Inspirational News StoriesExcerpts of Key Inspirational News Stories in Major Media
Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
Set up in 2019, the Transfarmation Project works with farms across the US that want to ditch industrial animal agriculture, which is typically done as contract work on behalf of big meat companies, and move toward a sustainable, fully independent business model. They provide guidance on how to repurpose existing infrastructure for different crops, but also business advice on how to find the market, set up a website, establish a brand and sell directly to consumers. They also provide research and innovation grants that can help with the finances. The idea is to move beyond a form of intensive farming that has a hugely detrimental impact on the environment, but also to protect the farmers themselves, many of whom find that the concentrated animal-feeding operation (Cafo) model takes a toll on their mental health. "We used to have all these independent farms," [Iowa farmer Tanner] Faaborg says. "Our family used to have this homesteading lifestyle with some chickens and a big orchard." That changed for the Faaborgs about 30 years ago when someone from one of the big meat companies knocked on their door. "It became more: we have ... to collect this check, to pay the bills and pay back the loan." The Transfarmation Project [shows] that a different model is possible, closer to the autonomy of old. For the Faaborgs, the switch has made them feel excited about their work and its connection to nature. They want others to know that a different future is possible.
Note: After meeting an animal rights activist he once viewed as an enemy, a factory farmer took the extraordinary step of exposing the realities of industrial poultry production on his own farm in the New York Times–and now harvests mushrooms and herbs in the very buildings where hundreds of thousands of chickens once lived. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth and reimagining the economy.
In the Sicilian town of Giarre overlooking Mount Etna, Andrea Passanisi, a tropical and citrus fruits producer, uses an unusual fertiliser on his 100-hectare (247-acre) stretch of land: volcano ash. Like hundreds of farmers and citizens of rural towns perched on the slopes of Europe's highest and most active volcano, the 41-year-old's family has had to deal with the nuisance of falling volcanic ash for generations. But it is only in recent years that the quantity of ash has become so excessive that it required an alternative approach. With every eruption, towns such as Giarre experience an average of 12,000 tonnes of ashfall daily, which the wind can transport as far as 800km (497 miles). In July 2024, Catania – Sicily's second-largest city, located at the foot of Mount Etna – registered 17,000 tonnes of ash daily, which took nearly 10 weeks to collect. For years, farmers such as Passanisi were led to believe the phenomenon was a danger to crops, polluting irrigation waters and requiring special equipment and days off work to clean up. But a five-year project by the University of Catania raised awareness of the potential for ash to become a resource in the production cycle of many different sectors, including agriculture. "It allows us to use fewer chemicals, which makes fertilising cheaper and more sustainable, respecting the equilibrium of nature without abusing it," Passanisi says. "It's the future of agriculture."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.
Most of the water on Earth is found in the oceans, but it's far too salty to drink. While desalination plants can remove salt and make seawater drinkable, they typically use a lot of energy. Now, researchers have developed a promising new material that could change that. Reporting in ACS Energy Letters, a team of scientists created a sponge-like structure filled with long, microscopic air channels that harness sunlight to turn saltwater into fresh, clean water. In an outdoor test, this simple system–just the sponge and a clear plastic cover–successfully produced drinkable water using only natural sunlight. It's a step toward making low-energy, sustainable desalination more accessible. In an outdoor test, the researchers placed the material in a cup containing seawater, and it was covered by a curved, transparent plastic cover. Sunlight heated the top of the spongy material, evaporating just the water, not the salt, into water vapor. The vapor collected on the plastic cover as liquid, moving the now clean water to the edges, where it dripped into a funnel and container below the cup. After 6 hours in natural sunlight, the system generated about 3 tablespoons of potable water. "Our aerogel allows full-capacity desalination at any size," [researcher Xi] Shen says, "which provides a simple, scalable solution for energy-free desalination to produce clean water."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
Marina Cantacuzino is the founder of The Forgiveness Project. The non-profit uses storytelling to explore individual journeys towards forgiveness, particularly by those who have faced some of life's hardest trials –the murder of a loved one, the injustice of abuse, the degradation of torture. The project also hosts restorative justice programs in prisons, helping inmates to come to terms with their crimes. "I think of Andrew Rice, whose brother was killed in the Twin Towers," [said Cantacuzino]. "Rice says, you know, "those people calling loudest for retribution, are those people least affected." And I think there's something about having been there, gone there, to the darkest places that very often connect you to humanity. Accountability becomes really important, and you do find that this is where restorative justice comes in, that many victims will tell you that the most healing thing of all isn't the ten-year prison sentence, but it is the acknowledgment from the offender, that they did wrong. That they want to create a better life and make sure that it's never repeated. But I think it's important to say that forgiveness doesn't preclude or exclude justice." The [definition] I use is â€Forgiveness is making peace with something or someone that you cannot change.' I heard Fred Luskin, who's a great expert on forgiveness, say recently that ... now he's come down to freedom. Forgiveness is freedom, he says. First, you have to have compassion for yourself in order to have compassion for others, and you have to have ... emotional awareness. And that requires humility. I think it also requires courage. Because very often it's an isolating position. It's easy to judge and criticize and hold a grudge, and very often your friends and family and society want you to do that. And so it does require courage in facing your fears. It also requires a willingness to be vulnerable ... to feel the pain. There's one of the stories Camilla Carr, where she put it rather beautifully: "First you have to deal with the anger, then with tears, and only once you reach the tears are you on the road to finding peace of mind."
