Annie Wilder Interview with Suzanne Worthley, Author of An Energy Healer’s Book of Dying

Photo credit: Nicolle Danus

Here’s my interview with my dear friend and Annie Wilder Literary Agency client Suzanne Worthley.

Many of you met Suzanne at the annual haunted tours of my house sponsored by the Rosemount ISD#196 Community Ed program. An incredibly gifted intuitive and healer who works with energy holographicly, Suzanne offered additional insights on the house spirits and energy anomalies at my house. And Suzanne’s help was invaluable in an energy healing session for a property that needed some assistance.

Last note, Suzanne’s book was released in March, just as the pandemic was starting to accelerate in the US. I’m posting this interview months later than I had planned, just after the election results. Working with energy has been a true challenge this year; I’m trying to flow with it and remember to breathe and be extra patient, kind, respectful.

I hope you enjoy my interview with Suzanne.

AW: Tell us about yourself ~ where do you live, what do you do for work and for fun?

SW: I basically grew up in Minnesota with a couple of breaks just prior to getting married including Colorado and California. I pretty much prefer Minnesota, its energy, and of course my family is here.

For work I am a full time Energy Practitioner, that means I do energy work on people, animals, places and spaces which of course leads into paranormal experiences and land and home clearing. Plus, I have done hospice work for the dying for close to 20 years now.

To me, my job and my fun factor kind of blend together because I am so incredibly intrigued by anything energetically, from haunted places to land energy carrying eons of information in special places like Peru. I love when I am able to share energetic experiences and knowledge with others in incredibly sacred places and I am blessed my work offers that.

AW: When did you first realize you had a intuitive/healing gift?

SW: I was very psychic as a small child and then of course like most folks I stuffed it away to “fit in” in the early years of growing up. I did allow myself to own a big intuition quotient, but it was there all along, just hidden for quite some time.

The actual gift of doing healing, however, came later when all my knowing came back in a flash. It was in my late 30’s and the flood gates opened so dramatically I thought I might be going a bit crazy. Sadly, back then there was not a lot of help or guidance like there is today to assist those in their awakening process. So I ended up learning a lot on my own through my guides and helpers. Then my life totally changed ~ I left my corporate world and became an energy healer.

AW: What was the trigger for the floodgates opening?

SW: There were a couple of factors I believe. I had been married for about 20 years with four kids living the typical life when my husband and I attended a Marriage Encounter Weekend where I met a woman that did Hands on Healing. At that time, I had no idea what that even meant but she was the one that told me to learn about energy and I took her advice. She recommended Barbara Brennen’s book Hands of Light. Ironically, I already owned that book (given to me by a friend) but had never really read it because the concepts went completely over my head ~ so it sat on my bookshelf for years. After that weekend, I took it down and read the entire book in a day, already “knowing” almost everything within it as familiar inner knowledge; funny how spirit works, right?

Not long after, I walked outside my back door one afternoon as my husband was coming across the driveway and I could literally “see” inside of him and I blurted out, “You need to get your medicines checked or you are going to die.” It was insane ~ I could completely see his aura and how black the blockages were throughout his etheric system. He did go in and get his meds adjusted but this was the beginning of the floodgate which continued each day, seeing, hearing, and remembering more and more. Then the “light people” returned, that’s when it got a bit crazy as my psychic sight remembered sacred geometry, light fractals, and Starseeds; that’s when I scrambled to get my hand on anything to read and study because I thought I was losing it!

Basically, I believe spirit awakens us when it is our time to remember what we know and it was my time and my information and guidance came in fast and strong. It was time for me to get to work.  

AW: What led you to write An Energy Healer’s Book of Dying?

SW: I never really set out to write a book, much less one on dying, but it was because of my hospice work this came to be. I found myself curious as to what was happening to and with my dying clients and so I actually began telepathically “interviewing them” to find out exactly what they were experiencing, seeing, sensing, and knowing. I wrote it down for just me at first, but then I began to share what I was learning at hospice meetings. Everyone wanted more information so it became more of a Power Point training presentation, which then turned into an e-book, and finally an actual book.  I am very happy the journey took that course.

AW: How did you get started working in hospice work?

