Bob Ginsberg | A Quest for Truth

What is truth?

For many of us, it is what we've been told to believe to be true, without any real evidence or science to back up that truth.

After the sudden, tragic death of his daughter, Bob found his open-minded skeptical heart looking for evidence that his daughter's consciousness still existed in some form after her passing.

He was having experiences that, years before, he may have dismissed. And yet, in his grief, found himself finding comfort in that which many others often raise an eyebrow at and dismiss.

In his quest for the truth of what happens to consciousness after death, he and his late wife, Phran, founded The Forever Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that shares the truth of consciousness after death that is backed by science and research. All the while, bringing comfort to the thousands of members in their (FREE) community and retreat participants.

Listen to Bob share his perspective of what grief has taught him and how, knowing what he knows, still doesn't make the grief any easier some days since losing his wife in 2020. Bob also discusses the changes he's endured after living alone for the first time as an adult since his wife's passing.

RESOURCES:

• Love Knows No Death: A Guided Workbook for Grief Transformation
• Grief Transformation Retreats

CONNECT:

• Forever Family Foundation.org
• Forever Family Foundation | Instagram
• Forever Family Foundation | LinkedIn

______

NEED HELP?

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief, there are free resources available HERE.

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Transcript

Victoria Volk  00:5
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices today. My guest is Bob Ginsberg. He started researching the evidence for survival of consciousness soon after his daughter died in 2002, devastated by the loss he needed science to tell him if she still existed in some form. In 2004, Bob and his wife Fran founded Forever Family Foundation, a global not for profit that educates the public about evidence that we are more than our physical bodies. Bob hosts the signs of life radio show his past editor of signs of Life magazine, heads the foundation's medium evaluation certification program, and writes a blog at beyondthefivesenses.com and is also the author of the medium explosion. Bob, Fran and the foundation are currently featured in the Netflix Docu series surviving death. Sadly, Fran passed away to the spirit realm, September 22, 2020. Thank you so much for being here, Bob.

Bob Ginsberg  01:59
It's my pleasure to be with you today.

Victoria Volk  02:02
You are actually a referral guest for me with our mutual friend Sirry Bernsen, who is a medium certified by the Forever Family Foundation. And she's also a grief recovery specialist. So that's exciting to have connected with her. And I absolutely love the Netflix Docu series surviving death. And in fact, I've also had Dr. Chris Kerr as a guest on my podcast from that Docu series as well. So, I loved it. So, thank you so much for being for your time today and for being my guest and sharing your story.

Bob Ginsberg  02:40
Yeah, well, it's my pleasure, obviously, I have a common bond with you and most of your listeners. So, we're all in the same world in both together.

Victoria Volk  02:50
So, before we started recording, you had mentioned that where you're at now is far different from where you grew up in what you knew. And so, you're living in Florida now and retirement community and you are originally from Brooklyn, New York, which is quite the difference, you're kind of sharing with me earlier can. And there's grief in that too, right? This leaving what you knew, and in fact, you had mentioned that you are living alone for the first time, especially since the passing of your wife, so let's start there.

Bob Ginsberg  03:27
Well, you know, my story is not unlike a lot of people. I mean, I grew up in New York, Brooklyn, New York and after I got married and moved out to a suburb, you know, Long Island but I was living a very materialistic, you know, life I had, you know, three kids and the big house and the big mortgage and the cars and the toys. And, you know, I viewed you know, the, the main goal in life was to, you know, to make money and get caught up in that trap. And of course, we all know that life can change in an instant. And it did, you know, fast forward. And I spent many years after my daughter passed and some pretty deep throes of grief, as many can relate to, I really didn't find any meaning and purpose and, you know, in life, I just wanted to go away. For me, I was kind of obsessed, you might call it with finding out if it was possible that my daughter still survived in some form. You know, logic told me that that was just fantasy and that wasn't, you know, possible. However, what was put before me told another story. I mean, I you know, without getting too much involved, you know, when the morning of the accident in which my daughter and son were involved in, my wife friend woke up at three o'clock in the morning and she sat up In bed, she was waiting. She was trembling, and she was beside herself. And I said, What's the matter? And she said, something horrible is gonna happen today. And I said, what does that mean? You know, what can you tell me more, you know, and she said, I can only tell you that it's going to be utterly devastating, something that you know, today. And so, I did what most parents would do when I checked on, you know, my three children throughout the day, my, my middle daughter was already at college, she just started her college career, my son, we had the SUV all packed up the next morning, I was taking him back to his college in my youngest, Bailey, she was working one last day, in a part time job before returning to high school the next day. And, you know, at the end of the day, everything was fine, I let my guard down, it faded from my awareness, we were all out to dinner, we have two cars, Fran, and I wanted to stop for some essentials, and my son and daughter left in another car, and then coming home, we came upon an accident. And then worst fears were realized when, when they were involved in an accident, my daughter didn't survive the injuries, my son was seriously injured and airlifted to a hospital with with with brain injuries. And then eventually, when it became clear that my son was going to recover, I started to think like, how is that possible? I had a friend No, because she knew what I was, you know, she was trembling, you know, and, and that led me what I needed was the science end of it, I started traveling all over the country and meeting with medical doctors and scientists that studied consciousness, you know, trying to figure it out. I fought the notion, you know, I was so caught up in my grief that I, I just, I kept having these extraordinary experiences, and all this knowledge put before me, and I refuse to accept it. Until, you know, one day I relented under the weight of all the evidence, and that enabled me to find some meaning and purpose in my life. And you know, of course, that grew and mushrooms and all that. Now, recently, as you mentioned, you know, my wife passed in September. And that put me to the, to the test, you know, once it's been, you know, my daughter passed in 2002, you know, my, my wife just passed. And its sort of half and half, I have to reinforce everything that I that I thought that I knew, and because we're human, and despite what you know, grief takes over and all over again. As you mentioned, I you know, in dealing with the grief, it was a little bit unusual, because I realized that I've never lived alone in my whole life. You know, I lived with my parents until I went to college. In college, I had roommates all the time, I got married pretty much right after college, you know, and then we live together, live together with my wife for 46 years. And you know, then now, you know, so I said, wow, that's here I am, you know, living alone, something that many, many people do, but it was foreign to me. So, I was dealing with a complete overhaul, you know, in lifestyle, in addition to, you know, all the feelings and all the emotion. I think that, for me, and for many others, the knowledge that our loved ones still survive in some form is in fact, a form of grief therapy. You know, I mean, to me, there was nothing else than anybody could possibly say, that would give me any hope and comfort, but the knowledge that, you know, my daughter and my wife, you know, still exist, enable me to to keep going not to suggest that it's magic pill, you know, for grief. I mean, that notion is absurd. But I think that such a belief allows you to when you reach those, those deep chasms of despair, you know, it allows you to dig out. So wait a second, I've experienced these signs and communications, I know about all this stuff, I've read all the research, that can't be all by coincidence, you know, that, you know, you reaches a point where, you know, we start with some vague hope, and that becomes some belief and then ultimately, some inner knowing, you know, and that inner knowing, I think, is a very valuable piece of the puzzle, you know, in recovering, you know, from grief. So, that's a long-winded answer to to a short question that you asked, but that you know that that's sort of where I am today.

