E.43 Near Death Experience, Emotions, Spirituality, And Life with Pat Rice

In this episode, returning guest Pat Rice discusses his own near death experiences and how he realized that it happened to him. Pat is very candid about several things, including suicidal thoughts, his inpatient stay, how he was saved by an ex-girlfriend he randomly met on a trip, as well as how his recovery, spirituality, and spirit guides have helped him not only in his personal life, but in his day to day work. Pat really opens up on all these subjects and more. It was a very deep dive on death, near death, and how your spiritual life can help you, including Reiki. 

You can follow Pat on Instagram here

Transcript

Steve Bisson: 0:01

Hi and welcome to finding your way through therapy. I am your host, Steve Bisson. I'm an author and mental health counselor. Are you curious about therapy? Do you feel there is a lot of mystery about there? Do you wonder what your therapist is doing and why? The goal of this podcast is to make therapy and psychology accessible to all by using real language and straight to the point discussions. This podcast wants to remind you to take care of your mental health, just like you would your physical health. therapy should not be intimidating. It should be a great way to better health. I will demystify what happens in counseling, discuss topics related to mental health and discussions you can have with your therapists. I also want to introduce psychology and everyday life. As I feel most of our lives are enmeshed in psychology. I want to introduce the subtle and not so subtle way psychology plays a factor in our lives. It will be my own mix of thoughts as well as special guests. So join me on this discovery of therapy and psychology. Hi, and welcome to episode 43 of finding your way through therapy. I am Steve v. So I hope you get a chance to listen to episode 42 with Bethany Amatucci you will learn something about me if you listen to that episode, as well as obviously you're gonna hear a whole lot about Bethany and her great work. So I hope you go back because the story that we shared is pretty unique and still makes me like smile. And yeah, just a great story. Episode 43 will be with a returning guest a someone I consider a friend, someone we've done for a long time supervision together in a group. He's been doing that with that group for about 30 years. But Pat Rice is someone that's going to come back and I'm going to keep him on subject this time. And that's what I've been asked to do. So we're going to talk about his near death experience. We are going to talk about his behavior when he was not sober. We are going to talk about recovery. We will talk about spirituality. We will talk about energy, we will talk about so many things, and I hope I can keep him on subject. All joking aside, Pat is an amazing guest. So interesting guy. So I hope you enjoyed the interview. Well, hi, everyone, and welcome to finding your way through therapy. I am Steve. So this is episode 43. As I said, I'm sitting here with a returning guest, Pat Rice, Pat Rice was on episode 32. At rice is someone I consider a friend. We have the same mentors from the past and just enjoyed my conversations with him for so long. The interview went so well on episode 32. We didn't even get to half the stuff we want to talk about, which is typical of me and Pat getting off subject and talking about for 400. Other things probably means that he's a very interesting guy. So I want to welcome back Pat Rice.

Patrick Rice: 2:50

Thanks, Steve. It has nothing to do with ADD, of course. But yeah, it was it was really nice the first time and you make it so easy. It's it's a conversation just as if we, as we've had many, I think a little bit of feedback from folks. One of them is my, my wife and suggested that I get back and talk about what I said I was going to talk about the last time but we got it led astray or a field shall we say. So always, always you're going the direction that the year, the energy in the universe kind of moves you have. So I'd probably get in a little bit more of that to,

Steve Bisson: 3:25

well, you you stole the words out of my mouth because I don't even know your wife. But I felt her energy saying you cannot let him stray from the near death experience that he had. So that's one of the things that we're definitely going to talk about today. But again, for those who didn't who didn't miss episode 32 Can you just do a quick intro of who you

Patrick Rice: 3:44

are? Sure. I'm an elder, if you will, almost 74 or 74 on St. Patrick's Day. And I'm a psychotherapist I have been for. Well, I have been for most of my recovery. I'll talk a little bit about that. Steve spare has today that I am a clean and sober guy for coming up on almost 36 years, early May, early April rather. And a lot of what I'm going to talk about today, my near death experience that I've had and how I've how those who have had similar have been led to me, and shamanism and all of that kind of world in which I live now as a result of that sober path and some of the people that have been influential in guiding me and other entities as well. So it's all tied in. And as I said, the first podcast we did is that I have not really talked about this publicly. I kept it out of my clinical practice for a long time until, again, the guides my guides, were telling me I needed to come out because people are coming to me for some guidance in their own spiritual journey and not necessarily for traditional psychotherapy. So on my ship, my practice has shifted over time. And as all of ours does we make ourselves available in the universe sends us our folks or patients, our clients. Is we talked about yesterday when we just chatted a bit is that the greatest teachers I've ever had that the people I've met have been sent to me to help. And they've led me to a lot of the people that have helped me because I was just curious. If there's one thing about Steve and I that we resonate with is we're both exceedingly curious people. Yes, we definitely are. Yeah,

Steve Bisson: 5:33

I think that that's why we ended up like getting off subject on a regular basis. Oh, yeah. I think about our supervision group. Sometimes we end up talking about stuff like oh, yeah, I'll think about

Patrick Rice: 5:43

it's it's all support in best sense of it. But I am a free and kindred soul here today. You're the one that has to keep me on track. Best of luck, my friend.

