Episode Conversation
Welcome to the show, everyone. I’m the owner of Mobility Health Physical Therapy, a physical therapy company based in Midtown Manhattan. If you live in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Queens, we can come to your home. We also have telehealth physical therapy services in the Tri-state area. Please check out our website at MobilityHealthPT.com. If you're looking for more episodes such as this, you can also go to MobilityHealthPT.com and click the Podcast link.
Our guest is Irene Weinberg. Irene is the author of the acclaimed book, They Serve Bagels in Heaven, which shares her transformative journey through a profound car accident and its aftermath. Her international award-winning podcast, Grief and Rebirth: Finding the Joy in Life, ranks in the top 2% globally, featuring interviews with grief and trauma specialists, healers, mediums, and inspiring stories of resilience. Her new anthology, Good to the Last Drop!, embraces life's third chapter, offering inspiring, uplifting tales of overcoming loss and challenges in later life and advocating for living life's third chapters fully with love, kindness, and purpose.
A Life-Changing Accident: A Spiritual Awakening
Welcome to the show, Irene. Everyone, you are in for a treat. Irene, how are you?
I'm great. I have to tell everyone you're in for a treat because Dr. Gina is one of my favorite people and I know she cares a lot about me. You're going to be part of a mutual admiration society when you tune into this interview.
We're friends, truly.
We've shared a lot together.
Irene has a lot of experience and many stories to share with all of you. Let's start with your book, They Serve Bagels in Heaven. It details profound personal challenges. How did this profound experience shape your views on grief, healing, and resilience?
It's one of these things where I want to go, “Where do I begin?” I was not spiritual. I was married to the love of my life who was my second husband, Saul, for about eighteen years. We were traditional in our religious beliefs and all, but did we really believe in anything? I had a sister-in-law who said she was spiritual. We thought she was cuckoo. We weren't in that mindset at all.
One day, I was minding my own business at my kitchen sink. I was washing some dishes, which was a little meditative. My mind wasn't thinking. I was there doing my thing. All of a sudden, a strong thought that was a message came into my head that was not my thought. It said to me, “Saul has to go. Many lessons will be learned from his death.” I was like, “What the heck am I thinking? This is crazy.” It was not my thought.
I filled a glass with water. He was watching a Jets game on TV. I kissed the top of his head and gave him a glass of water. I proceeded to think I was putting it out of my mind but you know you don't forget something like that. Two months later, Saul and I had a ski house in the Catskills. We were coming home from our ski house. We were on the New York State Thruway for about an hour and a half. We were going 72 miles an hour. We were in the left lane. Suddenly, I felt our car go into a huge swerve. I looked over at my husband and he was sound asleep at the wheel. I called out to him. I was like, “Saul,” and he woke up. He saw what was happening. He went to pull the car out of the swerve but instead, we started to flip up into the air like we were in a gigantic rollercoaster. It was unbelievable.
We flip up. Thank God we took no one else with us. We hit hard on the right side. We flipped up a 2nd time, and when we flipped up the 2nd time, I got a 2nd message. It said, “He's not going to make it. You are.” Can you imagine? I'm in the middle of a flip and that comes into my head. We flipped the third time and I left my body. I entered the void. I was like, “What is this blackness? What's going on here?” I then felt myself go back into my body. I finished the third flip and then flipped again. On the fourth flip, we were upside down and we slid into a ravine on the side of the Thruway. We held up traffic for two and a half hours. There were still pieces of my car on the Thruway six months later.
I'm upside down. I'm conscious. I'm going to tell you how physical therapy helped me, but I don't know yet that I have sustained four unbelievable injuries. I had a torn artery in the bottom of my right foot. I had nineteen stitches. I was bleeding to death. I had two transfusions. My collarbone was reversed inside my shoulder. I lost the ACL in my right knee and had a detached retina. It was unbelievable. I'm upside down and I look over at him and go, “Sauly, are you okay?” I see that what I was told had happened. I'm next to the shell of my husband. His whole vibrant, beautiful persona is gone at the moment. I go, “There is something to this. Something's up. I was told he wasn't going to make it and he didn't.” I got the perception that he was with me.
