Near-Death and Rebirth: Ash Perrow on Choosing to Live From the Heart

00:00 Ash Perrow thought he had it all figured out. A steady career, a growing family, a path laid out in front of him. But everything shifted the day he held his stillborn daughter in his arms. What followed was years of survival, anxiety, and losing himself in the process. And just when he thought he was getting back on track, a near-death experience cracked his world wide open and handed him a second chance to live with intention from the heart. I became Ripples. 00:27 I was these ripples going out into the universe and the ripples were me and there was just no separation. They just kept going and going and going. was like I just kept expanding out. And I was really surprised that I could think I had this conscious awareness. There was curiosity. like, oh, I didn't think dying would be like this. And the ripples kept going and I started to say, I want to stay. 00:57 I'm Maciel Huli, and this is the Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. 01:14 Hello, my friends. Welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with Ash. Hello, Ash. Hi, Matt. Thanks for having me today. Well, thank you for wanting to be a part of the LifeShift Podcast. We were talking a little bit before recording, but this podcasting journey is something that I never could have imagined for myself. I think when I started it, it started as a school assignment. I was getting an extra graduate degree during the pandemic and I was like, what can I do? So I took a podcasting class and 01:43 And I decided that I wanted to talk to people about these pivotal moments in their lives that have changed everything. Because when I was eight, my mom was killed in a motorcycle accident. like in that moment, it was like a line in the sand. was nothing that we had imagined for my future was ever possible or it felt like at the time. And it felt really hopeless. so growing up, I was I was like, do other people have these line in the sand moments? And turns out that we have a lot of these life shift moments in our lives, which is 02:12 maybe a blessing and a curse. have all these opportunities to kind of reflect and grow from. So thank you for being part of this journey and sharing your story to kind of help heal me and the younger version of me, but also help others feel less alone in their journeys. Thanks, Matt. It's an amazing thing how our stories connect us. Yeah, it's what I've learned is that 02:39 I might have an experience wildly different than other people, like totally, like something I couldn't even relate to, but the human feelings and emotions around that event when someone shares their story are so connected to my own experiences that I'm like, wow, we're really not that different. Yeah, there's a something from Corey mascara that I love, which often in life, we go through this cycle where we feel like. 03:06 here I am in the same place doing the same thing and I've messed up the same way and have I learned nothing and of course go into the whole of self judgment. But he talks about that we, it's actually like this cyclical sort of like a hurricane or a tornado, shall we say, but sometimes as violent, sometimes not as violent, much more gentle, but we go around and we come back, but we have this. 03:33 change in ourselves and change in our situations. So we're not exactly in the same place. And then we go around again and we come back and we keep doing that. And eventually we keep spiraling down. And at the end is the truth, the truth, like the truth, you know, where we were inside or the inside of, oh, I was just a little boy doing my best. Or I was in this moment and I just was alone. 04:00 or, you know, and it happens to all of us. happens. part of that human condition that we, have a moment of feeling alone and in that very vulnerable and then the sort of inner protection system, which can be like in a critic or self sabotage or perfectionism, or it can be, be withdrawal, whatever, you know, or it can be attack, right? Whatever that, in that moment of vulnerability that happens when we're children, that, that gets locked in. 04:28 this protection system worked for me at that time. And then I'm going to keep repeating that protection system subconsciously until I'm an adult and it's not working anymore. It's not working, but I'm going to keep doing it for a while. Yeah. You just told my story. So thank you for that. It was my story of attaching to perfectionism and still now just trying to shed some of that and it's near impossible it feels, but in any case, I love that. 04:57 that idea of kind of a tornado and coming down to that, to that truth. We'll get there someday, all of us will, and we'll figure out what to do with it. In the tornado, right? It's like, because we all have these patterns, we all have them, which is just like hardwired, right? As the machine of the child was being put together, it's hardwired in. And so over time, it takes a while to break them down. And one of the key things is self compassion. 05:27 My mind is telling me here I am again. Can I have self compassion for myself? And of course, for a little quantum leap on that one is if you can't have self compassion, can you have self compassion for not being able to have self compassion? Here we go. Yeah, we can really go down that one. So maybe to kick us off, you can tell us 2025. How do you identify in the world? Like who is Ash? 05:56 great question, Matt. it's a loaded question. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I was pondering this morning on my walk, because I listened to a previous episode and heard you ask that question. And okay. And for me, you know, there's so for the listener, I had a near death experience in 20, end of 2016. And so in that, might go into this later, but in that, I experienced myself 06:26 without a body. And I experienced this true essence of myself. And it was like we all have this fingerprint. There's our soul's fingerprint. And I thought I was going to become this enlightened Buddha when I died. Right? I thought, you know, I had this sort of, you know, from reading and things, I thought, well, I'm going to leave my body and, you know, become enlightened. And what happened was I was myself, like truly myself. 