Victoria Volk  09:33
That's an incredible story and thank you for sharing and I'm so sorry for the loss of your daughter and know your your wife and I can't help but think too, I can't imagine what that belief system if we pass that on to our children, what that might do for their grief to you know, this understanding if they like for me personally. When my dad passed away when I was eight, I didn't have this there wasn't the communication In about faith or religion or that spirituality more so, yeah, that that's possible that I could have talked to my dad or, you know, I saw him be put in the ground. And I thought, well, that's what happens when you die. And there's nothing else like, that's what happens. And then I was angry at God to write because I was still little, and I was still going to Sunday school and Jesus loves you. Well, Jesus, who loves you, why would he do this? Why would he take my dad, you know, and so there, there was a lot of missed opportunity for people to communicate that with me, and what a difference I think that could have made and Mike reef, that it would have been okay to have that communication, even if he wasn't there. And I'm really curious to what were you doing in your life at the time that you kind of dropped whatever you were doing, and just looked for research and experts and things like that? And also too, I have another question on top of that was your wife on board with you on that? 

Bob Ginsberg  11:09
Well, she was more than on board. She, she, you know, she was my lifeline because she had all of these intuitive experiences and this deeper spiritual knowledge, not religious knowledge, but spiritual knowledge. And I was sort of living vicariously through her because one thing that I knew in all of our many, many years together, she never ever lied to me not once. So, I trusted everything implicitly, of what she told me. And so I was, I was elated when she would have all these experiences. I mean, I crave to have them too, and I wasn't getting them. But she did. And that helped me get through. When we formed the foundation. I'm in sort of a mixture between science and spirituality, I was the science, and she was the spirituality and what we found as many people will found even many of today's physicist is that they're not as as different as they might appear. You know, the physicists are sounding more like spiritualist, you know, today, because of finding out things that the ancients once knew, and we're rediscovering. But to answer your question, yeah, these things have never crossed my mind. I mean, I was, I had I was in the corporate world, I was, I had an insurance agency for many, many years. You know, everything, you know, when you're stripped down, you have a loss, like losing a child, you're stripped down to nothingness, not and material things, lost all of its appeal, and I couldn't care less you know about it, I was fortunate that I had some people and employees that picked up the ball. And, you know, I just told him, I'm not available, you know, I don't care what happens, do the best he can, you know, so I gave that up pretty much as you know, I can try to at least call in and keep a hand in some things. But I did just what I said, I just just kept reading was my, my, I SafePlace. And it just kept reading books and reading books and reading books. And then I would get on planes. And I literally would go and set up meetings with scientists and I participant participated in research. And that was helpful to me, you know, because I was saying, well, you know, you can question yourself, Am I get crazy that this really happened and my just deluding myself is that a product of my grave. But here I had all these people that from Harvard and Yale, and you know, with medical degrees, and you know, substantial people that had bodies of research, mostly unknown to the public, but yet, you know, they existed. So that, that helped me a lot. You know, when I talk to people now, I'll readily admit that, you know, now we have this foundation that you mentioned, and we have, you know, well over 11,000 members, you know, across the world, and we've been fortunate to help a lot of, of the bereaved, but I didn't get into it. For any altruistic reason to help others, I was just looking for a way to survive myself, you know, and that was my motivation. That morphed over the years and then I found that the only thing that gave me any comfort or any hope or any pleasure was being able to, to help others but it certainly wasn't like most people, as you can relate in most of your listeners. I was just finding a way to in you know, for me to navigate the rest of my life, not necessarily to you know, to help others. But as as you found and as many people find, is that you know, very often trauma loss is a trigger to exploration and you reevaluate everything you know, when your wife and suddenly you know, helping other people or seeing other people get some relief. is a is a therapy is a therapy for yourself. Yeah. And so so that's pretty much it. It's been our lives both of our life since 2004, you know, when we started the foundation? And was it always amazes me that the thirst I could I relate it to something that you just said is that before we started the foundation friend, and I would go to a support group made up of parents who was children. And we walked in there, you know, we were mortified, because exactly what you just said, there were people that were religious all their lives, and the stuff we heard coming out of their mouths, you know, blank God, you know, I was taught that if I did this than I did that night, that this, I would be taken care of, you know, and it was false promises, and there was so angry, you know, and that struck me, you know, we are under the, you know, false illusions and pretenses when it comes to, you know, promises, you know, and rules and dogma control and so forth. But, so, I always, I always kept that in mind. I mean, I think that, at its core, you know, religion and spirituality are, are the same, they come out of compassion and love, except that spirituality doesn't have any of the rules attached to it, you know, it's more of a coming from within. I know that, you know, organized religion, many times they, the leaders of organized religion came out of ages of mysticism where communing with your ancestors was a given. And it was understood and all these things that the religion now forbids, you know, it's okay for them to do you know, but not for us, you know, I have a problem with that, you know, I think we're all meant to, to be connected, you know, to the, to the greater whole. So, so for me, that portion of it was very, very important. I know that traditional brief therapy, and many mental health professionals will counsel their patients to separate from the wise and separate from their loved one, they'll prescribe medications, you know, and so forth to help with that. I like the other approach, where embrace it, continue a relationship with your loved one, it's not the same kind of relationship, obviously, we can't touch them, and we can't hug them. And we can't kiss them although and dream visitation, sometimes we can. But, you know, you mentioned you know, losing your parents at the age of eight, my grandson who's seven now, you know, he was six and friend got sick, he spent six months with us, because we did home hospice, you know, and he was involved, and he would try to do healing. And, you know, and, you know, now we explained to him that, you know, that, that my wife is now still is around, but she's just in the invisible world, you know, she's still there, we just can't always see her. And she, he accepts that. And he finds that, you know, comforting and he's, you know, obviously, with the work that that I do, I mean, he's, he's exposed to all this kind of stuff, and it doesn't find anything unnatural about it, he hasn't been taught these things, and that can't be real. And he makes no judgment. He just takes things at face value for what they are. And I think that if we, as you touched upon this, if we can educate our, our children, if they all of a sudden describe having this dream, you know, where grandma appeared, or having or even described, having a hearing go voice or a conversation, instead of rushing them out to a psychologist, talk about it, you know, get their feelings stolen. There's nothing wrong with that, how lucky they are, you know, and maybe we would all be better for it.