All of a sudden, as I'm thinking that, I see these EMTs in a helicopter. They're landing on the Thruway and jumping out of the helicopter. There were three of them. They were rocking my car back and forth to get it right side up on the road. One of them came over and reached his arms through my shattered window, undid my seatbelt, and turned me around. As he was pulling me through the shattered window of my car, I got a message. It was a voice. It blew me away. It was a male voice. It came into my head and said, “Be loving and kind to everyone,” as they laid me on the side of the road.
In that moment with my husband physically gone next to me, I'm being told to be loving and kind to everyone. I felt I had a director from Heaven. That moment changed me. Instead of screaming for myself, I realized, “There might be a divine something up here. My husband must still be with me. They had told me he was going to go. We move on. There's some higher intelligence to life and what's going on.”
Instead of screaming for myself, I started saying to everyone, “What's your name? Thank you so much for coming out. It’s the weekend before Christmas.” They're telling me, “Ma'am, we have to tie a tourniquet around your leg.” I didn't know yet that I was bleeding so profusely. I said, “Bless you. Thank you for helping me.” They loaded me in the helicopter and took me to an emergency trauma center. I do the same thing there when the doctor comes over and he tells me, “I have to tell you your husband's gone.” I said, “Doc, I'm the luckiest woman in the world that I had my husband with me for the years that I did.” I felt that he was with me.
I was being loving and kind about everything to everyone. I could go into that. Even when the kids came, because the police went and notified them and they came to see me and all, everything I did was with love and kindness so much so that I got a call from the assistant to the surgeon who operated on me that night.” It was three months after the surgery. She said, “I have to tell you that you changed lives in the emergency room that night. We never saw anyone respond the way you did. We've seen so many tragedies on this Thruway.” I said, “Trish, I had a spiritual awakening and it's changed my life.” I'm in the hospital for three days. My sister-in-law, who I thought was cuckoo, came to see me. She says, “Your aura has changed. I can see something happened to you. Something's up.”
I go home three days later and I'm grieving like the rest of the world but I know something is up. I'm in a wheelchair. I have all these people coming to visit me because Saul is suddenly gone. I have to plan the funeral. I had issues with kids and finances. It was unbelievable. I'm going through the paces. I'm crying my eyes out. I'm going through all this and I'm going, “What in the world? I got those messages.”
They Serve Bagels In Heaven: A Transformative Journey
About six weeks after the accident, I was out of the wheelchair and I got a call from my dry cleaner. If anyone knows me for about two minutes, I'm very friendly. I talk to everybody. I would go in and I'd bring my dry cleaning. I’d be like, “How are you doing?” We'd chat about things. He said, “Irene, I wouldn't normally do this with anybody, but you seem to be very open-minded. My wife and I don't tell people this but eight years ago, my wife and I lost our oldest son to a drug overdose. We were beside ourselves.
We went to grief counselors, social workers, and all kinds of people. No one could help us until we saw some mediums who were able to connect us to our son's soul. This is what he told us. This is the proof we got. We're going to see this guy who's going to be very famous one day. He's starting out but he's amazing. We're going to see him in two weeks. I thought if you are open to it, you could come and maybe Saul will come through.” I had no idea what he was talking about but I knew something was up. I got the messages and all of this happened. I was like, “Okay.”
I'm out of the wheelchair. Two weeks later, I'm in Saul's car and I'm driving to a town that is five towns away from me. My dry cleaner lives in New Jersey and where this medium is going to be is another five counts in the other direction. I'm telling you this for a reason. I leave my car there and my dry cleaner takes me in his car to what they call a gallery where people gather to hear from their deceased loved ones through a medium.
I walk in with my dry cleaner and this young man says to me, “I don't even want to know your name. Go upstairs.” This was 1997 before voice recorders and all that. At the time, people who were grieving brought a friend or someone to take notes. I had my dry cleaner with me. We waited for about half an hour for all these amazing messages to come through. I'm going, “Oh my goodness.” He was getting messages like, “I'm getting a message from someone who says that he shot himself in the head with a pistol.” I was like, “That's my father.” These were things he could not possibly know. The medium was the famous John Edward.
