What Happens To Evil People When They Die and What The Dead Want You To Know | Suzanne Giesemann

Summary

Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown – Podcast Summary
Episode: What Happens To Evil People When They Die and What The Dead Want You To Know | Suzanne Giesemann
Date: April 21, 2026
Guest: Suzanne Giesemann (spiritual teacher, medium, author, former Navy commander)

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Overview

This episode explores the boundaries between science and spirituality, focusing on mediumship, the nature of consciousness, intuition, and how we can connect with “spirit.” Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen return with guest Suzanne Giesemann, delving into both practical and metaphysical questions about what happens after death, how the dead communicate, the limits and potentials of psychic phenomena, and how to cultivate spiritual connection, even for skeptics or those struggling with trauma or busy minds.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Suzanne’s Personal Journey & Spirit Connection

• Suzanne outlines her path from Navy commander to spiritual medium, precipitated by the tragic loss of her stepdaughter (04:32).
• Trauma as a catalyst: Her stepdaughter’s death led her to “an entirely new way” of experiencing connection to other realms (03:51, 04:32).
• Health challenges and faith: Recently diagnosed and treated for skin cancer, Suzanne explains how spiritual tools changed her emotional response—moving into acceptance, trust, and gratitude rather than fear or anger (05:47).
  • “Throughout it all, I just trusted… that spirit would help me through it.” — Suzanne Giesemann (07:18)
• Finding support in spirit: The presence of guides and a feeling of being “uplifted and supported no matter what” became central to facing health and life challenges (08:27).

What Blocks Spiritual Connection?

• The nervous system as a barrier: Stress, pain, or nervous system dysregulation limit our spiritual openness (09:57, 10:24, 12:17).
  • “Our nervous system gets in the way... your guides don’t go anywhere.” — Suzanne Giesemann (10:29)
• Practical entry points: One to three minutes a day in stillness is recommended—"not hours of meditation"—as a way to access intuitive guidance (12:48).
• Analogy of the ocean: We are like waves in the same ocean; that “stillness at the bottom” is where all guidance is accessed (12:48, 14:48).

For Logical Thinkers & Skeptics

• Explaining the infrastructure: Bialik and Cohen press for a logical structure. Suzanne offers metaphors (the aquarium, the ocean, “eddies” of consciousness) to conceptualize interconnectedness (12:48, 14:48).
• Problem of the busy mind: Suzanne reassures that complete thoughtlessness is not the goal. Instead, it’s about being aware of spaces between thoughts and recognizing moments when something “not like a usual thought” arrives—it might be guidance (19:29 – 22:05).
  • “One of the greatest mistakes people make in meditation is trying to quiet your mind. That’s not the process… It’s just noticing.” — Suzanne Giesemann (19:29)
• Identifying spiritual guidance: True guidance “stands out from the stuff”—as a distinct, sometimes unexpected, insight (22:05).

What & Who Are Guides and Angels?

• Distinguishing guides from loved ones and your own higher self:
  • "A medium sets intention... and you can feel a distinct personality... but with guides, I get pulled to a higher angle—there’s a lack of personality but a depth of wisdom." — Suzanne Giesemann (23:55)
• Nature of angels/guides: Not “forms” but layers of consciousness—higher, more influential, able to guide us without taking human form (26:01).

Five Misconceptions About Spirit Connection (47:32)

1. You must hear a clear voice or see apparitions:
   • Guidance often arrives as inspired thoughts, not dramatic visions or voices.
   • “Spirit inspires us with thoughts… and sometimes it’s only retroactively we realize that thought was given to us.” — Suzanne Giesemann (47:52)
2. Only the gifted can connect:
   • Spontaneous, meaningful connections can happen to anyone.
   • “These connections happen often spontaneously, and then we doubt them, but our heart knows.” — Suzanne Giesemann (49:06)
3. Connection fades over time or is lost:
   • The connection remains, but intention/attention wanes; loved ones don’t leave, we just tune in less (50:09).
4. You must be fully healed:
   • No one is ever “fully healed”; “work in progress” is enough for connection (50:58).
5. Signs stop once you notice them:
   • Not true; when we attune, “they actually increase” (51:25).

Signs and Intuitive Hits

• Right-sizing attention to signs:
  • It’s healthy to notice connections but excessive attachment to signs can become ungrounded; what matters is whether it helps (52:44).
  • “Compare that to someone who says this is all BS… I’ll choose the healing any day.” — Suzanne Giesemann (53:20)

Earth School & The Purpose of Suffering (30:45, 31:17)

• The “Earth school” model: We come into bodies to experience, grow, and surf the waves of life with help from spirit—not to be shielded from all pain or difficulty (30:45, 31:17).
  • “We are joy that came here for the fullness of knowing ourselves in every experience possible… They’re not here to alleviate our suffering, but to help us learn as a result…” — Suzanne Giesemann (27:30)
  • “We are part of the ongoing unfolding of humanity…” — Suzanne Giesemann (31:17)

