[00:00:00] Dr. Katie Deming MD: you ever wondered what happens when we die? Or if there's more to our existence than what we can see and touch? Today I sit down with Dr. Amy Robbins. a clinical psychologist and medium with nearly 20 years of experience. She's also the host of the podcast, life, death, and the space between Dr. Robbin shares her journey into exploring the spiritual side of psychology and how it can help us heal.[00:00:27] Dr. Katie Deming MD: You'll learn about near death experiences. [00:00:30] communicating with loved ones who've passed, and how understanding death can actually help us live fuller lives. Stay until the end because I open up about my own experiences with the spiritual realm and how it shaped my approach to healing. It's a side of me you may not have heard before and I wasn't expecting to share, but it might just change how you approach life and death too.

[00:00:52] Dr. Katie Deming MD: [00:01:00] [00:01:30] ~Let's dive in. ~

[00:01:30] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Have you ever wondered what happens when we die? Or if there's more to our existence than what we can see and touch. Today, I sit down with Dr. Amy Robbins, a clinical psychologist and medium with nearly 20 years experience. She's also the host of the podcast life, death, and the space between.~

[00:01:30] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Dr. Robbins shares her journey into exploring the spiritual side of psychology and how it can help us heal. You'll learn about near death experiences, communicating with loved ones who's past. And how understanding death can actually help us live fuller lives now. Stay until the end because I open up about my own experiences with the spiritual realm and how it shaped my approach to healing.~

[00:01:30] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~It's a side of me you may not have heard before, and I wasn't expecting to share, but it might just change how you approach life and death too. Let's dive in.​~

[00:01:30] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I am excited to introduce Dr. Amy Robbins, who is with me today. Amy, welcome.

[00:01:38] Dr. Amy Robbins: Thank you so much.

[00:01:39] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~I'm so excited to talk to you about all things related to Life, death, and the space between. ~So Amy's podcast is called Life, Death, and the Space Between, and she is a clinical psychologist in private practice for almost 20 years, but also has experience with special intuition and,~ um,~ really this space around death and how death, we can use that as an advisor.

[00:01:59] Dr. Katie Deming MD: [00:02:00] People who follow me know that this is really close to my heart as well. So I want to start by asking you, Amy, you know, with the podcast, life, death, and the space between how did that start and how did you get into this kind of work?

[00:02:14] Dr. Amy Robbins: Yeah, so first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk to your audience. ~Um, ~so I was, I lost my aunt when I was 18 years old. She had diabetes. She had, um, juvenile onset diabetes, [00:02:30] and she had really struggled throughout the course of her life. And when she, when I was 18, she was, um, just about 48.

[00:02:38] Dr. Amy Robbins: She was waiting for a kidney and pancreas transplant. And while she was waiting for the transplant, she had,~ um,~ They had to make sure that her heart would have been strong enough to withstand the transplant rather than giving organs to someone who couldn't, who wouldn't be able to integrate those. And she, when they went in to check on her heart, it just was not [00:03:00] strong enough.

[00:03:00] Dr. Amy Robbins: And so she did not survive. the ~um, ~heart surgery and died on the table. And I came from a family of physicians. So this was a really, my grandfather was a pediatrician, my uncle, an orthopedic surgeon, my father, a dentist. So this was really a very, I mean, it was a huge tragedy in our family. Obviously she left behind two young, younger children and they were college age at the time, but nonetheless, you know, very, very difficult.

[00:03:28] Dr. Amy Robbins: And [00:03:30] Really kind of, I was in college, I came home for a short period of time, went back and really went back to living my life. And then,~ um,~ fast forward several years to when I was in graduate school and I had, what was my, what I now know was my first visit from her. ~Um, ~Um, she came to me, I, it was in a dream state, but it was very different than a dream.

[00:03:55] Dr. Amy Robbins: And she came to me and she gave me. ~Um, ~two messages, one for my [00:04:00] mom, her sister, and she said, tell your mom not to be upset. I'll be at the wedding. And my cousin was getting married and she showed me very clear images of my mom standing at the kitchen sink in our, in the home I grew up in. And and then she gave me another message for my uncle, also very clear image of my, of my uncle pushing.

[00:04:19] Dr. Amy Robbins: My cousin in a stroller when he was out walking and running and she said let him know I hear him when he talks to Me when he's out walking and running. I can hear what he's saying so [00:04:30] Of course, I was like, okay, this was interesting it that at that time I thought it was a dream and when I woke up that morning I called my mom and and I said to her mom I had this You crazy dream about Aunt Linda and in it she came to me and she said don't you don't have to be upset she's going to be at the wedding. With that my mom started to cry and she said I was standing at the kitchen sink last night talking to her saying to her I can't believe you're not going to be at the wedding. I then called my [00:05:00] uncle, the orthopedic surgeon, who believes in nothing non material, and I shared with him the same thing, what, what had been shared with me.

[00:05:08] Dr. Amy Robbins: And he said, that's when I talk to her, when I'm out running or walking, that's when I have my conversations with her. And so, at that moment, I really knew something was happening. I didn't know what, but there was something. A shift that happened for me, and I was in my second year of graduate [00:05:30] school. I went to one of my professors who I knew was really into indigenous healing, even though she was very grounded in psychological and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

[00:05:41] Dr. Amy Robbins: So, I was like, she seems like a decent enough person to talk to. I mean, I was also a new graduate student, so I was a little bit afraid to even bring this up. And when I shared it with her, she was extremely supportive and said, I think you're opening up to something. I think you need to explore this a [00:06:00] little bit.

