. It makes me feel stronger.”

Several days pass. I go back to the hospital. Kaye and a Hospice nurse are turning Tom on his side helping him to cough, straightening his bed sheets. I walk in and sit down. Kaye sits beside me. “I’m so glad you came back. I wanted to tell you how much your questions made me think. I thought I was prepared for Tom’s dying but it hit me when I went home that night. For two years, my life has centered on Tom. I’ve felt needed and busy and knew what to do. When he dies, I’ll have to face the world again – by myself. I’ll have to think about me again. And that scares me. And the kids too. Even now, they have a daddy, no matter what condition he’s in. But when he’s gone, it will be different. No matter how you prepare yourself there’s going to be that crash.”

She tells me about the questions she has now. What is the line, she asks me, of prolonging a life. She says that Tom asked the nurse for a sharp knife to cut away the tubes. This has made Kaye wonder if IV lines could be prolonging his suffering. She wonders if giving him antibiotics for pneumonia was the wrong thing to do. Look at him, she says. He’s so tired. When she is just about to cry she looks away.

I tell her about how Paul asked me to give him a morphine overdose because he was ready to die. “Could you do it?” she asks me. I tell her yes – out of love. She stares at me for a long time.

(Note: After a year of terrible suffering, Paul ended up back in the hospital throwing up blood and told me it was time to let him go. I gave Paul the prescribed amount of morphine as often as was legally prescribed. His doctors had counseled me that because Paul was so thin and weak the morphine would quickly build up in his system and kill him. This was the only way to do what Paul had asked. I also took away the IV tubes that were giving him fluids.)

Now Kaye’s son Matt comes into the room. He’s a paramedic ambulance driver and he fiddles with the bottles and tubes that lead to his father. He sits down and he and his mother talk across me about their pet boa constrictor, their hamsters, gerbils, dogs, cats, pet rats and parakeets. These stories make them both laugh and laugh. They tell me about the time the boa constrictor got caught in the lounge chair and the time the bird landed on the cat’s head. We laugh and laugh, and this time when I leave the hospital I am forgetting about the man huddled in the tall white bed and giggling about the boa constrictor.

A couple of days pass, and I call Kaye. She tells me she’s made the decision to take away all of Tom’s IV tubes. “I did some deep soul searching,” she tells me. “There’s a lot of security for me in hanging on to him. I know what my days are going to be. I don’t have to face the world.”

Kaye tells me that her son Matt, the paramedic, is having a hard time with this decision. “He’s in the life-saving business. He told me that we don’t have the right to make that choice for anyone. But I told Matt that his dad made that choice a long time ago. The one thing Tom is not afraid of is dying. He’s afraid of pain, but not of dying. And he’s in so much pain now. So I told Matt we couldn’t keep Tom alive for us. We have to let him go – out of love. I never thought I’d have to make this decision.”

The hospice nurse who is in charge of Tom’s case is named Heather. Heather spends a lot of time now comforting Kaye. They talk about pain control and how Tom will finally die. And how long it could take. Without the tubes to hydrate and nourish Tom, he quickly worsens.

On Easter Sunday, Tom calls for his tennis shoes, his car keys, his jacket. “I’m ready to leave,” he says. That night he has convulsions and slips deeper into a coma.

Monday night, Kaye and I stay up late whispering stories back and forth. She tells me about meeting Tom and how he would come and visit with her folks, waiting for her to come home. But when she would get there, he was so shy that he’d get up and leave without speaking to her. “I knew he was there to see me. He was so dumb,” she says. This makes her laugh and shake her head.

“I always knew I’d have to get married fast,” she says. “If it was going to happen it would have to happen fast or I’d talk myself out of it. Tom and I started going out in January. We were married in April.”

The next evening, the children come and spend time alone in the room with Tom. Kaye wants to be sure that each child has a chance to say good-bye. He doesn’t respond to anyone. His breathing is very labored and hard to listen to.

After only a few minutes with his father, Matt, the paramedic, comes out of the room, angry. “I can’t take this. I can’t stand to see him struggling for breath. Can’t we give him oxygen?”

My friend and Hospice nurse Gwen appears. She and Kaye talk to Matt about this. “Yes, we can give him oxygen, but it won’t help.” Matt knows that. He goes into an empty room and shuts the door. Kaye leans against a wall in the hallway and says, “Finally, Matt is breaking down. I wondered when he’d let it go. He needs to do this.”

Another Hospice nurse is working that night. She goes into the room with Matt and they talk for a long time about how difficult this is for Matt to watch his father suffer and not be able to help. “I’m used to saving lives,” says Matt. “And this is my father, and I can’t do anything.”