Steve Bisson: 5:53

Well, you know, like I said, you know, I'm very interested about guides, and we're gonna definitely get back to that, because that's another thing that I'm, I gotta tell you, I'm curious about I know a little bit about it. But I can't tell you that I'm very familiar with it. And for the record, when you talk about how your life, you know, for me, therapists come to me sometimes and asked me for advice, I've ran a group to how to start a private practice at one point, asked me, how did you decide to do what you do? I said, I didn't really didn't decide anything. I'm a child and family specialists, they see no children, they see no families. I never became someone who does a lot of sobriety and a lot of trauma just with time, that's where it was guided for me. So I definitely, you know, sometimes going with the flow, so important, but right now, I am not moving with the flow, I would go down a few different rivers here. But stay on one river right now. And the river that we're gonna stay on, Pat is your near death experience. Okay, while we've been talking about it here, and it seems like I kind of we were talking about it, and I never want to feel like I trivialize it in any way, shape, or form. So I know this is a serious subject. And I really want to keep you on track. Because I think not only is your guide, saying that, I literally feel like your wife has told me that and I've never met her. So I'm not letting you deviate. I'm gonna keep it to the point as much as I can on that. So how about you share a little bit about your near death experience, or nd E, as you taught me a couple months ago,

Patrick Rice: 7:18

okay. I'll just start with the recovery because it's tied into a wall viously I had a long Well, there was a long ride that was a short time and timewise, about 12 years, total of alcohol and drug use a lot of it Charles in the 60s. We used to glibly say, if you remember the 60s You weren't there, which was rationalization or euphemism for the fact that we spent a lot of it experimenting in search of the path that I'm on now. And I'll explain that a little bit. But I get clean when I was in sober when I was 27. I think 28 And the first time we went into a treatment program that was less sophisticated than they are today. But that me I stayed the mana clean and sober path for about five years that away from all supports, basically became a marathon runner, which is I've said before is the Forrest Gump plan of spiritual advancement. Just keep running. And then the day comes when your body won't allow you to do that anymore. Now you have to deal with grief and all of this stuff that was chasing, like the wake of a book that finally catches up, run out of gas. I saw I started using again and it didn't take very long for me to get very, very, very ill psychiatrically and spiritually. And that culminated in me waking up one morning in April, on April 8, I believe 1986 Was someone with a acts of firefighter breaking the door down in my apartment, a couple of people that with them, a roommate and someone else that I knew, actually my drug dealer, but he was a friend of mine. And I'm always shocked and what are you doing? It's like eight or nine o'clock in the morning and my roommate is saying you're supposed to be at work. And I said, it's Monday I have today off he said, Pat, it's Tuesday. What it boils down to is that I've been overdosed for two days, and came back to life in this form. The vehicle that transports the spirit around came back to life is the spirit had left for a while and went to another place and which I will talk about. Now a reason to bring that whole scenario up is that that obviously was a fairly dramatic intervention and got me that day into a treatment facility. That was odd. It was a detox. It was a very sophisticated Psychiatric Hospital, which had had a detox in it but I ended up on psych unit because I was Though dysregulated and so detached from reality, and for a lot of reasons. Now, I know a lot of it had to do with the fact that I had been someplace else and come back then to been home as I refer to it, then back and it was a very disorienting experiences it often is described. So I after a number of days in that facility, just basically drugged, they give you a lot of heavy meds as detoxes in Psych units look pretty much the same. Everyone is heavily medicated wandering around bumping into things until the Medicine says what's wrong? And then you start to see baseline Well, I was sitting in a group. What happened is after about three, five or six days, I think that I was pretty drugged over there were certainly withdraw the meds and the guy was sitting in front of me who was like me guy like me today and said, you know, Pat, they say, here, I get a chart, they say that you're crazy. He said, I think you're addicted. And if you give me like me, and if you give me three weeks, your life will know for sure. What What is your problem right now? What's going on? And if I'm wrong, then you can go back up. You're into the Thorazine shuffle for the rest of these folks. But I think you're a drunk and an addict like me. And there was something about him, he's dead. Now, maybe I mentioned in the lesson can't remember his name was, oh, my gosh, I forgot Mike. Anyway, it'll come to me. He lived in Maine, Southern Maine, he had been involved in crime and things like that. He was now a social worker work in the document, Mike Darcy, he's dead. Now. He died of cancer a few years ago. amazing human being. And but he was he was right. And I came back to Earth and one of the first therapy groups now every day, they had a big therapy group, and everyone was sitting there be three or four counselors in there, the whole community, the recovery community was there. And I was just sitting there trying to orient myself, you know, home to where I am, it was very, very disorienting. And a 17 year old boy who was sitting next to me, boy, I say, at that point, I'm 38 years old, I just turned 38. He started talking about, you know, his experience. And he had had, and why he started using drugs. And he had died on an operating table or something. And he had this experience. And he talked about a near death experience. And out of nowhere, I suddenly became entranced with him. And everything. He said, I knew what he was going to say. I had been so heavily sedated in my overdose, that I literally didn't recall much of what when I came back into this adult body. And I knew everything. And so, of course, I had to talk to this guy, I think I scare the crap out of them. Forgive me, that's a clinical term. But he, he took one look at me a while died and said, I gotta get away from this guy. Because I was just, I was just obsessed with it. And so I went into the library that they had, I don't recall internet in 1986. But I don't think they did have internet now. But I went to the library that they had there, which actually was for clinicians with us as well. And I started to research this and when I get out, because I knew everything he was going to say, just like that happened to me. And I started to read everything. And those days, everything started with Ray Modi. Yes, who was the pioneer of the he's a physician, the psychiatrist, I think it was, because then he wrote many, many books on near death experiences, and many others have, I bet I have read 50 books on near death experiences, and a bunch of other things. And because I just couldn't get enough. And in the beginning, it was validating my experience, because remember, I was coming out of a drug haze and an overdose state where neurons were coming back slowly. And I was psychiatric for the better part of a year for if it wasn't for the family halfway house, and my mother and brother who said they will never leave them alone, they would have put me away for a long time in the locked unit, because that was that lethal. I was just that unpredictable, unpredictable. So. And it's where my recovery skills began mostly in 12 step recovery, and which continues to this day because I learned I didn't want to go back that path. So the near death experience that he described was the severely classic one and anybody I would encourage anybody who has any curiosity about this day today, not that this talk is not that you've had one of these things, but many, many people have. And I'll get into that a little bit.