Healing, Trauma, and Physical Ailments

• Physical pain as a spiritual message:
  • Suzanne recounts a herniated disc that forced her to address deeper issues around “guarding herself”; processing past trauma led to spiritual and physical healing (33:31, 36:25).
  • “Wherever you have a physical pain in your body, there’s likely a deeper connection.” — Suzanne Giesemann (33:31, 36:25)
• Openness vs. constriction:
  • True connection requires a state of “coherence.” When we are in intense pain or distress, it’s hardest to perceive spirit (42:37, 42:57).
  • “You only have so much bandwidth while you’re in a body and it is focused on that part that’s hurting... We need the greatest state of coherence to sense spirit.” — Suzanne Giesemann (42:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Isn’t that interesting?” — Suzanne’s mantra for facing challenges in a spirit-connected way, rather than despair or rage (07:18, 30:00, 39:00).
• Stillness practice:
  • “Just one to three minutes a day breathing slowly and saying, I want to tap into that stillness… You find out there is a stillness and it’s right here because you are the stillness.” — Suzanne Giesemann (12:48)
• On spiritual architecture:
  • “Angels are aspects of consciousness… able to get guidance through to us, to influence us in positive ways… It is about influence and wisdom.” — Suzanne Giesemann (26:01)
• On healing and blocks:
  • “If you’re willing to look at where in you you might be guarded… it’s healing and freeing.” — Suzanne Giesemann (36:25)
• Mayim’s reflection:
  • “I kind of put you on this pedestal… but in truth… it humbles all of us to hear that you still get reminders there’s work to be done.” — Mayim Bialik (38:07)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–00:34 — Suzanne’s missing persons story and importance of intuition
• 03:51–05:47 — Suzanne’s background and journey into spirit work
• 05:47–08:27 — Discussion on mortality, illness, spirit, and emotional response
• 09:57–12:17 — How to access guidance; the barrier of the nervous system
• 12:48–14:48 — Stillness analogy, the ocean, and how deeper connection happens
• 19:04–22:05 — For skeptics: practical stillness, the “busy mind,” and guidance as thoughts
• 23:55–26:01 — Levels of spirit guidance: Guides vs. loved ones vs. “Joy”
• 26:51–30:45 — Top five misconceptions about spirit connection
• 30:45–32:54 — Earth school, humanity’s adolescent phase, and our purpose
• 33:31–39:00 — Physical ailments, healing, trauma, and the spiritual body connection
• 42:37–44:05 — On pain, bandwidth, and connecting to spirit amidst suffering
• 47:32–53:20 — Misconceptions revisited and the role of attention to “signs”
• 53:45–End — Preview of Part 2: Afterlife, evil, crime-solving mediums, and spirit accuracy

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Flow & Tone

The conversation weaves scientific curiosity with spiritual openness, often poking fun at their own skepticism or “left-brain” thinking. The tone is deeply human—open, humble, often humorous—with direct, vivid storytelling and accessible analogies (“waves in the ocean,” “Earth school,” “blue sky”). Guests and hosts alike readily share personal struggles, making the mystical relatable and the practical actionable.

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For Listeners New to the Content

This episode offers a pragmatic and compassionate introduction to spiritual development—emphasizing that intuition and spirit connection aren’t just for the chosen few, but accessible to anyone willing to slow down and pay attention. Skeptics will find the analogies and scientific references grounding; spiritual seekers will appreciate the honesty about ongoing healing and imperfection.

For further exploration, Suzanne’s new book “Always Connected” and her digital tools are recommended, and Part 2 will dive into afterlife ethics, notorious criminals and the dead, and classic mediumship conundrums (find missing people, win the lottery, etc.).

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Transcript

[Suzanne Giesemann]

To a medium or a psychic, silence can feel like death. A recent missing persons case made headlines. Kim was in the hospital having surgery because she was badly injured by the Montecito mudslide. And they couldn't find her son. They said, he's showing me X marks the spot. She looked around a little more. There was a tree that had been down by the mudslide. Somebody had painted an X on it. This rarely happens. She walked me to that area. I absolutely sensed Jack. And he was smiling. And he's going like this. I'm right down here. And they brought in search dogs.

[Mayim Bialik]

Dogs.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

And they ultimately found bone fragments.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Wow.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

You don't have to be born a medium. These connections happen and then we doubt them.

[Mayim Bialik]

But our heart knows Suzanne Giesemann. She's a spiritual teacher, an award winning documentarian. And ended up losing her stepdaughter in a tragic accident. And this opened up an entirely new way of being in touch with messages that come from a different realm.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

It would make no sense if our guides gave us only pleasant things. Where's the experience in that? I was given a mini life review. And I was shown all these moments of trauma. Wherever you have a physical pain in your body, there's likely a deeper connection.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm curled up in the fetal position and I'm crying and I cannot hear what spirit wants me to know.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

But what if these nervous systems are by design. Not supposed to allow that kind of information through? What if consciousness is. Is not optimized for practical matters? This is the reason we do mediumship. Hey, spirit. What don't I know right now and then stop and listen?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I sold my car in Carvana last night.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It went perfectly.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Real offer down to the penny.

[Jonathan Cohen]

They're picking it up tomorrow.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Nothing went wrong.

[Mayim Bialik]

So what's the problem?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I'm waiting for the catch.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Maybe there's no catch.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Wow.

[Mayim Bialik]

You need to relax.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Is this table wood?

