The Next Breath: Life After Loss & Journeys Into The Hereafter w/Darnella Ford

0:00 Coming up on Paratruth Reborn, I'll be talking to Darnella Ford about her book, The Next Breath. Welcome to Paratruth. How's it going, Paratroothers? Welcome to another episode of Paratrooth Reborn.

0:44 My name is Justin, and tonight we are asking that age-old question once again, what happens after we die? Our guest tonight is Darnella Ford, an award-winning author, speaker, and consciousness explorer who has spent more than two decades consciously exploring out-of-body experiences. And she's going to be helping us answer that question tonight. Darnella, welcome to Paratruth Reborn. Thank you so much for the invitation. And you mentioned one of my favorite cities in the intro, New Orleans. So is that where you're located? No, I'm in Bismarck. That's just our network goes out to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

1:29 Oh, I love it. Oh, yeah. I'm a diehard San. I got to spend some time there and I would absolutely go back, even though people are always saying, oh, you know, it's Not going so great. Crime is high there. Well, crime is high in a lot of places. Yeah. I love New Orleans. It has such a charm. There's a certain charm to it. It's a very ancient city. It has very ancient vibrations. You can feel the, literally to me, you can feel the beat of the heartbeat of the ancestors as you walk through the streets. It's quite a potent city. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So before we kind of get into the book, you've been doing this work for two decades. What got you started in this?

2:15 Well, you know, it's funny. I don't have a great flowery answer because it's quite simple. A heartbreak. A guy that I was crazy about broke up with me. And I was literally just heartbroken. And it had been a repetitive pattern. heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak. And sometimes the essence and the depth of that pain drives us so deep into ourselves that we want to heal. And, you know, something about this particular breakup, this particular, this particular man that it's some type of very profound soul contract we had because it almost took me out when he left. So I ended up really wanting to heal.

3:01 And I started studying. I started with, uh, I remember the very first book I bought Eckhart Tolle, the power of now. And I started exploring meditation. I just really started exploring. I mean, I'd done therapy. I had done religion. I'd read the Bible. I had done so many things and I wanted, I just wanted to shift in a change in my life in a And I ended up shortly after we broke up, I left this, I live in LA and I had to leave LA for a few years because it was, I felt like the city wasn't big enough for me and him. So I left and I ended up spending three years in Washington and I studied with a master teacher there in Washington state. And I studied quantum physics and neuroscience. And it just, you know, when I look back on it, it was one of the hardest times ever. It felt like one of the most difficult, challenging times of my life, but yet one of the most sacred and one of the most profound. So what I've come to understand is that sometimes when you're in a tremendous amount of pain, if you allow it, it can be one of the absolute most sacred times of your life because it's from this great place of pain that we're driven so deeply into ourself to save ourselves, to heal ourselves, to understand ourselves, and to code the mysteries of our lives. And that's how it all started. Yeah.

4:21 Without pain, we can't grow. That's for sure. Now, do you remember the first time experiencing an out-of-body experience and how did that, like, how did you realize like, this isn't a dream? Oh my God. Absolutely. It was 2006. It was a summertime and I was sitting on my couch and, uh, At this time, I was back in Los Angeles. I was traveling. I was commuting. And I was in L.A., and I was doing my homework. And the homework was a form of holotropic breath work that we were taught by the master teacher. And I did this homework, and I was doing this holotropic breath work every single night.

5:04 And what I believe happened in that was the breath. The breath is such a powerful intersection point, opening us up into. Potential of other realms, expand the states of consciousness, higher levels of awareness. And I fell asleep on my couch that night, got up and go to use the restroom. And I looked back and my body did not follow me. And I thought, oh my God, have I died? Because I've never had an experience like that. I had no awareness. I felt like I was very rooted in 3D material reality. I did not see dead people. I didn't have any kind of like, you know, divine supernatural experiences up until that moment. And from there, I went up into what would be considered the ethers or the heavens. And I was in the void, this beautiful rich blackness. And back in my body. And then I set up and I said, what was that? That was a defining moment and a changing moment for my life. Because from that moment, then I began to actively seek out understanding around what just happened to me. At the time, 2006, you know, people weren't talking about this on YouTube. The information that we have now was not so readily accessible 20 years ago.

6:22 So I had to go back to old school, you know, go to the library, go to the bookstore. You know, old school way people used to learn things, right? I started studying the works of Robert Monroe and William Bowman. And I started studying Raymond Moody's work and researching books. P.M. Atwater's work and stories of Danny and Brinkley and Betty Eady and really diving into what lives beyond this veil. And that's how it all started to develop from there. Okay. Now, did your worldview change after all this started happening and you started experiencing this more and more? Oh, yeah. I mean, nothing was the same anymore. Once I started having in this I guess it was a very profound awakening. I think one of the big, big, big, biggest shifts initially was my work, how I perceived work, my identity through work. I just, I didn't feel, I never felt like I fit in the system. I never felt like I fit in the world that we're taught.