Victoria Volk  18:52
Oh, absolutely. Agree. I absolutely agree. Can you describe some of those experience that you personally had?

Bob Ginsberg  18:59
Well, you know, I, for me, I'll preface it by saying that, you know, if you don't believe these things are possible. You're not going to recognize any any things that happen. You have to be Altru, you know, for me, was the science part of it that opened me up to get, you know, direct personal experiences. But after my daughter passed, I was very fortunate in the fact that I had probably over the course of the five to six years I had 75 dream visitations from her, and I journaled each and every one and I and I would define a dream visitation as being separate from a so-called ordinary dream. Ordinary dreams tend to be disjointed and fragmented and kind of all over the place and might appear to make much sense in a visitation dream. And the theory behind that is that our loved ones in spirit are these entities of energy and, and they find a conduit to get through to us when our monkey mind, so to speak, is at rest during the REM stage. And during these dream visitations, I mean, I could hug my daughter and I could talk to her. And I could tell her how much I loved her, and I could smell her and all this stuff. And that, that kept me going. And I knew enough to write each one down. Because every time I felt really horrible, I pick up my journal and read all of these, you know, and they were, you know, brought me back to life, so to speak. But we had, you know, incredible experiences on what I found. After my daughter passed, my, my wife, friend, and my other daughter went on the computer in her room, and they found all of these writings and essays and poetry that she had written. We never knew about and most of it had to do with what happens after we die. Which raises the question of, you know, what, do certain children have an inner knowing that their lives may be cut short, her best friend, my daughter's best friend told us that when they were both 12 years old, my daughter made her friend enter into a pact with her. And the pact was if one of them that were to die before the other, they would leave a sign for the other ones, that the other one would know that they still existed, you know, how many 12 year olds make a pact like that, you know, she wrote poetry short, this beautiful poem called The Wonder awaits talking about what happens, you know, after we die, and that how she was going to come back and let us know, which, by the way, after reading all those things, we felt compelled to start the foundation. But, you know, there is some evidence that something that some of us, you know, have this knowing, somehow, you know, that, that things will, you know, we won't have a long time, you know, on this earth, by the way, in that incident that I just mentioned, the path that you made with a friend. After my daughter's funeral, I didn't even know this friend never told me about this to later on. But my daughter's best friend came over our house and told Fran about the pact and then and Bailey's. My daughter Bailey's pact was that she was going to take a Blue Magic Marker Pen, and she was going to put it in unusual place. And when my daughter's best friend returned to her home, she walked into her room and then neatly placed on her computer keyboard was a was a Blue Magic Marker. And she said that she didn't know anyone. And she certainly had not been using one like for years. And so, she had no idea how it was there. And then she went around to all the other members of the household and asked if anybody had been in a room and everybody said no, of course. Did I dismiss this? Yes. You know, I mean, Fran didn't but i did i just okay, that's that's an amazing coincidence. What a coincidence. But these things just started happening and happening and happening and happening. You know, I don't know, I don't really have, I don't imagine we have time for me to get into some, but some of them, I would write down every experience. And I even sought out the help of a statistician that shows you how sick left minded I was to calculate the odds of each one of these things occurring. And when I reached 20, experiences that had odds against chance of a million to one each, then I relented because I had the evidence. This has to be true; you can't have 20 million to one shot, you know, you can no longer explain them away. And so, we've had experiences like that. Right now. There's such a thing called Electronic Voice Phenomena, something that you know, 99% of people have never heard of, but what happens is that people this has been going on for decades. But you know, people take recording devices back in the day they were these reel-to-reel things and now they're digital recorders on their phones. And they sent an attention to talk to their loved one and they turn on the recorder 20 seconds. And then they turn off the recorder and then they play it back. Sometimes not often. Sometimes people experiment with it for months or even years before they start getting voices. But sometimes you get the the imprint of voices onto the recorder. We have a friend of ours was a close friend of France and she's been experimenting with Electronic Voice Phenomena for many, many years. So we have to Fran pass, she would set up seven she'd write down seven or eight questions that she wanted to ask Fran and in spirit to answer and then Janet would send me the recordings back when there was something appeared. And one of them she said Fran, what is the name of the organization that you found it and then on a tape you hear from Forever Family Foundation. So these things are really interesting because this tangible evidence does a recording, you know, and if you can rule out fraud, or other external factors, it's pretty compelling. You know, we don't know how it's possible, but yet to find a way to make this imprint, so there are things, you know, people learn about end of life experiences, you know, and having deathbed visions, you know, near death experiences, you know, reincarnation evidence mediumship, you mentioned, you know, having surgery on there, there are certain people, you know, in my book that you mentioned, the meaning of explosion, like, kind of went out on a whim. And I said that, based upon my experience all these years, that 85 to 90% of the mediums that are practicing today can't do what they claim, you know, which ruffled a few feathers, but I, you know, my data, and my observations are that it's true, not all of them are fraudulent, some of them are, but many are just have some degree of intuitive ability, which we all do to various degrees, and, and, you know, they, somebody tells them all, you should go out and be a medium next thing, you know, they're charging a lot of money in the sitting with very fragile people that are in horrible grief. And that bothers me. So, you know, that's why we test these these mediums, and that's why, you know, I put that stuff down on the book, but these are ways in which people can keep in touch, you know, with their loved ones, we try to counsel people to try to do these guarantees altered states of conscious consciousness through meditation, or whatever music or art or whatever nature, you know, and try to fluster, you know, direct, you know, communication, you know, I once did a survey amongst, you know, a membership, and I asked, if you had the choice, would you rather receive a communication from your deceased loved one directly, or through a medium. And I fully expected the overwhelming majority to say directly, but it was the opposite. Most people said, through a medium, which I thought was odd. And then I started probing, and then I realized why because people always question the, you know, the voices or the information that they get, you know, they imagining it, whereas, if they're going through a third party, a professional, so to speak, then they could trust the information. There are also people that are fearful of, of nonphysical things, you know, because they're taught that way, you know, either through the media or their family or their religion, or so forth. And so there's a fear factor involved with things that can't be explained. So, they would rather get it from from somebody else. So that, you know, that surprised me.

