Episode 253 Nicole Kerr Choosing to Live Life After a Near-Death Experience Transcript
This transcript is from episode 253 with guest Nicole Kerr.
Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty, guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.
Scott DeLuzio: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Drive On Podcast. Today my guest is Nicole Kerr. Nicole is an Air Force veteran and the author of the book, You Are Deathless, A Near Death Experience Taught Me How to Fully Live and Not Fear Death. The book will largely be the focus of our conversation and the.
Scott DeLuzio: Situation that led up to her writing this book. But the book provides readers with an understanding of their own relationship with things like God, the meaning of life, how to live well, and even how to die. So welcome to the show Nicole. I’m glad to have you
Nicole Kerr: here. Thank you so much, Scott. I am delighted and grateful and [00:01:00] just enthusiastic to be with you today and talk about these things cuz they’re really important.
Scott DeLuzio: Well, they are. And. Is unfortunate that it takes sometimes a situation like a near death experience to make us realize how to live and having someone who has been in a situation like yours. And we’re gonna get into your whole background in, in situation in just a minute here. But having someone who’s gone through that it really.
Scott DeLuzio: Show a different perspective on life because there are some people who have had tragic things happen to them. Maybe not a near death experience, but other tragedies could be classified in the same kind of category. Yeah. As tragic. Right. And they. Make that become their identity and it’s just bogs them down.
Scott DeLuzio: They’re unable to move on from that experience. And actually the last episode that I recorded, so it’d be the episode that came out just before this one. We talked a lot about how different adversities in [00:02:00] life are. Really holding people back. It’s hard for people to understand that there is something better past whatever this pain is that you’re going through.
Scott DeLuzio: So what, before we dive in too much about that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background and who you are so that the listeners who may not be familiar with, you know, who we’re talking.
Nicole Kerr: Sure. Well, I’m originally from Mississippi, so the deep south. Okay. I was born at Camp La June, and I now live in New Bern, which is about 30 miles away from Camp La June.
Nicole Kerr: So I’ve literally come 360 degrees. Back to the same area. Spent 17 years in Hawaii. Met my husband there. Loved the aloha spirit, but the cost of living up there out there is pretty high. So we are, when my husband retired we moved to New Bern and we just love it out here. We we love the accessibility.
Nicole Kerr: So, I’m basically a southern girl and was raised by a [00:03:00] military father. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in class of 60 and wanted one of his four kids to follow in his footsteps. And so, Here. I volunteered to do that. I was the people pleaser, and that’s an identity that I took on. And it is, I’m a recovering people pleaser.
Nicole Kerr: Okay. Because that identity, if you take it to an extreme, at the end of the day, you feel like a roach that just got stomped on. I mean, there’s nothing in it for you, you know? And so, even though I had two brothers they were going to the Marine Military Academy down in Harland and Texas to, to prep, but they didn’t have the grades and they didn’t have they just didn’t have the desire to do it.
Nicole Kerr: So, I applied and the, in case your listeners don’t remember in 1976 Congress or the government allowed women into the military academies. And so Class 80 was the first one. My class was 86, so I was still there when it was really new for women to be in [00:04:00] these service academies. And lemme tell you, it was not easy.
Nicole Kerr: It was very abusive. You know, as a dually at any of ’em, you’re gonna get hazed. So you’re gonna have mental abuse, you’re gonna have physical abuse, you know. Pull you outta your room, take you down to the optical course in the middle of the night or whatever it is, you know, and you’re, that’s just what it is.
Nicole Kerr: And then you add the element of females in there and there was sexual abuse going on. So we’re still dealing with it in the military today. Unfortunately, there was a report out about six months ago about West Point in the Air Force Academy. Their numbers are not going down. They’re going up. And so, you know, it’s just mind blowing that we’re going in the wrong direction with this, you know, and so many, you know, almost 40 years later that we still haven’t been able to get this the numbers down and this.
Nicole Kerr: You know, gotten a handle on it. So, needless to say, I go into I, you know, I applied. I didn’t think I was gonna get in. I mean, I was a model [00:05:00] at the time. I was doing junior achievement. I was doing nothing that had to do with the military. Okay. So my dad was like, you need to go, you know? Put in an application, they’re now letting women go.
Nicole Kerr: It’s gonna build character, it’s gonna make you a woman that F can rival. I mean, he pumped me up really good. So I I applied and you know, it’s a process. You gotta get a congressional nomination, all this stuff. Well, in April, my principal calls and says representative Wayne Dowdy is on the phone.
Nicole Kerr: And I’m like, oh. And he says, Nicole, congratulations, you’ve been selected in class 86. And I just sat there stunned because now I had to go, okay I couldn’t back out of it now, you know, I would disappoint so many people. So, you know, I got up there in June, and let me tell you, this was when you had six weeks of basic training.