7:28 You know, you grow up, you get a job, you get a nine five, you buy property. We have a very systematic conditioned way that we're raised. And in America, especially. And it never really felt right in my soul, but I just did it because what else are you going to do, right? What else are you going to do? You go to college, you get a job, you get a good job, you make money, you do that, you buy a new car. I mean, this is my thinking because this is what everybody does. This is what's emulated and what's modeled in society. And first thing I did was quit my job. I had a six figure a year job as a retail leasing agent in Brentwood, California. I was also a writer. I've always been a writer. I've written and I had a book deal and I've done book tours and I was writing fiction novels. And interestingly, I finished my contract on my fiction books and I quit my job and like they both happened around the same, somewhere around the same time, a little bit, a few years apart. I quit the job first. And then I had my last contract in 2010 with my publishing house, Kensington in New York. And I just, I just went to school for three years. I studied, came back to LA after school. And then I started teaching. I started receiving invitations to encourage, inspire, always wanted to be an inspirational speaker. That was my dream. And I started, I created my own program called journey to worthy. And so from there, it just, it just, I don't want to kind of fell into it or it kind of came together and developed into this incredible, I guess I called

9:01 it a global movement of inspiration. It was really a place and a space for people to come together, like-minded people in community and attend workshops and travel with me on retreats and travel around the world and work with me in private session. So I kind of built, I built this little corner of the world to service the needs of humanity. And really it was, aligned with people who struggled to love themselves. I found that to be the undercurrent, very name itself, journey to worthy. It was the journey to worthiness, the journey to self-discovery, the journey to healing, the journey to understanding self beyond identity. So using, I think what I did differently was I used the principles of neuroscience and quantum physics. So I intersected science and spirituality, believing that they should always be in service to one another and that they support each other naturally.

9:57 So that's how that happened. Okay. Now, when, when this first happened, did you, were you like skeptical? Like this, this has to be a dream. This isn't real stuff like that. No, no. I, you know, it's funny that you asked that and it's funny, but I think I never, for one thing, second thought this was a dream because it was, it was too, Oh my God. It was too, I wasn't having a dreaming experience. I was having a living experience inside of something that was much more real than reality. That's why I never, it never dawned on me to think that this might have been a dream because I stepped, I feel like if anything, this is the dream and I stepped outside of it into the really expansive system outside of this dimension. And that is to me where reality, that's what's real. That's what's real.

10:56 Now, a lot of people obviously don't have a disability or experience or don't pursue it. Even for those that have never had an out-of-body experience, what does that actually feel like? That's a great question. Well, I mean, I think people have had dreams maybe where they were flying and they could feel that motion of weightlessness or feel the sensation of weightlessness. I would say it feels. So let me tap into that. What does it feel like? God, it is. It feels like the intersection point where awareness. Where awareness becomes the essence of everything.

11:42 It is. A sensorial experience. I can sense it. I have greater senses in that realm. It is, I feel like me, but expanded. I feel like me, but sharper. I feel like me, but more clear. I feel like me, but just in a much, much, much more expanded state. So imagine looking behind your eyes. The looker behind your eyes looking out through your eyes, it feels the same way as you looking out through your eyes. If you were to tell me what does it feel like to look through your two eyes out into the world, right? It's awareness.

12:27 It's awareness. It feels like awareness. That's what it feels like. Interesting. In your opinion, or... doing this for as long as you have do you think anybody can do this or are there those that are just kind of predisposed to be able to do it i don't know. That's such a great question i think that there are let me see how to answer that first and foremost it's our natural birthright to travel outside the realm of the physical so i mean it's not it's not i don't think it's a party trick or a carnival trick or anything like that it's what we do It's what we do naturally. It's like breathing. It's as natural as breathing.

13:13 The ability to be adept at it and to consciously initiate or to be able to consciously track those experiences is something else altogether different. We travel all the time. When we sleep, we travel. We leave our bodies. We come and we go during sleep. I do believe for me, I cannot speak for everyone else, but for me, It is what I did with the experience that has led me to believe that this was part of my soul contract and my soul mission here, because I would become a spiritual teacher. And a lot of the things that I would teach would be directly correlated to what I experienced on the other side of the veil. So for me, I believe that I have that experience to become a bridge.

13:55 Just like I bridge science and spirituality, I bridge the physical and the non-physical. I bridge energy and matter. I am a living bridge. So I believe that is why I have the experiences of out-of-body travels. I cannot say why anybody else has it or if anybody else, you know, whatever they, but I can only speak for my own specific journey. I do believe that we are here to be in body. I believe, and I say that because we're here. You know, that's the greatest evidence I have of that. We are here. And there's something for us here on the earth playing something of value. And it's interesting because we live in a world now where it's like everybody's trying to get out of body. Everybody's trying to get out of here. You know, everybody's trying to like, but I think there's something here for us. And I do believe that if someone's spirit, their highest self believes that they're most benefited by being grounded and rooted in the body, then that is where they will be. And they may not be able to induce a conscious OBE experience because maybe that is not part of their path.

