Near Death Experiences: The Ultimate Truth About Your Soul’s Purpose, Consciousness, & Oneness

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Bush redefines a 'near-death experience' as a moment of feeling whole

  Dr. Zach Bush, a triple board-certified physician who worked in hospice and palliative care, uses the term less for clinical death than for any moment when you step out of your fearful, performing mind and feel complete. In his view, you were whole at the start of life and will be whole at the end. Feeling incomplete in between is a mistaken perception, and he says these moments let you feel what wholeness is like now.

• 02

  Many people only realise this on their deathbed

  Bush says the most common realisation he saw among the dying was 'the whole thing was not the chase.' Hearing this, Mel felt a wave of sadness that most people only see what matters in their last few breaths.

• 03

  The top regret of the dying, in his experience, was performing instead of being themselves

  Bush says the number one regret he heard was 'I was performing the whole time and was afraid to be me.' As the end approached, patients felt themselves as whole and wished they'd known sooner, so they could have stopped performing and really tasted their morning coffee. He calls the shift from making others proud to being proud of yourself one of the most fundamental changes a person can make.

• 04

  Everyday 'mini' versions happen when something pulls you out of autopilot

  Bush argues that most of us cling to routines like coffee, lunch-packing, the school run and our inboxes out of fear that we're incomplete. Moments that break through, like goosebumps when a child or elder says something profound, eye contact with a wild animal, or awe in nature, are in his view brief experiences of wholeness, a 'soul speaking'.

• 05

  He believes children lose that sense of wholeness around age two

  Bush suggests babies start out in a state of oneness and around age two begin learning they're separate from others: 'I'm the kid, that's my brother.' He sees the emotional storms of the 'terrible twos' and threes partly as a child adjusting to the painful idea of being incomplete. This is his interpretation, not established developmental science.

• 06

  Fear of death, he says, comes from feeling there's something left unhealed

  In Bush's view, people fear death because dying 'incomplete' suggests a brokenness that never healed. Mel's husband Chris, a death doula and hospice volunteer, has told her that people near death often seem more at peace than afraid. Bush's deeper invitation is to go beyond pride altogether: you were valuable before you achieved anything.

• 07

  He sees death as a kind of rebirth

  Bush compares us to twins in a womb: one watches the other disappear down a dark tunnel and grieves, not knowing it has been born into a beautiful world. He invokes the first law of thermodynamics (energy can't be created or destroyed) as support for the soul continuing. Mel shares a similar belief: not knowing what comes next doesn't mean nothing does.

• 08

  No partner can make you feel complete

  Bush calls looking to another person to make us whole the 'deep dysfunction' in relationships, reflected in phrases like 'my better half.' No human can fully see you, so relationships struggle under that expectation. He suggests looking for that sense of being seen in nature instead.