Steve Bisson: 14:45

And I just want to interrupt you for a second Pat and say a couple of things. Yes, he is a psychiatrist. LOVE having Google right available while I'm talking to you. Number two, the Thorazine shuffle is an old term for us, where people who have a psychiatric issue You in it had a part of dyskinesia affect the people so they would shuffle their feet while they were walking. So that's what that was. I wanted to mention those two things, because I think that you mentioned that and that, you know, the near death experience, we're not going to move from that. But for the record, I do think that you, you've been very clear about your addiction. And I appreciate that. I will say thank you crazy, but in a good way, because most good therapists are slightly crazy, in my opinion. So one of the throw in a couple of things on that comment, listening to finding your way through therapy MCB, something with Pat rice, talking about his near death experience, had to interrupt them a little bit here. But I want to get to exactly what you were going to go to because I was like, Oh, he talked about something I heard this guy knew what he was going to say. There's research recently that came out, it's not been replicated just yet. came out in January about how our brains when we get close to death, it goes to a certain part where our memories are kicked in. And that's why sometimes people do see their history. So there are some neurological advances that are making us understand more about why people see their lives right before they die. But we're not here to talk about research. We're here to talk about Pat rice. So let's hear your story about okay, predicting when knowing what the next guy what the guy was gonna say next.

Patrick Rice: 16:16

Oh, well, I'm going to I'll just speak to the research. It's, I talked to a neuroscientist researcher not so long ago, last year, and asked her I said, you know, I always was always told the learn that we know, maybe 15% about how the actual central nervous system of brain works. And she said, yeah, that's maximum, she said it because it is the most complicated thing in the universe physically, as far as we know. So when I hear research and everything and the reductionist view of Western medicine, wanting to definitively say was clearly just a gasp of oxygen, if they had been where I've been, you know, as I said before, if anyone is really curious about listening to a eminent physician, talk about his near death experience, Google, Eben Alexander, and read his two books. And I Gosh, Steve can find that thing. I can't remember them. But to hear him speak in Sudbury.

Steve Bisson: 17:15

Was that the guy at the synagogue? Yes. Across from the mosque and Hudson, Massachusetts. Yes.

Patrick Rice: 17:19

And there was many of the people that I knew from the from the professional side community were there as well, including one of the best psychiatrists I've ever known. Chris Gordon. So from advocates, but anyway, it's back to to my experience, so I don't, everyone's gonna have their own understanding of things. There has been an underground movement of people that Ray moody started to bring that out. Kind of like the the gurus that say, Well, we're going to continue whispering these messages, we're just going to use microphones. He began to legitimize this, and I'll explain some of the things that I've seen and experience. The classic experience is a tunnel experience a very noisy, loud, real bright tunnel that kind of looks like the versions of a wormhole going down a wormhole. Frankly, it almost reminds me in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey when he is off going into another dimension, or whatever the heck he was going on. That's the kind of experience it is, it's allowed a doctor Alexandra's describe that remarkably well as it's allowed discharging experience, is you're literally being it's mostly has to do with the frequency in order to operate in a in a very low band frequency in this plane of existence. The spirit, which vibrates at a much, much, much, much higher frequency and has a dimension from which we came, it is a very awkward transition. So it's, it's loaded with, for lack of a better term static and it's it's an awkward and loud and discharging experience. And then you're in a very beautiful, quiet, peaceful place that is pretty unique to the individual things that you experience things that are unique to your life experience and your past life experience, your whole experience of I should say, and as an opportunity to reflect in a meaningful way with your guides as to did you fulfill your mission in this incarnation? And I get a little bit astray is that what I did learn? I might have said that the last time is about my last life experience is only the only thing the guides would say to me was that you need to know nothing more than the fact that you did not survive your addictions and that lifetime, but by last life, that's the only thing that's relevant to you. The rest of it is probably just the garden variety, sad existence or whatever. Missed opportunity. So My full experience my own near death experience came mostly when I started reading about others. And then it just all came back to me it's a flooding type of experience. It started with that 17 year old and it couldn't continue because he thought he was looking at rescue and the Mad Monk or something was chasing them around for a while. And then a nurse said, You gotta leave Milan, or else psychiatric here, remember? So she said, she was the one actually that sent me to the library. She said, go look it up. There wasn't much then. And they didn't have an internet search. So it was old school. And it was books. And I literally, as the books were being written, I was reading them the minute they came out and devouring them. And I'll fast forward from that, you're just on the other side. And it is a it's the place from which we all come in, there's just no, I'm saying this through again, through a consciousness that is fourth dimensional consciousness, not fifth dimensional it is of this world. So when I remember it part of it's hard for me to remember exactly what I know, what I've read about others and heard many, many, many, many others speak to but there's a commonality is that there is no fear, there is peace is or euphoria, like we would think about that type of joy. What I remember more than anything, is what would probably best be described in an affable indescribable experience of love, and well being and just in the right place, that, um, everything that bothers us intellectually, and, and all the ways that have been bother us physically in this plane of existence, is not there. And your communication is in a very simple, telepathic kind of understanding way. And it's just a very after, especially after coming through a death in leaving a body and all of that, on that discharging experiences, it's just so peaceful and, and you feel so loved. That is the experience love. If you were looking for one word to describe dark energy, or Qi or whatever, runs the universe, that energy would be loved, for any lack of anything else, it fuels everything. So then it's decided on that side, and I don't remember exactly the nature of it, but I knew that I was time to come back. And that it was time to come back to this experience, because my work wasn't done your transition back. And people say, Well, what's different now or the single biggest difference? For up to the point of that time in my existence is, in this lifetime, I had a terrible fear. And I understand now it was a fear of I had missed the boat, I had not fulfilled myself, I wasted an education I had, you know, I was just a bartender, and at the end, the bartender who couldn't stay sober on a day shift, you know, I, I had clients driving me home at five o'clock, you know, people in the in the bar driving me home, because I couldn't, I couldn't. So that's a fairly pedestrian existence. And, you know, I knew now that it was, it was time to get to work that I had things to do. But I was at so addled mentally that I just had to heal. And that became a path where the one thing that helped me to heal was to read more and more and more about these, these experiences and let my body heal and come back. And so I spent in that process, I spent 1000s of hours walking. And that's my first experience of having a sense of guides in a primitive way. And then as I get into my practice, grad school and practice and people put in my path now I should say this I want to just explain this one thing which started to open my mind to I'm going to describe an angelic experience. When I get sober I was standing come back from a horrible week where I tried to kill myself twice in South Carolina on a golf trip. I don't think I talked about this that I stayed from last time

