It’s a moment that will be etched on my brain forever. It was just after my husband Robin died almost four years ago.

Even though I was overwhelmed with mind-numbing shock and devastation, I knew one thing for certain: the 68-year-old body lying on the bed was no longer him. 

I didn’t know where ‘he’ was, but I just knew that Robin’s body was now an empty vessel.

I couldn’t believe he was gone. I had convinced myself that with me by his side, he would somehow make it. 

Not only was I a loving wife, I was also an Oxford-educated doctor and well-known expert on the processes known as visualisation and manifestation – the mental act of making a desired outcome a reality – having written a bestselling book on the subject.

With this unique set of skills, I thought I could help my husband survive. But he didn’t. 

The leukaemia that ravaged his body was too much and the treatment too brutal. And when he was gone, despite my knowledge of psychology – I also have a PHD in neuroscience – I found myself completely ill-equipped to deal with the feelings of devastation.

At least, that’s how it was until I learned how to talk to him again. In fact, we communicate every day.

Dr Tara Swart says that when she met her husband, Robin, she felt she had been given a miraculous second chance at love

I imagine many of you don’t believe me. Before Robin died, I would have felt the same. How is it possible to talk to loved ones who have passed over?

But as a neuroscientist, I put my knowledge of the brain to the test and found a way to communicate with my husband – and I can show you how to do the same with your departed loved ones.

Robin and I met nearly ten years ago on an overnight flight from Johannesburg to London. We ended up chatting and the next morning he gave me his business card. 

He was an oil broker and I thought he could be a potential coaching client (which, having stepped away from medicine, was my career at the time).

When he tried to get to know me on a personal level at a business lunch, I resisted. At that time, I had been divorced for seven years and had no intention of marrying or even dating, ever again.

I was totally over relationships and had become a workaholic.

There was also a 20-year age gap between us – I was 42 and Robin was 62 – and I told myself this was even more reason why it was not a good idea.

But he was kind and consistent so, after three months of meeting as business contacts, I thought I should give him a chance. He said it was like a lightbulb going on when I went from being quite stand-offish to the warmest, most loving person he’d ever known.

We were engaged six months later and married a year after that.

Having met later in life, we really cherished each other and were inseparable – I felt we were twin flames (two people who share one soul).

Robin would get annoyed if there was heavy traffic on his way back from work to our west London home, as those were precious minutes he could be spending with me. 

He would write words of affirmation in all his cards to me and would always pick me up from the airport, even if he was busy at work.

Having met later in life, Dr Swart and Robin (pictured) cherished each other and were inseparable 

Gestures such as these, and so much more, made me fall in love with him even more each day. I felt I had been given a miraculous second chance at love.

However, Robin had had aplastic anaemia – a life-threatening blood disorder – in his late 30s and the treatment had suppressed his immune system, so I kept a close eye on his health.

In the year leading up to our wedding, he had many blood tests as he had a low red blood cell count. I kept asking his doctors if it could be related to the previous disease but they didn’t think so.

There were many occasions when we were flooded with relief when certain worrying causes were ruled out.

Then, just days after we got married, Robin had to have a bone marrow biopsy. He said he didn’t want to get any results until after our honeymoon. 

We returned to the news that he had an underlying condition called myelodysplastic syndrome that would progress to leukaemia. We were told that the longest that progression had ever taken was four years.

Married life carried on with monthly blood tests and regular trips to see the haematologist. I went to every appointment, staying strong for Robin, using my medical knowledge to help him as the disease progressed and assuring him I would always be by his side.

But, privately, I wept to my friends telling them I didn’t know how I would ever live without him.

Fast forward four years and I was shielding Robin during the Covid pandemic. We’d moved out of London to Hampshire because he was vulnerable and couldn’t be in crowded places.

Despite the background fears for his health, we enjoyed the nature around us and got into a routine: he would bring me up a cup of tea in bed every morning and I would cook him whatever he wanted for dinner.

Then, in June 2021, his health went off a cliff edge. He went from seeming fine, if a little pale and thinner, to not being able to climb the stairs.

tests revealed he now had acute myeloid leukaemia and had to start treatment straight away – not chemotherapy but something similar to clear out the bone marrow in preparation for a transplant.

It was four excruciating months from diagnosis to death. In fact, he died two days before our fourth wedding anniversary, which I spent reading condolence letters.

I fell into a bottomless pit of grief and despair. I was a widow in my 40s with a future ahead of me that would be nothing like the one I’d imagined.

I had no idea how I could cope day to day, let alone heal over time.

Yet even in those first few weeks, feeling lost and desperate, I noticed something I now take as a sign.

I’d never seen many robins in our garden before but now every time I went to the window, a robin appeared. I’d heard various stories in which people said the dead sometimes appear in the form of various birds, and there is even a saying ‘robins appear when loved ones are near’.

But I didn’t want to make too much of it – and one day they just stopped appearing.

Then, six weeks after Robin died, I was woken up at 4am by an almighty thump on my shoulder. As my eyes acclimatised to the darkness, I saw Robin – my husband – standing at the side of my bed.

He was becoming more and more solid, as though he was pushing himself through treacle to make himself seen.

Of course I was utterly shocked and transfixed. I could sense the level of effort he was making for me to see him.

As soon as he became fully formed enough that I could see the outline of his hair and his face, he started to dissolve from the top down. The last things I saw were his shins and feet. Then he was gone. I gasped out loud.

A few months afterwards, out of desperation, I decided to consult a medium.