Victoria Volk  27:57
Well, look at your own example, your life example, right? You set out on a mission to prove to yourself that this was possible. Right?

 
Bob Ginsberg  28:08
Right. 

Victoria Volk  28:09
I'm surprised you didn't know the answer to that, because of your own experience.

 
Bob Ginsberg  28:13
Yeah. And and, you know, we find all the time is that my experience is that people who believe in an afterlife, or people believe that we've called survival of consciousness, appear to do better in their grief than those who don't. There are many people that I've noticed over the years, and I don't have to tell you, because you well versed in this, but you know, they become defined by their grief. And the notion to that to these people, if you suggest that their loved one still survives, in some form, they interpret that as an affront is an insult to their, like, a diminishes the depth of their grief. And I understand it, and there are people that and we don't try to convince anybody, we just tell people what we know, and what we've learned, and people make their own choices, you know, we hold these grief retreats, and one of which was was featured in that Netflix documentary that you mentioned, and we just had we just finished up one, two weeks ago, you know, in July, in Connecticut, and we see it time and time again, there are people that leave on Sunday night in with much more clarity and hope and comfort than when they arrived. You know, there are people that arrive in such throes of grief that they can't even smile, I can't laugh, they can't do anything. And there's a lightness, you know, to it at the end. And we attribute that to, you know, to the the the knowledge that they gained and the question is though does it doesn't last, you know, and so we try to keep in touch and follow up and see because now you're you're on this high. It's like Gone For a medium reading, you're on this immediate high, you know, you're, it's wonderful. And then you go back in the real world, so to speak, and talk to your friends and your colleagues and family, and they kind of poopoo it, you know, you know, I hate when they say, but, but if it makes you feel better, you know, so I think that this is a real, some of the business, there's been some clinical research, you know, that shows that belief in survival consciousness has a positive effect on one's greed. Brief, it's backed up, you know, by science. And, you know, we, we really believe that that's why we continue in that work.

 
Victoria Volk  30:41
I would love to include in the show notes, a resource that you have, that people can go to and read for themselves, if you're willing to share after, after we record.

 
Bob Ginsberg  30:51
Yeah, also, I mentioned on our website, you know, Forever Family foundation.org, we listed by category, all the better books on the subject that we bring people, you know, grief and loss, and, you know, science and mediumship, and so forth. So there's a complete resource on there that people can refer to, you know, there's a medical doctor that we are associated with, he's on our board, his name is Dr. Pol, Calvary, Paris, SETI. And it's interesting, he's a Italian born, and he's lived in Scotland for the past 20 years. So he's a purebred Italian and speaks with a Scottish accent. I'm always fascinated to talk to him. But he, he wrote this book, which is based on cognitive behavior therapy, and called Love knows no grief. And love knows no death, I'm forgetting already, my, I'm getting old. But in any event, it's on our website, and it's a workbook. So, he he also to go along with the material produced 26 different videos that go, we have to read the chapter, you watch the video. And his theory is that if you change the way that you think about death, you can make real progress, you know, in the way that you navigate your physical lives. And, and that's been very helpful to a lot of people. And that book, a link to that book is also on our website.

