I watched them put my body onto the operating table and
then I guess I blacked out.
I don't know.
The next thing I remember I was in a room and I could see
my grandmother who I knew was my grandma because I knew my
grandma when she was alive and another woman, and they
were standing around what I describe as a well table.
My guest today is Julie Northway, who had a near
death experience during a difficult pregnancy and met
her deceased grandmother amongst other people.
Julie, welcome and thank you so much for coming
on the show today.
Thank you for having me.
Julie, could we start with a little of the background of
your life and then tell us what happened during your NDE.
Yeah.
I've actually had two near death experiences.
The first one was the 2007 and the second one was
again related to a pregnancy with my son in 2009.
So I was in my twenties for the first one and
in my thirties or late twenties for the second one.
Before my first pregnancy in 2007 I was
really very healthy.
I didn't have any sort of issues.
I was very active.
And this was all very unexpected.
The pregnancy started off pretty normal and then
went downhill really fast.
It wasn't something that I was expecting to happen.
That's a weird thing to say, right?
But I wasn't expecting to be dying in my twenties.
I'm 42 now.
So it's definitely affected my life and
changed my perspective on how I do things.
And I think I probably would've gone down a different
path had it not happened.
Not a bad path, but just different.
So it's affected who I am and how I view the world.
Let's start with the first nde since they're
fairly close together.
Can you tell us what happened there?
So the first one I was pregnant with my daughter.
At about 21 weeks
I got an infection and that it was MRSA.
And that went septic and I went into septic shock.
They had to do an emergency D&C on me.
And during the emergency D&C I flatlined and at that
time, I, from what I remember of what happened before my
near death experience I was taken to the operating room.
And I remember screaming, but I couldn't have been
screaming because at that point the infection was
in my lungs, so I couldn't breathe without assistance.
So I remember screaming at the doctors, To not, cuz they
were moving me around, right?
They were moving me from one table to another and
I remember watching them and screaming at them
to not move my body.
And then they obviously didn't hear what I was saying and I
was looking at myself, which I obviously couldn't have
been doing, but it wasn't registering like it, it all
seemed very, normal, not normal, but it didn't seem
like something was amiss.
It just seemed like the doctors weren't
listening to me.
Once they moved me from one table to another table, and
it's weird because I felt the table was metal, the one
they moved me onto, and I could feel it, I could feel
the cold metal in my body.
But I was looking at it, if that makes sense.
I think like when you hear of phantom limbs and things
like that, I've never had a phantom limb, but when
people describe that, that's the same sensation.
And I watched them put my body onto the operating table and
then I guess I blacked out.
I don't know.
The next thing I remember I was, I don't even wanna
say waking up because I don't remember being asleep.
I was just all of a sudden there and I was in a room and
I could see my grandmother who I knew was my grandma because
I knew my grandma when she was alive and another woman, and
they were standing around what I describe as a well table.
So a coffee table that's round.
But if you look into the coffee table, light
was coming out of it.
So it was like a circular well, that light was
coming out of that they were standing around.
And it was two women.
So my grandmother and another woman who I didn't recognize.
But who felt very familiar and very comforting.
And I like to think that she's family.
Like she felt like maybe another grandmother that
I didn't know or someone else or maybe my husband's
grandmother, I don't know.
But she was holding my baby, which who I just lost and I
didn't really understand or know that I just lost her.
But the woman that was with my grandma was holding
her in like a 1970s style blanket, like the type of
blanket that they used to put in hotel rooms in the
eighties and the seventies.
And so my baby was wrapped up in that blanket and
she was holding her and it was comforting and very
like being with family.
The woman that I didn't recognize, she was very broad.
And I like to compare her to Rosie the Riveter
and I don't know,
being in Australia if that is a reference that makes sense.
But Rosie the Riveter was a a character that they
used to use to promote war efforts at home.
She was like a woman that worked in factories, right?
And she wore like a bandana and she was really strong
and she would work in the factories and make, I don't
know, airplane rivets for the planes that went to Europe.
And that's the sort of the vibe I got from this woman.
Like 1940s tough lady or something like that.
Not in a tough beat you up type of sense, but tough
as in a strong woman who was also very comforting.
So we were together.
We were communicating, but there wasn't talking, and
I didn't question anything.
I think that was the oddest bit, is I just accepted
everything as it was.
It all felt very real.
It was more real than this is real.
And the conversation was going back and forth, but
there just weren't any words and it just made sense.
