Pod Insights The Mel Robbins Podcast Life Lessons From a Hospice Doctor: You Have It Completely Backwards About this episode This one episode will change how you think about your entire life – and what comes after life ends.
You are going to learn how to let death, the regrets of the dying, and near death experiences shape your life.
Joining Mel today in this deeply profound and moving episode is Dr. Zach Bush, MD.
Dr. Zach is a triple board certified physician specializing in hospice care, internal medicine, and endocrinology. He is one of the most compelling medical minds currently working to improve our understanding of human and environmental health.
He is here today to share his wisdom and insights from his extensive experience working with people near death and being with them during the dying process as a hospice physician.
Dr. Zach is also going to share what he calls the “science of the soul” and the powerful lessons you can learn from near death experiences. He even reveals for the first time ever, his own powerful near death experience and how that has shaped his life.
What you learn today will forever change you.
For more resources, including links to learn more about Dr. Zach Bush and his work, click here for the podcast episode page.
If you liked this profound and science-backed episode, you’ll love listening to this episode next with Harvard’s Dr. Robert Waldinger: What Makes a Good Life? Lessons From the Longest Study on Happiness
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Transcript 10,057 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Mel Robbins? Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
0:07 Mel Robbins? There's been a topic that's been coming up a lot in my life lately. And it's not exactly the lightest topic, so I was thinking, should we even talk about this? But the theme just keeps coming up. So I decided to pay attention to it and lean in because everything that happens to you in your life is teaching you something. Your relationships, your mistakes, your wins, the things that trigger you and just get you so mad, all teachers. And perhaps one of the most impactful teachers is death.
0:45 Mel Robbins? It's a natural part of life.
0:48 Mel Robbins? And lately, it's been everywhere. I mean, just yesterday, my daughter was at a funeral for somebody who died so suddenly. Just a few days ago, I was talking to our other daughter who lives out in Los Angeles, and she was mentioning all these natural disasters in California that have been in the news and how much it scared her. And I said, well, why is it scaring you? And she said, well, what happens if something happens and I die? My mother-in-law, she's been coughing a lot, like a lot. And it's been going on for almost two years. And she keeps and says, oh, it's, oh, it's nothing. We all want her to get a scan. Why? Because we're afraid. We're afraid she might have something that's undiagnosed and might be dying.
1:34 Mel Robbins? And in just a few hours, I'm hopping on a plane to fly to Nashville and give a speech. And it's, you know, one of those little planes. And as much as I love flying, I don't know about you, but I can never get on a plane and not have the thought of my death cross my mind. And I'm not afraid of dying anymore because I've gotten to the point in my life where I'm so proud of all the things that I've accomplished and changed in my life. And I'm also so proud of the person that I have worked so hard to become, the amends that I've made. But whenever I do think about death... I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness because I just don't want to miss out on more
2:19 Mel Robbins? of my life. And so as it just kind of keeps coming up, I thought, well, why don't you and I lean into this and talk about it together? And so I've reached out to a world renowned expert who is so incredibly wise and comforting and profound. He also happens to be a triple board certified medical doctor who has spent a lot of his career with people at the end of their lives. And he is here today to share the wisdom and the lessons from what he calls the science of the soul, which is how to let death, the fear and regrets of people dying, near death experiences profoundly shape your life.
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3:55 Mel Robbins? Checking and Savings is offered through SoFi Bank, N A, Member FDIC. To me, self-expression is all about showing the world what's on the inside. That's why I want you to discover Pandora Talesman, a new collection designed to help you express every side of who you are. Featuring meaningful zodiac symbols and personalized jewelry pieces, each design tells a story that's uniquely yours. Pandora Talesman, a new language of self-expression. Because every version of you deserves to be seen. Shop new styles in store or online at pandora.net. This podcast is brought to you by Expedia. If you haven't booked your next trip yet, now is the time.
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5:06 Mel Robbins? Hey, it's your friend Mel, and I am so glad that you are here with me today so that you and I can spend some time together. It is always an honor to spend time with you, and I just want to acknowledge you for choosing to listen to something that will truly change your life. And if you're a new listener, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I am so glad you're here, and today I am absolutely thrilled for you and I to have an incredibly meaningful and profound conversation with Dr. Zach Bush, who is joining you and me on the podcast today. Dr. Zach is a triple board certified physician specializing in hospice care, internal medicine, and endocrinology.
5:48 Mel Robbins? He is one of the most compelling medical minds currently working to improve our understanding of human and environmental health. He did his residency in internal medicine at the University of Virginia, where he was also the chief resident, along with a fellowship in endocrinology there. He completed his hospice training at the Hospice of Piedmont, a community-based hospice center in Virginia, where he also became the associate director. He is the founder of the Seraphic Group, where he focuses on root cause solutions for human and ecological health. Dr. Zach is known for his work both in gut health and the microbiome, and for his profound work with hospice, and how you can learn from his extensive experience working with
6:32 Mel Robbins? people near the end of their lives, from the regrets and the fears of people dying, and from near-death experiences. And more importantly, how you can use these profound life lessons to live a more meaningful life. Please help me welcome Dr. Zach to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
6:50 Speaker 01 It's a pleasure.
