Sharon Kumara remembers looking down at the aftermath of her own accident and thinking about her friends. They had spent a good day tubing in Texas, and now, she thought, she was going to ruin it by dying.
That was not the part of the story I expected.
Sharon says she was outside her body, watching the scene unfold after falling from a moving shuttle bus. What followed, in her account, included an encounter with her late stepfather, a being she recognized as Jesus, and an experience of another world that still makes her emotional to describe.
In this episode of Maxwell’s Kitchen, we talk about near-death experiences, conscious out-of-body experiences, sleep paralysis, mediumship, and how she came to understand her life through those experiences. I ask what she remembers, how she distinguishes it from dreaming, and what changed afterward.
Her story takes us from an accounting career into meditation, past-life work, and conversations she believes she has had with people who have died. It goes considerably farther than my opening question.
In This Episode
Sleep paralysis after losing her stepfather
Exploring conscious out-of-body experiences
Lucid dreaming, intentions, and the wake-back-to-bed method
Binaural beats, Hemi-Sync, and Robert Monroe
Sharon’s account of a near-death experience in 2001
Encounters she identifies with Jesus and her late stepfather
Childhood trauma and memories recalled later
Her accounts of extraterrestrial encounters
Past lives, forgiveness, and soul retrieval
Spiritual awakening and finding balance
Moving from accounting into mediumship
Spirit boards and communication with departed loved ones
Guest
Sharon Kumara
Sharon describes her work as psychic mediumship, hypnotherapy, and spiritual counseling, with a particular interest in past-life therapy. She is also the founder of Kumara Academy.
Her approach is closely connected to the experiences she shares in this conversation. Before that work became her profession, she spent years in accounting. Her stepfather’s death, her exploration of out-of-body experiences, and the accident she describes became major turning points in how she understood herself.
The Search Began With Her Stepfather
After Sharon’s stepfather died in 1998, she wanted to know what had happened to him.
She had been raised Catholic, but the religious explanations she knew didn’t satisfy her. She began reading about mediumship and what might happen after death. Around the same period, she says she started waking with the frightening sensation of being unable to move or call out.
Sharon describes those episodes as sleep paralysis. At first, she thought she might be dying. Then she came across writing that connected sleep paralysis with attempts to have conscious out-of-body experiences.
That possibility changed what she was looking for. If she could learn to have the experience deliberately, she thought, perhaps she could find her stepfather and know he was okay.
She started reading everything she could find and practicing. Sharon says it took about four weeks before she had an experience she recognized as consciously leaving her body.
What She Means by an Out-of-Body Experience
I ask Sharon to take me through what she actually does. Is she asleep? Dreaming? Does she decide where she wants to go?
She describes trying to maintain awareness as her body settles toward sleep. Intentions matter in her practice because, she says, realizing what is happening without having a focus can mean slipping into a dream or immediately feeling back in her body.
We talk about affirmations, imagined movement, and the wake-back-to-bed method she uses. She also discusses listening to binaural beats and Hemi-Sync recordings, and her interest in Robert Monroe’s work.
These are the practices Sharon associates with her experiences. Her distinction between dreaming and an out-of-body experience is that she considers the latter an encounter with something beyond a personally generated dream.
I keep trying to understand that boundary because, from my perspective, the experience is still happening through consciousness. For Sharon, that doesn’t make it less real.
Seeing Someone in Her Bed
One of the experiences Sharon remembers most clearly involves turning around and seeing someone asleep beneath the blankets.
She was sleeping alone, so her first thought was to wonder who was in her bed. Then she recognized the hair and realized she was looking at her own body.
She describes that recognition as an epiphany. The body on the bed looked separate from the awareness she felt was observing it. It reinforced her belief that consciousness and the physical body were not the same thing.
I ask whether that frightened her. She says it didn’t. By then, she had already had the near-death experience that changed how she interpreted what was happening.
The Accident After a Day on the River
Sharon places the accident in June 2001, after tubing on the Guadalupe River with friends while living in San Antonio.
At the end of the day, they boarded a crowded shuttle bus. She says she stood near the rear door, with a trailer carrying their tubes and coolers behind the bus. When the door opened while the bus was moving, she fell out.
Sharon describes hitting the trailer hitch and landing beneath the trailer. She says the trailer ran over her head, and that was when she experienced herself outside her body.
