The Breakthrough: A Decision to Stop Struggling
Written by: Kat Houghton, PhD.
Death, it seems, is an amplifier. It took my beloved from me while simultaneously intensifying the internal struggle already present. I was raised to not talk about anything emotional or spiritual, obviously that included death. I was trained by Western Psychology to believe human consciousness is generated by the brain, so when we die, we are no longer thinking, feeling, remembering, hoping beings. My upbringing, my training and the prevailing death-phobia in our culture left me entirely unprepared for the sudden death of my partner-at-the-time, Tyler.
Before Death visited my home, I had managed to keep my spiritual and professional lives separate. Thinking indeed that they were two lives, independent from each other, each getting along quietly with their own business. My doctoral research with children with autism had not required me to explore how consciousness exists outside the brain and beyond death. Meanwhile I happily floated along outside of Psychology exploring an animist spirituality which had me talking to trees and speaking aloud prayers to my ancestors.
Then Death came along, opening the door to my home for a tidal wave of grief to pour through my body every day. In those first few days after Tyler was killed suddenly in a motorcycle accident, I wanted nothing more than to reach him in some way. I wanted to know he was okay, yes, I understood he was dead, but was he okay? It was that yearning to be in contact with him that brought to light the internal struggle I’d been managing to avoid all those years.
I could feel him around me. I sensed his answers to my questions, that yes, he was okay, and he loved me, and he was sorry he left so suddenly. And almost as soon as I received these messages some part of myself would jump in and say,
“That’s just wishful thinking. You’re making this up to make yourself feel better. He’s dead and gone, you just need to accept that fact.”
My whole world was upside down, I couldn’t tell what was real or not. Was it possible that an entire human could just vanish off the face of the earth in moments. His body was not still present I understood, although I never got to see it, but that wasn’t him, where was the essence of him? To me it felt clearly that his essence was somehow around me, reading my mind. All this of course was simply more fodder for that part of me trained in the Western scientific worldview, my Inner Psychologist to say,
“You’re in shock. It’s understandable that you’re making things up to try to make sense of this. There is no sense, it’s just a tragic accident and he’s gone.”
But I felt him.
A couple of weeks into the daily inner battle I decided to seek outside assistance. I didn’t go to a therapist; I went to a medium. She told me that Tyler was very much still present with all of us he loved and yes, he was sorry he left so suddenly, and he loved me and yes, he could hear me when I talked to him. The experience was affirming, and my Inner Psychologists kept saying,
“She’s telling you what you want to hear, that’s how she makes money. Every bereaved person wants to hear the same thing.”
Then my friend Nikki who had worked for Tyler went to see a different medium. During her session she asked for his help finding the code for the safe in his office, knowing that’s where his will was stored. The medium described to Nikki a particular draw in his desk, in it an old blue notebook and under it a folded piece of lined paper. She said the code to the safe was written on the folded paper. Within an hour Nikki had confirmed that indeed that’s where the code was written, and she was into the safe! That blew my mind. Of course, the Inner Psychologist told me:
“A fluke, lucky guessing! Would a randomized trial produce the same results?”
At the time I asked myself that question I took it as another nail in the coffin of my hope that Tyler was still with me in some way. It was asked in a sarcastic tone with the assumption that of course not; a randomized trial would prove it to all be nonsense. That is what I had been trained to believe. In that place of deep grief, I didn’t have the capacity to argue with myself about it, I stumbled along swinging between feeling these loving, uplifting connections with Tyler and telling myself I must be losing my mind.
Then one morning I had a dream.
Tyler was laying on the road dying. All I could see was his head and neck. His soft, brown, shoulder-length hair was falling back from his face. The crocodile skin pattern of the black tarmac framed his face. I was thinking the road was dirty and oily and he should get up before he got covered in it. He looked at me softly with his big almond-shaped, dark brown eyes. I knew I needed to be fully present with him, he was about to die.
I watched his eyes close then his mouth fell slightly open as his neck muscles released. His head flopped to one side, and I woke up suddenly, aware now that I was in bed. I heard the clear message,
“That’s what it’s like to die.
It’s just like waking up from a dream.”
And he was gone.
My eyes adjusting to the grey pre-dawn light coming into my bedroom window I lay there stunned. In an elegant, to-the-point, five second experience, Tyler had answered the question I had been torturing myself with. Death is simply an awakening to a different reality. I knew without a shadow of a doubt now that he was with me and available to answer my questions.
Soon after that I remembered the question about a randomized trial. Feeling now confident that human consciousness does indeed survive death I turned to science to see what might be happening outside of the mainstream psychology I had been trained in. And sure enough, there it was, multiple randomized trials, more rigorously controlled than clinical drug trials, showing hard evidence for the validity of mediumistic communication. [1]
At this point I realized I needed to make a decision. I could continue berating myself for daring to believe that Tyler was still present with me, or I could stop it and lean fully into the delight of those experiences. I gave myself 30 days. I made a deal with myself that I would live for 30 days as if all these experiences were real and valid and not listen to the Inner Psychologist voice.
I jumped in with both feet. I blew past the 30 days, forgot all about it. At some point a few months later I remembered about the deal I had made and laughed out loud. Apparently, my Inner Psychologist had needed the get-out-clause in order to agree to the deal. It was what I needed to allow myself to explore consciousness beyond the brain, uninhibited by the weight of our cultural worldview.
Ultimately, all it took was a decision. A decision to choose what I wanted to believe, what I wanted to experience and how I wanted to live. Looking back, I realize I was trying to maintain my own personal bubble of spiritual experiences all the while swimming in a cultural river that doesn’t allow for such things. Grief wore down my capacity to maintain that separation. The dream, and finding the research, allowed me to make the decision to climb out of the river, rest on the bank and allow my bubble to expand as it needed to.
Kat Houghton, PhD
Kat Houghton PhD is a Wilderness Rites of Passage Guide, Grief Tender and author of the upcoming book: Grieving for Change: Personal and Cultural Transformation through Loss. Trained as a research psychologist her world was blown open by the sudden death of her partner-at-the-time, Tyler Garrison, and her realization that he was still present.
The book, and her live, online class, explore what science has to say about the afterlife and how this expanded worldview can impact our grieving process.
Find out more about Kat’s book: Grieving for Change
Find out more about Kat’s Wilderness Rites of Passage
I now have a different relationship with my Inner Psychologist. She has re-defined herself as a post-materialist and is actively seeking scientific research on the nature of consciousness and life after death. There is still a vibrant part of me that doesn’t give two hoots for scientific research but actively seeks deep, spiritual connections. These two keep each other in balance in learning to navigate the waters of a materialistic culture.
References:
[1] For example: https://lach.web.arizona.edu/, Beischel, J., & Schwartz, G. E. (2007). Anomalous information reception by research mediums demonstrated using a novel triple-blind protocol. Explore, 3(1), 23-27, Schwartz, G. E., & Simon, W. L. (2002). The afterlife experiments: Breakthrough scientific evidence of life after death. Simon and Schuster,