[00:06:00] Dr. Amy Robbins: And I didn't. Um, because it was just, I mean, I was in the throes of graduate school. I was in a practicum and trying to survive classes and I was newly, I can't remember if I was newly engaged or newly married at the time, but life just, there was no space for me to start exploring this whole other realm that I didn't even know, you know, what I know now.

[00:06:23] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Um, ~and so I really shelved it. for a while. And then my grandfather, my papa died, and it happened again. [00:06:30] And then it started happening with some of my patient's loved ones who started coming to me, which really kind of blew the doors off and opened me up. And that's when I really started exploring and kind of took the advice of this professor who,~ um,~ encouraged me to go seek out a medium and work with a medium for a while.

[00:06:49] Dr. Amy Robbins: And that's really how these two things kind of crashed into one another, psychology and spirituality.

[00:06:55] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Wow. It's such a beautiful story. You know, I [00:07:00] have a question for you. Two questions, actually. One was that you described that after you had that dream or the, you know, the dream where you got the two messages that after that you had a shift and even though you weren't ready to make any changes in your life, can you talk about what was that shift that happened for you?

[00:07:20] Dr. Amy Robbins: Yeah, so I really, after the death of my aunt, was riddled with anxiety. I think I had also had several deaths, uh, in high [00:07:30] school of people close to me. ~Um, ~a woman, I remember a woman that I really, a couple of young women at the time, they were, you know, 18 and maybe I was 15, that I really looked up to. One was killed in a car accident.

[00:07:42] Dr. Amy Robbins: One was killed crossing the street,~ um,~ um, when she was abroad in London. And I really, those deaths really shook me. You know, they were young. I mean, I can still remember, like, every single death that I experienced in those very young, like, those high school years. And after, [00:08:00] while I was in college, I mean, I would, I would have probably now been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

[00:08:05] Dr. Amy Robbins: I didn't even know really. I mean, mental health wasn't what it is today where everybody's talking about it. Then it was just like you just dealt with things. And so I,~ um,~ was really, really anxious. Like, I had my first panic attack when I was 22 when I was 21 when I was my senior year in college was rejected from school.

[00:08:26] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Um, ~many, many jobs I had applied to, which were not in the field of [00:08:30] psychology because that was a shift for me, but I really felt, uh, paralyzed in many ways by the, these, this feeling. And I did seek out therapy after college and I was working with a therapist for, you know, a couple of years, but the anxiety was still there for me and it was still palpable in so many areas of my life.

[00:08:51] Dr. Amy Robbins: And then I had this experience with my aunt. And the anxiety dissipated and it was like my understanding of [00:09:00] death, and I think so much of anxiety is rooted in a fear of death, that once I was able to really embrace death in a different way, that anxiety just melted away.

[00:09:11] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And do you think that that, was it that your aunt? Knowing that she was really communicating and that these messages were real, that she was in like a better place, alleviated the anxiety or I'm kind of wondering because for you, you know, it's [00:09:30] not like you had a near death where you crossed over and you saw what was there and, and that really, I'm just curious about this shift because I know what you're talking about and.

[00:09:39] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And I've experienced that, but I'm just kind of wondering if you can put a little bit more words to what it was that gave you that sense of peace that made the anxiety drop or do or do you not? Did you not know at the time?

[00:09:51] Dr. Amy Robbins: Yeah, I think I, I didn't know at the time, you know, so much of, of this has really been a reflection of looking back [00:10:00] to and, and looking at, oh, wow, like I was really anxious and then I wasn't really anxious. And the only difference and I was in therapy for a long time. I was in therapy for 17 years, you know, dealing with all different kinds of things that were coming up and being in graduate school as a therapist.

[00:10:17] Dr. Amy Robbins: I really. believe strongly that you should have your own therapy. You should know kind of where your own,~ um,~ pitfalls are going to come in, you know, what gets triggered for you when you're talking with someone. So that was something that I really [00:10:30] held very fastidious to in my clinical work. ~Um, ~and so I think really it's been sort of the retrospective.

[00:10:37] Dr. Amy Robbins: experience. But I, I remember, you know, I, I share that anecdote about my aunt or that story about my aunt and the visit I had from her as my first experience, but really there was a first experience that came before that. I just didn't know that's what it was at the time. And in that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:55] Dr. Katie Deming MD: experience?

[00:10:56] Dr. Amy Robbins: Yeah, in that visit, she, my aunt came to me and she [00:11:00] was, she was wearing a red sweater.

[00:11:01] Dr. Amy Robbins: She was on a golf course and there's some meaning behind that in terms of her relationship with my mom and my mom's an avid golfer and my mom was, it's kind of a funny, I think this is like a funny psychological manifestation of grief is one of the things that my mom loves and is her passion since she was a little kid.

[00:11:18] Dr. Amy Robbins: And it was how she and my grandfather. Bonded because they back their home backed up to a golf course, and so they didn't belong to the golf club But at the end of the day my grandfather would [00:11:30] take my mom out to hit golf balls. And so she was really good And is continues to be a really excellent golfer but How her grief manifested for her was she ended up like playing horrible, horrible golf and it really impact.

[00:11:46] Dr. Amy Robbins: I know it sounds kind of silly, but it was something that she loved and was so passionate about. And I think felt a lot of survivor's guilt around her living and my aunt having such a difficult life and really struggling and [00:12:00] my mom feeling like she never had health issues like my aunt had. And she had to really watch all of that.