06:55 And so was like that, when we were talking about the hardwired conditioning, it was like that got stripped away. And I was left with this sense, true essence of myself, which in Eastern philosophy, they talk about a lot, this true nature. And I experienced that. So part of me goes, well, I'm a soul in a body. And it's a bit cliche, right? And often cliches are cliches because they're true, but I'm a soul in a body. 07:23 However, I've had this experience of truly feeling that without my body. So part of me goes, okay, well, there's this part of me that never ever ends. Yeah, it exists after death. And here I am in my little ash avatar in this lifetime, you know, going around doing podcasts and coaching and being a dad and stepdad and a partner and adventuring, you know, I just love. 07:52 travel and, and cold plunges and standing on tops of mountains or swimming out into the ocean and surfing and all those kinds of things. But they're like experiences. I love experiencing life. And I had a moment recently in the last couple of weeks where I thought I've been working really hard for the last three or four years. And the last, the last seven 08:22 seven months, I would say most of my weeks have been between five and seven day weeks where I've been mostly around six days a week. And I thought, hang on a second. I'm not here to do that. I'm here to experience life and experience the world. And I'm experiencing my office and my work and I love that, but it's not the whole picture. So for me, there's this wholeness of ourselves. 08:51 and that we don't want to be happy, we want to be fulfilled. We want to be the fullness of ourselves. And so that means challenge and that means heartbreak and grief and anger and madness and joy and connection and happiness. All of that is us. All of those things. That's a fulfilled life. And so for me, the work is one being that for myself and 09:21 through having set that, and that came from the near death experience, but having set that goal for myself, right, of truly being myself and making a living being myself and being myself in the world, whatever that means, it was, there's that aspect. And so it's led me to this work of the heart, my own heart. And in that it's opened up doors for me to help other people connecting with their heart and be. 09:50 in the world living from this place, from their chest, from the heart and the mind. The mind is the tool for doing what we want. It's not the one that should be deciding yes or no. From my experience, it's the heart. The heart says, help people connect to their heart. That's your work. go, okay. And the mind's job is, okay, well, let's sit down and apply for some podcasts. That's the mind's job, not to go, well, you shouldn't be putting yourself out there. 10:19 all those kind of self judgment things. So I feel like it's quite a long answer to your question, but it's a great question. Such a great question. think it's important. I think the last thing that really stuck with me is, or kind of I guess what I've been learning and I think by practice is the more that you're like aligned with your purpose and in your heart, the better you can serve others. I think it's kind of like if we break it down to a cheesy 10:48 thing that everyone says is kind of like the oxygen mask thing on a plane. It's like you serve yourself once you know how to align in that way and live from here. It probably makes it better and easier for you to help others do that. that, I mean, have you found that to be true? I think sometimes people try to teach things that they don't really understand, but if you really are living it, it's probably a lot easier. Yeah, I think if you're living it, you feel the value. 11:18 Say, Oh, does that make you mad at others when they're not? No, no, because that's good. Cause for me, know, there's times I was that person and there may be times I am that person in the future too. And so, okay, we all have these parts that everybody's trying to do their best. Everybody's a heart on legs, just trying to work their way through life. And so that idea that we all have a path. Yeah. 11:46 And it's like, oh, compassion and letting go of judgment because everybody's doing their best, even if they have very different values and ways of operating in the world. That's just their path. They're here to find their way. And it's not easy. It's not easy to be a soul and a human body with this human infrastructure that has been. 12:10 built for survival because if we didn't have it, humanity would have died out. We wouldn't have any vehicles to be driving around in, as in the human body, we wouldn't have that. So yeah, it's interesting exploration and that's what it is. It's okay. But most people get to the point where they get too scared to test life out and experiment because of conflict or pain in the past. 12:38 And just because it was like that then doesn't mean it's going to be like that now or the next time. But that's our protection system jumping in all the time. The body must survive. And that's its role. That's its role. And it worked. When we were in full survival mode, even though we can look at media and go, okay, we're still in full survival mode, but there's a lot of people on the planet that were in Thrival mode. But we still have that. 13:06 that ancient infrastructure in our brain that is humanity must survive. for humanity to survive, you have to be small. You have to just take care of the minor, well, not minor details, the, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You need to be in the bottom part of the triangle. And if you go into the upper part where you want to be thriving and living a life of purpose, the bottom part can get really noisy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 13:35 please don't put me in this situation. And so it's a learning process around who you are and your humanness and how to navigate that so that you can do what your soul's calling. Yeah. I think that's beautiful. And I think that you must be helping, inspiring, whatever word we want to use here, others on that journey. Were you, and I don't want to make any assumptions. Were you always this way? Like, were you always, or was this like, how do we, how do we get here? 14:05 for you. Like, so for me, if we go back, if we go back to early 2005, as a schoolteacher, and all I wanted to do was be a dad, you know, and I had this picture in my head that I would be a dad, and I would eventually become a principal. And, you know, I was happy being around children and helping them. And then in November 2005, my then wife, 14:33 we had a stillborn daughter and it was, I'd never experienced anything like that in my life. That level of tragedy, that level of heartbreak just holding my daughter and she was so perfect in my arms, but she was gone. And I had this moment where I looked down at my wife and she was crying and I had tears running down my face and