 
Victoria Volk  32:20
And I absolutely agree with that, because it also shifts your perspective and changes your feelings about your grief. Right? Yeah, I absolutely 100% agree with that. So, what has your grief taught you? I mean, aside from this deeper connection that you've developed, based on scientific research first, and then just your personal experiences, what else has grief taught you?

 
Bob Ginsberg  32:48
Some more things, probably obvious that many people can relate to. It taught me the elusive nature of life, and that to take nothing for granted, you know, just absolutely nothing. I mean, I don't I don't plan for the future anymore. I mean, obviously, you know, running a foundation, I have to do certain planning, and you know, but I'm retired from my, my regular work, and I just, I take things as they come, I try to step back, and, you know, just experience instead of interpret and reason, try to engage in rational thinking, I think, sometimes that holds us back, you know, it's, I use the example. I mean, you watch somebody in the street, or on Facebook, and constantly have some sort of experience, and that can't, they can't take pictures fast enough, they have to document that, you know, I don't see the need for that I may see something glorious, you know, but I will just enjoy the experience, you know, and I don't feel the need to document it, you know, you know, for somebody else. 

 
Victoria Volk  33:56
That's me. Yeah. You just called me out without doing

 
Bob Ginsberg  34:01
well, you know, seeing but you know, between the dots, you know, listen, when you've lost somebody close, you want to find some meaning and purpose, because it doesn't make sense. Otherwise, what's the purpose of life? We live in a, in a chaotic, chaotic world? You know, what's, what's the point? You know, I mean, if we are extinguished forever, and two generations later, nobody even knows that we existed. I mean, why? Why? What's the purpose? I have my own theory on that. I mean, I think that we do live in a world that's random, or at least it appears random. I mean, I don't agree with a lot of spiritual thinkers that say that. Nothing. Everything happens for a reason, you know, and there are no coincidences. I don't believe that. I believe that. Sure. There are coincidences, you know, there are many synchronicities that aren't coincidences. They just appear to be but you know, things happen all the time freewill, you know, I decided to do this a step out here, whatever and get hit by a truck, things are going to happen, you know, I'm able now to think that this physical life is just a little tiny blip of a continuum of life. I'm not fearful, you know, of death, sometimes I even welcome it, you know, but I, because I realized that, once again, as a, as a great shaman, or once read a book from a shaman, he says, you know, physical life is like being at a football game. If you're sitting, you know, the 70,000 people in the stadium, and if you're sitting at ground level, in the first row, you could hear all the grunts and, and the sounds and, and see all the chaos and the violence and so forth, and disorganization, you know, but when you move up to the very, very top row, all the way at the top of the stadium, you see all the patterns and all the organization, you know, and there's the meaning behind all the all the different plays. And I thought that always stuck with me, because, you know, I think that after we transition and lose our physical bodies, and with this entity of pure consciousness, we see all the all of the, the the patterns that appeared to us as being random, you know, and then they make sense, but we can't make sense of it while we're here, you know, and then after somebody dies, we have no choice, but what are our choices, we have to continue on, figure out a new way to reinvent ourselves, figure out a new way to navigate this new life that was thrust upon us that life that we never wanted or imagined. And, and go on from there. I mean, that's, you know, there's no choice. So, I mean, I try to now look at things and find some, some reasons, and I try to experience more, I try to do things, I don't do things that I don't feel like doing, I only do things that I that I enjoy. I, I took up golf, again, you know, for I hadn't played in 20 years, I go out and play golf. To me, that's meditation. I'm the only guy in the club that plays alone. That's the way I want it. I, you know, I just, you know, I can talk to myself, I could talk to my loved ones while playing I enjoy all the the nature and to me, that's my meditation, we all need to find some sort of, of an outlet to clear our heads, you know, and to get closer to what we're meant to be. And maybe our purpose in life, people always asking the deep questions, what's the purpose of life, maybe the purpose of life is just to recognize that there's more beyond you know, that this is this is one step life can be very cruel, it could be there's a lot of suffering that goes on, there's nobody that's making us suffer, it just shit happens, you know, and, and that will move to the next phase eventually, and, and we'll go from there and move closer to so called enlightenment. I don't particularly like that term but gain more clarity and always have no more experiences.

 
Victoria Volk  38:19
I like that analogy with the football stadium. Because I think in grief itself, if we can be more of an observer, and just kind of look at our lives and our patterns of how our grief has shown up throughout the different phases of our lives, because it's not always just in all these interviews and conversations I've had with Grievers. It's never just one loss. Even if it's not the death of a loved one, there's been things that have happened or occurred in people's lives that they don't think is grief necessarily at the time. But in hindsight, if you can be the observer, you'll see the patterns kind of repeating and how you responded to the grief and how you're continuing to respond to it. So, I love that analogy. So in talking about the loss of your wife now, because you said you're living alone for the very first time, and and I'm also curious how well let's go back to your daughter passing because I'm curious with the surviving children, was that what you were going through and experiencing and trying to, you know, with the research and all of that, were the children involved in that process, too. And, and how do you think that has served them in their grief?