Nicole Kerr: You didn’t, we didn’t have cell phones. The first phone call we got was three weeks into. [00:06:00] Training and we had got to call home. We had three minutes. Okay. I heard my mother’s voice, Scott and I proceeded to cry and hyperventilate for three minutes. I could not get a word out. And so the whole phone call was just, you know, and so, My three minutes was up, click and the commanding officer just told me to get my shit together, go sit over there and get my shit together.
Nicole Kerr: And I didn’t realize until years later that was a panic attack, you know? And I wanted my mother. Or dad to get on the phone and say, Nicole, it’s okay to come home. It’s okay if this isn’t what you thought it was gonna be. It’s okay to quit. And I needed that permission and I didn’t get anything. And my mother told me years later, I asked your dad, you know, what did we do to her?
Nicole Kerr: And he said, ah, she’ll be fine. And I was not fine. Okay? I then had to go to remedial our flight and do one-on-one for the next three weeks in Jacks [00:07:00] Valley. And that was, I didn’t think I was gonna survive. I literally thought I was gonna die doing, you know, that I just couldn’t do another pushup. Cuz they always wanted you to do pushups in class number, your class 86.
Nicole Kerr: There’s no way I could do 86 pushups. You know? I just, my arms just would not do it. So, I don’t know how Scott, I survived that first year because I. It was just like I lived in fear. I just constant fear, and I think most cadets do that you’re gonna screw up or, you know, fail out. There’s so many, every minute somebody’s on your case, you know.
Nicole Kerr: So, right. I got out of that, made it through hell week. I didn’t think I would, but you know, I just, the way they talked about Hell week, it was like, oh my God, I’m certainly gonna die. And I made it through that. But that was the last class that they did, the traditional Hell week because so many cadets got sick.
Nicole Kerr: They fed us. Mexican food. And then we went out in full camos and it was [00:08:00] one of the hottest days in Colorado Springs and people were throwing up left and right. The ambulances were coming up on the Toronto and everybody was getting IVs and it was like, you know, it made national news. So, they had to scale it back after that.
Nicole Kerr: I don’t think they serve Mexican food fair anymore, but needless to say, got through that. Got. Siri training, p o w training. I don’t, you know, I don’t know how I did it, but I did it. And then the beginning of my sophomore year, I knew I didn’t wanna come back. I just knew it. And that’s the year you have to commit.
Nicole Kerr: And the year started out with a big squadron party and I was, I got there late, but I was one of the last to leave and I left with a guy who was a senior, cuz we can’t have cars out there to where juniors or seniors. And I wanted him, I said, do you mind giving me a ride back? He had a Corbe convertible.
Nicole Kerr: Okay. Standard Car of Air Force guides, I think at the academy.
Scott DeLuzio: Introduce
Nicole Kerr: you, right, . [00:09:00] Yeah. And so needless to say we never made it back to the academy. And what happened was, is My memory of the crash I remember we stopped at a bar. He’s like, oh, we got plenty of time. I’m like, we gotta be back by 7 25 or we’re gonna get in trouble.
Nicole Kerr: And we didn’t make it. He wanted to stop by a bar. He had a whole nother agenda and me did not clear clue in on it. Cuz I never dated. I came from a very, Controlling religious house, and my dad didn’t want me dating, but yet he wants to send me to a school with 4,000 guys. Right? So, , his rules were no smoking, no drinking, no dating cadets.
Nicole Kerr: And so, when the accident happened it was, he, we had stopped at the bar. He, we each had two beers. That was the first two beers I had, and then he wanted to go. The Rocky Mountain sunset and that’s where it got into oh, this is going further than it needs to in a sexual thing. Now I know what his agenda is.
Nicole Kerr: So I said, no, let’s get back [00:10:00] on the road. And that’s the last thing I remember until I woke up in the I C U at Penrose Community Hospital. I now know what happened when I pieced together the medical records, the district attorney’s report, the paramedic that actually I credit, saving my life came to the hospital about 10 weeks.
Nicole Kerr: I was in the hospital four months. I was pronounced dead at the scene. They had some bypassers in the house, heard the crash and came out and couldn’t get any vitals on me. So they went and got a blanket and covered me up. It took about 10 to 15 minutes for the volunteer fire department to get out there, and I was clinically dead that time and the paramedic pulled back the the blanket couldn’t get any vitals on me, so he did a sternal knuckle.
Nicole Kerr: I don’t know if you know what that is. Yep. Hurts. And it, oh yeah. And it’s designed to hurt. So it’ll elicit a pain response. So what the pain response was my right. People [00:11:00] flickered and then dilated so he knew I was alive. And when you think about this from a soul perspective, what do we say spiritually that the eyes are.
Scott DeLuzio: It like the wi the, is it the, like the window to the soul? Is That’s exactly right. Yes. The saying is, yeah, I had to think right there. Yeah.
Nicole Kerr: Yeah. So at that moment, my soul came back in my body and he was all of a sudden able to get a blood pressure of 60 over zero. Okay. Which is basically dead.
