A Second Chance - Reconnecting with What Matters Most
Posted on November 19, 2009 - Filed Under Build Relationships, Human Interest, Relationship Building
“Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’
It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is ‘How can I make it better?’
To that there is an answer.”
- Leo F. Buscaglia
How can I make this world a better place? I’ve asked myself that question many times over. My answer is simple: I can examine my own choices and behaviors and check to ensure that they are congruent with my values.
Although I have never had a near-death experience, I have heard numerous stories told by those who have. All of the stories have spoken to the near-death experience as a life-changing one that has prompted them to make significant changes in their lives. Each survivor is grateful for being given a second chance - a chance to reconnect with what matters most - to right the wrongs they have done, or to shift gears and live with a renewed sense of priorities.
One such person is New York Times best-selling author, Dannion Brinkley. In reading about how Brinkley’s near-death experience prompted major change in his life, I was struck by the power that humans have when we connect with our deepest beliefs, commitments, and values…and make different life choices as a result.
Brinkley once served in the Marine Corps and worked within U.S. intelligence operations. A veteran of several war zones and intelligence work, he had just returned home form Nicaragua in 1975 when his life was forever changed.
On September 17, 1975, Dannion Brinkley was at home talking on the phone during a thunderstorm. Suddenly a bolt of lightning hit the phone line, sending thousands of volts of electricity into his head and down his body. It traveled down his spine and welded the nails in the heels of his shoes to the nails in the floor. It knocked him out of his shoes and into the air, threw him back down, and bent the bed frame. As his body burned from the inside out, he was paralyzed. Fear engulfed him. Because of Brinkley’s espionage background he thought that someone had come to even the score by doing exactly what he had done to others many times and in many places in the world.
His heart stopped. In the process, he had a near-death experience. As Brinkley opened his eyes, he was in a blue-gray place. In this place, he was calm and no longer on fire. Brinkley rolled over and saw himself sprawled across the bed. He watched his wife come down the hall and begin CPR efforts. He watched as paramedics arrived and began working on his body.
During Brinkley’s near-death experience he underwent a panoramic life review. He felt every emotion, thought every opinion and saw every event that had ever happened in his life. In addition to reviewing everything about his life, Brinkley also got to “be” every person he had ever met. He got to feel the direct interaction between the other person and himself - all of the pain, anguish, frustration, humiliation and anger that he had inflicted on so many people.
Eventually, Brinkley returned to his body, which had been massively traumatized by the lightening strike. (It took two years for him to relearn to walk and to feed himself.) When Brinkley revived in the morgue after 28 minutes of death, he had an incredible story to tell. Brinkley was told of events that would shake the world before the year 2000 - including the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Persian Gulf War, and a coming economic crisis. Of the 117 revelations that he recalls, 95 have already come to pass.
Once recovered, Brinkley wanted to find a way that he and others could benefit from his near-death experience. To this end, he has been a hospice volunteer for 17 years, helping people eliminate their fears of death. In May 1997, he founded the national hospice volunteer organization called Compassion in Action.
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