Jane spends time in the room with her father. She comes out after nearly an hour, crying. “He said he loved me, Mom.” It’s the first response he’s given to anyone in days.

By noon the next day, nothing has changed. Kaye is sitting by the bed rubbing his forehead. She looks tired. She whispers to Tom, “It’s time to let go honey. We’re ready. You don’t have to fight anymore.”

She looks at me. “I wish he would quit struggling and give up. He’s such a fighter.” But the labored breathing continues, without change.

We are both sitting in the room talking one hour later when it does change. He takes 15 short breaths then does not breathe for 15 seconds. Kaye counts the seconds on the large clock on the wall beside the bed. “That was 15,” she says. “He’s going now.”

Kaye calls Heather, the hospice nurse, into the room. Heather checks pulses and listens to his breathing. She tells Kaye that it won’t be long. Then she goes to find Matt and Jane.

Now he breathes 18 times and doesn’t breathe for 20 seconds. Kaye is watching the clock. As each second without breath passes, the corners of her mouth quiver. She turns to Tom. She rubs his forehead. She doesn’t cry.

The next time, he doesn’t breathe for 25 seconds. Jane and Matt sit beside the bed. For several minutes, the same breathing pattern continues. Matt stands up and says, “He’ll fight it to the end, won’t he?” and leaves the room. He paces in the hallway. He comes back and sits on the floor at the foot of the bed.

Jane leans over her father. She rubs his chest and shoulders and strokes his hair. Tears drip onto his pillow. No one speaks. Now the breathing is very shallow, barely there. But it is rough and gurgly and hard to listen to. Kaye looks down at the floor.

Then it slows. Then it is no more. The room is still. Heather takes his pulse, “He’s gone now, Kaye.”

The family holds each other. Kaye wraps her arms around Heather and thanks her. People cry, especially Matt. “It’s hard to let him go, mom.”

Kaye holds him in the hallway, “I know honey, I know. But he’s not in pain anymore. It’s over.”

This is an excerpt from my newest book: I See Your Loved Ones On The Other Side (St. Martin’s Press).

Being practical above all else does not get us where we want to go. It doesn’t lead to a happy, fulfilled life. Our left-brain logic talks us out of being who we really are and doing the work we came here to do. And it sometimes talks us out of loving who we came here to love.

Remember, you are NOT your thoughts. You’re an energy being, a pulsing wave of light connected to the energetic fabric that makes up the entire universe. Quantum physicists refer to this phenomenon as the “membrane theory.” When they say that we’re all made of the same energy–waves of light that join everything and everyone–they’re describing intuition! Your consciousness is so much bigger than your mind. Your feelings and intuition connect you to all others beings in our universe. Your intuition is a gateway to all the knowledge, answers, and guidance you’ve ever wanted.

When you’re afraid, you block your intuition. Fear is the opposite of love, and it shuts your portal to the divine. When you’re tapped into fear you’re hooked into low-vibration negative energy–or what I call pitiful thinking. This type of thinking makes your body feel bad; it drains your energy and makes you anxious. It clouds your connection to your higher self.

Intuition and divine guidance speak up in the quiet moments when your fear and mental chatter pause and you simply know what’s true–you know it in your bones. It’s a peaceful knowing brought to you courtesy of your highest self.

Our intuition announces exactly what we need to know exactly when we need to know it to fulfill our mission. Its timing is always perfect. And it uses any means available to reach us. You have the dream when you need the dream. You feel a strong urge to do something exactly when it’s time to do it. You get a visual image of something you need to know while you’re waiting at a stoplight. And you know you’ve met your soul mate the moment you hear his voice.

Excerpted from my new book I See Your Soul Mate

I’m certain that you came here on purpose to be the hero of your life. I’m certain that you outlined a plan for this journey–a road map with specific destinations highlighted for your visit.

Oh, did you say you were overweight? Did you mention your skin was a different color? I can’t remember. It’s so hard to focus on the physical form, the temporary costume. It’s so irrelevant when your vivid shining grace, your radiant essence, is blinding me. I forget if you said you were an engineer, a doctor, or a murderer. It’s all the same to me. My only concern is that you remember you came here on purpose as an angel on a divine mission.

When your heart shatters, leaving remnants of you in pieces–a coat hanging from a tree branch, your favorite sweater wrapped around a pole, a strand of your golden hair spread across the sky–your small mind will open and you’ll see a different point of view. The paradox of human life will reveal itself. You’ll weep from its beauty. You’ll cry to try again. You’ll beg the angels to let you stay and help your sister, your daughter, your friend to see everything this new way. You’ll forgive your enemy and your lover. The trick is doing this here and now.