14:58 And I don't know that that lands well with everybody because some people may feel natural resistance to that or feel that they want to have that experience. But, you know, as we have learned in the human experience, you know, we may want certain things, but it may not be most aligned with our highest path on a soul level. So I would say ultimately, if you have the experience, you were meant to have it. Otherwise, you wouldn't have it. I also have a caveat to this. And I say, your spirit is our natural state. You have naturally OBEs when you sleep. However, being able to come back with conscious recall of it can be a challenge for people remembering or not wanting to remember or any number of things that could be happening. And I think it's really, really, really important that people be able to integrate because I think people get They take it, it's only step one. Oh, I'm just going to leave the body. Okay, so then where are you going to go? And then what are you going to do when you get there? And how are you going to integrate what you might experience in other realms? There's a vast level of experience. There are vast dimensions, infinite potentials. There is a lot to process once you're outside of space and time. And the question is, I always say, what's your why? Why do you want to have the experience? What are you after? What are you seeking? And how do you plan to integrate it?

16:25 And I always say, are you a fully integrated person in the body? And that's where the river runs dry sometimes, because if we're really honest, a lot of times we find that we're not integrated enough. We haven't integrated our childhood trauma. We haven't integrated our last good breakup. We haven't integrated that divorce. We haven't integrated losing our job. We haven't integrated losing our money or finances, even our health, even potentially our youth as we get older. So we remain largely fragmented in our human experience. So you want to have an out of body and you want to travel into systems of reality where there's no linear organization. You want to experience things that maybe you're not even ready to experience. And then you want to come back. And what are you going to do with it? And I think it's very naive to believe that it's all just unicorns and rainbows. And people want to have them for many reasons. And I can respect all the reasons.

17:15 People want confirmation that life goes on. They want confirmation for themselves. They want to have an experience where they don't have to necessarily listen to someone like me. They want to know for themselves through direct experience. And that's respect. And I get that. I respect that. They want to know their loved ones okay. They want to connect with their loved ones. I understand all of those reasons. But, you know, integration is one of my favorite words. I think that became by default my word of 2026. The ability to integrate all the pieces and bring it back into the whole. And I think we are struggling collectively as a society doing that because we're not an integrated system.

17:55 We're not integrated people. We still argue and fight over everything from religion, politics to socioeconomic. We're not integrated. So I feel like A big part of our potential agenda would be integration in our personal lives, integration of our mental health, integration of our childhood, integration of any previously unhealed traumas, bringing ourselves into a state of wholeness, and then let us decide where we want to travel. Only because, only because to some people, it could make their journey here much more complicated.

18:35 I'll take that one step further and even say that integrating ancestral trauma as well. Not that a lot of people understand or know what that be, but yeah, we're still arguing back and forth, no matter what color, creed, sexual orientation, we're all arguing about this stuff. And it's really like, we're all human guys. Like we, mistakes have been made in the past. That's absolutely a hundred percent true. But in order to move forward, we have to come together as a people, not as what color is better than the other, or, you know, better than the other. Um, so I, I fully understand what you're saying there. And it, that kind of drives a, a hard reasoning to me that, uh, why I haven't been able to move forward with my mediumship.

19:36 And it's kind of the same thing as you're saying is, you know, everybody can do it, but everybody can also play piano or paint a picture. It just depends if you're a natural person at doing it or work hard at it. Right. And that was one of the things that I was told very early on in my mediumship. Well, yes, there are natural mediums. And for the majority of people, most people don't want to experience it. And that's if I could have gone back in time and. decide if I wanted to open that door or not, I probably would have made the same decision, but I would have probably looked at it harder to realize what comes with all of that.

20:20 Exactly. Because, you know, there's a lot that comes with it. It's not as, you know, I think we always, oftentimes we're, we're, we're very good about the grass is greener everywhere, but here, right. The grass is greener over there. To the single people, sometimes they see the people with the partners and the grass is greener because they got a partner. And to the people with partners, they look at the single people and the grass is greener. And I mean, it's like it's human nature to look at what someone else is doing and what someone else is experiencing, what someone else is having versus what you're having and create this unfair comparison. Was it Theodore Roosevelt who said comparison is the thief of joy? And I just feel intuitively as we talk about it, I just feel like I'm getting the message right now that humanity needs to be here. Humanity needs to tend to the business of the earth. We have a lot to tend to here. And us just wanting to get the hell out of here may not be serving the agenda for the overall scope of humanity. Just saying, I want to, we're all searching. See, the thing is, the reason we want to get the hell out of here is because of the conditions that are here. So instead of us trying to maybe get out of here, We come together and try to make better conditions here for us here, for our children, for the grandchildren, for the generations to come. And I think that if we can do that, you know, it takes away the fantasy

21:52 of the idealism of escapism. I think, and I'm going to be honest with you, when I started doing this out-of-body travels, I became obsessed with it. And let me tell you, for a period of time, I did use this as an escapism. Because if I didn't like something, if I was sad and depressed, which was, by the way, very often, it was pretty much a daily thing. Depression was a part of my life for many, many, many, many years. Inescapable, inescapable darkness and sadness that followed me for years. And I would just, you know what, if I didn't want to which I had gotten to the point where I couldn't tolerate, I would lay down and sleep my body. And I did that for a while.