it was just excruciating and I thought, 15:04 I'm never going to let anything bad happen to my family ever again. And that moment, that was a glitch in my brain. That was PTSD. was the, and of course, through therapy, I came back to that moment. was like, oh, okay. That's where everything changed. So prior to that, enthusiastic, full of possibilities. What can I do with my life? What can I do with my work in education? And then that moment happened and 15:32 Over a period of three years, the PTSD came in very gradually and subtly to the point where I just, didn't have any emotional awareness or anything like that. didn't meditate. didn't have any, any practices. You know, I didn't grow up with anything like that. It was just, you you go to work, you get the bills, you, you do what you do. I got to the point where I was manic. So for eight months, I was only sleeping one or two hours a night. And of course I thought it was normal to be, you 16:02 vomiting before going to work because the anxiety was so high. And so it was an anxious about in that like going to work. I don't know. I can't it was that was just the PTSD at that level. It had you know, that level of fear of life of just having to keep going. It was every morning just vomiting before work and I would just vomit and then go okay, off to work and then go. 16:31 do a job and from the people that were around me at that time, they didn't know. I didn't tell them this was happening because I just went, okay, that's just happening. Okay. And still doing a great job with the kids and. But underneath was this real high level anxiety. And eventually I got to the point where I, I just crashed, you you can't keep going through life, getting that amount of sleep and functioning and. 16:59 I ended up in mental health clinics and went down the whole road of being, initially I was diagnosed bipolar, which it wasn't right, right? It was PTSD. That's what I was going through. But went down the road of medications and they just didn't work. And eventually I got off the medications, was just doing natural therapies and I was very lucky to come across a holistic doctor. 17:28 So, and she said, you don't have bipolar, you have adrenal fatigue. And this is how it works. And she showed me how all the hormone sort of cascade works. And she said, right here, this is where your issue is. And, you know, I can show you because here's your bloods. Here's the other things that we've tested for. And so that was the turning point, one of the many, but that was the turning point where, you so I started doing vitamin C IVs and I was very blessed. 17:57 my parents helped pay for that. so I was very lucky to have that support that I could actually access health that worked for me. So it was like the physical help was something that helped you with that PTSD. Like it wasn't necessarily like sharing your feelings or telling someone how you were feeling, but it was rather the like the physical aspect that helped you kind of feel better. Yeah, it made a huge difference, made a huge difference. And for me, 18:27 gluten and dairy free going off those things. And, you know, I have a whole theory around gluten and why that impacted me going off those, those gluten, dairy, vitamin C. And I'm, I was playing music as well. I'd been a musician for quite a while and it wasn't working going to bed at 2 a.m. and getting up at 5 30 a.m. And I had to leave my music career behind and change my life so that I could support my adrenals. 18:57 so that I could get back to thing. so that was very challenging, but at the same time, I was also managing depression. So I had been to a lot of counselors and it was to the point where I'd walk into a counselor and go, I know what questions you're going to ask. And so I have one or two sessions and go, okay, next counselor, let's move on. I amazing psychologists who took me through EMDR. So eye motion desensitization. 19:26 maybe it's rehabilitation or something like that, the last R word, which was phenomenal for working through the traumas. And then, then I encountered a therapist who did somatic therapy. And that was when everything really changed for me. That was when I thought, ah, this works, this works. Really? Can you, what was, what was that like? So he would guide me, his name's Peter Saxon, and he would guide me and go, okay. 19:55 Where is this in your body? Where's the sensation? And taught me how to be with the sensations in my body. Yeah. And I still, I've done training that myself now, but I've also, I still have my own therapist that I work with once a month where we do this work and the somatic. And that was life-changing for me that, ah, hang on a second. It's not just the head that we need to work with. It's the body. 20:24 the body because those emotions get locked into the body somewhere. And if you can sit with those for a while and be guided through a process to learn the lessons of whatever that emotion is there to teach you, the sensation, then life becomes to the point of effortlessness. Because it clears. And then in that clearing, there's an expansion and a different way of being in the world, which is more like your true self. 20:54 So that value of that work has been irreplaceable in my life. And it sounded like, it sounds like you had a period of time in which you were not seeking out necessarily, not solutions, maybe is not the right word, but like help, right? Is that true or were you always seeking and then you just found the right things at this period? There was times of real darkness. There was times where life was very bleak and 21:23 I didn't know if I was going to survive because there were times I thought I would end it. And I was very afraid that I would end it. What got me through is the love for my daughter. 11 months after we had our stillborn daughter, we had another daughter. And my love for her was like, I can't do that to her. I can't leave her like that. And then when I had my near death experience, it was a similar thing, but that wasn't enough for me in the near death experience. 