Latest / AHA Podcast / The Hollywood Movie Producer Who Talks to His Wife on the Other Side | Stephen Simon ♡ (ep 15)

Transcript

The Hollywood Movie Producer Who Talks to His Wife on the Other Side | Stephen Simon ♡ (ep 15) · AHA Podcast

• speaker-1: And one night I was watching a TV series that we would watch together, and we never watched the credits or the coming attractions. At the end of the show, I was about to switch it, and I heard her voice, not with my ears, with my heart. It's the only way that I can describe this. That I heard her, I felt her say, Honey, watch the end credits. And I was like, what? What? And I watched the end credits, and it included the end credits had a song, you know, child, things are gonna get better, things are gonna get easier, which was one of our favorite songs. And I spent the next several weeks. Trying to figure out if I had completely lost my mind because I knew that I could be making all this up because I was so traumatized about what happened that this just could have been something that I made up to comfort myself. speaker-0: Okay, welcome to the AHA Podcast. I am your host, Allie Andris, and I am so thrilled today to introduce a very special guest that we have here. His name is Steven Simon, and he has touched the lives of millions through his work. he's been in the Hollywood film industry, and you'll probably recognize many of his films. he's done. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. He's done probably my favorite, What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams. And also Somewhere in Time, Beautiful Love Stories. And his life has kind of imitated his art in a way where his movies talk about epic love stories beyond the veil. And he has an epic love story beyond the veil. And I was so incredibly touched when I heard his story. And after my daughter passed, my daughter Mikkel, I actually the story of how I came to know him, I had a reading done, and in the reading the name Lauren kept coming up, and I couldn't think of any significance for the name Lauren. And I had purchased this book because I heard about it on a different podcast, and was coming to Portland to visit a friend. And I grabbed the book on the plane ride and opened it up, and the name Lauren was everywhere in the book, and not only the name Lauren, but Portland when I was literally on my flight to Portland and I thought the coincidences were just so many and That that was where I recognized this name Lauren must have significance. And so I had reached out to Stephen. and that is his beloved wife's name. And they actually met in Portland. And I'm gonna let him tell their love story and how he's able to connect with her beyond the veil and talk about all he did in his career. He's done some amazing things and has really kind of shifted more in this spiritual world and is doing so much good to give people messages of hope that death is not the end. So I'm gonna let Steven take it away and kind of maybe start with how you got started in film and take us down that path. speaker-1: Well, first of all, it's thank you and it's great to be with you. You know that since you got in touch with me, this is something that we've been talking about doing. And I'm really honored and thrilled to be able to do this because I want to support you in what you're doing and in the courage that it's taking and that it does take for you to do this and to talk about Mikkel. as far as how I got started, so You know, that could take the whole hour we have. But I was born into a film family. My dad was a director and a producer in the nineteen forties and a studio executive. this will not be for people who are young today because they won't know these names, but he was the go-to comedy director in the forties. He made movies with Lucille Ball, who he actually discovered, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello. and unfortunately he died suddenly right before my fifth birthday. But my mother later then remarried another film producer. So there there's no question that I came here to be involved in film and I grew up around it. I grew up with kids of the industry and I grew up around all of that. But I also knew how difficult the industry is. So I I didn't want to count on it in case I bombed out. And I went to law school, became a lawyer, and had actually just started to practice law more as a sports agent. I represented a lot of football players. And I was having a great time. I went to court once, I won my only court case, and I was having a lot of fun. Then one day in 1975, I walked into a bookstore, and the clerk knew me and knew the kind of things that I liked. And he said, there's this book called Bid Time Return. By Richard Matheson, you gotta read this book. You're gonna love this book. And I knew who Richard was because Richard is one of the great deans of fantasy literature. He wrote a lot of the Twilight Zone episodes, a lot of movies that got made. And I took this book home and read it. And it was literally a life changing experience because I read it that night and I thought to myself, all right, I gotta get in the