Bob Ginsberg  39:33
Yeah, I, my, my daughter, my middle daughter, she is totally on board with all this stuff. And you know, and she was very helpful to both Fran and myself and still remains, you know, so so she's, you know, very much into the work that we do. My son was, it's hard to gauge you know, he has no memory of the X He was driving the car. And you know, and I think it's sort of a blessing that he doesn't remember anything. But he is also supportive. You know, he's, he wants to believe he's on board, he never says anything negative about, you know, any of the work that we do, you know, he can, he'll help in any way. So, I think it's helpful to them as it is to, you know, to, to most people to, you know, this work and, you know, and, and I, you know, I share with them things that happen, you know, and they share with me, interestingly enough, my, my son tells me, I mean, he's 38 Now, but he tells me that he never had a dream. And of course, I know, he must dream, but he never remembers a trade. With design. I never met anybody that never remembered any dream, you know, but so he was he sort of detached in that sense, you know, and he's a quiet, shy guy, but he, I think he find some comfort, I also think that they want to support me, you know, so they, you know, so part of it is to, is to help me out, but I always remain aware of, they suffered a loss just the way I did, you know, they lost their sister, and they lost their mom, so I can't put myself in their shoes, they have totally different emotions that we haven't, you know, when we run these grief retreats, we, sometimes we go into breakouts, because we know that, I mean, grief is grief, but everybody experiences it in a different way. And people that have lost a child may have certain sets of things that they deal with, unlike people that have lost a parent, unlike people that have lost, you know, a sibling, and, you know, some people who was by suicide, so we try to have these discussion groups just so people could share their feelings and how, you know, maybe they're not as unique as you think, you know, they're common to the group. But it's so true, even in the work that you do with Grief Recovery. I mean, you're well aware of that. I mean, grief is not the same for everybody. Right?

 
Victoria Volk  42:11
Right. And there's no hierarchy of grief. You know, everyone experiences it at 100% There's no half Grievers, you know, out in the world.

Bob Ginsberg  42:21
That's true, and never thought of it that way. It's like being half pregnant, right?

 
Victoria Volk  42:25
Yeah. Right. So what gives you hope for the future and you know, now now kind of navigating life alone? Like how was how how do you keep your spirits up and not let yourself slip into that? Because you know, what, you know, it's hard to unknow what you know, and what you know, is and you had shared this is that you welcome death sometimes, for obvious reasons, you know, but how do you keep yourself from not slipping too far down that slope?

 
Bob Ginsberg  43:06
Well, I you know, for me, I find that keeping busy I do better when I'm busy than when I'm not you know, because when I'm busy I'm not thinking about it constantly, you know, whereas you know, I was never and even when I'm not busy during the day obviously with the foundation of you know, there's tons of work that I could do and I i do it until I don't feel like doing it anymore and then I stopped you know and then you know and then when I feel like it again I'll do it again I don't feel pressure to just you know everything you know can wait you know my wife was never like that. Oddly enough she was 24/7 constantly one of my big challenges was trying to get her to you know to take to take a break I do that now. I was never a huge TV watcher simply because we were always working but now I binge watch these shows you know on Netflix and Amazon all these things like kind of like through path tonight and I'm not much of a sleeper That to me is helpful because while I'm watching all these interesting you know series not thinking about how sad I am you know and that to me is helpful so when I want to when I find in how do I I still listen it's a common It bothers me somewhat you know because after doing the having the foundation for so many years and you know people knowing my story and blah blah blah and I get comments while you must be doing you know great because you know that you know friends still exist and you must be getting signs like crazy and I'm still human I you know, I'm like just like everybody else you know, I I dig myself out from for me, going over in my mind, my experiences and what I know you No. And maybe it'll take me picking up a book I haven't read in, you know, in 15 years, or just to reinforce, or I have enough tools in my bag to try to get myself on the right track again, I'm still gonna fall off the track, I fall off the track every day, I'm able to get myself back on, but that's the key. You know, there are people that are not as fortunate and they're off the track and forever, you know, and they can't get back on. So having these other outlets and these other opportunities and these other resources to guide you, I think are important. So that's pretty much what my life is now. And I probably work harder now than I ever did before. You know, before I used to goof off a lot, but now it's therapeutic. So I just, you know, keep keep doing the work.

 
Victoria Volk  45:49
There's two words that you said that I'm going to share with you. Have you read the Grief Recovery handbook?

 
Bob Ginsberg  45:56
I have? I have not no. 

 
Victoria Volk  45:59
Okay. You're an avid reader, from what I gather. Yeah, I would encourage you to read that book, The Grief Recovery handbook. But there's two words that you shared that I want to highlight. Because I think it's important for listeners to hear and so that you said you you keep busy. And that happens to be one of the myths of grief. Because that's what we do, right when we in. So, the question ask yourself really is, Am I doing this to avoid what I'm feeling at this time. Because if it is, then that's not addressing or looking at your feelings and in in what's going on emotionally. And maybe there's something emotionally incomplete there. And that's where you do have the knowledge of, well, you can still communicate with with your wife, and you can still communicate with your daughter. But I just wanted to bring that up. Because I think it's so important that it is really easy to get caught up in the rat race of life and trying to distract ourselves. When we are having a tough time or a bad day or, or whatever. At recently, I found myself doing that too. I got a lot done. But I recognize knowing what I know, because I can't unknow what I know. Right? I have an awareness now. Oh, that's me keeping busy. Yeah, that's me trying to avoid, you know. And so, it's then addressing Well, there's my clue, there's my sign that I have something I need to, to address there. And so, I just I encourage you to read that book, it might bring to light something for you, that would be helpful. 

 
Bob Ginsberg  47:40
Yeah, I can relate to that. I mean, I mean, I think subconsciously, I know that when I'm engaged in all these things, like even the binge watching, you know, TV, that it's, it's an attempt to avoid the pain, you know, rather than to embrace it, you know, temporary fix.

Victoria Volk  48:04
And you also bring up another good point, and that sometimes helpers need help too. Not that, just because we know what we know, doesn't mean with like you said, we're not that we're not human, we're still human and still have those same challenges that other people have. True? Yeah. So what gives you the most hope for the future? And what gives you joy today? 