6:51 Mel Robbins? Can you tell the person listening
6:55 Mel Robbins? what they might experience in terms of their life changing? If they take to heart everything that you're about to share with them today?
7:06 Speaker 01 It's going to change absolutely everything in your life and that's going to be everything that is expressed through your being, which might be relationships, it might be jobs, it might be your different roles you're playing in your communities, it might be your spiritual practices, your religious worldview. And I think that that'll be an interesting place to go on the podcast, perhaps, as we start thinking about death and dying. It's the only place we actually experience it oftentimes in that last few breaths where we're suddenly like,
7:35 Speaker 01 oh my gosh, the whole thing was not a chase.
7:38 Mel Robbins? Wow. I all of a sudden felt this tremendous sense of sadness.
7:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:44 Mel Robbins? To think that the biggest realization for most people.
7:47 Speaker 01 Is that the deathbed?
7:48 Mel Robbins? Is that the deathbed?
7:51 Speaker 01 Over and over.
7:52 Mel Robbins? You have spent so much time in your work with people who are either at the end of their life or who are dying or who pass on. You have witnessed countless near-death experiences and you have so much wisdom to teach us. Have you ever had a near-death experience?
8:14 Speaker 01 I hesitate to call it near-death just because I was actually unharmed, I think. I didn't have an injury per se, but I.
8:20 Mel Robbins? What happened?
8:21 Speaker 01 I was, this was in 2010, so I'd been in academia from all my trainings and practices and alt-right faculty and all that at the University of Virginia, after my training at the University of Colorado. So 17 years of just this very inside-the-box, Western medical mindset, you know, here's the drugs that are going to save the world, here's the disease, here's the drug, all of that paradigm. I was developing chemotherapy and I was using vitamin A compounds to kill cancer. And so that was my world and
8:50 Speaker 01 I found myself very depressed during those last few years as I started to watch the pharmaceutical companies. Placing blocking patents to keep these drugs from getting to market. And that was the beginning of a journey into kind of the unfortunate reality that we actually have a healthcare system that's really dominated by the need to manage disease instead of cure or heal. And so that was a pretty dark situation. I was in a couple hundred thousand dollars of school debt. My kids were, you know, heading towards college soon. I was, you know, I had no money, no savings account. I was working paycheck to paycheck. I was getting paid seventy thousand dollars a year in a university setting as faculty member, a doctor, two sports specialties. And so I was just like trapped. I was financially trapped.
9:35 Speaker 01 I was energetically, emotionally trapped. And in that depression, I started just calling out, you know, for help, I think to the universe. So like, show me the other path because this is a dead end and I can't figure out my way out of here. I worked too long to become the expert that I am. I can't imagine what I would do next. I can't spend, you know, any more money. I need to start making money, but I don't know how to make money. And a day came where the universe answered and I just got this huge amount of information into my experience of like all this huge path that I was here to embark on. And I felt amazing. I was like plugged into the universe for the first time in my adult life, I think. And I just felt all of this clarity and all those things. And then I went home and a couple of weeks later, we had the largest snowstorm in Virginia.
10:18 Speaker 01 And I've never told this story on podcasts, I'm not sure how this is going to go.
10:25 Speaker 01 We had a huge snowstorm and I heat my home that I built with my family and kids. It's a log home in the woods of Virginia and I heat it by firewood. And so I went out to chop a bunch of firewood in the morning before I went to the hospital. And so I was working in the dark, like five in the morning and chopping wood, carrying an armful of wood. I slipped and fell and a piece of wood separated my ribs on the left, which is kind of a tearing of all the muscles between the ribs. So it was just a lot of chest pain. It wasn't, nothing was broken, but it was just pain. And so I finished working and then and got all that wood in there and then I come back to the vehicle, which I'd borrowed my brother's four wheel drive because this massive snowstorm had been forecast. And so we had 22 inches of snow. I grew up in Boulder, Colorado. I'm used to driving in snow, no problem, but snow's half an inch in Virginia. Nobody drives.
11:10 Mel Robbins? But you've also now got a hair between two ribs thanks to the firewood that like just basically lodged itself into your side.
11:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was an unfortunate slip.
11:22 Mel Robbins? So you didn't, it just, you're not talking like you don't have like a wedge of wood.