industry, I gotta make this movie. And I had a law partner who was none too thrilled. and I was just like, I I gotta do this. So I begged my way into a job with a producer named Ray Stark, who was a friend of the families. it is very difficult to get started in Hollywood. Very difficult. And I I didn't do it through any talent of my own. I did it because Ray was a really close family friend. And I kept bugging him and bugging him and bugging him to give me a job. And his first response was, because his wife, Fran, and my mother were best friends. And he said, You think I am gonna take Harriet's son out of the practice of law, her Jewish son, and put him in the film industry? I'm not that brave. I'm not doing it. But anyway, finally he said yes. And he hired me as his assistant. And The very first thing I did was get a hold of Richard Matheson's agent, having worked for Ray Stark. Ray did Ray produced movies like Annie, The Way We Were. He discovered Barbara Streisand, he did Funny Girl, Funny Lady. I mean, he was a big time producer. So because I was his assistant, I could get anybody on the phone that I wanted. Nothing to do with me. They didn't know who I was. I set up a lunch with Richard Matheson, and I said, I'm just getting into the industry, but if you'll trust me with this material. I will eventually produce this movie. I was so naive. And Richard was so kind and so patient. So we shook hands, and three years later, it did become Bid Time Return, turned into Somewhere in Time. And that got me started. Now, how how we actually got Somewhere in Time made is a story all of its own, which I don't think we have the time for today. But when we were prepping Somewhere in Time. Richard gave me the galleys for his next book, which was What Dreams May Come. And I remember, and I read that all in one night. And I realized that was going to be a much bigger challenge. But I remember saying to him, Richard, I'm going to make this movie too. And it's not going to take me three years. And I didn't lie, it took me 20. It literally took me 20 years to get Dreams Made. Dreams is a much more complicated movie to make. Yeah. But I was drawn to this material. I had my first spiritual experience when j really in the first year after my dad died because we moved into a new house. I was five or six years old. And I remember telling my parents in the morning, there's a man in my wall at night. And of course this was the fifties and they thought, speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Wh which doctor do we take him to? And I are you scared? And I was like, no, no, he's great. I love him. Don't do anything. He's wonderful. He's very well, it wasn't until many years later I realized that was the spirit of my dad. And he was there to excuse me, help me through that transition. But when I was younger, I was always attracted to movies like Lost Horizons, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, movies that were considered to be fantasy films. But I considered to be spiritual expressions of the human experience. And that's really what I dedicated my life and my career to. So we eventually got What Dreams May Come made, which is whole other story. And my life, you know, proceeded along its path, but there was always a spiritual component to what I wanted to do. Yeah, I made movies like Bill and Ted because I had to make a living. Mm-hmm. and I had I my first marriage was rather unsuccessful and I had a couple of daughters I was raising on my own. So I needed to work, but it was always towards trying to do things that had a spiritual, not necessarily a religious, but a spiritual content to them. So we started something called the Spiritual Cinema Circle that we sent four movies out a month to subscribers and that lasted for sixteen or seventeen years. I became very friendly with Neil Donald Walsh, who wrote the Conversations with God books. And then Neil asked me to do the film version of Conversations with God, which we did. And I did a little movie called Indigo, which was about Indigo children. So th this was always my thing. then speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: on November 11th of 2003, around seven o'clock in the evening. Not that I remember specifically. there was a a theater in Portland in a a place a suburb called Gresham. There was a classic old movie theater, and they were doing a revival of what dreams may come at that point. And I was living in Ashland, which is about three or four hours south of here, and I was invited to come up and speak. And I we were editing in DeGo and I had other things that were going on, and I didn't really want to do it. But I I felt compelled to do it. So I came up to Portland. I went to the theater. As I said, it was around seven o'clock in the evening. And there was a woman in the theater who was her back was to me, and I could just see her from the side. And I just felt compelled to go up to her and introduce myself and she turned around. Of course, we laughed about this later, but it felt to both of us like we just stood there and stared at each other for a couple of minutes. it was