It didn't even cost me anything at the time because I was with the dry cleaner and John Ed was starting out. He said, “I'm getting a message from someone. He's talking about Dr. Pepper. Does anyone relate to Dr. Pepper?” I elbowed my dry cleaner and said, “Saul. Start writing.” Fifteen years before he met me, my husband's brother, who was an Advertising Executive on Madison Avenue, put my husband's name in a Dr. Pepper commercial. It was like, “Dr. Pepper is coming east from California. Let's talk to the man in the street, Saul Weinberg, about what he thinks about Dr. Pepper. Not Joe Smith. Not George Williams. Nothing. Saul Weinberg.” Saul used to laugh about that. It happened fifteen years before he met me.
I'm getting so many messages in 40 minutes. John Edward said to me, “How long is this guy on the other side?” I said, “Two months.” He said, “This is a mature soul with the way I’m getting these messages.” He probably wouldn't say that now. He said, “He's telling me you're wearing his skier charm under your blouse. He's telling me he died in one state but you live in another.” How could he know that? He says, “Who's Matt?” That's my son. He says, “Who's Bruce?” That was his son. He says, “Whose name starts with an S?” That's his daughter.
He then said, which is the kicker for me, “He's telling me that you're driving his car with Saulsie on the license plate.” It was parked about six towns away. There was no way he could know that. My husband was a real estate developer. He sold condos. The kids who he sold condos to loved him so much that they used to call him Uncle Saulsie. That's why he had Saulsie on the license plate.
This amazing thing happens. I know my husband's on the other side. I know there's another side. The only person I can call and share it with is my sister-in-law who I thought was crazy. She said to me, “Thank goodness because two weeks after the accident, he came through to me. I said, “Saul, why are you talking to me? We weren't getting along when you died. He said, “It’s because I thought you were crazy and you're not. I'm here and you're the only one open. I need to get messages to Irene.” There were messages about each of the kids and messages about business deals he had left me with. It was unbelievable.
I'm out there and no longer in a wheelchair. I'm going to physical therapy, which gave me a chance because I'm going through so much. Whether the physical therapist resonated with what I was saying, I could tell my story while they were working with me and helping me. I really needed it because 3 times, I had 3 different physical therapists. One was when I got the stitches and the operation on my foot to bring my foot back. The second time, I had to bring my knee back. I had lost the ACL. I was in physical therapy for that.
That's a long rehab.
That physical therapist did me a great favor because he said, “With all that you've been through, I really think you oughta go for yoga. That would be helpful to you.” I was like, “Yoga?” I had never done that before and I didn't understand it. He recommended someone and I started taking yoga with her. That was a great gift because the accident happened when I was 50 years old. I've been doing yoga for well over twenty years. What a difference as you're getting older and all of that.
Yoga is important.
The other physical therapy I had was the worst. I don't know how people rate their pain. My collarbone was reversed inside my shoulder. I had major surgery on my shoulder and that hurt.
That's a painful surgery and grueling rehab. You get better but it's not easy.
It was really tough. There I was in physical therapy, trying to pull myself together and trying to figure things out. In the meantime, this spiritual stuff is happening to me. I'm going to different mediums. All of a sudden, I'm opening up and I can't tell anyone in my world that I'm doing this. I used to think I was nuts. These mediums are telling me that Saul is describing to them the first meal I ever made him and how he kissed me the first time. He described his toes through somebody. In every way that he could, he would be like, “Honey, it's me. I'm on the other side.”
I then started getting another message. Remember, when I got those messages, something was up. The message was different. Mediums started telling me that he's saying there's a divine plan. They said, “You've been soulmates for many lifetimes. There was a divine plan that if he had to leave early, you were going to work together from across the veil.” I was like, “What?” In a way, it felt right, but I said to them, “What do you want me to do?” They said I was supposed to write a book. I thought that was all that I was supposed to do.
You've been soulmates for many lifetimes, and there was a divine plan that if he had to leave early, you were going to work together from across the veil.
I found someone who was able to communicate with Saul. I asked them all these questions like, “What happens when people are evil on the other side? What was it like for you to cross over all this?” We fashioned the book into not only a love story but also filled with the spiritual wisdom that he channeled to me about what happens.
I called it They Serve Bagels in Heaven because he described that when you cross over, they create a visual or an experience for you so that you can relate to your comfort zone where you were coming from in this lifetime. Saul, when he crossed over, his mother who had died when he was sixteen met him and they had bagels and coffee in heaven. That was the visual that he received so I called the book They Serve Bagels in Heaven. I was doing my thing in the world and I thought that was all I had to do. One day, I was at my desk and I suddenly got the word podcast in my head. I was like, “I'm getting another message. What's a podcast?”