[Mayim Bialik]

I think it's laminate.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Okay.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, that's good.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

That's close enough.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Suzanne Giesemann]

So when your mind won't switch off,

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

[Mayim Bialik]

And welcome to our Breakdown. Today we're gonna be breaking down in a very rigorous way what it means to be in touch with what some call spirit. And we're going to be talking about some of the technicalities of how we know if we're working on our own independent imagination or if something is actually guiding us. Is there a way to definitively tell guess what the answer is? Yes. Today we're happy to welcome back Suzanne Giesman. She's a spiritual teacher, a best selling author, an award winning documentarian, and she's a former Navy commander. Commander. She has a master's degree in National Security affairs. She was a commanding officer and aide to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She was at the Pentagon on 911 and ended up losing her stepdaughter in a tragic accident. And this opened up an entirely new way of her functioning in the world and being in touch with messages that come from a different realm than the one she had been operating in her her entire life.

[Jonathan Cohen]

This episode dives into what is the one main thing that is blocking our spiritual connection? What does it feel like, look like when we connect with spirit? What is the type of guidance that we can get? Suzanne also dives deep into how psychics can and can't find missing people, help with tragedies, and communicate messages from loved ones who have passed.

[Mayim Bialik]

We're also going to discuss her upcoming book, Always Connected, how to Find Comfort, clarity, and direction from the spirit Within. We're so happy to welcome back to the Breakdown, Suzanne Gieseman. Break it down.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Oh my gosh, it's so good to be back.

[Mayim Bialik]

When we spoke to you, Suzanne, you know, we were at the very kind of beginnings of, you know, an opening that Jonathan and I have had here on the podcast. And we're so excited to get to speak with you now that we have a lot more questions and also a lot more experience, I guess, under our belt. But you really were one of the first people to kind of open us up to a whole different way of thinking.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Yeah, I remember the vibe felt so different to me because you both came with this scientific background and I felt like I was being grilled. You were intense and so my answers matched you. And it was like this and I kept checking in with my team. It was Actually kind of fun, but it was like, whoa.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, we really loved it. And in particular, I got so much out of your book and I get so much out of your app and your new book always connects. Connected is something we're going to get into, but first, I wonder if you can sort of address you've had some health challenges recently, and I wonder if you can both share with us what's going on and also share some of what you feel. Your connection with spirit, with something greater than you has helped you kind of take on these challenges.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Oh, unbelievable. The connection with spirit and the difference it makes. As I get older, I've noticed more lines and such and just, you know, normal ego sent me to a dermatologist who specializes in fine lines and wrinkles. And she, she's looking at me, she says, you know, we like to make you look better, but first and foremost, I'm an md. And she said, I think that this is cancer on your face right here. And I said, really? And she said, yeah. Would you mind if I biopsy it here and now? And right off I noticed how my training in knowing that we're more than these stories kicked in because I went right to the phrase that I teach everybody isn't that interesting? And I didn't even. I never cried, I never wavered, I never said, oh my God. Then she started showing me pictures of what was going to happen because she said, I'm 99% sure this is cancer. Before I forget, it was just this little white bump. It was. I said, but I thought all cancer was black and funny shaped. She said, no basal cell, which happily is the most least invasive, most positive outcome. She said, it often just looks like these little bumps. She showed me pictures and I said, oh my God, that is it. But when she showed me the pictures of the surgery, they literally six days ago, took a dime size hole out of my face right here. And then they cut up here and all the way down to here and pulled it all together so I have a little bandage over it. But throughout it all, I just trusted the human people working on me and that spirit would help me through it. And it was really swollen and bruised just for a few days afterwards, but now I just have a little bandage on there and. And so I just feel it was a God thing that I was sent to this wonderful doctor who is really good at now fixing it afterwards, but also to help me to tell you to say to everybody, you really need to get checked regularly because you. I can't. I've had this Thing for years, I've had facials and an esthetician's messing around there and saying, oh, you have some whiteheads. It wasn't whiteheads. It was cancer.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, we. We are glad that you caught it, and it sounds like caught it before it progressed. And we wish you obviously, good healing. Obviously sometimes people have health concerns, and in many cases, things don't always go our way. Right. And I wonder if you can talk about what is a relationship with spirit that can kind of handle when things go well and also when things don't.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Oh, it's this knowing that comes from establishing a conscious connection with a higher reality. Even if you never see these beings that help us. I never even knew they were there for most of my life. But once I sat silently every day in attempts to connect with my stepdaughter who had died 20 years ago, and realized that we are supported by beings who are loving and will prove their presence to you over and over, if you ask and if you play with them. It changed everything. I've had moments where I didn't cry out of fear or why is this happening to me? But the. The. I've become very emotional this past week with this feeling of being uplifted and supported and knowing that no matter what, everything's going to be okay. And it's like my husband got a phone call last August from the doctor and said, you have leukemia. And we just went, okay, here we go. And it wasn't hair on fire, as we used to say in the Navy. It was just, this is life. Life is like a roller coaster. It goes up and it goes up and down. And when you learn to flow with it and not deny what's happening, what's here now we can tune into this guidance that is always here. It's phenomenally comforting.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Talk to us a little bit about that guidance. People want to have intuition. They want to feel connected to something. And yet, so often we're stuck in the materialist realm, where we go get a test or we see a sign, we get rejected. Somehow we get stopped in the material world, and that's it. Talk to us about what is available for us and how that can support us.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Well, this is the problem. We get stuck in what I call the story. It's the narrative that we take as our only state of being, the only aspect of us, our only identify you, identity you with a name. But we realize that we are souls first and foremost, and that soul has this ongoing connection. The soul is always present, but the problem is our nervous system Gets in the way. And I not only had this issue with the surgery, but I've had a respiratory challenge for two weeks and have felt so disconnected from spirit. And just yesterday and today are the first days where I really feel like, oh, I'm back. It's not like they're back. Your guides don't go anywhere. But when your focus narrows out of necessity because you have to focus on physical challenges or pain or a issue with somebody in your life, you don't have time to expand out here and truly feel spirit. So that's the challenge for most people. They're caught up in the day to day challenges and drama of being human and haven't perhaps had the time or taken the time to train your nervous system to slow down, to be calm and then set a clear intention to experience expanded states of consciousness. That's where and how we make the connection. I couldn't make that connection because I was uncomfortable and distracted. But now that things are settling down, oh, it's just like, ah. I get this little lip twitch when my guides really connect. I can't make it happen. But it happened this morning. And it's almost like, here you are. And they say, we didn't go anywhere. Here you are.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I want to continue on this line of thinking for a minute because again, for people who don't have that experience resetting, coming back to spirit, and who are just searching for it, I want to set the logical parameter that says this exists. Right? Tell us a little bit about the behind the scenes structure that we all have access to that we may not have tapped into yet, just so that we can get our logical minds around what the infrastructure is here.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Okay. I like analogies a lot. So my favorite one is to picture like an aquarium. That's just one aspect of this big ocean. It's like kind of a boundary within the ocean. And so on the surface, it could be a lot of waves. And as you go deeper in that ocean, this very large aquarium, the waves settle down and at the very bottom, it's completely still. We are all waves in that ocean. A very common spiritual analogy, but so practical, because when you're in the waves, you can't feel the stillness, but when you sit and all it takes is one to three minutes a day, Jonathan, one to three minutes a day, breathing slowly and saying, I want to tap into that stillness. And you can literally picture yourself sinking down beneath the waves. You find out there is a stillness and it's right here because you are the stillness. And those deeper layers, they're like thermal layers, right? That's where we encounter guides and help. That comes in the form of guidance and insights and sensations of comfort and peace. But you really have to make the effort. One to three minutes a day. I'm not talking about hours of meditation, but get in the practice of settling down, literally settling into the stillness.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And in that space where there is more stillness, more information is available, more guidance is available. If you meet a block in the material world that may not be the end of the options. You can start to navigate it. You may get a sense that, wait a second, what I'm being told isn't the full story. There may be something else here. And then you may be able to navigate the options. Is that accurate?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