SW: I was already doing energy work and one day out of the blue it hit me that I could combine my knowledge of death from growing up as a mortician’s daughter with my healing skills. It is amazing how spirit works.  My sister who is a huge pet lover stopped by my home that very day and told me she was off to the Pet Expo at the local convention center. I asked her to keep an eye out for any booth with information regarding hospice work. And wouldn’t you know, she came upon just that at the show and that is how easily it happened. I took their classes, got certified, was a hospice volunteer for many years and then began training.  I was with that hospice organization for several years. When they folded, I continued my hospice work independently and still do to this day.

AW: You share a fascinating true story in An Energy Healer’s Book of Dying  about working with a hospice patient with Alzheimer’s. Can you tell us what you learned from that experience? 

SW: First what I learned is that those that we believe are “not there” such as this gentleman, are completely telepathically able to communicate ~ yet in 3D he was non-responsive. So please know your loved ones are in their body and can hear you even if they seem not to.

Second what he told me was fascinating regarding where people with dementia “go” when we see them as just gone out of their body.  He explained that they are traversing multi-dimensional places of reality and timelines and checking out what is out there and what they will encounter in their next lifetime. They are working fully in joy and wonder even though we think they are sad and in pain.

Lastly, I asked him if that is so great, why not just die and leave? And he simply said, “It is not time until it is time. I have a purpose to hold a point of light on the planet and that is why my body is still here until that job is done.”  Like I said, fascinating!

This insight can give such peace to families suffering with loved ones fighting this disease.

AW: I totally agree with you on that point! Are there things non-intuitive people can do to support their loved ones during the dying process?

SW: Certainly, and I cover this in depth throughout my book via bullet points designated for each stage of dying plus additional information throughout.

First and foremost, it is important for anyone holding vigil or caretaking to take care of themselves along the journey of assisting another. Many people are so scared to leave the bedside that they find themselves so fatigued or even emotionally sick that this does not do anyone any good.

But the most important overall message is; give the dying person permission to die. You do not have to do this verbally but we all can offer this gift in our heart space. It is something that feels so counter-intuitive because no one wants to lose someone and yet this is very important to the energetic process.

And finally, read the book, no, seriously, because there is a lot of material about “honoring” the death process and this is one of the concepts I hope the book conveys in a respectful yet critical way. We need to let people die. They get to! This is not something we grow up hearing much less knowing but it is the truth.

AW: Can you elaborate a bit on the concept of people “getting” to die? I believe it’s an unfamiliar concept for most people.

SW: Thanks for asking more about this as it is really not a common thought or idea for most people; in fact, it makes many uncomfortable because we are wrapped up with ourselves losing someone. Yet when we think about it ~ why wouldn’t we let someone we love do the most profound thing they came here to do, which in some cases means dying? We may all want to think and believe a bit bigger in this concept. 

We all have what is known as our soul’s contract or our Book of Life which includes what we came here to do on Earth and this also includes our exit plan from this planetary human experience. Our Higher Self fully knows when we have fulfilled our mission to co-create, and without fear it then calls us and returns us back to Source. Our 3D self does not always know this ~ but our soul-self does. We are not gone when we exit this existence, we are simply traversing in a different vehicle and we still have much to do in other realms but will always be available for our loved ones in spirit.

AW: Are there things each of us can do to help our own dying process be more peaceful?

SW: This book is titled An Energy Healer’s Book of Dying but it could also be called An Energy Healer’s Book of Living because chakra and energy center-wise, these human meat-bodies we walk around in daily are living and dying all at the same time. If we all understood this idea, we would change the way we traverse life I am sure…and then we not only would have an easier more joy filled life, but a much easier death process as well.

The bottom line is dump the fear, the anger, the guilt, the shame, and so on.  Do the work to clear your human meat-body as well as your auric bodies of anything negative. Dump old belief systems that no longer serve you. Align to the truth of your Higher Self and find joy while you are living, it will assist your death.

AW: Does the specific cause of death (natural, peaceful, unexpected, suicide, etc.) affect the process for the dying person? If so, in what ways?

My personal belief and experience says yes.  As stated above, I believe that belief systems are what mostly stagnate the dying process especially if they are fear based or dogmatic, as in the case of suicide. I write a segment on that specifically in the book.