Grief And Rebirth: Finding Joy In Life
What inspired you to create the podcast? What was that about? How has it changed from when you started to now?
It was pretty amazing. Remember, everything for me was step-by-step. When this happened, like having faith, I couldn’t share it with a lot of people because they would all think I was crazy. I was holding onto my truth and going forward anyway. I get the message podcast and I'm like, “I don't get a lot of the messages. I got those three messages and now, this is coming in my head.”
I asked someone who I knew, “What's a podcast?” I'm a Baby Boomer. How do I know what a podcast is? She said, “I can help you with that.” I'm thinking, “I'm being told I'm supposed to start a podcast. It must be part of this divine plan with Saul.” I said to myself, “Who am I going to interview?” I thought I could not have gotten through the accident if I hadn't worked with a life transition coach. Mediumship saved my life because he was coming through to show me he was on the other side. I am open to energy healing. I'm doing all these things. I thought, “I'm going to interview grief and trauma specialists, healers, and mediums.”
I want to add for everyone reading that when they pulled me out of the car, aside from getting the message, “Be loving and kind to everyone,” on the earthbound plane, Irene's brain thought to herself as I was sliding through the car, “I will get through this somehow.” My husband was buried on his 21st birthday. I said, “I have to show my son that you can get hit by a grenade in life and keep on going.” I had programmed myself.
I also wanted to interview people who had been through tremendous challenges in their lives and have been able to heal and find joy again. About four years after the accident, my son said to me, “Mom, there's been nothing worse than seeing you in total despair, and nothing better than seeing you be able to have joy again.” I said, “I'm going to inspire people. That's what I want to do. I want to bring forth all the different ways, including physical therapy, that people can heal and help themselves.” The podcast, after I started it, I started interviewing all these people. It started to change lives and people were becoming very inspired. It grew. It's in the top 2% of 3 million podcasts. It's helping so many people.
Congrats.
Thank you. For what happened to me, I am so humbled and honored that this is happening. It has nothing to do with my ego. It's part of what I'm supposed to be. When you're a Baby Boomer and you're getting older, this happened to me. I look at it as a blessing because my contemporaries are hanging out, waiting to get sick. You'll see them walking around with, “I'm going to die with these negative attitudes.”
They're not living life to the fullest.
I'm the opposite of that. I'm doing these amazing things that are helping people. I'm humbled all the time. I'm thrilled I met you and all these amazing people. It's such a blessing. I continued to do that and then I got another surprise. I'm dealing with the podcast and I'm doing fine with the podcast. All of a sudden, I get a message through a medium that I'm supposed to write a second book. I said “Second book?”
They said, “There are a lot of people who need to be inspired about the third chapter of their lives. We have three chapters, the formative years, our middle years, and then the retirement years. What legacy are you leaving in your retirement years?” I called the second book Good to the Last Drop! because hopefully, we stay really good until our last drop. I'm not afraid because, at that last drop, we cross over. We don't cease to exist.
The Power Of Healing And Self-Care
That's amazing. That's true. You've interviewed so many healers, trauma therapists, and mediums. Can you tell me what's the most surprising, impactful lesson you've learned from your guests?
The first thing I've learned is that we don't die. I've interviewed so many mediums and healers. We do not die. It’s just this physical body. We go to the other side. We had come here to learn lessons. I've also learned that it's really important to heal your stuff because people who carry their wounds from family generation to generation and keep moving the wounds forward are carrying this backpack filled with suffering, sadness, depression, and all kinds of things. If they heal it, they can drop that backpack and they can feel joy. That's another thing that I've learned.
There are two other things, and I probably could go on more than that. One is that when it comes to being loving and kind to everyone, that means you too. We have to take care of ourselves. Self-care is so important. You are worth it as much as you take care of everyone else in your life. You don't need to do anything but you can choose to be a role model, take really good care of yourself, and love yourself too. That has nothing to do with narcissism. That has to do with being the best you can be for yourself and others in your world.
When it comes to being loving and kind to everyone, that means to me that we have to take care of ourselves.