Steve Bisson: 24:19

I was gonna say that you did not talk about that and that's kind of like very important to this to continue to story up Pat Rice but

Patrick Rice: 24:26

I was I came back and I with a number of guys to go play golf with every year and I had been I was having panic attacks and I was eating four or five different drugs, Sedativess uppers and copious of alcohol and I wasn't a bloody mess. I tried to kill myself twice, and they weren't aware of it, but they just know I was just a mess. I drove drunk down there. Number driving on a sidewalk at 2am in Myrtle Beach, and then get caught. But I remember just enough so that it'll never never leave me. shouldn't ever already made that maybe the flammable liquids would be a good thing to concern today. Not not happen. So, I'm standing a Logan Airport, my disgusted friends left me with all the baggage on the curb while they went to get a car, you know, that was parked someplace and they would discuss with me wouldn't speak to me. And I'm thinking about what was going, I was going back to Maine, I was miserable. And I'm picking buses out because the shuttle buses for the rental cars and stuff was zipping by. And I remember one I was I was waiting for one that only had a drive because I didn't want to horrify people as I stepped out in front of it. I just wanted to apologize to one person that was going to ruin his night and I was going to end it. As I was just about to lean off the curb to the Avis bus, the yellow Avis bus. As I recall, I heard a voice behind me that said, Pat, Pat Rice. This emotional, I turned around. And a dear friend of mine who had been an innocent girlfriend of mine in high school, and we've maintained a friendship in college. Donna was there I hadn't seen her since her wedding 20 years ago or something more of 18 years ago. And she told me afterwards turned around. And she thought it was going to break her ribs. So hug her so hard. And we connected quickly. They were in a shuttle or parents they would come back she was divorced now. And the kids were coming back and we agreed to phone and talk. And it turns out that not only that, that moment that she saved me but she was in dire straits till we reconnected. She helped me to encourage me to get into the hospital. And then I I think I overdosed because while I got all this stuff, I'm also you know, the classic addict alcoholic, I got all the stuff I most would just use it and then I'll get whatever, I'll deal with it. Unless I Yeah, the last hurrah. When I went to when I worked in a detox and see people get out of a cab, because the last pint and throw it in the dumpster and walk in, you got to get the last drop. And boy, you have to finally stop. So it's but she was instrumental in the first in my early time here. When we reconnected in the best possible way. I was able to as people told me later that I validated her she had been really depreciated in a very controlled marriage to someone who was very powerful and had marginalised her and so we helped each other in a way but she was very ethereal. And she was a person who later was said to be by a former teacher of ours, totally without guile. I say that because I'm 10 months sober. And she died of pneumonia at age 37. And, yeah, she got she got that Jim Henson version of pneumonia, and walked walking pneumonia and she wanted to do Christmas for her kids. And the day after Christmas, she won the hospital and died on January 14, or 15th 1987. And that was the day I was on my own. And I finally had a choice to make which path you're gonna take. Now of course, I went to my a meeting and for the first time told everybody about her because you weren't supposed to tell people about relationships or whatever. And that's when I understood the power of that support group where they the unique unique thing about these types of support groups is that if people are in pain, people in the room move toward the pain they don't move away from, you know, I can remember having a panic attack and Roche brothers and someone came up to me that was like a neighbor and said, How you doing I started to tell them and they said geez, you know, I just came in I couldn't go but she she got to talk to someone about their good side. So