I want to help you remember who you are now. When you tell me your date of birth, an intuitive gateway opens and through that gateway, I feel your soul’s intention and your pain. I see your gifts. I’m shown a vision of your sacred work and how you intend to help the world. I see you clearly as a divine being here on purpose.

When you speak, I’m always surprised that you don’t see this. When you cry, I know it’s because your soul is remembering something long forgotten. I watch you struggle to reconcile the vast gap between a fearless divine you and the you that you are today. When you get angry, I know it’s because you’ve worked so hard and gotten nowhere. But, I remind you, it wasn’t your true work. It wasn’t who you came here to be.

Why don’t you see your own divine essence or remember the gifts you brought with you to save the world? You believed it once. Then you let it go, allowed it to slip away beyond your reach, buried under your pain.

Why do you believe the stories that belittle your beauty and diminish your power? Why have you wasted time longing for impossible love when the world so desperately needs your great work? Why are you angry when divine order is always working in your favor? Why do you put so much energy into being ordinary when clearly you’re an angel with wings of genius?

As you hurry to the job that belittles you or the relationship that stifles you, I want to grab your arm and say, “Don’t be afraid”. Your gifts can save you! Remember why you came here.

I wish I could open my soul and wrap you in my vision of your divine essence

“Yes, I know that.”
“Do you remember being happy?” I ask.

“Yes, it was in the early days of my career. I felt filled with possibility. But my job became mostly drudgery and politics. None of that had anything to do with why I started.”
“Who were you back then?” I ask. “What did you want your career to look like?”

“I wanted to BE somebody – somebody smart and innovative who inspired people. Somebody who made a difference.”
“It didn’t turn out that way, did it? Why did you stay?”

“Money and benefits. I was raising a family and afraid to give up job security. Now I’m tired from all the drama. I don’t have the energy to start over. Yet I still have to make a living. I’m applying for jobs that I care nothing about and NOT getting interviews.”
“You signed up for this challenge. Don’t bail out now. You chose to be here in the midst of this economic crisis in order to be forced to remember your real mission; to raise the consciousness of the planet with your gifts and talents – through your work,” I remind you as we walk through the warm sand.

“It seems that everything is about money now,” you say with frustration in your voice. “Everyone is making choices because of money – not because of who they are inside or their mission.”
“We’re looking at this economic downturn exactly backwards,” I explain. “Right now we’re being called to do our great work – everyone of us. We need to focus on the new and enlightened ideas that inspire us. When we grab hold of those ideas and launch a business or create a technology or think in a new way to solve an old problem – money flows effortlessly.”

“So you’re saying I’m stuck in the past.”
“Your pattern of looking at career as simply a paycheck and benefits is an old paradigm that’s crumbling right now. It’s up for reinvention, thank goodness,” I laugh. “When we think in those old patterns about work and money, we buy into the scarcity mindset that’s paralyzing so many people. There’s still plenty of abundance on this planet. It’s required now that we work in more conscious, inspired ways to attract it. Does that make sense?”

“How would I do that?” you ask with softness coming back into your voice as you sit on the sand beside me.
“You take all the knowledge and experience you gained in your old career and wrap it all together in a different way – a way that’s in alignment with who you are -with your path and why you came here.”

“How?” you ask after a long pause – running your fingers through the white sand.
“Remember when we talked about your path being one of enlightened leadership – bringing new ideas to the world to solve our everyday problems?”

“That’s a far cry from what I’ve been doing for a paycheck.”
“That’s why it didn’t work out for you. You weren’t living up to your true potential – what you signed up to do.”

“But how does someone make a living and support a family doing THAT?”
“Our true work, the work we came here to do, always DOES support us financially. It’s the only real path to abundance and success. That’s the law of divine order.”

“If this is all governed by divine order, why is there such suffering and chaos?”
“It’s what we come to experience, to push through – like wading in mud. It provides the resistance required to help us find our strength and purpose, to remember who we are. In other words, it’s a great work-out for the soul.”

“You know, for years I’ve dreamt of using my engineering background to develop a new technology that would ….”
“Well that’s your intuition, your higher self, telling you that’s what you came here to do. You always knew that your perspective was different from others. That’s on purpose.”

“The funny thing is that in college I was part of a team who developed technology that enabled physically challenged people to work on computers. I used my engineering talent to create something inspired and meaningful. It’s like I knew back then. And then I fell off-path.”
“You chose survival instead of pursuing your dream. It’s the same choice nearly everyone makes. But there’s a shift now – an opening. What if you remembered your original intention? What if you could become the person you dreamt of being long ago?”