Some of what she shared resonated, but I was sceptical. Although she said he was very tall (true), had a foreign connection (he was half Canadian), and there was a birthday close to his death (his), I felt that a lot of this could have been researched on the internet or social media.

Since Dr Swart has started sharing her signs she has been inundated with thousands of similar stories

So I decided to try on my own. After all, I was an expert on the brain and on manifestation. If there was a way to open channels of communication with those who have passed away, then perhaps I could do it myself.

I started having conversations with Robin in my head and sometimes out loud, asking him for signs that he was still around, guiding and protecting me.

I delved into the nature of consciousness, so far as we know it, and the power of the human mind by looking at research from famous neuroscientists.

I interviewed psychiatrists and psychologists about near death experiences and terminal lucidity (when people with irreversible brain damage suddenly become completely lucid towards the end of their life) and drew on the ancient wisdom gained from experiences such as dark retreats (where people attain altered states of consciousness by sitting in complete darkness for long periods of time).

 I learned about connecting to nature and how to access my powers of intuition.

All this research gave me the tools I needed to make contact with Robin.

As I opened my mind to what could be possible, more signs slowly but surely began to present themselves to me.

I started to notice hearts, butterflies and infinity symbols all around me.

Then I began to see what I thought might be more specific signs from Robin, such as certain songs of significance to us playing frequently on the radio or in shops, more sightings of robins, and flickering lights – which stopped when I asked if it was him.

I saw the numbers 11 or 11:11 (which relate to ‘twin flames’ according to ‘angel number meanings’ or the idea that the universe sends us messages through numbers) appearing on my phone, on receipts, door numbers and number plates. 

I even had friends and colleagues passing on messages they had received from Robin in their dreams.

At first, these signs appeared randomly and were few and far between but, eventually, they appeared more often and were clearer. They soon become unmistakable.

For example, in the first year after Robin’s death, I was asked by filmmaker Sarah Kapoor to participate in The Dear Me Project, a documentary in which she asked people from all walks of life to pick a number ranging from 0 to 130 from a hat and then write a short letter to themselves at that age.

On the day of the interview, Sarah and I were on the sofa together, and her husband John was watching us from across the room.

Sarah asked me to pick my number from the hat and joked that John didn’t like wasting paper, so he’d printed the numbers on the reverse side of a piece of paper that he’d used before.

The numbers therefore randomly had the initials of people being interviewed for the documentary on the back of them. When I picked my slip of paper, it was the number 70 – the age that Robin would have turned that year, which made me pause for a moment as it felt quite poignant.

When we finished the interview, I suddenly noticed that John had stood up and was very emotional. I was taken aback – why was this man I hardly knew crying?

He then said to me through his tears: ‘Turn over the piece of paper.’ I’d already dropped it back in the hat but I immediately felt a sense of urgency – a signal that I’ve now come to understand means a sign is imminent – and started scrabbling through the pieces of paper.

I eventually found it and looked at the back, where the initials ‘RB’ were printed. I started to cry too. Sarah, who hadn’t worked it out yet, asked, ‘What’s going on?’ John and I chimed in unison, ‘Robin Bieber.’ We couldn’t believe it.

Signs such as this bring me more than comfort. They allow me to shake off fear.

These instances are not only letting me live again, but creating a legacy for the person I loved so deeply.

If it was only me having these experiences, I wouldn’t expect you to believe me. But since I have started sharing my signs I have been inundated with thousands of similar stories. Perhaps you have one of your own?

I started to wonder what this new clarity I had found was and whether I could help others to uncover it, too.

I now believe that everyone can communicate with lost loved ones and in the guide below, I explain how to do it.

Whoever you have lost in your life, we all have so much to gain by opening our minds to signs.

Whatever their source, they have helped me navigate the most difficult time of my life and to see the wonder in life once more.

• Dr Tara Swart’s new book The Signs: The New Science Of How To Trust Your Instincts

DR TARA’ S SIGNS A LOVED ONE IS TRYING TO MAKE CONTACT WITH YOU… 

• If you want to receive signs from someone you have loved and lost, take a moment to sit quietly and think of them. 

Is there a fond memory or an in-joke that only the two of you would know about? Think of a sign that would represent this memory or interaction.

Make it as specific as you can, describing its colour and location, or specific numbers, items in nature and so on. It could be a white feather appearing in a place you wouldn’t expect, such as on your front doorstep, it could be a button out of place, something obscure like a picture of a phoenix – or unusual electrical activity such as lights flickering or devices turning on by themselves.

• At first, simply ask for an unmistakeable sign. You can specify to your lost loved one the number of times you need to see the sign to believe it, or any timing limits, such as within 24 hours, to make it less likely that it is just a coincidence.

• When you receive the sign, take a photo of it – both to remind yourself of it but also to share with your friends and family.

Your friends, family and community can give you the psychological safety to help interpret signs.

• You can also ask people to share their stories of when they have felt a presence or received a sign from their lost loved ones.

Over the years I’ve had several conversations with friends and colleagues who then realised they’ve already been receiving signs from those who have passed away. It wasn’t until I’d shared my stories with them that they recognised these instances for what they were.

For others, signs started to appear not long after we’d talked about it. I believe this is because they had started to open themselves up to receiving them.

• Once you start recognising the signs, life is never the same again. Ultimately, we can have different beliefs about where these signs come from – for some people it will be God or the universe rather than lost loved ones.

What matters the most is what your signs mean to you and how you use your intuition to interpret them and guide you on your path.