Steve Bisson: 29:01

I think like a good supermarket Panic Attack

Patrick Rice: 29:03

doesn't like they leave the thing and you're out there and you're doing deep breathing exercises against your car. That was the early going for me. So I was on my own now but I've watched her die. She took basically her last consciousness. I was standing with her making her laugh, actually. They were giving her they were gonna do a biopsy and they were giving her morphine and I said she should get all the good stuff. I could do some of that right now. She just she was intubated so her eyes were laughing and then she she never regained consciousness and NICU. years later, the first ICU evaluation that I did in that hospital was in the bit and the room that she died, it just doesn't. And one of the last one, she said an SNL and it was with my friend Donna, my angel. She said that every single thing that you've had experienced to you, every pain, every difficulty is going to give you a great level. To help another one day, which is the spirit of selfless service and helping others and, and if there is one tenant of how to stay focused on a balance and kind of recovery movement or 12 Step movement is, is help somebody else. You know, it started with two people who are hopeless cases. And the physician said, why don't you guys talk to each other, we got nothing for you. Maybe you can help each other. And now, you know, there's 3000 meetings in eastern Massachusetts in a week. It's just it's a that is the spirit of it. And it started with her but I then now had to find another avenue and it started innocuously enough is that I was taking over my mentor I've talked about him dick, the last and the last one, the chaplain, and last been which I worked with as a recovery mentor, and, and also life mentor. And he trained chaplains, and they trained me as a chaplain, if you will, and you see it more. When I walk into a room, people thought it was a priest, no call or anything, but because of the our that, you know, following around a real healer, like like that as a being, you kind of pick up on their energy. But I took over his work, he went in to have a hip replaced and I took over his group and in the group sitting next to me was a young woman. And this has been the path is at once I became open to studying and acknowledging my own near death experience, I can't tell you how many hundreds of people have found, you know, working in a hospital, you know, and doing consults all the time. Being the first person they talk to after intubation when they're excavated, you know, in an ICU. Now, after a 10 days on anatomy and drip to save their life, it's they've had a lot of experiences that often the medical teams don't talk about. Some of them do. It's it's a hard thing to do that. I remember Brian Weiss, another psychiatrist who spoke about helping people get in touch with these past experiences, said in his preface to the first book, he wrote, he said, I'm probably going to ruin my career. That's what my colleagues told me is he was a Yale educated psychiatrist and an eminent scholar or whatever. But sometimes they take a chance and many of the books about near death experiences much like Dr. Moody's had been written by physicians, a lot of er physicians.

Steve Bisson: 32:23

And that I'm going to interrupt again, I'm letting I'm trying to give you all the space and again, remind everyone finding your way through therapy, Stevie. So I'm pretty much wanting to hear Pat's story. And there's about 40 questions that came to mind while you were talking. But I'm going to start with one that to me is so meaningful in my life, because when you talk about, for me, it's not about guides. But there are people in my life that have since passed. And I feel that their guidance in their presence has been around me. Since then, I think about a good friend of mine who died my talk about in my book at who died when I was 12 years old. Have my family members like my grandmother, and certainly a good friend of mine, Christina who passed away. I can't believe it's like 13 years ago. But at the end of the day, what I feel is that sometimes they come back in my life in weird ways, and not in a bad way. Like they show up when I need them. To guide me. You were talking about your ex girlfriend who unfortunately died of pneumonia. It really sounded like she had such a spiritual connection to you has she manifested herself in her your life since then? That is

Patrick Rice: 33:33

a very good question. And of all of the people I knew have known in my life and had been related to and some I never met, she has not come through interesting and I have a sense that she and I have been together many lifetimes and is the kind of the soul pod that they talk about. Kind of like a repertory theater we have different roles depending upon the production that type of a theater group but it's a no I've never had a connection with her I've had you know parents have come in a lot other relatives that I knew some that I didn't other beings that are familiar to me but I don't know from where But Donna has never come back in I expect that some some time. We will reconnect. designator of kind of soul mates, Soul connections like that is that you meet someone and they happen to be not so long ago in a clinical setting where I just knew I knew this person and it was there was no way I knew or knew her or whatever the gender is. There's no gender on the other side. So it's, it's, you know, but no, she is never I think her job was to upload this with the guides do and your assistants, your Ascended Masters or whatever, is that they periodically applaud you for the information. My mother was about the past my dad who died many years earlier keen to me and said, You're going to be very disoriented for a while for a few days. Because your mother has a lot to give you. She's going to give you a lot. And that's what they do is they just kind of upload you in the vernacular today. It's all of these people that some have come in. And I've only seen them one time this young woman and I took over a Dix group that time. And it was a woman sitting next to me who had died 11 times during heart surgery. She was 22 years old.

Steve Bisson: 35:29

You talked about her Yeah, episode. So that then had the pen

Patrick Rice: 35:33

The pen above the thing. And I've heard that same story, similar stories over and over and over again.