The other thing that really surprised me that I've learned is that when you cross over, there's no judgment. You came here to learn lessons. You get a life review. It's almost like a movie review or a trailer where you get to feel every way that you made others feel in your life because you came to learn certain lessons and pass love along. When you don't do that, maybe you need another lifetime to get that lesson down. You get a life review about that. You come away from that, “This is what I've learned.”
There are healing places on the other side and there are all different things that go on. People land on different planes. There's no hell but they land on different levels, depending on how much love and how high their vibration was in this lifetime that they came from and how they processed things and the choices that they made. This is a funny story for everyone. I'm very open. My parents didn't have a great marriage. My father was quite abusive. My mother was a battered woman. When my father died before my mother, my mother used to say to me, “If your father meets me when I cross over, I'm not going.”
I had said to my mother when I spoke to her through a medium, “Have you seen Dad?” after she crossed over. She said, “He is on a little different level than I am. He can't come here to see me. I can go to see him but I'm taking my time.” My father landed on another level, and I'm sure he's doing healing and all. My mother was the more evolved and the more mature soul. Those are a lot of the things that I've learned from these experiences, these amazing interviews I’ve had, and all the people who I've met through this podcast, the books, and all of that.
Tell me. What role do you think relationships, especially with ourselves, play in healing from grief and moving forward in the instance of a trauma?
It's so important. For instance, when I had all this trauma and I went for physical therapy, that was a form of taking very good care of my physical house. In addition to that, I was also going for psychological therapy because I needed help to move forward in my life. I considered those things self-care. The other thing I started to do is I started to do luxurious things that I used to think were a luxury that I would never do. I started getting facials. I'd have a massage every once in a while. I took care of myself. One of the things that happened was when I was doing that, I got more respect for myself. I started feeling better.
When the accident first happened. I was a mess. I paid no attention to my grooming, which was so unlike me. I was so depressed. I wasn't working out even though I was healing from all these things, but I was in a malaise. I was blue. Once I started taking care of myself, loving myself, and moving forward out of my tremendous grief, I started becoming very proactive. Once I finished therapy, I started working out. I started doing yoga. I started doing all those things. Not only did it make a difference for me, but people started to say, “You look great for your age. What are you doing?” I'd say, “I'm taking care of myself.”
Exemplify the importance of taking care of ourselves.
How are you going to take care of the other people in your life if you are falling apart?
Take care of yourself, because how are you going to take care of the other people in your life if you're falling apart?
That's true.
For my son, when he said, “There's been nothing better than seeing you be able to have joy,” that happened four years after the accident. I was teaching him because stuff is going to happen in his life too. It was because of the actions I took to help myself that he saw that and he saw how I started healing and getting better.
The Third Chapter Of Life: Finding Purpose And Fulfillment
Can you talk a little bit about the third chapter of life and after retirement or major life changes? How can someone get that sense of purpose and fulfillment?
We all have experiences in life. We all have negative experiences. We all have traumatic experiences. We all have different things that happen and wonderful things that happen to us. In your first chapter, you're a kid. Your parents are telling you things that later on in life you may not necessarily ascribe to, but that's their belief or whatever. In the second chapter, we're married, we have children, and we have all this. We're creating our careers.
You then get to your third chapter. Supposedly, you're retiring. You're hoping for good health. What are you doing with the lessons from your first two chapters? Are you bitter about every single trauma or every time someone wronged you or have you healed that stuff to unload your backpack? Are you going to take the lessons from that and the good things that happened in your life? Are you going to create a legacy? I'm not afraid of dying anymore. I know I'm crossing over. The question is, what am I leaving after I leave? What am I leaving in my wake? It doesn't have to be something grandiose.
I asked all these people for my book, Good to the Last Drop! I had 24 people who I had interviewed who had amazing stories. They had lost children. They had cancers. They had had all kinds of things happen to them. That is a perfect example of these people who went through such trauma and grief but they took from it amazing things.
One guy’s son was killed when he was nineteen years old. He was killed in a car accident. He has become a grief coach for men. Another woman had a stillborn child. She never properly grieved this stillborn child until one day, she heard an interview I had on the podcast as she was nearing retirement. I was interviewing a woman who had 2 or 3 stillborn children and this woman had created a certification for helping people who lose infants and young children. She felt that there was not enough help on the planet for people who go through those kinds of things.