22:38 And I was met with my spirit guides or master teachers on the other side of the veil. I have teachers on the other side of the veil. And they said to me, we're grounding you. I mean, literally, we're grounding you. What does that mean? That means I was grounded almost like a child would ground a parent. My travel privileges were revoked, you know? And I couldn't get out of my body to save my life for a period of time. And I realized that that was the lesson that I could not use that as a crutch to substitute from dealing with the issues in my human life, right? I couldn't use this just to avoid my keens. Um, cause you know, we all want to daydream and dream about this heavenly other realm and the beauty and the grace and the glory so that I can escape the absolute misery at times of being here. But the real, the real art is to alchemize the misery here. That's impressive.

23:41 It's not impressive to get out of the body. The impression damn thing is to stay in the body. You know, you want to impress me, stay in the body and live. Here on earth. Because that's a much greater feat. Than leaving the body. Right. And there's a reason that we incarnate here. It's to learn lessons. And not just escape constantly. Right. I 100% agree with you. And I feel that a lot of people. Probably do that when they get into the paranormal. Whether it's astral projection. Out of body experiences. Even becoming a medium. You delve deeper. head over heels first into what you're doing because you don't want to deal with anything else.

24:29 Yeah, exactly. And I, you know, and I've had my, I have had, you know, I have to, I'm a fantasy girl. Like I, I love the fantasy. Like, oh, this is why the relationships never work. Cause you know, I'm good for a fantasy. Give me a fantasy. Okay. I don't want any reality. I like to believe that people on TV are really together in real life and they're not. These are just assers. But in my mind, I really think they should be together. And I think there's a prayer list that always buys into the fantasy, that we want the fantasy. Everybody on some level wants some aspect of the fantasy. And, you know, out-of-body travel is not the fantasy. It is incredible. It is purposeful.

25:17 For me, it has been life-changing and useful forever. But I must say, if I don't put that tagline behind it, that it has been in service to the mission of my soul on this planet, then I'm doing great disservice to what actually I'm experiencing. Because this has been incredible to serve as a platform, a foundation, so that when I stand before you or when I stand before an audience or when I stand before a group of people, that I can speak with confidence. Not from having read something, but having actually lived it. And for that, it is incredibly useful and purposeful for me. And I'm forever grateful.

25:58 I don't have to take the minister's word on anything. Anything. I don't have to. Before, I've listened to the minister hoping he's right on how he's translating it. Oh, Lord, hope the minister... but now I don't have to do that hallelujah and I know some people are listening right now maybe saying dang well I don't I don't want to take her word for it I want my own word and listen maybe you'll get it maybe they'll get it maybe if it's in their soul contract or in their in their path and for the highest and best they'll get it if not I always say take the best and leave the rest I studied near-death experiences myself for years. I studied so many teachers. And I think most teachers have an element of truth in their work, an element. But it doesn't mean you just take every single thing that the person says. I don't care what type of acclaimed teacher.

26:55 This is how we get into trouble, right? But then people surrender their sovereignty to the wisdom of another person. And I always say, listen, when I'm speaking, here's my thing. I am not saying this is the truth or the absolute truth, even a truth. I am simply saying everything I say tonight is my truth based upon my lived experience. That's it. Joe next door might be saying something very different and that's okay too. We don't have to argue about me and Joe's belief system being different. Take the best and leave the rest because everyone has something of value to offer you. And this is where we do a great disservice to ourselves and the human experience because Nobody wants to hear anybody else anymore if they don't just agree exactly what I'm saying. We have, and we miss it. We miss it. The universe humbled me. I'm going to tell you how the universe humbled me. I'm going to tell you something. Three years ago, my cat, my beautiful, beautiful, beautiful cat that I had, my little Burmese cat, I got him when he was six weeks old.

28:03 When he was 19 years old, I had to put him down because he had an advanced kidney disease. And I'm going to tell you, I had the vet. I had the vet come to my home. I had him euponized here in my home. And honest to God, I wanted her to put me down right alongside of him because he was my best friend. And when this little being transitioned, the pain that I felt, it was terrible. unbearable to people who have deep relationship with the animals. They understand that. And one night, a few nights after he was transitioned, I was in so much pain. I woke up at like two in the morning and I couldn't, I couldn't sleep. And I was just, my, my just, I was just felt like my nerves were all on the outside. And there is a man connected to me on Facebook, Mr. Smith, Reverend Smith, And Reverend Smith had sent me his messages every month for the past five years.

