FREE EXCERPT from Naked in Public: A Memoir of Recovery From Sex Addiction And Other Temporary Insanities by Anastasia (Staci) Sprout

From “Chapter 10: Near-Death Inspires Termination”

    I sang along with the radio, watching the wipers getting ahead of the beat. It was pouring Seattle rain in sheets of hazy gray outside the windshield. I slowed to a stop at a deserted intersection and was waiting for the light to turn green when SMASH! A car plowed into me from behind at full speed. I would later learn that four high school guys were out for a cruise in a parent’s Cadillac Escalade and their brakes went out. I was looking forward when it happened and hadn’t seen them coming.

    Then things got really strange. When the SUV hit, my head was thrown back and I saw the ceiling of my car, by then a blue Toyota Tercel, its pale gray fabric overlaid by something else…something shadowy, but not malevolent. A blurry shape hovered there, like a thin, concave cloud. Though it had no face, I sensed the shape was aware, intensely alert, and beckoning to me. Although I had no memory of seeing it before, the dark presence seemed intimately familiar, and timelessly patient. Somehow, I knew it was both an entity and a passageway, a portal, and it was inviting me to pass through. Without hesitation, I said yes in my mind.

    Instantly, my mind shifted, and I began to experience everything with far more vividness. My awareness shrank to the size of a pinpoint, and I shot like a rocket out of my body and up through that shadow, rising above the rain and clouds.

    I am flying! I can fly, I know how to fly! I’ve always known, but must have forgotten until now, this glorious moment! I watched the pale half-moon go by, and then saw flashes of stars getting brighter, glowing and shining, bursting, like fireworks. I continued flying up, faster and faster, past even the molten sun. It felt ecstatic to be free, finally free, knowing, without knowing, that I was going home.

Then the sky changed and I saw streaks of darkness, smudges and layers of a blackness so bleak I shuddered, glad to fly by without slowing. All at once the light returned, a wall of golden light, creamy soft and sparkly, and I dove into it and through it, and was embraced in feelings of joyful welcome and celebration.

    Consciousness here was utterly different than before, rendering my everyday experience isolated and barren. I could feel the presence of other beings, because they somehow joined me in my mind. Thought was communal and connected; this realm was more vibrational than verbal or visual. We shared thoughts telepathically, unique voices with different rhythms and inflections, each more tender than the last. I felt love pouring in from the beings around me, infinite yet personal—it was warm love for me as I existed on every level, every space and depth, pooling deep into my awareness like liquid light, melting my own shadows away until they became love too, until everything I knew softened into love.

    One of the vibrations became more prominent, a masculine thought-voice that I recognized with a burst of happiness: Grandpa Sprout! Yet his presence was more than just the giant of a man who provided the only safe harbor I’d known as a child. Here he was, vast in his kindness, unfettered by the occasional impatience and burdens of his life I’d not understood back then. Here, he was expansive and completely free.

    He explained without words that I had a choice before me, and that only I could make it: would I stay in this place, or choose to return to my life as I knew it on earth? He added that there was someone I might consult to help me decide, if I wished. Would I like to meet an aspect of my own soul who was always here, watching over me, while I moved on earth?

    I sensed her there, waiting for me, though not like she was standing still across the room. What I really felt was the gentle nearness of a most cherished sameness of mind, yet grander beyond my comprehension—as if she were a part of me who was magical and divine, better than I could have ever hoped to be, and her affection for the smaller “me” was boundless and eternal. We merged easily, effortlessly, and traveled together without moving, across galaxies, taking a grand tour of the cosmos that she explained with thoughts was for play and perspective, in that order.

    We moved back in time to visit another aspect of me, this one from before I was born on earth. This “self” revealed that she had a mission, one that at age twenty-nine I’d apparently barely begun. Would I release my task, or return to earth to see it through? I felt the eagerness of the not-yet-born me, pulsing with love and anticipation, relishing the honor of an incarnation that was sought by countless other souls. Then I saw this me again from a distance, but my mind couldn’t quite comprehend the setting. I translated it into seeing this version of myself walking through a grove of flowering fruit trees, accompanied by a being with light brighter than any I’d felt so far, bright as the sun, but a sun of pure love instead of fiery heat. It felt masculine, and a poignant tenderness flowed from him, washing over the me in the vision.

    You do not know, I heard him think to that aspect of me—and there was protectiveness in his vibration. You do not know what it is you will face.

    I want to go. I have something more to give, I want to give it! I care not the consequence. It cannot be worse than standing by to watch yet another utter end.

    The bright being paused, as if for a deep sigh, and then answered. Yes, my dear one. Go in peace and love.

    Then I saw the pre-incarnation me as a spark, a fast firefly soaring eagerly away from the grove of trees, out of the light, past the layers of darkness, past the stars, sun, and moon, entering through my mother’s body into the core of her ovum, joined by my father’s sperm. The spark burst with life, and the view faded.

    My soul-guide and I were then joined by another vibration, the brightest one; the one the preborn me was walking with in the trees. All at once I knew everything that happened after my birth; every moment, event, and feeling; every act and reaction; every exchange of love, betrayal, and abuse up to the point of the car accident that had brought me here.

    Now you know, he said softly. Now you know some of what you will face, and we can show you as much as you wish before you decide.

    I’ve seen enough, I heard my mind say, unwavering. I want to go back.

    In the snap of a second I was alone again in the totaled Tercel, my steering wheel slowly coming into focus. Then I heard a car door open and shut, followed by muffled voices. I felt deeply calm as a young man appeared at my window.

    He cupped his hand around his mouth and pressed it against the glass and yelled, “Are you okay?”

“Call an ambulance,” I replied. I heard him agree, mumble an apology for hitting me, and then the scream of sirens from a distance, growing louder. Two firemen removed me from the car and strapped me to a gurney, and I noticed in a detached way that they were both strong and pleasantly handsome in their dark uniforms. Then, lying in the back of an ambulance, I heard more sirens, and began to feel wet tears streaming down my face. The euphoria I’d experienced while in the place of light was fading, replaced by a sharpening pain in my neck and shoulder. My body felt unbearably dense and heavy.

    A female paramedic bent over me and said gently, “You’ll be okay, you made it. You’re going to be okay.”

    I know. That’s why I’m crying.

Excerpt From Chapter 10 of Naked in Public: A Memoir of Recovery From Sex Addiction And Other Temporary Insanities

by Staci Sprout

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