21:53 you know, it wasn't enough that I loved her because in the near-death experience I had to learn to love me. 22:01 Yeah, because when you first that first like what you described as a glitch in when your your daughter was born stillborn and that immense emotional tragedy that you have to experience this trauma that you're kind of now holding on to pushing down. You're getting lost. You've kind of lost yourself at this moment, right? Like it feels like maybe in that period of time after you've lost the will to be a full human, but rather maybe the shell of a human. Is that 22:30 Yeah, great description. great description. They're very, very, so many of us have these things. And I think we just keep moving through the world because we think or maybe I'll speak for myself. We think that people expect us to people expect us to carry on. You can have your period of grief, right? Like this assigned grief moment of however long we define that. And then you carry on. 22:58 and then you keep going, but yet we don't share how we're feeling when it's really dire because we think that period is over and people can't hear it anymore. This is what I experienced. And then you go through it and then you have to hit some kind of moment in which you start reaching out for help. And when you did, you, it sounds like you were open to different things. Is that true? Like, were you like anything, nothing is off the table. We can try anything. 23:28 Or were you kind of just piecemealing, this doesn't work, let me go to the next thing in that journey of finding those therapies? Because some of the things that you mentioned are not what I would say like traditional, what you would say people will go through normally. Yeah, it was very piecemeal. was very, I had heard about this person and for a while I had a partner who was a homeopath and she was very connected to natural medicine people. And so I would go explore different things like kinesiology. 23:58 And you were open to it though. Like you were hoping for a solution. suffering, suffering, suffering was driving me. How can I get through this? And there was this little voice in my head that just said, keep going, keep going, keep going, go natural, keep going. And to go quantum again now, when I picture myself suffering like that, I send that voice back to myself. The younger version of me, I go, keep going, go natural. 24:27 You'll get there. Keep going. Yeah. Because life doesn't become perfect, right? Like when you feel better, it's not like everything is sunshine and rainbows all the time. You're still having a full human experience, which includes the not so great times, I would imagine. Yeah. And it's human nature to forget what it was like, truly like in the past and always be trying to aspire to something better. Once again, that's a survival. 24:57 feature that don't be happy now, aspire for better, be better. You're not good enough right now, aspire and forget what it used to be like so that you can continue to aspire and humanity will survive as we become more efficient and more proficient. 25:15 Ooh, that's totally right. So this journey, 2005, are you saying like maybe 2010 you're starting to feel more human again? Is this like, is that about how long it took? Three, four years, five years? Yeah, we're probably getting up to around 2013. And life was still very hard until 20 until the near death experience. It was it was very, still very hard managing depression, managing physical issues. 25:45 So effectively that's 11 years, 11 years of really being in the grind and relationships were hard, work was hard, life was hard. So these weren't solutions for you necessarily, but they were helping you kind of like move through life a little differently, like when you found the different practices that worked for you. Yeah, it was, you I had gone so deep into this whole of physical attrition. 26:12 you know, like physical malnutrition, let's say. But also there was all these parts of me that I didn't understand that were impacting my life and impacting my perception of myself and perception of others that life was hard. It was hard. Well, I think a lot of people can relate to that, but I think a lot of people listening are also like near death experience. What is like, what was, what was that? Like lead us up to that. 26:41 from, cause I mean, this part is hard enough, right? I think this is something that we can, a lot of people can relate to, but, but then you add another layer to it, which sounds like it ended up being a good thing for you, but probably not in the moment. No, no. Well, uh, you know, in 20, 2015, I had a severe back injury surfing and, uh, that led to 27:11 back surgery, even though I had my little voice in my head go natural. They kept telling me and I tried all these natural things that didn't work. An interesting, the little voice in my head the day I hurt my back surfing, I had a voice in my head that said to me, if you go surfing today, you will hurt your back. It was like God's voice popped into my head and really like the deepness and the richness of that voice. If you go surfing, you will hurt your back. Didn't quite have the Australian accent, but 27:41 It was this moment where, and I didn't like my job at that time. I wanted a break from my job and I thought, well, and I said to the universe, you know, all that voice or whoever it was, bring it on. And so I got my surfboard and I started paddling out and I dove through the first wave fine. The second wave popped two discs in my back straight away. And that was level 10 pain and a very excruciating 18. 28:10 15 months. And so at the end of the 15 months, I had made this decision, I have to go into surgery and have spinal fusion. And so during the surgery, the surgeons tore a vein down low in my groin. So very understandable around around what happened for me is that, you know, it's strangely they go through your abdomen to do that kind of surgery. So they, they do a vertical cut from in your abdomen. 28:40 just below your belly button. They take the intestines out. So the intestines are still attached to your body, but they're out of your body. It sounds very medieval, right? And then, then they do the work, but as they're doing the work, they had to move a vein to the side slightly and veins are like tissue paper. They're very fragile. And so it tore down in my groin and they didn't know. Stitch me back up and I went back to the ward and I 29:08 I was bleeding internally for 16 hours. And the next morning the physio came in and said it's time for rehab. And I hopped up and I sat on the edge of the bed and I'd been in a lot of pain that night. And I looked down at my leg and my, my thigh was about twice the size and what it normally is. And I said to him, my legs not normally like that. And he was young straight off college. He said, you'll be okay. Just hop up. So I stood up and then. 29:36 That's when I collapsed. So I collapsed on the bed. He pressed the red emergency button and the siren went off and the code blue team came in and I was conscious, but I just couldn't move. was laying on the bed and they put an oxygen mask on, started putting the ECG monitors on me and they saying, we can't get the ECG monitors on. He's in a cold sweat. Like my whole body was in this very, very visceral cold sweat. 