Note: Watch WantToKnow.info Director Amber Yang's powerful 38-minute interview with Marina Cantacuzino. In the face of the brutal war machine, these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
Being hurt by others is common and can be deeply painful. Which raises the question of forgiveness. In the last few decades, researchers have helped us better understand how people experience forgiveness and how it influences our lives. The Global Flourishing Study seeks to enrich this knowledge from a more global perspective. Launched in 2021, the study follows people over time to understand what a good life looks like in different parts of the world – including health, happiness, meaning, relationships, character, and financial security. It's the first study to measure forgiveness in national samples from many different cultures and contexts. In the first wave of data from more than 200,000 participants across 22 countries, my colleagues and I found that about 75% of individuals reported they had "often" or "always" forgiven those who had hurt them. Percentages varied across countries, ranging from 41% in Turkey to 92% in Nigeria. We looked at whether people who reported being more forgiving tended to report better well-being about a year later. We found that forgiveness predicted somewhat higher well-being on many of the 56 outcomes, including mental health, purpose in life, relationship satisfaction and hope. Decades of research have pointed to similar links. The hopeful news is that forgiveness isn't a rare quality that some of us have and others lack. Studies have shown that forgiveness is like a muscle we can strengthen.
Note: For people who find forgiveness especially challenging, this project produced a forgiveness workbook that can be completed in about three hours. In the face of the brutal war machine, these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world. Explore more powerful stories like this on healing social division.
At a bustling money changer in northwestern Syria, a 46-year-old farmer gripped a plastic card like a lifeline. She had never heard of cryptocurrency, but the card held $500 of it to help restart her farm after nearly 14 years of civil war. Where had such technology come from, she asked. The answer surprised her: Afghanistan. Blockchain-based cash transfers are not the kind of innovation that many people would expect from a country better known for its repressive Taliban leadership, which views the internet with suspicion. But in a nation that has largely turned its back on the world, an Afghan start-up is building tools that it hopes will transform how humanitarian aid is delivered in countries shattered by conflict. "We've lived through these challenges ourselves, so we know how to develop an approach that works," said Zakia Hussaini, 26, a programmer at the start-up, HesabPay, which designed the technology driving Ms. Almahmoud's card. An early proponent of the platform was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency uses it to support more than 86,000 families in Afghanistan in one of the biggest public blockchain aid initiatives in the world. Mercy Corps, which donated the funds to Ms. Almahmoud, worked with HesabPay to expand its reach to include Syria, and programs for Sudan and Haiti are in development. Today, the platform has more than 650,000 wallets in Afghanistan, of which about 50,000 are in regular use.
Note: Watch our 13 minute video on the promise of blockchain technology. Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy and technology for good.