[00:12:06] Dr. Amy Robbins: Throughout her life and watch my aunt really struggle with everything and so how it manifested for my mom was really like impacting her game and then taking her enjoyment out of it. And so when my aunt came to me and she was on the golf course and she sat and she looked so beautiful, like I remember her, she was just glowing and she always looked very sickly to me growing up, like [00:12:30] that's the image I have of her because she was sick for most of the time.

[00:12:34] Dr. Amy Robbins: I mean very sick and then she went through a divorce and the stress of that added to her frailty and her sickness and probably ultimately her untimely death. But She was just beaming and she said, let everybody know I'm okay. I'm healthy over here. My body has healed And I think it was like those two experiences that left me feeling like Okay, there might be [00:13:00] something to this that this physical reality that we see and experience every day Isn't all that there is

[00:13:06] Dr. Katie Deming MD: That's beautiful. So. Tell me when you did finally kind of accept the call or follow your, you know, instructor's recommendation, how did this all open up for you and how has it evolved into, you know, it sounds like it's part of your practice

[00:13:26] Dr. Amy Robbins: but probably not in the way people would, would assume it would [00:13:30] be. So, ~um, ~after, so, After I had had multiple experiences, and then it started with the patients, and I, I started working with this medium, and she really encouraged me. I mean, she started to teach me, like, this is how you open up. This is how you protect yourself.

[00:13:46] Dr. Amy Robbins: This is how you ground yourself. This is what the science is. Signs and the symbols and they all mean and so then being you'll appreciate this being the you know Forever student that those of us in these fields tend to be right You're always I feel like [00:14:00] you're never not i'm i'm never not learning and i'm curious and I always want to expand I was like I have to do an internship.

[00:14:07] Dr. Amy Robbins: I can't just Put out a shingle and call myself a medium like that would seem crazy. So I literally constructed my own little internship where I for free opened it up to anybody. I sent an email out to friends and friends of friends and acquaintances and said that just forward it on and if anybody wants a reading, I'll do a reading.

[00:14:26] Dr. Amy Robbins: And so what was supposed to be a month turned into three months. [00:14:30] And I think I did over 30 or 40 readings and they were great. But I still felt like, okay, so you had a reading. Now, what, what do you do with that information? And obviously, I'm in the now what camp because this is what I do for a living, right?

[00:14:46] Dr. Amy Robbins: I'm a therapist. I want to take people deeper. So I'm like, okay, what are we going to do? What do you do with this information? Once you have it, how do you use that? Other than it being really validating and for many people, [00:15:00] I think it can be really, really helpful in their grief in terms of helping them move forward from what they've experienced and feel that connection.

[00:15:08] Dr. Amy Robbins: The now what for me wasn't there in the mediumship space. And so I just was like, all right, I'm going to be back at my clinical work. I started to have, I was still having these experiences. I would have flashes of patients who had past lives or I would go in and meditate and ask the question like, where is this person stuck?

[00:15:27] Dr. Amy Robbins: And then I would see them [00:15:30] at either, like I would get an image of, of kind of a space maybe they were in or an age that they were at. And so I just started to subtly bring that into the work that we were doing and say things like, you know, tell me what happened around the age of nine for you and just see if those things would open up and unlock.

[00:15:53] Dr. Amy Robbins: doors for them and they would. And so it's not, and I don't [00:16:00] say, I just saw that you were stuck at the age of nine with something, right? It's just much more integrated for me. And I don't do straight medium work because one, I think that there's a lot of mediums that are way, way better than I am. And it's such a, It should be such a sacred experience and can be so powerful and healing with the right person, which is not me for the mediumship experience, that I wanted people, when they were having that experience, that it [00:16:30] feel really validating, and then what they do with that, they can come to me, process that. I have had patients whose loved ones have come through in sessions, and now that they know that I do this, I've shared with them just that. You know, I think your loved one is here. How would you feel about me, like, sharing what they're, what they're sharing?

[00:16:50] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I can imagine. When this 1st started happening in your practice, and you're not necessarily, you know, people are initially, I would [00:17:00] assume people are not coming to you because they know that you're also a medium that. What was that like to share that? And actually, when you said you sent an email to all your friends and family, I'm like also thinking like, what is this like to come out and, and share that you're, you know, you have these gifts and you want to use them in a meaningful way, both like with your family, but then also with your patients.

[00:17:24] Dr. Amy Robbins: So I never told my patients. ~Um, ~they only found out about it once I launched the [00:17:30] podcast. So for a long time, I was having these experiences and I never said a word and I did test it out with some family and friends and I had a couple of people that thought, wow, that's really cool. And a couple of people that just totally shut it down.

[00:17:45] Dr. Amy Robbins: And so I shut it down for longer because it wasn't until I was at a place. Where I felt like this was my truth. I had had so many of these experiences and that doesn't I'm not even counting like all the signs and synchronicities and crazy stuff that [00:18:00] happened beyond just like these few that I'm sharing that it, it became so,~ um,~ my reality.

[00:18:08] Dr. Amy Robbins: That it didn't it no longer matter for so long it mattered what people what other people thought and I was so afraid of sharing this for what other people were going to think and say and am I, you know, crazy or am I, you know, delusional or hallucinating I mean I'm in the field of psychology. and so I think that once I got to a [00:18:30] place where I was like, you know what?