Nicole Kerr: He had to start an IV in my neck, couldn’t get one in my arm, and. EMTs and paramedics are not required to do that. They just have to be able to get it in your arm. Got me to the nearest community hospital, did C P R, the hallway, and when I got to the hospital, basically they just needed to stabilize me and that took all night just to do that.
Nicole Kerr: And then it was seven weeks in I C U I cut off my left. That much of my, it was hanging on by that much. I severed my right [00:12:00] wrist. I broke my pelvis on both sides. I had a fourth degree laceration between my angle and sphincter. Cut out a huge chunk of skin out of the inside of my right thigh. Road burned from Skidding on the the pavement.
Nicole Kerr: So I took off a couple layers of skin on my face. And you can see when you look at the car, which is if you want a sample chapter of the first chapter of my book, which details the crash and shows you pictures, you can just go to my website and I’ll be happy to send you that. Free. I mean, the book’s only 9.99, so it’s not, you know, it’s basically a frappuccino.
Nicole Kerr: So, it’s, and it’s it, and it has pictures in it or, you know, you can just go and I’ll send you that, you know, you can at least read the first chapter and see if you wanna continue reading it. But it was touch and go there for all, almost the. Months and I had infection set in. All kinds of things happened.
Nicole Kerr: So my memory of it did not come back for another 19 years. [00:13:00] Okay? So I went into rehab. I got a medical, honorable medical discharge and tried to figure out what I wanna do with my life. And so I had to go home to rehab and I had to basically start over at infancy. I had to learn to walk again. I had to learn.
Nicole Kerr: To go to the bathroom again. All the daily functions of daily living. I couldn’t do, I was in a bed for four months. Okay. 64 pints of blood. That’s like redoing your system, what, eight times. Okay. Had to, yeah. Had to have a colostomy put on me. So I was in bad shape and then I had. Six major operations.
Nicole Kerr: And in one of those, it was a code blue. They lost me. They told my parents they were in the chapel. We’ve lost Nicole. You need to make arrangements to bury her. And then two minutes later, here comes the surgical nurse. Her heart started going again. So, I really was trying to leave. Okay.
Nicole Kerr: And then there was another episode of a near. Experience where my [00:14:00] lungs were filling up with fluid and I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning, and they would drain my lungs. But they would feel right back up. So it’s the feeling of drowning and I just wanted to die. I, that fear of not getting enough air is still with me.
Nicole Kerr: So, when we lived in Hawaii, my, my husband would scuba and I would snorkel. I’m like, I gotta stay on top of the water so I can get my air, you know? Sure. Yeah. So fast forward 19 years, I’m working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. I walk outta Starbucks. My usual routine. I get in the car.
Nicole Kerr: I see exactly how I was sitting in the car at the Corvette. Exactly. And I will tell you that the driver was charged with vehicular saw D U I. He was in the hospital a week. He had some injuries on his. His blood alcohol was double. His dad wore three stars, was the army Corps of Engineers. He made one call to the superintendent at the academy and [00:15:00] said, my hus, my my son’s gonna graduate.
Nicole Kerr: Okay. I don’t care what you do to him, he’s going to graduate. Any other cadet would’ve been kicked out. For so many different violations. So there’s where rank has its privilege and they covered up the fact that they supplied alcohol to underage cadets. The officers left before all the cadets left. I mean, there were so many violations that had happened.
Nicole Kerr: And needless to say, law and Order is my favorite show now. Because I, cause it’s like, I don’t want justice done, you know? So, for me the next 19 years was my parents didn’t believe that I needed any mental help. They thought God would be my psychiatrist. And so I went on with my life basically just from healing physically.
Nicole Kerr: And went back into the same. Family structure of going back to church in a Southern Baptist church in Lutheran and all of that, it, I had to start all over, you know, as nine as a [00:16:00] 19 year old instead of. You know, breaking free and becoming my own person. I became really codependent with my mother and relied on her for everything.
Nicole Kerr: So that was a huge issue when I finally left home and went to live with my sister. I nose dived because I didn’t give any mental health help or trauma help, and I developed an eating disorder. As a result of that I would binge compulsive eating and that stayed with me for almost 20 years.
Nicole Kerr: And so, you know, Our body fa finds ways to compensate with the trauma and the pain. I also became very controlling. I had to have myself, you know, it’s like I wouldn’t go in the car with anybody if they’d been drinking. I mean, I had all these rules set around me so I could keep myself safe. And and so, you know, I managed to get to work at C D C and then,
Nicole Kerr: When I saw how I was sitting in the car, I was like, oh my gosh. I had one leg up on the dashboard and the other one [00:17:00] across it. You know your knee, where you bend your knee. First of all, let me tell you, that’s don’t ever put your feet on the dashboard and don’t ever hang your feet out the car, okay? Or do that.
Nicole Kerr: The ER nurse told me recently, she goes, that is the most the worst way to get the most serious injuries is to have your legs up or out of the car. So keep your feet on the floor. So I was. Okay. But anyway that aside I started remembering I went to my chiropractor instead of work and these things called repressed memories.