We mostly spoke about my daughter because and I've
explained this to other people before my, my instinct, my
maternal instinct was so on high alert and I felt like I
was still maybe one foot in the living and one foot there.
And my maternal instincts were really needing to
be with my baby and they weren't letting me hold her.
And they were saying that we have to be apart and that they
were gonna take care of her.
But I had to go back.
And I was having trouble processing that, and
there wasn't a rush.
It didn't feel like there was a time limit for how long I
could stay there or anything.
They were just saying, no, this isn't how
it's gonna work.
You're gonna need to go back.
We're gonna stay here, we're gonna take care of her.
And it felt like I was there for a really long time.
And I wasn't taken away from them until I could
be, if that makes sense.
So we were there for a long time.
It was really beautiful.
It was really comforting and it was almost like
waves or pulsations of comfort and it was just.
I don't know how to almost like an echo of comfort and
we didn't leave the room.
We were always in that and it wasn't really a room
cuz there wasn't a ceiling, like it was more like a
cave with a well in it.
And it just, it's just where we were and we
didn't leave that place until I was taken away.
But we were just there together, being
with my daughter.
Not allowed to hold her, but being with her.
Being told that it was gonna be okay and they were
gonna watch her, and that I needed to move forward
and I wasn't given a why I needed to go forward.
I wasn't given a why I couldn't stay there.
It was just, this isn't what you're doing right now.
So I'm just gonna pause there, see if you have any questions
because then they took me out and I'll get into that.
One I have is when you say they didn't tell you why you
had to go, did you actually ask why can't I stay?
No, I didn't ask too many questions.
I was very demanding.
I was more like, I'm going to stay, and they would be
like, no, you have to go.
Sometimes people have asked me what questions did you ask?
Or Did you get answers for this, or the other thing?
I didn't care.
All I cared about was my daughter and being with my
daughter and what I was gonna have to do to protect her or
make sure she was protected.
Like the questions of the universe or the whys
I couldn't go or things like that were not on
the top of my list.
So yeah, it was more like, I'm gonna stay here with
you, and they would be like, no, that's not gonna happen.
So it was, and again, with all the love.
It wasn't demanding or angry or anything like that.
It was just not what was gonna happen.
So they basically waited until you were okay to go
and that's when you went.
But there wasn't any pressure to go, you just
knew that we were gonna
no, and it was And just, I've heard other people say
this too, time didn't really exist, so it wasn't like that,
that feeling of you have until noon or you have until
the sun sets or whatever.
There wasn't that, there wasn't that ticking time bomb.
So I felt like I was there with them for a very
long duration of time, even though I did have
to go at a certain point.
Okay.
I assume that at some point you came back and
what was your experience like of coming back?
So what happened was when it was time to go, another
person, another, I don't, he didn't feel human.
I don't know what he was.
He came into the room.
He was wearing a long coat, like a trench coat,
and he didn't really have facial features.
But he wasn't scary.
He wasn't like, when I say he didn't have a face,
people are like, ah, but he wasn't frightening.
He was, again, very comforting.
And he came in and communicated to me that
I had to leave with him.
I left with him and again, I blacked out or I had the same
sensation anyways that I had between the operating room
and the room with the well.
It was the same sensation.
I was with him.
He said we had to go and I blacked out and then I
was just in another place.
And this place was much bigger.
It wasn't like a room, it was when they say your life
flashes before your eyes.
It was like that, except it was a landscape.
And instead of seeing images of places I've been and things
that I did, I saw structures like on a landscape.
And each structure was built by relationships
I had with people.
If for my husband for example, for my husband,
there was a really strong structure and it had this
radiating light and it was very big and complicated.
And cuz we've been together for a long time and there's
a lot of love there.
So it was this grand structure and then for people that
might have had like a smaller piece of my life, a teacher
that I had in kindergarten or something, it might have
been a smaller structure, but still glowing and still
beautiful or maybe a little bridge or a little cottage.
And then people that I've been cruel to or were cruel to me,
there was like dark crumbling, not radiating structures.
So it was like a landscape of these magic Legos that some
were glowing, some were dark, some were grand, some were
little, just little bridges, like anything you would see,
but made out of these blocks.
And every one of them we sort of looked at and explored.
And again, time didn't really seem to matter, and
each one of them introduced me to the relationship I
built and the connection I made in life and how that's
reflecting on the other side.
So this is what you did with your life.
Here it is visually.
This is what your life looks like in the
grand scheme of things.
And the things that I did in my life that mattered
were just connections I made with other conscious things.
