I Died

And It Was Incredible.

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide. Death. Abuse.

I Died.

Let me say that plainly, because I’ve spent ten years not saying it—or saying it sideways, or dressed up in metaphors soft enough to keep me from getting laughed out of the world I worked so hard to belong to. The smart world. The serious world. The fancy, fact-obsessed, materialist world of journalism, publishing, Ivy League degrees, and TEDx talks.

The world where two separate literary agents told me flat-out: Never speak of what happened to you when you died. Don’t tell anyone you crossed over. Don’t tell them you saw beings. Don’t tell them you made a deal. People who’ve never had an experience like that will think you’ve lost your mind. They’ll stop reading. You’ll be finished.

So I stayed quiet.

But ten years is a long damn time to make yourself smaller just so other people won’t feel weird around your truth. Ten years is long enough.

So, yeah. Screw it. Let’s go.

I died. And yes—my medical record confirms it.

I. Was. Dead.

And it was amazing.

And part of the agreement I made with the beings I met on the other side—yes, actual beings, and yes, they were hilarious—was this: if I got to come back, I would talk about it. I would write, speak, sing, dance, shout, whisper, testify about the fact that death is not the end of consciousness.

So here I am. Keeping my word.

Let me be clear: before I died, I believed death was the Great Empty. A permanent erasure. A cold, inert nothingness, like the end of a machine that just shuts off one day. I not only didn’t believe in an afterlife—I thought anyone who did was emotionally weak, intellectually lazy, or just plain delusional.

I was a proudly rational woman. An award-winning print and broadcast journalist. A bestselling novelist with 1 million books in print in 11 languages around the world. A science-minded person who trusted evidence, logic, and peer-reviewed studies. I thought spiritual people were sad. Sweet. Harmless. Or, if I’m honest, a little nuts.

So imagine my surprise when I died and—poof—I wasn’t fucking gone.

My consciousness left my body. I went somewhere else. Somewhere vast, geometric, intelligent, and alive. Somewhere ancient and compassionate and dazzling. Somewhere so real it made this world feel like the illusion.

That’s what My Somewhere Else is about: where I went, what I learned there, and what I brought back to share with the world.

This is the story of my life, my death and my return to life. But it’s also the start of the real work I came here to do. The work I promised my guides I would do if I made it back into this body.

So here I am—ten years to the damn day—finally telling the truth.

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What to expect

Starting now, on this Substack, I’ll be releasing My Somewhere Else, a memoir about my near-death experience, chapter by chapter—probably a couple chapters per week.

Once that’s done, I’ll probably keep this newsletter going by sharing reflections on what I’ve learned since then: about consciousness, trauma, healing, memory, the body, and the weird, holy business of being alive after you’ve died.

If all goes as it should—and I think it will—this Substack might grow into a living practice space, where I offer:

• One-on-one and group spiritual coaching sessions

• Workshops on intuitive development, healing trauma through story, and soul purpose

• Group sessions to help people connect with their own guides or loved ones who’ve passed

• Eventually, online and in-person retreats—for rest, remembrance, and reconnection

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Free subscribers will get:

• All chapters of the memoir

• Essays and reflections on the spiritual and the strange

• Invitations to public workshops and events

Paid subscribers will receive:

• Audio readings of each chapter

• Exclusive Q&A threads, bonus teachings, meditations, and dreamwork tools

• First access to private coaching, courses, and retreats

• My sincere gratitude—and spiritual street cred for supporting this work from the beginning

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Final Thought

I’ll close with the short prologue to the memoir:

On April 5, 2015, I died in the gravel outside my house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, trying to crawl to my car in the midst of seizures. It wasn’t poetic.

I had intentionally swallowed ninety Lamictal tablets of 100 mg each—9000 mg—an act I regretted the moment I did it. People my size start to die from Lamictal at 4000 mg, and you can count the folks who’ve made it back after 10,000 mg on three fingers. I begged Brian, the boyfriend who was living with me, to call 911.

He said no.

I remember thinking: So this is how I go. A writer. A mother. A woman who once had dreams. Dying in her driveway while the man inside smokes weed, laughs, as he tells me to shut up, as he says he hopes I die.

But that’s not the story.

Because fuck Brian. He’s not my story.

He’s my mistake.

The story is what came after my head hit the ground.

The story is what happened after Brian got his wish.

The story begins when I died.

And unlike Brian, death was beautiful and filled with love.