Bob Ginsberg  48:30
Well, you know, we we end every radio show with the same slogan, you know, and that is, you know, your loved ones are only a heartbeat away in science is going to prove it. I'm kind of rethinking that whole thing. Because the more and more that I learn, I'm starting to realize that we're not going to change worldview about death, I don't think by the science, although it's possible, but it's by people sharing their experiences. And and I think we live in a society now where people have this profound kind of experiences and after death communications, and they're very reluctant, reluctant to share them with their friends or their family or their colleagues, colleagues for fear of being judged or ridiculed and labeled. And so, it's my hope that and what we try to do is just to, I'm not talking about you don't have to go run into the office and make an announcement and lecture people, I mean, just have enough, be brave enough just to share it with people whether or not you know, their beliefs. And when more and more and more people share. It'll become more mainstream people will be more open to the ideas and maybe maybe will grieve less, you know, you know, as a whole. So, I mean, I, I hope to see a time where we all you know, share a lot more I hope, but like everybody else, even though I do work to receive more communications because they that they, they're always reinforcing, you know, you know, like when they happen. And, you know, most of all, I just want to continue to engage, you know, with others and tell them what I have learned and share experiences and promote this general feeling that we're more than our physical bodies, you know, we think of ourselves as a brain, a brain is who we are, when the brain goes, What could possibly survive, you know, you're buried in the ground or cremated. But if we think that the, this is just a shell, and that our true self, you know, can continues after we shed the shell, you know, I think we'll all be a lot better off and then we'll be able to live our lives with some more meaning and purpose. So, for me, that it's a constant search for meaning and purpose, you know, because the randomness gets to me every once in a while and have to step back and try and figure out why we're here and realize that you know, where we're going and the broader picture than this finite little chunk in history.

 
Victoria Volk  51:13
Yeah. And the surviving death series really sparked something in me. And you know, that's when I had Dr. Chris Kerr Quran and had Siri on. And I actually ended up doing an end of life doula certification, out this prompt, you know, I had been doing home health care work in the past, but it was kind of this thing I was kind of, like shutting down within myself, you know, like I, because I feel like I've deep compassion to sit with people at their last days of their life, because I was a CNA to and high school certified nursing assistant in a nursing home, you know, and so it's like, I've been doing this work for a long time, but it just didn't. I kind of like shut was shutting myself off from that. And I think I missed out on probably a lot of experiences that could have helped me, maybe spiritually evolve. Earlier in my life, had I embraced that ability or that gift of empathy. I had a point here was I going with it? 

 
Bob Ginsberg  52:22
I think that's very commendable, what you're doing, I mean, and we can learn, I mean, knowing what now what, you know, if you sit with somebody that's in the dying process, you can understand and appreciate some of the things that are going on, you know, and take them to, you know, the pure experience for what it is, people, it's my belief that every single person as they're passing, and, you know, it could be hours or a week before they pass, get visitations or escorts, you know, to the other side, and they may not be able to communicate it because of them mental or physical state, but nonetheless, they have these and that's wonderfully uplifting, you know, to think that we all have somebody to help us, you know, make, you know, I'll tell you just a quick, it's kind of a humorous story. When my mother was was my mother passed a couple years ago, and we were all sitting with her, and she was in the recliner. And we had a semi circle of chairs in front of her and all of a sudden, she was looking at an empty chair directly in front of her and she screamed out, you know, mama, mama, and I knew she was seeing her mother. And, of course, everybody else in the room, you know, they didn't know they thought she was hallucinating. But Fran, and I know. And then my father walked out from the other room, and he saw the empty chair. So, he went over, and he sat in the empty chair, my mother is sick as she was started yelling, Get up, you know, get up, he had no idea. He sat on his mother-in-law. My poor dad, you know, he's like, what? But but, you know, see, that's something that I ordinarily, I would, you know, you just would attribute to somebody a dying brain and hallucinations, but it's not there, you know, hundreds and 1000s of reports of this going on. But nobody talks about it. Your guest, you know, Christopher, Kurt talked about it because he sees it every day, you know, in hospice. And that's even how, as he probably told you, that's how the medical personnel knows when somebody is about to cross over. So, I think would be comforting if people knew about you know, these things, and most people don't.

 
Victoria Volk  54:35
Or just be open to the possibility, right? There's hope in that. I was thinking back as you said, your slogan for your radio show, and I was thinking back to an interview. Actually, it just went live not that long ago, and her experience was, you know, she had her boyfriend at the time had been in a terrible car accident and pardon me. It was her husband when her husband passed away. You know, she said she had young child At the time, and she said, You know, I hear your heartbeat, but you're already gone, you know, he was considered brain dead. And I think back to that conversation, and I'm thinking, Gosh, I don't know what her belief system is, but just in that instance alone, to feel like, they're gone, but they're not really, you know, if you can believe that, you can still have this continuation of a relationship and in Grief Recovery, that's what we say, it's, it's a continuation of the relationship, it continues on whether you like it or not, it's because you, you, you're emotionally invested in that person that, you know, whether it was a less than loving relationship, or it was really loving, right, that, that there is a continuation of that relationship, because people have an impact that they sometimes don't even realize until just the impact of your daughter, right, the ripples of her sharing with her best friend and the poetry now, and that was your prompt to start the foundation, like the impact of her life? You know, and I guess we she doesn't get to see it the way you do. But but she probably does. Right, in the spirit realm. 

 
Bob Ginsberg  56:15
Yeah, you know, I, I used to bristle when people said, well, you know, that, you know, her, her death had had meaning because, look, look what it spawned, you know, because now, you know, you've built this whole thing I used to, you know, not really buy into that. But as the years went by, maybe that was part of the of the plan, you know, who am I to say that it wasn't? I mean, I'm, I'm a totally different person than I was 20 years ago, you know, so.