29:07 And he was a Facebook friend and he's such a lovely man. I never, even though I didn't believe, you know, in what he was teaching, he's hardcore fundamentalist, hardcore and preaching hellfire and all that. And I never listened to any of Reverend Smith's sermons. I knew we didn't have a similar belief, right? And I just wasn't even going to go there. But let me tell you something. 2 o'clock that morning or 2, 3 in the morning, I got up and I happened to look on my phone. I looked at my phone and Reverend Smith has sent me one of his letters. messages. And the message, the headline of the sermon was, just hold on for one more night. And the title penetrated. And I clicked open on that video and I watched Reverend Smith's whole one hour sermons. because I was trying to hold on for one more night. And I listened to his whole sermon.

30:07 And you know what I did? I took the best of the best and I left the rest. When he started going off into his hellfire, internal death, I left that. I left it where it was. But let me tell you something. He had a message for me that night. And the next day I wrote him back after five years of not listening to his messages every time he said it to me. I wrote him back, said, thank you for the sermon. So that taught me right there. That humbled me really good because see, everybody has a message for you. You may not agree with what someone thinks largely in their system of thought, but everybody's got at least one nugget of wisdom. And only the wise will know. Listen for that one golden nugget. So that's why I always say, take the best, leave the rest, even if it's just one sentence. One sentence is enough to change your whole life.

31:05 Very powerful statement there, too. Yeah. All right. We're going to go to a quick break, folks. We're going to hear from our supporting sponsor, and we'll be right back with Arnella Ford. A quick thank you to our supporting sponsor, Nodakian Studios. Looking for something truly one of a kind? Nodakian Studios creates high-fired ceramics, better dishwasher, microwave, and food safe. Every mug, bowl, vase, bottle... and planter is wheel-thrown and hand-decorated, making each piece unique. They also offer pottery classes for all skill levels, whether you're touching clay for the first time or looking to expand your artistic skills. Nodakian Studios, where craftsmanship and creativity come together. Find out more at nodakianstudios.com.

32:02 All right, folks, welcome back to Paratroop Reborn. And I've been talking to Darnella Ford about her book, The Next Breath. Now, Darnella, something that I'm sure a lot of people maybe misunderstand about out-of-body experiences is they think it's a near-death experience. So what is the difference between an out-of-body experience, a lucid dream experience, and a near-death experience? Right. So that's such a great question. So basically an out-of-body experience versus the near-death experience. The near-death experience is often induced by trauma to the body or in the body or something has malfunctioned in the body, heart attack, aneurysm, sepsis, anything that would put the body into a state of failure, car accident, blunt trauma. And how the body is a similar experience in terms of the consciousness removing or unattaching itself from the physical body, but it's not generally induced by trauma. Although I have encountered several people who have had out-of-body experiences where while they were being abused or traumatized.

33:25 So it can potentially be induced that way. Most of the time, out-of-body experience of out-of-body travel is not induced by trauma versus that. It's an interesting concept with the lucid dreaming. With myself, I've experienced that to be basically, to me, where you're waking up in the dream and you can potentially... gain control of what would be considered the dream. I always feel like lucid dreaming is a form of being in between worlds though. I feel like lucid dreaming could be a potential, like you're in your, because I feel like when someone is lucidly dreaming, that their consciousness is somewhat detached from the physical apparatus. Um, at, at that times, I feel like I've always felt like they're in, they're in, in between. I feel like there's an in between.

34:17 Okay. Now, when you've done these out-of-body experiences, have you come across... You mentioned your guides and whatnot, but have you ever come across other entities, beings? What was that experience like, and were you ever, like, frightened by them? Yeah, I mean, I. Oh, my God. I've come across, I mean... So many different kinds of beings. One of the first that I think about that kind of freaked me out, and I like for my words to be encouraging, uplifting, and I don't like to add to the fear. There's enough fear in the world. So it was never my intention to add to a fear-based theories and thoughts and analogies. But I did have a frightening experience, and it was only frightening because of my interpretation. It may not have been naturally frightening into itself because I was in any type of danger. I experienced an extraterrestrial being that appeared before me, and he just had such a very profoundly different look than anything I'd ever seen. I don't even know how to explain. All of his hands were like claws. His teeth were like saws, like little saws. He was very, I mean, it just was just one of these things that you just, you feel like you're looking at a creature feature episode. And I remember thinking when I saw him, I said, oh, he's not real. I told myself it

35:48 wasn't real. And that's where my brain went to. My brain went to, it's not real. And then he reached out and he took a swipe and I could feel it. And then I said, oh no, it's not real. And then he did it again. And I felt it. And then I said, okay, I don't want to be here. And I commanded myself, you can invoke your sovereignty. And I said, I don't want to be here. And from the Lord God of my being, I wish to experience another space. And then I ended up leaving that space and going somewhere else immediately the blink of an eye. I wish I wouldn't have the courage to stay and just, you know, sometimes you abort the situation so quickly, you may miss why you were there in the first place. He could have been incredibly insightful and given me a lot of wisdom. But because he looked so, I couldn't process his appearance. That's one thing. I've experienced, I experienced a being that looked, one night that looked like, He's the kind of things that like mythological, when you think of mythological figures, he looked like a mythological, like a Zeus or he looked like he was made out of a, like a copper, really beautiful, really angelic, really, I don't know.