Steve Bisson: 35:39

And I'm going to leave it as a cliffhanger so people can go back and listen to it. Because that's I want people to go back because that was such a powerful story

Patrick Rice: 35:47

You clever pod master you. Yeah, I get one or two, right? Yes, in a while. But it's so these folks have just found me over and over and over again. And most of it is just to be validated. I don't know why I chose you. But you know, it's in. And I know why when someone starts, I know where they're going. So I kind of show it stop it now. And that when someone is there, and they're hinting around, and I said, I'll just basically kind of throw it out there in a way is that you know, people come to me for all different sometimes I do a lot of grief work I do. But I said it sounds to me like is something else you really want to talk about? Trust me, you cannot tell me anything I haven't heard before, in some way shaped manner. And because I really believe that. And then they started talking and I said, Oh, so you had one of those experiences. Yeah. And then they just and they save so many of the same things over and over and over again. And the one thing about from a validity standpoint is it most of them that come for this validation, have never read a thing about it. They don't even know there's a term. And some some have in this day and age is pretty hard not to but they just needed to be validated. And though the medical community is changing somewhat, and they're validating more and more. So what this led me to this death experience near death experience. And being oriented to that is being open to being able to seek communication with my guides, my counsel, whatever you whatever the term is the people's spirit guides, and that has led me to a path of shine more of a shamanistic path, which is a very misunderstood concept for many people. So let me give you my definition, my personal definition of before

Steve Bisson: 37:39

we jump to that, so that I don't lose track. So spiritual guides is something that again, very curious about, I have a vague idea of what you mean. But maybe for me, and for the rest of the audience, what is the spiritual guide, where does that come from?

Patrick Rice: 37:54

A spirit guide is somebody that that has an interest in helping me, probably someone that I've known, often for a long time, many, many lifetimes, or forever, it's hard to put this in for four dimensional reality, but it's a four dimensional language, but it is someone who's who's on my team, my support team, if you will, it's like anybody, any athlete of high athlete has a whole team of people that help them starts with family, schlepping them all over the place to soccer games, or whatever. So we don't do any of this alone. That's, that's a community and all of this, and we come into this earth school, basically, to take classes in paint that professor that in the earth, school is pain, there is no pain on the other side. And so we come in here to get all of those forms of it. So these guides are present. And the goal of spiritual development in certainly even in a 12 step model is to develop a conscious contact with this other power, this higher power, whatever it is, I don't I don't look for as I've said before, a deity or whatever, it's not religious, it's just I want to find out, I need help with tips, I maximize my experience in this lifetime and the guides cutting some people call them guardian angels, some people call them Archangels big guns, if you will, but they're all able to help us but we must ask for it literally on a daily basis, because they will never interfere in our path. That is not their role. Their role is to help and they have unlimited power to help. But we have to ask them we have to find a path to that. And mine found me in a way and connected with a lot of people who facilitated this right? Guides in this life and I have one was known in Utah but it's so guides

Steve Bisson: 39:52

don't have to be just only on the fourth and fifth dimension they can be in three dimensional right in front of you Well,

Patrick Rice: 40:00

I think that anyone would tell you that if the higher power works, who are the people, and certainly the model of 12 step recovery is that if you put another person who you whose life style and way of doing their business you respect if you put them between you, and your next action, especially if you're upset, you're probably going to live a more balanced life. You know, and it's just seeking advice. And the Buddha once said, famously that, when the learner is ready, the teacher will appear, whether it's a written word teacher, or a person comes into life at a time when I was about literally to walk off and die. Because I was done. I just couldn't do the path of the sickness anymore. A person I hadn't seen in 20 years that had been very spiritually connected to me, they used to call us, the dreamers, would in our group, people growing up and about the eighth grade, you know, the dreamers, they're off talking about intellectual and when everyone else is going to concerts, we were going to the Esplanade, and seeing the pops or something like that, you know, where the intellectuals they call this to we were just talking about stuff that kids in middle school in high school didn't want to talk about, you know, things that are beyond all of this. And we all

Steve Bisson: 41:15

have that we all have those experiences we all have, I certainly remember it going to high school, like to give a shout out to one of my best friends Frank, and Frank and my friend Josh, and a few more people in my high school, we had a notebook about this big and we would philosophize about stuff that you know, you know, 14 1516 year olds do. So it's not exactly like brilliant to this day. But it was nice to have that connection to people who were able to have that philosophy, quite quick thought process. And most people would look at us like, you know, what happened? English happened French because I went to a French school. So it was interesting. Sometimes it was about, you know, girls, but most of the time is like philosophy, stuff that like today, I still have a book somewhere and I read it and I go, wow, we were dreamers. So I would you said dreamers. I'm like, Oh, I connected that very much.

Patrick Rice: 42:06

Yeah, it's I think the first thing that, and I have a book, one of the things she gave me was Khalil Gibran. Here's your problem. Yes. Yeah. And that was something we looked at and reviewed when everyone else was reading Catcher in the Rye, which we read. But, you know, we were it was just something more to it. So I don't doubt that we've, we've been together many times, and we'll again, have been together forever. But the other guys, some of them are people that I knew in this life that that have passed, my dad was a large part of it. We never had a relationship really in the life because he died so young. Well, how old were you when your dad died? I was 25. He tried to help me. You know, he was a guy as we were walking along. The last time I saw him alive. He said, You drink and smoke too much. And they said not anymore new. And he goes, That's right. And he was dead in a month. And that's the day I stopped smoking. And it wasn't so long after that, that I quit drinking, too, for the first time. And so it's but there there are many Ascended Masters and guides, some of which probably your ancestors that I'm unaware of. But there's a sense that I knew immediately that always true is that many people have have did everything in their power to keep me alive long enough so that I could fulfill myself in my mission, which was basically to burn the karma of all of the mistakes I'd make. And by helping others and doing the things that I do now. The connection to spirit guides in a shamanistic way, that there are all kinds of pagan type or earth based methods of shamanism, but Chairman's are essentially healers, right? They're just they're helpers and healers. And I posted something on social media the other day that I had seen and just grabbed from Mr. Rogers, who said, quote it you saw it. When is one thing bad things are happening around and his mother used to just say, look for the healers, look for the helpers. Well, healers, look for the helpers. And, you know, the selfless service and you know, is important, just doing doing what you can in your local community. We can't do much about world stuff. But we can turn around and we can. It's a way of channeling the energy of despair or fear, doubt and insecurity and, or anger and frustration and outrage channel into doing something. I know my wife's has roots. Her area says her parents were Ukrainian. So she's twisted right now about this. What's she doing? Now? She's doing Meals on Wheels, which is what she does. Yeah. Volunteering. Helping someone who is in front of you, just with kindness just be kind. And the helpers are generally the people whose energy it's all energy. Everything is Energy? Well, if we're going to do another one of these, it'll be all about energy. That will be in season five,

