What happens when we die?

This is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately. While I have always had some understanding of the afterlife and spirit realms, I had been feeling the urge to learn more and understand life, death and the realms in between.

I have read many near death experiences, with one of my favourites being from Anita Moorjani, who shared the details in her book – “Dying to Be Me”. But I wanted more, I wanted to understand things on a deeper level.

Of course, as soon as I put my intention out into the Universe, I came across Cherie Aimée, who was willing to share her near death experience with me.

What interested me the most about Cherie’s story was that it was not all filled with angels and harps. There is a lot more going on in the afterlife than we can even begin to comprehend.

In fact, there are really no words to even describe a lot of Cherie’s experience, which is why it is hard to piece it together in a way that is really concrete and easy to understand.

It is also interesting to note that every near death experience is going to be different depending on the person and what they need to see, learn and experience.

While there are definitely some core themes in all near death stories, it seems that even in the afterlife, our perception of things is different and based on our own personal experiences.

Cherie and I spoke for nearly 2 hours on all things relating to her experience in the afterlife.

You can read about her full experience in the book, God’s Fingerprints (Cherie’s story appears in Chapter 8), but here are my top 8 takeaways from our discussion-

1.) Dying is Easy 

The moment Cherie left her body, she said she felt surprised how easy it was. In her words, the process was as simple as walking through a doorway. It was easy, painless and instantly she felt like she had nothing to fear.

In fact, years of conditioning around being afraid or fearful of death melted away, and she reported feeling light, free and completely blissed out.

For Cherie, after she crossed over she saw herself in this ball of white light which felt comfortable, loving and very safe. She felt herself floating around in this ball of white light feeling formless and connected to everything.

2.) Death is Not the End

While floating in this beautiful, formless state Cherie understood that death was definitely not the end. She still felt very much “alive” but just in a different way. She wanted to communicate to her family that she was still around and that she still felt very connected to them.

While she wasn’t there physically, she was very much present with them and knew that the relationship she shared with each of her family members and friends would continue to grow and develop even in the afterlife.

3.) There is no Space or Time 

According to doctors, Cherie flatlined for over 90 minutes. After this, Cherie was kept alive only by a life support machine. While her situation was critical for many days, during her travels in the afterlife, Cherie felt like she was gone from the human world for many years. In her mind, it was like she had been away for a very long time.

Cherie said that in the afterlife there was no time and no space. This is very difficult for us to understand from this earthly realm, but everything felt expansive and time could not be measured like we do on earth.

4.) Communication is all Telepathic 

After moving through the white light, Cherie found herself surrounded by six higher beings all dressed in black. She felt very comforted and loved by these beings and knew they were there to help her, but they just seemed to be standing there.

Cherie instinctively knew that they were communicating telepathically, but she had to learn how to quiet and still her mind in order to hear them. While it was easy for her to do this, she still had to learn this new form of communication.

(Yes, it seems that even in the afterlife we still need to learn how to still and quiet our minds!!!)

Once she had learned how to keep her mind still, she was able to hear the beings asking her if she wanted to continue or go back to earth.

As she was feeling extremely blissed out, Cherie decided she wanted to stay in the afterlife, but before accepting her decision, the beings wanted to show her a life review.

5.) We Are Here to Grow

After you die, you undergo a life review where you get to “experience” all of the lives that you have lived to date. Cherie said she was made to watch and even live through multiple past lives and even her present life. The experience was so real, it was like she had to live through each one of her lives day by day.

While some lives went faster than others, some dragged on and Cherie was able to really see that it was through the harder lives that she learned and gained so much more knowledge. She was also able to see a common theme running through each of the lives being presented to her.

In that moment, Cherie knew what lessons she had come to earth to learn and that if she didn’t go back to her current life, she would still have to face these lessons at some other point.

These lessons are not ones that are forced on us, but rather they are lessons that our soul wants to learn and wants to be able to understand, and earth is almost like a “testing ground” for these lessons.

It was after this realisation that Cherie decided to head back to her body.

6.) Your Loved Ones Feel your Emotions 

During her journey through the afterlife, Cherie met with some loved ones who had passed away many years ago. When they met, Cherie could see that they were somewhat struggling in the afterlife. While they were free of their bodies and free of the stresses of human life, they were concerned for their loved ones on Earth.

They told Cherie that they could feel all of their loved one’s emotions and pain and that when a loved one can’t move on, neither could they.

While it is normal and healthy to grieve, it seems that the souls ability to move on into higher realms of the afterlife is also dependent on how tightly the ones left behind on earth are holding on to them.

Cherie said that from the afterlife, you can feel all of what your loved ones are feeling on the deepest levels and can understand where their true intentions lie. If they are in prolonged periods of pain and suffering, it does make it hard for the souls of their loved ones to continue on.

As Cherie states-

“It’s so important to let those who have passed on know that you are grieving losing them in the physical, but that you will be ok. This helps them in their peaceful transition through the after realms.”

7.) Divine Beings Can Intervene in Our Lives 

After the life review, Cherie was taken to a beautiful white castle where she had to wait until her body was ready to enter back into.

In this amazing white castle, which Cherie refers to as heaven, she understood that the higher beings and spirit guides on her counsel were working through the doctors on Earth in order to bring her back to life.

She understood that Spirit has tremendous power to intervene down on Earth and that while the doctors were amazing and gifted at what they do, it was really the will of her Spirit Team that allowed her to survive. After all, her chances of survival according to experts was less than 1 percent.

One question that Cherie gets asked a lot is why some souls like herself get to come back to Earth while others do not. Cherie explains that there is so much going on in these higher realms that it is truly impossible to understand why some souls get to come back and others don’t.

Each soul is on their own journey and each soul has a different purpose in this life, so it is important not to compare.

8.) We are all Connected  

One of the biggest takeaways from Cherie’s experience is that we are all connected. As Cherie describes, we are all stardust and this isn’t some airy-fairy concept, we are actually all made of stardust, which means that we are made up of the same matter as the sun, the stars and the galaxies around us.

Essentially, all the beauty and power that you see out there in the Universe also lives within you and is you. As Cherie says-

“The issues in life are so small compared to the greatness that is inside you”.

Originally published on Forever Conscious