When Sean Tevlin discovered The Group School (TGS) in the 1970s, he found "a much needed safe space." A struggling teen who had dropped out of public school and battled math anxiety, he arrived at the converted industrial garage on Franklin Street in Cambridge, MA with little self-confidence after a learning disability diagnosis. But at TGS, teachers engaged with him, patiently tutored him and rekindled his love of reading. "It opened me up mentally and emotionally," Tevlin reflects decades later. TGS, known simply as "The Group" to its students, was unlike any public or private school. Between 1971 and 1982, more than 600 students like Tevlin graduated from this freewheeling schooling experiment, which combined radical democracy, intensive arts programming and a philosophy that embraced students' working-class background. The students embraced it: A school free of tuition, grading systems and hierarchy, driven instead by community meetings and collective governance. The Math Survival Skills pamphlet, designed for students who believed they "couldn't do math," ... lays out the central principle that embodies the school spirit: "The essential thrust of The Group School approach is the empowerment of the learners. We attempt to begin with and build on the strengths and skills of the students, to help them learn new skills and develop competency in areas in which they feel inadequate or insecure, to counteract the traditional ideology that leads them to turn their anger and despair inward and to blame themselves." Special ed teacher Rosalie Fay Barnes recently showed the website and parts of the 1971 documentary to her students at Berkeley High in Berkeley, California. She was surprised at the enthusiastic reactions. "Numerous students said, 'Let's do this!' i.e., let's start our own school." When she asked what students needed, she was startled to hear their responses. "Some students wanted more work, more writing, more reading. Many of my students asked me for more." Since showing the video, "the main thing that shifted is our relationship. I no longer feel like the enforcer of the rules, but the facilitator of a learning journey."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
Just type a keyword into a search engine, and you'll get thousands of answers in the blink of an eye, with little sense of who is behind them or what their intentions are. The challenge of modern life, then, is to navigate through these choices while filtering out misleading information, which has risen exponentially. A new Finnish curriculum was launched in 2016 with an element called "multiliteracy," which involved making sure children could competently navigate online media and social platforms. We realized quite quickly that fact-checking concepts and methods could be adapted to the school environment to support the new curriculum. The teachers building the curriculum boiled down complex fact-checking methods into three fundamental questions: Who's behind the information? What's the evidence? What do other sources say? These questions are folded throughout the curriculum, across subjects, and there is continuity from year to year. In addition, Finland's education system reflects deep cultural values. In early childhood education, pupils spend nearly half of the day outdoors, in the school yard or in the nearby forest, exploring and having fun. According to the Finnish national curriculum for early childhood education, children have the right to play, to learn through play, to enjoy what they learn, and to build a sense of themselves, their identity, and the world according to their own starting points.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
Wooden boats set out from houseboats and island homes carrying children dressed in school uniforms, their backpacks tucked between oars and lunch pails. Their destination: Kashmir's floating schools – classrooms anchored on the lake in this Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent that has been claimed by both India and Pakistan, and scarred by decades of conflict. For the children of these watery hamlets, reaching school has never been simple. There are no roads connecting their homes to the nearest city, Srinagar, just narrow canals, shifting water levels and the long paddle to land. In the early light, children like 11-year-old Mahira begin their school day with a boat ride that lasts nearly 40 minutes. At one of the floating schools currently in operation, plans are underway to add a computer corner, powered by solar panels, so children here can learn digital skills too. For the students, these schools are not just classrooms but spaces of belonging. And despite minimal funds, teachers on the lake say these schools have improved attendance and engagement – especially for girls. Mahira says her favorite subject is English because "it feels like opening another world." Her younger brother prefers science, especially when it helps him understand the fish and plants of the lake. The first floating school appeared in 2020, when the pandemic closed classrooms across the valley and families on Dal Lake decided to act. They cleared space on floating land, set up benches and a blackboard, and began teaching.
Note: Don't miss pictures of this incredible community at the link above. Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
"Agrihoods" [are] communities designed around a central farm. Like a garden in a big city, agrihoods promise to boost food security, reduce temperatures, capture rainwater and increase biodiversity. As climate change intensifies heat, flooding and pressure on food systems, agrihoods could be a way to make urban living more resilient – not just more picturesque. "Developers have a hard time offering open space, because they would like to build more housing," said Vincent Mudd, a partner at the architectural firm Steinberg Hart, which designs agrihoods. "One of the few ways to kind of bridge that gap is to be able to use active open space that actually generates commerce." On paper, an agrihood is a simple concept: A working farm surrounded by single- or multifamily housing. Steinberg Hart recently finished two of them in California – one in Santa Clara and another, called Fox Point Farms, in Encinitas. Scale that food production up across a city, and the impact could be huge: One study found that Los Angeles could meet a third of its need for vegetables by converting vacant lots into gardens. These green spaces help cool the neighborhood because their plants release water vapor, making summer more comfortable for the surrounding community. An agrihood can also support local biodiversity. Planting native flowering species, for instance, simultaneously beautifies the landscape and attracts pollinating insects, hummingbirds and bats.