30:06 And I, you know, looking back now, can go, I had a really hyper awareness of everything that was happening, even though I was in this state of, and then I heard them say, he's not breathing. He doesn't have a pulse. And they started talking about my blood pressure and I was very aware of where everybody was in the room. And eventually I heard them and they're saying, stay with us, Ash, keep your eyes open. You know, the whole sort of thing that you see on TV, I was in it. 30:36 And I kept thinking, I'll be okay, I'll be okay. And then I heard them say his blood pressure is 52 on 36. And I thought, oh, I'm dying. I'm dying. This is dying. And I had this excruciating sadness that nobody I loved was in the room. I was dying and not one person I loved was there. And I remember one last thing, I looked over in the corner. 31:05 as I was about to black out and I saw the physio standing there and he was just pale and I thought, poor guy, you think you've killed me. And then I blacked out. 31:19 I mean, that's scary. The way you describe it, it almost sounds like you were calm. Were you panicking? Like, I would panic. So you felt like totally like this is how it's going. Like, I'm not going to panic about it. It was just like observing what was happening. It was very strange, very strange. Other than that immense sadness. 31:49 I didn't have pain at all. But just that immense sadness that was very intense, but it came and went very quickly. So it was a bit like all these things were happening and I had no control over them, but I could see what was happening. Yeah. Did you, I don't think I've ever talked to anyone that's had like a near death experience. Was it like, I mean, you just described that medical part being like what you see on TV and in the movies was the whole like, 32:19 Did you have visions of your life or any of those pieces or was it more you were in the moment and very present for this part? For that part, very, very present. I didn't see a light. I didn't have my life flash before my eyes. None of that. Okay. But a lot of people do. A lot of people have very strong visuals. My initial experience was that I became ripples. 32:49 I was these ripples going out into the universe and the ripples were me and there was just no separation. They just kept going and going and going. was like I just kept expanding out. And I was really surprised that I could think I had this conscious awareness. So I blacked out, but I became the ripples and I had that experience of feeling like myself. And there was curiosity. like, 33:19 I didn't think dying would be like this. And the ripples kept going and I started to say, I want to stay. 33:28 And then I started kind of bargaining and I knew I was bargaining, right? There was all these things happening, but I knew what was playing out. And I said, Oh, you I want to stay for the kids and I want to stay for my partner. I was still every time I said something or someone that I wanted to stay for, I just kept going out and out and out. And there was this real sense that I had gone as far as I could go. And something happened where I had this warmth come over me. 33:58 and this sort like gold kind of feeling. And I said, I want to stay for the work that I do on Walk the Planet from my heart. And that instant, the very, very, very instant boom straight back into my body. And I had a bit of a download at the same time, opened my eyes and they're saying we've got a pulse, he's breathing, eyes are open. And I came back to level 11 pain. 34:25 like excruciating because I've lost so much blood, it was pressing on my organs. yeah, so then I came back, you know, I had this sort of moment before I came back where I thought if I came back, I would come back to enlightenment or healing or paradise. No, no, no, no. I came back to pain and suffering. But there was gratitude for being alive. But I was moaning and screaming and they were 34:54 doing the whole thing of rushing me through the hospital on the the hospital bed and telling people to get out of the way and took me down into the depths of the hospital for scans and ended up in ICU. And they were trying to find where the where the blood loss was happening from. And that was a totally deeper experience of suffering than what I had experienced the the 10 years before that. And in a totally different way, though, right? Like a. 35:21 like a true physical suffering where I was totally immobile and I couldn't move my legs. The nurses would have to do that for me. I had a moment where one day I was talking, I could barely talk, but I was talking with one of the nurses one day and I just had this experience where I'm like, oh, I am so grateful to know what this level of suffering is like. There are people that go through this every day of their life. 35:51 And I knew that I was just getting a taste of it. I wasn't going to be in it forever. And that was a phenomenal moment to feel other people's level of suffering. 36:06 It gave you another layer of empathy. Cause I would imagine that you would, you probably had that on the emotional side, no? From the previous 10 have the experience of it. Not the physical, but you had the emotional element. Yeah. But you know, and I would say I was a martyr. That was how I lived my life was I was doing everything for everybody else, leaving myself last and the relationship that I was in at that time. 36:35 It only lasted another, it took me three and half weeks to get out hospital and three weeks after that, the relationship just destructed. It was like the universe went, okay, you're starting from nothing. You're starting from nothing. But you're different. mean, you're a changed person in so many ways, I think from an experience like that. And it's hard to believe that anyone would not be. So I think all that kind of makes sense because you got into that relationship when you were a different person. 37:04 Yeah, very much so. And you talked about the line in the sand. Yeah. It's like, what do you do after that line in the sand? That's what makes all the difference. Yeah. And so you could, you could go many different ways. You could, you could go back to the old version of you too. I mean, a lot of people probably would. Yeah. It's easier as hard as it was. It's easier because it's the known. Yeah. Which, which is the illusion. The illusion is it's easier. Yeah. No, but for me, I had not the heart. 