 
Victoria Volk  56:44
Longer it changes us? Absolutely. But it's the impact of her life. Is there anything else you would like to share?

 
Bob Ginsberg  56:53
No, I just, you know, I appreciate the work that you do. And, you know, in Grief Recovery, I think that we all need, we all need a way, you know, we need a way to dig out, you know, from where we are, you know, and this, there's a lot of help. And there are a lot of resources. And I appreciate everybody in the field that approach it from all different perspectives, some perspectives I agree with, and some might don't, but nonetheless, different things are helpful to different people.

Victoria Volk  57:25
So, Fran was very much your co creator of the foundation, what do you think if she were on here with you? What do you think she would want to share with Grievers?

 
Bob Ginsberg  57:35
I think that there would be nothing extraordinary, she just, you know, would encourage people to be open, you know, there's nothing wrong with being an open-minded skeptic, you know, it's a problem when you're a closed minded skeptic, and you just dismiss everything. You know, I mean, there was a scientist at once said, I wouldn't believe in this stuff, even if it was true, you know. So, I mean, you know, it's a form of scientism, you know, and just experience, don't judge and remain open. And, you know, that's what, that's all you could do. I think that before you dismiss the stories that you hear, and these books that you read, do your own personal research and do your own investigations and talk to as many people as you can. Because there, there is light on the other side, you know, what, we're filled with this darkness, it's almost complete darkness after we lose somebody and then gradually, light starts to seep in a little bit at a time, you know, and then you, you finally reach a point, well, hey, I, you know, I went, I went an hour without thinking of my loved one. And then all you know, I went a day, you know, and then before you know it, you know, maybe it went a few days. And, you know, it's a gradual lightness and that only comes from this, this inner knowing based upon what you've learned their experience, I think she would encourage everybody to keep at it and just dismiss those who are closed and just pay attention to what you know, is true.

 
Victoria Volk  59:10
When, as you describe what, how she would probably express herself and what she'd want to say I thought of this analogy, I heard it recently to, I can't remember where but, you know, when we go walk into a dark room, we don't look for the for the we look for the light switch right? To turn on the light to bring in light to fill the room with light. We are never looking for a dark switch. Right? You know, so even on your darkest of days, it's looking for the light switch. And I feel like that's kind of Yeah, it is what you are on board with that. Would you like to share anything else about Fran?

 
Bob Ginsberg  59:50
No, I mean, she you know, I mean, I you know, I call myself co founder of the foundation, but she was the you know, the true you know, founder she she dragged me along for the ride you know, of course, now I wish I would have paid more attention, which kept saying things like, you need to learn this, you know, now and now I realize why I have to learn, you know everything about the inner workings but you know, to be done, I think that she was not i She was not afraid to die, you know, she wasn't happy about it, but she was not afraid. Only because she felt there was so much more work to be done. But, you know, near the end, she I mean, she did suffer terribly. And she but she, she did have an experience, like we were talking about where she, her, her deceased aunt, who was she was very close with and helped raise her. She was having regular conversations with, you know, with her near the end. So, I think that she believed they know, she believed that she was destined for this work. I mean, this foundation work became her life, and there was nothing that was gonna stand in our way. And she, you know, she was driven to get the message out, she was driven to further research. It was driven to help the bereaved. And so, she left a mark. And I said, when the hospice nurse came near the end, and one day, and the nurse said, you have any questions? And I said, Yeah, trying to be joking, a little bit. So you know, what's the meaning of life? You know, of course, that through or, you know, and she just looked into said, well, you know, shouldn't if I was serious, and actually, that's a very difficult question. And Fran, you know, as sick as she was, she just said, it's not difficult at all, you know, the meaning of life is to leave this world a better place. And that was it. And that's the way she lives in life.

 
Victoria Volk  1:01:46
I just, yeah, I'm getting emotional. I'm not sure why. That just really touched me so much. That I didn't expect that. Yeah, that's a beautiful message to end on today. 

 
Bob Ginsberg  1:02:05
Its been a pleasure.

 
Victoria Volk  1:02:07
Yeah, thank you so much. It's been my honor to have you as a guest and for you to share your story and about the foundation and the work that you've done and created for to help the bereaved. Where can people find you?

 
Bob Ginsberg  1:02:22
Well, the, the Foundation website is three words forever. Familyfoundation.org, just the way it sounds. I write a personal blog at beyondthefive senses.com. Put my thoughts down, and the book is called the medium explosion. Anybody interested in that? And that's pretty much it. Anybody wants to email I'm always open my email is Robert@foreverfamilyfoundation.org.

 
Victoria Volk  1:02:53
And are you on social media? 

 
Bob Ginsberg  1:02:56
Yeah, I mean, I checked Facebook, I don't do a lot with a bit on, you know, Facebook and LinkedIn and those kinds of things. But I'm a little bit of a dinosaur. So, I don't always keep up with that.

 
Victoria Volk  1:03:06
Okay. Well, I will link to your website and all of those resources.

 
Bob Ginsberg  1:03:11
Yeah. If people want to become a member, it's free of charge for adults.

 
Victoria Volk  1:03:15
Oh, amazing. Do you have a Facebook group then for your foundation?

 
Bob Ginsberg  1:03:20
There is. We have a person that handles that for us, but they can find it for Family Foundation page.

 
Victoria Volk  1:03:28
All right. Well, thank you so much again.

 
Bob Ginsberg  1:03:32
You're welcome. 

 
Victoria Volk  1:03:33
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love, from my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you're hurting know that what you're feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.