Nicole Kerr: Okay. Started coming up and I’m like, why? 19 years later? And it’s because my body finally felt safe. I started to get into therapy myself. I started to, you know, Do all of this stuff not from the VA’s perspective, just on my own. And I think I really started to begin to unravel some of the trauma there.
Nicole Kerr: And what I remembered is that I [00:18:00] detail it in the book exactly how. Crashed. We crashed into this boulder and the other side of I can just, if we’re showing, I don’t know if you guys can see that. Okay. That’s a 65 Corvette convertible passenger side. Okay. So unsurvivable,
Scott DeLuzio: it looks compact enough to be the size of about a bicycle.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. How
Nicole Kerr: crushed everything it was. Yeah. It was beyond total. It was like, it was at the salvage center and they had just done that. So, so needless to say I remembered. I flew out through the windshield, butt up. That’s why I had so many injuries on the inside of my legs and the vagina, an anal sphincter area.
Nicole Kerr: I just cut all that up, but it saved my spine and it saved my brain basically. So, I remembered this. It was like Casper the ghost kind of thing. [00:19:00] And lifting me up as soon as I got airborne. Okay, I froze. In that airborne position, my soul flew outta me, so I didn’t feel when I landed. I knew when I landed though I was gonna die.
Nicole Kerr: I knew it and I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t will myself. I couldn’t do anything. This is that feeling of loss of control over events. I can’t stop this from happening, and I knew. I was gonna die and I was just like, oh my God. There goes my life. And so I go up to a different level and I just recently figured out it was my grandfather in an angel form.
Nicole Kerr: My, I’m 58 and my grandfather died at 58 and he just came to see me in a meditation or a vision and said he was the one that came in angel form and lifted me up. So I went to this level. Not as a human. I’m in a [00:20:00] spirit form. Okay? I could look down and see myself. I was in a ditch. I could see the clothes I was wearing and I had no life in me.
Nicole Kerr: I was basically a corpse and so, I was like, oh my goodness. And I, the white lights that I had remembered, that was the only thing I remembered for 19 years. That was that feeling of being in a cocoon or a chrysalis. It was so soothing. I was wrapped in it. It was beyond unconditional love. It was just beauty.
Nicole Kerr: It was brilliance. It. There was no pain, there was no suffering. There was no any of that. And I just remember the colors, they’re colors that are not in the Crayola color box . So lemme put that, that they’re more colors in life, you know? And if you think about the color white, what does white do with other colors?
Nicole Kerr: It kind of washes ’em out. Well, it absorbs. White. Yeah, that’s white. Yeah. White absorbs all other colors. [00:21:00] So when you think about being in this white light, you’re in a kaleidoscope of these beautiful colors and you’re being held and you’re being, it’s like, that’s God. That is the experience of God.
Nicole Kerr: You know when you take God, when you take love and you say, love is not an emotion, love is an energy that is love. And one of the common lessons from Near death experience is that love is all that matters and is the source of all that exists. So if it’s the source of all that exists, that is God. God is love, period.
Nicole Kerr: And if you think of energy as love, that would be that energy. And almost every single near death experience, experiences, the white light, Raymond Moody talked about that in his book. He’s he coined the term near death. So, anyway I was up there and I could hear other spirits talking.
Nicole Kerr: Now they weren’t talking in English. [00:22:00] I don’t know how I understood ’em, but I understood ’em and they were saying, Hey, we here on Earth. We need to ask for help. Okay, because of free. They’re not gonna intervene. Angelic Rome is not gonna intervene on our behalf. So we have to remember to ask them for help.
Nicole Kerr: And you may think it’s stupid to ask for a parking space from the Angels, but believe you, me, people that do it, they get a parking space. It can be anything teeny tiny to big stuff, but you have to ask for. Otherwise they’re not gonna intervene unless it’s an emergency, like my situation. So that’s the other message.
Nicole Kerr: My message was to tell people not to fear death. I was told I was going back and I was like, no, I don’t wanna go back cuz I could see that body and I knew going back in my body I was gonna have a lot of pain and a lot of suffering and especially going into. Home environment where there was so much rigidity around religion and God [00:23:00] being this dual God, meaning God was love on one hand, but then if you didn’t obey the rules, it was punitive and judgmental, and the wrath of God was gonna come on you, and you were going to Hell and you would be eternally separated.
Nicole Kerr: That’s not what I experienced at all about God on the other side. God is internal. God is not external. You don’t need, you are one. You are a spark of God. You are one with God. And so after that I was like, I woke up in I c U and then I went back to my original. I had to stuff that down. And the first thing I remember saying when my commanding officer came in, I thought, oh my God, don’t tell my dad he’s gonna kill me cuz I broke his rules.
Nicole Kerr: So I’m worried about that instead of, I am, I almost died and I’m barely alive. And you know, the fear that my father instilled, I mean, remember the movie, the Grand Santini? [00:24:00] I haven’t seen
Scott DeLuzio: it. No.
