A man has revealed the three main lessons he learned after suffering a near-death experience due to an overdose.
US man Vincent Tolman was just 25 years old when he encountered a close shave with death back in 2003.
A keen bodybuilder, Vincent had been looking to purchase dietary supplement GHB - a drug popular among bodybuilders - online after running into issues buying the product in his home state of Texas.
"My friend and I had taken a dodgy supplement he had bought online, but the moment we consumed it, we knew something was wrong," he recalled of the moment. Vincent, who was working as a construction worker at the time, would suffer a severe reaction to the product due to the high concentration of GHB.
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Suffering from symptoms such as vomiting and a reduced heart rate, Tolman would eventually lose consciousness on the floor of a bathroom in a local restaurant.
What happened next would change the course of his life forever.
Vincent then recalls watching the following events unfold from the perspective that he was looking down into the room, as though he was floating above his own body.
He was powerless to watch as paramedics worked on his body, before pronouncing him dead and zipping his body into a bag.
After 45 minutes of clinical death, one of the emergency workers would make one final attempt to revive Vincent, and was able to restart his heart.
From there, he would be rushed to hospital and remain in a coma for three days.
It was during these days that Vincent would undergo a transformative spiritual journey, where a guide taught him the lessons and about death and the meaning of life.
Explaining the experience in a subsequent interview with MailOnline, Vincent - who has since written a book on the subject - shared the three most valuable lessons he learned.
The power of authenticity
The first lesson Vincent recalled was being told about the power of your authentic self.
"The first step on the staircase for me was to understand that authenticity is the most powerful step for all of us," he said.
"Otherwise, we're wasting our time here. Every moment that we are not being authentic, it's a moment wasted."
Learning and growing
Vincent's next lesson from his spiritual journey was to understand that life was about continued learning about the world around us.
"The purpose of life is that we're here to learn. There's no pass or fail. It's our journey individually, but as well, it is our journey collectively," he said.
Unconditional love for all human beings
Last on Vincent's list was a reminder to be kinder and more compassionate, which he believes begins by sharing love for all living beings.
"I mean all creation, humans, animals, plants," the life coach explained.
"All of life, in all of its form. We've got to learn to love even the scary part. And as we do, we start to find the shadow of heaven existing here."
Brenna Cooper