[00:18:32] Dr. Amy Robbins: I don't care if people think it's real or not real. This is what I've experienced. I know that there are other people who have experienced it as well. And so I'm just going to share that and let other people open up and make their own decision about what they want to believe or not believe. That's no, that's not, it's not my job to convince anybody.

[00:18:53] Dr. Amy Robbins: I just want to show people what's possible. I want to share with them what I've experienced because hopefully they can [00:19:00] experience it too, because it's, it, it changes your experience in the world and it makes life so much more fun and meaningful.

[00:19:08] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And when was that, that you were so convicted that you didn't feel the need to convince anyone, just like, this is who I am and this is what I'm bringing, you know, to my practice and my life.

[00:19:20] Dr. Amy Robbins: I think it was what, you know, everybody who's a medium will say, not everybody, but a lot of people who are mediums will say things like, I couldn't not do this [00:19:30] anymore. Like, I couldn't, I couldn't deny this part of myself. I couldn't not be a medium. I was like so pushed into it. And that's sort of how I felt about sharing this.

[00:19:39] Dr. Amy Robbins: It started to feel like there was this entire part of me. that had no place to be expressed. And I really, every time I had the conversations and still to this day, six years, almost six years or five years into my podcast, it is still the thing that lights me up the most is having these conversations with people around this [00:20:00] topic, because I think it has the ability to expand our consciousness and really Change the world and so when I felt like that push that just kept pushing I was like I just have to be out there and The chips will fall where they may and if that means that I lose all my patience ~Um, ~I guess that's what it will be which didn't happen

[00:20:24] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah. So actually, so tell us, so what happened then when, when you had this [00:20:30] feeling and actually, I love the, what you said that there was a part of me that had no place to express itself and that this was really, you know, part of your healing to express your wholeness and allow your whole being to be expressed in the world, even though that that may have been scary, what a beautiful and courageous, step.

[00:20:52] Dr. Amy Robbins: Thank you, yeah, I I think I mean I remember when I made the call to one of the doctors that refers patients to me You I [00:21:00] live in Chicago, these are doctors at Northwestern, and I reached out and I said, just want you to know I'm launching this podcast. It might be a little out there for some people.

[00:21:09] Dr. Amy Robbins: And since then, like I've gone even further out than I was then. ~Um, ~and so like I have people on who channel light beings from other dimensions. And, um, you know, I talk about all kinds of different. modalities of healing that tend to be more in the spiritual space than the traditional medical space. And he was like, [00:21:30] okay, like totally unfazed by it.

[00:21:32] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Um, ~Um, and so, I mean, are there people that have maybe looked at my website and been like, yeah, I'm not going to call that woman. ~Um, ~perhaps I don't know about it, but it, you know, it has not been a problem at all. I still have a very full practice. ~Um, ~would. You know, I, I'm always referring out because I just don't have enough time to see the people that I,~ um,~ I just, there's just not enough hours in the, in the week, but it is,~ um,~ it is, it was not how I thought it would [00:22:00] go.

[00:22:00] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah. Well, and thank goodness because it's, you know, I think, so this is the thing that, you know, I've had an experience. I had my first real that I remember a metaphysical experience as a shared death experience when someone else was transitioning. And I somehow connected with her soul as she transitioned and I felt the light and the love and the beauty and, and all of that.

[00:22:27] Dr. Katie Deming MD: it took me a little bit of time to even [00:22:30] admit that that had happened to me because I just felt so weird. I was like, I don't know what that means. I don't know if that makes me weird or a medium or what. And so just even admitting when something like that happens can be, you know, really challenging.

[00:22:48] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Yeah, and, and I,~

[00:22:48] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~but go ahead.~

[00:22:48] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~no, go ahead and finish, and then I'll,~

[00:22:48] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Yeah, no, but what I was going to say was that, ~you know, that opened something where I've, you know, now know that I have the gift that I can walk someone through that initial [00:23:00] part of letting go it in the death process. And I've never actually. Talked about this on my podcast, but I'm like, okay, well, here we go.

[00:23:09] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Like, here's, you know, here's something right in front of you that I can either, you know, stand up and say, like, I understand this, or I can pretend like I'm someone that I'm not, but basically it opened me to realize that, that I have that gift of helping people release, you know, letting go in the initial transition when someone [00:23:30] is dying.

[00:23:31] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And used it with my patients. So I did this when I was in my traditional medical practice. There was one of my young patients, she was in her thirties and she, I'd become very close with her and her husband. Cause I had, she'd been my patient for like 15 years and she ended up like having like just this rapid decline while I was on vacation and her husband, you know, Not getting the answers that he wanted at the hospital and they had such a good relationship with [00:24:00] me.

[00:24:00] Dr. Katie Deming MD: He just started texting me on my phone and, and she was clearly transitioning. And so I was like, okay, I have a choice here. Either I can tell him that I potentially might be able to help just smooth her transition or I'm just gonna pretend like I don't have it and not say anything. And it was important enough to me that To serve her and him if I could in the moment and so basically was able to check in with [00:24:30] her and see where she was at.

[00:24:31] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And initially, like, she wasn't ready. And this was 1 thing that, like, I knew when she was awake and talking to me, she was not ready. She had, like, they had a young daughter and she did not want to go. but so she was resisting and resisting and I just kept coming in and just, I would go into meditation and I would just check on her, like, where is she?

[00:24:49] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Does she need my help? Or is she okay? And she was like, no, no, no. She was kind of like this. And so I was like, yeah, absolutely. I just want you to know that I'm here if you do need me. And this was like over like [00:25:00] four days. And it happened to be that. I was on vacation by myself, like I had gone to do like study and stuff, like working on something, but it was actually a real blessing because I had this time and space and ultimately she was like, come in, I need you.