Nicole Kerr: Okay. It’s pretty old, but it really is. It’s about a marine father who raises his family in a really controlled environment and and so it was not, my parents today don’t believe in the God that I saw over there.
Nicole Kerr: They still very much believe by the Bible literal interpretations. and that’s just was not my experience and it’s not true, and it keeps people in fear. So I wrote the book because fear is a low vibration and fear keeps you from having clarity. And if you don’t have clarity in your life, you’re gonna be making decisions.
Nicole Kerr: Based on fear, which is the absolute worst way to make a decision. You know you’re gonna be coming from your amygdala, which is that fight, flight or fear instead of your prefrontal cortex, which is your executive reasoning and thinking part. This part gets hijacked by this part just like that. So, [00:25:00] I think my credential that, that would speak to people the most now is B T D T.
Nicole Kerr: And I put that on the book cuz I’ve been there, done that. It doesn’t matter the other degrees or whatever, you know, I’m I’m finally got a hundred percent disability from the va. That was a marathon. And I will tell people you have just got to be persistent and persistent. But I had to appeal three times.
Nicole Kerr: I just two years ago, got the a hundred percent because I’ve. Massive migraines my whole time. And they told me that there was no documentation related to a head injury and it didn’t matter that my face spitted on there. And then when I moved to New Bern, I went to the veterans and the guy goes, well just look at what the doctor said.
Nicole Kerr: Patient thought initially dead. That should do it. That should tell him that you have a head injury. And sure enough, he sent that in and they came back and agreed with him, , and I went, sure. 40 years almost. It took me to get this, you know, so, [00:26:00] I understand that whole VA system and it’s just, you know, frustrating.
Nicole Kerr: And if you have P T S D, which is what I just got diagnosed with two years ago, I have been misdiagnosed so many times, I can’t even tell you, you know? And now, you know, I’m at a point where they just changed mental. Providers. I can’t get an appointment for eight months, you know, so it’s still not working for us, let’s put it that way.
Nicole Kerr: Right. There’s a lot of gaps and thank God, you know, that my husband has insurance as well, and that I have enough resources around me to, to when I get in a panic attack or P T S D that I can get myself, you know, calm down or understand what’s going on. But sure. It’s a, it’s. It’s hard to deal with
Scott DeLuzio: it. It is and it is unfortunate that there are so many flaws in the current system and that it takes so long for.
Scott DeLuzio: [00:27:00] Certain individuals, it seems like sometimes some people have a real easy time getting things approved and pushed through. Sometimes it’s a real clear cut case where Yeah it’s like, okay, well here’s, I have all the evidence. Here’s all the information. Okay, yep. Boom, it’s approved and you move on. But then in other cases, like in yours which it should be pretty clear cut, I would think.
Scott DeLuzio: You know, obviously I’m not looking at all the documentation right myself and everything like that, but in my opinion, I would think it would. Pretty clear cut and it should just be approved. For whatever reason. It wasn’t until just recently you know, thankfully it was approved. But you know, the, I guess at the end of the day there’s flaws in any system.
Scott DeLuzio: I think when you Yes. When you have the, you know, the scariest words are I’m from the government and I’m here to help. You know, because,
Nicole Kerr: you know, they’re not always the best. Buyer beware on that one for sure.
Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure. You know, but you know, all joking aside, there, there are some flaws in the system and we should look to address that.
Scott DeLuzio: But I’d like to go back to your [00:28:00] experience. You know, you had that near death experience where it was that out of body experience where you weren’t in your body anymore. You were looking at the shell of
Nicole Kerr: I, so my soul actually cracked and Yes. And went out of my body.
Scott DeLuzio: And you remember all of this stuff now maybe not immediately thereafter.
Scott DeLuzio: You know, maybe that’s just a defense mechanism that your body had to protect you from. Yes. That traumatic event and the traumatic memories of that. But you know, it is possible to remember these things absolutely. Over time as yes, as you heal and as your body feels. Comfortable with where you are.
Scott DeLuzio: Feel safe. Safe in Yeah. In your situation. It’s able to allow some of those memories to come out and so that they can be processed. But it’s I think I think it’s if you had a. Maybe a garbage disposal in your sink where you put like food scraps and stuff like that.
Scott DeLuzio: , if you took the whole entire Turkey from Thanksgiving and tried to shove [00:29:00] it down there, you’re not gonna get it all in. No. But if you take little bits at a time Yeah. And throw little bits of that down there then you’ll be able to process you know, The whole thing eventually. And I think in, maybe in a case like yours and many other traumatic experiences, you need to be able to process things little bits at a time.
Scott DeLuzio: You can’t bite off the whole
Nicole Kerr: Yeah. That’s thing ever Exactly right. And that’s why my memory came back 19 years later and it took me another two decades to write the book. The book just came out in August. So people say you. Wow, it’s been almost 40 years. I said. Yeah. It’s been my whole adulthood, you know, trying to manage that and do those pieces emotions coming up and actually feeling ’em, you know, sure.