11:26 Speaker 01 I don't, no, no, not at all. It was, it was internal. What's happened is it's now sending a lot of visceral chest pain through my body, which sets you up for the event that's about to happen. So I'm having that chest pain and I jump in the vehicle. I had brushed it off cursory because I'm starting to run late to get to the hospital and I'd be one of the few doctors there. So in a rush to get there. And so I drive slowly for the six miles to get to the highway and you're driving over just pristine untouched snow. And it's just like driving on marshmallows. It gets to the highway. It's been plowed. So I call my wife. So then, yeah, I'm fine. I'm amazed the highway is plowed, totally empty highways. So I zip up to 60 miles an hour and I start to relax and the heaters are on, defrosters, my body temper shifts and I've got this left side chest pain. And I suddenly do have something
12:10 Speaker 01 called a basal vagal event where all my blood vessels suddenly dilate through me relaxing, change of temperature, the chest pain, all that. And I passed out insulin. And I woke up in a river with no evidence that there was any civilization around. And I felt amazing. I felt like, I felt like in that moment, there was just this, this bliss state. And I thought I had disappeared into a different universe or a different timeline of humanity. I don't know what happened, but I was on highway and now suddenly it's just river. And it's, it's an ecosystem I've not seen in this area before. It just looks different. And there's 20 inches of snow. And my first thought was like, wow, I just didn't picture
12:54 Speaker 01 snow in heaven. Like, that's a lot of shoveling for eternity, it seems like. So I was just having this funny moment of like, not what I pictured, you know, but it was beautiful. Sun was filtering through and it was just overwhelmingly white and peaceful.
13:05 Mel Robbins? And you were, it just you, no car, no nothing?
13:08 Speaker 01 I'm in the car in a river. Yeah. And looked down at my lap and my cell phone's sitting there and I, and time's sitting right on it. I pull up my last call. So it'd been seven minutes that I'd been out, which is a very long time for a basal vagal event. It's usually a couple of seconds. And so. I don't know what happened during that time and it's not very important, but I experienced for a moment what I'd seen my patients do, which is experience myself, felt myself for the first time as an adult or as a young child. I hadn't probably been in that state since I was, you know, two or a little bit before. The, the lack of fear, guilt and shame, the lack of any sense of I'm incomplete to the sense of I am here in this new universe
13:49 Speaker 01 and I'm, I've landed somewhere in space time and I've landed in this thing and nature is dazzling me and I feel amazing. My body was like, I was not experiencing, you know, that chest pain and I was in an ecstatic state. And so, again, whether it's just passed out, I have no idea, but the, the, the state of being was, I think, what set into motion my next few years. From there, I actually left the university months after that and started to realize all of the companies and dreams that had been shown to me a couple of weeks earlier. And in that journey, I, I got a third subspecialty in hospice and palliative care. Um, and so I was running a nutrition center for reversing chronic disease through food as my, like, kind of part of realizing my dream, but to pay the bills because I wasn't making any money in clinic. I was working as a part-time medical
14:34 Speaker 01 director for a hospice. And in that, I was admitting 80 patients a week to die. And when you do that for four years, that adds up to a lot of, you know, death and dying. And I had this new anchor point of I remember what it feels like to be without fear, guilt and shame in my body. I remember the elation of being whole for a moment. And I remember how fast I fell out of it too, as the day unfolded. And what had happened is I had passed out on the highway and I climbed out of the river. I was soaking wet in my doctor's outfit and climbing up through all this snow and thought I was like in a wilderness. And then suddenly got up to the top of this embankment and Highway 29 was right there. There was no cars on it, just empty. And then there's a, a man standing right in, in the middle of the lane.
15:17 Mel Robbins? A man?
15:17 Speaker 01 A man. And he's a state trooper, state trooper hat, the whole thing, no car in sight. So then I was like, oh my gosh, maybe this is the gates of heaven or something. And this is obviously Saint Peter. And of course I would make him a state trooper in my mind. And so I'm like having this complete existential experience. And it starts to get really ridiculous in those next few minutes because he looks at me so confused, like, but, but very earnest. He never cracks a smile. He's looking at me climbing over this bank and I've got my doctor badge on and I'm in loafers and dress shirt and everything else. So I'm like, Crawling out of the woods. He's staring at me and he's like, son, how did you get here? And so then I'm like, oh shoot, this is my resume. Like this is, I gotta get into heaven here.
16:01 Speaker 01 Like, I gotta figure out what have I done well. So I started literally going through my life like, well, I grew up in this little church in Boulder, Colorado, and I'm the oldest of three kids and I was a great big brother and I was this. And then I did this and missions work in the Philippines and birth babies and I'm a doctor. I'm a great dad and my kids are in ballet and fencing and I'm doing this stuff. And he's looking more and more concerned, which makes me feel like I'm failing the test. He's like, this guy is on drugs at seven o'clock in the morning, driving through snow or whatever he's doing. Anyway, long story short, he finally stops me. He says, son, how did you physically get here? And so I just got really angry all of a sudden because I was at the end of my wits. I was just like, how the hell did you get here physically? And he, to his credit, then suddenly burst out laughing. He's like, that probably looks confusing as well.