37:00 I mean, just breathtaking. I was overwhelmed at the sensation of seeing something so incredibly mythical and Looks like a mythical figure. I also saw, oh, one of my favorites was two months ago, I left my body and I was flying above and over this community. And as I looked down, I could see these were the community of the giants. And these were literal giants. They were incredible. They were human, but they were giants. I mean, I don't know, perspective of 20 to 30 feet in length. And height, that's my guesstimation. They were wearing, they were men and women, and they were having some kind of special kind of sacred fair event, carnival, something. They were all heading to the town's community square. Reminded me of an Amish community. They all wore very open, flowing clothing, silk, fine garments, tunics. And what resonated with me in this dimension, there was a lot of peace in this dimension. And it was so beautiful. And I wanted to, I actually wanted to go to the event. Like I was feeling really like, man, I want to go. But I wasn't invited.

38:18 And I was not allowed for whatever reason to co-mingle with them. So I could only stay above them. I was never able to be up on the ground. Oh, but they were breathtaking. And that was breathtaking. And I had tried. I've tried to go back to that. I don't know why I saw that particular community, why I had access to that, but it is one of the most incredible things. And I've tried to induce that again, and I have not been able to. Matter of fact, every place that I've loved, that I've loved and been madly in love with, and every experience, I've never been able to replicate it a second time. It's a one and done all the way across the board. The most magical kingdoms that I've seen, the most magical beings that I've experienced. I've had a beautiful connection with the Jaguar, but the Jaguar is purple, beautiful, the most beautiful hue of purple you've ever seen. And I felt its paw, which I still remember to this day. I've gone into other dimensions and I've come back and I felt just sometimes incredibly like longing for them, like homesick, like longing for them. And there's no map to find your way back to a place like that. You know, there's no GPS coordinate that I could find that city again or find that town or find that location. So For me, it's been a journey of just gratitude and having to

39:50 just be grateful that I got a chance to see in this embodiment that it exists. I may never see that again in this lifetime, but I'm just grateful to know that it's real and that I had a blink of an eye to be in that space for a moment. Now, there's going to be those skeptics out there that say, you know, Darnella, this is just, you know, your imagination. This is a trick of the mind. OBEs aren't real. What makes you think there may be more to them or have you experienced something that says this is more than just my mind? Well, I mean, the mind is very powerful. The mind is very powerful. You know, there's a certain conviction in knowing that they cannot be articulated in words or in language.

40:42 You know, if I had to convince someone, I would never take the burden of that on. I always say I'm not here to convince or convict anyone of anything. I'm simply here to share. Each person will have to decide based upon where they live in their own mind, heart, and spirit, and based upon their own collective experiences, what they choose to believe for debate's sake, right? The beautiful thing is I don't debate. You know, I'm sharing my story. And if someone doesn't believe it, ultimately... It doesn't matter to me because I know that one day they will leave this planet. They will have their final breath and then they'll see for themselves. So I know it's just a matter of time. And listen, I'm not in a hurry.

41:25 I can wait. You'll know one day for yourself up close and personal for sure. Have there ever been any moments that you questioned whether it was an OB or not? Like, for example, you mentioned People travel, have OBEs when they sleep all the time. Have you ever questioned any of them? No. No, it's so interesting. No, I don't. It's funny because I don't even think like that. I wouldn't even know to question it. Isn't that interesting? It would be like this. I could ask you right now, do you question that you're sitting in your room right now? Do you question where you are? Do you question that this is real? I mean, you might. But as you're going about your day, you're in the market, you're buying bananas, you're not sitting in the store going, is this real?

42:17 You don't think like that because you're in the experience. At least the average person does it. And I know that someone could say, well, you know, I question this reality all the time and this isn't real. This is an illusion. I mean, we can take on all the arguments, we could take it. But I'm just saying on a day-to-day basis, the average human being is not walking around questioning whether or not the person that they're talking to and the experience they're having is, a valid experience. So the validity of it, no, I do not question. Is it real? It's, it's, you know, it's funny question is, is this real? So if someone wants me to prove that that's real, I will first ask them to prove to me that this is real. And then I will do my best to prove that's real. Can you prove to me that this reality is real? How do you know it's real?