Nicole Kerr: No one wants to feel fear, panic and pending doom, dread, you know, mortification. Those are. Oh, nobody wants to feel that, you know? And remember that, but it’s important in order for your body to heal. Otherwise, you start exhibiting physical [00:30:00] symptoms that don’t have an organic basis. The doctor’s like, I don’t know what’s wrong.
Nicole Kerr: Your blood work’s coming back fine, but your. Belching, and that was my signal. I would belch like a seal, you know, or have migraines. It’s like this is all traumatic trauma, just you’ve never dealt with it, you know? And so emotions are a huge part of this. And. And getting your body to release them. And there’s great techniques out there now that are, you know, non-invasive.
Nicole Kerr: There’s neuro emotional technique, there’s emdr, there’s tapping, there’s all kinds of things to help people with that. And then your soul, I think, has to be addressed if you’re not getting healing because your soul will fragment. in order of of a self-protection. Okay? So you have to bring those soul fragments back in.
Nicole Kerr: And sometimes that’s the work I did with the shaman that I didn’t even know about when I was in Hawaii. And it’s like he was like, yeah, Nicole, you’re not gonna heal [00:31:00] until that soul part comes back. And you can trust that and trust your soul.
Scott DeLuzio: Interesting. And.
Scott DeLuzio: In your book, in, in the, I mean, in the title of your book and throughout the book, you claim that we are all deathless, right? Yes. Obviously we’re all going to die at some point, right? Physically. But physically correct? Yes. But during that time between now and whenever that physical death date takes place, There’s stuff we can do between now and then to help us live life and kind of change the narrative around like what it is that we have going on in our own lives.
Scott DeLuzio: And I mean, through your experience, you’ve. Had a transformation of your own Yes. From the type of person who you were prior to that accident. You know, the, you mentioned before, the people pleaser, the you know, all the, all these characteristics that you had back then to the person that you are [00:32:00] today all these years later.
Scott DeLuzio: How did that experience help you change into who you are?
Nicole Kerr: Well, I think you know how you see death is how you see your con, the concept of God. So it’s really important for you to be able to articulate what your concept of God is. Or source or whatever, you know, is out there because there is something greater than me that brought me back to life.
Nicole Kerr: Not once, not twice, but three times. Okay. So, and any other person will tell you that’s the same thing. So there’s a force greater than us that is operating and I had. Take that vending machine concept of God that I had, that if I did the right behaviors and put ’em in there, that I would get the reward.
Nicole Kerr: Okay. That’s not how God operates. Okay. . And that was a lesson that all of the churches had taught me was if I was a good girl and followed [00:33:00] the rules, I would get the reward. And that is complet. Bs. God is not someone up there taking notes on you and judging you and all that. In fact the judgment, I mean, it’s like in that state that I was in up there, it was not that I suddenly had been forgiven for my mistakes.
Nicole Kerr: It’s like they no longer existed. Nothing that I had done on Earth was being weight or measured, and it was simply the way my story had played out in this earthly. So there’s no judgment on the other side. There’s no you’re never alone. You may think you can be physically alone from a spiritual side, you’re never alone.
Nicole Kerr: We all have a guardian angel. We all have spirit guides. Our deceased loved ones, we can contact them. The veil is very thin, okay? And so I started to understand all of this and realize, wow, I had the wrong [00:34:00] concept of God. And so death scared me at 19 because I thought that I was being blamed for this wreck, which I was by my parents, but in truth, I didn’t do anything.
Nicole Kerr: I just, you know, I was just an innocent passenger. And so, I had to realize that I have to change that concept of God. That is, that does not fit my experience or just intellectually God. So that’s what I would say to people, first of all, is figure out. If you have a relationship with God, what is that concept?
Nicole Kerr: Do you see him as a person, a form, an energy? You know, I think we’re all on this road of trying to define that, but to understand that God doesn’t cause things because we have free will. And that is a biggie because, you know, how can God allow this little baby to die and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Nicole Kerr: And it’s like, well, there’s, you know, there’s really no [00:35:00] explanation. But God didn’t cause it. And that is the biggest thing I can tell people is your concept of God is gonna define how you see death. And so I saw death as being eternally separated from my family. I was gonna go to hell and they were gonna go to heaven, and I never see him again because I was a bad girl and had two beers, you know, and a cigarette.
Nicole Kerr: And so, you know, it’s crazy now that I, you think about it, but it’s true. So really start trying to understand that concept and start figuring it out for you what that looks like. And then I would say the other thing, We all came here to earth on a journey to learn to love and love. Loving ourselves unconditionally is full-time work because in a human state we’re human and spiritual humans have a hard [00:36:00] time loving anything unconditionally.
Nicole Kerr: Usually we put some kind of condition. You know, if you don’t listen to what I say, in fact, my dad told my siblings, this is what happens. Nicole’s accident. This is what happens when you don’t listen to me. I mean, that just puts more fear into you, right? So if you’re filled with fear, You’re never gonna live.