Steve Bisson: 45:06

you will be invited back because I still look at my list and I'm like, oh my god, we didn't get to like three more things. So you will be invited back. But I want to mention one thing that you know, talking about the healers and the helpers, one of the things that I've learned through my spiritual journey, and I want to share this with you, because I read that about look for the helpers. The one thing that we tend to forget about first responders helpers, like mental health, or doctors or medical, most of them are just in the moment. And if you look at that spiritual practice, in general, I will never tell my first responders that they're doing a spiritual practice. Because I think that they will be kind of like, No, I don't do that. But when you think about the helpers and healers that you're talking about, and we're recording this, it's March 1, you know, the war between Russia and Ukraine has started about five or six days ago. So there's a lot of like, very much relatable stuff. I know this is be released sometime in April. But I always think about how people who are healers and helpers, they're not thinking about tomorrow, they're not talking about the past. They're thinking about what can I do now to help people. And I think that that's part of the spiritual process that a whole lot of people have gone through, that maybe they don't even realize that

Patrick Rice: 46:22

they do. I was certainly a great, it's kind of what I see is we've gotten away from I was reading, we've got a new favorite show on TV. It's another incarnation of all creatures great and small on PBS. Now, the modern version, and it's really goes back to the to turn into a period piece about it. And they were talking to the cast. And they're all quite enamored with getting out into the Yorkshire Dales, where the people, the people that live there, they're a large part of the cast, if you will, the locals and because there is a kindness and an openness and gentleness about these people. And I think I mentioned the last time is that you know, you cannot really care for the personality of your neighbor. But if they need help you help them that's how you survive. And the reason that there has been 100 I think the incarnations of 12 step recovery groups for everything and support groups, everything and so we hunger for community, we've lost it in the great diaspora families, splitting and going all over the all over the places that we've lost our sense of community and family and we find it if you are if you're on a spiritual or shamanistic path I'm finding the community that I have been with for all time. Remember, time is the is the dimension that we created here, right, is that there is no time in spirit, there's no fear in spirit, there's no pain in spirit, there's just learning and trying to be helpful. And some of the ascended beings that have really evolved on the other side, have great ability. And they, they, they've they've learned how to help people in this plane of existence, and that that's part of their mission, if you will, and some of them are very high. I you know, the the hierarchy Swedenborg talks about this in his in his philosophy and his religion, but there's a hierarchy. And on the other side, that mostly just has to do with frequency, there's no competition. It's not about Jay Z, I can hardly wait to get up. Because as you get closer you get, there's more responsibility. There's more ways to be helpful to others. But that is the overall reaching thing about the world, the realm of spirit, call it a quantum field of quantum dimension, if you're if you're a physicist, but it's the ability to be connected to a community of beings and entities, whatever they are, whatever it is, I promise you, it just makes sense. When on the other side, everything makes sense. So I used to say when I was a boy, and I meant it, I said, I don't know about when I when I'm in heaven, I get a lot of questions. I used to say that, and some of them have been answered now. But what happens when you have a near death experience is one thing you cease to fear death at all. As I watched Donna lose her consciousness and move into basically into a stasis that most of her was already on the other side. I lost all fear of dying because it really became apparent to me that this is this is upright, every one of us is going to go through this transition. And the vast majority of us have done it before. Sometimes many, many, many times. You know, that's something that the energy field, the energy world, the world of energy, healing, and all of that can assist as well but

Steve Bisson: 49:51

I'm writing it down for season five, because between end energies and virtuality and reincarnation, I think we're gonna have a lot out there too.

Patrick Rice: 49:59

Yeah, well We'll go on to the next one. So

Steve Bisson: 50:02

yeah, that's my guy. But I was gonna ask you about that fear of that. Because again, just a reminder, finding your way through therapy CBT on here, talking about rice, getting close to the end here. That's why we definitely need to do another interview. But I would say to you that, you know, when you lose your godmother at age 13, you lose your best friend at age 12, you lose your grandmother at age eight, never known your grandfather's. My fear of death went away pretty quickly. It led to reckless behaviors for a while. And I will admit that freely. But today, I don't fear that. And I think that if it happens, I'm not hoping it happens tomorrow and hoping I have many, many years in front of me. But it's something that another spiritual practice that I kind of remind people is that whether you believe in afterlife or not, does not matter to me. And I think I talked about that in the last podcast, but I'm going to say it again. Are you doing the best you can while you're here? And you need to be able to live your spiritual life while you're here and realize that that's probably the most important thing you leave. People talk about legacy people talk about are you know, I've never compared myself to Pat rice or Dennis Sweeney, or Bob tourney or Don Scott or Courtney Romanesque. I'm never I don't have time to compare myself or compete with anyone. I got to be Steve. And do you think that part of that shamanistic ritual is is also kind of like just being okay with you and not comparing and not competing and knowing that at the end of the day, we all end up in the same dust?