That's it. Because an even greater analogy. Forget the aquarium. Just be the ocean. We are the wave in the ocean. Because you can't separate the wave from the ocean. It's the same stuff. It's consciousness. Picture us like a pattern within the ocean. And I like to say it's like an eddy, a whirlpool. And that pattern is the pattern of all of your life experiences. But the whole ocean carries all the experiences of every being that exists or did exist. So all that guidance is accessible by coming into resonance with other patterns. A match.

[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Suzanne Giesemann]

Tomorrow morning is knocking.

[Mayim Bialik]

Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe?

[Mayim Bialik]

Or white chocolate mocha?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits.

[Mayim Bialik]

Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Now I'm gonna play Mayim for a moment. I know she wants to say something, but I'm just gonna represent what I hear her say. Sometimes after we talk about this analogy, we talk about spirits and guides. She'll say, I sit for three minutes and all I hear are song lyrics in my head. I don't drop lower. Can you talk to the person with the Busy mind, yes. Maybe directly to mime to say, what does it mean? If you feel like you've tried, you've tried to quiet and you don't feel that metaphor that we've talked about, you don't access that other space.

[Mayim Bialik]

That is sort of one of the, the challenges, you know, that, that many of us have is that I don't really like, I understand this idea, but it's a muscle that is very hard to exercise. And I really love what you said, that like your nervous system is really the only thing that is standing in the way of you and your spirit connection.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