It wasn't a degree that I got or a job that I got,
or a place that I visited.
It was all people connections, pretty much.
There might have been some animals in there,
I can't remember.
But for the, from what I understand, it was human
connections that I made in life and how my behavior and
my effort and interactions positively affected those
people and how their interactions positively
or negatively affected me and how that sort of
reflected on the other side.
So we just explored that and explored those different types
of structures for again, like a long time, even though it's,
it didn't feel long, right?
And every time I mention time, whether it's in the
room with the well or here, it's more, we did a lot
than it took a long time.
So we went through all those structures and we
accomplished a lot of things, but the idea of it taking
a long time wasn't really a thing, if that makes sense.
So after we had gone through this sort of, what people
call a life in review and looked at all these structures
he took me to a tree.
Like a huge tree that was moving and like
breathing and you could see like the tree growing.
And it was going top to bottom and the branches
were growing out and some of the branches were breaking
and falling to the bottom.
And the roots would pull those branches back in and pull
it back up into the tree.
And it was just like this circular cycle of this
tree that was moving and growing and the branches
were breaking, falling down, going back up and growing.
And he stepped back, the guy with the coat and
encouraged me to move forward.
And I walked up to the tree and I reached out to touched
it, and then I blacked out or whatever I was doing again.
And the next thing you know, I was in the recovery room
and the doctor was saying that they almost lost me.
Yeah, that was the end of it.
The tree.
I'm fascinated by the tree.
It is like you had a, an experience that made sense
to you in terms of the way that your life was reviewed
and it's a pretty common theme like the life review,
but my understanding is it's really tailored to
each individual person and almost how their mind works.
So that part makes sense.
But the tree is interesting as how there was a
cyclical nature to it.
Did you have any idea of why they took you
there to show you that?
Other than, oh, this is just something that's
really interesting.
Did you get a sense of that?
Whatever it was, is what brought me back
into the living right.
I think I don't know for sure of any of this, but cuz once
I touched it, I was back.
But the whole concept of it felt like we're a
family, basically everybody, everyone's related at
some level, and we're all part of this organism,
this single organism.
And we all live our lives and then we die, and then we get
pulled back up into it and reinvented and are another
part of this single thing.
So that's how I interpreted it.
He didn't tell me what it was or anything.
It was really more of just what came from inside of
me, and that's how I saw it.
Like I'm sure something in my life connected me to
it or made it so that was something that I understood.
But it was, it definitely was showing sort of life
and death and that death really isn't the end of
life, but part of it.
They're both part of each other, right?
They're both feeding into the same thing that, in this
case looked like a tree.
So after you came back, That must have been hard.
What was that like?
Yes.
I lost my daughter, so I was a wreck.
That on top of that, I had also lost my own life.
And I didn't know how to grasp that.
I wanted to be with my daughter.
I was put in counseling and things like that.
I was often asked if I was suicidal because I would
want to be dead, but I didn't want to kill myself.
I just wanted to go back to where I was with my daughter.
And it was hard to communicate that without sounding like
I wanted to kill myself, which really wasn't the case.
It was a very difficult couple of years.
Lots of depression, lots of just wanting to be back there
with her and not feeling that I was in reality.
Because that place was so much more real and vibrant
and like colors were different and things just, it seemed
like I had woken up when I was there and now I was
back asleep and I just wanted to be awake again.
I ended up having two more children, which have
made my life obviously completely more worth living
and made me understand why I needed to come back.
Because if I hadn't come back, they wouldn't exist.
And they're such an important part of who I am.
And I'm sure they'll affect the world in a
way that will change other people's lives too.
But until I had my son, I really struggled with sort
of day to day and finding meaning in like mundane
things throughout life.
But it's hard.
I don't know if that's because I had a near death experience
or because I lost my daughter.
Like it's, it was other people I've spoken to that have
had near death experiences come back and feel sometimes
they have a renewed sense of life and they try all sorts
of different new things and go places and meet people.
Others have depression too.
But I definitely feel like if I hadn't lost my
daughter, it might have been a different story.
I might have not gone into as deep of a depression.
I don't blame the near death experience for the depression.
I blame more that I lost my daughter.
When you were having the life review with the
structures representing each of your relationships
and interactions, you mentioned that they were all
to do with relationships.
They weren't really to do with things that you
accomplished or anything else.
Did that change how you felt about what you wanted
to do with your life when you, after you came back?
And yes, it definitely did.
I definitely focus more on the people in my life, my family.