16:46 Speaker 01 And he says, my patrol car is down around the corner of the highway. I got a call on my radio that somebody got off the highway and I was looking for you. And how did you get here? And I said, well, my vehicle is down that river. I don't know how I got there. He's like, well, let me show you what I just saw. And so he takes me back around the corner of the highway and you can see where my vehicle drifted off the highway at 60 miles an hour, jumped a six foot embankment of snow that had plowed over the guardrails. And the vehicle had dropped about 30 feet off this cliffside and then landed on two wheels and drove for about maybe 30 meters and then settled on the four wheels on this steep embankment, drives nearly a quarter mile around the corner on this embankment, finds the only break in the trees, takes an I D return and drives down into the river without touching a tree. And that's where I woke up.
17:29 Speaker 01 And so when he showed me that, you know, I started to get this overwhelming experience of like, I just had an experience that was outside of my physical plane. There's something happened to me that can't be logic, you know? And I was extremely logical human being like I, I wanted to understand everything I was seeing all of the time. That's what maybe a great scientist and doctor and everything else, you know? And this was just something that was so outside of the mental constructs that I could put nothing together for this. And it was exactly what I needed. I needed an experience that was so radically outside of my, my human mind that, that it would lead to a deeper state of surrender to my, to my path, whatever was going to happen next.
18:08 Mel Robbins? I love that the trooper showed you. The accident, and here's why. When you described your car drifting off, jumping a 30-foot embankment, landing on two wheels, then driving a quarter of a mile, then taking a 90-degree turn through two trees that it missed and ending up in a river, and you were largely unscathed but left with a profound near-death experience that changed your entire life. And you do strike me as somebody who is extraordinarily smart and logical, that you needed the universe to deliver something unexplainable,
18:50 Mel Robbins? to wake you up to the reality that there's something bigger going on, and you're going to be the one to figure it out.
18:57 Speaker 01 I wish I could say I was that easy to teach, but the universe was about to see how stubborn my human mind was. And so they actually managed to lift that vehicle out of the river by its back bumper with two tow trucks on different sides of the river. And so the vehicle was suspended 100 feet in the air and came across back onto the highway and sat down on its front bumper. The state trooper pushed on the roof just slightly, and it just like started to tip down onto its wheels. They lowered it down onto the four wheels. I got in, started up. There wasn't a scratch on the car, not a scratch on me.
19:30 Mel Robbins? You drove to the hospital?
19:32 Speaker 01 Drove to the hospital. Again, this is a situation where nothing is running in the town. So I knew it would be more time. And by this time, it'd been 45 minutes, and I needed to get to the hospital quick. And I was fine. I was like unharmed, feeling actually amazing in my body and my spirit. And so I drove and worked a 12-hour day, saw seven patients that day, just like we only had like six doctors running the entire medicine floors. And so it was a busy, busy day. Got home that night. And by that night, I'd already gotten disconnected from the experience. And so I was already back in my mind, because I thrust myself right back in, you know, got to do everything, got to save the world. Duty, duty, duty, responsibility. This is what makes me valuable as a human being, is I can go and work my ass off in a hospital.
20:14 Speaker 01 And so by the end of the day, I'd already lost touch with them. And so here's probably one of the most important events in my life. And it only took 12 hours in the hospital to disconnect me from that event. So I went home that night. I hadn't told my wife much before it had gone on. I didn't want her to worry. So I got home and told her that night. All asleep like 11 and the phone rings at 6 a.m. And I pick it up and this is Lieutenant Stone, so I went looking for Dr. Bush. I'm like, oh, this must be the accident yesterday. Yeah, this is Zach Bush. He's like, we need you in Haiti, Port-au-Prince Bay in six hours. And I was like, wait, wait, who are you? This is Lieutenant Stone, so from the U.S. Navy and we've got you on top of our list for large scale emergency relief. There was just a huge earthquake in Haiti and we're sending the Navy ship comfort into the bay right now.
20:59 Speaker 01 We need you on that ship to run a hospital ward. I was like, I'm not in the Navy. I'm not in this, but I had trained a couple of years earlier and deployed a large group for emergency relief for Katrina, which had happened in New Orleans. So that had ended me up on some Navy list somehow. And so six hours later, I was in Port-au-Prince Bay being dropped onto that Navy ship. And so that all happened in a 30 hour period. And so that's, that's how stubborn I think my mind was, is I needed even a deeper schism and break from my reality at the hospital. And I worked on that Navy ship for a couple of weeks and took care of 780 women that had been crushed in that earthquake that became quite famous. And I needed to see all of that. And so the universe in a very short period of time took me out of my mental constructs
21:42 Speaker 01 and challenged me with a whole bunch of new realities that again, just once I came back from that, I couldn't reintegrate into my previous belief systems.