37:34 Yeah, yeah. And the illusion is it's easier. There was for me is like, okay, I went through that experience for a reason. And I thought I'd been living from my heart, but I wasn't. So what does it mean to live from the heart? What does that mean? We'll often get a picture in our head, and then our questions will drive our behaviors. So the picture in my head was of me living in the heart. I didn't know what that 38:03 look like. But I knew that that existed. Otherwise I wouldn't have had this experience. So how do I get there? What does that mean to live from the heart? And so that became my inquiry. And now it's my gauge for living life. I experience consciousness, this state of awareness without a body. So my curiosity was sparked. 38:31 by that experience. Okay, what does it mean? What is consciousness? Because I 100 % experienced myself as consciousness. So what does that mean? And that led down to more healing, more therapy. I did a wonderful retreat called The Path of Love, which they do in the States, they do in Colorado. And that's a week long process. And I knew, if I go to the path of love, I'm gonna learn how to live from my heart. 38:59 So I did that and I've been involved in their work in some ways ever since. Does it feel more intentional at that point? I mean, it's then before where you were kind of doing the things because you were seeking relief, if you will. But now it's like you're doing these things with intention because you want to learn more. You want to lean into it more, sounds. Yeah, yeah. And great catch. I really have a great ability for insight. It was intentional because 39:27 I consider it a contract. I'm staying for the work that I do and to walk the planet from my heart. That's my contract. If I hadn't have got to that point, I'd be dead. I have no doubt. If I hadn't had that realization, I'd be dead. you're, it's, be making assumptions here. Your contract or the idea of your contract was not something that existed in your mind or existed in your, in your 39:56 present mind before that. Like this is something that kind of came in that in that moment. So it's like it's almost like obviously it's coming from you, but it's foreign at the same time. So now you have to go into this exploration of like, do I achieve this contract? Like how do what does it even mean? How do I do it? Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, have you ever read the book, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho? Yes. Yeah. That's what it's like. 40:26 Even to this day, that's what it's like. Well, talk about an intentional journey and a way to create a fulfilling life on your own terms. like heaven, if you will. Which I'll excuse the little connection there. How long was that time? Do you know how long you were actually out? I don't. When I talked to the doctor about it, he said, 40:56 You know, I told him I nearly died, didn't I? And he said, Oh no, you gave us a bit of a fright, but we knew you were going to be okay. And I also made a choice. I thought, you know what? It doesn't matter what anybody else says. I know what my experience was. And once again, it's a turning point where I went, I know what my experience was. Will I create more value in my life from trusting that experience or going into the, the, the 41:26 the data of what happened. I'm sure it's a question you get a lot though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And understandably, right. People want to know the, think we want to make sense of things in our own, the way we perceive life. And so like we try to connect dots that exists in our own mind. And that's why we asked that question. I don't think it, at the end of the day, doesn't really matter. Yeah. Well, and there's the whole, your brain released DMT and that was part of the brain dying and therefore you had that experience. 41:56 Possibly, possibly. I asked that question more of curiosity because it sounds like you were in this space of feeling. The way you describe it, it feels longer than maybe it might have been in real time. And the only equation that I could get to that from my own experience is I once went unconscious at a blood lab because I fell on my head and went totally black and it felt like I was... 42:25 napping for like six hours and I was out for like 15 seconds. whatever it was. And so that's immediately what I think of. It sounds like you're in this space where time isn't really existing, but in real time, it's probably like a handful of seconds or minutes or whatever it may be. The difference for me was that when I blacked out, I could still think I always still had that awareness that 42:54 And for me, that was what I kept coming back to because for months I just kept going, maybe I just fainted. Maybe I just fainted. And then one day I just thought, hang on a second. If I just fainted, how was I able to think? How was I able to have that experience and be so aware of what was happening? And bargain. I mean, that takes a lot of awareness, right? I think if you're like, 43:20 begging essentially with this bargaining chip and then you come up with something that like now you you've signed it away. It's time to go. You got to do the right thing. That's it. I mean, it's great. Yeah, I had to wake up and it was like, okay, guess what? If you don't wake up to what you're here to do, then you don't have this life anymore. You don't listen. Yeah, I didn't listen to my own inner guidance that was saying to leave the relationship and 43:50 But I thought that me staying in there was the best thing for everybody else, even though I was suffering. And I wasn't listening. I wouldn't listen. I didn't listen for the first place of how I injured my back. So since then, it's like, okay, I'm going to be a better listener. Does it feel like a second chance? Oh, yeah. I call this my second life. Okay. And so since then, so the relationship split up three weeks after I got out of hospital. 