[00:25:17] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And then, you know, I was able to. help her, but then the other thing, and I've never talked about this, was that, you know, when you do this kind of work and you start to open to it, other guides will [00:25:30] come in. And Mother Teresa came in and she showed me. She's like, I'm going to show you how to walk her home.

[00:25:36] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And so over like two days, the guide, Mother Teresa kept coming into my meditations and, and taught me things. And basically it was like, you take her hand. I'm going to take your hand and I'm just going to show you how this happens. And ultimately I was able to walk her and with each person now that it's happened, it's different.

[00:25:58] Dr. Katie Deming MD: You know, what is visually [00:26:00] there is different with each person, depending on what they need. Right. And so I saw basically like this, uh, like it was almost like a hill up to like a tunnel. And I knew that she needed to go up the hill into the tunnel, but I was like, it's okay. Whenever you're ready, you can go.

[00:26:16] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And then ultimately, when she went up to the top of the hill, I saw this giant look like a bear. Like, but it was clearly a man, this bear that like. put his arm around her and she said daddy. And then there was another woman [00:26:30] who was there who's like very petite who came up on her other side. And after all of this happened, I asked her husband if her dad had passed before her.

[00:26:40] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And he said yes. And I said, would you mind showing me a picture of him? Sure enough, he's like six, three, 300 pound looks like a bear. And so this experience for me was kind of maybe for you, or it gave me conviction of like, Oh, this is real. Like what just happened was real. And I didn't [00:27:00] know, I still don't use it necessarily with clients.

[00:27:03] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I mean, probably maybe now I'll end up using it, but,~ um,~ it's

[00:27:07] Dr. Amy Robbins: now, everybody, listen!

[00:27:10] Dr. Katie Deming MD: know this journey you've been on.

[00:27:12] Dr. Amy Robbins: Yeah, and I, I have the goosebumps as you're sharing this story, because I think one of the things that's been really interesting in this work, and,~ um,~ I'm, I'm kind of working with, uh, I've just started some conversations with Mental Health America, which is the largest non for profit for mental health, [00:27:30] and so many practitioners have experiences like this in, you know, any of, so many of us that are healers in these spaces.

[00:27:39] Dr. Amy Robbins: who work with patients and and get very close with people and have these deep meaningful connections and then they have the experience you're talking about or, you know, I, I'll never forget years ago I interviewed an ER physician who had another ~um, ~patient come into the ER and before he He knew that the patient's,~ um,~ wife [00:28:00] and son had both passed in a car accident because he saw them come in before he did, not in, not embodied.

[00:28:06] Dr. Amy Robbins: They were disembodied and so he saw their spirits and he knew, like, that this man had lost his family in this car accident and the man was unconscious for quite some time and, and they became friends, but he had had these, this experience. And again, like, doors blown open. Suddenly, he's, you know, someone who's, you know, Typical physician who's like, okay, what's going on here?

[00:28:29] Dr. Amy Robbins: And there's so [00:28:30] many people who are having these experiences Not talking about them not diving deeper not opening up more And I just think we can we could be one so much more whole if we Opened up to them and two we could heal each other in different ways if we opened up to them Like I really believe that And I think spirituality is such a powerful Modality in healing as well

[00:28:57] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm [00:29:00] wondering, is that physician, is that Jeff O'Driscoll? ~Do you remember? Did you hear that?~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~is he what sorry you cut out it cut out for just a sec~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~I think it's frozen. Oh, yeah. Is the name of that physician Jeff O'Driscoll?~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Are you there, Amy?~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~I'm here, but I didn't just hear what you said.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Okay. Yeah. It's minus three. You're freezing up on me. Do you have, is your reception okay right now?~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Yeah, this happens to me all the time with Riverside.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Oh, interesting.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Yeah, I have such an issue with it. Yeah, no, I have full bars and~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Um, I was asking if the, Oh, it's frozen again. Oh, I hate this. I hate it. Um, you know what, let's do this. Can we just hop back? Can we,~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~You know what you can do, if you toggle down and turn off the recording, like pause the recording, you~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~okay.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Do you see it? Like, if you, if you scroll down, you'll see it'll say pause upload~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Oh, where is that? Oh, um,~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~along the side.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Along, oh, along the side.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~Yeah, like under my name, you'll see it'll say pause, you can scroll down and it'll say pause upload.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~I don't see that. I see. It's just, um, so it's under your picture or your, um, the along the side, the people along the side.~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~My, so my editor had said just to hop out and then come back in. Do you want to do that? Should we leave and come back in? ~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~What if you push settings?~

[00:29:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Yeah, that looks good. Um, okay. I'm going to have to ask my, um, is this the just, Oh, just how loudly. Okay. Um, okay. We'll just see if that, it seems like the connection is a little bit better. Yeah. Now. So, um, Oh, I, what I had asked you was the name of the physician. Was that Jeff O'Driscoll?~

[00:29:02] Dr. Amy Robbins: Mm

[00:29:03] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Oh, yeah. So, so funny.

[00:29:04] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I was like, I think that's Jeff. He just texted me yesterday. So,

[00:29:09] Dr. Amy Robbins: Randomly?

[00:29:10] Dr. Katie Deming MD: yes. Not randomly, right? Obviously. Synchronistically.