21:51 Mel Robbins? Dr. Zach, that story is incredible. And you know, I know there's someone in your life who needs to hear this. So we're going to take a minute to hear a word from our amazing sponsors who allow me to bring you this conversation and world renowned experts at zero cost. And while you're listening to them, please share this episode with someone you love and we'll be right back waiting for you after a short break. Are you getting enough omega threes in your diet? Your heart, brain and immune system all need omega threes to function the way they're supposed to.
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26:01 Mel Robbins? Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and you and I are here today with triple-board certified Dr. Zach Bush. So, Dr. Zach, what are some of the biggest takeaways and lessons that you've learned from being around so many near-death experiences, from having a very profound one, which you've just described, from witnessing so many people that have died in two natural disasters, and as your work as a hospice doctor? What are some of the biggest takeaways that you have that you wish people who are living, anybody that can hear this, would know?
26:45 Speaker 01 You are the most beautiful thing.
26:50 Speaker 01 You are the entire divine expression of your soul.
26:54 Speaker 01 And that's where the near death experience is a gift, is it can actually feel what it feels like to be whole. It's not something to be achieved. You've always been whole. You were whole at the beginning. You will still be whole at the end of your life journey. If there's only a perception that you are incomplete right now. You are the most beautiful thing. This is what happens in near death experiences. If you can start to feel the universe. If you start to feel yourself. You start to realize you can access information that never entered your mind.
27:25 Mel Robbins? You know what I just freaking loved about? Both your story and and the way that you're explaining this is that you've defined a near death experience as a completely different thing. I'll never look at that term the same way again, like it literally is a moment where you escape your mind and you drop into deep connection and wholeness. So how does somebody listening? Access?
27:56 Mel Robbins? The what you've learned from near death experiences? And from witnessing so many people dying and caring for them as a hospice doctor, how do you bring that wisdom or that experience into your day to day life?
28:11 Speaker 01 You are right now clinging to everything around you out of fear that you're incomplete. You're clinging to your little rituals. It might be your morning cup of coffee. It might be the way in which you pack the kids' school lunch. It might be the way in which you drive to school. It might be the way in which you show up at work. It might be the way in which you organize your email box. You've got all these rituals in your day. This is the rituals you have developed. Anything that takes you out of that construct for a moment. When a child says something, you get goosebumps. Or an elder speaks to you and you get goosebumps. That's a that is a momentary near death experience. And that's why child's child speak is so deep and often gives you goosebumps when a when a child drops a wisdom bomb on you. Lights you up in those goosebumps. That's an experiential moment of a soul speaking.
28:56 Speaker 01 If you've gotten goosebumps from anybody speaking to you, that's one of their moments where they just came into alignment with their coherence, their complete waveform of truth. And a child is always speaking from that space to a certain age, which is typically around age two, they start to learn how to watch behaviors around them. And this is when they start to get an idea of they are different than others. They're the kid and that's their brother. And so they're being trained to believe that they're separate from everything.
29:26 Mel Robbins? And that's the split that you're talking.
29:27 Speaker 01 And that's the terrible twos and the threes and everything else that are so difficult for a child because they're going from a state of being complete to the terrifying reality of they are incomplete. And that's why I think two and three look so difficult on the psyche of a child. And it's why they're so labile with their emotions and everything's overwhelming because they are starting to learn a reality of disconnected truths or disconnected half-truths.
29:53 Mel Robbins? You know what I just got is that if you consider what you're saying, that any human being that comes into this world, you're born, that you are completely intact and whole and basically an expression of pure love and connection and oneness with everyone around you. And you can see that in a baby's eye, that if you then jump all the way to the end of someone's life, and if you've ever been with somebody as they are passing on.
30:27 Speaker 01 Their whole.
30:28 Mel Robbins? Their whole and your ability to look at them in the eyes with love, forgiveness, all of it, is the now same experience. And if I think about my own experience of my life, there are those moments, whether, and you know, I just cry, I think like one that comes to mind is thinking about being at the bottom of the aisle on my wedding day and I looked straight down the aisle and Chris turned and he flashed this like huge smile and it was that same experience of wholeness. And there are other periods of my life, I think a lot of times.
31:10 Mel Robbins? Like when I'm outside and you see like right now in Vermont, the fireflies are going crazy. And so when I take in a moment in nature like that, and you have this like blip of wholeness, that's what you're talking about, that experience right there.
31:29 Speaker 01 That's exactly right. I love where you're laying this out is that there's basically bookends of the human experience that everybody's going to to have. They're going to come in whole and they're going to leave whole. And as I watched those happen over and over again, I saw them, a lot of them in the ICU. You know, I spent 10 years working in tense hospital settings. And in those years, I got used to seeing these, these moments of time where you really do see a soul showing up as it exits, exits the frailty of the human mind and then comes back in with new information to the mind, but not to itself, because at no point does it get surprised about its journey. It's never like, I can't believe I just did this. It simply says, I went to this place, I saw this, and I'm bringing this back to this human mind.