I cut toxic people out faster.
I have stronger relationships with people that I love and
who love me back and have these connections with.
My goals are more family oriented.
I was always very, I was like, the A student, the
teacher suck up, the person that always did that.
And same college, and then my career, it was the same thing.
I was moving very fast.
I was always going for the promotion before I
probably should have.
I was I think at the time in 2007, I was traveling
80% of the time for work.
So not fun travel, boring travel and just
those sorts of things.
And then after it happened I stopped the work travel.
I still love traveling, but just not to hotels and
and I, yeah, when I had my kids, I, everything I do is
in somehow, even the things I do for myself, somehow
it winds back to my kids.
And I think, a lot of mothers probably that's the case, but
for me I don't think I had as much of that in me before I
lost my daughter and my life.
And now the connections I make with them are strong compared
to, even compared to like my husband and my parents.
I feel so connected to them that they're just
incredibly important to me.
My life and my goals are really much more about my
two kids than about going for promotions as fast as
I can or things like that.
So yeah,
Do you feel like you have a more balanced life now?
Definitely.
Maybe almost too homey.
It I
. I have left jobs that didn't have like work home
life balance type things.
And I don't take jobs that don't offer that sort of
world and of availability.
I save money.
I don't wanna sound like I'm throwing money away,
but if there's something I can do with my kids and
like I have to throw out the idea of buying an expensive
outfit or shoes or something.
I definitely spend it on my kids.
And again, I think a lot of mothers come to
this conclusion, right?
A lot of people that have children and love their
children end up doing this with their children, but this,
my reasoning for it is just what I saw on the other side.
And other people might have other reasoning for it,
but I think ultimately when people have kids, they know
that for their internal happiness, they wanna
make their children happy.
And my husband too.
My husband and I have a fantastic relationship.
We've been together 23 years now and I don't know of
course we fight, of course there's things like that,
but he's just so important to me and his role in my
life and our relationship.
And what it's meant to me over the years has just
been really important.
So I put more of myself into that and it seems to work.
I find this very inspirational, this.
When I've started this channel, I didn't really
know what was gonna happen.
I just wanted to be able to tell people's
stories and bring
Yeah.
awareness to people.
But yeah, this is a, oh, this is a, it's a conversation
that's bringing something out to me and making me
realize how important children are and relationships are,
and how some other things are perhaps not quite as
important, and especially the.
Especially that at some point they, they gr they
grow up, they get old.
They don't want to be, they don't wanna be
Yeah.
anymore
And they have their own children and need to
put their whole selves into that potentially.
They're not gonna be able to put all of their energy and
relationship energy into me.
They're gonna have to put that into their partners
or their children or their community that they put
together for themselves that's important to them, and
I'm sure that's gonna hurt.
They can create their world and hopefully that'll
expand mine as well.
And yeah, that'll be something.
And even outside of just children.
All the relationships in my life, like just trying,
and it's impossible to help everyone, and it's impossible
to be like this perfect person, but just trying to
be present enough most of the time to be kind to people
and to not create these rotten connections and these
negative pieces of life that you dwell on and think about
and I dunno, create crumbling structures in the afterlife.
Yeah, just trying to keep people reasonably respected in
this life and when you can't, to cut that relationship
off quickly and move forward and not dwell on it, I
think has been important.
Okay, so your second Ed, that's, I'll try that again.
Your second NDE that occurred a couple of years
after your first one.
Could you tell us about that?
Sure this, that this one was much less dramatic.
I was getting prepped for a c-section with my first son.
So this was the first pregnancy after I
lost my daughter.
And I had a reaction to the anesthesia used in my
spinal for the C-section.
The reaction stopped my heart and I flatlined again.
The doctors did compressions on my chest to get me going.
And basically what I saw is I felt swept out of my
body and I was watching the doctors chaotically rush
around the room and the one doctor get on top of me
and do chest compressions.
And they all I've told this to people before
too, and I always feel weird saying it, but they
all looked like Russian dancing bears like spinning
around the operating table.
And it was all very like a circus, like a weird circus.
And it wasn't negative.
I certainly didn't go to some loving, wonderful place
like I did the first time.
But at the very least it was entertaining.
And yeah, I watched everything happen.
The interesting thing about that one is
when I came to when.
I woke up the doctor was on me, so that
was a little scary.
But once the doctor was off me and I was back
to realizing what just happened, I felt amazing.
Like it felt like I had fallen and something
terrible happened.
But then someone lifted me up and I was completely fine.