[00:29:14] Dr. Amy Robbins: like, synchronistically? ~Like, what was the~

[00:29:16] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~You're frozen again.~

[00:29:16] Dr. Amy Robbins: ~connection? Wait, that's crazy.~

[00:29:16] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah. So he, so I know Jeff because he's actually how I found out what a shared death experience was when that happened to me, that he was like, you know, that there's, there is, that is a thing. And I was like, I [00:29:30] didn't know that. So that he was the person who I learned that from. And then we've stayed in connection.

[00:29:35] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~ And then recently he just lost his daughter. And so anyway, I've been kind of connecting with him, um, about that. But yeah.~

[00:29:35] Dr. Amy Robbins: That's so random. And he is, I mean, not random. This is, I think, a real life example of a crazy synchronicity. I've interviewed like almost 400 people. But he's become, he came back into my orbit this week.

[00:29:48] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Oh, that's,

[00:29:49] Dr. Amy Robbins: Like, I haven't heard from him in a couple of years, and he just texted me this week. About something.

[00:29:55] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~Oh, that's so funny. I, I'm, yeah, we'll have to talk about that off air. ~That's so interesting. You know, so the thing that I [00:30:00] think is so intriguing for me about, What you're doing and then also bringing this out on your podcast is normalizing it. You know, that's 1 of the things that is 1 of the reasons why I do share about my shared death experience just to normalize it that like, that these things happen to people and it's interesting why I haven't shared that I've used it, you know, in other scenarios, you know, kind of intentionally.

[00:30:28] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Because that. Was, you know, by [00:30:30] accident, if, if not by accident, but you know what I'm saying? Like, I wasn't trying to do that when that happened, but I love that you're bringing this to people's attention and normalizing it to make it okay. Cause like, for me, I'm one of those people, it was scary for me. I didn't want people to think I was weird or something was wrong with me.

[00:30:48] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And it wasn't something that I could control. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that, like what this has been like to. You know, bring this out for people and make it more [00:31:00] acceptable.

[00:31:00] Dr. Amy Robbins: Well, I think that one, hopefully it gives people permission to talk about these experiences and that~ that you aren't going to be. ~Hopefully, you'll share it with the right people and there won't be retribution or, you know, no one's going to think you're having a hallucination or you, you know, you need to be psychiatric, psychiatrically hospitalized for it.

[00:31:20] Dr. Amy Robbins: Um, they're actually doing research at Yale now through the COPE project on perceptual experiences. These kind of, you know, mediumship [00:31:30] spirit guide experiences that people have. It's a psychiatrist. So clearly this is, you know, If Yale is starting to research it, it's becoming more in the zeitgeist of what we're talking about.

[00:31:41] Dr. Amy Robbins: But I think that, you know, it's really, I want to give people permission to share these experiences. I want people, I want clinicians to open themselves up to encouraging patients to share these experiences if they've had them. If they're, if they've not, that's fine too, but [00:32:00] so many patients have had these experiences and they don't bring them into therapy and then they can't process them and it's a way to continue to move through.

[00:32:09] Dr. Amy Robbins: It might be grief, but it might be other things too. You know, you can have people who've had near death experiences that are transformed by them. You know, I've worked at. It actually reminds me, like I've worked with people who've had these experiences and they, they want to make sense of them and they don't want it to be dismissed and they don't want it to be minimized because they are such profound [00:32:30] experiences in people's lives that literally change the trajectory of their lives as well.

[00:32:34] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah, and that's such an interesting point that for your clients, because this is not something that only happens, you know, to, for example, the two of us are, you know, serving in some capacity, you know, you as a psychologist, me as a physician, this happens to everyone, you know, like, So many people have these metaphysical experiences that I didn't even think about that for your [00:33:00] clients.

[00:33:00] Dr. Katie Deming MD: It must be so nice to see someone that they can openly explain if they are having these experiences and, you know, receive like sound guidance, you know? Cause that's the other thing is like, where do you turn to get guidance? If you're receiving information and how to cultivate that gift without. you know, like misusing it or, you know, whatever, like, not, I don't know what, but it's any, it's like any skill.

[00:33:27] Dr. Katie Deming MD: It's like, you need to learn how to use [00:33:30] it. So I'm curious about that with your own

[00:33:32] Dr. Amy Robbins: Well, and I, yeah, I mean, I think that it's really, I still practice traditional psychotherapy and I think a big part of that is. from the kind of real traditional psychodynamic psychoanalytic perspective. It's about making the unconscious conscious. We call it all these other things now, mindfulness, awareness, you know, but, but really it is about our unconscious and making that conscious and then becoming more conscious in everyday life.

[00:33:59] Dr. Amy Robbins: [00:34:00] And so I think that when I can help people move to that place of being more conscious, aware, and mindful in their everyday life, Then they start to notice these experiences more. And I've had a number of people who have come with, come to me in grief that they've maybe been stuck in for years. And I'll say, you know, what is your belief system about what happens after you die?

[00:34:23] Dr. Amy Robbins: And some people, not all, but some will say, I, I do believe there's an afterlife and I believe that our [00:34:30] soul goes on. And then, uh, I, I've. I've never shared this before, kind of like what you said, but I have, I've, I've had these experiences that make me think, you know, maybe my mom, dad, sibling, whomever is still watching or they're still with me.

[00:34:45] Dr. Amy Robbins: I've just had these crazy experiences and, and here's one of them. And so they start to share them and then they start to happen more. And they start to notice them more, and they become more open to them, and then the relationship with their loved one [00:35:00] continues beyond the physical death. And again, it's not a replacement for the grief.