Patrick Rice: 51:38

Well, it's we end up in the same collective consciousness, we all go back to the place we came from the familiar place, we recharge that battery, a lot of that gets drained here, the path to shamanistic awareness of this other the original shaman, a lot of the Aboriginal shamans use mind altering agents, eyewash, peyote, these types of things to Yeah, to facilitate the African based ones, a lot of them use endless dances, fatigue, and exhaustion and everything to create that we use in these disciplines here meditation, you know, to facilitate it's a calmness, a quietness, that the altered consciousness is not that you're tripping, what it is, is that a wait, you're losing an interest and all of the distraction around you and you're focused within, in your own consciousness, and that is a meditative path. I sought that initially with LSD and peyote and psilocybin and all of those types of things and ecstasy and all of the other agents when they had the damages we say to prove it. Now, it's it's a very different and everything is restorable in consciousness, and the guides, they are only to help. And the fear of death is not a fear of leaving here. It's not a fear. I think there's a natural thing being human of fearing an awful painful death. I've watched people and help people die of all kinds of things. ALS is at the top of the list of very awful, dignified way to dementia. I've seen people do amazing things and acceptance and very spiritual living in that moment. And in those those moments, but it's it's the ability to just relax into a knowing that there's so much more to this. And my fear wasn't a fear of dying. My fear was a fear from that last lifetime of not getting it right again, again. And so there was a sense of urgency and but when I when I come in here and what the guides told me now is it relax, you know, you're you've got all of us at your back, you will fulfill yourself this time, just keep moving forward, stay focused, believe in yourself believe that all of the resources are going to be given you to assist others my Reiki practice is attached to seeing people's energy and finding words and metaphor to help them that make sense to them. That's how I try to channel that energy. But as to stop fearing that you're going to run out of time. You have plenty of time. As long as you're keeping yourself focused as much as you can. Until realities. Present Moment is the only thing that is actually real. And there are plenty of there's plenty of help available. We don't have to figure this all out for ourselves. And that's one of the things that especially men, is that we just want to get into a corner. I'm just gonna miss. I'll figure this out. You can't, you know, and I will say this. I might have said it the last time too is that Einstein said, you know, famously that you can't solve a problem with the same mind that created it. We need people that's it. We need people on the other side, we need others, to fulfill ourselves and to grow, we need to help others. That's all part of this, give and take the karmic balance of everything. And we've lost a lot of it on planet Earth now is that we were become in many corners of the world takers, and not helpers. You know, and as we say, there's a lot of there's a lot of people on planet Earth right now that they name, Streets Act, and they all have an arrow. And we're taught and my guides who taught me how to how to handle and move away from the energy vampire. Right. And that is something we'll talk about the next time. About, that's,

Steve Bisson: 55:39

well, how about we put a bow on it by doing that? Saying that for me, I agree with a lot of the stuff you talked about, obviously, possessions, I want to, I gotta say something about that, because I can't take this book to the other side. I can't take this pen to the other side, I can't. So, you know, we talked in the last episode, and I think we're going to talk about the spirituality of how possessions are really like they're not possessions, right? That Jersey behind these coming

Patrick Rice: 56:09

with. You take two things with you. Two things on knowledge and love. knowledge and love is what goes with you. That's what I learned. And the pain we see on people is when they get disconnected from a sense of love. Or they get disconnected from their their knowing, and they're there. They're wandering around trying to kind of reconnect to that. But that's that's all it is taken over that. You'll remember having the jersey but it won't come with?

Steve Bisson: 56:39

Well, I, I remember my aunt and I would have conversations about spirituality. And one of the things that she had mentioned, and I believe this firmly, but I don't remember the orientation. So please forgive me for that. I believe that we come back to fix the mistakes we made in past lives. Exactly. And until you ascend, I think the the, the number that she had mentioned was 14, if I remember correctly, and on the 14th, you should be elevated. That's depending if you learn from your past experiences. So I think that when I'm going to say thank you, again, Pat rice, for everything, because I could go on here. I was talking to Pat right before the interview. And I'm going to say this as we end and obviously you the attention span of human beings are about 30 minutes to about an hour. We got about an hour, I don't want to lose everyone give a little cliffhanger. So people come back for season five. So I want to say thank you, Pat.

Patrick Rice: 57:39

Both thank you for the privilege of your company. And I've thoroughly enjoyed this. Again, stay curious. For anybody who's listening, just stay curious, stay open to this because the you'll be led where you're supposed to go if you if you just stay open and keep you open your heart and your mind open. And your your guides will find you if you're sitting in the right place. And be be be open to it could not have said it better myself. Thank you. Thank you so much the pleasure. Well, this

Steve Bisson: 58:09

concludes episode 43 of finding your way through therapy Pat rice again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great conversation, we still didn't get through everything. But hey, I think that everyone really enjoys having you come to the podcast. So we're going to look forward to finishing those conversations, and probably finding other things to get off topic and have you another time for you know what, season six or seven whatever we get to. But thank you so much for that pet. Episode 44 will concentrate on toxic positivity. That's probably one of my biggest pet peeves. And I'm hoping that you enjoy that conversation or you know that talk that I'm going to have because it is important to not fall into toxic positivity. So I hope you'll join me for my next episode. Please like, subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for information, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor or therapist for consultation.