44:17 And I literally had to rebuild my health and my life. And my daughter was with me, which was just the most wonderful gift. And then, we, went from a blended family to just living the two of us together again. And it was just wonderful. It was just, and then for me doing all that personal work, it meant that I could understand her more and her emotions more and guide her much more gently and honestly. So I, I just, 44:47 deep dove into what does it mean to live from my heart? What is that? And over time, I got to the point where the voice in my head popped in one day and I got to this point where I was content with my teaching job. And I remember driving away thinking, oh, that was just a great day. I'm so content. And then the voice popped into my head and said, it's time to leave. It's time to do something bigger. And I was like, what? You're kidding me. You're kidding me. But I was like, okay. 45:17 The voice I've got to listen otherwise, you know, it's of like that funny thing. Please don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. I'll do what you say. Yeah. Well, you, you challenged that voice last time. Yeah. got a big smack. But I mean, I don't know how you look at it, but if you look at this version of you now, it's like, 45:39 It's kind of like a, I hate saying these words, blessing in a way, because you have this like second version of your life in which it seems like you're living more intentionally and liking it more. Oh, I love my life. And people often ask, you know, are you scared of dying? And it's like, wow, gosh, life is so good. I don't want to give it up. But then there's part of me that knows, well, I still exist after I die. 46:10 Yeah, it's gotta be comforting. can't imagine too, I think of your daughter, how old was, if you don't mind, how old was your daughter around the time of this experience? She was 10 at that point. So I can't help but think of how lucky she is to see you do this work for yourself and on yourself to create the life that you have now because I would imagine that the ripple effects of what you're doing 46:40 go to her, which then become ripple effects to the rest of the people that she interacts with. So like I think of her and how lucky she is to kind of see this journey for you. It probably absorbs some of the pieces that maybe resonate with her. Are you seeing that in her growth since then? I do. And it's been a big lesson for me that living life from my heart. 47:09 and not from obligation, that has that ripple effect. You are the ripples, I am the ripples, we're all the ripples. And that's true legacy. In Western world, it's all about the money and leaving things, whereas what truly changes generations is the way that we are. And so my daughter, like I was hardwired as a child, there's hardwiring that occurred for her and she will naturally pass that on. 47:38 And there's this evolution of humanity that we become more and more conscious. Despite what we see, right? We're starting from a backwards place as far as compassion. But we're evolving. I see it through the generations. I can sit in a cafe and there can be 17-year-olds, 18-year-olds sitting behind me talking about their self-judgment. And then I'm like, I didn't even know what that was until I was 42. 48:08 It's true. I think there is a little bit more of that. I think it's complicated. It almost feels more complicated now though, because now they're fully aware, but it seems like there's so many other roadblocks and distractions as well. Are you seeing that in your work? Are you seeing that more people are open to what you're offering and changing their lives in that way? I think there's a... 48:36 There's a trajectory of people becoming more and more open. There's some people that will never be. That's not their path in this lifetime. And, you know, there's the idea of our karma where, you know, we have a purpose and for some people, their purpose is to come in and be a distant father and teach their child to value connection through being distant. 49:02 And that's not necessarily a pleasurable experience for that father to be distant. But that was his act of love to be distant so that the child can value connection and teach connection to their children. Interesting. That's a nice way to look at it. probably wouldn't, I don't know if I have the brain power or the tools to see it in that way. I think that might be your... 49:32 Your, your new version of life feels more evolved maybe than mine. Well, I've done a lot of processing. Yeah. And I think it's beautiful. I'm just being honest. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not easy to get to that point. Yeah. There's there's a, you know, for me personally, I would say, you know, there's been the personal work and therapists and 50:00 You know, I learned from my clients and working with my clients and sometimes themes for them will be themes from in my life and seeing how they navigate those, it teaches me. know, another gift for me has been working with plant medicines because I had that experience of consciousness. It's like, Oh, okay. And so in this lifetime, plant medicines, they're one of the ways to open up those doorways to consciousness. And 50:30 That's a whole rabbit hole around drugs versus medicine. And these are ancient medicines. Plants are some of the oldest life forms on the planets, but they can also, and it doesn't have to be psychedelic plants. There's things like called master plants that have beings attached to them that you can just diet on that particular plant and get the wisdom of that being. We're getting a bit... 51:00 further away from our day-to-day experience as a human, but time is, it's not measurable. It's kind of like that idea that we have always been. And that these beings are ancient beings with ultimate wisdom. And I had this moment one day where I was watching this ant crawling through the grass and it was all these sticks and rocks in its way. And I knew where all the other ants were because I knew their trail. 51:27 And so I started moving the sticks and the rocks out of the way so the ant could get to the community, right? And I thought, ah, that's what the beings are doing for us, even if we're not tuned into it. They're moving things out of our way. The ant had no idea I was doing that. And so that's something that I really value now is I have this guidance that I can connect in with, which was telling me in 51:56 God's voice, you know, if you do this, this will happen. And I wasn't listening. Whereas now I can very much, you know, and we all have the skill, we all have it. But that's something that I refine all the time is that the listening, the art of listening to my heart or listening to guidance that says, go this way. And then sometimes it's the battle of the mind saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, must survive. 52:24 Yeah. mean, it sounds like your life now it's just always evolving. Like it can always evolve. And that's the point. Whereas maybe like the other version was like a little bit more definitive of like goals and hitting like boxes or putting yourself in the next box or whatever. Maybe is that, is that, would you say that's a fair assessment? Yeah, I think the box was, I would hit a wall and then I'd stay stuck on that wall for years. Whereas now I have skills and 52:54 network and resources that I can hit a wall and process it very, very, very quickly. know, and want to grow. Yeah, because how wonderful to evolve and feel my true self operating in the world, which is what everybody wants. Everybody wants is actually to be themselves, freedom, the freedom to be yourself. And so that comes from within. 