[00:35:04] Dr. Amy Robbins: Like, I, I don't believe, and I say this all the time, like, if something happened to one of my children, This is a great belief system, and I would be taken down to my knees. Like, there's no question it would be, even knowing everything I know and believing everything I believe, I still am a human being who still has very intense, a very intense range of feelings, and I feel them all.

[00:35:26] Dr. Amy Robbins: And, you know, I think it would be the most [00:35:30] devastating experience. Most devastating thing I would ever go through and all the other stuff would come into play all my other belief systems would come into play at some point, I hope, but ultimately I lost someone I loved and they are not in a physical body anymore and the relationship is going to be different and that's something as a human being you have to deal with.

[00:35:49] Dr. Katie Deming MD: ~And I think that that's an important, Like point is that ~I mean, so many people long to have connection with their loved ones who have transitioned and what a gift to be able to [00:36:00] communicate. But it doesn't take away that grief. The grief is the loss of them in the physical body of you connecting and really having a life with them, right?

[00:36:09] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And being able to physically touch and see them. And there's always going to be grief that's associated with having any kind of shift like that. And even if you have an understanding that they're okay and they're communicating, it's still like that grief is real. Absolutely.

[00:36:27] Dr. Amy Robbins: And it needs to be felt and [00:36:30] experienced. It cannot be. spiritual bypassing is something I talk a lot about too. It cannot be bypassed by all these spiritual practices or belief systems because then that to me diminishes the point of spirituality.

[00:36:43] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah. Can you speak to spiritual bypassing? I'm not sure if, you know, my audience are all familiar with that. Like, what do you mean when you say that?

[00:36:51] Dr. Amy Robbins: So spiritual bypassing, I think John Wellwood coined the term and basically it means sort of using traditional [00:37:00] spiritual practices, practices like yoga or meditation. You know, now we have like all these positive thinking and,~ um,~ you know, breath, breath work and,~ um,~ um, sound meditation, like all these sort of considered kind of more alternative healing practices.

[00:37:18] Dr. Amy Robbins: But that you do those, but you never actually really deal with the feelings there, right? Like meditation is a practice and part of that practice is oftentimes you can feel things really [00:37:30] intensely. But what do you do with that once it comes up? Do you just say, well, I meditate, so that's enough. No, you still have to deal with all of these feelings and experiences that arise versus using these tools as a way to say, well, I'm dealing with it because I meditate or do yoga or even psychedelics now, which is a whole other thing.

[00:37:51] Dr. Amy Robbins: Like, you know, are people just using that as a, as a magic bullet or panacea and then they're not really dealing with what's, [00:38:00] what's beneath, what lies beneath, you know, using mediumship as a way to not deal with the grief.

[00:38:05] Dr. Katie Deming MD: got it. Yeah. Well, I see this actually in my practice. So a lot of people, you know, with cancer have, there's emotional components, right? There's like, to make us whole, we really need. emotional, mental and spiritual,~ um,~ practices and healing, right? To bring us back to wholeness. But one of the things that I see with a lot of,~ um,~ people who I take care of with [00:38:30] cancer is this, They have things that are under the surface.

[00:38:34] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Maybe it's past trauma or things that, that are unresolved that are, you know, under the surface for them, but they have really good coping skills that they've just learned how to cope over them. And that, ~uh, you know, ~on the surface, everything looks really put together and buttoned up and you're like, I don't understand cause they're so positive.

[00:38:54] Dr. Katie Deming MD: They seem to have such a, you know, good outlook. Like if this. Positivity, you [00:39:00] know, you direct your mind to what you want and that's how you get it. It's like, Why are they not getting what they want? Why, why is this illness like coming up in their body? And what you're describing is like, basically, you know, this, like, I don't know if that would be considered spiritual bypassing, but basically they're bypassing, you know, dealing with what is under the surface there.

[00:39:22] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And their body is showing them there's something wrong that needs to be healed. But it's so interesting. It kind of takes a little bit of teasing at to help [00:39:30] them see, Oh, there's, there may be something emotional here,~ um,~ that is under the surface.

[00:39:34] Dr. Amy Robbins: And I always liken emotions to like whack a moles, like remember that game, that whack a mole game where you like whack the mole down, but it pops up somewhere else. If you don't deal with it, it's just going to do that. You know, you're just whacking it down for it to pop up somewhere else. And so, and sometimes it pops up in the physical body, right?

[00:39:52] Dr. Amy Robbins: Sometimes it pops up in the emotional body as, I mean, I think it often pops up physically, but [00:40:00] there's symptoms of emotion, like anxiety, depression, right? You start to see it manifesting in that way, but you have to deal with it. Otherwise, it's gonna, it's gonna be there. It's gonna come up.

[00:40:12] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny that you use the whack a mole analogy because I use that with my patients. ~Um, ~so radiation for breast cancer,~ um,~ most of my patients had breast cancer and radiation is kind of like the last treatment in like breast cancer treatment. And then they, they might take. [00:40:30] anti estrogen or something, but they're not coming to the doctor for chemo or radiation or whatever.

[00:40:33] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And so I saw very commonly that they would get depressed and anxious as they were finishing or getting close to finishing and this was very unexpected for them because they're thinking I'm going to be so excited when this is over. I'm going to be ringing the bell and stuff. celebrating and that is not what I saw.