It is. Because once we no longer have a nervous system, meaning the body has died. Now we're in soul awareness, which is here anyway. But it's fully our awareness. It's our, our state, our natural state. And we are aware of who we are and that we are all connected. But to answer your question, when you say I can't quiet my mind, I say, good luck with that. Because you're right, you can't ever completely quiet your mind. And this is one of the greatest mistakes people make in meditation is trying to quiet your mind. That's not the process. The process is setting the intention to enjoy and experience the stillness between the song lyrics, between the thoughts. So it's really more like a practice, it's a non doing, but the doing part is just noticing. So here I'm going to sit here for one minute and I'm just going to enjoy the stillness and notice what comes up. So I get quiet and I go, oh, yeah, there's that song that was on the radio. And you just go, noted. And you let it go. And you go back to, oh, there's a moment of silence. Oh, that itself was a thought noted. And then you go back and there was like two seconds of silence. And that felt really good. And then the thought will come up, am I doing this right? That was a thought. And you let it go. It's just, they're like, now we'll switch from the ocean to the blue sky analogy. All that stuff, sensations, thoughts and feelings, STF stuff, all that stuff that comes up are the clouds in the sky. And they're always going to be there. But you just notice, oh, there's a cloud and you let it go. So what's cool about this is why are we doing this? Because we want to access higher guidance. We want the comfort and peace and clarity that comes from setting the story aside. So as you do that, every once in a while, something that's not a Normal cloud floats in. And then you go, wait, what was that? And then you can actually ask, why did I just see that? Or why did I just hear that? Then you get quiet and you realize, oh, my gosh, that was the answer to this puzzle I've had. Or, that's some really good guidance. Even if it's obvious that hadn't occurred to me. And that's how it works. It bubbles up. It stands out from the stuff.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's an interesting explanation that we haven't fully had before. We've heard people talk about hearing a voice and the placement of the voice. We've heard about channelers. But for everyday intuition to think about it appearing just as a thought would, with a slightly different characteristic hasn't been fully described before.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Well, in my new book, Always Connected, I have these conversations with what I call joy, with a capital J. Joy is the ocean. It's the deepest aspect of the ocean I've been able to contact. Do I want to call it God? No, because that would really have some baggage with it. So I just call it joy. But in these conversations, it's fascinating because it points us right back to the fact that you and your guides and your loved ones who have passed and everyone are all joy. If we're all waves in the same ocean, we're just talking to different levels of this one being. That's not a person. It's a state of awareness. And so when you drop into the stillness and something stands out, is it your thoughts? It's. It's the ocean's thoughts, and so are yours.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You just brought up the term guide or spirit guide, as well as deceased loved ones. And when you think about a medium or someone who's channeling a someone from beyond, that's a very specific voice. How do you distinguish between a guide, someone who may have passed your own intuition that may be related to a higher self? Can you continue with the architecture as you understand it and offer some explanation?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

So how do you distinguish between your mother and your father and a sibling? They have a different feeling. They have different ways of speaking. They show up differently. Even if you couldn't see them, you'd sense who's in the room. So a medium sets an intention to connect with somebody's loved one who has passed. And even if you've never met them, you can feel a distinct personality. I don't see people's loved ones when I tune into them, but boy, do I feel them so that I can describe them down to little nuances and likes and dislikes. And then they'll share memories and likes and dislikes that are specific to them. And they feel like people, they talk like people. They share things that only their loved ones could know. So that's at the level of loved ones who have passed. But with guides, when I'm doing a session for someone and they've asked to speak to either their loved ones or their guides, it's very interesting how I've developed a system to help me know when I have a guide. I literally get pulled up to this angle up higher, and I don't have a sense of personality whatsoever. But they start telling me things about my client that are usually spot on. And I love it when the client will say, oh, that's exactly what I needed to know. And they didn't even tell me what they wanted to know. So to me, it's. There's a lack of personality with guides, yet there's a depth of wisdom and knowing that is unique and that's a deeper level.

[Mayim Bialik]

What are the best sort of explanations you can give for who spirit guides are? Like, are they angels, like many traditions believe? What is an angel if that's the case? And what are the other options for this sort of team that a lot of people talk about, you know, that they have rooting for them?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Yeah, let's stick with the analogy of the ocean and these thermal layers. The layers are. There's no real separation. So angels. And this feels good to me. It feels right, this explanation that I've gotten from spirit. Higher consciousness would be a lower level, lower layer, and they're able to resonate with more of us. They're able to match our frequency and make their presence known and influence us. So angels are aspects of consciousness. We are aspects of consciousness with a greater influence than those of us here, able to get guidance through to us, to influence us in positive ways. So I don't speak of them in terms of form, but influence and wisdom.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You have top five things that people misunderstand about connecting with spirit. And I think that's highly practical because a lot of people think either they can't connect with it or they feel like they don't understand it, or they think that connecting with it is going to solve all their problems. They're never going to experience any issues. They're never going to get a flat tire because if they did, spirit would have guided them away from the road that would have had the spike in it, and you know, they're going to be saved in some way. Can you help us? Right. Size this for A practical approach to how spirit can play a role in our lives.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Well, we are joy that came here for the fullness of knowing ourselves in every experience possible. And so it would make no sense if our guides gave us everything we think we need, gave us only pleasant things. Where's the experience in that? They're not here to alleviate our suffering, but to help us learn as a result of suffering that naturally arises from being human. I don't know if I brought it up in the last interview, but I bring it up a lot because it's so helpful. This little sign I have on my wall where I see it, you can't stop the waves. That's life. But you can learn to surf. So we come here to learn to be surfing masters and to not lose it when stuff hits the fan, right? To just say, isn't that interesting? And turn to the guides and say, boy, I wasn't expecting that. What's the best way to react? And now we listen. We just recently made a move cross country and everything was flowing so beautifully. That's one way you know, that you're listening. Things falling into place so quickly and. But everything once the. The old house sale had to go through and just the right timing for the new house sale purchase and all that, and everything was great until this one major glitch right near the end. They could have derailed the final step and, ooh, the humans involved started getting at each other. The buyers, the purchasers, the realtors and everything. And I felt this feeling and I almost got caught up in it. And I stepped aside and I said, spirit, what do we do here? And they gave me such an out of the box answer. And I came back and I suggested it to the realtor and she went, whoa, never thought of that. And it solved the whole thing. And I would never have thought of it either. But it's when you get in the habit of realizing that we do get in these boxes in our human roles. But when you stop and you know, I could have easily said I had this great idea and it saved the day. I don't take any credit for that, only for the awareness of, oh, I'm about to get involved in this head knocking and get, this could get ugly. I don't want to go there anymore. And I just stepped aside and went, what do we do here? And there's. It's not immediate always, but all of a sudden it was, whoa.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It requires a willingness to sit in the unknown for a moment.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Oh, yeah, that's. See, this is. I love studying Mayim, of course you do, too. The neuroscience of this, and the left hemisphere of the brain loves answers and predictability and has to have resolution, but the right brain just flows. And so the more you can dampen that left brain's tendency and at least recognize it and say, well, let's see what the right brain comes up with. It absolutely requires that unknown, but the more you do that, you learn to trust. And that unknown, instead of being scary, has this huge element of, oh, boy, how's this going to turn out?

