Me: Okay, let’s ask some questions that are hopefully going to help our listeners. What advice do you have for those who are struggling?

Jamie: Erik’s sits off to my right.

Erik: What kind of struggle are we talking about?

Me (laughing): Well, I thought you’d be able to help me with that one! They struggle. How do they deal with that? How do they get over it?

Erik (with a smile): I’d like to talk about it in general, but I don’t think that’s really going to help, because there are different structured struggles. We have addiction. We have illness or disease. We have mental struggles, emotional struggles, relationships, you know, trust—all this. So, we can kind of take it separate like that.

Jamie (chuckling): He’s telling me he’s going to try to give some badass comment to kind of bring it all together, so I told him, ‘Hey man, the floor is yours.”

Erik: Well, if there’s struggle…

Jamie: He’s kind of pausing.

Erik: I hope that if you are listening, you understand that I’m going to take it very loose. So, if there’s struggle in your life, whether it’s against yourself, your own abilities or situations that are arising, there is a lesson that comes with it. I think the downfall of having that kind of human experience cuz you’re not really paying attention to the emotional honesty that you have. If you see that struggle as a hardship, then right then and there, I think you’re going to be on the bottom of it rather than the top of it, because the lesson that’s coming is hoping you have the strength, the courage, the know-how to get on top of it and embrace what comes at you. I’ve talked in other blog (posts) with you about if you come into this life and decide to be a brick wall, then anything that hits you, you know, it’s blunt. It comes right at you. Your body tries to stand tall and absorb all the vibration from it. The smack-down. It sucks, because it just kind of tears apart the body. It tears apart the systems in the body, so they can’t communicate very well. But now imagine if you designed your life to be—

(Pause)

Jamie looks at Erik, laughs and shakes her head.

Jamie: I don’t know what he just said! I think he said colander? Calendor? You know, with holes all—

Me: Oh, yeah. A colander.

Jamie giggles.

Erik: Then what ever is coming at you and hits you, you’re going to allow it to move through you and past you. So, you get the whole experience of it anyway. You’re just not holding on to it, making it all about you and (mocking an angry voice) and YOUR responsibility.

Jamie (laughing): He has this face like he’s about to crap and he’s constipated!

I burst out laughing. I can just see that expression.

Jamie: That’s his brick wall face.

Erik (looking at Jamie): Yeah and having a shit, those good days, my face is always smiling.

Again, we start laughing. Jamie covers her face.

Me: Oh, Erik! Again with the scatological humor!

Erik: So, when you’re having that struggle, you don’t want it to hit you, and you don’t want to be the brick wall. When it hits you—you do want it to hit you, because it’s your lesson—you want it to move through you. Embrace it. Go, “All right. It’s coming at me.” Either you know it’s about come at you, or you’ve been working on it for a helluva time and you just haven’t decided to embrace it and connect to it. If you embrace and connect to it with whatever struggle it is you’re having, you’ll start to see what you can learn from it. And mostly—you’ll probably have to sit down with that ego of yours! Every loves the word, “ego” and there’s nothing bad about the word. It’s just putting it in the right place. It’s there to serve us, but let’s just look at it in a more appropriate view which is protection of self, you know, boundaries, identity, character, personality, but also the concept that you are part of the whole experience. Ego shouldn’t keep you separated from anything. That’s when you’re using it totally fucked up and wrong. If you break it down a little bit, put some holes in it, all of a sudden you can let struggle move through you, learn what it is, change your tactics, your lifestyle—

Me: Ah oh. Learn? Or remember?

Erik (in air quotes): Learn.

I chuckle.

Erik: I know. Can’t we have it so whenever we say “separation,” we don’t really mean it, and whenever we say, “learn,” we don’t really mean it. But that’s the word we have. Go create some new words!

Jamie: What? What word would you call it?

Erik: Relearn.

Me: Oh, there we go! I like that!

Erik: Cuz it’s like “remember,” but you “learn.”

Me: Exactly.

Erik: Yeah, to relearn what it is, and all of a sudden, your struggle will be a part of you, and there won’t be this conflict. You won’t be butting heads; you’ll be holding hands. That’s the way everybody wants to live life! You want to hold hands—with good or bad, happiness or sadness—all of it. Hold hands with all of it. If you’re resisting—

Jamie laughs and covers her face with her hands. She’s clearly flummoxed by whatever he just said to her, but she translates anyway.

Erik: If you’re resisting—

Jamie: God, Erik, that’s so mean!

Me: Ah oh.

Jamie shakes her head.

Jamie: Please, whoever’s watching, don’t take offense.

Erik: If you’re resisting, then you’re the one who’s a piece of shit, not the struggle.

Jamie, with a pleading expression on her face, mouths the words, “I’m so sorry.”

Me (laughing): Why do we always have to talk about crap with you, Erik? I swear. So, what you’re saying is it’s about shifting your perspective, like, “Okay. This is a valuable, teachable moment,” instead of saying is, you know—

Erik: “A pain in my ass.”

Me: Yes! Exactly. Thank you.

Erik: “This is not what I wanted. This is bullshit.” All that stuff, when you find yourself reacting that way, you need to take a seat, and you need to, like my mom says, take this perspective of how you’re viewing it—

Jamie (giggling, framing her face with her hands and arms and slowly turning clockwise): I can’t do that, but he’s turning his head on its side and saying, “Make it like this, and look at it again. It’s there for a reason! Reach out and embrace it.

Me: All right. Well, thank you so much, Erik. It’s been wonderful!

Erik: I love you, Mom.

Me: I love you.

***************************

Dear Reader,

The journey on which you’re about to embark will take you through stories that are deeply personal and involves a relationship between a mother and her son.

As a physician raised by two atheists, I had no personal belief system about life after death. In a word, I was a confirmed skeptic. As my journey progressed, my mind opened. It is my sincerest hope that yours will open as well and that you will have a greater understanding of your own life and what’s to come ahead.

Although Erik sometimes paints a rosy picture of the afterlife, time and time again he stresses that suicide is not the answer to one’s problems. If you struggle, please understand that the information in my blog and my book is no substitute for professional help. Please click here for a list of resources for help when you find yourself considering taking your own life. Know that they are readily available when you feel that hopelessness and despair that many of us feel from time to time in our lives.

I refuse all donations and ad revenue on the blog. It is my dream to one day establish a nonprofit organization that delivers a variety of spiritual services for those who have lost loved ones to suicide and cannot afford that assistance on their own. It’s a mission of love, sacrifice, and dedication.

Love and light,

Elisa