Nicole Kerr: You’re never gonna live fully. So start examining these belief systems that were handed off to you by the military or by God or the God that you were raised with or by your family. And start questioning, do they work for me? Because this is your life, your soul, you know, you will go on and your soul, you know that breath that keeps.
Nicole Kerr: Living, you know, the vapor, that is what goes up. This body just, you know, falls away and decomposes and that soul is light and beauty and love. And so [00:37:00] you’re not gonna remember that you were suffering down here. You don’t have any of that memory.
Scott DeLuzio: You mentioned earlier in this episode that. You were in the hospital I believe you, you were talking about how your lungs were filling up with fluid and you wanted to die in, in, in that situation.
Scott DeLuzio: Was it because of that, that calming energy that you felt in that near death experience, or was it just because it was such a painful. Experience or a combination of
Nicole Kerr: the two. I didn’t have that memory back then. Okay. So it was the pain and the suffering that I had cuz I would start to get better and then I would really tank and I would start to get better than I’d really tank.
Nicole Kerr: And I just was so tired of pain and suffering, and I know what it’s like. I was on Valium, deral, and morphine every four hours for seven weeks straight for sure. And I know what being in pain is like, and [00:38:00] you can’t. Even get to think straight when you’re in pain. So you’ve got to deal with the pain first, you know?
Nicole Kerr: Sure. And that is one of the hardest things to do when you’re in chronic pain, is to find a way to mediate that or manage that so that you’re. It’s not just in your mind all the time that, you know, when I have a migraine, I have to just go to bed, take my medicine, and life stops. Basically. I have to get in a dark room.
Nicole Kerr: I can’t read, I can’t watch tv. It’s not, you know, you just totally have to turn life off. So it’s that’s the part you have to start managing is okay. , you know, the physical pain, get that tamp down so that you can. Processing things because as long as you’re in pain, you’re not gonna process it.
Nicole Kerr: And
Scott DeLuzio: I, go ahead. Go ahead. No. Yeah, so I, I think we’re all here. We all have a reason for being here. There’s a purpose for everyone who’s here whether [00:39:00] your. You understand what your purpose is or not is kind of irrelevant right now. I think we, we all do have a purpose, and your purpose may be to show someone who you may not even know right now how to live life or do something or be a better person, be better at something, at whatever it is that you’re doing.
Scott DeLuzio: But we all have a purpose and we are all here. And I think in your case your purpose. Coming back and spreading this message about how to not fear the inevitable. Yeah, we, you know, we all our bodies all will die at some point, but don’t be afraid of that and continue to live life and do things that make you happy.
Scott DeLuzio: Make other people happy. Yes, spread. Happiness and hope and
Nicole Kerr: joy. Right? That’s it. I think when you’re in so much fear, you miss the joy, you miss the happiness. You miss being in the present moment where those emotions can take over. And [00:40:00] then if you. Can’t experience that, then you get really depressed and are like, well, what’s it all about anyway?
Nicole Kerr: You know? So you’ve got to take advantage of those moments and sometimes you have to push yourself to, to do that, you know, but just be grateful, you know, ah, but that the sun is shining and that you can breathe and, you know, simple things that we take for granted that, you know. 40 years ago, I couldn’t do, you know?
Nicole Kerr: And it’s just like, okay, this means I can do X, Y, Z today, you know? And find, give service. You know, when you’re able to give a service, you feel better yourself. You know when you can help someone else. That’s always an uplifter, you know? And. I would say also not to watch a lot of violent tv. You know, that doesn’t help our Viva vibration as well, you know, and there’s just, with the pandemic, we’ve been isolated and watching a lot of stuff, but watching a lot of, you [00:41:00] know, Bingham shooting and all that kind of stuff is not good for our psyche either, you know?
Nicole Kerr: So, you know, and also just working on. Awakening to the being that you think you were called to be, not who someone else told you would be. And that’s what I had to get out from under with my parents. You know, my dad told me that this is what I should be and now we don’t talk, you know, and that’s taken, you know, that’s hard for me because I was raised where family’s everything and.
Nicole Kerr: But when parents are, people are toxic around you or narcissistic or judge you or critical, you gotta get ’em outta your life because that negativity is sucking up at you and it is depleting you of finding the joy or feeling the joy and the happiness. So you need to start looking at how you can cut those relationships off or minimize contact with those people.
Scott DeLuzio: Right. And I have [00:42:00] had other guests on the podcasts. Hold similar stories not as far as near death experiences go, but as far as, you know, cutting ties with those toxic people in their lives. There’s one guy that I had on the podcast years ago who had Growing up in an environment where there’s a lot of drugs and alcohol abuse and things like that.
Scott DeLuzio: And he fell into that trap because that’s the type of people that he grew up around and, right. It just, it, that was just normal when you’re around that it. And in that environment, it just seems normal. And, you know, he decided I need to get away from this because if I keep going down this road, I’m gonna die.