[Mayim Bialik]

You touched on something that has been kind of a recurring theme for me and Jonathan, this notion of Earth school, right, that we're sent here or we're dropped into this earthly existence to experience certain things, to learn certain things. What is some of the framework that you use for kind of thinking of ourselves as part of this Earth school? Why was our consciousness placed into these bodies right here, right now, for us to interact here?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Well, we are part of the ongoing unfolding of humanity. It is a process. So we came at this time knowing, hey, we're no longer in the childhood of humanity. We're pretty much in the adolescence because we're still fighting and we don't all get it. And we act pretty, still childlike a lot, but we have grown. So we, we, as Joy said, let's go back in and see how it goes this time around. And it's not going to be easy because we're still going to have political leaders that don't get it, and we're going to have just tribal factions that are still in the adolescence stage. But won't it be interesting as we just come to realize there is a better way, as we realize we're not just these bodies and these nervous systems and that with the free will that comes with being humans, that's the wild card, right? With free will, we can make a choice to seek that better way. So it's a very exciting time as more people are realizing. I call it the awakened way. You know, it is a better way. And so I always say, what do you do when the world gets you down? You realize this is not the only world, and that awareness makes all the difference in the world. We just think that's the surface. The waves is the only world. If you haven't dived down and spent time on the bottom still breathing, then you're going to get tossed around and around and around, and it gets really tiresome.

[Mayim Bialik]

One of the other misunderstandings people have about connecting with spirit is that, you know, we know that emotional blocks physical Struggles, nervous system dysregulation can block a connection to spirit. So I think that there are some people who might say, okay, that's not for me. Like, if I can't get my mind quiet enough, it means I've got too much baggage and I'm never going to be able to connect with. Where on the continuum of healing can you help us understand we get to be. To be in. In a solid connection with spirit, even if we feel like we're blocked.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Each, each human is unique. And your soul knew that coming in. You knew you were going to take on a body that nowadays has a label of adhd. And I said, well, that's your normal, but you can experience a different normal just by training yourself. Maybe you'll never get to be like a monk in a cage in a cave, right? But you can calm that down and see how that opens things up for you. So comparing yourself to other people is not going to be beneficial. You, as joy came here to be you. So how is that working for you? If you're feeling angst because you can't quiet it down, that's the soul inside saying, there's a better way. I'll work with you. And if you're willing to identify where in the flow of consciousness throughout you, there is some denseness, it's absolutely healing and freeing. Last August, I had herniated a disc. Another physical challenge. Most excruciating pain I've ever experienced. And it lasted for months. Boy, talk about getting my attention. But I've also heard about this theory that wherever you have a physical pain in your body, there's likely a deeper connection. So I said, okay, right there in the lower back. But not just the back. How about the front? Most people have digestive issues. Same area of the body. And so, yes, while dealing with the physical issue at the same time, I spent hours talking to my guides and saying, what am I not seeing? What's going on here? And I went to energy healers and it was amazing. You wouldn't tell them what's going on. And this one woman says, man, you just have this major frozen energy right here in your. In the middle section here. And I realized I came to learn that I had a lifetime, as do most of us, of guarding ourselves. We don't feel safe in these bodies. And I was given a mini life review without having to die. And I was shown all these moments of trauma in my life. Every one of us has had them that I thought I dealt with, but I was still on guard.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Suzanne Giesemann]

I wasn't willing to just let down completely be open for me. It was. I was in the US Invasion of Panama right there, bullets flying by me, and then my stepdaughter dies. Then I have nine, 11. I'm right there at the Pentagon. All these things that in the Navy, we learned to suck it up. Well, I thought I dealt with all of those, but my back showed me no. And they grind my teeth right at night. There's a part of the body that just gets these subconscious signals that say it's not safe to be open and relaxed. Well, wow. I asked spirit to help me. I had an amazing experience in meditation of release with lots of sobbing and emotional stuff that I just normally don't do. My back is completely healed now, but the biggest difference is I am so much more open and the connection with spirit has improved. So right there, if you're willing to look at where in you might you be guarded? A lot of people are guarded in the heart. A lot of people don't want to speak their truth. They might have coughing issues or throat issues, you know, but digestive issues and back issues. There's nothing wrong with us. These are results of being human, of coming into these bodies.