The process of full return to spirit will be different with different death experiences and the ways in which we get assistance and help from our guides, angels and benevolants will always be different for each person’s experience.

I present the stages of dying in a methodical manner in the book for teaching purposes but some deaths may jump all around, go back and forth, etc., so yes, each experience is different.

One thing I do my best to teach others about dying though is regardless of the process of the actual death, our beliefs will be the stage on how the experience of crossing plays out at least at first.  So once again, dump what no longer serves you that someone else may have told you about dying and the other side if it no longer resonates as your truth.

AW: What is one of the most unexpected lessons you’ve learned from working with people as they die?

I was already aware that the consciousness was able to experience omnipresence but in doing this work I was amazed at the scope of just how many place, timelines and reality planes we can simultaneously traverse so this speaks to those who are sad they did not “get there in time” because none of that matters. Your dying loved one is already with you wherever you are!

Another thing I learned just by doing the actual work is just how fast a human body can shift their energies while in the process of death. We were not designed to suffer and have long, extended, fear-filled experiences and this work is a testament to that as I have seen in front of my eyes just how beautifully calm this process can be when done in love versus fear.

AW: What is one of the most important lessons you’ve learned from working with people as they die?

I have learned what an honor it is to hold space and be witness to such an incredible miracle, this transition back to spirit. My heart has been opened as families embrace this journey with a sense of knowing and understanding and get to experience firsthand just how much this not only changes the death process, but the grief process as well.

I also already knew this in my mind but now my life experiences validate that these loved ones we lose do not go away, they only transform. So many still come to visit me in my healing room and do funny things like play with my music player just to let us know they are still there. I am truly blessed to get to do what I do.

AW: Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

SW: I believe it is time to change our death culture conversation and that is another reason why I wrote this book and am doing interviews, to get the topic out there for all to consider with new eyes and ears. To look at death as not an ending but only a transition to more. To learn and incorporate honor into this journey. To open our head to things like Akashic Record and Soul Contracts, all things I write about in the book. To celebrate with ritual and move onward with passion for life knowing our loved ones are right there beside us ~ just in a different style body.

And lastly, Annie and anyone reading this, take what resonates and toss the rest as we are all here to find, hold, and live our own version of truth.  

Thanks so much for opening up this conversation on such an important topic.  I appreciate it, and you.

AW: Thanks, Suzanne!

You can learn more about Suzanne and her classes and events on her website:

Purchase AN ENERGY HEALER”S BOOK OF DYING:

At Amazon

At Barnes & Noble

At your local independent bookstore

An Energy Healer’s Book of Dying

I have always loved the wild and windy days of March. March energy fills me with hope ~ starting with the first muddy patches in the sunny spots in the yard, the smell of wet earth, picking up sticks and branches and bits of junk that made their way onto the boulevard… the relief that another Minnesota winter is over or nearly over and the sense of possibility, of color and fragrance and warmth returning.

This March is more complicated, but the underlying energy of the season is still present and available for support and inspiration. I highly encourage everyone to keep this in mind as a source of strength and a way to ground and balance one’s energy.

Also on the topic of energy: I’m also posting today to say I’m very pleased to announce a book release by my good friend of many years and Annie Wilder Literary Agency client Suzanne Worthley.

Suzanne’s book is An Energy Healer’s Book of Dying (Findhorn Press). Many of you have met Suzanne at haunted tea parties or tours of my house.Suzanne’s book looks at the process of dying from an energy standpoint ~ what is happening with the chakras and aura, what the dying person may be seeing and feeling, what family and friends can do to help. It includes accounts from Suzanne’s professional hospice care work that illustrate in a personal way each level of the dying process. I found Suzanne’s book to be absolutely fascinating and positive, from the first time I read the manuscript.

Here’s a description from the Inner Traditions/Findhorn website:

In this compassionate guidebook to the nine energetic levels of the dying process, intuitive energy worker Suzanne Worthley reveals what is happening energetically during each stage of the transition back to spirit, including what the dying person may see and experience and how to provide support during any phase of losing a loved one.

You can learn more about Suzanne and her classes and events on her website:

Purchase AN ENERGY HEALER”S BOOK OF DYING:

At Amazon

At Barnes & Noble

At your local independent bookstore