Note: The rise of urban food forests across the US are ensuring that communities belong to affordable, equitable and resilient local food systems. Communities from Los Angeles, Florida, Illinois, to suburbs in the Netherlands are growing organic vegetables and food in their own yards, sharing their resources, and transforming neighborhoods. "I can't think of a more generous gift to give to the community than to grow delicious, naturally organic food for the direct community," [says Crop Swap LA subscriber] Katherine Wong. "This is one of the noblest things anyone is doing today." Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the Earth.
I moved to Fawkner, Melbourne with my partner and kids about five years ago, in search of affordable housing. The suburb was nice enough but I felt unmoored. Then I signed up to help with our school garden. On volunteer day, my partner pushed our kids to school in a wheelbarrow, and I was armed with a shovel and pitchfork. Around 50 people turned up to the school on a Sunday to help with the garden, and while the kids played, the adults chose jobs according to our levels of ability and enthusiasm. My partner opted to repair the garden beds and I went for the lower-stakes job of weeding. It was slow and careful work, pulling out dandelions and chickweed. Between gardening and tending to the kids, there were moments of socialising: a nod of thanks from a teacher, a chat with another parent about the out-of-control compost heap that lives behind the mud kitchen. These conversations were tentative, at least on my part; the pandemic and early motherhood had left me out of practice when it came to socialising. However, the school garden was the perfect place to learn how to be with other people again and I could see that I was surrounded by the sorts of people who I wanted to befriend. Working together in this way brings us close to what Aristotle called "the friendship of the good". This, according to Aristotle, is the best kind of friendship: it happens when you see the good in another person, and they in you. It is very different to what he calls a "utilitarian friendship", where we spend time with another person because of what they can do for us. A friendship of the good, conversely – like the school garden itself – is about creating something bigger than ourselves.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the Earth.
An industrial chicken farm [like Foster Farms] can produce 4,500 tons of poultry waste each year. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) like these house hundreds, to thousands, to – in this case – millions of animals packed inside barns. Concerned about their water quality, air quality and traffic on the roads, "a core group of women farmers" got together to form Farmers Against Foster Farms. Their advocacy ultimately resulted in the passage of Senate Bill 85, which changed the rules regarding factory farms. It requires stricter water quality requirements for large CAFOs to obtain a permit, gives local governments the authority to establish land parcel setback limits for new CAFOs and temporarily pauses new or expanded water rights permits for CAFOs using groundwater for livestock watering. When the bill went into effect in July 2023, it gave the J-S Ranch protestors something big to work with. On May 19, 2025, approximately five years after their advocacy began, the groups were delivered a victory: Judge Rachel Kittson-MaQatish ruled that the Oregon Department of Agriculture's NPDES permit for the 3.5 million chicken factory farm was, in fact, unlawful. Kimbirauskas has some advice for communities facing similar fights. First, pace yourselves. These fights are marathons, not sprints, [local citizen Kendra Kimbirauskas] says. The community can unite around a shared goal. "People were not divided along political ideologies. There were Republicans, Democrats, everything in between, all coming together to say, this is not right for this area, or frankly, any area," [Kendra Kimbirauskas] says.
Note: After meeting an animal rights activist he once viewed as an enemy, a factory farmer took the extraordinary step of exposing the realities of industrial poultry production on his own farm in the New York Times–and now harvests mushrooms and herbs in the very buildings where hundreds of thousands of chickens once lived. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.
Iranian Samereh Alinejad wanted revenge after her teenage son was murdered in a street fight. But in a dramatic turn at the gallows, literally moments before the killer was to be executed, Alinejad made a last-minute decision to pardon the man. She explained later that her son had come to her in a dream and asked her not to take revenge. Domestic violence survivor Pascale Kavanagh said that she never thought she would reconnect with her mother–her abuser–during her adult life. However, in 2010, her mother suffered several strokes that left her unable to communicate or take care of herself. With no one else to help, Kavanagh began to sit by her mother's bedside and read to her. By caring for her mother day by day, Kavanagh said the hate she had for her mother dissipated into forgiveness and love. Mary Hedges was at a mall with her son when two boys pushed a cart over a railing onto her, causing severe brain injury ... and the amputation of her right foot. Even though she suffered a coma and spent weeks fighting for her life, Hedges was forgiving of her young attackers and launched a foundation called Sweet Returns to help mentor teens. Steven McDonald was a young police officer in 1986 when he was shot by a teenager in New York's Central Park, an incident that left him paralyzed. "I forgave [the shooter] because I believe the only thing worse than receiving a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart," McDonald wrote.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and human interest topics.