[Mayim Bialik]

We recently heard, you know, this statistic that, you know, over 50% of people who go to doctors with a physical ailment are actually suffering in a mental health arena, and it is manifesting in the body.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Oh, it's all connected.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. I think it's so interesting. And also, you know, to hear someone like you, who for decades, you know, has lived this incredible, inspired and inspiring life, to hear that you were laid low right, by a herniated discovery. And we're reminded of how much we still hold. You know, I think I. I kind of put you on this pedestal, like, oh, she's figured it all out, and she was a skeptic. And then she had this incredible situation, and she was awakened. And now she inspires people all over the world. But in truth, I think that's really it's incredible. And I think it humbles all of us to hear that you still get reminders that there's still more work to be done. And even when we think we're through something, it can still manifest. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Oh, yes. And the best guidance I would love to share with all of you is to say, when these things happen, isn't that interesting? And see it as an opportunity. I mean, I was literally in shock. I could not sit down for 10 days. And I just kept saying, what do you mean, I can't sit? How am I supposed to eat standing up? How am I supposed to get in the car, lie down? I mean, it was just. The whole human side is like, this can't be happening. But your spirit says, yes, it is. What you gonna do? And yet, you know, up until that point, I had a fantastic connection with spirit. I was thrilled. And it just keeps getting better because I was willing to flow with that and dig and say, this is not just physical. It's just a whole new level. But mostly Mayim and Jonathan. It's a level of peace and love and connection. It's not so much that now I'm getting even greater evidence. I'm getting layers that are fantastic. But when you have the people who follow your work say, you're somehow softer or, you know, there's a different energy about you. Oh, man, that's beautiful.

[Mayim Bialik]

I recently threw my back out, which is something that, you know, my body likes to do every once in a while. And, you know, it's that trying to not feel rage, you know, at the universe and feeling betrayed by your body while also trying to balance, like, what's the message here? My back went out during that enormous snowstorm, and I was stuck on the east Coast. And when I knew that I might be stuck on the east coast because of the storm, I thought, I love the snow. I love the cold weather. I would love nothing more than to sled down the hill. I would love nothing more than to build a snowman. And what happened was I was unable to walk up and down the stairs without being on my hands and knees. And I watched the storm from a beautiful bay window as people frolicked and dogs played. And, you know, I honestly went to, like, what's the message here?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Good, right?

[Mayim Bialik]

And the. The bad voice inside said, you can't have anything you like.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Well, so instead of saying, why me? You say, isn't that interesting? Why is this happening?

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's a huge shift, because the why me is a victim Mindset that brings on additional criticism.

[Mayim Bialik]

Anger, self hatred, self loathing.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

I mean, there was a point where I was literally curled up in a ball on the floor in a fetal position and crying from the pain. And then I looked up online, why, why do we do that? And found out that even animals in the wild do that. It's a self protective measure. And I didn't give up hope. But when you read about how long it takes to get over these things, it was discouraging. But I didn't lose hope and I just kept learning things every day. Every day.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So if you time traveled back, I

[Mayim Bialik]

would call Suzanne Giesman and say, I'm curled up in the fetal position and I'm crying and I cannot hear what spirit wants me to know.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

There's no way you'll hear it at that point.

[Mayim Bialik]

There's, you know, a, a very famous prayer in Hebrew and it says that like from the narrowest, darkest place, I cry out.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

What is it about the places of the most darkness that make it the hardest to connect?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Yeah, that's the nervous system. Again, you only have so much bandwidth while you're in a body and it is focused on that part that's hurting. And that's what I learned. The very first trick was I learned to breathe and relax because you tense up. And when you're constricted, that's the exact opposite of the openness that we need to connect with spirit. I'm using constricted and open, but really the scientific terms would be coherence and incoherent. So we need the greatest state of coherence to sense spirit. I checked in there while you were talking. I made a very concrete statement. There's no way you're going to sense spirit when you're like that in the absolute height of pain. That is an accurate statement. But there are levels of connection and that's where, if you're willing to have a few moments of stillness every day, you get to know that that's always here, it's not going away. So that, that is so comforting.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's interesting because what it reminds me of is, you know, one of the most natural things that the female body can do, which is give birth. And that's exactly what we are told. For those of us who, you know, love natural birth and believe in the principles of it, you know, what we're told is that an open body releases a baby and a tense and scared body will keep it in. Right. And just this notion that like, that's a divine connection to Be able to say, I can relax into this discomfort because it is the. The process at the. At the other end of which is freedom. Right?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

That's right. That's right. And we forget pain. That's a gift of spirit. I said that to my husband. I said, you know, luckily, we forget pain. And I said, it's like childbirth. If we did not forget pain, no woman would want to have a second child. And my husband said, well, he has the same respiratory challenge I do right now. And he said, well, this, to a man, is like labor.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Sorry, Donna, if we went backwards, could we retroactively put m in the situation to get a message from spirit about what was happening with her back? You know, the. What I'm suggesting is that your approach is, why is this happening?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Oh, it's never too late. Because if. Yeah, if you didn't dig into that at the time, miam, Your back will most likely continue to go out. Sorry, but. No, but seriously, it is most likely the back not feeling supported. Nothing against Jonathan.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I wasn't there, which is the big problem.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