43:10 Who are those weird ones that always question if reality is real? Yeah, I mean, and well, you should, right? But while you're at the market buying your groceries, I mean, I think when you get to the checkout, you're going to be pulling your wallet out to pay for your groceries because you believe it's real enough that you're going to have to pay for this food. You know what I mean? So, I mean... I think sometimes in the human experience, I get the questions. I'm a relentless question asker. I'm a relentless seeker myself. I guess for myself, I don't, I guess I don't think in that terms because in terms of it being real, because I just, I just know that it is like, I just, I don't know how to give you or anyone a satisfactory answer to that. just based upon my lived experience, based upon my understanding of consciousness, based upon the essence of my awareness, based upon the system of reality that I moved in and through and around, based upon my interaction with those, based upon mental telepathy, based upon my observation and witness of parallel realities and all the things that I've seen in 20 years, I believe it's real.

44:31 Now, have you ever bumped into any past loved ones doing? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I have four best friends who transitioned 2009, 10, 11 and 12. My best friend transitioned in 2012. I encountered all of them in the hereafter. I had conversations with them. I had a very good friend who transitioned about two months ago and 12 hours after she transitioned, I left my body and I went to just connect with her one time, which I did. Um, so yes, our loved ones are not what we would call far away. They're right here. They are right here. And, um, you know, I think it's interesting thing because I think in the very beginning when our loved ones transition, oftentimes you can feel them very strongly around the family because they're helping the family and supporting the family. Sometimes as time goes on, this element that we would call time, once they integrate back fully into the non-physical, they also have things that they're doing there and assignments and, you know, their own level of studying. You know, they're not just floating on clouds, right?

45:44 They're actually active and they're participating in another system of reality. Sometimes of the days and the weeks and the months of the years go by, you will feel then maybe what feels to be less and less around you. but they're always accessible. And in times where you need that support and comfort, you know, or anniversaries or birthdays or special occasions, or when you're having a particularly difficult time, they will make their presence pronounced. So yes, I think that, you know, so sometimes people may feel like they feel their loved ones a lot in the very beginning and that they don't feel as you know, and they also to understand, you know, they want you, they want us to live out our journeys on earth. They want us to stay on our paths. They want us to continue our lives and to not allow our human journeys to end because theirs did. So, you know, there's a respect, there's a container of respect for the process of of them honoring our earthly journeys and for us to be able to reintegrate or integrate their transition into the next step of how do we move forward? How do I move on forward from this moment forward with you on the non-physical me and the physical, those are massive levels of adjustment. So, you know, space and grace is given for it all. I believe that's what I believe.

47:12 And I appreciate that you bring up that they're always here with us because, um, Years ago, this is going on 13, 14 years ago, I was going through a very hard time in a relationship that I'm no longer in. And I heard my grandfather's voice. And it's all going to be okay, you know. And it was the kiddo that, like, snapped me into, like, okay, this is really him. This isn't, like, my imagination thinking of... Wow. Thinking of him? Yeah. And I also got the smell of Black and Miles because when we were younger, you used to smoke Black and Miles all the time.

47:54 Oh, okay. They use scents. They bring their scent so that you can recognize them. And then shortly after that, I heard polka music in the apartment, but like I would go outside. It wasn't outside. I'd go out in the hallway of the apartment building. There was no sound that was even close to this poke of music that I was hearing. So I, when I talk to people that are of my kind of weird, I will put it like that. I always want to bring that up because it's like, it validates for me that that experience was something real. And something that I've asked a lot of people about, about out of body experiences or astral projection is I have always wanted to try it, but I'm very, very scared that I wouldn't want to come back or I would not be able to find my way back. What are your thoughts on that?

48:54 Um, yeah, I know. Yeah, that would be a, that, that's, that makes sense in the human experience that we'd be afraid we're going to lose our bodies. You can't, it's impossible. Um, uh, You're connected by way of energy and it's yours. It belongs to you, right? So you're not going to lose it. As far as not wanting to come back, listen, I had experiences where I didn't want to come back, but it didn't matter because my time here was not complete. and I was back. You don't just get to step out and bounce like that. I like it over here. I'm going to stay. No, you're not. You can visit, but then you've got to go back. I don't think that would be a problem, but fear is the number one obstacle for out of body journeys. That's the number one reason that people, cause you know, once it starts to happen or the vibration starts to raise and it can feel, uh, just the process itself can be very frightening because it represents an aspect of the unknown and, you know, gripping so tightly to our 3d material reality. Um, but yeah, fear is, fear is common, but you, you would definitely come back You really wouldn't have a choice.

50:09 You'd come back. Okay. Now, this is going back years and years when we first started podcasting. We talked to a woman who would astral project, and there was an experience that she had where she was helping all of these people I don't remember the exact situation on the astral plane that it was happening, but when she came back to this side of reality, she saw that she was actually helping people that were in a plane crash. Have you ever seen that when you interact with something on the other side or in our reality?