This woman was listening to this podcast interview. It's a perfect example. She's coming towards retirement. She really didn't know what she wanted to do with her life and then all of a sudden, she says, “This applies to me. I never properly grieved my own loss of my child. I didn't know what I was going to do. I'm going to take training to become a grief coach and I'm going to specialize in infant loss.” This is her legacy at this. In her third chapter, she took this certification and opened a department in a hospital where she specializes in helping people who have lost young children, infants, or stillborn children.
There are other people in the book. They didn't do as grandiose things but they're doing amazing things with their lives. One guy lost his wife and he had a terrible heart attack. It left him in a wheelchair. He's in assisted living. He was a Canadian Mountie and has done all these things in his life. He's passionate about the environment. He is working on climate change. In his assisted living, he has these meetings about climate change. They inspire people and reach out about climate change. There he is in a wheelchair. He lost his wife and had a heart attack and yet, he has found a mission that is inspiring him and keeping him alive and going.
Finding the thing that you can develop and inspire people seems to be very helpful when you have trauma that you're working through.
These are beautiful stories. People are telling me they're reading them and saying, “It's so uplifting because I've gotten to that age and I didn't know what I was going to do. Now, I'm starting to really think, “Do I still have more to give? What will that be? What do I want to leave for my kids besides money?” We're talking about inspiration and role modeling legacy.
Navigating The Challenges Of Aging With Love And Kindness
You advocate for kindness and love as a guiding principle in life's later stages especially. How can these values help people navigate challenges that arise with aging?
The best thing I can say for everyone who is reading is one of the big things that I've learned as you age is you have more years behind you than you have in front of you. Maybe you don't have to be such a good girl or a good boy anymore when there are toxic people in your life. I detach from these kinds of people with love. I don’t want them wasting my time.
I don’t want to waste the precious moments I have left running around some people in circles trying to please them when they can't be pleased and they've got all kinds of issues. They're not healing their issues and are trying to displace them onto me or whoever. I don't get all caught up in that anymore. What I do is I distance myself from them and send them love. I don't need them in my presence to bring me down.
When you get older, it doesn't mean that you're necessarily mature. Some people get older and they don't do any healing. They stay the same. That same jealous, little immature kid who they're bringing into their later years, why do you want to hang around with that little jealous, insecure kid who is not going to be a positive force in your life?
Some people get older and don't do any healing, so they stay the same.
That’s a great point. Get rid of that energy and find the people who make you feel good and positive and motivate you.
That’s right. Find the people who uplift you. I've separated from a few with love. I know that's their stuff. I know they never did their healing work, and that's okay. Maybe they'll get it the next time around or whatever but that's not my concern over here. I want to surround myself with positive people. It’s not that the positive people in my leg never have a problem but their general attitudes are very positive. They're trying to help themselves as opposed to wallowing in that self-pity pit.
That makes sense. That’s so true. That’s very freeing to not hold any angst or ill feelings against them. Don't involve them in your daily life.
That's right. A lot of times, they have very negative messages to thrust on you. I don't agree. They're not the kind of people that you can change their mind or argue with. Why are you wasting your breath? They are on their path. They can't change unless they choose to change.
That's true. It's their own personal choice. That’s great advice. That makes me feel younger already. They weigh you down. They age you.
Some of them are very bitter or jealous. I don't want any of that energy coming at me at all.
Irene is the most amazing, positive, enriching, motivating, and uplifting person I know. She's very amazing. Where can people find out more about your podcast and you? Where can they listen to your podcast?
My podcast is on anywhere they get their podcasts. Plus, I have an amazing YouTube channel. Please come and subscribe. You can get on my website, IreneWeinberg.com, and find out all the things I'm doing and find out where you can get the podcast. All of that is right there at IreneWeinberg.com. You could also go to Spotify. The name of the podcast is Grief and Rebirth. I was so in grief but after I healed and started to transform, it was a rebirth.
Thank you so much for being on the show. It's such a pleasure to have you speak and talk about your experiences. We can go on and on. If anyone's looking for more of this episode of the show, please go to MobilityHealthPT.com or you can find it wherever you get your shows. Thank you so much.
It’s my pleasure. Much love to everyone and to you.
Thank you so much.
