After a Near-Death Experience (NDE) or profound spiritual awakening, the return to ordinary life often feels like landing in the wrong world. You’ve tasted something eternal—boundless love, unity beyond words, infinite peace—and now even the most beautiful moments on Earth feel like shadows of something far more real.
This aching disconnection has a name: spiritual homesickness. It’s the longing for Heaven—not in a dramatic or escapist sense, but in a deep soul-level desire to return to the purity, clarity, and unconditional love you experienced in that realm.
Susan E. Galvan, in her compassionate book Integrating the Light: A Guide to Life After a Near-Death Experience, calls this not a problem to fix, but a truth to honor. The homesickness isn’t a flaw; it’s a signal. You touched something sacred. Now, the journey is to ground that sacredness here—to live Heaven while still on Earth.
The Ache for Home: Why It Hurts So Deeply
The pain of returning isn’t just emotional—it’s existential. Galvan explains that many who return from NDEs report feeling “too big” for their lives. The old routines, relationships, and even bodies feel confining. There’s an invisible wound, a kind of fracture between what the soul knows and what the world expects.
You might feel out of place, misunderstood, overly sensitive, or even emotionally overwhelmed by daily life. But all of these are signs that you haven’t “lost touch with reality”—you’ve expanded beyond it.
And now, your sacred task is to build a bridge between the two worlds.
Grounding the Sacred: A New Kind of Spiritual Practice
Galvan’s book doesn’t romanticize the post-awakening life. She walks with readers through the messiness of integration and offers practical tools to help stabilize the soul without abandoning the Light. Below are some of the most powerful grounding practices inspired by Integrating the Light:
1. Reconnect with the Body
Your body is the vessel for your sacred mission—but after awakening, it may feel dense, slow, or even foreign. Galvan encourages embodied practices to restore harmony:
- Movement as medicine: Try yoga, mindful walking, or gentle dance. Not to “get fit,” but to reconnect with the body as a temple of energy.
- Nourishment: After an NDE, many people become more sensitive to food and chemicals. Pay close attention to how your body reacts. Some feel grounded by protein, others by plant-based meals. Let your intuition guide you.
2. Create Sacred Space in Your Home
If you can’t go back to Heaven, bring Heaven here. Designate a small corner or altar in your home as a sacred space. Fill it with symbols of your awakening: a crystal, candle, photo, nature object, or a journal. Visit it daily—even for two minutes—to reconnect with what is real.
This space is a gentle reminder that the sacred didn’t end when the experience did. It’s always available to you, even in the mundane.
3. Practice Energetic Protection
After awakening, you may feel bombarded by other people’s energy, emotions, and even spiritual entities. Galvan describes this sensitivity as a gift—but only if it’s managed well.
Her suggestions include:
- Wearing white clothing during rest to shield your energy
- Grounding visualizations (e.g., roots from your feet into the earth)
- Taking salt baths or walking barefoot in nature to release excess energy
Energetic hygiene is as essential as brushing your teeth. It helps your expanded awareness stay clear and stable in a chaotic world.
4. Serve, But Don’t Drain
The awakened soul often feels an urgent call to help others. But Galvan offers a wise warning: don’t mistake your mission for martyrdom. Your purpose is to be the Light—not burn out trying to save everyone.
Start small: show up with kindness, listen deeply, offer presence rather than advice. Galvan describes this as a “ministry of presence”—a way of bringing Heaven into every interaction, not through grand gestures but by simply being attuned and real.
5. Let the Longing Guide You, Not Drown You
That ache for Home may never fully go away. And maybe it’s not supposed to. Galvan reframes it as a compass rather than a curse. It reminds you of where you come from—and calls you to bring a piece of that realm into this one.
Write. Paint. Garden. Create. Pray. Love. These aren’t distractions from the sacred—they are how the sacred lives through you.
You Are Here for a Reason
Susan Galvan’s message is unwavering: You came back for a reason. And that reason isn’t to escape into nostalgia for the beyond. It’s to let the beyond move through you—into your words, your work, your relationships, your art, your daily choices.
Healing the homesickness doesn’t mean forgetting Heaven. It means making your life a vessel that reflects it.
Final Thoughts
Feeling homesick for Heaven is not a mistake. It’s a memory etched into your soul—one that whispers, “There is more than this world.” The challenge is not to deny the ache, but to anchor it. To root your divine knowing into the soil of your life.
Integrating the Light is more than a book. It’s a companion for every soul learning how to carry the infinite within the finite. As Galvan writes so beautifully, you are not broken—you are becoming.
So start where you are. Touch the earth. Light a candle. Breathe. Speak truth. Rest. And in those quiet, simple moments, Heaven will no longer feel so far away. It will live in you.