“How would I go about getting my idea going and making money from it?” you ask as we stand up and start walking towards home.
“Now you’re talking,” I laugh – brushing the sand from my clothes. “When we get back, we’ll make a list of action steps…”

If your career has recently ended, now is the time to think out of the box about what you’ve come here to do. In order to tap into the great abundance that still abounds on this planet, you must think new thoughts about your work.

Here are six ways to help you do that:

1. What secret dreams have you stuffed away that you know are in alignment with who you are and what you’ve come here to do? Make a list of them.
2. What needs do you see in the world that inspire you to take action, think out of the box, get creative, and use your gifts to make a difference?
3. How can your answers to these questions be translated into a career plan? Write three ideas that pop into your head.
4. What are three small, practical, baby steps you can take this week to move in this direction?
5. Stop asking: “Who do I think I am to try to succeed at this new career?”
6. Start asking: “Who do I think I am to ignore the great work I already signed up for? Who do I think I am to ignore the gifts and talents I brought with me? Who do I think I am to ignore the purpose of my life story?”

Schedule a Career Intuitive Session with Sue Frederick

Here are a few sneak previews…

I met my lifelong best girlfriend Crissie in second grade on the swing set of our Catholic elementary school playground. Her crazy brilliance and insane wit bonded us instantly. Our first conversation went something like this (although she was doing all the talking): “Don’t you think the word nunnery is weird, like a cannery? Why would a girl choose to be canned…er…nunned? Do you think nuns all come out the same from a nunnery like peas from a cannery? What if Shakespeare said, ‘Get thee to a cannery!’” As she talked, she cracked herself up, bending over in peals of giggles that had me laughing uncontrollably along with her. I realized I had found a true friend–someone who thought outside the box. I didn’t always understand her, but I loved her instantly.

Years later in seventh grade, the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. Crissie and I were the only ones in our Catholic elementary school to have our lives changed at that moment. We knew the Beatles meant more than wonderful music and that they were showing us a bigger, more exciting life that we both wanted. We promised each other that we’d get out of the south as soon as we graduated high school and fulfill our huge dreams. She never let me forget that promise.

Crissie’s brilliance put her at the top of every class and got her accepted into Georgetown University in 1969 as one of a small group of the first women ever accepted to that prestigious college in Washington, DC. When I told her I had been accepted into University of Missouri to study journalism she forever called it “University of Misery” and told me I should have “aimed for a coast.” (She was right! But I wasn’t as smart as she was, so I was grateful for the chance to attend University of Misery.)

Our friendship lasted long beyond my stint at “Misery” and hers at Georgetown. Her first true love had been a fellow student at Georgetown University named Paul Frederick whom she became engaged to. Two months before the big southern wedding her parents had happily planned, Paul Frederick dumped her. Crissie never truly got over it.

Later when I moved to Colorado and met a handsome mountaineer named Paul Frederick (not the same guy) I was immediately leery of him. Would he break my heart too? (Turns out he did.) Crissie was the first friend to come visit us and meet my new love whose name was the same as the man who broke her heart. She liked him instantly.

When my Paul Frederick was diagnosed with cancer, Crissie’s frequent phone calls helped me cope. With Crissie, every conversation was about exploring new ideas, asking tough questions and searching for the truth–all done in a gleefully witty way. I adored her. She asked me the toughest questions anyone ever did. And she made me laugh harder than anyone I knew. She always told me I was a gifted writer and should “just write dammit!”

Six months after Paul died, Crissie came to visit. She cheered me up and challenged me simultaneously. What was I doing with my life now? Was I moving forward? Was I writing? She prodded and poked as we drove to the mountains to ski. She seemed healthy, energetic, lonely as usual, but generally happy with her California graduate student lifestyle. (She was getting a PhD in botany).

On her flight back home to California, she noticed bruises appearing on her body. By the time she landed in San Francisco, she was covered in bruises and rushed by ambulance to the hospital. Her stunning leukemia diagnosis so soon after Paul’s death was overwhelming. After this devastating news, I suffered several anxiety attacks where my throat would tighten up and I couldn’t swallow or eat. I felt nauseated most of the time.

Crissie’s mother moved to California to take care of her and her father got her into the most advanced treatment of the time – a bone marrow transplant at Fred Hutchinson hospital in Seattle. Surrounded by friends and family she went through chemo and radiation treatments and nearly died during the torturous bone marrow transplant. I couldn’t understand why someone as bright, loving, and good as Crissie would have to go through such suffering–as horrible as Paul’s experience. In deep despair and grief, I sold my belongings and moved to Mexico to teach fitness at a resort. I needed healing and was dropping out of a world that made no sense anymore.