53:23 The environments can impact it via relationships or our physical environments. They can impact it, but it actually comes from within. And so operating from that place where the heart, it's immeasurable. The power and wisdom of our heart is immeasurable. It's expansive. The mind likes to contract and judge and be fearful, whereas the heart, it's compassionate, kind and generous. It's like, ah, keep going, keep going. 53:53 try this. So being able to connect to that, it's life changing. I mean, it sounds like it. And literally in your case, it was life changing that that particular moment and what you've done with it. Do you ever think like if this version of Ash could go back to like that really tragic, traumatic event in 2005, is there anything that you would want to say to that version of you? Like if you could? I would just love him. And I do. 54:23 It's like, you know, like, love how things come full circle, right? We're talking about just loving that younger version of ourself. And that's my job is to love him and just go, okay, you're doing your best. You'll get there step by step. You'll get there. Yeah. What a beautiful man he was to care so deeply about his family and the trauma wasn't his fault. You know, like the PTSD, wasn't his fault. 54:53 It was because he cared and he had to learn. He had to learn to awaken. He had to learn to become more of what I am now, which is more of my true self. Yeah. Do you think he would? Like if he met this version of you, do think he would believe that was was him in the future? No, I think that part of him would. 55:20 He would like me, but it might be a bit too hard to relate to from what his current reality was. Yeah. It sounds like all of these little... Sorry, wrong word, not little. All of these life shift events in your life, very traumatic, very life changing in this way, have brought you to a place in which maybe... I mean, you did say you love this life that you live now. It's like sometimes these really hard things... 55:50 when we have enough space and we can look back at how much we've evolved, we find a way to, there isn't a word for it, and appreciate is not the right word, but there's value in what we've experienced because of all the things that it's given us from the journey since. And I say that for myself, I look back at my mom dying, never a good thing, never something that I would wish on that young version of myself or anyone in my family. But had that not happened. 56:19 all the things that have happened since, the failures, the successes and all those things would, they made me this version of me, so I wouldn't be this version of me had all those things not happened. And so it's a weird thing for me to say, do you look at any of those moments as building blocks to this version of you or do you see them differently? They're essential. They're essential for us to remember ourselves and remember that we're connected in my 56:49 your mother just radiating love down on you as you navigate life. 56:56 Okay, she's there, she's loving you, just loving you. You're doing such a beautiful job of being you in the world and contributing to the world. Our minds will judge that we're not because their priority is survival no matter what. There's never enough survival for our minds. It wants more survival, more resources. 57:26 It's very true. Well, I appreciate you sharing your story in this way and letting me equate some of my own experiences to different parts of your journey. It's just so, it's, this is something that I never could have imagined for myself to have these types of conversations with people that I probably wouldn't have run into since you're on the opposite side of the planet and, you know, and have these really deep, meaningful conversations. So I want to say thank you for just being a part of my healing journey. 57:55 in this journey of life that I'm on. Thanks, Matt. Thank you for doing all the work that you do. It's just beautiful. And the way that you do it is beautiful. yeah, it takes commitment to do the number of podcasts you've done and keep showing up. And yeah, thank you. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that. If someone listening wants to connect with you, get in your space, 58:24 learn about what you're offering to the world. Like what's the best way to find you? So my website, if you want them to. Yeah. Well, you know, this is the work, you know, this is the way my heart is helping people with their hearts work. So ashpero.com and I'm on most social media channels. So TikTok's my most prolific one. So 58:49 I'll often put a few videos a week. There's about 400 videos on TikTok around different ideas of being. And there's lots of free resources for navigating the inner critic and perfectionism, self-sabotage, all those kinds of things. And part of the work I do now too is for heart-centered professionals that want to get their message out in the world and just helping them do the work of their own heart so they can keep going because it's not easy to live from the heart. there's rewards. 59:18 There's rewards from living from the heart. Beautiful rewards. I agree. Well, I encourage anyone listening to reach out to you, even if it's something about your story resonated with them or made them feel a certain way, maybe they reach out to you and tell you. I hope you don't mind that. No, it'd be wonderful. I love hearing from people. It's very beautiful. The more connection that I get, the better. I I think it just makes me a better human by... 59:47 learning and hearing from other people. I encourage anyone listening to reach out to Ash and we'll put all the links and everything into the episode description and the show notes and everything. So people will be able to easily find you just click on that link. So thanks again for being a part of this. Thanks Matt. It's an honor and just a beautiful treat to receive your work. So thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate everyone listening and 01:00:14 Like I always say, I never know how to end these. So I'm just going to say goodbye and I will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Ash. Thanks, Matt. 01:00:33 For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com