No, but it's an ongoing thing. You know, it builds up not feeling supported and feeling overly guarding and guarding there, so. And again, nothing wrong with that. That is what we're programmed to do, protect ourselves. And in this human world, we do need physical protection. But when it. When it gets to the point where you're guarded, boy, just. It's really funny because I. I couldn't wash my hair while my. I had a big bandage on my face last week, so I went to a salon to get my hair washed, and I had this big honking thing across here. And it's really funny because people take one look and then they look away, right? It's that guarding. It's. First there's curiosity, why does he look like that? But then it's. Then there's a. Partly, I don't want to embarrass her, but. Oh, God, thank God that's not me. Right. And so we walk around all the time, guarding ourselves. Think about what you feel like at a party. It's this push and pull between. I'd like to meet that person, but what if they don't like me? That human thing all the time. This is why. The awakened way of realizing I'm not only human. When I went in the salon, I caught people's eyes and I smiled, and it was stunning. I came from the soul. I deliberately wanted to see what would happen if my soul shined on them and they start to look away and then they were like, oh, she's smiling. And they smiled back. It was so cool to live from that. Soul awareness is freeing.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Suzanne, let's circle back to five misconceptions people have, and I'm going to read some of them to you, and you can give us some context. The first misconception is that people think connecting to spirit only counts. If you hear a voice so clearly or you see an apparition, tell us why that's wrong.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

Because we all share the same ocean of consciousness. Spirit inspires us with thoughts. And sometimes it's only retroactively we realize that thought was given to us. Why did you turn down that road at that time? And that was a. It brought you right to the place that you needed. Why did you turn on that song right there? And that song was playing with the lyrics that answered a question you asked because you were inspired to do that. You're not alone. That's just one example.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So this is perfect. And I want to dig a little deeper on this. Mime will sometimes say to me, when I say I feel like I'm intuiting something, she'll go, aren't you just thinking it?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

And that's when I say, yes. And who are you? You are Jonathan. And this soul and joy playing this role as Jonathan. So it's just like the higher aspects of you came into awareness. We're all awareness itself.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The second misconception is that only trained or gifted mediums or intuitives can connect directly.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

These connections happen often spontaneously, and then we doubt them, but our heart knows, oh, my gosh, that's my loved one. And you don't have to be born a medium. I'm evidence of that right here to develop a clearer connection. So that word training is tricky there because it does help us to have training. But there are countless documented cases of people who have seen their loved one at the end of their bed or had a visit that they can't deny, seen a loved one standing in the hallway and had things happen that I call noes, no other explanation moments. So this happens because we're all connected and because the other dimensions, the other states of being, interpenetrate our own. And sometimes the nervous system opens up enough that we perceive that without our physical senses.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The next misconception is that spiritual communication fades over time or will leave us during periods of our life.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

It can fade. The presence, the awareness of a loved one, or the signs that they send us because we don't need them anymore. I'm so confident in the presence of my stepdaughter Susan, that I don't need her signs. I reach out to her once in a while and she's present right away because we resonate with each other from a coherent state. That's what you need from your loved one. You need to be in a coherent state. Their field needs to be coherent and then you can connect that way. But why would it fade? Simply because you're no longer holding that intention. You're not holding the attention on them, but they haven't gone anywhere. There's nowhere to go. It's just this one sea that we're all part of.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The other misconception is that you must be fully healed first, which is to me a little laughable because what is fully even mean? The reality is that that's a work in progress. The nervous system obviously needs some regulation in order to have an openness enough. But there's no such thing as fully healed. So we'll go on to the Last 1. Number 5. Signs stop once you notice them.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

That's a misconception for sure. Oh yeah, they actually increase once you notice them. Because now you've opened to the wondrous possibilities that consciousness can provide through this connection. And you notice when you're just attributing a sign to like a butterfly that flies by. Well, not every butterfly is going to be a sign from your loved one. Absolutely not. But you do notice it if that butterfly lands on your hand and stays there for an hour when you were thinking about your loved one. There's a difference and you feel it in your heart. And, and I know that we buoy those across the veil, like, oh, they're finally noticing it's me. They're not just thinking, they're making it up. Let's turn it up a little bit.

[Jonathan Cohen]

This is an interesting point too, because some criticism of people who are very logical and rational will say that people who are looking for signs are over signifying with the sign. Like every time the clock hits 2:22, you're just waiting for 2:22. You've checked it six times between 2:19 and 222. So that you can say, oh, there's three magical numbers. Can you talk about a right sized application of attention towards the signs that we're getting?

[Suzanne Giesemann]

That's going to be like the grief journey. It's different for everybody. And absolutely you can over attribute signs. So really there's no barometer to that. Really. The question is, is that helping that person? Are they much more at peace now? Is that helping them in their grief? Journey, does that help them feel a connection with their loved one? I know that some of those signs in there are going to be direct connections with a loved one, so maybe some of them aren't. But compare that to somebody who says this is all bs, you know, I'll choose the healing any day.

[Mayim Bialik]

We're going to hit pause here on our conversation with Suzanne, but there's so much more in part two, including the question everyone asks Suzanne if mediums are real, why can't they find missing people, solve crimes, and figure out what the lottery numbers are?

[Jonathan Cohen]

We're also going to discuss is there hell, what really happens after we die?

[Mayim Bialik]

Also, what is it about the information that mediums access that doesn't always sound accurate or specific enough? And how can we learn to understand the information coming in in a whole new context? All of that and more in two of our conversation with Suzanne Gieseman. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's Maya Bialix Breakdown.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

She's going to break it down for you.

[Jonathan Cohen]

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two

[Suzanne Giesemann]

and now she's going to break down.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's a breakdown.

[Jonathan Cohen]

She's going to break it down.

[Suzanne Giesemann]

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