probably only 10 or 15 seconds, but we just stared at each other. And later on, once we got together, which was very quickly, we laughed about it because we felt that when we looked at each other, we saw a mirror of in each other's eyes. And she went home that night, called her surrogate mom, and said, I found my guy. And I felt that I had found her, and we both felt my goodness, we met the night we were supposed to. And we laughed about it a lot through the years that our higher selves, our angels, had to go h how they got us to this theater. She wanted to turn around a couple of times and go home. She just said, Why am I coming? Where am I doing this? And she had a babysitter with her two kids. Well, that began our relationship, and three years later we got married. And Lauren obviously is, was, and always will be the love of my life. And we had a fantastic life together. she worked out of the house, I worked out of the house, we were together 24-7. And unfortunately she got ill in 2016. She got stage three thyroid cancer, but they cured that. But the cure for it really weakened her. And she was a marathon runner when I met her, and she could barely go to the gym anymore, which really worried me. She was also a very gifted intuitive and a therapist and a Reiki master. She worked with kids with young women with eating disorders. and we were just together all the time, but I was very worried about her for basically all of 2017. So one night, Lauren said to me, because Lauren would go into trance at times and channel things, and she said, Honey, we gotta design our afterlife. I was sixteen years older than Lauren, and we both thought that it would be me that would go first. which terrified her. particularly when I had a heart attack in twenty eleven and my heart stopped four times and I had to be revived four times. So we did. We designed exactly this is what we want to do, this is how old we want to be, this is what we're gonna do, et cetera. And one night at the end of that year, Lauren said to me, Honey, I really want you to pray for me. And it scared the shit out of me. And I was like, Honey, I do you d are you afraid you're gonna die? And she said, No, no, no. But I know sh I she was she knew something was coming. So on January third of twenty eighteen. She didn't wake up. And I didn't get up into our bedroom until quite a bit after that because when I walked around the bed to see what why she wasn't out of bed, I could all I knew from the second I walked around the bed, because our our lab was laid out next to her, pressed up against her. He she didn't even raise her head when I walked in the room. I knew she was gone, and when I touched her, she was already cold. And I went into shock. And I I know that that I called nine one one. I don't remember calling nine one one, but my our daughters were told later by the by the police who showed up that the nine one one operator called the police after she called the fire department to get up there and said to the police, You gotta get up there and and take a look at this guy because you don't wanna have two fatalities at the same time. I I I'm worried that he might do something. I I was destroyed by it. And it took Thirty-seven days for Lauren to be in touch with me, which we had talked very specifically about how she would. And one night I was watching a TV series that we would watch together, and we never watched the credits or the coming attractions. At the end of the show, I was about to switch it, and I heard her voice, not with my ears, with my heart. It's the only way that I can describe this. That I heard her, I felt her say, Honey, watch the end credits. And I was like, what? What? And I watched the end credits, and it included the end credits had a song, you know, child, things are gonna get better, things are gonna get easier, which was one of our favorite songs. And I spent the next several weeks. Trying to figure out if I had completely lost my mind because I knew that I could be making all this up because I was so traumatized about what happened that this just could have been something that I made up to comfort myself. And we had a lot of conversations. And there were times when I'd say, Am I are you really saying this or am I just making this up? And then She would tease me and saying, you know, well, sometimes I think I'm making you up. speaker-0: Ha ha ha. speaker-1: and I started making notes of our conversations because I wanted I I made them for me because I didn't want to forget them. Yeah. And one yellow pad became another yellow pad, became another yellow pad, became another yellow pad. Neil Walsh, who wrote the conversations for God books, as I said, was a very good friend. And I remember one night calling Neil very early on after this happened, and I was crying so hysterically. I spent the first couple of days, our kids all came home, and they stayed with me for almost two weeks, or w they were adults by that time. they actually walked me up to bed at night, and one of them would stay in the room until I fell asleep. But they eventually had to go back to their lives. And I spent the