Like I felt ready to have that C-section and better than
I had felt in a long time.
And it was really good.
And they sent me to the, ICU, the intensive care unit after
to have my heart monitored to make sure I was okay.
And I was just like in a great mood the whole time.
And I was talking to the nurses and everything
and they were just like, okay, she's fine.
But it was, I was in a really good mood after that
second near death experience.
It's like you got energized while you were, while
Yeah, it was
realm.
It was, yeah, it was like I got a zap of something
and was able to come back to, and it was good.
Because obviously the situation wasn't great cuz
I was getting a C-section, it was like an emergency
C-section, so I hadn't been feeling good and then all
of a sudden I was fantastic.
So it was all worth it.
So have you had any changes in, have you had
any special abilities that you've acquired that you
might call, some people might call them paranormal.
It doesn't really, whatever you'd like to
call it, but anything like that has happened?
So I've told, again, I don't know if these are
abilities cuz they could l just be dreams, I don't know.
But I do have dreams with people that have passed
over and it's always in the same sort of place.
It's always in a room.
I can always tell it's one of those dreams because they have
a flower, like they're either wearing a flower or they
have a bouquet of flowers, or they're wearing like a
Hawaiian shirt if it's a guy.
But there's always a flower and there's always some
chairs to sit and talk.
And it's just like a visit.
With my grandpa, someone I see a lot some of my
husband's relatives I see.
And I don't know who they are.
And then I.
Explain them the next day and he'll say, oh, that's,
my uncle Chuck or whatever.
And I've had these, I often have a lot of them
right before someone is about to pass away.
And yeah, and those are, I don't like to share those
because they're hard for the people around me, but
I usually see like people getting ready for them.
Like their brothers or their mothers or whoever had passed
before them are preparing things and I'm there standing
around in the way and they're like, oh, we're getting
this party together for so and and it's a celebration.
And yeah, they usually pass in the day or two after that.
And that's, I don't know.
It's comforting to me, but I know it's probably
not to some other people.
I don't like to bring that up to family that often.
But I also see a couple times a year, I have a
dream or something where entities like the man in
the trench coat come and they ask me a bunch of
questions usually about aging and dying or generations.
So oftentimes they'll show me like a mental image
of my grandma and then a mental image of my mom
and a mental image of me.
And ask me, just explain like how they're different people.
Cuz so like we see one woman here, are they different
women or are they one woman?
Are they the same person or are they three different
people type of a thing.
And then I explained to them that like in generations,
like your blood passes down so you're sharing the same blood,
but you're different people with different consciousness.
So again, I don't know if it's a dream.
I don't know if it's real, but it feels like that
same, those same colors that I saw when I was on
the other side, the same sensation, the same feeling
when I have those dreams.
And each time that occurs, do you have a
different understanding?
Do you have a different answer to that question?
No, it's usually always the same, and they're
always different entities.
It's almost like training time or like, oh, these
guys are the angels in training or something,
and they have some questions for you as a living thing.
And again, I don't know if they're angels, I don't
know what they are, but they're always, it's always
like a different group and they come and they ask
me questions about what it's like to be alive.
So like this, but the other way.
Yeah.
Speaking of questions, people are probably gonna
wanna ask you questions after this interview.
Do you mind people contacting you?
So I don't do this as a thing, like I don't have a book or
a website or anything, which makes it a little tough.
I have my email address I can give to you.
And if someone reaches out and really needs to talk to
me or has some question, I'd be happy to talk to them.
And if somebody's super keen, then I'll pass them on.
Excellent.
Also, I love the word keen and I wish we used it in
the United States more, and I've been actively trying
to push people to use it, so I just, it's like you.
keen as
Yeah great word.
Yeah, I use it a lot.
Okay.
Any final message for people who might be
watching this Julie?
Just that this was what I experienced as far
as what I could observe and feel and see.
I don't know what's real and what's not, but it
felt very real to me.
And I don't know, maybe other people have different
experiences, what you said based on your understanding,
they show you what you need to see in order
to process everything.
Hopefully people that have similar brains that
work like mine might be able to connect with this.
But I don't think any of us all have all the answers,
but I can definitely share what I experienced and
hopefully that'll bring some comfort to somebody else.
Julie, thank you so much for coming on the show.
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
It's made me think about some things that I
hadn't realized before.
So thank you for that and I appreciate your time.
That's great.
Thank you so much for being up very early and talking
to me or very late, or however you wanna say it.
Oh, you're welcome.