[00:40:52] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Like a lot of them would just get really anxious because I mean, think about you've been with these doctors like every day they were coming to my clinic every day for radiation and [00:41:00] seeing the doctors once a week. And they had been doing like treatments, chemo and radiation surgery and seeing all these doctors for so long.

[00:41:06] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And then all of a sudden we're all just like letting them go and they're like, what? And so I would prepare them. You know, if you feel anxious, if you feel depressed, it's like very normal, like you're just stepping, it's a transition. And so you just want to, but you want to allow yourself to feel what comes up because you didn't have the emotional space to deal with the emotional impact of the [00:41:30] diagnosis, you know, while you were going through all this treatment and so busy with us.

[00:41:32] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And now that we're stopping, not only is it scary because it's unlike, it's different and a change in uncertainty, but you all. Also have all of that emotional unpacking to do from the diagnosis. And so if you don't allow it to come up and at least show itself, you're going to be playing whack a mole. And I explained that to them.

[00:41:52] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I'm like, you might as well allow it to come now because it makes sense. Like people are like, if you kind of prepare your family that this may happen as I'm finishing, it [00:42:00] makes sense. But if you blow past it, like, you know, three months down the road, you're gonna be blowing up your husband about unrelated stuff because there's all of this under the surface that was there.

[00:42:10] Dr. Katie Deming MD: It's just, you know, you didn't create space to feel it. So

[00:42:13] Dr. Amy Robbins: Exactly.

[00:42:14] Dr. Katie Deming MD: that whack a mole,~ um,~ um, analogy.

[00:42:17] Dr. Amy Robbins: Well, and I think to your point, you know, there, there, You get a diagnosis and you move, you're in action, right? You're constantly like doing something and then you get to the end and you're like, Oh [00:42:30] no, what am I doing now? How am I going to deal with this now that it's over? Like, what is, what is the work?

[00:42:37] Dr. Amy Robbins: How do I keep doing something to make sure that this doesn't come back? I don't have a occurrence or, you know, all of those things. And so, yeah, I mean, your point is like, all of that has to get processed. It's like, if you just kept dumping garbage in a garbage disposal or in a garbage can, but never took the garbage out, it's just going to smell and get gross over time.

[00:42:59] Dr. Katie Deming MD: [00:43:00] Yes. That's actually an awesome analogy. I really like that one. It is. It's just like it gets smelly, you know, it's like garbage piling up.

[00:43:09] Dr. Amy Robbins: Mm hmm. Yeah, and that muck piles up

[00:43:12] Dr. Amy Robbins: in our systems, in our emotional systems, too.

[00:43:15] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Well, it has been such a privilege speaking with you. I didn't know actually where this was going. It's kind of interesting. So we'll see. This is new for my audience.

[00:43:24] Dr. Katie Deming MD: But, important. And I

[00:43:25] Dr. Amy Robbins: they like it.

[00:43:26] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah, I think that it's important, like the work that you're doing is [00:43:30] important, but it's also important for me to just acknowledge that these things happen to me. And it's, it feels weird because I don't really know how to explain it to other people, but it's also like a gift, right?

[00:43:42] Dr. Katie Deming MD: So how beautiful that I could help someone through this. It's something that can be really scary and terrifying. And the one thing that I will say that's come from all of that, and this is why I asked you about that shift that you had, you know, after that experience, this is like, I had a complete shift.

[00:43:57] Dr. Katie Deming MD: I am not afraid of [00:44:00] what happens after this. If anything, I feel like this is, if you were going to call something a hell, this is, the place of contrast. This is where it is really tough. And outside of this, when we shed this body, it's beautiful. Like that's actually during my shared death experience, what happened when she transitioned was she gasped and she said, It's so beautiful.

[00:44:24] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And then, and then I was just engulfed by this beauty that I just can't even describe. And so I, like, I [00:44:30] have that where I, like, I'm not afraid of death. So it's, that's a beautiful gift that I have for people who are close to death to, you know, be able to say, you know, I've seen what is beyond this and. I don't know that it's the same for everyone, but what I saw was just incredible.

[00:44:48] Dr. Katie Deming MD: And I have just this sense of peace that I can bring to those people who are close to their own transition. So thank you for bringing it out of me today on my own podcast. And I [00:45:00] know soon we'll be meeting so that I can,

[00:45:02] Dr. Katie Deming MD: um, be a guest on

[00:45:03] Dr. Amy Robbins: I mean, I, Yeah, I'm so excited to talk about this more on my podcast, but what I think is so amazing, and I hope your listeners, I, one, I hope they like this episode, even if it's not like in line with how you usually do this work. But my God, if I had a doctor who I, and I was nearing death and I knew that doctor not only could guide me from the physical [00:45:30] perspective, but also could help me exit.

[00:45:33] Dr. Amy Robbins: from the spiritual, like, into this other realm in a way that felt really, like, could hold my hand, both physically and spiritually. I mean, I'd be first in line to have you as my doctor, if that was the path I was going down, because I just feel like that's such meaningful work, right? Like, we hire doctors.

[00:45:54] Dr. Amy Robbins: Birth doulas and midwives and doctors. And we've got like 75 people in the room when we're having a [00:46:00] baby and we're bringing the soul into the world. And there's like no one there when we leave.

[00:46:05] Dr. Katie Deming MD: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. It was absolutely a privilege and,~ um,~ I'm excited to see what my listeners think. So thank you for being here,

[00:46:15] Dr. Amy Robbins: Thank you so much. I'm excited to have you back on my podcast ~in a couple of weeks too.~ And we're going to dive deep into this.

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