32:15 Mel Robbins? So what you're basically saying is that in the ICU, for example, where you would be the witness to all of these near death experiences, and people would then wake up from a coma, or they would quote, come back to life, there would be an absolute certainty and knowingness and lack of judgment about what they had experienced during that near death experience, like they just came back like this is the truth. This is where I was. And that, that almost like certainty started to strike you.
32:50 Speaker 01 That's exactly right.
32:51 Mel Robbins? Does it always have to be with another person? Like when you are out in nature and you are just struck with awe and you have no thoughts, it's just a pure experience. Is that from at least like a biological standpoint, a near death experience because you are back whole and connected in the moment to yourself and to the world around you again?
33:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, maybe you've had the experience of a wild animal suddenly coming into an interaction with you.
33:19 Mel Robbins? Yeah, just actually the other day, we were walking down the back drive. We have a logging road on the mountain that we live on. And we had the dogs and about a hundred yards down the dirt path, a black bear. Walked across. And so we of course stopped and thank God the dogs didn't see her. And I assume it's a her because the cubs have been born recently and you see a lot of them running around where we live in Southern Vermont. But there was a moment where she stopped and turned and looked and we made eye contact. And it's as if sound and time disappeared.
34:05 Mel Robbins? And then all of a s- I don't know how long I stood there. And then the thought came in, oh, my God, the dogs. And then she turned and walked away and it was over. And that's an example of what you're describing is this ability that you have in your life now to come into these moments and drop in to connection and presence in your life. Because it's true. It's like, if you really think about people that are dying, I mean, you have experi- you have more experiences than I do, but I, I mean, I'm married to somebody who's a death doula and a hospice volunteer, who sits with people who are dying and supports
34:46 Mel Robbins? people who are near the end of their life. And I always wonder, are people scared? Are they afraid? And Chris talks a lot about how, no, people actually seem to be more at peace. I mean, is that what you found? Do you find that people are like, when they're approaching death, they're not as afraid? Because I, I think it's normal to be afraid of dying, isn't it?
35:13 Speaker 01 There's great terror in the end of something because to die incomplete is, suggests that there's a brokenness that didn't heal. And so the reason we develop fear of death, I believe, is because we can feel this, this state of incompleteness that we perceived, know that there's something deep that needs to heal. We can feel it all the time.
35:33 Mel Robbins? That is so profound.
35:38 Mel Robbins? And this feels like a good time to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors. And while you listen to the sponsors, I am sure there is someone that has come to mind as you've been listening to Dr. Zach. Share this episode with them. I know the person that I'm thinking about right now is my husband, Chris. He is going to love this conversation. And so you go do that, take a listen to the sponsors, and Dr. Zach and I will be waiting for you after a short break. Stay with us.
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39:09 Mel Robbins? Welcome back. It's your friend Mel and you and I are spending time today learning from the amazing Dr. Zach Bush. So Dr. Zach, I was talking with one of our daughters the other day and she was out in Southern California. And I remember when I was in my mid twenties, I was terrified of dying, terrified of getting on a plane, terrified of a car crash, terrified of my parents dying, terrified that something might happen. And there was something in the news, I don't know what, about something going on in California. And she was getting herself all worked up. What would happen if there was a national disaster? And something happened to me. And I said, well, you would die.
39:48 Mel Robbins? And she said, yeah, but I don't want it. And I said, but once you're dead, doesn't matter. And worrying, like, I was very pragmatic about it. And I realized upon reflection, Dr. Zach, that I was terrified of dying, probably up until about six years ago.
40:07 Speaker 01 What happened?
40:08 Mel Robbins? Well, what happened is I got my shit together.
40:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:13 Mel Robbins? And I worked on myself and I went to therapy and I started pursuing work that was meaningful. And I worked very hard to get reconnected to myself so that I was proud of the person and that I am and how I was acting. And I felt a sense of
40:40 Mel Robbins? meaning in the way that I was spending my time. And I had faced a lot of the things from my past or cleaned up behaviors or made amends
40:54 Mel Robbins? along the way of doing work for five to 10 years. I'm just trying to be a happier person, trying to not hate myself so much that I was on a plane one day. I'll never forget this. I remember the moment like it was yesterday because I used to be terrified of flying. I had so many rituals before I would get on a plane to make sure it would not go down. I would literally get to the airport and I would be on edge the whole time. And when I got to the waiting area, I'd be scanning the area, looking, okay, is there a baby getting on the plane? Okay, good. Is there anybody in the military? Okay, good. Is there anybody in the wheelchair? Okay, good. Is there anybody that is a person of, you know, like spiritual?
41:37 Mel Robbins? Okay, good. Oh, do the pilots have the military style haircuts? Okay, great. Because I would then say, oh, all these people, if they're getting on the plane, God, the universe is not going to let this sucker go down. And then I would get on the plane and then I would start bargaining with myself as if I have any control about what's going on, right? All right, once the seatbelt goes in, you can start breathing. Then when we take off and we get past that point where they then ding the bell, like, all of this active crazy making in my brain over something I can't control.