When Crissie was finally in remission, she moved back to California and resumed graduate school studies. But she was only 31 years old and had been through hell. She was in a deep spiritual crisis, wondering what the purpose of life was. I understood her pain.

We stayed in touch with letters and phone calls. She began getting her life going again and started to feel better. She yelled at me when I told her I was in love with a married (but separated) Mexican man named Emilio who ran the local dive shop. “Sue Ellen, you’ll only get your heart broken! You’re a writer so you can use it in something I guess…but really. Come back home and write dammit!” I couldn’t come home yet. My peaceful life of snorkeling and diving everyday with Emilio was a form of healing for me—even if I knew Emilio would never be my lifelong partner. I loved him anyway.

Crissie and I made a plan to see each other back on our childhood turf. Crissie flew to the Gulf Coast to visit her family at the same time I flew home to visit mine. Our dads both owned fishing boats and had beach houses. Crissie’s dad brought her over to the harbor near our beach house to spend time with us. My dad (who loved Crissie) took us fishing and boating. When we got bored with fishing, he dropped us off at a remote island to talk while he fished around the island.

Crissie and I walked and talked for hours along the sandy shore and crystal clear water of our tiny remote island. We talked about her ongoing struggle with leukemia, her bone marrow transplant, her feelings about death, my grief over Paul, my attempts to end my ill-fated relationship with Emilio, and her heartbreaking belief that she would never find a soul mate or have children. She felt alone and unlovable. “What’s the hardest part?” I asked her. “Disappointing my dad,” she said as tears flowed. “He wants me to live so badly…” I knew then that she was dying, no matter what the doctors said. I recognized the process of letting go that she was experiencing. It was the same conversation I’d had with Paul.

When my dad picked us up on the island, he took us back to the marina where Crissie’s dad waited on his fishing boat. As our dads laughed and joked with each other, Crissie and I hugged one last time. She couldn’t look me in the eye as she turned away and stepped onto her dad’s boat. As their boat moved out of the harbor, Crissie and I waved. When she was out of view, I broke down in uncontrollable sobs. My dad gently asked, “Why are you so sad? She looks great. She’s going to make it.” I turned to him crying and said, “Dad, this is the last time I’ll ever see her. I know it.” Crissie returned to her home in California. I returned to Mexico. Three months later she was dead.

The night of her death, before I knew she had died, Crissie came to me in my dreams. We spent the entire night laughing and giggling together (the way she and I always did). When I woke up, my stomach muscles were actually sore from laughing so hard. I’ve never before or since experienced such physical sensations after a dream as I did from that night with Crissie.

That morning as I was making coffee and about to call the states and check in with Crissie, I got the phone call telling me she had died during the night. I realized she had visited me in my dreams to let me know she was fine and to tell me that death wasn’t the end of anything.

But Crissie wasn’t done teaching me yet. A year later, I was finally back living in the states, heartbroken over Emilio, and trying to get my life and career on track. My grief over the loss of Crissie, Paul, and Emilio was weighing me down with sadness and depression.

One night, Crissie came to me in a dream and healed my heartbreak. In the dream, Crissie and I are standing on a white stone balcony overlooking an emerald green sea. It’s peaceful and extraordinarily beautiful and I feel so content standing beside her. We’re talking as we always did but not using words. She’s standing a bit behind me and to my left as we look out over the water. I notice that her physical body is shimmering and seems to be more like dappled light than a fully formed physical presence. The form that I know as Crissie is changing. Her hand is on my back, rubbing it in circles while she talks to me. We’re discussing my heartbreak over Emilio.

She pulls out several handwritten letters on many different pieces of stationary that Emilio had written to his estranged wife (who lived in another city during our relationship). In the letters Emilio is professing his undying love for his wife. Page after page contains stories of how well his diving business is going and how wonderful their life will be when he returns home to her. Crissie makes it clear to me that Emilio never really loved me and I have to let him go and move on. As she shows me these letters, my pain and grief from all of my losses wells up in my chest. While she rubs my back, a loud wailing cry escapes me; the sound soars across the emerald sea in front of us. It’s powerful, ancient, and deep–louder than any sound I’ve ever made. As this pain pours out of me and flows across the water, Crissie lovingly rubs my back and encourages me to let it all go.

When I’ve finished crying, Crissie slowly disappears beside me. I wake up still hearing the sound of my painful wailing and feeling Crissie’s hand on my back. I cry most of the morning. But as the days go by, I realize that my grief has subsided. Finally I’m able to begin a journey of reinvention and spiritual exploration that pushes me towards the work I do today.