For seven years, I was a white nationalist skinhead and the front man of a neo-Nazi metal band based in Milwaukee. The life I led was toxic to myself and everyone around me. I was drawn in when I was 16. I was an angry, lonely kid, searching for something: identity, purpose, belonging. I found it, or thought I did, in a fantasy: the idea that I was part of a master race under siege. We justified brutal attacks – what we called "boot parties" – on people we saw as enemies: people of color, LGBTQ folks, Jews, punks, anyone who wasn't us. I'd hear a quiet voice inside asking, "What are you doing? This guy didn't do anything to you. You don't even know him," but I didn't have the courage to listen. In early 1994, the mother of my daughter and I broke up, and I found myself a single parent to our 18-month-old. Two months later, a second friend of mine was shot and killed. I'd lost count of how many friends had been incarcerated. It finally hit me that if I didn't leave, prison or death would take me from my daughter. That was the push I needed. I realized something profound: what I had been searching for all along – belonging, joy, connection – wasn't found in hate, it was in community. Today, I work with Parents for Peace, an organization that helps people caught in extremism find a healthier, more connected life. We support individuals on their journey – whether they're questioning, struggling, or still deeply entrenched – and we guide families trying to reach a loved one.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and human interest topics.
Angela King was 19 and deeply entrenched in a white supremacist organization when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. The year was 1995, and King recalls watching the aftermath on TV. "That was the first time that I ever considered [that what I was doing wasn't] just a game," King says. "This was a whole other level of violence and destruction." King could see something of herself in McVeigh, and the reflection scared her. They shared the same ideology. The anger that drove McVeigh to blow up a building came from the same ideas that shaped her belief system. Untwining herself from that world would not be easy. Leaving behind the people she called her friends would prove challenging, but not as challenging as moving past the ideology that had become a part of who she was. It would take more than four years, a prison sentence, some unexpected kindness from a Jamaican inmate, and nearly two decades of sharing her story – with all its shame and violence – to replace hatred with forgiveness. Today, nearly 25 years after the Oklahoma City bombing, King is a co-founder of and programs director for Life After Hate, a nonprofit that helps people leave extremist groups. King shares her story not because it's easy. But she and other members of Life After Hate do it in the hope that others going through something similar will hear their stories, see someone they can reach out to for help, and envision a way ... forward.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and human interest topics.
For 25 years, Jeff Schoep headed America's largest Neo-Nazi organisation, the National Socialist Movement. Now ... he says he is committed to helping deradicalise people who hold the extremist views he used to preach. "Hating people is exhausting. When you can't tolerate other people and other systems of belief ... there's something wrong with you and the way you're looking at things," Mr Schoep said. "Once you have the opportunity to see and understand somebody else's viewpoint, from their perspective of their story in life, that can be life-altering." Mr Schoep said his time at the helm of the National Socialist Movement was like being the leader of a cult. "I felt like I was going to save my race, and I was a patriot for my country ... that was what drove me," he said. A revelation for Mr Schoep occurred in 2016 when he agreed to an interview with Daryl Davis, a prolific African-American jazz musician who worked to deradicalise Neo-Nazi groups. Mr Davis spoke of the impact that racism had on his own life, which began when he was pelted with rocks as a child marching in a Boy Scout parade, asking Mr Schoep, "How could someone hate me when they don't even know me?" "I was told that racism was wrong in school, by my parents, my grandfather, everybody," Mr Schoep said. "But none of that resonated until I sat across from somebody that had experienced it firsthand and how it made them feel. "Daryl never told me how I was wrong; he showed me how I was wrong."