42:08 Mel Robbins? And that was my life. And a number of years ago, I was sitting, I was on the right side of the plane. I was right up against the window because I remember looking out the window and it dawned on me. I hadn't done any of that stuff before I got on this plane. And it dawned on me that I wasn't nervous at all. And then it dawned on me, well, it's because I'm actually not afraid of dying. And the reason why I'm not afraid is that I feel like I have done the work that I needed to do to be connected back to myself.
42:51 Mel Robbins? And that I was proud of how I had changed my life. I was proud of how I was showing up in relationships. I was definitely, as I sat there and thought about it, very sad about the idea of missing out. And not being alive, you know, when my kids get married or when they have kids or just, you know, living a much longer life because I was actually really enjoying it. And so I feel like I understand what you say. When you say, most of us are afraid of dying because we have not taken the time to do what we can do while we are alive.
43:33 Mel Robbins? To feel more connected to ourselves. And to feel more of those moments of wholeness, whether you're staring at a bird or you are looking at somebody in the eyes or you are staring into the eyes of a baby. And instead, I think the sadness, I would imagine, witnessing so many people dying is just knowing that they had it in the beginning and they didn't experience it really again till the end.
44:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think there's, there's levels of the sadness, but back to that realization that wholeness never left you. Whatever happened in your life, it looked like a good life, looked like a bad life. That's the beauty of near death experiences. You suddenly realize it was all perfect. Like, the whole thing was perfect. It was exactly what I needed to learn the things I learned, to become the one I became, and ultimately to realize I was whole the entire time. Any perception of incompleteness was incorrect. I put myself on a human journey so that I would feel everything. And I wanted to feel heartbreak. I wanted to feel, you know, deep depression. I wanted to feel the elation of coming out of depression. I wanted to feel, you know, a cup of coffee in the morning. I wanted to feel sex. I wanted to feel these things in my life. And so I got to do all of that. And I had that experience.
44:42 Speaker 01 And that's beautiful. But I would say that one thing to, for us to get excited about is that what you just described, the journey of getting out of fear of flying, was one possible, you know, description or, or reality that allowed that to occur is you were moving from a previous state of trying to make everybody else proud of you, to a state of being just proud of yourself. So that was, that's what I would call maybe like, one of the most fundamental shifts that a human can have. And so it's a relief when no longer are you trying to perform for everybody else. And I think that is a big thing to celebrate when we finally reach that state of like, you know what, I'm just gonna perform for me today. And if I'm
45:24 Speaker 01 happy with the day and my value system is aligned with my behaviors, then I'm proud of myself. But the deeper opportunity then lies next is, are we willing to go to the point where there is no pride because there was nothing to do or achieve? There was, in fact, the release of all that belief because you were valuable before you did anything to be proud of. And if you can approach that space, we can move into it for moments. You mentioned a few of them. Breath work, I think is a powerful way to do this. I think your, your husband Chris is training in holotropic breath work right now for his death duelist stuff probably, but super potent thing. There's many, many traditions coming out of India, Africa, South America.
46:03 Speaker 01 North American or original peoples all over the world had some form of breathwork. And there was some sort of chant, dance, storytelling at the fire. All of these things putting people into wholeness. And so we, we act as we do because we lost these mechanisms of near death experiences moment by moment, day by day.
46:20 Mel Robbins? Reminding you of who you are before.
46:23 Speaker 01 Before you do anything.
46:24 Mel Robbins? Yes.
46:24 Speaker 01 Before anything is performed for yourself or for others. Before pride can enter the equation because you realize you were, you were the whole beauty of the divine the moment you took your first breath. And you are whole at that moment and you will be the same at the end of life when you've been in a coma for six months and you've done nothing. And yet the divine state there is whole.
46:44 Mel Robbins? It's encouraging in some ways and surprising to hear you as a hospice doctor, Dr. Zach, talk about that state as being divine and whole. When somebody is in a coma or somebody is in a near death experience or somebody is about to die. And I guess the reason why I'm realizing is because we project our own pain and suffering onto that situation as we observe it.
47:13 Speaker 01 We're observing a, a rebirth event. And you can imagine what it looks like maybe to a twin who's in the womb and suddenly watches the disappearance of the only other soul, soul that has ever physically been around in this lifetime. And that thing suddenly just disappears down a dark tunnel and is gone. You know, there'd be sorrow and disappointment and everything else, but the reality is that thing just went down a dark tunnel and this entered a world that is so beautiful, you can't even describe it. And that second twin then goes down the journey of the tube minutes later and is born into this extraordinary environment. We are all twins in a womb right now, watching each other pass down a birth canal. And we call it death and we think it's horrible because we have human mind, but it's always a rebirth.