first few days after that on my knees begging God to let me die so that I could be with her. When she got in touch with me, then things changed. So I called Neil one night and I was crying so hard I I couldn't speak. And Neil just waited. And eventually I blurted out, Neil, I'm out of my mind with grief. And he said, Good. That's a really good thing, Stephen, because you need to be out of your mind and in your heart. And speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: that made a big change, a very big change. So several months later, I went down to Ashland where Neil was living, to spend some time with him and his wife and one of our daughters who lived down there. Excuse me. And we were sitting in a restaurant. Anyone, if you want to look this up, look up September twenty-eighth, twenty eighteen, in Ashland, Oregon. If you want to look up to see if actually This really happened because it happened. speaker-0: Ha ha. speaker-1: it hadn't rained in Ashland for a very long time. So we're sitting at dinner, and Neil said to me, How how are you doing? And I said, You know, honestly, I just realized sitting down with you, I'm making notes like you did with conversations with God on yellow pads. I hadn't even thought about it until then. And I said, You know what, Neil? I have a feeling this is gonna be a book. And at that very moment, there is a thunderclap and a lightning strike outside the window. And everyone in the restaurant turns around and looks at it. And we were like, Neil and his wife, Emma and I were like, okay. And then immediately Neil said, I know what the title's gonna be. Another lightning strike. And I said, What? And he said, What dreams have come. Another lightning strike. And the last thing I said was, and you know what, Neil? I think Lauren and I are supposed to write this together. Another lightning strike, four of them. So we spent the whole rest of the evening talking about how we weren't in Kansas anymore. speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: and we weren't, we knew that. And when I was alone and I spoke to Lauren, and I want to say something about this experience, some people who have these contacts. Can actually hear the voice of the person on the other side. I don't literally through my ears hear Lauren's voice. Some people do, I don't. But I know she's speaking. I know what and I know what the words are, and I know it's her, and I know it's her intonation. so I we we talked about this and she said that lightning and all that. She said, honey, that's not me. I can't do that. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: But the universe was giving you a message that this is one of the things. As people who have read the book or who will read the book know. We were then went into a lot of her going back through for previous lives that we had been together with. And that we had decided that this lifetime. I know I'm going into a lot of detail here, but for people out there who are having this experience or might have it or have had it, this I I know that you will relate to this. So we s we had these conversations and Lauren Would be saying to me from time to time, well, that's what we agreed, and that's what we agreed then. And and I was like, Honey, what is the plan? What is this? And she says, Sweetie, you and I had a big conversation before this lifetime about how this would work. And I wanted to be the one that left. And you wanted to be the and you insisted that it be you. Excuse me, I'm getting this mixed up. I didn't want her to be here suffering what I was suffering. And she said, but I didn't want you to be the one either. And I said, How did it resolve? And she said, How does it always resolve? I let you win. And speaker-0: Ha ha ha. speaker-1: because I knew how important it was for you. So we made that that deal that she would be on the other side and I would be here. So we wrote this book. We Publisher ourselves on Amazon. And that was October of 2020. So it's been almost six years, almost six years since then. And I put my email address in the book that if people wanted to be in touch with me to share their experiences, which is how you found me and shared your experience with Mikkel, and I I've received thousands of emails, thousands of emails from people. Last time I counted, it was about 25 different countries that who are having this experience or have had it or who do want it who wanna have it. And then I became aware of a fuller community of people. for those of you who may hear this and want a resource, I will tell you that there is a website called Love After Life on Facebook. Is run by an incredible man named William Murray, that he started because his wife had passed, actually the year before Lauren did. And that website is entirely for people who are having this communication. Now I know this communication sounds completely nuts to people, you know, that you don't. This guy, you had a career as a movie producer and stuff, and you just completely lost your stuff, buddy. speaker-0: Ha. speaker-1: You've lost your mind. You were right in the first place. You have lost your mind. I