Her account moves between observing the road, seeing vehicles stop, and watching her friends respond. She remembers concern about what would happen to her body, but also a strangely ordinary thought about how upsetting this would be for everyone who had been enjoying the day.
I stop her to make sure I understand: in that moment, she was thinking about how her death would affect her friends. She says yes.
Her Account of Meeting Jesus
Sharon says she became aware of her late stepfather behind her. He told her she couldn’t stay and that her mother still needed her.
She then describes a tunnel, figures she recognized as ancestors, and a bright light. From that light, she says, came a being she recognized as Jesus, whom she calls Yeshua.
The details she emphasizes are his eyes, his smile, his laughter, and the feeling of being embraced. She recalls her worries falling away and being told she still had work to do.
Her account then takes another turn. She describes traveling with him to what she understood as a water planet, feeling connected to the planet itself, and experiencing different forms of life there.
It is difficult for her to describe without becoming emotional. She says her understanding and recollection of the experience developed over time rather than arriving as one complete memory.
When she returns to describing the roadside, she recalls being back in her body, getting up, and moving away from the road.
Childhood Memories and Her Understanding of Forgiveness
Sharon says the experience in 2001 was followed by memories of childhood abuse and an earlier near-death experience at nine.
In the earlier experience she recounts, she again encountered Jesus, although the conversation was different. She remembers being offered a choice about returning. She connects the difference between those encounters to her beliefs about reincarnation and what she felt she was here to do.
She also describes memories and meditations in which she believes extraterrestrials intervened during episodes of abuse and helped her.
The conversation becomes especially personal when we discuss forgiveness. Sharon interprets parts of her history through past lives, spiritual agreements, and what she calls soul retrieval.
I ask why someone would choose an experience so painful. It is one of the hardest parts of her explanation for me to understand. She answers through her own spiritual framework, describing how she came to feel that something unresolved had finally been brought together.
For Sharon, that interpretation changed her relationship with her past. It is central to how she explains the work she eventually began doing with others.
Finding Balance Before Finding a New Profession
The years afterward were not simply a comfortable transition into a new spiritual life.
Sharon describes wanting to meditate constantly, experiencing visions, and struggling to stay grounded in everyday life. She also talks about spending a week in a psychiatric hospital during that period.
When I ask what changed, she says she needed balance. Her account includes finding connection with other patients, frustration with parts of the experience, and eventually being discharged after meeting with a psychiatrist.
She had worked in accounting for years. Gradually, her attention moved toward psychic mediumship, hypnosis, and spiritual counseling.
I initially misunderstand what that work involves and ask whether she helps clients have out-of-body experiences. She corrects me. She says those experiences are part of her own exploration, while her client work involves intuitive counseling, mediumship, and sometimes hypnosis.
Talking With Her Parents Through a Spirit Board
Near the end, Sharon tells me about using a spirit board.
She says her mother had wanted to communicate with her stepfather after his death. They tried a Ouija board together, and Sharon believed the responses sounded like him.
After her mother died, she bought another board and describes sitting outside in her backyard, using it to communicate with her.
I have never used one, so I ask what makes anything happen and whether she worries about encountering something unwelcome. Sharon sees the board as a tool and says intention and experience matter in how she approaches it.
Naturally, my comparison is Jumanji. Once you start playing, how certain can you be about what comes next?
She is considerably less worried about that than I am.
What stays with me is how much of Sharon’s story began with wanting to know that someone she loved was okay. That question led her into experiences she found profound, difficult, reassuring, and sometimes overwhelming. An hour later, I had a much clearer understanding of what she believes happened, along with plenty more I wanted to ask.
Useful Links
Sharon Kumara
https://www.sharonsananda.com/
Kumara Academy
https://www.kumaraacademy.com/
Sharon’s YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/sharonsananda
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zthNWwsfUQ
More Maxwell’s Kitchen Interviews
https://maxwellskitchenpodcast.com/podcast/interviews
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Dr. James Johnson on Trauma, the Nervous System & Human Behavior
https://maxwellskitchenpodcast.com/maxwells-kitchen-podcast/2022/04/08-episode-68-dr-james-johnson
James discusses his career in neuropsychology, emotional responses, self-awareness, and his growing personal interest in spirituality and consciousness.