50:51 Yeah. I've heard stories like that, but I had not had that personal experience. The only thing, the closest I could say I've come to anything remotely like that, I was working with at-risk youth here. This is 15 years ago. I was working, supporting, guiding, counseling, facilitating at-risk youth in Compton and South Central Los Angeles and high-risk populations. And I worked with a lot of suicidal teenagers. And simultaneously, my out-of-body experiences, I started working with children who had transitioned across the veil by way of suicide. So in the body, I was working with suicidal teens. Out of the body, I was working with teens who had completed suicide.

51:35 That's the only level of cross-reference that I have between both worlds in that way. Okay. Have you ever gotten any messages that were. Shocking or made you really think outside of what you normally believe? Yeah. I think one of the first things that I, one of the first, one of the early messages I got was that death is safe as actual message that came death is safe. And that was, that was a mind blowing way to look at death because death is something that most are terrified of that we run from that we avoid that we try to put off at all costs. So the fact that death is safe is, was a mind bending concept for me.

52:23 We had somebody who, who, um, had a near death experience on a, uh, several weeks ago and similar message. Um, you know, this is not the end. Um, when we die that, um, Once we're on the other side, we actually still continue to work and learn and grow. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I find that to be a breath of fresh air of we work to live over there. We're over here. We have to... I'm sorry. We live to work over there. We have to work to live over here.

53:03 A lot of people.... We'll probably associate with that. But at the same time, I feel this experience should be just as fulfilling like that. We should be living to work, not the other way around. A hundred percent. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think the way the system is set up and the way our civilization and the way that the hierarchy of, you know, it's interesting that people, everybody wants to win the lottery because they want to buy back their time. Right. That is, we have to sell our time to live. Um, so yeah, it's, it, it, in a lot of ways it feels like a very unnatural system. It's the way we set it up over here.

53:45 Everybody's trying to find a way to buy back their time, to free themselves from this concept of obligation and doing things they don't want to do, but that they feel that it has to do to pay their rent and pay their bills and take care of their families. So, yeah, I mean, the, the ideal would be to create a life that you love. And to be able to fall in love with your work or do work that you love or find something that's meaningful for you or something that's purposeful. And I think that, you know, I feel like that's what so many people are searching for or so many people are trying to do. And at the end of the day, no matter where you are, to be able to extract a measure of joy and assign a meaning that makes your day easier than harder. If you are pouring coffee at Starbucks, assign a meeting to that that makes it easier for you to get up in the morning and get there. If you assign the meeting that this is just a terrible job and you're just, you know, this is the worst place for you to be, it's going to be really hard to be activated and motivated to get in there. But if you can assign a meeting that this is purposeful for you to have this moment so that you can learn and grow, so that you can meet and touch base with so many different kinds of people so that you could learn the art of connection and communication so that you can understand on another level what it is to be of service in the capacity of serving so that you can meet, you know, there's so many different ways you could spin it to make it a little bit easier.

55:16 You know, let. Me see how much love and light I can bring into the world today. Let me, let me smile at some person who might be sad that they're on their way to work in the morning while I hand them their coffee. Let me try to bring the best of me to this moment in time. Right? So, That will help change the experience of just, oh my God, I got this horrible job that I'm just, you know, I want to jump off a bridge, but I sit on South Pole to work, you know? Yeah. So much of it's our mind. So if you are in a place that you don't want to be standing in, until you can get out of it, change your mind and change your relationship to how you see yourself in that place. Awesome. All right, well, it is about that time to let you go, so I wanted to give you the chance to tell everybody where they can find you, find your work.

56:01 The mic's all yours. Oh, thank you. Yes, please. They can reach me through my website, which is journeytoworthy.org, and that's just journey, and then t-o-worthy.org. They can send an email to me through my website. They can find me on Facebook under Darnella Ford, and... If they want to look at the book, The Next Breath, which is life after loss and journeys into the hereafter, I talk about a lot of my experiences in the afterlife around this. This book was inspired after a dear friend of mine, a student of mine, ended his life in 2021. And I had a very painful, hard grieving process of a healing after he transitioned. So This book is born from that. It's very powerful, very potent. And thank you so much for having me on. And it's been a joy to connect with you in this way.

56:57 Yeah, thank you for being on. Yes, okay, thank you. All right, folks, make sure you check out the book, The Next Breath. Definitely a powerful book and a powerful way to start looking at death itself. Don't let the conversation end when tonight's show does. Join our Paratroopers community on Facebook. Continue exploring these mysteries with us and everybody that's in that group. And for $ 5 a month, our Supporters Club gives you access to exclusive bonus episodes while directly supporting the show. Come become a Paratrooper. We want you here and we want you to be a part of our family. Until next week, folks, where you will find us, same time, same channel. My name is Justin.

57:42 I'll talk to you guys next week. Thank you.