Scott DeLuzio: I can’t live this way. And so he moved away was homeless for a little while and ended up cleaning himself up, getting a job, getting back on his feet. Drug-free, alcohol-free, all that stuff for quite some time. And I forget exactly how many years it’s been, but you know, I know the guy he’s still doing really [00:43:00] well.
Scott DeLuzio: And so, but he had to cut ties with those people. He hasn’t come back to the area that he grew up in. He hasn’t he lost contact with his family and other people. But those were the people who were dragging him down. They were kinda like an. Just sinking down. You know, and that, that’s, it’s unfortunate.
Scott DeLuzio: You know, obviously family is really important. But you know, sometimes there’s some people who are gonna be toxic in your life and you have to make the tough decision as to whether or not those people are worth keeping around in your life. I mean, obviously you wanna try to help them if you can.
Scott DeLuzio: Some people are beyond that and they can’t be helped. And obviously that guy’s situation in your situation are totally different. I think I think the, this other guy the family situation was not coming from a place of love and caring or anything like that. You know, I don’t know your father, I don’t know that situation, but I.
Scott DeLuzio: I would venture a guess that he wasn’t out there intentionally trying to harm anybody with his thoughts, you know what I’m saying? Yeah. And the, his actions and stuff like that, maybe misguided, [00:44:00] perhaps in, in how he went about doing things, but definitely wasn’t done in any kind of malicious intent or anything like that.
Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. So, you know, I, just from an outsider perspective looking in I could be totally off on that, but. But yeah it’s true. You know, we, you might have to figure that out and decide to break ties with people. And, you know, at the end of the day death is not something to fear.
Scott DeLuzio: I think that’s kind of the message here. Death is not something to fear. Obvious. Don’t go and do risky things that are going to advance, , accelerate exactly. That death, you know, but yeah, you know, it’s not something to fear. You know, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna do
Nicole Kerr: something risky, Right.
Nicole Kerr: Yeah. John Lennon actually said it really well. He said in death doesn’t scare him. He said it, I’m just getting in one car and going into the next car. You know? Right. And that’s kind of like what our soul’s doing. It’s just going back home and, you know, we, this isn’t our first [00:45:00] rodeo, you know, our soul will incarnate in a different form, in a different way.
Nicole Kerr: And their lessons to learn. But they’re ultimately, I think about expanding ourselves capacity for.
Scott DeLuzio: Well, that’s a great way to look at it, and I think a great place to wrap this up. I’d like to give you the chance to tell people where they can go to learn more about you and your story and get a copy of your book.
Scott DeLuzio: You mentioned that you have a free free copy of the free like first chapter of the book of available. Yeah. Tell people where they can go to find that and get a copy of.
Nicole Kerr: Okay, it’s at www dot Nicole Kerr, n i c o l e k e r, all one word. And on there my website, you can click the contact and it will say, you know, send me a free sample chapter.
Nicole Kerr: And I will do that. Also, I’m on Facebook, Nicole.Angelique.Kerr. I’m on Instagram, same thing. Nicole.Angelique.Kerr, and I’m on LinkedIn. Those are the only three social media platforms I can handle. I’m a one one woman [00:46:00] show here. The book is You Are Deathless. And it is on Amazon. It is on Barnes and Noble.
Nicole Kerr: They have it. The paperback version is on sale right now for 9.99. I, it’s a. If you have a book club, it is a great book club. I have book club questions in there and I will try to pop in on a Zoom if you have, when you have your discussion. If you choose my book as your book of the month or whatever, just let me know ahead of time and I’ll try to work on the time zone difference.
Nicole Kerr: But I will pop in and talk to you guys and then you know, I. It talks about so much more than just the near death experience. It’s more about the spiritual principles and the common lessons than it is about the beauty and how the other side is just, all of that is amazing because so many people have already written about that.
Nicole Kerr: We all agree that it’s amazing. It’s beautiful. It’s pain free. It’s all this stuff. I think it’s the lessons. That, you know, like everything and everybody is connected, we need to work on that one a [00:47:00] little bit more, you know, as a society instead of being so divisive. So that’s kind of where I go with it.
Scott DeLuzio: Well, Nicole, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you today. I’ll have, I will have links to all of that in the show notes. So anyone who is looking to follow you on social media get in touch with you for their book club or anything like that, get a free copy of that first chapter or to.
Scott DeLuzio: More importantly, buy a copy of the book . They’ll have links for all of that in the show notes and much more. So, thank you again for taking the time to join me and sharing your story. It was really inspirational and kind of uplifting message that you had to offer. So thank you.
Scott DeLuzio: So much for
Nicole Kerr: that. God, thank you. And I just wanna say, God blessed everybody and you know, just take care of yourself, put yourself as the priority because nobody else will if you don’t. So you know, you’re number one, .
Scott DeLuzio: All right. Thank you.
Nicole Kerr: Okay, bye-Bye.
Scott DeLuzio: Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to support the show, please check out Scott’s book, Surviving Son on [00:48:00] Amazon. All of the sales from that book go directly back into this podcast and work to help veterans in need. You can also follow the Drive On Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.