The Key to Finding Comfort and Peace in Grief

The three stages that lead to lasting spiritual knowing.

Oct 08, 2024

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV and author of Answers About The Afterlife, Insight from Hindsight, and The Magic Mala. He’s also the founder of the top directory of reputable psychics and mediums, BestPsychicDirectory.com.

grey canoe on calm body of water near tall trees at daytime — Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I’ve only written about this subject twice in my 120 articles here on Bob Olson Connect, both in 2023. Yet, it is arguably the most important insight I have gained in my investigation of life after death. As we near the end of 2024, I want to revisit this subject so it remains in the forefront of your mind.

This knowledge explains why some people have gained comfort and peace in their grief while others struggle to find it. It also explains why some people have no fear of death while most people fear death immensely.

Ultimately, the difference between these two groups—those with comfort and peace and those without, or those with fear and those without—comes down to the paths they took toward healing their grief or fear of death.

Not only was this evident in my afterlife research, but it proved true in my work with grieving or dying people over the past twenty-seven years. Consequently, I’m writing this today to emphasize its importance in your path toward understanding life after death.

The Three Stages of Experience

I began my investigation of the afterlife in direct response to my grief following my father’s passing. I discovered that my experiences led me through three stages during that investigation.

The first stage was where I began my journey: the path of the skeptic.

In this first stage, I was skeptical because I lacked evidence and experience in this field, so I chose to believe in nothing. What was important, which I knew even as I began my research, was to be an open-minded skeptic. If I had been closed-minded, there would have been no point in investigating since my closed-mindedness would have blocked any evidence that may be presented to me.

I then progressed to the second stage: the path of the believer.

In this second stage, the believing stage, we accept the beliefs of other people as truth. This is where religion resides because people believe what their religious leaders tell them is true. This is also the stage that comes from vicarious experience (learning about the experiences or teachings of others). Reading books, watching documentaries or videos, and attending live lectures are all vicarious experiences that fall under the path of the believer.

Belief is a valuable stage on the journey of afterlife investigation, and it’s the only stage that some people ever reach. It’s also beneficial as a stepping-stone toward personal experience because learning vicariously about other people’s experiences can teach us what types of personal experiences we might choose to have.

Some people begin in the belief stage, skipping the skeptical stage altogether. My wife, Melissa, was like this. She never questioned the idea of an afterlife or the survival of consciousness after physical death, so she never needed evidence to believe in it.

The third stage is where comfort and peace take place: the path of the knower.

I discovered this path quite unexpectedly. After having personal experiences like past-life regressions, readings with mediums, and spirit contact through hypnosis, I found that I knew answers to spiritual questions I never had before. It was as if particular afterlife-related experiences gave me insights about both life and the afterlife that were beyond the details of my experience itself, and these insights then became my knowing.

Interestingly, these insights felt more like a remembering than learning something new. In the end, I learned that I only gained a knowing from personal experiences. In other words, vicarious experiences lead us to the belief state, while personal experiences lead us toward a knowing.

Even more interesting was that this knowing became sacred to me, so I no longer questioned it if it conflicted with other people’s beliefs. In fact, I no longer felt the need to share it and had no desire to try convincing anyone else to adopt my knowing. Knowing holds the energy of being personal and sacred to you, meaning you no longer need others to confirm it’s true.

Once I had gained a knowing about any subject, I also no longer required further evidence to confirm it. The experience alone was sufficient. While I continued to investigate new evidence to increase my understanding (to expand my knowing), expanding one’s knowing is quite different from needing to confirm it.

In conclusion, I learned from my experiences related to the afterlife that skepticism comes from a refusal to believe or draw any conclusions (including open-minded skepticism), belief comes from vicarious experience (accepting what others have taught you), and knowing comes from personal experience (direct experiences like past-life regressions, spirit contact with hypnosis, spirit artistry, and out-of-body experiences).

Why Understanding “Belief Versus Knowing” Matters

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, this understanding explains why some people have gained comfort and peace in their grief while others struggle to find it. It also explains why some people have no fear of death while most people fear death immensely. The difference between these two groups comes down to the paths they took toward healing their grief or fear of death.

In my observation, people in the belief stage tend to require more and more experiences to satisfy their thirst for comfort and peace. For instance, some people gain comfort from reading about near-death experiences (NDEs). Yet, because they are living vicariously through other people’s NDEs, these stories do not sustain them. The feeling of comfort dissipates quickly. Before long, they are seeking out another NDE story to relive that feeling of comfort.

This is true for every vicarious experience, including reading books and watching videos. People often tell me they have read my book, Answers About the Afterlife, repeatedly or watched all my Afterlife TV episodes multiple times because these resources comfort their grief. However, people feel the need to reread any book or repeatedly watch any video because the comfort they gain from these vicarious experiences is fleeting.

On the contrary, personal experiences that lead to a knowing provide lasting comfort. Once a knowing is established, there is no further necessity for repeating the experience. This is not to say that more cannot be gained from having similar personal experiences. There are always new knowings to help expand one’s awareness. However, personal experiences are unlikely to create a craving for repeated experiences.

People who have contacted loved ones through hypnosis, for example, are not inclined to need another experience of this type. The single experience provided them with a knowing that their deceased loved one still exists, is happy in the spirit world, is watching over them, and will be there to greet them when they die.

Once these questions have been answered and become a knowing, the hunger for more experiences of the same type tends to disappear.

If the person feels the need to have the same experience days or weeks after the session, this indicates that the first session did not lead them to a knowing. This happens for all sorts of reasons, mainly that spiritual growth is often a process and not an event. When this happens, it’s helpful to have another personal experience that may lead you to the knowing you seek.

In the comments, I’d love to hear about the personal experiences that brought you to a knowing. How many times did you have that experience before you graduated from belief to knowing? And please share what this article brings up regarding your own journey of spiritual growth.

With love,
Bob

Bob Olson Connect: Afterlife Investigator

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