47:57 Speaker 01 You cannot destroy or create energy. It's first law of thermodynamics and physics. And so that soul that allowed you to self organize in your mother's womb is still a soul that's self organizing that entity into its next expression as it comes out the birth canal on the other hand.
48:12 Mel Robbins? I love that you just said that because when people always ask, when people ask me, you know, so what do you think happens when you die? I always say, I think about it like birth, like when you were in the womb, you had no knowledge of the world you were about to be born into.
48:27 Mel Robbins? And the fact that you had no knowledge of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And I believe the same thing, that there is this whole world you're about to be born into when you die. And just because you're not quite sure what it is, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You know, I see a lot online about like the regrets of the dying. And I know that there's been a lot of research and books written about this. But in your work, Dr. Zach, are there kind of top things that people regret that we can use in our lives now to live a better life?
49:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, the number one regret is I was performing the whole time. I never was actually being me and I was afraid to be me. And I didn't even know what it would feel like to be me. But right now, as I'm dying, as I, as that veil thins and I feel myself and I'm a beautiful being and I am home. And so really then the regret is wow, if I'd just known I was whole the whole time and hadn't had to do all the performance and had been able to taste the cup of coffee for what it really is, instead of perceive it for everything that it's not.
49:36 Mel Robbins? If you were to leave the person listening with one message, what would it be?
49:46 Speaker 01 The deep dysfunction of relationship that we have on the planet right now is we are trying to find somebody else that will make us feel good about ourselves. And more than that, we are looking to another person to help us feel complete. And so we have this language, this is my better half. This is, you know, this is my partner. And you're going to cleave on to that, thinking you're going to become complete. And you're going to go into these many relationships to try to create the sensation of fullness or wholeness. We want to be seen so badly. And it's why relationships struggle so much is we keep expecting that other human to see us and feel us. They cannot. It's not possible. No human on the planet can see you. But you're surrounded by a cosmos that has been seeing you since before you were in
50:31 Speaker 01 the moon. You are an energy field that is felt at a deeper level than any human sense. You're a very unique vibration as a soul, as a physical phenomenon. And at this moment, you've stepped into an experience of a human body. And to get there, to that wholeness before you die, go out into nature and lie down below a tree and look up to the branches of the tree and watch the way in which the leaves shake in a little bit of a breeze and those white clouds float by and let your body be seen. For a while, it's going to just be you being overwhelmed by the beauty of the tree. It's going to be you being overwhelmed by the beauty and peace of the cloud floating over top and you're going to have to go through that, feel that. It's extremely important to see the beauty of nature, no question.
51:16 Speaker 01 But the healing won't really begin until you let the tree see you. And you can only be seen by a tree by as the whole you, because it doesn't have eyes that will convince it that you're everything that you're not. Only humans will do that. And so this is our time to realize that our eyes are tricking us. Every being is whole and there's no need for a performance.
51:35 Mel Robbins? Dr. Zach, what are your parting words?
51:40 Speaker 01 I gain hope every time I meet one human. And so I would encourage all of you to meet yourself, because you can also meet be your own tree as well, through breath work, through cold plunge, through your treks outside in nature. Take yourself into those experiences. And so I hope that one of you falls deeply in love with your state as a being that is whole at every step of life. And as soon as you do, we will all follow you into a very beautiful reality.
52:07 Mel Robbins? Amazing parting words. Wow. Thank you.
52:14 Speaker 01 It's a pleasure.
52:15 Mel Robbins? Um, thank you. And I want to make sure that I also thank you. Thank you for being here with me and Dr. Zach. And in case nobody else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you. And I can tell Dr. Zach does too.
52:33 Speaker 01 Each of you are in a very unique moment. So you are here on purpose and you are equipped with everything you need for the journey. You need nothing from me. You are already complete. I hope that this whole thing was basically a tuning fork to remind you or let you feel what it feels like to already be a complete symphony in of yourself. We are tuned together on purpose and we all came in to play right now. You've got everything you need.
52:58 Mel Robbins? You heard him. Go play and I'll talk to you in a few days.
53:08 Mel Robbins? Wow. We're going to get into that in just a minute, right? What to do? And I'm almost afraid to ask. You're not supposed to do anything. An endocrinology, how the do I say it? An endocrin, endocrin, an endocrinology. Dr. Zach Bush.
53:28 Speaker 01 Boom.
53:28 Mel Robbins? That's how solid that transformation is going to be. Do you go outside and land under a tree every day?
53:33 Speaker 01 Regularly.
53:34 Mel Robbins? I think near death has a branding problem. I think we need to come up with a different word for it.
53:40 Speaker 01 Rebirth.
53:40 Mel Robbins? Rebirth. There you go. I'm going to have a rebirth experience.
53:49 Mel Robbins? Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
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Previous Near Death Experiences: The Ultimate Truth About Your Soul’s Purpose, Consciousness, & Oneness Next Do THIS to Reprogram Your Mind for More Positive Thinking Page updated September 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