Note: Read more about the powerful anti-racist work of Daryl Davis. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
The "Nairobi Birdman" is filling gaps in Kenyan bird conservation on the streets of the country's biggest city. Seen around town with an injured kite perched on his head, it's just one of dozens that Rodgers Oloo Magutha has nursed back to health. These have included pigeons, storks, owls, and other wild birds that fall a-fowl of Nairobi's powerlines, cars, windows, or other hazards that industrialized areas pose to winged wildlife. Magutha himself is not from Nairobi, but grew up in poverty next to Kenya's Lake Nakuru National Park. A haven for bird life, Magutha used to sneak into the park to watch birds, birthing a love of nature and wildlife in the young man that lasts to this day. These quiet moments were rare in his difficult, homeless existence. He grew up without a family home, but as often as it was possible, he'd take care of birds he found that were hurt, hungry, or diseased. Today, Magutha has reliable lodgings, and he's used them to house birds which have in turn made him a local social media figure. His Instagram account has a distinctly African flavor ... but he also drops educational bombs for young fans, such as how flamingos get their pink coloration. His dream is to eventually open a proper avian rescue center; one that's legal, safe, and equipped with the facilities needed to care for them. Until then, he carries on with the help of donations, feeding the birds he saves as much as he is able to, and releasing them when or if they're able to return to the wild.
Note: Don't miss the pictures and video of the Nairobi Birdman in action at the link above. Explore more positive stories like this on human interest and animal wonders.
Jen Taylor-O'Connor grew up in what she calls a "garden variety Christian" home, though things changed when her family enrolled her in the Institute in Basic Life Principles, led by disgraced minister Bill Gothard, as a teen. And now, decades after breaking free from IBLP – which Taylor-O'Connor, 45, refers to as a "cult" – she's opening up about how her pet parrots helped her heal in the documentary Parrot Kindergarten. The film looks at Taylor-O'Connor's ongoing research on animal communication and the establishment of her Parrot Kindergarten program, which helps teach other bird parents what she's learned. She recalls first being drawn to birds as a way to help combat feelings of loneliness and navigate the trauma she'd experienced as a child. Though she'd had other birds before, when Taylor-O'Connor brought home her parrot Ellie, who is at the center of the documentary, she noticed that the bird was exhibiting anger and frustration. She found herself relating to Ellie and wondering how to help. "I didn't want her to experience what I had felt from my training center experiences, which is you just keep it all inside and then it bubbles out in harder ways. I wanted her to always have a voice," she says. "So, that's how it began to spur me into â€What does it look like for her to communicate? What does it look like for other animals to communicate?'" As a result, she started teaching Ellie tricks and saw her demeanor totally change as she developed a love of learning.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on human interest and animal wonders.
The world began to spin. I collapsed ... and I watched, calmly, as paramedics rushed into the bathroom and worked over the body. I describe it as "the" body because I didn't recognize myself at first. It looked like a fake dead body. I watched as emergency services tried to resuscitate the man, but shortly after, they stopped and gave up. They zipped him up in a bright yellow body bag and carried him into the back of an ambulance. About 45 minutes into the journey to the hospital, a medic who was on his first week on the job decided to try to feel for a pulse one more time. After several minutes of checking, and re-checking, the medic later said he felt a faint pulse. I was in a coma for three days, officially declared brain dead by the doctors. They told my family that I had little chance of survival. But in those three days, I believe I traveled to "the other side." I was met with feelings of love and saw divine beauty. But I knew, deep down inside that it was not my time yet. So three days later, I opened my eyes in the hospital. Physically, I was completely fine. I was even described as a "miracle" by my neurologist. Although I was raised in a religious family, I was never a big believer. But I came back from my near-death experience with a deeper understanding of what our purpose is on earth. I try to live every day with a sense of gratitude and happiness. I know life is here to teach us many lessons. Also, I am no longer afraid of death.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.
Thirty-seven years ago I was an oncologist resident, learning about how best to treat cancer using radiation. One day, I was flipping through a large volume of the Journal of the American Medical Association when I came across an article describing near-death experiences. It stopped me in my tracks. All my medical training told me you were either alive or dead. There was no in-between. But suddenly, I was reading from a cardiologist describing patients who had died and then came back to life, reporting very distinct, almost unbelievable experiences. When I finished my residency, I started the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation. I started collecting stories from people who had NDEs and evaluating them with the mind of a scientist and doctor. But in the face of overwhelming evidence, I've come to believe there's certainly an afterlife. No two NDEs are the same. But as I studied thousands of them, I saw a consistent pattern of events emerging in a predictable order. About 45% of people who have an NDE report an out-of-body experience. When this happens, their consciousness separates from their physical body, usually hovering above the body. I'm a medical doctor. I've read brain research and considered every possible explanation for NDEs. The bottom line is that none of them hold water. There isn't even a remotely plausible physical explanation for this phenomenon. And yet, my work with NDEs has made me a more compassionate and loving doctor.
Note: The above article was written by Jeffrey Long. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.