get it. I understand. I completely understand. I have a dear friend, one of my dearest friends in the world. I love this man. He is so close to me. He is an evangelical Christian that lives in rural Virginia. And even though it Pains him, and we he will not bring it up to me again. He is completely convinced that Lauren is in hell and that I will be rejoined and I'll join her once I die because I haven't given my life to Jesus. Now, this is we have doesn't check affect our friendship, which is I think something that we need to remember that we can have differences with people that we care about and who are friends. We can have big differences. Today it would be political differences perhaps. But it doesn't make me evil, doesn't make him evil. That's his belief. I think I'm getting him nudging him to understanding that that's for him and his beliefs, but his beliefs don't control my life. So for people who are looking for a supportive place, if your spouse, if the love of your life has transitioned before you, I would suggest you look at Love After Life on Facebook because it they monitor it very closely. And it it's a wonderful place. And that began these last several years and that's how you and I met. and when I read the story about you and McKell, I was so incredibly touched by it because honestly Allie, I think what you went through with McKel is the single most painful thing that a human being can experience. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I this what we did, what I did and with Lauren it is nothing compared. To what you've done. And the fact that y the book has now helped inspire you to do this and to reach out to other parents who have lost kids is is just extraordinary. So I know that was a long answer to a very simple question, but speaker-0: It was per speaker-1: that's where we are. speaker-0: It was perfect. Thank you. Thank you for everything so beautifully said. And yes, this book and hearing your story actually was one of the single most helpful things because prior to this I I didn't know what I believed in. I I didn't have those experiences when I was younger where I saw a loved one or I hadn't had someone very close pass. And so it did sound crazy when I when I first heard your story. I th I thought, well, he doesn't sound like a liar. He seems like a nice person. He seems like he's being honest, but is that actually possible? And and you're right, it does make you feel crazy a lot when because now that I have had a lot of communication with Mikhail on the other side, a lot of times I do think I'm going crazy as well. I understand. And but it is for you, the way you said it it's through your heart and it's not actually like a voice, but it's definitely recognizable and it's it's something that you wouldn't think of. It's something that kind of drops into you. And and I've experienced it and no I do not think you're crazy at all unless I'm crazy with you and all these other people who have it. But I think it's so important when you're deep in the grief to have these hopeful messages because if you just think they're gone and you're never gonna see them again, it is so much more painful. And so when you gave me hope through your story with Lauren that that death is not the end and the love transcends the veil and they can even continue. communicating with you that gave me so much hope and so I was determined to find a way. And yes, it's it's so hard to go through, but it does help when you also meet other people that are going through it. speaker-1: It's important to be in community with this. we say a lot in the book, listen to your heart. Because our hearts, our our souls talk to us through our hearts. And they do that with feeling. You know, we've all had experience where we said, well, I went through this, but I can't describe the feeling. No, you can't, because it's a feeling. It's an emotion. You get you can't describe it because it's of your heart. And our brains are basically little computers that, you know, basically spit out to us what what we've put into them over the years. but if you listen to your heart and you actually can feel your heart, then these things become much more possible. And then when you get into quantum, which I am not in any way going to pretend that I really understand. speaker-0: Same. speaker-1: It it is it is so esoteric. But quantum basically is aligned with Einstein in one way, which is that all time is is at the same time. There's no such thing as past or present or future. There are but they're all at the same time. Yeah. And that two things which may seem completely opposite can both be true. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yes. speaker-1: What what I feel is happening, and I know you have spoken to my dear friend Trisha speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: Barker, who is an amazing medium and who who wrote a fabulous book called Angels in the OR about her near death experience, where she actually first experienced this. So good. Trisha and I have talked about this, that the veil is lifting. You know, twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago. If you talked about an NDE on your death experience, people would think you were crazy with that. Now that's you know how I know that's not crazy? Because my evangelical Christian friend believes in it. Okay. speaker-0: So speaker-1: If if he believes in it, I mean it's become kind of an a an ordinary thing. Yeah. So what is this? I mean, what and and people ask me all the time, what is the afterlife? The first answer to the question is, I don't know. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Okay, that's the first answer. I don't know. I think I know what it is for us, for Lauren and I. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: And everyone has their own feelings about it. Trisha and I have talked about this as well. It's my sense that our loved ones, when they go through the veil, actually go into another dimension, which is right here with us right now. You know, I think there are four dimensions that we can actually sense and understand as human beings. And there are five or six more that people know they exist, but they they they can't contact, they can't be conscious within them now. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And I believe it is a very similar dimension to this. There are some differences, but there was a movie many years ago that your older viewers may remember called God with a great comedian named George Burns. An old comedian and John Denver. Yeah. And at one point, John Denver says to him, you know, well, but do you look like this sweet old man? And so yeah, I I appear to people the way they're gonna be comfortable with me. But what are you really? And one of the things that the George George Byrne says, Well, I can tell you this, I'm not gas. You know, I'm not floating around and you know, g I'm not gas. So it's very human on the other side, human-like. Now time is different. Yeah. And and that stuff that I'm just gonna have to discover, as Lauren has said to me, honey, as soon as you transition, as soon as you do, this will all come back to you. But there are things that I can't explain to you because your human mind won't be able to grok it. it is something really extraordinary and it gives with you, it gives Mikel the opp opportunity to To complete some unfinished business. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: You know, that she can help with the the this incredible pain that I know it's like when you ha when you lose a child, although I can't know anything like that. That's one of those experiences that only those of you who have experienced it know. I can't really say that I know anything about that because I don't. But the fact that you are now doing this and that you have come into the public eye and saying, yeah, I had this experience and my daughter's on the other side and we talk and I hear her and you know I I I'm gonna do this work and I'm gonna let other people know. Eventually this will become like NDEs are now, which is they're gonna be completely accepted. as Trisha and I have talked about, the veil is lifting and it's thinning. And we're being able to have this communication. And it's an extraordinarily comforting, wonderful, happy, hopeful thing that I know when the time comes for me to go through that transition, that Lauren as a as as a her surrogate mom who's now gone and is on the other side. But as she said to me, Stephen, you know that Lauren is gonna be standing over you. And when the moment comes, she's gonna grab you and say, Okay, low, let's go. We're out of here. and it's something not to fear. Yeah. You know, it is something that that if you know that that consciousness exists and that you're gonna go on, then you know, death i is not the same thing that it used to be years ago. And and hopefully that's something that the work that Lauren and I have done together, the films that I've done. what you're doing now with it with Mikel, hopefully that is something that will ens encourage and excite people far into the future, far after I'm gone. I'm gonna be gone a lot before you, and then far after you're gone. and it's a legacy that we can leave. A l and it's a legacy of love. speaker-0: Yeah. that's so beautiful. Yeah, I was thinking when you were talking about time and and the different dimensions and how maybe in the fourth dimension it's like maybe space and time are different than the way that we see it. So for them it's like a blip. Like they don't even you know, for Lauren and Mikel it's kind of like, Well, I'm gonna see you in a second because there's no There's not really time the same way that we experience it. And it actually reminds me of your movie, Somewhere in Time, where he's able to just hop back in time to be with his love. I think it's it's so beautiful when you look at it that way that they're here with us. We just are not in that dimension space, but to know that they're always with us gives so much hope. speaker-1: Well, this is obviously with me in my life. when you talked at the very beginning of what our our our talk here today, when you said art imitating life. Yeah it's art imitating life, imitating art, that look what Summer in Time and what Dreamsman Common are about. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: You know, it's about a man who has to go to the other side to rejoin the love of his life. That was obviously one of the things that I came here to do, that Lauren came here to do, making these films. And it has given me with a with a group of people, I'm not going to say this is a huge group of people, but with the people of like minds. I think one of the things that has made feel people feel comfortable in talking to me about this is because they know I made these films. Right. And that this is one of the reasons that I'm still here. is yes, to take care of our our family and to be the patriarch in our family with five adult kids and four grandchildren and hope hopefully more on the way. but it's also to say, hey look, this is this isn't as crazy and as abnormal and whatever it is as you think it might be. This is going to become more and more human as we progress. And it'll be fascinating to see where we all go with this. Once we become more conscious of the fact that we can do this and I look forward to seeing that the things that you and Mikel do speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: together to have an impact 'cause I know she will have a voice for the ki she was thirteen when she passed. speaker-0: just turned fourteen, yeah. December tenth was her birthday and she passed on January twelfth. So just an a month into her fourteenth year. speaker-1: You and I b both have something in common that we dread January. speaker-0: Yes. Yes. and January twelfth is my dad's birthday, so she passed on my dad's birthday, so unfortunately now it's a hard birthday to celebrate for me with my dad, but he understands. and speaking of dates, you also mentioned November eleventh was when when you met when you met Lauren, right? For speaker-1: November yes. November was it November? I met no I met I'm sorry, I met Lauren on November third and had a heart attack several years later on November eleventh. We met speaker-0: Okay. I was thinking eleven eleven. Like th there's there's so many significant dates. anyways. But I'm curious about your kids. I'm curious about what they think do they think that their dad is crazy? Did they believe that Lauren communicates with you? What their speaker-1: Very fair question. one of them has her own relationship with Lauren. so that's one. the other four know that I believe it. But they have doubts as to whether or not it's actually real or not. But they know that I believe it. And that's okay. You know, this is not the type of thing, either you feel this in your heart or you don't. I know a couple of them would really like to have that, but they don't know how to go about it. And unless you actually feel this in your heart and you can actually let yourself believe this, you're always gonna have doubts. This is not to say that I don't from time to time still have a doubt about it. Yeah. Because I do. I mean, there are moments when I'm I I say to myself, you know, God, this has been great, but is it real? Yeah. And you know, and then you know, Lauren will say something that will make me laugh or or she'll tease me about it. But it is something that you think about from time to time. And when I was talking about this to someone else that I did a podcast with recently. They told me a quote that they had heard from a film, and I don't remember what the film was, in which certainty is the enemy of tolerance. And I thought, speaker-0: Lawrence. speaker-1: what a great phrase. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: You know, what a great phrase. Because can I say I'm a hundred percent certain? Intellectually, I can't say that. Emotionally, it's a hundred and ten percent. And That's doubt. And that is okay. You know, one of my favorite films from back in the eighties is a movie called Altered States. Yeah. did you ever see that? Yeah, I know it's 1980. speaker-0: I didn't see it though. speaker-1: but it it's about a man who is convinced that there is a physiological pathway to his original self. speaker-0: Mm. speaker-1: And he's obsessed with it. And he and a woman fall in love, but he is so obsessed with this that she can't really get through to him. And at one point she says, Look, we are born in doubt. We live our lives in doubt. And one of the reasons that we prove we're alive to each other is that we love each other like I love you, as she says to him. And there's no question about that, that that is something. We I can't to anyone prove this is true. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: We can't. We can't prove it's true. And nobody can prove it isn't. It's a matter of faith. Yes. But if you feel it, and I'm really talking directly to now the people who will be watching this, if you feel it, allow yourself to feel it. And then have the courage to talk about it with at least somebody who will hear you out. It's really important to have people around you who will hear you out. And then eventually you will find a community of people who accept this, are willing to accept it, and you will feel a lot more comfortable with it. But if you don't, it's okay too, because you're paving a path for more and more people after you to be able to have this experience and to have the comfort from it. speaker-0: Yeah. So perfectly said. And I think everyone's path is different. And sometimes it takes a life quake, a big thing that happens that kind of shakes you up. That's how it was for me, because I probably wouldn't have believed stories like yours had this not happened to me. but I think things happen just the way that they're supposed to. And I mean it's it's very obvious to me hearing your story that You were supposed to make the films that you made. You were supposed to be in that career. Look at how many lives those movies touched and and now how many lives your book is touching. And it's like this big interconnected web because now you're touching my life, so I'm trying to touch other lives and it's just keeps going. and I think like with Mikel, she She told me all the time, she said all she wanted to do with her life was help people. That was the most important thing to her. And and it sounds like Lauren just really wanted to help people as well. And I had a medium tell me before also that Mikel's soul knew that she could help more people from the other side. And I think that's probably why you and Lauren planned it out the way that you did, because your guys' souls knew that. through her going first all the lives that you would be able to touch by sharing her story. speaker-1: Together. children and there have been several who have been very public figures, who come and are not here for long. it's their plan before they come. They know that this is gonna be their journey. So for them it's the for them it isn't a tragedy because this they th they knew that as what they were gonna do as kids were gonna be the reason that they were here. Yeah. And I I'm sure that Mikel is totally aligned with that and really happy and relieved and proud of you. Incredibly proud of you for having the courage to stand up and say, I am still having a relationship with my daughter. And if you don't believe it, that's okay. It's fine. I understand. But I am. And that's why it's been so wonderful for me to do this talk with you today. and and hopefully there are people out there who will see this. I always feel that if we today reach two or three people speaker-0: People. speaker-1: that say, Who know what, I I'm gonna stop I I don't have to be afraid of this stuff anymore. I mean they're talking about it. Why can't I talk about it? And hopefully then that will just continue. So you have my love and my belief and my support going forward. I am so much in your corner, Allie, for doing this. And I look forward to seeing how successful this becomes for you and how much it changes your life. when you realize that there are other people out there who are getting inspired by you telling your story so that they can tell their stories. So I I s I wanna thank you for doing this. It's been literally my honor to be doing this with you and I'm thrilled, thrilled that we've done this. speaker-0: Thank you. I am too, absolutely. And I have to ask one last question because it's the aha podcast, so I always ask this at the end. Is what has been your biggest aha moment for you through this journey? speaker-1: Great question. speaker-0: That's a good way to end it. speaker-1: I don't want to give you a glib answer and I want to think about it. speaker-0: You can. speaker-1: Lauren just reminded me of it. It's when I realized that she really was there. It's this is my wife. And she is talking to me, and she is interacting with me, and she is around me, and she will be, as she has promised, until the day that I cross over and we're together again. And I have said to her. Look, happy wife, happy life. You want to do something, we're gonna wind up doing it. But please don't tell me we have to come back and do this again. For at least a couple of hundred what I would consider to be years, because I need to hug you for at least 30 years when we first get together. So if we have to come back and do this again and you want to, okay, you're gonna dictate that, but I need some time. And there is no time, so how am I gonna do that? But I think it was really when I realized, Mike. God, this is actually happening. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. that's so beautiful. I heard someone say once that when you have a really hard life and I don't know if this is true but it sounded nice, that you can come back as like a tree and just rest and maybe maybe you and Lauren could just be trees hugging each other or something and just relax for us. speaker-1: I I'm sorry, that just won't work for me. speaker-0: Okay. speaker-1: That absolutely won't work. I need to hug my wife. I need to kiss my wife. I need to hold my wife. I need to hold her hand again. And yeah, I I'm gonna be pretty adamant about that one, for sure. Yeah. Anyway, thank you again. speaker-0: Yeah, thank you so much. This has been amazing, such an honor. Okay, speaker-1: Me too. speaker-0: thank you Stephen.